1. Had dreams about Wentworth.
In the first dream, I'm watching Wentworth and trying to blog about it. There are people with me. This one girl keeps making comments about the show. I decide, and say, that I'll have to watch the show by myself. I explain that I'm afraid I'm going to accidentally steal the girl's ideas and write them in my blog. Or I won't know which ideas come from me and which come from her.
In the next dream, I'm an actress on Wentworth. A woman comes over to me, and with a very harsh demeanor, she fires me.
Then the director (or producer?) comes to talk to me. She's very kind, regretful, and apologetic. She tells me that she was told that they have one too many foreign actors on the show. They had to get rid of one. I'm slightly amused, because I hadn't seen myself as being a foreign actor.
I think that dream was about typical American ethnocentrism. It's the same thing that gives us the idea that everyone else has an accent except us.
Foreigners are not-Americans and Americans are Americans.
Am I that ethnocentric in my real-waking life? I don't know. Of course I understand that if I visit a different country, I'm the foreigner. Yet I think if I saw a foreign film festival and American films were mentioned, I'd be amused.
Anyway.....
Last night I thought it was very random that I dreamed about Wentworth. Then I remembered a few days ago, Tim and I talked about prisons and the differences I've seen on Australian/British vs. American TV shows.
Also, when I was looking at comments on YouTube about "Blues for the Soul" someone had mentioned The Shawshank Redemption.
2. Wanted to mention one of my other dream. An Australian we know comments on our photo saying her husband hired some people to be his friends.
Or maybe he wanted to hire some friends. I'm not sure he actually managed to hire them.
I think I dreamed this because I went on Tower of Terror alone yesterday. It's the third time I've done that. I love the ride. I think it's one of my favorites. .
But, though I'm a pretty independent person, going on that ride makes me feel lonely. I think it's because there's a major group atmosphere.
No, that's not right.
It's almost like the opposite. Though you're in a room and having an experience with about twenty people, I've never had a feeling that we're all in this together. It's more like everyone is bonded only with their own little group.
In comparison, whenever we've gone on something like Kali River Rapids, there's a sense of bonding with strangers. There's interaction and friendliness.
3. Decided it's the whole thing of loneliness among a crowd.
Some crowds can make you feel very welcome. There's a sense of inclusiveness. Other crowds accentuate your loneliness.
The latter has been my experience each time on Tower of Terror. This time, even talking to some of my fellow riders, before getting on the ride, didn't help. This came after eavesdropping on their conversation for the thirty minutes in the line. I had kept wanting to say something but didn't want to make it obvious that I was listening in on their conversation.
At the end, I finally asked one of them if they've been on the ride before. They were quite friendly, but I felt like an intrusion. It could be because they were cute and young—probably in their early twenties. I felt that they saw me as this desperate and lonely old lady.
Anyway, I was thinking it would be cool if Disney paired up people going on the ride alone. They could do this at the beginning so you'd have someone to talk to in the line.
No, actually I'd hate that. I'd like having someone on the ride with me for a short amount of conversation and companionship. I wouldn't want to be stuck having forced conversation with a stranger for thirty or more minutes.
4. Decided it's probably just been a run of bad luck.
I think Disney visitors can be divided into two groups—those who like meeting new people and having friendly short chats with strangers and those who'd really prefer to talk only with the people they already know.
I'm very much in the former group. Though I'm not big on the friendship thing, I am big on human interaction. I love meeting new people and having lovely short conversations. Fortunately for me, I've often encountered other friendly-to-strangers people at Disney World.
There's nothing wrong with the other group, of course. I'm guessing, though, that they're probably my opposite. They prefer friendships over short friendly conversations with strangers.
5. Decided there are probably many people who are both. My sister Dawn is one. She loves having friends. She also loves talking to new people. I think it's because sometimes you can turn random strangers INTO your friends.
6. Watched some of a Home and Away episode while doing a short workout in the hotel gym.
Now I'm going to watch the rest of the episode while sitting lazily on a cushy chair.
7. Finished watching the episode.
I can imagine myself slowly growing to like this show.
I'm starting to sort of care about the characters. Or at least they're starting to look like separate people to me...rather than just a massive blob of prettiness.
8. Drifted in and out of sleep while sitting in the comfy chair. I had various weird dream images including one of a Home and Away character doing a crazy ninja kick-jump. It seems he was going to jump through a glass window or door.
Now I'm going to try to figure out the name of the character.
I think his name is something like Chad or Zack? He'd a doctor. His wife is the mentally unstable one that caused the bus accident.
9. Felt I'm wrong. I think I'm getting two characters confused.
Because the character I'm thinking of today has a girlfriend or wife in a coma? Or at least he feels the need to take care of the son of the woman in the coma.
Shit! I'm so lost.
Are there two characters that look a lot alike? Or is there a guy on the show that has both a coma-girlfriend and a mentally unstable wife?
10. Looked at IMDb which is nice enough to provide names of the characters and a plot description.
So now I know that the guy I saw today on the show, and in my dream, is named Zac.
11. Felt I should actually thank IMDB user skteosk, because he's the one that wrote the plot description.
So, thank you, Stkeosk. I think you'll be a sort of Home and Away tour guide for me.
I might need one for awhile.
12. Saw that the other character I was thinking of—the one with the wife who caused the accident—is named Nate.
Do Nate and Zac look anything alike?
13. Saw Nate is played by Kyle Pryor and Zac is played by Charlie Clausen.
14. Looked at photos of Pryor and Clausen.
I can see a resemblance. I don't blame myself for confusing them.
15. Found the Tropfest film I'm going to watch today. It's a 2008 film called "The Code".
16. Thought it would be cool if it were a prequel to the TV show The Code.
It would be neat if any Tropfest film ended up becoming a future TV show.
17. Started to watch the film.
It seems to be about standardized testing. Or at least standardized testing is shown in the film.
18. Saw that the film is about kids helping each other cheat on the standardized test.
19. Finished watching the movie.
It was cute, but I felt it went on a bit long for what it was. I think it would have been better off as a three minute movie rather than a seven minute movie.
The whole movie is kids giving each other the answers via pen clicks, fake burps, fake yawns, and fake coughs. It's clever but gets old after a short while.
20. Looked at the filmography of Murray Fahey, the writer and director of "The Code".
He's an actor—probably a character actor.
The thing in his credits that stands out the most to me is he appeared in five episodes of Prisoner: Cell Block H. In four of the episodes, he played the same character. So he was recurring guest star.
21. Saw that Fahey was writing and directing full-length movies before his 2008 short became a Tropfest finalist. In 1995, he wrote and directed Sex is a Four Letter Word. Miranda Otto was one of the stars. I vaguely remember hearing of the movie. Maybe I wrote about it when I did my Miranda Otto post?
22. Saw that Fahey wrote and directed a horror movie in 1993—Voyage into Fear.
23. Saw that in 2014, Fahey made a documentary about gnome-collecting.
24. Saw that Rebecca De Unamuno, the actress who played the teacher on the show, has appeared on Kath and Kim, Hamish and Andy, and The Chaser's War on Everything.
25. Saw that one of the cheating students (Shardyn Fahey-Leigh) appeared on the TV show My Place.
He appeared as Bertie, the 1918 character.
26. Went to Murray Fahey's website.
27. Learned that Murray Fahey, along with being a writer, director, and actor, is also an entertainment lawyer. And he has his own film production company called Coventry Films.
28. Saw that Fahey's production company is open to receiving screenplays.
That's very cool. It makes me wish I had a recent screenplay to submit to them.
The last time I wrote one was in 2000...or maybe it was even before that.
29. Saw that there's a whole website about Fahey's Gnomebrook documentary.
I'm too tired to look deeply into it.
30. Watched the trailer of the documentary.
I'm wondering how it paints the gnome collectors.
I have a feeling it's one of those films that finds the most outlandish people in the group and then makes it seem like everyone in the group is that extreme.
Another thing they do, in the type of programs I'm imagining, is take relatively moderate people and edit the footage in a way that makes them seem as nuts as possible.
31. Decided one way a documentary filmmaker could figure out his aim in making a film is to imagine what he'd like the audience to feel about the human subjects. Does he envision the audience thinking. Wow. That's pretty interesting. Those people seem cool. Or does he envision the audience laughing at the people in the film thinking, They're so creepy! What total losers.
It's like me. I'm definitely weird. I'm a homeschooling mom who's obsessed with Australia. A documentary filmmaker can make me and my weirdness seem like a good-weird thing. Or the filmmaker can make me seem creepy, deranged, and unrelatable.
I've gotten a few emails asking me to appear on documentaries—both for the unschooling and Australia-obsession. I've said no for various reasons. But the main reason is I had a feeling I'd be put in as negative a light as possible.
I mean really. Think about it. With the people displayed on freak show documentaries, do they receive an email saying. Hi! We think you're really odd and want to give our audience something disgusting that they can laugh at and gossip about. Would you please honor us by appearing on our show?
32. Felt MAYBE I'm being unfair.
Maybe Gnomebrook treats gnome collectors in a fair, balanced, and respectful way.
Maybe the people who wanted me in their reality TV documentaries thought it was delightfully quirky that I am obsessed with Australia. Maybe it would all be positive.
But I have my doubts...unfortunately.
33. Wanted to say that when I was on TV, I was asked to do things I wouldn't normally do. If I remember correctly, they wanted me to hold up an Australian flag and wave it. I'm sorry. But no. I don't usually walk around the street waving a little Australian flag.
I do sometimes wear Australian T-shirts, but usually this is at home, the lakehouse, or casual places like Disney World.
Then for a show I declined, they wanted me to throw a barbecue or party where I would feed Australian food to my friends and family.
I've never done this before in my life. Well, I take that back. Sort of. For one of my birthdays, one year, I brought some Australian treats to share. But it was just the lake house family—a small group.
I don't throw big parties with pawns on the barbie for all my neighbors.
But see, the show wanted to portray me in that way.
These reality TV documentaries can be very manipulative.
Maybe the gnome thing isn't that way. Maybe they present people as they truly are. But there's a chance they don't. There's a chance, these gnome collectors were told to act in ways they don't usually act, SO they'l appear even weirder than they really are.
In the first dream, I'm watching Wentworth and trying to blog about it. There are people with me. This one girl keeps making comments about the show. I decide, and say, that I'll have to watch the show by myself. I explain that I'm afraid I'm going to accidentally steal the girl's ideas and write them in my blog. Or I won't know which ideas come from me and which come from her.
In the next dream, I'm an actress on Wentworth. A woman comes over to me, and with a very harsh demeanor, she fires me.
Then the director (or producer?) comes to talk to me. She's very kind, regretful, and apologetic. She tells me that she was told that they have one too many foreign actors on the show. They had to get rid of one. I'm slightly amused, because I hadn't seen myself as being a foreign actor.
I think that dream was about typical American ethnocentrism. It's the same thing that gives us the idea that everyone else has an accent except us.
Foreigners are not-Americans and Americans are Americans.
Am I that ethnocentric in my real-waking life? I don't know. Of course I understand that if I visit a different country, I'm the foreigner. Yet I think if I saw a foreign film festival and American films were mentioned, I'd be amused.
Anyway.....
Last night I thought it was very random that I dreamed about Wentworth. Then I remembered a few days ago, Tim and I talked about prisons and the differences I've seen on Australian/British vs. American TV shows.
Also, when I was looking at comments on YouTube about "Blues for the Soul" someone had mentioned The Shawshank Redemption.
2. Wanted to mention one of my other dream. An Australian we know comments on our photo saying her husband hired some people to be his friends.
Or maybe he wanted to hire some friends. I'm not sure he actually managed to hire them.
I think I dreamed this because I went on Tower of Terror alone yesterday. It's the third time I've done that. I love the ride. I think it's one of my favorites. .
But, though I'm a pretty independent person, going on that ride makes me feel lonely. I think it's because there's a major group atmosphere.
No, that's not right.
It's almost like the opposite. Though you're in a room and having an experience with about twenty people, I've never had a feeling that we're all in this together. It's more like everyone is bonded only with their own little group.
In comparison, whenever we've gone on something like Kali River Rapids, there's a sense of bonding with strangers. There's interaction and friendliness.
3. Decided it's the whole thing of loneliness among a crowd.
Some crowds can make you feel very welcome. There's a sense of inclusiveness. Other crowds accentuate your loneliness.
The latter has been my experience each time on Tower of Terror. This time, even talking to some of my fellow riders, before getting on the ride, didn't help. This came after eavesdropping on their conversation for the thirty minutes in the line. I had kept wanting to say something but didn't want to make it obvious that I was listening in on their conversation.
At the end, I finally asked one of them if they've been on the ride before. They were quite friendly, but I felt like an intrusion. It could be because they were cute and young—probably in their early twenties. I felt that they saw me as this desperate and lonely old lady.
Anyway, I was thinking it would be cool if Disney paired up people going on the ride alone. They could do this at the beginning so you'd have someone to talk to in the line.
No, actually I'd hate that. I'd like having someone on the ride with me for a short amount of conversation and companionship. I wouldn't want to be stuck having forced conversation with a stranger for thirty or more minutes.
4. Decided it's probably just been a run of bad luck.
I think Disney visitors can be divided into two groups—those who like meeting new people and having friendly short chats with strangers and those who'd really prefer to talk only with the people they already know.
I'm very much in the former group. Though I'm not big on the friendship thing, I am big on human interaction. I love meeting new people and having lovely short conversations. Fortunately for me, I've often encountered other friendly-to-strangers people at Disney World.
There's nothing wrong with the other group, of course. I'm guessing, though, that they're probably my opposite. They prefer friendships over short friendly conversations with strangers.
5. Decided there are probably many people who are both. My sister Dawn is one. She loves having friends. She also loves talking to new people. I think it's because sometimes you can turn random strangers INTO your friends.
6. Watched some of a Home and Away episode while doing a short workout in the hotel gym.
Now I'm going to watch the rest of the episode while sitting lazily on a cushy chair.
7. Finished watching the episode.
I can imagine myself slowly growing to like this show.
I'm starting to sort of care about the characters. Or at least they're starting to look like separate people to me...rather than just a massive blob of prettiness.
8. Drifted in and out of sleep while sitting in the comfy chair. I had various weird dream images including one of a Home and Away character doing a crazy ninja kick-jump. It seems he was going to jump through a glass window or door.
Now I'm going to try to figure out the name of the character.
I think his name is something like Chad or Zack? He'd a doctor. His wife is the mentally unstable one that caused the bus accident.
9. Felt I'm wrong. I think I'm getting two characters confused.
Because the character I'm thinking of today has a girlfriend or wife in a coma? Or at least he feels the need to take care of the son of the woman in the coma.
Shit! I'm so lost.
Are there two characters that look a lot alike? Or is there a guy on the show that has both a coma-girlfriend and a mentally unstable wife?
10. Looked at IMDb which is nice enough to provide names of the characters and a plot description.
So now I know that the guy I saw today on the show, and in my dream, is named Zac.
11. Felt I should actually thank IMDB user skteosk, because he's the one that wrote the plot description.
So, thank you, Stkeosk. I think you'll be a sort of Home and Away tour guide for me.
I might need one for awhile.
12. Saw that the other character I was thinking of—the one with the wife who caused the accident—is named Nate.
Do Nate and Zac look anything alike?
13. Saw Nate is played by Kyle Pryor and Zac is played by Charlie Clausen.
14. Looked at photos of Pryor and Clausen.
I can see a resemblance. I don't blame myself for confusing them.
15. Found the Tropfest film I'm going to watch today. It's a 2008 film called "The Code".
16. Thought it would be cool if it were a prequel to the TV show The Code.
It would be neat if any Tropfest film ended up becoming a future TV show.
17. Started to watch the film.
It seems to be about standardized testing. Or at least standardized testing is shown in the film.
18. Saw that the film is about kids helping each other cheat on the standardized test.
19. Finished watching the movie.
It was cute, but I felt it went on a bit long for what it was. I think it would have been better off as a three minute movie rather than a seven minute movie.
The whole movie is kids giving each other the answers via pen clicks, fake burps, fake yawns, and fake coughs. It's clever but gets old after a short while.
20. Looked at the filmography of Murray Fahey, the writer and director of "The Code".
He's an actor—probably a character actor.
The thing in his credits that stands out the most to me is he appeared in five episodes of Prisoner: Cell Block H. In four of the episodes, he played the same character. So he was recurring guest star.
21. Saw that Fahey was writing and directing full-length movies before his 2008 short became a Tropfest finalist. In 1995, he wrote and directed Sex is a Four Letter Word. Miranda Otto was one of the stars. I vaguely remember hearing of the movie. Maybe I wrote about it when I did my Miranda Otto post?
22. Saw that Fahey wrote and directed a horror movie in 1993—Voyage into Fear.
23. Saw that in 2014, Fahey made a documentary about gnome-collecting.
24. Saw that Rebecca De Unamuno, the actress who played the teacher on the show, has appeared on Kath and Kim, Hamish and Andy, and The Chaser's War on Everything.
25. Saw that one of the cheating students (Shardyn Fahey-Leigh) appeared on the TV show My Place.
He appeared as Bertie, the 1918 character.
26. Went to Murray Fahey's website.
27. Learned that Murray Fahey, along with being a writer, director, and actor, is also an entertainment lawyer. And he has his own film production company called Coventry Films.
28. Saw that Fahey's production company is open to receiving screenplays.
That's very cool. It makes me wish I had a recent screenplay to submit to them.
The last time I wrote one was in 2000...or maybe it was even before that.
29. Saw that there's a whole website about Fahey's Gnomebrook documentary.
I'm too tired to look deeply into it.
30. Watched the trailer of the documentary.
I'm wondering how it paints the gnome collectors.
I have a feeling it's one of those films that finds the most outlandish people in the group and then makes it seem like everyone in the group is that extreme.
Another thing they do, in the type of programs I'm imagining, is take relatively moderate people and edit the footage in a way that makes them seem as nuts as possible.
31. Decided one way a documentary filmmaker could figure out his aim in making a film is to imagine what he'd like the audience to feel about the human subjects. Does he envision the audience thinking. Wow. That's pretty interesting. Those people seem cool. Or does he envision the audience laughing at the people in the film thinking, They're so creepy! What total losers.
It's like me. I'm definitely weird. I'm a homeschooling mom who's obsessed with Australia. A documentary filmmaker can make me and my weirdness seem like a good-weird thing. Or the filmmaker can make me seem creepy, deranged, and unrelatable.
I've gotten a few emails asking me to appear on documentaries—both for the unschooling and Australia-obsession. I've said no for various reasons. But the main reason is I had a feeling I'd be put in as negative a light as possible.
I mean really. Think about it. With the people displayed on freak show documentaries, do they receive an email saying. Hi! We think you're really odd and want to give our audience something disgusting that they can laugh at and gossip about. Would you please honor us by appearing on our show?
32. Felt MAYBE I'm being unfair.
Maybe Gnomebrook treats gnome collectors in a fair, balanced, and respectful way.
Maybe the people who wanted me in their reality TV documentaries thought it was delightfully quirky that I am obsessed with Australia. Maybe it would all be positive.
But I have my doubts...unfortunately.
33. Wanted to say that when I was on TV, I was asked to do things I wouldn't normally do. If I remember correctly, they wanted me to hold up an Australian flag and wave it. I'm sorry. But no. I don't usually walk around the street waving a little Australian flag.
I do sometimes wear Australian T-shirts, but usually this is at home, the lakehouse, or casual places like Disney World.
Then for a show I declined, they wanted me to throw a barbecue or party where I would feed Australian food to my friends and family.
I've never done this before in my life. Well, I take that back. Sort of. For one of my birthdays, one year, I brought some Australian treats to share. But it was just the lake house family—a small group.
I don't throw big parties with pawns on the barbie for all my neighbors.
But see, the show wanted to portray me in that way.
These reality TV documentaries can be very manipulative.
Maybe the gnome thing isn't that way. Maybe they present people as they truly are. But there's a chance they don't. There's a chance, these gnome collectors were told to act in ways they don't usually act, SO they'l appear even weirder than they really are.