Dean D'Agati (dotcom)

Last week in my writing class, my teacher was telling us about some candy store downtown. When we asked if we could go, she said that yeah we’d take a field trip there next week.

I feel like most of us (myself included) didn’t think she was serious. Before class today, we started scheming of ways to remind her that she promised us a trip to a candy store, but when she walked in, she had printed maps directing us from NYU to Economy Candy on Rivington Street.

best. class. ever.

dean Pictures, Text candy, class, downtown, field trip, nyc, nyu, tisch, writing

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

Today in my Hollywood Auteurs class we watched Marie Antoinette. It’s a pretty chill class because pretty much every week, we watch a movie, and then spend a little time discussing it afterward.

Today’s class started off the same way it normally does: my teacher came in late, and we watched the movie. I had never seen it before, and it was pretty good, but when it was over, my teacher turns on the lights, comes to the front of the class and says (in his heavy Italian accent): “Okay so today we are going to discuss Marie Antoinette, with the editor of the movie.”

Turns out Sarah Flack, the editor of Marie Antoinette, was sitting in the back of the room the whole time, and she told us about the experience and took questions. Sarah has edited some LEGIT movies too like Away We Go, Dan in Real Life, and Lost in Translation.

She was really nice and I’m glad she came. Her newest movie, Somewhere, comes out later this year so look out for that.

Also, NYU Tisch Film class of 2014 & CCHS class of 2010 student, Nicole Payton, and I went on a little adventure in the snow today. Sweet.

dean Pictures, Text class, editing, film, hollywood auteurs, marie antoinette, nyc, nyu, sarah flack, tisch

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

I’m the kind of person where if I wake up late, or something is causing me to be late to class, I might as well take my time and be REALLY late to class. I’m already late right? But this morning, the first day of second semester and the first day of my new classes was really not a good time to use my “really late” theory of living.

I had class at 9:30 AM. Being the first day day and all, I set my iPhone alarm for 8 just to be safe. It went off as expected, so I hit snooze, as expected. It came back 9 minutes later to which I hit snooze again. But this time, it never came back.

I don’t know if I accidentally shut it off or what (I’ve been using it as my alarm clock since high school) but the next thing I know, it’s 9:10, I’m still in bed, and I live 20 blocks (about a 20 minute walk) from the building I need to be at.

I jumped out of bed, brushed my teeth, did the morning routine stuff in about 10 minutes and left the room at 9:20. Long story short: I got to class 2 minutes early! There happened to be an available cab right outside which I hopped in, paid the driver way too much, and made it to Tisch with two minutes to spare.

Tomorrow class starts at 11… so hopefully day 2 will go a little smoother.

dean Text alarm, cab, class, iphone, late, nyc, nyu, wake up

Well, my Winter Break doesn’t officially end until January 19th, but yesterday I decided that since I miss school so much (no.), I’d see what a class at UCF is really like. Granted, it was the first day, so this class of 500 kids pretty much consisted of the professor (who was somewhat of a dick) going over the syllabus. But I never have classes that big, nor have I ever been to a class at a Florida college, so it was a crazy experience. (Actually, my phone wasn’t working so it was terrible.)

I also spent a good portion of the day roaming around UCF with Jenny. She showed me some of the secret awesome places around here that nobody seems to know about for some reason. (I literally drained my iPhone battery taking pictures so they’ll all be up on Facebook when I get home.)

Then we went to David’s soccer game. That was…. cold. But good! Because it was all Cooper kids playing, hah. A little hypothermia is good for you anyway.

After the soccer game on the frozen tundra turf fields of UCF, we all headed to what is apparently the place to go for pizza in Orlando: Lazy Moon. They have the biggest pizza slices you’ve ever seen in your life. Exhibit A:

And finally, I ended the day by chilling at Emily & Amanda’s apartment, which I think is incredibly nice. They have almost as much space as David’s house, and four bathrooms?! Come on! Then of course Mandy put me to work grating cheese or whatever, and then a lot of people showed up, and then the fire alarm went off. But it all added to the excitement of the party.

Also, there are insane amounts of hot people at UCF. Did I mention that?

Now I’m packing up to head out of here… but I’m not going South back to tha Coop though, nor am I going North back up to New York. See you in a few hours, Gainesville ;)

dean Pictures, Text apartment, cheese, class, cold, david, florida, hypothermia, lazy moon, orlando, party, pizza, soccer, ucf