Sometimes I feel like an island. Or like I'm missing some necessary strings that connect me to other humans, and instead my strings are floating in clouds and not doing a very successful job of tethering me to day to day life.

Or maybe it's just the semester is winding down and I'm dreading finals.

French final aujourd'hui at 1:30. FINAL french final, might I add. The end of an arduous french minor.

Last Wednesday I won Best Original Screenplay, that's what the picture is.

Thanksgiving

I stayed in Pennsylvania over Thanksgiving weekend with my incredibly gracious Aunt and Uncle. The house is so old that I had forgotten what they sound like. It was like a living, breathing creature, who moaned and wheezed as the wind blew and it made settling noises. The radiator even clicked as it was doing it's damnedest to warm the house, chugging it's little metal heart along.  It was my first Thanksgiving away from home- but I couldn't have chosen a better place to spend it. 

I followed a grey cat around the yard to see what kind of mischief he was getting into. I also saw a hawk tearing apart his dinner squirrel, but that wasn't as fun. 

Well.

No more (real) film shoots this season! I think tomorrow I am helping someone film their beginning level film production (16 mm no sound plus-x black and white negative), but he told me that if he didn't feel things were adequately prepared he wasn't going to ask me to be on it, out of embarrassment. Hm. 

Tonight is the deadline for the films to be in the Hofstra Filmmakers' Club festival. This is actually a very exciting time of year- lots of fighting, redemption, tension, et cetera. I would elaborate but most of these stories I've told so much already that they are just tiring at this point. 

That picture is of me, on location in New Jersey for shooting my own movie! The little girl in the background is the little sister of my lead actress. And she kicked my ass in monopoly, p.s. Clearly we are hard at work.

Okay, that's all I've got in me right now. 

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I am currently experiencing some really uncomforable levels of pulls in different directions. 

Film - French - Friends - Familial (Not really, I'm just homesick.)

I was on a really brutal film shoot this past weekend. Three day shoot, from 6:00 am to Midnight EVERY DAY. And it was also cursed...five people got a stomach virus, one kid got a fractured wrist, I broke my toe, and we all kept cutting our hands up on the dolly track because the polish was chipping off and slicing us up. There was a tetanus scare for awhile.

My french professors are beginning to pressure me into double majoring in film and french, and one of them especially is pushing me to do the study abroad thing with her. She's trying to barter with me because I keep telling her I don't have the money. So she wants to get me financial aid and and audit one of the courses so I don't have to pay for it. I understand her enthusiasm and I love her and I love the class, and I would probably go to pretty great lengths to study abroad but I genuinely don't have the time/money. She also has asked me to attend a black-tie conference thing that only three students in the university are allowed to attend, and I agreed to it, but when I consulted my schedule later I realized that I would be in Jersey filming my own film, which I can't just walk away from. If it was any other person's shoot other than my own, I would. 

I'm also working with two kids who are running or SGA President and Vice President, I'm on their campaign staff. This translates to me making commercials for them. At first there was all this hubbub of people saying they would love to help these kids, and then of course I got stuck doing all the work. I mean, I don't mind because I believe in them and their platforms, but sometimes I get sick of being a workhorse.

I feel like I'm held together with masking tape!

I'm very excited about my film shoot. It's going to be shot entirely on location in New Jersey with some of my closest friends, and it's going to be nice and relaxing. I've worked on almost forty films by now, so I can make a good schedule. 

All of my actors are really pumped up about the shoot, which makes me excited. They've been working out, getting tans and haircuts, and hanging out with each other in their off time (out of rehearsals, classes, et cetera) in order to cultivate the kind of friendship they'll need to portray onscreen. 

After next weekend, it's a downward climb. Until then...let's hope the masking tape holds!

I found two interesting websites: 

www.rcrdlbl.com

It's a neat indie mp3 site. I'm in love with "No More" by The Dirty Projectors.

www.postcardsfromyomama.com

This is a site where people submit things their mothers have sent them, it's actually really funny.

Oh, here is a picture of me and my roommate from the shoot this past weekend. She was the lead actress and I was the key grip. I would post a more revealing picture of the shoot, but I kind of signed a contract saying I wouldn't give anything away about the film.

Anyway, that's it. Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. Over and out.

Geekfest 2008 yo

I...hate, HATE dorm life. Just throwing that out there. 

Right now it is 4:38 am and there is what my roommates and I like to refer to as "Geekfest" going on in the common room, which shares a wall with my dorm. Geekfest usually gets together and plays Guitar Hero and various other video games for extended periods of time. It's dubbed "Geekfest" due to the very interesting specimens of humanity that make up this fascinating anthropological study. 

Geekfest has now been at it for about seven hours. I'm going to shoot somebody. 

I live in a high-traffic area dorm- lots of people coming and going at all hours, and since I am on the first floor, right next to the elevators, I have the privilege of coming out of my room in the mornings to see the havoc I heard take place the night before when I was trying to sleep. So far this night someone has broken off a elevator door, busted open a fire extinguisher (there is glass everywhere) and tipped over a trash can full of beer cans. I hate my dorm on the weekends.

Dorm life! Hooray!

It's almost five in the morning. In addition to hating the dorm, I hate daylight savings time. I WANT MY HOUR BACK. 

Um. Wait, what?

I have a sinus infection and both my ear drums are torn. How does that even happen?!?

Gross. 

The mockumentary is up!

Here it is! Haha, it's just a rough cut, but there's me acting/improvising/being generally awkward.

Dojo Diablo?

Froglish

I am at work. It is tiresome.

I work in basically the film equipment rental house of my school and it's like the movie Empire Records except film related. We are all entirely too involved in each others' lives.

Last night I did a mockumentary for a couple friends, meaning I acted in it, which is rare these days. It was fun. It was kind of a Christopher Guest-style thing, where I improvised and said ridiculous things off the top of my head about pirate radio and had to keep a straight face. I'll post the link once it goes up on http://www.current.com/.

The picture I posted is of me on a recent film shoot- There were about eight or nine child actors. Mothers have this instinct on a set and they understand who's in charge immediately- so they told their children to stick with me and I'd take care of them...so they followed me around the entire shoot. It was cute. I got back the behind the scenes footage to edit to put on the dvd and there's always me running around in the background of the interview and then a trail of little ones behind me. P.S. That kid that is taller than me (the redhead) is 11. He's a beast.

Excuse le titre.

Rules of Suck it, Nostradamus!:

1) Don't talk about Suck it, Nostradamus!.

2) No, really. You do NOT TALK about Suck it. 

3) There is no Suck it. 

That's all for now.