Drunk!

So it seems things have been pretty good (well, not all good, maybe ultimately good or valuable, maybe eventful should be the word I'm going for) since Thursday's class and I want to say it was because of Thursday's class and that could be true (it's probably partly true) but I'd probably be lying to you or to myself or to someone if I said it very certainly.

At least, it wouldn't be fair to the awesome people I've met or have gotten to know better since Thursday and it wouldn't be fair to the randomness of randomness or consequences of just stuff happening. (I think.)

Well I guess it's because Thursday's class didn't seem like routine and that's how I feel like this week has been. Which is good. It's good to get out of routine.

I was so excited about Thursday's class because it was startling. Especially that first round. I got really excited to try it again when Francis was giving us a kind of discussion/debrief. This class is kind of all about putting yourself out there and taking chances, which I try to do in some small way everyday, and so it was almost like a special treat to have that space of time when everyone was putting themselves out there. It was a really safe environment then, kind of a 1-2-3-catharsisnoweveryone! thing. It kind of gave you a taste of what is possible.

That said, I'm superlyexcited about acting out the Ramayana, too. Challenges are funnn.

How crazy is it that all you have to do is put up one of the mudras and even standing becomes something close to magnificent?

It felt really good to get the step/move we were practicing close to correct because the sequence we learned is one of my favorites so far and I was feeling pretty pretty doing it but then I was just like flwarshhth?! snapped out of some kind of trance when Sravya pointed it out.

One day in Intro to International Politics I got really frustrated because we were talking about international politics theories and it was based on the fact that relations between states pretty much relied on how many guns you had. And that pretty much governed everything about international relations. I could hardly sit still in class because the entire time I just couldn't believe that we had to deal with and consider other states based solely on how much brute force they had. It seemed so... stupid. Immature. And it made me wonder if you could be successful in international politics or relations if you were a pacifist.

It was just something you had to accept, my friends were telling me, that that's just part of the way things inherently work. So I thought it's kind of like the first time I played Guitar Hero and I was basically having like, a crisis over the fact that the plastic guitar wasn't real and how can I play this song for real on real guitar but not get it on Easy level Guitar Hero? So in order to enjoy the game (and go onto Medium!), I had to accept that it wasn't a real guitar and I wasn't playing real music and it was, in fact (this took me a while), a game.

Anyway I'm mentioning those random examples because it's kind of related to the question of: can you be a successful performer if you don't like getting the attention of lots of people at once (i.e. an audience)? Can you be a performer without liking to perform in front of others? I mean I think Hugh Grant said something about how he's terrified every time the camera rolls? (I hope he wasn't being sarcastic or ironic when he was saying this or this would totally go against my point.) And then everybody gets stage fright. So at this point I figure that it's all just part of learning the art of performance and that it's something you just have to accept to continue with it... it's not the whole thing or what performance is all about, but it's inherent in the fabric of the thing. So I guess that's something I have to come to terms with.

On Thursday (video-class) I (formally) met Selma and Erich.

I saw Scams of Scapin on Friday and it FANTASTIC. My favorite production I've seen this year. I was gushing over the set even before the play started and then the characters got on stage and the clown in the corner started making noises then Andrew (my hall's OA) came on with bambambam one after the other energy and it took me like 5 minutes to realize that the old guy was Jack (and I'm not saying that because he had a mask on, haha), it was that good.

I also just watched Jason's play and it felt like class in that there were so many things that came up that were thought-provoking and that I wanted to write down or question later on. And the acting was intenssseee. So woot to student-producted/acted/directed/written/everything plays!

Kudos keep it up!