I got out of bed this morning and put the finishing touches on my final project for Touch of Evil before heading to campus. I made an appointment with Dru to record some commentary audio for a track he's putting together. I met him at Innis and a few girls from the class eventually showed as well.

You know, I don't think I've ever mentioned what the movie is about.

Touch of Evil was screenwritten and directed by Orson Welles in 1958. It stars Charlton Heston as a Mexican narcotics officer named Miguel "Mike" Vargas who has just sent a prominent drug lord from the Grandi family to prison on a trafficking rap. Janet Leigh stars as Suzie, Vargas' new wife. The two are on their honeymoon and are passing through the American bordertown of Los Robles when a car coming from the Mexican side of the border explodes just after exiting customs, killing American industrialist tycoon Rudy Linnekar and a stripper from one of the local joints. Vargas involves himself in the murder investigation which is led by American police captain Hank Quinlan, who is played by Welles. Quinlan, obsessed with his own reputation and the death of his wife at the hands of a "half-breed," is racist against Mexicans and plants evidence to frame a Mexican named Sanchez who is romantically involved with Linnekar's daughter. Vargas figures out that Quinlan is crooked and spends the rest of the movie tying to prove it. Meanwhile, Suzie finds herself terrorized by the Grandi family (including Uncle Joe Grandi, played by Akim Tamiroff), who prominently reside and operate businesses in Los Robles, as a means of gaining revenge on her husband.

It's about as complicated as it sounds. Needless to say, it warrants repeat viewings and is pretty ripe for theoretical discourse, especially given the circumstances of its production and release. But I'll spare those details.

I handed in the webpage on CD, recorded the stuff and made arrangements with Dru and Alicia to see Juno at the Varsity later on. After returning some books at Robarts and sending an email to Professor Columpar about possibly continuing work on the project next semester, I walked to the Cumberland Plaza and did some Christmas shopping to kill time before the movie. I picked up some gift certificates at Indigo for Steve and my Aunt, as well as some CD's for Holly and my mom. That covers about half my list.

Juno is an amazing film, one of those rare combinations of witty writing, exceptional acting and a quirky quality that wins your heart. I quite enjoy films that take a skewed look at a very simple topic while leaving the emotional fabric intact. Ellen Page, by the way, is incredible. This was the third film I've seen her in and I'm constantly blown away by her fierce ability to play characters who are confident yet not at all self-aware - she completely drains all traces of irony out of her roles, and that's what makes her amazing. Her character in Juno uses elaborate dialogue yet delivers it youthfully while at no point paying any attention to how intelligent she is. I wish she'd been in every teen movie ever produced.

It was nice to hang out with folks. After the movie I walked home from Keele station and had dinner while watching The Simpsons before heading online and looking over some old pictures of Mod Clubs gone by. Tomorrow is Adam's 30th birthday party, an affair I'm joining halfway through for dinner, some stand-up comedy, and of course, beer.

The project is done.

Bedtime.

I finished rendering all of the video I need for the project, plus I started filling in information on how and why the edits were executed. Should be able to finish it all off in good time if I don't slack off too much. But I know I will.

I watched The Empire Strikes Back today, which is my favorite Star Wars film. I love Star Wars, but obviously not as much as some folks. After I see one of the movies I always end up online dipping my toe into the massive amounts of information about the Star Wars universe. It's all so meticulously constructed and chronicled and not much of it makes sense to me. I love stumbling across arguments between fans. It's such a welcome break from the kind of bile that people on the imdb boards typically hurl at each other.

Thanks to all who commented on the last entry. Thanks for the support and kudos and for just letting me know that you're reading.

I've been editing video all day for my Touch of Evil project, which has take longer than I expected, and I'm still not finished. I did, however, complete some more work on the website. Hopefully over the next couple of days I'll be able to pack it with some nice theoretical research.

Jay and I watched the first episode of the latest season of The Office tonight, which took me back to... September. I'm nostalgic about a period that occurred three months ago.

Kids today getting old too fast
they can’t wait to grow up so they can kiss some ass
They get nostalgic about the last ten years
before the last ten years have passed

- Ben Folds, "Bastard"

To be fair, it was a pretty great week, that one.

Jay hung a picture of a kitten sitting beside a saxophone in the bathroom. Hmm.

Today was a pretty good one, lack of sleep aside. I powered through a Starbucks coffee as I waited for the final Touch of Evil class to start - I'm pretty much always the first to arrive because of my travel schedule. I got the laptop set up, and it didn't stutter at all during my presentation on my final project. It couldn't have gone better. I apologized for not filling the full 13 minutes I was allotted, but I was assured that it was okay. I think Professor Columpar really digs the idea because it conforms so closely to what she intended for the course as a whole. I got some feedback about putting the site live, which I'd like to do despite the trouble I'd probably get into with Universal (they wouldn't take kindly to me chopping up the movie like that for a non-paying audience to see).

After class I had lunch with Tony and Eileen. I'll miss that about the semester. They're my outlets for getting out concerns about my potential academic career, plus we're all pretty well-versed in movies.

I set up shop in the EJ Pratt library for awhile to send out some emails and grab some material for an essay. I emailed Professor Hutcheon about meeting with her, which I'm going to do after class next week. After that I attended the final African-Canadian Literature class. We watched a film called Another Planet, apparently the first movie to be directed and written by an African-Canadian woman. I received feedback on my Oni presentation, along with a split grade of A-/A. I'm supposed to meet with Professor Clarke tomorrow, but I'm waiting on a final confirmation.

I ran into a couple of other folks from film class in the Bay Street subway station, Drew and Alicia, and ended up talking with Alicia for a bit since we were both heading the same way. After I got back I made dinner and watched Minority Report.

The marks are starting to come in, and the verdict so far is positive. Knock on wood.

Updated To-Do List:

Monday, December 10th: Final research paper (max. 15 pages) - Opera
Monday, December 10th: Editorial exercise - Bibliography
Friday, December 14th: Final project - Touch of Evil
Friday, December 21st: Critical reflection paper - Bibliography
Monday, January 7th: Final research paper (max. 14 pages) - African-Canadian Lit

The Opera presentation is in the can. The presentation itself went pretty well and got some nice compliments afterwards. I felt that I crashed a bit during the Q&A period when I messed up the chronology of the release of the film adaptation vs. the writing of the opera, doubly embarassing since I'm supposed to be writing on the film for my paper (a dead giveaway that I haven't started researching the damn thing). Still, I was able to interject on some other points. Nice to have it over with.

I took a nap after getting home and woke up at 10 to work on my presentation for the Touch of Evil Project, which I knocked out by 4 AM before hitting the sack.

The chief design for my Touch of Evil final project is done, with the first two video clips in place. It actually looks pretty much like I'd envisioned. Tomorrow night I'll come up with some stuff to say about it for the presentation on Tuesday. You can literally, if you time it correctly, play both versions of the opening sequence at the same time, side by side with each other.

There is snow everywhere. I found out that my brother was ALSO in a car accident the other night when a truck hit the cab he was in. He's okay but kind of banged up. My family shouldn't leave the house for the rest of the winter. I'm looking forward to getting home for Christmas. It's just about time to break out some Christmas movies. It's a Wonderful Life, Scrooge, Die Hard...

God, I should be more careful about visiting old journals to double check on information. I always get pulled in and end up reading for an hour. I really used to be a pretty emotionally distraught guy, it would seem. I'm glad I've kept this blog up. Even at only a little over three months and almost 100 entries, it's been the diary I've been the most consistent at keeping, and the tone is certainly worlds different.

Looking back, it seems clear that I was deeply upset that I wasn't in love. I've had a bunch of relationships over the past ten years or so, but no matter how frequently I was with someone I would always eventually fall under the impression that I was going to be alone. This coincided with my creative side kicking at me, and all I wanted to do was write out the insecurities that kept me awake at night. I wrote more than anyone else I knew, and sometimes that made the isolation even harder to deal with. I wanted my words to stab at people's hearts and minds. I wanted them to break apart formalities and structures that I felt kept me at a distance from other people. What I perceived as bare honesty was my only weapon against being ignored and forgotten by everyone. And if my words didn't provoke a response, I felt that I was unsuccessful at being alive.

Dramatic, I know, but that's the way it was. I can be hot-headed and rash. Sometimes I think back to the period when Andrea and I started dating, and I mark it as one of the early stages in which I experienced great, positive changes in my personality. It was around the time I moved to Centretown. I had a group of friends I enjoyed hanging out with, going to the bars to drink and dance. I was able to live and not really worry too much about the future, because I knew I'd get around to it eventually. Towards the end it felt as if things were starting to fall apart. I'm hoping that when I get back, I'll be able to rediscover all of those things that made me fall for the city, in whatever new contexts they might present themselves.

More to say on that point, but I'm tired. Tomorrow the long-gestating Opera presentation finally sees delivery. I'm nervous, but I'll be glad to see it go.

I crawled out of bed after noon and watched The Deer Hunter, which is widely considered a classic, though I found it pretty average and even overlong. De Niro and Christopher Walken play a couple of friend who leave their jobs as steel workers to fight in Vietnam, where they're confronted with completely horrific circumstances that ensure the loss of their old lives. It has incredibly intense, powerful moments, but they don't resonate correctly throughout the last third of the movie. I think it's because that while the characters are given a chance to develop, we don't find out that much about them aside from the fact that they start out relatively sane and are then pushed to lose (or make desparate attempts to hold on to) their sanity. I much preferred Platoon as far as 'Nam movies go, though I will admit that I have yet to see Apocalypse Now.

I went to Adam's and got ahold of the footage I'll need for my final Touch of Evil project. Thank goodness. I walked to his apartment and back, so I definitely fulfilled my exercise quotient of the day. It's getting colder outside and I've been less inclined to walk home lately. After I got back, I finished off a Bibliography assignment. It feels as though this semester has been over for a week, but the actual schedule hasn't caught up with it.

Bedtime.

Nothing like a little Facebook profile trolling to pass the time. I'm trying to grab the rest of Ken Andrews' solo album off the net, as well as some Of Montreal. My computer is still running a little slow and stuttering despite defragging it a couple of times and running virus scanners to knock out malware. Hopefully it will stay the course well enough to get me through my presentation in Touch of Evil next week.

I had that class today. The title of my presentation is going to be "Memo-rizing Touch of Evil: The Execution and Effect of Orson Welles' Intentions." I signed a book of Walter Murch (who was responsible for the re-edit) and Michael Ondaatje (who just pulled off yet another GG win for the amazing Divisadero) interviews out from the Innis library, which bring the total number of libraries to which I owe books to three. Innis isn't really much of a library, though. It's two floor of stacks along a single wall. Really, it barely warrants the staircase leading to its "computer lab" of two terminals. Innis is a strange building.

After class I went for sushi with Eileen and Tony and talked a bit about grad school. I'm starting to think that I should talk with some of my professors about continuing my studies. I think my slipping confidence in academia is influenced by the fact that I'm not really studying anything that echoes the grad proposal I was submitting to universities and organizations a year ago. I thought I'd be knee-deep in positioning Coupland in a natinal canon by now; instead, the closest I'm coming to a Canadian text all year is the story of a young man's role in a Communist war in Ethiopia. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying African-Canadian Literature, but it's only a small fraction of where my research interests lie. The ironic thing is I've got two people who are incredibly renowned for their work in the field of Canadian studies, and one of them is teaching me about European Opera and speaking a language of music that I can't comprehend.

The other, of course, is George Elliott Clarke, who presented on his own work today and read some of the poetry in Execution Poems, which was great to see. Clarke is a great poet, there's no doubt about it. I'm not sure if he's a great professor. I don't feel as though the ideas I brought to the table, when I felt brave enough to bring them, were given the kind of feedback I receive in other classes. Clarke is a great man, a nice guy, and a passionate speaker. I learned a lot from the texts, but I felt that there was so much more to get at in the course. I still don't feel as if I can tie Africadian studies into a more general, overarching Canadian context as effectively as I may have wanted to. I wanted to learn as much about Canada as I did about African-Canadians, and I felt that the course didn't achieve that. But the blame for that rests equally on my shoulders. I've always found that courses are in large part what you make them, and I hung on for the ride too often.

I have the class evaluations sitting on my bed because the drop-off office was closed when I went by. I'll drop them off before I meet with the Opera folks for the table-read tomorrow. After I got home I watched episode four of The War, which detailed the events of D-Day, the Allied invasion of France and coverage of the brutal battles with the Japanese on the Mariana Islands which contained some of the most violent footage in the series so far. Hearing the veterans talk about the war is a really emotional experience that fully enriches the documentary. Keith David also does a great job narrating.

Homework is overrated. At least, that's what I apparently think.

I skipped Opera class today, originally because I wanted to catch a screening of F for Fake, but then I didn't even bother going out at all (I did hit the grocery store for some bread and ice cream cones). I managed to read about 150 pages of Notes from the Hyena's Belly and type up my project proposal for Touch of Evil. I abandoned all hope of finishing the film readings and just decided to sit, listening to the new Buck 65 album, taking swigs of cough syrup every six hours, refilling my water bottle from time to time.

I got a letter in the mail today informing me that I'm receiving a grant under the University of Toronto Advance Planning for Students program; the amount will go towards my tuition and I'll receive a cheque for the remainder. Sure enough, I logged in to ROSI and my tuition has been cleared to a balance of $0.

Having a lot of money worries me. It makes me think I'm doing something very, very wrong. Be that as it may, and that I was more or less raised Protestant and therefore am armed on a subconscious level with their work ethic, I'd better work hard for it. Today was just... well, a bout of general laziness.

Tomorrow I'm 27 for one more day.

I've started taking Cold-FX for this cough, based on a recommendation from Kevin Smith in a diary entry he wrote in My Boring-Ass Life. Apparently it's the cold medicine Canadian swear by. It's a three-day process (9 pills the first day, 6 on the second and 3 on the third), so it's just a matter of popping them and waiting.

Bibliography went down in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library today, an intimidating, dimly-lit, closely-monitored tower that forms the head of the Robarts peacock, where we were given a look at incredibly old books and scrolls. I don't find any of it THAT interesting, but it's unequivocally neat to see anything that's been around for such a long time. I found out that the guys in my group for the annotation exercise both play bass, and one of them plays in the band Malfunktion (it seems as though everyone I've met at U of T is in a band). They were talking equipment and I couldn't even remember what make of bass I own (it's a vintage 'M' series Stagg). Honestly, I've never been interested in that side of playing an instrument. I'm much more concerned with the theatrics of any kind of performance than the specificity of the technical side. Guess that doesn't make me much of a musician. I never claimed to be.

After class I went by Media Commons to find out if I could transfer my VHS copy of Touch of Evil to DVD, and they referred me to the media centre after much hmming and hawing and not agreeing with the principle of what I want to do. Right. I'll figure out a way. I've got a torrent downloading very slowly that may provide me with the footage I need. My goal for my final project is to make comparison clips of the previous cut and the re-edit done by Murch to show exactly what changes were made and how dramatic they are. Could be great if I can pull it off.

When I got home I watched The Truman Show and lounged around being unproductive. I listened to a very good SModcast about Bryan Johnson's chemical imbalance and anxiety - a lot of the stuff he said rang true both of the way I act and the way people I've known have acted. It's beyond interesting to me to hear three intelligent guys sit around talking about that sort of subject matter, especially when one of the guys is Kevin Smith. I know I've mentioned the show before. If you're interested in checking it out, go here.

A date has been set for the new X-Files movie: July 25th of next year. I'm going to line up on Monday.

I started reading "Notes from the Hyena's Belly: An Ethiopian Boyhood" by Nega Mezlekia and I'm about 50 pages in, so I suppose today wasn't completely unproductive. I've made a schedule for myself that stretches into next week and lines up what I want/need to accomplish, starting tomorrow. Here's to hoping I can keep up.

I'm officially dubbing this Marlene Dietrich week, as I will pretty much be obsessed with all things her for my Touch of Evil presentation next week. Tonight I watched Morocco, the film that granted her an Academy Award nomination, and I preferred it to Blonde Venus. The final shot of Dietrich following the man she loves into the desert as it swallows her up is fantastic. I should make it to campus tomorrow to read a bit of her biography and watch The Blue Angel before catching the Wes Anderson/Jason Schwartzman Q&A.

I feel like I'm working on something really worthwhile in that class. At times I wish I were taking it the whole eight hours a week. Our prof started an online message board to continue class discussions, and I hope it picks up, because two hours a week just isn't enough to hurl ideas around. I want to make something really sweet for my final project; I could envision working on this even after I'm through with the class. An Orson Welles multimedia piece has the potential to be of great use to the worldwide academic community. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I took some pictures around campus, but not enough to warrant posting them. African-Canadian Lit is progressing all right, but at times it feels as if I can't get into it as much as I initially wanted to. At least the readings are great. Things should pick up once I start researching my presentation. I received a couple of Ottawa slam poetry CDs in the mail today that I'm planning to incorporate. I dig this multimedia approach.

I thought I was being slick in getting three Touch of Evil readings out of the way over the weekend, but I get back to Toronto and discover there are still 90 pages to go. Jeez. I need to start getting these readings out of the way a lot earlier. It would be a different situation if the class were later in the day, but I can't keep staying up until 2 AM reading if I have to leave the house at just after 9.

Okay, my mini-vacation is over. I have a bibliography assignment due this week, and another opera to attend on Friday.

I will not order more movies from Amazon. I will not order more movies from Amazon. I will not order more movies from Amazon. I will not order more movies from Amazon. I will not order more movies from Amazon. I will not order more movies from Amazon. I will not order more movies from Amazon.

I was going to go to campus early today, but I slept in late. I don't know why I'm feeling so tired lately. I've never been much of a morning person but it doesn't make sense that I'd go to bed at 1 and sleep (or want to sleep) until 11 or 12. I'll put it down to a continued recovery from Nuit Blanche for now, but I think it has more to do with a lack of exercise and good food. I should change that.

After I got home I started in on my Touch of Evil readings. I still have two to go; they were really piled on this week, with about 10 chapters in total.

Tomorrow is going to be a rather lengthy day. I have two classes starting at 10 AM, and then the opera at 7:30. I'd better finish these readings and get my ass to bed.

I just wrote about 800 words towards a story I'd put on the shelf. I feel as though I've got a character in it that will keep pulling my interest back. At this point the whole thing is a hodgepodge of 12,500 words that I've been writing over time, bits and pieces begging for a common plot. Perhaps it IS there, somewhere.

My Touch of Evil presentation went beyond swimmingly; Professor Columpar cited it as an example to follow for the rest of the semester. High praise. I missed the feeling of getting things out of the way. At least I know I'm still capable of pulling it off after a year without school.

I accomplished what is probably my quickest reading of a text in my entire university career today. "Angélique" by Lorena Gale had been all but impossible to track down for this week's African-Canadian Lit class, but I found a copy at around 12:30, took it home and had it read by 3 (granted, it was only a 70-page play. But I had it read in time, dammit). I also borrowed my first book from Robarts today, a biography of Marlene Dietrich. One more step towards being a fully functioning student.

I'm going to get as much of this passport stuff taken care of as I can this week. It's a fairly involved process. You'd think I was adopting a kid. I have weighing against me the fact that I don't have a guarantor, so I need to fill out an additional form that I have to pick up at the passport office. On the bright side, it'll get me close to the Eaton's Centre. I'm going to need a camera case if I'm going to take some pictures of Nuit Blanche this weekend.

It's been a long day and I didn't get much sleep last night. Ain't university grand?

In seven hours I'm doing my first presentation of the year on Touch of Evil. It took a little more work than I thought it would, which is why I'm up at 3 AM. I'll have to lug my laptop to school and back, which I'm not looking forward to. I don't particularly enjoy the commute, especially back from school. Toronto seems to be in perpetual rush hour.

I really enjoyed working on this presentation. I went into school early and watched the 108-minute laserdisc version of TOE in the Media Commons room of Robarts library. Media Commons essentially acts as a video store. You can take out (mostly) anything you want for a couple of days for free.

After a quick bite at Tim Hortons, I had my second Opera class and watched some clips of different performances of Orpheus. Professors Clark and Hutcheon are thus far stellar in the classroom. Professor Clark used a PIANO to emphasize a point. My GOD. In class today I learned by video, audio recording and piano. It's a dream come true.

I should try for sleep. Six hours and ten minutes. Wish me luck.

I got out of bed early today and took care of a lot of the supplementary materials for the grant, but I'm going to need new ink cartridges for my printer before I can print them out. Everything with colour has a red tinge to it.

I've had Orson Welles on the brain all day today as I prepare for my class facilitation. Four readings and a viewing of The Battle Over Citizen Kane later and I'm still struck by how different Welles' career as an auteur could have been. His treatment was one of Hollywood's greatest mistakes. It's not that I feel sorry for him as a person (the documentary certainly invites its audience to pity him), simply that I look at the young Orson at his most dynamic and see a kid who doesn't give a fuck about anything but movies and wish he'd been given more of a go by people who felt the same way.

Tomorrow I should head in early before Opera to check out an older cut of Touch of Evil on short term loan at the library. Spending two hours hunched over a monitor in a library sure sounds comfortable.

I was offered a deal on a MacBook tonight, but I'm starting to divide my purchases into need/don't really need piles. I'd really like to have a somewhat solid financial base when I return to Ottawa, just to get me started on my own, buy some furniture or what have you. I'm becoming more and more attracted to the idea of finally having my own space and decking it out as best I can.

Also watched Blonde Venus with Marlene Dietrich and Cary Grant. The film was great, and Marlene's a looker, but based on that picture I'm of the humble opinion that she couldn't carry a tune for the life of her.

I got out of bed at 8 AM today, I'm proud to say. Took my time and got ready, had an online conversation with Andrea, and went to class. My first official Touch of Evil Project class. We sat around talking about the film and how the course would take shape. It seems to be predominantly comprised of Film students. We're to fashion a DVD-ROM (ideally), and Professor Columpar showed an example of a CD-ROM done on Hitchcock's Rebecca. It brought back reminders of certain fundamentals of interface design I garnered from my college days, but I haven't opened Director software in years. I don't know if I'd personally be able to retrain myself to create something like that and make it good while still focusing on the rest of my work.

You know, it just struck me that this blog is searchable, and that searching by a professor's name could lead them directly to what I'm typing here. It doesn't bother me, because I'd never talk ill of a professor in this context, but the whole idea of incriminating blogs interests me. Employees being fired for going off about their bosses. Professors becoming aware of how their students really feel about them. Then there are sites like ratemyprofessors.com. I wonder if professors can't resist checking that site out, reading anonymous comments left by their students. Apparently there's a related site that allows professors to fire back at the comments via video. How terrific is that? For the record, I love my professors. They're all the greatest.

Anyhow. Between classes, I came home to some DVD's that had arrived, including a Marlene Dietrich collection I'll be using for my TOEP presentation. I finally got hold of Donna and she was very helpful in giving me advice on applying for the grant and graciously promised me reference letters by the end of the week. I'll be applying as an individual. Over the next couple of days I'm going to get through more of the written application and start preparing my secondary materials.

African-Canadian Lit was engaging, and I get the feeling it will be rife with discussion all term. There are some interesting folks in my classes that I'd like to get to know better.

I hit the grocery store, caved and finally purchased a box of candy bars. Yeah. That's the temptation you run when you live next to a wholesale grocery store. I now have a box of Caramilk Deluxe armed and ready. I better start making use of that exercise room.

Wrapped up the evening listening to SModcast, watching episodes of The IT Crew and a Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante flick, "Speak Easily" - a screwball comedy that has funny parts (and not-so-funny parts) but is more notable as a speaking role for Keaton. I love him even when he can't act. All he has to do is walk into something and my heart is won again.

I showed up for my Opera class today, and there was no one there. What's happening? I don't understand. Why do I keep missing classes? This never happened at Carleton. I've missed three classes so far and I'm only a week in. Granted I slept through one, but come on. I emailed my prof asking what the deal was, but I haven't as of yet heard back.

I called Donna at Arts Court before I left, but she wasn't there. I called Sam later on and found out that she'd gone home sick. Sam couldn't really answer my questions regarding the grant, and told me that I should try Donna again tomorrow. I'm thinking of just applying as an individual now, rather than on behalf of an organization, because it seems like too much crap to deal with. I'll call Donna again tomorrow, though. I've learned from organizing these shows that sometimes you don't get anywhere unless you bug people to death.

So without school nipping at my heels, I settled in and watched Saving Private Ryan, which believe it or not I'd never seen. It's a brutally violent film that rattled me. The cinematography is breathtaking, and although the script is choppy in parts it's hard not to call it a triumph (though I probably liked Platoon better). And everything I'd heard about the first half hour is true.

I also watched Touch of Evil again in preparation for tomorrow's lecture, for which I am determined to be awake. I wish I could get out of bed in the morning like a firecracker. As it is I'm the type who will set my alarm for 8 and get out of bed at 10:30. I'm definitely not a morning person.

I wrote the Artist Statement for my grant, using a rant about the Ottawa art scene I posted on my Livejournal a couple of months ago as a basis. I took out the stuff that sounded too much like griping, took out the slang and made it sound more professional. So that's out of the way.

Jay turned me onto this British comedy called The IT Crowd. It's a show about three people who work in the IT department of a corporation and get into misadventures. Pretty funny. You can check out the entire first episode on You Tube here.

Tomorrow I'm going to wake up and call Arts Court in Ottawa. I'm going to do my best to get a straight answer from them regarding how they'll be involved in the grant process. I've been talking with my friend Maegen, who has thus far been an incredible help, providing me with information on the right people to talk to and the right steps to take in order to ensure success. But it's time to make Arts Court take appropriate notice of this.

I have a bunch of questions written out that I'm prepared to ask. After I get the information I need, I'll start working on the written application, which looks as if it will take some time to complete. I have two weeks. If I'm successful with this grant and the other two for which I'm applying, I could conceivably, in a best case scenario, put on three art festivals a year and make a living at it. Not only that, but everyone helping out would get paid. It's going to take some work, but if I'm finally able to do what I want to do, it's going to be worth it.

As for school, I spent a lot of the day catching up on Touch of Evil Project readings, as writer after writer dissects Orson Welles' vision. I'll probably skip the screening tomorrow, as I have the film on DVD already.

I wrote about 200 more words today.

I have "Regret" by New Order in my head. There's a real sense of melancholy to that song I don't hear very often.