Monday, November 28, 2005

My Last Post? No, no, that's November 11th, and the play is on DECEMBER 11th.

OK, so many of you probably don't know what's been going on with the theatre group, and my play. Once again, I felt this summary is best expressed in cartoons...badly drawn and sleep-deprived-and-sickness-induced cartoons. *Sneeze* I will put in pithy comments after cartoons as necessary.




(Public Service Announcement: I'm technically naked in this cartoon. I'm not sure this is rated PG, but I realized my error, and every other stick Brennan will now have pants. Thank you.)





























(Here's where problem happened. We should have been collectively doing the script, but it..uh...happened to be a few people. It's a long story. With murder. And...uh...I'm sick. *Sneeze*)





(Sarah doesn't normally look this evil. I took some artistic license. Not that there's much artist going on here. But...be brave...it's almost over.)






(While Colin is tall, he normally doesn't burn down buildings. It's more of a once-in-a-blue-moon-the-script-wasn't-finished-yet-thing. We all worked together and made a plot.)










And here's where it ends. The script isn't done. That's bad. But we have a plot, which we didn't have before...which is good. So...uh...wish me luck. I have somehow became the central character of this play, which is...UM? I should be practicing???? I don't know how this happened. I mean, I make up my own plays in my mind where I'm the hero, but it's not supposed to happen in REAL LIFE. OR EVEN FAKE LIFE FOR THAT MATTER. WHAT THE HAY IN THE CLAY IN THE DIDDLY.

So, yes, we have two weeks to properly put our script together, which is in the process of being completely rewritten because the plot didn't work before and now we have an actual STORY in the end, so that's really good. However, now that a couple of people (Sarah, me, director, Colin) have sat down and hashed everything else out, we now have to present it to the group, and make them see how good it can be. Which could be bad, because everyone else is a wee bit demotivated because we have been having some bad practices. (Aka. There's no plot. How do we have a play, Watson? I don't know Sherlock, but I bet it's elementary.) I'll be doing a lot of feverent praying up until the play date, now, methinks. And a lot of writing lines for the play. My lines, specifically, of course. That's how this whole process works. *Sigh* Theatre is so confusing. How does Eva do it? She must want to go for the kill on the regular basis. Me, I just want to hang myself from the rafters by my undies.

Other than that, I was told tonight that my way of speaking is 'jiffy-wiffly.' Apparently that means I euphemize everything. JIFFY-WIFFLY???? GEEZ! SERIOUSLY!!!

Whew, blood boiling. Jiffy-Wiffly, my fanny. *grumble*

Ok, I'm ending here. I need sleep like a person who hasn't slept in 22 hours. Or something.

Yay! I love acting!

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Supper and Syllogisms

You know, after I just went for supper with Sarah, and we discussed the play (since it's getting nearer and nearer) I realized that my stop word of late is 'yo.' For example, I now tend to end every sentence I say with things like, "That's totally whack, yo!" or "My peeps will call your peeps and we'll hang out at someone's crib, yo!" "I think that's a GREAT idea, yo!"

While technically this is my fault, I feel the perfectly rational thing to do in this situation is to blame Sarah. I have decided that I need to put this in proper forms and categories of medieval logic:


Opinion of Others:

Premise 1: It seems that Brennan cannot speak anything than improper English. He used to use words like "like" and "um" and "uh" as his stop words. Now, he has moved onto words like "yo" and "whack, yo" to explain his inability to grasp the idea of speaking coherently. Thus, the fault seems to be that Brennan simply cannot cognize properly, and not that Sarah is the source of his problems.

Premise 2: Other people have nothing to do with Brennan's problems. He's totally whack, yo.

Further: It seems that Brennan's inability to speak in proper nouns, verbs and adjectives is conflated by his iniability to study anything but continental philosophy, Dutch, German and French. Such a combination cannot produce anything but madness. Hence, Brennan is mad. Clearly, this argument is irrefutable given premises one and two.


Refutation: We reply that such things are not true, and we deny them vehemently...because...um....look, over there, a distraction!!!!! (Made an impressive chart while you weren't looking) And as you can clearly see from this chart right here, this proves the validity of Brennan throwing blame on Sarah. Plus, look at this duck! It's AMAZING! Very realistic.

Further: Brennan kept giving Sarah advice on how to talk like a skater girl, which is her character in the play, and eventually he started turning it into the way he talks normally. Quite problematic, yo.


Sigh.

And, that, my friends, is what happens when you study medieval philosophy late at night.


Yo.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

For Dad

OK, so here's something that happened to me this weekend. The one fault here is that the scanner picked up too much blue for me to use auto correct, so it's going to be a little lighter this time around, because I'm trying to find a happy medium for scaning that doesn't involve a really soft lead pencil...for obvious save-the-scanner-plate-from-destruction reasons...so I'm sorry if it's not too dark. It's crystal clear on my page.

Gah, nevermind, I have to to darken it...there's no hope for you seeing it, otherwise. =P There also going to be small...I can't widen them properly without them pixelating like an NES game gone wild. OK, ok, My apologies.

No wait, I can fix the auto contrast! Yay! This is better!

Holy crap this is a lot of work. I need a webmaster.

Otherwise, if you don't get a joke, it's because it's very contextual...like...uh...cookies bubbling...that's the nice way of saying there...wasn't...enough.....yeah. Anyways. They turned out. Sort of. I COULDN'T THINK OF A FUNNy ENDING PUNCHLINE THAT CORRESPONDED WITH REALITY, OK??? Whew. Glad I got that out.

Holy bed time Batman.

















































Saturday, November 19, 2005

Oooo, check this out!

OK, for anyone who has ever watched a book club show or played a video game, or done anything similarly in the realm of what people call 'for intellectuals' you should see this:

http://www.g4tv.com/attackoftheshow/videos/index.html

This show is not always funny, but I recommend the 'book club' espcially 4 and 3, (AND I would recommend you watch them in that order) and also the storm trooper and the Hogawarts video are pretty decent.

Anyhow, I'm going to go do some drawing now.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Quizzes!

This quiz rules. And perhaps the best part about it is that I turned out as Canada. That's great, eh? EH?



You're Canada!

People make fun of you a lot, but they're stupid because you've
got a much better life than they do. In fact, they're probably just jealous.
You believe in crazy things like human rights and health care and not
dying in the streets, and you end up securing these rights for yourself and
others. If it weren't for your weird affection for ice hockey, you'd be
the perfect person.



Take the Country Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid

The usual suspects

Dad, I would just like to say I love you very much, and you have a great appreciation for music. I don't know if you remember, but you got a "Rawlings Cross" CD for my birthday way back when I was younger, and I was like, "Uh....thanks?" However, I would like you to know, it is now one of my favourite CDs in my collection, and I can't thank you enough for getting it for me. (I can't remember what style of music their cover said they were technically doing, but there's a lot of tin whistle and drum, so I'm thinking Irish?) Anyways, I'm listening to it right now, and it's bringing back good memories...and sometimes you just don't appreciate how lucky you are to have people in your life like you have, or you don't understand the things your parents do for you until your older. So, Dad, thanks for giving me a good appreciation in music. I couldn't have done it without you. Even if you forget half the things I say. I know it's because your old. Don't fight it. (And I know my Dad is reading this right now. Nothing like distance to protect you from the people you love. *Grin*)


Also, I bought these candies in the store tonight, and I am SERIOUSLY horrified they sell these things...I mean, are these things legal? I feel like I'm eating child pornography.




I case you can't tell, they're touching themselves. Am I supposed to like my candy to be naked little children????? WHAT THE HECK?????

Also, I have some comics that I want to post, so I'll probably post them in the next couple days, I think, as long as my act keeps together.

Whew. Thank you SO MUCH to anyone who e-mailed me in the last little bit. You're words helped me get through today on two and a half hours sleep where I had a class, my scary seminar today, (in which the man I am absolutely petrified of deep, deep, down but try not to show by pretending to play it cool when I am really a quivering jelly mass inside hoping that he wont tear me to several pieces over the course of the two hours) which is a highly intensive class and on hard material and I also promised a night of cookie making (which, like, I couldn't turn down because, well, it's food. And I'm hungry.) which just ended about twenty minutes ago. I just got home. It's midnight. I haven't stopped all day. I had many a good laugh at my e-mails, and I also felt re-energized, and it turned the day completely around. So thank you.

And cookie making tonight was really fun. And we ordered food in for supper, and I ate a really big thing that was like a taco but different. It was good. Myabe I'll post pictures later.

OK, now I'm spacing as I type. Holy crap. I feel like I've had a few. And I have only ever had a few, techincally...uh, two? No, no, three....four. Yeah. Anyways, I'm so tired it's like I'm back home! Ah, good memories. Anyways, I'll talk to you all later, and we'll see if my medieval philosophy professor buys my interpretation of Aquinas in my essay or whether or not he'll eat it for breakfast and give me a fifty. I'm hoping for option number one.

And a good grade.

Thanks, and letter/postcard writing will resume shortly. Namely, when the post office opens again on Monday. =)

Thursday, November 17, 2005

And Done!

It's 3:45 a.m. and my essay is done.

Life is good.

Time for a shower.

Randomness...

OK, I just found this through another one of my random traipses through the web. I don't know how I keep finding this stuff, but if you have ever read "To Kill a Mockingbird" you NEED to see this. It' s about five to ten minutes, so get some popcorn before you watch it.

http://www.stanford.edu/%7Escodary/tkam.htm


Other than that, my posting/e-mailing/letter writing/sleeping has been curtailed by me needing to be done an essay. That's due tomorrow. That's really frustrating...and my brain hurts.

And for any of those of you who would like to be asking why I found this on the web if I'm supposed to be writing an essay, I'll have you know this was done during one of my BREAKS, thank you very much. Check the link. =)

Monday, November 14, 2005

I recommend to anyone who likes Christian music (although there's not much to like...most of it's baloney) to check out Bethany Dillon. She's got slammin vocals, and whoever is producing her albums knows how to do it properly. Her songs actually sound inspirational when they're supposed to, and worth listening to for their own right, not just as if you feel like you've accidentally walked in on someone's private personal singing prayer session with God. And, oh man, she's just SO GOOD. I don't know how she's not chart toppin' everywhere. Anyways, a big fan, obviously. Check it out, if you think you can handle it. It's pretty tame in content in terms of Christian music.

Thursday, November 10, 2005




Ah, yes. Grad school. My place really does look a lot like this right now. There's paper everywhere. And books. Books I have yet to read. So, my sporadic posting on my web log will be every two to three days, perhaps four if I have a busy week, but I've been pretty good about it. Normally I am terrible with this sort of thing. But, since my Dad has threatened to contact Interpol to make sure that I am still alive if I don't post at least every three days, I am doing my best to stay under the radar. So, please be patient with me. Please. Dad. And friends. More exciting news in a day or two!

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Acting

I just realized that my last post title was a subconscious advertisement for diet coke. Curse you consumerism, curse yoooooou!

Also, I just got back from acting practice, and the director was there, and wasn't listening to anything anybody was saying, and now I feel like the play is going to go down in flames. Again.

Yay! Burning!

It's right up there with drowning.

RAZAM FRAZAM FRAZAM!

Frazam.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

For the fun of it

I just got back from acting practice a little while, and I am feeling a little better. We're slowly hashing everything together so that eventually we're going to have a play. I think it will work. Before I was absolutely paralyzed by the thought that we might be floating dead in the water before we even began, but now I think the play will be finished before we have to give a performance. LOL!

I know, I know. It's been weird, but the director was gone today, and we just went about things, and did scenes, and had good ideas that actually went somewhere, and I think everyone is starting to get a feel for the plot. It's really nice. I think it will be good.

I was having so much fun tonight because we were doing actual improv tonight, and less talking about what would be good and agreeing and disagreeing, but working with what we had, and doing the best we could with a small stage and a few people. Anyways, it was really enjoyable, overall. It reminded me of why I like to do acting. The laughter, the not caring what goes wrong, the just trying again and doing it over if you didn't like it, and just having a good time. It was fun. I like the energy. It's positive. I miss that. Belgians are polite, but they're not theatre people in the way that North American people are theatre people. Belgians are polite, kind, people. But they are also fairly closed off, I think. They're not very good at letting people in the inner 'circle of trust. ' (A movie reference if any of you have ever seen "Meet the Parents.") So, theatre is a really good way to be open, and to yell and be crazy and other things that Brennan likes to do. Mostly yelling. And being crazy. And some more yelling.

Europeans are too quiet. I don't think I have ever seen a loud and laughing group of people at a cafe before. Hardly anyone LAUGHS here. They're all so serious. HOW DEPRESSINGLY EUROPEAN. Whenever I go out with my friends, we are easily the loudest people there. (Which, granted, is a North American stereotype.) But, I think this is the reason is because North American people are less subtle about their happiness. It's not drawn out. It's bursting from them at the seams. They accept the vibrancy of life in a different way than most European adults do here, I think. I see more people here with sad faces than happy faces. Their happiness seems quiet. Mine, obviously, is loud. How to reconcile? For a while I felt like I should fit into this subdued model of how to act, but I don't think I can. I feel like I'm forcing a square block into a circle hole, and I AM that square block. Hey, it's hip to be square, but nobody likes trying to break the mold and themselves at the same time. I don't think I can try to be so subdued anymore. It doesn't make sense. It's not very, well, very ME. Not that I know a lot about me, but I don't think I function well, uh, quietly. I suppose I should stop trying to adjust to people, and I think I should maybe let people adjust to me. I thought the whole idea of going to another country was about learning about how to live the life of another country. "When in Roman, do as the Romans do." But does that really make perfect sense? Don't we pave over the good parts of ourselves if we buy into this too much? I'm an international student, but I shouldn't try and give up what I like about me just to fit into the quiet Belgian lifestyle. There should be some middle ground. It should be 50-50. I am going to do some things that you think are crazy, and you are going to do some things that I think are crazy. Maybe that's as good as a middle ground as we get. Because if it's too much to adjusting we lose what we had to begin with, which was a distinct culture, and a distinct set of people, and we lose ourselves somewhere in there, too. Maybe intercultural dialogue doesn't have to be painful. Maybe it can be fun, and also good without getting rid of what we like about ourselves to try and fit in. I'm certainly going to work on being more me, and less, uh, not me. Yeah.

Friday, November 04, 2005

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Movies

Hey friends!

I would just like to say that I have now seen Alfred Hitchcock's movie "The Birds." I have never sat through a full length Alfred Hitchcock anything, but now that I have, WOHOO! WHAT A COOL FILM! It was really cool because it made you think as well as being creepy. It was really good for the philosophical thought on evil and philosophy. Why did the birds turn on everyone? What was really going on? It's interesting to think about.

But I like birds so much. It made me sad to see birds be so...well, horror monster-ish. Non-happy. But I understand that's part of the reason he used birds, I'm sure.

Now I'm sad. Darn you Alfred Hitchcock. DARN YOOOOOOOOOU!

Anyways, I also JUST found out who Margaret Cho is today! My goodness, what a funny lady. I listen to some audio clips of her stuff, and she's just a blast. I had to stop myself from buying the complete DVD series of all her comedy shows over the internet. It would have been a bad...yet good idea. Sigh. Life is hard. Margaret Cho is funny.

In other news, I am almost done doing some actual work today. MAN, I'M LAZY. Holidays are no good for getting work done.

Although, I went to All Soul's Day Mass, and it was really nice, and I went to the cemetery and I said some prayers. It was a good time. Their cemeteries here are beautiful, and I feel really calm just hanging around them. They're so...meditative? Maybe that's the right word. Although I'm not sure if it's healthy that I want to hang around cemeteries. Need to think about it.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

If you would like to know the answer to whether or not music videos have regressed back into the 80's look no further than here, and watch the videos by Sean Paul and Britney Spears:

http://www.artistdirect.com/


I think it's also official given the audacity of the Britney Spears video here, that she has officially jumped the shark. Like, she chose to jump the shark. Like, she wanted it sooooo bad. You wont understand until you watch the video, but I have two words for you: Pink SUV.

Yeah, I know. Ouch majorus.

Anyways, I would like to comment that I have been having weird dreams lately. Like, I had a dream a couple nights ago where I was having some sort of huge stress that I need to go talk to someone about, and then I had this big emotional conversation with somebody like a therapist, but who maybe wasn't a therapist, maybe just a close friend of mine/family member. Anyways, I asked her something like, "But why do I feel this way?" and she said, "The reason is because you're one third Mexican." I felt so relieved once she said this, like it was some sort of big revelation or something. Yes! This explains WHY I'm so neurotic. I'm ONE THIRD MEXICAN. In my dream I actually went and examined myself in the mirror, and I had to agree that I really did look one third Mexican. It was like the answer to all my problems, racial stupidity style. Having a bad day? No worries, you one-third Mexican! Don't like Belgian water because it's too hard? Hey, you could be in Taco-home-country, mister, don't complain!

Then the dream I had last night was about some guy who kept singing and he had a guitar and was playing pretty nicely, and he had a nice voice, but I kept telling him, "No, you're still a little bit flat/sharp." Then he'd say, "Yeah, I know, I know." And try to sing again. Repeat coversation. But the thing was he was REALLY flat/sharp. It was like voice-cracking-going-through-puberty-flat. It hurt to listen to once he got going. (Thankfully he only sang a couple words and then stopped. Then I could interject. Which was why I brought up that he was flat. Rather rude of me, now that I think of it. GEEZ, I'm a terrible person...I blame it on the fact that I'm one-third Mexican.)

Also, I had a Belgian waffle with ice cream on it tonight when I met up with a friend of mine from philosophy, and it was AMAZING. Best thing I've had in a long time. I definitely ate it too quickly, though. (Especially considering it cost 2.25€)

And, now that I think of it, I really don't like the soup here that comes out of the can, because it's too salty, but think that's because I've been eating it without adding any water to it. I suppose if I read/could read the label I could sort this issue out. Hm. Maybe I'll just add water to it anyways. It'll probably taste better.

Oh heck, I can't believe I'm deliberating about this. Some life, huh?

P.S. I have been doing much too much culture-glam related stuff lately, so I think that is going to be it for a while. I know I usually find such things very boring when I come across them on other people's blogs, so I think I should try and ration them out more. Like the way I need to ration out my obsession with ice cream. And waffles. And quesidillas. I mean candy.

Night all!

P.P.S. I was going to ask you all something important in which you could give me good feedback, but now I don't remember what it is. Dang it.

Well, here's a good one anyways. Do you like the semi-deliberately lame cartoons, or would you rather see more writing, less bad artistry? Vote now! =D =D =D

Commentia

OK.

I'm doing something so incredibly crazy that I probably shouldn't.

Oh well.

Now, anyone, even if they don't have a blog, can comment on my web log.

*Cringe*

*Waiting for loads of flamer-mail, junkmail comments, and other variations of nastiness.*

*Hope the people who begged Brennan to do this are happy*

So, yes, I'll be doing a lot of deleting of comments, but I'm here to appease...I mean please. Something like that. *Grin*

Happy All Souls and Saints Day, too.

Which are national holidays in Belgium.

Now I really am asking for hate mail.

Geez.

Happy Halloween!

I would just like to wish you all a Happy Halloween.

No children came to my door.

So I'm eating all the Halloween candy I bought for anyone who was maybe going to come by. I'm eating candy coke bottles and suckers that say things like, "Happy Kids, Boys and Girls!" and has soccer balls and sunshine faces on the wrappers.

And, yes, in case you're wondering, that IS how I justified buying 10€ worth of candy.

Yay Halloween!

And props to Elizabeth who sent me the nicest Halloween card ever!