Final Reflections

Experience is not what happens to one man; 

it's what one man does with what happens to him. 

~ Aldous Huxley 

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.  Now put the foundations under them. 

~ Henry David Thoreau 

The last post deserves two snazzy quotes.  And I actually have who said them!  I found the first one a while ago, and once I saw it I knew I wanted to use it in my last post.  During orientation, our instructors stressed embracing the chaos that the program is and just rolling with whatever happens.  Once we got here, it was really overwhelming because we realized what we were getting into and that we'd have to go through a lot.  Facing three and a half months of a job, a project, and classes in a completely new city was kind of terrifying.  We did go through a lot, I did a ton of stuff, probably more than I did at Knox the past three years combined, but I'm glad for everything.  We were taught so much, and now it's up to us as to whether we make something of it, whether we do something with what's happened to us.  That's the experiential part of the whole thing; not only experiencing what you're learning about, but then taking it on yourself to do something with it.

I remember going to that "Welcome Home" opening art reception at that alderman's office that Patrick Putze, the person I've been working with through NVAM, invited me to.  I met Patrick K. for the first time and I was really terrified of going up to people and talking to them, I talked to Patrick Putze about it and he said, "At least you're here."  I'll never forget that.  I was really nervous and intimidated, but at least I was there, at least I was doing it.  That's what really mattered.  And that sentence applies to the program; even if you don't enjoy what you're doing or it's terrifying, at least you're here.  Or, you were.

Also, this program has provided me with an incredible amount of experience through my ISP, my internship, going to galleries and events, meeting people through my classes, and just living in a city, that is really important for my future.  My professional goal is to be a screenwriter, which means probably moving out to LA and struggling.  I have lofty goals set for the future, and this program has helped me build the foundations under them.  Not only have I realized what I really want, but I'm now that much closer to it. 

Okay.  It was really weird to leave La Casa this week.  I'm so used to packing up and leaving things/people at the end of the school year, in May, so to have to go through that halfway through the year was really disorienting and it never felt like it was really happening.  When I first got here, everything was so surreal and just weird, and it was like that again, but this time instead of being nervous about it all, I didn't want to leave it. 

We finally cleaned the ten-person fridge out.  I never found my ground beef, you guys.  Either it was rotting in the fridge for two months until the fridge was cleaned, or someone cooked it, and I hope someone cooked it. 

I never ended up cooking meals all that much, meals in the sense of lots of ingredients and doing more than just putting pasta in a pot and adding sauce/flavoring.   It just required a lot of time and work and extra skills that I didn't have.  Given the choice between putting dinner in the microwave versus spending an hour making it, I always chose to just heat up something or make pasta.  I was hoping I'd end up cooking a lot more than I did, and basically all I ate was pasta and salads and bagels and soup.  And candy.  But I'm still alive, so that's what counts. 

We didn't really have a one-last-dinner/party-all-together since we all ended up being so busy, but last weekend one of the other students curated her own show that involved artwork from two of her friends, and the majority of us went to that (which was way up the Brown line.  I have now officially been to close to the end, if not the end, of every line except for the Purple).  It was really cool!  She got this classy venue and had cheese and wine and it was fancy.  Beforehand some of us stopped at Margie's Candies, which is a really awesome place, to get ice cream, and they came in containers that were a lot bigger than we thought.  Here's a picture: 

Yeah, someone ate almost all of the ice cream out of the (chalice)-looking thing.  There was a pint of it in that.

Okay.  It's really weird to talk about the end of things. I guess the best way to go about it is by taking each component of the program at a time.

For Core Course, the last major thing we did was give presentations on Pilsen to members of the neighborhood's community, some people we've worked with through the semester, creating a brand geared towards college students and encouraging people to live and work there.  We did a lot with Pilsen in Core Course.  That was cool, that they incorporated where we lived so much and we weren't just put into whatever cheap housing; where you live is part of the learning and the experience.

I don't think, if I ever come back to Chicago, I’ll live in Pilsen again; there were other neighborhoods I liked a lot more.  But I liked living there too.  

I'm fully willing to admit that when I first got to Pilsen, I was really scared.  It's a Hispanic neighborhood, and I didn't and still don't know how to pronounce half the store's names or what's in them.  The neighborhood is going through gentrification, and there's a big tension between the people who are coming in, the artists and hipsters looking for studios, and the Hispanic families and businesses that are already there.  As a white college student, I represent the population that's pushing out the one that's established now, and I felt like, going into stores, the waiters and the cashiers seemed to treat me kind of coldly, and I could never tell if it was because it's Chicago and people tend to be ruder in big cities overall, or if it was because they'd been having a bad day or if it was because I was white and couldn't speak a word of Spanish.  Probably a mix of those things.  But when I first got here, I felt incredibly out of place.  I felt like, walking down the street or going into stores, people took one look at me and thought, you don't belong here.  That it was really, really obvious that I wasn't from there.  And I wasn't.  But I was uncomfortable with the fact that it showed so much.  I have never, ever lived somewhere where I felt like I didn't belong, and that was really hard to get used to the first couple weeks. 

I think, three months later, sometimes people still look at me and think I don't belong here.  But I care a lot less about it.  I've learned that not everyone is the same, that you can't base an entire neighborhood on the rude cashier in the first grocery store you went to on your first day, that there were people in Pilsen who were friendly and passionate and genuinely good.  Just like anywhere else, there's a mix; not everyone will give you dirty looks and the silent treatment, and not everyone will hold the door open for you or help you.  Every community has both.  I've learned to not care about the people who do treat me like crap, because it's a huge city and I'll never see them again, and just because they treat me like that, that doesn't mean everyone will.  

The neighborhood and the ways people treated me never changed.  But my attitude toward it did. 

I have never been so aware of my race, as I've been here in Chicago.  There were a couple times I rode the green line by myself for Arts Seminar, and as it got farther south from downtown, there were more African Americans on the train and it'd get to the point where I was the only white person in the car.  I'd look around and realize that, and get really uncomfortable.  I wasn’t uncomfortable that everyone around me was black; I was uncomfortable that I was the only one who wasn’t.  Nobody else cared, nobody was looking at me or saying anything.  But I became incredibly self-conscious of the fact.  I was just like, there is something about me that's separating me apart from literally everyone else in this car.  Just the idea of being the difference was scary.  And nothing was happening, nobody thought anything of it, I was just like, whoa.  And I realized, this is how other people feel all the time.  

Yeah.  Between Pilsen and its gentrification and stuff like riding the green line, I've never been so aware of my race or had it affect me the way it has.  It was really good to experience that, something I needed to have happen at some point in my life.

For my arts seminar, our last assignment was to do artist statements, about our work and our process.  At Knox part of our senior capstone course is writing a 20-page paper on how we've changed as writers and how our process has changed as we've gone through Knox.  So basically we write a 20 page artist statement, and doing the assignment made me start thinking about that.  I think I was probably the only one in the class who liked doing it.  To me it was cool to step back and really look at how I write and why I do it, and what I'm passionate about, and what has happened this semester that's influenced that.  

For our last class we met at Wishbone, this awesome restaurant that had really good food, and it was really nice to sit and talk about our assignments and the end of the program and life/class in general.  I really wish we'd done that more often, gone out to eat and just hung out and talked, it was great. 

My last day at 826CHI was on December 3rd.  That was super weird too, leaving that.  The only job besides babysitting I've ever had is working in the cafeteria at Knox and I'm going back to that in the winter, so I've never gone through the ending of a job before and I didn't know what that'd be like at all.  I was like, do I hug people?  Are they going to have a mini celebration?  That'd be really embarrassing.  And then there's that awkward, I'll-probably-never-see-you-again, have-a-great-life thing.

Goodbyes are weird.

I assumed that my boss and supervisor would know that I was leaving.  But they didn't.  When I got back from in school tutoring I was like "It's my last day" and my supervisor was like "what."  The staff got mad at me because they didn't know, I'd taken the Monday beforehand off to spend time with my brother, and it never occurred to me to tell them before I left for Thanksgiving.  So I felt kind of bad.  But they were all saying how they would've done something if they had known so I'm kind of glad I was spared that. 

It was actually really hard to leave 826.  I ended up really liking working there.  It's an awesome organization and does really great things for kids.  The staff were some of the friendliest, energetic, passionate people I've ever met and it's awesome to see the organization doing so well.  Yeah.  I really liked the people and what they did, and I really liked working with the students. 

Oh yeah!  So for the whole semester we had to do this learning goal thing, and keep track of the things we wanted to happen with/at our internships.  My biggest goal throughout the semester was to have a student like working with me so much at in-school or after-school tutoring that they asked to specifically be put with me.  And that actually happened!  On the last day!  It only took a month and a half.  But at in-school tutoring, when a staff member brought in a new group of students, a girl pointed to me and said something, and she wanted to work with me.  I'd had her before, the last time I did in-school tutoring, which was almost a month ago because of Thanksgiving and stuff, and when we'd worked together she'd had no idea what her story would be, and in ten minutes we'd come up with the setting and characters and plot, which was awesome.  She remembered me and she liked me, and it was really awesome to have a student ask to work with me.  Because going into this I'd only ever babysat, and I've never tutored any kids or helped them academically, so it was completely new and I didn't really know how to do it, and I know as a more reserved person I'm not as fun sometimes as the other volunteers.  And… yeah.  That made me feel really good.  Like, I feel like I did well and learned a lot at 826, and the thing that confirms that to me isn't my supervisor's final evaluation or what anyone said to me, it's the fact that that student asked to work with me.  That tells me out of everything that I did a good job.  My entire existence has been validated. 

Yeah, saying goodbye was weird, especially because no one knew I was leaving.  I wasn't expecting all of the staff to hug me, but they all did and they all said how good it was to work with me, and good luck with everything.  It was nice that everyone cared, that it wasn't just my supervisor.  Another intern, who's had the same schedule as me the whole semester, was really upset when she found out I was leaving, and she hugged me too.  Her hug and my supervisor's hug were so… unartificial.  They were really, really sincere.  The way they hugged me showed that they really cared and that as hard as it was for me to leave 826, it was hard for them too.  That was really, really great.  It was nice to leave my internship that way. 

For my ISP, I had my last interview with a veteran on Monday.  I've had to give back the tripod and the camera and the audio recorder I've been using, and I was actually kind of sad, I had this weird attachment to them, and returning them officially meant that the project, at least in terms of the interviews, was over.  My last interview was with Patrick K., who was my first one too!  It's been so long because it was crazy trying to schedule.

It's a long story.  But Patrick K. lives out in the suburbs (and by suburbs I mean over an hour away by car), and Patrick Putze drove me out to him for my very first interview, and I talked to Patrick K. at his house.  During that, he told me how he doesn't come to Chicago anymore because of his PTSD, because he really can't be in crowded or noisy areas and things like the trains really bother him, so he doesn't come to the niehgborhoods or downtown unless it's something really important to him and he cares a lot about it.  As soon as he said that I was like well there's no way I'm asking you to meet me somewhere that means something to you in/near the city, so the plan was to go to his house again and for over a month I tried to schedule it.  It was really hard, since by public transit it would've taken me almost four hours just to get to him so I needed a ride from Patrick Putze.  The days that both Patrick K. and I could do it, Patrick Putze couldn't drive me, and it was impossible for our three schedules to match up.  It was also really difficult communicating with Patrick K; because of his TBI, I think he kept forgetting about the emails.  Either he'd forget he ever read them or he'd forget to reply.  It was especially frustrating because I had his military photographs!  They're in a huge album that would've been really expensive to send, and they're also kind of important.  If he didn't have time to talk, I wanted to at least return those to him.  

It got to the point where Patrick Putze was like, you'll just have to mail his photographs back to him, sorry the second interview didn't work out.  I was really bummed.  I felt really bad for Patrick K., since both Edgar and Maurice had really expressed how they were looking forward to the second interviews so it was hard to have to say it wouldn't work out.  And I was needlessly stressing out about it, I was like, now there are questions I have that'll go unanswered and I'll never know and there might've been so much that would've been said and ahh.  So I emailed Patrick (I didn't get his phone number throughout all this, until the end. Which is one of those things that's so stupid and obvious, you literally cannot understand why you didn't think of it the entire time.  I got Maurice's and Edgar's phone numbers so I have no idea why I didn't get Patrick's during our first interview) and told him I'd be willing to meet him halfway if he could work something out.  I just couldn't do those almost-four hours to get there, because of finals.  And Patrick's wife replied, she said how Patrick forgets about his emails and she talked to him and he would be okay with coming to me.  She gave me his phone number and said to just let them know the address of a good place near me to meet. 

So Patrick K. came to Pilsen, and we ended up talking at the resource center, a study space, next to La Casa, which was the quietest, least likely place to have a bunch of people I could think of.  We set up in there and literally hung out and talked for four hours.  The actual interview, what I have for footage for the film, is an hour and a half; we'd talk between questions, and when he got there and before he left.  But it was great to have that much time to just hang out. 

Out of everything that happened with this project, out of everything that was said or done, I think that means the most to me.  Patrick never said it, but the fact that he was willing to come to me, to Chicago, and to have his wife drive him over an hour just to get there, shows how important this is to him.  And the fact that my project is one of those important things that he'll come to the city for, means the world to me. 

Patrick brought his service dog, Zeus, with him.  I was really nervous at first because honestly, I have no idea how a service dog exactly helps with PTSD (which, looking back, was an important and really obvious question to ask.  Wow).  When they first got there Zeus was freaking out and I didn't know if that meant Patrick was freaking out too, if Zeus was reacting to what he could feel from him, or was just warning him of the situation.  So I didn't really know how to act or treat Zeus at first except keep my distance and not pet him.  Then Patrick was like, "He's invisible.  He's not even here, act like he's not even here." Which immediately made it better because that let me know what to do and how to act, and at the end Patrick told me that I did a good job with it.  When Zeus whined I kept going with the interview, and when they got up and walked around I didn't just sit there and stare.  

Patrick rescued Zeus a while ago, and they've been training together, Zeus has been training to be Patrick's service dog and Patrick's been training along with him and teaching him.  Patrick commented on my personality and how I'm such a calm person and it was really good for Zeus to be around that, and that through ignoring him I was training Zeus too.  When they first got there, and to take breaks during the interview, they'd get up and walk around and do these exercises.  Patrick had a bag of treats he kept in his pocket for when Zeus actually did what he was supposed to do, and he brought Zeus's blanket from home, apparently you use something like that or a toy that smells like home, and it gets to the point where the dog learns that every time that object is around, they're needed, and they have to be not a pet but a service dog for the moment.  The whole thing was great. 

I'm actually kind of glad that it worked out that our second interview was without Patrick Putze; the first time I really depended on him and this time it was all me.  Actually, I'm glad that there was only one interview that Patrick P. helped me out with, which is totally the opposite of how I felt at the beginning.  Doing the rest on my own made me learn more than I ever could have with him.  Patrick K. mentioned the difference just between his two interviews; he was my last and my first. He didn't put it this way, but basically I was a lot less awkward.  I was a lot better at follow-up questions, at paying attention to what he was saying and when he mentioned he went to college, asking what he studied instead of going to the next question on my pre-made list.  Having him tell me that there was a huge difference and he could tell how much I'd learned and that I was a lot more comfortable and confident was great.

Yeah, my interview with Patrick was awesome.  It was a really great interview to end on.  He was really excited throughout the whole thing, I could tell he really liked just sitting there and hanging out, that he'd been looking forward to it, like Edgar and Maurice told me they were looking foward to their second interviews.  He's a really cool guy.  I'm so, so glad that he was willing to come to me, and it worked out.

He hugged me at the end, and told me to email him the next time I'm in Chicago.  That too meant a lot to me.  

Leaving the veterans was interesting.  It's been kind of a weird relationship.  They've done something for me by giving me their time and their stories, and I'll be giving them something in return, with the film.  I've come in and out of their lives in a couple months and we'll probably never see each other again.  We worked together pretty intensely in such a short time, in the way that their artwork and their stories were so personal and meaningful, and they have given me a huge amount of trust.  They were all great people, including the art therapist, she was really awesome too, and I think going in they might have been a little nervous about what the whole thing would be about, but they all told me they liked my questions, that I wasn't just interested in the hard things they've been through but also in what the food was like, and mundane stuff like that, and I wanted to know about the entire process.  To have a total stranger come in and be like, "I don't know anything but I'd like to, and you can/don't have to talk about whatever you want" was really cool for them.  I ended up really liking them, and I hope they liked me, I don't know, hopefully.  I think they did, because of the difference between the first and second interviews.  Those first five minutes were always so awkward, it was like "hey nice to meet you, I have no idea who you are but could you sit here and awkwardly put this mic up your shirt" and then during the second interviews they were so much more relaxed and I was too.  Instead of answering my questions in two sentences, they'd take ten minutes.  It truly became a conversation.  And when we left each other, we were both happy.

Our relationship was way different than it was when we started.  When we left, I felt like we were friends.  When Edgar and I said goodbye at the museum, he shook my hand, and this is kind of weird to say but you know how you can tell a lot about someone/how they feel about you in the way they shake your hand?  His shake was like a thank you.  He seemed to say, thanks for everything.  And it was really great.  There was a gratitude there, and a sincerity.  It was like the hugs I got at 826; it was so sincere, there was something that passed between us and mutual gratitude is just the best way to desrcibe it.  I was telling my boyfriend about it, about how sincere the hugs at 826 and that handshake from Edgar was, and it's been a while since goodbyes for me have been so sincere.  I could tell how much people cared and it was hard to leave.  And I was a little weirded out by it, I was like, why is it that way and I finally realized, it's because we left as friends.  And this sounds super cheesy but it's always really hard to leave friends, especially when you've both done something for each other.

The absolute last thing I expected when I started this project  was to end up becoming friends with the veterans.  But that's what happened.  Looking back all three of them were awesome.  I understand that I had a great experience with this and it easily could've been different, and I know I'm lucky that not only did I end up with three men who were so open, but who were so great about it and so sweet.  Yeah… they're awesome guys.

The first time I was with Patrick K., as we were leaving his house he shook my hand and said thank you.  I didn't understand.  I was like, no, dude, thank you, you're the one who was in the military and was willing to participate in this project and gave me all your military photographs, and you're letting me creep on your life for two months.  Why are you thanking me?

But when Edgar shook my hand at NVAM, I understood.  I think, just as I was excited to tell the high school students at the event we went to where we were put with groups of them about Knox, these veterans were excited to talk about their experiences, and were happy that I was asking questions about the food and to explain things.  There was this mutual gratefulness, they wanted to talk and I was there to listen; I wanted to understand and they wanted to be understood.

Through this, I could tell how much they wanted and needed to talk.  They would tell me how excited they were to do the second interview, and a lot of what they said I could tell they said it because they wanted people to know and they wanted me to know.  They really, really need to talk about it. Not every veteran wants to, or can.  Assuming every veteran went through terrible things and needs to talk to you about it is absolutely wrong.  Some of them flat out don't want to talk; some people weren't in combat and worked an office job; some came away from their service with a pretty negative view on the government and our military, and get into intense politics.  You have to know to ask the right questions too. 

But, sometimes, they do really enjoy talking about it and need to talk about it.  What they like talking about though isn't the hard things that you assume they went through; they like talking about the pranks they pulled on their buddies or how they told off an officer and got away with it or how they never got sick.  When you talk to a veteran, instead of just thanking them for their service, ask them what exactly that service was, what they did.  Be interested in whatever they say.  And when they say they were with a certain battalion, don't be afraid to ask them what a battalion is.  They'll go into the structure of the whole thing and explain to you what a company, platoon, and squad is too.  Ask them about the everyday things and the structure, and they'll talk for hours about it. 

So.  My interviews are over, and what I've been doing the last couple weeks has been trying to edit the film.  The editing has, by far, been the hardest and most frustrating and overwhelming aspect of this project, because I have never edited anything whatsoever.  Deciding to have my first editing project be something that involved four other people and twelve hours of footage was not the greatest idea.  It's not something I'd recommend.  You're learning just how to do it and about all the little technical things at the same time that you're dealing with the narrative and the story itself, and it sucks.  Looking back, I really should've started practicing with Final Cut Pro like a month ago.  I should've taken a ten-minute clip from an interview, and made short movie from that and just practiced.  But I didn't.  For one thing it took over three weeks to get FCP on my laptop with Patrick's help, and then I had to find a way to convert all my video files because they wouldn't play on my computer, and then there were more issues and when I finally got it all together, I struggled with the syncing.  Since Patrick gave me his audio recorder, I have the audio and the video of each clip, and there's this thing you can do where you sync them so the audio from the microphone matches up with the video.  It's absolutely amazing, but I didn't realize that FCP didn't put the synchronized clips in the places I thought it did, and for a couple days I was really confused and really frustrated because it wasn't working, and I got a really late start on the editing.  I'm bascially a week behind where I really should be.  I had a meeting with my ISP instructor that first week of December, and because I was struggling with the syncing I hadn't started organizing the footage into the narrative yet, and Jason was like "What do you have so far?" and I was like "Nothing." 

But.  I got it figured out.  And since then it's been really intense, like constantly-stressful, no-rest, stay-up-til-4-in-the-morning-two-weeks-in-a-row stressful.  

Most of the stress has come from the 12 hours of footage, and the how-the-hell-do-I-cut-it-down-and-match-up-3-completely-stories-and-a-random-art-therapist-question.  But a lot of the stress has been emotional too.  I interacted with these people so much and really got to know them and became friends with them, and now I'm taking what they said and manipulating it and taking advantage of it and picking and choosing what'll make the best story.  A lot of people wouldn't have a problem with that, but thanks to my parents, I'm a really sensitive person, and unfortunately I'm not heartless and putting a value on what people said and felt and being like, that's not important enough, has been kind of hard.  I've definitely moved on from it.  But at first I was like, crap.  I know they'll understand, and they obviously don't remember all of what they said, so it doesn't really matter.  I think, since this project took on something that I didn't expect, and I was really impacted by the veterans' stories and the way they really opened up to me, and it was my first project, that added a big emotional attachment to it.  Plus there's 12 hours of it!  12 hours of feels.  Oh my God.  

I've just been so worried about how the veterans will be portrayed.  Part of the reason why we got along so well was because I asked about the everyday things, and those everyday things will not be in the film, I'll be pulling out their hardships.  Basically, I'm reducing them to someone who has PTSD and someone who took a life, and they're so much more than that.  Plus, Patrick, when I asked if there was anything more he had to say at the end of his second interview, he was like, "I just want people to not take advantage of us.  Like with this film, don't take advantage of us" and I was like well shit am I taking advantage of you?  I told him that and he was like "I didn't mean it that way, I just meant in general, you've been so good about it and I wanted to say it for other people" and he said how each veteran did this voluntarily.  They talked about what they wanted to talk about, and they completely understand that I'm taking these hours and hours, and compiling them into an hour or less.  They understand.  And if they watch it and get mad, they were willing to do it, so they just have to live with the end result.  "It's your project," he said.  "Don't worry about us." 

But of course I worry.  I don't know.  You just have to be like, "you did your part, thank you, I don't really care what you think now."  You have to put aside their opinions and focus on yours, and I'm not used to that.  It's just, real people are involved.  As a screenwriter/fiction writer, I'm so used to dealing with fictional characters whose feelings aren't hurt if you cut something they said that they really care about or if you box them into stereotype.  Obviously the veterans have been real people this whole time but that didn't really hit me until the editing for some reason. 

Also, a big part of the narrative/what I've learned is how so many people don't understand, or just flat out don't know, about how hard it is for veterans years and years after they come home.  No one knows how high the rate of suicide is.  A lot of this needs to be said and heard and shared, and it's my responsibility to share it.  I'm feeling this intense responsibility to carry on their stories and to provide that bridge of commuication with the film.  Yeah.  Not the easiest first project.  There's also always the fact that this is my first editing project and it might not be that good because I simply don't know enough to make it good.  The fact that I don't know how to do a lot has added stress.  And Patrick K. was like, "This will be great, I have high expectations" and I was like no Patrick have no expectations.

But.  As frustrating as it's been, it's also been interesting and cool and great.  As a writer, I usually come at this type of thing the exact opposite way; usually I provide the material and then I'm left out of the rest of the process.  This time, the material was given to me, and I am the process.  The veterans did their part; they gave me the words.  Now I have to make something of it. 

I've understood the other side of film.  I'm way more sympathetic with directors/editors now than I ever have been, and have a completely new admiration for their jobs.  Now I know what it's like to love a thirty-second clip, but it doesn't fit into your narrative at all so you have to cut it even though it's really amazing.  Now I understand why writers get screwed, and the original material is manipulated and changed.  Film is so, so manipulative, and people really underestimate that.  It's crazy.  I can take something a veteran said, and something they said an hour later, and put them next to each other and it sounds like they said it all at once.  Editing warps time.  You have to understand that there's raw material provided and that the final film you're seeing has been reshaped over and over again.  

As these past two weeks have gone on, I've gotten more detached from the veterans and the feels.  You just have to make peace with the fact that it is absolutely impossible for everyone to be happy with the end product, and the people who are unhappy with it might be the people who were involved but ultimately, it's your project so whatever.  You have to really focus on what you, the artist, the sculptor, the filmmaker, want.  I need to really decide what I want this film to say and how it'll say it.  I need to forget all the talk and everything I've learned, and look back at when I was sitting in my dorm room at Knox a year ago, talking to my boyfriend over Skype about this cool off campus study program in Chicago, and that one of the things the students do is an independent study project, and how great would it be to talk to veterans.  I need to look at what I've told people about these veterans these past couple months, what's really affected me, and put that in the film.  People keep telling me, it's your project.  I have actually been given the awesome freedom of doing what I want with it, of having control throughout the entire process, which is usually nonexistent in film.  Yeah.  I just need to deal with it.  And if people are unhappy, including the veterans, if they don't agree, at least I made it and they saw it.  So. 

Patrick Putze has been helping me out, as always, a ton with the editing.  He sent me literally over twenty links to tutorials and watched what I have so far and offered suggestions, and he called this week and we talked about it for twenty minutes.  I would've died without his help, oh my god.  But I think our artistic syles are clashing.  Patrick made a documentary film for his thesis in grad school, he is professionally trained to do stuff like this and his film is legit.  I'm a screenwriter and I'm like no this story will be told following the traditional structure of a film.  Patrick keeps trying to push documentary-ish things, and some of them are helpful and some of them aren't.  It's awesome that he's giving me so many suggestions and he's letting me do whatever I want, I don't have to do anything he says at all.  But since I've never made a film before, let alone a documentary, it's hard not to be heavily influenced by him and what he thinks.  He's so much more knowledgeable than me, and so often turns out to be completely right.  Up until this point, whatever Patrick's suggested I've done.  So it's hard not to follow his suggestion of structuring it a certain way because maybe that's the actual, right way to go about it, but that's not what I want. It's hard to shut out what Patrick is saying, and go with what I feel the story should be, especially when I'm not completely sure what exactly that story is.    

Patrick and I met for lunch for tacos last week, so I could give him his sound equipment back and we could talk about the editing and the film.  Patrick's a really great guy too.  And he's thinking of making another film!  He really wants to do a legit, feature-length documentary on NVAM and the people who have worked there and the artists.  That's the film he mentioned when I first met him, he was like, "if you're still around, maybe you can help me work on it" and he hasn't mentioned it again and I was asking people about it, and they were like, that sounds like a job offer, you need to ask him about it before you leave.  It turns out the film's more of a personal project than a job-thing, and Patrick said it'd take two or three years to make.  It's not official, and I have plans in Colorado after graduation.  But I told him I'd love to come work on it, and he said he'd love to have me.  So it's an option.  We'll see if he ends up truly making it; he might not.  And I don't know where I'll be two years from now when my boyfriend graduates pharmacy school and we can move wherever we want, but I do want to come back to Chicago someday.  Hopefully, hopefully, it'll work out that I can come back someday and work with Patrick on his film.  I really liked working with him and part of the reason why he helped me out so much with this project is because he's anticipating working together; we were talking about teams/groups and how important it is in film to find a group of people you like working with and who do their jobs, and you know you can make films together, and he was like, "You can be on my team."  So.  Even if the NVAM film doesn't work out, maybe something will. It's an option right now, and I'm just happy to have an option outside of Colorado, outside of Knox.

And even if nothing at all happens, at least I have a connection, an established relationship.  That's one of the things I'm really proud of with this project, is the relationships I've established with it, with Patrick Putze who wants me to be in his filmmaking group, and with Patrick K., who told me to email him the next time I'm in Chicago.  Especially as a shy person, it's really great to have people who I've worked with, and had a good experience with, who I can contact again in the future, in a place that's not just where I've lived my whole life.  It's awesome. 

This could not have been done without Patrick Putze.  I still have no idea why he helped me so much.  I think he believed in the project and had a good feeling about it.  When I mentioned how great it was to learn all this, he said it was great to teach it, and he's hoping we'll work together again in the future (and this time he won't have to correct all my amateur mistakes).  I really needed someone who could teach me me how to do this.  Meeting him literally changed my life.  And it's weird to look back and think, if the artist my ISP class met with back in September hadn't asked about our projects and followed up on his offer to give me a contact and connected me to NVAM, and if I hadn't gotten completely lost that first day I tried to go and Patrick wasn't there, it might not have happened at all.  I met the right person at the right time.  

This project has made me realize that filmmaking is what I really want to do.  This whole thing was so awesome.  Like I said it was really overwhelming and the hardest thing I've ever done.  The entire process was really difficult.  It was just obstacle after obstacle; once I figured out one thing it was on to the next that I didn't know how to do.  But I was more afraid of it not happening, than struggling.  The idea of the interviews not working out, of having my computer crash and losing the footage, is a lot more terrifying than facing having to work out and complete seven interviews and sift through 12 hours of footage.  I read through all my other posts before I made this one, and I think it was in ISP Adventure that I first talked a lot about my project, and I said that I hadn't really brought it up because it was a huge hope/dream and I was afraid it wouldn't happen.  And now I look at that, and it has happened.  And that's the best thing in the world.  

I was so excited to just be doing it, that carried me through.  Even though the film is not the best technically, I was happy enough to just be doing it.  Patrick Putze laughed at me because he was sending me a ton of tutorials on using Final Cut Pro, and there are so many things you can do and it's all so cool!!  And I told him that and I freaked out about it and he laughed at me. There are techniques that people use for feature-length films, for the superhero movies that I'm in love with, that I use in my film, and that is so cool just the idea of it is awesome!  And with some of the tutorials Patrick was like "The pros do this" and I was like, you do realize I'm not a pro Patrick, but I am learning things that legit editors do.  I am so excited. 

Learning so much about editing and filmmaking was incredible.  Not only do I now have experience, and the fact that I have both screenwriting and editing skills makes my chances for a job better, but just the fact that I can do this again and it'll be easier and better next time, and I can keep building on what I know, is great too.  I can't even being to describe how happy I am that I did it.  But I'm also really, really glad that I made a film so that Patrick's, Maurice's, and Edgar's stories can be shared.  NVAM is only in Chicago, but a film can be watched anywhere, and I hope it creates conversations. 

Yeah, the filmmaking was awesome and it changed my life.  But the best part of all of this was the opportunity to talk to veterans.  I still can't believe three people were actually willing to talk to me, that they were willing to be so open.  I am eternally grateful to these guys for sharing so much with me.  They understood that this was a student project and when I messed up with the camera or the audio recorder during the interviews I was like "I've never done this before" and I gave them fair warning that I've never edited anything either, but they have had so much faith in me.  I told Patrick K. about the editing and how stressed out I was because I want to do a good job for them, and he said, "Don't worry.  You will.  I have the feeling this will be great."  And I'll never forget how, when I first met Maurice at the 100 Faces opening art reception at NVAM, he said he was excited to watch the film and I said I was already nervous about the editing, and Patrick Putze said, "I have the utmost faith in you."  People have believed in me so much with this project, and the fact that they think I can do it has made me feel like I can do it.

I'm really hoping at some point this next week, I'll have kind of a rough draft version of the film, something that I can at least send to the veterans to watch and have other people watch.  I am determined to produce something, I can't walk away without at least finishing the first version of it.  I want to do it for the veterans; they least they deserve is the (hopefully) decent film they were promised.  When I started this, what really carried me through was wanting to do it so badly.  Before, it was like, "I really want to do this," and now it's like, "I have to do this."  

Compared to a week ago, I've basically come from nothing, right now I have a rough cut of the film and I have everything I want from the interviews and it's just a matter of shaping it.  I know I have a lot of work to do, but I've already come pretty far.  Especially considering eight days ago when Jason asked me what I had and I was like "Nothing." It'll be a work in progress and I'll keep working on it in the winter, finally adding in all those coolio little pro techniques Patrick wants me to learn, until I have a more complete version.  But for now I want to get that rough draft done.  If I still have access to this blog, I'll post it on here; otherwise it'll go up on the ACM website somewhere.  I'm also creating a website that'll have all of the interviews on it, so that the veterans can watch their whole interviews, and other people can too, if they're interested in hearing/learning more.  Basically 11 hours was left out of the film, so there's definitely a ton more and there's a lot that I really wish could be in the film that I had to leave out.  Patrick Putze suggested grouping the videos by veteran but then also organizing them into short clips that are 2-5 minutes each depending on the subject, like there'd be a 7-minute video titled "VetCAT and other creative arts therapy programs" from Suellen's interview.  I like that and I have no idea how to make a website but apparently it's easier than it sounds, and I will link that too if possible.  So. Yeah.  I will keep working on it. 

Thursday we had our ISP Symposium.  We all had to create poster boards for our projects and had 5 minutes to present them, then had 5 minutes to answer questions.  It was nervewracking, extra work and stress, and I had to think a lot about how to condense my project into 5 minutes and what exactly I wanted to say about it- which was really good because it made me really think about what's the most important.  And I realized when I made the poster and I was gluing on photos of Maurice's and Patrick's and Edgar's artwork, I was more excited about their stories and their art than I was about having made a film.  Like I said, the filmmaking was incredible and I'm so excited about that, but I was more excited to talk talk about their veterans and share their work.

It was really cool to see everyone's projects.  People did great things.  There was the outline/development of a screenplay, a website about the Haymarket riots that was created, an app for rideshare services created, an exploration into what makes a safe space, a statistical study of what influences a student's chances of getting into college, the creation of a website that connects businesses with artists who can paint murals inside or oustide the building, someone who curated their own show with eight pieces of art from two friends, and an exploration of rejecting the male gaze.  We all worked really hard, and the symposium was really the capstone to the entire semester, a culmination of what we've done.  It was really great. 

Anyways.  To wrap things up, throughout this semester, when I learned or did something that blew my mind or that was important or completely new to me, I wrote it down, so I started creating a list about halfway through the term.  This is my list.

Things I've learned in Chicago: 

1) You can't judge a whole neighborhood based on the first couple of people you meet. 

2) The Pink Line will constantly stop for signal clearance. 

3) There is so much to do in big cities, even people who have lived here forever feel like there's never enough time to do everything. 

5) Half the people you ask for directions are either lost or tourists themselves. 

6) Don't mess with Chicago-style hotdogs. 

7) People from Chicago are often friendly, funny, and fiercely proud of their city. 

8) Millenium Park used to be an airport. 

9) Exactly what gentrification is, how it can be a bad thing, and how it can also be a good thing. 

10) The Willis Tower is really still the Sears Tower. 

11) How it feels to leave at 9 a.m. and get back thirteen hours later.  Basically, I've learned how to adult.  And it kind of sucks. 

12) To be thankful that I'm leaving before it gets really cold. 

13) It really is possible and not so terrible to get around without a smart phone. 

14) We are constantly trying to understand each other.  Our lives revolve around sympathy.  I think we never completely succeed, because no one can ever completely understand what we go through.  But at least we try, and sometimes that's enough. 

15) What an alderman is. 

16) How to tutor a young student in writing, and to collaborate with them to create an awesome story. 

17) Little kids are the best. 

18) Anything and everything is potential art. 

19) Covering an entire room with photos of bad selfies actually looks really cool. 

20) When you do an interview in public, people will notice and instead of acting silly/crazy in the background, they'll avoid coming near you/being in the shot. 

21) The best way to make someone feel good is to really care about their work. 

22) People have more faith in me than I do in myself. 

23) Just rolling with whatever life throws at you is sometimes the only way to live. 

24) It's completely okay to feel overwhelmed, and to talk about it and get help.

25) Networking is terrifying, but so, so worth it. 

26) What a SAW gunner is. 

27) The most amazing, life-changing experiences bloom from complete coincidences that possibly are meant to be. 

28) I realized how much I like Chicago when people came to visit, and I was crazy excited to share the city with them. 

29) Knoxies are everywhere. 

30) The Chicago I knew before this, which was downtown, is actually not much of Chicago at all. 

31) The Chicago Public School system is unfair, unjust, and the contrast between schools is outrageous.

32) How important writing skills are. 

33) Editors have one of the hardest, most underappreciated jobs ever. 

34) Instead of thanking a veteran for their service, to ask them what their service was, and if they're willing to talk about it, that means so much more to them. 

35) That Millenium Park is a favorite place for both tourists and Chicagoans. 

36) Talking to people actually isn't that scary. 

37) It is possible to function after getting less than three hours of sleep. 

38) Pilsen is a great neighborhood. 

39) Produce, things like bell peppers and cucumbers and asparagus, will go bad after about two weeks in the fridge. 

40) To label food before it gets lost in the depths of the refridgerator. 

41) That complete strangers will put an incredible amount of faith and trust in you. 

42) That I am a very privledged person, and I was ignorant of that privledge.

43) How to create a film.

44) That you can come to love something you were terrified of at first. 

45) What it's really, truly like to go to war and come back.

46) Chicago is one of the best places to live and work in the world. 

It's weird to look back at when I first arrived and how I felt, how incredibly overwhelming everything was, and everything felt so surreal and I had no idea where I was or where things were for the first two months, and I felt so ostracized in Pilsen and now I don't care, and how we were told that we'd have to get to our internship interviews on our own and having to get somewhere completely by myself was terrifying.  I've come a long way; everyone in the program has, and it's been amazing. 

I remember talking to my friend who did the program last fall when she came back to Knox in the winter about it.  She told me that the person you are when you leave for Chicago is not the same person who comes back.  That was a little scary and after that I was wondering how much I'd change, and in what ways.  I definitely have changed.  I've learned so much, I've learned an incredible amount this semester, my eyes have really been opened to a ton of things.  Not only am I way more confident living in a big city but I really want to come back someday.  I've been through a lot and not all of it was great, but overall this program was awesome, and deciding to do it was one of the best decisions I've ever made, because the changes I've gone through has made me a better, more understanding, more experienced person, and what I've learned is going to be invaluable.  And I'm also really glad I chose to do the blog, so I could share it all.

In my first post, I talked about how Victoria explained her theory about windows, that we each see the world through our own window and it's a very singular perception.  But we can learn how to see through other windows, and although we'll never have any window but our own, we can at least understand other ones.  And I was wondering if by the end I'd learn how to see through other windows.  Not only has that happened, but the wide range of windows I've learned has been broader and more meaningful than I could've imagined, from the veteran's windows and Patrick Putze's and navigating the CPS school system and working at 826 and learning about gentrification and segregation to living in Pilsen.  These are windows I never even knew existed before, and if I did, they were not what I thought they'd be.  I've also learned what I had no idea of before: that art, because of its communication through images and the way it speaks from and to the soul, is a way to learn to see through other people's windows, and sometimes, it's the only way we can.

In my first post I also talked about Uglies and explained about learning to see beyond the little men that mark the boundary of your world.  I have learned to see beyond my little men.  And part of what I've learned has been a lot about myself, from the fact that I can get over my fears and not only talk to strangers but make something really meaningful from it, that I absolutely love film, that I was so ignorant of the privledge I've had and how lucky I've been, that I love big cities, and more.  I think that's the best kind of program or project you can participate in, when not only your world expands but also your place in it.  

Thank you for reading my posts this semester, and I really wish I'd been able to do more.  If I could go back and redo things I'd post more.  But, doing the blog was also one of the best decisions I've ever made, and I'm really glad I've been able to share my thoughts and process with you.  Yeah… This is another weird goodbye.  

The program was incredible and the city it was in, as well as its people, is even more incredible.  I am leaving loving Chicago more than I thought I would.  I am so happy I had the experience of being in this city, and I'm leaving changed, but in positive ways.  Yay.

See you again soon, Chicago. 


- Laura