Water Is The Key!

I'm on vacation this week for my friend, Kate's, 21st birthday in Las Vegas where, surprisingly, there is no shortage on water.

It's been raining all week and the various casino hallways, elevators and parking buildings are leaking. Narrow rivers and small lakes are overtaking the roads and pathways, and it's clear to me to forget the "wonders" of the Hoover Dam and all it's good intentions, if a hurricane was to decide to visit Las Vegas or if the effects of El Nino decided to roll dice for a little longer, Las Vegas folks would soon be swimming from slot machine to slot machine.

Kate keeps saying that she doesn't mind the rain, because it's such a unique perspective of Las Vegas. "How many people come here and actually see Las Vegas rainy?" And she's right, but being from Australia, and now living in cold and windy New York, I was sort of hoping for some mild, dry weather... some clear blue skies and maybe even a spot of sweat on the small of my back... No such luck. "Try spring," the locals say.

Ever since I arrived in America back in 2007, I had trouble waking up, and more so when I moved to New York City. It felt like I was waking from death and my dreams were so much more vivid that it almost felt like a battle to escape them, which has resulted in many late starts and many apologies. It's not like I was the best at waking up in Australia, but I never remember feeling like my mouth was about to break off or that my dreams were going to kill me.

It's been fairly much the same thing in Las Vegas. Kate wakes first and after an hour or so, with much effort, manages to call me out of bed, and I mumble and roll over and stare grumpily at the gray sky.

I was tired of this, emotionally and physically, and after I woke up to another gray sky after feeling just awful, I got sort of grumpy, which isn't a good way to start the day.

So last night, after Kate had already gone to bed, and I had finished the small amount of work which I let take all night to do, I grabbed the Fiji water bottle that we purchased during our 'walkabout' on Wednesday (Kate's birthday) and decided to take 21 gulps, with one extra for good luck (like clapping at birthday parties.) I ended up taking about 25 or so loud gulps and fell asleep with my mouth feeling so fresh and clean.

I also saw all these terrible road-safety advertisements in my head before I fell asleep. Australian road-safety ads are just awful, 1-3 minutes of people screaming and crying and graphic shots of blood and school children lying dead in the road... I'm sure the ad agency commissioned to create them, would be proud to know, that I was scarred for life.

I don't remember my dreams exactly, but I do know that weren't that terrifying but I do remember that one of them was intense enough to wake me up and I had to shake off the idea of it, because it was quite creepy.

Anyway, my two alarms went off, one at 7am and one at 8:25am and I was able to wake and stay awake before the second one went off... (yes, I know it's pathetic that I need two alarms more than an hour apart, but it's a process, ok?)

...and I felt pretty good. I was out of bed first - Kate was milliseconds behind me - and now I'm writing this. My mouth didn't hurt when I swallowed and my dreams were easy to tuck away and it's because of the age-old trick that I need to implement full-time; water.

Water and maybe a light, moist air. Things get really dry in apartment buildings, especially in winter when you need a heater and the windows are all closed. Maybe when I move into my own place, I'll try one out... but for now, we'll just keep using water - it's mostly free.

It reminds me of the episode of The Simpsons where Bart really wants to be the first down to the Christmas Tree and so fills up dozens of glasses of water and drinks them all down, he then proceeds to have this fabulous dream of ice and water and lots of fountains and wakes up before anyone else... he then proceeds to burn the tree down, BUT, at least he rose early, which I think is so important and admire, but have never been able to do.

I've also simply got to get more sleep, and letting work take four hours to do (because of being distracted by Taylor Swift vlogs and LisaNova and some cute little boy on X Factor that Kate wanted to show me), is just not a wise move. Sleep is so important and I want more of it... but I know that to achieve it I can't own a computer in my house... or at least have to lock it up, because it's just a slim silver box of destruction.

Anyway, Vegas is great. Didn't have my battery cord to charge my Nikon camera, so have taken lots of film shots and video and Flip... so it's going to mostly be grainy and weird and I miss not being able to take more shots of things, but it'll be interesting to be able to hold a memory for once.

Be good, don't gamble, and don't throw up next to people's tables and then keep walking,

Caitlin x

I Will Say, Two-Thousand And Ten

A commenter on my video told me that some grammar association says that twenty-ten is correct, but that just feels weird to me, so incorrectly I will say, two-thousand and ten, it just doesn't make sense to me to go back to 20th century style pronunciations of years.

One: Welcome back to another year of my thoughts, plans and dreams. I always appreciate your comments and reply every now and then by posting my own comments with an @ in front of your username, so check back if you ever have a question... I may not see any comments on old posts for a long time though.

Two: I have been posting daily to Tumblr as my last blog post (November 25th, oh my!) but have not managed to update my daily doings all the time. This is a working process. I do not intend for those days to be left blankly, and now that I have a very nice work station set up (my MacBook Pro and iMac sitting side by side, and an office that I always have access to post and be active with the "internets), I'm sure they wont remain blank for long.

The main problem with Tumblr is finding who to link to for the video. I uploaded a bunch of images and then deleted them off my computer and Tumblr eventually hides the file name of posts in their queues, so I don't have the right "props" for my latest posts. Most were found from Desire To Inspire, which has become one of my favourite blogs, which is nice to have a regularly visited blog.

Three: I've been posting videos fairly regularly and I feel fairly positive (more positive than before) that these videos will eventually turn into my plan for the long lost Response Videos of Yore. I'm enjoying the people who are watching and the comments and would be very happy if I was to keep that amount of people fairly happy from video to video.

Four: As for an update from the 25th, I sold a lot of my stuff on Craigslist (oh Seb, I can send you that stuff now - I'll DM you later) and Molly was very helpful with narrowing down my possessions and my whole office helped me move my stuff into my office while I stay with a friend.

I've been staying there for a month now (its nobody on YouTube) and its lovely. They treat me right and I must be sure to help out more, but I don't think I make a nuisance of myself, other than using electricity and water and using the occasional plate or their cutlery. I try to be clean and quiet and stay out of their way and its also made me spend more time and the office, which is good because I feel like lots of progress has been made and I'm just feeling more positive in general about the whole thing.

I worked throughout the holidays, except for Christmas Day, spending it with the people I am staying with and another special person.

On New Years Eve, I was alone and didn't feel particularly sociable, so I saw The Road and Nine and snacked on goodies from Tuckshop on St Marks.

New Years Day was spent stressing over work and crying, and then I took the train up to 81st and walked around the park and then to the New York Historical Society, where the lady gave me a student ticket even after I said Adult, "You meant, student, right?" "Wha..no..oh...yes, oh... thanks!!"

I will forever love that place now, even if I have to pay adult next time. I read all the information provided over the exhibit mentioned on TONY and it felt good to completely see something that may one day go back in storage.

They have some brilliant landscape pictures up at the moment of the most epic imagery imaginable, and I must go back before this week ends. Let's see that I do, okay?

After the brief adventure, and a quick bite alone at La Pain Quotidien, I returned to work and then to home and reheated some food even though it smelt mildly bad after it was heated, I really don't know why, its like I felt compelled to eat it. Very strange.

Watched Jurassic Park, fell asleep with the lights on, woke up feeling just awful, threw up, threw up again, and then again. Then I just wretched a couple of times until my friend helped me with things to settle my stomach and the magical Cola Syrup.

Worked some more and then felt like watching What A Girl Wants, so I rented it off iTunes, and remembered when Emily and I had purchased tickets to see it, because I loved Amanda Bynes and Emily loved Colin Firth. It made me miss her dearly.

Since then, I recovered from the cold I had previously and the stomach flu or food poisoning or whatever it was and worked tirelessly on my latest obsession, Youth In Revolt.

I've decided that I don't like the pressure of press or press photography and I don't like going to after-parties that are completely crowded and impossible to socialize in.

I've always had a problem talking about people when they are right there, it's not a big deal and everyone does it, but I personally feel very uncomfortable. Maybe it had something to do with ballet lessons, whenever someone would try to talk to me during auditions, I saw it as a big no-no, you want to have your full concentration and almost felt like this person was trying to ruin that for me - weird right? And paranoid too for such a young person. I guess that must have rubbed off into my twenties in any situation that I just don't feel comfortable in. I'm very much a, just smile and keep your mouth shut, which is fairly lame and uninteresting, but hey, that's me.

Anyway, so I knew it was going to be stressful, so no expectations were shattered, I just wish I could have been more relaxed. I just wanted everything to go right for Michael Buckley and it didn't, but he was so lovely anyway.

It was nice to see Michael Buckley do his thing and interview Michael Cera though, who I think is a fine young actor and like how he plays the crowd. There's a level of intelligence he possesses and he appears self-aware but confident, but still polite. It's admirable.

Speaking of intelligence, really want to go over that last sentence and re-work it, but I just don't have the time.

Editing a video at the moment... I've been posting thoughts into my blog but have not published them, so there is a lot going up into this but not enough is finished to be posted.

Oh, also, Five: Are there any articles about future technology resistant parents? I know that as important as basic computer skills are, I want my kids to grow up with wooden blocks and dirt rather than the ability to navigate an iPhone at 4-years-old. It only teaches impatience.

If I have children, and technology hasn't advanced so much to the point that we need high-tech instancy in our lives to ensure that we can even live them, I hope that my children don't need cell phones until they are 13 (pushing it, I know since very young people already have phones - but I didn't get a cell phone until I was 15 and didn't need one before then), a blu-ray television (with basic cable), xbox 360 (because I play more xbox games than playstation and it has the better Netflix system), nintendo DS, video cameras, cameras, and a powerful computer.

I already know that to function properly, my computers have to locked away in my office late at night, so that I leave before they switch the lights off on my floor AND so that I actually have to get out of the house to do basic editing or internet things, but I have my iPhone for movie times and search and anything that would require work away from home and I like that. I hope we have an office for a while now, never thought I'd say that, but its far healthful for me - though I do need to do more dancing to balance out all the times I'm sitting and I need a more healthful chair.

This is all comes from the article I was reading, The Children of Cyberspace... and have noticed similar articles like this in the past and don't know why there aren't more articles about parents resisting letting their kids be taught how to be impatient and expect instancy in every aspect of life. I also don't know why more people that I talk to seem so enthused about a child knowing how to use an iPhone at such an early age. I know some people are even excited by it, and that's fine, each to their own, obviously its all in the soul and the influence they have growing up, because plenty of children who played with dirt ended up as horrible human beings, I just... I don't know, I often wish I had not chosen a life of bright screens and bad eyesight and sore bottoms, and a life of travel and fresh air... and I would hope my children would chose to explore the world instead of the world wide web.

How do you want your children to grow up? Technology-capable, technology savants or completely unaware of technology at all?

Seem's like a phony question, but I'm interested in whether I'm not seeing the possibilities of technologically advanced infants. ; )

-Caitlin

Edit: Reasoning for products:

Blu-ray television - for the high-def films that I want the special features for that iTunes have not yet fully implemented into their services.

The television is for the news, and the television shows that I'd want to find my parents watching if I was a child today (The Office, 30 Rock, The Daily Show, Mad Men, etc...

Nintendo DS/PSP: This would mainly be for me, I don't want to not be playing a nintendo game or a brain game every now and then.

xbox 360: "family fun time" yo. Plus, I'd hate to be a member of Blockbuster instead of Netflix.

Video Cameras and Cameras, to capture the kids and for the kids to make films on, not vlogs. I'll never even show my children vlogs. If my child learnt any software, it'd be final cut pro haha... That's pretentious, isn't it? :P

Basic computer: because I need one and they aren't evil. I just will try to not let my kids see me sitting on one all the time not because its bad, just because I don't even want to sit at one all the time.

Polaroids, watches and record players first.