Tuesday 15 November 2011

Trying to Catch Up

So last week I finally finished uni for the year. I spent the whole of Thursday in bed, working on a quilt I'm making (more on that in another post), watching TV, and having mini anxiety attacks, thinking that I had something due for uni or had to go to work. I kept checking my phone calendar to make sure I hadn't missed anything, and the relief that came when I realised I had nothing on was heavenly.

I basically spent the weekend doing nothing much - hanging out with my friends, being Sunday people down on the Central Coast, and trying to organise my new job.

Have I mentioned that starting this Sunday I'm going to be a Santa Elf???!! Well, not really. I'm just working for a Santa photo set, and unfortunately, we have a uniform - it would be so much better if I could be an elf. It's only for 6ish weeks, but I'm already stressed from the job because I've been made the Set Supervisor, and having to try and chase my staff and lock in training dates and new staff when the old ones quit before they even begin is doing my head in. One exciting thing is that I've got Mikey working for me every weekend. Basically, I'm going to be working 6 days a week on the Santa set, then on the 7th day I'll be doing before and after school care. That's not to mention the tutoring afterwards. Sigh. I'm looking forward to it, and I know it's not for very long, but the thought that I'm not going to be able to see my family until Christmas Day is a bit sad. BUT I need to do this in order to survive the Christmas holidays, money-wise. Although I love looking after kids and tutoring, one of the downsides of this kind of work is the zero work during the school holidays.

Meanwhile, after tomorrow night's tutoring session, I'm going down to Sydney to see my family. There's been some crazy big news from that camp, so I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I'll let you in on the news once everyone knows. But annoyingly, I then have to come back on Thursday night or early Friday morning for my set's training session (today's was cancelled because our equipment hasn't turned up), and then go back down to Sydney Friday evening so I can see my lovely friends on Saturday.

Hectic. But worth it.

Yes, this is the most boring post in the world. Sigh.

Friday 11 November 2011

Grease 2: Even Greasier

So, I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but Grease 2 is one of my favourite movies. I say that without irony. I think that the first film was a bit "yeah, it's alright," but Grease 2 came along, and Michelle Pfeifer climbed that ladder, and Maxwell Caulfied was "That Guy," and I was hooked.


In fact, Grease 2 brings people together like no other Grease can. I highly doubt that Mikey and I would be as tight as we are if it weren't for this film. Although we got along well from the beginning of knowing each other, it was only after we realised that we both loved the film Grease 2, and we both loved it hard, that we realised we would be together. Always, together. Like birds of a feather forever and ever.

So when we heard that our beloved film was going to be on stage in Melbourne, we immediately booked ourselves on the cheapest flight we could find and made sure we were at the opening weekend. We knew we'd have to fly, seeing as Mikey and I have driven down there twice before, and it's still too soon after our last drive down to think that it was actually fun to be in a Toyota Echo for 14 hours.

We got on the world's earliest flight (or, 7am) and arrived at Avalon airport not long after. But then we faffed about waiting for the one airport bus to take us into the CBD. This was all before we'd been able to eat. After we checked ourselves into a hostel called The Mansion and had to defend ourselves to various international randoms about our love of Grease 2, we finally got ourselves some brekkie.

***Note: I spent about half an hour right now trying to upload some of my photos from the trip, but our internet is being a massive bitch. I think it got it from me - I love being influential! There'll be photos added to this sometime in the future.***

We then wandered around Melbs for the rest of the day. We headed towards the Occupy Melbourne protest, because I'd been following the Occupy protests in the States and wanted to show my support. When we got to the area where the Occupy protest was supposed to be, Mikey and I were very confused. All we could see were "Free Palestine" banners, and "Boycott Max Brenner" posters. Maybe we'd stumbled upon a different protest? Not so, as the protesters started chanting: "Occupy Melbourne, not Palestine!" Mikey had to hold me back, I was so angry. Firstly, the issues aren't even remotely related. Secondly, I don't agree with their reasoning for the boycotting of MB stores. Boycott them for their shitty service (Charlestown store, I'm looking at you!), but maybe don't blindly follow the hippy in the Che Guevara shirt. And thirdly, how the hell are you going to carry out a proper protest when there is no unity in your message??? People were angry about everything from the carbon tax, to gay rights, to global warming, which is all great to be passionate about, but maybe start your own protest? Somewhere else? Having all these conflicting and unrelated voices simply dilutes the message and shows a complete lack of unity. It made me glad to see the "occupy" tents being taken down by police.

After many hours of ranting about this to poor Mikey (where does one buy soapboxes, in these days of cardboard, I wonder?), and getting distracted by EVERY BOOK STORE AND BOOK MARKET IN MELBOURNE (what can we say, we met in a bookstore, we love books and Grease 2!), we went back to the hostel to suit up and get ready for our moment.

After I had a two hour nap.

And locked Mikey out of the room for those two hours.

But then we were sufficiently suited up and were freaking out with anticipation for the show. Would it be good? Were they parodying an amazing film? (Not on MY watch!) What if they somehow ruined the film for us, like when you read a brilliant book and then a movie comes along which screws the book over, and then the book must forever bear the terrible film's taint?

Well, I am here to tell you that the show was PERFECT!!!!!!!!!! There was a lot of licence taken with some of the characters, but they deserved it. They did Cool Rider to perfection, ladder and everything, and also made fun of some of the terrible songs, like Charade. (I'm allowed to say it's terrible, because its terribleness is part of the brilliance of the film as it shows Michael's transition from loser new kid to the awesome cool rider. Or maybe I'm just giving the director/writer way too much credit.) The girl that played Stephanie, Melanie Ott, was absolutely sensational. Her voice was just amazing, and she was perfect as Stephanie.

Mikey and I acted like crazy fan girls the whole time. It was just great to see something we love so much up on the stage.

After the musical, still on a high, we met up with Bel, one of our old Borders (blergh) buddies that had moved down to Melbourne. She took us to a couple of bars and Lord of the Fries, some of the best late-night-drunk food I've ever had. And apparently it was all vegan. I wish they had stuff like this here in Newcastle so I could take my housemate Bec out for some good, greasy (lol) food.

Then Mikey and I managed to get back to the hostel, crazy drunk (it's CROFT, Mikey, not LOFT!), and slept as well as one can in a hostel.

The next morning was not pretty. We checked out of the hostel and met up with Bel for brekkie. After drinking ALL of the coffee, we decided that we didn't need to do any more touristy things because our poor little no-longer-20-year-old bodies couldn't handle the morning after. We spent the day in comic book shops, in magazine shops, and in other book shops. Yes, our Greasiness is only trumped by our bookishness.

And then later that night we flew back to Sydney. And then drove back to Newcastle. It was a long bloody weekend, but it was worth every moment.