A Midnight Parallax

While Keeping the Faith (2000) is a funny though unremarkable film, this scene and this line has always stayed with me.  Well, some months ago, I waited for a sign with Snoopy that said 'Keep looking up... That's the secret of life.'  At the same time, how I got the sign involved me taking my own initiative to get it, and it proved that we can't expect to wait for things to happen on their own, we have to go after them too...

Some days, it feels like it's been the longest 5 years of my life.  I started and completed grad school.  I worked for a different company every year in that time span -- coinciding with every major storm to hit the tri-state area in the last 5 years (I kid you not).  I started taking improv classes and programming classes.  The whole business really put a damper on my ability to write because I was constantly putting every effort into keeping my head above water.  Now, I'm finally home.  The storm skipped over us this time.  If that's not a sign that my trials are over (at least temporarily), I don't know what is...

Anyway, I was browsing my fanfiction.net stats and noticed that folks are still very interested in Against Time, but I want to finish Between the Lines since it only has 3-4 chapters to go.  Another big blip on my stats radar is that one of my El Internado stories has been getting quite a views compared to the others.  In fact, it's the second chapter of a two part fic, so I'm curious how/why it would have triple as many visitors and views as the first chapter.  Weird.  One shots from El Internado will keep coming, as I have a bunch of them stored up.

I just found out that Netflix released El Internado with subtitles.  Ahead of the pop culture curve again...  Well, it is my job to project people's interest in things and getting the audience to buy what we're selling...  One of my co-workers got drunk and said that I've made it through the mess that is now our workplace because I'm smart.  I suppose so.  What is "smart" really?  Is "smart" always taking the safe road?

Not for the first time in the last few months, I've wondered what my life would be if I had gone to Tisch, instead of Arts & Sciences.  It had come down to a choice one evening when I was seventeen years old and scared about what it would mean for my future to attend an arts program.  I wanted to be a screenwriter back then.  I chose NYU to become a screenwriter...  not a financial analyst.  If I wanted to be in business, I would have gone to Stern.  Heck, that wasn't even an option when I was deciding what to do when I didn't want to go to law school anymore.   Working in film and television was off the table once the recession hit and reality TV was the poison of choice by many networks.  Now with the rise of web based TV, scripted shows are making a comeback.  It makes me wonder if I should have been brave and gone through with the pipe dream from so long ago.  Would it have really been any worse than the jobs I've bounced between over the years?  It would have been a dream come true to be on the writing staff of a show.  Someday to have my own series.

Don't get me wrong, I like what I do.  I'm actually quite good at it, shockingly enough.  It's too late to leave everything behind and start anew in this sort of wild endeavor.  It's the other side of the country and I would need the time and energy to write at least 3 spec scripts.  I don't see that happening anytime soon.  Yesterday, I was discussing with a friend who majored in finance about how he regretted not doing liberal arts, then winging it from there.  I pointed out to him that I did what he was talking about, and it came down to ending up in pretty much the same position, except having to fight harder to get there.  Maybe it's the same thing I'm imagining...

Good Boys

Episode: 3x06

Summary: “…Just add it to our list of things that good boys do when no one’s watching.”


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Ask Me How

Episode: 4x08

Summary: During their morning jog, Marcos tries to figure out what has been going on with Ivan lately.


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What Do You Want

Episode: 4x07

Summary: Julia tries to talk to Roque after she finds out that he was the one who told Elsa about her sneaking out with Ivan.

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Get Over It

Episode: 5x01

Summary: Vicky helps Roque with his math homework and life’s other problems.


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Things That Go Bump in the Night

Episode: 4x06

Summary: When Roque can’t get to sleep one night, he discovers that he can’t keep his eyes closed anymore when it comes to Ivan and Julia.

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Everything Has Changed
"Everything Has Changed" -- Taylor Swift ft. Ed Sheeran
"Broken" -- Seether featuring Amy Lee
"Little Do You Know" -- Alex & Sierra
"Sledgehammer" -- Fifth Harmony

The Diplomat
"Who I Am Hates Who I've Been" -- Relient K
"I So Hate Consequences" -- Relient K

Things That Go Bump in the Night
"Last to Know" -- Three Days Grace
"You Didn't Tell Me" -- Lawson
"Over My Head" -- The Fray

Get Over It
"When the Heartache Ends" -- Rob Thomas

The Invisible Girl
"Invisible" -- Taylor Swift
"Misery Business" -- Paramore

What Do You Want
"Everything You Want" -- Vertical Horizon
"Honest" -- Kodaline

The Summer of Our Discontent
"One Phone Call"-- Backstreet Boys
"Lead the Fight On" -- He Is We

Ask Me How
"Monster" -- Imagine Dragons

Good Boys
"Team" -- Lorde

Emergency Faculty Meeting
"Crashed" -- Daughtry

Alter the Ending
"Alter the Ending" -- Dashboard Confessional
"We Remain" -- Christina Aguilera
"Grow Up and Be Kids" --- The Cab

This Is How A Heart Breaks
"Unraveling" -- Tyler Kyte
"You Don't See Me" -- Safetysuit

When the Morning Comes
"Point of No Return" -- Starset



Upcoming...
Rumour Has It
"Rumour Has It" -- Adele
"Girlfriend" -- Avril Lavigne

The Diplomat
Part I of II

Episode: Post 4x11

Summary: Roque still hasn’t forgiven Ivan for being with Julia, and Marcos decides to intervene.

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Back in December, I wasn't in the office much because of the way the holidays occurred this year.  I was also missing my best friend who was in China for the break, and I had just finished all the classic movies on my Netflix queue when the site recommended the show Gran Hotel (which is infinitely awesome and I highly recommend), a pre-WWI mystery set in Spain.   I studied Spanish on and off from 6th grade through college, and while I've never been fully fluent, I know enough to get by and I can gauge some of the regional accents, so the subtitles helped when I couldn't recall.  The show was so amazing that I powered through all 3 seasons (considering that 1 episode is about 70 minutes long, that wasn't easy), and I wanted more.  But the show ended neatly after Season 3, so I went through the IMDb pages of the lead actors Amaia Salmanca and Yon Gonzalez hoping to find something else.

Under Yon Gonzalez's page was the listing for 'The Boarding School', and it reminded me of 'Strange Days at Blake Holsey High', which gobsmacked me with nostalgia.  A quick YouTube search showed that someone was translating the series into English for fun.  I needed the subtitles for this one terribly, because it was full of modern slang and a less formal way of speaking, plus Spanish from Spain is quite different than Latin American Spanish that we typically get in NYC.  The show was like Lost, if it took place at a boarding school.  It ran from 2007 to 2010, while the story only moved from 2007 to 2008 (two big years for me, so I'm completely in tune with the time that it takes place).  Right now I'm up to the tail end of Season 6, and while the show has taken a turn for the worse (it seems to have gotten renewed more than expected, so it dragged out a lot of the plot lines), I really enjoyed Seasons 1-4.

The hardest thing about this show is that while it was quite a popular series, it was still quite a few years ago.  Also, Spanish fandoms aren't as hardcore as English and Asian fandoms (that means that there aren't as many wikis, fan sites, etc. that Americans are used to), and I haven't been able to locate any decent fanfics because all of the main hosting sites folded and took the stories with them (and it seems that FF.net may not have been hosting the show at the time).  I don't really expect any sort of reaction to the fics that will go into this fandom, since 1) I'm writing them in English since writing them in Spanish would take too long, 2) the fandom is mostly outdated and dead, and 3) they're mostly one-shots or two-shots.  I'm posting them because I ended up with so many sketches that it would be a waste not to share them.

Not sure how or why, but the show took me back to a place where I could write again. When some tumultuous things happened this year, I threw myself into the story and wrote a couple of short fics for it.  I'm going to post them on here and under my FF.net account.