that means hands need to be tied and restraints need to be inescapaable.



I suppose one of the challenges of using guest directors is having to explain the fucking obvious.

Who would have thought? I have spent the last 6 hours reteaching myself geometry and algebra and I LOVE IT!!! I was always good at math...well, right up until calculus anyhow, and then my A's turned into D's but I have been petrified about having to study math. I have an exam on Saturday and have been really, really concerned. I still have a huge amount of studying to do, haven't yet revised traingles or quadratic equations but have been having so much fun figuring out formulas for things, especially geometry....I always loved geometry. Want to know how to find the perimeter of a running track? 2 x length + width x pi. Okay, that was super simple but it makes me so happy to do it! Learning is awesome...and while making porn can, and has been fun, too much of it just feels like brain rot...I guess I need some math with my bondage sex, hahahahaha!

Today I had to give an 8-10 minute informative speech in class. Basically, this is the equivelent of our mid-term. I planned it all well, had greast hand outs and made hubby listen to me rehears like 10 times but it was all worth it because I received a PERFECT SCORE!!! 100/100! How awesome is that...I always knew I could talk for England LOL!

Last week, I started a college class. As it is not officially a semester, but rather "Winter School" only a small number of classes are available, and you're only permitted to take a maximum of 4 units (so basically, you can only take 1 class). In 12 days we knock out an entire semester's workload and exam and while it is the humanites and "easier" courses that are available it is certainly a lot of work. Hours of homework everyday leave little time for much else, especially with class from 9am-12:30pm every day...but it's amazing what you can get done when what you're doing is varied. My last few days have been as so:

Wake up, make thermos of tea, drive to class.
In class until 12:30pm.
Drive home via supermarket to pick up produce for dinner.
Once home, edit a video for TF, work on model bookings, etc.
Take the dog to the park.
Cook dinner (and I mean nice dinners like veal with roasted potatoes, carrots and a spinach salad).
Do homework for class
Go to bed only to wake up and do it all again!

It has been a long time since I leaped out of bed in the morning wanting to go wherever it is I am needed but this class is fun, and as I am doing very well in it, so a lot of my fears about college (being the oldest, the dumbest, etc) are disappearing and while I do not know if I will pursue a degree I am certainly loving that for the first time in a long time I feel as if my brain may not be made of liquid (making porn will make you feel that way).

Take care,
Chanta

While, on the whole, I feel rather down about 2008, here are some of the things I am proud of:

1. Paying an additional $34,000 off of my mortgage. In many places in the US this would be a huge chunk of home ownership taken care of but I live in SF and that amount represents about 3% of my houses value LOL, still it lowered the principle by that much which is a great accomplishment.

2. Finding directors to help me at TF. I honestly believed all the good people (and a couple of crap ones) worked at Kink and that I would never, ever be able to find the help I needed. I am happy that there are talented people out there that can do what I need them to.

3. Shooting enough content to start a 4th site. While I'm proud of having 17 shoots shot, none of them are edited, so there's still a long way to go!

4. I finally received my permanent greencard. Woohoo!

5. I convinced hubby to actually use his vacation time and actually even a little extra. He/we spent over 4 weeks overseas (I spent much more, but this was purely vacation) and had time off over Xmas, that's like 5 and a half weeks which is unheard of for him!

So there you have it!

Chanta

This has not been a good year, and I am happy to see it end. Hubby and I actually did something different this year instead of the usual scrabble with the in-laws. We went for an early dinner at Lark Creek Steak House (mmm, yum, filt mignon) and then saw "Frost/Nixon" at the Metreon. Fucking awesome movie I might add! It was just over a year ago that I had a birthday dinner at Lark Creek with Berlin and a couple of other friends, we all had such high hopes for 2008 that I ignored warning signs that would have saved me a lot of heartache. Oh well, live and learn and look forward to 2009...a year I hope will not resemble 2008 at all.

..
visited 54 states (24%)
Create your own visited map of The World or try another Douwe Osinga project

I think I may need a degree to navigate the online college classe schedule LOL! I am finding the American college system quite frustrating but have accepted that I live here and that this is just the way it is. A bachelors degree in the UK and Australia is 3 years. A double degree is 5. There's no entry level math, or english composition, etc as it is assumed you learnt all of that to college level in high school. Here, I must do it all again, and have the pleasure of paying for it (something I also did not have to do in Aus thanks to HECS) but the change is so refreshing. My brain has always been a sponge, and the memory I have been blessed with is pretty extraordinary (does that sound arrogant?), I never forget anything...anything at all, especially numbers. Marty can ask me how much a dinner cost 7 years ago in Hawaii and I can not only tell him exactly, I can tell him exactly what we ate and what each item cost. He laughs at this useless skill but I feel, with training this memory could be valuable to more than being able to recite meaningless crap from years gone by.

This year will be a year of exams for me. Now that I find very scary. From entry level exams, to the citizenship test, too maybe even the LSAT. I am hungry for knowledge. Knowledge beyond rope, and sex, and cameras, and lighting, and porno politics.

Last week, someone said to me they cannot imagine the Bondage Porn industry without me in it. Firstly, I am not going anywhere. Yes, my days in front of the camera are done, but I will still be teaching (something I have already started to schedule for 2009), I will hopefully get Volume 2 of "Bondage for Sex" out and Twisted Factory will continue to shoot with the immense help of several talented guest directors. It's called delegating and it is something I should have put my foot down about over 6 months ago. Maybe then I would have only had a mini-burn-out instead of an almost complete nervous breakdown.

Delegation+Variety+Education=Improved Quality of Life. At least that's the plan LOL. Knowing me I'll jump into something 150% and burn out all over again LOL.

I'm about to start decorating the Xmas tree with hubby. This year we got a huge tree standing over 9ft tall. Our Victorian house has the ceilings to make it possible to have such an impressive tree. The entire house smells fantastic, which is my favorite, favorite, favorite thing about a fresh Xmas tree. In Australia we always had plastic.

I have been suffering from some serious jet-lag which sucks and I am not used to but I have also tried to be somewhat productive on what the year ahead may hold for me. It is my intention that 2009 does not resemble 2008 in any way, shape or form. It may be easy to fall back into working ridiculous hours, having no variety in life, etc but the fact is, the last 6 months have made me hugely resentful towards my own company...honestly, you'd have thought that could happen? Well, it did, and not in a small way. In 2009 it is guest directors at TF that will hopefully greatly reduce my workload so I can then overload it again with other things. Things I miss doing greatly, like teaching and writing, and maybe even taking a couple of college classes (I've been a bit biology obsessed lately and want to know more, much more about this story of life).

The biggest achievement I could have, and that I do not know I will succeed at is to learn to forgive myself for some decisions in my past. I never allow myself to feel good about anything I do, or proud of anything I achieve...actually, for the most part I tell myself I have accomplished nothing. I wonder, when the measuring stick I use for myself is so out of reach if I will ever feel satisfied with all that I have done.