I can always tell I'm back home when I eat more than I should, get a stomach ache, and gain about ten pounds just by eating dinner. Of course it's usually worked off by the amount of laughter my family does during dinner.
Catching up with Mom on the things that we missed, even if I told her over the phone, is always something I look forward to whenever we go home. Our driving is always adventureous because we have me (or Steph) driving, Mack navigating, and Mere with the one that's not driving in the back, talking, singing to whatever song we're listening to, and laughing. So having that good mood amplified when we get home makes it all worth it. So for a recap of today we had -Early morning wake up I seriously didn't need (I hated myself for not being able to fall back asleep -Quick cleaning of the apartment (stupid snow salt getting everywhere) -A quick wash of my hair -Packing everything into the car -Going on campus to get Mere -Going back to the apartments to get something we forgot -Going on campus to get Mere -Going back to the apartments to get something we forgot -3 hours of singing to songs until I couldn't sing anymore (seriously, I lost my voice and my voice cracked pretty badly on the last few ones) -"Put it in Park!" -"Just close the door!" -Comically excited for pizza -Catching up with Mom about everything -Planned stuff for Spring Break -Planned stuff for graduation And that's only on the first day being home for a quick break.
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I never realized how hard it is to be funny up until I was taking this screenwriting class. I'm a naturally funny person (I don't think so, I've just been told this) and having to come up with one joke on every page of a 50 page script for a sitcom is the hardest thing ever. There are some jokes that I do on purpose that are funny, others that I throw in because I can't think of anything else that seem to be funny, and others that I throw in when I can't think of anything else and they're duds.
Having read a bunch of scripts throughout this class and now understand how many times you have to revise something or change jokes until it's guaranteed a laugh is difficult. We even had to take a couple scenes from 30 Rock today and use those to write in our own jokes and it's a lot harder than you would think it is. How would you change 'sports are stupid, being an athlete is easy' into a joke every few lines until the scene ends? Though our teacher did say the jokes we came up with, she thinks, are better than the ones that are actually in the episode. Ego boosting sure, but I'm not sure if that's exactly true. I'm panning on sharing my script to an episode of 2 Broke Girls when I'm done with it (about sometime tomorrow night) and I'm actually really excited for it. It was fun to do and I absolutely love the show now. Though I don't think that it's all funny. But having the first experience of writing for a sitcom has really helped me and expand my ways of writing different genres. Plus, I could use it as a writing sample if I ever need to. ;) What makes it that we can remember some things better than others? I've only started to contemplate this as I'm taking my last history class this upcoming semester and if you know me, you'd know that history and I aren't very good friends. I can't remember dates at all and hate whenever I'm asked 'when did this happen' because I feel like an idiot when I guess and am either very close, nowhere near close, or hem and haw and just get a look filled with pity and disgust when I can't remember 'significant event here'.
And yet, if you ask me when a certain band first got together, what their first single was, what the lyrics to five of their songs are, or what style each band members has, I can do it in no time flat. I can do the same with my favorite books, I can quote movies and TV shoes like it's no one's business, and I can remember things from way back in Pre-K on up and no one seems to remember any of it. (Though it's helped me when it came to writing our books Two Pair and Four of a Kind because some conversations I've actually had are in them). So I've always wondered what is it that makes some people remember some things better than others? Why is it that I can remember practically everything I need to know, but I can't remember significant dates other than birthdays and holidays? It's always been something that I've found interesting, yet it makes me a bit anxious for my upcoming history class. While I ponder that, I need to get 15 pages of script writing done. A surface intended for the posting of public messages, for example, to advertise items wanted or for sale, announce events, or provide information.
That above is the definition of a bulletin board, but it also works out the idea for the vision board that my sisters and I just created. We are the kinds of people that believe in positivity as well as the law of attraction. We have seen things that have come true and because of that reason, we have started to create Vision Boards. A vision board is basically the same thing as subliminal messages, though slightly different. You take a bunch of pictures, words, and phrases and stick them all of a poster board in a collage and it helps you actualize what you want. Is there a specific car you want to get? Aka your dream car? Put up a picture of it on your vision board. Now, does that mean that it'll automatically come true and it'll pop up in your hand? No, you still have to work hard for what you want, but the positive energy that you're putting out there, believing that you can actually get it is all the reward for it. For me, anyway. Whew! Almost forgot to blog today.
So my sisters and I are part of the World Music Ensemble on campus where we play the steel pan and the african marimba. It is sooooo much fun. I was hesitant in joining for the first time in my spring semester of junior year but I wish I joined sooner. The songs we play are so much fun, I always really get into them and I'm always so excited when we get new songs to learn how to play. We learned Under The Sea from the Little Mermaid last semester and ever since the first time I heard that song, it was my mission to learn how to play it. The funny thing is that when we were younger, my sisters and I would hear the song and we always said that we wanted to learn how to play that song like a jamaican song (of course this was waaaaaaay before we knew what a steel pan actually was). It's so cool to know that years later we learned how to do just that. And not many people know how to play the steel pan or the african mallets so it's something unique. The standard instruments that most people know is usually the piano, guitar, drums, violin, or saxophone, so I'm glad I was able to learn instruments that not many people would learn how to play. Plus, Mere was the one that got african marimba at school because they brought them in after she auditioned for the music department by playing the marimba so that's pretty cool. I always look forward to the times where we practice our music (apart from the times where I get frustrated where I don't get anything quickly, because I'm such a perfectionist with music. Don't get me started about how angry I can get when playing the guitar) because it's always something new hat we work with and polishing up old songs which I love as well just puts a big smile on my face. And playing the two instruments for the rest of the school, our parents, or whomever comes to listen to us play is always fun because we get to show off our abilities over the semester when a few students have just started playing that semester and sound so good. Yes, that was a tiny hint for those of you that go to my school and don't watch us perform, you need to. Wow, this was kind of a rambling blog, but it's 11:21 at night, we're probably not going to get school tomorrow when everyone else does, I'm watching Read World/Road Rules Challenge: The Inferno 2 on YouTube, and I'm kind of tired. So I have an excuse. I'm really glad about some of the opportunities that going to college has brought. I'm not just talking about being able to take trips (though today was pretty fun) I mean a lot of different opportunities. It's an opportunity to help you meet knew people, to help you network for after college. It's a chance for you to be able to learn a lot about yourself as well as to be able to learn about other people and how to deal with them. How to make studying easier for you, how to tailor your interests to creating a major. Then, yes, there are the trips that you can take, either abroad or around the US. Day trips, weekend trips, and opportunities for internships.
I'm glad I was able to learn a lot about a lot of different things while I grow closer to graduating. Though I think of it more as opportunities that life has given me, yes there are a few that I've turned down and regret that I have but there are others that I've turned down and haven't regretted. It's a learning experience. And while learning experiences aren't always easy, they're beneficial and useful at some point in time. Maybe not now but later. Being able to have some time to sit and reflect about that, of course I was thinking about graduation again to bring this up, I know that there are a still of opportunities that life can give me and that I shouldn't only focus on the end of the school year. I need to think about other other good things like can bring along the way and afterwards. You know, I really got to give Mom and Dad some props. Not only did they put all of us through college, but they've really raised the six of us to be grounded, to have big aspirations, supports us when we're trying something new or something big, as well as help us out when we get a hitch in our plans.
For example some unforeseeable, frustrating things happened today and Mom and Dad really helped us out. They agreed that while we had the right to be upset about what was going on, they also helped keep our spirits up and to help us find a solution to our problems and they've always been that way. Yes, there have been many times where I've snapped at them when I didn't mean to (frustrating emotions and all that) and there have been times where I've dismissed their advice, but I've learned not to do that because they're always very helpful and (yes, I'm admitting this) right more often than not. And while this is my last semester of school, it makes me want to converse with them more. The last couple of years I usually only called home if I had a bit of a problem and wanted them to know about it or am reminding them of when we were going home. I never really called them first to see how they were doing. So that's another one of my goals, to start conversations with them more. They really have been a sort of support for us while we've been in school and I can't thank them enough for that. Peace. So during class today we had to work on writing and identifying set up sand punchlines in scripts. We watched The Office and Everybody Loves Raymond to see how two different TV shows tell jokes in sitcoms. Its actually interesting to see how they differ though they're both sitcoms. The Office has some that are a bit more dry and quick while Everybody Loves Raymond has some that are slower and funnier.
We had exercises where we had to write our own punchlines to jokes. I was glad to hear that some of the ones that Mack and I came up with got laughs. My sisters and I like to make people laugh and we like to think that we're funny so getting the comment "you guys are so funny" as well as taking the time to come up with some jokes for already established characters, we're glad that we can do it. We don't see making people laugh as a way to validate ourselves, we see it as a way to make other people feel better. Some times when we see that someone is feeling down, we will try to purposefully fight or do something silly so we can make someone else laugh. So if we become actresses, or TV writers, or just continue to write series of books we hope that there are moments that make people laugh out loud, or even chuckle, or just have something that makes their day because that's the biggest compliment to us. Peace. Nothing interesting happened today other than watching a (surprisingly funny) episode of 30 Rock and a episode of a show called Party Down in class. Otherwise, I wanted to give my writing word count for the week (not including what was due for class).
What people don't know is that I always find time to write something. I have a good sense of time management so around my work and school schedule I always get time to write. If I don't write a chapter, I write down scenes, I edit things I've already done, write out new ideas, as long as I'm writing something. For those that know that I've written Two Pair (the first draft of it anyway) in the first week tweeks of NaNoWriMo and had written about 70,000 words for that book. In contrast, in this week I've written over 18,000 words this week with 6006 today. If I'm adding in what I handwritten, it'd probably be over 20,000. I usually don't pay much attention to how much I write in a week, but I've always wondered about it. Peace. Not much happened today because I had a day off of classes. Yay! The best thing though is that my outline for an episode of 2 Broke Girls has been approved. It was my first idea and the one I really really looking forward to so I'm glad my teacher responded to it so well. She said that she was excited for the idea as soon as she read it and that she thought it would be a perfect episode for the show.
I hadn't started watching the show until after I made the outline so when doing my idea for the episode I was really making things up as I went along, based off of one simple idea I had. So the positive feedback I got on it made my day and made me excited to get started on the script in general. Tomorrow we're talking about writing in a character's voice as well as writing jokes on Thursday so I'm excited for those classes as well I can already tell the difference with some of my humor writing from this class so I hope that it can help with some other aspects of my writing as well. Especially when it comes to pacing and expressing something in the way I really want it to. Otherwise, what really mad eme happy today was the fact that it was 'knock off fast food day' in the dining hall. You know what that means? NO MORE PIZZA! For the past week and two days I've been here, there's really been nothing that I've wanted to eat other than pizza. (And this beef roast that was actually pretty good). They changed something with the dining hall so if you want chicken or burgers and fries you have to go to the RAT so there's not much to choose from in the dining hall. I was so excited to have fries for dinner today and not pizza, you have no idea. Today was a good day. Nothing too exciting, but nothing dull either. I'm ready for the rest of the week and tubing Saturday and ice skating Sunday. Peace. |
About Me
Loves anything red. Rock music, playing the guitar, drawing, writing, tattoos, and sports are some of my interests and hobbies. I like to laugh, I like to think I'm funny. I talk a lot...just a warning. Archives
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