Day 10 – 20/11/11

Another day, another night.

You remember yesterday's log ? Well, it's kind of similar. Woke up late, made some recordings and some computer gaming, and voilà. Long version ? Long version.

Things didn't start as I hoped. I was supposed to get called at around 2pm by Sweety Belle who was lending his apartment for the recordings. My phone wasn't working, and gmail had a bug. I couldn't be reached before 3:30 pm, and they didn't want to start without me.

A bit late, we started the record of mine and Pinkie's part. Basically a fake speech of Celestia with Pinkie keeping interrupting her and being herself.

The play included a part where I drank some tea. After several takes, I was already full and believe me, the last few were horrible :S.

Rarity's and Belle's parts were recorded just after, but both of them were lacking motivation. We got a few takes, but I'm not sure if we will be able to use them. Expressive genuine pony faces aren't on demand, and our list works better with them. I couldn't get their spirits up, not sure if that was a failure for me or just impossible/not my place to do.

We gathered a few more ideas for short films for the 28th video projection. We are thinking of small records where a normal student cross the path of a pony/brony and abnormal things happen, with an ending in 'pony-ed' (a pun between pony and pwned).

Not much more pony-related things to report for today. Tomorrow will be another story, though. There will be the 'lists debate'. An hour (usually more) where every list leader is put in front of all the students and asked questions about the list, the program, what they intend to do during the year...

I'll probably have a few tricky or stupid questions asked to me. But I believe as long as I stay true to what I defined for the list, seriousness, hope and ponies, I will present what I wish to show the students.

The choice of friendship is then theirs.

Celestia, out.

Day 9 - 19/11/11

Slow days are best days.

Woke up midday, gathered with my friends. Everyone was waiting for today's new mlp episode. It turned out that daylight savings messed up our schedule and we had an extra hour to wait.

After the show, we started the recordings. Things went slowly but steadily. We've been able to record Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle and Spike. Then it was night and we decided to record the others (Rarity, Sweety Belle, Pinkie Pie and myself, Celestia) when it would be day again.

Evening was spent talking between us about mlp and other subjects, catching up with homework and playing together.

Pinkie Pie edited a bit of video to see what we could do with the recordings. Things look... acceptable. Not as great I would have wished, but good enough.

I'll mention it again when it'll be ready.

Celestia, out.

Day 8 - 18/11/11

I'm feeling fine, but that isn't be the case of everyone here.
Not much to mention today. Tired faces everywhere, and I don't think anyone will be able to come up with a stroke of genius. I decided to let everyone have some time for themselves, since I'm going to require their presence tomorrow.

It will be a pony-filled day, between the recording and the new episode. Seeing episodes in groups is different. I can't just skip the parts I dislike, which I often do when alone. Not sure if it is a good or a bad thing.

Still no news from the toy store. Maybe I should return there ? Prepare a sample ? I should wait a full week before making a move, but time is running out. The vote is on the 8th of December. I can't let things drag on too long.

I should try to get a pic of that pony figurine we got. Couldn't identify it. Looks like nothing G1 to G3.5, and I think I would have identified a G4 pony. Any experts out there who saw that before ?
It looks more like a horse than a pony, to be honest. In addition to the white coat and mane, there is a collection of.. pink spots where the cutie mark should be, and another smaller collection on the upper arm zone. One of the two hind legs is articulated, and I think moving it used to make the wings flap, but the wings are broken now. The mane is brushable (thought in a horrible state). A small molded printing reads : 2006-2011 HCS 2005-2011 CC / Made for McDonald's 2011 / Made in China TRC. Searches on the net were to no avail, but I haven't looked deep into it.

(Click to enlarge)

Luna won't be here this weekend. We will have a little time to record on Sunday evening, I hope we'll be able to come up with something funny before that. The point is to present each member of the list through short funny scenes. I'll explain a bit on the next log. Yesterday's events finally caught up with me and I'm going to go to bed.

That week seemed so short, yet so long. It feels we are only at the beginning, and already a quarter of the time is gone.
Relativity, why do you love me so ?

Celestia, out.

Day 7 - 17/11/11

I knew it would be a very long day. But it was worth the energy.

The day started early. Boring class about group management. Funny how different things are between the nice and clean theory on that board and the reality of my daily group-related problems.

Grabbed a meal and met with members of the list.
Apparently, there will not be another occasion to present videos before the 30th. Since we have an event on the 21st, and another one on the 28th, we have to rush a second video because the first one only dealt with the first event.
Our Fluttershy, always on the edge, had something prepared, but that needed a few tweaks. Good thing I had no classes that afternoon.
Left school at about 6pm. Went to town to buy stuff for the evening. The video broadcasting should begin at about 9pm, and the lists activities at about 10pm. It's all right.

I gave to call to Luna  to remind him to takie the gloves with him while I was bringing the sweets to school. Both of our videos have been sent to the students preparing the broadcast. Money left : 78€.
In the second video, we mention that our website that is almost finished, but yet unavailable. I had to rush it with Luna and Rarity. 8pm, http://poniie.iiens.net/ is now online ! It's really not much but for something made in two days between classes and video editing...

The broadcasting is a bit late. It's 9:30pm, and they are far from being ready. They are always late, but it's making me stressed.

11:30pm. The broadcasting started very late, in the end. Our videos were not boo-ed, which is a small victory in itself. Most of the students are still up there. I should have about 30 minutes to prepare the stand before the rush. Moment of truth, second edition.

4:30am. I'm at home. I dare say this was a major success. I was afraid most of the students would shun our lack of alcohol and silly game (opening a sweet using boxing gloves), but it was one of the most popular ones. The sweets were a good idea, and some students went for our grenadine to help their sore throats instead of stronger drinks.
Three happenings to note :
Someone anonymously dropped a pony figurine on our stand while no one was watching. Looks like a .. silver tiara-wearing, white-colored, wings-sporting equine, with star-bursts all over the mane. White hair as well. Not sure if it is old generation pony or unrelated. The wings are broken, but I'm sure we can do something with it. Besides, just the thought of the gift is a huge boost to the morale of everyone after what happened yesterday.
Speaking of yesterday, the second interesting point : some of the people who messed up our stand yesterday came back today. Not sure if it was the mood or the alcohol, but they were quite friendly today. Nobody said anything about what happened, and everything went fine.
Last but not least, a student I had never heard of came to our stand and asked to become a member of our group ! He can't become an 'official' member since we had to send the complete lists a week ago, but we'll use all the help we can find ^^.

That will be all for today, but it is a lot already. Tomorrow, we will get back the camera for the whole weekend. Maybe it won't be as useless this time.

I hope.

Celestia, out.

Day 6 - 16/11/11

Feeling disheartened. If that's a real word. Day went by quite well. Managing between the list, school and other activities is tiring. I get some rest whenever I can. I was planning on playing some skyrim, you know ? Maybe next year... Luna almost finished the actual site, Fluttershy got us a few other posters. No news from the store. Not really surprising.

The big moment of the day was tonight, the hour with the camera, obviously. It went bad. Nothing we could record is of much use, not even speaking of visually aesthetics. Besides, we were only 7, when our group is supposed to include 15 persons. That would just be problematic, but the real problem is that while we were away recording stuff, some.. people from another list messed up our stand. Nothing too serious (though I doubt the knife marks on the tables can be washed away), but it's been done in front of a room full of students. About 80 of them, I'd say. I don't think any of them even tried to stop what was going on.

I'm going to gather what everyone thinks of that asap. I am resilient when it comes to such events, but I can understand people not wanting to let others step on their toes. As far as I'm concerned, I'm leaving the school in a few months. I do notcare  for my reputation then. But for the few first and second year students... I have to think about them. I'm not sure it's up to me to choose to ask them to keep silent and show smiles and friendliness in the midst of adversity.

I .. don't think I'll be able to work for the list tonight. Not feeling like it. Maybe some League of Legends or SPAZ will get my mind off all this.

Tomorrow, we'll air our first video, and make our first public event. We got our hands on a pair of boxing gloves, and we're going to give candy to anyone who will be able to open the wrappings with the gloves on. Not easy having hooves on, is it ? The animation will last for the evening. I hope we'll have enough candy for everyone. And that it'll be consistent with our budget.

Tomorrow is another long day ahead of us.

Celestia, out.

Day 5 - 15/11/11

Slept all morning. Luna was at school tending the stand. In the end, I ended up working for a long time last night. Me, Luna, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. We achieved a lot of stuff : We have a void but existent website (Luna), a fake electoral program (myself), and an almost completed 50-seconds-video for Thursday (Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie).

Which is why I hopefully won't have too much to do today, except organising people. As I said before, our Luna has some trouble with html and css, after a few years of learning other programming languages. It's.. not very efficient, but I'm confident he'll manage it. Rarity offered his help (of course, out of generosity) for some crash course learning tonight. We now need to print those flyers, complete that video, ah, and make an image with every pony in it.

A few hours later. Met with the boss of another list. We agreed on sharing an evening during the week before the election. That was strange. I was afraid he wouldn't agree, because of some past events between us. During the days just before starting the actual list, we were both looking for members. We have to include 8 members of first and second year students, or the list isn't agreed upon by the association regulating the campaigns. And on the last day, one of his members defected to our side. Because of ponies. When that happened, he was short of one member and his list couldn't make it. He had to urge a merging with another fake list lacking members as well, and compromise on his projects. I thought he would think bad of our list because of that.
It would have been bad, because he is part of the students that manage the tv screen, cameras and other media equipments of the school. He really could have broken our communication methods to pieces.

Actually, he was quite friendly. We went outside to some restaurant and ate together, and managed to find common grounds. With that out of my mind, I can invest some time reaching out to toy stores in the town. Going to try tonight, right after classes.
The frowns of my non-bronies friends that are looking at me being silly are still bearable.

Going to bed. Met with the toy store manager. Things looked favourable for us. Gave him our mail address, maybe it will be of some use in the end. Tomorrow will be a gathering of many of us, and we'll have a camera. I wonder what will happen.

Silly business, serious ponies.

Celestia, out.

Day 4 - 14/11/11

Tch. I'm tired.
Only a few hours in the day and I already want to go back to bed. Oh, wait, that's normal for me :). Nobody's arrived in the main gathering room yet, so I had time to set up chairs and a table, and print a few posters. Maybe someone in the team can take some pictures ?
I expect most people to arrive at 10:45am, during the morning pause.
We'll see how that goes. I'm a bit stressed.

11:20am. You know what ? Everythingwentbetterthanexpected.jpg :)
People seem to be quite friendly, and see past the first impressions. I'm surprised at how many have seen the first episode, but didn't go any further. Reactions are 'yes.. just yes!' and 'no.. you didn't !'. Oh, and 'what is your list website ?' too. Err.. we're working on it, of course !
Seriously, we should make one asap. We're a computer engineering school, of course I should have thought of that before. We spend so much time on the internet, a website would be essential. I'll probably ask our rarity about that.

Today's unexpected news : Thursday night will be an event from one of our school clubs, and all lists are invited to make a few events to state their presence and motivation. I'll just have to think of something and..
wait. Thursday ? SO SOON ? IT HURTS. FUuuuu~

4:43pm. Ugh. Feeling like applejack in applebuck season. Can't really show a tired face to those persons, hm ? Afternoon was short; classes took most of my time (writing those lines during a lesson in economics). Apparently, we have to make a small video teaser for Thursday as well. We probably won't have time to record anything, so it'll be a mix of extracts from the actual show.
We're going to do that tonight. I won't be very productive, but our Pinkie Pie can handle that. For the website... erf. We really should do something. Twilight and Rarity are overwhelmed by overdue homework, Trixie is nowhere to be seen, and Luna doesn't have the skills. -_-"

9pm. Meeting with the other lists went.. well, it could have been worse. We got an evening to make a party, on a Monday, from 6 to 10pm. Not much, but I think I can negotiate a second one, later, up until 2am. I'll just have to share it with another list, but our list is all about sharing, isn't it ? Just.. the others aren't.
We'll have a camera in two days. Maybe we'll get something for Thursday. At any rate we'll start the recording for the 'big' video. Working on some fluff and fake electoral programs. I'll post today on ponychan and will probably go to bed before even midnight. That would be the first time for a long long time .

Confound those ponies. They'll drive me to sleep.

Celestia, out.