Christchurch.

So it seems as if George Bernard Shaw is the man of interest right now when it comes to my classes. In nearly all of them I'm either working on monologues by him, or assessing and developing arguments based on comments of his. Which is great!! I'm finding it really thought provoking and interesting, which just makes the work that much better!

I'm getting used to LA a bit more, and the way it works. Tipping is becoming second nature, nearly, if I go out anywhere to buy anything that requires a service to get, and I'm getting run over less now :) It's still hot here - I have to let you know this, as most people reading this are in NZ, and its freezing there at the moment, so every chance I get to push the fact it makes me smile that little more inside.

Now, I did write a whole list of things I wanted to talk about here and make statements on in a book of mine, but I've left that book at 'home' (yes, I'm calling it that already) so you will have to wait until next time until I divulge those amazing insights. Although there are a few things I do remember. Like my flip-flops from earlier have gone exploring on their own, I wish them the best of luck on their travels and want a full seminar and an essay when they get back about what they've experienced. Also, A few people I've bumped into, one yesterday, and one I observe quite frequently (a little like a stalker, but without the idea behind watching mainly to entertain, rather than rape and maim).

The first being a man who was stood in a fast food place yesterday whilst me and a flatmate got some lunch. (As an aside, whilst writing this (if you've been following my tweets you will understand what I'm about to say) I've just realised how I'm sitting and how Alexander would slowly torture and kill me by forcing to make me watch re-runs of Shortland St for hours on end, I slowly adjust how I'm sitting, and carry on writing) This man was stood behind us, casually talking to... something or someone about his views on... something or someone out loud so that it was close to preaching. Except it didn't make any sense whatsoever. Imagine taking a word from each of these sentences I have written here, putting them randomly into a sentence, and then saying it all backwards. That's what he was saying. I think we observed him for a good 15mins until we came to the conclusion he was just insane and left.

The second was another man, stood on one of Hollywood Blvds many crossings, pretending to direct the traffic. This was just amazing to watch. He would shout at pedestrians, try to force cars places, try to stop cars on green lights and all manner of other things. At first it was amusing, but after a while it dawned on me how many people here would be put into mental institutes in NZ for being half as... interesting as they were. Another example is a lady walking along the road screaming with tears at 2pm in the afternoon, only to, mid-crossing the road, fall to the floor, start screaming even more and then throw her stuff all across the road. After asking if she was ok the response I got was "Yes, I'm fine thank you", then she carried on again. This place is perfect for extreme character research.

And now onto the main topic of this blog (yes, it's a long one, albeit ironically the main topic is probably going to be the shortest), Christchurch. Early morning on Friday, around 4amish, an earthquake hit the city. It registered around 7.2 on the Richter scale (which is quite big, by the way) and its aftershocks are still happening right now, although I've been told they are nearing their end. All my family live in Christchurch (immediate family), so I'm sure you can understand how worried I was when I read this for the first time. Spending the next hour or 2 getting in contact with my family around there, luckily they were, and are all ok. In fact, luckily, no-one  has died from the earthquake amazingly. This is an earthquake that, if it happened about 2 or 3 hours later, would have probably killed 100's, if not 1000's of people. It has done about 2 billion dollars of damage, as an estimate, so far. Christchurch can think themselves lucky in one way, and my heart goes out to all those who have lost things to this. I'm thinking of you guys! x