A detailed recount of the last 6 months of my life that you can probably skip over
Hello! *waves madly* I haven't talked to many of you in a very long time, but rest assured, I'm still around, just have been busy/lazy (a combination that sometimes goes strangely well together).
As we get to the end of the year, I thought it appropriate to look back over all the stuff going on in my life and what has changed. However, due to the fact that I actually am lazy, I'm only going to look back for the last 6 months.
So people who don't care about real life ramblings, you can go ahead and skip out on this one.
As the summer ended, I got called up to some Production Assistant work with a feature called "The Gay Dude." Yeah, a real winner. I only worked two days, but it was nice to get paid and mingle with professionals and pretend I know stuff. This was actually the first time I've ever been paid for film work, so it was a bit of a landmark.
At the same time, I got out of Burnaby (a suburb of Vancouver) and moved into East Vancouver, in an area rich with culture, starving artists, hippies, and hipsters. I'm in heaven. I also moved in with my best friend Kristen. We lived together a few years ago in a basement suite, so I knew we'd get along. It's actually a bit bizarre how much we don't fight or get upset about anything. It's about the opposite of my last living situation with Beth and her boyfriend Owen, whose lifestyles clashed horribly with my own (not to say they're bad people, we just get along better when we don't live together).
Anyways, I know live in a ground floor two bedroom suite. It's pretty small, but it's relatively cheap and warm and I get to keep my cat Nikko, so I'm pretty pleased.
In September, I restarted University at Simon Fraser after a year's hiatus (a preventative measure to keep me from losing my sanity and to avoid bankruptcy, but all the same failed to do both). I only needed two classes to finish, so I took Gerontology "Death and Dying" and Film Theory. I'm a film student, and bizarrely, I enjoyed Gerontology waaaaaay more than my theory class. I probably enjoyed it because I like knowing what's a head of me, and my atheism allows me a certain level of peace and acceptance over the inevitability of mine and everyone else's death.
While I started school, two issues popped up that I to address: my Grandmother (whom for some reason thought I would never go back to school and become a streetwalker) offered to pay my last semester of school, but when the bill came, only was willing to pay half. The second issue was that I filled out my form for financial aid from the government wrong and I spent 6 weeks bouncing between BC Service Bureau, Federal Loans, Canada Post, and my school trying to diagnose just what the problem was, and then cancel the application and start a new application. It was a very stressful time for me.
Also, my sister Adrienne and our friend Amaris were having a horrible fight that felt a bit like the cold war and went on and on for months, and put significant stress on everyone involved (we operate in a group of 5), and only just was resolved last week. I don't really want to get into it, but lets just say I did a lot of crying in frustration (plus the fall always makes me depressed).
All the girls came over to Vancouver (they usually reside in Victoria, my hometown) for Halloween, which was pretty awesome (Amaris and my sister struck a truce for the trip, thankfully). We went to Parade of Lost Souls, a Day of the Dead celebration and had a great time and then went to a Doors coverband concert which was amazing! We decided to do something fun this year, so we all dressed up as Grannies. Jo was Exercise!Grannie, Kristen was Zombie!Grannie, Adrienne was CatLady!Grannie, Amaris was Cougar!Grannie, and I was Sweet/Homey!Grannie. The costumes looked great. Convincing. In fact, too convincing. It went from hilarious to amusing to unflattering to insulting how many people actually assumed I was a real Grannie. People were opening doors and moving their flailing children out of my way as I walked. Next year I'm going with a less realistic costume.
After the girls left, my sister stayed for an extra 5 days to look for work. She had just been laid off and was struggling in direction, but convinced herself out of moving to Vancouver, so she eventually went back home. She's still unemployed :(
November was filled with frantic paper writing while trying to stay afloat by doing my cleaning job. Towards the end of the month, my friend Julia contacted me to do Set Dressing work for a commercial that was due to shoot in the first week of December. I agreed and got my secondary job that included payment. It was pretty exciting to work on a 'real' set, I think the director and producer were pretty pleased with my work, considering they both added me to FB.
After the commercial was done, I madly wrote my final essays and finished my final exams, mostly with a 'I don't give a shit' attitude, because seriously, it's my last semester. I actually got pretty decent marks all considering. It's an amazing feeling to know that I'm finished my undergraduate education and now have a degree in film. I am so done with school.
Immediately after my final exam, I rushed to the ferries and went to Victoria to attend my friend Laura's wedding. It was beautiful, catholic, and a wee bit awkward because there wasn't many people I knew, despite the fact that we went to middle and high school together. Regardless, I had a good time. I wore a dress I bought last year to attend a film festival in LA. It's about 2 sizes too big for me now, so it looked a bit weird, but I got my hair done, so I didn't look too trashy.
After the wedding I came back to Vancouver and frantically tried to get all the miscellaneous chores and projects done that I'd been putting off since the beginning of the school year. I was about 38% successful. Seriously, considering the amount of mess and clutter I create throughout the house, I have no idea how Kristen puts up with me.
I half joked to my mother a few months ago that we should take Nikko on Christmas vacation with us and to my surprise she agreed. This is how I know my parents are becoming senile. I took her last year with me to Victoria, but this trip involved a large amount of travel. Anyways, I shipped Nikko to Victoria with my aunt and followed a day later (seriously, she is the most well adjusted, mellow cat I've ever known. She either sits on your lap and looks out the window of the car or sleeps in her carrier. It probably helps that she's a wee bit of a short-bus kitty). I spent a day visiting the group, then Adrienne, Mom, Dad, Nikko, and I went to Comox and stayed with some family friends for the night. The next day we went to Quadra Island and stayed in a delightful cabin for 4 days with no internet, cell reception, tv, or anything to do. There wasn't much to do except eat and get drunk, which we did constantly. It was stormy most of the time, with 60knot winds and 10 foot waves, which was kind of surreal and awesome. There was a hottub, so we got to watch the ocean crash from the safe warmth of chlorinated water while sipping a cocktail. One thing I discovered is that it's hard to be in the same space with my parents for 6 days at a time. I haven't lived with them for 6 years and there's a reason for that. But despite the need for space, we had a great time. After that we all headed down to Victoria and Nikko and I left for Vancouver the next day. All in all, a travel intensive Christmas, but lots of fun.
A few days ago I got a call from a producer and just got hired on a production coordinator for a indie Canadian feature called, "Primary." Although I'm not getting paid for this (well, I am, but it's a % pay, so I only get money if the film makes money), I'm pretty psyched because people are starting to PHONE ME for work, not the other way around, and IT'S A GOOD FEELING! Hopefully my awesomeness will also spur on more contacts and business down the road.
The only thing that sucks is I put off about 5 bazillion fics that I planned to write, and January was the month I was going to do it, but now I'm crazy busy again, soooo... faaaaak!
All in all, there were ups and downs to 2011. I started working more seriously in my industry, I lost 30 pounds, but I also had to deal with a lot of social politics and life BS that made me very anxious and depressed. I wonder what 2012 has in store...?
(hopefully not the end of the world, cuz that would just plain suck when I still have so far to go with my career).
As we get to the end of the year, I thought it appropriate to look back over all the stuff going on in my life and what has changed. However, due to the fact that I actually am lazy, I'm only going to look back for the last 6 months.
So people who don't care about real life ramblings, you can go ahead and skip out on this one.
As the summer ended, I got called up to some Production Assistant work with a feature called "The Gay Dude." Yeah, a real winner. I only worked two days, but it was nice to get paid and mingle with professionals and pretend I know stuff. This was actually the first time I've ever been paid for film work, so it was a bit of a landmark.
At the same time, I got out of Burnaby (a suburb of Vancouver) and moved into East Vancouver, in an area rich with culture, starving artists, hippies, and hipsters. I'm in heaven. I also moved in with my best friend Kristen. We lived together a few years ago in a basement suite, so I knew we'd get along. It's actually a bit bizarre how much we don't fight or get upset about anything. It's about the opposite of my last living situation with Beth and her boyfriend Owen, whose lifestyles clashed horribly with my own (not to say they're bad people, we just get along better when we don't live together).
Anyways, I know live in a ground floor two bedroom suite. It's pretty small, but it's relatively cheap and warm and I get to keep my cat Nikko, so I'm pretty pleased.
In September, I restarted University at Simon Fraser after a year's hiatus (a preventative measure to keep me from losing my sanity and to avoid bankruptcy, but all the same failed to do both). I only needed two classes to finish, so I took Gerontology "Death and Dying" and Film Theory. I'm a film student, and bizarrely, I enjoyed Gerontology waaaaaay more than my theory class. I probably enjoyed it because I like knowing what's a head of me, and my atheism allows me a certain level of peace and acceptance over the inevitability of mine and everyone else's death.
While I started school, two issues popped up that I to address: my Grandmother (whom for some reason thought I would never go back to school and become a streetwalker) offered to pay my last semester of school, but when the bill came, only was willing to pay half. The second issue was that I filled out my form for financial aid from the government wrong and I spent 6 weeks bouncing between BC Service Bureau, Federal Loans, Canada Post, and my school trying to diagnose just what the problem was, and then cancel the application and start a new application. It was a very stressful time for me.
Also, my sister Adrienne and our friend Amaris were having a horrible fight that felt a bit like the cold war and went on and on for months, and put significant stress on everyone involved (we operate in a group of 5), and only just was resolved last week. I don't really want to get into it, but lets just say I did a lot of crying in frustration (plus the fall always makes me depressed).
All the girls came over to Vancouver (they usually reside in Victoria, my hometown) for Halloween, which was pretty awesome (Amaris and my sister struck a truce for the trip, thankfully). We went to Parade of Lost Souls, a Day of the Dead celebration and had a great time and then went to a Doors coverband concert which was amazing! We decided to do something fun this year, so we all dressed up as Grannies. Jo was Exercise!Grannie, Kristen was Zombie!Grannie, Adrienne was CatLady!Grannie, Amaris was Cougar!Grannie, and I was Sweet/Homey!Grannie. The costumes looked great. Convincing. In fact, too convincing. It went from hilarious to amusing to unflattering to insulting how many people actually assumed I was a real Grannie. People were opening doors and moving their flailing children out of my way as I walked. Next year I'm going with a less realistic costume.
After the girls left, my sister stayed for an extra 5 days to look for work. She had just been laid off and was struggling in direction, but convinced herself out of moving to Vancouver, so she eventually went back home. She's still unemployed :(
November was filled with frantic paper writing while trying to stay afloat by doing my cleaning job. Towards the end of the month, my friend Julia contacted me to do Set Dressing work for a commercial that was due to shoot in the first week of December. I agreed and got my secondary job that included payment. It was pretty exciting to work on a 'real' set, I think the director and producer were pretty pleased with my work, considering they both added me to FB.
After the commercial was done, I madly wrote my final essays and finished my final exams, mostly with a 'I don't give a shit' attitude, because seriously, it's my last semester. I actually got pretty decent marks all considering. It's an amazing feeling to know that I'm finished my undergraduate education and now have a degree in film. I am so done with school.
Immediately after my final exam, I rushed to the ferries and went to Victoria to attend my friend Laura's wedding. It was beautiful, catholic, and a wee bit awkward because there wasn't many people I knew, despite the fact that we went to middle and high school together. Regardless, I had a good time. I wore a dress I bought last year to attend a film festival in LA. It's about 2 sizes too big for me now, so it looked a bit weird, but I got my hair done, so I didn't look too trashy.
After the wedding I came back to Vancouver and frantically tried to get all the miscellaneous chores and projects done that I'd been putting off since the beginning of the school year. I was about 38% successful. Seriously, considering the amount of mess and clutter I create throughout the house, I have no idea how Kristen puts up with me.
I half joked to my mother a few months ago that we should take Nikko on Christmas vacation with us and to my surprise she agreed. This is how I know my parents are becoming senile. I took her last year with me to Victoria, but this trip involved a large amount of travel. Anyways, I shipped Nikko to Victoria with my aunt and followed a day later (seriously, she is the most well adjusted, mellow cat I've ever known. She either sits on your lap and looks out the window of the car or sleeps in her carrier. It probably helps that she's a wee bit of a short-bus kitty). I spent a day visiting the group, then Adrienne, Mom, Dad, Nikko, and I went to Comox and stayed with some family friends for the night. The next day we went to Quadra Island and stayed in a delightful cabin for 4 days with no internet, cell reception, tv, or anything to do. There wasn't much to do except eat and get drunk, which we did constantly. It was stormy most of the time, with 60knot winds and 10 foot waves, which was kind of surreal and awesome. There was a hottub, so we got to watch the ocean crash from the safe warmth of chlorinated water while sipping a cocktail. One thing I discovered is that it's hard to be in the same space with my parents for 6 days at a time. I haven't lived with them for 6 years and there's a reason for that. But despite the need for space, we had a great time. After that we all headed down to Victoria and Nikko and I left for Vancouver the next day. All in all, a travel intensive Christmas, but lots of fun.
A few days ago I got a call from a producer and just got hired on a production coordinator for a indie Canadian feature called, "Primary." Although I'm not getting paid for this (well, I am, but it's a % pay, so I only get money if the film makes money), I'm pretty psyched because people are starting to PHONE ME for work, not the other way around, and IT'S A GOOD FEELING! Hopefully my awesomeness will also spur on more contacts and business down the road.
The only thing that sucks is I put off about 5 bazillion fics that I planned to write, and January was the month I was going to do it, but now I'm crazy busy again, soooo... faaaaak!
All in all, there were ups and downs to 2011. I started working more seriously in my industry, I lost 30 pounds, but I also had to deal with a lot of social politics and life BS that made me very anxious and depressed. I wonder what 2012 has in store...?
(hopefully not the end of the world, cuz that would just plain suck when I still have so far to go with my career).