anyone else there, since the floor is primarily faculty offices. The room is large enough for my purposes, and empty except for a lone filing cabinet in one corner, so I can dance freely. There’s a window to let in daylight, and an outlet near the floor where I can plug in my portable iPod speaker dock.
I retreat there between classes, keeping the music turned low and the door locked. I find a song that hits me in the place within where movement lives, and I let go. I just move, just let my body flow. There’s no choreography, no rules, no expectations, no hunger or grades or homework or loneliness. Just the extension, the leap and the roll and the pirouette and the power of my legs, the tension in my core. I can be totally me there.
My first year goes fine. I’ve gotten a lot of the prerequisite courses out of the way, the English and the chemistry and the two semesters of a foreign language. My second year begins with my first mid-level courses and a few introductory film production classes. The absence of funds means I rarely leave the campus. I spend my days in lecture, taking notes, or in my dorm room doing homework. Lizzie is gone most of the time, often coming back at all hours, reeking of alcohol. She invited me to a party once, but I declined. I’m not interested.
My father never contacts me.
My twentieth birthday passes unnoticed. I spend it writing an essay for Metropolis on the use of camera angles and shot length. I’m not making any friends. I don’t know how to make the effort.
The only thing keeping me sane through this whole process is school. To most people, college is work. It’s something they have to go through to get on with their lives; for me, this is my life. For me, it’s not just about sitting through lectures and writing essays, it’s about learning a craft, a trade. I’m soaking up everything I can about film, about the process of taking an idea from some notes scrawled on a legal pad to a film on a big screen. I watch films in every spare moment, and I dissect them. I have my Flip camera everywhere I go, making short films about anything and everything. Most of those pieces are vignettes, just momentary slices of life set to music. They’re as much expression to me as dancing.
I’m halfway through my sophomore year when I get summoned to the financial aid office. It comes by way of a letter written in vague language saying there’s an issue with my status. Or something. I barely read it. I find my way to the office with its gray tile floor and gray pillars and red leather ottomans and partial cubicle offices. After a thirty-minute wait, I’m summoned by a woman in her mid-thirties with mocha skin and short, kinky black hair.
“Hi, Grey. I’m Anya Miller.”
“Hi, Mrs. Miller. I got a notice from this office about my financial aid.”
“Call me Anya, please.” She takes my student ID card and brings up my file, reading it with an increasingly blank expression, the kind of look that says she has news I won’t like. “Well, Grey. Your scholarships have been covering nearly all of your tuition and your book costs, as well as room and board. Unfortunately, you’ve used up most of the scholarship funds. You have enough to finish out this year, fully covered. Or you can stretch it out and it’ll cover some of your tuition, but not all. You’re listed as an independent, which means you’re capable of supporting yourself. If you were listed as a dependent on your parents and their income was low enough, you would qualify for financial aid. But since you’re an independent, you can work to support yourself.”
“How can it just run out? I thought it was a loan? Like, it would just keep piling on? I mean…what am I supposed to do?”
Anya just gives me a sympathetic look that says she doesn’t have much in the way of answers. “It was a grant, and it was a finite amount of money. This should have been explained to you. You might qualify for a
I retreat there between classes, keeping the music turned low and the door locked. I find a song that hits me in the place within where movement lives, and I let go. I just move, just let my body flow. There’s no choreography, no rules, no expectations, no hunger or grades or homework or loneliness. Just the extension, the leap and the roll and the pirouette and the power of my legs, the tension in my core. I can be totally me there.
My first year goes fine. I’ve gotten a lot of the prerequisite courses out of the way, the English and the chemistry and the two semesters of a foreign language. My second year begins with my first mid-level courses and a few introductory film production classes. The absence of funds means I rarely leave the campus. I spend my days in lecture, taking notes, or in my dorm room doing homework. Lizzie is gone most of the time, often coming back at all hours, reeking of alcohol. She invited me to a party once, but I declined. I’m not interested.
My father never contacts me.
My twentieth birthday passes unnoticed. I spend it writing an essay for Metropolis on the use of camera angles and shot length. I’m not making any friends. I don’t know how to make the effort.
The only thing keeping me sane through this whole process is school. To most people, college is work. It’s something they have to go through to get on with their lives; for me, this is my life. For me, it’s not just about sitting through lectures and writing essays, it’s about learning a craft, a trade. I’m soaking up everything I can about film, about the process of taking an idea from some notes scrawled on a legal pad to a film on a big screen. I watch films in every spare moment, and I dissect them. I have my Flip camera everywhere I go, making short films about anything and everything. Most of those pieces are vignettes, just momentary slices of life set to music. They’re as much expression to me as dancing.
I’m halfway through my sophomore year when I get summoned to the financial aid office. It comes by way of a letter written in vague language saying there’s an issue with my status. Or something. I barely read it. I find my way to the office with its gray tile floor and gray pillars and red leather ottomans and partial cubicle offices. After a thirty-minute wait, I’m summoned by a woman in her mid-thirties with mocha skin and short, kinky black hair.
“Hi, Grey. I’m Anya Miller.”
“Hi, Mrs. Miller. I got a notice from this office about my financial aid.”
“Call me Anya, please.” She takes my student ID card and brings up my file, reading it with an increasingly blank expression, the kind of look that says she has news I won’t like. “Well, Grey. Your scholarships have been covering nearly all of your tuition and your book costs, as well as room and board. Unfortunately, you’ve used up most of the scholarship funds. You have enough to finish out this year, fully covered. Or you can stretch it out and it’ll cover some of your tuition, but not all. You’re listed as an independent, which means you’re capable of supporting yourself. If you were listed as a dependent on your parents and their income was low enough, you would qualify for financial aid. But since you’re an independent, you can work to support yourself.”
“How can it just run out? I thought it was a loan? Like, it would just keep piling on? I mean…what am I supposed to do?”
Anya just gives me a sympathetic look that says she doesn’t have much in the way of answers. “It was a grant, and it was a finite amount of money. This should have been explained to you. You might qualify for a
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