School's Out!!!

Hey all,

So school is finally out.. Yes.

The last three weeks of school have been the most stressful weeks of my entire academic career... I'm just glad that I survived.

So. I'm still living on campus doing ResLife stuff (because I'm a CA--Community Advisor in Mortensen Hall). Yesterday was my last day of work however; we moved mattresses around for a few hours, but now i'm done with work.

I've been mostly relaxing now, figuring out financial aid stuff, looking for jobs, etc... Last night, my roomie Eli, Jess, Claire and I watched the documentary "Trouble the Water" together. While not an excellent documentary, I think that it is a must-see. The trailer is below, so check it out.

Today's schedule:

I'm volunteering at the East African Women's Center for a few hours. We're painting the building.

Pick-up soccer game this afternoon.

Continue looking for a job.

Sell back some books.

Meet with a person on campus in order to look for some scholarships.

Go out to Pizza Luce tonight with some friends for a going away party.

If the weather is nice tonight, we will go on an adventure by Minnehaha falls or something... We'll see.

Peace on earth,
Adam

Trouble the Water Trailer:

"Impress" DJ Slick Scott & The Cronies

So y'all. This is my newest video made for my Doc Video class... Nothing went according to plan. I had problems with learning how to use Soundtrack Pro, cutting up my beat, writing the song, etc... By then it was Tuesday and my actors only could work on Monday, and I was running out of time... SOOOOO. Instead of doing my original idea, I called up my buddies and we snuck into the film studio and made a video at 11:30pm on Tuesday. We just wanted to have fun.

No stress.

"Impress" by DJ Slick Scott & The Cronies:

Expectations

WELL. Here is the finished copy of my final project from Film Production 1.



Expectations: Written and produced by Adam Spanier

Starring: Aaron Stoe, Scott Hemann, & Brittany Juntunen

Augsburg 2009 Fall Semester Screening:
Best of Screening, Best Producer, & Best Script

Shot on 16mm Bolex Reflex Camera
Sound was dubbed in post

Ana's Playground

So some of you may remember that film internship I had last spring for a movie called Ana's Playground.

It was a great experience and I am very happy that I was involved.

Well now the time has finally come... The movie is being shown Tuesday night, October 27th, 7pm at the Mall of America Theater. This showing is for cast and crew only. I have already RSVPd and I will let you know how it goes.

Meanwhile, take a gander at the official trailer of the movie, Ana's Playground:

Lights! Camera! ... and more lights...

I am currently enrolled in Film Production 1, which marks the first time I have ever worked with film cameras...

It's nerve-racking.

Our Professor has said that we should probably film our first project outside... because it probably won't turn out anyway.

That's right... Film is hard. It takes a lot of planning and a lot of patience.

So me being me, I have decided to challenge myself. Yup, I am going to film my first ever film project in my dorm room...

I checked out a (brand new) light kit from the film department, experimented a couple days, and now I'm feeling (a little bit more) confident. Shooting will happen sometime within the next week, I will keep you up to date.

The reason I won't be working on it this weekend is because:

1) It's Homecoming weekend. Stuff is happening.

and

2) The Augsburg 48 Hour Film fest is also this weekend... So I will be busy with that (we will be using digital video cameras though... to make life easier/cheaper)


Peace and love,
Adam

Eid ul-Fitr

Today is Eid ul-Fitr, a major Islamic holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan. I have numerous friends at Augsburg of Islamic faith, sooo I attended the party in Sana's room tonight to celebrate.

There was a lot of food from Pakistan... and I liked most of it.. (I love to try new things) But I noticed a reoccurring trend: almost everything I ate had the exact opposite taste of what I was expecting.

In fact, the first thing I did was pour myself a large glass of Fruit Punch kool-aid and chugged it down.. But.. it wasn't Kool-Aid.. It was rose water (I think).. which is definitely a sweet drink, but it wasn't exactly as sweet as kool-aid.

There was also a dish that looked oddly like refried beans... but had a very spicy beef flavor to it..

And something that looked like apple sauce but tasted more like... well, it kinda tasted like apple sauce i guess.

And there was some type of sweet pudding that I took a big gulp of... little did i know, it wasn't sweet. It was spicy.

BUT, I had a great time... And Bi, my friend from Vietnam, gave me a henna tattoo of a pig.

An overall good night.

And now I'm going to watch Bed and Board, an old french film from Francois Truffaut, my favorite director :)

Oh joy, oh joy

So. I am all moved in. I am back at Augsburg.

And I am busy as usual... so I will keep things short.

I have already finished off my Grandma Kern's cookies and my Grandma Spanier's Chili.

I attended the 9pm mass last Wednesday night and it was great.

My classes are awesome (more on this later).


I am running out of food... Went grocery shopping today and bought: milk, roasted red pepper hummus, two packages of pita bread, a long loaf of french bread... and that's it.

My new love is soccer. I have never played a competitive game of soccer until about 2 weeks ago with my fellow CA (community advisors... during our training week), and I love it.

My new love (soccer) has caused me much pain... I'm starting to get an ingrown toenail and it hurts and I don't know what to do.


Frederick Douglass has easily become one of my heroes. He has one of the most impressive lives I have ever read about.





I have already worn my Brett Favre Vikings jersey twice.

My room is not fully decorated yet, but the Bavarian flag is hanging above my futon.



And I found this thing called the Rasterbator... It basically turns images into tiny dots so you can print them out into poster size images... and that was a terrible explanation, so go look at it for yourself: http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/

This is the first image that I made from Rasterbator and it hangs in my bedroom (Jean-Luc Goddard, french filmmaker):



My new favorite sound is laughter.

All is well. I am healthy and dreaming.

God bless.