Dancing Through Life

But... I can't be normal!

2006-09-30T15:02:00.000-04:00

Here are my results from this test.

Joe Normal

34 % Nerd, 39% Geek, 13% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored less than half in all three, earning you the title of: Joe Normal.

This is not to say that you don't have some Nerd, Geek or Dork inside of you--we all do, and you can see the percentages you have right above. This is just to say that none of those qualities stand out so much as to define you. Sure, you enjoy an episode of Star Trek now and again, and yeah, you kinda enjoyed a few classes back in the day. And, once in a while, you stumble while walking down the street even though there was nothing there to cause you to trip. But, for the most part, you look and act fairly typically, and aren't much of an outcast.

I'd say there's a fair chance someone asked you to take this test. In any event, fairly normal.

Congratulations!

Monthly update?

2006-09-14T13:39:00.000-04:00

Well let's see...

Andrew's gone back to Australia. Dad and Ruth went to Mexico for two weeks, and came back about a week and a half ago. Ian's still in China doin his thang. Mom and I are going to the Mayan Riviera in Mexico for a week at the end of November. One of my online friends might be coming up to visit for a couple days around the third week of November. I'm housesitting for a couple who live just down the street from Dad and Ruth's, for three weeks til October 2nd. They've got two super sweet dogs and two super sweet cats, who I love taking care of.

As for the job front, I haven't heard anything from the restaurants I've applied to, so I'm gonna do some follow-up calls today. And as for the agents, I've got packages together for five agencies; I just need to print out the cover letters for them.

Not much else going on right now... keep your fingers crossed for me to get a job and an agent soon.

Be well, all of you.

Holy crap, an entry!

2006-08-22T15:03:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's been months since my last entry. No, I have no good reason why I haven't posted in a while.

So, my life right now:

I'm a college graduate with a Diploma in Performing Arts. I'm back in Vancouver, living at home with my Dad and Ruth, and currently jobless. I have a boyfriend who is currently staying here while visiting Canada, although he's going back home to Australia on September 9th. His name is Andrew, aka Whitey, and we met online. (Insert comments about net-dating here.) My brother Ian is currently in China - you can read his blog here to read about his adventures.

I dropped off resumes at, filled job applications for, and talked to the managers of, several restaurants in the area (including Earl's, Red Robin, Boston Pizza, Hurricane Grill...) yesterday, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that something will come of it in the near future. The manager/owner of Hurricane Grill actually went to my highschool and is the older brother of a girl in my graduating class, and recognized me, so I'm hoping that connection might pay off with a job. He said he wasn't looking right now, but once September hit and people went back to school etc, he may need someone so he'd keep me in mind. (Most, if not all, of the managers I spoke to said something along those same lines) So keep your fingers crossed for me!

On the acting front, so far I've been incredibly lazy. On my done list: send cover letter/resume/headshot to Bard on the Beach to hopefully get an audition for next summer's shows. No word yet.

On my to-do list:
- Research agents/agencies and make a list of those I want to send my package to.
- Send my package to (or drop it off at) said agencies.
- A week later, call said agencies to make sure they've received my package.
- Check out the ACTRA site, as well as a few others I have on a list somewhere in my recently-unpacked room, and see if I can get on some mailing lists for audition notices and calls for submissions.
- Apply to become an Apprentice Member of both ACTRA and CAEA.
- Check out what kinds of classes the Vancouver Film School offers, and check out prices and dates etc.

Also on my to-do list but not related to acting: cut my hair and dye it dark brown, once I have the money to do so.

Currently I'm taking care of Ruth's mom Jean, who has alzheimer's. I call her in the morning, do something with her (go for coffee, go to the dog park at Ambleside to sit on a bench and pet the dogs, etc), then call her in the early evening. Basically I'm just there to make sure she's doing alright, and so she has someone to talk to if she gets confused about something or forgets something. So far she's doing great despite Ruth's absence, and remembers things rather well.

Along with that, I'm watering plants for the people who live in the house behind Dad and Ruth's, who are also away for a couple weeks. It's just every second day, and only takes me 10 minutes at the most, including hauling the hose out onto the street to water the California lilacs and coiling it back up again. I don't know how much I'm getting paid, but it's not much trouble and any money would be great right now (god I hope I get a job soon...).

Also (see, I am keeping busy), I'm going to be house-sitting and dog-walking for John and Valerie, a really nice couple who live just down the street from here. I'm doing three days from the 25th to the 27th, then three weeks from September 12th to October 2nd. They have two adorably sweet dogs, Tala and Lucy, and two big old cats, Abu and Dhabi. I'm really looking forward to it, as the pets are wonderful, and I get paid to play with them (plus they have TiVo... ;P). And while John and Valerie are away in September, I'll be walking the dog of their neighbour, Margie, on Tuesdays. So while I remain basically unemployed, I'm at least doing some odd jobs and getting some money.

That's about all I can think of as far as updates go... I'm going to try to keep updating regularly, but I can't promise anything judging from my previous long gaps between posts.

Toodles

We really did just want to see a movie!

2005-12-15T05:49:00.000-05:00

Katie and I had quite an adventure tonight, and since I'm too lazy to type it up myself, I'lljust link to her livejournal cause she wrote it up nicely.

Katie's LiveJournal entry

And nudged is definitely the right word for it, since the car just kind of gently rolled forward into me, and I got pushed to the side into poor gimpy Katie (she broke a bone in her foot). The driver swore she wasn't talking on the cell phone she was holding in one hand, and that she was turning right, even though she was in the left lane and had a red light, so should've stopped anyway. And if she wasn't on her cell phone, she must've had her eyes closed because two girls crossing on a well-lit cross walk, one of them in a santa hat and the other on crutches, are pretty hard to miss otherwise.

What a night!

3 weeks to go

2005-10-01T17:51:00.000-04:00

But who's counting...

Yesterday J.D. (the guy who's sort of in charge of this whole tv series thing) and Reuben (camera/sound guy) were set up in the Bathurst theatre doing interviews, so I offered myself as an interviewee. Before he started the interview J.D. got a phone call so he went off to answer it while Reuben finished setting everything up. I started doing this clapping thing I learned in gymnastics as a way of keeping the rhythm of a song, and Reuben asked what it was, I explained and showed him another rhythm thing I know (involving hitting your chest, snapping your fingers, and clapping, and the rhythm goes chest, snap, clap, chest chest, snap, clap, snap and repeats from there). Just then J.D. came back and asked me what I was doing, so I explained that it was just a rhythm thing I knew, and we started the interview.

J.D. asked me things like what makes me special so that an agent or a casting director would want to pick me, what being at Randolph was like, etc. Then he asked me about the rhythm thing, and whether I can find rhythms like that anywhere. I said you can find a rhythm anywhere if you look hard enough. I think I said something about the rhythm of life to... lol. Then he asked me if I could dance the rhythm I had done before. So I moved the stool I was sitting on aside, did the rhythm through a few repeats to get the beat, and improved a dance for about 10 seconds or so. It was really fun! :D

Tommorrow I have a rehearsal from 10-12 for coffee house. Jason (the guy I did a dance with in 2nd term Dance History and coffee house) recorded a song that he'll be singing at coffee house, and has asked me, Sally, and a few other girls to choreograph and dance something to it. So tommorrow we're getting together to come up with something and see what we can do.

I slept in rather late today (4pm...) so I'm expecting to end up staying up kind of late tonight. Other than that, I have no plans yet for tonight.

long time no update...

2005-09-22T22:10:00.000-04:00

No I figured I should get my act together and update everyone on my life.

Let's see... well, my life is basically just school right now, so I'll talk about that.

Two guys are thinking about making a tv series at Randolph. They don't know exactly if it's going to be more of a drama or more reality-based, but either way we studens will play characters that are closely based on ourselves, and it will most likely be part scripted and part just us doing what we do. Right now it's just in the beginning stages, and we have a meeting about it tommorrow to find out more details. Sometime next week, I think Thursday/Friday, they'll be filming stuff to put together a promo episode so they have something to pitch to different networks. They don't know when the show will be filmed or when it will be aired if it does end up happening, nor do they know which network will take it, but they'll be pitching it to many (including HBO!). I'll let you know when I have more details.

Besides that, our 4th term Cabaret is starting to look really, really good. We're doing 'In Dreams' from Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, and a movement piece to 'Hedwig's Theme' from Harry Potter, among many other cool things. Jeffrey (the musical director) wants as many different kinds of songs (genre/nationality/language etc) which fit the theme that we can find, so everyone brought songs in today and he took those he and Linda (co-director, focused more on dance) liked. They're deciding which songs they'll do, and I hope they'll let us know at least which ones they've picked if not who is singing them, tommorrow.

I did my monologue in Scene Study yesterday and actually left my teacher, Greg Schneider, speechless, along with the rest of my class. That was a pretty damn amazing feeling...

Greg gave us an assignment to find a completely new monologue and present it next week. Eek! I'm going to the reference library tommorrow in my 3 hour break, and hopefully I'll find something. It has to be from a Canadian playwright, which limits things a little bit. But there are some f-ing amazing Canadian playwrights so there's no lack of good material; I just need to read a bunch of plays to find one that suits me but still challenges me enough to be worth my time.

My singing is getting better by leaps and bounds, which makes me very, very happy.

As for my life outside of school... well, I don't really have one. So that's that. :P

What's going on...

2005-07-18T18:30:00.000-04:00

Well, let's see...

Everything at school is kind of frantic, since this is the last week of classes and all our final presentations and everything are being done this week. I have my final exam in theory on Wednesday, as well as the final presentation of our scene in Scene Study. Our Shakespeare show is a week from Thursday, and we're kind of going at a stop-and-go pace with rehearsing that with Peter, the teacher/director. I feel confident about our performance, but both my scenes definitely need more work before they're ready.

I had my Voice & Text interview last Tuesday, and I have my jazz and tap interviews together on Friday (since Natalie teaches me for both classes), and my Movement and Ballet interviews next Monday. Next Monday is also a yoga class instead of ballet (we have to come in early for the yoga class, then have our interviews afterwards). And Then Wednesday there are two final term presentations (I believe it's Dance History 2 and Cabaret 2) and Thursday we have our Shakespeare show followed by the other half of term 3's Shakespeare show. I'm ushering the 5th term play once and the 6th term musical twice (although I can't remember exactly when I'm doing that... I have to check with Ina), and then I just have my Ronterview on August 2nd, and then I fly home on the 5th!

Wow, it's going to be a busy couple of weeks!

Oh, some good news: I heard about a really good deal for a Dell Notebook (Insprion 6000) and colour printer for $1296 (the laptop alone is usually $1900) and Mom bought it for me! I'm sooo excited about that! THANKS MOM!!

Obligatory Update

2005-07-08T20:12:00.000-04:00

To stave off Mom's worried emails that because I haven't posted in a while I may have dropped off the face of the planet... :P

School's the same as usual... a lot of work, and a lot of fun. The end of term really crept up on us all. Suddenly we have two weeks until final presentations and then Ronterviews, and then break. WOAH!

Toronto's the same as it's been since oh.. May? Hot and muggy, although the last couple of days haven't been as bad as it can get around here. Mom sent me a Japanese folding fan, and I used it all day today- it definitely helped!

Tommorrow night my friend Steff from school is having a show with a bunch of her 'boys', and I'm thinking of going. It's all original music, and her cousin's hiphop dance group from Montreal is going to perform as well. It sounds like a lot of fun!

Sunday I have a rehearsal for one of my Shakespeare scenes at school from 3 to 5, and then I'm rehearsing my Scene Study scene from 6:30 until 8, or later if need be, at Brie's house. Then Scene Study again Monday 5-6 and Tuesday 5:20-7, and my other Shakespeare scene Thursday 12-1 and Friday 11-12.

Phew...

Bleh!

2005-06-23T17:58:00.000-04:00

My computer microphone hasn't been working properly lately, and the sound has been going in and out over the last couple of days. Finally, the mic stopped working completely, and the sound's still a little odd. I bought a new microphone, hoping that it was just the mic, but the new one doesn't work either and the sound is still weird, although only sometimes (and it seems to work fine when anyone else is around.. maybe I'm going crazy??). So I asked an online friend, who's a technician, and he said the problem's my sound card. So now I need to buy a new sound card. ARGH!!

Besides my computer issues, school's been kicking my ass this week. Not in work overload, or emotional-ness, but it's just tiring me out. I really need a couple days off- ie. the weekend. I'm really looking forward to visiting with Mom.

An update

2005-06-17T21:44:00.000-04:00

Well, let's see...

I've been sleeping in a lot this week, which is my tendency when given several days of free time. I also went and bought a new computer game at a really cheap price, so I've been playing that a lot these last couple of days. I'm also re-reading one of my favourite series of books, The 'Incarnations of Immortality' series by Piers Anthony. I'm on the last book, 'And Eternity'. Then I'm starting in on 'Rhapsody: Child of Blood' by Elizabeth Haydon, the first book of another of my favourite series', 'Symphony of Ages'. I've also been watching a lot of Sex and the City... I finished the 3rd season yesterday and watched a couple episodes of the fourth season today. I really love that show!

But before Sex and the City, I cleaned. I took all the clothes out of my dresser drawers and organized them, putting aside anything I don't really wear any more. Then I put everything back in, neat and tidy. Then I cleaned off the top of my dressers, and my computer desk, and the rest of my room. Then I organized the mess of stuff under the sink in my bathroom, and generally tidied the bathroom up. THEN I watched Sex and the City. :P

Mom might be coming for a visit next weekend... she's working out the flights and getting back to me tommorrow. I'm excited to see her! We're tentatively planning on going to the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) on Saturday, because I have a Two for One Admission coupon for an exhibit on 'Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origins of Flight'.

Then on Sunday (the 26th) Randolph is participating in Toronto's annual Gay Pride Parade!! Woohoo! I finally have an excuse to wear the rainbow fake eyelashes I bought a long time ago because they were cheap and tacky! I'm really excited... I've never seen a Pride Parade, let alone marched in one!

Relaxing

2005-06-13T23:35:00.000-04:00

Ah, break. A time to sleep in and relax, as well as catch up on work that needs to be done. I plan on dividing my time between lazing around and sleeping, and doing assorted things that need to be done. Like: organize my dressers and get rid of clothes I no longer wear, organize my computer and get rid of files and programs I no longer need, memorise my three scenes (Kafka in 'Words, Words, Words' by David Ives, a funny one-act play about three monkeys, Kafka, Milton and Swift, caged up with typewriters to write Hamlet; Emilia in Othello, and Witch 2 in Macbeth) and maybe do a little work on my book.

Oh, and finish watching the 3rd season of Sex and the City, which I borrowed from Kharytia. Oh, and return a library book that's due soon, and pick up some I have on hold before they expire and I'm fined for not picking them up. :P

I'm not used to this kind of weather!

2005-06-11T11:37:00.000-04:00

from The Weather Network:

Toronto (Ontario, Canada)

Current Conditions

28°C
Feels like : 38°C
Barometric pressure : 101.56 kPa
Relative humidity : 74%
Wind : 13 km/h SE
Dewpoint : 21°C
Partly cloudy

Short Term Forecast
This Afternoon
31°C
Feels like: 36
Relative humidity: 41%
Risk of thundershowers
P.O.P.: 30%
Wind: 15 km/h S

This Evening
24°C
Feels like: 29
Relative humidity: 62%
Thunder- showers
P.O.P.: 40%
Wind: 5 km/h SW

Tonight
21°C
Relative humidity: 75%
Mainly cloudy
P.O.P.: 30%
Wind: 10 km/h SW

From Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon we expect : close to 10 mm of rain.

Yuck!

TGI-Break!

2005-06-10T23:45:00.000-04:00

We did a hip hop class in jazz today, and it was really fun, albeit extremely, depressingly hot and sweaty. (Right now, at nearly midnight, it's 24 degrees! It was at least 30 all day, and our school is an oldschool church with no air conditioning and big stained glass windows, with tiny sections that open (and several of which don't even open at all). It gets miiiiighty hot in there...

Shakespeare was the worst, though. It's in 210, which is the studio on the top floor (technically 2nd floor, 3rd if you count the basement floor as 1). 210 is by far the hottest room in the building, because it's the highest and has the least windows that open. Also, it's above the level of the building next to us and the windows face the west, so we get lots of sun pouring through that stained glass on us the whole four hours of class. Even with two fans going full blast, plus the two ceiling fans, it's still stifling. I almost break out into a sweat just thinking about it...

Tommorrow's my massage, and I'm so excited that I don't know what to do with myself. My shoulder definitely needs some attention, as it hasn't stopped hurting. I have no idea what I did to it, but I hope the massage therapist can fix it tommorrow!

Catching up...

2005-06-08T21:10:00.000-04:00

Monday I performed my movement biography in Movement class, and did really well. A lot of people told me afterwards that they were really impressed by my gymnastics...

We did our 1-minute phone conversation scenes in Film class, and I think I did rather well. I can't bring myself to watch my tape, though, so I'm not sure exactly how I did.

Then Monday night was George Randolph's 50th birthday party- it was on a Monday because that's a dark night at most theatres (dark night means there are no shows that night) so more people would likely be able to come. There were a lot of great performers singing, including The LMT Connection (their guitarist Leroy Emmanuel is absolutely amazing... he's played with Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, John Lee Hooker, Al Green, Dionne Warwick, and James Brown Band to name a few) and jazz saxaphonist Demo Cates. Everyone there looked amazing, and it was such a blast!!

In Voice & Text on Tuesday we talked about the different aspects of character- physiological, sociological, and psychological traits. I didn't sing in MTP, which means I won't be singing for two weeks since next week's our week off.

Today I had my Theory midterm, which I think went really well. Jeffrey picked on us altos for the entire Choral, and we were all getting kind of frustrated by the end. Then Scene Study was cancelled, again, this time because Rosanna is sick. So Meagan, Linda and I went to lunch at Swiss Chalet, then I went back to school and sang through my entire repertoire of songs in a free tutorial room. Then Talia and I met up to go over our tap routine before tap. Everyone performed their combinations, and they were all amazing! Ours went really well, too. Then Natalie put each group with another group, and had each group teach the other half of their combination and vice versa in 15 minutes, then had us perform the new combinations for the rest of the class. It was fun seeing how people meshed two different choreographies together in such a short time.

I got a tax return a couple days ago, so I've taken the chance to book my first ever professional massage, on Saturday. I'm soooo excited, especially since my shoulder is really sore; I'm not sure why. I have an appointment for an hour and 15 minutes, and I'm reeeeally looking forward to it!!

Just a brief note.

2005-06-06T23:57:00.000-04:00

Letting you all know that I feel waaaaay better, but I'm way too tired to post much more than that now cause I just got home from George Randolph's 50th birthday party, and I've gotta go to bed.

To Done

2005-06-05T18:30:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I:
-Finished sewing my duvet cover
-Wrote my Voice and Text journal
-Finished up all 10 entries required for my Movement journal
-Did laundry, including handwashing my delicate sweaters and such
-Vacuumed my room
-Cleaned the bathroom

Then I watched Keeping the Faith while Ken and Vasil went to a concert, and when they got back the three of us started watching Boogeyman but ended up stopping it and going to bed cause Ken was asleep and Vas and I were pretty close to sleep ourselves. So far, though, Boogeyman is scary with just the little things that have happened so far, and is neatly setting up the second half of the movie to be either extremely scary or extremely disappointing in its anticlimacticity.

As for today, I met Talia at school to do our tap choreography for Wednesday's class, and after an hour of (very hot!) work, we've completely finished our choreography and, I must say, it looks awesome!! It's challenging enough to be worth doing, but once you get the hang of it it's fine. And we used all of the steps we've learned in class, which our teacher Natalie has told us means bonus points!

Then I came home and read for a bit, feeling sicker and sicker. Now I feel like I have the flu, although I'm not sure if it is that since I did get the flu shot in October/November. I'm really stuffed up and feel ill- the kind of ill feeling where you know you'd feel better after throwing up, but you just can't seem to do it. So my plans for the rest of the evening are to rest up, drink tea, maybe watch the rest of Boogeyman, and go to bed early.

Hurrah!

2005-06-03T23:17:00.000-04:00

I just love that feeling on Fridays right when you finish your last class (or when you get off work...) and you know you have the whole weekend ahead of you. It's the best!

Jazz this morning was cancelled because they wanted to film the Choral singing 'Come Sail Away' for the promotional video they're making for the school. We were all squished together on the stage and I'm a little sick with a sore throat, so I wasn't having the best of times.

Then after a long break with much conversation in the cafeteria, we had Shakespeare class. We did the usual ritual and games, but then we did a new game/exercise. The class sat on one side of the room, then Peter had one person sit in the middle of the room facing the class, blindfolded. Then two people quietly sat on either end of the room, with the blindfolded person in the middle of them, and made any kind of noise they wanted to make to get the person in the middle to come over to them. We had to make vocal noises- no clapping, stomping, etc- and the only noises that really drew the person towards someone were open vowel sounds, straight from the heart. (Rather than a noise from the brain, completely calculated to interest the blindfoldee. It was really interesting the kinds of noises that would come out of people...

Then we did the first passes of our monologues. Mine was okay, but I don't really own my monologue yet (to own your monologue is to really have it memorised 100%, so that it just flows out of you without you having to think. If you own it, you could say it in your sleep.) so it wasn't as strong as I would like. Peter says I need to bring it into my body more, cause I was doing the novice actor arms, where you hold them out, elbows bent, at around waist level and SHAKE them on WORDS you want to EMPHASIZE. Heehee...

Then I dropped some books off at the library, came home, ate leftover macaroni and cheese, read some of my book, and fell asleep for a few hours. Then I got up, and wrote this!

Tommorrow, I refuse to sleep in past 10:30 or laze around all day.

TO DO:
-Finish sewing my duvet cover cause I keep poking myself with pins when getting in and out of bed
-Write my Voice and Text journal from Tuesday's class
-Write an entry or two in my Movement journal
-Type up my song analysis for MTP
-Do laundry
-Handwash my sweater
-Maybe get the vacuum from downstairs and vacuum my room

I think that'll be plenty for tommorrow. Now let's see if I actually get it all done!

Sisterhood

2005-06-02T22:02:00.000-04:00

It was so hot in ballet class that I started to feel a little dizzy near the end. The school's an old building without air conditioning, so it gets mighty hot dancing upstairs in the summer! Otherwise, though, it was a good class.

Shakespeare was a loooong class, and we were all really lethargic and stupid today. We figure it's a combination of heat, stress, and general lack of sleep. We did some work on our monologues and the usual games and exercises.

I went and saw The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants at the theatre a few blocks away, solo (which was an experience all on it's own). It was really good, and I cried, but I've read the book and it was kind of disappointing expecting certain things to happen and having it be completely different. Like the guy who's supposed to work in a forge is instead a fisherman. Or the incident getting between two people is an ancient family feud with murky details instead of one of them accidentally (on purpose?) seeing the other naked. Besides the things they had to change to make it a good movie from a good book, though, it was really good, and I'd recommend it. They left the situation finalized but with enough open ends to have a sequel, since there's a second and third book after this one.

Tuesday/Wednesday

2005-06-01T20:30:00.000-04:00

In jazz on Tuesday we did that combination again that I mentioned Friday I was doing awkwardly. I've figured it out so that I'm not awkward at it anymore, but I really don't like it, and it's rather easy. It's the same combination that my teacher's other class, which is two levels less advanced than my class, is doing and it's just too simple. I really don't feel challenged enough in this class, and it's making me frustrated!

Then in Movement we did some discussion and work on dialect and diction. It's amazing how making a small change in the placement of your tongue can completely change a sound. Then we learned the third of the four humours- Phlegmatic/Water. It's really interesting, but it didn't quite hit the big note that Choleric did for me last week.

Then MTP... vocally I felt ready to perform my song, 'I Want To Be Bad', but I didn't feel ready in terms of the acting of my song. Luckily Jeffrey didn't call on me, although I probably would've done fairly well if I had had to go.

Then I came home and did my theory homework for today, which was a tad confusing at first but once I got a hang of it it was pretty straightforward. I also practised naming musical intervals after hearing them played. It's something we need to learn in Theory, and I kept getting them completely off (like thinking it's a minor 7th when it's a major 3rd- which is like the difference between Do and So, to try and put it in uncomplicated musical terms). But after practicing last night, I got 7 out of 10 right, in Theory this morning rather than 1 or 2 as I usually do.

After Theory I had Women's Chorus, and we sang 'We Rise Again' a few times, which we've been working on for a couple weeks now, and sang 'Fernando' from Abba Forever, which we just got last week. Then in Choral we sang 'When You Wish Upon a Star' twice through, which we started last week, and then worked on 'Libia me', that song from La Traviata that we've been working on for a while now. We're still fairly terrible at it, but Bob persists in working it with us despite our suckitude.

I did the first pass of my monologue in Scene Study, which went really, really well. After I went through it once, Rosanna talked through some of the important subtext points with me, then had Ken be my scene partner and had us improvise the scene so that I was using my own words instead of speaking the monologue. I started to cry partway through but it was simply from the emotion of the scene. It was the first time I've cried at Randolph without it being some sort of breakdown or unexpected reaction to something fairly innocuous. As soon as I finished, I came right out of it, wiped my face, and was perfectly fine. It was a refreshing experience after having so many random crying jags at school.

Then, since tap was cancelled today, I went down to the passport office to get mine renewed, and then went to the Reference Library to get some songs and photocopy the scene Rosanna assigned to me today. Since we only have 4 guys in our class, Rosanna's having a girl play the male role in my scene, and Brie and I will choose who'll play which of the two female roles. But when I found the play, it turns out that there are two guys and one girl. I'm thinking either there's another version, or that Rosanna just got confused. Both are understandable, but until I find out what's going on I'm simply confused.

Did two assignments for nothing!

2005-05-30T20:42:00.000-04:00

Ballet was really fun, and a great workout. But in both Movement and Film, we didn't have to present the exercises/assignments that were due for today. So I worked hard to get them ready on time for nothing! At least now I'm ready and I just have to review for next week, but I'd much rather have done them today and have it all over with now.

I walked to the library at lunch to get some books I had on hold there, and got ogled by a gang of grade 10-ish highschool guys on their lunch break. It was flattering, since I was feeling grubby and not at my best.

We rented Closer and signed out the movie theatre downstairs, so I'm going to go watch it now...

Summer hibernation?

2005-05-29T23:33:00.000-04:00

I somehow managed to sleep in til 4 today, which means I'll have a lot of trouble going to bed tonight. I watched the last half of Stepmom and all of Pretty Woman on TBS, and Ken and I did our film homework for tommorrow- we have to film each other doing a short, roughly two minute scene where we get woken up by a phone call, then call someone else immediately after. We have to work out certain points to change from a long shot to a medium to a close-up and vice versa. That was pretty easy to do, and since Ken has an old camcorder, we got to practice filming each other a couple times to get used to when we have to zoom in and out.

Yesterday I was at school for nearly two hours, since no one wanted the studio after the hour I had it signed out for. I finished up my movement biography, making sure that I have three Effort Elements in it, then choreographed about 6 counts of 8 of tap for Talia and my tap assignment. We only agreed to do a count of 8 or two, but I had a lot of time and got into it too much to stop at just two. I figured we didn't have to use everything that I made up, anyways. We're meeting tommorrow after film to put together what we've choreographed seperately and finish it up for tap on Wednesday.

That's about it...

Ah, the weekend...

2005-05-27T23:47:00.000-04:00

I had a really good jazz class this morning, although I just couldn't get the combination we learned. Something about it wasn't sticking in my body, and I just looked awkward doing it. (Awkward is an awkward word... go figure!)

Then Shakespeare was the same as it always is... fun games that make the time go by so fast, seperated by looooong, slooooooow periods of sitting chatting about things that aren't really worth $77 (which is roughly what I (read: my parents) pay per day to be at Randolph. But at least we did some work on our monologues, even if it was just reading them out once and making a few comments on what clues the punctuation gives to us as the actor.

I had a studio signed out for an hour after Shakespeare to work on my Movement Biography, which I have to perform on Monday. "Students will be asked to prepare a short (maximum 2 minutes) autobiographical movement presentation. It can reflet any aspect of yourself that you choose. It might show your movement history and/or who you are now. No music or props should be used. It should contain use of three [Laban] Effort Elements and students should be able to clearly demonstrate these Elements."
I decided to do my movement history, which is pre-kinder ballet (I was no more than 6 years old and it involved a lot of waving of coloured chiffons), gymnastics, rock climbing, and dance (breakdancing, ballet, jazz, tap, and pointe). It was actually a lot of fun to do... I really had fun making up my little gymnastics routine! I have another studio booked for an hour tommorrow to finish it up and make sure I have the required three Effort Elements (something we've been doing in class, different ways to move- ie Light/Strong Weight, Slow/Quick Time, Indirect/Direct Space and Free/Bound Flow) somewhere in my movement piece. That shouldn't take me the whole hour, so I plan on just dancing for the rest of my time in the studio. It's so much fun to have such a big space to yourself to dance in.

Oh, Rosanna couldn't make it to school for the Scene Study coachings today, so we're going to have to reschedule. And since we're all supposed to do our final passes of our monologues next Wednesday and some of us haven't even done our first passes, I'm not sure how it's going to work. Plus, she was supposed to post up our scenes so that we know our groups and which scenes we're doing from which plays. I hate it when things are up in the air like this...

Okay, bed time!!

P.S. I forgot to mention that Talia and I have chosen to do our 8 bar tap assignment to Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. Yeah!! :D

Ginger cookies and old episodes of The O.C.

2005-05-26T21:06:00.000-04:00

Ruth sent some ginger cookies, and I'm sitting here enjoying a few while watching the first episode of the second season of The O.C. (which is the season that just ended last week). And before that, I watched the last episode of the first season. Ah, it's nice not having any work to do for school tommorrow...

Ballet was really good, and challenging, which always makes me happy. Then Shakespeare was fun, although we've been playing the same game-exercises for a month now.

We're supposed to be starting work on our monologues tommorrow... fingers crossed!

These ginger cookies aren't going to last very long...

A long but good day

2005-05-25T22:31:00.000-04:00

We learned an SSA (Soprano I/Soprano II/Alto) arrangement of Abba's Fernando in Women's Chorus 2 today... it was awesome! Then in Choral, we sang When You Wish Upon a Star from Pinnochio. The alto part is really hard to get, especially since we a)were sight-reading and b)couldn't hear ourselves over the sopranos. We just sort of plugged on and sang what we thought were the right notes as Bob, the conductor, pushed on to do the whole song in the ~35 minutes that we had to work with. It was rather fun being terrible... :P

Scene Study was... I dunno. Nothing special, but it was a good class. I got some good ideas from people's monologues. Rosanna wants to start on scenes soon and do everyone's final pass of their monologue next class, so she's having private coachings for the first run of the people who haven't gone yet. Since I'm one of them, I get to work my monologue privately with Rosanna for a half hour on Friday - a real treat at Randolph, where spending 20 minutes in-class working mostly one-on-one with a teacher is a privilege.

Lunch with the ladies was, as always, a blast, and tap was really fun. We have to choreograph 8 bars of 8 counts to any song we want, in partners, for next Wednesday. I'm excited to choreograph a tap routine...

And now I'm off to bed...

Refreshing breakdown

2005-05-24T21:30:00.000-04:00

Actors put themselves into a lot of weird emotional states and get in touch with weird, deep-down things inside of them. So sometimes, in the middle of something innocuous, you can burst into tears. I'm sure every actor has had it happen to them at least once. And singers and dancers too, maybe- I can't really divide the three into completely seperate things since they all intertwine for me. But at any rate, at Randolph it's a regular, well-known occurance. A student will be singing a song they've sung dozens of times, or performing a monologue they know top to bottom, or doing an in-class exercise trying to breath into their back, when suddenly they burst into tears. Sometimes it's not so sudden, and it's a by-product of whatever emotional state they're exploring in the particular exercise, monologue, etc.

It's happened to me working a monologue in Scene Study, and singing in MTP, and it happened to me today in Voice & Text. We were exploring the Four Humours of the body- Blood, Yellow Bile, Black Bile, Phlegm, a.k.a. Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, Phlegmatic, a.k.a. Wind, Fire, Water, Earth. We had done Sanguine already- it's airy, generous, light-hearted. Sanguine is the clown, the person that wants to make everyone else as happy as they are. Then when Joy, our teacher, was talking us through into Choleric, the image she used was the throat. She said, "Now feel in your throat every time someone's told you you're not good enough, not tall enough, not thin enough, not old enough, not pretty enough, not..." etc and I just started to cry. She says that the throat can be a huge trigger for some people...

Then she had everybody walk around the room in Choleric, then speak lines of their sonnets in it. As soon as she told us to move around, I had to stand off to the side against the wall because I was so... in tears. I was breathing really quickly and shallowly, and I was sort of scared of the other people in the class. Choleric is violent, vengeful, firey, animal, and the sounds they were making and the way they were speaking to each other got to me. Then Joy came over while they were speaking lines to each other, and helped me work myself out of the state I was in. She had me connect my breath back down in my sacrum (lower back, lower belly, center of the body) and breathe out in big, long exhales on sound. (On sound means with some sort of sound, rather than just air.) I wasn't quite back, but she called everyone back in the circle and asked me to join them. She then pulled me back up a little more with more deep, connected breathing, then had me work the rest of the way through it with my sonnet. She pointed out my disconnected breath to the class and, as I got it connected and came back to myself, she talked me and the class through it. Then she had people speak a line of their sonnet to someone in the circle, in Choleric. After I did a line from mine, she said, "Wow, that was powerful. That was a good exercise for you!" I agreed, because I did feel a fire in my core and a bit of vengefulness on my tongue. The breakdown, wherever it came from, helped me find a really powerful Choleric/Fire feeling.

After those random breakdowns, you usually feel one of three things: rejuvenated, depressed, or sometimes confused. After mine, I felt really refreshed and lightened.

That was the highlight of my day. Besides that, Jazz was fun although I really want to move up- I don't feel at all challenged enough! I learned a lot of things to do and not to do in an audition in MTP, which I always like.

All in all a good, albeit long, day. However, tommorrow's the longest day of the week by far, with 6 hours of class from 8 to 2:30, then tap from 5:40 to 7. But I have lunch at White Spot with the ladies to look forward to. All my classes on Wednesdays are fun, though, it's just by the end of tap class I just want to crash.

Oh, I've chosen a monologue from Helena in All's Well That Ends Well, I,iii,184-210.

Female Shakespearean monologues

2005-05-23T21:01:00.000-04:00

I need to find a 2 minute monologue for Shakespeare class, so I've been looking through my book of the complete works. Sadly, there's an annoying abundance of powerful male monologues, and a distinct lack of good female ones. There are, of course, a handful of really good ones, like Lady Macbeth's 'Unsex me now' and Juliet's 'Gallop a pace you fiery footed steeds'. But compared to the monologues the men in his plays speak, us women seem to be slighted. Of course, the parts weren't written for women, since the actors were all men, but Shakespeare seems to have spurned his female characters of the really meaty emotional stuff. I'm thinking of doing Juliet's well-known 'Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?' just to be obstinate.

Bah.

A weekend of cleaning

2005-05-22T22:03:00.000-04:00

I spent yesterday relaxing and reading, and did a bit of homework. Then today, I cleaned my room, including my computer desk and the tops of my dressers which are perpetually covered in miscellaneous stuff, and cleaned the kitchen and living room, since it's my day to clean them. Then I watched Braveheart while doing my nails, and sewed myself a little drawstring bag to put my cards in.

I'm planning on doing some more homework tommorrow and sorting through and organizing my dressers.

TGIF!!

2005-05-20T22:21:00.000-04:00

Jazz class was really fun this morning, but I really want to move up. The teachers were given strict orders not to move anyone up for a couple weeks, so at the beginning of the first class I asked Natalie, my teacher, to keep an eye on me in terms of maybe moving up, and then left it alone. I'm planning on talking to her after class on Tuesday, though, cause it'll have been 7 classes and over 3 weeks. Hopefully she'll a) be able to move me up, and b) feel that I should move up, because I just don't feel challenged enough in Elementary 2. It's still really fun, but it's just too easy. I want the challenge of Intermediate. And watching the combinations the Intermediate class, I always think, "I can do that!" So I'm crossing my fingers that I'll be able to move up.

Shakespeare class was really interesting, because at one point Peter had us all walk around in our usual, neutral walk and pick someone to observe. We had to look at exactly how they moved, where they lead their body from, how their arms swing etc, and then he had us emulate them. Then we all stood in a circle and he had Michael come forward and do his copied walk. Then we all had to guess who it was he had watched. It was Talia; Peter had Talia walk just in front of Michael and he really did have the little peculiarities of her walk! It was really neat. Then Michael stepped back and Talia did her walk, and so on. It turned out that Scott had been copying me, but his emulation of me was so off that it took ages for us to figure out that it was me- we basically named everyone until we found the right name. He was walking really oddly, picking his knees way up and swinging his arms forward, almost like a robot. It was definitely not close to my walk at all. Oddly enough, around 3 people did Talia, and about 6 or 7 people did Justine. They both have really interesting, unique walks and it was really neat to see each person's version of their walk.

I'm really looking forward to sleeping in tommorrow...

Almost the weekend...

2005-05-19T18:06:00.000-04:00

Ballet this morning was really good, but it went a little bit over time and I had to duck out because I had a vocal tutorial 5 minutes after class ended. The vocal tutorial went well, but I feel like I'm stuck at a wall vocally and I'm just not improving. Singing is definitely the weakest of the three disciplines, and I feel like while my dancing and acting are steadily improving by leaps and bounds, my singing is flatlining. Ugh.

Shakespeare class was also really good. I seem to have no words with which I can describe today except 'good'... It wasn't exceptional but it wasn't bad.

just one of those bad mornings...

2005-05-18T21:20:00.000-04:00

I've been having trouble sleeping lately, and lay awake in bed last night until around 3 AM. Therefore I slept in for my 8am theory class this morning and didn't have time for a shower or a proper breakfast. I basically just threw some clothes on, grabbed my school stuff, my metropass and my keys and headed out the door. I grabbed a coffee and a muffin from Tim Hortons cause it's fast and on the way to the subway station. However, when I got to the station, I realised that somewhere along the way I had dropped my metropass (which gives a month of unlimited travel on the subway, buses and streetcars and would cost me $100 to replace)! I crossed my fingers that perhaps I dropped it at home. I payed the fare of $2.50 (luckily I had change or I'd have been even more royally screwed than I am), which aggravated me further.

I spent my subway ride juggling the hot coffee cup cause I didn't think to grab an insulating sleeve or a second cup, gingerly sipping to avoid spilling hot coffee in my lap or burning my tongue or throat, and wrestling with the little tab you rip off the lid to open it, which wouldn't stay down and kept poking me in the nose.

And then in my first class, I had to hand in a photocopy of my homework, and after I handed it in I realised that I had done a good 75% of it wrong. And then I opened the paper bag to have my muffin and saw that it was the wrong kind. AAAAARGH!!

After that, though, my day got better. Theory went well, and in Women's Chorus 2 we found out that we'll be starting on two Abba songs, probably Fernando and Waterloo, next week. In Choral we continued to work on the opera song we've been working for the last couple weeks, and while Bob, the conductor, was working with the sopranos on the high solo part, I sang along even though I can't really hit those notes and laughed to myself. The opera piece is a rather well-known Italian 'drinking song' commonly heard in commercials, called La Traviata.

Scene Study was really, really good and I learned a lot and got a lot of ideas and things to work on in my monologue although I didn't go. Then Justine, Kat, Meaghan and I went on our Wednesday lunch to Swiss Chalet. We chatted about life, as usual, then went back to school for tap. Tap was fun, although I didn't learn anything I don't already know. The class I'm in is a little easy for me, but it's good for me to work on the more basic steps because I tend to get flustered at a more advanced level and even my basic steps get muddled.

Then I came home, paying another $2.50 that I shouldn't have to spend, and searched for my metropass. I can't find it, so I'm assuming it's gone for good. I calculated how much I'm going to have to spend on commuting for the rest of the month, and if I only use transit to go to and from school during the week and either walk anywhere else or just stay in, I'm going to be spending $40. That's a lot for a relatively broke student! I'm just angry at myself for not being more careful with my metropass, even though I was in a rush to leave this morning to be on time for class.

Tommorrow I have ballet class from 9:30-10:50, a vocal tutorial at 10:55, and Shakespeare class from 1-4:50.

it's been a long day..

2005-05-17T22:23:00.000-04:00

We found out last week that Danielle, a girl in 5th term at school, has been diagnosed with leukemia. Apparently she has a 70% chance of recovery, and started chemo treatments on Friday, so we're all rooting for her. She's such a ball of energy and a hugely positive person- it's really hard to imagine her beaten by anything. But she's got well over a hundred people sending her love and prayers, and I know she's going to be strong and not let this thing bring her down no matter how sick she gets.

Danielle's supposed to be in my jazz class, so our teacher Natalie suggested that we tape the two combinations that we've been doing to show her what we've been up to. I can just imagine Danielle eagerly learning the combo's off the tape...

After working hard to dance my hardest for Danielle's tape, I had 5 minutes to quickly change and rush to Voice & Text. Today Joy (our teacher) wanted to concentrate on finding our inner abs, because they're a hard muscle group to feel. You can pick something up and feel your arm muscles work, and when you take a step you can tell which muscles in your leg are doing what, but it's really hard to pinpoint where your inner ab muscles are and what they do.

So we did some exercises moving our bodies in little ways, concentrating on the muscles in our core and feeling which ones were working. At first I had a hard time not using other muscles to move, but after a while I got the hang of it, and 'found' my inner abs.

Then, however, we did a loooong exercise on the ground to relax our bodies and breathe deeply, also helping to target the inner abs. Since I'm very flexible and have naturally open, loose hip joints I have to grip muscles in my hips to keep my legs up when on my back with my legs bent and feet on the floor. The exercise, however, was about relaxing and breathing, which I couldn't do if I had to tense my body to stay in position. As Joy led us through the exercise, lifting our legs in different ways and using our arms to passively add weight to our legs to further the stretch (which I also couldn't do, because the second I tried to relax my arms to let them passively stretch rather than actively pull my legs towards my chest, they flopped to the ground) I was getting more and more frustrated, and when I asked her how to fix my problem, she answered in a way that didn't really give me an answer to my question, and continued talking the class through the exercise. I was really frustrated by the time we finished - rather than being relaxed and loose with my breath nice and deep, I was stiff and confused, with a sore back and a tense, clenched jaw.

I managed to let that go a little while we sat and discussed meter and rhythm in the sonnets that we're currently working on, but left the class in a fairly bad mood.

I treated myself to lunch at Tim Hortons and tried their new triple chocolate muffin, which is extreemly tasty and cheered me up a bit. Also, I looked in my mailbox on the way back from Tim Hortons and found that my vocal teacher Jill had copied some music that I actually needed later on for a vocal coaching with Lona, the accompanist for our MTP class. I had a version of the song already, but it was in the wrong key, and Jill was nice enough to make a copy for me of her version, which is in the right key. That helped my mood a bit as well.

My coaching with Lona went well, although I didn't know the song well enough to feel at all ready to sing it in MTP. Luckily I sang last week, and therefore there was roughly a 1% chance that I'd have to sing today, which I didn't.

After class ended (at 5:20), I headed home, still in a bit of a bad mood. I had a nice, hot bath when I came home and lay in bed a bit with a heating pad on my back, and felt much better.

Then I watched Wal Redro: UVS (not as good as the original one, Ruth, but still good) (for those of you who don't speak Ruthish, Wal Redro is Law & Order, Wal Redro: UVS being Law & Order: SVU {Special Victims Unit}) and got on the computer to catch you all up with my fairly unsatisfying day.

Ta-da!

The Report

2005-05-16T18:56:00.000-04:00

Alright, let's see...

Right now I'm in my third term at Randolph and I'm loving it. It's what's called a triple threat (technically quadruple, but I'll get to that...) school, because they teach singing, acting and dancing, putting an equal emphasis on all three disciplines. The main focus is musical theatre, but we study plays too, as well as Shakespeare (3rd term is all about the Bard).

Let me try and describe the classes...
Each student has two 1 hour 20 minute dance classes each in ballet and jazz every week, and in 3rd through 6th term, a 1 and a half hour tap dance class each week. There are around 7 levels of difficulty of ballet and jazz, and around 5 in tap, so the likelihood of being placed in a class that's too easy or too hard because it's the one that suits best is small, so that students can have fun but still be challenged.

In the vocal department, each student gets a half-hour vocal tutorial with a coach they're assigned in term one and who they stick with until they graduate after 6th term. Depending on the student's level of training and skill, their coach will work with them on proper technique as well as helping them work any songs they need to have for class or an audition. Also, there's an hour-long Chorus, divided into three Women's Choruses based on skill level, and one Men's Chorus (the ratio of women to men is at least 4-1, so there aren't enough guys to make more than one chorus) each week. In Chorus, the students learn songs as a chorus and rehearse them, presenting them to the rest of the school at the end of term. In addition, there's an hour-long class each week called Randolph Choral, in which the entire student body (roughly 100-150 people) get together and sing choral pieces. (Don't get the wrong impression by the use of the word 'choral'- it's really fun stuff. For instance, this term we're doing 'Come Sail Away' as one of our songs.) At the end of the term, the Choral presents their rehearsed songs at the same presentation with the Choruses, showing the faculty what talented students they have the honour of teaching (hehe..).

Also in the vocal department, but mixing acting and singing, is a class called Musical Theatre Presentation, or MTP. MTP is a class which basically teaches students how to prepare and present a song for audition. A lot of people simply assume that if they sing the notes properly and with a nice voice, they'll get the part. However, directors are looking for someone who has a story behind their song, who plays some sort of intention and storyline rather than standing and belting out notes. So MTP shows students how to stand out in an audition as a great person to cast who would be able to both sing well AND play a role with skill. With MTP, you get a 15 minute coaching every second week to work on the song you're presenting next class. MTP starts in 2nd term (with a few introductory classes at the end of 1st term) and goes straight through 6th term.

The course load at Randolph also includes lessons in musical theory. You see, to be a successful singing performer in "the biz", you need to be able to read music fairly well, and sight read with a certain amount of skill. You might have a terrific voice and incredible acting skills, but if you're handed a song you've never even heard of at an audition and given 5 minutes to learn it before singing it before the audition panel, your voice means nothing unless you can read the music. So Theory class comes in handy. It's divided into 4 difficulty levels, starting with the very basics in Thoery 1 (the first day of Theory 1 my teacher drew 5 parallel horizontal lines on the board and said 'this is a staff'...).

In the acting department... there's Improv{isation} (working on your ability to create believable, honest scenes on the spot and to be present and interesting on stage), Scene Study (working monologues and two- and three-person scenes), Voice & Text (focusing on the way you hold your body and how you speak your text, rather than how you act it), and Shakespeare (two 4 hour classes each week in 3rd term). There's also Film class, which is what makes the school technically Quadruple Threat (singing, dancing, stage acting and film acting), in 3rd and 4th term.

There's also Movement class, which is designed to "aide the student in expanding his/her range of emotional expression through physical techniques". In first term, Movement is stage combat; you learn how to convincingly appear to punch and kick fellow actors, as well as drag them across the floor by the hair and many other audience-gasp-enducing moves, all without leaving a mark or causing any pain. It's a blast! In later terms, you do assorted movement courses, like Somatic explorations and Laban Movement.

In the academic department, as well as Musical Theory, there's Theatre History in 1st term, and Dance History in 2nd term.

As far as presentations go at the end of term, the 1st terms do a Theatre History presentation of scenes from classic historical plays (Brecht, Waiting for Godot, Ubu Roi, Medea, etc), the 2nd terms do a Dance History showcase of dance types through the ages as well as a Cabaret performance of various songs and dances, the 3rd terms do a performance of scenes from different Shakespeare plays, the 4th terms do a bigger, bolder Cabaret, the 5th terms do a play, and the 6th terms do a musical. The presentations in 1st-4th term are in-house only, meaning only students and faculty can watch, and the 5th and 6th term shows are open to the public.

That's all I can think of to say on the courses...

As far as my life goes right now, school takes up a HUGE portion of it. You probably understand better why now that you've seen how much they try to cram into your brain doing a 3 year course in 2 years.

This morning I had ballet class, which was really good. I've moved up to Intermediate ballet, which is the second most advanced class. It's fun but quite challenging, and I'm really enjoying the concentration and effort required. Then, after some lunch, I joined some other 3rd term ladies for a game of soccer in the field across the street from our school. It was really fun, and I scored a goal but I obviously have a lot to learn about soccer. (I also let two goals in in quick succession, within a minute of going on goal. Whoops. :P) I'm glad we're planning on making this a weekly Monday activity, cause it's good cardio, and extremely fun! Although hopefully next time we have more than 6 people playing...

Then after returning to school, I finished up a bit of homework for Film class and went to Movement. We played around with the different Laban efforts today, doing Light and Strong Weight, Indirect and Direct Space, Quick and Sustained/Slow Time, and Free Flow, running out of time before we could do Bound Flow. After each Effort, we had to draw a picture of how it felt to move in the different effort. It was really energising.

Then on to Film. I was expecting to do the exercise that Peter, our teacher, had assigned for homework but instead we watched a couple peoples' tapes of last week's exercise and talked about how we did. We watched mine (last week's exercise was to wait, on camera, for something for 2 minutes) and I found it boring but I'm just being critical of myself as everyone tends to be, and was told that it was really interesting. I think the camera does add ten pounds, and I definitely wasn't wearing a good shirt to have ten pounds added in. But all vanity aside, I look really different on film. I mean, when you look at yourself in a mirror you don't see yourself as others see you. You're selective in what you see and already have a set picture of yourself that alters what you actually see in front of you. but on film, there's no way to alter that because the image is there in front of you, moving around exactly like you do but not quite you, the way you feel you are. It's weird.

Why blog?

2005-05-16T00:02:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure why I chose to start a blog when I've been happily using my livejournal for nearly a year now. I guess I like the wider variety of settings, and the fact that you can post pictures in each post. On livejournal you have to upgrade to a pay account to get features like different templates and in-post pictures.

So, now I've moved to a blog. Maybe I'll be more faithful blogging than I was with my livejournal.

I'd say more, but it's late and I have school tommorrow.

Adios!