I’m going to take the time to touch in on some thoughts that I was purposely burying. Reason been, that facing facts is likely going to make day-to-day life very difficult.

*

I abhor the idea of a standard four-year state university degree, and the only reason I’ve been doing has been to please the parents (mostly my mom). I’m going to stop trying to make this concept of alluring; it’s not. Paying ridiculous amounts of money for time in a mediocre university that doesn’t offer what I want for a degree that’s only going to get me a job that I ultimately don’t want… doesn’t make sense to me.

Now that I know what I want to do, I’m finding the everyday grind much less tolerable. Which means to me, that I’m ready for a change…

But the question of our era stands: is an education what I need right now? Even the prestigious acting schools that I’ve found offer a better deal than the universities I see all my peers attending. Those people must really value a degree from a prestigious college… I hope they know how to use it. Realistically (and optimistically) speaking, I could see myself jumpstarting a career without any education at all. My beginner’s resume is respectable, and growing. I think it’s a good perspective to take, because then I’ll know how to value an education should I decide that’s the best course of action.

The three places I’ve been eyeing the most are the New York Film Academy (also in LA), the Vancouver Film School in British Columbia, and the Acting Corps in Los Angeles. So, what would I gain from attending these facilities? Obviously, education. More importantly, experience. And very importantly, connections. Whether it’s with professors, people in the biz, or friends who’re destined for greatness (heck, I’ve got those now). Man, the trick is in the money. I feel as if I’d better be convinced that school is the best option, otherwise why I am I wringing my wallet dry for it?

A more buoyant side of my personality says that wherever you go, you can make your way. In other words, YOU make the experience worth your time. This is true in life… maybe I should start living by that principle more often.

It’s no mystery why I AM at Oregon State: it’s the easiest option. I’ve got the federal government helping me pay for tuition, I’ve got a place to live and food to eat, friends, the lot. (Whoops, I guess this isn’t what I said when I started.)

Now I’ve just got to weigh my options. DOOR 1: I pack my bags and hit up an acting school, where I pay for education, housing, and board. It would be a completely new social and psychological slate to start with. DOOR 2: I stay and get a 4-year degree at Oregon State University, where I act in university productions, films with friends, and jobs that I get in Portland. I eventually sign with an agent. I push on with many existing connections and networks. I earn money from the acting jobs I get and by taking over the bagpipe market.

Last year, I wanted to take a year off. Something out of the ordinary, to shake things up… maybe that’s what I got.

*

Allow my frustrated, contemplative, ambivalent brain to vent: check, indeed.

Exciting.

A long time ago, I wanted to make cartoons for a living.

I also wanted to make films for a living.

Then, I a long interlude of life employed a potent desire to create music for a living. In many forms: composing music for films, songwriting, live performance… it was an intense phase.

Then, reality caught up to me (in the form of my godfather) which made me seriously re-assess what I wanted to do for a living. I reentered the world of filmmaking. This was great, except that my advertised-policy of “I’ll be happy with any job in the film industry!” rang false, as I gathered more experience and contemplated where I really WOULD like to be.

Being involved with film simply wasn’t enough. If it’s not immediately apparent, show biz is a massive industry, and there are plenty of jobs that people work. In the wise words of my grandfather, you’d better know where you want to go—otherwise, you’ll go where someone else wants you to.

But it was a constant process of whittling and pinpointing what it is I’m really inclined to do. Out of all the industries out there, film is a landslide winner.

A quick lesson from high school lacrosse: I was on the varsity team, but not really. I often got stuck with third-string offense, when I was pretty convinced I was good enough to be on second-string (you know, among those players who actually played during games). I got pretty steamed about it, so I collected myself and talked to our coach after a game once. He ultimately told me that he didn’t see the skills in me that he did in other players. Bunkum, I thought to myself. But the facts were there—regardless of whether or not I was better, I wasn’t putting in enough practice time to make it evident. So the decision was there: drastically increase practice time, and seriously become the best I can be (which, in my mind, would get a significant amount of playing time), or finish out the season and invest my time somewhere else. WELL—where I’m getting with this is that there are many jobs to fill everywhere… but if you want to be the best out there, you’ve got to commit yourself, totally and completely. It wasn’t difficult to figure out that high school lacrosse wasn’t an advent to which I wanted to sell my soul.

It works this way in the film industry, too. There are hundreds of various jobs, and well, the people that do them are good at it. Which means if you want to get a job doing one, you’ve got to be the best that you can be.

So I thought to myself, having participated in most of the crew jobs out there (grip, boom op, DP, director, carpenter, accountant, you name it), what am I going to spend my time getting good at?

Well, I’m a creative—not a tech (as I’m largely finding out at a school chocked full of engineers)… that narrows it down considerably. And when I look at the creative roles out there, the fog clears…

*

I’m An Actor.

*

(I can’t imagine how many judgements and assumptions are being made about me right now…)

Why?

-For the past many years, I really haven’t let myself want what I truly wanted. Do you think it’s easy to advertise that I want to be inside one of the most overcrowded markets on the planet? No, but that’s not going to stop me.

-I’m finding out how much I actually love to be in front of the camera.

-This is a very removed perspective, but it’s life. This is your one shot. If you know that this is really what you want to do—your ideal spot on the set of your favorite industry out there—then why NOT go for it? There’s no second chances here, folks…

-I’ve built sets, I’ve made props, I’ve organized props, I’ve collected costumes, I’ve created costumes… these are all great and wonderful processes, but nothing beats the last stage: completing it. And what an experience it would be to expend the art of your profession in the culmination of all that magnificence… especially when the people making the stuff are billions’a times better than I am.

-I’m finding out more and more that acting is a hugely psychological craft—it’s bizarre. In the midst of the madness, I’m also finding out that it’s possible to bring personal emotional resolution to unsettled matters through this. It’s just one of the many facets of a highly dramatic art that I wouldn’t mind studying for the rest of my life.

-My oddball resume is the most fulfilling when it’s tailored for a role.

-Honestly, to do the same thing day after day to earn my ‘daily bread’ would kill me. Call me whiny, but I’ve done it before and it depresses me horribly. Acting is one of the most unpredictable professions out there (which scares many people off) and I think that it’s just the thing.

-Call me a sissy—but I harbor an intense need to expend intense emotion as a human. This and my career in acting work congruently.

-Being an actor doesn’t negate other forms of expression. I’m also interested in screenwriting, music, and cartooning… but I’m driven to have acting reign supreme.

-I think my ambition to learn is largely driven by my obsession of looking good while doing something. Whether or not I was any good at it, I figured that if I could become skilled at providing aesthetics, I could cultivate a career in acting.

Last but not least, is it not enough that I simply want to?

So apparently if I was smart like Tuan Truong (www.tuanyboi.tumblr.com) I would have figured out by now that uploading photos would be a lot easier and user-friendly if I just put them in a post. So that’s what I’m trying out.

These are of course, randoms (some delightfuls) from 2010. Courtesy of the good p-graphers like Nathan Worden, Peter Ramsing, Brielle McClain, Tuan Truong…

Whoa, how’d THESE get in here?

I feel smart.

I expect this list to be added to and edited.

1. Pay off the Highland Bagpipes
2. Memorize at least two recipes
3. Learn to Drive Stick-shift
4. Act in “The ELK Project”
5. Direct “The ELK Project”
6. Compose/Compile the Musical Score for “The ELK Project”
7. Write and Script “The ELK Project”
8. Complete “The ELK Project” by the summer
9. Find a more rewarding source of income
10. Read at least three books
11. Act in at least four new roles
12. Maintain grades above B-
13. Win ‘Best Picture’ at 2011 CMF Internationals with ‘Hatch’
14. Win ‘Best Picture’ again at OS CMF
15. Start a Fight Night
16. Develop an effective system for Advertising as a Bagpiper for Hire
17. Acquire and learn Final Cut Pro
18. Help a Mr. Spartan duo with their Movie
19. Send out Christmas Cards
20. Do a Wall Flip
21. Make a Political Music Video
22. Do a backflip at least twice a month
23. Move Out
24. Get new Business Cards
25. Completely occupy my wall space with Movie Posters
26. Fire two handguns at once while smoking a cigar and wearing sunglasses
27. Get a Bo staff and learn how to use it
28. Initiate at least two just-for-fun photoshoots
29. Learn another percussive-guitar piece
30. Formulate a plan for the best route to making a career out of acting

2011 RESOLUTIONS.

1. Keep from saying “Sorry,” for when you actually need to.

2. Don’t mumble. If something isn’t important enough for you to say it with conviction, it’s not important enough for your company to listen to it. Say it loud and proud, or not at all.

1. Write a feature-length screenplay – Debatable. As it says here, I planned to write an entire feature-length screenplay, which means 140 pages or so. That… didn’t happen. But on many of the lists I wrote ‘complete screenplay,’ which for many drafts of Evan and I’s CMF film, I did indeed accomplish.

2. Act in a new role – Achieved, 8/25. This goal was met sooner than I thought, with the arrival of Evan (and kind of my) project for Canon’s “Story Beyond the Still” Contest. I played the role of an insane father whose experiences with a strange key-holding teddy bear and his daughter made his life, well, more insane. After that I played a G.I.-wannabe character in the CMF film that won ‘Best Picture’ at Oregon State. At roughly the same time, I was cast for a small role in OS’s fall play, “The Coming of Rain,” which I had to turn down.

3. Learn to use Final Cut Pro - Missed. Never got a hold of it.

4. Put $2000.00 in a bank account - Missed. This was an ambitious goal, no other way about it. College, and life, is expensive, especially when you work for $8.40 and hour.

5. Go to the Scottish Highlands - Achieved, 9/8. This was one of the most trying, exciting, and rewarding experiences of 2010, hands down. There are more adventures and ridiculous stories than I can tell here and now, but photos are up on my facebook account—under “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Na Gaidhealtachd.” (Which means, “The Highlands” in Gaelic.) I dedicate the success of this goal to the charity of Dr. David Hammond, and to my mother, who purchased me a train pass.

6. Work on another film project - Achieved, 7/18. This was also met pretty quickly, which I’m pleased about. Most significantly, this came out with “Hatch” at OS CMF.

7. Become minimally fluent in Scottish Gaelic - Achieved, I’d say. It was a summer project, and I feel like I have a considerably extensive knowledge of the vocabulary as well as grammar/syntax/stuff. Fun, but I don’t think it would be a smart move to dedicate a significant amount of time to pursuing this goal.

8. Pay off the bagpipes - Missed. I need to advertise and bagpipe more in 2011.

9. Learn a bagpipe reel - Missed. I was going to learn one for Scotty’s (my initial bagpipe teacher) funeral, but I guess procrastination was a theme for 2010, too. Not so for 2011!

10. Memorize two recipes - Missed. This is going on 2011’s list, for sure.

11. Do a backflip - Achieved, 7/24. Very scary, considering I had never done a flip before in my life, so also very rewarding. I thanks Josiah Wai for helping me through it and spotting me.

12. Do a wall flip - Missed. Same theme of the above goal, but didn’t quite have the persistence/interest to try it out. Not extremely concerned about this one for 2011.

13. Drive stick shift - Missed. My access to a stick-shift car is somewhat out-of-the-way, and since I wasn’t terribly enthused about it, I just didn’t get around to it. No real worries, but I’d still like to learn how.

14. Play 18 holes of golf - Missed. After summer wanes and my best friend Anthony left for Eugene, the drive to complete this goal plummeted considerably.

15. Read three books - Debatable. I know I read at least two, The Art of Manliness (Brett McKay) and Man’s Search for Meaning (Victor Frankl)… but I’m just not totally convinced that I really sat-down-and-read three books total. I’m thinking I likely did, but hey.

16. Acquire a Highland Broadsword - Achieved, 7/17. Cool to have on the wall, and for random photoshoots.

17. Acquire a Highland Targe - Achieved, 12/18. Building this and decorating it with brass tacks was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would have been, and it turned out really nice for when I went out to take pictures.

18. Start a website - Achieved. And here, in fact, we are.

19. Read the Book of Romans - Missed. I read books, but not a small book of the bible. Not enough drive to get it done, I guess.

20. Try the Catholic Church - Achieved, 7/25. Also too ritualistic for my taste.

21. Finish Sounds of CHS - Achieved, 7/21, thank goodness. This was definitely a just-get-it-done-dammit goal, and I’m glad I finally did in what, April.

22. Make a photo album - Achieved, 8/19. Also a very rewarding experience that I cranked out over the summer. Highly recommended for people who like to look back on the things they’ve done over past years. I managed to fill 200 slots with pictures solely from senior year, whereas the previous album spanned junior year all the way to our move to Oregon.

23. Do something masculinely crazy - Achieved, 9/7 (my birthday). This might have had to do with something about standing stark-naked at dusk in the Scottish Highlands amidst high rains and wind, roaring a powerful roar, but that’s just speculation. Uh… yeah.

    Summary: 12 for 23 goals. Not as good as I had hoped, but I got a lot of things done in the process. Shooting for better and more rewarding results this year!