That Asperger feel when...

• You have two characters in a video game, and you play one twice in a row, so you have to do the same with the other one to even it out.
• You do one thing out of the ordinary and it throws you off for an entire week.
• You're running out of shampoo but you don't want to have to trawl the shops for hours to find the same one so you just don't shower. For days.
• You have a project you want to finish but it involves moving other people's stuff, and you don't want to get complained at when they find their stuff is moved, so your project just sits unfinished.
• You start another project in the meantime and work on it continuously for several days, then it gets put aside and forgotten until you remember it and the above happens.
• You have an Event, so you get ready in plenty of time and end up just sitting doing nothing for half an hour until it's time to go because you don't want to have to rush to put things away or put make up on.
• It's definitely a special occasion when you can be bothered to put make up on and have the patience to put up with the odd feeling from wearing it.
• You either need *all* the attention or none. No in-betweens.
• You get far too attached to animals because they don't demand things of you that you can't do, and because they love you no matter what.
• You stay in your room for hours because someone has been cleaning and the smell of the products makes you feel ill, and your room is the only place you can avoid it.
• You hate cutting your nails, so you put it off for ages until you can barely use your devices, so you cut the white parts right off, meaning your fingertips ache for the rest of the day because they're too short.
• You love a certain aesthetic, but can't afford or find the motivation to do anything about it.

Feel free to comment and add your own!

Cold Evening in a Dress

   I signed up to be an extra in a film shooting in Geelong two weeks ago. Beginning last week I get a call from them saying 'yes' and asking for my e-mail so they could send the details.

   No e-mails came through.

   Luckily, they rang me last night (Monday) to confirm that I was free Tuesday evening to shoot down at the pier, where Smorgy's (a smorgasbord-style restaurant) used to be, and I said yes. So I knew where and when I needed to be.

   Three pm Tuesday and no e-mail.

   I've given up on it, assuming they'd changed their mind and they didn't need me after all; but I was wrong - I get another call pretty much saying 'Where are you?'

   I explain the lack of e-mails, and after being told 'formal wear', I leap out of bed, into a nice dress and out the door. No time for a shower, breakfast or anything; I was late enough as it was!

   I get to the station just in time to watch a Geelong bound train pull out. Great.

   No worries. I get on the next one and rush down to the pier, to find I'm too late for the 'entering the event' scene but am still more than welcome for the rest of the day's filming. So I wander inside and sign in - and am left sitting for another half-an-hour while everyone else signs in and gets sorted out. I obviously hadn't really missed anything. Phew!

   First scene I'm in is the 'opening speech' bit, so a good hour or so of sitting at a large table pretending to be bored, rich, and waiting for the party to start. I'm sitting there and hoping my not-so-clean hair isn't showing me up, nor are the massive goosebumps on my arms, as I'd been asked to remove my jacket for the scene, and there was no heating!

   After a short break, the last scene was shot - the 'end of the evening' scene, so I'm pretending to be tipsy, rich and dancing. For this one I'm in two places at once - at a table at the back and dancing behind the main cast. Should be interesting! The most awkward part was the dancing - they'd play a little music before starting a shot, but would stop just before calling 'action', and we all had to pretend the music was still going!

   It was pitch black outside once we'd finished and were allowed to sign out and head home, and I noticed the reason I never got any e-mails - they'd spelt my address wrong! A very brisk walk to the station later - it had gotten very cold by then - I'm headed homewards, with a stop at McDonald's to get dinner.

   It was definitely interesting, and rather fun despite the cold, but I think I need to invest in a couple of fancy scarves or something similar in case of something the like in the future!

   And go see 'Undertow' when it comes out.

Watch out Hollywood!

So Sunday was my first actual audition workshop at Screen Actors.

I've been going to Screen Actors in Geelong since the beginning of the school term and it has been amazing. The people are awesome, with the youngest at about 17 and the oldest a little older than my 'rents, and they are easy to get along with and good fun!

This workshop, however, was at the Ascot Vale location, so, with Caitlin as cheerleader and train entertainment (lol), I booted up Pokemon Go and headed off - at ten in the morning, which for me, on a weekend, is an early start!

It took about an hour to get there, with two train swaps and a five minute walk down some very pretty, quiet suburban streets; about 70% of the houses had roses in full bloom in the front gardens and the scent wafted around us on the warm breeze.

We entered a little late, towards the end of the mini-info sesh at the start of the workshop, and we soon got into filming the audition scenes. Only two others from my class were there, and there was no time to even greet each other properly, but I think we were a little too nervous to chat anyway!

My partner and I ended up being the last pair of the afternoon, and my turn in front of the camera last, so I'd had plenty of time to stew in my anxiety, but I was actually quite surprised to realise I didn't actually feel as anxious as I expected to!

The actual shooting went amazingly well - the casting director said she had no direction for me, that I'd pretty much nailed the character and she had no ideas on improvement - win! If I had to choose between the two shoots we did, I'd pick the first one, the one without the prop, as it threw me off a little, but I still did well. I also learnt something about myself - I'm not as English-sounding as I used to be! I knew my accent had faded a little, as it was taking longer for people to ask 'The Question', but when the director mentioned my accent seemed to slip between British and Aussie I was a little surprised myself.

We came straight home after 'dismissal', to a very, very happy-to-see-us Daisy dog, and after a good hug and a mug of tea I went back to bed for a nap.

I just had a fantastic day

... and all y'all get to hear about it!

My support worker Kirsty had been wanting to take me on a trail ride since I started trotting during riding lessons last year, and today we finally did just that!

We drove for about an hour down past Anglesea to a place called Blazing Saddles, where we went on a bush ride involving a little cantering as well as trotting. The trail followed the road about half the time, and all the cantering was done on wide parts of the bit through the woods. It is truly a gorgeous place to ride through, especially after rain, because the vivid greenery is contrasted sharply by the tree trunks still black from the last bushfire. The horse I rode was a gorgeous bay, the colour of melted dark chocolate with cream all but completely stirred in, with a white stripe down her face. She was a bit awkward to ride, however, as they keep their horses very well fed, and they use stock saddles, which are thicker leather than the all-purpose used at SaddleOn. She also loved to travel down the verge of the track,, which made cantering very difficult as she kept forgetting about my foot, and would have easily removed it via solid tree trunks which were along the side of the trail. There were several trunks with obvious dents at foot-height where they'd been kicked by passing riders, and a road sign was also dented. Quite an amusing discovery!

I was quite sore afterwards, having not ridden for several weeks, but a warm shower when I got home certainly helped!

Of course, what made a great day fantastic was finally getting a map of a game-world in the mail that I won in a raffle in the game - all using the in-game currency! It's going to get framed and hung at some point.... hopefully!

Here's a pic of the horse I rode