Having just a taste of living overseas has filled every pour of my body with the desire to do more. I want to go back to Japan to try living on my own without relying on anyone. To not have to live in a nazi dorm, or be obligated go to classes with other Americans. I want to integrate without the catalyst of a school or people of the same nationality to help me get by.

It doesn’t have to be Japan, I suppose. Though I do want to learn the language still. Europe would be interesting. Australia. Hell, even Canada. I guess really what it comes down to is that I want to be in a place that is novel. I want to rediscover things. To struggle a little bit, but have fun at the same time.

The problem with school is that it becomes static after a while. Every 10 weeks I’m introduced to a new teacher, new subject, new room. But the city I’m in is the same. There’s no opportunity to go out and explore because I have the obligation of classes. The city I’m in is small and has farmland surrounding it. Seattle is too far away to drive to every weekend. Winter especially sucks because it’s cold and miserable.

I’m hoping that joining this club will satisfy my need for something new and unpredictable. It’s going to suck at first because I’m socially awkward around people I don’t know and with whom don’t feel any connection. We’ll see how that goes.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll go out and take some pictures.

Weekly blogging has been going on over at my writing journal, but I hadn’t been cross posting them here until today. I’m sure I’ve said this before somewhere, but I feel like I’m wasting the use of my site. Meaning, I have my site, but I’m not using it.

My blog set up is pretty nice. I guess I shouldn’t be concerned about people commenting on it, because no one ever reads it anyway. The only comments I get are from robots or spam. I would love to utilize my site for something more than recording stats and the occasional opinionated rant. Right now my site is pretty much a very expensive image host.

I keep saying these things, but then doing nothing. I wish I had something worthwhile to say, or something more to offer. But then, my site is a personal one. I put some of my better pictures on my nearly abandoned portfolio. I need to update that badly…

Speaking of photography (complete tangent here), I’ll be taking a black and white film photography class next quarter. I’m actually quite excited to take it. Maybe I’ll buy a scanner and upload photos.

I keep getting distracted by the internet.

Anyway, if my life was more exciting and I had more worthwhile yet not horribly personal things to say, I would make an effort to use my site more. As it is, my life is rather dull, and unless you want to hear (read) me complain about people who drive me bat-shit insane, my posts would also be very dull.

Maybe next quarter, when I’m out and about and taking photos, I’ll write in here more.

OH WAIT. I have something. I joined a CLUB. Yes, misanthropic me has joined a club. Inadvertently, mind you. I wanted to get myself a Japanese conversation partner, and ended up joining a “friends” club that is supposed to help the Japanese exchange students be social with Americans. There are officer positions available, and given my rather horrid time in Japan because such a club didn’t exist at my university, I feel a sort of obligation to give these people a chance to speak English (while teaching me some Japanese). I think it’ll be a win-win situation. One can only hope.

That will be developing soon, so I suppose I can write more on that as it happens. Right now, I’m going to mix myself a drink and go be social with my pseudo-hubby.

This week’s goal was 200 words a day, 1400 words total.

This week was a complete FAIL. The only day I wrote was last Friday. I don’t even know what happened. I decided “Weekends off.” Monday was a highly emotionally charged day. A couple days were spent in the library from 6pm-12am, and Wednesday night was spent studying for a test. All lame excuses, but man… I feel pretty upset over my lack of words this week.

February 19: 326
February 20: 0
February 21: 0
February 22: 0
February 23: 0
February 24: 0
February 25: 0
Total: 326 words

Reading total: 61 pages

Weekly Writing Goal:

326 / 1400 words. 23% done!

Yearly Writing Goal:

6991 / 250000 words. 3% done!

Reading goal:

396 / 4500 pages. 9% done!

I should really work on finishing two short stories that have been lingering toward being finished for weeks or months now. I hope that this week I can finish those up, as well as put in some time revising a story I’ve been wanting to rewrite for over a year now. Meh.

Not doing well is good motivation to get back into that daily habit. I think I’ll start that now.

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This week’s goal was 175 words a day, 1225 words total.

Sadly I was in a funk over last weekend and did practically no writing. I asked people to help me come up with an idea for a story, and one friend responded with “Morality or the lack thereof in one’s personal conduct", and unicornhime suggested Laundromat. I’m in the process of writing that story still, so I’m not posting any of what I’ve worked on this week.

February 12: 178
February 13: 10
February 14: 0
February 15: 0
February 16: 1360
February 17: 189
February 18: 234
Total: 1971 words

Reading total: 100 pages

Weekly Writing Goal:

1971 / 1225 words. 161% done!

Yearly Writing Goal:

6665 / 250000 words. 3% done! [I get really excited when it goes up one percentage point!]

Reading goal:

335 / 4500 pages. 7% done!

This week’s goal was 150 words a day, 1050 words total.

Last night, I couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to write, but earlier in the week I had been introduced to a fantastic source about Show, Don’t Tell. So I took a paragraph from a story I had written that had SO much tell in it and tried to make it better. I think it turned out well, considering what I had before. Still needs some work, but that’ll be for the next revision. Check out my February 11th post if you want to see the comparison.

February 05: 152
February 06: 0
February 07: 251
February 08: 154
February 09: 203 + 88 (two separate pieces)
February 10: 169
February 11: 209
Total: 1226 words

Reading total: 28 pages (better than nothing?)

Weekly Writing Goal:

1226 / 1050 words. 117% done!

Yearly Writing Goal:

4694 / 250000 words. 2% done!

Reading goal:

235 / 4500 pages. 5% done!

Also brought to my attention by the community the writing pen are two fiction contests. One is fantasy, while the other is general fiction. I have two stories in mind that will work for both. I may ask from some critiques before I submit them. Those critique entries will be friends only, so feel free to leave a comment if you want me to include you in the critique. For all those random readers of this journal? Har…

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I’ve been meaning to do this entry for a while. The idea first sparked when my parents took me to see Avatar and Sherlock Holmes in the same day. Today it was renewed with the unfortunate viewing of “Spartacus: Blood and Sand“.

You really have to wonder why movies and television are really lacking in dialogue, plot, and good character development. Not to mention originality. I, myself, am not a huge television watcher, nor do I keep up on the latest movies. I think that mostly has to do with the real lack of original plot, or at the very least good writing.

Did the writer’s strike a couple years ago destroy all the good writers? Did they decide to say “fuck it” and go into hibernation? Only to slowly drift out again when they wanted to do a movie like District 9?

A year ago, when I first met Kevin, he introduced me to a fantastically done series known as Deadwood. It’s an HBO series. When I think “HBO” I usually think The Sopranos and Sex in the City, neither of which really perk my interests. We started watching it, and holy shit. I was blown away.

If we want to talk about historical accuracy, not only is it done in story, but also characters, costumes, setting, and dialogue. The cinematography is beautiful. The use of sex is actually appropriate to the setting, not distracting nor thrown in haphazardly. You find yourself rooting for people who are murderers, but also these murderers have so much more complexity to them that you are connected to them. The violence isn’t unrealistic, leaving out the popular Hollywood bullshit use of wires and acrobatics. It stays true to the setting, and it fucking WORKS.

I’ve heard high praise of other HBO series, mainly Rome and the Wire. I think the reason these shows were successful - despite early cancellations (Rome and Deadwood) - is because the writers and producers TRUSTED the AUDIENCE. Shit isn’t spelled out and explained in insulting detail like a mother trying to tell her child that putting a hand on the hot stove will burn you. These writers are willing to take chances, to risk being vague and allowing the audience to draw the connections. You know, to trust the audience to have a brain with which to THINK.

Television these days is so mindless. Writers take something that was successful - 300, Gladiator - and create shows like Spartacus: Blood and Sand thinking that they can actually pull in a specific audience. But they do it in the worst possible way. Gratuitous sex scenes that is soft porn that does nothing more than show that ONE character has some sort strange kink. Ridiculous amounts of CGI in which 80% of the budget was used on FAST MOVING CLOUDS in nearly EVERY SCENE, stupid slow-mo action scenes, and AMG LOTS OF CGI BLOOD SPLATTERS!!!

But why? Why all this stupid CGI? It’s so over done that they think they can distract the audience away from the horrible dialogue, which is probably even worse than dialogue in “Hercules” or “Xena". But even so, Hercules and Xena weren’t trying to play off as a super serious series with “historical accuracies.” No, it was just playful fun. Whereas at the very beginning of Spartacus, we had this LOVELY disclaimer:

“Spartacus is a historical depiction of ancient Rome’s society and culture. The intensity of the sensuality, brutality, and language is to suggest an authentic representation of that period.”

Because, you know, Romans are actually British people and the gladiators were all Americans. … wait, what???

And, you know, people’s bodies splitting completely at the torso while flying through the air is truly an “authentic representation.” … All that slow-mo REALLY HAPPENED PEOPLE. SRSLY.

It’s horrible how movies these days are so CGI driven, rather than story driven. Avatar is a grand example, as is Sherlock Holmes. Both movies have HORRIBLE plots, HORRIBLE dialogue, and INAPPROPRIATE and, dare I say, HORRIBLE use of CGI. It does absolutely nothing to add to the story in a way that would remotely make it a worthwhile movie. Yes, Avatar’s CGI was fantastically done. I loved the world creation and the monsters, which couldn’t have been done without the expensive CGI. But Avatar was nothing more than a glorified Pocahontas story. Not to mention the dialogue made me gag.

Sherlock Holmes… I don’t even want to talk about Robert Downing Jr. Holmes.

Unfortunately, I’m not the target audience on most of these poorly crafted TV shows and movies. It’s the people who think the Digiorno commercials are funny.

I can’t wait for the next movie to come out that has some sense of originality, good dialogue, and appropriate use of CGI (or better yet, NO CGI). In the meantime, I just have to stick with HBO and good books.

This week’s goal was 120 words a day, 875 words total. I didn’t finish the short story, unfortunately. And a couple of days this week I missed my goal because of falling asleep early or being drunk and staying up late. *ahem* … I doubled up on two days to make up for it.

January 29: 186
January 30: 0
January 31: 159
February 01: 252
February 02: 172
February 03: 0
February 04: 248
Total: 1017 words

Reading total: 83 pages

Weekly Writing Goal:

1017 / 875 words. 116% done!

Yearly Writing Goal:

3468 / 250000 words. 1% done!

Reading goal:

207 / 4500 pages. 5% done!

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