| Weekend! |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|11:44 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  calm | ] |
I feel a bit backward for having a weekend that starts on Sunday / Monday, but whatever.
Somehow this time I managed to switch my sleep schedule around so that I enjoyed a full Sunday hanging out with friends and then got up in the Actual Morning Time today. (A drastic improvement over last week, when my sleep schedule never changed and thus I spent my nights off the way I do every night at work: wasting time with stuff online.) This evening I have a rehearsal and I think I have tentative drinking plans for after that, but the whole afternoon is mine! MINE I SAY!
Having said that, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself. Perhaps this will mean the resurrection of The To Do List, since there are a few little things that I've kept thinking about lately but never actually done. Arrange drum and voice lessons, for one. And write, for another.
I went to see Pixar's Up last week. It was... underwhelming, as far as Pixar films go. They typically FAR outstrip Dreamworks animated films in terms of their writing, but this one was just "eh." (Having said that, for a sub-par Pixar film it came closer to ACTUALLY MAKING ME CRY than any film since Dumbo. Fucking Dumbo.) |
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| Cassbits |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|04:35 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  awake | ] |
I am stealing this format from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) clawfoot, because I find bulleted lists less intimidating than trying to write about my life in full paragraphs.
- Still alive. Reading LJ as usual, but not feeling particularly posty. Good thoughts to anyone who needs them - I am thinking about all of you.
- Stage managing is fun. Am about to embark upon a hunt for props, which will be an interesting exercise in networking.
- I've actually been writing a bit lately. Gasp, shock! For the past month or so I've been slowly moving into a creative upswing again, and I'm looking for ways to keep up the momentum. This will mean more activity over at wordwhacker (so if you've been meaning to drop that journal off your friends' list forever and just haven't gotten around to it yet, now's the time!)
- I haven't been reading as much as I'd like, though. Need to change this. It's not like I'm wanting for reading materials, after all.
- Happy Canada Day, Independence Day, and Birthday (to me! This coming Wednesday!) It's going to be hard to top last year's spectacular celebrations of the same, but this year I get to spend 'em all with my family, which is differently awesome.
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| So LJ-posting is a 'once a month' event for me, lately... |
[Jun. 10th, 2009|03:54 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  busy | ] |
I am still reading (somewhat obsessively, actually) but I have been very un-posty lately. Part of the problem is that I think I've lost my "livejournal voice" for writing. (Um. Did I ever have a livejournal voice? I've always felt kind of uncomfortable with the broadcast-personal-junk style of writing that blogs seem to require.) (Not that I have any trouble reading it, mind.)
And, as always, a bunch of stuff happened in the past few weeks, such as:
- I GRADUATED.
- Along with my degree, I got a prize worth 2,800$. Because I rock. My credit card is weeping with delight.
- I was a maid of honour at one of my best friend's wedding. In a dress. And I looked freakin' fabulous in drag (second only in resplendence to the bride herself, of course.) Yes, I have pictures. This event deserves its own post largely for this reason, but this is for another day.
- I ran a very short RPG campaign for some friends which was generally enjoyed, and which helped to oil up my creative gears.
- I got a premium membership at Critique Circle again and found my favourite queue for short stories. Finding them in a bit of a slump submission- and crit-wise, I nigh-single-handedly stirred up a bunch of interest and got people submitting and critting again. (Including myself. I've written! I will write again! It is a glorious thing!)
- I volunteered and started to stage manage for a local summer Shakespeare production.
- I was approached to direct (or assistant direct, in one case) two different theatre projects. I turned the assistantship down cold (y'know, friendly-like), but I am being wooed into possibly directing the other one: a fun short play with a cast of two. IE: something I might be able to accomodate into my already-intense Shakespeare schedule.
Lest y'all think I have been nothing but productive, I should remind you that I have also spent a totally ridiculous amount of time playing both Plants vs Zombies (a game with an ingenius YouTube marketing campaign) and Portal.
Don't expect me to be too posty over the next while, but I'll try to update more often than once a month. Might cut down on these "boring summary" posts. |
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| Maybe I should post to LJ more often... |
[May. 21st, 2009|05:42 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | busy | ] |
... that way I wouldn't feel like I was overloaded with stuff to talk about (read: in danger of becoming VERY BORING) every time I DO post.
New Old Job is proceeding apace. After a week of training (I feel almost guilty asking them to pay me for the 40 hours that I spent trying to wrest fast-paced-enough refreshers out of people), I launched myself back onto the phone on overnights and haven't looked back. Am still fighting to get access to various databases and applications, but the job itself is still alive within me, creeping through my nerves. (I can't tell you the number of things that I had overtly forgotten, but that my fingers still knew.)
Also, my french is rough. Painfully so. But I can apparently still speak and understand it well enough to do two or three calls a night, so I am in good shape.
My mood has been pretty good since I started at work again, though it would be nice to spend more time outside now that the weather has turned nice. I think that walks in the mornevening (when I'm getting up - between 4:30 and 6pm depending on noise levels at home) need to become a habit. And I am slowly re-learning how to amuse myself in the dead hours of the night with writing projects, which was part of my secret plan for coming back to Big Computer Company in the first place.
Also - I am DMing a (relatively free-form) campaign for the first time in, approximately, FOREVER, and it feels very nice indeed. |
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| Today has been/will be... interesting. |
[May. 9th, 2009|09:33 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  crazy | ] |
I co-hosted a bridal shower today. For a butch/TG kind of individual, and with a wedding and surrounding traditions which are pretty traditional (read: ladies only), this was... well. Interesting. But somehow I managed to organize and run games that kept the ladies amused and talking for a couple of hours, so overall I think it was a success.
The relief of its finally being DONE also helped to knock me out for a couple of hours this afternoon - which is great because I am starting my new shift at work tonight.
"But Cass, weren't you working 9-5 shifts throughout the week?"
Why yes. Yes I was. It went a little something like this:
Monday: At work for 8:30am on about two hours of sleep. Managed to NOT fall asleep, unlike the other guy in training who conked out twice during the half-day that I was actually in the classroom.
Tuesday - Thursday: Slow, painful acclimitization to a day shift.
Friday: Stayed up until 4AM trying to turn my schedule around (and finish shower preparations).
Saturday: Woke up at noon, spent five hours doing shower-related stuff, napped for two hours.
Saturday, CONTINUED, at 11pm: Starting work, with probably only half of the technical access that I really NEED to do the job. (Going in early, actually, in hopes of encountering and dealing with any problems in advance.) Will be working a full 10-hour shift.
Sunday (projected): SLEEP.
I just made a giant lunch full of yummy things to eat. I hope I will be awake to enjoy it.
Since I knew I would be totally out of it on Mother's day, I gave mum her gifts early: some nice aloe vera gel (which she's been searching for for a while now), and Mario Kart for the SNES. She is NOT a gaming person, and that is the only game that she's ever really enjoyed and got good at. Every now and then when I would mention the SNES she would sigh and say, "I miss Mario Kart..." My mom is so cute. Once I wake up on Sunday night we are going to go play it a bunch. |
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| Um, wow. I finally did it. |
[May. 2nd, 2009|03:44 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  chipper | ] |
My marks for my last semester as an undergraduate are all out.
I... um. Guess I did pretty well, eh?
(Just so you all won't hate me for the above, I should remind you that I am the kind of person who routinely does extraordinarily stupid things like stick my finger in a pot of water to find out whether I've turned the burner on, or search frantically for an item that is either in my pocket or on my face. I am, in a nutshell, this student.)
Since Monday I've been on the road visiting far-flung Maritime friends and generally doing a lot of NOT ANYTHING ACADEMIC. My job starts on Monday and I have no idea what that's going to be like (I worked there for six years, so shouldn't have a lot of "orienting" to do, but some retraining/refreshing is likely.) I'm also thinking a lot about the kinds of things that I want to do with myself now that school isn't taking up my whole headspace anymore. In service of this I splurged (a relative rarity for me, unless we're talking about food and/or travel) on a beautiful leather-bound notebook wherein I can write highfalutin' prose about life goals and other such delightfully froofy stuff.
In other news, what is that big yellow glowing thing in the sky most days? I think I like it! |
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| Four years. |
[Apr. 26th, 2009|11:02 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
I.
Am.
DONE. |
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| So close... |
[Apr. 23rd, 2009|04:50 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  anxious | ] |
1) I am not the Valedictorian. No speech-writing for me, yay! It's nice to know for sure and not be wondering about it anymore. (Now I can just continue obsessively checking to see if my grades have been posted yet.)
2) I am working on my last project (a take-home exam), which will either be done tonight or tomorrow, depending on how quickly I consume the video sources that I need to reference and how effectively my ideas lend themselves to the writing process. (Papers for this prof/subject tend to be the only ones that I can write directly to the screen rather than via a long-hand draft, though, so that bodes well for me.)
I may also A) meet a friend for a coffee break and/or B) opt in on a game of D&D tonight, depending on my progress and mood. Right now I am in hermit mode and wanting to just shut out all outside influences and GET IT DONE, but this may not last all night.
3) I found this among the books that have been collected by my Golden Key group for my school's "Better World Books" book drive. BWB doesn't want it, so I am going to take it home and read it and laugh until my tears smudge the giant widely-spaced Disney print into obscurity. |
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| Cass on the Air! |
[Apr. 19th, 2009|01:08 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | chipper | ] |
I'm co-hosting my friend Jay's radio show, "The Flipside," tonight from 9-11pm (Atlantic time). I'm gonna be playing some of my favourite music - Steely Dan, Elvis Costello, some Todd Rundgren's Utopia for fun, but MOST importantly, some XTC through the ages.
You should tune in! Local folks can dial in to 107.3FM, but folks from afar can go to cfmh.ca and click on "Listen Online" to stream it.
Come on, you know you're all scrambling for the opportunity to listen to my sexy, sexy voice. |
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| Done! - Take 1 |
[Apr. 9th, 2009|02:34 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | chipper | ] |
I had my last ever undergraduate class today. Technically, I actually missed it - it's supposed to be a three-hour-long class and I was busy running around finishing my application for Valedictorian. I got there half an hour late and everybody was gone. But I went and chatted with my prof (who, for the record, also taught the FIRST undergraduate course I ever took... symmetry, I love you!) and got my final assignment, and enjoyed being told that I had written a really good essay. And now I'm done.
I only have three things to do before I am through with this degree for good:
- Write the take-home exam I just got (will schedule a couple of days sometime next week to do this)
- Study for and take my Magical Internet exam
- Re-read the stories for and take my Canadian Short Fiction exam
Compared to last month, I feel like I'm on vacation already!
"Vacation" is going to be short-lived, though: I will be working for Big Computer Company again in early May. (I think I missed a call from them, actually. Crossing my fingers that they call again today so I can set some things straight.) Part of me (a BIG part, considering the shit that a lot of you are going through) is extremely grateful that I didn't have to do an actual job hunt. It would have made this semester even more incredibly stressful. But in a way it would have been interesting to move on to something new (y'know, now that I have, like, a degree and stuff.) This is in the relative short-term, though, and the pay, people and pre-existing training are right, so to BCC I go. I can think about new jobs when I disappear to grad school in a year-and-change.
Now I can throw myself into Script Frenzy full force (and use the rest of my print credits from school to print some flyers. Score!) |
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| Frailty, thy name is Cass! |
[Apr. 5th, 2009|07:05 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | chipper | ] |
A video clip on YouTube of me playing Hamlet in a scene from my school's recent Shakespeare medley.
The audio isn't great, but I think I'm projecting enough that you can generally hear me. |
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| Who rocks? |
[Apr. 4th, 2009|08:12 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
I DO.
The funny thing is that I have utterly failed to adhere to the last item on that list - namely, to do "FRIGGIN' NOTHING". So far I have attended the first reading of a number of locally-written plays, set up a meeting for Script Frenzy and got a Google calendar all set up for it, updated my resume, and ordered transcripts. Now I'm going to fill out some student opinion surveys and apply for my old job at IBM again.
And all this with a hangover! (Though I stopped feeling the effects of that a couple of hours ago.)
Please, somebody tell me what is wrong with me?
It's nice to have time for this stuff after a month and a half of insanity. All through yesterday I was daydreaming about the kind of stuff I'll be able to do without school hanging over my head. Lots more theatre stuff. Voice lessons. Learning new songs on the guitar. Writing. Reading. Oh god how I have missed reading for pleasure.
Speaking of which - does anybody have any fun books to recommend?
[EDIT] Ooh! I just got bitten by a Project Upstream fishbot. Neat! |
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| School + Shakespeare + Photography + Short Stories + Dinner Theatre = My Life |
[Mar. 24th, 2009|01:38 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | busy | ] |
The term is wrapping up. I got back my Giant Paper of DOOM and, despite my fears and nagging self-doubt, did absolutely fine on it. So fine, in fact, that when I sat down with my prof to talk about it one of the first things he mentioned was an essay contest that I should submit it for. What the heck, right? I mean, I already won ONE essay-writing contest this year. (Wait, did I blog about that? I don't think I did. Man, I suck.)
Now I get to edit it AND write a whole English paper in the run of a week. Yippee! And this during the final week of rehearsals for the play that I'm directing for one of my classes. My actors are not yet off-book and I am trying to put the fear of [deity] into them by reminding them that we are ELEVEN DAYS OUT FROM PERFORMANCE NIGHT.
Tonight is the dress rehearsal for my "Shoestring Shakespeare" group's performance. My progression amid this mix of scenes is as follows: Prince Hamlet, rapist, Duke Theseus. It has been a treat to spend some quality time with the text, particularly the Hamlet soliloquy, his first in the run of the play.
A couple of my stories are finally seeing the light of day print in my school's literary journal, "Vox." I didn't win any prizes for them (though I have a hunch that I was at least in the running), but my photography went over REALLY well - so well that my photos are forming the front and back covers of the edition. I'm very happy about this. This year I have been slowly learning that I might actually have a decent sense of how to frame things visually and textually. I'm going to read a short story or two at the launch, but I haven't decided for sure which ones yet.
It's nice to turn the page on these stories; I haven't written anything substantial or polished in at least a couple of years. This is why I'm glad I'm taking a year away from school. I NEED some time to do things that I just can't justify spending time on while I'm in school and working.
And, of course, I'm still working at the dinner theatre. Obviously I didn't have ENOUGH going on. At this rate, everything is going to wrap up at the exact same time, and I'll be left feeling adrift and depressed. Will cross that bridge when I get there, I guess.
So, um, in the wake of all this silliness: do y'all think I should apply for Valedictorian? I'm not too keen on writing a speech, so I won't be disappointed if I don't get it, but I figure it's worth a shot. The world needs more fat queer valedictorians. |
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| Stuff, in no particular order: |
[Mar. 15th, 2009|11:58 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | calm | ] |
- I am now a Sir Howard Douglas Scholar. (Translation: smarty-pants.) On Thursday I was inducted and was treated (along with my parents) to a delicious four-course meal and a glass of wine that kept getting topped up. Now if I knew how to "network" I'd be in real decent shape.
- I have been eating really well for a week, and it feels great.
- The 20-page-paper of DOOM has been completed. I worked on it all week, stopping only to sleep, eat, memorize Shakespeare, and hold rehearsals for my own play. The paper is in need of some serious reworking (how did 75% of my potential sources get left out when I actually got down to writing the thing?!), but as it's only a draft paper I am content with this.
- In celebration, I spent a couple of days out of town visiting my friend K. There was much hanging out, getting drunk, and playing Rock Band. After an INTENSE week of school work, it was exactly the kind of respite my brain required.
- I somehow still got my Monday reading done early. It didn't hurt that this reading consisted of three short stories which were, for the most part, a delight to read.
- On Tuesday I decided that I would never be a decent director. On Thursday I overturned that decision.
- Apart from having my evenings stuffed with rehearsals, my final few weeks' worth of course work is looking pretty light (in comparison with past weeks.) |
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| Things I did today: |
[Mar. 10th, 2009|11:38 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | weird | ] |
- I went to a meeting.
- I wrote. For seven hours.
- I memorized a bunch of Shakespeare lines.
- I held a two-hour rehearsal for my one-act play.
- I did not die.
I also got a cheque in the mail today for my student loan (FINALLY). Just in time - I had just about run dry of my tips, dinner theatre pay, and 500$ prize for that English paper I wrote. (The last of which I spent on the following things: room service while staying at the hotel last weekend for an English conference, a food/fitness/health coaching plan, and a dentist appointment.)
Apparently my life is interesting but I am too busy at the moment to notice.
In about three days I will experience a certain measure of relief, and I am really excited about that.
(I am also pretty excited about my writing. I actually... dare I say it? Enjoyed it. But don't tell anyone, 'kay?) |
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| Okay. |
[Mar. 3rd, 2009|02:12 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  determined | ] |
I have been extremely unproductive for the past couple of days, at least in the school department. I now have three days in which to get quite a lot of stuff done. I am going on internet hiatus in everything except a twice-daily email check (still have some little projects on the go that need tending-to.) Actually, the internet is only about 30% of the problem - surprisingly this old-fashioned medium called "Television" is pretty distracting as well.
Basically I just need to pack a bag, get the heck out of the house, and get some work done.
Low-level depression begone! Enthusiastic attack upon schoolwork, begin! |
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| Having just spent ANOTHER week generally lethargic and depressed... |
[Feb. 27th, 2009|03:16 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | busy | ] |
... has me wondering whether I might have a touch of SAD after all. Then again, my diet has been shit lately, so that probably isn't helping. And these factors may or may not be implicated in my contraction of some kind of (for now) low-level illness.
In sum: BLEH.
I have done approximately ZIP this week. (You know, apart from going to all of my classes, spending all of Wednesday working on a stupid project for school, trying to network my old and new laptops so I can transfer files, and attending Shakespeare rehearsals and running a rehearsal of my own play. Part of what is making me crazy is the fact that I can be making NO headway and still be busy.) And now three things are looming as I enter March Break: a 20-page paper on law and justice in Westerns, a presentation about "Batman Begins" to be given at an English conference (my participation at which will knock two and a half days off of my break), and a debate about Alistair MacLeod short stories. And I have to work both tonight AND tomorrow night.
This semester is, in short, kind of brutal. Not a completely evil kind of brutal, though; no, this semester is a "tough love" kind of brutal, the kind that pats you on the back once you've taken your beating and come out stronger on the other side.
Until then I will probably be somewhat distant, as it is imperative that I limit my internet time lest I get drawn into the Timesuck To End All Timesucks. I will be reading silently for a while, and updating my facebook status with alarming regularity. And then: FREEDOM! |
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| Snow day! |
[Feb. 23rd, 2009|09:47 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | snow day! | ] |
Not only was my 9:30 class cancelled (this being the class with the CRAZY professor who NEVER cancels class), but now the entire university has been closed due to the storm. Which is kind of awesome, but also annoying since we were supposed to start rehearsals tonight. (It may still happen, but I'm guessing that even if conditions improve somewhat they won't re-open the campus just for the evening.)
Another potential problem (one laced with a certain amount of awesomeness, however) is that I can't escape to the library where I am safely removed from distractions, thus allowing me to get copious amounts of schoolwork done. On the plus side, though, is pretty much everything else. Reading articles in bed on my laptop! Study breaks to play Rock Band! Access to a (blessedly well-stocked) kitchen at any given moment!
In completely different news, I finally watched "The Dark Knight" last night, and was way more impressed than I expected to be. Maybe it's because I have spent the past six months furiously ignoring the hype and being my typically anti-pop-culturally curmudgeony self. (Or, as I suggested to demonblade, who wasn't a fan: maybe I have just started to enjoy analyzing films so much that I kept myself amused through the less-than-awesome bits.) I was also firmly expecting to be, after all the buzz about Heath Ledger and the Oscar and such, somewhat underwhelmed by his performance. I'll admit, I was not hooked at first, but as the movie went on it really grew on me. Something about the tone of the film reminds me of the Batman cartoon that I loved as a kid because it was quite dark; it feels to me as though that sensibility was just kicked up to an adult level. At the very least I think they hit some notes that "Batman Begins" sorely missed.
Anyway, since I missed all of the discussion that happened at the time (and now it's almost relevant again, thanks to the Oscars), tell me. What did YOU think of "The Dark Knight"? |
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