I’d love somewhere smaller with carpets and solid walls painted twenty years ago in some inconceivable colour (as in, how could they have possibly thought that attractive?) and no need for stairs (unless it were a terrace, in which case stairs are permissible) and with no space for computers (I’d have to sell this thing and get a laptop instead) but room enough for one big desk — not in my room so I couldn’t put random existing-paraphenalia upon it (deodorant cans, clothes, random paper, keys, wallet, cameras) or the chair beneath it. The desk would have room at the back for an assortment of books within ready reach, but not impeding upon the workspace. I suppose that would make it about 115cm (45 inches) deep… it must also be wide enough for a laptop at one end that I could comfortably push out of the way.

A sun room would be excellent. One of those things you find in flats that’s completely useless for pretty much everything, but for the storage of books at one end of and reading in. West-facing, preferably, so one could enjoy a book in the winter afternoon sun after the room has reached a comfortable temperature over the course of the day. I may regret that decision in summer, but there are always curtains (or rolling shades; not blinds, they are too clinical).

The bedroom would be small with a separate wardrobe (the wardrobe itself is merely the object of nostalgia), such that there remained fairly little space–on the walls, especially. I have never had time for cultivating character in one’s bedroom — it always appears messy but I cannot commit to placing anything upon the walls. I will place a calendar there, dutifully, every year… and then forget to turn the pages. At present I am enjoying Leunig — I suppose I could arbitarily turn months to look at the pictures, as it is not as though the thing gets very much use. I live in the room next door for organisation (yes, IT) though the handheld now resides in my bedroom — I intentionally have wireless disabled to keep it out. My room is a haven for chaotic reading, hurried — but immensely enjoyable — academic consumption. Why I fail to spend more time in there is a mystery, probably in some way related to mess of clothes and so forth. Partially a rug instead of carpet, which means the chair gets stuck. Partially the chair being on wheels instead of fixed. Partially the desk being covered in aforementioned items (can you have forementioned items, meaning items to be mentioned in the hypothetical future? I refuse to believe aforementioned/forementioned can be synonyms). The actual reason why is a mystery cloaked in my own propensity to sit here and blog instead of just sitting down and getting things done.

One day, you see, I’m going to quit this web gig and uninstall my five browsers (well, four of them) and MSN and feed reader and email client and remove my network card and then start paying the university $2 a month for dialup and not bother to renew my domain name and stop checking my Gmail account and just use my uni email address (which I will check using the web interface tool, and have “Sent using Horde/IMP” appended to all my outgoing messages). Then, I’ll get rid of the mobile, and possibly my desktop computer. I’ll sit quietly reading books, papers, essays, and maybe even write something useful after a while.

Then I’ll discover that all I have done is transfer my focus, when I find myself growling at ridiculous ideas and writing angry letters, beaming hugely at characterful irregularities in works consistent with that in others and beginning to take advantage of the postal service. Then, the extent of the problem will be truly known, when even the humanities remain distinctly inhuman and detached.

Can’t I get anything right?

The grain wasn’t really a problem anyway, because most of the vision was intentionally grungy/the input was only a seed for further digital genesis, so that was cool. I’ve got to get the composite input for this computer working before I do another one of these things or get a real capture card, though, because it’s a pain having only one camera. Usually I’d flick it around to a light source bright enough that everything would flare out and then repo, or switch to a heavily distorted effect, or slide my finger over it (it’s a webcam, okay?) to black. The vision mixer didn’t get a workout because I couldn’t get TV-out working properly in time (mostly because effecTV’s fullscreen mode did weird things to sync on composite outputs, but hey, VGA worked).

I’ve really got to learn how to use PureData before next time, too. It looks so incredibly powerful, wow. I don’t understand where it outputs sources/runs, though. Looks great for routing and filtering stuff to the hilt, but where that all ends up is beyond me! Again, hopefully before next time.

It just occurred to me that pretty much every camera with IEEE1394 on the planet can be used as a V4L source. D’oh. Maybe I should finally buy a real camera instead of some boring capture hardware. Capture hardware doesn’t NEED to be boring, if you’re in a Windows environment and need a device that does real-time effects… but I’m not $2500 enthusiastic about all this just yet. And probably won’t be until it starts to have some abstract kind of earning potential… which I’m pretty okay without, but nevertheless, it’s difficult to justify that going into a hole of depreciation.

So… for next time, more cameras mixed (with vision mixer) into capture device, more cameras using FireWire, more effects custom-designed using PureData, and digital vision mixing with FreeJ. I’m happy with VGA output because you’re pushing native resolution to the projector that way. I’m also not too concerned about PC resources/performance. Tonight I’d say it was online for 3.5 hours without a glitch (with the exception of a kick-out 10 minutes in, and I was still partially setting up and wasn’t particularly in the middle of anything), running from a USB source. There used to be a time when that would just not have been possible with consumer gear (the camera cost about $90–110, which means it’s a rather-decent webcam. Probably, at this stage, one of the more expensive components of my setup!)

Oh, and I didn’t get to record any of the performance, sorry. Gem recorded another person’s performance for me earlier in the evening, but I’m too tired to share that right now… probably tomorrow, before Selo comes to my house and kicks my dog… err I mean camera’s SD card memory. I gotta do it before this month ends, because I’m now hilariously over quota. It’s got to be all because uploads count, seriously! I’ve been doing nearly 1GB a month to Flickr alone. Anyway. Stopping rambling and starting sleeping.

I just filled out my 2005 tax return on Linux, before getting to the final step and discovering it wouldn’t print nor submit electronically (because, apparently, they can’t code and are dependent on Internet Explorer as a connectivity layer — and yet they test for security before allowing you to download the program! Hah!)… but it would save just fine, so I copied my tax file across the network to a Windows computer (resenting all the while having to leave my chair, because I really shouldn’t have had to even leave my browser — In this instance Firefox — if they’d done this properly) and imported, printed, and submitted it electronically without any significant problems.

Note that you can’t import a file from anywhere — you need to actually copy the file into the e-tax folder itself (probably C:\etax2005) before e-tax will let you startup without creating a new file. You’ve also got to enter your TFN again (presumably as a meagre form of security) to get it to open the file.

It annoys me that they don’t even support Mac users natively, instead saying that it will function, if “suitable Windows Emulator software” is installed. That’s so presumptuous I was tempted to fill in the section asking for costs incurred in filing the tax invoice, listing three licences for Windows XP purchased earlier this year (not really, but it’d be a nice revenge :)).

Okay, rant over.

Having said that, however, MPlayer did manage to decode the first 25 frames of (strangely enough) the higher resolution (1920x1080) video. If I had to give a reason for the image appearing to have bled, I’d say it’s because the application was failing to decode each frame in realtime, although I’m sure there are far more plausible explanations out there (like, oh, let’s see — the application doesn’t officially even support H.264 at all in that version?). You can click on the image below to see a ratings advisory screen in truely mean detail, even if it has bled a bit. And been compressed a bit. Okay, so it’s not really that great — but the resolution!

No, the real and present danger at this point is that I will waltz across the room (or, you know, spin my chair around and move two metres or so) to an otherwise-perfectly-okay Pentium 3 running Windows XP, and try installing Quicktime 7 to playback the same file. Actually, I’d be perfectly happy if it could adequately playback the 852x480 version, I think.

But then, it’s Batman, and I don’t think I could actually care that much…

Imprisoned.

Imprisoned.
The grey walls surround me. A shaft of light falls – at this moment – towards the door of my cell, the beam emanating from a narrow hole in the ceiling.
I sit against the door, in this ray of warmth which pierces the cold concrete surrounds, and begin to drift towards sleep; the first for days.

A field.
My son is running, in the golden expanse. He chases after the dog, yelling as it barks. I smile, and lean back into my chair on the verandah. Turning left, I see my wife sleeping peacefully.

Awake.
Cold has returned, the sun has taken its gift of warmth. I move to the bed and sit – the wall does not change, yet I continue to stare at it, as though it may do so at any moment.
Hours later, my eyes close. Screaming pierces the cell.

Home.
It is dinner. My wife and child sit at the table, near a fireplace. I hear the rain outside, beating against the windows hidden behind curtains. I leave the room to fetch a drink – the house is cold, apart from that room, and so I close the door behind me as I leave.

Awake.
My screaming has stopped. I don’t understand why it began. The wall is still the same.

Home.
Water flows into the first glass, into the second. The flow shudders as I fill the third, but runs still. It is dark in the kitchen by now – illuminated only by light of the storm beating outside. I did not bother with the light as I entered, and do not consider it as I leave the room.

Still.
I observe the wall still, tracing the imperfections of the slab over with my eyes. The lines blur, fading to be imperceptible against the endless grey expanse of the cell. Again, dreams come.

Home.
Carrying drinks, I leave the kitchen, walking in the cold expanse between rooms. My feet sound against the storm, softly on carpet.
The door. I swing it open, anticipating warmth, light, noise. Cold, dark, still.

Open.
My dream stops. I am awake again, my eyes open, my body upright (as it was when I slept). The room is no longer so dark – a diffuse light fills it from outside. Morning has come. Seeing nothing else, I close my eyes again, opening them to the dream.

Doorway.
I stand at the entrance to the room, as though it were a sheer precipice. The fire has been extinguished, curtains blown open by the wind coming through gaping windows. Wind tears around the room, displacing objects.
My wife and the boy cannot be seen.

Light.
Again, I awake. The sun creeps towards the point at which light enters my cell directly – its azimuth, for me. Not quite. Sleep comes upon me once more.

Entry.
I enter the room. Placing glasses upon the table, I walk around the room. Both seats, empty. The fireplace bears not even embers – it is cold, the charred wood as dry and ashes undisturbed as though it were the end of a long summer.
Frantic, I yell from the window. A noise from behind me. I turn, to observe nothing but two of the glasses fallen, blown horizontal by the wind.

Their water runs red.

Windows slam and lock fast behind me, and as I turn, they harden, darken, becoming opaque before my eyes.

Once more, I turn. My cell forms before me.

Cell.
The beam has arrived – I feel it, now attuned to the room and its changes. My eyes open – the wall which once had borne the entrance has changed.

I walk through the now-empty space, to observe the sun glowing golden against a field.

Leaping from the verandah, I chase my son, shouting, running, across the golden expanse.

Actually, a few more than the usual suspects — we were joined by Katyana, which was cool, and Sam also came to the party… it was like one big crazy family reunion! Our mission, should we choose to accept it, was to stop ourselves from laughing too hard before the production commenced. You have no idea how hard a task that is.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen scaffolding erected in such a manner, nor do I ever wish to again; it was good for a laugh once, maybe twice, but it’s all fun and games until a structurally-unsound-metal-thing-holding-up-little-people-comes-crashing-to-the-ground when the GAFFERS TAPE which is all that is holding it together comes unfastened. I jest not. The scaffolding has different length struts designed to hold it securely together, but apparently it was too much trouble for certain people in the employ of SACS to find appropriate struts. I’ll leave it there. Actually, no, I won’t, because it’s just too damn hilarious. To make matters better/worse/more amusing, the kid operating the spot didn’t actually have a chair, and was sitting on the edge of this scaffolding supported solely be Gaffer’s tape. I’m glad he wasn’t heavy, but at the same time, a morbid, evil, twisted part of me kept wishing that halfway through the performance there would come a scream and clattering sound from the back of the room as this precariously constructed.… thing… collapsed.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about the title of this post, that’d be because this “White Shark” was invariably lit with a spot with a beam perhaps 1m at best, with a red gel frame HELD up to the light emitted from the spot. Why couldn’t they extend their hire budget far enough to get a nice-ish Selecon 2.5k spot?! That’s like… $77 day rate from Lots Of Watts, which works out to be $154 for three days (don’t ask about the maths, their pricing is a bit odd like that), not factoring whatever discounts the school can pull with them! Seriously, that’s only 30-odd donations… I have no idea what their numbers were like for all shows, but it’s perfectly manageable. That said, perhaps they should have just hired some damn fresnels at $20 each or however much they would be, instead of filling the FOH bar up with non-safety-chained chrome Par 64’s!!! CHROME!!!! *shudder*

*ahem*

Yeaaahhhhh… so that was fun. The plot was decent, but it was disappointingly lacking in finesse… I’m wondering if that’s because we were in the audience and didn’t see it improve across performances and rehearsals, or whether it was just lacking, full stop. Not that it really matters, seeing the show is over now… but still, it felt so much more like a “dodgy school production” than other things have. SACS seems big on that this year, what with their efforts so far; Showcase Concert, I’m glaring at you.

That finished, we escaped deftly before someone tried to conscript us to bump-out or something else equally stupid, and went our various ways. Ben and myself were forced into Katy’s car (hey, no complaints here!), Ben started making blonde driver comments, and then… and then Katy missed a turn, and we ended up heading over Glebe Bridge (or the Anzac Bridge or whatever it’s really called this week) by accident. Oops! Hehehe. A quick phone call and three minute drive later, Dale had three stragglers on his doorstep, randomly calling then dropping in at about 22:00 on a Saturday night.

Hey, I called first! Yeah. ’twas pretty cool. We took off about an hour later again, then drove randomly around, got invariably lost in the labyrinthine one-way streets of Rozelle/Balmain, before making it back via the city to miscellaneous places of residence. The magic had to stop some time ;)

And this is take two, as Mozilla crashed.  Actually, why am I typing this in Mozilla?  Konqueror has nice spell checking and stuff!  I’m normally pretty good, but a second opinion can’t hurt, now can it?  *switches browsers*

Ah, that’s better.  Haha, “Mozilla” is showing up in red text… no, we’re not anti-competitive ;)

Yay.  So, about… life.  Seminar presentation.  I’ve already bitched to half the world (so it seems… half my world, anyway… probably more!) about how poorly I thought it went, but hey, for the other part of my world (the purely-connected, non-“Met” half), I’m ranting here, too.  Feel free to ignore me if you think I just need to STFU and get over it.

Yeah.  This seminar was meant to go for ten minutes.  Mine went for fourteen.  I’ve never been great (read: utterly hopeless) at timing things, especially of this nature, and brevity has never been a strong point either (phonecalls should be billed in 30 minute blocks, not per 30 seconds!).  This, however, was appalling.  As I said, it went for fourteen.  That isn’t too bad, in and of itself…

Had I finished.  Knowing full well that my timing was probably way out, the seminar was prepared with designated “exit points”, for use in a scenario such as… oh, say, the one that occurred.  Essentially, there were premature conclusions which wouldn’t appear premature should I have to use them.

All that is based on the presumption that I actually DO think to use them… oh, yes, that old “thought” thing.  Evidently too much.  So I hit a break in presentation, and asked how long I had gone for: they said 14 minutes.  I thought I was perhaps just over 10, 12 at the most.  It shouldn’t have been panic inducing, but then, I’d just endured a pointless 30–45 seconds of DVD footage due to impossible cueing (my frog, the buttons on the front of those things are fiddly.  Give me a remote anyday.), and knew I needed to make up for that somehow.  I don’t know.  I basically forgot that nice conclusion which was glaring fiercely up at me from the sheet I held less than a meter from my face.

That, of course, isn’t the thing which annoys me most.  If my stupidity doesn’t affect the overall quality of content delivered, then that’d be no problem.  Unfortunately, without my use of an appropriate conclusion, the whole thing falls down somewhat.  The study of ONE appropriation, no matter how in-depth or well presented that may be, does not constitute “a range of” other contexts.

I looked over the presentation again, and I’ve estimated that were I to run the full length of my prepared content, it would have gone for approximately 25 minutes.  Damn, my timing sucks.  I say “prepared” content because I should have liked to go longer… perhaps I’m not a public speaker for a reason? ;)

Despite all that, I continue to agree with others who have described this assessment as one of, if not the most enjoyable assessment they’ve ever undertaken.

But it’s over.  So that probably means I should stop working on it, and focus on myriad other assessments building up, hey?;)

Oh, it’s not so bad.  A moderately huge business thing on Monday, which I’m a tad nervous about, an English listening task on Wednesday, which I could care less about, but not by much, and a Modern History essay which is due Thursday.  Then a week?  Maybe two?  I don’t know… until yearly exams.  Bleh!

And a certain Herr Goldrick is trying to convince me to do HSC stuff.  I’m uncertain why.  Apparently is shall “reassure” year 12.  More so than paid staff shall?  Bleh.  I don’t see why a certain person continues to be employed.  It’s funny, seeing he’ll be present for their rehearsals, and yet Goldrick is convinced that I need to be there because I was there for the trials.  Yes, well, certain others who shall be witnessing aforementioned rehearsals WEREN’T there for the trials, because they had better things to do with their time.

Grrr.

To go off on a complete tangent, my parents are going to New Zealand tomorrow evening.  (YAY!)  This’ll probably mean a several-hundred fold increase in productivity, for various reasons (namely that there is no pressure to “appear” to be doing work of any particular kind — time management CAN occur unheeded, thankyou very much).  The lovely LCD device is going with them, in the hope of attaining a tax break… I don’t know how all that stuff works, so I won’t speculate further…

That’s the last few days in a nut-shell.  Today was a write-off.  Absolutely.  Apparently Heath is upset about the en mass desertion of his school, but given that they’ve never had an established “Bring your school books and work in case it rains” policy, I don’t think he has any right to be.

I left it too late to escape, and subsequently lost a day which could have been spent tending to assessments.  St. Andrews Cathedral School embraces academic achievement and efficient time usage.  What a joke.  Six hours of absolute nothing.  Sure, we did work in physics, the one subject I’m adamant about dropping.  Wonderful.  Other subjects?  Oh, I’m sure I could have worked, had I come prepared with BOOKS.

I’d like to take this opportunity to extend my gratitude to the administration of the school for their astounding short-sightedness in dealing with this situation.  Duty-of-Care and truancy is one matter, actively refusing parental permission to release students so that they may possibly make some use of their day is quite another.

Apparently he is angry.  Well, so am I.  I value my time more than that.  I was looking forward to this carnival, but I can cope with it being cancelled — I’d like to be able to get work done in it’s place, though.

“Normal school day” was a fond catch-cry of administration.  I certainly hope you don’t consider that normal.  This isn’t like broadband, there is no such thing as a “fast churn” process between schools.  Not that I’d really consider moving, anyway — I do love SACS, despite all its capricious oddities.  This sort of thing does irritate, though.  Yes, the situation was unavoidable, but the response left much to be desired.

Hah, the male parental unit is a source of much amusement.  In the morning, whilst hopes of escape still dwelled in the echelons of the imagination, I called the parentals in hope of them calling and ensuring some means of ess-cap-ee.  He was in a meeting, but sent a TEXT message as a permission to leave.  You have no idea how hard I fought not to fall off my chair laughing.

“I give permission 4 josh 2 go home now that the carnival is cancelled”

No joke.  I haven’t laughed so hard because of a text message EVER!  Mrs. Earle found it just as amusing, hehehe.  That element of humour made the day lastable, methinks ;)

Anyway.  I’m off to compose an essay.  Or something.  Hooray for ridiculous SMS messages!

A note, for anyone who is looking to implement not-overly-documented dropdown menus — read your base source file in its entirety before even contemplating trying to implement. It was two lines. Two bloody lines of JavaScript which turned into a ~1 hour nightmare search — not to mention time which I haven’t counted, because it was hackish, not goal-oriented coding. Of course, the longer spent, the more it hurts to find out exactly what I’d missed.

  var ddmx = new DropDownMenuX('topnav');
  ddmx.init();

Those two lines. So much pain!

Oh, and just to clear up any confusion, the acronym which is the title of this news post ends in D, for “Document”. Not “dotcom” or anything stupid like that ;)

I want my cookie back :(  It’s kind of funny.  I type up stuff, and give up caring as soon as I type it.  I don’t really think that this is a great outlet, because I’m careful about what I type (publicly accessible websites are a little like that), but trying to make myself type what I’d lost requires concious effort.  More a reflection of my laziness than anything else, perhaps?  Ah well.

I’m combatting my laziness for a bit.

Three assessments happened today, most of which I was happy with.  Well, all of which I was happy with, at an individual level.  English, Business and a Cisco final exam.

English?  It was a group performance task, and we all performed pretty well, and had prepared… enough.  But the plot was somewhat lost in the space between our scripts and the audience.  Or so I think… Tori would have me believe otherwise, but hey.  I think we’ll do okay, so no major gripes there.

I’m not so happy about that assessment in general, though, due to the content of a certain other performance.  At risk of making it worse, I won’t elaborate here.  Bullying, or at least defamation, which of course passed undetected by the teacher for various reasons.  Somewhat angry about that one, in fact.  I’ll stop talking now.

Business was a report on Sydney Tower Restaurants, which I had done very little preparation for (save a quick Google the night before), for various reasons — I bothered to write a report scaffold on the bus on my way in to school this morning, though, which was mildly invaluable.  I’m happy with the assessment, although I didn’t get time to finish completely.  I used two booklets, and the last two pages are scrawled dot-point notes, because I realised I had a little too much to cover with five minutes to go ;)

The Cisco Semester 1 Final Exam, I managed to scrape in with a beautiful 73.9 — a pass is 70 — which was immensely cool.  I was meant to sit that one last Friday, but due to “preparing for English” (meaning, that is what I was doing, but it was highly unproductive… had fun drawing dyslexic flutterbyes, though) I didn’t.  Which, in retrospect, is almost definitely a Good Thing™ — I sat it this afternoon in the company of Year 12, who are infinitely more quiet than the year 11 cohort ever are ;)  Hehe, the funny thing is, they thought they were making too much noise.  You guys rock.

As promised to various people, my english script:

English script

Costume: School uniforms
Setting: SACS classroom
Time of day: Normal school times
Props + aids: Table, three chairs, paper + books, signs — “The Next Day”, “The Day Before Performance”, “Performance Day”

Kim:
Can we start, sir?

*teacher response*
Josh:
Hmm… so, what are we going to do for this thing?
K:
I dunno.
Tori:
Can we NOT do some dodgy love triangle soap opera?
K:
Just ’cause you’re insecure about your love life.
J:
How about we satirise the whole “school leadership” thing?
T:
Yeah… but would we get marked down for humour?
*Tori is stabbing table with pen mindlessly*
J:
What are the criteria?
*checks sheet*
It doesn’t say you can’t.
To Tori: What did the table ever do to you?
K:
To Tori: Could you please not? I’m trying to write!
T:
*Tori moves book onto lap, continues mindless stabbing*
Any better?
K:
*glares at Tori*
J:
To Kim: Hey, you should write shorthand.
To all: Hmm… but if we did the leadership thing, we’d have to make sure we didn’t attack anyone personally.
T:
Just because we say “school captain” doesn’t mean we mean OUR school captains!
J:
Yeah, okay.
*looks at Kim, who is writing constantly on her notepad*
Hey Kim, writing all this down?
K:
Most of it.
T:
Sooo… Do you think we can do this without being bitchy?
J:
Probably… not.
Oh! We could do a whole play where we are jealous of each others roles in the play!  Like, we think other people have better parts than ourselves… and stuff…
T:
THAT’S SO COOL!!! We could be all arty!
K:
What — just be ourselves and have monologues?
J:
Yeah, kinda.  It’d be about us writing this play– so crazily recursive stuff!
T:
It’d be cool…
*hesitates slightly*
…if we can get it to work.
J:
Yeah, it’d suck if we got up and everyone just gave us blank looks when we finished.
K:
But if we do it well — hey, this could work!

1st Monologue starts here.  T. stands, K. and J. freeze in background.  T. walks to front of performance area, and sits on a chair.

I don’t think this could work. It’s so complicated!  We barely understand it, how are we going to make other people get it?  We won’t do well if no-one understands what we’re going on about.  I wish I had their confidence. They’re so sure that it’s a good idea.  This all comes so easy for them.

T. walks back to K. and J., and sits down again.  She freezes, and then all unfreeze.  Dialog recommences.

T:
Yeah, okay.
*sounds enthusiastic, a slight edge to voice — passes un-noticed by K. and J., but clear to audience (i.e. follow-on from soliloquy)*
K:
We should probably finish up, Mr. Sandon wants us to pay attention.
J:
Kim, are you going to type up those notes?  We actually have a practical USE for them now!
K:
See, I knew we would!
T:
Cool.  Give us copies of the notes, okay?
K:
Sure, I’ll give you copies tomorrow.
All “exit“
The next day–in English.
Someone to hold up card, announcing this. (i.e. says “The Next Day”)
K:
Hey everybody, here’s the thing from yesterday
*distributes sheet with note written on*
*Tori stabs herself in the eye with a pen– okay, perhaps that wasn’t meant to be scripted*
J:
You have waay too much spare time!
*all read script for about 10–20 seconds*
T:
Hey, this is good.  Thanks for writing this up.
K:
Yeah, there were some good ideas in there

2nd Monologue starts here.  K. stands, T. and J. freeze in background.  K. walks to front of performance area, and sits on a chair.

Why does he always have the good ideas?
Wasn’t it my idea to write all this down anyway?

I can’t believe I’m getting jealous over ideas about jealousy.

I don’t want to admit it, but there are some great ideas in there that we should really look at using: like satirising the whole school leadership thing and being jealous of other peoples parts in a play.

I wish I could come up with ideas like that.

K. walks back to T. and J., and sits down again.  She freezes, and then all unfreeze.  Dialog recommences.
T:
So, we should probably start writing our script, hey?
K :
*somewhat grudgingly–not noticed by T or J, evident to audience*
Yeah, there are some good ideas we could use in there.
J:
Okay, let’s get to work.
All “exit”

Day before performance.
Someone to hold up card, announcing this. (i.e. says “The Day Before Performance.”)
T:
Did everyone practice their parts?
J:
*kind of reluctant* Yes…
K:
C’mon guys! I know we can make this work heaps well!! Show some enthusiasm. It’ll be heaps of fun!!

3rd and final Monologue starts here.  J. stands, K. and T. freeze in background.  J. walks to front of performance area, and sits on a chair.

*Looks at Kim* How can she be so… enthusiastic?

It’s kind of ironic, actually.  In preparing for a play about a play about jealousy, I wind up being all insecure about it… insecurity was meant to be an attribute behind jealousy, wasn’t it?  See, we don’t even understand what we’re meant to be performing!  Her confidence…

And Tori– she seemed a little reluctant at first, maybe I’m just paranoid about acceptance of ideas; but she is really good at just getting things done — I wish that I were able to do that.  She’s a good leader.

J. walks back to T. and K., and sits down again.  He freezes, and then all unfreeze.  Dialog recommences.
J:
So… umm… how about we practice our scripts again?
K:
Yeah, good idea!
All “exit“
Performance Day..
Someone to hold up card, announcing this. (i.e. says “Performance Day”)
K:
Can we start, sir?

*ALL FREEZE*

Characters:
K: secure/apparently confident in idea
J: exhibits an ability to come up with ideas + make good suggestions
T: down to earth, implements ideas properly, and seem to be leaders.

Jealousies:
T. Jealous of K. + J.:
Insecurity (don’t think idea will work — the audience already knows this one, it was the subject of the soliloquy in scene 1) about whether the idea will work, jealous of confidence of other characters
K. Jealous of J.
Jealous of ideas/ imagination — (to be soliloquy in scene 2).
J. Jealous of K. + T.
Jealous of ability to accept these ideas (i.e. the leadership of some character, convincing others of what to do, etc.)