iPhone!

Got it this week after Red Dawn paychecks started filtering in. It's such an improvement over my old phone, I don't even know if there are any good comparisons I can make. There are a ton of actually useful apps like Flixster, Photoshop Mobile, the Bible, and the games are definitely convenient.

One month.

Wow, it's been a month since I hopped on a plane back to Michigan. The first two weeks I was home were absolutely shit crazy: processing into the unit, going back to work, and getting started as an extra in Red Dawn. The third week went by relatively quickly since it was all filming, and now things have kind of slowed down. I was pretty happy/content with the way life was going, but now... meh. Maybe things are too slow?

There's so much stuff to take care of involving the future - Army paperwork, figuring out career plans after I come back from Iraq, etc.
- Making whatever cinematic projects with Ivan
- Military consultant to the entertainment industry
- Grad school for public policy/maybe law school?

I wish I could stay in touch with my close friends, been having a few conversations about how to prioritize relationships given our current circumstances.

When I was really down this week, I found "Beautiful" by Eminem to really resonate with the way I was feeling. Interesting, because it's not the first time I've found his music to be really relevant to my life, and it also begs the question: does listening to Eminem reflect my mood, or exacerbate it?

When I graduated from Basic and AIT, I thought I had really accomplished something in my life, but nowadays I wonder...



Am I really a confident badass now? Or am I hiding behind a uniform one weekend a month? Have I even really changed at all? Have my dreams really come true?

I guess these are all rhetorical questions for me to chew on.

Friday.

Haven't gone to Pontiac today and yesterday, which I don't mind too much. Wednesday they didn't even use the PLA extras, just the civilians and stunt doubles, sat around all day.

Oh... the weather isn't going so well

Filmed a little bit in the morning, damn it was freezing! Then... sat around the whole afternoon, and wrapped early. Apparently they blew up a car and flipped it over, didn't get to see it though.

I guess I should start journaling consistently again

Can't sleep even though I need to be on set by 0630 tomorrow, must be the thoughts running through my head! I guess I need to recap what's been going on.

Labor Day Weekend: Hung out with Niu, Lily, Niu's cousin, Jack Kou, and Jack's friend at Red Robin as sort of a "yay I'm back in Michigan" sort of deal.

Inprocessing/Drill Weekend: Things were slow at times, but definitely an interesting experience.

Back to work! It sucks that I don't know the filming schedule until basically we've finished filming for the day and then they tell us if we're needed again or not.

First Day on Set, 18 Sept: Filming an action sequence in Royal Oak, getting introduced to the other Asian extras, some of the crew, the military advisor, etc.

First full week of filming: Wow, 60+ documented hours of work.

Friday 25 Sept: Damn! Totally forgot Sufjan Stevens was playing in Pontiac, and didn't even realize that the Crofoot was basically next to some of the shooting locations! Got included in Sarge's "elite" group of 13 extras, haha.

Saturday 26 Sept: Melpan hooked me up with a ticket to the Homecoming game against Indiana, it was definitely nice to make the traditional walk to the Big House with vegetation changing color, rap music blaring, and alcohol overflowing on people's porches. Also nice that we won the game, the outcome was definitely in doubt until the very end. Got to see Alicia in the evening, which was quite welcome even if it was only for a few hours. Went to Sonic's for the first time ever, it reminded me way too much of WALL-E's lazy future.