The Goods changed my life today

I was going to name this Torchwood changed my life today because I’ve just watched the first three episodes of the recent miniseries but it didn’t really impress anything upon me except that I don’t enjoy the show as much as Doctor Who and I hate their stupid background music. However, The Goods did change my life today. I am often struck by this when I go see comedies. People laugh at so many pointless moments that just are not funny. People are easy to impress. If you’re a writer or creator of any art then you should spend time among the people. It will take you out of your head and make you realize that you may be overthinking things.  This isn’t to say that you should dumb things down just that everything doesn’t have to contain 100 nuances.  The Goods was a Will Ferrell movie without Will Ferrell as the lead but Jeremy Piven is quite likable in the role so at the end of the day if you like Jeremy Piven then you’ll enjoy the movie. Craig Robinson was also very well used.

So right on Friday I got all of shite done.  Saturday I did clean. Today I will go exercise and I will submit a short story for review.

1. Exercise

2. Write a short story

3. Work on Book

4. Clean up a bit.

No Reservations changed my life today- Day VI

I remember seeing the poster for No Reservations withmy ex-boyfriend. We walked out of theater and turned a corner and both stopped dead at this poster. It was truly horrific. The smaltzy looks on both Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart’s face was beyond all comprehension and I said “That movie is going to suck hard”. Who knew it was going to change my life today? I turned on HBO to watch this movie. Abigail Breslin really is the best child actor in a long time. Oh sure I know everyone was all about Dakota Fanning a while back but she’s going to be in Twilight. I think that pretty much says everything we need to know about her current career. No Reservations wasn’t a good movie by far but it filled some time and sometimes it is just mesmerizing to look at the gorgeous Catherine Zeta-Jones.

So what did I learn from No Reservations? Don’t make your career more important than living a happy life.

Fortunately I have already learned this already. If I hadn’t I’d still be at the really well paying job that was fulfilling to a ertain degree but soul crushing in so many others. So interviews, interviews, interviews. I’ve had three interviews so far and all went either great or okay.  Some were long and drawn out.  Others were quick and simple. I have another scheduled for Tuesday. In the mean time I’ve been meandering in and out of my last job barely there and  all the while refusing the status quo. I currently work in the service industry dealing with a variety of peole who are demanding and piss me the fuck off. I hate talking to the rude assholes who honestly feel they should treat another human with the indiginity of a command simply because they’re paying money (and not that much money) therefore for the last few days I’ve been telling them they are assholes and if they want help from me then they’ll act like human beings. It’s been a rousing success and I’ve yet to be fired. There is an incredible freedom that comes from knowing you’re going to quit a job. I can’t help but wonder if we shouldn’t all be allowed to live our lives knowing we don’t have to stick around in a place for too long then we’d be  much less stressed and more freer and….happy.

I read The Bell Jar and I have to be honest it is the first book I’ve finished in a while. I used to be of the opinion that one should always be reading a few books. I used to devour them in days or hours but it took me four days to finish the book and I kept having to stop myself from reading the synopsis on wikipedia. Wikipedia is the enemy of many a book and film.

So what am I doing today to change my life?

1. I completed two interviews today
2. I will be submitting at least ten more resumes today
3. Instead of spending money on new clothes (money I don’t truly have to spend) then I’ll be designing/sewing some with the sewing machine I bought a while back
4. I am going to clean the house and
5. Exercise

It will be the first time since Tuesday or Wednesday. I enjoy exercising. I wonder why I don’t do it more often. I also wonder why it is that I’ve had that thought at least once a week for as far back as I can remember yet it has never become a daily or even bi-weekly habit.

I think after finding a job then exercising has to be my main focus. Not for the weight-loss per se but for the good things exercise yields which as listed here are some pretty awesome effects.  So I’m going to go exercise then get back to the other stuff. Today will be a productive day. ….I hope.

Weeds changed my life today

The other day I watched a recent episode of Weeds and this is where I take my current lesson. In this episode Nancy made another stupid decision. Her head in her hands she wondered why did everything happen to her? Andy looks up at her and says “You’ve got to know it’s you right?” Nancy does a lot of stupid things and makes consistent bad choices (though entertaining) yet she can’t see why the shit always seems to fall her way and so I take my lesson from this episode of Weeds.

It’s you who causes the shit in your life.

You can take a few minds of thought from the karma of life to the simple fact that you create your own happiness or lack thereof. I don’t know why I keep thinking about this but the scene keeps repeating in my mind “You have to know its you right?” I just lost my debit card today which isn’t that big a deal but I’ve done it twice in the last year. It feels like a silly thing to be annoyed with yourself about but for some reason with all this “change” going on in my mind I feel the loss of the debit card for the third time. This third loseyness means that it is definitely my fault each time it has gone missing and therefore the issue is my fault just like everything else in my life and I just realized that sounds incredibly overdramatic. I lost my debit card (again) big deal. Report it missing and get another one. I alredy moved the money to savings so it shouldn’t be of use should someone find it.  Still the lesson is a good one. Anything that is wrong in my life is my doing.  It’d be simple to say my environment, etc. is the reason for certain inadequacies but when I wanted to change some things then I did. I come from a very, very small town with a population of less than a thousand. I now live in one of the largest cities in America.  I hated small town living and so I did everything I could to get out of there. I’d never go back for more than a visit.  I also grew up with certain expectations of myself and well I fucked those off. So why is it when I want to change then I make it happen but the other things I blame on my background and remain stagnant? So that is pretty stupid.

Anyway so yesterday…I did exercise

I climbed that hill of starting an exercise and diet program. I exercised for 38 minutes on the uphill program of my exercise bicycle. It would change intensity every minute as if taunting me to go another minute promising only that it would get harder. Congratulations on completing another minute you are now rewarded with more intensity!

I went to my interview today and I feel it went well. I can’t believe that I typed that because every time someone says that I think “Oh boy it did NOT go well”. I’ve interviewed people for jobs before and every interview went well for them (yup even the guy who brought up the porn website at the end of the interview). I laughed with them when they made jokes and they forcefully laughed when I made my jokes. It is the most awful experience to interview someone looking for the inadequicies in the midst of all the “I’m really excited for a new opportunity” smiles. I am sure many, many times I sent someone out into the world thinking they had a great interview only to pass on them and hire another person.  Still it seemed to go well. We realized we both went to the same university and talked about the ridiculous school mascot.  It was a preliminary interview and this place has a billion background checks to go through so between the fact that I still owe about  $1700 in school loans for a college degree I never finished means who knows. It is kinda funny that people still think that credit scores dictate your work ethic. My work ethic is  truly impressive. My whole life my mother told me that I was lazy so I believed her. It wasn’t until one day that I was completing a shift at my second job to pay for college and I was finally going t home after 16 hours of work that I thought “My mother doesn’t know shit. I have a great work ethic.”

So today I didn’t exericse but writing this blog has officially made me feel about the ridiculous debit card loss of 09.  Tomorrow I need to send out 25 minimum resumes and exercise 45 minutes.   Finally I need to submit some new film specs. Lets see where that goes.

In Bruges changed my life today

Today’s Lesson is brought to you by In Bruges:

I watched In Bruges today on HBO on Demand as I was reading my current book of choice which is The Bell Jar. It’s not really depressing but I do feel a connection to this cynical, apathetic, and disappointed person.  In Bruges taught me a few lessons.

1. Make sure there aren’t extremely innocent people around when you begin your assassination mission.
2. A new different person aka drug dealer will make even the most boring of the cities more interesting. And the lesson I can apply to my life…
3. It shouldn’t take one and a half dead kids to make me want to live.

Oh God where the fuck am I? Day IV is it ? Yes, I am flailing and failing out of the change life blog but the good news is that I’ve made great progress here in the real world. I am almost finished cleaning. Surely you are asking yourself

IN WHAT KINDA MESS WAS SHE LIVING?

Uh you don’t want to know. Nothing was growing on anything but there were piles of clothes on piles of clothes. I don’t know how it is possible to have so many clothes yet never have anything I want to wear when I go out.

I also secured a few interviews for some interesting positions and I gave my notice at work. I hadn’t been working there long so when I told them that I was giving my two weeks notice I just received an email saying “Sorry to see you go. When will be your last day?”  I hated the job. Anything else is going to be better.  There are certain people who like dealing with the public. I like to call them by their latin name of Raricus Lobtocus. There are also people who don’t like these jobs but can tolerate it. Finally there is me who works with the public and that makes her hate herself and the human race a fuckin lot. So I send up this prayer to God or whomever is responsible for answering prayers out there.

Oh Lord won’t you help me get a much better job. My friends don’t have porsches but I still need your help.

With a little help from a higher power the job issue will resolve itself. We have the householdyness getting better and so that means I need to take my lesson from In Bruges to heart.

I do want to live

And I do want to enjoy this life so that means I have to lose weight so that I can have as long a life as a healthy body affords you. How much do I need to lose? Well I haven’t seen or read anything lately that has made me brave enough to admit that truth so for now let us just say not quite Roseanne in her thicker days but not much more than her in the thinner days. So er a lot more than I should for a chick of 5’4″.

Tomorrow I’ll report back if I did actually get up from the couch and exercise.

I hope I do. I truly hope I do.

Joan of Arcadia changed my life today

So I completed the futile effort of putting my clothes up. All of them are on hangers and I have a sizable pile to give away to the salvation army. I also am throwing away about three bags of just crap. This is all good. I haven’t exercised yet but I have a plan. I am going to use the exercise bicycle that I bought ages ago. I’m going to move it out of its very unusable place and put it in my room. So that was day III

Day IV is actually today and I just want to eat ice cream and cry thanks to the 500 days of summer trailer. Stupid trailer for a movie that looks totally good yet used a song that really makes me sad. I should add getting over my ex as part of the things I need to do to change my life.

I thought of a list of things that make me happy. It came about because of the following

1) I was going through things that should be thrown away

2) I picked up an autographed photo I bought of a cast member from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

3) I remembered an old friend who went around getting autographs of every celebrity he likes. Its a life mission type thing. Get an autograph, Add it to the collection

4) I remembered a conversation in which I said this was lame but my friend refusted this by a simple statement “It makes me happy”

5) I thought what makes me happy?

6) I came up with a list

a) doing the podcast

b) reading something I’ve written and it make me laugh

c) eating sushi

d) watching a really great movie

e) laughing so hard it hurts

f) having someone comment on something I’ve created

g) beauty

I should try to do more of those things more often and I will be a much happier person.

I also came up with a theme for this blog. Lessons learned from Movies, TV, and Music.

Every day I am exposed to those things and they affect my mind so I’ll write a little story about the lessons learned and how they affect me. I’m sure this has been done before but it makes the blog more interesting for me and as stated before this blog is for me.

So yesterday I watched Joan of Arcadia, Michael Clayton, and Push.

Lessons learned from Michael Clayton-Don’t trust big corporations

That can be pretty much applied to Push as well.

Joan of Arcadia lesssons can be to be yourself and things will work out much better in teh end and high school girls are just stupid. This is a very true lesson that can’t every be learned until you leave school because I was stupid in school too but I only recently realized it years later.

This blog needs major editing but I’m off to the movies for now.

Garden State changed my life today

Today I did the following to change my life.

• I applied for jobs that are more in line with my career path. Hopefully I hear back from a few in the next couple of days.
• I started the tedious task of cleaning my room by throwing out some things I don’t need and hanging up my ridiculous amounts of clothes and
• Setting aside an amount to give to the Salvation Army
• Weighed myself so I can start resolving that

I can’t help but wonder if it’s all about the small steps like this or if every day there needs to be a huge change and shift of mind?  Is there a need for a big movie moment? I should go find some big yellow construction equipment to stand on in the rain.

Day I

This week I’m going to save myself and change my life. Sure, I’ve said this before. I remember for my 18th birthday I was going to change my life. My mom gave me twenty five dollars. I took that money to Wal-Mart. I bought Slim-Fast and low fat foods. I was going to lose weight after being chubby. I did take the slim-fast but then on Sunday my mom made porkchops, cole slaw, and cobbler. I flunked that weeks life change and many more after that.

I have had many journals, blogs, vlogs, podcasts to chronicle my life but this is…different.  This is a journal that I won’t publicize to anyone I know.  It exists entirely to be a place to update in the hopes of changing ones life.

So a few rules

1. no names, no specifics
2. no revelation of who I am in any possible way
3. Consistent updates are required
4. Brutal Honesty

Sounds fun eh? Well this is truly a journal for me. I suppose I should’ve started a “friends only” journal on LiveJournal but I abhor LJ most of the time. I could’ve started a blogspot but let’s be honest blogspot has a horrible interface and so that leaves me with a wordpress. One among many.

So the facts

1) My name is…well I shall go by “Semaine” which sounds all cool and exotic but it just translates to week.

2) I want to change a few things such as

• my weight. I’ve been chubby since as far back as age 11
• my job. I hate it.
• my career. I want to spend some time with more film students and hopefully learn more about the editing craft.
• my habits. I think this can be best explained by stating that I have a king size bed but all the crap in it makes it more like a twin.
• my nature. I want to be all super nice and giving. One of those people who would give another man their coat if they needed it or at least one that would heavily consider it.

And so we begin. Tomorrow starts in about 40 more minutes here in this timezone. Tomorrow I am going to work to change my life by using the exercise I bought a year ago. I want to lose 2 pounds over the next 7 days. That doesn’t seem like much in a post Biggest Loser world but it can be annoyingly hard when you’re a late twenties chick who still likes to go out, have a drink, and eat without remorse.

I am also going to clean out my closet of doom.  Anything I don’t use weekly needs to be boxed up and thrown away or better yet given to the Goodwill/Salvation Army.

So yeah this week I am going to change my life. Right?

I looked for an image for this blog. I wanted something that would mean something every time I looked at it. While viewing a random image in a photobucket I saw this and feel it sums it up better than the image I initially had in mind.