So when I realized I have abandoned my attempt at counting days and that the number of weeks doesn't apply anymore since I'm technically no longer in school, I've decided to keep track of my days spent each week by naming them appropriately. As the majority of this week was spent downing caffeine and using it as a crutch to pump out scripts... well, there you have the title.
Monday was the day after we returned from Wilson's Prom, so I was pretty tired and ended up sleeping in then grabbing coffee with Shayna. We went to Potter's Cafe and I started my morning off right with a chocolate muffin and
coffee because they don’t accept credit cards unless you pay 5 dollars and a
coffee is only 3.5. Ugh. But I absolutely love Potter's Cafe. It has good
scenery and the benches outside are so nicely placed on the grass just out of
the way where sunlight can creep in and touch your face while your body surges
with caffeine. Such a nice retreat for a coffee recluse!
Nanna and I seem
to keep missing each other this week. When I’m being productive she’s not, and when she’s
being productive I’m not. So it’s usually like, “Bother bother bother, are you
busy?” “Yup.” “Darn.” “Are you?” “Nope. I’m playing tetris.” Hah. That's about how it goes down. But we’ve managed to make it work a couple of times.
I’m pretty sure I blogged
Monday because I was so afraid I would forget everything haha. After blogging, I
actually started working on my scripts. You see, my two shorts stories, essay
and synopsis in short fiction and my synopsis and 10 minute play are all due on
Monday (November 5th), so as you can imagine, I’ve been ridiculously
busy this week, seeking out corners where I can write without feeling
restrained. Hence, not the library. I’ve found all sorts of places varying from
random buildings, to rooms, to floors, to wide lawns with sunshine and ants crawling
underneath. And yes, inspiration has struck.
Tuesday I rented this movie by
Quentin Tarantino. If you’re not familiar with him, he’s the screenwriter
for Inglorious Bastards, Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, just to name a few.
His style? Raw blood, guts, language, and everyone dying at the end alongside
some poignant underlying theme that usually points to the fact that humanity
is flawed and without any real sense of moral code. Yup. That about sums up
Tarantino. Anyway, since my play is on two criminals, I needed
references and I had just watched Pulp Fiction a few weeks back (I’m
sure I blogged about it) so I figured it would be a good idea to watch it. So,
the scene where a psychopath was cutting off a guy’s ear while dancing was quite
disturbing, but one good thing did come of it. I ended up listening to that
song “Stuck in the middle with you” on replay for the whole day and working on
my play. After running it by friends both here and back home, I finally came up
with a completely new draft. I labeled it “final draft” but I swear, it had to
have been my 7th or 8th. Hopefully, it got better each
time. Fingers crossed!
Wednesday was Halloween! I was kind of stoked that I was
spending it in Australia. Even though I was stressing over my writing, I decided
to take the night off and go out with Tom, Flo, Rhi, Phil, Daniel, and Alice.
Tom, Flo, Rhi and Alice were all going as zombies. It was fun to watch Rhi and Flo
splash their shirts with chocolate sauce/red paint to make it look like blood then blowing it dry with a hairdryer. That was about the point that I randomly decided that I wanted to be a
pirate. Funny thing is, my wardrobe was already well equipped to make a costume
out of. (Maybe I’ve always subconsciously wanted to be one…)
Anyway, I flung a
bandana on my head, a floppy shirt and pants, a scarf and belt, borrowed Rhi’s
hoop earrings, painted on a goatee and Rhi gave me scar and I called it a night. For
a last minute costume, it rocked. We all went downstairs and hung out a while
mostly just goofing around and taking pictures before we hit the streets. It
was so different. There was practically no one out in costumes. Just people in
nice clothing giving us odd looks. Then we made it to this weird pub that was
Halloween themed and danced around with people in costumes. But no one really
went all out. It was NOTHING like Franklin St. Ah, I miss UNC. I danced enough
until I left with a smile on my face. I really do love dancing, even if I look
stupid, ha.
Then I came back and we all went to Rhi’s kitchen where she made us
Ramen noodles. This was at like 2AM mind you, ha. Not the healthiest choice, but dancing
takes it out of you ;) I met this girl Attica, who was Alice’s friend from
Estonia. I’ve never met anyone from Estonia and realized after talking
to her that it was probably because it is so small. I think the coolest thing I
learned was that 1) there are wolves in Estonia and 2)one of the people who
invented Skype was from Estonia. So there, fun facts for the day! She seemed
really nice, just a little out of place. Easy to feel in such a large city.
Well, comparatively large. To Estonia.
Thursday I’m pretty sure I spent writing again… I know, I’m
a procrastinator. But apparently the closer a deadline is the better motivation
it becomes. At least, that’s always been my strategy. I think I ended up catching
coffee with Wendy and Nanna. It’s always nice to see their smiling faces! Nanna
and I ended up spending the next few hours at a table we’d scooted up against a
wall outside that had an outlet on North Court. Because we all know that’s the
perfect combination to do work: a seat, an outlet, and sunshine. I would say
good company is a factor… but I’m pretty sure Nanna and I end up distracting each other
more than getting actual work done haha.
Then that night we had a jam session
in Rhi’s room and Tom, Rhi and Shayna sang beautifully as always. I love
working to their voices, it’s such a nice backdrop to the whirling of a plot. I
wish I could sing!
Friday, I actually decided to be super productive. At this
point I was completely out of groceries so I ended up spending about an hour in
Woolies (Safeway) just walking around and picking things at random. (It didn’t
help that I went in hungry since I’d only had a lobster roll that day.) After
dropping off 40 dollars worth of healthy groceries, I went back out with Tom
and Flo to Queen Vic Market. I needed veggies, and the market always sells them
cheap. I really do love the market, it’s got such a nice atmosphere. Trinkets of every size and shape, weird men calling out “Banana, banana,
banana, one dollar, banana” and cages with fuzzy chicks for 85 cents.
Such a strange and wondrous place.
And of course, after we’d bought our veggies,
we had to stop by the pet shop. I know this sounds odd, but I love the birds in
that place. Dogs are usually my favorites, but not in a pet shop because they’re
sad and in glass boxes. It makes me want to adopt them all. But the birds are
so fanciful and brightly colored hopping around and making odd noises. I saw a
parrot hiding under a newspaper and talked to a pair of cockitiels that
actually answered back. But most intriguing was the huge white cockatoo in the
middle. He’s not in a cage, but simply sitting in the middle of the store on a
perch with a tiny rope attached to his foot so he doesn’t fly away. I tried to
pet him three times but each time his giant beak twitched toward my finger… I’ll
take a dog bite any day but I don’t mess with bird beaks. That’s just crazy. Especially
one that big! Ha.
We then got back and ended up studying in Flo’s room. I was
so impressed at what a creative space her room evokes. There’s a nice window
that lets in all the sun and an outlet that was behind my head. That with Tom’s
music playing from his laptop and I was set. I actually ended up finishing all
of my short fiction crap. YAY! Then we all went downstairs because Unilodge was
giving out free KFC as a study break. I scored a tub of coleslaw afterwards…
yus. 11 different spices baby.
That
night, after showing Tom the ab routine from p90x, I watched Brave on my
laptop. It was a cute feel good movie but the accents made me laugh… I’ve been
living with Tom and Flo for the past 5 months, I’m sorry but hers just didn’t
add up.
Saturday I made a super healthy lunch. Check this out: spinach wrap
with avocado lime and chili pepper humus, fresh lettuce from the market, turkey
and cheese. It was amazing. I ended up spending the majority of my day lying
out on South Lawn in the sun. I’m not going to lie, I fell asleep a few times
pretending I was writing. But the good thing about dozing in the sun is that it
inspires me to keep writing. I’ll get an idea I wouldn’t have
thought of if I’d been conscious. I’m convinced that some of our best ideas come from
being in that transitional semiconscious state between being asleep and awake.
While lying out in the sun, I watched this cute Asian family. The dad was kicking
a ball for his four-year-old toddler to chase and bring back. The kid was super
excited, though I thought it looked like a lot of effort. Anyway, the dad geared
up for a big kick and the kid starts getting all happy and then the dad kicks it in
a tree. BAHA, you should have seen the kid’s face. It was like a balloon had been popped in his face or something . All of a sudden you have the kid screaming about his
ball and the dad saying no no it was ok that he was going to climb and get it and
then you have the wife joining in telling him to be careful because he wasn’t
as young as he used to be and all the time I’m dying laughing. I look around
and realize the family has become a spectacle for everyone on south lawn so I didn’t
feel so bad for staring. But all too soon the dad had obtained the ball, gave it
to his son and it was if nothing had happened. Ha. Sorry. I saw it. It
happened. And now you know it did!
Anyway, I took a break from dozing since it was such hard
work and caught coffee with Nanna again. Yup, it was at Potter’s Café. Good
guess! (I’m working on getting 9 little stamps on my little coffee card so I can
get one free. Ha. Two more to go!) We then all went out for my half birthday that
night… I know, I know. You’re all like, what half birthday. Technically, it was my birthday… minus 6 months. But we
aren’t going to be here in May so we celebrated in November J Whatever works, ya? It
was really just an excuse to get everyone to take a little break and hang out
together so we don’t go crazy from studying for finals. We walked down to China
Town and tried this place called Shanghai Village. It was SO crowded, but the
food was cheap and tasty. I got dumplings… 15 of them. Yummy. Of course, I couldn’t
finish them so 8 bucks for two meals isn’t bad, ya?
We (Nanna, Rhi, Shayna, Flo
and Vera) all headed for San Churros. If I was going to fake celebrate my birthday,
then I had to have a Mocha Mambo. If you are not aware of this fabulous drink
that includes dark chocolate and espresso, refer to my earlier posts, I’m sure I
fawned over their deliciousness there. Anyway, after chilling out and having a
girls' night, I was wired and came back to Unilodge. Halfway through working on
my script/facebooking, I crashed. I really don’t even remember falling asleep,
but hey, I slept well!
Today I spent the majority of the sunshine filled
atmosphere couped up in the library. I had to get things done since my writing
is due tomorrow. I completed both of my portfolios and electronically submitted
my short fiction assignments. I was so paranoid that I was going to screw up
writing that was 100% of my grade that I made Nanna press the “submit” button. Hopefully,
I passed. Haha. Hopefully.
The weather has been nice this week, even the cold days
weren’t that cold. It rained at one point but the sun came out right
afterwards. Today, it was even in the 80s or upper 30s, which ever type of
degree you use. Hmmm. Now, I’m contemplating whether I should catch my breath
and browse YouTube for a few hours or actually try to cut my short film script
down to 2000 words instead of 2370 words. (It's due Wenesday along with a storyboard I haven't started on.)
Overall, I feel like
my writing has really grown this semester. I’m getting more confident in my
narrative voice and most importantly, learning how to revise, which is honestly
the most important process in writing. It’s so easy to get into the habit of
writing something and thinking it’s golden because you’ve written it and it is
yours! No, no, my friend. If it doesn’t get through to the audience, then it is
your responsibility to change it or you will not be effective as a writer. That’s
my spill.
Oh, and tomorrow I’m going bouldering. What now. (After I turn in my
portfolios!)
Hope everyone is well! Miss everyone, but I assure you, the
clock is ticking down and I will be back in a matter of weeks…
Toodles!
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