Preventing the Nervous Breakdown

I already violated my “blog everyday” thing by not doing it for two days.  But I have a really good reason.  Wednesday night I had to go to bed really early because I had a final Thursday morning and I didn’t want to have two updates less than 24 hours apart.  Then last night I just forgot.

But I’m here now.  As for the final, I don’t know how I did.  I’m scared to find out.  But I did find out I got 100% on both of the papers I turned in based on the movies we watched in that class.  Being a film major comes in handy in a class where they try to teach non-film majors how to read film – way ahead of them.  It was one of my diversity classes and it technically shows up as a Pan-Asian studies class on my transcript, but we watched movies and discussed their emotional relevance and such.

I found out earlier today that I didn’t get the job.  Yeah, I’m bummed.  My rent is way passed due, I have no money, and I ran out of food.  But I’ve felt way worse.  I think it’s building up and I’m one bad day away from snapping, but for right now I can breathe, and that’s all I can ask for.

And a couple days ago, I had a night of sleep.  Not Wednesday night – I spent all night awake.  I had a good nap Thursday morning.  I think it was Monday night that I slept.  It’s definitely helped.

I don’t know what’s going to happen next.  Wish I did.  For now, I’m trying not to dwell, and it’s only sort of working out for me.

Just a Day

Today was a real mixed bag.  I lost my wallet and was driving around with my passport just so I could identify myself if needed.  It wasn’t needed.

I went to my job interview.  I hope it went well.  From my point of view, it did, and it seems like an awesome job.  I want it.

On the way home, I ran out of gas.  My brother had to come rescue me 45 minutes away from home.  I am so grateful to him.  Then I came home and found that silly wallet.  It was someplace I already looked, so the irrational part of me is sure my wallet was just out to screw me.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about today.  Part of it was stressful, some of it was good.  I’ll know how I feel about it at the end of the week.

Last Minute Preparations

I have a job interview in twelve hours.  I’m excited.

Today my mom and I went shopping and she bought me interview clothes.  I love them.  They’re cute and professional.  A nice dressy shirt and dress pants with dress socks.  Then my brother did me a favor and got a tire on my car fixed so I can drive to the interview.

I’m low on gas and still have no funds, so I’m going to have to forego a party I wanted to go to tomorrow.  A few of my friends are premiering short films and it’s also the birthday of one of those friends.  I can’t afford to buy drinks, though.  Also, the no gas thing.

I’m hoping for the best.  We’ll see what will happen.

Talking About Nothing

I have this “blog everyday” thing, but nothing really to talk about today.  So I’m going to talk about video games.

The first one is a browser game called ForumWarz that’s pretty fun.  The point is to pwn forums.  There’s also forums to talk about the game and troll each other and there’s other side games.  It’s pretty fun but pretty dead.

Console games, I love Grand Theft Auto, except for China Town Wars.  I’m a nonviolent perso, so when I get angry, I like to take it out on Pixels.

I like arcade games, classic NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis games, and the Sims franchise.  I’m not a big video game person, but I love what I love.

So I might blog about video games sometimes, like movies and television.

Analyzing Television: Dead Like Me

My brain never shuts off.  This is only problematic when I have a lot of stuff to worry about.  This leads to me needing to shut my brain up sometimes, and there’s nothing better than the Boob Tube.

However, I’m a film major whose brain never shuts off.  I analyze the crap out of shows.  So, in an effort to keep up with my “blog everyday” promise I made myself, and because it’s something that’s bugging me that I can’t discuss in real life, I am going to discuss why Dead Like Me isn’t actually as great as people think it is and why they shouldn’t have been surprised that the movie sucked.  My disclaimer is that I love Dead Like Me and without it I wouldn’t have my favorite show Pushing Daisies, but analytically, it is not a great show.

• Only the first five episodes are good.  Bryan Fuller should not have been fired from his own show, and Betty was better than Daisy.  Daisy did eventually grow on me, but I loved Betty from the beginning.  The characters were smart, the cinematography sound, and the narration tied the story together.  The episodes dealt a lot with George dealing with being dead and feeling guilty that she had to take the souls of people who were going to die.  It was all good.  The fifth episode was the first one that Bryan Fuller did not actually work on, but it was still good.  It was the last good one.  The problems set in.
• Instant Cope-ability.  George was suddenly good with being a reaper, and good at being a reaper, in the sixth episode.  By the seventh, she forgot about Betty altogether.  The show mutated.
• Awful Directing.  This did not happen all the time, but watch “Sunday Mornings.”  When the guy in the college George is about to reap is monologue-ing about this girl he met, the whole thing is shot in unnecessary extreme close-ups.  This isn’t the only example I ever found, but it is the most blatant.
• Awful Dialogue.  Most notably in the pilot, there is an instant of seemingly random conversation where Betty asks if George’s nipples get hard when she sneezes.  This actually set up the context.  George was uncomfortable answering because she was uncomfortable in this new group.  Betty had no problem asking because Betty says what she thinks.  Roxy had no problem answering because Roxy doesn’t care what people think of her.  This established character.  Random conversation would continue to pop up over the course of the series, but it stopped any purpose.
• Unnecessary Narration.  George’s narration helped to tie the story together and give information the viewer would need in the first few episodes.  Later on, she would just rant through her narration and it would serve no point.  Do we really need to hear the thought, “Is it shmootz or shmutz?”  Did it move the story forward or give us information we could not have otherwise know?  How about the classic thought, “She gave me a flower, and what did I give her?  Nothing.  I took her soul.”  She’s just ranting.
• Character Assassination.  Season two killed George’s character to the point I can’t stand her.  They hit a reset button on George’s progress.  She started off season two worse off than she started season one.  The time to be angry that she died was… well, not a year after she died.  It’s a little late to be angry.  Plus, George was just whiny, and she didn’t get her character back until the penultimate episode.
• Appointments with Death.  Early on it was established that a person has an appointment with death and if the grim reaper doesn’t show up, then the person dies anyway but the soul is still inside.  But that’s it.  However, there are two instances where if the reaper didn’t show up, the person wouldn’t have died – when Daisy went to Rusty’s shop and he got the mirror for her, and when Mason had to reap the camper and then convinced him to swim during a lightening storm.  More troublesome is that there is one instance where the only reason the person died is because Mason lost his post it.

There’s no arguing that the show’s quality hit a major decline as time went on.  It shouldn’t be shocking that the movie was bad, but there are some issues with the movie worth discussing because, well, they just need to be discussed.

• George Couldn’t Reap Reggie’s Boyfriend.  Actually not a mistake if you remember something else established in the first few episodes of the show – if someone misses their appointment, their name goes back into the hat.  Reggie’s boyfriend was not where he was supposed to be at his ETD.  He didn’t make his appointment.  George couldn’t reap him until she got his name again.  It’s not a mistake, but George is an idiot – a whole episode revolved around her learning that loophole.
• The Soul Roxy Pushed Back In Later Caused an Accident.  This was addressed in the pilot that the soul would wither and die inside the person.  I don’t know if this is a mistake, or if Roxy needed to be reminded that some rules were actually there for a reason.  Maybe the soul died and caused the accident.  I don’t know.  Either way, Roxy is also an idiot.
• George is Obviously Not Eighteen.  There was just no way around that.  Ellen Muth aged during the show, and she was always older than George in real life.  They should not have caked her in makeup because it made her look like a crackwhore.  Speaking of…
• Joy Didn’t Recognize Millie.  Joy loathes Millie.  Millie is the girl that picked at George’s death and appeared to possibly be psychotic.  How did she not recognize her?

I love Dead Like Me, but it obviously had a massive decline in quality as it went on.  If the show hadn’t been canceled, it may have gotten to be just as bad as the movie anyway.

That’s enough brain numbing for one night.

My Best Friend Insomnia

I don’t actually sleep.  Sleep is for people who have a reason to get up the next day.  I have stress piling up on me and very little reason to get out of bed.  So I spend all night awake, worrying.

Notice this has never stopped me from looking for work.  Inability to function is just a side effect of feeling worthless.

It didn’t help that I took – and failed – biology for the third time this summer.  Why the hell does a film major need biology in her life?  I’m just really bad at it and I have to take it a fourth time if I hope to ever graduate.  And I do, because I’m actually excited about grad school.  I’ve even decided where I want to be housed for the five schools on my list, weighed pros and cons, and am already preparing the writing samples I need for each program.  I do find moments of productivity.

They’re usually between when I realize I can’t sleep until I get frustrated that I can’t sleep.

I have purpose now.  I have a job interview.  The first one I’ve had in a year.

I can’t sleep at the moment, but I have a feeling that it’ll be easier over the next couple of days.

Obligatory First Post

I hate introductions.  They’re lame.  I like jumping into the middle somewhere.  I mean, for example, I don’t remember the day I was born.  My first memory of my life is somewhere after it already started – already in progress.

Unfortunately, firsts are necessary.

Maybe this is the first day of the rest of my life.  I’ve said that a million times before, though, so it’s all lies.  I have $2.42 in my bank account, no job, and until recently no prospects.  I’ve been unemployed since 2008, and I went back to school to get my degree because it would make me more competitive in the job world.  What I couldn’t count on was not even McDonald’s would hire me.  Things got bleak.

Then today, five minutes after sending in my resume to a job posting on Monster, I was scheduled for an interview.  Yes.  Five minutes.

You see, I’m a film major.  Film makes me happy.  I have plans to go to grad school for screenwriting.  I’m already looking the five schools I’m going to be applying to in the fall, as this is my senior year.  How is this related?

Right on top of my resume is my education experience, so right on top it says that I’m a film major on my resume.  Apparently, for this job, that’s going to come in handy.  So I was scheduled for an interview just five minutes after sending in my resume.

I haven’t even had an interview in a year.  I’m pretty excited.  I am being cautious – this job would be too perfect for me, with pretty decent pay, a part time M-F schedule that works around my classes and keeps my weekends open for filming projects, and is just a half hour drive from my school.

But I did decide that in order to keep my sanity, I would start this blog as a way to document my path to grad school.  Because this year is crucial for me.  If it crushes me, I have to give up all my dreams.  Hopefully I’ll be able to make it.

Let’s find out together.