*holds breath and hopes to last for 3 hours and 58 minutes*

*gasps*

*breathes*

Ok so I lasted 12 seconds or thereabouts.. not too bad.

In only 3 hours and 58... nay, 57 minutes Jan will be over. Yes, over.

If you wonder what I'm talking about or know what I'm talking about but note that I've barely mentioned the anti Jan campaign over the last month (which as it happens has been Jan) well it's because it didn't occur to me that often tbph... (to be perfectly honest that is).. but I still want to see the ole inaugural month of the year out in the what must be by now a traditional manner.

So JMG.. and it will G in exactly 3 hours 55 now.

And tbph it hasn't been all that bad this month really.. just typical post holiday winding down.. business picked up a bit, got a bit stressed with training for this tour job but then I went well... pretty much graduated (if you can call it that) first in my group.. not bragging or anything so obvs I got the job...

will be doing a bit more training (this is not shitty tour folks) and some time in Feb might start doing real life tours for actual people, so that's something to.. um.. look forward to.

Didn't return to the Meisner class.. am taking the semester off, for the mo, mostly because I just couldn't afford it but it turned out to be just as well because the training was pretty intensive.. and otherwise.. well.. the usual.

Anyway.. I'm going to go with the fact that Jan sucks regardless, because that creates something to celebrate.. so for one last time..

JMG!

3:52 :)

Can someone please explain me..

.. explain to me.. I probably should say, sounds more correct, but whatevs..

explain me, how someone can take more than 20 minutes.. nay, almost 30 to leave a simple flat, albeit in winter, when they're done there, and you've told them you need some alone time to go over a script that you should know inside out by now but have procrastinated about refreshing yourself on it.. and you need to know it real well by tomorrow morning?

I mean.. I know when you waffle on about going in a minute for some time, then move very slowly into the kitchen to slowly finish your drink, slowly put it down and slowly move back into the other room to waffle a bit more, then slowly get your things in your bag.. brush your proverbial fangs.. and taking your sweet ass time about it if you ask me.. then waffle a bit more.. put the socks on, inevitably get a phone call from someone who you have to talk to for the next at least 10 minutes, one shoe on and shoelace in hand.. then tell me slowly what the phone call was about, slowly make general small talk and finally tie those laces... waffle a bit more about going, and then go out the door.. it can take up some time.. but..

nevermind.. I thnk I just answered the question.

I just don't know what to do with myself...

I've been taking it pretty easy this week.. haven't had any constraints on my time at all.. it's really weird...

*snorts*

ok not really... but recently I've had this training to do, and learning all the scripts and.. well that's it.. and before that, well it was the holidays and before that I had my class and rehearsals and making movies.. and of course there's work..

*guffaws just a little*

well.. I should be going over all the scripts like I said.. and now I know when the test is, so I should get to it.. after that.. I might be busy.

It snowed a bit again.. but then it rained the next day.

*falls asleep*

And that's not all...

Well, I had the big test. The big important test of tests, which incorporated all that I have learned over the last 2 weeks that would decide everything.

Kind of. I did one story.. I knew I would be, didn't know which one but the one I did was one I liked.. I did kind of mess it up a bit, I left out some details I'm supposed to point of a mural thingy, and I slowed down to some very slow pauses to cover up that I didn't know what I was doing.. but whatev..

I did receive some favourable feedback on how I've been doing, at least up to last night's performance... which was probably ok, actually.

Now we need to do a simulated tour for the one who actually runs the tour.. either a whole tour or possibly the same thing we already did, everyone does a different story or a few different ones.. most likely this because otherwise it will take a lot of time.

but fuck.. well, I need to refresh myself with the whole lot again, and make sure I remember all those details I've been loose with because they are particularly important to her.. so I might have to remember them differently, and some time next week, I'll do the final final test.. as far as I know :Z

so.. well.. we'll see. ffs!

The big test.

Is tomorrow. For the last week or so I've been memorizing one or 2 stories at a time about Prague and ghosts and the Charles Bridge. I've done pretty well... even when I procrastinated and left it all too late and even lost some of my scripts.. but I'm pretty good at that learning lines thing.. if there's one thing I can be confident that I've been good at is "command of the script"... I've even been told that. and that's good and all... it can be useful to be a nice and obedient parroter of what you're given sometimes.. well, the earlier scripts I learnt pretty much word for word.. later ones I've rearranged to my liking more.. but I still know them pretty well.

So, kudos for me. The other areas I'm not as sure about.. not not at all sure about, just not as sure about.. and the others are really good too.. and it is a sort of competition. And well.. I like being good at that one thing, but to be honest I'd rather be better at the.. being all conversational and affable and amusing and stuff... you know.. I mean if I get to choose my main skill as being something boring and something cool... I'm gonna choose the cool.

Of course.. because I'm quite good in command doesn't mean that I'm not good at the other stuff... and greater familiarity with the text and being comfortable with it all helps the other stuff.. but.. still. As I said who knows.

So.. tomorrow is the test. We were going to all do a whole private tour for the guy who's training us, but he just doesn't have time to do that, so we're going to do one tour, where everyone does a story each.. a random one, which means we have to be on top of all of them. I'm pretty good with the ones I already knew.. I've been going over them all day, rewriting a lot, trying to print them out and succeeding only with pathetic faint inked versions.. and there are 2 I was previously unfamiliar with.. those are well rusty, but, I have 16 hours to learn them.. that is if you count the hours I'm supposed to sleep and I have learned these in much less so..

we'll see.

grrr.. arrghh..

I've got all these scripts to know before tomorrow evening.. well afternoon if you count the time I need to get ready and get there... and if you want to include the time by which I should know it pretty good so I can then go over it and perfect it well..

fuck..

it's some stories I need to know for the tour guide thing, I've had to learn 2 at a time over the last 2 weeks, get it ready to tell in 2 or 3 days.. and I've managed each time, reasonably well I think, and the last time I procrastinated so long that I had to learn the 2 in about a day and a half, and the other in about 4 hours.. considering on top of procrastinating I lost my scripts..

well, I don't know this time. It's tomorrow and I haven't really started learning them properly.. I don't have the paper versions because after losing the last ones the guy emailed me the lot so just didn't give me them this time, and the printer doesn't seem to want to work and I like using not having printed out versions as an excuse for why I'm not really doing it yet.

Ok I've done some work on them. A bit of editing.. I like to say this stuff in my own words, and well.. the stuff there is written.. kind of poorly. I've done that with all of them but this time I thought I'd go through it right away and write it the way I want it and then learn it that way. Well.. I've edited a bit of one. Ok so I've edited one, with possible more editing later and a tiny bit of the second. I did also learn the very first paragraph of the first one which I have since completely re-written.

I'll probably learn them in time.. I always do, but I also always feel that I'm not prepared enough.. and seeing as I managed to learn them in the time I did I could have started earlier and gotten more comfortable with it so I could be more free with it and work on my voice more etc etc etc.

I dunno... this is kind of frustrating.

So what's going on here then...

I haven't really signed in for a while, I've noticed.. and some might be wondering just what is up. Well.. not much, as usual, at least relative to normal go getter people who do stuff.. and stuff, I'm not even doing that class anymore.. or at least not for the moment, I mean I can't afford it really and actually I am sort of busy some of the times I would be required to be in class which is some evenings..

I also haven't done anything film related since last year, despite some small murmurings about how we're totally going to make another film before spring, or whatever..

I am in training though. For what you might ask.. well for a job I might be doing. This is what I'm doing some evenings and it seems to be going pretty well.. some tour guide stuff.. stuff about ghosts and numerology and bridges and eggs.. you know the usual, I have stories to memorize and present and.. well that's pretty much it. There are other things involved in the actual job of course, and we're getting the low down on that, but obvs when you need to do a presentation of a story on a bridge.. even one made partially of eggs then that is what one is going to focus on and spend more time on. Luckily I'm pretty good at this memorizing shit thing, and not half bad at speaking in front of people, if I may say so myself..

So that's what I've been doing.

This people..

There are so many kinds of people out there. So many kinds.. I mean, there are men and women, smart people and not so smart people, people who like art, and people who like structure, not that those two are mutually exclusive, there are tall people, people with straight hair, people from countries that are not the country you are from.. it's endless!

Then there are people who like games. I mean, most people like games to a degree. There are probably few people who to some degree like some game out there.. but I mean people who "like games".. like, a lot and a lot of them.

I met one tonight.. I went to this gathering of a class that someone else was in.. some people I'd met before but this one young man, American, I overheard a few snippets of the word "game" from a few times.. then I joined the conversation insofar as I was listening to the gist of the general conversation around the table which had grown to including the whole table, and it was led by him, and it was about games. All sorts of games, games as a generic ideal, backgammon, chess, some card game called peanuckle.. however you spell it.. then others offered there thoughts on these games and others that they'd experienced..

and it went on.. more games, more aspects of the gaming lifestyle, different views on games.. simulated games drawn on paper to explain the particular game..

So.. there you go. It takes all sorts of people.. that's all.

I don't want to count any chickens or anything..

but I might be doing stuff this er. bit of the year. Like work, ie a new career path which might mean actually earning money for once. I can't say anymore because that would be too much like the aforementioned counting o chickens which I wished to avoid. Ok so it's doing tours and stuff.. I'll see this week if it suits me and if indeed they accept me to do it.

Oh and I mean to make more films and stuff. That's a bit less formal than this extremely informal going along to one of the tours to see what it is and talking to the person who runs it.

Well anyway.. it's January 4, time to get to work!

Oh and JMG!

All that fuss for this?

So it's done, we're here and we are now living in 2011. Awesome. Yeah, but one thing that I completely overlooked, during all those festivities and the big celebration that commemorated the coming o the new year was that not only does it bring us a fresh shiny new big number at the last bit of the date for the next 12 months, it also brings us Jan.

Yeah, January. Brilliant. For another 30 days 4 hours and 22 minutes they expect us to just shut up and put up with it. Fuckers. Well I for one will not take this lying down, I intend to fight it all the way!

JMG!