How the hell did that happen? And is this the first time we’ve landed on a Friday since or the second time? I can’t remember anymore …
Would he have approved of what I’m doing now? The Masters side, probably. The move across the world to be with my (second, non Indian) boyfriend (who I had only been with a couple of months) and using the Masters as a way to get in the same country to be with him, probably not.
Oh well. No time for probably.
There’s a part of your life that seems to remain crystallised after a break up. It’s not the love you had for that person (for that is well and truly gone), it’s not the good or bad memories (which will change with time), it’s the family you shared – their sisters, their mum, their nana. For almost four years you collected a new family and when the relationship was over, it wasn’t the loss of the person that cut, it was the loss of your new family.
And when you hear that a member of that family has died, it hurts as much as when they were once your family.
I didn’t expect this. I don’t know if I even have the right to be as upset as I am. I’ve not seen David’s Nana for years and yet my love for her has been no less than when her grandson and I were together.
And so, sadness.
RIP Gloria xx
Um, will you take the excuse, my homework ate my blog?
It’s true, I’ve too busy to procrastinate. Really.
It’s the start of week 4 in film school and so far I’ve handed in 2 short film scripts – a 3 min black and white silent short and a 10 minute studio based piece which had to be completely rewritten in the space of two and a half days after being ripped to shreds in a workshop (I started a new short today – the first draft is due on Monday). I’ve changed my screenwriter case study from Jonathan and Christopher Nolan to Harold Pinter after a minor freak out about being a absurdist playwright in a cinematic world (yes, Jean, that hang up is going away …), a work and research journal to maintain (chunks of which are handed in each term) and the usual additional reading of hand outs, recommended books and other screenplays.
It’s quite full on. But I’m loving every minute of it. So much so that I can’t bring myself to procrastinate on the blog with it … too much to do.
In brief: My class is an insanely large 20: 6 women, a couple of Indians, a Canadian, a American, a Greek, a Bulgarian, a Serb, a couple of Germans, a South African, a Swede, a handful of Brits, a fella from Portugal and a New Zealander (that’d be me). Only a hand full are newly graduated, the rest of us have been kicking around for a while. And everyone has a different writing style. So very different.
Also, I’ve managed to be late only twice, so far …
Back to it – more later.
Months have past, visas have been gained and once more I am in Londinium.
How did I manage to get back in? A student visa, massive debt and entry into the London Film School to do an MA in Screenwriting. I start on Monday.
Looks like it’s time to take Maupuia Masala off hiatus … how else am I going to procrastinate?
APPROVED and the visa has been issued.
The game hasn’t ended yet, but at least I’m still in.
When the demise of your government has become such a spectator sport that it’s being live blogged, it may be time to think about your post parliament plans.
Or you could continue sitting in your office with your fingers stuffed into your ears singing ‘la la la la laaaaaa, I can’t hear you!’ – that’s pretty much what the NZ Labour Party did in it’s final year and that went really well for them too.
Oh, wait.
Woo! It’s Budget day …
What? I’ve handed over my passport to those in control, in the hope that I can get into the UK (more details if I am successful) … so instead of stewing while I wait, I may as well geek out a little.
This feels like a budget of yore, when you used to stock up on petrol, cigarettes and booze the day before as you had no freakin’ idea what was going to be hiked up the next day. Little has been released as it were under a Labour government, but you can bet that the tax cuts National campaigned almost rabidly on, will have disappeared.
It’s Bill English’s first budget and he starts with a small stumble as he forgets process, which the Speaker carefully corrects.
14.06
Pre-amble: The economy is fucked. Everywhere. If this all goes to shit, it’s not our fault. But it is the fault of the folks before us.
14.16
[While B.E. sings his party's praises, just thought I'd add - if my visa comes through, I'm leaving town two days later to go to Singapore. So if you're in Wellington, just be aware that I may, in a couple of weeks say that I'll be parking up at Hope Bros. to drink ...]
14.18
“redesign the legislation to allow quick and efficient decisions to allow development … overseen by Rodney Hide …” Trans: Dear Environment, prepare the lube, you may be getting fucked soon.
14.30
It’s all very well saying “we’ve allocated x to insure y” but it’s not terribly impressive when they are pretty much just maintaining what’s already been done in the past … I’m bored already.
14.43
Tax cuts for 2010 and 2011 are postponed until “economic conditions are improved”. Told you.
14.48
“This is the first budget on the road to recovery”. I hope you’re right, dude, otherwise you know we’re going to roll out this sound bite next year if it all goes tits up.
And so ends yet another boring budget (except for the suspension of the Cullen fund contributions, which was always on the cards no matter what government but 10 years is a flippin long time). Tune in next week when we hear …
31 – Days spent in Melbourne
3 – Weeks of comedy in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival
300 and something – Shows in the Festival
2- Shows I was working on.
340 – Tickets sold to Philip Escoffey’s show in one day
2000 – Alleged number of phone calls received by the box office trying to get tickets in the final days once Philip’s show had sold out the season including his extra shows
17 – Expletives used while while on Skype to Sam and negotiating the automated phone systems of both Vodafone and 3 Mobile Australia. The exact wording was [cover your eyes if you are of a sensitive nature ... actually, if you are of a sensitive nature, what the fuck are you doing reading this blog?]: “oh for fucks sake … fucking cunts fuckers and their fucking automated service, couldn’t give me a normal fucking person! Fucking cunt fuckers can’t fucking do the fucking thing with a fucking human NO they have to use a fucking computer with fucking voice prompts. And they record it. You know what they what they’re going to end up with on the voice bits? FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING CUNTS!”
It’s back. Do you remember?
I’m sitting here staring at my screen trying to get inspired, trying to write letters telling people how great I could be and yet the words aren’t flowing.
Instead there is a replay loop in my head of all the deportation stories I hear and I sit here frozen and afraid. The ‘what ifs’ are incredibly loud and having been on the receiving end of a classic Heathrow grilling, are some what amplified.
I know I’ve got to keep pushing through, but it feels so hard and I feel so very alone.
I promised I would tell you if it was coming back. Well, here I am telling you that I feel darkness all around me. It’s been growing for a couple of months now and every day the sky keeps falling. I want so very badly to go home to London, but I feel so numb that I’ve only got myself to blame if I can’t get through. Can you see the loop?
Don’t yell at me in frustration or tell me to chin up. It’s not helping. But I don’t know what will.
Yes, it’s a post! Twitter has taken over (I seem to be moving slowly away from Facebook. I’d rather not use it, but everyone seems to be situated there – I wish everyone would move to Twitter instead), but there’s other stuff too …
Immigration.
I don’t want to be wrongly accused of anything by immigration authorities so I’ve been keeping my woes to myself. There are a few things involved …
One: I work in the arts industry. The centre of the arts industry is London. I had some good things just starting over there – I would have liked to see how far I could get (as it all felt like my career was taking off).
Two: I am deeply in love. And the love of my life works in the arts and lives in London – the centre of the arts industry.
Three: I no longer live in London as my working holiday visa has expired.
So now my days are spent doing applications to get my way back there. There are very few options available to me, but I’m pursuing every one I can … at the moment, every week heralds a new story announcing how immigration controls in the UK are being tightened, how the visa fees are going up, newly invented taxes I am going to face as a ‘economic migrant’ and amount of information about myself that I am going to have to give up on a single ID card (which the government will probably lose by forgetting a laptop on the train, or something … again).
Yes, I really love him. I must do to put myself through this.
In the meantime, I can’t help but ponder on the use of borders … I turn to you, internets, to explain the use of this function to me. Governments collect taxes and use them to create property rights and occasionally provide social services.
Fine.
So borders are areas that define where the taxes are collected and are spent accordingly.
Fine.
So what do immigration controls achieve?
Genuinely, I do not know. The more I think about them, the less I understand them. It stops people who want to work and pay taxes from coming into the country and I’m sure it creates population pressure as once people are in they become afraid to leave in case they can’t get back in again. Does someone out there have an answer as to why this use of a border is a good thing?
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| Lou on Not So Liveblog: Budget 2009 … |
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