One more week

And a short one, at that.

Just one more week until I have finished my first term of VFS. I must say, I am having fun. I still don’t care for lectures, but I am pretty sure they told us that all that theory stuff is taught in the first term and from then on, it’s practical hands on stuff.

I can’t wait. I want to write. I want to do things. I want to be part of the team that makes things happen. I am actually pissed off with myself for forgetting to sign up for this web series they are doing over in the Production campus next term where I would have had the opportunity to work with a director and such as a writer on set.

That’s exactly what I want to be doing. I am super eager to get into the game. Money isn’t important to me right now. What matters is getting to do my thang.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Money is very important right now because I will need $800 before the end of the month. And it’s freaking me out. Which, sadly, makes it hard for me to do anything about it. This is the problem with depression slash anxiety. Things that should goad you into action freeze you in place instead.

There’s something to be learned from that, I am sure. Something about depression’s deadly alchemy, turning fire to ice. And the total suppression of the id, and the feeling that you are just barely keeping the boat afloat and any change, no matter how slight, will capsize you and plunge you into the bone-chilling cold waters of your suppressed emotion.

Anyhow. Hopefully, I will get over the freaked out period soon enough to save my sorry ass. It remains to be seen if the deer can snap out of its headlight hypnosis in time to avoid the oncoming truck.

This morning’s class was Short Script. I somehow missed that I was supposed to print out the second draft of my script so I could present it today. So I had to do that when we took our break. But that’s not the bad part, although I stupidly did my collating in the copy room on our floor and thus encountered one of the only bad things about being taller than average : counters.

Counters and sinks are, naturally enough, built for people of average height, and that means that my 6’1″ self has to kinda scrunch down to use them. And that hurts my back. We tall folk are prone to back problems anyhow (because we exceed the design specs for the human body) and scrunching down sure as hell doesn’t help. But it’s not too bad with sinks because I am usually only using them for as long as it takes to wash my hands.

Trying to do something like collating and stapling, on the other hand, was agony. Like someone was jabbing me in the back with a wire coat hanger.

The real bad part, though, was that because I didn’t have my stuff printed, the prof made me present last, and that means that I only got 20 minutes of workshop time when everyone else got at least thirty and the first two people got 45 minutes each. If the prof had just done her job and stopped the first two when she should have, I wouldn’t have gotten screwed over.

And that activates both the “control freak/incompetence” and “neglected/abandoned” issues, and that ain’t fun.

Don’t get me wrong, I got lots of highly useful feedback that will make the third and final draft way, way better. So it’s not like I got completely screwed over (although I would not have been surprised). It’s more of an abstract thing. But… ya know… ISSUES.

Tried the Mediterranean place a few doors down from the school today. Well, technically, it was the second time, but the first time I just got pita and hummus, so that doesn’t count. Today I got the beef lamb platter, and low and behold, it came with meat that sort of tasted like beef and sort of like lamb. Whatever. It was tasty, and came with rice, Greek salad (basically just pieces of cucumber and green pepper), and tabouli, which I’d never had but was quite nice.

Plus some pita bread and a little plastic tub of hummus, which I ended up not eating.

The afternoon class was Format, and we had a quiz. Oh joy. A quiz in my least favorite subject. I did a little quick studying before the quiz, and I was sure I would do okay on it. But when we graded our own quizzes later in the class (neat trick, teach!), I only got 60 percent.

And I was really disappointed in myself, because I knew that I hadn’t really taken the test seriously and that I probably could have gotten a higher score if I had just concentrated and applied myself.

Now the quiz is only ten percent of my final mark, so the stakes are not that high. At most, I cost myself two percentage points. But I am not the sort of person who gets 59 percent on anything, smarty pants that I am, and so that 59 percent was a real slap in the face.

Plus I am pissed off that the teacher never got to read my hilarious wrong answers. Hey, if you can’t be right, be funny!

Oh well. After this term, I will hopefully be bidding that subject goodbye forever. No offense to my teacher, who’s great and possibly the most energetic person I have ever met, but the course has been very dull and fussy and I really don’t enjoy it.

I have one more class in it, and it will be taking a test on TV script format, which will be open book/computer and more of an Internet treasure hunt than a test. Suits me fine!

You can’t really teach TV script format anyway because there is no universally accepted standard like there is for film. Every show does it differently. This also suits me fine, because it means when I am writing for TV, I will not have to follow some arcane set of rules.

I will learn the house style, and that will be it.

Well, that’s my day. Next week is the Nexus of All Deadlines, so I have lots of work to do.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

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