September

I finally have the time to update this site. Interlochen Arts Academy is very intense. By the beginning of the second week of school we had already finished David Mamet’s book On Directing Film and read the entire script to Thelma and Louise, only to begin reading the script for The Incredibles, which we finished Friday. Now I have to read the script for The Graduate and work on three writing assignments, while studying for the SAT Subject Test for U.S. History in my spare time.

It’s nice, though, because almost everyone is studying right after dinner. Books are put away around 8 or 9pm and then there’s a lot of socializing until sign-in at 10pm on school days. After sign-in, people hang out with their friends that live in the same dorm until 11pm, which is when we have to be in our rooms.

So, although we do have classes from 8am to 5pm and then we study until about 9pm, it’s a very social atmosphere. Plus, the Thursday schedule is different in that we don’t always have academic classes that day. For instance, we’ll just have to go watch a video for a history class or meet briefly with the math class. After lunch, we meet with our arts department for however long is necessary and then the class day is over. Thursdays provide a nice break in the middle of the week that let us get some extra work done. (Like focus days at the Zoo School.)

A few days ago, Andrew David (director of The Fugitive and Holes) came with Joel McNeely (composer for Holes and Pooh’s Heffalump Movie) to talk to us. They screened Holes for anybody that was interested and I got to sit right next to Andy Davis and Joel. The next day, they came to one of my motion picture classes and screened Andy Davis’s first feature film.

On Saturday, we got to hear Victoria Clark speak. It was an all-school event, in which President Kimpton of Interlochen Center for the Arts and David Montee (the director of the theatre department here) set up an Inside the Actor’s Studio type event. I don’t know if I really got anything out of hearing her speak, but it was very entertaining. The event was recorded and should be available as podcast sometime soon on the Interlochen website.

Also on Saturday night was what is called Coffee House, which is a talent show that the students put on. It was really a lot of fun. They were asking for confessions and secrets to be turned in so that they could be shared anonymously with the everyone there. The confessions were hilarious. There were some of people walking in on their friends or parents having sex to how they had a crush on teachers/counselors here at the school.

Yesterday was the senior trip to Mackinac Island. There is only one car on the island, and it is the fire engine. It’s a huge tourist location with bike rental everywhere. I wanted to rent a bicycle and bike around the 8-mile island, but instead I rode a horse through the forest. My horse was lazy and would get going very slowly, so the guide gave me a stick to hit my horse with and put me in the lead. It was a great trip, except for waiting to get on the ferry to leave the island. What happened was that I ate a lot of ice cream and then played freeze tag, so I felt incredibly sick. I got better, though, and I did not throw up at all.