やっと、朝の太陽の光が雲から出た。
ASB is at 89 reviews. 89. This is (possibly) a new record... I had a story that hit the 90s, and I think also one with over 100, when I was a kid, but those were 1.) stories for larger (and active) fandoms, 2.) updated more often, and 3.) ... more fan service-y. XD So, this 89, I'm very happy with it. <3 Not to mention the number of hits, that's pretty lovely too.
(reeeeeeeeeaches for the 90... reeeeach...........)
Last weekend went... nicer than I expected for a number of reasons. The curry thing was rescheduled, because the advisers realized no one wanted to come on Sunday ^^; mostly because of how packed till exploding the weekend was.
I did 24 Hour Project. I wrote a script which can be read in my writing journal between 11 pm and 4:30 am, Friday-Saturday. I turned it in at 10 am on Saturday. I would have liked to have stayed up later fine-tuning it, but as things were, I had to go with my Japanese Diet class to a discussion/observation at a Japanese school at 10:30 am. I thought it would be better to be rested before trying to speak coherently in Japanese. :P それなのに、私の日本語はやっぱり分かりにくい。
So it's not a great script. It's rushed, playwriting is not my strongest point, I may have overshot myself, and as I look back on it there are a dozen things that make me wince. It may not be the best play to turn in to people who only have 8ish hours to memorize, stage, and rehearse it. (Even though it's shorter than most of the other plays, it's more dialogue-heavy.)
The director and the actors were great. All of them were doing more than one show, but they did beautifully in everything. They added a lot of really awesome little details - apple in Meat's mouth, Alex flinging the tablecloth and cutlery off in one full thrust, the outfits (or lack thereof), the... homoeroticism. XD They really put a lot of effort into, and performed with gusto. I'm really happy with everything they did.
But I didn't like it much, myself. XD As the writer, I'm supposed to wash my hands of the play completely, and let the director have full run. Which I did, and thought I was prepared for it, but I didn't realize how many ways things could be changed. Lines were warped or cut completely (some of this may be unintentional - I think at one point lines were [understandably] forgotten), what was the most significant section for me (Peach and his painting) was scrapped, and the sexing-up was definitely not in the original script. :P (I know the importance of action as well as a dialogue, so when Peach "inspects" Meat, I knew full well it would likely swing in that direction. I just didn't expect it to dominate the performance.) In the end, it felt to me like my script had been transformed into a mix-matched ball of whatthefrick, and then I felt embarrassed to be introduced as the writer. Because it's not my play.
But that's the most important part - it's not my play. It belongs to everyone involved. The director's interpretation, the actors' portrayals, the writer's intention, they all play a part, so one voice can't dominate. It was hard to swallow at first, but I think I'm okay with it now. Because it was a great job. I appreciate what my group did a lot. They worked really hard and, honestly, they were very funny. Most of the plays in the whole show were in a similar vein of what!? It was hard being the last play (everyone's tired and ready to finish), and it was hard not to nitpick everything (because I wrote the script), and it was hard to deal with a play I deliberately tried not to sexualize then being sexualized. But overall, it was a great experience.
I learned a lot of things about playwriting, for instance. I learned to go easy on the dialogue, leave a good amount of room for action, try to let actions say at least as much as words, if not more. It's definitely a different game than book-writing. Very interesting. I was very sensitive on the weekend over how everything went, but now I think, I can look back on this happily.
The one thing that still kinda pinches me is winning the award for "Oddest Play." The awards are total BS, of course, but still... I feel like the only "awards" I ever win have to do with being weird or strange. Just once I would like someone not to consider me and my sense of humor completely wacko. The other day I was really upset about it, and was being all "woe-is-me" and misunderstood. But, anyway, this is a college show. I'll wait until I wade into the publishing world to find out if I'm too strange for most people.
I do wish the MC had remember my name. There's a lot of names to remember, but he'd said it just minutes earlier. Twice. And then I became, "The person who wrote the last play." :/ Couldn't even take a stab at my gender...? (I mean, I know I'm the fade-into-the-background-shh-they'll-see-you type, but.)
anyway. Good experience, overall.
The school observation was very interesting. We quizzed Japanese mothers on how they prepare lunches for their children, and got to compare children's and adults' bento. I was very tired, though, and although I talked a lot, I made some very amateur mistakes in grammar and vocab.
After that we got to go have lunch with the kids! Their bento were sooo adorable. Hello Kitty-shaped boxes, soccer-ball onigiri, gaah adorable. I met a little boy named Shun who was too shy to do anything but stare at me.
They gave us delicious bento for our own lunches. Here's what was in them:
1. Rice with furikake or nori (I used tamago furikake; the rice took up an entire half of the bento box)
2. Tamagoyaki (grilled egg; one)
3. Nikujaga (meat and potatoes; small amount of each)
4. Some plant thing, I don't know, maybe gobou (two or three pieces)
5. Gobou ninjin kinpira, the best I ever tasted (gobou is the root of burdock, ninjin is carrot, both sliced very thinly, and kinpira means they're simmered)
6. Potato salad (small amount)
7. Karaage (fried meat; one or two pieces)
8. Broccoli (one)
9. Tomato (one)
10. Ingenmaki (green beans wrapped in a slice of meat; one)
It was so, so delicious. I practically licked it clean. Guuhhh, Japan <3
They also gave us green tea, of course. The tea and the rice were the stars of my weekend.
Tonight I have do evaluations of 10 tracks on Japanese music for Nonwestern Music. Teach returned our previous papers finally - I got an A- on both the evaluation and short essay sections. I'm pretty darn happy with that, since my background knowledge of technical music terms is, er, nil. So I feel a little more confident this time around. Aaand I should also probably get a start on it... :P
I spent Sunday night writing a paper comparing "Howl" and "Lycidas," which was not fun, although as is pretty typical with me, I got into it about midway through, when I found my groove (and relocated to the lounge, where there were no distractions such as the Axe and Bow fanfiction page XD)
But... then the class the paper was for (Poetry), my first class, was canceled... which we found out only when we arrived at the classroom. >.< Oh wellz.
I also emailed my boss, asking her if she'd provide a reference for my language camp app, and also asking if I could apply for my usual job anyway. I was nervous... so I tried to be super extra polite... but she replied right away, and was very sweet and "Oh yes! You can put me down as a reference and we'd love to have you back if the other job doesn't work out!" Which is encouraging. And gah, now I want to work at the usual place. I don't know what to dooo. I probably can't do both. If the language camp job works out, I'll be gone during the orientation week for my usual job, so even though I'll be back long before the season is over, they'll already have enough counselors AND I probably won't count as certified. In spite of having gone through orientation two other times.
Well, I want to go to the language camp this year, so I'll just cross that bridge when I come to it. There is just not enough time to do everything... >.<
I also found a song by Remioromen, 春夏秋冬 (shunkashuutou) which means "Spring Summer Autumn Winter." It's a lovely song. Here it is:
Okay, time to do work, ostensibly. Lol.
Am excited for Kitty coming back!!
(reeeeeeeeeaches for the 90... reeeeach...........)
Last weekend went... nicer than I expected for a number of reasons. The curry thing was rescheduled, because the advisers realized no one wanted to come on Sunday ^^; mostly because of how packed till exploding the weekend was.
I did 24 Hour Project. I wrote a script which can be read in my writing journal between 11 pm and 4:30 am, Friday-Saturday. I turned it in at 10 am on Saturday. I would have liked to have stayed up later fine-tuning it, but as things were, I had to go with my Japanese Diet class to a discussion/observation at a Japanese school at 10:30 am. I thought it would be better to be rested before trying to speak coherently in Japanese. :P それなのに、私の日本語はやっぱり分かりにくい。
So it's not a great script. It's rushed, playwriting is not my strongest point, I may have overshot myself, and as I look back on it there are a dozen things that make me wince. It may not be the best play to turn in to people who only have 8ish hours to memorize, stage, and rehearse it. (Even though it's shorter than most of the other plays, it's more dialogue-heavy.)
The director and the actors were great. All of them were doing more than one show, but they did beautifully in everything. They added a lot of really awesome little details - apple in Meat's mouth, Alex flinging the tablecloth and cutlery off in one full thrust, the outfits (or lack thereof), the... homoeroticism. XD They really put a lot of effort into, and performed with gusto. I'm really happy with everything they did.
But I didn't like it much, myself. XD As the writer, I'm supposed to wash my hands of the play completely, and let the director have full run. Which I did, and thought I was prepared for it, but I didn't realize how many ways things could be changed. Lines were warped or cut completely (some of this may be unintentional - I think at one point lines were [understandably] forgotten), what was the most significant section for me (Peach and his painting) was scrapped, and the sexing-up was definitely not in the original script. :P (I know the importance of action as well as a dialogue, so when Peach "inspects" Meat, I knew full well it would likely swing in that direction. I just didn't expect it to dominate the performance.) In the end, it felt to me like my script had been transformed into a mix-matched ball of whatthefrick, and then I felt embarrassed to be introduced as the writer. Because it's not my play.
But that's the most important part - it's not my play. It belongs to everyone involved. The director's interpretation, the actors' portrayals, the writer's intention, they all play a part, so one voice can't dominate. It was hard to swallow at first, but I think I'm okay with it now. Because it was a great job. I appreciate what my group did a lot. They worked really hard and, honestly, they were very funny. Most of the plays in the whole show were in a similar vein of what!? It was hard being the last play (everyone's tired and ready to finish), and it was hard not to nitpick everything (because I wrote the script), and it was hard to deal with a play I deliberately tried not to sexualize then being sexualized. But overall, it was a great experience.
I learned a lot of things about playwriting, for instance. I learned to go easy on the dialogue, leave a good amount of room for action, try to let actions say at least as much as words, if not more. It's definitely a different game than book-writing. Very interesting. I was very sensitive on the weekend over how everything went, but now I think, I can look back on this happily.
The one thing that still kinda pinches me is winning the award for "Oddest Play." The awards are total BS, of course, but still... I feel like the only "awards" I ever win have to do with being weird or strange. Just once I would like someone not to consider me and my sense of humor completely wacko. The other day I was really upset about it, and was being all "woe-is-me" and misunderstood. But, anyway, this is a college show. I'll wait until I wade into the publishing world to find out if I'm too strange for most people.
I do wish the MC had remember my name. There's a lot of names to remember, but he'd said it just minutes earlier. Twice. And then I became, "The person who wrote the last play." :/ Couldn't even take a stab at my gender...? (I mean, I know I'm the fade-into-the-background-shh-they'll-see-you type, but.)
anyway. Good experience, overall.
The school observation was very interesting. We quizzed Japanese mothers on how they prepare lunches for their children, and got to compare children's and adults' bento. I was very tired, though, and although I talked a lot, I made some very amateur mistakes in grammar and vocab.
After that we got to go have lunch with the kids! Their bento were sooo adorable. Hello Kitty-shaped boxes, soccer-ball onigiri, gaah adorable. I met a little boy named Shun who was too shy to do anything but stare at me.
They gave us delicious bento for our own lunches. Here's what was in them:
1. Rice with furikake or nori (I used tamago furikake; the rice took up an entire half of the bento box)
2. Tamagoyaki (grilled egg; one)
3. Nikujaga (meat and potatoes; small amount of each)
4. Some plant thing, I don't know, maybe gobou (two or three pieces)
5. Gobou ninjin kinpira, the best I ever tasted (gobou is the root of burdock, ninjin is carrot, both sliced very thinly, and kinpira means they're simmered)
6. Potato salad (small amount)
7. Karaage (fried meat; one or two pieces)
8. Broccoli (one)
9. Tomato (one)
10. Ingenmaki (green beans wrapped in a slice of meat; one)
It was so, so delicious. I practically licked it clean. Guuhhh, Japan <3
They also gave us green tea, of course. The tea and the rice were the stars of my weekend.
Tonight I have do evaluations of 10 tracks on Japanese music for Nonwestern Music. Teach returned our previous papers finally - I got an A- on both the evaluation and short essay sections. I'm pretty darn happy with that, since my background knowledge of technical music terms is, er, nil. So I feel a little more confident this time around. Aaand I should also probably get a start on it... :P
I spent Sunday night writing a paper comparing "Howl" and "Lycidas," which was not fun, although as is pretty typical with me, I got into it about midway through, when I found my groove (and relocated to the lounge, where there were no distractions such as the Axe and Bow fanfiction page XD)
But... then the class the paper was for (Poetry), my first class, was canceled... which we found out only when we arrived at the classroom. >.< Oh wellz.
I also emailed my boss, asking her if she'd provide a reference for my language camp app, and also asking if I could apply for my usual job anyway. I was nervous... so I tried to be super extra polite... but she replied right away, and was very sweet and "Oh yes! You can put me down as a reference and we'd love to have you back if the other job doesn't work out!" Which is encouraging. And gah, now I want to work at the usual place. I don't know what to dooo. I probably can't do both. If the language camp job works out, I'll be gone during the orientation week for my usual job, so even though I'll be back long before the season is over, they'll already have enough counselors AND I probably won't count as certified. In spite of having gone through orientation two other times.
Well, I want to go to the language camp this year, so I'll just cross that bridge when I come to it. There is just not enough time to do everything... >.<
I also found a song by Remioromen, 春夏秋冬 (shunkashuutou) which means "Spring Summer Autumn Winter." It's a lovely song. Here it is:
Click to viewOkay, time to do work, ostensibly. Lol.
Am excited for Kitty coming back!!