The Adventures of Jill - A Tale of Chaos and Randomness

Hello my lovely steemians!

While I go through all the awesome entries for my Draw it Again Challenge #2, I thought I'd entertain you with a slightly special kind of post, which I've been working on for a while.

Basically I thought I'd start sharing some Jill stories with you.

You see, I'm a bit of a force of chaos and my life can get pretty hilarious. Unfortunately, I usually can't be arsed to write this shit down because writing takes ages and I always find something else to procrastinate on, and then the details get lost and with time my memory fades, and it's not even half as funny anymore.

But occasionally, I do write something, and then it always turns into a mammoth entry, that, until I found steemit, I never thought anyone would ever read or be interested in, no matter how funny I believe it to be.

Which is why I want to start by saying a big fat THANK YOU! to all of you wonderful people, who seem genuinely interested in what I have to say and my art and my life.

It means more than I can say.

Now the following account is a peek into my crazy life, a blog entry I wrote 5 years ago, which makes it no less funny. I may be 5 years older but shit like this still happens to me.

I left it as much in it's original state as possible with the exception of some formatting for easier reading and a couple of spelling mistakes I found.

What's brand new on the other hand are the sketchy drawings illustrating parts of the events, which is what I've been working on in my free time in the last couple of days. They are very rough because I like the sketchy style more anyway and besides ain't nobody got time for clean and crispy illustrations.
But the sketchy fit's me better anyway.

Now, witout further ado, I hope you enjoy the first installment of:

Sunday,15th December, 2013

I found that as a rule, when I travel, chaos generally isn't very far behind.

Those of you who know me well, and especially those who have travelled with me, are probably familiar with this fact. A very good friend of mine once told me something like:

"Seriously Jill! I NEVER have problems when I travel, shit only ever happens when I'm with you!"

I'm paraphrasing of course, but the message is the same. I didn't take it in a bad way since
A) she was completely right of course, and
B) let's face it, it's kind of hilarious and it at least gives me fun stories to tell once I make it to my destination.

The chaotic travel problems probably have multiple reasons, one of them being that I just seem to attract weird occurrences like a pile of crap attracts flies, but the main one I guess is that I can be pretty air headed and way too chaotic for an I dare say otherwise rather intelligent woman.

I'm pretty disorganised and I am absolutely terrible at multitasking and at remembering things. Which is why I have to write everything down or I forget immediately.

Especially if it has to do with numbers.

Numbers are just not my thing. They hate me. They go all woozy and crazy and switch places in my head without me noticing. Its all very mean.

Anyway, so I "pulled a Jill" again today, as some of my friends sometimes used to call some of my more random moments of hilarity:

I am currently sitting at Vancouver airport, hungover and groggy, enjoying a Venti Chai Latte, about 8 hours early for my flight to Vienna over Amsterdam.

Now that's a first.

Usually, I am so late, that I barely make it to the check in and I have missed an embarrassing number of flights due to my non-exsistant sense for time. (remember the numbers thing? yeah that applies to time as well)

So… being 8 hours early is… a change. Not as pleasant as you might think because I had about 4 hours of sleep and I have nothing to do until check in time in about 7 hours.

So here's how this happened:

This requires a little bit of backtracking to explain the force of chaos and disorganisation that is me.

Yesterday I slept in because VFS (Vancouver Film School) is simply exhausting and if you get the chance to sleep in, you sleep in. Being a long sleeper, this meant I woke up around 3pm. The plan I had made for that day was to do my long overdue laundry and pack and chill so I would be well rested for my flight the next day which I was adamant was at 10:30 in the morning since I had checked the email with my flight details twice.

The laundry and packing plan miserably failed as I was so lazy that I didn't lift a finger, thinking "ahh there's still enough time to do laundry, I'm in no hurry."

Then I remembered last minute and by pure coincidence that there was a Classical Animation graduation that night that I really, really, really wanted to go to, since I knew the class well and I wouldn't want to miss a classical grad for the world besides.

I had planned to go to this thing for two weeks and on the day it happened I forget. Typical. Well, I remembered sort of in time but that meant I had to rush to get ready and leave my suitcase unpacked and the huge pile of laundry gently smelling in the corner of the room.

Traffic was ridiculous and I made it in the nick of time, and so glad I did because the graduation films were awesome, and I loved it all. The shorts were brilliant, they were really a talented bunch, and I enjoyed their films all thoroughly.

And having been through the program myself I can really appreciate the hard work and long, long hours it takes to get a classically animated short done in 6 months time all the while feeling like you don't know what the heck you're doing and how the bloody hell will I ever get this done in time?

Lots and lots and lots of insanely hard work and many, many sleepless nights are required and the only thing that keeps you going is that thin thread of hope that it will turn out well and people maaaayyy possibly like it and maaaaybe if you work REALLY hard and you're a bit lucky, they like it enough to give you a job.

Quite a few of my former classical animation classmates were there as well, so it turned into sort of a nice little reunion which was lovely too.

It is tradition you must know, to celebrate your graduation and ensuing freedom from the-school-that-robs-you-of-your-soul accordingly enthusiastically, so there generally is an after-party somewhere at a nearby pub where people get smashed for the first time in 12 months.

I decided to go for one beer.

Those of you who are familiar with general drinking cultures know that telling yourself you're only staying for "one beer" is always, without exception, an outrageous lie.

And so it was.

It was probably more like 4 or 5 (I wasn't really counting) and that may not sound like much to some of you, but for someone who's always been a lightweight when it comes to alcohol and who on top of that has lost any and all resistance to the stuff she may have earned over her party years due to the Vancouver Film School style of life which consists of work, sleep, eat and shower (in that order of priority), 4 to 5 beers is rather a lot.

It was a lot of fun, I loved the evening, we laughed and danced and tried to scream conversations over the noise, and I felt that it was totally worth the hangover I was risking, or so I told myself.

I left around 2am with gentlemanly escort wanting to catch a cab.

This turned out to be much more complicated than expected.

I don't know what the hell was happening that friday night, but there was no cab to be had ANYWHERE. Even the ones we called didn't come, if they picked up the phone at all. It was the weirdest thing, I kid you not, there were none to be had, nowhere. The few we saw were all occupied.

We stumbled along for ages, my feet were killing me, and after the a great deal of walking my beer-filled bladder even more so. So much so, that after half an hour of fruitless wandering in the general direction of home and seeing only occupied cabs, I actually had to pee in a bush in a little park or I swear to god I would have wet myself. I think the last time I was forced to do that was when I was 18.

So that happened.

We were halfway up Burrard street (and let me tell you that's a loooong walk in high heels from 420 Homer street) and I needed a break for my feet so we sat in Mc Donalds and had some disgusting but satisfying food stuffs. Obviously we miraculously found a cab the moment we left Maccy.

It was 3 am by then.

We had stumbled through downtown for AN HOUR trying to find a taxi that wasn't occupied. I could have been asleep for an hour already. This has never happened in the whole year I have been living in Vancouver. There are ALWAYS taxis. it was so weird.

Maybe it was due to the fact that it was Friday the 13th and a lot of people who don't know where the phrase historically comes from get sucked into the superstitious crap despite themselves. Aaand then they occupy all the taxis aand.. yeah no that doesn't make a lot of sense Jill.
I don't know, but it was quite simply an extremely unusual occurrence whether it had specific reasons or was just mere coincidence.

My gentleman dropped me off at home and I finally got to pass out. I somehow managed to scrawl a rudimentary packing list on my mirror so I would remember stuff when I had to get up hungover and possibly still drunk in 4 hours.

Now, this is where it really gets interesting.

Remember I was still adamant about my flight being at 10:30?

Yes, so, I somehow managed to get up at around 7am after a disturbing drunken dream that involved polygons and edges and extruding and appending and kite-forms that just wouldn't work with me and reversed normals and double faces and split vertecies that just wouldn't merge and fucked up UVs and messy line flow and all the horrors of the maya interface and the inexperienced modeler.

Those of you who don't know what I'm talking about: Maya is the 3D program we are working with at VFS, and the before mentioned terms are used primarily in modeling, aka creating shapes in the virtual 3D space that eventually become… Well, something. Anything you want, really, if you know what you're doing.

Which I don't. Hence the nightmare.

The thing is, that in term one we're all still rookies and by the end of it we know enough about the program to cause a humongous pile of problems and wreck havoc, but we don't know nearly enough to solve any of the freak problems we're causing or sort out the mess we've made. It's been haunting my dreams for a while now. I can tell you dreaming in maya interface colours and polygons?

Not fun.

Aaaanywaayyyyy, so I "sort of woke up" groggily around 7am and definitely hungover judging by the 5 glasses of water I had to drink before I even remotely felt human again.

I started getting ready, packing haphazardly, briefly regretting having to leave my 2 months worth of laundry pile unwashed. I really hope it doesn't smell too, too bad when I come back.. ugh…

At some point while packing I realised that I couldn't find my study permit.
Now, that's a huge bummer, as without it the canadians very likely won't let me back into the country and that would be… a bit… annoying. To put it mildly.
It's also a document you cannot get replaced. Seriously. You can't get a second copy of the same study permit issued. You have to reapply for a new study permit, which takes weeks.

So, yeah. Loosing that is very, very, very sucky.

I also realised I had totally forgotten to get a letter from school administration saying that I do, in fact, study at Vancouver Film School, and would they please let me back into Canada to continue my studies. Because the study permit alone doesn't actually guarantee you re-entry if you leave the country during your period of study.. yeah.. pretty stupid.

I took all of this in with a surprising calm.

Probably because my still drunkish brain realised that if I panicked now, I wouldn't get anything done anymore, or maybe I was simply to inebriated by residue alcohol and sleep that the fact didn't quiiiiiiite register on an emotional level.

Or maybe shit like this just really doesn't surprise me anymore since I pull this kind of crap all the time and my heart is tired of cartwheeling every time I screw up like this.

It was good I didn't panic because it kept my thoughts relatively clear, apart from the obvious sleep and hangover grogginess. I dismissed the enrolment confirmation letter issue because there was a good chance I could get that sent to me per e-mail and the study permit was much, much, much more important.

I was double and triple checking every possible and impossible place I may have put it but I knew in my still surprisingly stoic heart of hearts that I had left it safely tucked away in a folder in my locker at the animation campus.

Now, that was a bit of a problem you see, since

A) the campus is at the other end of downtown and I was scared to miss my plane because of the detour I would have to make but more importantly
B) school had closed for us 3D people last wednesday and the keycards didn't actually work anymore.

There was a chance that there would still be security guards at the entrance but it was entirely possible that the school would be deserted, and I would be left standing outside in the cold in a massive figurative pile of shit and a decision to make:

Would I fly home anyway and risk not being let back in anymore, or would I "pull the biggest Jill in the history of pulling Jills" and stay, disappointing my entire family and all of my friends who are excited for me to come home. My dad especially would not take it well.

I processed all of this slowly while going through my things, still calmly for some reason. Obviously I had to drop by school and at least try. So I finished packing and called a cab. Apparently at this time of day it's not as much of a problem since the operator immediately picked up and the cab arrived within 2 minutes.

Figures.

In the cab I finally got a bit nervous but not too much. We drew up to VFS and I was silently praying that there would be security there to let me in and even more so that the study permit was where I thought it was at all. Or I'd be pretty royally screwed.

whoah. crashing. need a break.

The Adventures of Jill - a tale of chaos and randomness - part 2

Sitting at Schiphol airport now. Still exhausted, but at least I got a few hours of shuteye on the previous flight.

Where were we?

oh yes, I was sitting in a taxi on the way to VFS, praying I would be let in, and that my study permit was indeed where I hoped it was.
Thank god the taxi driver was nice - the last thing I would have needed would have been one of those super grumpy "I hate my life so I'll make yours miserable" individuals.

Pulling up to school I drew a massive sigh of relief as I saw the security booth open and occupied. I asked the taxi driver to wait and basically slapped my face onto the glass doors trying to look as miserable as possible which wasn't very difficult considering I was hungover and sleep deprived.

That probably wasn't necessary though - people in general are nice and want to help you out - but better safe then sorry.

I was kindly let in and dashed to my locker mumbling "please be there, please be there, please be there" like a crazy mantra.

As if the poor piece of paper had suddenly developed a consciousness and started a cruel hide and seek game. As if it wasn't my fault that the thing was in there in the first place. Funny how we delude ourselves with little inconsequential seeming things like these, forever pushing the blame from ourselves to make us feel better when we screwed up.

I opened the locker in a flurry and rummaged through the relatively organised chaos within.

The study permit was exactly where I thought it was. Breathing another massive sigh of relief while silently cursing my idiocy and thoughtlessness, I careened back out the building hollering my undying gratitude to the security personnel and jumped back into the taxi.

And off we went.

On the way to the airport I had an interesting conversation with the taxi driver who told me I should look more into easy jet as they had ridiculously cheap flights. Apparently he and his wife had gotten flights to Milano for 9 euros.

"that's without taxes though right?"
I asked to which he replied no, that was all, they didn't pay a cent more.
"it's a trap", I thought, but he proceeded to tell me about several of their trips and their respective costs which were all scandalously low.

I have to look into this.

I won't believe a word of it until I've checked this out with my own eyes and purse. Apparently the trick is not to go through one of the dealing sites but to go to easyjet.com directly. How have I never heard of this? I've even flown with easy jet before but god damn well not this cheaply. I shall try this. And I urge you to do too if you're planning a trip soon and please let me know if this man was speaking the truth. That would be fantastic.

Arriving at the airport I said goodbye to the friendly man and headed in. There I was shocked to discover that the only flight to Amsterdam displaying on the boards would depart at 16:20

I panicked for a second and just looked up the mail with the flight details (thank god for free airport wifi and smart phones) and realised with a sort of numb not-all-that-surprised stupor that that was indeed my flight. It wasn't going at 10:30 as I had thought.

10:30 was my scheduled arrival time in Schiphol.

So there I was at vancouver airport, at roughly 8am, dumbfounded that I was about 8 hours early. Bugger. "I could've slept properly", was my first thought I recall.

Bubbling laughter and "you've got to be kidding me!" was the second.

So there you have it.

This is how I ended up 8 hours early on Vancouver airport.

Believe me it will probably be the last time in my life. I hope. I wasn't really all that surprised at my fuck up - remember numbers? yeah.

My only concern now was to not fall asleep until I was on the plane or I was sure I would miss it. The most excruciating part was to wait for the baggage check in to open, having to drag my luggage around all over the place is super annoying. Especially when you're exhausted.

But it was too funny not to be documented. so voilà. It is documented. And now those of you who didn't before, know what "pulling a Jill" means.

I hope you've enjoyed this tale of chaos and randomness.
I'm sure more will follow as this is basically what my life is made of, although most of them will not make it into writing.

Because I'm lazy like that.

Fare thee well my friends, and see you next time. <3

Much Love,
Jill

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