Look for the Light

A lot has happened in the last few weeks. Its funny how I find myself drifting from facebook and have almost come to resent it at times. Its as if I am seeing its full triviality for the first time. Obviously there is good things about social networking and damned be the one who rebels against it as they will be labelled ‘Behind the times’ or purely ignorant. I still find myself playing the sims social and feeling revolted with myself for committing even the precious few amounts of energy that I do into it when I could be outside, or reading a book, or writing or dancing or walking.

I have been doing a lot of travelling and a lot of seeing in the last couple of weeks. I went up to London for my first time two weeks ago. I went up alone largely due to the fact that I had wasted an inordinate amount of time waiting for someone else to come with me so that I wouldn’t be alone. However most times I tried to organise such outings things always came up. So I decided that I would go up, by myself and do all the things that I wanted to do. I went on Couchsurfing.com and found a person who sounded cool and un-psychotic to meet and crash with for two evenings so that I could spend a good three days exploring the city.  

One of the other reason why I went up to London was for an audition.  I had read that Fourth Monkey Theatre company were auditioning people for a year long training programme.  They seemed like a company I would be really interested in so I signed up.  The audition took place in Camden (a great and funky are of London) in the Etcetera Theatre above the Oxford Arms.  While I was changing in the ladies room I accidentally bumped the trash can on which my nice shoes were sitting and then one of my shoes fell into the toilet that I hadn’t flushed yet.  So after violently scrubbing my shoe and checking that it didn’t smell like urine I went and did my audition with one squishy shoe.  But they liked me enough that they asked if I would come back to do a recall audition in 2 weeks time.  For anyone curious the monologues I did were the clock from the phantom tollbooth and sonnet 94 by Shakespeare.

The rest of the time I spent being super tourist.  I saw so much and did so much and I think I was able to do it all largely to the fact that I was on my own. I have to admit it felt pretty liberating and lonesome at the same time. In part I tromped through alone proud and alone as if to say to myself, “See I can do this all by myself and I can still have a great time!” This is not to say that I was at all lack for company. Mo, the guy I stayed with was very personable and invited me out on my first night to tag along with some of his friends for a birthday party in London Soho. I am happy that I have a new friend in the London area and I hope that I can return the favour to Mo someday and let him crash with me on his travels.

My Dad and Sandy came to visit for a week which was really nice.  We went to Plymouth on Fathers day and took a nice boat ride around the Plymouth sound and then went to a great greek restaurant and then finished off the day by doing a tour of the Plymouth Gin distillery.  It was a great week an all despite that two days before they left I was stuck down by my first ever instance of food poisoning.  But despite that I feel that I showed them the best of the southwest that we could feasibly get to.

The day after Dad and Sandy left I was on my way to the Barnstaple Fringe Festival to volunteer and to meet up with the actors/dancers of the show Luna by Prettygoodgirl dance theatre.  My supervisor at Attik dance had suggested I contact Louise (the artistic director) when I told him what my dissertation was on.  I got in contact with her and then was able to see the show at the Barnstaple Fringe as well as get to spend some time with her and the actor playing Luna named Andy.  They were so wonderful and were able to answer a lot of questions which I will be able to use in my dissertation work.  If you want to check out what they do and what Luna was about go to their website at http://www.prettygoodgirl.com/ 

Besides seeing Luna I saw many other wonderful shows and met many wonderful new people.  In particular the show The Blizzard was particularly good.  It was one man show by Nigel Billing (a guy who looks a lot like Daniel Day Lewis).  It was a maritime tale of three Newquay (pronounced New-key) men and their life at sea, transporting Culm to Ireland and the west country. Fact combined with fiction to give a glimpse in to what life must of been like for folk back in the late 19th century.  

At the end of the night I was able to watch the show Trouble and Strife.  It was a 3 part dance piece focusing on different themes of women.  One of the instructors with Attik Dance, a woman named Sarah was performing in the third piece about mothers and daughters.  That piece was my favorite, it was really beautiful and made me think a lot about my own mom.  Sarah was even kind enough to give me a lift back to Exeter on her way through to Kingsbridge.

The next day I hopped on the train back up to London to do my recall audition for Fourth Monkey.  I spent the night at the Great Eastern hostel in the docklands area of London.  It was nice enough and I was on the top bunk of a three level bunk bed (which I am really happy I didn’t fall out of).  I wanted to be on top of my physical game for my recall so I just chilled out and read the hostel copy of ‘a clash of crowns’ (season 2 of game of thrones).  Met two nice American guys from Arizona doing the obligatory Europe backpacking trip and chatted with them for awhile.  Next morning I got up and headed to Brick Lane to do my recall.

So now i’m filling up the word count and trying to decide if was Liz Airton states as ‘the feminist paradigm of strategic uncertainty’ is a viable theory to connect to my dissertation thesis.

So now i’m filling up the word count and trying to decide if was Liz Airton states as ‘the feminist paradigm of strategic uncertainty’ is a viable theory to connect to my dissertation thesis.

Fourth Monkey has offered me a place in their year long training programme.  However to do this programme would cost 4,000 pounds and might not even be possible because of visa stuff.  Not to mention that I have to make a choice by Sunday and provide a 500 pound deposit.  Rationally and practically it doesn’t seem like I have many options and perhaps my hearts wish that it would work out is slightly overshadowing the reality of things.  I guess it just felt really good to feel accepted after a large cattle call audition (which is a rarity)  If it ends up not being where I go I try to take solace in the fact that I achieved the offer, even if I can’t accept it, even though I really wish I could and that things were easier.  

Paddington Bear ^

Cest la vie I guess.  I am still awaiting news on two internships so many one of those avenues will following through.  But for now it is back to the books with the goal of getting a full draft of chapter 1 completed and sent to my professor.  Only 2000 more words to go.  July will be for chapter two and a good chunk of that time I will be back visiting in Olympia!  I will actually have a phone this time so I will be easily reachable.  I really look forward to seeing everyone although I warn you all if you ask me about what I’m doing I will talk your ear off about gender and performance and feminist paradigms of research theory and practice.  But until then…

I feel that if I posted a status update to facebook that karma big give me a big ol bitch slap.  So I feel in more pertinent to quietly gloat on tumblr.

Our launch for the ‘Moving to Civvie Street Project’ was on May 4th.  It was 50% of our assessed mark for our term 2 module(class).  The 3 of us working on the project were given a collective grade.  We got an 80%.

Now to an American that may sound good but not that big whoop worthy.  However, UK grading rubrics are different.  Let me explain: and 80% in American would be a B.  The University of Exeter website states that for the college of humanities (masters level that):

High distinction (80% and above)

Work which has these characteristics:

• an outstanding depth and breadth of research, showing exceptional and thorough knowledge of the relevant field

• exceptional insight, critical analysis and originality, such as might make the work of comparable quality with published work in its field

• an excellent and well-defined focus, clear structure and outstanding quality of argument

• clearly presented and finely written, with no significant errors of syntax or expression

• referencing and bibliographical conventions accurately followed, to the professional standards of the discipline

If you are curious about the rest of the UK grading system please visit this handy dandy website:

http://intranet.exeter.ac.uk/humanities/studying/subjecthandbooks/theology/ma/

Boom.  Thats relative to an American A+  Right on the cusp but its the best grade I’ve got all year and I feel pretty proud of it.  The other 50% will be my portfolio which I’m sure will pass but I really wouldn’t mind if it did well.  Alright!  Gloating over!  

I would totally like to thank the powers of the universe for the absolutely wonderful weather that we have been having in Exeter this week.  It has been that perfect mid 70’s sunny weather where all of the seems of summer mornings explode into the nostrils of every cheery towns person.

This week I am participating in a digital story telling workshop.  A professor form UT (who I had a brief workshop with in december) has come back for a 3 day workshop taster.  The participants of the workshop are Exeter students and young people who are either still in care or about to leave care (i.e. in child homes or foster system).  We have been using several exercises and by the end of the day we have created a poem which will be the basis for our digital story.  Initially we were given little slips of paper that say, “I come from a place.., I reside in a place…, I look forward to a place…”  Each of the three groups wrote 3 responses to each of these statements and then each group took the lot of one of the “I look forward to..” Our group got the “I look forward to a place..”  We went through all of the papers and chose 6 slips that we liked and strung them together in a poem with the added group consensus of “We look forward to a place…” 

Each group will take still photos to communicate the text and then add music, sound, etc, onto our individual sections that will later be connected together for a final product.  The professor from UT (Megan) brought 2 students with her.  After the day was over I took the students around central down Exeter and we went and had dinner at litedelight (japanese restaurant)  They went to see a show at the bike shed and now I am at home with a quite celebratory glass of white wine for my 80% and my progress on dissertation  research and writing.  

*contented sigh* Thank you universe for the good times in between the stress.

So there is a blog I follow on Tumblr called Fuckyeahtattoos.  Basically it just makes me want to get another tattoo.  I saw this really great tattoo today of a double horned narwhale skull adorned with red poppies.  This gave me a really great idea!  I have always loved day of the dead art and whales.  I have wanted to get a day of the dead style tattoo for sometime.  I thought it would be a really cool idea to get a blue whale skull day of the dead style somewhere on me.  

Now this is just an idea and usually I have to mull over tattoo ideas for quite a long time before I do them.  But I did draw out a day of the dead blue whale skull for practice.  If I got it as a tattoo it would look very different and much better.  I am also contemplating using this diagram of a humpback whale skeleton and doing something similar.

Last Night Kel and I decided to go out on the town.  We first went to a swanky cocktail bar in Exeter called 44 below.  I have a Strawberry basil mule, it was muddled strawberries and grated ginger and fresh basil.  For 5.50 it was a pretty yummy drink, although Kel and I found out that my drink and her drink’s after taste did not mix very well.  After that we went to the Ship Inn which was packed with locals for Karaoke night.

Let me tell you those locals know how to have a jolly time, not to mention having excellent taste in karaoke tunes.  We were chatted up by an old guy who then decided that he would sing ‘America’ by Neil Diamond and then proceeded to publicly dedicate it to us. 

I sang Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler.  Found it was a good choice because the whole bar was pretty much singing back up.  Right near the end of the song I heard a woman’s voice exclaim with surprise “She’s tiny!” I turned around and she was looking right at me.  I had a good giggle.  Apparently my voice is a lot bigger than expected from my small frame.

Kel sang Bad Romance by Lady Gaga.  She rocked it for sure and did a good job of making up the french lyrics bit.

It has been a long week. I have felt overloaded and overwhelmed everyone has been super gracious and patient with me.  Today I had a big ol cry fest but I feel like the anxiety I’d been feeling all week washed away with my tears.  Sometimes you just need to let it all out.  I’m lucky to have awesome people in my life who are there there for me and listen to me rant when I need to.

My dissertation, which has been a big contributor to my stress, I finally realized, has been so stressful due to the fact that I have been making a mountain out of a mole hill.  I have a topic to write on that will have a lot of material to write about.  I’m passionate about my topic and whenever someone asks me about it they seem really intrigued.  Its funny how the idea of something can be more scary than the actual thing itself.

I filmed one monologue for the acting internship I’ve applied for.  It was very awkward at first because film is so distant from stage acting.  I filmed myself doing the monologue about 15 times and then narrowed it down to one I felt was the best.  I’ll film my other monologue on tuesday and then I’ll send a youtube link off to the florida studio theater.  The monologues I chose were Missy (a cat) from the play Alley Dog by Paul Lewis, and the clock from the stage production of The Phantom Tollbooth.

Tomorrow is american mothers day.  I love my mom, step mom, aunts, and all the strong women in my life! You have always been my role models and my heros, I love you!

So I’ve ordered my first set of business cards.  They will get to me by May 22nd and then I will feel super fancy!  I joined a website called intern match, a website (as you might have guessed) dedicated for the soul purpose of looking at internships (in America, its an American website).  Unfortunately for yours truly the application date for many of the  internships that I have found has passed.  However I have tucked these websites away into my convenient bookmark folder entitled “jobs/internships” 

I have an excess of quinoa, wheat bulgur, and red lentils in my cupboard.  I have been fanatically scouring the internet in search of recipes.  I found this one that I thought looked good:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1940686/mexican-chicken-stew-with-quinoa-and-beans

Since I have been ill I have been some what forcing myself to relax.  Its mostly consisted of catching up on episodes of Law and Order SVU while looking up internships and painting my toe nails with glittery nail polish and planning a running guide for the next weeks, maybe consider finding a 5k to do.  

Love’s fine wit is going well.  For those who don’t know I am acting in a piece inspired and integrating some of Shakespeare’s sonnets and yes it is about love and relationships.  I play Julia, a marine biologist with a penchant for astrology whose preferred pick up spot for ladies is the local coffee shop.  Whats more exciting is that we get to perform our play in the Exeter Northcott Theatre.

I went to see ‘The Funeral of Prior Walter’ an adaptation of Angels in America that had several of my friends and colleagues in it.  It was a great show and what is more amazing is that they put it together in 1 week.  For being a 1 week rehearsal process it looked like they had been working on it for months.  It was lovely and I particularly enjoyed hearing my friend Alicia Gian sing.  She has a wonderful voice.

Not having class has thrown my time schedule into a wack.  I have all these books and I have been pretty good about reading them…well most of the time.  What I am more irrationally hoping will happen is that just because I put the effort into retrieving them that they will just filter into my brain by having them nearby.

I wish I had a spirograph to play with..

Officially burnt out.

Super productive day but you know its going to be a hard one when you have to drag yourself out of bed.  

I am pretty used to the post show crash.  You build yourself up and then after its over your body kind of deflates.  MED theatre was nice enough to let me go home a little early. I had a really productive day but felt weak and on the verge of stressful collapse.  

I’m now home, showered, and with hot chocolate.  One good long cry and I will feel much better about everything.  (This is the positive little bird that is stamping on the other stressed out and tired one because negative thinking is good for nobody).

I think I may have figured out a pretty good working thesis of my dissertation.  Theatre in education has often been used for education and de-stigmatization of sexual identities.  If this is true then in theory it can be an equally effective method of introducing gender into educational curriculums as well.

Eh its a work in progress.  Every time I talk to anyone about it I start to feel stressed out and flustered.  I think its the word count that seems so immense.  15, 000 words.  Will definitely be the biggest word count I’ve ever met.  

I have applied thus far for two internships/fellowships.  The first is an acting internship with Florida studio theater.  I have to film 2 contrasting contemporary monologues (no more than 60 seconds) and film them and send them to be viewed for evaluation.  The second (and the one I would like better) is a teaching assistant fellowship with Metro Theater of St. Louis Missouri.  I am editing my cover letter and then I send in all my paper work and hope it works out.  The latter would be nice because it would come with housing and a stipend.  

I’ve decided that along with dissertation work that I will apply for one internship/job a week and see where that takes me.  

Sometimes it hard not see my future as this big black hole of uncertainty and not be terrified out of my mind.  I know that its really in how you look at it and it is also a really big adventure.  But on days when one is tired and in a lower mood everything seems a little blacker.  

So yes, grump grump grump, complain.  I think it is time for ice cream and then a nap.

On a positive note two employee’s from Nandos (a decent chain restaurant) where giving out free breakfasts this morning and the sausage breakfast sandwich was pretty darn good.