not much

I now live in a suburb (which in Australia is an area of a city - not a town next to a city) called Waterloo. It is an hours' walk from here to work. I walk most days. But at the end of the day, I don't always want to walk home. I get tired. Or sometimes I walk home at night, but in the morning wake up too late to get to work on time by walking. On those occasions I take the bus. On the way to work it's easy, because I tell the bus driver "city" and pay the appropriate fare. But on the way home, I have to say "Waterloo", and that is where I have a problem. Apparently, the way I say Waterloo is too distorted and doesn't sound like Waterloo to bus drivers. I pronounce it like this: Wahdurloo. But I think here people say it more wuhduhlu. Everytime I said Wahdurloo to the bus driver, he would ask me to repeat it several times, then finally he would figure it out. One guy said to me,"are you sure this is the bus you want?" and when I said yes, he rolled his eyes and shrugged, and charged me full fare, which was the correct amount anyway. Now I am trying to say it their way, and it makes me nervous, because I am afraid I still won't get it right, as I still sometimes don't.

Last Wednesday my flatmate and workmate, the other female compositor, quit, and this time for good. She just couldn't take it anymore. She felt she was being singled out and picked on. Maybe she was. If so, that is terrible. I don't think it's going to happen to any of us, because they can't afford to lose any more compositors.

I have also determined that The Director is a not very likeable person.

I am learning to get along with the tomboy porn focused coordinator who calls me dude, but somehow I don't feel that she is going to be a sister on this project. There is a big hormonal imbalance now, much more than before. I hope I don't grow a beard.

something you may or may not want to know

I have it from a reliable source that at Weta, they have "porn Fridays". I don't know exactly what it entails, but it may explain the cheerful scoldings we have been getting .

she said it again

The Director came by today to look at shots and make sure we were all stuck to our chairs, making movies and being miserable.

Before she came, our new coordinator mentioned again:

"Tidy up your work area. Don't leave any porn mags around, ha ha ha."

Later, I asked my fellow male compositors, "Is porn at work a real problem in Australia?"

"Not as much as some would have you think" was the answer.

"She used to work at Weta" was the other answer.

She is the best friend of the nutty guy who quit 2 weeks ago.

They both worked on Lord of the Rings.

I guess Peter Jackson was the only one gettin' some Down There.

now for something else

Here, if you order a Caesar Salad, it comes with hard boiled eggs and bacon. Anchovies are extra. I really like the Caesar Salad here. Also, if you order a hamburger, it has a slice of beet on it. That's good too. And in the supermarket, the ice cream they sell is really really bad.

x

Work is all my life is about it seems.

In order for me to work, the best place for me to live is in Sydney. Sydney is expensive and busy. My husband does not want to come back here and take on the noise and pollution and financial fears.

If I want to continue with my career, then, I must be willing to travel and live apart for long periods of time. This means I live in rooms in other people's homes, and at the end of the day I am not fully relaxed because I am not in my own home. I also don't really get to make any friends, build a base, do the things that will make me grounded.

I have been in Australia for a year now, and in summary, it's just been hard.

In the beginning, I wasn't working, and had very little money.

My husband was not enjoying where we lived or his work, and was worried about money.

I had no friends of my own, and very few people that I could socialize with.

Then when I finally could work, there was no work to be had in my field, and what jobs there were around I was rejected from.

Because of the time difference, I cannot just casually call a friend at the end of the day, when I need one, as they are on the other side of the world.

I finally have work, but it means I have to travel, and be far away from my husband for long stretches, and be alone.

I don't want to give up my work, but if I have to live like this I either have to give it up, or move back home, because this is a lousy life to live.

I have always had romantic tendencies toward life, but this experience is slowly breaking them down. I still believe you should follow your heart, love a person as much as you can, and remember that much of what we are attached to in life is an illusion. But in reality, this way of thinking is a hard path, if others are not so inclined. I seem unable to find the comfort in this, and the love I need. I feel very alone much of the time.

But, I need to work, replenish the account that was depleted while I wasn't working.

I feel myself becoming a hard character. And a bit of a weirdo.

I worked 12 days straight. Yesterday I finally had off. I didn't know what to do with myself. I wanted to go to the beach, but I was too tired to think about the bus ride. It was hot and I was lonely. I considered going to the park, but the walk would have been long and would have worn me out. I was just really tired, but didn't want to hang around the apartment because my workmate and her boyfriend are packing to move and it was his last weekend before going to London for a job, so I wanted to stay out of the way. I did a lot of aimless wandering for a couple of hours. I then went to the movies, and saw "Volver". I love the movies of Pedro Almodovar. I have never seen Penelope Cruz do anything half as good as this. And I never thought she was beautiful before this. It was a good story, and had my eyes flooding through much of it. What I enjoy about his films is the community of women. His films are about the lives of women, not the lives of men. Their lives are shaped by the men in them, but the women survive through the support other women - neighbors, sisters, friends. His films show the strength and beauty of the relationships between women, and it made me weepy.

I miss the women in my life. Especially now, that I am working all the time, and am surrounded by men. I grew up with 4 brothers and no sister. I have had 2 bad fathers and a neglectful mother (but she did her best). It has taken me some time to meet and cultivate friendships with women I really like and trust. The relationshps I have with women have grown stronger as I have grown older, but that has been a conscious effort for me, as I am not as used to relating to women as to men. But the women I have in my life are the people who make me feel good, and happy, and loved. I really admire them and learn from them.

My female co-worker gets really upset when our supervisor says something dismissive and prickish to her. He has been told several times he has to be nicer. He tries. He has a lot of pressure. The company is apparently not doing so well. There's not enough money coming in. And they are not equipped to do film work, which is what we are doing. The director, and her production team, have wasted our time for the past 2 months with all of these rush shots that we have to do from scratch everytime because we are working with quick and dirty elements, not elements that can be built on. So now she wants to know why we have not progressed. I hate her. She makes it hard to love women. Then I think, she has become this thing because she is trying to get her films made with the help of men, and men in the movie business are arrogant pricks, and operate on intimidation. So she intimidates our supervisor, a man, and he comes back and acts annoyed and dismissive with us. As a result, my workmate doubts herself. And when he criticizes her work, it makes her cry a little.

For awhile, her crying really annoyed me, because I felt that it was out of place at work, and why is she letting this guy get to her all the time? Then I thought, why aren't we allowed to cry if we need to? She should be able to cry if it lets off steam or stress, and if it makes her take action. If she were a guy, she would do something else, like try and find fault with one our shots, so he can laugh at someone else and not feel powerless. So now, when she cries, I think, go ahead, it's ok, but now you have to say something. The supervisor has been nice, but sometimes he can't help it and he gets a little snooty. They laid off 2 people on Friday. It made me sad because they were 2 people I really liked. I wonder if more layoffs are on the way.

At the same time, a coordinator has been hired to help us. She is trying her best, but she really gets on my nerves. I wish she didn't, because she is a woman and we need more estrogen on this job, but she ends up being just another person who comes in the room every 5 minutes, asking me when I am going to get this or that done. And she talks really fast, and talks too much, and tells stupid jokes. And calls me dude. And twice has said to all of us, 2D and 3D, in our morning meetings, keep the porn off your desktop! Like that's funny, and that's what we do all day, watch porn. She is a tomboy, but straight, and seems, like me and the other woman I work with, more used to appealing to men. She must be freaked out by being away from home (Auckland) and working with disorganised people. But she tries to mask it be acting "cool". I wish she would just cry instead. I could then relate to her better, I think.

I have been told that I am tough, and now I am feeling it. I feel like I have to be here, that everyone is pushing me in that direction. Especially at work, where if I am not tough the guys walk all over me and try to steal my shots. In Australia, it seems if you have troubles or are vulnerable people don't want to know, or if they do it's only so they can put you down or laugh at you. I don't want to be tough. I want to soften, and feel like more of a woman.

It's another nice day here, and I still feel really really tired. I want the power to teleport, so I can be somewhere without moving.

weirdness

Work has been nothing if it has not been ridiculous.

Our lead guy quit this week. Our other female compositor almost did too. In her case, she is overworked and tired and sick of dealing with jerks. In his case, he is....insane. And insecure. I am not delusional when I say that for a time he had a bit of an infatuation with me, to the point that his chatter and commentary and questions and stories were half designed to impress me. The other half was because he can't stop fucking talking. On top of this, his lack of respect towards me and the other woman on the team was unbelievable. Going into our comps, speaking to me as if I have no experience, assuming I will want him to "help" me even though I do not need any help. Piss me off, man! Had the nerve to say to me he was going to just completely redo one of my comps, before he even looked at it, because he assumed it was not setup well and that I would not be able to update it in time. I asked him, point blank, right in the eyes, "what did you say?" which made him flustered and angry and he couldn't sit still after that. And having the supervisor like my work and tell me he is impressed with my shots didn't help him either. And telling him I am a hell of a lot older than he thinks and have been compositing for a hell of a lot longer than he thinks changed his tone considerably and he went from having a crush to being afraid of me. He gave no encouragement whatsoever to anyone. As a lead compositor, that is one of your duties. But he couldn't handle someone being able to do something well. It made him worry too much about himself. And he suffered from the "mine's bigger" way of talking. If people were talking, he couldn't deal with the attention not being on him. So, if someone were talking about, say, eating toast, he might say, "that's nothing, I was eating toast the other day and it was such a big piece of bread I almost choked" or "You almost died? Didn't I tell you about the time I almost died twice?" Many times when I would be speaking to someone, he would just out and out interrupt me to speak of something completely different, or move his face in front of mine to obstruct my line of vision, or ask me if I wanted him to script some new automated command to do some stupid thing. And he would stare a lot. And I sat 2 feet away from him. And he has a nasal drone with one of the bad Aussie accents. In my opinion, bad aussie accents are the ones where people pronounce "h" as "haych" and "everything" as "everythink". Maybe it only bugs me because he does it. He was always there when you arrived, no matter how early, and always there after you left, no matter how late. And he complained about all he had to do, but most of what he did he didn't need to, he just decided that it was more important than what the bosses wanted. And he never, NEVER, stopped talking. We are all happy he is leaving. And that he is seeking professional help.

It has been completely draining. It's amazing how quickly I went from being intimidated and amazed by his abilities to not caring about them or wanting to have anything to do with them because his scripts and expressions and technical know-how have come at the sacrifice of being a healthy, happy and interesting human being.

On a good note, my husband came down and visited me for 9 days. He walked me to work and picked me up after. We had a long weekend last weekend, for Australia Day, the day that Australia become colonized by the whitey criminals. Darcy and I went to the Blue Mountains, 2 hours west of Sydney. It was quite beautiful. We hiked all day, and one day had massages at the end. The town is small and aside from the tourist places, seems a bit on the working class side. I am not sure what there is for people to do there to make a decent living, aside from tourist stuff. Just the same, I was looking at the brick houses and breathing the mountain air and wishing we could live there.

I also had to move out of the house I was staying in, because the lease was up. I said goodbye to the nice film students and moved in with my female co-worker and her boyfriend, into a modern highrise a bit further away from the city. Walking is now an additional 30 minutes, and my rent is more, but i have my own bathroom, and use of a gym and pool if I can get my self there early enough. And I have my own tv and dvd player. I bought the series 2 DVD of the Golden Girls. It makes me happy, and less freaked out by all the changes and annoying people. It grounds me. I know; it's sad. Whatevs.