Life with Daniel, Uni and Other Things...

For the sake of being chronological, I'll start with what happened awhile ago.

I believe i mentioned Sherman's Housewarming somewhere in my last few posts. We went over after the Sexpo and after dinner. Nad didn't join us because she had prior engagements with friends. But i asked Daniel along, cos he had nothing to do that night. And it would be best if he got to know the gang i usually hang with. Sadly, the rest of the gang (Kannan, Yuka, Alan, Chewan and Chi Wee) decided not to join us that night due to various reasons as stated in the conversation below:

Kannan: I can't sleep in a different environment or different bed. I just can't. Plus you know i'm not big on drinking. And we live so far.

Jamie: You sound like my mom, Mr. Army man. You can sleep in tents set up in jungles but you can't sleep in someone else's home? I do it every week at your place! You don't have to drink much, just go for Sherman, he put a lot of effort into organising this whole thing you know? He told me he was cleaning his room and the living room so we could sleep there if we want. He even went out and specially bought stuff from Ikea to decorate his room, and he cleaned his room, made it tidier since we are supposed to go over... You're gonna disappoint him. What about Yuka?

Kannan: Yuka has to take care of Chewan, you know how she had to take him to the hospital in the middle of the night right?

Jamie: Yeah, i know, you told me. (Backstory---Chewan just got back from Tokyo a few days ago and he's been really sick since, fever that won't go down) Okay, that i can understand, what about Alan?

Kannan: You know, now that Amber(Alan's gf) is back, and she's not really the drinking type, i don't think Alan will go if she doesn't go, and Alan doesn't really like to drink either. So i guess i'll have to call Sherman and tell him nicely.

Jamie: Suit yourself! He's gonna be really sad.


So anyways, the picture below is a depiction of what happened that night, the usual drinking. The guy in the background in black is Daniel, my new flatmate. And the blur one, you know her, Shairah... Hahaha... I drank quite a bit that night, but i paced myself. And it was under control, no puking. Just a bit tipsy is all.
This is just a picture of Raisin, my pet tarantula back in KK that i actually miss looking at and playing with. It was bout 7 months old when this picture was taken, no idea what it looks like now.
The next to pictures that follow were taken at breakfast with Nadira and Daniel. Just to clue you in on what they look like. And i'm sure i've mentioned, Nadira was my best friend in Primary One and Daniel is her ex-boyfriend. For the past 5 days that i have lived with Daniel, Nadira has managed to visit us almost every day. But it doesn't bother me, cos she's not there to visit me, so i don't have to tend to her, Daniel has to. There was this one day she didn't come over, but she called Daniel at about 11pm to ask him to go over to her place (which is 5 mins walk away, by the way) to kill a cockroach. Hahaha... And i actually jinxed him. I said something like, "I bet Nad's gonna call you soon, like she did the other night when you told me you were gonna sleep soon, but she ended up coming over after she called. Haha..." Then about 5 seconds after i said that, his phone rang and it was Nad. Hahaha... that was really funny.



Daniel is surprisingly easy to live with, eventhough he's a guy and not a girl, not Shirley. He always puts the toilet seat down, which makes it convenient for me. He always asks if i want anything before he goes down to the shops. I pay him back of course. And there have been a few different living arrangements compared to the routine arrangements i had with Shirley, such as: we share food now (anything and everything), he cooks a lot and always offers (it tastes good too!), he uses my pots, pans, cutlery, bowls, plates, cups (but i'm okay with it, he says he's gonna get some of his own soon, don't know when that will be though) and he never knocks on my door to talk about the same few things for two or three hours and then pretends to cry and ask for a hug and then tell you that you hug superficially. Haha... But that's old news now. Well he only knocks because he asks if i want to eat, cos he's just cooked. Things are good, so far... don't wanna jinx it.

The picture below is just something i took while i was waiting for the free shuttle bus to go to the city, another example of how beautiful and new everything at QUT is. Oh, Lectures started on Monday

To be very honest, my first lecture was a bit disorienting. I don't know why. I understood perfectly what the lecturer was talking about, but he never seemed to get to the point of what Narrative really is. This lecture was the first for my Core Unit-Narrative In The Creative Industries. Our lecturer is Northern Irish, and i loooooooove his accent. It's so nice to listen to and it makes you listen more intently. I've gathered from this first lecture that Gary (the lecturer, he's about 60) tells you a bunch of things or gives loads of examples and expects us, the uni students, to gather our own conclusions, which is good, don't get me wrong, but i must admit i had to listen to the lecture again (i recorded it using my recorder) to grasp what he was saying as a whole. So first day wasn't so bad.

Tuesday's lecture was better, lecturer was very straight forward. I got everything and it seems like it will be a great unit!! Media writing. Michael, the lecturer for this unit, showed us a few short films and talked about our first assessment item. How cool!!! We actually got to watch films during class!!! hahaha... this is heaven... Plus our first assignment is really cool, we're supposed to come up with a 5 minute script with NO DIALOGUE. It's a challenge, but i have a few ideas, and it's not due for a long time. But i'll be developing those ideas, surely. Don't worry, not slacking.

Today's lecture (Wednesday), Foundations of Film and Television Production, was again a very simple and easy-to-understand session. The lecturer basically explained what the unit was about. And guess what! Our first assignment, due on the 26th of March, is a 30 second video. So we'll be allowed to rent equipment from Uni. How interesting. We have to come up with a script ourselves, no dialogue as well, and we'll have to have a production plan as well... something like a schedule.

The only downside of all these majorly awesome assignments from the respective units is that they are 25% of the final mark we'll get for the unit. YIKES!!! I feel the pressure already.

An example would be Media Writing, we only have 3 assignments this semester (sem ends mid June), the first one, that i've told you about, the NO DIALOGUE-five-minute script is worth 25%, then the next one, some documentary proposal is worth another 25%; and the last one is the worst, it's worth 50% and we're supposed to write a 8-10 minute script, dialogue allowed. But my worry is that what you think is a great script may not be a great script in the eyes of the lecturer or whomever is marking your work. So that would really suck.

So what i think i'll do is come up with a few options for my first assignment and then maybe whomever visits my blog here, can give me some feedback after i post it here. I would really appreciate that.

That's all the info for now... Oh, actually there's more about my collaboration with Mike and his other partner Bryan in the states about that short film we'll be doing. But i'll save that for another day, long story short, Mike and i had lunch and discussed the script thoroughly (camera angles, chronology, etc), and the coolest thing is that he accepted my idea to extend the script (as i mentioned in my earlier post that i typed out a bit of extra stuff), and he likes it!! Another cool fact, he won the film festival last year, and his partner in US, Bryan, won the year before, that's why they decided to collaborate. So by doing this with Mike, I'm sure i'll learn a lot, practically speaking. I'm really excited about this. For now, we're looking for someone to play the French woman and scouting locations. Also, i suggested to Mike that we should enter the film in the aussie film fests coming up, just to see what kind of feedback we get, and he agreed!!! He said it'd be good exposure. So, hoorah!!!

So that's all for now, thanks for reading and thanks for caring. Will keep you posted.