autobiography – Jeff Milner

A very short summary of my life:

(Made for one of my education classes).

Autobiographical writing and representation
By Jeff Milner
Due September 29, 2010
Images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffmilner/sets/72157624935640311/show/
(to be played simultaneously with the audio)

Transcript of the audio:

I began my school life in the autumn of my sixth year. Over the next 12 years as I finished elementary, jr. and sr. high I felt that I would never complete school. I spent winter evenings playing basketball at the gym and my summers in the pool. I developed a passion for travel. My family would often take road trips to the United States. At age 15 I took part in an international art camp in Japan.

I learned the value (and grind) of manual labor working on a huge vegetable farm packing corn and carrots. In the eleventh grade I decided not to rejoin the basketball team and instead took a job with a local computer shop fixing PCs and eliminating lemons by checking new computers before they left the store. It wasn’t glamorous work, but it sure beat packing corn.

At 19, I moved to Salt Lake City volunteering a year of service to my church. This remains one of the most memorable years of my life.

After returning, I got a job working for the City of Medicine Hat in their GIS department. Using an air photo covering the city limit I traced the outline of every building within the municipal boundary. It was during this time that I began to kayak.

The job only lasted for about a year and then I began work as a pre-press assistant at the Medicine Hat News. Working nights didn’t suit me, so I found a new job working for a local engineering company that did defense research at the nearby army base. My job was to bury electronic landmines for research purposes.

Moving from job to job and living at home, while building an interesting set of skills and experiences, did not give me the same satisfaction as the more stable and independent life I would find when I moved to Lethbridge to start university in 2002. I found a great source of friendship on the university swim team.

I completed a degree in New Media 4 years later with a work experience placement in Malaysia helping create channel identity clips for Southeast Asia’s music channel, Channel V. Although it was a wonderful opportunity I didn’t take full advantage of my time there because I was distracted with heartache due to the break-up with my university sweet-heart.

After convocation I went into web design and photography full tilt. My skills in kayaking improved and I also took a couple of teaching jobs in the summer at the University. I alternated between teaching the Movie Making, animation, and swim camps. I found a love for teaching there that in part inspired me to return to school and get a second degree in formal education. Sometimes I still feel like I will never finish school but now I look at the journey itself as my destination and it doesn’t bother me that I’m still not done. I’ll always keep growing.

Reflection on the process of creation:
I wanted to fit in as much as possible in just two minutes. This restraint left me with the arduous chore of deciding what to include and what to cut. I’m not sure I made the best choices as many very interesting things about myself didn’t make it. (I do have about 10 years more than most of the students, so perhaps if I had an extra minute I could have fit it all in there).

Some of the images fit perfectly with the story, while at times other images that I wish I had, just don’t exist.

The music that goes with the story ads a level of interest that I personally really like. Creating a podcast is something that I’ve been interested in for a long time and I’m glad this assignment pushed me into creating one.

I’ve grown out of my teenage fandom for all things Trek, but I found these excerpts from William Shatner’s new autobiography, Up Till Now, very interesting. They encompass a range of experiences from his time on Star Trek, where he confesses being the colossal jerk of legend, to his poignant recollections of the death of his third wife.

Within a few days of Nerine’s death I learned the National Enquirer was going to run a story asking, basically: “Did he or didn’t he kill her?”

I wanted to get the true story out as quickly as possible.

We called the Enquirer and offered them a deal: “Don’t run that story. Instead, we’ll give you the exclusive story of what happened that night.”

In exchange, they contributed $250,000 (£123,000) to what would become the Nerine Shatner Foundation, which helps addicted women.

I guess the question asked most often was why did I call 911 before diving into the pool to try to save her?
It took me years to fully understand, and even then it was only because of my fourth wife, Elizabeth.
Every year on August 9, Elizabeth and I would go up to the pool in the evening. The moon is in the same position, the lights are the same.

On one of those nights I suddenly knew. The water in the pool had been still.

And somehow I had known that whether I dived in and rescued the body and then called 911, or called 911 and then did so, it would have made no difference.

Honestly, I always assumed he killed her, but now I’m not so sure. Either way, I find this kind of bear-all openness, from a legend such as Shatner, riveting.

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