Here I am again. I’m busy with a lot of things. I am finishing a rewrite on a script this weekend and also marking students projects and papers. It’s my two tasks. Today I got my quota of student projects marked. I have some marks I need to put in that have already been marked but on my notes app in my iPad. It’s almost the end of the semester. Next week is the last week for Indigenous Cinema and the week after is the last week in Video Art Production. So it will come to an end and I’m trying to gather short term jobs over the summer and maybe beyond. I have a plane ticket to go to Saskatoon in July. I bought it when I had money a little while ago because I knew the gas prices were going up and plane tickets would get more expensive. I used points but it was a lot more points than usual. But at least I have the chance to see my family this summer. My relative is having health issues and I would like to see everyone again. I need to visit my Auntie Beth too and I don’t know how to do that. We were doing zooms for a while but I guess I’ve been too busy to visit her. And zooms aren’t the same thing.

I have been sick all week. I got a little cough and then it was at its worst on Wednesday and I had to zoom into work. I felt SO SICK. And then basically every day since then has been a little bit better. I don’t know where my COVID tests are either. There’s a games day my co-op is doing today that I was supposed to help with but I don’t want to infect all the children and adults at the co-op. So I’m staying in with my dogs blowing my nose.

I am getting a lot of work done though which is good. I have met with the sound designer/mixer and she is working on POOR starting today. She said I exported the files perfectly which was good to hear because I’ve never made AAF files for a sound person before. Actually even though I didn’t get paid to edit my film, it did teach me a lot of things about editing dramatic shorts. Probably comedic shorts too. I think it might be fun for me to try and get some editing work so if anyone has any please let me know. I have Premiere Pro and am starting to learn DaVinci. Although I still love Premiere just because I know how to use it.

I submitted it to some festivals and I’m just going to see what happens with that. I think it will get programmed somewhere hopefully. It’s kind of a hard piece. But also this morning I got up super early to present in the Disabled Legacies panel at the Paul Mellon Centre and watched three really emotionally difficult films I made about madness (Anhedonia, Madness in Four Actions, and Love & Numbers) and realized I’ve made really hard work before and it does find the people who are interested. I think Anhedonia was the most difficult film for me to make because I was having a massive depression, tension at school, and also it just brought up a lot of emotions I was trying to process while finishing a program. It’s interesting to make a film so deep within the feeling of depression and then to make another film about sort of the same themes but as a drama. Most of my mental health films have been experimental. Videos, they are videos although Anhedonia was shot on 16mm. Anyway I can’t spoil exactly what my film is about.

Ugh I have to get a poster made. I don’t know. Do I want to cheap out and make it myself? I did make some of the graphics for the call centre office. I think the image of me typing my username into the porn sharing site makes a good explanatory image. But also there’s an image of me looking anxiously up the stairs that is kind of calling me. Ahh. But anyway I should think about that next month.

I am starting keyboard lessons next month. Tuesdays! Which will make singing lessons on Mondays, Keyboard lessons on Tuesdays, and Guitar lessons on Saturdays. A lot! I am aware that is a lot to be learning but I’m only taking the keyboard lessons for two months. I just want enough to be able to play around with it. But who knows maybe I will want to spend more time learning it after 8 weeks. I feel like it’s going to finally help me truly understand music theory which I have had difficulties with. I think learning guitar and then music theory is harder than keyboard and music theory. But who knows. It’s also hopefully going to feedback into helping me learn singing. My singing teacher can listen to a song and then just find the exact notes and play it on the keyboard and I’m just like wow a miracle I could never! I’m still learning.

The next film I need to pay attention to is Unsettled Climate. I need a cut for June as part of my residency so I’ll be working on that outside of writing duties and obviously marking assignments for the next little while. I interviewed a climate data scientist who is also transgender and we had this amazing conversation. It is going to be really hard to only use small clips of all these brilliant people. I did end up writing another grant. I’m trying to learn not to feel so hurt about rejection. But it would be a long time since I got a grant from Canada Council that wasn’t travel. So yeah boo ha ha ha fuck.

I read somewhere that Monty Python and the Holy Grail was funded by some rockstars who needed a big tax write off. That is what I need, some obscenely wealthy celebrity who needs to help lower their taxes by donating me a huge bucket of cash to make something. Why is this so hard to find? I was talking to people about privately soliciting funding for my practice, but this friend told me you have to ask a rich person five times for money before they will give it to you. And I was like, fuck, FIVE TIMES!? That’s like some kind of fae rule. But also maybe the wealthy scare me. I mean not like I am never around them, if you’re in the arts there’s often some incredibly wealthy donor at gallery events and stuff. But those billionaires who keep making rocket ships and shit, those guys scare me. Especially with the files coming out. Like this is nuts, that level of wealth is so unhealthy for everyone.

Anyway blah blah blah.

I hope no one tries to preserve my brain after I die. Isn’t Einstein’s brain in a jar or something? Let the man decay, he did enough!