NOTE TO SELF: These blogs could influence who wants to have anything to do with you and who wants to steer well clear. So get your foot out of your mouth.

Talking to my sister the other night for the first time in what feels like ages left me milling over something she said about blogs. Prospective employers have been known to search the blog posts of possible employees to see what they are REALLY like. "So be sure not to make too much of an arse of yourself", she warned. I passed on this piece of cautious info to a like-minded classmate, who informed me that there are only 3 of us in the course who seem to be having a bit more 'fun' with their blogs than our more professional counterparts. Before I knew what was happening she was shaking my hand and making me swear not to cross to the other side. Quite a dilemma. Not the 'staying true to the lucid posts promise' part but the 'how can I be taken seriously by those I wish to be taken seriously by' part. Here's hoping I don't bore the hell out of you while I deal with this dose of multiple-personalities...

LATEST RESEARCH UPDATES:
*Spoke with Richard about my attempt at researching Operation Ark for our lastest assignment. Then informed him of my no-car situation and the fact we need to sit a test to be able to use the uni trucks so travelling two hours out of town for a half/one hour interview could be more of an issue than first implied.

*He has suggested finding a new interviewee who is an expert on the native wood pigeon. "Do you have an interest in wood pigeons?" "Well, they haven't exactly won me over just yet, but who knows!" After talking to an enthusiastic expert with passion that could rub off on me, this could be a very promising path.

*Richard also askd what I would be interested in making a film on, not specifically for the final film, but something that has stuck my interest while walking around Dunas. Graffiti art. After photographing the Hutt and Wellington graf art through high school I realised how unique Dunedin's take on it really is. Minimal hiphop influence, fewer criminal associations and far more variety in media than most other cities. I'm already excited! But it looks like I only have two days to find sources with convincing enough stories to win Ricahrd over and leave the wood pigeons for another day. Still, I feel like I need to give those big plump birds a chance to win my heart.

NOTE TO SELF: Have a bit more faith in voodoo...

It’s been over a month since I could last head up to the snow for a wee bit of tail-bone crushing and edge-catching. Too long I say faaar too long. But it’s not like there has been a free weekend in quite a while. I spent most weeks doing my voodoo jigs in the privacy of our course screening room to encourage sunny ski field weather and now fresh dumps with the plan of saving my fresh-snow jig for this weekend. I found a car load of people keen to make their lives worth while and head up for a couple of days. Forecasts look great - 2-3 days of snow!!

I trusted too much in my belief that forecasts often changed at the last minute (i.e. the snow fall would hit during Thursday and Friday leaving the fields as my playground for the weekend). But no, as Murphy’s Law would have it, the snow is falling so hard this weekend that it looks like they're closed! I should have seen it coming - saving up all that snow over the past weeks has bit me in the arse. The fact my tail-bone still hasn't recovered from the last icy experience is of no consequence.

So this is about as much action as my board will be seeing for who knows how long...

There was only one thing to do... a flat crawl. Moving from flat to scummy flat drinking what was on offer, ending up at my flat with a crowd of interpretive dancers/walkers, sitting outside on the balcony at 1am to avoid the fowl smell of the old fish my flatmate insisted on cooking and fumigating the house with. A little more consideration to my 1.30pm kick-boxing class the following morning could have been a good idea.

But I'm not going to give up hope or voodoo jigs just yet. There's still hope! I'm not sure how smart it would be to 'pull a sicky' especially as I don't want to miss anything in this filmmaking course, but mental stability is in the balance! Next weekend is graduation so snow is a no-go. But the following weekend is beginning of a week-long break/assignment-era. Will need to experiment with more superstitious suggestions to conquer that task of weather control.
Please keep your fingers crossed for me!

NOTE TO SELF: get to the point!
So guess who just realised the there is a right and a wrong place to compose a blog! Yup, this place has font size and colour options - definitely something these posts need to break that mundane look I've been going for.

The point: Searching for inspiration. Been trying to get in touch with a DOC source from Owaka about Operation Ark and was lucky enough to find someone else at the Dunedin office. It even links to short-tailed bats! But hey, what about 'em long-tailed ones eh? Or that oh so important link with global climate change, asynchronous hatching of insects with plant cycles and the loss of the bats' food source? And with the loss of bats comes the loss of pollination for certain rare plant species... Talk about total collapse!

Reflection: I have realised that most other people are shocked to hear how far from the truth the whole idealistic view of the doco world is getting each year (see my first blog - if you can be bothered). It makes me want to delve into Rod Morris' story of a blue chip doco maker and conservationist living in a short, high impact, American market doco world. He's what I would regard, in a sense, as New Zealand's Attenborough.

Keeping in short...

NOTE TO SELF: Be sure to carry a flat-head screw driver with me at all times, especially when using the Pool House toilets.

Ok, so it was the first time this year that my play-station addicted old flatmates decided to break free from the cushions and make an effort to move more than just their fingers. It was great. We all caught up and reminisced and hit the local pool bar to a few rounds. Still recovering from a highly eventful Wednesday night (notice how the previous Note To Self went ignored) I opted for a night of sober control. One glass of soda water with a dash of lime. Yup, one lime and soda. Yup $3.50. Yup, a drunken barman who kept on trying to slip vodka into my drink somehow managed to charge $3.50 for bubbly water. Yup... So still pissed off that I would have to resort to only one $3 lunch the next week to help make my $10 budget stretch, I felt nature call. I play pool better when I'm blind so I head straight for the loos without my glasses. It wasn't until I searched for the toilet paper that I started to piece together that something wasnt quite right. No paper, no paper holder, nothing. Tried to flush, no flush. Frantically tried to flush, still no flush. Reached for cubicle door handle, no handle. Clawed around the doorframe until I caught an edge and got the door open. The sinks were on the floor, the soap container a mere skeleton and a pile of debris in the corner. I suddenly had a flashback to some skit when someone used a toilet at a bathroom decor shop - a display toilet. Best to just forget about this whole incident really. But it’s a bit hard to sneak out of a toilet under construction when there's no door handle on the fire stop doors. Its cold, I have no cell phone and it's quite likely no one will be using this place anytime soon. While admiring the perfectly flush joinery job on the doorframe - leaving no place to grip your fingernails - I noticed an old drill-bit in the pile of debris. It took about 5 minutes to catch a groove in the door and lever it open. Casually and stealthily I slip past the "DO NOT ENTER" sign, past the "TOILETS DETOUR" post and back to my $3.50 glass of bubbling water. The only advice I was given was to go back and remove the old drill-bit for then next dumb ass.

I had that one all prepared for the next time Richard Thomas sprung the whole 'tell us a story about what happened to you in the past week'. But I think he's since caught on to the fact that 12 short stories at the beginning of class cuts a lot of time out of his pre-planned activities. He organised Mike Rubbo to come and chat to us for a couple of days (maker of "All About Olive" and "The Little Box That Sings" - another personal to ad to my 'how-the-hell-do-they-have-time-and-energy-for-us-geeky-students' list. He had a great tactic of getting us alone to a one-on-one chat to explore ideas and ideals. It felt a bit like a shrink appointment, where you learn more about what’s going on in your head than you realised. I felt a bit scared for him, having my babble bombard him so unprompted. He blew me away with his ability to listen, interpret then rearrange to help see things from a new angle. He helped me to even consider doing a film about a person, something I thought I would always feel a bit dispassionate about, but this particular person is someone who I have come to admire for his astounding work with natural history filmmaking...

Ok, Pip sitting next to me has confirmed my fears that my blogs are waaay too intimidating so I'll cut it off now...