FINALLY the Abu Dhabi Film Festival is over.
I entered it with great anticipation for the exciting, interesting people I would meet around every corner. Not celebrities, but just people from exotic lands with strange life stories. Yeah, right. The first new person I met was a woman who I never really got the name of. All I know is she is from Cameroon and she is studying film in Abu Dhabi...for some reason. And did I mention that she's crazy? Oh yeah, she is. I was partnered with her during my first volunteer shift at the Filmmaker booth. What a night-- our job was to wait for a filmmaker to arrive, say, "Hello, who is your liaison?", and then summon that liaison by telephone or by walking around aimlessly. A tree could do this job as well as we could. And on top of that, during the entire four-hour long shift not a SINGLE filmmaker arrived. Here is a sample of the 1,500-word record of my thoughts that I typed on my phone during the four hours to occupy myself:
"Arab lady over there is speaking German now. She also speaks English, Arabic, Italian, and French; this is all I know about her. She is my role model. CCL [Crazy Cameroon Lady] is taking pictures of herself. She just said, "Oh God, I'm so crazy". Yes, I knew it. Sprichst du Deutsch? Wahrscheinlich sprichst du besser Deutsch als ich."
Day 2 of volunteering wasn't SO bad. I was partnered with Yannick, a fellow NYUAD student, and he had much more interesting things to talk about than CCL, like Esperanto and crazy college life. If you happen to be reading this, Yannick, thanks so much! Third day I was paired with Nikhil, from India. Another not very eventful day, except that I had a conversation with a British filmmaker who said she couldn't tell where I was from by my accent because it was so "gentle" (which I took as a very nice compliment). Briefly I thought that my accent might actually be changing here but now I realize it only happens when I spend a lot of time with non-American-accented people, like Nikhil. Maybe after four years these accents will accumulate to mar my perfect Minnesotan one. SMILEY FACE. Day 4 passed with no eventfulness, bringing a gloomy end to my time with the ADFF. Will I do it again next year? Only if I need to bring home another 6,000 words of delusional stream-of-conscious rambling.
I entered it with great anticipation for the exciting, interesting people I would meet around every corner. Not celebrities, but just people from exotic lands with strange life stories. Yeah, right. The first new person I met was a woman who I never really got the name of. All I know is she is from Cameroon and she is studying film in Abu Dhabi...for some reason. And did I mention that she's crazy? Oh yeah, she is. I was partnered with her during my first volunteer shift at the Filmmaker booth. What a night-- our job was to wait for a filmmaker to arrive, say, "Hello, who is your liaison?", and then summon that liaison by telephone or by walking around aimlessly. A tree could do this job as well as we could. And on top of that, during the entire four-hour long shift not a SINGLE filmmaker arrived. Here is a sample of the 1,500-word record of my thoughts that I typed on my phone during the four hours to occupy myself:
"Arab lady over there is speaking German now. She also speaks English, Arabic, Italian, and French; this is all I know about her. She is my role model. CCL [Crazy Cameroon Lady] is taking pictures of herself. She just said, "Oh God, I'm so crazy". Yes, I knew it. Sprichst du Deutsch? Wahrscheinlich sprichst du besser Deutsch als ich."
Day 2 of volunteering wasn't SO bad. I was partnered with Yannick, a fellow NYUAD student, and he had much more interesting things to talk about than CCL, like Esperanto and crazy college life. If you happen to be reading this, Yannick, thanks so much! Third day I was paired with Nikhil, from India. Another not very eventful day, except that I had a conversation with a British filmmaker who said she couldn't tell where I was from by my accent because it was so "gentle" (which I took as a very nice compliment). Briefly I thought that my accent might actually be changing here but now I realize it only happens when I spend a lot of time with non-American-accented people, like Nikhil. Maybe after four years these accents will accumulate to mar my perfect Minnesotan one. SMILEY FACE. Day 4 passed with no eventfulness, bringing a gloomy end to my time with the ADFF. Will I do it again next year? Only if I need to bring home another 6,000 words of delusional stream-of-conscious rambling.
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