Neil Gaiman on your coming year

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”

—	Neil Gaiman I like this guy

Rabbit, rabbit

Finally went to the bank to cash my glorious 25-pound winnings

only to be told that I would have to pay 16 euros to process the check and 14 euros to convert the money from pounds

meaning I'd pay 30 euros to cash an approx. 28-euro check.

Har dee har har -

I think I'll do what I'd originally planned and just keep it as a memento of my first-ever winnings and maybe frame it later on.

If the Rapture really is tomorrow -

my terribly unglamorous death will occur as I struggle through the last of my exams.

I won't even get my - long overdue - Masters before I die. Talk about ironic.

Also I probably won't be taken anyway. Not that I wanted to, but as a huge Bioshock fan/(convert?), you'd think I'd get in on that fact alone. More irony.

the real Rapture

Of course the end of days could also take place next year on December 21st.

Two days before my birthday. My only consolation is that the man who goes by the initials J.C., and whose birthday outshines mine every damn year, won't get to party either. suck it.

Still...

can't harbingers of doom stop picking on me and select a less inconvenient date for the end of times?*

*if such a time exists (maybe after I die?)

* also how am I supposed to be reincarnated if there's no world to be reincarnated back to?

Poling bunny

Exams all week next week

Book Challenge - To Kill a Mockingbird

"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.  They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.  That's why it's a sin to kill a mocking bird."

It seems long-winded at first because Lee is so thorough in giving background and setting up the story but it all comes together for a bitter-sweet conclusion. 
There's so much warmth in this novel, which runs right alongside sadness, particularly when drawing the inevitable parallels between then and now in terms of prejudice and race relations, but you end the book thinking progress, even when slow, does come - 
hopefully.


A definite recommend.

Miami City Ballet

This year, Miami City Ballet celebrates its 25th year anniversary with a special 3-week show in Paris' Les Etés de la Danse


and I'm going to see them :D

The first time I saw a ballet I was nine or ten and I was just blown away.
This will be the first time seeing a live show since!
So cool!

Also...

Baryshnikov is coming! Going to try to get tickets for his show as well!

Des bouts par-ci par-là

Exams in one week -
10 from Monday to Saturday to be exact.

On the plus side, I finally finished a book, and what a book!
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz is amazing.
An absolute A+
For a review that pretty summarises my own feeling, read this:
http://www.pajiba.com/book_reviews/the-brief-wondrous-life-of-oscar-wao-by-junot-diaz.php
As someone who was born and raised in a country that is not the country of her parents, some aspects of the book rang particularly true.

When my exams are over, I need to go over all the footnotes again and pick up a book on the history of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. I can't believe I've never heard of Trujillo...although, if the DR is part of a mandatory two second review in US schools, goodness knows it wouldn't make the cut in French schools. We don't even learn about French colonies for fuck's sake.

The book did provide inspiration for the final editing (which might as well be called a rewrite at this point) process of my book (sidebar) and I also need to pick up a history book on Jamaica. Why go looking for mysterious and exotic locales when I can pick my (family's) own?

Have now started The Hobbit. Will move on to the LOTR trilogy afterwards. I kind of saw the first one so the first chapter in The Hobbit is actually fun to read cause I still remember the images.

Does anyone know who drew the image above?

Nicholl Fellowship and other titbits

I entered my screenplay in the Nicholl Fellowship today.

It took me unbelievably forever to settle on a story - everytime I thought I had one, I changed my mind, and even while writing this one, I had so many ideas for other stories, it's ridiculous. In the end, time meant I had to stick to this one so I wouldn't have a bunch of unfinished stories and no screenplay to submit.

Frankly, I hope to make it at the very least past the first round. Despite being pressed for time and having to put it aside for studies, anything less would be shit.

We'll see. I know I still need practice but I feel reasonably confident about this one - again, to make it past the first round at least.

I wasn't able to enter the Disney fellowship but I'm still going to work on a spec script this summer. I've got a bunch more ideas as well and I have to finally edit my book to make it ready. Aside from the Disney fellowship though, so far I'm on track with all my goals (in the sidebar).

For the next three weeks, I'll be on self-imposed hiatus so I can get my Masters (another sidebar goal after all). Can't wait for that to be over.

PS: I lost my 'earnings' in the chaos that is my room. I need to find it and cash it, lol. Or frame it. Something. But find it.