Look for the Light

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):

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.

Being in research and dissertation mode is nothing short of bizarre.  I don’t really have any classes to speak of but I have a 15,000 word dissertation due by August 30th.  So I have been trying to stick to my goal of 2 chapters, 1 online article a day, which has been mildly successful.  

The whole thing is rattling around in my brain like a bunch of rocks.  Theatre in Education, Gender studies, Gender in education, cultural differences….It will all come into a form eventually.  

I also began to reformat my internship resume today as I begin to look for opportunities to work in professional theatre organizations.

My research has been leading me to a lot of places.  I watched a really sad documentary today called ‘Doctor Money and the boy with no penis’. You can watch it google videos.  Its very sad and in parts disturbing.  Although powerful it won’t really feature in my research because of its context.  I need to focus on gender in education specifically.

Other than that I am in full swing of rehearsals for Loves Fine Wit.  I’m excited to perform in the Northcott theatre.  It will definitely be the largest space I’ve ever played in.

I feel like I’ve kind of gone into super drive.  My little planner is filling up with events.  

After reading in the library for a good while today I went into town to go to the central library (only to realize that it was open, bank holiday).  So instead I went to Bill’s, a new restaurant directly across from the vaults nightclub.  It was a little pricey but the food was excellent.  I had a bacon and avocado salad with an iced coffee.  Sat there reading my book and eating my lunch was quite nice.  

Harumph….well after a fairly productive day I have rewarded myself with internet browsing and new dance music finding.  Tomorrow I plan to get to St. Lukes campus because their library has an extensive collection of gender studies books that Stretham campus does not.  

Something is wrong with my Mac weather widget because instead of saying exeter it is saying cupertino and claiming that it will be 84 and sunny.  If only that were true…

Yesterday I met up with Conor to go see the new forum.  The Queen and Prince Philip came to Exeter yesterday to open it!  The Exeter forum is a new building on Exeter campus that has the following:

Here is a part of the picture of the main entrance:

Its a really lovely building and I’m glad I get to enjoy it for the rest of the summer.

Later that night Conor and I went and saw Ballet Black at the Northcott Theatre.  Ballet Black.  Here is the description from their website:  Ballet Black is a professional ballet company for international dancers of black and Asian descent. We aim to bring ballet to a more culturally diverse audience by celebrating black and Asian dancers in ballet. We perform and offer community driven classes for dancers and students, young and old. Our ultimate goal is to see a fundamental change in the number of black and Asian dancers in mainstream ballet companies, making Ballet Black wonderfully unnecessary.

http://www.balletblack.co.uk/

It was a beautiful dance piece.  The first half was 3 really interesting and eclectic pieces.  The first seemed to be a first meeting of lovers (a duet).  The second was a solo piece (and my favorite) that dealt with darker themes.  It seemed to convey senses of deception, power, and struggle.  The third was a piece that revolved around four dancers in two couples.  That dance seemed to reflect themes of love, temptation, and passion.  The second half was a whole story, set in a vaudevillian new orleans theme where a young and innocent new girl in town succumbs to prostitution and after losing her lover, drinks herself to death.  A story I have seen before yet beautifully portrayed by ballet black.  I like how they added in two dancers in death masks that added an element of voodoo in the piece.  

It is a universal but often unsaid truth that many actors and dancers have difficultly simply enjoying a performance because we often project ourselves into the roles we’d like to see ourselves in or that we think we could do better (its a public secret, we all do it) Also being a former competitive dancer and a technician, I can’t help up analyze the lights and the dancing with a more critical eye which often leads me to have a more critical opinion of a show.  But I was able to simply relax and enjoy this show which was really refreshing.  If you get a chance to see this touring show or their company I recommend it.

I got a new phone!  Its my first touch screen and I am enjoying fiddling with it.  Sadly its selection of ring tones suck.  I chose the one that plays part of toccata and fugue because it is the least irritating.  Its also pink which I find amusing.

For my research I have decided that I will read at least 2 chapters out of my various books and one online article a day and then a third chapter of a book of choosing as a reward.  Right now my fun book is Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland.  

The weather has finally been getting nicer in Exeter after 2 weeks of horrendous rain.  The weather report seems to say that it will go up and down but I am hoping for some more sun.  I sat outside today for awhile reading my 2 chapters out of Trans Libertaion by Les Feinberg and a Critical Introduction to Queer Theory by Nikki Sullivan.  It actually feels good to start my research.  I can already sense my research methods and questions focusing and sharpening.  

For those of you who don’t know my dissertation will be research how Theatre in Education with the combined element of digital storytelling can be an engaging educational method that will help to de-stigmatize trans and queer identities amongst adolescants.  My theory is that by incorporating these ideas in education at an early stage that it will develop adolescents to adults to be more compassionate towards people of varying gender identities.  Which would lead to a nicer world for everybody (yay!)

I am throwing in the digital storytelling bit because I think it is fool hardy for educational systems to ignore the reliance and engagement in digital media, particularly for young people.  Think of movements such as The It Gets Better Project and how their fundamental principle of creating support for people of all genders and sexualities could be infused with theatre in education.

I think there is something there.

Here is a picture of my new phone:

For the rest of the day I will be meeting with Kaley and Shanti to write our speeches for the launch of Moving to Civvie Street (which is this friday) and talk about how we are going to organize our friday to reach max potential.  We are assessed on the launch and since its 50% of our mark we want to make sure it goes well.

Well after a productive day I am rewarding myself with a little law and order and some rye crackers with goat cheese.

Toodle-pip!