Sleepless nights

A friend forwarded me an email article about a Congolese woman in Belgium who set herself on fire to protest racism. I couldn't imagine what the woman could have gone through that would push her to perform such an act of desperation. But what haunted me even more were the horrifying pictures of her on fire. I wish the email just had the article without the pics....I actually didn't expect to see photos and now they have been seared into my memory for the past week, making it difficult for me to sleep. I dont look forward to night time because I worry about having nightmares. I know I'm very impressionable that's why I dont watch horror movies. Ironically, my first memories of being really affected by a scary movie was when as an 8 year old, I watched a movie called 'Burning'.



Speaking of lack of sleep, I came home late last night or should I say early this morning around 1 a.m. after going to a friend's birthday dinner. I knew I was going to suffer a little the next day at work because I was going to bed late, I had had a few drinks, plus I was already finding it difficult to sleep....but I didnt know just how much I'd suffer, until at around 4 a.m. the fire alarm in my apartment building went off....I jumped out of bed not knowing what was going on, and in a dazed state got my phone, put on a jacket and fixed my hair before running out. There were not that many people out and there was no fire to be seen, so I went back to my apartment. But that was pretty much the end of my sleep. After less than 3 hours of sleep and alcohol in my blood, my day so far has been just a blur. The bus ride was nauseating and everytime I made sudden movements I felt like I was going to hurl....but I'm grateful to have gotten off work early. For the first time this week, I actually can't wait to sleep.

Abuja International Film Festival

I'm in shock, very grateful and very humbled...I was just surfing the net and I came across this page on the 4th Abuja Film Festival:

clipped from www.modernghana.com * BEST SHORT INTERNATIONAL M.P YINKA DJIN (GHANA/CANADA)

This movie was low budget and self funded by my co-producer and myself and although it has some cringe worthy moments scattered throughout it, it was made to highlight the issues of domestic violence in our world. This really was a labour of love and I am eternally grateful for the cast and crew that did their part for the cause.

Here are a couple of clips from the movie, for anyone interested:

Summary

"M.P." explores the issue of violence against women in West Africa through a fictional narrative. M.P." tells the story of Comfort, a rape survivor who transforms herself into Madam Pink or M.P., a martial arts-wielding vigilante super-hero. "M.P." confronts perpetrators of abuse and corruption within the legal system.

Lemonade diet - Day 4

- I woke up on day 2 feeling light but not crazy hungry like I did on day 1, but that didn't last for too long. Day 2 got tougher because I was with a friend who started this diet as well, at the movies and she was obviously not going to make it past the first day. It was a beautiful day and we wanted to go shopping...I honestly didn't have the energy to be walking all over the place and I eventually gave in and had a few pieces of sushi. It helped because I felt a little better for the rest of the day.

- Day 3 was tough because I'd eaten on day 2. I felt miserable to be honest. It was like day 1 all over again. But I persevered. My friend said she's giving up today. I called her last night while she was in the middle of ordering yam and garden eggs...I understood her because I wanted to throw in the towel so many times yesterday. I think if she were a stronger partner in this venture I'd try to be stronger too....but i want to give today a try and see how i feel. Last night i felt awful....high temperature, pains in my joints and slight dizziness....but sometimes everything else clears away and its just the lightness...its almost like a high and I like that part....I'm concerned though, that I'm not strong enough health wise to do this for long...because I really do feel ill....kind of like I usually feel occasionally but without the lightheadedness.

today, i feel light, weak but not yet hungry...i had decided i might throw in the towel today, because of the way I'm feeling.....but I'll see how long i can push this mind over matter.

Lemonade diet - Day 1

So, what's this about a diet, you might ask...I'm not sure...but I thought I'd give it a try. Its pretty much 10 days straight on nothing but lemons, lots of water, maple syrup, cayenne pepper and salt. It supposed to flush toxins from the body and I thought, it would be neat to lose weight while I'm at it. I'm mainly doing this for health reasons....but it has other benefits as well.

Today was my first day on the diet and I don't feel great. I have a huge headache, I'm slightly nauseas and a little weak. I managed to go watch 2 movies back to back at the Vancouver Film festival and boy was it tough! It was hard to concentrate on the movie with the smell of popcorn, butter and tacos, while my tummy rumbled throughout. My mouth actually watered, when on my way home, I passed by a guy who smelled slightly of vanilla fragrance...

I'm thinking to myself...why am I doing this again? But i want to try and hang in there for as long as I can. I have a friend who is going to start this diet as well from tomorrow. So I have some support. I just want to lie down right now. Even watching tv is tough, because every other commercial is a food one or there's people eating in them....

mind over matter......mind over matter.....thats my new mantra.

the search is over

I finally found an apartment a couple of days ago. Its not my dream apartment but beggars cant be choosers. its a bachelor apartment without a view (my ideal apartment would have had a decent size balcony)...but its 2 blocks from the beach and still downtown, which i wanted. its an old-ass apartment building...something like 50 years old and most of the inhabitants have been there for 10 plus years....it was just by fluke that i found the place..by going street by street to every apartment building that had a phone number or manager buzzer number at the entrance and asking if they had anything for rent. i learnt that a lot of buildings dont advertise ...this particular one had a guy leaving after 5 years because he was moving in with his girlfriend and needed a bigger place. anyways its a quaint place....no elevators because its a low-rise (3-4 storeys high only) and the fridge is really old school but it works....it has an awesome walk-in closet, the price is affordable and the rent includes cable, something i'd never spend my money on. plus i get to be alone....finally.

I was just happy the search was over....man, that was frustrating...there were slight overtones of racism i encountered during my search and that was a little bit frustrating.....but the search is finally over and thats all that matters.

rental madness

Spent last week looking for an apartment to move in by august 1st.....man, its tough....theres nothing out there...i guess its the summer with students and tourists looking for places as well and vancouver's ridiculously priced apartments...but i still haven't found anything suitable. I had a manager call me when one of his suites became available...i decided i was going to take it once i took a look at it because i was tired of searching...i was sure it was a done deal, but i was told once i got there to fill out the application form, that i was one of many who would look at the place and then it was up to the apartment complex's company to make a decision...i just happened to be the first to view it. He promised to show it to me before putting it out on the market and now it was up to the company to decide....so in 2 days i'll see if i got the place...otherwise...i'll start panicking...

i might consider sharing with a friend if possible.....but affordable 2 bedrooms are just as hard to find...or move way out to the boonies for cheaper accomodation.

Random Pics - Vancouver june 2007

inmate for a day

I worked as a background performer today for the series, the L-Word. I was one of a handful of female inmates in a prison scene...I imagined I got the job because I looked kinda hard, but I looked pretty soft compared to some of the other 'females' on set. I use the description 'female' loosely, because a few of them looked like guys in drag ..I thought they got actual prisoners for the scene, but no...these were all regular joes like me...they just looked more the part I guess. I met a few strange and raunchy girls....they were like from another planet...I've never met people quite like the cast I was with today.......For the most part they certainly knew how to have fun on set, which also provided some comic relief during breaks.

We were giving an angry talk by one of the wranglers because, apparently one or some of the background performers was stealing food meant for the cast & crew...someone took 4, one litre boxes of milk, a couple of big boxes of fruit and some food from the director and crew's tent....that was bold and disgraceful....I suspected anyone with a gym bag....beceause they'd need a bag that size to store their loot.....

I was given a ride home by this super nice lady (who also gave me a ride there at 6 a.m. this morning) from the set. It was out of her way but she dropped off a few of us after the shoot. She only got the role because she had a car and could give some of us rides....apparently she looked too happy to be an inmate....so she struck a deal with her agent....she'd provide a car pool service to some of the extras, for a role in the scene.

unecessary stress

My employers asked me to stay till the end of June before I get the part-time hours I requested 3 months ago. I know they are going to be short staffed because a few people are going to be away this summer and summer is their busiest season...and i know they are probably going to ask me to continue working weekends because 1 guy is going on vacation and my roomie just quit...but i refuse to sacrifice any more weekends from July 1st. As the saying goes: your lack of planning does not constitute my emergency.
I need to focus on what I want to do. In the meantime , i've had several job interviews, most of which were not the ideal job setting for me...maybe i'm too picky or maybe in my heart of hearts i am weary of working for anyone any more....i guess thats why i like the background performer jobs...because i decide what days i can work...unfortunately its not a consistent job and i can't live off that.

i went on a shoot with this hotshot producer/director-lady to see if i wanted to work for her. The guy who hooked me up was this kind swedish guy i met on my birthday..and he worked for the lady, but he wanted out and needed a replacement....i thought i'd check out a day on his job.....man! i thought i'd seen bad shoots but this was unique....the lady first of all was 45 minutes late...apparently it was a normal thing. She collected money from various stores (mostly east indian) and shot commercials for them every week or 2....they were quick and dirty commercials...just the lady talking with the owner of the shop about what was new and on sale and shots of their goods....but what was appalling to me, was how very little time and effort she wanted spent on the technical aspect of the shoot. We hardly ever used lights.... most of the shots were handheld.....it was just in and out....i mean when someone doles out 1500 bucks every 2 weeks for a commercial, you'd think she'd spend some time on making sure the shots were really good....she got pissed off if you suggested anything that would make the shot look better ..because it was going to take time and she didnt have time....we pretty much shot 5 commercials and 2 interviews in 2 hours! Anyways..i'd seen enough....i didnt mind even having to do that on one level..but her attitude and how much she paid was enough to turn me off the job offer....i felt i was taking a step back in my career if i got on board her team....and though i wanted to help out the swedish guy, i had to think about myself for a change.

On a side note: this swedish guy was instrumental in putting the group ABBA together, how cool is that?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.....There is so much noise from the construction next to our apartment..oh, its brutal...you cant even hear yourself think throughout the day...i can only imagine what its doing to our ear drums....at first i thought i'd stick it out and see if the noise lessened over time, because the price we are paying at the moment is a good deal for the size and location, plus we get free cable which most apartments here dont offer.....but a foreman from the construction site said it was going to get noisier....so after considering my options, i think I'm going to move....so the search is on.

............

There's construction everywhere you turn in vancouver these days... alot of it in preparation for the winter olympics in 2010.

Haiku for maman (my maternal grandmother)

maman has gone home
today her body gave up
her soul floats away

to a better place
she is gone, now she can rest
and suffer no more

we will miss you so
and remember the good years
times we spent with you

au revoir maman
reposer en paix parfaite
Bisous! On vous aime....

random pics

Bear sighting, maple ridge, B.c.

roasted potatoes, salmon and asparagus

The 3 dinosaurs outside our apartment. They wake us up every day, monday to saturday at 7:00am... sometimes the whole building shakes like there's an earthquake....this used to be my the old YMCA and my former gym...there's going to be a state of the art new YMCA gym and luxury apartments built there now...and its a 3 year project..i wonder how long i can put up with the constant noise on my days off...seemed like a good idea moving next door to the gym, last year...now i'm not so sure...

trying to rollerblade and look dignified at the same time. an almost impossible feat.

industrial area, near my work place

Cherry blossoms on the ground

cherry blossoms

random pics of the countryside in maple ridge , b.c.

Back to civilisation....a few blocks from where i live

This was before i went to Ghana. I was getting some vaccinations. Yes i am a chicken.

my weeks so far

Its been a rough few weeks. have been hustling like crazy...trying to find other jobs by cutting down my hours at my current job, but at the same time trying to make enough to pay the bills. So i work a few days at my current job, although a few days turned to pretty much full time and then a few days on film sets as a background actor. The extra work is cool because you meet a lot of interesting people, but it can be long and cold...especially when we have to act summer scenes in 8 degrees celcius weather.


I got a couple more interviews but they seemed too similar to my current workplace.

I spent a large part of my birthday meeting with a guy in the video production industry who was looking for a replacement videographer. He was an older man, probably in his late 50s, and he was looking to leave this lady producer's outfit but she needed a replacement for him and he thought i could be a possible candidate. He was quite honest about the woman's character and his discription of her working relationship and style kind of put me off. for the most part, it seemed if i were to take the job, i'd be on call on the weekend and it was way out in Surrey....about an hour and half away...i didnt have a car or a b.c. licence (working on that), so could be a problem.Apparently she was opening up a tv station soon and needed some crew members, preferably with their own gear and preferably people that did both camera work and editing..i found that a bit strange....but whatever..i didnt want to jump to conclusions. Anywho, this weekend I'm supposed to have a test run with the guy who's quitting and the boss herself to see if i want the job or not, or better still if she wants to hire me at all. I hear so far 2 people have come and quit this year alone.


Then there was the meeting with my bosses... a few misunderstandings since they dont talk to each other most of the time, so therefore dont communicate. i still havent gotten my 3 days of only web work as discussed and promised weeks ago..no surprise...they are yet to keep a promise.
i was given a raise, yesterday, with words not action yet...but i still have foolish hope that it will come to pass.

I flipped out 2 days ago because they put me on schedule for 10 days straight without a break...i went from asking them to cut down my hours to being put on 10 days straight! i think in some countries that's, like, illegal. but they've done it to me a few times and gotten away with it...i usually got the boxing days and new years eve and new years days at work....while some of my colleagues got those days off...i guess they figured i had no family here to spend those days with. anyways, a few days ago...i'd enough and i just flipped and started yelling at the poor supervisor who'd made the schedule...he'd never seen me so angry and so he called one of my bosses....and she asked him to apologise on her behalf and then they changed the schedule so i could get days off like everyone else. Later, the supervisor came to give me a hug and said he hoped "we were cool". so , now i know..the squeaky wheel, does indeed get the grease.


i worked as an intern for a day at some other multimedia company, but it just didnt seem worth my time..it wasnt...how shall i say...a company, i'd like to grow with...so to speak. so i quit.
One of my colleagues at work found a decent job with a major telecommunication company here...it had better pay plus sooo many benefits.we are all happy for him, because with 3 kids he seemed to have the most responsibility. He came by today to invite us for drinks tomorrow...another going away drinkup, hopefully nobody will be drunk or mistakenly get into bed with anyone.....

speaking of which, i walked in on 2 of my colleages making out at work....not a very comfortable or pleasant sight. kind of akward and somehow traumatic...for me.
I went to the washroom and i guess they thought i'd gone home, so they started making out....i quickly packed my things and left finally, yelling as I walked to the elevator "As you were. Yinka has left the building"...

my week so far

paid my taxes finally. A friend of a colleague at work has a mum who is an accountant and she's apparently so good at working the system that she's able to write off so much from the son's taxes that the government ends up actually paying the son money instead if him owing them! Monday was the deadline and I, like so many people here waited right to the last minute to pay. Fortunately my bank allowed me to pay over the fone and it was done in less than 5 minutes. It also meant I'd have to wait a little longer to buy the macbook pro I'd been drooling over.

I've been put back on the same hapharzard schedule at work...just thrown in at anytime any random day of the week, no rhyme or reason.... so much for my talk with the bosses about things changing this month. We're supposed to have individual meetings with the bosses about our grievances and then a grande finale meeting with everyone this weekend... will be interesting if it actually happens.

I had a job interview yesterday. it was seemed ok, but a little too much like my current place of employment for comfort.

woke up at 5 something this morning. Actually my friend called me at 5 something this morning to wake me up to remind me that i had to go for a shoot. i wasnt too amused because i had 2 alarms going to wake me up 5 minutes later. i was denied 5 extra minutes of sleep. but i was grateful later because i just made the 1st bus and if i'd missed that it would be 12 minutes before the next one arrived and that meant i would be sent home. because, the casting director on this tv series i'm on, doesnt tolerate any kind of lateness, not even by 5 minutes. 2 girls right after me were sent home for being 15 minutes late.

fortunately/unfortunately it was a short shoot. the scene was supposed to be on a californian campus but it was like 10 degrees celcius, grey and clousy (combination of cloudy and lousy) and i had to wear a halter neck top and walk around like it was oh-so warm and sunny.

sleep haiku

I wait for sleep now
the time has come finally
- silence and the smell of pot

At work & Play

Editing the movie "Euthanamour "with Laurent Varyiot in his downtown apartment

View of Downtown from Stanley Park where we were rollerblading

Rollerblading with some 'newbies' like me

Back in Van city...for a while now

Its been a while since I last posted anything. I just get into this slump sometimes and I don't feel like doing so many things including posting to my blog.

So I got back safely to Vancouver from Ghana, via Amsterdam. My trip was aight and frustrating at times. I didnt get to do so many things I'd planned to . But I'm grateful for the things I was able to do.

I had a loooong ass lay over in Amsterdam. It was quite tiring actually. I got to amsterdam early in the morning, like 5am and had to hang around the airport till 4pm or so. I'd planned to take a trip into town instead, but i was soooo tired from not sleeping from Ghana that i spent the next 12 hrs after we landed, trying to find a comfortable chair to sleep in. I kept moving from area to area because of kids making noise and stuff.

When i got home i was met by a very untidy apartment. It looked like the apartment had thrown up. my roomie is ok on so many levels but tidiness and cleanliness are not her strong points.

I wasnt looking forward to going to work at all. i was sick of the routine and the negativity and the office B.S., oh and the long hours and the weekends we never got off. i had planned to ask my employer to cut down my hours.



Hopefully i'll find somewhere else to work soon....my new hours start from May and i cant wait.

In the meantime, i'm back working on set part time and have been editing a movie for a french indie movie director, based in Vancouver.

Karaoke - PTT Crew day 2

De gets a surprise goodbye PTT style