Finally finishing fluff

I’ve changed a lot in the last year, most of it since last summer. Not everything went perfect, but it doesn’t need to be perfect to be really good.

Last summer I spent about 10 days in Paris and France with voh. And for the both of us it was a liberating experience. When we got back we were filled with plans, ideas and the willpower to change the world. At least, that’s what we thought, but reality was a little bit different.

I can’t talk for voh, so I won’t. But I can talk about my own experiences since that holiday. And they weren’t really happy, unfortunately. I was working so much, and it felt like I was primarily responsible for the continuation of the company. Combine that with one weekend of not taking enough rest (Lowlands), and small wonder I crashed, and I crashed hard.

Started the school year overstressed, not a good thing if you’re trying to start (and finish) a so called minor. Suffice to say that I started it, and stopped after a couple of weeks. Completely incapable of really doing any work that held responsibility. I screwed up hard, because I immersed myself into a truth that I had created myself.

The company itself fired me in december, just before christmas. To be honest, I didn’t mind, it felt good having no more burdens, no school, no work, no responsibilities, really nothing. I spent two weeks just getting myself back together, trying to make sense of the mess I was myself. And I succeeded in getting it all together, I’d say even better then I was before, but I still had a long way to go.

Now, I got myself back together again, so I started looking at the rest of my life. And one thing that jumped up out at me was school. I really needed to finish that, now for real and no more whining about it. So I found a group, and a project, and started. Now, 16 weeks in, almost done, it is eating me, and if I’m not carefull I will be eaten and pit out, again. That is not going to happen, but I will explain later why that won’t happen. Perhaps after I’ve really finished it, but it might even be before that.

No, what really matters is now is some other project I started while being busy with school.

Since last October I’ve been a volunteer for a reional music webzine called 3voor12/flevoland. It is in Dutch, so good luck 😉

The main site, 3voor12, will celebrate its 10th birthday coming thursday. And for that, the main site asked every regional site to create a TV show of 3 hours. All those shows will be broadcast on the 15th of May from 9 till 12 in the evening. Most of the sites will be doing something with live music, but being the newest reional site, with a small staff, and even less expertise about video (let alone live video) we decided to do a pre recorded show, and probably just an hour and a half to be repeated once.

Now, feeling all good about myself with being really busy with school, and enjoying the tension that brings, said that I would take on the coordination for this ‘project.’ In hindsight I never should have taken this on, but I did, and I went with it.

I gave it my best shot, and behold, last monday I did indeed finish it all. The ideas have been collected, the shots have been filmed (partly by me), and the video has been edited. I spent last weekend driving to Lelystad and back to Hilversum three times. Twice to see the editing going on, and talking with the editor about what we wanted. And once to collect the edited film, and bring it to the VPRO where 3voor12 is a part of.

The person responsible for making sure all the regional sites did something with video was really, pleasantly surprised about the quality of the video. That was some good shit we created. And I made sure it did indeed happen.

Yes, I am proud of myself, and yes, I am close to being mentally exhausted. But I’ll sleep when the school project is finished as well.

Me, signing off, I’ve got some sleeping to do! 😀