Trying To Reach My Happy Place

It doesn’t seem to be working too well at the moment.

All I want is to go to my happy place. A little place in my mind where everything is calm and quiet. A place where I can find clarity in the mess that I call my brain.

I try to drown out the TV. The screaming one year old. The all around chatter that is from the people in my household.

I put on my headphones and search for a song. Any song. Just one song that I can listen to that will drown out all of that mess.

First song. Not helping. I turn the volume up. Nope, didn’t help. I can still hear it all.

I need to get to my happy place. I need to reach it.

Next song, was a waste since it was mostly noise anyway.

I still hear the mess. I still feel like I am going insane. I turn the volume up four notches. Please get me to my happy place.

I found a song. Still isn’t loud enough though. I turn it up another five notches. The music is pounding on my eardrums. I close my eyes and press the headphones harder against my ears. I will reach my happy place.

I am venturing into this world of mine where I am free. I have no responsibilities. I have no worries. All I hear is my song. The song that is aiding me on my quest to find my happy place. It doesn’t matter if the volume is too loud. I like it loud.

Each note that hits my ears is a pleasure. I can breathe. I am reaching that grassy field in the sun and I am reaching clarity. I need to reach my happy place.

I can feel the sun. I just need to go a little further. I don’t care how much the volume hurts I just want everything to go away. I just want to be in my happy place.

No more tears. No more yells. No more fits. No more anything. JUST PEACE!

I sit and endure the pain until I reach my happy place.

Ahh, Swedish Films

La Film Festival Recap – Day 4: Last Day

Day 4 – Theatre shift at the Billy Wilder Theatre – Film: You, The Living

So the day had it’s fair share of hits and misses on my way to the film festival. I left early so I can go to work to pick up my check so I could cash it. Only to realize that I had left my bus schedule on the dining room table. Luckily my sister would meet me on the bus to give it to me.

Like the past couple of days before I had arrived in Westwood a couple of hours early. This time I couldn’t stop at The Corner Bakery Café. I had to scout for an easy location my grandfather could pick my up from. Soon, I remember parking lot 36 from the Kodak Speed Dating day. I told him where to pick me up and I decided to check out the local art exhibit that was ending that week.

The exhibit was on Shinjo Ito’s work. It had all of his sculptures, photographs and other works. It was a free exhibit and when I walked in they gave me a free gift. It was kind of warm inside but the work was very lovely. They had this book were guests could sign their name, draw or write a message. I wrote a small message and took advantage of the other colors that were available and drew a little smiley face.

I still had some time before I had to go start my shift over at the Billy Wilder Theatre. So I went to this local Italian Ice Cream shop. I got a cup of Tiramisu flavored gelato. It was amazing to feel the cold slide down my throat. I was instantly chilled and I decided to read up on the other facts that were on other ice creams from the flyer in front of me. I also decided to see what my gift was that I had got at the art exhibit. It was a pendent like thing. It had a star, two circles and a white piece with Shinjo Ito’s signature on it. It really is quite lovely and I have it on my work badge now.

Once I finished my treat I decided to walk around the now busy Westwood. It was definitely different than what I had initially experienced the day before. It wasn’t quite as pleasant. With all the honking and stuff it took away from the quaintness of it all.

Before I knew it, it was time to go start my shift. I arrive and wait for a bit before my shift manager, Danielle, arrives. Only one other scheduled volunteer showed up. It wasn’t very long before two more showed up that were sent from other locations. We helped manage the lines and this time my job duty was to pass out the voting ballot to the people.

What I liked about this last shift was that I actually got to watch the film itself. It is pretty random but I found myself laughing and I was glad that I got to watch at least one film from the festival.

After the film let out I helped collect and count the tickets and ballots. I had to stay a little bit over my time because well, only one person from the next shift showed up and there was no one else to cover for me. Once someone showed up I was allowed to leave and not too long after that I met up with my grandfather.

So ends my LA Film Fest adventure. I am sure I will be volunteering again next year. It was a very pleasant experience and I liked meeting all the new people I came across. Thank you all for reading. ☺

So I Waited…

LA Film Festival Recap – Day 3

Day 3 – Shift at the Volunteer Booth at the corner of Kinross and Broxton

It was another early day to start at the festival. So naturally I was in Westwood entirely too early like the day before. Only since, I have discovered the Corner Bakery I had some place to rest and have a nice breakfast. The only problem was I now had an extra half hour and since I was done with my food I decided to take a stroll around Westwood in this early hour.

The shops were starting to open and the way the sunlight hit the windows reminded me of some place I was in a dream I had in the distant path. It felt peaceful; it was like I was walking somewhere close to home. I was alone but not really alone. People were around me but I was alone in my thoughts.

One thought was, “I would like to live here one day.” It really was that lovely. As busy as Westwood is, in the morning it feels like a small town in the middle of nowhere. Everyone is pleasant and the shops are quaint. I realized that I had walked entirely too fast and I still had some time before my shift was to start. So another stroll around the block it was. Once I found it to be early enough to head over to the booth I found that no one was there yet. The booth was completely closed.

I sit on a near by bench and I read a festival guide that someone has left behind. Once I had read that through I just sat there waiting. I waited, and waited and waited. My shift was supposed to start at 9:30AM but no one was there. I got tired of sitting so I went to stand by the booth hoping that someone would arrive.

It was just after 10AM when Nancy and Tracy finally showed up. They apologized for being late. Soon after that I had to follow Nancy back to the office to help her bring back some things to the booth. On the way there she asked me how I was enjoying the festival so far. I told her I really enjoyed the theatre shift but when it came to the Kodak Speed Dating I didn’t like that as much. The look and her face was that of an “Uh Oh..” she said “Well, you may have to go there again today. They are short on volunteers.” I screamed in my mind. I begged and pleaded with her hoping that my vibrations would some how reach her and change her mind about sending me back to the dreaded Kodak Speed Dating.

Once we finished with the office stuff we had to walk back to the now dreaded Target Red Room. Once we were inside we were informed that I was no longer needed. I am not sorry to say that I let out a huge sigh of relief. Soon I was back at the volunteer booth getting the rundown of how things were done there. From then on I mostly just sat and looked at the festival guide and answered questions for people.

I only got to leave the booth twice. The first time was to go to the office to pick up some more badges for the booth. The second time I was to help out on transportation pick up. I soon met my companion for the ride, Anderson. We were driving to LAX to pick up a filmmaker. He is originally from England and he was quite amusing. I learned that he was an acting couch that specializes in children. The song “No Air” by Jordin Sparks came on the radio. Anderson commented, “This song was nice the first thousand times I have heard it.” and I responded, “Funny, I’ve never heard it before.” He looked very surprised. He then said “It has been playing non-stop since it hit the radio. I swear every other song they play it.”

Soon we reached LAX but we arrived at the wrong terminal. Once we found the correct terminal it felt like a wild goose hunt trying to find Virgin America’s arrival board. When I finally reached it I saw that the filmmakers flight had been delayed. With a quick phone call to Anderson he told me to then wait by the doors where the passengers would be walking out. It was 1:17PM and I really had to use the bathroom so I ran to use the bathroom all the while praying that I hadn’t missed the filmmaker.

I then stood by the doors for over a half hour before the filmmaker arrived. He was very friendly and he apologized for having me wait for so long. We then took him to his hotel and Anderson dropped me off at the ticket office and we said our goodbyes. And so that ends my third day at the festival!

I Thought This Was Speed Dating…

LA Film Festival Recap – Day 2

Day 2 – Kodak Speed Dating in the Target Red Room

That day was started off on an early note. I had to arise at 4 AM to get ready to leave around 5:27 AM with my mother. My shift for the festival starts at 9 AM and to even make it there on time I would have to leave a few hours before hand. I would end up arriving to my destination two hours early.

Great you say? No. Horrible I say! Have you been in Westwood at 7 AM? There is absolutely nothing to do that early! But, luckily for me I discovered The Corner Bakery Café. It was a delightful little escape to sit down and wait for my shift to start. I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry that day. So, I just ordered some orange juice and an orange cranberry scone. I was served fairly quick and I decided to sit at a table outside. It was much cooler this particular morning and the cool air was refreshing. I opened my little baggy and to my surprise my scone was actually warm.


This was a great start of a day for me. Now why is a warm scone a great start? Well, it’s those little things that just warm you up. Hence, the warm scone, I have become accustomed to stale or just cold scones that I forgot what joy a warm bakery good could bring. Needless to say it was delicious and I had planned on returning for lunch before I went home.

I went in 15 minutes early like I was instructed to. Only, there really wasn’t anything for me to do. There was only one other volunteer there as well. She was already busy straightening things up and I was pretty much obsolete at that point. So, I found some post cards to straighten up that took up a total of 5 seconds. The other volunteer’s name was Roxanne and she was a delightful lady. We spoke about our experience at the festival so far and such. I learned that she is a resident of Westwood and she seemed pretty proud of her city. It was nice to see someone take the time to do what he or she can for his or her city. She told me about this art exhibit that was across the street. You’ll hear more about that in a later post.

Soon our shift manager, Molly, arrives. I get assigned parking duty. I took a stand, sign and an envelope full of parking passes to parking lot 36. My job required me to stand by the sign and wait for ten film executives to arrive so I could give them their parking passes and to answer any questions that they would have about the festival. Note that the time I started that job was 9:40 AM.

9:45AM – The sign fell due to the breeze and I pick it up.

9:48AM – Two executives arrive and I give them their passes.

9:52AM – The sign falls again.

10:00AM – Staring off into the distance and UCLA students flash me their parking permits.

10:02AM – Sign falls again. I move sign from original spot to another spot without a breeze.

10:10AM – More UCLA Students and one person asking about the police department parking lot.

10:15AM – Another film executive shows up.

10:17AM – I stop the sign from falling again

10:20AM – I get a call from Seth from the Volunteer booth informing me of the next day’s shift.

10:22AM – Again, I stop the sign from falling and I move it once more.

10:35AM – Another film executive arrives.

10:40AM – The last film executive arrives.

10:41 – 11AM – I fight with the sign and I get a call from Jane to come back to the Target Red Room. FREEDOM!

I walk back to the Red Room expecting there to be a lot of stuff happening. I imagined they would have me doing a lot of little activities and such. No, I arrive and my next job required me to stand around until Jane gave out the two-minute warning. Which, I would then hold two fingers up and walk to all the ten tables and inform the people they have two minutes to finish their conversations. Can you say it any clearer? B-O-R-I-N-G!

So, to all of you in the dark, The Kodak Speed Dating event was 10 film executives talking to 10 filmmakers about their films and such. Basically they were all pitching their films. Which was sort of interesting if it weren’t for the fact that if one of them got the slightest hint that you were listening they would start to get paranoid. One thing that I learned was whenever the day should come for me to pitch a script I need to be confident. I loved how they were all pretty relaxed and looked as if they were just having a normal conversation with the executives. The day I worked on was Documentary day. So. It was all documentary filmmakers in the room.

Once that was all finished I got my second movie voucher and I was allowed to leave. As I promised myself I went back to the Corner Bakery Café and got my lunch and then headed home.

End of day 2!

Long Awaited...

that photo does her no justice. you had to see her in person
LA Film Festival recap – Day 1

Hello there everyone. Some people have been asking me to write my post about my little experience volunteering for the LA Film Fest. Well here it is folks!!! It will be split though. Enjoy. :D

Day 1 – Theatre Shift at the Landmark Theatre – Film: Poker House

The day started out as good as it could be I guess. I catch all my busses on time and I get to my location an hour earlier. I am happy to be there so early when I realize that the next location that I have to go to pick up my volunteer shirt and badge is well over a mile away. The clock is set at 2pm and running. Destination: the corner of Broxton and Kinross. Time limit is to be one hour to and back. I start walking from the corner of Pico and Westwood.

I am heading down Westwood. As I am unsure if I am heading in the right direction I called my Aunt Linda to give me some directions. Turns out I am heading in the right direction. I walk for what seems likes forever. I walk uphill and I walk across long crosswalks. I walk past slow walkers and bypass kids selling candy. I finally make it to my destination. I check the time, 2:43pm; there is no way I am going to make it back to the Landmark by 3pm.

I pick up my t-shirt and my badge. Then next thing I know I have to get my photo taken. Great, I am sweaty, read and hot and now I have to take a photo. I write my first and last name in large print on a blue paper and stand in the sun a smirk for the camera. I see that one of the volunteer managers, Shelly to be precise, is also at the booth. So, I say to her “Shelly, I just wanted to let you know I am going to be late for my shift at the Landmark. I had to walk from there to here to get my shirt and my badge.” Her eyes widen and she responds “You walked from the landmark to here?” and I say, “Yes.” She soon puts stars next to my name as a reward for my effort and she informs me that she will call ahead and let the people know I would be late.

I start my journey back to the landmark. I see a Big Blue Bus and I decided to ask if they stopped at Pico. Which they did, so I paid my 75 cents and put on my shirt and badge. I am cooled and relieved that I will not be late like I had originally thought. I reach my stop and off the bus I go.

I walk into the theatre and I ask an associate if he could please inform me the location of John Olivas or Kent, my shift managers. He says, “I don’t know who they are. You should go to concierge maybe they could walkie them” I walk over to the concierge and the guy there tells me, “I have no idea where those guys are. They are around here some where.” Gee, thanks.. Ass.. So I wander around to the third floor where I meet up with Kent. There is only one other volunteer there, Sarah is her name, and he tells me to relax and wait for the others to arrive. He gives me a bottle of water and I sit on the nice little cushioned bench.

Not too much longer Sarah sits down beside me and we start chatting about films and such. She is quite a lovely woman. She is very friendly and funny. Soon the other volunteers arrive and we get assigned our jobs. I am to be the ticket taker for this event. As we wait in our positions I see the lovely Lori Petty walk out of the theatre. She directed the film, Poker House, and she had just gone over some technical stuff. She passes by me and says hello. I say hello back and I was surprised at how calm I was. I was pretty proud of my composure.

People start arriving and I take their tickets. There is nothing too exciting to report on there, sorry. The film starts and then Lori comes out visibly upset because the screen has gone black. The tech people are scurrying to fix the problem. I would love to say that was the end of it but sadly, the film went black two more times. Lori is very upset, as she should be. The theatre is sold out and they are sitting in there watching a black screen.

What people don’t realize or would call a hissy fit from directors is that their films are their babies. All the work they put in to making, producing, editing and everything else that comes along with it is a lot of hard work. It has to become their baby and for your film to keep stopping and blacking out like that. Well, it is pretty bad. So what some people would consider a bad thing I saw as understandable. I would have done the same thing as Lori.

Back to the day; well, after they finally got the film to play we counted the tickets and we were told to take a break. After a quick walk around the mall we arrive to see the next shift of volunteers arrive and John decides to let us off early. So ends my volunteer shift of day one!

All in all it was pretty eventful and I got to meet some great people.

Memories

The things that you would like to forget always find a way of popping up.

I was sitting at the bus stop today and as I was staring off into the distance a thought came to me that I hadn’t wanted to think about. The thought was one of the many images of my grandmother lying in her hospital bed dying. Even now the thought makes me want to cry.

I try so hard to remember my grandmother the way she used to be. I have no idea if it is because these are the most recent or what but the thoughts that I don’t want of her seem to make themselves present all the more.

The things I see are like this:

It is a cold and dark hospital room. My grandmother is lying there struggling to breathe. She has one of those air tubes in her nose and at times when her breathing was really bad they would put an oxygen mask on her. She is surrounded by all of her children. Her four daughters and her only son. There right by her side is my grandfather. There are so many people that all the chairs have been taken. My sisters and myself sit on the floor. I hate how I remember this. I hate how I saw her try so hard to live only for her to die. I hated seeing her scared. If she was scared then how will I be when my time comes?

I know everyone has his or her time but I just fear the unknown of it all. This year was rough enough as it is and the fact that these thoughts keep coming back to my mind angers me more. I want to remember the times she was happy. I want to remember her loud and contagious laugh. I want to be able to hear her walking down the hall again. The simplest childhood memories are starting to fade. I fear that I will not remember all of those things that made my grandmother who she was. That thought saddens me because I know those childhood memories would be an immense comfort to me.

I guess one thing that I want the most is to know if she was proud of me. I was never really home that much because I was either at school of at work. I’d like to thing she was proud of me. I was the first grandchild to graduate college. Would she be proud of me now? Who knows? The time has come to end this and prepare myself for work. Another three days of standing and scanning.

**Note** this was written on Friday in my notebook.

Upcoming Events

An update

Hello to you all, I have finally set aside some time for myself to write a proper update. How exciting ehh?

As I have mentioned before I was waiting for my volunteer schedule for the Los Angeles Film Festival. I had received my schedule on the 10th. I will be working at the festival June 23rd – June 26th.

My first day will be a theatre shift. What is a theatre shift? Well, basically my job duties will be to help manage the lines, take tickets and ushering. I will be at the Landmark 8 theatre at 3 pm – 6:15 pm. I actually don’t know what film I will be helping to be shown but I am sure it will be a good one.

My second day I will be working in the Target Red Room. I am not sure what my job duties will entail but it has something to do with the Kodak Speed Dating. No I will not be a participant. I will be helping in some way. I think it is more of a networking type of thing rather than actual dating. If I remember how they described it at the volunteer meeting correctly. We shall see what it is when I work it. The time I will be there is 9 am – 1 pm.

My third day will consist of helping in the volunteer booth. I will be handing out t-shirts and badges to other volunteers and give general information to the public. Shift will be at 9:30am – 2:30 pm.

Last and certainly not least will be another theatre shift. It will be at the Billy Wilder Theatre from 3 pm – 7 pm. Again no idea what film will be shown so… Yeah… Haha.

So during that week and a couple of weeks after that my aunt will have her kids in Sacramento. So I will not be baby-sitting for a while. I have no idea what I will do but I hope it to be productive. One thing is for sure, I will be regaining back a lot of sleep that I have lost. No I won’t be sleeping in until noon. The latest will be 10 am to 10:30am. Any later and I feel I am sleeping the day away. I am not a fan of that.

I think another thing that will be done will be some more writing. Whether it is from my on going story or a new story all together. I think that alone time is out because well, my other cousins will be out of school for the summer and therefore I will have no alone time.

Another thing that is coming up is my 22nd birthday. I really don’t know what I am going to do for my birthday. I never know what to day actually. The sad thing is that I would like to do something but… I just don’t know what to do. Such a pain. I don’t drink or go out to clubs. So, what else is there for me to do? Hmmm… Well, that is all that I coming up for me. Have a good one!