Shawnee and My Cool New Roommate

So the blog inevitably becomes about me.  A blog about movies is unsustainable anyway, and I included Digressive in the blog title, so I feel self-indulgence is warranted here.  Plus, it's my generation's favorite pastime with our endless social media functions and obsession with our own hand-selected images proffered over the internets for all to see...

Anyway, for those who don't know, I'm beginning grad school at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio for film production in about a week.  I've been here in Athens for a month already taking summer classes, but I've been spending a lot of time alone waiting for my roommates to get here.  Not that I haven't made friends... I have and they're superkool.  Most are film production students going into their 2nd or 3rd years, some are even graduating and moving away unfortunately, but I've also met some people from the theater department and the bars.

Yes, the bars.  This school was just named the #1 party school in all the nation, a title most people here are pretty proud of, even if the school wishes to discourage that association.  The reason this school is the #1 party school in the nation is that there are a lot of bars downtown (which is basically an extension of campus, seriously, it's that small) and ... that's... about... it.  Sure, there's some nature trails and a nice lake where you can swim and a movie theatre and a ... Wal Mart... and a ... Mall... and some good restaurants.  But, yeah, this place is a smaller town than I've ever lived.

So, it was a welcome change when my roommate Tae showed up.  Tae is going to be a graduate photojournalism major at the school and I can already tell we're gonna be buddies.  We've been going around town procuring necessary house items (yes mom, unfortunately most were bought at Wal Mart. I don't like it either) and trying restaurants and, of course, hitting up the bars.

But the other day, Tae and I and a few Athens experts drove around the surrounding towns and checked them out.  A mini-adventure, I would say.

I think the consensus was that Shawnee was the favorite stop of the trip, as we fortuitously ran into a guy who was renovating an old movie theater and unlocked it so we could go in and look around.  Behold, the decayed man-made splendor of yore!

All photos by Taehoon Kim, except for the last which was taken by Chris Icafano.  Stay tuned...