Lists Are Good Things, Yes?

It's been a fairly eventful week or so (however long it's been since I've posted), so I'll highlight the basics in list-form, as is my wont. Here goes:

1. "Honour" went excessively well. For all that we had two weeks to rehearse, we did a kickass job and I'm so proud of the finished product. As an actress, I grew. I grew as a person, too - having to understand the show and how my character worked within it was a cathartic experience. Also, le stalker only showed up once and I fled the scene before he could talk to me. Yes, I am a coward. But a smart one, yes?

2. I have a job at Camp Krislund. I start my training on the 1st and I'm really excited for it. I'm a senior counselor. :-D

3. I'm back in Pennsylvania now and I have two weeks to just relax and enrich my brain. And also read Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction.

4. In case you hadn't gotten the gist from above, I have developed an unhealthy addiction to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Or, more specifically, to Giles - my bespectacled, British, tweedy, geeky, and entirely kickass favorite character. Were he real, I would marry him.

5. I participated in a voice masterclass last week and - well, to say the least, it went very well. The woman giving the masterclass was so impressed with my voice that she has offered me her spare room in her apartment in NYC while she sets me up for auditions. I would be auditioning for people who would give me grants and scholarships, and also for the Metropolitan Opera's Young Artist Program. Hopefully, all of this will involve international study and eventually a spot at the Met. (Top artists at the Met get paid $15,000 per performance. Just imagine.) All of this will occur next year. I'm to call to set things up in October.

6. I haven't been sleeping much these past few weeks. Right after S. got sick the first time, I started getting bad nightmares - the strongest theme running through these nightmares was an unholy sense of helplessness. I would wake in a terror and then not sleep for the rest of the night. The nightmares had gone away and I thought it was just a fluke - but now they're back, and I can't figure out what the trigger is. It's driving me a little bit nuts. I'm tired - exhausted, really, and I need to get rest before camp.

There. That's been the past week or however long it's been. Ups and downs - but happily, mostly ups!

Clarity?

When a person says in a somewhat impatient - well, actually, just plain rude - way that they need "space" and "time", does this automatically translate to "two days and then start sending messages and IM's and texts" again? I'm just wondering.

In relation to this, I have hopefully erradicated the stalker-problem. Hopefully.

In other news, I'm pretty sure I'm ready to be off-book tonight for the show.

And my email isn't working.

That is all.

Grumpy Face

I have a stalker. A real, honest-to-goodness stalker. I know girls who have bragged about having stalkers. How is this a good thing, I wonder? If it goes any further, I've already reassured my roommate that I'm calling the police. He knows where I live. He left me flowers in my car, for fuck's sake. I feel all... weird and uncomfortable about it.

In other news, I'm moving back to Pennsylvania for the summer. I have a job at Krislund. Thank God - the news could not have come at a better time.

Lovely?

After a gorgeous day like today, I feel bad for reading my friend's blog account of her travels in Vienna and feeling jealous - but it's difficult not to compare and think, "I could have been there."

It was a beautiful day, though. I woke up REALLYreally late after sitting with P. on RA duty to keep her company. Then I showered and by the time I was out of the shower, there was a message on my phone (from P.), which stated that she was wandering around downtown and I was more than welcome to join her. So I did, and we wandered around before stopping for lunch at the Pampered Palate. We ate outside, right on Beverly Street, and people-watched while we ate cheese and soup. It was delightfully warm out and - yes, yes I am sunburnt.

Then we shopped around and geeked out over an antique store built in a studio loft apartment (I want to LIVE there, it was SO nice and attic-y), where I splurged and bought a pair of really nice white trousers. Then we decided to walk down by the Wharf and we shopped around some more until we came across Sunspots, the blown-glass studio below the Wharf. They were having an openhouse of sorts, which involved them blowing glass creations for anyone who wanted to watch. It was amazing. Glass-blowing is a skill I would very much like to learn sometime.

By the time we left Sunspots, it was storming and pouring down rain, so P. and I dashed up to campus through it! We were fairly well soaked by the time we reached campus, but we didn't care. There we parted ways and I walked back to my house through the drizzle. I put in a few hours studying my script, then decided to walk back downtown to grab a bagel and some chai from Coffee on the Corner, since it had become once more sunny and warm.

I spent the evening munching on my bagel in my room, reading my script, and watching "Love Actually", which made me feel far too sappy and gave me the near-irresistable urge to learn German. I read S.'s blog, then, and now I'm feeling a mite depressed.

For instance, today - instead of geeking around downtown Staunton - I could have been listening to Mozart's Requiem Mass and then going to a Spanish restaurant with Dr. A & co., where I would have drank sangria and eaten amazing Spanish food. I could have watched "Salome" and explored Vienna. I could have maybe seen B. Could have. Could have. Too many could haves.

Why do I never do the things I know I won't regret?

Back to Work We Go!

I'm back in VA now, awaiting wonderful things. Firstly, my new job is starting tonight - I'll be in charge of my very first choir practice, which should be interesting. But hey - it's all about the experience, right?

Today was also the first day of May term - or Play term, as it is often called here. I'm taking Problems in Production, and I'll be in the play, so it should be an interesting time. We'll be putting the whole thing up in about two weeks. (Excuse me please, while I panic justalittlebit.)

Hm. I kind of thought I was in the mood to write, but I guess I'm not. It's so nice outside that I think I'm going to sit out on the porch with a book until it's time to leave for choir.

Deus Ex Machina

I saw a play at the Lycoming College Theatre tonight - "Machina", it's called, and addresses the suppression of women - and indeed, of freedom of thought - in society. It was an excellent play, in a conceptual sense. The script was strong and I have to say, it's something that I would like to read at some point, assuming I can find a copy of the script somewhere.

In performance, it also had its strong points. Firstly, the acting was top-notch. It was impressive to watch the actors really lose themselves in their roles - both the ciphers and the one actual character. The one character - and there really was just one - there were points in the play during which she really sounded like River Tam, from Firefly. The disjointedness of her speech and the odd tangents she would set out on that were triggered by the most random words were just interesting to listen to. Kudos to the actress for her memorization skills.

The set was fascinating. Very spare and minimalist, and all metal. The chairs, the gates, the structure of the set - all metal bars. The technical director must have had a helluva time getting everything welded, because there was no way they could have ordered all of that. The light effects were also very striking, especially during the his-and-hers scenes. At one point it was green-light-go on the man and red-light-stop on the woman, and the woman eventually shifted to the green-light. Also, another scene there was a violent blue light on the man and an equally violent pink light on the woman. These sorts of lighting effects occurred throughout.

Now, that being said, I had a few criticisms. It's mostly nitpicky stuff that only another theatre person would really catch, but some of it is relevant to regular audiences. Firstly, the light grid was really high up and the audience seating, as well as the thrust stage platforms, were not moveable - I just didn't see a practical way for the techies to hang lights. Moreover, some of the light cords "tails" were left hanging down, which was just a little bit sloppy, I thought.

The pyrotechnics at the end didn't work very well, but pyrotechnics are always touch-and-go, so I don't really have any complaints. Just a note.

My biggest problem with the production was that the lead actress did not break character as soon as the lights came up for the curtain-call. Something I will always focus on is that you DROP the character as soon as the play is over. She didn't break character, though, and she still wasn't completely out of it when the actors walked off stage. That is dangerous. I cannot even begin to express how psychologically-damaging it is not to break character as soon as you can, especially when you're playing a role which requires you to lose so much of yourself.

That being said, it was a strong production. It was a very strong production and I enjoyed watching - it's something I would like to do someday, actually. But it could have been done even better.

The past few days at home have been very nice and peaceful. I've been gardening with Mom - and let me tell you, weeding the raspberry bed? Not fun. And I've been cooking a lot, too. I get tomorrow off, since Sawyer is making a roast, which I'm looking forward to. Monday, I'll make groundnut stew, I think.

Let the Choirs Ring Forth!

I got the job! I am now the choir director of the Third Presbyterian Church of Staunton! *dances* It's a wonderful opportunity and the pastor and elders who met with me are really nice - I'm going to enjoy working with them. It seems like a very similar place to the church I grew up in, so I'll feel right at home and I know exactly how to deal with the choir. I'm pretty sure KA didn't always know how to handle them, since she didn't grow up in this sort of church, but I think I have a fairly good idea of how to work with them so everyone gets along. I like knowing that I'm qualified to do a job, and to do it well.

I finished all of my exams and am now comfortably ensconced in the living room easy chair back in Watsontown, PA. Dad is sitting across from me with the paper and Mom will be home soon from Sisters in Faith. We are watching Monk, because Dad refuses to watch Third Rock From the Sun again. But ah well.

Found out just five minutes ago that my older sister and her fiance will be moving to Colorado this summer, for his graduate studies. I have mixed feelings - she's one of my very best friends, possibly my best friend, and I won't be able to visit her so easily now. (However, now visiting her means a cross-country trip out West, which should be the shit.) However, my first trip, should I choose to attempt it, will be a journey to Germany, methinks. I've been wanting to go for quite a while now, and now I have added incentive to go. :-)