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Friday, October 30, 2015

Cross-promotion for a friend: film reviews

Hey guys!

One of my friends from uni is about to embark on an epic reviewing-spree of his top 250 movies. He's put together a trailer on YouTube and is planning to review 25 movies a day for 10 days in December. This guy loves his films and is a bit crazy, so please check out the trailer and keep an eye on his blog in December.


It's a pretty awesome trailer--like, I'm seriously impressed and super excited for him to be doing this. You can find my friend at Not A Sexy Vampire. He's already put in a lot of work getting a head-start on writing those reviews, so a few extra readers come December would mean the world to him.

How are you all doing?

Bonnee.

Monday, October 19, 2015

Freedom!

I handed in my final assignment of my undergraduate degree on Thursday night last week. It was a weird kind of feeling to hit that little submit button and know that was it, even though I'd hit that button so many times in the past three years. In all honestly, I just wanted to hurry up and get to bed, because I had to be up early the next morning and it was nearly midnight when I submitted the essay. It didn't really hit me that it was all done until I finished work the next day.

So what to do from here? I've been obsessively checking the uni site to see if any of my final assessment pieces for any of my subjects have been marked yet. So far, no. I must be patient. I read a small poetry collection before I got out of bed on Saturday morning, From Grapefruit to Grape. It's a collection of poetry by Matthew Rocca, who was a Deakin writing student years ago. He wrote the poetry while he was battling cancer and his sister helped him put the collection together. I managed to find a copy in the library at uni where I work. I finished reading A Storm of Swords part 1 on Sunday. The friend who bought the A Song of Ice and Fire books for me was pretty happy to hear that. It has been two years since he convinced our group of friends to pitch in some cash and buy it for my birthday, as he reminded me. I will try to get at least A Storm of Swords part 2 out of the way before summer's end. But I have other things to read too and I'm not very good and sitting down and demolishing a series one book after the other. I need to take a break and read something else in between. I'm just one of those people, I guess.

And in the next week or two, I'd like to have finished writing and have submitted my application for Honours next year. I have my heart set on doing a thesis on the representation of disability in Avatar: The Last Airbender and Avatar: The Legend of Korra, even though I have the option to do a creative writing thesis instead, as a creative writing major. I didn't do a literature major, but from what the course coordinator said at the info session we went to, it shouldn't matter as long as I've done some literature units; I've got a minor sequence in children's literature, and she said that should be fine as long as I've got good grades. Hopefully she goes through with her word and approves it. But this is really exciting to think about!

So the next few months will consist of me reading, writing, working, and possibly getting a head-start on some of my Honours research materials! I am EXCITED and I can't wait to read what everyone else has been doing with themselves now that I have time to visit your blogs again.

- Bonnee.

Saturday, October 3, 2015

The End.

It's been nearly five months since I last posted something here. Admittedly, I'm a little disappointed with myself, although I know I shouldn't be. I've had a lot going on this year.

As well as being a full-time uni student in the final year of my undergraduate adventure, I was one of four editors producing Verandah, Deakin's annual literary journal. It was an amazing success, if I do say so myself. The launch was back in August. Wow, that was ages ago. It feels like it was last week. As editor-in-chief of the student magazine, I've also produced five editions of WORDLY, and continued to run the Deakin Writers Club which produces it.

All the while, I've continued working my jobs at the Library so that I can pay rent and bills. And save up for a new car. Because I crashed my car and they decided it was too old to be worth repairing, so they sent it to the wreckers. That was at the end of semester 1. It was like the crescendo, after which things finally calmed down, but they couldn't calm down until that happened. Semester 1 was rough with all of the commitments piling on top of each other, my boyfriend moving interstate for an internship at the end of the semester, and a bunch of personal stuff that I'm not going to go into here except to say that I was not in a good head-space for a long time there.

I hit rock bottom that day when I crashed; it really hadn't been a good day and I'm just glad no one was hurt, even if I lost my car. This second half of the year has been a hell of a lot better. I've still had my bad days. I've had some really fucking bad days. But even on my bad days, I know the feelings will pass, I'll move forward, I'll keep feeling better. I've got friends who will help me through anything and I know that it's okay to call the day off and let myself take a break when I need one without feeling endlessly guilty. This year was the first time I'd ever asked for an extension for an assignment. I haven't gotten as many this semester as I did in semester 1, but it's been good to know that the option to get a little extra time is there and that my teachers are, for the most part, understanding and compassionate people.

I still haven't gotten back into the swing of writing, but I think it's safe to say I'm past the major writers block that had me in its clutches earlier in the year. I'm planning to do NaNoWriMo next month. I'm finishing the major creative assignment I have for one of my subjects at uni, which is due this coming Friday. I'm preparing my Honours application, which I'll hopefully have submitting within the next fortnight. I've finished all my undergraduate classes and now I just have assignments to go and that's both exciting and terrifying and I'm happy with everything I have achieved despite the shitty year, but I'm also really sad to be leaving. I have a few close friends doing Honours with me, but there'll be people missing here and there. It won't be the same. But we're all going to be amazing.

So I'm not really sure what I wanted to tell you guys with this blog post other than justify why I hadn't been around for a few months and apologise and promise that I'll be back around again soon, although probably not as frequently as I used to be. But definitely more frequent than every five months! I'll be visiting the people I usually follow on their blogs soon, so if that's you, expect a comment from me in the next few weeks when I've finished drowning in assignments and can officially say that I'm free.

Lots of love (I have sincerely missed blogging and the people of the blogosphere).
Bonnee.