The waffle-y rules of engagement

As different blogging sites on the internet seem to correspond with different thought levels I'm having - this blog is a little more ruminating and chewy, I think. With the speed at which things have been going lately, little compact feel-spores going out on Twitter and Tumblr are easier to get out of my system, but much less useful as a reflection on life as it passes. So I thought I would take a few minutes and hash out how things have been going.

While most of my year was spent working on/recovering from Cinema Spectacular II, I recently started working at a delightful little shop called SweetGeorgia Yarns that, thankfully, have been flexible and extremely kind about my working in film habits. Trying to land more film work has been a little trickier than I had originally anticipated. Getting back into the swing of things has only revealed a lot of my previous connections have dissolved, either because they no longer are doing that kind of work, or what is happening more frequently is that a camera department is often brought on as a unit - they know one another, recommend that they work together, and they operate as a unit. Not having a steady camera department team is a bit of a wrench in the works, but I take opportunities as I can get them. When I have to stare down the show-lull barrel, it's always in the dead of night that I consider not doing it again. But as soon as I get back on a show, everything comes rushing back - meeting new people, going new places, learning tons of new things - sometimes it takes a reminder, but set's where I need to be.

So I finally wrapped up my education this spring. It's weird because I still have conversations with myself that go something like "ah shit, what do I need to cram for today?" and the answer is always "whatever you want - literally nothing or everything". School was a period of time that, while full of nice people and good times, was also filled with this looming monster that very near consumed me - self doubt. I still find myself looking over the proverbial shoulder, checking if it's still there. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

What makes this tiny on-paper victory a particularly euphoric terror is checking post-secondary off the life-list and seeing the wavering long/short tally of 'supposed tos' between now and lights out. I've been dwelling on 'supposed tos' a lot in combination with reevaluating my long term goals. Taking a step back, squinting, reframing, and muttering "why is that important, even?" If I theoretically erase those 'STs', it's just a big stretch of 'whatever', and that's a little scary. Or throwing the question "but what if you want something different at point A or B?" just throws everything into a confused tail-spin and the future starts to look stretched and Dali-like. So I guess it's going to be one-day-at-a-time for a little while here.

While the easy-peasy platitude at this point would be to put the quote "don't waste your life" over top of a stock photo of the sunset, part of me strains with the concept of how you can use your days well when they're such a variegated shitstorm of whatever - and constructing my own set of values that will A) define what 'well' is and B) not set that bar so high that misery sets in after something doesn't work out (as it often does). One-day-at-a-time becomes it's own special monster of potential opportunity/cynicism.

Something I have been working through lately is my thought processes and what triggers me to react to things the way I do. It's difficult to take apart your emotions as they happen - and it's harder to take them apart after the fact, only to realize you've definitely done something wrong or weird. Coming to terms with the way I feel about most things is an ongoing process, one that, while it has benefits of becoming more aware and better serving to myself, also stresses the following point: all of these little nagging negativities that have been part of me will remain part of me. It's possible the realization that these little nitpicks aren't something that can be gotten rid of - just buried over time with disuse - will help stabilize them to a point where they're not poking up through the foundation and muddling up something I do not want to be muddled. Fixing something for good is harder than it sounds.

Whew - well I feel better having unloaded that steaming pile somewhere other than my little-girl-heart.

Check out:

cool new things:

Le Matos - first heard this Montreal artist on the soundtrack to the Canadian-New Zealand co-production, Turbokid

Sad Ghost Club - pretty accurately mirrors my feelings to me a lot of days - this comic's one of my favourites

Be sure to check out the Vancouver Fringe Fest! Get your theatre on.

VIFF is coming soon too! Be still my heart.

A lot of things are going on over at Cinema Spectacular right now - and I've started being more active in promoting other cool projects on my production company Facebook page - Agriotherium Films - if you ever want something to look at that's more off the beaten path. On that page as well will be fall/winter updates of some/many things that are currently in the film-division works.

Word Vom.

Well, I'm never sure what triggers in my brain to tell me to write a blog post these days, but here it is anyways. Prepare yourselves for me trying to explain the last five months of things going on in my brain.

I am surprised to see that I never really made a post-Cinema Spectacular entry. And it definitely deserves a lot of reflection - having initiated the very very beginnings of the second one this past week. The event went well, and even though there were not as many buns in seats as I had hoped, I really appreciated all of the familiar faces, the lovely staff at the Vancity helping us out, and the support I had from my family. Having been my first event I had organized on such a scale, of course there were things I could have done better, more I could have done to market the projects, the event itself - but these experiences are built for learning and expanding. To do better.

Leading up to the screening, and ever since then, the marketing approach to the screening got me thinking - not only about independent cinema, but about local cinema as well. The event became centred around the idea of supporting local film - film born out of the talents here, from initial insight to the credit roll. Because these films are a way to express ourselves - not as a cog in an infinite machine, but as a mind, often collaborating with others, figuring things out. What I loved about our line-up is that, in the end, everyone had a favourite - and all the answers were different. And I am proud that the program ended up having such a wonderful personality as a whole - better than I ever could have hoped.

After Cinema Spectacular and the premier of my last short film, My Old Flame, it had felt like I have birthed these twin monstrosities. These two projects far too large for just myself, but I wrestled with them anyways until I beat them into some sort of... shape. It took me right up until this month to properly recover, I think. Something that I know I need to relinquish in the future projects of my life is the ability to trust, to collaborate, and to truly believe in the talents of other people brought onto a team. I know so many wonderful and brilliant souls who have such a variety of abilities in this city, and I am still so nervous about putting a personal-project responsibility into the hands of another.

Vancouver is a city that, since moving here, has fairly constantly complained about some slight to the local film industry. Whether there are better tax breaks somewhere else, the premier doesn't support the arts, or some big Hollywood shindig pulled the plug and went south of the border - plus a myriad of reasons I don't

quite understand. In a digital age where you can make films for a significantly lower price, it astounds me to believe how few get made. I know things become vastly more complicated as money is thrown into it, but it is just ultimately disappointing. My views of the 'independent' market have changed - for however independent, these films are still largely dictated by names dipped in Hollywood familiarity. The more I have read about genre in class, the more useless genre has become - every class I have sat down in proposes an ideal genre - only to double back on it and explain how that genre actually encompasses EVERYTHING. "Melodrama can be anything" "oh actually, film noir is everywhere". The rules you read about end up becoming useless. Across the board.

I think after being in school for film for the better part of six years, my original fantastical view of film has been torn down. It has taken me most of the summer to be able to sit and watch a film that didn't already have the big easily-consumed, rubber stamp of Hollywood on it. The love is still there, sitting somewhere quietly. Every time it speaks up a bit, my doubts thunder down on it again and it quiets down. But in those still moments in the evenings, it is speaking up again with greater frequency.

These days, I'm finding it super tough to divide my time. Because I'm not buckled down with school, reading things I don't want to read - my reading list and interests have ballooned. Every day I wonder how much time I can spend with certain things that are important to me - film, biology, animation, feminism, learning new things in general - they say to be truly 'good' at something, you've got to do it every day. I've been learning to sculpt, draw, I started a comic strip, I started writing more, I edit film, I read new things - there is a tremendous pressure to do so much each day. While sometimes it feels I am improving myself, some days it feels like I'm trying to squeeze myself into one specific spot where I don't belong. And I'm not sure what that means.

As I step out of the institutionalized education part of my life, my bucket list grows longer by the day, and this, perhaps the longest era in one's life, I step into without career, without security. And although I feel the need to have those two things at all times these days, I realize that those things are farther down a road that I may never even walk down. So, that's fun. Reeeal fun.

I suspect the next year or so may be a slow divorce from this city. It is expensive to live here, and I seem to be unable to find a job in which I feel useful and fulfilled that will pay my astronomical bills. The joy of being by myself in this city is waning, it seems.

I really want to go roll around in all the snow my hometown has right now.

For your eyeballs and your brains:
General super early-bird call for submissions - CINEMA SPECTACULAR II
As I revamp what I'd like the event to represent, have an old film that hasn't been polished up? Something that never really made the rounds at festivals? Think abooout it. E-mail me.


Hamlet! Keep up to date with the Spears' sisters stage adaptation of Hamlet!

I am surprised I don't have more? Go watch The Killing. There's another one.

Tail end of trials.

Oh hey!

So much is going on in my brain right now. I'm slowly making progress through infinite projects - so things are okay. On the other hand, I've got infinite papers to write in the next seven days and that makes me sort of sad - but the light at the end of the tunnel is so close, it's just a matter of getting there eventually.

Large steps are being made in slow-motion with my short film. And on top of that, I would like to announce it's screening on May 17th! Along with the premier of my newest, shiniest short film, I am assembling a super-team of projects from other filmmakers in the city. It will be full of awesome short films, super rad music videos, trailers for upcoming features, and webseries previews! It's going to be super great, and the program gets more exciting with each passing day. If you follow my film Tumblr (here) there will be filmmaker bios, printable posters, and lots of other fun stuff. The Facebook event is also up!

The past three months have been tedious. It's an exhaustion associated with school, it's like the itch I can't scratch because I'm paying not to itch it or something. It's weird. I'll be very pleased to leave University for good. I'm sure a more lengthy retrospective on the topic will be at hand upon completion.

Needless to say, I can't wait to fall in love with film again this summer.

SO MANY THINGS TO CHECK OUT

First Year Screening is THIS WEDNESDAY!

SFU Student Composers in Concert is THIS THURSDAY!

Second Year Screening is NEXT WEEK!

Third Year Screening is on the 22nd!

Fourth Year Screening kicks off the month of May!

My Screening! Plan your May long weekend with some cinema!

Vote for spectacular singer/songwriter Alea Rae in CBC's Spotlight competition!

Some SFU graduates have a voteable project up on Storyhive!

Some more SFU graduates also have a project up on Storyhive!

Sometimes you just need a building orchestral score and clips of things to inspire you again

Stirring it up

 Well here it is! Happy ten days into the new year. And though I'm aware the year is rather an arbitrary number, and really, any day is just like the next, the budding of a 'new year' instills in the hearts of the Western world, something nice for a while. Something intrinsically hopeful. Though I wish these feelings would sweep over the nation more than once every cycle around the sun, I'll take what I can get.

Graduation is nigh! It's been a long time coming, but the light at the end of the tunnel! I can see it! I am convinced it will be the spiritual equivalent of the new years of my twenties, if that makes any sense. After my first week of classes this semester, I am acutely aware that this last semester, unfortunately, will not be easy on me. But everything's so close to the end, I'm a little hard-pressed to care.

Coming back to the city after Canmore is always a little disappointing. It's a loud and busy place, where there are more people to ignore you - then you realize it takes an hour and a half by bus to really 'get outside' in the traditional sense. I definitely don't ever want to forget what living in a small town is like.

Something I tried really hard to do this past Christmas was shop for local things in Vancouver (I also tried to say 'happy holidays' to someone instead of 'merry Christmas' and got an overreaction that I was not impressed by - I'm wishing you well for your holidays, whatever they are - I don't have to, you know - I can say, 'thanks for your purchase, don't get your damn knickers in a twist', but please, continue to make mountains out of mole-hills). This ended up being a slightly more expensive, and time-consuming venture - but the return was quite rewarding. At numerous locally-built and maintained shops, people are willing to chat (about literally anything), help you make decisions. I had a nice chat for almost an hour with a woman in a shop on Granville Island who was selling a local designer's clothes. Talked distilleries with a couple of the new ones in town - I think my favourite has to be Odd Society Spirits - I love their labels and I sort of put Cremé de Cassis in everything over the holidays. It made shopping a little more of an adventure. I remember my first year I lived here I did most of my shopping at Metrotown. I do not go there any more. For anything. Ever.

This, in conjunction with a recent brain-bubble, has made me very interested in consumerism as a power, and a choice. And this includes all form of consumerism - what you're eating, watching, buying, and buying into. I was listening to the CBC recently and they were talking about the Weather Channel (a private company) and their website, explaining the sensationalized storms they choose to name  (similar to naming hurricanes) outside of the NOAA's classification system, the cat videos they fill their page view quotas with when there aren't any extreme weather phenomenon to report on or spin into a wild news craze. I consider this akin to those awful morning talk shows (and many other things) I re-experienced while having access to satellite over the holidays. I sit and look at it and think, 'who is putting money into this? Who keeps watching this? How does this crap continue existing?' I am always at a distinct, mind-boggling loss for answers. How does this mindless generation of sub-par, fear mongering, and ultimately ignorant content keep getting bigger, angrier, and more profitable? It's like the overstimulation olympics - who can cram as many little white lies, useless information, and out-of-context sound bites as possible into a news segment about a cat fashion show.

It's extremely easy to make misinformed, or uninformed decisions in a time where everyone is out to get your attention and your dollar. It's exhausting to think of the implications I am purchasing into when I buy a brand of clothing or food. Who or what am I exploiting by buying this product? The lists are usually long and very depressing.

I think maybe it's something we don't think of often enough; consumerism as a power. I've always felt that my own voice in the world wouldn't ever do much - how do you say anything to the people who run the world. It seems the best mode for any exchange of ideas (much to my chagrin) is through the mysterious channels of money. As much as I like consuming fish, I'm well aware of the debacle around wild and farmed fish stocks. I make a decision not to purchase fish products or eat fish, even though it is highly accessible and I like it. It seems a very 'first world' sacrifice - that's because it is. I think because the first world has such vast access to things, people think they have the right to a vast access of things. Maybe 'right' is the wrong word. But ultimately just because you can doesn't mean you should. It's an incredible responsibility, and in a marketplace in which you alone are what determines what is and is not consumed, it takes willpower. And to be honest, I think we all can use a little more of that.

I am in the middle of a disheartening work of non-fiction by Farley Mowat called Sea of Slaughter. He systematically goes through species that have been ruthlessly decimated not out of need but out of greed in North America. I read about a once bountiful ocean, the one that existed some 300 years ago, and I look at what's left. The hollow shell left behind by an over-excited industrial complex. The sense that seems common to me would be to use a natural resource with enough knowledge and foresight to allow it to replenish, and ultimately, live so that the next generation of Homo sapien can also benefit from it. But what seems to happen, again and again (and again) is a resource (in this case, any plant or animal ever to be determined to attract capital) is tapped, hunted until it becomes a valuable commodity, then it is beaten to extinction while being marketed to a higher class of people without a whole lot of forethought. It's all for the dollar. It was just this step-by-step syphoning of every resource into the pockets of tycoons. It still happens - and it will continue to happen because people seem to be able to remove themselves from the global situation if they have enough money. It's just very frustrating. Well not just just. It's huge, hairy, and rather frightening.

Anyways, I could talk myself in circles about this stuff forever. I have a bunch of global identity thoughts I've been mulling about as well. But I'll save those for another time. It's a hard thing to put into coherent sentences because I am aware of all of the things I don't know (which are plenty), and all of the misinformation I have probably consumed about these things. And what's worse is I feel really cheesy talking about it - preaching the helicopter parenting of the 24-hour news cycle, and that we need to save the planet. But come on. The writing has been on the wall for decades. When I talk about these sorts of things, tag lines from Hollywood films always come to mind. Everything has already been said. A thousand times over.

Ultimately, always consume with a conscious. Whether it be the blogs you read, the olives you put in your martini, the illin' kicks you bought online, or the cat videos you endlessly scroll through - it all exists inside your sphere of influence.

Anyways, anyways.

There aren't really any resolutions for me this year. Because I've known for a while what I've got to get done in 2014. The list is long.

I'm revamping my Etsy site this weekend (so keep an eye out) - with some new things! Recent findings have found me to be as broke as ever, and I can't seem to get a job even bagging groceries - so I guess I will just make things out of other things. Want a monster made of felt? Or possibly any other material? I am your lady.

Oh - and all of you in Vancouver - Save the Date: May 17th, 2014 - I am hosting and programming an afternoon of film and video projects (plus the premier of my most recent short film), complete with opportunities to eat, drink, network, and be merry! It's at the infinitely lovely Vancity Theatre, and it will be full of great people and wonderful things. So make sure you're around!

I decided to list some of my favourite things that I can remember discovering in 2013, that you can also absorb into your body of consciousness - I am astounded by what I currently cannot remember, surely there were more things than this - links below!

Things to listen to:

Sword & Sworcery soundtrack 'Ballad of the Space Babies' by Jim Guthrie

Things to read:

The Very Persistent Gappers of Fripp by George Saunders

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

An Astronaut's Guide to Life On Earth by Chris Hadfield

Things to view:

Rheanna Toy's short film, NINA, was accepted into the National Screen Institute's online film festival!

Learn about the BEE PROBLEM

Upstream Color

Orange is the New Black

Hannibal

Forty eight hundred feet's worth of tiny pictures!

Well folks, seems all that hard work paid off - all 4800 feet of the film came back just fine and dandy.

Fuji 160T

Delivered in boxes that suspiciously look like they should be housing pizza, the negative smells of that old, familiar celluloid. I rediscover how much I miss having a hard copy of the things I shoot. A mishandled SD or Red card can mean you've lost your day. But, I suppose the downside is, I'll be hauling this processed footage around for the rest of my days. 

It was recently delivered to one of my two editors - who will sync up the sound and produce the assembly cut of the film. I only skimmed the footage when it came back to me - so I really look forward to seeing it in some sort of order and with sound. It will then be delivered to my second editor, who will take it through to fine cut.

Kodak 500T

Seeing 16mm footage makes me just feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. After a couple years of seeing rushes from the Red Scarlett and Epic, I just sink in to the grain, and the softness of the image. It's the bean bag chair of cinema mediums. I shot the film on four stocks, mostly because I could, and just seeing how those four stocks reacted to colour... it just makes me love the medium (even more!). I was having major buyers remorse in the time between when the film left Seattle and arrived here. The process and transfer costs ran almost twice what I had budgeted - which amounts to a lot of money. But seeing what we accomplished on celluloid was definitely reward enough, even for a mountain of money that I don't have.

Over the past couple weeks, I have plunged head first into the world of stop-motion animation. Part of me is absolutely falling in love with the process (which will make falling out of love when I go to actually do it all the more... explosive) and the other part of me is feeling completely refreshed at just this new body of names, history, and knowledge. Maybe it's because I've spend six years in film school and I'm tired of those same old names popping up - but it's nice to not sigh and say 'ugh, not him again'. I've been reading through an absolutely incredible book called The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation by Ken A. Priebe, and have another little pile of books to leaf through after that. Going through stop-motion's history is a weird combination of technological track backs, cultural history, and the ebb and flow of the film industry itself. I'm absolutely revelling in it - and it's nice to be interested in a topic I'm actually doing in school. But I guess it's a topic I picked... and I'm basically paying to research things on my own time... but shh.

Kodak 250D

I've got a pile of things prepared for next week when I go to put the puppet of Tinder together. I keep thinking its going to be a breeze, but deep down, I know it's going to be a bit of a fight. I keep wanting to set aside my studying this week to do some sculpting and sewing, but that tiny part of my brain that is actually responsible keeps pulling me back in front of my textbooks, even if the rest of me is sort of completely unenthused.

All mixed in with this, I've been piecing together little press kits about my last two digital short films, 'My Favourite Things' and 'A Spoonful of Sugar'. I'm continuing to feel out the festival distribution routes, and these two films are sort of providing me with two different kinds of guinea pigs to see what's up. 'My Favourite Things' is now online and available for viewing on Vimeo.

Rest assured, I have like... three other blog posts started about a bunch of futile feelings I have concerning a lot of large-question, not-a-lot-of-answer problems that I seem to be painfully mulling over these days. I picked up a book earlier this month thinking it was about how wonderful whales are, but it ended up being more about the horrors of the whaling industry - which all week has spun me in that familiar arc of that frustrating environmentalist loop. I've also been experiencing something I'm sure there's a term for, but can't quite put my finger on it - it's a large-and-in-charge disappointment with popular culture. I guarantee that's going to be a rambling post you can all look forward to.

Fuji 64D

So, back to 'My Old Flame', that working title that's starting to stick - thank you - again - to my cast, my crew, my family, proofreaders, location volunteers, supporters, rental houses, believers(?). We had a great shoot, I can now definitively say since there are pictures on the celluloid for sure. Now the next steps can finally start, we can start tentatively jogging to the finish line somewhere in the distance. A screening location will soon be secured - and rest assured I will bother you all about being there from now until May 2014. So prepare yourselves for that.

And I listen to the irritating fireworks that go off every three minutes here in East Van, I am wishing you all a safe and happy Halloween!

Things to look at:

I started a Facebook page for my film 'company' - become a fan! See some things! (Also, tweet? Tumblr?)

Joel's film 'Buttfuck Nowhere' is on the NSI!
Check out Girls with Swords and the Kickstarter that launched
Feminist Frequency - be sure to check out the Tropes vs Women series they've got
And if you want more rage, check out Not in the Kitchen Anymore

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
I'm really excited about Hyper Light Drifter

Remember, everybody's got a thing

Salutations, autumnal breeze.

And by autumnal breeze, I mean raindrops both large and cold.

“The thing is you have to fight the whole time. You can’t stop. Otherwise you just end up somewhere, bobbing in the middle of a life you never wanted.”

—	Alexander Maksik, You Deserve Nothing

While I sit patiently waiting for my film to return to me from it's trip to Seattle, I would like to talk briefly about all of these 'Generation Y' articles that seem to go through fits and spurts of straight up bothering me on all social media fronts. Even last year they lured me in with their apathetic temptations. Every time I read one of these (or, pretty much any article from the Thought Catalog) I feel conflicted. The internal conversation always went something like, 'sure, sure yeah, I can sort of relate, I guess,' followed by an uncomfortable silence in which I would try to figure out why this article even mattered. Why I felt so troubled about these articles wasn't ever inherently clear to me - they were just frustrating to read. Generalizing problems through such vague and blanketing terms, their fates seemed similar to that of the astrology column of your local newspaper. Bitching about being a twenty-something now seems to be the 'it' thing to do. Not offering up any solutions, nor questions that we can work towards an answer. Everyone says we're lost, doing not enough of one thing (sex/drugs/rock and roll), not enough of another (sex/drugs/rock and roll). 

I would like to offer you this counter article in Contenders Magazine written by the affable Alex Caulfield: 100 Things that Prove You're an Asshole - seek out the original article if you wish, but I did, and I was faced with immediate regret.

I'm finding articles on the internet more and more irrelevant and frivolous as ever. A lot of things circulated around the blogosphere are just plain irresponsible. And there's just so much of it. I can't take much at face value because the internet is full of trolls and hoaxes.

The problem with a lot of these Gen-Y/nutburger articles is trying to pin blame on things.  And then, while my eyes are open to all that blame-slinging, I see so much more! When I was home in August, I had my two time-a-year access to satellite TV, and the 24 hour news cycle (and Guy Fieri marathons, who are we even kidding). All I was able to see on the news is people trying to blame things on other people. Yes, so this happened - who can we blame? Some parents in the United States are still trying to get John Green's books banned - let's blame a young adult fiction writer for exposing things to our children that we haven't been able to explain to them because there is no way the real world will ever effect them in any way. Your kid fell off a jungle gym - the obvious solution is, apparently, to label the playground as 'dangerous' and berate whoever is in charge to dismantle it or you'll sue. So your kids aren't getting good grades in high school - obviously, the solution is to blame the teacher's ineptitude while your kid learns nothing of value, not from school, and not from you. The winner these days is never the good guy, it's whoever gets away scott-free. It seems that the one who slings the most slander becomes saintly.

And becoming aware of this common string - I am rather aware now of how I utilize blame in my own day-to-day activities. It takes a lot to change your own perspective in life, a lot of the time it's easier to remain the same, remain ignorant, remain blind. The more positively-inclined teachers at my high school made it abundantly clear to me back in the day, that change begins with one person. This meant something to me when I was in my teens (it mostly had to do with recycling), but it means something slightly different to me now. 'Be the change you want to see' is this rope I hang onto above a deep, dark pool of all of the big, unfortunate problems that plague humanity. If you look down for too long, it gets really depressing. I mean, those are some large-and-in-charge problems. But that rope is what you've got. So, hand over hand, you've got to climb. At a certain point, you resign to the fact you'll be climbing for the rest of your days, so you climb. My climb begins - on an infinitesimal scale - I'm weirded out with people not making any eye contact in my neighbourhood. So I've started making eye contact with like... everyone. Whether it's little things, big things, or everything, take it and do your best to fix it, even if no body else is giving it a try.

Okay, and here's one more thing, here's a new pet peeve I have. In fact, it's become a big, snarling pet peeve. It might have something to do with that big, dark pool previously stated. See, for a long time, I haven't known what I wanted in the short to long term. In the past two or three years, I've been figuring those things out. It's sort of like feeling your way across a snow-crusted glacier. That shit's scary. But if you survive, you learn, and off you go to another glacier. I've been figuring out what I value, what I need to get to where I've got to go. While I was figuring those things out - it was common place to sort of get stepped on. After getting stepped on one too many times, however, that lesson's been (finally) learned. And upon presenting someone new with a list of things that are, to me, common sense - I was met with abject back-pedalling. The first time I was able to call someone out, they tried to weasel out of it by saying I was wrong. Naturally, I was hurt, but the hurt was so temporary. Because I knew I was in the right. It was so magnificently empowering - hell, I might just need to do if more often.

Respect isn't even something to be earned, it's something you've got to demand. Sometimes you literally have to shake it out of other people, or leave them behind. I don't even know.

Here's to a self-imposed ban on letting people walk all over me.

Anyways.

My film was shipped last Monday. I await for it's return, and with it, all sorts of truths. When it comes back, that box will be either filled with a great deal of worth, or none at all. It's driving me bananas. Bananas, I say!

It's been a weird month back in Vancouver. I feel I'm behind in all aspects of things. Really feeling the rain, and we've only gotten a toe into fall.

Is there strength in solitude? Perhaps.

Probably old news, but you all should probably read Markus Zusak's The Book Thief.

Oh, and the photos in this post are ones I took in August in Canmore - trying out Lomography's colour 800 speed 35mm still film. So good, so vibrant, very versatile. I pretty much just love Lomography. So. There.

Happy rain, everyone!

Things to look at!

I've got to recommend the Netflix original series Orange is the New Black
Jaeger Designer - I don't even care, this was a fun ten minutes of my life
Dating Tips for the Feminist Man - a good read for everyone, regardless of gender or sexuality
Canadian Frame(lines) is raising money for yet another project of super-ambition!
VIFF is in town! The most wonderful time of the year, second only to Christmas!
And while at VIFF, I saw Jessica Oreck's new documentary Aatsinki - she's a very cool lady who does very cool projects (like this one) - there is also a super interactive website they've done up called The Aatsinki Season
Be sure to check out Plastic, a short film by Sandy Widyanata about body image

To be great.

Like that cinematography post I did a while back, here's another post on things I'm probably not qualified to talk about, or capable of thinking through the whole way. But whatever. I've been sitting on this one for a while, and it's become a bunch of different things. So many picture-less, rambling posts these days!

Something I wonder about frequently is one's ability to become great. Then I get all tangled up in what it means to be great, who I view to be great, why, and what the hell that all means.