Mixed feelings

The year is not exactly going smoothly so far, but I’m not quite sure why not.  Yesterday, Tuesday, started out fantastically well.  My first class of the day was voice/verse, with Lizzie, a teacher I have not studied with before because she was in London my freshman year.  She’s British, so we have a sort of instant cultural understanding that’s really nice.  But beyond that…the work was really simple, but it was really exciting.  I mean, I don’t recall ever feeling so alive while working.  I came out of the class saying, this is my teacher, and this is my work.  Everything else is just bonus, it’s extra.  This is what will make me excellent.  She also told me that this work would help a lot with the problems I’m having due, we assume, to my low blood pressure.  The last couple of weeks, every time I stand up or even just straighten up after bending over a very little bit, I get a head rush, and it’s getting to the point where it might interfere with my work.  But Lizzie says V/V will help.  So yay!

 

That was followed by Scene Study with Craig.  It was initially supposed to be a class full of all the repeats, but there are only actually two of us in there, and the rest are all sophomores.  Dan, the other repeat, and I both took Craig last year, so we’ve done all his exercises, and he’s not making us do them again.  We get a whole different curriculum from the rest of the group.  We doing our eval scenes.  He’s doing Adam J’s part in mine, and then I’m doing, um, Dan N’s part in his.  I realize that this is an extremely good and necessary and productive thing for me to do.  But I really don’t want to.  I’m not keen on this scene right now.  After all, I failed evals with it.  It’s a good thing for me to do.  That doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.  Craig also listened to the feedback the faculty had given me on my evals and said, the reason you’re not using your body and the reason you’re always in control and the reason what you’re feeling doesn’t show in you is because you’re in a constant state of startle.  Always looking to see what’s coming next, always catching every last little thing and holding it in your head, constantly on edge and checking to see what’s coming.  So I have to give up my startle reflex a little, learn to let things happen and it be OK that I didn’t predict them.  Not an easy thing.

 

Then I had a little time off for lunch, which I had with Mike B—–.  I don’t think I’m going to date this guy, but it’s nice to spend time with him.  I’m happy to be his friend, and I don’t think things need to be awkward between us at all, which is nice.  Did I mention, though, that I’m starting to seriously think about Gordon?  I know it wouldn’t be perfect, but what would be?  I think it would work.  I think it’s something to think about.  Definitely.

 

After lunch I went to tap.  Tap III.  With Tony.  Eep.  But it was fun.  I couldn’t quite keep up, but there was nothing I wasn’t physically capable of doing, he just went a touch too fast.  I’m nearly there.  I think I’m going to be OK in this class.

 

Then my MT class had a meeting with Marie.  She’s directing a show right now, so she can’t be here until next Wednesday, which kinda sucks but oh well.  But she gave us all songs to work on.  And those of us who are repeating, which is most of us, guess what.  We’re working on our eval songs.  Yuck.  I don’t want to go anywhere near that song ever again, I hate it.  I recognize the value, but I really hate the idea.  And after that meeting, I kinda crashed.  I realized that I have so little time.  I’m behind now, I have to repeat two classes and I’m behind.  There is so much I want to do while I’m here, and I will really only have two more semesters in which to do it, because next semester I’m expecting to be in

London .

 

So I started considering – what if I don’t go to <city w

:st=”on”>

London ?  What if I stay here and get stuff done?

 

Right now I’m still expecting to go.  I’ll still apply and everything, I haven’t even talked about this with my parents yet.  The first thing I need to do is talk to David, because he’s my advisor, see what he says.  But it’s really weighing on my mind right now.

 

Today, I started with ballet, in which we now have three people.  We only need two more.  It was a great class, and afterwards I was heading up the hill to buy books, when I ran into Brendan and I stopped to talk to him about the show.  We talked for a really long time about character stuff and plot stuff and it was a reallllly good talk.  And while we were talking, Robbie and Paul came by, and they stopped to talk to us too.  I told them that we needed two more people to have our ballet class, and they said that they’d enroll except that they’re already committed to be TAs during that time.  But Robbie said he’d try to come some Fridays, which will be awesome, assuming the class goes forward.  The Paul left to go do something else, and Brendan left so I could talk to Robbie (very tactfully), and we had a really nice talk too.  Mostly about Tenor, about what I’d done in Freedom that Robbie had been excited about and wanted me to bring to this work.  But the talk covered a lot of ground, really interesting stuff about him, and it was nice to see that when it’s just us, he drops the jokes and just talks to me.  I like that.  Eventually, he and Paul gave me a ride up the hill; on the way up, Robbie said that they’d be having a dinner at their place for the cast in a few weeks, which I’m looking forward to.  And I guess that was about it of interest for that.

 

Lab was fun.  How could it not be, with the twins as reps?  Yes, ‘twas muchly enjoyable.  And then we broke into class meetings, and the juniors talked at length about junior evals.  It’s like, hey, I’m not even finished with sophomore evals yet…  And they didn’t even know if people who hadn’t passed sophomore evals could do junior evals.  Just the way they were talking made it all sound very…I don’t know, like, we should all have passed by now, and if we aren’t all ready to pass junior evals, we’re worthless actors.  It made me feel awful.  They didn’t do it on purpose and it’s not what they meant, but that’s how it came across.  So I left feeling sad again.

 

I had dinner with Danny and Phoebe’s before rehearsal, and that was nice.  Rehearsal tonight was pretty good, too, and we now finally have a space in which to rehearse, starting tomorrow I believe, so that’s very good.  And that’s about it for the present.

 

I’m reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for V/V right now, and it’s hilarious.  The poet had waaaaaaay too much fun with alliteration.  Here is a sample passage:

 

(Describing the garb of the Green Knight)

And verily his vesture was all vivid green,

So were the bars on his belt and the brilliants set

In ravishing array on the rich accoutrements

About himself and his saddle on silken work.

It would be tedious to tell a tithe of the trifles

Embossed and embroidered, such as birds and flies,

In gay green gauds, with gold everywhere.

 

It goes on like this for 100 pages.  Gotta love epic poetry.  The story itself isn’t bad at all, nor the writing, and I’m a huge fan of alliteration, but there are limits and this crossed them all within about the first three pages.

 

Anyway, I’ve got a lot of work I have to do tonight, so I’d better get to it.

 

–Stephanie