I was amused just now. I hadn't realised I had been so serious about making movies in the spring. LOL! Guess what I'm going to do now? Yup. I'm going to write scripts! I'm going to direct/produce... whatever! I'm going to pull through with engineering, because I really like it. I have to do it for me. But then I'm going to become what I never knew I always wanted to be. Fear is a powerful force.

Where did this resolve come from? The answer is simple - Emma Thompson. There have been scores of people who have inspired me on the way to becoming what I want to be, but she and Stephen Fry (baaaah!) did the final nudging and I'll be eternally grateful for that. They came to South Africa for some film on a local Virginia Woolf figure, and they gave a few workshops on film making. On the 14th of February my two best friends and I were sitting and waiting for our butternut pancakes at Harrie's, when one casually remarked that Emma Thompson was in the country. Me, being the sad person I am, almost died on the spot.

I swear, I would have flown the length and breadth of the country to meet her. I rushed home, googled it and found out that she and Fry were doing the workshops on that day and the next in Johannesburg, which is an hour's drive from home. So, naturally, I went. Dad went with me, 'cause he's a bit of a fan too. I had bought her Sense and Sensibility Diaries in Bath last year, and it was the funniest book I ever read. So I took it to her to sign, and got in to the comedy workshop they presented in the afternoon. It was awesome.

The intelligence with which they spoke about something like comedy was mind-blowing. They were thoroughly entertaining! I just knew.

So I'm going to AFDA, the best film school in the country, in 3 years' time. :) Can't wait!!!

I have written two tests today, and I'm feeling mighty proud! I actually studied! I wrote down a study time table, I woke up early and I studied! It was amazing! No really, it was. I sat in the tests (it was Maths) and I actually felt as though I could do it if I racked my brains. See, if you don't study for maths, you just don't have time to try different ways of doing it. You have to know, because the damn Calculus test is like the 100 metre sprint.

So anyway - I think I knew! It was pretty difficult, and no one seemed very eager to predict their definite pass, but all the same, it could have gone worse for me. The Algebra was peanuts, so I just hope the monkey puzzle went ok...

But ok, I've got tommorrow off to study for Physics and Mechanics - which is Statics and Dynamics combined. It's diabolic, it is. After that it's Circuits, and then I'm finished! Had a chat with mum today, and we agreed that we're both expert escapists. We ponder nonsense, convincing ourselves that the fate of the human race is more important than studying or finishing an article, which, I grant is true, but seeing that in context of what we are actually capable of doing (i.e. not being able to save the human race), it's much more helpful to sit down and work. It gets complicated when the time equation is sightly to the negative side of the scale, though.

You know, when it's like looking at a mountain, and you know it'll take two weeks of considerable discipline to get to the top, and you have to do it in one. So what's the best thing to do? I'd say to sit and ponder the fate of the human race, because it seems much more probable from that angle that you'd be able to save our species than to climb that darn mountain. Which it's not, but it helps to think that.

Ah well, I'll do the study thing again tommorrow. This was the purpose of this entry - to put that in writing. I will study tommorrow, and I will keep to my timetable in a disciplined and prudent way. There. :)

So my course is going well, I even felt like starting studying for my coming semester tests today. I didn't start, of course, but the fact that I wanted to must be some achievement, don't you think? I do enjoy my course, but who likes to study? Seriously, I'd much rather sit with a drink and a sweet peppers/feta sandwich and watch dvds.

Anyway, I've been wanting to make movies for quite some time. Yeah, I know, who wouldn't want to be famous, rich, cool - you name it. It's not about that (sounds equally whatever), but really, I do. I want to tell stories. I want to wonder which camera angle would be best in conveying a character's predicament, or whether one sentence fits into the story or not. Should we meet Mr. Smith in the first scenes, or should we leave it for later, and let some other characters and lines develop first? I want to write scripts, I want to help make decisions about the musical cues, I want to hunt for locations, I want to see the shoot through, I want to party 'til I drop when it's all finished, knowing that a piece of art has been created, and whether or not people like it - a story has been told.

This is the dreams of a layman. Laywoman? Whatever, the point is, I have no idea where to begin, when to begin, if it's worth it at all, or whether I've got what it takes to do it. I don't even want to go to Hollywood. I want to make movies right here in South Africa. There are stories that need to be told. Why can't I be stinking rich? Movies need budgets, I need food and somewhere to live safely.

So on top of this, and me trying to study hard for my degree, my mum comes and pours ice cold water on me - bursts my bubble in such a way that I start to wonder whether something isn't wrong with this life. All Disney keeps telling you is that you should follow your dream. Reach into your soul and find what makes you tick - and do it! It'll work out. It may take hard work, but as long as you're prepared to fight for it, you'll get it.

But what if hard work and passion aren't enough? What if you just don't have the opportunity - or even more mundanely - the money? Well, what she really said was, "What skills to you want to take into making movies? You can't just go in with raw talent. What did you think to do, and how did you think you'd acquire those skills?"

Dammit! So I answered that I want to tell stories. What stories? I don't know! Does she want a proposal for a movie on the spot? It's like someone asking you what you want out of life. What the hell do you say? To be happy? That's so ... stupid. Obvious. Vague. Childish. And I said I wanted to go study film making. Where? Hmm, see, the best film school in the country belongs to my uncle who never wants to see us again. Problemo. I could go to a Technikon. She'll die. I know it.

Do I want to be an engineer or not?! Yes! I think so.

Do I want to make movies or not?! Yes! ... Well, I think so.

Crap. This is killing me. I'm stopping right here.

Perhaps the start of Spring break is (in more ways than one) a good time to make a start at something - like a livejournal.

I like spring. That is, even apart from the fact that it seems as though nature wakes up after a long sleep, and from the weather trying to make life as beautiful as possible. Apart from the surge of energy that seems to seep into life, slowly at first and hesitantly, but then after a while with full confidence. It's not just that I'd rather run up the driveway than walk when I get home, or wake up with a groan that at least sounds less tired, or that I can eat joghurt and fruit and drink fruit juice even when I want coffee.

Each time the season changes, it reminds me of the constancy of change. Sounds pretty Buddhist, which I'm not, though I do have a lot of respect for the philosphy. I am reminded of the countless times that spring has followed winter. It's a sense of renewal, and yet of deep history. We did the Carmina Burana cantata recently. Have you heard the ode to spring? It's, like our conductor said, 'a splash of sunshine'. It is. And what's more, though the music isn't ancient, the language is. The Romans celebrated spring too. If I had to meet a Roman waiting somewhere next to a bus stop of some kind, we may not be able to say much to each other, but we'll be able to talk about spring. It hasn't changed.

See, I understand that the universe is never ever in the same condition ever again, and that from one moment to the next, so many things change, that the number of changes seems to slam home the idea that the world is in constant turmoil. In a sense it is, I guess, but it only takes one more moment to realise how some things have just never changed. You never stand next to same river twice, but it kinda looks the same the next time, doesn't it?

Spring reminds of change and renewal, but I can't help but wonder if anything's really changed from the last thousand springs. Nature goes about its business as though it could have been 700 BC. Sure, we don't have the same plants here as in ancient Italy, but why would the Roman and I be able to say the same things about spring? He would probably not even know the names of the trees around here, but we'll understand each other. He might hit on me. Try his luck, you know, invite me for a drink at the taverna. I'll tell him there aren't any tavernas around here, but what about the pub down the road?

Have humans changed at all? Has nature changed? See, the further back we go into history, the shorter time becomes. You think that Horace and Homer were practically contemporaries, give or take a century or two. They both lived in the ancient world. Then it changes as things get more recent. You know there's a bit of a difference in the way Leonardo da Vinci dressed, and how Isaac Newton dressed. Sort of. You might manage to guess that they weren't exactly contemporaries, though they were both scientific historic guys. Not necessarily the same century, but close enough.

And then, Julie Andrews is old. Gosh, she was that Mary Poppins figure, wasn't she? Princess Diaries? Yeah, she practically arose from the dead to play that, you'd think. And Bohemian is sooo last season - or a few seasons ago, I don't keep up, really. Pete Sampras - remember him? Used to play tennis. Boris Becker is practically an epic legend of some kind.

The more recent, the more detail clouds stuff. It seems like ages ago that the first Survivor came out. In a few centuries, they won't even know that the X-files came before reality tv. It'll just be  - Oh, yeah, turn of the 21st century tv, right? And that would be considered accurate.

So where am I going? Fact is, over many centuries, so many details have happened, that to keep track of it is lunacy. We lose the details as they fade into times past, and we forget that they were there. So if you think how many moments there have been, and you say that every single one of them was different from the next, things have stayed surprisingly recognisable over a few thousand years, haven't they?

Spring still happens, for instance. I like that about it. Change is constant, yeah, but at least it's constant. Something must be Constant