The new quarter at AM has started and so far Class 5 is great. A schedule problem and last-second mentor switch (my new mentor is Jason Schleifer) meant I missed the first "mandatory" Q&A from week 1. I barely made the one last night. It was great hearing everyone's story ideas and bouncing them around. The ideas presented were good ones, with lots of potential to become great shorts. I finally found out in the Q&A that I'm in group two, which will present ideas next week. Good thing, 'cuz until just a few days ago I didn't have any clue what I would do for a story. Even now the two options I have are OK but not great. One of them is too long. The other needs a better ending. Classmates and mentor can help with that, so I'm not too worried about it. What I'm worried about is school itself. I don't know if I should continue under the circumstances. Let me explain.
Every new session, my life outside AnimationMentor.com has become increasingly complicated. Many of my options designed to aleviate complications have created further complications! Most of them are connected to my full time job as a caregiver, they have seriously affected my experience with AM, and are things I have little or no control over. I feel like I'm in one of those multi-sided D&D dice, each side with it's own exit door, but each door totally blocked by something. There are a lot of exciting things happening or in store for Class 5, I'm already missing some of them and it's only the second week! As I look down the road, it doesn't get any clearer, so I could miss even more. I am definitely not getting the full value of the course, and it's come to a point where I have to question if I'm wasting a lot of money. Out of my 15-second scene assignment in class 4 I was only able to "final" a shot or two. I just don't have the time to devote to AM because of other life stuff.
After 16 days in the hospital, my mom returned home Tuesday. She is doing "better", though physical therapy was only able to get her to a certain level while at the hospital. It is expected she will improve further and faster at home. I sure hope so. While it's good to have my mom home where she's much more comfortable, she has to be assisted every time she gets up. On top of that she's a bit disoriented, which is common, and the combination of things has kept me on high alert for the past 36 hours. We have a respite caregiver who is supposed to be able to take over for me so I can get a break (4 hours per week), but I had to just let her leave today because complications in laws and liability prevent her from doing any task related to my mom! Even though my mom is the parent who needs the most care! Because of the way it works, it is my dad who the respite worker is contracted for, because my mom is already on another program funded by the same California State agency. Even though it is a program that is supposed to provide relief for the caregiver (me), since they can only help my dad, I really don't get a break after all!
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