Jesus

Busy life. So, where did we leave off last time?

Classes: Introduction to World Religions (with a prof from Chile!), Modern Philosophy (load of Cartesian bleh so far), and SD: Social and Economic Aspects (some decent stuff and more of the same--have to do a social audit of a company that at least operates in the UK--any suggestions?).

Plays: Auditioned and cast the_trojan_queen, a take on Euripedes' Hecuba I'm directing going up in April. Last night (!) finished Titus Andronicus (played the Roman emperor Saturninus, as an overgrown kid) which was good to finish up, as we've been in rehearsals all semester. Week before that finished 4.48 Psychosis, which I co-directed and rehearsed in the two weeks after exams. Have been cast in and had a few rehearsals for Godspell--get some singing in, and it's with good people.

Had my (American) debit card stolen and used to buy loads of stuff, so cancelled that and getting money back. Had taken money out shortly before it was stolen and only ran out yesterday, which was when I discovered my (Scottish) bank card, which I haven't used in a while, is inactive. Bank closes early on Saturday--closed on Sunday--so I've got to go in and give myself purchasing power this Monday. Laptop also conveniently broke down (same bloody screen issue) so that's got to go into Glasgow at some point...A pain because everything I need to read is online so I can't be bothered buying books--need to just print stuff out.

On the upside, sort of stumbled my way into a relationship, so that's fun. Also have been a bit involved in the occupation of one of the old Uni buildings to demand that the university make some concessions around Gaza, mainly (for me) stopping buying water from a subsidiary of a company that takes water from the Golan Heights, and accepting research money (and direction) from arms manufacturers. Nice way to meet hippies, some cool people.

Have been watching nothing, listening to nothing, and reading very little. Life should be a lot freer now Titus is done, so hopefully I'll be living more like a real person instead of shunting back and forth between my aforementioned activities and woes.

Results back

Nothing much to report (or interest in doing so, these weeks--when the semester starts I'll actually have a lot more free time and interact with a lot less people [funny thing that], and so blog more). Did, however, get my exam results back. Both 15s, which is dead in the middle of the 2:1 range, as I expected. Without bombing or miraculous acing that's where my coursework put me. It's a funny relationship to work I have at the moment. For quite a while there in High School there was college looming overhead (and parents!), and first year quite a drive to prove myself. However, this year, exploring other areas and with the knowledge that my work only starts counting toward my degree -next- year (and of course lack of parental hovering!), I find that my relationship has changed. It's still stuff that I really enjoy doing, that I'll do extra reading for and try to make connections with through everything, but while the material is more enjoyable than last year, I feel completely relaxed (not necessarily in a good way) about assessment. I know I need to start kicking into gear, as the years of course scale up in difficulty nice and quickly.

As for next semester, still not sure if I want to take the English drama class or the Divinity world religions, though I'm leaning toward religions, if only to have some non-theatre life.

I swear the blog isn't defunct!

I've just been exhausted. Haven't done anything non-drama for the last week--6 hour rehearsals per day for Psychosis (which stretches out to 7 or 8 hours counting the time Harry and I spend planning the next day and talking about the structure of the show), so that's a full-time job, and then on top of it meeting every other day or so with Clare for 2-3 hours to work on Hecuba (from here on referred to as the_trojan_queen, since no one will know 'Hecuba'). It's a really good time, actually, very productive and artistic, though I am not reading nearly as much as I would like, damn internet.

Not too much else to report. Psychosis is going quite well, we're already over 1/2 blocked and have a bit more than a week left before we go up (which normally sounds terrifying but the rehearsal time for this is only 2 weeks and a bit). It's a really interesting project, lots of new stuff for me: working with a co-director, short rehearsal time, a play-length poem with no parts divided or stage directions, a complete faithfulness to the text. I feel a lot less ownership and authorship than I'm used to, more like a manager than an artist, but that's not bad, and partly just means that the cast have come up with quite a bit of the show themselves--though that's always the case. I am excited about the idea of challenging myself in theatre. It merges intellectual, social, emotional, and physical stimulation in a way that I don't know anything else does.

Because it's break things are really slow around here, thought they should be picking up as people start coming back. I know if it wasn't for Psychosis I'd have gone insane with boredom a while ago.