The Unnecessarily Catalogued Fulltext Open Access Diary of an (Acting) Librarian Chapter 14

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There and back again

Day: Day of most return
Weather: Pollen season without rose petals in the sky

Something I hate most is when the holidays are over. When you were a kid you dread going to school after the long holidays, wanting to leave school all the time. By the time you left school and went to uni, you started to enjoy the inhumanly long holiday periods and breaks and in between, thinking that you were in heaven. Then as with everything good, they will have to end it and throw you back into the real world cos it’s time to start an ever-lasting working life. Sometimes I wonder which is worse: to die young or to live and work to your pension age and found out either you don’t have enough money in your funds or you just couldn’t spend it all before you die.

I’ve been blessed with a successful dad and never really needed to worry about money…not really, but at least I have it when I needed it. Mum, as a traditional Chinese woman, doesn’t believe in kids living off their parents and sit on their bums. That’s why even with dad’s support I still have to go to work. If it is going to location or on set that’s fine, I can deal with it cos that’s what I want to do anyway. But going back to that Battlestar Galactica is really a bit too much.

I scored a few gigs after my spectacular gay bitch performance on the new TV series. The producers even said that they want me back again if the character returns to the series – which never happened, as I know they just wrap production for the second series. So after the gay bitch role, I was back to kitchen hand and restaurant waiter. It’s really depressing but then you got to throw yourself out there and prostitute yourself for art to look out for bigger roles right? It is the whole “looking out” process that mum doesn’t like. She said young people should never just wait but go out there to make money. That is why she insisted me to sign on for another contract at the Battlestar this year. I was devastated, but I’ve dried up my pool of excuses in the last two years, so I got no choice but to go back.

First week back was ok as all the hyena queens were still on holidays. So Claire and I were just busily catching up and having fun. Claire went back to the snowstorm city of London and told me about all the crazy things she did. She also insisted me that next year I have to go with her and she can introduce all her theatre friends to me. Obviously one of her exes before her current Aussie partner was a producer and thus through him she met all these cool people whom she remained friend with (even with her ex) after the break up. So the first week just cruised by happily without much disruption. However, when the jungle gang started coming back things just went downhill again. I don’t know what Eva did during the holidays but when she came back she suddenly had all those crazy ideas that she wanted to push through in relation to the project (which actually are not related to the project as far as Claire and I concerned). She is back with all her battle spirit and determined to take down Alice the Thunderland this year. Claire and I tried to stay amicable with her at first but after two days of harassment from her, all our nuclear missiles were out in the open again.

As for the drama school, the library has been downsized to make way for more meeting rooms in the building. So one of the compactus was gone and part of the library collection is now seeking refuge on the floor, in between stacks and under service desks. Also now they are recruiting someone to just do a few hours of night shifts to extend opening hour – and idea that Angela was pushing for a long time but then was turned down only to be revived as Succubus’ brilliant management decision right before she left for holidays. As far as I know several other teaching staff were over in London too, so whether Succubus will conveniently disappeared in the snowstorm is still unknown but I am sure that a lot of people will be cracking fireworks if that did happened. Oh one of the most shocking news before the holidays was one of her minions suddenly resigned and left. Nobody knew what happened but rumour has it that even he could not stand Succubus’ Stalinist rules. However, he is just a minor minion. The two main weapons of mass destruction are still loyally following Succubus waiting for a chance to strike. They are now like Dementors living a life just to suck happiness out of other people.

So looks like this year will be shaping up as another colourful year both at the Battlestar and the drama school. For me I wish that it will be a colourful year for my acting career.

The Unnecessarily Catalogued Fulltext Open Access Diary of an (Acting) Librarian Chapter 13

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Santa Claws is Leaving the Town

Day: Day of Tidings
Weather: Snowing, not snowing, snowing, not snowing, snowing, hm not snowing

See? There is no snowing in Sydney. So Lillian Succubus decided to go to UK to add a bit of coldness to her already frigidly frozen face for holidays. Unfortunately, a number of teachers at the school also decided to make their way to the Northern Island Kingdom at the same time. Of course when Succubus found out that she was not impressed at all. One of the teaching staff once went up to her in the corridors and cheekily asked her to go to the theatre with him (on school money) so that he can further educate himself and “move on” to new grounds. Extremely annoyed, Succubus turned down the invitation in a low demonic tone and said, “Just to remind you, I am supposed to be on holiday”, and then she picked up her pace and left.

The situation at the school had now become nobody cared to hide their feelings about each other anymore. So the teaching staff would openly tease Succubus outside staff meetings when she didn’t have the power to rule them all. Of course Succubus would not just lie there and do nothing. She continued to terrorise the teaching staff as much as she wanted to in meetings and at the same time claiming that she was under a lot of stress because of the chaos the teaching staff created at the school. The rift between Succubus and the teaching staff are now all in the open. Students are worried that if this continues the standard of the school will go down. As for the Board, the division was even wider. After one of the members posting a question demanding an answer for the 8 million debts that Succubus had incurred for the school, Succubus was busily trying to rally votes of dormant members on her side to kick “unsupportive” members out of the Board at the next Board Election. As for the Board members who wanted Succubus to be done with, they were racing against time in the vote rallying too. So what happened next is beyond anyone’s prediction.

While Succubus was handling the internal warfare, she still didn’t waste anytime to try to establish herself using the school’s name. The latest fanfare was her support for the local short play festival. She threw a party at the school foyer and talked about the importance of having local playwrights contributing to the Australian theatre culture. That was one shameless visage that she put on to try to establish herself on other people’s expense. The fact was she was never interested in Australian playwrights. At one of the staff meetings, after she listed a number of international plays that she wanted to put on for the following year, a teaching staff proposed to have a better representation of local work as it is after all an Australian drama school. She replied, “Hm yes, yes. Of course we should. I love Australian playwrights and their work. We should do so.”

So the staff asked her which ones would she want to consider so he could contact them, she stood their for 10 minutes as if she was under a “Petrificus Totalus” spell. Then with much difficulty she mumbled, “Hm maybe David Williamson.”

When the staff asked her for more names, she just said. “Well em, I think, em, we should, em, talk about this later, em, as, em, I have a very important, em, international call, em, I need to answer to.” So she ended the meeting abruptly and left the room. Everyone in the room was in awe and left the room quietly, although most of them were strategically holding back a laugh.

Another year had gone by at the drama school with lots of dramas going on. Although Succubus tried to execute her Santa Claws for a last time before the holiday started, it just ended in another fiasco with now one of her minions leaving just a year after reporting duty. Not that anyone cared, but people were speculating about what happened between them.

As for the library front, I had given up the idea that people there will change and just continued with my day in day out routine there. Nonetheless, the uni will be closed till after the New Year, so there will be a good old 2 weeks I don’t need to see the Cologne face. Claire is back in UK for Christmas with her family and I probably will just continue to attend parties organised by dad and try to make some new contacts for potential job opportunities. Hopefully, I will eventually score something in the New Year and leave that place for good. Of course mum still didn’t like the idea of quitting the job when acting jobs come but then she married an actor herself, so she couldn’t really complain too much, especially I’d endured a year of “old librarian madness” for her already.

Anyway that marks an end to one year. I better go and grab some of those potato salad before my sister devoured everything on the table.