I think there's a way to make it so you all get email notifications when one of us makes a post, I'll try to figure that out.
Anyway, on to my lifey life update.
Let's see. Where to start. I'm doing great. Really great, actually. I was telling Melissa the other night that I think this may turn out to be one of the best decisions I ever made, despite the uncertainty I had at the time. I'm writing like a fiend, and enjoying it more than I have in years. I'm reading books and critical theory about screenwriting. I'm churning through novels, history, etc. And I feel like I'm getting a progressively more concrete picture of what I want to be doing with my life, the direction I want to be taking, etc.
On the screenwriting front, I'm working on a script I'm really excited about. It'd be foolish to count my chickens before they hatch, but if I put in the necessary work, I think this may actually be a script I can sell. It's a big-budget action/adventure/thriller with a female protagonist and great villains. It's sort of like "Enemy of the State" combined with "The Rock" with a few dashes of Heart of Darkness and Othello thrown in for good measure (I'm basing my two Villains on Kurtz from Heart of Darkness and Iago from Othello, respectively).
Socially, I'm also doing great. I've gotten connected with an international church here in Chiang Mai, and it's been really cool to be making friends with young people from all over the world. I've got friends from Australia, Thailand, England, and we met some YWAM people from Norway this weekend (though they're only here for a week).
We've also been playing tennis for a week, and I've been beating everybody, which amuses me. I've hardly played in years, but apparently all those lessons when we were kids paid off, cause it seems to have come back to me in no time, lol.
That being said, none of the other people are very good, so it's sort of like being a small fish in a tiny pond :)
I'll be taking a trip to Laos next week in order to apply for a three month Thai Visa (the one I have expires on the 6th and I can only extend it in 15 day increments unless I go to a Thai Embassy outside the country to apply for a Tourist Visa).
I've also started learning Mandarin Chinese, and I'll be practicing it regularly with my Chinese friend Ning (who I met through Morgan). I'll also be helping her with her English. I've always wanted to live in China ever since we took that trip with GTCYS, so I may move there this summer depending on how things go, we shall see. I'll be staying in Chiang Mai for at least the next three months though, writing extensively. I should be able to finish at least two scripts within that time. I'm moving into a really nice apartment for...get this...$150 a month, haha. It's ridiculous how cheap stuff is here.
On the money side of things I've decided I don't really want to live off my savings. I like having my savings. It feels nice. So I'm deciding what I want to do to earn some money while I'm here. Bill and I have been continuing to email about his startup idea, and I may just move forward with that while I'm here, since it's work that can be done from anywhere. Based on the structure of the idea, I don't think it would be terribly difficult to pull more than enough money to live here just from working on that stuff. Alternately I might decide to tutor kids in English, SAT, GMAT, etc. I've never taught before and I think I would be good at it, so we'll see.
I'm in discussions with Stellar this week regarding leaving the company. I gave them notice yesterday and they want to discuss it with me further, so I'll be getting on the phone with them all this week at some point. It's been an *extremely* positive dialogue, and I'll be leaving on excellent terms. The web redesign project is still TBD, so it's possible I'll stay on as a full employee for a bit longer if they decide to let me do the project. I've also found very affordable health care, etc, for once I'm off their benefits, so everything is falling into place really nicely.
Let's see, what else. I'm starting to look into ministry stuff up here. I'm in contact with a few people regarding anti-human-trafficking work that's going on, and there's also a *ton* of ministry stuff involving the situation in Burma, whether it's working at Refugee and IDP camps, or traveling back and forth across the border to assist the hill tribe people, etc. There's a lot of cool stuff going on and I definitely want to get involved with something while I'm here, so I'm in the process of working that all out right now.
I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, but that's the "big picture" right now. Overall though, I'm doing great. I'm happier than I've been in a long time, I'm loving writing, I'm working hard, and I'm figuring out more and more every day where my passions and interests truly lie, so like I said this is really proving to have been an excellent move on my part. Grad school will probably come at some point in the near future, once I've identified what I want to focus on. I'm 99% sure UCLA is a no-go for this year, since they would have contacted me by now for an interview. Apparently most of their students are pulled from their professional program. I'll likely just reapply in the Fall, but ironically this may turn out to be a good thing, since instead of trying to get into school now I'm just aiming directly for marketable, sellable scripts, which is certainly a more lucrative option :)
Love you guys, more soon. And learn how to post here so we can all use it!!!
