Heiba! I'm glad we finally managed to talk today. I hope you enjoyed Gone Girl as much as I did. Get enough sleep, okay? There are gains to be made!

So, although I'd set my alarm for 7am, I was awake long before then. I think it must've have been the excitement of finally having structure return to my life again that contributed to a fitful sleep; or maybe it was the time difference again. Whatever the case, here I was, listening to the Tim Ferriss Show and trying to drift back off to sleep.

Nope, no such luck. The alarm went off and I turned it off.

I think the next part was pretty much self-explanatory: I washed up, changed and was at the campus at 8.30am. From my research, I knew the NYU ID department would be open at 8am, so I wanted to cross something noteworthy off my bucket list first thing in the morning. Nothing like a straightforward success to start the day right...right?

To my dismay, the square-jawed man with close-cropped hair and all-round military feel pronounced that I was not in the system. Could it have been because I hadn't paid my fees yet? Maybe it was because I was an exchange student?

He directed me to the registrar instead, so I did a quick google search and found that it was in the same officer as the Bursar, at which I was supposed to pay my school fees. Convenient - maybe I would be able to get something done after all!

Unfortunately the Bursar would only be open at 9am, so I decided to Skype you first. Then my phone couldn't take the cold and the batteries froze up. I had no choice but to head back to the registrar's office and wait for it to open.

Thankfully, it was open early. I went in, got my confirmation documents to certify that I had indeed registered with NYU - no, ba, they did not troll me - and approached the teller at the bursar's booth to make my payment.

"Cash or cheque only."

Dammit.

Luckily, there was a Citibank nearby, so I hurried there. Unfortunately, the maximum withdrawal I could make per day is US$2,000, so that was all I could withdraw.

Normally, Citibank would be able to issue a personal cheque on the spot and I wouldn't have to hold US$7,958 in cash. However, as my account was Singapore-based, they could not access any-fucking-thing from here.

I could set up a US-based account, of course, but that would take 24-48 hours. I could not deposit any money into my bank at all because - yeah, you guessed it - they couldn't access my account, even though they are Citibank, one and the same.

I was now stuck with the possibility of having to hold onto a large sum of money on my body. I did not relish that prospect at all. the only way was to check if the Bursar accepted payment in instalments.

At about this time, class had started, so I decided that nothing would take away from me being punctual to my class.

As it turned out, arriving at the venue at 9.25am turned out to be my first accomplishment of the day. Not bad, two straight failures to start off the day!

The class was Dramatic and Visual Writing and I enjoyed every single bit of it. We were asked to apply Aristotle's principles to analysing popular films - The Godfather, Pulp Fiction and A New Hope. The professor got the title of the last one wrong, by the way. She said The New Hope and I almost lost all hope in humanity. But then I was excited to talk about Star Wars, so I quickly overlooked that.

She also made some points that really resonated with me. For instance, she bemoaned the lack of a good villain in today's day and age of filmmaking. Ultron wouldn't last a day in the ring with The Joker.

So, a great film has to have a great Villain, like Fagin or The Joker. It also has to show vulnerability in the protagonist/hero, like Bale's Batman. This was my kind of gig.

I also realised that I probably need to watch more movies and read more fiction. I intend to attack that recommended reading list by the end of the week and get my hands on a few scripts so I actually know its correct format.

When class ended, I headed back to the NYU ID office, where I had miraculously decided to show up in the system. My card was made in minutes and I wasn't at all disappointed with my hair or facial hair.

I look like I've aged a million years.

I then went to the bursar's office where they thankfully allowed the payment to be made in instalments. I'll be paying them tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday as well to settle my bills.

After that, I Skyped my bubbity hehehe.

My next class would be the recital part of the same module. We were first asked to introduce ourselves by answering a fixed set of questions. Here's what I said:

"Hi guys, my name is Clement. I'm from Singapore and I'm an exchange student for this semester, so that's why I speak...differently.

"A movie that I hate is Van Helsing. It was a terrible movie with absolutely no plot worth appreciating.

"A favourite movie that comes to mind is Gone Girl. I think Ben Affleck is a fantastic director and script-writer...more so than he is an actor.

"Honestly, I don't know much about filmmaking. My degree is in Communications and New Media, but when the chance came to take a semester of classes at Tisch, I jumped at the chance to follow my passion and experiment with something that I love consuming. My goals from this module are to just learn as much as I can about the technical part of scriptwriting and learn to appreciate storytelling."

That was the most modest goal of the class. My other classmates wanted to write drama, comedy, films and features for TV and the movies.

I guess I could have been a little more thick-skinned.

After that, we were asked to pitch our ideas for our first 8-page script. My classmates had pretty cool ideas, but mine had more of a darker undertone.

"So, there are two students - a guy and a girl - who are staying together in an apartment. The girl has problems with sleepwalking and the guy confronts her about it one day.

"She then confides in him that she had a dream the previous night. She was ripping a man's tongue out and beating his head against the sidewalk until the brains spilled out.

"The guy, who's studying to become a psychologist, tries to comfort her and interprets her dreams. He tells her that it's only a product of the stress of having to take care of their utility bills and work part-time to finance college - nothing more.

"The girl tells him that she's concerned because it seems really vivid for a dream. She's scared that she might finally hurt someone she really cares about - like him.

"After the guy consoles her, he tells her to go to school or risk losing a grade for turning up late. After she's left, he picks up the paper and reads the headline that a body has been found without a tongue two streets away."

The prof gave me some feedback, which I felt was both insightful and practical:

1. The newspaper ending is too cliched. Try something more vague, like him trying to dispose of a shirt stained with blood.

2. I could make him the killer instead!

3. I don't have to give the audience everything. Vagueness is part and parcel of telling the story. But at the same time, I'll want to have clarity. I have to know exactly what is going on as the storyteller, otherwise the audience will know.

I'm going to think about how I want this to progress, but I would want to dedicate some time to actually depicting the guy following the girl out of the front door and then losing sight of her, as well as the girl talking about her dream. I will also need to think about how I can show the audience that the guy is the murderer - perhaps, he could be trying to dispose of his own trousers.

After class, I decided to go across the street to McDonald's, where I bought a pair of Filet o' Fishes. I returned to my familiar seat at the basement of Tisch and worked on this blog until 3.30pm, when I went for The Director's Process.

I thought it was spelled "Fillet" but I guess Macky D's wanna be hipstar too.

In this module, I'll have a series of in-class and take-home assignments. I will also have a final essay of 6-8 pages analysing a director's techniques on a film of my choice (The Dark Knight?).

I went up and introduced myself again as an exchange student from Singapore. My favourite director is Christopher Nolan because of the way he expertly layers his characters and never fails to inject a strong personality into his works, like Beethoven.

My prof's favourite director is Akira Kurosawa. He liked his penchant for using the camera's and actors' movements to tell the story. To him, a good director's movie can still tell the same story even when you shut the sound off.

He showed us this clip:


I then knew exactly how much shit I was in. I did not know anything about camera angles or the 3-act traditional film structure, even though the prof assured us that modern cinema is no longer married to them. He used Pulp Fiction as an example of a non-linear narrative structure.

Pulp what? Time to download yet another movie.

The students in this class, unlike D&VW, were sophomores. They had already taken basic and intermediate film modules. They were much more versed in their favourite directors' works than I was.

For me, Sight and Sound Filmmaking will piece all these together and I won't have that until Thursday. But by the sound of it, Sight & Sound will be a very stressful module. Apparently, I would have to create 5 films, each within a 9-hour time span. This would include casting.

Shit just got real.

Nonetheless, it was an exciting prospect. I found myself wondering about the kinds of films I would make!

I left school to unforgiving weather and and quickly made my way home, picking up some Middle Eastern chicken and rice from a pop-up store on the way.

Yeah, it was as spicy as it looked. Okay, maybe a little less spicy irl.

And here I am, uploading this blog before taking a shower. It's been a looooong day, but an exciting one!