Bullet In The Face

Is the most ridiculous thing I have ever watched.

I happened to catch it on IFC at work. It's like Quentin Tarantino did a lot of drugs and had a one night stand with the creators of Law and Order who then suggested they do more drugs and create a 6-part miniseries.

Dude just killed someone with dental equipment. The bloodied dentist's screams can be heard outside in the waiting room and one mother turns to her daughter and just says "See, this is what happens when you don't brush your teeth."

I have to appreciate that during this show that, traditionally, would probably only be marketed to men, there was a birth control commercial, which means that at least someone out there thought of the possibility that women might be watching this insane, violent extravaganza.

And of course, it has Eric Roberts in it. Of course.

Sometimes I wonder, because I used to so adamantly make fun of him due to his appearance in the Doctor Who TV movie, if I'm now doomed to be forever stalked by his appearances in things that I watch. It's like when I saw The Dark Knight, and he just suddenly showed up playing Maroni and I was like "Oh god, the quality of this shot has just decreased exponentially!"

In other news, the building I'm working in is definitely haunted. Either that, or there's something wrong with the door. I'm leaning more towards the broken door, since when I lived here three years ago I remember the door being broken and people constantly complaining about it. But then, wouldn't someone have fixed it by now? Maybe it's supposed to be broken. Maybe the broken door somehow protects us, and if it were fixed the entire building would somehow fall into another dimension, dooming everyone inside to forever wander some sort of horrifying nightmare world.

You never know.

As is probably clear, my job is not the most exciting of occupations. I've been keeping myself busy by watching old episodes of the Twilight Zone and reading Dune, further cementing my status as a person who will never be cool. Every once in a while I'll turn on the television in the booth and attempt to find something that isn't the Real Housewives of Somewhere. I've watched a lot of the Science Channel. That show "Dark Matters" is really hilariously interesting. I appreciate the "dark side of science" theme it's got going, and even further appreciate the terrible dramatic reenactments they use to present it.

I'm trying to think of some sort of elegant and creative way to end this post, but I don't really have much else to say. "Life is strange" is about all I can think of, but then, the blog itself is called "The World Is Very Strange". If you hadn't picked up on the whole "life is strange" thing, then you've clearly missed something.

In Which I Am Employed

Today I began my illustrious career as a Residential Safety booth babe. 

My job is very simple. If someone doesn't have a student ID and they want to get into the residence hall, they talk to me, and I swipe them in. I then write them down, and hope they're not here to murder whoever it is they're going in to see. During the day, I imagine this might actually require some work since residence halls do tend to attract quite a lot of people who want get in and visit other people, but of course, I'm not working during the day.

I work from midnight to eight AM, a time slot that actually works very well for me as I'm essentially nocturnal and I get paid more. I'm sitting in a booth with a broken television trying to tell myself that this is less horrifying than working at the hardware store due to having a chair to sit in and the ability to use the internet. No one has asked me to ring out 150 individual sockets yet, so I suppose I should be grateful. 

The booth I was assigned to is in Enterprise Hall, which I lived in during my sophomore year and looks nothing at all like I remember it. They've changed the entryway, the turnstile, the sort of lame half-lounge they had by the front, and replaced the vending machines with brand new leather couches. It's distressing, but in a way, kind of nice. The old Enterprise Hall is where I lived, the new one is where I work. For some reason, I find the distinction important. 

Since it's August and the university is in between summer semesters, the hall isn't currently home to rowdy, drunk college students, but to a high school Christian camp from Texas. Despite their inherent lack of ability to use their swipe cards to get through the damn turnstile, none of them have really caused me any problems. They do seem to have a habit of leaving their keys in their room and locking themselves out, but I'm sure that has more to do with the fact that they're in high school than it does with their love of Jesus. 

I spent most of my shift watching the X-Files on Netflix, but I did have a nice conversation with one of the campers about the weather in Texas at around four thirty in the morning. I mentioned that in the few times I'd ever been to Texas I'd experienced some of the most oppressive weather on the face of the planet, even worse than that time I spent in an Israeli desert, and for the most part, the girl seemed to agree. I asked her about the camp she was participating in, and was pleased that she never once asked me about my own religious beliefs. 

It is now eight AM, and technically speaking, I'm due to be done now. Some water has just dripped onto my head from the ceiling, which is interesting considering this building is fourteen stories high and it's not raining out. I'm left wondering what would happen if Jesus was forced to go through the Enterprise turnstile, and if he would have as much difficulty swiping in as his high school followers seem to. I like to think he'd just walk straight through the wall, but then, I suppose that's why I work at a safety booth and not at a Christian camp. 

All in all, it's been a decent first day. Now if only my relief would show up. 

Thoughts From The Historical Society

Today I'm trying to be my mother.

By which, I mean, I'm working at the Historical Society in her place during open hours as a favor to the  program manager who didn't want to be left alone. I think it's more that she had a meeting at ten and needed someone to handle visitors while she was busy since, from what I've seen, she's certainly more than capable of running things on her own. At the very least, she's definitely more capable than I am.

This isn't the first time I've had to do this. On Saturdays, the museum's only open from 9:30 to noon, so there tends to not be a huge influx of people. On days when my mother is out and I happen to find myself at home, I'm occasionally asked to fill in. It's not excessively difficult since, again, there's usually not a huge amount of people desperately in need of local historical information at ten in the morning on a Saturday. Every once in a while someone will come in and I'll have to explain to them that the curator is out, and that I'm only marginally well versed in the town's history. More often than not, I end up showing them around the building, handing them a business card, and telling them to come back on Tuesday when my mother will be back.

So far, we've only had one person come in, and he literally knew exactly what he was looking for, where to find it, and how to look through it. All I had to do was stand and ask the program manager if he was allowed in the archives, which he was. Other than that, it's mostly just been me, the laptop, and a cup of Starbucks coffee.

Despite my anxiety about not being able to answer any Exeter, New Hampshire based historical inquiries, it's nice to have something to do. My relatively terrible semester ended in mid-May, and I've been sitting at home waiting around for my house in New York to be ready to move into. It's been nice, since I'm given nearly unlimited time with my friends, who I always miss terribly when I'm at school, but apart from hanging out with them, when they're at work or doing summer homework, I have nothing going on, and it's starting to drive me a bit insane. Despite having to wake up far earlier than I usually do, it was nice to, for a moment, feel like I had a job or something other than TV Tropes to get up for.

I've watched an absurd amount of television. I've started at least four projects. I also turned twenty-one in the middle of all this.

Oh yeah, that's right.  I'm twenty-one now. I suppose, as a personal blogger, I should probably discuss this or something. I did start blogging at the age of fourteen, so I'm come somewhat far with this. I used to update a lot more than I do, of course. I blame social media. My friend Alice got me so addicted to Tumblr that I've been using that as a blog more than my actual blog, which is a problem since I keep getting reminded at school that blogging is a good way to get yourself out there in the professional world, especially in the media business. I can't imagine this blog getting me anywhere, but I have had it in one form or another for several years now, so it deserves a lot more love from me than it's been getting.

Plus, I'm sort of at a loss about that whole "moving ahead with your career" thing. I went into film originally because I wanted to take screenwriting classes. I wasn't sure what, exactly, I wanted to do, but I pretty much wrote myself off as being purely a writer within the world of film. If I did pursue film after college, I wasn't expecting to have a desire to be a director, or operate cameras or anything. I just wanted to tell stories. During my sophomore year, which was my first year as a film student, I operated soley under this principle, and paid almost no attention to the technical or visual side of things. I considered myself nothing more than a writer with an interest in film, and never once thought to consider myself a "filmmaker".

This was all fine and dandy, until sometime this year, that all changed. I'm not sure what it was. Maybe it was from hanging around with cameras more, maybe it was from getting the chance to play around in my experimental class, but at some point this year, I found myself falling deeper in love with the medium of film, and with the idea of shooting and directing. I've always had a thing for cameras, and looking back, it sort of makes sense that I'd find myself getting this interested in film, but I was seriously not expecting it. I've always been a movie person, but I never really thought of it as being something I could actually do, it was always just something I was interested in. At some point in the semester that "interest" turned into a genuine desire to actually pursue it, and as exciting as that is, it's also a bit terrifying.

Because now that I've realized this, now that I know for a fact that, yes, I would like to be a filmmaker and actually do something more than just write, I'm more than a bit behind. There are people in this department who know cameras inside and out, who have wanted and dreamed of being directors their entire lives, and compared to them, I'm just starting out. I have so much to learn it's not even funny, and I'm terrified of not being able to catch up.

Of course, this probably all sounds like fairly ordinary twenty-one-year-old thoughts. I have a feeling I'm supposed to be confused, and just starting out. It will be interesting to see how I feel about all of this in five years. Hell, it will be interesting to see where, exactly, I'll be in five years.

For right now, though, I'm sitting in the Historical Society, which is, ironically, the place I shot my last film. I don't know a great deal of local history, but I can probably tell you where to point an HD camera to make the building look dark and disorienting. At the very least, I can tell you what sort of flashlight you should use when shooting the place in the dark, and which victrola records make the best ambiant music.

Glitter Purgatory

So, here's this film I made.

This was my final film for Experimental Film and Video Production this semester. I shot it at the Exeter Historical Society during my spring break, and then spent about a month doing post production stuff. I was reading House of Leaves at the time and I think it kind of shows in the kind of film I decided to make. It was difficult to choreograph, and even more difficult to put together, but I think it paid off. I can't exactly say it's everything I ever wanted it to be and more, but I'm still relatively proud of how it came out.

So yeah, that's my official thing. That film up there? I made that. True story.

At the moment, though, I'm sitting around at my parents' house watching Fish Tank Kings while drugged up on allergy medication, definitely not making a film. I've spent the last three days working backstage at my sister's dance recital, which sounds like fairly easy work but was absolutely not. There were so many little kids running around in sparkly tutus...it was like, glitter purgatory.

I haven't written in forever. I know that. I really need to get myself together and update more, but right now, my brain is just mush. I figured, for some reason, I should at least put something up. I guess drugs will do that to you.

Have a good one,

*Nelly*

A Powerpoint! Yay!

A Powerpoint

View more presentations from NellyOfExeter.

I made this to teach myself and my roommate how to use Slideshare. It was good times. I need coffee so hard right now.

*Nelly*

Live From New Hampshire

With all these people keeping tabs and blogging about the New Hampshire primaries, I feel like, as a native New Hampshire dweller currently sitting here, I should add my own observations.

It's warm as hell.

My high school is being taken over by Mitt Romney supporters.

A giant Ron Paul sign kept me from getting any cellphone service at a creepy convenience store on the side of the road the other night.

And seriously, it's warm as hell. Tonight's low is 22. In January. I know politics, by nature, especially Republican politics, tend to generate a lot of hot air, but this is just ridiculous.

Could it be Ron Paul? The space infront of his abnormally large sign was the only place in Exeter the other night that didn't have service. Even my car had trouble starting...though, that's not really that unusual. But seriously! As soon as I managed to pull away from the sign, my phone had power again! If Ron Paul's sign can do that, imagine what sort of strange, evil, reality warping powers the man himself must possess? He must be the one changing the weather! I knew it had something to do with the primaries! That must be it!

Deep down, beyond that old, conservative, white guy exterior, Ron Paul is, in fact, Slender Man.

DRAMATIC MUSIC!

Or, possibly Cthulhu. One or the other.

MORE DRAMATIC MUSIC!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what's really going down here in New Hampshire this primary season. Take that as you will.