2003-12-02 - 12:47 a.m.
#131: No Need for NaNoWriMo to Interrupt a Good Journal Run
Note to self: I just realised something. I've written more entries in this year than I did last year (fourteen for 2002, sixteen so far for 2003). Not very well paced out sure (8 of this years entries being written in the space of a month. Oy) but I'll take any sign as an improvement to the state of this diarys often long stretches of nothing. Though nothing can beat 2001 with its record total of 101 entries. I guess I kinda lost any enthusiasm after hitting a hundred. It's not the same at all after that, really.
Well, as I mentioned in my entry last month, I was busy participating in the yebrow raising oddity that is National Novel Writing Month. And I think I even did pretty well. Admittedly, the first fifteen days had me arsing around and barely getting anything down.... But after that I took off like greased lightning and now I have a nice little (if rather mediocre) 50,000 word novella. Note that link takes you to the 35,000 word version. I've actually hit 51,000 words but I want to keep writing until I reach 60,000 or so when the novel will really be finished. But at the moment it's reached the point where it's SO close to the end that updating the version online right now would be a waste of time. It's literally 2 or 3 scenes from closing. All I need to do is wrap up the big battle at the end and then the brief (very brief) epilogue. Can you tell what I've written is some kind of adventure fantasy-esque type thing? In any case, if you missed me for the last month and want to know just what I've been up to, just read this. I tried to make it as entertaining as possible, and I hope I succeeded.... But I think it could have used a greater dollop of silliness. Everything is better with extra silliness. Because silliness is fun. I should have put in those ninjas. Ohh, I also won a little 100x100 icon for my own use! Take a look at me spiffy new icon!
Innit neat? After a whole month of waking up in a cold sweat wondering just how long I can keep up with the pace of writing that I did, I finally have an icon! That makes it all worthwhile, it sure does at that! And I only have nine thousand or so more words to go until I finish! That's nothing compared to the 50,000 I wrote in a month! I wanna fall down now.
So anyway, what else have I been up to this month, besides procrastinating on writing a novel that I have no intention of ever publishing but DO have every intention of pushing into the faces of all my friends until they've read and commented on it? Well.... The fight between my mother and father reared its ugly head again. One night, my mother suddenly got it into her head to ring my father in Malaysia at 12AM in the morning. Naturally, due to the time difference he would most probably have been awake, so she rang up to chew him out some. When she found that his home phone number was ringing off the hook and his mobile phone had been turned off, she went completely and utterly nuts. Yet again. So she rang him again. And again. And again some more. Sometimes she would stop and appear to go to bed. But then when the house seemed about to settle into the sweet slumber of the night, she got up again and started ringing some more. Finally she gave up around 3AM in the morning. When my father rang later in the day, he got another big chewing out for not having his mobile on when he went out, my mother asking, "Is the reason why you don't want your mobile phone on is because you don't want to talk to me?". Considering the fact that my father is a lawyer, I can think of a couple of dozen other reasons he wouldn't want his mobile on when he went out: most of them involving not wanting to be disturbed with business when he was out with his friends. Her ill-tempered behaviour is really embarassing, but I suppose she's afraid she's slowly losing him because of the argument. So now my father is ringing her twice a day: once in the morning and once in the evening; and he's keeping up with that schedule pretty well, too. Only now SHE'S the one going out all day and hence missing his calls. Hypocrisy or womans perogative? I'll let you decide, dear readers.
Let's see.... Oh! I finally have a South Australian drivers license now. A FULL one at that, not a restricted one like in New Zealand. I guess they decided I was too old to be subjected to those embarassing "P" plates (In Australia, the period between learners and full license is called the "Probationary Period", hence the "P") hurrah! And all I had to do was sit a written examination. No more sitting another damn practical driving exam like I would have to do if I wanted to get a full license in New Zealand. I guess that's one thing that's good about Australia, you only ever have to sit one driving test in the course of obtaining that little photo ID card that gives you the right to drive a car. And even that's optional: you can go for a "logbook" method of testing instead, where the state approved teaching instructor will mark off what driving manuevers you've pulled off and gives you a passing grade in said logbook when you've done them all correctly. Certainly a lot easier than sitting two tests, one for restricted license and the other for a full one. Ick. So now I have a full license and I could theoretically drive with small trace amounts of alcohol in my bloodstream! Not that I would want to. But the option is there if I want to take it. Yes. Another thing I didn't expect to get so easily was my Australian Tax File number. Yes, that sacred identifing number that led me on a veritable real life "RPG Fedex Quest" as described here. As noted in that entry my story hadn't quite ended yet. Oh no. There was more. Frustratingly anticlimatically more, as the case was.
When we last saw me, I was clutching a new, different Tax File Number application form, after being given the run around with previous application forms that were entirely WRONG. This application form was much more complex than the previous ones I had before, in that I needed not only my passport to prove my identity, but also several pieces of official documentation: the two I chose being a bank statement and my birth certificate. Now, since I've moved here I haven't actually received any bank statements, just LETTERS from the bank with my home address on it. As in letters accompanying my decision to open a bank account or one that came with my new bank card. I hoped the Tax Department would take that, despite the fact it didn't have a table showing just how little money I had in my bank account. For the other proof of identity I chose a birth certificate, since my mother happened to find it in some of the official document stuff she had decided to have with her when we moved to Australia. Only it wasn't really my birth certificate, just something reeeeeeeeeeeeally close. A document of some official saying they've witnessed the birth certificate and that it existed. It was meant to be a backup birth certificate while the real one was locked away somewhere in Malaysia. Great.
Now, the Tax Department required that the birth certificate be an original certified copy and it couldn't be a photocopied version even if it had been witnessed by a lawyer or something. On the otherhand, the document I had was an official certificate of someone from the registrar of Malaysia that said that my birth certificate did exist and thus could be used as a backup birth certificate if the real one wasn't available. So therefore, the document I had was in itself a birth certificate but.... Well, the logic goes in circles right about here. In any case, those were the only pieces of documentation I really had from their list, and they required a minimum of two apart from my passport. So I went to the Tax Office with those documents and the form filled out in hand. The consultant who I was referred to had a good long hard look at what I had given her, rang up her supervisor, did a couple of checking with several different departments in the building (thank god I wasn't the one who had to do THAT again!) and in the end she told me, "Maybe". After that she photocopied everything I'd given her to be checked by the guys upstairs (quite literally in this case), and I was sent home with a terrible sinking feeling in my stomach.
It was only a few days later that I received a phone call from the Tax Office. Well, my mother did since I wasn't home. And she passed on their message to me. And that message was that I had a tax file number all along and if I would like to go down to the office to pick it up? So I went down to the office. And less that five minutes later I walked out of the building with that 12 digit number printed on a piece of paper in my hand. And that was it.
.... Really, there are times when I feel God is truly being unfair. I didn't have to go through all that walking from department to department, I didn't have to fill out all those forms, I didn't have to scrounge around until I found two pieces of documentation that proved my identity. All I had to do was walk into that office, show my passport and point out my name to them until they coughed up my Tax File Number that I had when I last lived in Australia. That happened about two weeks ago and my eyeball still won't stop twitching at the gross stupidty of it all. Truly, if there is ever a need to point out a real life example of a pointless role playing game quest taking place, this is IT. I have found th fedex quest that ends up right back where you started and I claim it in the name of Edwyn and his empire of life sucky experiences that make people laugh at his pain. How do these things just HAPPEN to me? It's like my life is one big comedy sitcom. One big AMERICAN comedy sitcom. And really, I think they're getting really low on ideas now that they're heading towards their 24th season, if ya know what I mean. Let's move on.
Earlier this month I tried out for a session at a recording studio. Yes, I finally got the courage to go through with the whole thing, instead of stalling like I did before and I made an appointment to go in a record. On Monday 10th November, to be precise. And that was truly horrible. Oh, the recording equipment was great, I got to stand in a real soundproofed booth and speak into a quality mike and watched the sound engineer edit a bit with his digital audio tools (which look somewhat similar to Cooledit, really). In terms of getting to see what an environment a professional would be used to working in, I saw all the little things that I assumed would be like that and have now confirmed that they are exactly like that. And then some other things that I didn't expect that I should have in hindsight. Like the fact that you have to prepare your own script for the session, and the sound engineer is there just to record your voice not to critique. I guess I should have expected that, but I didn't at all really. I did have a script ready though, which was a plus for professionallism that was a little lost on someone whose job was just to make sure you spoke into the mike correctly and put your voice to CD when editing was finished. I was expecting a bit of music and background SFX to be added to the mix after recording but it was just my voice and all my spoken lines which I would have to edit together myself later on. So that was a bit of a disappointment, and a pain as well, since I had to edit the voice clips that I really, really, REALLY did not like at all. And the reason was: My recording lines in the booth were horrible.
Truly, disgustingly horrible. I just can't listen to what I'd recorded without feeling some kind of pain and remorse.... Mostly at the fact that I wasted 100 dollars to record what I did in a professional studio for THIS? Ergh. I was making all the classic mistakes: blowing into the mike (fortunately minimised by the screen next to the expensive microphone. which probably shielded it from the excessive spittle I was making), lippy smacky noises, tongue clicking, my throat making weird "sparkling" sounds.... It was all going wrong. And the combination of both having unfamiliar headphones on to listen to how what I saying was going to sound like when it was recorded, as well as general nervousnessness, weren't helping either. I really didn't perform at my best that day, I could tell when the results were played back. True the sound quality was down right excellent, most probably unacheivable with my current mike and lack of a soundproofed room; but it doesn't matter if what you were recording was crap. After three weeks of not even looking at the CD, I'm hoping I can take a listen to it and find something to salvage from that 100 dollar recording session. And I hope that I can resist the urge to press stop when I hear the first few words I uttered with my voice and conquer the temptation to eject the CD and smash it into some mighty small chunks. That last part should be easier. When something costs a hundred bucks, you develop a subconscious habit of not breaking it. It's inherent in petty, penny pinching peons like moi.
And apart from that? Did nothing else, really. I really should be checking out the local anime club or even (gasp!) getting a job now that I have a tax file number and won't be unfairly taxed for not having one. About the only contact I've had with people that weren't directly related to friends of my mother were for the two events organised by Adelaide participants of National Novel Writing Month, which were quite a bit of fun. Some of those people were even as crazy as those back in the Auckland Anime Club, but since it's a group that means only about once or twice a year and only for the month of November (and that's if they come back for the craziness the next time), that's not really a permanent group to gravitate to. And if you don't count the storepeople at the Shintokyo store, various storepeople from other places, people I pass by in the street and that little old man who let me touch his shoulder that one time.... Then that's IT as far as socialising goes. I think I might very well go mad soon. An old friend is coming to my rescue, however. The sister of my recently found out gay friend is coming from Sydney to visit her aunt. She's taken too, but not by a member of the same sex. Although.... Hmmmm.... No, I won't go there. Anyway, we're going to catch up on old times this coming Thursday. Where she will most likely tell me, despite having not seen me in almost 3 years, how I haven't changed at ALL. Grrr. Well at least this time I've got dyed hair. That I'm planning to cut soon. And hence won't look as impressive. Rats. And errr.... yeah: a job. A job would be nice. I guess I'm gonna be hitting up Borders until they bleed candy again. I hope they bleed soon. I'm rapidly running out of money because of my gregarious spending on DVDs (anime or otherwise) and my planned spending on my Gamecube when the right games come for it. Or, and I guess I should be thinking about my Christmas shopping as well, eh? Ha! Me, buying Christmas presents. For other people. HA!
Oh, and I saw Matrix Revolutions recently. Well, three weeks ago. Loved it. Though it truly lacks the kind of coherency that most other films would try to have, in its place comes two really big, beautiful and completely badassed action setpieces. Want to see humans in mechs fighting against millions of squid robots in a battle that looks truly hopeless but they have to try anyway? Want to see Neo and Smith duke it Superman/Dragonball Z stylez? Then you've got it made. If, on the otherhand, you want some more of the deep philosophising dialogue the characters are prone to, watch Matrix Reloaded. I absolutely adore the dialogue in Matrix Reloaded. It is the epitome in truly useless eloquent speech to say things in a meaningful manner when they are not, in fact, meaningful things. It's like what was done in the original Matrix, only upped a couple of hundred times and with more characters speaking in such a Shakespearian manner (rather than just Morpheus and The Oracle in the first one). I liked the soundtrack for this movie the best out of the trilogy too, if only for the choral track that plays during Neo and Smiths fisticuffs. I've even bought it, and it's surprisingly helped me in writing my NaNoWriMo novel. And here I thought I was allergic to the distraction of noisy, bassy music. Right now, I'm even listening to the danceworthy Hotei from the Kill Bill soundtrack, set on infinite repeat. And I'm writing pretty well in spite of the music. Perhaps even better. How odd.
Hmmm, I suppose I should start thinking about calling up the Otaking Gumi about the "Who Wants to be an Otaking?" competition. It's about time I started doing some organising. I hope I can attend Aprils Auckland Armageddon, but at the moment I really need a job for that plane ticket to happen.
