Dean D'Agati (dotcom)

Today was a rainy, cold, miserable day, which is why I opted to do some of my favorite rainy day activities: class, train rides, and chillaxin at JFK Int’l Airport!

So my parents & sister were flying up to Vermont today so that they could check out some Vermont colleges that my sister might be interested in (lol, I know). To fly from Ft. Laud to Vermont, you have to connect here in New York at JFK and while their flight here was no problem, their 11am flight to Vermont was cancelled. jetBlue couldn’t put them on another flight until 5pm, so that meant 6 hours in T5 @ JFK.

Lucky for them I’m an amazing son/brother and went to Queens to hang out with them at the airport (I mean, it was a legit reason to skip class so who wouldn’t!?)

But after an 11AM class, 5 train rides, and a 6:30PM class, I’m exhausted…. counting down the days to summer….

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dean Pictures, Polls, Text airport, class, family, jfk, nyc, nyu, skip, summer, train, vermont

Spring Break was good.

I didn’t do anything amazing.

I didn’t break out the beer bong at the beach like the Miami Herald thinks I should have.

I hung around Florida with friends, slept, and got to wear t-shirts for the first time in months.

Spring Break was good.

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This morning, I woke up to a phone call at 7:00am. Normally, I hate when phone calls wake me up since they are usually a recorded message telling me I’ve won a free 3-day, 4-night all-inclusive trip to the Orlando resort area, but this time was different. This time, it was a call from NYU alerting me that all classes today have been cancelled and that the University is closed. SNOW DAY NUMBER 2!

I was supposed to work today, though. I kind of wanted the hours since I only get 4 a week, but whatever.

It’s still snowing outside. We’ve gotten over 20 inches so far, which is ridiculous. All kinds of record breaking.

Here are some pics I took today and yesterday. I didn’t go out in it this time. I’m ready for Spring, yo. Click for full size.

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dean Pictures, Polls, Text 7am, cancelled, cold, no school, nyc, nyu, snow, snow day, weather

That’s my dad in the 70’s.

Apparently we look alike but I’m not feelin it.

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dean Pictures, Polls, Text 70's, dad, old, pine crest, poll

How insane were the Grammys last night!?

I’m not really to into award shows, in general. They are extremely long and incredibly boring. Sure, I’ve seen a few MTV award shows in my day… I was watching when Kanye didn’t let Taylor finish. But the bigger shows like the Oscars and the Grammys and whatever other 9,000 award shows there are don’t usually interest me.

It was my roommate who said “Aren’t the Grammys on tonight?” that even made me turn on the TV, and I’m glad I did because that show was SICK. Did they even give out any awards? I think I saw like two. The performances made the show by far. Let’s do a poll! (lol, these are fun.)

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Also, just for the record. I’m HAPPY freakin’ Lady Gaga didn’t win album of the year. There was some uproar about it on Facebook last night. I believe Taylor Slingerland told me to “go die in a ditch we arent friends anymore” when I shared my opinion with him. But even though Gaga went to NYU, she’s creepy and I hate her. Go t-swizzle.

dean Polls, Text awards, cbs, gaga, grammys, music, nyu, taylor swift, tv

We are now two weeks into second semester and it’s time for my “here’s what I’m taking this semester” post that rambles on for much longer than it should. LET’S DO IT! YAY

So my original plan for this semester was to take a light course load, so that I’d have time to put in lots of hours at my new job (working as a TA in the NYU TV Studios). Problem is, I haven’t started working yet (that’s next week), but the homework is already starting to pile up.

I’m not taking a production class this semester, so unfortunately, I won’t be making any new film or tv productions until September 2010.

Here’s what I’m taking:

Writing The Short Screenplay (Writing Credit): This class is pretty much exactly like the Screenplay class I took last semester. It just focuses on writing short scripts that we can produce in later advanced production classes. I’m taking the same teacher I took last semester because, like she admitted on the first day, tears us apart when we write, but gives everybody A’s.

Intro to 3D Animation (Craft Credit): I’ve only been to this class once so far, but it is already beyond me. It’s really, really cool, but we use suchhh a complex program. It’s called Autodesk Maya, it costs several thousand dollars and it’s what they used for Avatar. My teacher is good but he sometimes forgets to tell us the shortcuts that he’s using which makes his directions difficult to follow. I like him though. He’s nice and understanding of the fact that we’ve never used this program before and have no idea what the difference between “grouping” and “parenting” is. Our homework on the first class was to make a 3D solar system in which the planets and moons can all rotate independently but also revolve around the sun. Here’s mine:

Hollywood Auteurs (History & Criticism Credit): Out of all the history & crit classes, I’ve heard that this one is the best. We literally just go in once a week, watch a movie, talk about it for a little bit and ditch. No homework. No papers. Pure awesome.

New York City Social History (GenEd Credit): This class. This is the class that’s going to kill me this semester. We are required to take a certain amount of GenEd classes that don’t relate to your major, so I picked this one because it sounded somewhat interesting, which it is, it’s just so much work. We have millions of pages of reading to do every week and then we have a discussion recitation class in which we have to talk about it in small groups…. not to mention submit a summary on Blackboard online… and write papers… and take tests. Sweet.

All in all, it’s really not a lot of class, but once I start my job my free time to do homework isn’t going to be as readily available as it is now. Still, I think it’s going to be a good semester.

Let’s do a poll!

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dean Pictures, Polls, Text animation, film, history, movies, nyc, nyu, school, script, second, semester, tisch, writing

Okay. Dilemma.

I have a class this semester that meets Monday & Wednesdays from 11-12:15. The professor is good and I like the class, however, its a hundred person class, so in order to give us that high school like experience that NYU loves so much, we have to go to a recitation class as well.

For anyone who doesn’t know: A recitation is an additional class of just 20 that meets once a week to discuss, in smaller groups, the topics that the professor is discussing in the larger class. However, for this class anyway, the professor isn’t the same in the recitation and the regular class. Grad students teach the recitation sections, and there’s five recitations to choose from with three different teachers. The grad students are also the ones grading all of our work for the class. (We’re actually graded on our participation in the class, so I have to be prepared and participate, which is terrible.)

I chose a Wednesday recitation that I went to this week, and let’s face it. It was just bad. For starters, I have this random old Indian lady in the class. It’s all rich NYU kids and some old lady. So weird. Then I’ve got your classic over achiever who did all the reading in advance and found it her duty to negate the point anyone else in the class was trying to make. Worst of all, however, is the teacher. He has an extremely heavy accent and started the class by saying “Yeah, so, the way I’m going to do this is I’m going to let you guys do all the work.” Thanks, buddy. I don’t want you grading me.

So here’s the problem: I can change to another recitation with a different teacher who I think is better (but I really don’t know). The class is on a Monday though, which I already have an 11am lecture class and a 6:30pm craft class (aka a lot of work), with this random long break in between.

I don’t know for sure if the new guy will be any better (although he does speak English). I don’t know if the kids in the class will be any better (although they’ve got pretty good odds). And I don’t know if I can handle that much work in one day. But the truth is, it makes the rest of the week a lot easier, so it’s probably worth it.

Almost everyone that I’ve talked to has told me to go ahead and change it… but I’m still open to any other advice anyone may have. Let’s do a poll.

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dean Polls, Text add/drop, busy, class, grad students, help, monday, nyc, nyu, old, over-achiever, poll, professor, recitation