Hey all!
I'm feeling a little less than extraordinary at the moment. A little under the weather, if you get my meaning. Well, I've got a lot on the agenda today, and I hate sitting around doing nothing when I could always be doing something.
First things first. What's the deal with People's Choice Awards? Are the people running it daft? Umm, hello, Two Towers came out, like, last year, so why was it nominated for this year's best film? Second off, why was it nominated for best film and best motion picture drama? And next off, why the heck did Pirates of the Carribean beat the Two Towers? Eer, I love POTC with every fiber of my being, I love it with my every breath that gives my heart a beat, and I thank the Almighty for Johnny Depp, but the Two Towers should have won. I love them both, I do. I've got both nearly memorized by heart, I've got no life outside of these movies, but Two Towers was on such a scale monetarily and emotionally, it just seems a little unfair. And Johnny Depp lost Best Actor to, who, Mel Gibson? Yep, I love Mel Gibson, like the sustaining breath that keeps my heart beating, but Johnny Depp is just better. Just better. C'mon, Johnny Depp shoulda got best actor, and Two Towers best film, and that would have made me very much happy.
I hate the "people", almost as much as the "academy".
Anyway, since I'm always so amped on Entertainment news, I think I might just make an entire page on my diary devouted to the interesting things I hear. And if you steal my idea, please, at least give me a little credit. It's a very nice idea, in my opinion.
Next up in Entertainment News: Mardi Gras is fast approaching, mes amis! Tr�s vite! And to kick off the celebration are Dominic Monaghan and Elijah Wood. They're to be on seperate floats on seperate days preceding Fat Tuesday. Just to keep all my fellow hobbit fans informed.
Yeppers, yeppers. I love Mardi Gras. I've only got a dozen or so strands of beads (and I obtained them morally, mind you), but I always dress up for the occasion. I wish I had French next semester, so I could join in the festivities that always come with such a holiday. We always make masks and parade the school in beads. We get to eat cr�pes, and drink soda, and listen to french music. Old, annoying stuff. Boring. But, still more entertaining than usual. I'll still make a mask, and I'll eat the food and have some fun, I always do.
So, that's all finished. No more Entertainment news for you. Umm, in real life (yes, I have a real life, thank you very much), nothing much is going on. Boring same old same old, which is driving me more insane than usual. I've succumbed to pulling out my hair in class. Well, I've got a lot of it, and I'm shedding any way. I'm not doing any harm. I should start pulling out three, tying them in a knot, and giving them to random people as gifts to remember me by, like Galadriel!
Haha, get it? I look like Galadriel, so I...
Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, I am so bored with redundancy and the mundane that I'm ready to throw myself out the school window. Of course, most of my classes are on the first floor, so this wouldn't do any good but suspend me. Well, at least it would be a change of pace!
So, today in English we got to do something "creative"! Imagine that, I was actually allowed to do something creative. Well, the bi-polar teacher gave us a picture to use as a guideline, and our story had to have the basic fundamentals of plot and etc, and it had to utilise 20th Century British Literature ideas, and it had to be based on the picture. The picture was a painting from 1933 of a subway (subways in London are called "tubes", you will need to remember this), mainly using the colour yellow and other harsh primary colours. It looked very bleak. So, here's my story. Keep in mind, it takes place in a time where Russians were being forced into Labour Camps before WW2. You need to know that, too.
"Tube"
I step gingerly into the tube. The bright light blinds me and I stand dumbfounded for a moment as my eyes adjust to the difference between velvet midnight and sudden midday. The seats are filled with men and women, all coming home from work, newspapers in hand to keep up with the quickly changing times. As I pass by, I read the cover of one paper placed delicately over one woman's face to allow easier sleep.
December 13, 1934- FLASH! Thousands more Russians Forced into Labour Camps!
Beneath the title is an unsettling monochromatic picture of millions of intimidated people crowding around the gates of an unseen labour camp. Children, women, men- all in cold black and white, yet still their terrified expressions are clear. A man standing behind me gives a grunt of impatience, and I quicken my pace.
I finally find an empty seat at the rear of the tube.
"'Scuse me, missus," says the man beside me. He is an older man, in nice clothes and a top hat, and he, too, holds his paper open in front of him. "Do you have the time?"
"Near a quarter past the hour," I answer.
"Oh, pardon me, missus, but I've been working all day and missed seeing the sun at all. Could you please tell me, a quarter past what hour?"
"Past the 19th hour, sir."
"So, seven and a quarter past noon? Thank you very much," he said. Instead of picking back up his paper, the paper bathed in the yellow light of the tube lamps, he still converses with me. "Are you going home? Where do you work?"
"No, I'm not going home," I reply quietly. "I work in an office, I'm a secretary."
"Oh, my wife as well," he said, with a pitiful shake of his head, causing his black top hat to shine with gold. "Hard times, these. Everyone seems down on his luck. So, where are you headed, if you don't mind my asking?"
I don't mind his asking. I can tell he is lonely, everyone is, so I have no trouble with a response. "I'm going to a station, I hope to meet my cousin there."
"Where's your cousin from?"
"Russia." An immediate silence follows. The train hits a bump, and everyone bounces in their seats as the crumble of the papers and their yellow gleam taunts me.
"I'm sorry," he replies. "I didn't know."
In his regret, I find solace. "Well, he's coming to London in escape. It's a good thing, really. It's a risky business, he tells me. A lot of people get killed escaping." The train bumps again, but the rustle of the papers becomes a clap and a cheer instead of a harsh whisper and dreadful sigh.
The tube comes to a stop, and the old man got up. "I wish you and your cousin great luck," he says, shaking my hand.
"Thank you, sir."
The ride continues quietly. People chatter softly as they file on and off, leaving and entering the warm, bright yellow light. Soon my stop comes. I get to my feet, and walk slowly and carefully down the crowded isle, avoiding the newspapers at all costs, with my head held high with hope. I step down from the tube and onto the platform.
People shove past me, in a hurry to get home, out of the damp cold to their dinners and warm fires and loving family's arms. I stand on my toes and scan the crowd, searching for that familiar starving face and deep eyes from the picture, but I cannot see him. I sit down on the dingy, broken bench against the filthy wall and wait.
The crowd thinned, and still no sign of him.
I wait for hours, and the tubes come and leave. The crowds get off the tubes, and shuffle hurriedly home. Eventually the exiting crowds dwindle until the stopping tubes only let two people step off before rushing past again, taking the warm light with them.
Still, he doesn't come. Another tube dashes in, and Big Ben chimes twelve. I get to my feet, and alone I step onto the empty tube. The light blinds me as I see the forgotten newspapers scattered on the soiled floor. The hungry children look up at me, their black is black and their innocent white is covered in a sickly yellow, the yellow from the unearthly lights of the abandoned tube.
I take my seat at the back of the train.
Yep, that's it! Depressing, no? Normally my style is more ornate than that, my sentence structure never that simple. I was surprised to see myself writing so choppily. But, do you get it? Her cousin died while trying to escape. So she waited for him in vain. I tried to incorporate the growing economic concerns, and the women's movement was manefested in the fact that there were women on their way home from work, and of course the despairing political problems are evident as well.
Okay, I liked the story. Hate it if you want. I'm sure you're thinking, "and she thinks she can get into film? How's she gonna pass screen writing?" I'm aware that the sentences were short, people! They're supposed to be! I've studied this stuff in depth, and I have a special understanding of it.
So, nyah.
Hey, if you liked it, let me know, would you? It would warm me, heart and soul! Mmm mmm good! I just combined Quaker Oats and Campbell's Soup. Go me!
Today's title came from Will & Grace. The best tv show available to man and man-on-man kind. I love television programming about gay men. I think it's a straight chick thing, but it's fun!
Speaking of, I promised my friend, Kelly, I'd join some of her rings. Toodles!
SILENCE, TRAITOR! - 2006-05-10
Irish History - 2006-05-02
Goodbye Bio! - 2006-05-01
DANCE, WATER! DANCE! - 2006-04-26
Gaaaaaah. - 2006-04-24