One of the biggest events in Utah during the month of March is the Hare Krishna Festival of Colors. At the Hare Krishna temple thousands of people gather to join in the celebration/welcoming of spring by throwing bags of color in the air (more or less, powdered chalk). In the past few years, it has become SO popular that this year is the first year that they actually split it into two separate 'sessions.' And even then, I still feel like the session that I went to was JUST as crowded as last year - if not more.
I went for the first time last year (pictured to the left), but was not nearly as prepared for it. I had a dark blue shirt on, went with only one other person, and we only had two bags to throw. I have since corrected the errors of my ways this year and wore a light-colored shirt (I still don't own any white shirts - weird, huh?), went with a group of 10-15, and we all had at least 1-2 bags each! Oh it was such a blast. I got completely COVERED in color this year!
For those of you unfamiliar with this ritual, if you want to know more, go here. If you're ever in Utah the last week in March, I HIGHLY recommend checking out the Festival of Colors!!! :)
Anyway, here are some pictures from this year!! :) (PS, sadly, I took none of these. A girl in my ward did)
Man o man I have not done a good job at keeping up very well lately. In my defense, my computer is still dead. Thus, it makes it much harder to write when the computer I have will - without warning - turn off and anything unsaved (ie a blog entry) is immediately lost. PS, my computer is officially dead and I am quite sad about it. Well, dead but it can be repaired. I need a new hard drive - but I won't have any money until this film starts (I'll get to that). Sooo... I guess it's a few more weeks of using my 6-year-old computer! :P
Let's see... another quick update since the last time I posted:
--I came up with a great idea that works pretty well for me. I always have this problem of wanting to get all this stuff done, but never actually getting it done. Usually, it's because even if I make a list, I rarely see it. SO... I came up with the sticky-note idea. The walls in my room are pretty empty (normally, I don't go through the effort of decorating because I tend to move to a new place every 6-8 months), so I decided to plaster one wall with something: sticky notes! Any time I think of something that I want to get done, I slap a sticky note on there with the 'task' written on it. Once I complete it, I take the sticky note off. It's right by my bed and the markers are right there too, so that way even if I'm trying to fall asleep and think of something that I need to do, I can easily write on one of the stickies real fast (I have blank stickies on the wall, too). Anyway, it has worked pretty well so far. I highly recommend it. :)
--I caught up with a bunch of old friends, and made friends with a bunch of random people. Every week at Institute now, I make it a point to sit next to people I've never met before. It's way more fun that way because hey, I already know the people in my ward - why not broaden my horizons when given the chance at a stake function? :P
--I went to this party last week and started talking with this guy... only to discover that he was my friend's little brother (21). haha!
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Now the biggest piece of news: the FILM. I was playing volleyball last Saturday when I got a phone call. I think his name was Andrew and he told me they were looking for a boom for this sci-fi movie they're shooting in a week or so. The best part though is that this is a direct result of my unexplainable ability of "right time, right place" syndrome. haha.
A couple of weeks ago I was on the set of Den Brother (TV Disney movie that was being filmed in SLC) to talk with Doug (the mixer I frequently work with) and Joe (the boom I frequently work with). However, the day that I decided to come, another local mixer showed up as well. He and Doug are both mixing this film "127 Hours" right now and they needed to have a lil pow-wow about what all was going to go down the following week (Week 1 of 127 Hours). But a lot of the time Doug and Joe were actually working because hey, they WERE filming that day. So in the down time, Steve (the other mixer) and I had a lot of time to chat.
Though we have never actually worked together, both knew of the other through the grapevine and the most recent thing he had heard about me was to do with Hatchet (the slasher movie I quit in January). He said, "So... I hear you worked with Bobby for about two days..." At first, I thought "oh great... I blacklisted myself from Utah people too..." I hesitantly said, "Yeah... that was me..." But to my surprise, Steve's reaction was quite the opposite from what I expected! Not in these words, but he basically said "that must have been a tough decision, but good for you sticking up for yourself and your standards." Wow! Really? Cool!
Turns out, Steve is one of the oddities in this business who is actually still active LDS. He told me about a time where he signed on to work this film but after looking at the script realized he couldn't in good conscience work on this film because it was the exact type of film he tells his kids not to watch. So before it started, he respectfully declined and they used someone else for that film.
Anyway, apparently I made a good impression on him because HE was the one who recommended me to this producer! Andrew told me that he got my name from Steve and that they were looking for a boom operator, etc. Wow! I have still never actually worked with Steve and he's already tossing my name out there. Guess I made a good impression on him! It was funny too because a few days later when I went to the production office to talk with the director about the 411 of this film, the first thing he asked was "so you've worked with Steve a lot then?" haha well...
I told him, "Actually, I haven't. But I have worked with Doug a lot and I know Steve through Doug." I guess that was good enough for the director. haha. Oh and the day rate is actually decent this time. Finally!! So I start on March 30th and wrap on April 13th. At least, that is the tentative schedule. The only thing that worries me is HOW low-budget this thing is. They may be paying me a decent rate, but the rest of the production sounds really low-budget. I'm honestly kind of worried as to how it will all pan out.
Oh, but one parting thing for those of you who know who he is and would appreciate it, John Schneider is the lead in this film and I'm kind of excited about that because he seems like such a nice guy. Just FYI, he was the dad in Smallville, and played "Bo Duke" in the 80s Dukes of Hazzard. So starting Tuesday, I will TRY to keep you all a tad more updated now that I have something to actually update on. :)
Well so much for planning to post every day in March! My computer had other thoughts on that one, I guess! On Tuesday, it started acting up. It froze on me a few times and I thought maybe it just needed 'a day of rest.' So I turned it off and didn't really use it that day. Wednesday, I turned it on and it seemed to be working fine again... or so I thought. It started getting incredibly slow, and froze on me again! This repeated 2 more times before I decided to put it away for the time being.
Now, luckily I have been paranoid about my computer crashing since 2004. My freshman year my old PC pulled the "blue screen of death" on me and I thought I had lost everything. Mind you, I write my journal on my computer (and have now for 6-7 years) and at that point in time, I had no external source on which the entries were saved. When my uncle pronounced that computer dead, I thought I was done for. But miraculously, it came back to life and I was able to retrieve my data. But ever since then, it has left me uber paranoid that something could go wrong with a computer at any moment.
So now, I back up my files every month or two. As for my journal, I send myself the attached file nightly - as soon as I finish the entry. And all of my journals are on some attachment saved in a special folder in my email. My pictures are also in several places and because I back it up once every month or two, I always have *almost* all of my pictures. Same goes for the music. Those are the three most important things on my computer.
Now, back to Wednesday. I have a few 'computer nerd' friends who work with computers for a living, so I asked one of them about it and he told me he knew who could help. I was told that I probably needed to defrag and that would most likely fix the majority of my problems. So we started defragging it... but alas, the computer froze in the middle of what it was doing. Ultimately, the computer was turned off... and has not booted since.
You may wonder how I am writing this right now if my computer is still in a coma. Lucky for me, because I am such a big packrat, I have my 6-year-old PC still here with me today. Broken power source, missing keys, chipped edges, stained casing, slow-running, louder-than-a-hair-dryer, and all. I have never appreciated my Mac so much in my life.
Anyway, so my Mac was dead. It wouldn't boot. Now this is doubly problematic because (1) it is still very much a PC world (and thus most are unfamiliar with the dymanics of a Mac), and (2) Macs aren't supposed to die, so when they do... most people don't know what to do to fix it. I broke my 'facebook fast' for a day in order to post on my status that I was in desperate need of some computer help. Thank goodness for facebook - I had a friend over here within a few hours.
My uncle told me how to get to a command prompt screen and with that, Steve (the computer whiz friend) was able to start accessing my stuff. Luckily, because I back my stuff up on a regular basis, I was not stressed about losing my stuff because even if it was pronounced 'dead', I had my most important files. However, he discovered that he could mount an external drive, access certain files and folders and transfer them onto my external drive while in the command prompt setting. Awesome. So he set that up and we went our separate ways. It is still yet to be fully fixed (he's coming back again sometime today) but it will be back to normal within a day or two.
I am coming back a few hours later to finish this post and I just want to reiterate how incredibly grateful I am for my Mac!! Though it is awaiting some serious surgery, it'll pull through and will be up and running in no time. And this old PC is reminding me more and more how lucky I am to have the other computer!
Basically, this entry is to remind all of you to BACK YOUR STUFF UP. You never know when your computer will just go kaput without a moment's notice. Hopefully you won't lose any important documents in the shuffle!
I have decided that Provo is in fact the most "exercise-conscious" city in the country. It is not Los Angeles, nor is it New York. It is Provo, Utah. Never in my life have I seen so many runners outside (AND in the gym) as I have in Provo/Orem.
I was curious to the actual number I see on a typical drive, so as I was driving to the gym today I decided to count the number of runners I saw. My 4:30pm drive TO the gym consisted of 17 people. Seeing as how my drive is only about a 7-minute drive to begin with, I thought that 17 was quite a bit!
I got to the gym (the massive one in Orem) and like always, about 90% of the cardio-related machines were in use (there are easily 50 if not 75 or more machines there). Luckily, I went for Zumba, which requires no machine. Afterward, I did weights in the "Women Only" room where there were a good 10 or more women in there lifting weights as well. There was even a pregnant woman in the weight room! Also, the weight machines in the 'open area' were about 40% in use; I counted 6 people swimming laps in the pool and there were a bunch in the basketball/racquetball rooms, too.
I left the gym and began my 7-minute drive home. By this time, it was just after 6 and I was curious to see how many people I could spot running this time. To my surprise, I counted 23. ...and I thought 17 was a lot. And just like in the weight room, I even saw a pregnant woman running. Only in Provo, right?
I went to the smaller gym (in Provo) on Saturday morning and have discovered that it is apparently the place to be on a Saturday morning. I have never seen that gym so crowded! Just about every machine was in use, and the cardio machine that I usually use only had one open one left! Luckily, I claimed that one. :)
I have run into more people I know while at the gym than any other place in Provo (aside from campus when I was actually a student). Almost every time I have gone to the Provo Gold's, I bump into at least one person I know. I guess we are all 'staying fit' together. hah.
So take that L.A. and New York. I have FOUR Gold's Gyms to choose from - all less than 10 miles from my house - and SAFE sidewalks to run on if I so choose!
The Academy Awards were on tonight. Because of this, I had my computer out the whole time, with imdb open... just in case I wanted to look anything up. That somehow landed me on the main page for the disturbing film I worked a whole two days on. I think it was during that "horror montage" they had tonight, and something about it made me curious. I think I saw someone I recognized from that film. Anyway, I found myself on the imdb page and saw an interesting "trivia" thing listed, so I proceeded to click and look at the other random trivia they already had for it, seeing as it was only filmed a month and a half ago.
Most of the trivia dealt with pointless facts about the film, but then I saw the second to last 'fact.' I had to re-read it to make sure I had really read what I thought I'd just read. Yep, I really had. I had made it onto the trivia page. At first, I wasn't sure if that made me angry or happy. I mean, my name wasn't included, but I knew darn well that it was about me. But after about 5 seconds of "freak-out", I loved it. And this is why:
"It was reported on the horror websites that a crew member quit on day 2 due to "moral reasons" with what was taking place within the scenes."
Haha I love it. Yep, that's me! Yes, I was definitely 'morally opposed' to this film! It was so bad! And like I stated in earlier entries, it's not like it was an easy decision. I definitely needed the money (it would have brought me 4-5 grand). And I loved the crew! But man that subject matter... I can deal with most gore on sets because it is so fake when you're filming. I mean hey, you see the tube attached to the back of the guy's head and you see the effects guy waiting for the director to call 'action!' so he can press the button that will shoot out the fake blood. It's actually kind of cool...!
But the sex scenes were what did it for me. Day One and we're already filming those? Oh no way no how. And if I were any other part of crew, I could probably work around it because most crew members aren't actually ON set when filming stuff like that. So were I not in sound, I could totally disappear for those scenes. However, it is the exact opposite when you are the boom operator. You are in fact the ONLY crew member in the room with the actors during scenes like that... and it's days like those when booming suddenly becomes the worst job in the world.
Oh and this was another trivia: "[The set] was plagued with accidents, injuries, trips to the hospital, and a swine flu epidemic that took out almost half of the personnel on set." Sounds lovely... I think I'm glad I left when I did! May I remind you that this is the same film where I stepped on a nail and ended up at the hospital that night? Yeah, that trivia can technically include me as well, since I had to spend the better half of my evening that night being treated and x-rayed! (It took nearly 3 weeks to be able to walk fully normal again) Now it makes me curious what else happened after I left!
Anyway, in the end, that first trivia made me happy to see. Yes that was me, and I am proud OF it! Just because I work in film doesn't mean that I have to drop down to their level. If that confines me to TV Disney movies and the likes for the rest of my life, so be it. I love me some ultimate cheese. :)
A few weeks ago, my friend Jess and I were talking about how neither of us had ever done a murder mystery dinner and decided that we should do one. We looked it up online, found one that sounded rather entertaining, ordered it, and got a group of 8 together to do it. Tonight was the 'big night' and everyone came over to my place. Our theme was old western, so we all had to dress the part. The names alone were hilarious. They were as follows:
Butch Chastity
P'Elvis Swagarin
Helena Handcart
Chief Breaking Wind
Elvira-Lynn Fekshin
Wyatt Hertz
Dee Adela Muerte
Elias Truis-Heath
It ended up being a lot more risque than we thought it was, but honestly, I thought it added that much more to it when we discovered 'frightening secrets' of our characters' hidden pasts! Just about every character had a secret lover that was made known at some point during the game and the reactions were great. Anyway, I highly recommend doing and/or hosting a murder mystery dinner. We already want to do another one. Below are some pictures:
(Oh and by the way, I was "Butch Chastity" and was the only girl who got to wear jeans! Yeah! Believe me, I had fun with this one. I LOVE (and collect) knives, so I was packing six knives in various places, a fake gun, and a whip my friend let me borrow. It was awesome to have an excuse to wear all of this stuff!)
I think I can take another 10-year break from Alice and Wonderland after yesterday! haha. I'll admit, Alice in Wonderland was never one of my favorite Disney movies. It's a little out there, and doesn't really make sense. I honestly don't think I've seen the Disney version in 10 years or more. But last week a friend in the ward called me and asked me if I'd help host her birthday party - Alice in Wonderland themed. Hey, I'm always up for helping plan a party. I thought it was funny when I found out she wanted to have the party at my place, even though it was technically going to be her party. But I love coming up with crazy ideas, and it was actually easier to have it at my place, so I was all for it.
She bought 4 decks of dollar store cards and I hole punched about two decks and strung them up everywhere. We still have cards hanging all over our house. The other two decks are splattered on various walls, windows, and doors throughout our main floor. We also still had a bunch of red hearts still up from our big Valentine's Day party and since we have the whole "Queen of Hearts" thing in Alice in Wonderland, we just left it all up. Why not reuse them? :P I also wrote about 12 signs saying "THIS WAY" and "THAT WAY" pointing both left and right, and posted them all over. We made all sorts of goodies and labeled them "EAT ME" and bought mini water bottles, put food coloring in them, labeled them "DRINK ME," and distributed them all over the living room and kitchen. I know this is bad, but I couldn't resist - I put one of the yellow colored "DRINK ME" bottles in the bathroom. hehe.
We also had various shapes and sizes of teacups and had a bunch of herbal tea and hot chocolate for people to choose from. We hid two "Queen of Hearts" cards just for fun, but everyone ended up getting really into it! They were looking all over the place for the two cards! Eventually, both were found and the two who found the cards had a duel in Alice in Wonderland trivia for the 'grand prize.' It was actually quite entertaining. We also had in attendance our very own Alice, the Queen of Hearts, and the Mad Hatter. Below are pictures.
At about 10 o'clock, my friend called to see if I was going to see the midnight showing of the new Alice in Wonderland with the group from my ward. I really wanted to (I LOVE midnight showings), but I'm trying as hard as I can to say "NO" to anything that costs right now - I am beyond broke. She then proceeded to inform me that her brother (whom I have already met) had an extra ticket that I could have if I wanted it. Seriously? I am so there! So I left around 11:30 to meet up with this other group, and watched the midnight showing! Woohoo!
All things considered, it wasn't that bad! I mean, this is Tim Burton we are talking about... he is always bound to be rather "off his rocker"; but this is Alice and Wonderland after all. What better story for Tim Burton to re-create? My favorite character by far was the Mad Hatter. I know it may sound cliche, but Johnny Depp really is an amazing actor. Who else could go from Edward Scissorhands to Gilbert Grape, to Ichabod Crane (Sleepy Hollow), to Jack Sparrow, to James Barrie, to Willy Wonka, to Sweeney Todd, and now the Mad Hatter? ... he is definitely not a typecast actor. Although, I found it rather amusing to see bits of Jack Sparrow and Willy Wonka come out of the Mad Hatter!
Anyway, it's definitely worth seeing at least once. I found it much more enjoyable than the 1951 Disney version. And maybe it was just me, but I laughed a lot in it...
About every week or two, I find a new song that I just want to listen to over and over on repeat. Last week it was Jason Reeves/Kara DioGuardi's song "Terrified." Luckily, my roommate shared the same liking for that song, so we just listened to it on repeat for over an hour while chatting.
Yesterday I was in Borders just perusing the shelves, trying to figure out how to spend my $25 gift card I got for Christmas when this new song came on. I had never heard it before, but I instantly loved it. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing the 'now playing' song. So... I pulled out my phone and wrote a 'note' to myself with part of the lyrics from the chorus of the song so I could look it up later (this is a frequent occurrence for me). I came home to discover that it was actually a song by Train! Train usually has a very distinct sound, but for some reason it sounded different when I was at Border's. I downloaded Train's newest album, "Save Me, San Fransisco", and I love it. Brick by Brick is still my favorite track, but really, the whole album is awesome.
Anyway, when I find songs I love this much, I want everyone to love them as much as I do! So, I am posting both "Terrified" and "Brick by Brick" on here for you to enjoy as well. :) The lyrics and links are below. :)
"Terrified" (as sung by Katharine McPhee)
You by the light
Is the greatest find
In a world full wrong you're the thing that's right
Finally made it through the lonely to the other side
You said it again my heart's in motion
Every word feels like a shooting star
I'm at the edge of my emotions
Watching the shadows burning in the dark,
And I'm in love and I'm terrified.
For the first time in the last time
In my only life.
This could be good
It's already better than last
And love is worse than knowing
You're holding back
I could be all that you needed
If you let me try
You said it again my hearts in motion
Every word feels like a shooting start
I'm at the edge of my emotions
Watching the shadows burning in the dark
And I'm in love and I'm terrified
For the first time in the last time
in my only
I only said it cause i mean it
I only mean cause it's true
So don't you doubt what i've been dreaming
Cause it fills me up and holds me close
Whenever i'm without you
You said it again my hearts in motion
Every word feels like a shooting star
Watching the shadows burning in the dark
And I'm in love and I'm terrified
For the first time in the last time
In my only life
"Brick by Brick"
The dust has finally settled down
The sun is shining on these pieces that are scattered all around
This house was everything we knew
Its where we kept our love and
every single memory of me and you
Every letter, every note, every dress you never wore under your coat
Thrown away
Brick by brick, we can build it from the floor
If we hold onto each other, we'll be better than before.
And brick by brick,
we will get back to yesterday
When I made your body shiver and
when you took my breath away,
you took my breath away.
The sky has made it back to blue,
everything that's left is telling us the worst of it is through.
Home has never felt so right, there's nothing in the way.
There's nothing in between us
knowing where we're going is inside.
Every letter that I wrote,
every dress you never wore under your coat
Thrown away
Brick by brick, we can build it from the floor
If we hold on to each other,
we'll be better than before.
And brick by brick,
we'll get back to yesterday.
When I made your body shiver
and when you took my breath away.
All the pictures that we've taken
and the songs that we have played
They have all kept track and
followed back the love that we have made.
Now they're spread out on the
surface where we can try to congregate
It's not too late to believe that we can get it all again
Brick by brick, we can build it from the floor,
If we hold onto each other,
we'll be better than before.
And brick by brick,
we'll get back to yesterday
When I made your body shiver and
when you took my breath away,
you took my breath away.
Brick by brick
We'll get back to yesterday,
when I made your body shiver and
when you took my breath away,
you took my breath away.
So the other day in FHE we were talking about the Ensign article “Learning Through Life’s Trials.” Normally our lessons are more or less ‘short and sweet’, but we actually talked about this one for quite some time. Everyone had a lot of insight on the matter and/or personal experiences to share and it got me thinking.
There are a lot of people who don’t fully understand “why bad things happen to good people.” And oftentimes, even if they say that they understand, simple actions prove that it still isn’t fully comprehended. I will be the first to admit that I definitely didn’t understand it until a few years ago. I constantly used to ask myself “Why me?” on so many different facets of life. I was a good person, so why did I have to go through so much crap? It took me literally years of the same trial before I finally figured things out: it makes you a better person. Well, that is… if you let it. That also took me a while to figure out. I was so bitter and angry for so long that it took me forever to be able to see any good that came from my situation.
In high school, someone deeply hurt me. I felt like no matter how hard I tried, this person only shot sharp words and insults in response. There were so many lies involved, so much deceit and mean games played that at one point in time, I truly did hate this person. But I hated feeling that way. Plus, it was hurting me so much more than the other person because I was allowing said person to get to me and to affect me so deeply.
So I did the absolute hardest thing: I began praying for this person. Believe me, this was not an easy thing. I was filled with so much pain, anger, and hatred, that the last thing I wanted to do was to ask Heavenly Father to bless the one who caused me so much pain. No good deserved to come his/her way. Yes, my view was very skewed at the time I began this, but that was all the more reason and proof that I needed to pray for this person. It started out rather lackluster, and in the very beginning was more of a “please help him/her be able to grow up” rather than something like “please bless this person that he/she will be able to become an even better person” or “please bless this person with good friends who will be able to help him/her in the future.”
In time, things began to change. I started to see this person in a different way. I no longer felt anger or hatred toward this person but instead, love and compassion. I began to see him/her the way Heavenly Father does – as a child of God. I know it may sound silly, but it’s true. Praying for this person really did change my views that much.
We never did resolve things because we both moved to different places and lost contact. However, I still think about this person quite frequently. I even anonymously sent a big “21st birthday” package to this person in 2007. I put no return address on it because I didn’t want it to be ‘credit’ for me – I wanted it to be simply what it was: a present from an unsuspected friend.
Now, I’m not saying that I did everything right in this years-long situation, because I was far from it. I had plenty of stupid and/or ‘speak-before-you-think’ moments of my own that I am sure only furthered the problem. In fact, there were a lot of those. Many of those stupid moments make me cringe just thinking about it. But what I am getting at here is that I learned from one of my own life’s biggest trials. I gained SO much from that experience. The end result very heavily molded me into who I am today. It was the absolute hardest (and longest) thing I have ever had to go through, but I would not trade it in for anything. I learned to see people in an entirely different light, I grew to understand that you don’t know anyone’s full story unless you talk – and listen – directly to the source, and I learned that the best way to forgive someone is to pray for and serve them. I promise that you will without a doubt begin to see said person as God does.
I also learned to look for the blessings within a trial. This particular one took me quite some time after the fact to see all the good that came of it, but the blessings from it are immense. Now, when I am in the middle of a really hard trial, one of the only things keeping me going is to take a step back and ask myself, “okay… what possible good can come of this?” and then think of all the blessings that may come because of the trial I am faced with.
Wow, I can't even remember the last time I went this long without writing! I apologize to those of you who follow my blog regularly. I may or may not back-post a few entries depending on how I feel in the next few days. Let's see... quick updates:
-I have still been going to the gym every Monday-Friday. I started out going 2 hours every day (an hour of cardio and an hour of weights) but after 2-3 weeks of that, it went down to an hour, and now it fluctuates between 30-60 minutes every day.
-I have decided that I am in the most social ward known to man. There is - no joke - something to go to literally EVERY night of the week. Sunday after ward prayer is game night, Monday is FHE, Tuesday is movie night, Wednesday is institute, Thursday someone always happens to have a birthday party... and the Fri/Sat parties vary, but without fail, there is at least one - if not two - parties during the weekend.
-I got to be a science fair judge for 6th graders. My roommate is a 6th grade teacher and needed volunteer judges. It was actually quite fun!
-I have become a master at Rockband. A few weeks ago we had a Valentine's party here and my friend Dave brought Rockband... and left it here for over a week. Needless to say, my neighbor (Jess) and milked that for all it was worth.
-I got to sing in the YA reunion fireside on the 14th! Every 5 years there is a YA reunion and the current and past members sing together at a fireside. Seeing how that was my absolute favorite part of YAs, I was thrilled to be able to sing YA fireside music again.
-I got to work on the newest TV Disney movie they're currently filming in SLC for two days. The best part though: I got to boom on ice skates! I am definitely no pro, but I am now MUCH better than I was!
-I got to have sushi with my old-time sushi friend (Beau) after nearly a YEAR!
-I went on a double blind date. (my friend set me up and I in turn set her up and we doubled)
-My apartment's smoke alarms all (6) went off at 5AM last Wednesday for no apparent reason. Scared the crap out of me and my roommates, got our adrenaline going, and then suddenly stopped after about 10 minutes. Talk about the ultimate wake-up call!
-In the past month I have decided to quit film, go back to it, quit it again, and rethink that again. Of course, this is all just in my head - I never actually did anything drastic to affect future possible gigs (since this IS currently my source of income... when I'm lucky).
-Also in this past month, I decided that I want to go back to school and get a Masters in Linguistics. The only pre-requisite is to be roughly fluent in two languages (aside from English). So the current plan (though it is always subject to change) is to get my Spanish back, hopefully test out of a bunch of the classes, and then start taking real Russian classes instead of teaching myself. If I do go back, it won't be until Fall of 2011.
-As of yesterday, I started my "Facebook Fast." Ashamedly, I am addicted. I spend at least an hour on there every day... as sad as that is. And I was tired of wasting time, so I said goodbye to facebook. I am currently planning on a week, but I may try for longer. By the way, it's amazing how much more productive I was today without facebook to distract me!
-I also cut out gchat. The two windows I always have open are facebook and gchat. I have a ton of friends who are on gchat all day (at work), and so I usually end up spending a good deal of time on there as well. Without my two biggest vices around to distract me now, I am getting a lot done! (also part of the reason I am finally updating my blog!)
-I have gotten hard core back into songwriting. I watched Music and Lyrics for the first time the other day and realized that I could totally do that (and really wanted to a few years ago). After all, it is what I went to school for originally. My problem though was that I could never put my lyrics to good enough music. But a good friend of mine is amazing at the music side of things, so we are going to start a collaborative effort as soon as he gets back in town. I pulled out my old songwriting notebooks today (I have 4 1/2 filled) and was so dismayed to discover that with one exception, I had not written ANYTHING since mid-2006. I used to write a couple every week!
So, I am very heavily getting back into that. The last time I was really into songwriting, I was also really self-conscious and worried about 'what others would think' and all that crap that I finally threw out the window in 2008. So this time I'm really excited to see what happens, essentially starting over but with the not-so-new-anymore mindset that took me so long to find!
Anyway, that's what's up with me right now! I don't have any solid upcoming projects right now. I am really struggling trying to find a way to keep myself afloat. That's part of the reason I am getting back into the songwriting thing, because if I play my cards right, that can work to my advantage as well. Freelance is a beast, but I won't let it consume me!!!
