I arrived in Palo Alto yesterday. I have a head cold and I’m feeling pretty exhausted. The kids I’m living with use the words “like” and “weird” quite frequently, so I have adopted them here in a list of my best and worst first impressions.
Lesson 1: Just as one should not judge a book by its cover, don’t judge the States by what you see on TV!
“This place is like, so cool because there’s”:
- Fast speed Internet – you can watch all your favourite TV shows and movies online.
- bike lanes and lots of bikes.
- no plastic bags (in the household I’m living with).
- Openness and generosity. A lovely lady shouted me a cocktail on the plane which made up for the hell traveling experience I had.
- No rubbish. Palo Alto is super clean and very green.
- Switzerland all over again. The houses and streets remind me of Switzerland, everything is so neat and picture book perfect.. (this is also kind of .. “like so weird”).
- Indigenous art from Papua New Guinea. There are a couple of impressive Papua New Guinea sculptures on Stanford Campus, and also a Rodin sculpture garden (with the most Rodin’s outside of Paris).
The house where I live
“This place is like, so weird because there’s”:
- Cane juice (which I guess means sugar)? The stuff is unnecessarily added to heaps of food products.
- A limited wheat and gluten-free bread range, even in the massive organic store 5 minutes from my house!
- Airports. I missed two flights because the airline wouldn’t let me on the plane with three items – which included a small carry on bag, a lap top and camera! You can’t break rules here, at least when you are flying it seems.
More soon..
Recently I saw a film that I felt encapsulated my love for fast-paced, informative and engrossing American documentaries. This is one of the reasons why I am so keen to study in the States, as I will be closer to the filmmakers making these great films!
I was fortunate to meet one of them at the New Zealand International Film Festival, Ondi Timoner, whose insightful film We live in Public won the grand jury prize at Sundance this year. The documentary explores the role of the Internet in our society, including its potential to both harm and empower and the direction it is taking into the future.
photo taken from Quiet
The story is told through the life of business entrepreneur Josh Harris. Often described as ‘the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of’, Josh not only became one of the most successful dot-com millionaires of the nineties but also a unique visionary, social commentator and artist. When most of his colleagues were buying flash cars and real estate, Josh spent his energy and money developing futuristic Internet projects. Well before the rest of the world caught on, Josh could see the powerful hold the Internet would soon have on our lives and attempted to explore the psychological and physical implications it would bring to society.
After successfully conceiving the first Internet television network, Josh curated and funded ‘Quiet’, a project where 100 people were invited to live together in an underground bunker in New York. Provided with food and small cubicles for sleeping, the participants were confined to the bunker for 30 days having no access to the outside. There was a firing room if they got bored, an interrogation room (much like a scene from 1984), and surveillance cameras documenting the participants’ every move. They could watch themselves or anyone else, going to the toilet, showering, or doing every other private matter, any time of the day.
The participants traded their privacy for the unique opportunity of being part of an exclusive community. A space with no boundaries, or limitations, where an individual could take on any identity they imagined. ‘Quiet’ illustrated what people are willing to give up in order to have this kind of exposure and attention. The concept is very similar to the way social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook operate. Do you realise they own all the pictures and words you upload or write?
Andy Warholl talks of our desire for 15 minutes of fame, with the Internet this momentary fame can be achieved daily.
In Josh’s subsequent project, ‘We Live in Public’ he turned the cameras on himself and his girlfriend, whilst living in their apartment for six months. Constant Internet surveillance was broadcast on the web to an audience of millions, who were watching from their computers at home. There came a time when the couple appeared to be more connected with the virtual community following them, than to each other. After an argument they would rush to their laptops to find out what the
chat rooms thought. The experience eventually destroyed their relationship and Josh’s mental health. He now lives in Ethiopia, teaching basketball to children!
This film raises important questions on how much we have come to rely on the Internet as a form of communication, and the extent to which it impacts the way we communicate off line as much as online. Josh said his last goodbyes to his dying mother on videotape, explaining that he felt more comfortable communicating this way. It makes you realise how much the Internet’s enticing and seductive qualities are both beautiful and dangerous!
I’ve always been fascinated by the web having wanted to make a documentary on it myself. My characters would include a teenager impacted by cyber-bulling, a 20 something dot-com millionaire, a Russian mail-order bride, and an academic unable to access important research material because of their government’s regulations.
The Internet must truly be one of the most extraordinary human inventions of our time. I recommend watching this movie.
July has been quite a month. I am hoping August is a little simpler but I wouldn’t count on it, since I only have four weeks left in New Zealand and there are a lot of things to do!
People have been telling me to write more about my ‘life’ in this blog. I am always a bit shy to say things on the Internet…where will it end up and will I one day regret it?
I will take my chances this time. The topic on my mind is love vrs career.
I am the kind of person who puts 100% into everything I do, including my relationships and work. But my lesson for July is that sometimes we are forced to make a choice between the two, and last month I had to do this.
For the last 10 years, my career plans have always been to do a Masters overseas and to gain international experience with my work. So when I had the opportunity to apply for scholarships that might help me realise these dreams I naturally embraced them.
Meanwhile, I’ve also always been the committed type when it comes to relationships. As my plans started to fall into place, I naturally hoped that my partner could join me on this journey. But he is just as focused on his career and moving to America would not work for his business. Because of our financial circumstances, and having little room to compromise the nature of our individual situations, we broke up.
This has made me quite sad. My friends keep reminding me that I am still young and it will all turn out for the best. But I don’t really feel that young any more. I only have one year left of my 20s and I can already feel these new expectations creeping up on me as I get closer and closer to the 30-year-mark. There is a part of me that has an urge to slow down, buy a house and begin a family. I don’t know how much these expectations of myself are conditioned from society, or whether they are impacted by hormonal changes or an innate natural desire? It seems many of my school friends are already in this stage of life. I keep seeing photos of new babies popping up on their Facebook pages, and as a wedding photographer most of my clients are around my age. This year especially, I started to feel like the odd one out.
I have good reasons for why I am driven to pursue my work the way I do, and I am very serious about reaching my career goals, but all the same I still can’t help feel a tinge of jealously when I see others following different paths. As I get older I realise how important my relationships and family are. Sacrificing my time for my family or partner can be extremely character building and immensely enriching; compromises help us to grow. Making a decision based on my career is an isolating experience and although it will have many rewards that I can’t even imagine right now, there are things I loose in the process.
I hope that one day soon I will be able to better balance these two aspects of my life, as surely this is a more healthy form of existence? Making films are tough because they are demanding and require an intense level of focus. It is hard to make films and have a family. I have seen other woman do it successfully, but not without a struggle, and hopefully one day I will achieve this too. But for the next few years, I will need to immerse myself in my work and right now I am mentally preparing myself for this experience.
It feels like I’ve uplifted my blissful life in New Zealand into a dark unknown hole, and I have no idea what is waiting at the other side. As much as I admit this is an exciting time it is also incredibly scary.
I am reminded of the days I spent as a teenager at the Waiwera hot pools. My friends and I would run up 6 flights of stairs until we reached the top floor of the hydro slides. The scariest slide was the “Black Hole”. There would be a line of people waiting to go on it. I was afraid to go on that ride, it was very steep and very fast, but I hated not doing things because of fear so one day I forced myself.
Shivering from my cold swimsuit stuck to my skin, I griped the wooden railing at the mouth of the tube. It felt silky smooth, weathered by the thousands of hands that had clung to it before me. The railing was the only thing holding me back from the pull of gravity. As my feet dangled over the edge of the dark abyss I could sense the queue behind me getting restless. A smelly boy with pubescent facial hair and shorts hanging so low off his hips they could almost fall off shouts, “hurry up girl”.
An intense wave of fear flashes through my body. Those seconds felt like forever and I remember them in slow motion. Then, without thinking, I just let go and before I knew it I was at the bottom of the slide crashing into the water.
In many ways I anticipate the next few years in America to be a bit like this. It’s just the ‘letting go’ part that I find so tricky.
Check out an arts documentary I made on multi media artist Claudine Muru:
Shared via AddThis
Film still from show
So the Fulbright orientation was much more intense than I expected. There were three days of meeting people, hearing about what the American Fulbrights (midway through their exchange) are doing, and learning a little bit about what to expect at graduate school.
There was an entertaining discussion on dating in America by some of the Fulbright Alumni who have recently been there. Apparently if someone of the opposite sex asks you to go to the movies on a Saturday this is qualified as an official ‘date’, but if you are asked out on a Sunday, or at the last minute, you are possibly the second or third down the list of people they have asked out, and should consider declining such an offer.
In New Zealand I think we would ask people to grab a coffee, we are much more indirect about the way we do things here. We don’t really do dating, one alumni described our way as “going to the pub getting trashed and hooking up with someone the next day”. I would like to think that kiwi culture is a little more sophisticated than this, but perhaps it would be fair to say that we don’t really ‘court people’ in the same way that American’s do. We get involved in relationships quite quickly and we wouldn’t usually date two people at once. I quite like the way the Americans do it, it is possibly a little more romantic.
Most of our time however, was focused on much more important things, like understanding the differences in learning styles between graduate schools in the States and post-graduate study (as they call it here) in New Zealand. To make a sweeping generalisation, it sounds like students in America work incredibly hard, and immerse themselves in their work, integrating their social lives with their studies, where as Kiwi’s are inclined to make clear divisions between the two.
If this is true, I must be a lot more suited to the American way, as this is practically the way I go about my life and work at the moment. Being a filmmaker is an intensive process, which consumes me in both healthy and unhealthy ways. When ever I go out my meetings with friends can sometimes (I hate to admit it) turn into production meetings about some funding round we must apply to or the state of the film industry. Even when I am asleep I often dream about films. Sometimes my dreams are black and white, sometimes 16-mil sometimes shot in the style of a home video. I even once had a dream in clay animation. It was about a whale in an aquarium. All the water was being drained from the aquarium and flooding out into street. Imagine bright blue cartoony waves and colourful sea urchins all in plasticine. Oh how I digress!
During the three days we also learnt more about the history of the Fulbright program, which began in 1946 by Senator J. William Fulbright. He was a unique and inspiring politician often challenging the political views of the time, fighting for change in the direction of Vietnam, and bravely challenging the views of his own party (including the President).
As a young man Fulbright had the opportunity of visiting England on a Rhodes scholarship. This was an experience that changed his life dramatically, and inspired him to create his own exchange program in America. Apart from the fantastic opportunity of giving students around the world access to more educational opportunities, which they might not have in their own countries, Fulbright wanted his program to “foster leadership, learning and empathy between cultures”.
I think this concept is what makes the program so worthy. The exchange was set up only two weeks after Hiroshima and Fulbright was scared of the potential for a World War III to begin. He also used the scholarship to cancel post-war debt between countries.
Apparently when the Fulbright Act was first signed it was a bit of a non-event. But now it exists in hundreds of countries and is considered one of the most prestigious exchange programs in the world. Alumni include many well-known leaders, Nobel Prize winners, and artists.
I got to Auckland late last night loosing my cell phone some where between the airport and my car. I am feeling quite tired after such an eventful few days, but at least I’ve finally got something tangible to write about. I think I’ve spent too much time in my dark editing room, which has made me a little boring with not much to say. Hopefully when I venture off to the States I will sound even more interesting… and RIP Michael Jackson.
Kia ora tatou, I guess I should introduce myself. I am a New Zealand filmmaker about to begin my Masters at Stanford University’s two year MFA program in Documentary Film.
I will be leaving my home town in Te Henga, West Auckland, in September, with a lot of significant ‘unknowns’ ahead of me. I’ve still got to find a whole lot of money to pay for the fees of my second year (American Universities are very expensive).
I will be living with a family who I have not yet met, and in return for free accommodation and food I will be helping out with some house work and children’s educational activities each week.
In addition to this, I also have to finish my three-year documentary film project, There Once was an Island, before I leave! The documentary is a climate change story about the remote island of Takuu in Papua New Guinea, check out the websites for more information: http://www.thereoncewasanisland.com, www.takuufilm.blogspot.com.
Tomorrow I am flying down to Wellington for the Fulbright Awards Ceremony, where I will be gratefully receiving a General Fulbright Award at Parliament, to support my study (thanks Fulbright). This is kind of significant as I guess it marks the beginning of my journey, and makes it an appropriate time to write my first post.
I hope you decide to join me on this crazy journey, become a follower and I promise to write something interesting soon.
