On Second Thought...
It's not so much second thought as it is first thought based on any substantive matter, but NYU is looking better than I originally thought. Conditioned by my small New England College experience, being a little student in the big apple always seemed, frankly, awful. It's a big, tiring, dirty, loud, and very expensive place. Usually I forgive these things and regard New York as my ultimate destination. There are more film houses, archives, museums, libraries and galleries than a person could ever visit - and this is largely why I've been intimidated by the prospect of studying in the city of cities. Summers in New York wear me out, I need to come back to the suburbs after a long day and unwind. Life outside of a normal occupation is a second full-time job in New York. I can remember going two or three days without seeing a friend and then, catching up over a margarita or two, talking as if it had been months. That city is a quick quick place. I'd like to read more on the phenomenology of living in New York - what all the cramped spaces, mass transit, neurotic and brilliant people do to you after a specified amount of time. In this respect, Middlebury is a blessing. It is the kind of place where you can concentrate on what you need to do and there aren't too many distractions around. The idea of surviving seems hard enough in New York, surviving and writing a masters thesis might push the envelope.
Accepting all of this, I've given NYU's Cinema Studies program a closer look. Annette Michelson, a noted Robert Morris scholar, is on faculty. I am familiar with her work and it would be nice to share that common interest with a professor. Additionally, they have a Chinese cinema film person on staff - much like Chicago and MIT. I still think that my quality of life would fall into the near-crazy range with all of the buzzing activity that comes with living in New York, but closeness to my mentors and the Guggenheim could definitely be a perk. I don't know, at least I feel like I might consider going there if they take me - earlier this week I was beginning to rethink applying at all, only because living there seems borderline infeasible. Still though, you can see any movie you want in New York so it is the ideal place for a film major to go. It's a hard decision. The resources abound, but that's not to say that I couldn't access them from another institution. It is hard to argue with yourself, falling into that devil's advocate / justifying kind of rut. We'll see, again, it's not my decision to make at this point, but we'll keep NYU in the circle of consideration. Submitting the electronic application tonight with any luck.
Hmmm.. . I am having a hard time getting anything from the website (a bad sign if you are looking at a new media program) but if the deadline is really 2/28 maybe I'll apply to U of T also to a program in culture and technology. It's such a pain to get additional copies of my recommendation forms. I wish I went to one of those schools where "the office" keeps a dossier of each student and can provide authentic copies upon request (I know from helping with professor recruiting that many graduate schools do this) - but having to go to professors directly just puts a burden on them, increases the chance for error, and can even make you overly conscious of where you are applying because a professor is bound to refer directly to the programs in subsequent conversations with you. We'll see, I really like U of T and I dig just about everything about Toronto. Moving to Canada might be a band-aid fix for everything that's wrong about living in America. Also, I suppose that the tuition is far cheaper and the currency goes further and there are many handsome services paid for by the government. Let me chew on this for a few days.
posted by lmjasinski at 9:53 PM
