Thursday, November 09, 2006

How I Spent My Summer Vacation (and Most of the Fall): A Return to Blogging

This post is meant partly as an explanation and mostly as a round-up of relevant stuff I've neglected to post about in the last few months. First, let me just say that my life has been rather rocky recently, and instead of boring all of you with my emotional travails, I opted to just keep it to myself.

So here, in bullet form, is what I was up to:

Moved - Moved into my first solo apartment. It is huge. I was hoping to post some pictures, but my digital camera got busted before I could do so. I still need to paint and work on getting a couple more chairs for the kitchen & a few more pieces of wall art, but in general it really does feel like home. The only downside so far was the one time I was propositioned on the the way to work (bearing in mind that I leave for work at 5:30am, more on that later). Other than that, the neighborhood rocks. Everything is within walking distance, from markets, to doctors to drugstores and butchers. People are generally unpretentious and I'm close enough to The Drive to conveniently go for a nice dinner or brunch and far enough away to avoid most of the hippies.

Found a New Job - So, shortly after I moved into my new apartment (read: my rent just doubled), the company I was writing Anime Scripts for failed to get me a translation script in time for me to work on and invoice for a script, meaning I didn't get paid that week. Realizing that this was no way to live and that I was beginning to tire of working from home (not to mention Shojo in general), I decided that it was time to find a real job. After some frustration, I was suddenly confronted with two promising offers, one in the film field with room to move, and one in sales with the possibility of travel to New York. Since the sales position was a lock and likely paid better than the other job, I went with it. However, because I work a territory in Eastern US, I have to start work at 6am. To say that this has been an adjustment, is an understatement. My karaoke appearances are sporadic at best and I have given up entirely on going out Friday nights. In fact, the last time I was invited out on a Friday at 8:45pm I actually thought to myself "Good god, who would want to go out so late?!" Luckily everyone I work with is very nice and we all get along very well. It is a small company (>20 people), so it is cozy and comfortable, but owned by a larger company, which means good benefits. I don't plan on spending more than a couple years here, but by that point I should have paid off most of my debt and saved sufficiently for my next adventure. While sales isn't my first choice of jobs, the industry and my position require enough crossover skills with my dream career that it seems like the right place to be right now. Plus, I have the potential to make mad cash for a change.

Went to the Seattle Film Festival -- Had a very good time, made a pilgrimage to Scarecrow, saw A Scanner Darkly & Strangers with Candy. Got to hang with Xian & MiuMiu. Scanner's probably still my favourite film so far this year, but there's a lot I haven't seen yet. Strangers was funny, but didn't really add anything new. The Dan Hadeya cameo was cute.

Made my Burlesque Debut
-- In the spirit of trying new things and broadening my horizons I took the Femme Factory Burlesque workshop. I did the 5 week course which includes an opportunity to appear on stage. Between moving, finding a job & trying to get my scripts done, I basically had one week to choreograph my routine and build my costume. Runthrough with my instructor did not go well (I was unprepared) & I found out that she'd done a routine to the same song a couple of weeks prior. Eek! Stressed out terribly and swore up and down that I would do it this once and then never again since I "just don't have the time". The actual event went marvelously. The crowd was very responsive and multiple people complemented me on my enthusiasm. Pics are available on Flickr here. Photos of my finale are available to friends via email request. Oh, and because I know Theron will want to know, my routine was to SCOTS's cover of "House of Bamboo".

Hosted a Bunch of EFS Nights
-- All well attended, with one notable exception. Put together a Halloween shorts program which went over very well, although I was a little disappointed at the small number of local submissions I received. I'm starting to get media inquiries and attendance is becoming more consistent. Yeah me.

Watched Lots of Movies
-- Capsule reviews to be posted shortly.

Trying to Improve My French
-- There are multiple reasons for this one, but I'm not ready to comment on most of them yet. Mostly it's the fact that I've been learning it since I was 3 years old and I still don't feel comfortable using it at work. Not that I have to use it that often, but it'd be a nice thing to include on my resume & would help with a couple of projects I'd like to start.

So there it is, in a nutshell. I do plan on posting more regularly & will be expanding my reviews to include restaurants because it was brought to my attention recently that I am a foodie. If you give two craps, I would ask you to leave a comment. However, I seem to have deleted that function. Please email me if you are more proficient at HTML than I.

Thanks,

~meeko

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