The semester is over, I'm alive, and I didn't flunk out of school! (kidding, mostly) I'm home for Christmas and I've been hanging out with my parents, sleeping (so much sleeping), smothering my cat with affection, and redesigning this blog (just because). This is a photograph I made on my Yashica. I like it a lot.  I have the typewriter so someday I...

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I came up with a lot of titles for this essay. Here are some of the ones that I could've used: On: Creativity On: Making Things Anyway On: Burning Out On: Doing Your Best On: Not Settling (for Mediocrity) On: Working Harder Than You Would Like to be Working Life Would Probably Be Easier if You Never Tried to Improve at Anything But...

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I'm back on the East Coast for the rest of the week and then I'm jetting back to the Beehive State to move into my new place before school starts. I've been running on empty for a while, so it's been beautiful to come home and have my biggest responsibility be not forgetting to take advantage of the pool in the backyard. I've...

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One of many essays about film school: read the rest here Let's talk about second acts. Seems to be an appropriate topic for the second essay. This past January I was sitting in a class and one of my professors was giving a group of students feedback on an edit of a 30 second commercial they were trying to finish. He wanted them...

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The other day I was making a little list of all the big picture things that the last six months of being in film school has taught me and it ended up being not such a little list. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I'm obsessed with the film program, maybe it has to do with the fact that I...

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I think that perfectionism is a concept I'm trying to wrap my head around. Well, maybe not perfectionism, but imperfectionism. I'm not a perfectionist, but I set high high standards for myself. Some of which are probably not the most realistic expectations from someone suffering from imperfectionism. Which would be all of us. Because imperfectionism is part of being human. I'm trying to...

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I spent the last four days up in the mountains with my favorite kind of people: film people. I attended a writer's retreat for BYU's Media Arts students—although technically referred to as a writer's conference, it was more of a conference for storytellers. Regardless of whatever process you study in filmmaking (like editing, sound, directing, screenwriting, cinematography, vfx, etc.), every single one of...

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I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, and it's mostly been about a lot of hateful actions and comments that have been floating around me, wether that platform be on the internet or in person. I decided a long time ago that my job is to love people. We're all children of God—my job isn't to judge people or condemn them or...

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I updated the header of this little online journal of mine to reflect the fact that I've always been 90 years old at heart and I love it. I've been so unbelievably busy lately but I have been trying to make time for the things that I love. I'm attending a film program writer's retreat this week at Sundance and I'm bringing a...

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I've been starting and reviving a lot of personal projects lately, which is super funny because I've never been busier than I am at this moment. But that's the funny thing about time. He's a sneaky lil guy. He's never going to show up and say, "Here I am! There's more than enough of me to do it all!" You have to make...

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The end of the semester is hitting me like a brick wall. If I can make it to April 9th it's gonna be fine, but until then, I'm kind of holding on for dear life and making the title of this post my personal mantra. Here's a photograph of the sunset in February when life was simpler and more beautiful and mostly just...

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Today I gripped on a BYU capstone film set for 14 hours. I'm exhausted but I'm also strangely fulfilled. It's not exactly the life of the party doing all the grunt work (aka being a grip) from 4 am till sundown but I've learned a lot over the past few months and it's exciting to be a part of such a collaborative effort....

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Do you ever associate specific things with a certain period of time in your life, like food or movies or a song? My senior year of high school, I had surgery to get my tonsils out and recovery was miserable. There were complications with my ears that made swallowing incredibly painful, blah blah blah. Anyway I basically lived on the family room couch...

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My sister texted me this video the other day at work and my co-workers can testify that I cried actual tears because I was laughing so hard. It won the spot as my favorite cat video ever, right alongside stalking cat and cats try to understand treadmill. All of these bring me to tears. I just love cats so much—they understand life and they do...

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It's going to be a long week. There are a lot of things on my to-do list and schedule. School deadlines, work photoshoots, and I'm gripping on a production almost every weekend this month. At least there are a few silver linings. Last year I bought a Leica on eBay but the price was no guarantee that it worked. I shot a roll...

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Working on lots of homework and video shoots this weekend. Recently rediscovered how much I love honey bunches of oats (see below). Law & Order. I could take or leave the crime, but I love love love the judicial side of it. I CAN'T STOP I would like to hire Emma Stone's stylist from Spiderman 2 to redesign my life because I just want...

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As a goal-oriented person it can sometimes be hard to live in the moment. I'm always thinking ten steps ahead, about due dates and 5 year plans and what I want to do with my life. And while it's exciting and important to think ahead, it sometimes makes the mundane days seem like less. The days when you wake up just in time...

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I don't feel like capitalizing things lately because I've been reading a lot of E. E. Cummings. But also grammar. I'm so torn right now. Mostly this post is going to act as a test post because I feel like making a new blog and having a fresh start. Here's a project about feminism that I made for one of my film classes....

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