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Thursday, July 24th, 2008

haze

8:57p a little stained Everything is moving along as it should. My contracts arrived yesterday via platinum express post. My notice of appointment is a nicely printed page that officially says I have been accepted to work in Daegu. At the top of this page is my surname, misspelt. I doubt it will cause any drama as long as they're not using it for reference when writing my surname in the future. Today I went to the dentist to make sure my chomping tools are in good working order. He said they're good teeth and gave them a clean. Now I can go ahead and cancel my private health insurance. Tomorrow I'm sending one of the signed contracts along with some other magical scrolls that will grant me an E-2 visa. I will also book my flight. There is one heading out of Perth on the 20th and landing in Incheon at 08:40 on the 21st. Hopefully it's not full yet. I have been thinking a lot about the music I will listen to when flying away from Perth. One song that I cannot shake from my mind is The Kinks - This Time Tomorrow. What I really need is an in-flight soundtrack. Alas, my mix-cd skills are woeful at best. So it will likely be the shuffle button on my iPod that will determine my in-flight audio and subsequent emotion. Speaking of iPods, I will be living off an iPod Touch for a short while when I leave. As long as there are wifi hotspots, I will be able to send/receive e-mails to you, update my facebook status, make quick posts to LJ, read any comments, and check my friends page. It should work quite well. If it dies I will turn to Plan B. What is Plan B? Run around Daegu in search of Toni and beg for quick use of her macBook. I will have to start catching up with people soon. There's plenty of time yet. I'm just antsy. I have a cold. 27 days to go. current music: Seu Jorge

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Thursday, July 17th, 2008

haze

1:36p the morning calm manœuvre It happened. I'm in. AAAAAAHHHHHH! There are roughly 34 days remaining before I have to move to South Korea. The plan 1. Wave arms uncontrollably with excitement. 2. Wait for contracts to arrive. 3. Sign contracts. 4. Buy appropriate clothes, luggage and whatnot. 5. Make a list of items to pack so I don't forget anything. 6. Get multiple course completion/transcript letters from Curtin. 7. Obtain E-2 visa. 8. Book flight. 9. Say good bye to people. 10. Leave Perth. 11. Arrive at Incheon International Airport on August 21st. 12. Complete the EPIK orientation at Konkuk University in Seoul. 13. Start Working in Daegu from September 1st. 14. Wave arms uncontrollably with excitement again. !

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Monday, July 14th, 2008

haze

5:36p at the movies David Stratton (film critic) was in Perth this weekend for an interview and lecture. I was there with Marie and Jamie who had bought me a ticket as a birthday present. Saturday was a six hour long interview based on his autobiography 'I Peed On Fellini' [It's not just a clever title, he really did]. I never realised how integral David Stratton has been to the Australian cinema scene. Did you know that about 60% of movies released in Australia were cut or censored in some way before he took a stand against it. Audiences were never informed of any cuts, not even at festivals, nobody knew they were watching a movie that was sometimes 10 to 20 minutes shorter than the original. Sometimes the cuts were ridiculous. There is a scene in Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid where Butch kicks a guy in the bollocks. "Not in the Australian version", said Stratton. Learning about our history of film censorship was incredibly interesting. Sunday was a ten hour lecture based on his 10 year University course. During the lecture he showed us 38 clips and 3 full-length feature films, my eyes were dry and bloodshot at the end of the day. It was fantastic. The selection of silent films he went through were really quite surprising. Some of them were so entrancing that we wanted to see more than just one scene! The one that I remember most was a scene from the 1926 movie 'Flesh and The Devil' starring Gretta Garbo. The flirting between the two characters was intense. I'm going to have to find that so I can watch it in full. Mr. Stratton mentioned there is a scene in that movie where a man drinks from a cup at a church and the priest turns it around so Garbo's character can drink from the other side, she then very obviously turns the cup back around to drink from where the man took a sip. A student from his classes in Sydney had told Mr. Stratton that she tried that flirting technique at a club and it worked like a charm. I'm not surprised, it does sound very flirtatious and hot. The three full-length feature films he showed us were: Sunrise (1927) Sunrise was interesting because of the story progression. Everything was so fluid. It rarely cuts to dialogue for you to read and when it does it is rather skilfully done. The female lead, Janet Gaynor, looked a lot like Drew Barrymore. One Hour With You (1932) My favourite out of the three movies we watched. It is extremely funny and well delivered. Maurice Chevalier's acting was superb. Everybody should watch this. I'm going to buy it if it's available. The Apartment (1960) A great script made this an incredibly tight movie with very little to criticise. It also makes fun of American society and values as they were back in 1960, a fact that went completely unnoticed while I was watching it.

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