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Mmm warmth [Jan. 6th, 2010|07:10 pm]

anoel
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[Current Music |"Walk Alone" by Heather Bond]
[Current Location |California!]
[Current Mood |good]

I'm back in California! It is a glorious, glorious thing. I am all smiley and happy to be in sunshine filled, 70s weather which is my FAVORITE. After being in the cold for two weeks and knowing I am leaving in less than a month, I am extremely grateful. It definitely has started off my year on a positive note.

My travel experience was pretty good other than my plane being delayed for 30 minutes (which seems like nothing) and having to wait an hour for a bus (I missed one, tiny sign but one didn't show up). Not bad in the grand scheme of things. Very, very nice to have my Macbook Pro, watched a lot of Glee although the battery charge was less than advertised. Will need to look into that.

I am taking two courses this month, Weight Training and Tennis which is part of my plan to get in shape by means of being forced to do so. The first because I have terrible motivation in that arena (but I do like feeling strong) and the second because I need tennis partners to play with. I love love love tennis and playing (in great weather in January!) makes me remember how much happiness it brings. I just feel so alive and it makes me smile all the time and I feel like I'm playing really good right now so it's exciting. I'm actually disappointed that the teacher keeps letting us out early because I want to play more! Also frustrating is we haven't played any games yet and that's my favorite thing but my teacher promised we would either tomorrow or next week. It's so fun and I'm looking forward to playing against two of the best players there. I am also trying to run on the side and be careful with food so hopefully I will lose some weight.

It is good to have some money again since I finally have cashed both my paychecks :) Of course now I face questioning whether or not each thing I want to buy is worth it. What was DEFINITELY worth it is my new wireless headphones!! I had to buy a bluetooth iPod adapter too but oh god no wires is HEAVEN. I don't have to be tied down to my iPod! I can even control songs from my headphones. I am hoping these headphones won't break down in 1-6 months as most of the headphones I get do but even if they do, I got a cheap 2 year warranty so I should be all set :) Frys Electronics = awesome store.

Of course exercising or else the lack of travel sleep/jetlag keeps making me really tired and interfering with my Festividding plans. After going to sleep early last night (after taking a nap earlier) and getting 8.5 hours of sleep, today I took a 2 hour nap after work and almost missed dinner. I am getting increasingly worried about my lack of progress with this vid. I am in the bad stage now where the deadline is not encouraging me to vid and instead making me feel resentful and I'm kind of hating the vid even though when I watch it, I do like it. I don't know it's frustrating. I'm not worried about the deadline because I have Friday-Sunday free and I can bang it out then if I can't find the time in the next two days but I reeeally wanted to get it done sooner so I wouldn't get freaked out about missing the deadline and/or not allow the vid to be as good as I want it to be. Hopefully I'll be able to get it done soon.

I find it so weird how in the midst of ship love (cause honestly that's what it is), I can read so much fic and when I don't have one, I have almost zero desire to read any fic no matter how much I love a ship or author. Oh well, I guess, I'm sure the urge will hit me at some point.

I am just glad that right now I am feeling optimistic, getting things done for the most part and generally am in a positive mood. I had forgotten how much exercise helps with that. As well as being in the best place on earth of course :D
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Glee and Sadness [Dec. 2nd, 2009|09:51 pm]

anoel
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[Current Music |Glee music from 112!]
[Current Mood |indescribable]

It's been a day full of ups and downs today. First the ups:

Spoilers for Glee 112 )

In other great Glee news, both Adam Lambert AND Idina Menzel would love to be on Glee!! So hopefully Ryan will be able to get them both on this season or next at the latest. Next week I will be savoring this last pre-hiatus episode sooo much it's not even funny.

On the not so great side, motivation for college is fading very very quickly. It is getting very difficult to fight my screw it, I don't care side. There have been small victories though and hopefully I'll be able to get some stuff done this weekend. Going to LA this Friday to shoot some photos for my final project, do a gallery report AND hang out with some fans so hopefully that'll go well. Another bad thing is my bike got two flat tires AGAIN after getting them replaced a month ago and I don't have the money to get them replaced. The good news though is that I got a job as an assistant here! Also made some money in an economic experiment here so that helps a lot and lets me buy a hard copy of Adam's CD and not just my free Amazon digital one :)

In sad Adam news, ABC canceled his free concert with Jimmy Kimmel. I am so sad and angry as I had a ticket to go to it. Ugh it pisses me off so much. I am so sick of this kind of crap. Add that to finding out the NY Senate voted down the Gay Marriage bill, I'm disgusted and disappointed by the discrimination in this country. I know we'll win the war in the end but goddamn it losing all the time is depressing. On the good side, Dave Valesky whose my representative who previously was on the fence voted yes! Good to know that maybe my communication with him might have had a tiny impact. So I will have to support him in his next campaign as he's up for re-election and they're sure to use it against him.

[personal profile] sdwolfpup being the awesome person she is started a Vidding Love Meme and my thread is here. It is so great to see all the vidder and vid love going on over there! I am already feeling more motivated to work on my [community profile] festivids vid this weekend :)

On a Fanfic Love note, I just want to thank ALL the writers out there who write fanfic for all of us in fandom. After reading amazing fanfic over at [profile] queenbitchfest, it reaffirmed my thankfulness of writers who create so many stories for everyone to enjoy. It reminds me that true romance exists in the world, that there are endless possibilities and so many different imaginary worlds to explore. I am in awe at the talent of the writers we have. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for bringing me and others so much joy, or dare I say it, glee.
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Beach trip, coping mechanisms, Queer as Folk, Whose Line and why I vid versus fic [Jan. 16th, 2007|02:20 pm]

anoel
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[Current Mood |contemplative]

Happy Birthday [livejournal.com profile] laurashapiro and [livejournal.com profile] ringwrench! I hope you both have wonderful days full of joy, fannish goodies and cake :)

Last Tuesday I celebrated the last 80 degrees day here by going down to Long Beach for the first time. It was really nice, I loved the marina and the downtown area was great. Plus I went swimming even though the water was freezing since I've never gotten the chance to do so in the ocean in January. It was a very Veronica Mars moment. Even with the recent cold front which hasn't been that bad considering I can handle 60's and tolerate 50s. Still loving that I have tons of free time and can do whatever I want with it. Also a book rec, Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez. I randomly started reading it in a library in Buffalo after using the internet because it had three cute boys on the cover and I figured I might as well slash them. Turns out I didn't need to (which is easily seen by the title but I didn't notice that) and it was a very good book about three gay teens trying to deal with their lives. I had a lot of fun finding parallels to Queer as Folk as there are a bunch of them. There's Nelson, a combination of Emmett and Michael with the PFLAG mom and crush on his best friend, Kyle. Kyle's a much toned down version of Justin with the coming out issues who has a crush on Jason who is not Brian (sadly) but more like a good version of Chris Hobbes (although his family has some Brian issues). It's a fun read, I really enjoyed it.

New Coping Mechanisms:

Get fully invested in watching the entire Chargers game only to see them lose heartbreakingly so...watch Whose Line. (No more football for me)
Feel down or bored or angry (most recently at a Smallville promo that made me want to throw up...one word: Clana)...watch Whose Line.

Replacing Whose Line with The Office or Gilmore Girls works well to. Laughing really does help a lot. I am loving The Office with Michael just being hilarious with his horrible social skills and bad jokes. Best comedy I've seen since Arrested Development and I love the camera work. Supernatural and Grey's Anatomy are still awesome on Thursday nights, I don't really have much to say that hasn't been already said.

On a Queer as Folk note, my personal awards as I go through the episodes in future vid work:

My favorites under the cut )

More reasons Colin Mochrie is made of awesome: not only are three of his favorite TV shows Buffy, Angel and Firefly (can't get much better than that), his favorites are: The musical episode and "Hush" are my favorite Buffy's. The Angel episode where he turns into a Muppet is fun and all of the Firefly episodes. I would have loved to have been a funny vampire on Buffy. Yay for the musical and all of Firefly, of course :)

Whose Line ramblings under the cut )

Oh and I wrote some fic! Whose Line, Ryan/Colin. I've written some other fics at times but have never finished or published any online. It reminded me though why I stick with vids love is to see is the Colin and Ryan show, all improv between them ALL the time. It'd be pure heaven, loads of slash I'm sure and too funny. I really think they are the best at improv in terms of laughabiliand not fic. For one, I'm just not that interested in writing fic as I don't get a lot of ideas and don't find it really enjoyable. It's nice once in awhile though. My biggest problem, especially with fanfic, is that I find it really hard to write the characters. I always feel like the characters when I write them are one dimensional and almost always OOC. I feel I put too much of myself into fics and it doesn't come out as the unique characters. I also find it hard to express what I see in my head and that really, really frustrates me, being a perfectionist. I read so many other amazing fics and I would love to write like them but realistically, it's just not going to happen. And I know practice makes perfect and all that but I'm not all that interested in doing so. I hate taking an idea that I love so much and writing it and then feeling like it's crap and I did what I imagined an injustice. I'd much rather spend my time vidding, trying to be the best vidder I can be and making vids that I enjoy and am proud of and can parse reasonably well how good they are and ways to get better. I'm much more of an idea person anyways, I like making connections and drawing parallels and juxtapositions in the text instead of making up new things. Which I do enjoy but usually more in a imagination sense, another reason why I enjoy reading fic so much more than writing.

The thing is, I get into a show when I love the source. For all my fandoms, I love the characters and the relationships and the storylines and I want to show why I love it so much. That's why I love vidding so much, to visually show why I love it and usually the specific parts I really enjoy. A lot of times my favorite ideas and vids to watch are explorations of a character through a relationship since that's one of my favorite things about shows. My favorite fics are often the same thing and the more interesting takes on characters and meta on the show are usually where my interest lies. But a key difference in why I read fic is because I want to see something that was never shown on screen and often not possible to show. That's why I most read slash when I read fic, because I see a lot of het onscreen (and in RL) that I don't need to see as much of it unless a pairing really grabs me and leaves me wanting more.

This is why even though I LOVE Brian/Justin from Queer as Folk, I barely read any fic for them because I don't feel a need to. I got so much of what I wanted onscreen, so much romance and love portrayed in so many ways that I don't really need the fic. But because I got so much onscreen, it makes me want to vid it a LOT because there's so much to show especially in terms of the ever interesting Brian Kinney. Contrast that with Whose Line which, because of the nature of the show, gets almost no dramatic storylines at all which I love. So I'm shipping a slash pairing that I see so many of the classic romantic, sexual, friendship signs from, even getting kisses along the way, but yet I never see any classic plots. It leaves me always wanting more, of the ship and of the *real* story of them, the dramatics and angst and romance. Everything. And because it doesn't look like there'll ever be a happy ending (for what I want), my need will never be satisfied which always drives me wanting more fic of any kind. It's a much harder show to vid for that very same reason, so many of the things I wish I could vid happened offscreen so I must make do with what I have and through fic.

In conclusion, Dean yay, vidding! (I swear I'll have a new one out this week),
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Depth [Jul. 22nd, 2004|03:55 am]

anoel
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[Current Music |"Haunted" by Poe]
[Current Mood |thoughtful]

What truly interests me in a story? In a character? Vid? Fanfic?

I think the major thing is depth. I can be tolerant with a lot of things but I want to know there's more than just the shallow (unless that's what I'm looking for and thats not usually what I'm truly invested in). I may be the only one seeing it but that's why its personal. I want to look at something and be amazed at how complex it really is. I might have only a vague notion of it but I know it runs deep. Inside I can see layers upon layers of tunnels, twists, mazes that never end and are all connected. The fun part is to try to capture those specific little pieces and then frame them all into the bigger picture.

It's like a cycle. First I feel that overwhelming feeling of knowing that this depth exists. Thats when I'm seeing the whole thing. Then I try to find this complexity and investigate all the small bits of it. Gradually they interconnect together and finally I'm back where I began, amazed at how it all fits together into one big whole. I've never quite deciphered it all but the best thing is that it doesn't need to be. That mystery is what makes it even better and more interesting.

For example, one of the characters I love the most, Lex is exactly like this for me. Anyone on a journey from good to bad must have to be pretty complex. And he completly is. Sure, I love the outside image he presents but I'm really drawn to him because I know there is so much there, under the surface. He has so many phases in his life, the scared little kid, the rebellious youth and now the ambitious buisness man. He blurs these transitions as he fights to stop the inevitable phase of evil villian. But through it all I can always find so much in him and its always interesting. He just makes me feel that there is always more to him, that his being is like a black hole, an infinite universe that I can never fully explore, but I want to try.

In vids I also want to have that. No matter what it is, if I feel there is more under the surface, I'll keep watching endlessly until I figure it out. A vid example of this is Superstar by [livejournal.com profile] heres_luck What got to me in this vid is how deeply it goes into Faith, into her psyche. I'm totally drawn in, I want to know more but I can never fully know. Which of course, always leads me back for more. The vid itself is extremely complex as well, it equally matches the character study and reinforces it. The technical mastery and artistic beauty is beautiful and there is always more to it. I keep watching the vid and finding all the little things that make it so good. But it always leads back to the overall effect it has.

Another vid that gets to me is Haunted by Seah and Margie, at Seah and Margie's Vids. I have no knowledge of the fandom and that made it a bit confusing but I was sucked in by how interesting it seemed. And then came the ultimate: Big Emotion. Helped by the song but the visuals and build up made it even more prominent. I truly felt how deep the emotion was and it sent me soaring, to a place I could go and explore and never get tired of it and there is always more there to discover. I want to feel deeply and that is exactly what i got, not shallow feeling, but the real, genuine thing. That's what pulls me into these worlds.

The same thing goes for fics. [livejournal.com profile] katallison amazes me with the depth of her Highlander fics (havent read the rest of the fics yet) and I can read her stories over and over again. For example, One for the Road I love because of all the little things put in the story. Nothing was random, or at least I have to believe that. Because in every detail, in every part, it expresses something that speaks to the larger meaning. For me, the interesting part that I love is trying to discover it all. Oh and for Big Emotion goodness, The Parting Glass gets to me in a way that few things have ever done to me. With this I identify so strongly that I know its touching all the emotional centers in me and it turns the tables on me, so that I am the subject. Now I can even see the complex inside of me. And that to me is what all these art forms are supposed to do, to reveal something new inside myself and give me a new understanding of myself and the world. That occurs especially in the fic, Strata which I loved the most for its theme and how deeply it resonated with me. And since this is quickly turning into a rec, I say, go off and read the fics now, here at Kat Allison's Fic.

Really, all I want is that depth. That's what I'm searching for and will continue to journey down those infinite paths.
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