Look for the Light

When I was in Olympia I feel like I had many friends in the theatrical community.  In fact I still do.  But there were always a few people in particular who just never seemed to like me.  Not everyone has to like you and I know that.  But of course when there was this disconnect for seemingly no reason it made me want to know “Why”?  Why don’t you like me?  I have barely ever spoken to you and whenever I do I try to be nice and sometimes you smile and say hello and sometimes you look at me like I just spat at you.  I always kind of felt that I was stuck in this pity party middle section.  The younger people and people my age I found nice but eventually tiresome.  And the people older than seemed to grace me with this kind of distain and lumping me in with the younger catagory.  I have many friends who I am more than lucky to have.  But those few I just want to know why.  Why why why don’t you seem to like me?  It reminds me of a cartoon I saw once where a boy didn’t like another for no apparent reason.  The boy who was unliked then started an active if not harrassing campaign to get this boy to like him.  Of course nothing worked and every attempt seemed to only increase the other boys dislike.  Finally he asked the other boy “Why don’t you like me?”  to which he replied, ” I just don’t.”  So I hover in the middle of a shallow self loathing pool that I step into every once and awhile.  Then I step out and rejoin those who love me and care for me.  Everyone cares or has moments of caring what others think about them.  If you disagree then I have to actively called you a liar.  Being a social creature even saying you don’t care what other people think is a way of interogating out of others what they think of you.  A blog I like, Hyperbole and a half just put up a post and in it was a qoute that went like this: “trying to use willpower to overcome the apathetic sort of sadness that accompanies depression is like a person with no arms trying to punch themselves until their hands grow back, it doesn’t work.”   When I get insecure and down on myself it kinda looks like this!:

Soooo I’m friends with a decent group of party people.  And when I say party people there is one lady who is the rally leader and the rest of us go, “Whooo party ehhhnnnngggitsgettinglatei’mtiredwhydoyoukeepbuyingpitchersofsangria….” 
Out of our little all the little nestlings in our group only one other lady and I have commited relationships back at home.  There is one guy who does but they have an open relationship so it doesn’t count.  Me and this lady friend of mine were chatting last night and comiserating on how sometimes we feel a little left out of our group.  The coverstaion topics of our group usually revolve around these things: theatre, drinking, sex, going out, good looking people, wash, rinse, repeat.  My lady friend and I join in on these discussions but in the end we are left feeling frustrated and a little jealous because we don’t want to go out and pull guys amd we feel this isolates us from those that do.  We want OUR guys.  Who love us, care about us, and make us feel so special and so loved.  Plus we don’t have to put the work into going out and finding somebody to have sex with.  The whole courting ritual (while thrilling at first) takes a lot of enery and planning and manipulative though process… When you have a boyfriend they are there for you and sexy time 24/7(usually)!!!!  Yet we must be good sports!  Nobody likes a sad sack and so we put on that grin and chat it up even if we are heaving a sigh on the inside.  For me personally the dating scene got kinda old a while ago.  I just didn’t have the energy to put into it anymore I just wanted to date 1 person and 1 person only.  I got really lucky!  I have an awesome partner whom I love an who is also like my best friend.  I’m pretty happy were I have landed.  I think its just hard because part of us wants to relive our partying undergrad phase of life but at the same time we remember all the absolutley horrible and tedious things that came with it that we wouldn’t go back to if you paid us.  Vice Magazine says that every girl needs to go through a slut phase or they are perpetually in high school.  I understand that point of view.  My lady friend tells me not to worry about our partying friends because its their perogative and there are gonna do what they are gonna do.  I know this.  But somebody has got to worry, if I don’t who will?  So I’ll quitely worry for everyone one in the group because someone has to do it.  Just like the guy who sits in the crows nest on the ship.  Gotta keep a good look out for the rest of the Titanic or we’ll never see that ice berg coming, and then it will be too late.

Its almost halloween!  Many memories come to mind.  Halloween is definetly my favorite holiday.  I love getting dressed up and going out.  I love haunted houses, I love being scared, and I love halloween decorations complete with lots of fake blood! 
Lets go back..Waaayyy back through space!  Through time!  And relieve those halloweens past some of them from the past years…..

Freshman year:  Freaking out cause Dayna had me buy Freak Night tickets and we didn’t even go.  Waste of 50$!!  Watching Pumpkins being thrown off of A building onto a gaint blue tarp and communing with hissing racoons.  I was dressed as a witch. 

Sophomore year:  Party where the first thing that I saw when I opened up the door was Garrett Walczyk dressed as a chippendale doing a beer bong standing on the ground floor with the funnel at the second floor balcony.  Ryan Kelly thought it was a great idea to poor over half a bottle of red wine into it instead of beer.  Garrett was not happy. The party filled with costumed freaks I mean friends.  Jen was a Black eyed P, Toni was Stone Cold Steve Austen, and Ben Michales best designated driver ever, was a scarecrow.  I ended that night in many ways one of which was was rolling around on the floor of Aaron Buchel’s living room drunkly howling, “Shhhhaaaaagggg Carrrpppeettt!”  I was a sexy member of Team Zissou from the life aquatic.  Probably one of the most memorable halloweens in the past 6 years so I’ll add two pictures..the start of the night..and the end.

Junior year:  Congor house party!  Ashley and Jakey as Lila and Fry from futurama, Riley as a scary drag queen of some sort.  Also swamp house party where I was a dark Angel and I remember dancing around a lot and Jen was got hosed by Rob with a super soaker.  I was Christine from phantom of the opera one night and then a dark angel the next

Senior Year: Yet again another swamp house party where I decided to be a puppy.  Hanging out with Matt Lawrence having some good times around a bon fire.

Life after undergrad! First Year 2009:  I was a rainbow and pot of gold with my then boyfriend Tyler as he was a leprauchaun.  We went to some house party on Ken Lake and I remember someone made Mrs. Lovitts meat pies and there was a finger coming out of each pie for made of a sausage and a slivered almond for the finger nail.

2010:  Night of the Living Tribute Bands!  Lauren O’Neil and Rochelle Morris heart coverband.  Nick Von Kirk hopping around on stage doing his sexy musican thing!  Rained a lot but really good music.  I was the Solar System!  Melissa Liotta was Post Crash Amelia Airhart,  Louise Morgan was pippy Long Stocking!

2011:  Only time will tell……

It seems Sundays are our groups night to watch scary movies.  Yesterday we watched the strangers.  Its one of those where there are two normal people who get mentally tourtured and butchered by crazy people just for the fun of it.  I missed the last half because Andy called me and I wanted to talk to him.  I went to the zoo with some friends today and being there made me really miss him.  Sunday is usually our day and being somewhere fun where I wished he could have been with me got suddenly very hard.  I started crying in the middle right in the middle of lunch.  I have got a really solid and good group of friends here.  But for some reason without Andy here I feel very lonely.  Today is the first day its really raining here in Exeter.  In a strange way I’m actually happy about the rain.  I wore my north face rain jacket on my walk to class.  I came to the building early before class to print off my presentation materials.  I think in a minute or two I’ll go to the Imperial pub that is across the street for a morning Tea and biscuts while I go over my papers in fact that is where I shall journey now.  I leave you with a youtube video of Kristen Chenoweth singing the song “Taylor the Latte Boy”…also a strange fact: the @ key and the ” key are switched on english keyboards…

At the risk of writing what could be a really boring blog I am going to break down what I am studying this term at Exeter.
So I am in the Applied Drama course.  I have 4 main Classes.  They are as follows:  Cultural Adaptation, Applied Drama Practices and Perspectives, Applied Drama, and Research skills and preperation.


Cultural Adaptation: Well currently I am working on a 10 minute presentation piece of an article I am reading.  I am presenting Gilbert and Thompson’s “Languages of Resistance.”  Which is basically about how Post Colonial Theatre practitioners can use language to combat, deconstruct, or subvert the imposed imperial language (often english) imposed on their particular cultures.

I am responding to the article Gilbert and Lo’s:    Which is about different practices of Post Colonial, Multicultural, and Intercultural theatre.  And how we as practitioners can make these theatrical techniques more fluid, respected, and usable for people of all cultures so that we can adapt to each others practices while still maintaining respect and authenticity of that cultures practice and heritage.

Applied Theater: Practices and Perspectives:  We just finished up our section on Theatre in Education and Theater in Health Education.  We have now moved on to Theatre of the Oppressed which I am finding very interesting.  In my own time I have started to real Augusto Boal’s Games for Actors and Non Actors.  In terms of Theatre in Education we watched a great documentary called Three Looms Waiting which is about the work of Dorothy Heathcote who was a pioneer in Theatre in Education.  If you want to check out the documentary here is part 1 on youtube:

Applied Theatre:  This class has a lot of workshoping and practice.  As a part of my class my tutor, Fiona Macbeth suggested we keep a written record of our class experiences.  Which I have done at http://apppliedtheatre.blogspot.com/, this week we worked on Shadow puppets.  Through this class I will also be volunteering in two places.  One is at Exeter College with the Foundations program.  This program works with disabled youth (mainly teens) of all types and gives them the necessary tools to go successfully into a functioning adult life.  I will be working with their Glee Club this term and next term Kaley and I will switch and I will work with the Drama students. 
Kaley and I will also be working with Attik Dance. http://www.attik.org.uk/  We will be working in a variety of environments as well as developing skills in how to facilitate, teach, and work with people regarding creative and performative movement.

Research Development and Skills:  Finally this class with be about how to research, write, and compose at a graduate level.  It will be a big precursor to our work on our dissertations in the 3rd term.

Well that is a bit of a breakdown on what I am doing in school right now.  Other than that I have just been exploring, running around, and watching ballet’s of swan lake on youtube. 

Cheerio!

I had a dream the other night. It was a winter day. The kind of winter daythat is sunny but still very cold. We had just finished doing back to backproductions of Rent (where I was playing Maureen) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream(where I think again I was playing Hermia). We had just finished the productionrun and we were in a park somewhere seeming to have a casual post mortem. Therewas a large river in this park and it appeared frozen. Not frozen like youwould normally think. Flat ice, unmoving, serene. But it looked like the riverhad been frozen in a gush of waves. Thick, shiny, dark green water frozen completelysolid in what seemed like an active motion. Dan Clark (a chum from high school)and Anya Johnson (The girl who played Titania in the most recent production ofmidsummers I was in) were jumping from ice ledge to ice ledge talking andlaughing. I warned them to be careful but the ice really did seem totallysolid. I was walking on a rocky bank and where the river dipped into a frozenwaterfall. I looked down at the ice below me and feeling confident the icewouldn’t break I leapt from my perch towards the river below. But the icedidn’t hold me. I crashed through it and sank straight to the bottom. I lookedaround me panicked. My heavy winter clothes and pack back were weighting me tothe bottom and I knew if I didn’t get out of them and swim to the surface Iwould drown. Underneath the ice sheet the river was surging on with a tumultuouscurrent. I was overcome by a sense of complete calm at knowing what I had to doand not to panic. I took off my shoes first. Then my jacket and sweater. LastlyI took off my back pack (I don’t know how I took my coat and sweater off firstbut there you are). Without the weight I was pushed forward by the current as Itrying to kick to the surface. I broke through the ice and began careening downthe river at a dizzying speed. I was right in the middle and either bank to theleft or right was at least 50 feet away from me. I saw my friends running alongthe left side and could just barley hear them screaming my name over the rushof water. I was so frightened and I kept hitting pieces of hard ice and theriver was so fast. And then I woke up.

OMG WEEKEND RECAP!!!  My powercord STILL hasn’t arrived in the mail and if it doesn’t show up by tomorrow this Amy will not be a happy Amy.  Without the internet, music, or movies to entertain myself with I have been feverishly reading.  I read Son of a witch, Who’s afraid of Virginia Wolfe, Theater and Globalization, Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady, and A bright room called day.  When did I turn into a blossoming intellectual?  How is this happening?  I feel like Hermione Granger because most of the time I’m in the library or reading a book….
Ok back to the weekend.  On friday night we went to one of the bigger dance clubs called arena.  The whole architecure and feel of the place made me think of Flynns arcade from Tron.  We as a group: Myself, Kayle, Laura H, Guillermo, Chris, and Ivan.  It was really fun and there was much drinking to be had and much protesting by yours truely to the point of being pouty that I didn’t ask for that Yager Bomb and I don’t care if you paid for it I told you not to get me anything cause I dont feel good so I’m not drinking it SHEESH!!!   But all was well.  Conner and his visiting friend Mark from Wales joined us just as a few of us were heading out.  Slept super well and then it was Saturday.  We had all decided the night before that we wanted to head out to the coast to a town called Exmouth.  Kayle and I had missed our friends driving out at 8am so we hopped on the train.  It was bright and sunny all day.  The beach was filled with people and dogs and kids.  The first half of the beach is really sandy.  Then it got a seaweed filled line that desended into pebbles and little rocks.  The water was quite cold so I only waded to about my calves.  On one part of the beach there was tons of seaweed in the surf and it felt like being covered with a wet salad from the ankles down.  There were tons of kite surfers in the water that were really cool to watch.  We left in the late afternoon and that evening went to go see Wadaiko Tokara, a professional Taiko drum group.  I have always wanted to learn how to play Taiko drums.  But as hard as I’ve looked there were never any lessons around where I lived.  This group was great and really diverse.  They just enjoyed what they were doing so much and you could see it come out onstage.

Afterwards we then held a search for food which almost turned futile.  But we found a place that would let us order food if we did so in the next 5 minutes.  I got pizza with capers on it.

Today was the first day of class and I can tell that it is going to be a good year.  It will be busy and filled with a lot of work but I feel confident in my ability to suceed (at the moment :) )

Tomorrow I have my first applied theatre class (today was cultural adaptation) and my first meeting with the postgrad drama department as a representative for applied theater.  I’m such a little joiner!  I have also joined the theater goers society and the main dance society.

Ok thats all for now.  I should probably get to be or something because I have class at nine.