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Charmed!
Date: April 2011 AD
Weather: Storm in a tea cup
The stint at Helena’s movie had certainly done me good. Shortly after that I was invited to participate in a play later this year. The play is not happening until later this year, so the cold hard fact is I have to go back to the library to earn some cold hard cash. Not the perfect scenario but they were accommodating when I did the movie, so in return I should go back and finish the project for them. But honestly the film with Helena did reignite my strong passion for the art and made me more willing to take risks in life than before.
During the filming Helena, Damien and I spent a lot of time together. They shared their LA experience with me, and how they struggled before they got their breaks. These are stories that a lot of people, who, from the outside did not see. Helena told me apart from the fact that she was crying her eyes out missing me (that breaks my heart even now) when she first got there, she was doing two bartending jobs to just get by to avoid ending up in the streets. She worked very hard to get her first agent and had to swallow her pride to do ridiculous small roles that required no acting abilities until she was spotted for a more substantial role and started snowballing her career. She said the time was hard but she told herself if she were serious about being an actor, she would have to brave through it. She did and now she is enjoying the fruits of her hard work.
As for Damien, he first went to New York to try his luck when he was 19. He worked as an usher at one of the theatres while running around getting to auditions. His passion for the theatre finally paid off after 5 years of ushering in the theatre when he scored his first Off-Broadway role. The first taste of successful did not bring the luck that he was expecting. The next role didn’t come until 2 years later. He told me those two years he felt he was in a black hole and didn’t know how to position himself in his life. The uplifting feeling of this first role had made him fell harder when there was nothing substantial to follow up with. It was hard for him to go back to ushering and wait for the next break. However he toughed it out with a lot of disappointments along the way and eventually was spotted by a casting director to audition for his break out role. Of course the rest is history.
The great thing about Helena and Damien is that they are both very open and caring. Damien knows about all the history Helena and I had and he still treats me as one of his best mates. As for Helena, what can I say? Without her the current opportunities will not be presenting themselves. I will be forever grateful to them and now it is up to me to decide how I want to go forward with my career. Hollywood and New York are definitely on the cards. Damien said if I want to try Hollywood out, I could crash with them so there is no need to worry about living expenses. I can feel that this year is a year of change – in what direction? It is up to me.
After saying goodbye to Helena and Damien, it’s back to the spaceship – for now. To be fair, not everyone came from outer space there. Claire and I have bonded really well at work and she did mention that she missed me there to fend off the witches together. So I when I went back, she was more than happy to see me. But of course those sentiments were not shared by anyone.
In Wicked you only have two witches battling out. But at this place it’s like episodes of Charmed playing out every day. Eva Cologne though had lost quite a bit of ground in the past had come back from the dead under her new manager. While everyone can see what kind of shit worker Eva is, her new manager seems to be happy to use her as her human torpedo around the place. Every time she wants something, she will send Eva out, if it fails Eva copes it but if it succeeds she takes credit. Even the dumbest knows that Eva is just a chess piece on the board. But Eva seems to be very happy with her “new found powers” and continue to exist as a strong force of destruction.
On the other hand, Alice the Thunderland seems to be on the rise. Her charms and spells – sucking up and brown nosing – seemed to have paid off big time during my absence. Alice has been networking around the campus like a social butterfly. She made sure that anyone important whom came across her path knows her name and plays her game. Her attitude towards Claire and I has changed quite a bit since we managed knock Eva out of the circle. However, that doesn’t mean that she would trust us. When did the last time you see the Queen Mother trusting Snow White? Anyway both Claire and I are just here for the money and to get things done. For Claire this is also a job to kill time and earn some pocket money before she becomes a full time mother. She said she doesn’t give a darn to those bitches.
The new witch on the block is the woman who came back after 6 months leave. I never had anything to do with her but roadside newsagencies had it that she took those six months off because her marriage was in trouble. So she took extreme measures to save her marriage by keeping close company to her husband and going on business trips with him to tend to his needs. At first glance she seems Ok and she always acts motherly to everyone saying how much she cares about everyone’s well being. But as an actor, I can smell a bad acting job from miles and she is one of them. It’s been said that due to her “motherly nature” she only likes to employ people who are married with kids. She thinks that these people are more committed to their jobs – in other words easier to manipulate. When you look at her department, that’s the truth because since her return the only single guy in her department was edged out and eventually left. Everyone knows that behind her warm smiley face is guillotine ready to drop when she spots the next victim. Whenever she sees people who are potentially logs in her eye, she will not hold back with her comments. Claire and I are both her targets in way that she thinks we are not “committed” to our job and only people who want to be a librarian should work in “her library”. Since I came back, at various occasions she started making comments like “why are they here when they are not committed?”, “I didn’t expect to see them still here when I came back” etc. On the surface she still acts professionally in front of us, but after 3 years of drama school training, I can identify a failed Acting 101 candidate the moment I meet one.
Claire and I can feel a storm is brewing.
