Filming on Thursday was, in a word, BAD. When I got home that night, I felt like emailing my director to apologize for giving such a bad performance. It wasn’t just me though. Two people kept forgetting their lines. We were all very tense. I only messed up one line, but it was the most embarrassing mistake I could have made. You may remember I mentioned that I got the role the writer of the script (Megan) had wanted for herself. Well, the script called for my character, Madison, to be kissed by the character Alex, who, by no coincidence, is played by Megan’s boyfriend, Eric. Anyway, he’s supposed to kiss me, but I’m supposed to push him away and say, “God Alex, don’t do that!” When we rehearsed it, we didn’t have everyone standing there watching, and even then, it was awkward. But when we filmed it, everyone was standing right there. Eric was tense, and I had been unable to get into character all night. So we get to the part where he kisses me, and I push him away. Then I said, “God Eric, don’t do that!” I didn’t even realize I said the wrong name until everyone was laughing. Megan wasn’t really laughing though.

Things went much better on Friday. I think part of the problem was that we were filming out of sequence. I expected we’d film the scenes out of sequence, but we had been filming each character’s lines out of sequence. What I mean is, the director would point the camera at one of us and tell us to read all our lines for the entire scene. Then, she’d move to the next person and have them do the same thing. I felt like I was reading lines, not becoming a character. I think everyone must have felt the same way, because on Friday we all decided to read our off-camera lines to help each other out.

My director anticipates that we’ll finish up almost everything next Thursday. I’ll probably get to do my first death scene then, but my second death scene will most likely be scheduled for a different day.

Since I resigned from my volunteer job, I’ve received a lot of warm notes from different people I’ve interacted with over the years. I am really touched that they took the time to say goodbye to me. The majority of the well-wishers were not other staff members though, and that surprised me a little bit since the staff members are the only ones who really got to know me as a person. Or maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that they didn’t have fond wishes for me since they were the only ones who really got to know me as a person. Hmm…

Anyway, the well-wishers have said their part, and so I think it’s time for me to put that part of my life behind me and look forward to other things. Dwelling on how much I miss it only makes it harder.

Moving forward, I have 7 hours until we shoot the film tonight. Yes, I am counting. My character is an angry person, so I’ve tried to have angry thoughts this morning to get ready for tonight. The roleplaying game that I’ve mentioned before was a really great place for me to practice character development. When I played, I liked to completely immerse myself in my character. I wonder if I take things too far sometimes.

When we rehearsed last week, the other actors got tired of being there. One kept checking her email. One was constantly on the phone between scenes. One kept complaining about having to try things different ways. To me, a few of them seemed very unprofessional. Don’t get me wrong, I know this isn’t a Hollywood film or anything, but I feel that if you make a commitment to do something like this, you should act like a professional. Or at the very least, you should try to show a little respect to the person in charge.

I hate bringing up the age difference thing, but I wonder if maybe this is a case of these early 20-somethings not taking things seriously. I mean no offense to my early 20-something readers who don’t fit this description, but it seems you are the exception rather than the rule, no?

The good news about my part of the film being nearly completed is that you all won’t have to keep reading about THE FILM over and over and over again. I’m thinking we’re nearing less than 5 more entries about it.

Goodbyes
I said goodbye to both my volunteer job and my truck this week. Both were difficult, but both were necessary. I’ve talked about my volunteer job before. The reason I gave up my truck was two-fold. First, with gas prices increasing the milage I would be putting on it when I went back to work would eat up too much of my paycheck. Second, it was a lease vehicle which means I am only allowed 1000 miles each month. Going back to work would put me over my alloted miles, meaning I would pay a penalty when I turned it in. The truck only had 24,000 miles on it, and I loved driving it, so I’ll miss it.

New Stuff
So, turning in my truck meant that I had to get another car. Rob wanted me to look at the Toyota Scion line, but I was very skeptical. My dad had been a designer for many of the automobile companies here in Michigan, and is currently retired from Daimler-Chrysler, and my sister is currently a designer at Daimler-Chrysler. My father-in-law is retired from Ford. Looking at the cars from one of those competitor companies always seemed weird. However, I gave in this time and told Rob I would at least look at the Scions.

The Scion line is Toyota’s economy line, and I was sure I would think they were really junky. I was surprised by how much car I could get for such a small price though, and I ended up with the Scion tc. My gas milage this week was 28 mph. A HUGE jump from my 14 mph Dodge Ram. The tc uses 87 octane gas, while the Ram required 89 octane. My manual tells me that the tc should have an oil change every 5 months or 5000 miles. My Ram’s oil change schedule was the typical 3 month 3000 mile deal. I had to pay a bit to get out of my lease early, but I think it will pay off soon. Besides being happy with the tc from a money standpoint, I LOVE driving it.

Not Quite A Student Film Afterall
We had two final rehearsals for my film this week. Friday’s rehearsal lasted a few hours, yet we still didn’t get to rehearse the second half of the script. Ugh. On Saturday, we rehearsed for six hours and only barely got through the second half of the script. The bad part about being the last one to die is that I’m also the last one to leave when we rehearse. I don’t really mind it all that much though. I’m having fun! The director is going to make changes to the blocking before we film on Thursday. (Is it still called blocking in film? I do not know.) WE FILM ON THURSDAY!

The script the cast has ends with my character dying one way, but the director told me privately that there is a second secret ending which no one knows about. So, I get to die twice! Yay! I also learned that the film will be shown on public access television in three or four states. So far, it looks like it will show in Michigan, New Jersey, Washington D.C. and possibly Chicago. So yeah, I’m pretty excited about it all.
The new car and the film project are keeping me busy, so I haven’t been moping around missing my volunteer job yet. My director has asked me to work with her on another project in April and possibly one more over the summer, so hopefully my new hobby will take the sting out of losing my old hobby.

Computer
I had to send my computer in for a repair last week and just got my baby back on Monday night. It was a display problem which was thankfully covered under my warranty. Mostly, it was just an inconvenience for me to be without my computer for a week.

Hacked. Again.
My friendly neighborhood hacker is back to work. The computer came back on Monday night, and by Tuesday afternoon the little creep had gotten back into my files. I’m honestly out of ideas at this point. I’ve mentioned before that he is specifically targetting my volunteer job. It’s the same story this time. The difference this time is that I’m done fighting him. As much as I like my volunteer job, the fun isn’t outweighing him disrupting my life anymore. Once again, I’m going to do a clean install on all three of my computers. Two of my computers still aren’t back to normal from the last time I had to do this. I may be a stay-at-home mother, but even I don’t have the time to mess around with my computers as much as he is requiring lately. I haven’t notified my supervisor that I’m leaving yet. I’ve asked her to lock all my accounts though, so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. I’m still debating whether or not I should make a formal announcement when I resign, but I’ll figure that out soon enough.

Hidden Meaning
I did end up emailing my friend back, for those of you who were wondering. Either I worded everything right, or he’s had a change in the way he views life. He actually mentioned that he now has a very positive outlook on life, so I think it’s the latter. His second email basically said that he understood if there was no possibility for us to be friends again, but if our friendship was to be over, he was happy to end it on a more positive note than the last time. He also left the door open to talk again if I should ever feel like talking. In my second email, I told him that I didn’t know if we could force a friendship, since it happened so naturally last time, but that I was willing to give it a try if he was. I told him he could IM me sometime if he ever felt like talking. So far, he hasn’t contacted me again. Whether he does or not, I think things have finally been resolved in a way that we can both be happy.

I Wanna Be A Star
Rehearsal for my film is going well, though I only got the last half of the script YESTERDAY. I finally found out how I die, which is scary to me. Die? I did mention that this is a horror film, right? The irony there is that I don’t watch horror films. I scare way too easily.

There’s so much more I could talk about, but then what would I talk about tomorrow?