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Published: September 21st 2010
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Proof that I did successfully take a picture of cows! Wow, I've really gotten out of the habit of blogging. But there are a couple good reasons for that. Firstly, I've had heaps of homework recently, meaning I'm supposed to be writing a screenplay right now instead of this blog entry, but I need something to kick-start my creativity, so really, this is me being productive. I promise. I could be watching the Aussie Rules Footy finals right now with everyone in the kitchen, which would be even less productive, albeit enjoyable and much more of a cultural educational experience. But this has a much better chance of getting me in the mood to write comedy. It's extremely difficult to force oneself to write comedy when one is not in the right mood. Essays, on the other hand, are practically
meant to be boring, and all they have to do is contain correct information in an organized fashion, so those are much easier to force. Forced comedy = not funny.
But I'm rambling. The second reason I haven't been updating is that there has been tons of
fun stuff going on as well. I went on my conservation volunteering trip; my parents and my brother came to visit me for
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Heeheehee. :-) My pretty presents. a fabulous weekend of playing tourist; we celebrated Emma's birthday (September 10); and then we celebrated
my birthday... Oh, and went to the Melbourne zoo. I don't even know where to start! I guess I'll defy logic and not go chronologically, since it makes more sense to talk about my birthday while it's still fresh in my mind, a clichéd phrase I don't think I've actually ever used before. It feels funny. Anyway, half of my adoring blog audience was here in Australia with me for all the stuff I did with Mom, Dad, and Kyle, so it seems a little redundant writing about that, but I'll get to it at some point more likely than not.
So. My birthday. I only had one class, which was kind of nice, even though the lecture that day very nearly put me to sleep. But after that, I went to the Menzies office to pick up my 'parcel,' which turned out to be an oddly bulgy card from Kyra containing... an adorable cow flashlight that moos when you turn it on! It made me very happy. I have a decided lack of cows here, not counting those pictures I finally managed
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Here we are at Mt. Ridley to take of them while driving through Victoria (ha, Kyle!). I also received a box of chocolates and three packages of tim tams (Marieke knows me too well) from my two fabulous friends in my screenwriting class. Then I decided I could treat myself to reading some of my shiny new Star Wars book for a while. It was a pretty relaxing afternoon. And then in the evening, the actual celebration began. We ate a delicious dinner cooked by Rachel (I've joined a cooking group with a bunch of my friends in towers 5, 3, and 6) and then came up to tower 5 (that's the one I live in) for dessert. For some reason, this warranted me being blindfolded and spun around and led through the whole tower blind by Emma and Holly in an attempt to disorient me, which failed because I could hear the TV when we finally stopped and knew we were right back in the kitchen where we started. Then they finally took the blindfold off to reveal a delicious chocolate cake and a possibly even more delicious pudding Rachel made herself. (And yes, there is such a thing as too much dessert, but I didn't hit that limit.) :-)
After that, we decided to go to Mt. Ridley, which is a small mountain from which you can see the whole of Melbourne sprawled out in sparkly lights. It is also very cold and windy there at night. Happily, I was warned, and I wore my new Philip Island Penguin Parade fleece over my sweatshirt (I mean jumper) in addition to changing into a dry shirt beforehand. (Emma is very fond of attacking people with supersoakers and water bottles, and it's rather hard to fend her off blindfolded. Evidently I'm better at Jedi mind tricks than I am at 'seeing' through the Force. On that tangent, I successfully Jedi-mind-tricked my screenwriting instructor today, waving my hand and muttering 'You want to start class now' when he'd been talking to the tech guy who came to try to fix our projector for a good fifteen minutes. And immediately after that, they started winding down their conversation, LOL! I claim all credit. Not really. But it was still an epic coincidence.) Anyway, back to Mt. Ridley: ironically, most of the adventure was getting there, since whoever was directing Nicole at the head of our two-car caravan kept missing every possible correct turn, so we ended up going past the Melbourne airport and all over the place on the ultimate "scenic route" before finally arriving. But the drive was very entertaining, what with Rachel educating me about Australian country music, which she claims is much better than American country, and everyone's continued bafflement as to where the heck we were going, and it was totally worth it when we got there, so I didn't mind.
But I think that's all I'll write for now. I should get back to my screenplay. I've got a good start, and the basic plot, and thanks to some tips from Gorrie, I have a better plan for working out my characters now, but I still have like 17 pages to go. I just have to actually write it. Wish me luck!
Update: Travelblog was having issues, so it didn't let me post this when I actually wrote it. Grr. Anyway, I am now almost done with my screenplay, so hooray! The end is in sight! I can stop being a recluse!
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lvaas
Leslie Vaas
Oops. I accidentally italicized half of it. Stupid formatting. Oh well. I don't know how to fix it now.