It is March 28. Exactly one month before I must march to the Graduate Studies office at Emerson College and turn in my Master's Project. 

I am petrified.

It isn't like I haven't been doing anything, but I definitely haven't been doing enough. I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT I ONLY HAVE ONE MONTH TO FINISH THIS DOCUMENTARY. I think I am officially entering freak-out zone as I type this post. 

Things I have done towards completion of the piece: purchased a widescreen monitor to maximize productivity / enhance my working space, was the lucky recipient of a full Apple keyboard (thank you Seth--this helps so much), cut the full length interviews into seven subjects/sections and placed in Pro Tools timeline (Courtship, Before, Cracks, Divorce, Post, Now, Siblings), edited the Courtship and Before sections into rough cuts (just need to do that five more times, sigh), paper edited four of the remaining five sections (haven't quite gotten up the courage to tackle the epic Divorce section yet), and, finally, sat in my chair with every intent to work about 9238749238747 times. 

Things I have done that have kept me from completion of the piece: started work with a personal trainer and lowered my BMI by a few points, went through all my clothes and got rid of everything I don't wear or is now too big, impulsively purchased an iPod Touch, spent an entire day playing on said iPod Touch, visited Rachel in Burlington, Vermont, started a relationship with a sensational man, continued and strengthened a relationship with an even sensationaler Man, had long conversations face-to-face/on the phone/on Google Talk/through texts/on Facebook, started the search for a new roommate (started dreading the move of my current roommate), worked a full-time job (almost forgot about that!), nearly broke my ankle in a mildly embarrassing Zumba misstep, took on all sorts of projects that were decidedly not the one project I needed to be working on, and, finally, talked about how far behind I am on this project about 9238749238747 times. I'm pretty sure I did some other stuff in the past few weeks, too, but I am spending way too much of my now ludicrously precious, quickly diminishing time on this post.

My insanely industrious goal (that I really have to meet or I'll be totally and utterly screwed): Get a rough cut together by Monday, April 5. That is a week from tomorrow. I can do about two months worth of work in one week. Right?

I got my baby back with a new logic board, a new display, a new battery, and a new fan a mere nine hours after I dropped it off. My heart belongs to Apple.

I anticipate interviewing my mother and father next week. (Note to self: come up with interview questions structured around what stories and comments you're including from the sibling interviews.) I am in Boston. They dwell in the South. As such, these will be phone interviews. Though the audio quality will obviously be much poorer than that of the sibling interviews, I think I can definitely make this work to my aesthetic advantage. The phone recording will mark a significant divide between my siblings' perspectives and that of my parents. Mostly my point. We'll see what we get. 

So, the actual process of making these recordings happen. I am taking a week off from work in an attempt to make this project come together (goal: 79.999% completed). It is fantastic to actually have time to work on my creative endeavors, but there was a lot of pressure to take my vacation over Emerson's spring break (much easier on my bosses / department to not have me around). Since Emerson's labs and audio suites will be closed during the break, I have to come up with a production setup using only what I have to my name: Pro Tools. Mbox. MacBook. And since my goal of 79.999% completion is extremely lofty, I am doing all sorts of things to maximize productivity.

Things I need to do: Steal monitor and keyboard from my office. Try not to garner suspicion as I pack these into my car to take home. Set up laptop screen to be second monitor (more screen space equals more productivity). Buy a mini-DVI to VGA converter. (Update! A co-worker has one I can use for the week... money saved!) Pick up my laptop in a couple days. (My machine kept experiencing a glorious kernel panic. I was praying it was not due to issues with RAM since Seth and I upgraded it ourselves a while back [which voids all Apple Care Protection help]. Luckily it was the logic board. So, the lovely chap at the Genius Bar will replace that. For free. Glory be! While I was there, I asked about a few other nagging issues that I have ignored because I cannot bear life without a computer and I will get my baby back with a new display, a new fan, and a new battery. Yesssss. The only sad (and somewhat stressful) thing: I am without a computer (and thus without the ability to work at home) for the next couple of days. But all this was a preemptive measure... can you imagine if my laptop skeezed out on me over spring break? Cannot. Think. About. That.

Things I have already done: bought a real computer chair off Craigslist. It will be my constant companion for roughly 50 hours in one week, so I consider it a justifiable production cost. Only 20 bucks! Score. Farmed out my desperate transcription needs to the best friends and family of all time (add my visiting teacher Martha and good friend Nicky to that list). Went through all the recordings of random thoughts I have had along the way for potential inclusion in the final piece... I will need to re-record these if I end up using them (recorded thoughts as they struck me... you hear everything from cars to small children in the background). Figured out a method to record the phone calls with my parents abusing the capabilities of Skype with the loving assistance of Audio Hijack Pro (which is in my top five list of audio software).