 attitude which we knew would make Mr Davidson proud of us! We also thought it was great fun and went on to light many more balls of cotton wool until it was someone else’s turn. Another activity made us think about Spring and the animals and birds that hibernate or migrate and return in the Spring. Using clay we made Hedgehogs out of Teasels and Swallows from cardboard cut-outs and we made nests and small dens for them to live in. We also made a big den, working as a team with Mrs Farley, but the tarpaulin kept blowing away! However, the best bit of all about Vines Woods is the mud!
Some of us got stuck in the mud and we had to build a bridge to rescue people! As if there wasn’t enough mud, others added water to make a mud slide down one of the banks! Mr Leeder wasn’t very impressed when we all tried to get back on the mini bus so Mrs Farley hosed down our wellies and we put our over- trousers in bin liners so Mums could sort it out later at home. Good old Mum!I'll likely be selling my all my drone equipment due to these new rules. For my work, I'd rather reduce my services to pilot for hire and consultant since I typically do work for institutions and feds; I'm usually using their equipment anyway. It is a shame it has come to this but I have no interest in constantly chasing FAA equipment requirements as part of my business.Jaws was classified ‘A’, uncut, by the BBFC in 1975. This was the equivalent of ‘PG’ today, and was the subject of some debate at the BBFC at the time, as it was recognised that the work contained some intense and frightening ‘horror‘ moments. The BBFC considered that the film would have an enormous appeal to boys of 10 or 11 upwards, and it consulted child psychiatrists and showed the film to test audiences of children before deciding on the ‘A‘ category. Also, Jaws was one of the first films to be given content advice. Part of the terms of its classification was that a sign should be displayed in cinema foyers, saying 'Parents are warned that this film contains sequences which may be particularly disturbing to younger unaccompanied children'.
These factors were all taken into account when the work was classified as ‘PG’ on video in 1987, and it was acknowledged that the film was, by then, a well-known classic and that most parents would be alert to the film‘s content and its potential to disturb. In May 2012, the BBFC awarded Jaws a ‘12A’ for cinema release, reflecting the power that the film still has to frighten audiences.You never really have that much of a perspective on your life until you’ve seen it in boxes before you. That’s a lesson that’s been hard to learn these past few months after moving back into the house, but I seem to be learning it all the more as the weeks go by here.
When I first moved back here, I didn’t do much in the way of unpacking; it was the second half of the semester, just weeks away from finals, and I had papers and projects that demanded my attention. I got everything unpacked that I needed to, though; my (good) stereo and CDs, my computer, clothes, my songwriting stuff. From there I kind of dabbled at getting things in order, but it was definitely dabbling; boxes of my stuff remained to be unpacked.
The pace didn’t really pick up once the Spring semester ended; I had more free time during my summer class, but I still didn’t do that much to unpack things. I had other things going on to be sure, but I attributed my lack of unpacking to laziness, for the most part. There was a bit of mental resistance going on that I could sense, stuff that I just didn’t want to unpack, but it was nothing I couldn’t deal with.
After my summer course ended, I took a couple of weeks off of pretty much everything; I bucked all my responsibilities, and just tried to relax as much as I could. After taking twelve courses, and getting twelve A’s, I deserved it, dammit. But since then I’ve slowly been getting back into the swing of things, doing remedial Japanese lessons, helping out more around the house, things like that. And one of the big ways I’ve been helping is to try to get as unpacked as possible.
I say “as unpacked as possible” because it’s not entirely possible for me to unpack as yet. While the house is certainly livable at this point, there are little tiny things that still remain to be done. As an example, one of the things my father’s been doing recently has been to paint the back porch; once it’s painted, we’ll probably get it screened at long last. One of the projects that remains to be done is to put shelves up on a couple of my walls, and without those shelves, there are some things I’ve got boxed up (such as my videotape collection) that I just don’t have space for.
Still, once I got things a bit more organized here in my room, I figured I should try to get as much stuff in here as possible. The process proved easier than I thought it would be, especially now that we’ve got air conditioning in here so I don’t have to worry about sweating up a storm. Slowly but surely, I got box after box cleared out and set by the trash cans beside our house, as I got more and more unpacked.
At this point, there really isn’t much left I can unpack. I’ve got boxes of videotapes, boxes of sheet music (which will go into our loft once we get a keyboard up there), boxes of audio tapes, and other knick-knacks destined for my eventual wall-shelves. It’s getting harder and harder to find stuff that I can actually move in here. As of right now, there are only a couple of boxes of stuff that I can really find to put in here.
One big problem, though. The boxes all have Antioch stuff in there. Remember that resistance I spoke about earlier? It’s not so tolerable anymore.
I can still remember that September afternoon, the Saturday before I was to return to Antioch for my second year there, when I made the decision not to return. At the time, I thought it was the right decision, given how my father needed my help at his business. For him, it was probably the right decision. For me, it was the dumbest decision I ever made in my life, and despite trying to live with “no regrets,” I still can’t help but chastize myself for making that decision.
Every autumn after that, I couldn’t help but get depressed over not going back to Antioch. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Antioch is the only place on this planet where I have ever really felt like I’ve fit in. I made so many friends — real friends — and learned so much, and more than that, I grew as a person so much. I was, to borrow a phrase, finally “finding my groove” over there. And every year that passed by as I toiled for my father, the autumn would come and all the stores would run their back-to-school sales, and the fact that I wasn’t going back would just gut me, emotionally and spiritually.
Then last autumn came, and I was going back to school. Only it wasn’t at Antioch, it was at the University of Toledo. I thought that maybe that would help me feel better that autumn, but in truth it only helped a little. Then again, at that time I was also trying to deal with living in a hotel after the fire, the problems my new close friends were having, and being enrolled in a public school for the first time since I was nine years old.
UT is fine, but it isn’t Antioch; then again, I harboured no illusions about it being Antioch when I enrolled there. All the personal development I’ve been doing these past two years has been thanks to L. turning me onto The Artist’s Way; UT doesn’t exactly facilitate growth all that much. (As a point of comparison, Yellow Springs, Ohio, the town Antioch is located in, has a total population of about 2,000. UT has over 21,000 students.) It’s definitely a better place for me to be at than my father’s office, though, both for my present development and my hopes for my future (you know, like actually leaving home and getting a decent job and all that).
In about a month, I’ll be heading back to UT for my second year there. I expect that month will probably whiz by faster than I’d like, but that’s only to be expected, I guess. I hadn’t thought that much about how I’d be feeling this autumn, but looking at the Antioch stuff I have to clear out of those boxes and find space for in my room, I guess maybe I’ll still have a bit of a bad feeling about things. Maybe it won’t be as strong as it was in years past, but it’ll still be there.
After the fire I’ve been trying to be better about moving on with things, about not getting so deeply attached to things. I guess maybe Antioch isn’t going to be so easy to detach myself from. I’m not even sure I should