skylarwoodward

my state is in a sad, um, state. even though we have the fifth largest economy in the world, we can’t muster enough funds to allow kids to play sports at school. starting next year, parents of students at Benicia High School will be paying according to a four-teir system for their kids to play school sports. if you’re the proud parent of an all-star football/basketball/track star you’ll be paying a pricy $1000 or more per year for your child’s after-school ambitions. even if he’s just a bench-warmer for JV hoops, it’s $425/year.

meanwhile, restrooms remain uncleaned, underpaid teachers gripe about having to take out their classroom’s trash, and we still can’t figure out how to build enough power station to keep the lights on the cafeterias. remind me again why we re-elected Gray Davis?!?

skylar would like note that taking out the trash was an assignable daily chore in North Carolina elementary schools. however, he personally preferred the task of cleaning the overhead projector.

today i got my first ride on a Segway thanks to a guy named larry. it was cool – just as i imagined, actually. a little shaky at first, but then you realize you DO need to have some sense of balance as leaning forward or backward makes you move. if you want to stay still, you’ve got to keep your balance, if only a bit.

i’m a little disappointed i didn’t get to zip around a parking lot at top speed – there was a lot of traffic from the Cinco de Mayo party at the googleplex. still, i’m very psyched about being given an opportunity for an early sampling!

this evening i saw Dopamine, the final film of the San Francisco Film Festival. if i had to sum it up from my own perspective, Dopamine is a film that shows what it’s like to fall in love in san francisco – not as a tourist, but as a local – sorta in the way Good Will Hunting does for Boston.

it was an awesome film in that it put on screen a lot of things that are within me and that have been in my world both in the past several months (since moving to san francisco) and throughout my life. i won’t go into what all those things are, but if you see this film (and you will – it comes to the Metreon in the fall and I’m going to make everyone i know see it) and you know me well, you’ll understand, or at least have some good guesses, as to what i’m talking about.

so i liked this film, not because it was film art and not because it told a tremendous or compelling story, but simply because it connected to me on many levels – some of those connection points being so new for me that no story or work has had the opportunity to do so thus far. as i was walking home (i took the walk from Castro theater all the way back to Scott & Sacramento) i had this awesome peace about me. i wasn’t looking to be anyone in particular, and i wasn’t looking to be with anyone. i was enjoying being in the city i call home, and just being me admist all of the characters and stories going on here. i think when you see intimate parts of you portrayed by someone else and portrayed as beautiful, especially when those parts can be confused, quirky, or even self-rejected, it leaves you with a great peace – a peace about how wonderfully and fearfully made you are, and you just need some time alone to take joy in that.

on a slight tangent, this film made a very strong assertion – one challenges some of my opinions on love. it makes the argument that love (more specifically, romance) is not something you work at, it is something drives you, stimulates and compells you, though that is not to say it doesn’t require you to “work” at it. i guess when i put it that way, it makes sense – love comes from God alone and even though it’s not always there compelling you in every instance, or even if love seems to fade as your connection to God weathers tough times, He is still there – still the one driving you. it’s not simply something you choose to do because you should or even want to think that you should. something to think about…

i also have to comment on this director. his name is Mark Decena and i have to say that i respect him for the fact that he did not make this film just to be “different,” to shock people, or even to please the artsy-fartsy folks with work that defies boundaries. he made this film because of something believed in – something that he wanted to share – and because of a dream within in him. i know that might sound very romantic and cliche, but it is something true and something makes him stand out amongst so many of the artists that seem to create their works to please their peers and the festival crowds.

and that’s all i have to say about that.