Lost Marbles

So, I suddenly got appointed "Volunteer Coordinator." By the time this happened, it was sort of late in the game because Charlie was supposed to do it, but he got overloaded with other things, and ran out of time. I was excited about my new responsibility because now I had a title, and I also got a film fest email address (caryn@aafilmfest.org) which sounded rather official and special. Actually, I had wanted to be the volunteer coordinator all along (since I'd volunteered in the past), but had never thought it an option because the job was taken early on. In any case, a chaotic increase in my email correspondence ensued, and I quickly became stressed.

It wasn't until Thursday afternoon that I realized I'd stopped functioning at maximum capacity. (Or, at the very least, the capacity at which I'd been functioning had decreased.) It started when I was sitting on the windowsill in Haven Hall, alternating my glance between a take-home midterm and the bike rack outside. I saw someone walk by that I recognized, and was quick to smile and say hello. I wanted to say his name, but I couldn't quite remember what it was. My first instinct was James, but it could have been David. James. David. James. I decided against including a name in the greeting. He stopped to chit-chat about four feet from where I was sitting. So, I said, did you do the midterm yet?
Oh, he said, I'll leave you alone then.
What?
I thought you said you were working on a test.
Er.
I was going to let you work on it.
Wait. What class are you in with me?
Sweetland?

Ohh. We tutored together every Sunday at the writing center, and it was James. I apologized profusely, trying to dig myself out of the hole I'd created. It was unfortunate for James to have to witness the day that I lost it. Oh well. Sorry, James.

The Vitamin Water Connection

Before the fest, if there wasn't a lot to do in the office on a given day, one project was to secure free items for the filmmakers "swag bags." I deemed this a daunting task, and never really knew what to do. One day, someone commented that Vitamin Water would be nice, so the filmmakers would have something to drink. So I said, fine. I'll look into it. I perused vitaminwater.com looking for a person to contact, or something, or anything. Then, from the other room, Donald said that if I needed help, he had a Vitamin Water connection. I thanked him and thought for a moment about how I'd forgotten that I, too, have a Vitamin Water connection. Alan, my neighbor two floors down in the dorm my freshman year always had cases of VW in his room. His mom was a nutritionist, and she got them for free. So, I called him up, and got his mother's email address. Fast forward to a few emails later, and cases "Defense," (the purple-ish one) and "Power-C" (the pink-ish one) were en route to the AAFF.

Probably Overestimated

Not too long after the website episode, Christen sent me an email saying that I'd been doing a good job lately. Would I like to take on more responsibilities? I said that I would. I was flattered that she wanted me to be a bigger part of the festival, but at the same time I felt that I'd been overestimated. I fixed the writing style on the webpage because that sort of thing is just a pet-peeve of mine, and I feel compelled to correct it when I see it. I actually don't take initiative on a regular basis. I hope I don't end up being a disappointment.

No Grammar-Bitch

I decided to include a short bit about the funding controversy in the newsletter. I thought maybe I could pull something from the website, so I went to the page dedicated to the controversy, and I read it. It was horrible. Sure, there were subject-verb disagreements, but I'm no grammar-bitch. This was a tone catastrophe. I don't think it could have been much worse, really. Even if it started raining, it wouldn't have mattered because it was already at rock-bottom. I read it and I felt angry towards the Ann Arbor Film Festival, which indicated to me that something was very wrong. I knew all about the issue, and was one-hundred percent supportive of the festival. However, the tone of the write-up was so hostile that it left me with the opposite response as was its intention. Oh my god, I thought. I am going to have to save this.

My first move was to print out the page and mark all of the problems. There were quite a few, but once I had them identified, I could go through them one by one. I think I kept the meat of the article intact, but just made some different word choices and deleted the sarcasm. Prior to this endeavor, I felt as though I could not take initiative, like the other interns, and that was why I was left task-less and unimportant at the January meeting. Now I felt a little better, and my revisions went up right away.

Musical Chairs

After expressing interest in becoming an intern at the Ann Arbor Film Festival last fall, I was invited to the office for an interview. What the director, Christen, really wanted to know was what sort of work I was interested in doing at the festival. I had no idea that I would have choices, let alone what the choices were. Christen asked me if I liked talking to people, and I said, sure. Or, there was more detail-oriented work to be done. That'd be fine, I said. I really didn't know.

At the beginning we all had a common task: Enter the films into the database and label the preview copies. Once the extended deadline passed, however, my daily jobs varied more and more, and I didn't have any ongoing projects to work on. Upon return from Winter Break, we had an intern meeting at the office. It was then I realized that Maria was doing print traffic. Kelsey had graphic design. Aaron was putting together the swag bags. Meghann was in charge of publicity. The list seemed to go on. Weeks before, Christen mentioned to me the possibility of being the Housing Coordinator, and I recalled this at the meeting. Actually, Christen said, I think Myrna is going to do it. I suddenly felt very down, and like I'd lost a game of musical chairs. But just then, Christen had something. The newsletter, she said, you can be in charge of the newsletter.