Here and Doing Fine

Before I talk about Toronto, I have to say two thank yous:

Thank you to everyone who came to my send-off - great fun and everyone seemed to have a good time. Thanks especially to the filmmakers who loaned their films for the occasion!

And a huge thank you to Carrie and Chris for helping me get all my stuff out of my apartment - it felt like touch-and-go there in the final hours leading to departure, but thanks to you two, I was able to get on the plane...

And I did make it to Toronto! My first weekend was spent settling in, a process that isn't quite yet done as I have another set of boxes arriving today, and a few more items (like a cell phone!) to buy this weekend.

But have plenty of homework already to do this weekend too! The programme has been fantastic already. The first couple of days we had an overview of story structure, then went right into mapping out our characters for the mini-series we're going to write, and the beginnings of a story idea. The other participants are all creative and enthusiastic (and considerate and encouraging), and we each bring special knowledge and experience, and unique ideas and perspective to the table - a great group mind to work with as we hash out possibile directions.

And every day we have to watch TV of course... We compared the premiere of West Wing to the premiere of Studio 60. Everyone else seemed to like the new show, but I had major Issues with Jordan, the newly-appointed female president of the network. I admit I've been spoiled by the excellently powerful women characters on Battlestar Galactica. Given that she had several other posts under her belt, and was making strong decisions, Jordan was too smiley and saccharine and staring off into the middle distance for my taste. I will watch another episode to see if she gets teeth, and to see how Sorkin breaks things out now that we've gotten character introductions out of the way...