Category Archives: Personal Updates

USFiasco

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I’ve been doing mini-rants on my Twitter/Facebook feeds about a letter I got from the University of South Florida for the last hour or so. I have decided to encapsulate my frustrations and conclusions here to spare anyone additional spam.

I received my Associate of the Arts degree from St. Petersburg College in December of 2005. I graduated with a GPA of 3.241. Shortly after graduation I applied for admission to the University of South Florida, but I never actually finished the application process. Life got a bit on the busy side, and I let things slide for a few years.

I recently applied again, hoping to finally start working on my Bachelors degree in the Spring. A few days after applying I went to check on the status and was greeted with a “you will be notified by mail of our decision.”

This is never a good sign. I’ve heard that statement far too many times when applying for credit. It always means “we’re telling you no, but we aren’t going to tell you to your face. We have to put this in WRITING.”

So the letter arrived today. Sure enough, I have been rejected. Why? I have completed less than 60% of the classes I have attempted in my post-secondary career. When I first read this I was livid. I ran the numbers and they didn’t add up. I was sure they had made a mistake.

They did not.

I have left a message with the Dean of Admissions, but after pulling transcripts and doing all the math myself here is what I have come up with. I have attempted 135 hours. I have completed 79. This means I have completed 58.51% of the classes I have attempted. In order to be eligible for admission to USF I need to pass 7 more credit hours worth of classes before I am eligible for admission. I am going to discuss this with them and get definite numbers, but this looks to be the position I am in.

I am angry, hurt, frustrated, and annoyed by this. I will not, however, let it defeat me. I still need to get my foreign language requirements in. I have a few grades on my transcript that are F’s that do not need to be taken for my degree. I have some classes I can take to give them what they want, and I will do so.

I will be a USF student one day. I will get my degree. I will not let this hold me back from improving myself.

I won’t.

UPDATE (3:58 PM EST)

Well….This sucks a big bag of flaccid manhood.

Apparently USF counts all attempts toward taking a class in figuring out your attempted to completed ratio, even if you’ve taken the class over again for credit. Saint Petersburg College does not, so those numbers weren’t being figured in to the ones I was working with.

Here’s what I’m facing with USF…

Total hours attempted – 143

Total hours completed – 76

Percentage – 53%

In order to be CONSIDERED for admission under the standard guidelines I need to take and pass 23 credit hours worth of classes. In order to guarantee it, though?

Another 60.

Anything less than 67% requires review by the admissions panel.

I have been told that I would be accepted at any of the other USF campuses. The major I wish to take is only offered at the USF Tampa campus. My only course of action at this point is to write a letter of appeal to the director of undergraduate admissions.

I know for a fact that I can get 16 hours of work in that I NEED to have done for my BA at SPC. Beyond that I am unsure.

This requires some additional thought and decision making.

I’m afraid of Americans

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It is currently 7:30 AM on Tuesday, August 31st, 2010. I am on vacation, and will be until next Thursday. Krystalle, Rafe and I will be leaving very early Thursday morning to drive to Atlanta for Dragon*Con, but for now I am simply taking some time off and generally trying to relax.

I am…restless.

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A brief memory (Young love)

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Recently a friend of mine posted in her blog about some of her first loves. Reading that got me to thinking about my first girlfriend, Lynnetta Boehle.

We dated for a few weeks when we were in the 8th grade. Then she moved. I have suspected on more than one occasion that the only reason she agreed to date me in the first place is because we were friends and she knew that it would only last a short time before she was in another state. The reason I suspect this is because after she moved she never returned any of my letters to her.

What I recall of our brief relationship was pretty awesome, though. She was a great kisser, and she didn’t seem to shy away from the fact that I called her my Black Cat (and I was, of course, her Spider-Man…yes, that’s right…my pet names for us were based on my favorite comic book).

I found out that our relationship was over when she sent a letter to one of our mutual friends talking about her new boyfriend and wondering how she was going to tell me. Considering the fact that she hadn’t said word one to me since she moved I’m not sure exactly why that was a concern, but hey…we were young. I’m pretty sure that she knew I’d find out from said mutual friend.

Lynnetta moved back to the area a few years later and ended up at my high school. In an effort to re-kindle our relationship I took the bold step of “borrowing” my Mom’s car while she was out of town on vacation, picking her up at her bus stop, and taking her back to my place to skip school for the day. In an utterly awesome romantic mood I threw a movie into the VCR to get her to relax and have a good time.

You know what movie it was?

Transformers : The Movie.

Yeah.

In High School. 10th grade, I think. My idea of “woo” was to show the girl I liked a cartoon about giant fucking robots.

I sometimes wonder how I ever managed to actually breed.

Jumping around like an idiot

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Image by geishaboy500 via flickr

It’s a Saturday night, and I am in the process of firming up the fact that I am the best Dad ever.

You see, as opposed to sitting at home futzing around on my computer or even, perhaps, going out on the town I am sitting in the lounge of an indoor Parkour track that is located in Odessa, Florida. Have you not heard of Odessa, Florida? Yeah, neither have I, really. It’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere, about an hour from our house. There are no decent places to hang out anywhere near here, unless you consider McDonalds a “decent” place to hang out (and even that is about 10 minutes or so away). Why am I sitting in this lounge, you may ask? Because my son has recently been intensely interested in Parkour, and he really wanted to come up here and take the two hour class that they are offering.

So. Here I am.

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Huge successes and epic failures

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You see that one? You see that utter and complete failure personified right there?

That represents my roll to keep this blog updated more often. Wow. Talk about critical failures. I haven’t updated in over two months. It’s certainly not that there hasn’t been stuff to write about, I just…I don’t know what. No inspiration? Lack of energy? Total eclipse of the heart?

Turn around, bright eyes.

Anyway, I thought I’d make some kind of lame effort to put content out here this morning as I’m up particularly early thanks to an overwhelming need to urinate and a gnawing hunger in my belly. Yes, you totally needed to know that.

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30 Days Of Music: Day 5 – A song that reminds you of someone

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Several of these choices have taken me some time to decide on, but this one was a given from the moment I saw the title.

My Father and I didn’t have a whole heck of a lot in common. He was raised on a farm and wore cowboy boots even if he had shorts on. He spent his entire life working with his hands. He served in the military. His favorite author was Louis Lamour. He was a good old boy in every sense of the word.

Obviously, this is not me.

Given all that, it’s probably pretty obvious that he was a big fan of Country music. I, for the record, am not. There are artists from that genre who I admire a great deal though, and one artist who I shared a love with my Father for was Johnny Cash.

I first heard this song several years after my Father passed away, and the minute I did it instantly became “his” song in my mind. As a Nine Inch Nails fan, it seemed to perfectly bridge the gap between our two worlds. Not only that, but the message of the song itself strongly resonates with the demons my Father dealt with in his life (He was an alcoholic and only sobered up for real in his last few years).

Most of the time when I hear this song I am overcome by sadness as I remember my Father and wish he were still here. He never got to see me perform on stage, and my son hardly remembers him. He was, despite his many flaws, a good man. A decent man who made a lot of mistakes but really made an effort to try and make up for them.

I miss him.

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30 Days Of Music: Day 4 – A song that makes you sad

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I think about this song a lot.

I have a good life, and I don’t want to ever give the impression that I do not. I have a wonderful son, a wonderful other half, a home, and a good job. I act on a fairly regular basis, and I’m moderately active in social networking circles. I’ve got it pretty good.

I am, however, acutely aware of the missed opportunities in my life. Two things, in particular. I am aware of how much damage I did to my body by not making the conscious choice to be healthy until my late twenties, and of how I pissed away the opportunity to actually go to college full time. More so than my weight, the fact that I did not take my education seriously until it was far too late for me to devote all of my energy to it is a constant source of shame and sadness for me.

I had a taste of what is described in this song. One small, fleeting moment in my life that I can still remember vividly to this day. Six months that I absolutely pissed away and which I describe as being miserably lonely, and yet I can recall countless moments from that time period that still make me smile to this day.

Such as…

The first day of orientation and how excited and nervous I was. Sitting in the Student Hall surrounded by other students like myself and feeling all of that energy in the room.

Sharing a cigarette with my English professor on the steps of the building our class was in and realizing that we were sitting right next to the spot where George Wallace protested the integration of the University of Alabama.

The first time I went to the gamers meeting and realizing that I wasn’t the only geek on campus.

Seeing comedian Henry Cho at the campus nightclub, and how he was having so much fun just telling us stories about his college days that he went about an hour over when he was supposed to finish.

Spending my Sundays with old family friends at their home outside of Tuscaloosa watching the Buccaneers play.

The absolute stunning beauty of the campus at the University of Alabama.

The parade of honking cars that snaked all over campus the night we beat the Auburn.

Hanging out with my Hall Monitor and thinking that the math he was studying was something I’d never even come close to comprehending.

Watching Twin Peaks in the basement of Mann Hall, the residence hall on campus that didn’t have monitors because you basically had to be a MENSA member to get in. As a result it was the place where you could score the best drugs and there was ALWAYS some kind of party going on.

I could go on, but I need to get ready to go to work and as much as I am enjoying this trip down memory lane there’s nothing I can do to get these experiences back. That’s why this song makes me sad. If I had simply done the bare minimum…just put out SOME kind of effort…I could have had four or more years to build these kind of memories. I am, alas, stuck with a mere six months.

More than some people get for sure, but not nearly enough by far.

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The Reviews Are In (Dead Man’s Cell Phone)

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As has become the tradition here on my little ol’ blog, I am posting up links to all three major reviews that have come in for Dead Man’s Cell Phone. For the most part, they are overwhelmingly positive. There are some quibbles about the script itself, but even with those caveats all three critics had tons of lovely things to say about our little production.

“A fine production of Dead Man’s Cell Phone, an imaginative if flawed play by the ubiquitous Sarah Ruhl” – Mark E. Leib, Creative Loafing, June 9th, 2010

“‘Dead Man’s Cell Phone’ starts out strong, then fades out” – Marty Clear, The St. Petersburg Times, June 10th, 2010

“‘Cell Phone’ message is loud and clear” – Kathy L. Greenberg, The Tampa Tribune, June 10th, 2010

I’ve said it before, but I’ll emphasize here again. I don’t do what I do just to get a nice review, but I sure as hell don’t mind it when that happens. All three of these reviews are awesome, and two of them are especially complimentary to me personally. Mark says that it might be my best performance, and Marty refers to me as “always excellent.” I’ve heard similar comments from some of my peers who have seen the show.

Is this my best work? I honestly don’t know. I can tell you that it’s some of my most honest. I can tell you that the things that have been praised about the show are things that the cast and crew consciously worked on and that they were not “happy accidents.” I can tell you that the audiences that have seen the show so far have seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves and that we’ve been getting lots of positive feedback on Facebook and Twitter.

Another show that I got high praise on, personally, was Playing with Fire : After Frankenstein. Unfortunately, in the realm of ticket sales, not a lot of people came to see that show (despite great feedback and positive reviews). I hope that doesn’t turn out to be the case again.

Please, if you can possibly spare the time, give us an opportunity to entertain you for an evening. I promise you that you won’t regret it. If money is an issue please contact me directly. We have several means to get discounted tickets available and can possibly work something out to help you get into a seat.

If this sounds a little early for me to be all desperate and pleading…It’s only because I’m proud of the work and I want to share it with you. I have had people tell me that they “wished they could have” seen one of the shows so many times it makes my head spin. Don’t be that person!

Sunday in the office with Mike

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There is a stillness to the world when you’re up at 7:30 AM on a Sunday morning. At least there is in my house. No televisions are on. No music is playing. Nobody is walking through my office to get to the kitchen or sitting in the living room playing on a console. It’s nice, but at the same time it’s somewhat disturbing. I truly enjoy moments of quiet and solitude when I can find them, but when they occur at any time after the sun comes up it feels somewhat unnatural.

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Are you there, God? It’s me, Michael.

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The post that follows is not intended as an attack on any individuals religious beliefs, nor is it intended to offend. It is an honest account of my personal feelings on a very sensitive subject. If you read on, please understand that this is how I feel about the subject and respect that. I will do the same for you.

I did a search on the old blog here and have discovered that, much to my surprise, I do not seem to have ever chronicled the story behind what prompted me to turn my back on God. I’ve told the story many times in the past, but for some reason I don’t seem to have ever jotted it down here.

As some of you are aware I was recently in a church production called “The Case For Christ” in which I actually played Jesus. I did this as a favor for a former teacher of mine from middle school who was a key player in my early development as an actor and who I will, as a result, always owe a debt of gratitude to. Beyond that, I consider her a friend. One of my super close inner circle? No, perhaps not. But she was one of those people who actually treated me like a human being back when I wasn’t even sure I was one, and during those transitional years when you are crossing from childhood to being a young adult it’s important who have people that treat you like you didn’t just step out of diapers the day before. She did that, and she’s awesome for it.

The play in and of itself was written and being performed by members of her church. This was not something that was intended to be a piece of high art. It was intended to tell part of the story of Jesus and to, perhaps, convince some people to accept him into their lives. It was, for all intents and purposes, a sermon in theatrical format.

I won’t go into too much more detail about the play itself, as it will one day be an episode in my podcast about the theater. Suffice it to say that before I agreed to do the show I warned her that I was an agnostic and that I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable if they found that out. She assured me that it was ok, and as a favor to her I agreed to do the show.

In the aftermath she sent me an email to ask about my beliefs. I thought I’d be able to take the easy way out and point her to a post here. When I realized that I could not do so, I decided I’d go ahead and correct that oversight.

So here we go.

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