Thursday, March 29, 2012

Palm Beach day 1- Posh?

Oh yes, it's very posh. Like mansions and espadrilles and ocean views posh.

Writing to you live from my hotel room in sunny (now starry) Florida! Beautiful weather.
Flight was good, a wee bit bumpy- but hey, I enjoyed the miniature roller coaster. I also caught a few zzzs so I was refreshed and ready to explore once I got off the plane!

The first adventure was to Target to get the things I couldn't bring on the plane with me, like shampoo. Then my dad and I went to see the Atlantic ocean and walked along the shore and picked up a few sea shells. 
Did I happen to mention how GORGEOUS this place is? It's absolutely stunning and clean and pretty and I'm a little scared to touch anything. I feel a bit like a sparrow among swans. Oh well, this place is supposed to get plenty of tourists, they'll just have to deal with me!
Honestly, the trick is to hold up your head and act like you belong. Treat everyone with respect and kindness and don't look like a deer in headlights.
So far I've felt very safe here and that's a majorly good thing. I've seen the exterior of the college campus that I'm visiting and it looks very nice and crammed and lovely. I can't wait to see it tomorrow. Other than my very middle class overwhelmedness at how expensive this area seems (think of Chicago's North Shore neighborhoods and add the ATLANTIC OCEAN with Spanish architecture), I think it's quite lovely. We'll see what I think after the midday heat of tomorrow.

Still very nervous about my audition for the college dance program on Saturday. Praying that things go well and I come away with a strong sense of whether or not I should be here.

Tootles!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

It's been a little while...

So even though I'm fairly good at posting on my blog, I haven't had time recently and I felt bad about that.
Hence the all important- CATCH UP POST!!!!! (Could also be read ketchup post, if you're so inclined).

So first the exciting stuff-
I GOT INTO REN FAIRE!!!! Totally got placed in the last role I expected to get, Street Cast.
Before you think this sounds like a bad thing, lemme splain.'
Street Cast members are those brave and intimidating people who walk around the faire in a character all day, in full costume, and talk to the patrons of the faire. They have an occupation and something of a "shtick" They are funny, clever, attention grabbing and I am more than slightly nervous about joining their ranks. Even more so since I have to come up with said character and shtick.
I've never felt that I'm a good person when it comes to improvisational theater. I can talk to a lot of different people, and do on a regular basis, but that's as myself. Now I get to improv all summer, each weekend for about 10 hours a day. Now, if that doesn't sound like a stretch, you're weird.
However, I am intensely looking forward to this and on top of EVERYTHING else I'm doing, I'm raiding my library for information about the Tudor era with an emphasis in Elizabethan times. Like I needed an excuse to do that.
Performers are some of the most insecure people you will meet. We tear each other down for a role, but support each other because in the end, we're all each other has to keep ourselves sane. Only another performer can understand the sense of waiting and hoping for that phone call, all the while feeling sick to your stomach that it won't come. Only we share the sense of elation when we've made people happy. In return, those people give us applause and undying admiration.

We are totally nuts.

On another nutty performance note- I'm going to FL next week to audition for the dance program at PBA. Beyond nervous, only slightly excited. Will be more excited after I get home. That feeling of not quite being ready is back, I thought I got rid of it after Bristol auditions. Well guess what?
They're baaaaack.

To touch on school- I have to write a four page psych paper, a three page English compare/contrast essay, and a proposed thesis/outline paper. Not to mention that essay I'm supposed to write for my interview at PBA. And ASL homework.
I still like my classes, and my ASL friends. I've still been curbing any temptations to curse. Once in a while I'll slip, but I'm glad I haven't possessed a sailor's mouth lately. I've been making an effort and thank God it's working.

And now for  a book that might just save my Rennie Sanity-
Easy Street by Ann-Elizabeth Shapera (Otherwise known as Jane the Phool).

This book is so entertaining and amazing, even if you aren't going to perform in any type of Street Theater, you should read it. This book is a complete guide for anyone who is going to be a street performer in a faire and I've torn through it in about two days. I'm going to go back with a pencil and mark it up until there is no space left in the margins!

 AE Shapera happens to have played Jane the Phool, Jester to the Queen, and Queen of all Jesters since 1993. I have seen her at Bristol every single summer and she is one of my favorite people there. If you like history, comedy, the english language, reading, writing, playing, play-acting. READ. THIS. BOOK. All the commentary about monkeys alone will leave you giggling. All of the tricks and tips and exercises to help you get into a character will help you if you love imagining or performing or writing.

Seriously....just read the book. Borrow mine- if you must! But I warn you that you probably will have a very hard time getting it from me. If you can get it from me. hehe.

And I will leave you with that for now!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

New Day

Today is another new day.

Yesterday actually went pretty well considering that on Monday night I was laying on my couch feeling unwell enough to skip my ASL class.
For those of you who don't know, I actually really like my ASL class. We're all goofy and we love learning ASL and it's a ton of fun!

     Well on Monday I got some exciting news- that I can't really say anything about yet. When I got this news, I started crying. On top of an afternoon filled with tears, my stomach hurt. Not like throwing up or PMS hurting, like bad muscle pain after 100,000 crunches. In other words- OUCH! On top of that, I think I might have been getting sick from a stressful weekend/several weeks beforehand.
     So by the time 3pm rolls around I don't want to go to class, but am thinking about going anyway. In the end, I really don't want to go. I don't have any homework due. I haven't missed one class in two semesters (I have the same professor this semester). I can miss two classes before my grade drops.
I stayed home, laid on the couch, and watched Night at the Museum 2. I LOVE that movie! Seriously, I crack up for both of the Night at the Museum movies.
     So I go to bed early and wake up feeling a lot better on Tuesday. I'm still feeling slightly off, but I think if I keep getting good amounts of sleep (haha), I'll be fine. Maybe I just need a day where I sleep.
So school goes well yesterday and I go to dance class later that night. For some reason, dance class went AWESOME!!! I love the dance we're working on, I felt like I was improving in my technique, it was just GREAT!

Best part next.

I turn on K-Love and the song Untitled Hymn (Come to Jesus) by Chris Rice comes on. Only it's not the beginning of the song. Here's what came on:

And like a newborn baby,
Don't be afraid to crawl,
And remember when you walk sometimes we fall... so

Fall on Jesus,
Fall on Jesus,
Fall on Jesus and live,

Sometimes the way is lonely,
And steep and filled with pain,
So if your sky is dark and pours the rain... then

Cry to Jesus,
Cry to Jesus,
Cry to Jesus and live,

O, and when the love spills over,
And music fills the night,
And when you can't contain you joy inside... then

Dance for Jesus,
Dance for Jesus,
Dance for Jesus and live,

And with your final heartbeat,
Kiss the world goodbye,
Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory's side... and

Fly to Jesus,
Fly to Jesus,
Fly to Jesus and live,

Fly to Jesus,
Fly to Jesus,
Fly to Jesus and live, 


Little secret about this song- I used to hate it. It always makes me cry! Only this time, I totally felt like the song was speaking to me. I think this might be a kind of theme song for me right now simply because (except for the dying part of the song) it's completely where I am right now.


So life is kind of looking good today. I just need to do a ton and half of laundry (procrastination!) and go to dance class! :)

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Slipping. (Warning- not positive)

Another frustrating day, and it's not over.

I got a B on my psych test. Ok- before any goes saying "a B is not a bad grade" yes I know.
However, with my prof. anything under an A means you're just being lazy.
According to this professor you should be able to get an A because he has made this class easy to understand and he's given you a study guide with EVERYTHING you need to know for the tests. It's not rocket science...just psychology.
6 stupid little questions. If I had gotten 2 of them right, I would have had an A, TWO QUESTIONS!!!!!
Looking over my mistakes, they're really stupid ones.
This happens every time I take a test. I hate tests. I can know material 100% and still get questions wrong. It's just that this weird mindset takes over and I can't think properly. Then I get my test back and look over the corrections and go "DUH!"

Also, I got a 3/10 in my paraphrase/summary paper for English 102. I didn't label the paraphrase and to be honest, I forgot to attach the summary, and the article. I forgot to document the places where I used my source.
This doesn't sound like me. I'm not this scatterbrained. I should be able to do these things without any trouble at all. Thank goodness I've been keeping my journals for English, those points are going to save my butt. I'm praying that I get a good grade on my persuasion paper.

Why is it that I love my classes, but seem incompetent when it comes to the homework I'm required to do? I was talking to my mom about it on the phone (still at school, waiting for a yoga class to start ((by the way, I don't like my yoga class but I needed another credit)) and I almost started crying. AGAIN!!!
I swear I'm sick of being close to tears on a constant basis. I'm sick of this stress that DOES NOT LEAVE, EVER!!! You'd think after a week of crying about pent up frustrations from the past 6 or 7 months would help, nope. You'd think having a pretty good audition for Bristol would help....actually that kind of adds stress because now I have to wait TWO WEEKS to hear from them. It's only been four days.
I wake up stressed out, I go to bed stressed out, I live my days with a slight nausea from waiting to hear from Bristol. I write crappy papers because my brain is so tired. I forget the simplest of things on these papers and feel like an idiot when I get my results back.

By the way, if you talk to me about Bristol, I don't think I'm going to get in. I'm trying to convince myself that I won't get in so that I won't be disappointed when I get the call saying I didn't make it.

Until today the week was going kind of ok. Now I want my little burrow of covers and Carol Burnett Youtube clips.