What I've been doing..

with my time.



*whistles*

A Professional

I don't really know who I am at the moment. I feel myself in these positions I feel I'm not supposed to be, if I think about it at all which I usually don't, but the feeling that it's time again to put my thoughts down right here has brought it up.

It's like, I meet this guy who's my student for English and act like I know something about it and I don't think about it too much during one of our lessons but every now and again I'm there like, "wait, what is it I'm supposed to be doing here?" I mean, I speak English, I talk it pretty good, as it happens but every now again again he brings up past continuous or continuous present or one of those things and the feeling comes back to me. It seems to be going ok though, for the moment, I might even be pretty good as a teacher, by nature. Or not.

I found myself at 5am the other morning, waiting in a tent to do some, whatever for an ad that I got cast in at the last moment, just as an extra, my lack of getting any real acting opportunities for a real professional shoot continues, but it was nice to chosen for this, or not so nice but I didn't yet again have to go through the experience of being somehow not good enough or suitable for something that literally any idiot of any age or any look can do. It has happened, many many times.

So I did it, danced a bit, waited around a lot and tried to keep myself warm for most of the time and got paid. Not so much but it's money I wouldn't have had otherwise and I need that. I don't think I'll be answering any more 5am calls though, at least not until the oppressive heat of summer, and even then... 5am? Are they mad?

I got some photos done yesterday, real proper photos with a good camera and lighting and all that. It's something I haven't had for years and it's something I need if I want to look vaguely professional as an actor, hence the title here. It's a small thing, I  don't have any professional experience or a huge amount of other experience or a showreel or enough material (not to say I haven't been in enough things to have quite an extensive and possibly decent looking showreel, but these students who make up 100 or more percent of the directors of these things, are not always too helpful in making the footage available) to make one. bit I will hopefully soon have a proper headshot, and that might make a tiny difference.

Of course, I haven't really seen the photos properly yet so maybe I will hate all of them, in fact, probably. They've been taken by a professional photographer and they will more than any other photos I have, really look like me. That's the problem there, whatever else I have, whatever accessories I come up with to help me with my "career" I'm still stuck with me. There's nothing I can do about that.

a bit of moaning for a change

I feel the need for a little glamour in my life. Or at least hot water.. oh to have lovely flowing golden hair... to feel worthy of puttin on something nice, that looks nice and is.. nice, even on these gloomy so called Spring days.

The hot water situation continues. In case you don't know what I'm talking about on account of a) not having read where I wrote that, or b) because I didn't write that, well we got no hot water here. And no heat and no working stove which actually does matter just as much as the hot water being off but not what I'm focusing on now. It's been weeks. It's vexing. I'm simultaneously used to it and utterly sick of it.

I have washed in that time, either kettle baths or at the pools but it's not the same. I'm a 21st century Westerner living in as civilized part of the world as any, I guess, I shouldn't be having these problems. I should be whining about a computer that keeps jamming or about the weather, which I am, but I shouldn't have to be dealing with this too! No fair.

Sprung!

It's Spring.

Up and down.

It's been an interesting time, these past few weeks. The situation here is not spectacular, it could even be called dire, but if one was to interpret it as living the true "Bohemian" life as an artist complete with being scruffy and poor then one might find it charming. One doesn't, unfortunately.

There is the good that balances out all this suffering. A few interesting, some complimentary, some not but vaguely promising messages and a very strange phone call from someone, somewhere who's doing something and wants me to be in it, I think, from what I gathered all add up to something being on the horizon.

Of course, the horizon is over there and if all of these individual long shots or utter scams don't add up to anything, I don't have anything but my one student and occasional life modeling class, and it's back to the proverbial drawing board to see what else I could potentially do. But it's still nice to be told that we want you for our tv show, no matter how weird  it all is, or we love your photos they're spectacular, if it will only gain me a credit, or can you send a better photo than your "selfie" after not having replied to you for 2 months is still nice, if it's all you ever get.

Stuff I've done.

This month.

Ride the metro, make coffee in the microwave, teach English, make videos, write a blog post (as of completion of this one) minutely improve my skill at video editing or at least increase my knowledge (of said editing), play the guitar, study French, eat toastie sausages with microwave eggs, sing.. albeit badly, bathe in a bucket, apply for and get ignored and a few times replied to and then rejected for several employment positions, compose and perform a song, take photos of a window and eat Chinese food.

I did some other stuff too but I didn't feel it was worth mentioning.