#apsu ceca

“To students who are maybe interested in the arts--I’ve had a chance to do a lot of recruiting for the department and visit a lot of high schools, and I see a lot of students who are very concerned about talent. They’re concerned they didn’t come out of their mother’s womb able to draw like Michelangelo, and what I tell them is ‘talent is not the top criteria to me to be successful as an artist.’ Hard work trumps talent any day. So when we’re looking for scholarships for students, we’re looking to recruit students who want to work hard. We can help those students. Being able to draw does not mean that you’re going to have good ideas or that you’re going to have the commitment necessary to be successful, so it’s hard work. And of course the students who feel like they don’t have a lot of talent, of course they can’t draw really well until they’ve taken art classes. We teach them how to do that. We can teach students how to do these things, but we can’t teach them how to be hard workers.”

“I'm addicted to Dr. Pepper. [Laughs] The reason I'm so addicted to Dr. Pepper is that when I was a little kid I didn't go to church at all. This substitute teacher at my school--her husband was actually a pastor, but I didn't know that--I would go to their house and he would always give me a Dr. Pepper. And we would always play games together and they really, like, cared for me. And I didn't realize that's where I got my love for Dr. Pepper. But like now, I realize those people cared for me and played with me and that's how my Dr. Pepper addiction started.”

“Don’t be discouraged when you find that you’re at a sort of block in your lessons. Just keep going because eventually, whatever it is, you’ll figure out what you’re doing. I’ve had already three blocks in my progression this semester, with voice and horn, that were really big blocks and really hard to get through. But I’ve got through two of them. And that has already upped my quality of performance. 10 fold in voice, and at least 3 fold in horn. That feeling of when you realize that it stuck is worth the frustration of the days or weeks or even months before that.”

- “We actually do that a lot—just break out into song and dance. It’s kind of like Glee in this office.”

“Yeah, it is. We actually have the ‘Political Science After Hours.’ It happens after 4:00. So, if you’re feeling frisky...”

- “Sometimes we race each other.”

Race each other?

“Yeah, we do race. We take the chairs next-door in the computer lab and we roll down the hallway. Whoever makes it through the double doors first wins.”

- “This is all true.”

“Yeah! [Laughs]. It’s all fun and you’re laughing until you’re running into stuff and people are coming out of their offices and classes like ‘What are you guys doing?’ The Political Science secretary is rolling down the hallway.”

Do you two have any fun memories together?

- “I have actually caught a bird in her garage before.”

“Oh yeah!”

- “I did! I held it. It was just staying in her garage.”

“Seriously, it was caught in the garage and I was on the phone talking to him and he was like ‘Sage, talking to the bird’s not gonna get the bird out.’ And I was like, ‘Well, do you have a better plan for this?!’.”

- “And I caught it.”

“And he did! And, look, it was just sitting on him! And I was like ‘do you know how many diseases birds have?! Go wash your hands right now! Don’t go in my house, that’s disgusting.’ Yeah. That was fun. He’s like Mary Poppins.”

Did you guys break out in song, start dancing?

“Yeah, you can add that to the story.”

“I’m not really creative, but I do art.”

“I can’t like anything halfway. If I’m going to be interested in something, I’m going to devote days to getting to know everything about it. I think everyone gets frustrated with me sometimes, because people will ask me what TV shows I’m watching right now and I have to reply ‘I haven’t had time to watch TV lately, I’ve been too busy memorizing all the Olympic host cities, or learning how to speed paint’.”