June 21st - 27th

June 21st - 27th

Nine days.  Single digits!

Sunday

I went to Hyde Park to soak up some sun, then got some lunch and went to Baker Street to get a hair cut.  I ran into Jemima on my way out and we planned to get drinks next weekend hopefully with James and Pete too (my last weekend in London!)  I stayed in for the rest of the day trying to tackle as much of this final project as I could.  Kate and I are going to Nia's sometime this week for dinner too, so I will be able to get out and enjoy London a bit, instead of working so much in the coming week.  Tomorrow is when we hear the day we have to teach our accent on, either Tuesday or Thursday.  This will also determine when we're going to Thorpe Park (amusement park).  

A little too short, but it's just hair, right?  I've gotten mixed reviews.

Monday

At seminar we were told that everyone is going to be presenting their accent/teaching on Thursday.  Katerina handed out the briefing paper for the MA Portfolio (i.e. my dissertation) and it took her about an hour to get through the explanation of what is required of us.  It's pretty intense, but I think I can handle it.  

After seminar I met with Katerina to discuss job options for next term...here's the good news: the school I've been having my teaching placement at - Trinity Laban asked for my CV because they would like to offer me a couple days a week in the fall for their new BA Musical Theatre program.  I would be writing the curriculum, teaching accents, doing show support - basically everything I'd like in a job.  Katerina flipped when I told her, and then I was ballsy enough to ask her if I could teach the Limbers (warm-ups) next term to the new MAVS group.  I also offered up my skills teaching programs like Audacity, Garage Band, etc. and general computer skills - as that was a massive issue for this year's group.  I did many, many tutorials for free and just thought maybe she'd fit me into the timetable.  She was thrilled and couldn't have been more supportive.  Afterwards I had lunch with Kate and then we had the second half of seminar: 

  

  

We had a 3 hour movement class afterwards, but about an hour into it I was feeling really anxious.  I had to leave actually, I had an anxiety attack in the bathroom.  Poor Thomas and Kate came in to see if I was okay and I could barely say, "Please leave me be."  It scared me because I haven't had a severe one in a while and this was full blown...I am convinced it was because we were doing very structured breathing exercises and my whole IPP (final presentation) has been about freeing my habitual patterns of holding/managing my breath.  So maybe it was muscle memory but about 20 minutes into these breathing exercises my whole body was shouting at me, "You should NOT be here right now."  So I left.  When I was okay to come back I got my things and left.  I did not feel up to finishing the class.  I treated myself a big dinner and went home to relax.  I talked to Nia on the phone who was still out because of her operation last weekend.  I told her about Trinity and the Limbers at CSSD...I proposed I could help her with the rent if she'd let me stay in the spare room.  She also flipped out and insisted I stay with her even if I couldn't afford to pay rent for a little while, whilst getting myself set up.  How is it that everything seems to be falling into place now?  

Tuesday

Slept horribly so I tried to sleep late, but I couldn't because it was too bright and noisy out.  I went to school to work on and finish the Alumni DVD.  Accomplished.  Can I get paid now?  Then went to a session with Nia to learn the song we're singing at the Alumni Event - a gorgeous African song.  I offered to be an honorary bass part because there are a lot of divas in the group when it comes to singing.  This is really frustrating from a group who are supposed to be teachers.  Not performers.  But anytime they get the chance to perform the egos fly in to full gear and it's a competition.  It makes me cringe and reminds me of MMC.  Thank GOD I am a teacher.  

However, my patience was running really low today though so I almost left, but stuck it out until the end.  We learned a poem as well that we're performing at the event.  

Came home afterwards and went to boxing with Kate from 8pm-9pm.  We stayed until 10pm though, working more voice-to-boxing and recording some more clips.  I was thinking too much about it, but think I found a good sound - finally opened up, thanks to Kate.  She really talked me through what I was doing and how it was getting better.  When I watched the film back though I was disgusted by how much weight I've put on since I've been here.  It's been yo-yo-ing for the last few months as I've been upping my exercise and then getting sick or plagued with migraines, but then do really well...it's been about 5-8 lbs on and off for the last few months.  It's so frustrating, but my mom reassured me that I will be back to my healthy shakes and big salads when I get home, which is so true; it made me feel a bit better.

When something goes right, oh it's likely to lose me, it's apt to confuse me....it's such an unusual sight.  

Oh, I swear, I can't get used to something so right...

Wednesday

I had a leisure day today.  (In my head I know that I should pronounce that LEEzure, but it's been drilled into my head as LEHzure - rhyming with the word measure)...sigh.  It will take a few months to undo my British-isms I'm sure...

Today I knew I needed to balance play and work at the moment as to not lose my mind in the next seven days.  Just think - one week from today I will be home.  Home!  

Last trip to the very center of the city - Charing Cross/Trafalgar Square to pick up some cards and such...

Thursday

Accent Assessment

I spent the whole morning stressing about this assessment.  Having to teach a German accent to my peers for 20 minutes in front of an intimidating panel.  I went in to teach at 2:30pm, and honestly - it flew by.  I didn't do anything out of the box, like some people did, but I accomplished my objectives because they were leaving my 20 minute class with a really good handle on this German accent.  I was a bit self-deprecating right after it was over, but it faded as I realized how much the students had retained.  I got good peer-feedback, which lightened me up too.  Then I had to stay and be taught - I learned Geordie (twice), Sheffield, Liverpool and Edinburgh.  We celebrated afterwards with a little wine at the Hampstead theatre, sitting out back as the sun went down.  I was starting to really watch my classmates and try to soak them in because I will miss them terribly when I leave...

Friday

Thorpe Park!!  

Colin and I went to Thorpe Park today.  I wish I had more energy to write about it, but I will say this: we had a great time.  We only got to ride a few rides because the wait was about 1.5-2 hours per ride and it closed at 6pm (we only wanted to go on the big rollercoasters)...That was the point.  To see if I could really let go on the rollercoaster...as a part of my IPP...I wrapped my camera around my wrist and filmed myself.  The footage, despite a horrible double-chin-y angle, came out well.  It's actually really funny because my expression goes from complete horror to joy to horror and back.  Colin said the footage is perfect, and I've got to admit - I was really pleased with what we got from it.  It was also nice to just NOT be doing work for a day.  To chat with Colin and be in the sun for a little bit.  I wasn't going to put the footage on here because it's a little embarrassing, but it's about letting go so why not:

!!!!!

  

Thorpe Park map...it's like a really small version of Six Flags...

  

Ride #1 - Collossus.  1.5 hour wait... 

  

Ride #2: Saw - The Ride.  2 hour wait.  I look like a ten year old :(  A happy one though.  My hair started to flip out like Mary Tyler Moore after the first rollercoaster, haha.  It was all downhill from there (no pun intended)...

  

The ride from afar...and then us on the ride. (Turn volume down!)

Last Ride: Nemesis Inferno.  1 hour wait...

  

Colin getting "sherbert" which I had to explain to him is not really sherbert...it's just sweet/sour powdered sugar.  Silly Brits.

Saturday

I got up early to make it to Nia's lesson.   She had to have her teaching placement filmed and no one showed up, so she asked a few of us to come in and be taught on film for her assessment.  I was happy to; I love her and she is a phenomenal teacher.  Then I ran home to close my bank account, only to find out I basically couldn't until Monday...then came home for a hot second to change into nicer clothes for the Alumni event.  It was ridiculously humid out today....

I got back to school around 2pm and got to work doing all of my tasks as techno-wiz as they've been calling me...easy stuff like setting up the DVD player and making sure the audio was okay, helping the tech guy figure out how to hook his mac up to the TV and get the audio to work...(yes, I realize how backwards that sounds).  After everyone arrived and we mingled for about an hour Katerina, David Carey and Patsy Rodenburg spoke.  Patsy's speech was the best: off-the-cuff, pacing and physical...totally passionate and just on fire about education and voice...I was really impressed.  They showed the DVD that I've been slaving over for the last 2 months of all the alumni pictures from the 1940's to now.  Everyone really enjoyed it.  Then we got to perform our Zulu song that Nia had taught us; also well-received.  Then we mingled a bit more, networking and such...I got to speak to Joan Melton (Fitzmaurice Master teacher) who I'll be working with all summer.  She was like, "Oh, I knew you looked familiar!"  She is quite intimidating though, she was talking to me and playing with my earrings the whole time.  Lovely woman though and very glamorous So-Cal.  

Me and "Uncle" Chris.  Going to miss him so much.

  

Me and Nia.  I love this girl!!

  

Kate smiling!  Finally!  Colin and Kate.

  

Me and Thomas.  Mette, Mel, Alex, me and Colin.

  
Drinks afterwards at Ye Olde Swiss Cottage Pub (could it have a more ridiculous name?)  Alex striking a pose.  Bex and I (RMO tutor and MAVS Alumna).  

  

Alex and Bex, chatting about tattoos.  Nia and Kate.

Then Nia spoiled me tonight.  She loudly proclaimed she was buying all the wine and then decided she would pay for my cab ride home.  She's too much.  That girl has more generosity in one breath than most people could hope to have in their entire lives.  Then home to send some emails and collapse!  Tomorrow is the start of my last week here!  4 days left (including Wednesday)!!!  

June 14th - 20th

June 14th - 20th

TWO WEEKS...

Sunday

I laid in the sun in the park today doing some reading (Oh, Fitzmaurice work, you will become my best friend in time).  I fell asleep in the sun, so I got a bit raccoon-eyed, and almost missed my massage.  This massage is last one I can feasibly get before I leave, and it was done by the director of the spa, who has magic hands.  She told me I'm way too tense for a 23-year old.  Haha.  Then I came home and packed some more and did a lot of work on my phonetic breakdown for the Accent Presentation.  What a bitch.  I finished it and burned the audio onto a CD.  Got to bed pretty late.  

Monday

Went in early to print out my paperwork to hand in then went to Alexander Technique.  I love this class.  I was disappointed to hear we'd only have a few sessions this term because it is SO valuable.  

Alexander Technique with Natacha.

CICELY BERRY.

  

She literally stood in the middle of the room during the exercises scowling like that.  She's so intense.

  

Me and Kate trying to process the exercises.

    

More text exercises.  We did Shakespeare the whole day.

  

Kate and Tara.  Niamh and Daniele taking direction from Cis.

  

Lizzie and Jeff.  Colin, Alex, and if this pic doesn't show what a musical theatre Queen Chris, I don't know what does.

  

Observing and taking mad notes.

  

A few more exercises.

  

Cis!  Voice & The Actor was the first voice book I ever read!  She's a legend!

  

Nia and Tara.  Alex, Chris and Thomas.

  

Shona, Lu, Niamh.  Daniele.

Colin, Shona, Lu.

Take 1.  MAVS & Cicely Berry.

Take 2.  Back row (left to right): Nia, Jeff, Thomas, Lu, Niamh, Lizzie, Tara, Kate, Corin

Front row: Chris, Mel, Daniele, Cis Berry, Shona, Colin, me, Alex

Two weeks away!

Tuesday

We had Text with Alex in the morning and then an IPP session, followed by tutorials.

    

Text exercises with Alex - working on Mamet's play Oleanna

Doing a scene from Oleanna (Mamet).  My classmates are trying their hardest to put on their American accents....adorable

Corin actually does a pretty great American accent.

My tutorial with Katerina, which went well, despite the fact that I told her I was changing the topic of my dissertation back to anxiety from text.  Then I came home and had a bite to eat before boxing with Kate in Fulham Broadway.  Headed out, kicked some ass, came home.  A great session.  We got some footage too:

Me and the incredible instructor Rachel.  She made us do pushups in between each circuit rather than 100 at one time; that's what she's yelling for us to do after I do the last combo with her.  I LOVE this class and will miss it when I have to come home.  

Wednesday

I went to the park to lay in the sun.  It's been sunny everyday until about 4pm and then it's down pouring so I figured I'd take advantage of the sun while it was there.  Then I had to go to school to meet with the Alumni woman Zoe to show her what I had so far with the Alumni DVD.  She loved it and was very happy.  I mentioned needing to get paid (all of the £50 they owe me for working 10 hours on it....ugh) and if I'd only realized what a bitch it was going to be to deal with HR I would've never agreed to do this project.  I spent a good hour between HR and phoning Job Centre to see if I could get a temporary National Insurance number.  Those bastards wasted half my day with this stupid financial bullshit when I could've been actually getting some work done.  

Then I went to Tech Services to splice the DVDs of the first two practical presentations from this term: EVP 1 and EVP 2.  The clips were astounding.  I couldn't believe how different I sounded and looked and acted...it was a big shock to my system.  After about an hour with them I came home and relaxed.  I met Kate later on at Fatoush (!!!) for a nice dinner and a long, long chat about life and the course.  We had such a great time together.  We laughed until we were crying.  She got offered a part time position at the school she's been doing her teaching placement at: Guilford School of Acting (GSA)!  I got home really late because we chatted for so long, but I fell asleep so easy :)

Thursday

We had RMO with Tara which was more like a problem-solving session for dissertation questions (i.e. how to set up a case study, what's an appropriate research method for x, blah blah blah).  Again, she supported my stage fright/anxiety idea and helped me plan out how to set up preliminary investigation and then a case study, hopefully at CCSU.  Instead of having a lunch break I dealt with HR again and then went to Alexander technique (our last official class) before the term ends.  Next week we've got a seminar with Katerina about professional development/end of term stuff and then we're teaching our accents.  That's all that's on the schedule for next week.  Next Saturday is the Alumni Event.  Then Monday we have our final seminar and our final tutorials with Katerina, Tara and Bex.  Tuesday is my presentation followed by a wonderful MAVS party.  Wednesday I fly out from Gatwick to Philly, then Philly to Providence.  

Friday

More park for the sun until the skies started to get overcast.  Then home to do work.  I got on such a roll with the final project that I decided to stay home instead of go see a lecture by Simon Callow at the National Theatre.  I got a lot done and was quite proud of myself at the end of the day.  I got some exciting news that I don't want to jinx by posting here.  Will keep you posted though.  Turned that news over in my head all day.  

Saturday

I had stayed up late doing work like a mad woman and then slept in on Saturday morning.  I deserved it damn it.  Then I did laundry (for the last time!) and went to Kate's to do some IPP work.  I showed her how to use Power Point and we did a little work.  Then she made us some food (lentil & tomato soup with crackers, chutney and hummus).  We headed out to see a show at this Fringe theatre in Kennington.  She had a friend named Maria de Lima in it and although the show was bad, we still had a decent time.  We stayed after and hung out with Maria til late.  Then home around 1am to chat to Tim on Skype and then get to bed.  Hair cut tomorrow!

The White Bear Theatre

  

I forgot to zoom out!  There we are.  I couldn't get Kate to really smile though; she's as bad as Jen haha! :(

June 7th - 13th

June 7th - 13th

20 days.

Sunday

I couldn't sleep very well because I had trouble breathing (sinus infection at its worst) and got up around 8:30am to text Nia and see when she wanted me to come help her make food and such.  She said to sleep in because her sister and brother in law surprised her late last night and took her out.  I got there a little after 1pm and we sat in the garden behind her flat drinking Pimm's in the sunshine.  Glorious.  It was incredible because it was like the sky cleared its clouds just for her.  It was down pouring in London and then as soon as I got into Brighton it was sunny and beautiful.  When I arrived Nia announced it was "Pimm's-o'clock" so we had about three pitchers of it.  The only other MAVS to make it were Alex and Corin (who brought his girlfriend Zoe and their daughter Maia).  She had a few friends from Guidhall School of Music (stunning musicians) who were great to chat to.  We had some food and Nia blew out her birthday candles just in time because it was getting cold, so we moved inside.  Moments later it was raining.  Nia announced it was "wine-o'clock" and continued to push food at everyone (she made a feast!)  

I stayed after everyone left because Miltos (her fiance) wasn't expected to be home from his performance until around 8pm and I didn't want her to clean up by herself.  As everyone was leaving she announced it was "champagne-o'clock" and yet again more toasting ensued.  After everyone left we listened to the Smiths and washed the dishes.  I adore her.  She's offered for to pay for half my flight to come to her hen party (aka bachelorette party) sometime next spring which would be amazing.  She's also invited me to the wedding in Cyprus, Greece (where Miltos's family lives) :)

  

Train ride to Brighton...

Sunflowers and new music for the birthday girl.

Nia, Maia and Zoe.  Cheers :)

Maia and Nia in the garden looking at the fish in the little pond.

  

Similar curiosity can be seen in Corin, Maia's father :)  Maia watering the plants, wearing Nia's sweater.  Adorable.

  

Graham and Nia.  Maia and Corin.

  

Have your cake and eat it too...

Alex

This was when it was "champagne o'clock" - that's Luke and Ileri in the background.  That's one happily intoxicated birthday girl.  She thought this picture was great, haha.

Monday

I knew as soon as I woke up (no hangover, surprisingly) that going to Brighton yesterday had not been the best thing for my illness.  It certainly helped cheer me up because I've been more and more homesick as the days wind on.  But I was more congested and my throat was sore (alcohol not helping, of course) so I stayed home from school.  I called Kate and she was like, "You sound awful.  Stay home and rest."  Of course when I Skyped home later on Jen called me a slacker for missing class.  I literally spent all day in bed, sitting up only to blow my nose or drink water or take meds.  Awful.  Thomas called later to see how I was and confirmed that I sounded bad, haha.  So bad, in fact, that he suggested we cancel our lesson on Wednesday (the assessed lesson, mind you) and I was told him there was no way we were canceling it again (this would be the third time).  Slept horribly :(

Tuesday

We had a full day workshop with Christina Shewell who's the most clever woman I've ever met.  She didn't have that "voice guru" attitude like many of the visiting lecturers, she just knew her work and was passionate about it.  She's written a massive, brilliant book called Voice in Art and Science.  I was just so impressed with her.  After class I got GBK with Thomas and Colin where we discussed lesson plans, as requested by Thomas.  The man never stops working.  I was just like him before this term.  I'm learning to let go of the need to be doing work all the time.  It's making me feel better about myself actually.  More love and play and acceptance.  

Christina Shewell.

  

Celebrating Nia and Daniele's birthdays.  Blowing out the candles with a nice deep diaphragmatic breath :)

  

Stopping to to smell the flowers - ala Lessac.  Colin made me smell them too and take my picture (I look so miserably ill and pale, no makeup, in Kate's sweater, my scarf and about four layers, with my Radiohead shirt for extra mental comfort, haha)

Wednesday

The Underground strike is getting old.  Everything has tripled in time for travel.  Translation: it took me 3 hours to get to Bexley with Thomas and 3 1/2 on the way back because of rush hour.  Katerina could not make it which meant we had to film it.  This was probably for the best anyway because I was taking a risk with my lesson plan content and also her presence when in assessment mode can be a bit intimidating.  I had to teach new students - 2nd year FdA Musical Theatre students.  They were primarily dancers, whereas the 1st years are primarily singers.  This was a challenge because I was doing an "intro to Catherine Fitzmaurice voice work" and they were a bit fussy about it at times.  My vocal use was awful because I'm still sick, but Thomas (who was filming it) insisted it was fine and that the lesson went very well.  He's getting the tapes made into DVDs and then we'll watch them with Katerina on Monday to get feedback.

Thursday

We had Research Methods with Tara McAllister-Viel in the morning for two hours - lecture style.  I don't dislike her as much as I used to.  I think she really deserves more credit than I give her, but I never liked her practical classes.  When she's conducting lectures/discussions she's great though because she's incredibly academic (PhD in Voice, c'mon).  Maybe I'm partial to her now because she told me that I should be doing my dissertation on stage fright/performance anxiety with Catherine's work rather than Catherine's work with text exploration.  She gave me a huge list of pros and cons, and frankly - the amount of cons for text exploration made me cringe.  I'd need 12 months to write that dissertation for which I only have three months and would much rather write about something I care about.  She reminded us that we should be doing it on something we are happy to spend 24/7 thinking about.  I think about it far more than I think about text.  I actually try not to think about text because it causes anxiety.  Hah.  There's my PhD.  

Someday someone is going to walk into your life and make you realize why it never worked out with anyone else...

Friday

I buckled down and worked on the accent project for about six hours today.  This project is not extensive, but it is tedious.  I've got to write the phonetic transcription out for the German accent and then type it up which granted, sounds easy, but is so very tedious.  There's a key code for every symbol and diacritic...I am very computer savvy but I don't have the energy to learn a whole new system of key codes for the IPA.  Sorry.  This entire paragraph is loaded with voice jargon.  Just venting.  

Got out of my room to hit the gym (it's been a while), shower and do some shopping.  I'm almost done with the phonetic transcription for the accent breakdown that's due on Monday.  Then there are only two more boxes left to tick: Accent Presentation (teaching the accent to 5 or 6 MAVS for 20 minutes) and also the Independent Practical Project (which is on my last day in the UK!)  I've only got 18 days left!  Incredible!  

My parents are in Tennessee for Uncle Bob and Aunt Betsy's 50th anniversary which Tim is at as well.  I'm sad I'm not there.  I would've loved to spend time celebrating with my quirky, lovable family and dancing around crazy with Tim.  There's always 4th of July!  

Saturday

Up with the sun again and wanting to stay in bed, but it was too bright out.  I got up and went to the gym and took a long, lovely shower.  Then I packed a bit (too early?) and went to the library to get this accent project done.  Then I went to the park and read Michael Morgan's dissertation about Fitzmaurice Voicework.  

Got an email from Nia who has to go to the hospital for treatment (this course has taken its toll on a lot of us, but this is extreme and worrisome)...so she's canceled the Wales trip, understandably.  I'm so worried about her; she didn't return my calls or email...

I know the next two weeks will fly by and I will be stunned to leave this place.  I am realizing how much time really has past, looking back at the pictures from Term 1 (as I'm making the Alumni Event DVD).  I took down everything that was on my cork boards:

A year in the life.

  

  

Home (right hand bottom corner) around and back again

The shows I've been Vocal Coach for!

When I got back to my room I worked hard on my Accent Project.  I grabbed dinner at EAT. and came back to do more work.  More packing ensued when I needed a break.  Looking forward to my massage tomorrow!  YES.  And hanging out with Kate :)

Dear Universe,

Thank you thank you thank you.

Always,

me

May 31st - June 6th

May 31st - June 6th

30 days!

Sunday

Massage day.  The woman told me that my back, especially my right shoulder/shoulder blade is messed up.  I could've told her that.  There's no way anyone could sleep on this pathetic excuse for a bed for 10 months and carry a heavy bag everyday to class and not have back issues.  A few hours later I met Kate at the Contemporary Art Institute to hear a woman named Joan La Barbara who is a "vocal artist" but to be honest, she didn't do anything that we don't cover everyday in our practical voice classes.  I wasn't particularly impressed with her.  It gave me hope though that this woman makes a living doing what I do everyday in the studio.  

  

Union flags, for Jen :)  The next one is of the Contemporary Art Institute.

Joan La Barbara.  We sat in the back as to not draw attention to ourselves, hah.

  

Kate needed me to take a pic of her riding her bike for her IPP.  Love her :)

Kate and I sat in the sun and chatted for a few hours about IPP and life.  I need to spend more time with her before I leave.  I feel like I'm already missing her, if that makes sense.  Then I treated myself to a movie, which Tim's been telling me to see - Synecdoche, New York (word play on Schenectady, NY where the movie was filmed).  See meaning of synecdoche.  The film blew my mind a bit, as Tim warned, but then...Charlie Kaufman films usually do.  This one had a particular effect on me, as it was to do with theatre vs. reality and existential anxiety.  All things I've been struggling to define my relationship with, or discover the effects of on my day to day life.  These things were also the topic of conversation with Kate today, so it really did my head in for the night.  

I came home to find my inbox rather full, noteworthy being - an email from Catherine saying she's got some reading for me to do before the teaching certification program in NYC (sure, I can fit that in on the plane ride home, right?), and a "when will you be home?" email from a nice guy I hung out with last summer.  Still trying to be patient concerning other potential emails.  Anyway, I think Catherine is trying to get me to stray from what Katerina wants me to do for my thesis.  Secretly, or maybe not-so-secretly - I like this.  Tempt me to do what I want rather than what is expected or "right".   That's why I am here. 

Monday

5:30am I am up with the rising sun and ready to start the day.  Considering I got home so late last night I'm not sure how this is possible.  Katerina sends me a text at 6:30am saying she's got food poisoning and is canceling class but asked us to use the space to work on IPP.  I get ready to go in to yoga led by Nia this morning at 8:30am and then meet with Kate to work on IPP.  For some reason I started crying about 3/4 of the way through the yoga.  I think it's because she was asking us to do a certain kind of breathing for hatha yoga and it was some sort of muscle memory/anxiety related feeling.  You have to do "ugai" breathing - thinking of bringing your belly button in towards your spine the whole time...but this is not easy to do whilst in crazy yoga positions.  I don't know...I just burst into tears and had to leave.  I went outside and Kate followed a few minutes later.  She had me vocalize what had happened, which kept me from having an anxiety attack.  I'm convinced it was the "ugai" breathing required for this kind of yoga.  I was completely wiped out after that and we spent most of the day doing relaxed exercises for IPP.  Alex had us rolling in the grass, tumbling and things to get us to play more.  I'm all for playing, but I was exhausted at that point.  I just wanted to crawl back into bed and try to do the day over again tomorrow.  

I picked out two monologues to work on - one from Crave by Sarah Kane and one from Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.  Neither of them have punctuation and both are very long (two pages minimum).  They have no logic and therefore are stream of consciousness, i.e. right brained monologues.  I realize that memorizing them is a left brain activity but once I've housed the language in my body and mind I just be able to turn my left brain off.  Here's hoping.  I'll post them sections from them because they're crazy and I love them and they make me feel like I can make some real progress in getting away from thinking too much and hyper-analyzing.  Here are snippets from them both...they're nuts, and they're both male speakers, I'm aware:

And I want to play hide-and-seek and give you my clothes and tell you I like your shoes and sit on the steps while you take a bath and massage your neck and kiss your feet and hold your hand and go for a meal and not mind when you eat my food and meet you at Rudy's and talk about the day and type your letters and carry your boxes and laugh at your paranoia and give you tapes you don't listen to and watch great films and watch terrible films and complain about the radio and take pictures of you when you're sleeping and get up to fetch you coffee and bagels and Danish and go to Florent and drink coffee at midnight and have you steal my cigarettes and never be able to find a match and tell you about the the programme I saw the night before and take you to the eye hospital and not laugh at your jokes and want you in the morning but let you sleep for a while and kiss your back and stroke your skin and tell you how much I love your hair your eyes your lips your neck your... (Crave by Sarah Kane).

Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if that continues and who can doubt it will fire the firmament that is to say blast heaven to hell so blue still and calm so calm with a calm which even though intermittent is better than nothing but not so fast and considering what is more that as a result of the labours left unfinished crowned by the Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew and... (Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett).

Such is my quest for being impulsive, playing more, risking more, doing what I'm afraid of.

  

Rolling in the grass and blowing bubbles - all apart of the graduate course...who would've thought?

Tuesday

We had Text with Alex Bingley today where we worked on Pinter.  We got filmed by a director from Central who was doing work for the MAVS promotion, etc.  So there was a little bit of pressure to "be productive" and make good, intellectual comments, haha.  We tested out a few exercises of our own that we'd prepared as homework to explore subtext, Pinter pauses and manipulation.  Here are some pictures from the exercises we did.

  

Jeff and Tara trying an exercise using physicalization of the actions, for example in the second picture Jeff said his dialogue and his "action" is "to oppress" so his physical action mirrored that.

  

Jeff and Tara doing dialogue from The Birthday Party by Pinter.  On-lookers...

Tara.

  

Kate and Colin doing Pinter dialogue from The Birthday Party working with the idea of manipulating vs. being manipulated.  So if Kate felt she was being manipulated she'd be at one end of the room and vice versa.  I liked this one a lot.  It flagged up a lot of areas to explore.

Kate explaining the next exercise.

  

Lu explaining that the opposing forces of people holding them back might illuminate something vocally for them...Kate enraged...

  

In this one if you felt like one speaker had higher status/more power you stood behind them and mirrored their physical stance.  How did this effect their voice/the text delivery?  

Who's side are you on??  Chris seems to be winning in the second picture...

 

Chris's posse...

  

The view from Mette's side.  Lu explaining an exercise.

Then Nia taught us an exercise about letting go.  Bells went off in my head - YES this is for ME.  Let's do it!  See video for further elucidation.

  

Video of the basket exercise (turn down volume!).  The aftermath/dizziness that ensued...

  

"Having a go" at the basket exercise...

  

The repercussions of the basket exercise :)

Daniele working hard...:)

Other groups doing Nia's basket exercise:

(Turn volume way down!)

    

  

Airplanes...for feeling freedom of diaphragmatic breathing and forward placement while doing text!

    

More airplanes...

  

Having lunch in the grass and making one of those silly fortune teller things from when we were little :)

Wednesday  

I got up around 9:30am and then around 11am made my way to the doctor's to fight my way into an appointment.  They couldn't fit me in so I had to go during their walk-in hours.  I hate doctor's offices.  I just feel like I'm going to come out of there carrying germs and virus and God knows what else.  

Around 2ish I went to Kate's for lunch and to do work on IPP.  She has been on a vegan diet for a little over a month, so we had a massive salad and some berries for a treat later.  We did some yoga and some boxing - working from either extreme.  The Yin and Yang as Kate keeps calling it.  I spent about two hours showing her how to use her new macbook.  I love teaching.  She keeps telling me that I should be doing computer tutorials as a second job when I get home.  I wish it were that easy.  

Thursday

We had Accents and Dialects with Tim in the morning, learning a Cumbrian accent (northern England).  It was pretty fun.  He had us drawing and doing artsy right brain things like if the sound for "goose" in a Cumbrian accent sounds like the word for "foot" in RP (our basis) then he had us draw a foot and a goose (for example) together and write the phonetic symbols.  Then we had to display our art and when people came around to look at our "art" we had to explain what the pictures were in the accent.  A bit of a challenge, but Tim said I did a fine job :)  We got our Phonetics exams back today, I scored a 69 (which is the equivalent to a B+.  I was pretty happy, considering how hard it was (an aural/oral exam).  

  

Chris and Tim.  Tim and Colin, Niamh in back.

  

Tim, Shona, Colin, Lizzie.  Nia and Mel laughing :)

   

Kate and I comparing our "art"...haha.  I'm trying to be proud of my amateur quick sketches of moons and tigers... :(

  

Nia's drawings...Nia showing Chris and Colin her "art"...

  

Alex showing Tim.  Kate showing Corin and Lizzie.

Then in the afternoon Katerina (being a certified Lessac trainer) ran her Lessac workshop for about 4 hours.

  

Katerina's Lessac workshop.  Mel and Thomas.

Corin, Shona and Jeff.

  

Lessac workshop

Alex, Nia, Lizzie and Mette

  

Corin and Thomas.  Colin, Chris and Niamh.  Alex, Mette and Kate - with tuning forks learning about tonal resonance.

  

Niamh, me, Daniele and Katerina.

  

Katerina and Alex.

After class I went home to change then met Nia at The Bedford (a pub/venue) in Balham to see her brother in law's gig that she was singing back up vocals for.  I was stunned by the venue, which was incredibly deceiving, as you can see in the pics below.  Nia introduced me to a few of her friends who are in "the biz" and they all bought me drinks.  How thoughtful :)  The opening act wasn't very good but her brother in law Luke Ritchie (please click this link, his music is so good) just held the audience in the palm of his hand.  His style of songwriting/playing reminded me of a mix between Pearl Jam and Dispatch.  His lyrics are delicious and his voice is just captivating - a genuinely talented guy.  

The Bedford...seemingly normal pub..until you go upstairs to their Globe theatre.

Gorgeous venue...

Opening act Andrew Dunn and Laura Swain singing some pop music I wasn't a fan of.

  
Nia and friends

The band in the Globe.

  

Luke Ritchie with Nia Lynn accompanying on piano/vocals :)

Nia singing beautiful back up vocals that she wrote for her brother in law :)

  

The band.

After a few glasses of wine and a lovely evening NOT doing work - I returned home and skyped my mother.  I had quite an uninhibited conversation with her and then went to bed, haha.

Friday

I woke up to find I'd received an email from Tony canceling our classes at TCM/Reynolds last minute (again) so I just started working on my new journal.  I did a lot of research on anxiety/panic attacks and starting to pick apart where my anxiety stems from, how I deal with it and what other people say about it.  

Then around 4:30pm I met up with Nia at Me Love Sushi for a glass of wine and a little sushi.  Then we went for a walk and went to a little cafe for some more wine and a little cheesecake.  I adore her.  She is one of the most generous souls I've ever had the pleasure of being friends with.  I don't feel like she ever judges me.  I consider her one of my very closest friends here, it is just too bad she lives so far away (that will seem an understatement when I get home).  She does live in Brighton, as I've mentioned, which is an hour south of London, so I mostly see her in class and occasionally when I've had time to visit her on the random weekend.  Her birthday is Sunday and her fiance is on tour with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and knowing that she too is having a difficult and emotional time on the course at the moment I'm going to spend Saturday night and all of Sunday with her.  She's throwing a little party and has invited all of the MAVS to it.  I really hope people show up; it would mean a lot to her.  She deserves a nice time surrounded by people who love her.  She works so hard and travels so much, not just to London for class but all over England for jazz gigs, as she's a very talented jazz singer.  She's someone I know I will be friends with long after this course is over.  

Saturday

Nia sent me a text saying she was having a rough day and thought she'd better spend it getting  settled and all before having to play hostess; so I gave her the space she needed.  I've been coming down with a wreck of a sinus infection - this weather has been kicking my ass.  I was actually really grateful for the time to rest.  I went to Kate's with the plan we'd work on boxing but she was so worried about me (and I was so out of it) that we just chatted about it and she made me tea and sent me home with homemade fresh food.  Kate had bundled me up in an extra sweater and scarf because she was worried about me.  I took the bus home, sniffling and such and got right into bed.  

I'd like to think I'm the mess you'd wear with pride.

May 24th - 30th

May 24th - 30th

May is almost over.  Yes.

Sunday

Dragged myself to breakfast then to the gym for almost 2 hours.  It was so hot out today.  Skirt weather.  Showered and strolled over to Baker Street to get lunch.  Managed to get a couple loads of laundry done and cleaned this place up a bit.  Trying to start the week off right.  Everything in its right place and all that.  Also started to (in sheer anticipation) set things in piles and organize what I have to sell/give away when I leave.  Is it to early to do that?  Chatted with Adrianne most of the afternoon while trying to get some work done.  That lucky girl gets to flee Germany in about a week!  Got to chat with Tim too.  We've started to suss out what we're playing at Rita's.  I also told him he better have a large, cold glass of white wine ready for me when I step out of that car on July 2nd because ooh baby I'm going to need it.  

Monday

Slept in.  Ah yes, sweet sleeping in on days off.  I've been sleeping a lot better.  It could be the few days I've had off so I'm actually feeling relaxed (as much as I can be) but I think it's got to do with the hour of cardio I'm doing everyday.  Went to brunch and then the gym for an hour.  Something's got to budge.  It's been a month.  A little over a pound a week.  That's a healthy way, but that definitely doesn't mean that I will be where I'd like to be when I get home.  Patience.  I do get another month in NYC but by the time I get home summer will be almost over.  Sigh.  Where's my summer going?  I only got to the beach twice last summer :(  Granted, there's no 9-to-5 job or theatre program time-sucking my summer, but this certification program is so worth losing another summer for.  Maybe I won't get a free summer to myself ever again.  Possibly when I'm a full-time professor.  Anyway, I spent the rest of the day listening to Kanye's 808 album and reading, dance breaks included.  

I got an email from Denise, perfect timing.  That girl always sets my paranoia straight.  I can tell her anything.  It sounds a bit love-y but she said I need to honor myself more, give myself more credit.  In her last email she wanted to hear juicy details about my European love life and I had no news because it's nonexistent.  She applauded me for dedicating this time to study and grow.  That's for sure.  I'm certainly figuring out a lot about myself.  She also said: it's time to let go of the people who are 'screwing with your heart without abandon' i.e. 2 of my ex-boyfriends who've reared their ugly heads lately.  If they aren't helping they're either hurting or holding me back.  The only guy worth my time, on the other hand, 'needs to work on his response time, as a general life skill'.   I laughed so hard.  I love the way she writes, it's exactly how she speaks.  

Why are you so paranoid?  Don't be so paranoid.  

Don't worry about it.  Lady, don't even think about it.

You worry about the wrong things, the wrong things...

Tuesday

It was raining this morning so I skipped the gym.  I just laid in my warm bed listening to the rain and city noises.  It's one of my favorite places to be - in a warm bed when it's cold out.  It was nice and I wasn't feeling anxious about going in today.  There were only 5 people at the student led limber, but after a long weekend it's kind of expected.  We had Text with Alex Bingley, we did a total of 3 exercises after a little warm up and the rest of the time was a big discussion on pedagogy.  That's not what the class is about; it's called Text for a reason.  

Tara running an exercise.

  

Corin running an exercise with Jeff and Shona.  Colin, Daniele (asleep?), Mette, Mel and Shona.

Then we had IPP - independently working with our small groups.  Kate, Colin and I worked on Bartenieff Fundamentals (a series of movement) and brainstormed about what our goals were because the three of us have been floundering when it comes right down to doing more practical work.  So we tried to refocus...Our goals as a group (even though the project is independent) are to: 

1) Let go.

2) Get out of the way of ourselves (i.e. stop thinking so much).

3) Be more impulsive.

4) Play more.

I have to admit, I've been told this by basically every acting teacher, voice teacher and close friend I've ever had.  I didn't know I could end up doing a Master's course where I could work on fixing that.  Plan of action for such goals:

1) More movement (i.e. boxing every week with Kate, dancing, swimming, Bartenieff, Laban, going out)

2) More laughing (i.e. weekly visits to the best stand up in London at The Comedy Store, shows, laughing yoga)

3) More risks (i.e. a trip to an amusement park next Saturday to ride rollercoasters and play, doing things we're afraid of doing.)  For me that may be trusting myself and others more, applying for jobs and getting out of this room more.  I think I've been pretty impulsive lately.  Skipping class, sending bold emails, not locking myself into a routine, getting out of this room a bit more than I have, taking myself less seriously...I'm doing what Denise told me to: honor myself.  

This is an exciting plan.  We were all giddy about it, planning it.  Tonight I'm meeting Kate for boxing.  Something about the control and release as well as working with impulse (you have to) will be really great for both of us.  

Ooh, back from "Box Fit" which was probably the best thing I've done in a long time.  It was full on boxing too.  I thought maybe it'd be a "boxer's workout" or something like that, but it was gloves, hitting pads, full boxing ring and everything.  Complete with a 5 foot nothing, 110 pounds of steel, fierce chick instructor.  I'm going to be so sore tomorrow.  We did circuit training (with shadow boxing, skipping rope, squats, punching bag and boxing in the ring)  then as a group we did 100 push ups (they call them press ups here, how very British), 10 minutes of abs, 2 minutes of squats, more boxing in the ring and then more abs.  I was shattered afterwards, but high from the adrenaline and endorphins.  We tried to incorporate breath work into the partnered boxing in the ring.  Kate would have the hitting pads on and I'd be punching on a "sh" and seeing if I could let go in between.  Control, release, control, release.  

The ring.

Wednesday

Another rainy day.  Stayed in bed til about 9am then went to EAT. to get lunch for later because I knew I'd be at school for a while so I didn't want to end up eating a brie and spinach toastie like I used to.  I sat in the library for a while reading and starting to put together the Term 3 DVD while I felt inspired to.  

Then I met with Zoe, the head of all things alumni related.  I shouldn't show off so much with this creative stuff I do on this course, because then people ask me to do things for them.  First term it was to help everyone and their mother with their computer illiteracy, last term it was to burn everyone a copy of the DVD I'd made of all the pictures from the term.  Katerina cornered me and asked me to do a DVD of pictures of MAVS alumni for June 27th.  After a lot of bullshit I met with Zoe who told me that they don't really have many pictures (and by not many she meant less than a dozen) and that I could get paid to dig through the unsorted boxes in the archive.  Long story short - I'm doing this lovely task for about £60.  It's about 10 hours of work, which sucks, but I told her if she could work around my schedule I'd be happy to.  Initially Katerina made it seem like I'd be amply compensated for my laboring.  It just went downhill from there.  

So around 12:30pm Zoe showed me to the basement where there was a large cabinet filled with huge boxes with horribly vague labels like "Alumni Box 3" and "Marketing"...I spent the next hour or so digging through these boxes and scanning the relevant pictures I found.  None of them were labeled, of course, so I just had to guess when I saw people I recognized and whatnot.  What was good though, was flipping through casual snapshots of famous people like Judi Dench, (Dame Judi Dench, sterling actress, kicking ass and taking names), Gael Garcia Bernal (You may know him from movies like Science of Sleep, Y tu mama tambien, Babel, Motorcycle Diaries...he's very pretty), Nickolas Grace (famous English actor), Laurence Olivier (there is a bust of this man in the lobby of the Embassy building, enough said), Graham Norton (a very funny and talented English actor with his own show, also done a lot in the West End - just starred in La Cage Aux Folles), James Nesbitt (You'll know him from the show 24), Vanessa Redgrave (prestigious actress, known as the greatest actress of her generation), Cicely Berry (all roads lead to Cis), Neil Pearson (you may have seen him in Bridget Jones' Diary, if you've suffered through that movie) Joss Ackland, etc. (I linked them in case you didn't know them, for most of these I couldn't put a name to a face until I got home).  

When I got back, I went to the gym to walk on the treadmill (at this point, I can't do much more than that, that's how sore I am from boxing) and watched the first half of the Roma Final - Manchester United vs. Barcelona.  Ronaldo missed so many goals I couldn't watch it much longer, so I got dinner from Waitrose and went home.  I've still got my lesson plan to sort out.  Later I found out that Barcelona won.  Boo.  

Thursday

On top of the overall muscle pain I was in (I'm not kidding - abs, back, legs, bum, arms) I got a migraine last night so those ailments kept me up most of the night, despite the meds they gave me for the migraines.  So I went in around 11am instead of 9:30am to catch up on sleep or else I would not be a functioning human being.  

We had Accents and Dialects with Tim, doing a Norfolk accent (no idea, so don't ask me), who told us that today we were working with our right brain rather than our left brain - melding kinesthetic and visual learning.  Oh good, because the last thing I wanted to be doing was left brain activity.  He had us listening to this accent, taking words that we heard and writing them down on little slips of paper.  Then we came together as a group and organized them by sounds.  Then he asked us to take Play-Dough and make a shape for what the sound would be in RP and then make another shape for what it would be in Norfolk.  Completely abstract.  Not about the shape of the tongue or the phonetic symbol.  This was really hard for a few people.  Then we had lunch and then IPP where Colin and I led a Bartenieff Fundamentals class because we've both been trained in it in undergrad.  Also, because we did a bit of it last class and everyone went, "Ooh, what's that?  Can we do that?"  So we offered to lead a session.  It went really well, Katerina watched and said it was good.

  

Looking at the words we heard in the recording and putting them into categories based on their sounds.

  

Mel, Kate, Niamh and Lizzie.  Chris showing what's he's made.

  

Thomas and Lizzie presenting their creations.

  

Niamh, Mel and Kate.  Nia and Colin.

  

Alex.  Tara's creations.

  

Chris being silly with the play-dough.

  

My results of Tim's abstract Norfolk accent class.  Not sure what it means, but it was interesting.  Also, Lizzie made me play-dough hearts :)  Then Colin and I led a Bartenieff Fundamentals session in IPP.

I went to the library after IPP and checked my email - only to find that our lessons for Friday got cancelled, thereby making this the easiest week ever.  Monday, Wednesday and Friday off.  A two day work week - does it get any better?  Nia's fiance, Miltos, is the lead in the Royal Shakespeare Company's touring show - Comedy of Errors (playing Dromeo) and Nia gave me a free ticket to see it!  So Colin, Thomas and I went after IPP to get a bite to eat (which turned out to be a very, very large bite to eat as you will see below) and then to see the show.  I felt bad, because in the states you usually get dressed up (or at least don't wear jeans or sneakers) to see a show, but we came right from class.  This is not an issue in Great Britain.  But literally, after the night I'd had with the migraine and post-boxing wrecked body, I just rolled out of bed and went to class.  

Afterwards, Colin went home to write lesson plans while Thomas and I (having no obligations on Friday) stayed out late and had drinks with Nia, Miltos and their families that came to the show.  The show was brilliant and we were in stitches the whole time.  The guy playing opposite Miltos was making his debut in the RSC touring company - and get this: hasn't even graduated from RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, which competes with CSSD as the end-all-be-all acting school in this country).  He was incredible...I was really impressed (and jealous).  Tim would've yelled at me because Colin and I were drooling over him the whole time.  "No more actors," I can hear Tim say in my mind :)

Most of these pics came out funny because the setting was messed up on my camera.  I made some of them black and white so I could adjust the levels to make them look better.  

Sangria and burgers-on-baguettes with Colin and Thomas before the show. 

Burger-on-baguette with all the fixings.  I couldn't finish even half of that thing.  Thomas and Col made fun of me the whole time.  Thomas secretly took pictures of me actually trying to eat it later, but I'm not posting them - they're hilarious, but awful.  Photographic proof that I'm a foodie, haha.

  

Pre-show excitement with Colin.  The set.

  

Post-show drinks with Thomas, Nia, Miltos and their family.  Thomas had to be such a tourist and put up the peace sign :)

Friday

Happy early graduation to me: my shoes arrived.  I picked them up on my way in last night.  I was too exhausted to take pictures of them last night, but I did try them on and my God they may be the most beautiful heels I've ever owned, or at least the most glamorous.  I sent a pic of them to Jen Rahusen before they came and she was like, "You and those fab shoes are hitting the club the second you get home!"  Well, here they are - in the sunshine on my window sill...

In all their sparkling glory.  I'm a sucker for t-straps, what can I say?

I got lunch from EAT. and ate in the sun.  It was beautiful today.  I'm really tired though, so my motivation to get things done was at a low today.  What a lazy week.  I feel bad about not getting much done, but I guess that's the point of this project...to do less and feel more.  I think one of the hardest things for me has been the Guilt (yes, with a capital G) that comes with not doing work, indulging, being impulsive, playing more, etc.  That's one of the worst feelings.  It lingers like a tummy ache, rather than attack like anxiety can.  I took a nap because the guilt was starting to get to me and it's always my first reaction - that maybe if I take a nap I'll feel better when I get up.  I felt worse.  So I sent texts to Thomas, Colin and Alex seeing if they wanted to get dinner...it was almost 8pm and so I missed Nutford House dinner and wanted some company.  

Colin called me and asked if I wanted to get some food with him and Thomas.  Yes, getting out of this room.  I put my favorite heels on (the new ones are too nice to just go out to casual dinner w/the boys) and headed to Notting Hill Gate.  The place they wanted to go to was booked solid so we walked around following our noses until we found this little (REAL) Italian place.  Seriously, the waiters barely spoke any English.  It smelled amazing and the food that we saw while we were waiting looked perfect.  We waited around, drinking a little wine at a small table and then they moved us to the back where we feasted on Italian cold cuts (salami, prosciutto, etc.) with parmesan, smooth asiago cheese...marinated artichoke, lots and lots of fresh ciabatta bread with olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette...to die for.  I'm such a foodie.  Also, not to be left out, we shared a bottle of a really tasty white wine.  Thomas had spent time doing a show in Italy last summer and had picked a wine from the vineyards he had run through.  Lovely.  

Finally, real Italian food.  All is well.

A night out with the boys.  Me, Colin & Thomas.

Thomas took this one.  We were moving to our new table and I carried the wine.  This makes me look like such a wino.  Not entirely true :)

Yes dessert!  Oh, and Thomas ordered the best panacotta I'd ever tasted.  And believe it or not, I couldn't finish my chocolate fondant.

Saturday

It was another warm, sunny day in London.  The nice weather makes me feel like I should be home though.  It really feels like London when the weather is rainy or overcast.  Nice days like today just make me miss being stateside.  I took a cardio class at my gym today which was led by a crazy asian instructor who literally was yelling "hi-yah" as she was throwing body chops.  Laughable.  I booked a massage for tomorrow.  My back is so messed up from this bed that my posture is being affected, which is not good for voice work.  I definitely have to see someone about it when I get home :(

I picked up some dinner at Waitrose - much too much food for just me, but will risk putting the leftovers in the community fridge.  My eyes were way bigger than my tummy, and though I know I really shouldn't go food shopping when I'm hungry - I was hungry.  So there ya go.  Project Indulge is officially in full effect.  I took a picture of what I got and sent it to Tim on Skype; he was really jealous of my feast.  I feel guilty about it now, so I can't even bring myself to post the picture.  It was delicious though, and you know what?  I deserve it.  Then I thoroughly scotch taped around the tupperware container (Tim thought this was hilarious) to discourage people from stealing it and then put it in the community fridge.  We discussed our set list for Rita's in more detail.  I want less depressing songs.  I also told him I wanted to play September by Earth, Wind and Fire as well as Our House by CSN&Y.  Our family eat it up, I'm sure, haha.  I love catching up with my cousin.  He's such brilliant person and truly my best friend, who also happens to be related to me :)  

Turns out I may be able to do the VASTA Mentoring program if I don't get a job right away, which will allow me to assistant teach with a VASTA member in whatever capacity - hopefully university setting.  This could be anywhere though.  Hoping I can stay in New England for a few years.  If not New England, then California.  It's one or the other.  There's no in between.  I can't see myself anywhere but on one side or the other.  I'm sure Peter could help me find work in LA if I got placed with a VASTA teacher in California.  It's so beautiful there too!  Like I've said many, many times - I could do with a little sun!  In my heart of hearts, I do wish I was just financially stable enough to work freelance and like - have babies and all that.  Someday.  

Got an email from Gram which said, "Won't be long now - the U.S. is waiting for you!"  Yes.

May 18th - 23rd

May 18th - 23rd

40 days and 40 nights.  If Moses did it, so can I?

Monday

Ah, that's a new one.  Starting my week on a Monday.  How very British of me.  To get the bad news out of the way: someone broke into my email account for school and sent bizarre emails.  I just spent the last 15 minutes clearing all the cache and cookies, resetting the browser and changing all of my passwords - to everything.  I feel violated.  On top of that, I still don't have a phone and my watch broke, so this was the last thing I needed.   What's worse - I didn't get the scholarship.  They gave it to a guy from Montana who's already got a job at a university, and who is also presenting at the ATHE conference in NYC.  Understandable.  I have 3.5 years to reapply for this scholarship, so I'm not going to let it get me down.  

I got an email from one of my professors from MMC who I'd sought some advice about finding a job when I get home.  She said that it is not likely for me to get a job right out of school.  (This is not very comforting.)  If this is the case, I'll be coming back to at least get some teaching experience at Trinity if they hire me.  

Good news - my mom said she would have my favorite meal waiting for me when I get home on July 1st.  My mother makes the best chicken casserole in the whole world and nothing will satisfy my craving for a home-cooked American meal better than that.  Ah, if only I could have my Grandma's peanut butter pie, I'd be set for the next ten months :)  I'll have to wait til August when I drive the 8 hours to visit.  Speaking of food (when am I not speaking of food?) - Tim promised to make me homemade mac and cheese that would - and I quote "be so good I'd be at the gym for weeks working it off."  Anything that good is worth the weight.  I honestly meant to write "wait" instead of "weight", but I think my subconscious knows best.  Haha.  (Or I'm dyslexic like the other 95% of my course).  

I tried to go to school late, after feeling really ill all morning - but the second Colin and Lizzie saw me they were like, "Whoa, Miss - you look awful.  You should go home and go back to bed."  I wasn't really happy with this, but I figured if I looked bad enough to get that kind of response, there was something wrong.  I picked up something for lunch, took a 3 hour nap and watched the best sequel in the entire world (The Godfather II) in order to cheer me up.  I tried to be productive later on, quite unsuccessfully.  I just hate being sick with no one around to take care of me.  I just wanted to go home.  

Tuesday

Still recovering from yesterday.  I went in for Text with Alex Bingley.  It was all right.  He got on his high horse about pedagogy and in my mind - wasted our time for about 25 minutes...going on about teaching instead of doing his job.  I don't know if this is a status thing and he feels like he needs to prove something to us or what, but I just wanted to do the damn Text class.  That's what he's getting paid to do.

Then we had about five hours of IPP, where Katerina wanted us to work out practical exercises during this unstructured class.  Colin joined Kate and I to work on our similar topic.  Katerina came over to Kate and I to ask about our projects.  After she talked to Kate she turned to me and said, "Miss, you look different.  Is the anxiety getting the best of you?"  I just lost it.  Did she have to put it like that?  I'd at least kept a lid on it all morning.  I told her I didn't want this project to be a huge friggen therapy session and that I'd been working on dealing with it for over six years now, and I didn't know where to go from here.  I'm feeling less and less capable of doing this.  All of this.  I knew this wasn't going to be easy, I just wish I could've prepared myself a little better for such a huge blow to my sanity.  

If there was a better way to go then it would find me.

I can't help it - the road just rolls out behind me.

Be kind to me, or treat me mean.  I'll make the most of it - I'm an extraordinary machine.

Wednesday

I've been really positive about the course and my experience here, so I realize what a Debbie Downer I must seem like lately.  But it's been feeling pretty steadily horrible as of late.  I think I'm just so homesick at this point that it's become very hard to cheer myself up.  There are moments during the day where I feel fine, like I could work here and make a life here.  Then I'm overwhelmed with doubt, feeling as though I just got here and still have no idea what I'm doing.  

So the first half of the day went well.  I got up and went to the gym for an hour.  I ran some errands like picking up my Father's Day card (it's so good!) and getting a healthy lunch.  But when I got back I just couldn't bring myself to do any work.  I laid down for a while, but I think that made it worse.  I got some ridiculous emails out of the blue which put me off a bit, but other than that I think I was just worried about my nonexistent career as a voice teacher.  Adrianne was a champ in keeping me from despairing too much about not getting a job.  I can't expect it to be easy, and yes I am young and yes I have plenty of time to figure it all out.  I'm not very patient when it comes to these things though - I'd just like to know.    

Thursday

I skipped class today.  There's no guilt there though.  We were learning a Glaswegian accent that I'll never use in Accents & Dialects, then we were doing IPP work - that to be honest, I need to work on by myself at the moment.  I emailed Katerina and told her that I was sorry but I needed to take a day so that I would be able to move forward.  I caught up on lesson plans, did 60 minutes on the elliptical, showered and ran some errands.  I mailed Adrianne's Happy Un-Germany things and my Father's Day card for Pops, then got a new phone (shakes fist), picked up a healthy lunch and more vitamin supplements from Holland & Barrett as suggested by my mother.  

Granted, after I did some work I watched some episodes of Weeds, then went to dinner (which I didn't eat much of because this catering company should stop kidding themselves and instead stay far away from any attempts at ethnic food).  I don't know why I thought tonight would be any different, but my options were unidentifiable beef mush, fish casserole or vegetable biryani that they misspelled on the board.  That should've said something, but I just wrote it off as them also being completely illiterate on top of incapable of making a decent meal.  I don't know why I even show up for dinner.  Trying to save some money, but I've only got one body and I don't want to put that into it.  Three bites into biryani from hell and I gave up.  I went to Waitrose, got some hummus with wheat pita and fruit for dessert and came back.  

Totally unrelated but disappointing news: Earth, Wind & Fire are coming to MGM in June.  Why am I so far away??  This is a travesty.  However, they'll be in Allentown, PA in September so this may be remedied.  Pops would definitely drive to Allentown to see them.  

I've got to teach 21 British musical theatre students how to speak with an American accent tomorrow from 1pm to 5pm!

Friday

If I have learned anything from this course - it is how truly resilient I am.  And thank God for it.  I had a good time teaching my students today.  This morning I went to school for a bit to print off the contemporary scenes I wanted them to work with (Tony Kushner and David Hare) for the American accent class.  I had talked to my dad for a bit last night on Skype (trying to get this VASTA conference thing all settled through Pay Pal) and I told him I had to teach today for four hours.  Seeing my dad's reaction made me feel like it wasn't going to be as hard as I thought.  Hell, it's my home accent.  And I love these kids too; they work so hard and are such good students.  We all had a good time, breaking down the accent and then doing scenes and monologues.  They picked it up quick and it was actually a lot of fun.  I'm become quite proud of my accent since I've been here.  More proud of who I am, even.  

In the morning after hitting up the library to print things off I went to Bank (oh so corporate) where I had to meet Thomas to take the DLR to Greenwich.  I found a Starbucks to park myself in and review my lesson plans.  This particular Starbucks was great because it was small and there weren't many people coming in and out.  They also chose this particular day to play the best David Bowie compilation in existence (rah rah Bowie haters) Sound + Vision, for an hour.  It makes me feel very ready for summer - and honestly - hearing the song "Young Americans" before I had to go teach an American accent in London to a bunch of Brits definitely made me feel better.  Also, I've taken all my sad bastard music off my iPod as not encourage any anxiety in the next 38 days.  So far, so good.  

Other good news: my professor from MMC emailed again and offered for me to join the mentoring program through VASTA which would allow me to assistant teach her classes, while maybe working at AMDA or AADA or NYU (where ever I could get hired).  She seemed pretty optimistic about the likelihood of me getting a job at one of NYU's acting schools because there's apparently a high turnover rate.  I emailed Tony to see if the rumor about there being a position open in the fall is true.  Fingers crossed.  

So this morning I was in the atrium and I saw myself on the "big screen" at school - which they've got all over school running constantly.  I have to admit, I was pretty damn excited to see that I'd made it to said big screen:  

But first, the Grandmama of Voice - Miss Cis Berry.

That's me in the middle in the back and my course leader in all her fierceness in the front - we're at the Roy Hart workshop running around.  

Workshop in action.  

This is me sitting on the panel at Catherine Fitzmaurice's lecture.  I felt so damn cool.  Left to right is me, Betsy Allen, Tara McAllister-Viel, Catherine and Roger Smart.

This is Thomas and me at Trinity College of Music where we go every Friday for teaching placement.  They're filming Wolfman (with Johnny Depp and Antony Hopkins) but unfortunately we didn't get to see them :(

Thomas really wanted to get a "Where's Johnny Depp?" picture.  Haha.

Production crew!  They had cameras suspended that dropped down as that stunt guy flew down, in sync with him.  Thomas and I were such tourists.

There's one of those night-time light things.  I might work on one of these kinds of sets one day :)

More carriages.

It's a period piece, I'm assuming, hence the carriages and such.

Stunt man!

Saturday  

I felt good today, after having a turn-around yesterday with the lessons and with my optimism peaking again.  I don't know if resilient is the word, but that's how I feel.  Or persevering.  Regardless - I am feeling much better than I have in the last week.  I actually ate breakfast today for the first time in over a week.  No sign of James still since he disappeared last Sunday.  Surprisingly though, I'm not really missing him.  I think I'm actually feeling better because there's no moaning going on, and he loves to moan.  He can be very dramatic.  Then an hour on the elliptical.  Lunch from EAT. and dinner from Pret.  Tim would be so jealous.  Back to read a bit and relax.  I did what I'm sure in a year I'll only be able to daydream about doing: napping during the middle of the day.  I took advantage of this and then went out later after having conserved some energy.  Now I'm back and can't sleep of course, but it's fine.  I have Sunday to get work done and then Monday to relax - yes obscure bank holidays aka U.S.'s Memorial Day.  38 days left.

May 17th

Sundays are for dealing with existential crises

If it weren't for a wonderful combination of my sister, my cousin, my best friend and my mentor I'm not sure I'd be able to keep my head on straight (i.e. Jen, Tim, Adrianne and Jason).  James was supposed to get brunch with me and go to the gym, but he decided he'd rather blow me off at the last minute to go to his friends' house.  Good timing.  I have to remind myself that he's so much younger than me and is in that "selfish phase" where he can't really see past his own nose sometimes.  I still don't have a phone or I'd call Kate or Colin to hang out.  I should get out of this room.  It's an abyss of self-loathing and doubt and I have to return to it at the end of every day to face it all again.  Last night was really rough, more than I have the energy to go into right now.  I slept horribly but was relieved to realize it was only Sunday when I woke up - and not Monday.  I hope this existential angst will subside and I hope I will find my feet before I come home in 44 days.  I talked to Tim this morning and I said something about how I know the anxiety will pass, because it always does...but it's just that when I am in the midst of it...it feels like it can never get better and that I should just give up.  I worry that people will have such a negative reaction to my anxiety like John did, and shut me out because they can't see the me of me.  I told Tim "You can see the me of me and I hope others can too."  He replied, "That's the best part.  The you of you."  

I just got an email back from Jason (in NYC).  He was a rock for me when I was going through a rough spot when I was in NYC.  Some of my friends here and at home have been not so available for being a friend at the moment, so I sought advice from Jason and he said: 

I don't think you should judge your anxiety as bad...it's how you feel, and that's valid.  The fact is, you are one of the hardest working people I know and you are already a success in so many ways...I know that doesn't mean anything when you don't feel like it, but the challenge is to recognize your greatness in the tough times...if you can do that, then you have accomplished something that most people are too scared to even try. 

Between the entirety of that email, a grande frappucino, chats with Adrianne and a little sunshine - I feel a lot better now.  Jason also said I should write a list everyday of 5 things I'm grateful for.  It will get me to stay away from thoughts of what could happen in the future and what has happened in the past - and just focus on what's good right now.

May 10th - 16th

May 10th - 16th

50 days!

Sunday

I hit the gym in the morning and then James and I went to see The Last Five Years (a musical) at the Duchess Theatre on Catherine Street.  I finally had an opportunity worth wearing my favorite heels to!  When we arrived our seats had gotten upgraded (!!) so we got to sit in the stalls (i.e. orchestra).  Happily we got our sweets and planted ourselves in our new seats.  The place was packed with Musical Theatre students (we call them MT's).  I made some joke about MT sounding like "empty" because musical theatre's got such a horrible reputation for being all song and dance - and no substance.  This is not entirely untrue, which may be why I'm a bit of an elitist about musical theatre.  However, this was a show I actually thought had some substance and was surprised to see all of the 18 year old, skinny, trendy hopefuls in the audience.  There's only two parts in this show (Cathy and Jamie) and the woman playing Cathy was very good.  The guy playing Jamie was not that good, and his accent slipped up a few times.  (They could've really used my accent expertise, haha).  Otherwise I can say I thought it was a pretty decent London restyling of a distinctly NYC show.  Besides, they only had a week or so to rehearse for it and it only had 7 performances.  All things considered it was entertaining.  

The Duchess.

  

The set.

  

Our pre-show photo shoot ritual.  House lights are making us look a bit washed out.  James saw the second picture and was like "Wtf am I doing?!"  No idea.

  

I was leary about getting theatre district food, usually it's overpriced and bad.  Turns out this is the same no matter what country you're in.  At least I had good company.

Monday

Nia has been leading a yoga class as a warm up for us on Mondays, which I'm definitely taking advantage of.  Nia is a certified Ashtanga yoga practitioner, and I love her style of teaching, so I was there, with bells on.  An hour of yoga in the morning is golden.  I always hate it while I'm doing it, but love how I feel after.  This is my love/hate relationship with any form of exercise (except dance).  

Then we had seminar with Katerina to discuss the conference (I was still seething about the IT problems) and then we had lunch.  The afternoon was broken up into three groups of people going in to the Live Room (recording studio) for a Microphone Technique class with the head of Sound Design at CSSD - Gregg Fisher.  He gave us a HUGE lecture about ear health.  Gregg told us that any sound that reaches 85 decipals damages hearing, and that we can only stand about an hour of that before serious damage takes place.  He then said that you can only be in a club (which normally plays music at about 110-115 decipals) for about 15 minutes before damage occurs.  That ringing you hear in your ear after a loud concert is your body telling you that you have permanently lost certain frequencies of sound.  I have to admit, this guy scared the shit out of me.  My career is about what I can hear and see.  With the eye strain I've been suffering from and the tinnitus (ringing in your ears) that runs in my family apparently, I'm a little concerned.  Maybe I won't be getting to the club this summer as much as I thought.    Anyway, I could talk about this lecture for a while, but will save you from that.  He taught us about the different types of microphones, pop shields and how/where to stand.  Very interesting.  I got to come home around 4pm (so nice!) and then went to the gym for an hour.  

Tuesday

Nia led the Student Limber, doing a singing workshop.  This girl is so talented.  Not only is she a yoga practitioner, she's also got a BA in Music and a Master's in Jazz singing.  Today she taught us a Swahili song.  I snapped a few quick pictures and got to record a bit of it.  

 

Nia :)  Corin, Thomas and Chris - our lovely bass section.

Nia teaching us the parts to the song.  From left to right seated is: Alex, Niamh, Lu, Mette and Mel.

Here we are.  Swahili song - a bit silly, but fun :)  

Stupid poor quality video.  I'll figure it out someday.

Then we had Text with Alex Bingley who worked on Pinter with us.  I really enjoyed this, although sometimes I am not a fan of the way Alex teaches.  The content is good though and I love Pinter.  Anyway, during a break between classes (on our very short 10 minute lunch break) I was checking my email (like I do) and when I connected to the internet at school Skype automatically signed on and my mom called.  There were a few people from my course with me and I was SO happy to be like, "This is my mom!!" to all of these people who have become my surrogate, make-shift family while I've been away.  I can't wait until graduation when everyone can meet her.   She was just heading out for work, which they thought was hilarious, as we'd already been in class for about four hours.  

I met up with Kate to discuss our plans for IPP as she is still, thankfully, my buddy.  She asked me to talk about what I would do if I had to get up and present today.  I said I'd talk about my anxiety disorder and how it affects my life, give some context on what it entails physically and emotionally.  Then I'd give some background on how the Fitzmaurice work has really helped me deal and that was my draw to it.  Kate seemed pleased with what I had to say, so maybe I'm heading in the right direction.  I don't suspect this will be an easy process though.  

We had to record the MA Writing Broadcast Media's radio plays that day, so we'd been cast and scheduled all day to come in and record.  They weren't the most amazing plays I'd ever read for, but they were fun, regardless.  I got to play a 14 year old Irish boy, an American girl and a radio personality.  The other people on my course trying to do American accents was so funny, and they kept apologizing and asking if they were doing it right.  They're sweet.  For as much as I am ready to go home, I don't know how I will leave these people in 40-something days.  We're pretty close, the lot of us.

I had a rough day because I almost had an anxiety attack.  This was pretty scary because I haven't had one in about two months and there wasn't really a reason why I was feeling so anxious.  I think I'm missing home a lot more than usual and a general despairing feeling of self-doubt keeps washing over me as soon as I feel like I'm finding my feet.  I think maybe it was because I hear tomorrow about the VASTA Scholarship.  I had a tutorial with Bex today, a recent MAVS grad from last year who has come to fill in for Tara's tutorials (while Tara is in Poland) and she's applied for this scholarship too, so my self-loathing was getting the best of me.   But I tried to refocus myself and do some Fitzmaurice work.  When I got home I went to the gym too for about 45 minutes which helped.  

Colin and Corin recording a scene from the radio play.  That black circular thing in front of the mic is called the pop shield which prevents that pop noise you hear when someone puts too much air behind their "p" or "t" when they speak.

On my breaks between plays I, oddly enough, played piano.  I am easing myself into the vast unknown of being self-taught in piano, but am proud to say I know two pop songs now: "Homecoming" by Kanye, ft. Chris Martin and "Love in this Club" by Usher.  Granted, the Usher song is only four chords, but the Chris Martin one I am quite proud of.  I told Tim and he thought this was hilarious.  Video for Homecoming.

Wednesday

I slept in until about 9:30am and then hit the gym for an hour.  If I didn't have this new music I'm not sure I'd be able to do as much cardio as I have been.  All I did today was work on my research proposal (which still isn't to my satisfaction) and go to the gym.  And eat.  I went to the gym again after dinner.  I burned some 660 calories today.  When I really want something, I have to commit fully.  Also, I'm not really seeing the results I'd like to be seeing.  I've still got a lesson plan to do for Friday (a group class) which I'm a bit nervous about, so I've (like an idiot) put it off.  

Thursday

We had our second day of Radio Plays, so I didn't have to come in until noon (yesss).  I got to sleep in a little and get my trip to the gym out of the way.  I recorded my last radio play and had lunch with some people from my course.  

Me and Colin rehearsing our sexy radio scene :)

  

Being silly.  They were singing "We Are The World"...

Left to right: Alex, Colin, Daniele, Chris & Jeff.  

Daniele up close and personal

This is how I felt all day.

Then I let Thomas borrow my camera for the other play that was being recorded so he could get pics of everyone else.

  

Mel and Jeff.  Sue - the woman running the show.

  

Corin and Thomas.

  

Colin!  (Love that boy!)  Corin and Colin studying their scripts.

  

Chris rehearsing.  Thomas and Chris.

  

Mel, Jeff and Mette.  Jeff and Chris.

After lunch we had a 4 hour session with a woman named Gillianne Keyes (Estill work) and I have to admit, it was probably the most boring visiting lecturer we've had yet.  I appreciate her work, I just don't think I'll ever use it.  Also, she spent the first two hours talking about the anatomy of the larynx and I kept thinking, We learned this FIRST term, how does she NOT know that??  I was bad and worked on my Scheme of Work (research proposal) and emailed during the first two hours of her lecture.  I haven't been so blatantly disrespectful since the God-awful lectures I was forced to go to at CCSU.  We had a little break in which Colin and I treated ourselves to some well-deserved Swiss chocolate.  Here's me about three hours into this lecture:

It was also really cold, hence the scarf and she made us wear obnoxiously large name tags, so large in fact that I had to pop my collar.

After a long day sitting in chairs (there was maybe 30 mins of practical work total?) I came home, had a bit to eat and Skyped with Adrianne.  She and I have had some amusing "I Miss America" chats recently:

Me:  I'm having hummus with this box of Triscuits thin crisps Jen brought me.  

Adrianne:  Ooh nice call.

Me:  This American cracker is loving these American crackers.

Adrianne:  Matthew sent me Hershey's.

Me:  Aw, nice boy.

Adrianne:  Who thought someone would ever long for a crap American chocolate in a world full of delicious European stuff?

Me:  You are in the chocolate capital of the world.  Other than like...Switzerland.

Adrianne: But Hersheys!  That shit's like gold!  I'm like: Taste America, bitches.  

Also, the Triscuits are gone.  And no, I did not eat them all in one sitting.  

Friday  

I got up early enough to work on my lesson plan for Trinity Laban and decided to bit the bullet and use this opportunity to challenge myself.  I chose to do Fitzmaurice Voicework, which I'm still learning myself, but I think it's so valuable, especially for this age group.  I wish I had been exposed to it three years earlier than I was.  So I met up with Thomas and we rode the train in together, got lunch at GBK (!!) and went in to meet with Tony to find out about our schedule.  Turns out I got to teach first.  Also, they were running auditions for the musical revue they're doing in June.  So my students had their class with me and then auditioned, and Thomas's students did the opposite.  Thomas and I got to sit in on the auditions too, which was really enjoyable.  Reminded me of just how nerve-wracking auditions can be.  I completely empathized with them.  

My students really took to the Fitzmaurice work and I was thrilled by their enthusiastic response.  They wanted more of it, so I said we'd do some more next time.  Then I sat in on auditions until about 5pm and met the Musical Director who said she'd "heard a lot about me" whatever that means.   I would hope that's a good thing.  She wants them all to have American accents.  Translation: I will be doing show support with them in June as Thomas is Austrian and a bit scared of the American accent.  

Starting to get a little worried about finding a job when I get home.  Since Jen left I have felt that I am quite ready to come home, but at the same time I'm pretty terrified of not finding a job in the area, what with loans to pay off and the need to move out of my parents' house.  I do not, I repeat, do not want to end up in the middle of Wisconsin teaching at some unknown state school until I've paid my dues.   I'm at the best school in the world for what I'm doing, I'm hoping that might get me somewhere.  No word on the scholarship, and I have no idea what I'm doing with my IPP.  I thought I did, now I don't know.  Sigh.  I took this stress and worked it out at the gym.  60 minutes on the elliptical flew by.  My mind was elsewhere.  

Saturday

I did another hour on the elliptical this morning.  I slept really hard last night, but as soon as I was conscious again I was on edge.  I had brunch with James, who I haven't really seen all week.  I chatted to Adrianne and did laundry.  I was supposed to go to Kate's friend's house for dinner, but I bailed last minute because I was feeling anxious.  

Sarah sent me an email saying one of my ex's is proposing to his girlfriend.  I don't know how I feel about that really.  I'm jealous of their happiness, really.  I want that kind of surety and happiness.  All my friends are getting engaged and having babies.  It makes me nuts.  It makes me feel pathetic for being single.  Also, how can I have a proverbial "crush" on someone so very far from me?  How logical is that?  

Note to self: turn off left side of brain.  Having a rough day.  I watched Weeds and taught myself a new song on piano.  Chew on that, Wyllie.  Going to bed early...why is anxiety so exhausting?  I need a vacation.  

May 3rd - 9th

May 3rd - 9th

Two more months.

Sunday

James was still recovering from his birthday escapades so I got up and went to the gym by myself.  I was spent from not eating much for dinner last night, so I only did about 20 minutes on the elliptical.  I'll have to go back later tonight.  Then we had a lovely fire-drill while I was getting out of the shower (that was fun) and afterwards I had a small breakfast.  I went to Tara's house around 2pm for the MAVS BBQ.  Kate couldn't come, unfortunately, and I had planned to hang out with her for most of it.  I knew I would probably not stay long.  I figure I would do what I do best at these gatherings: avoid conversation about anything work-related and take pictures.

After breakfast I got my hair cut on Baker Street.  It was a bit shorter than I had imagined it would be, but I like it.  It's low maintenance, which is exactly what I'll need this term.  The woman who cut my hair was a mess though - thick French accent, crazy spikey black hair, Kermit the frog t-shirt, piercing on the top of her hand and she cut herself with the scissors while cutting my hair.  I was like, "Oh this is gonna be awful.  This is going to be like Sweeney Todd, or I'll come out of here with a mohawk."  She was so nice though and did a fine job.  Then I got on the tube and headed to Islington.  I picked up some orchids at Waitrose on the way to her house.  It was kind of cloudy all day, with some sporadic sunshine, but BBQ-ready nonetheless.  

MAVS BBQ

  

Tara's husband (renowned director) John Abulafia aka Master of the Grill.  Some of MAVS sitting in the garden.

  

Tara, her son Daniel and Thomas.  Thomas moping about the lack of sun.

Corin's daughter Maya and Tara's daughter Izzy.  Adorable.

  

There's the sun!  Me and Thomas.  Then Thomas trying to reason with a four year old.

  

Nia, Jeff and Mel.  Colin making amazing South African sandwiches.  So good.

Finnegan and Maya (do I take good pics or what?)  Too cute.  Makes me want pets and babies. Haha.  Maybe in a few years.

  

Tara's lovely home.  Jeff and his son Oscar.

  

Colin showing us some magic.

  

The audience.  Alex and Finn.

  

This dog is the life of the party, I swear.  Nia meets Finn.  The captivated audience.  Lu, Mette, Alex and Finn.

Amazed.

  

Colin showing Oscar a trick.  Mel and Niamh in the garden.

  

Corin's girlfriend Zoe, Nia and I: the clean up crew.  Being domestic.

New hair.  Note: there's a little gap left on my board to be filled in the next two months (hint hint) :)

Monday

Bank Holiday.  Oh, those crazy Brits and their obscure bank holidays.  I love it.  James and I went to the gym and then brunch.  It was starting to rain, so we were glad we'd planned on going to the movies.  We made a trip to Somerfield's where James stocked up on junk food for the week and I abstained as I am quite pleased with the 4.3 lbs I've lost in the last two weeks and am hoping to keep that on the move downwards til I come home.  4.3 down, 15.7 to go.  

We went to see the new British comedy "In The Loop".  It was good.  We got Starbucks too.  A truly indulgent day off, although we did get to the gym in the morning.  Unfortunately, per usual, dinner was awful.  I don't know what idiot approved this catered masterpiece but this meal was - I kid you not - pasta in a cream sauce with sweet corn and pickles.  PICKLES.  James and I exchanged such a look of disgust and disbelief.  I constantly daydream about the food I'll be eating when I get home.  

I worked on my research proposal and sent it off to Jen for revision.  Then around 8pm it was gay movie night again with James.  We watched Hook, although not gay per-say, but I don't know many straight guys who would jump to watch that movie.  I am going to try to get James to rent the Godfather trilogy (because I can't play UK movies on my computer).  Not sure how that will go over.  Actually, I'm laughing out loud trying to imagine him sitting through it.  It will be refreshing to hang out with my guy friends when I get home, that's for sure.  I'm sure I'll unwillingly get my fair share of chick flicks, dance movies, musicals and bad melodrama series via my sister and mother though.  

Tuesday

Katerina was in a meeting so she had me greet Catherine Fitzmaurice (my personal hero) and show her to the room she'd be running her day long workshop in.  I voiced my concern about the altered research question and she said I should be doing what I want.  I agree.  She said she'd talk to Katerina because we wouldn't be doing text work until next summer anyway.  Why do I always cringe when anyone says "text work"?  It sounds awful.  There's got to be a better way to say it.  Something a bit more love-y that doesn't make it sound like work.  Maybe that's why Katerina wants me to do text in the first place.  She's sneaky (and wise) like that.  

Spending the day with Catherine reinforced why I love this work and how I really need to spend time researching it and putting it in my body before I get there come July.  I need to be with the work everyday so I can talk more easily and confidently about it.  At this point, trying to explain tremoring - I still don't feel like I can speak intelligently about it.  Some people will just hate it though, and I can't fight that.  It's out of the box, and some people really like to put things in their little boxes.  

Wednesday

I feel like I spent all day at the gym.  Morning cardio.  Then I met with Thomas to talk about our limber that we're running tomorrow.  We got lunch at Del Aziz (I love that place) and went to the library.  Got a few books out on anxiety, hoping that Katerina will change her mind.  Then I came home, did nothing.  Truly.  I didn't even pick up one of those books.  I just sat in front of this screen and counted the days until I am home.  I just got screen sucked and prayed for an email.  Then I went to the gym that night for about an hour.  I have to be consistent or this will never be effective.  And, for chrissake Miss, put down the damn chocolate.   

Thursday

Long day at CSSD.  Thomas and I led the Student Led Limber, which went well.  It was a bit love-y with lots of imagery about angels and bullshit I will never use.  But it gave me experience of talking in front of a group, which is still a bit of a challenge at times, especially when it's with content I'm either not familiar with or don't feel comfortable with (angels and clouds and such).  I really like Thomas though, and it's effective work.  Sometimes I think my patience is fading.  Like I didn't pace myself on this course and now I'm very short tempered and at my rope's end with being patient with people who waste my time.  

We also had Accents & Dialects with Tim.  He taught us Dorset (southern England) which is not unlike southern American, believe it or not.  Then we had Text with Katerina, working on Beckett (I loved it - Tim would be so proud).  IPP where we watched this video: Stroke of Insight and then Katerina talked about us needing to use our right brain (creativity and in-the-moment) instead of left brain (analytical, technical) for this project.  I liked the sound of that, but how do I turn off the left side?!  

In other news, Adrianne and I shared a bit of music.  I need to start drip feeding hip hop back into my musical diet because according to my friends at home I'll be at the club a lot this summer (not really sure where I'm fitting that in).  I can't wait.  I can't remember the last time I actually got dressed up and went dancing.  For me, hip hop is summer music so I feel like I'm prepping myself for a great summer.  This summer needs an appropriate soundtrack.  It's going to be an incredible summer.  

Friday 

I met Thomas at Bank station to take the DLR to Greenwich.  My students were ten times better this week.  I couldn't wrap my head around why - maybe it was my lesson plan, maybe it was that these students had done the work over the holiday break?  No idea.  I showed them Fitzmaurice priniciples and then we talked about structured breathing.  They took to it like I had all the answers.  There were a few moments of skepticism but once they did the work they realized how valuable it was.  I met up with Thomas afterwards and he was like (in his Austrian accent), "You look so happy!"  I have jumped the proverbial hurdle and my irrational fear of teaching Fitzmaurice work.  We went to GBK for celebratory "making it through another teaching placement day" meal and then headed home.  

Saturday

I thought James might want to go to the gym, but he was shattered from working last night's opening at the Palladium for Sister Act the musical.  He said it was good but busy so he wasn't going to come.  I went to brunch and then around noon went to the gym for an hour.  45 minutes on the elliptical, legs, arms, abs and back.  I weighed myself even though it doesn't count until tomorrow and I'm down 1.7 lbs from last week.  I don't know how that happened because I had a frappucino almost everyday (which clock in a ridiculous 380 calories).  I'm so addicted though.  I don't know what I'll do when I get home, there's only one Starbucks in like a 30 mile radius of home.  Hopefully I'll wean myself off of them in NYC for the month I'll be there (although there is a Starbucks on every damn corner in that city).  

I came back, took a nice long shower and did some work on my research proposal.  I went for a walk in the sun on Oxford Street and tried on some heels.  Another addiction, but one I think I've been very good about.  I've only bought one pair in the 8 months I've been here.  That's like...some kind of record.  My eyes are on these beauties:  

RED heel!  These were made for me.

Adrianne said they're "very Beyonce" which partially fulfills my irrational dreams of being a black singer and having a nice bum.  They had silver ones with a blue heel, which were very Wild Party circa 2005, but the red heel got to me.  I'll have to save the silver ones for the next accomplishment - like finishing the Fitzmaurice program next summer.  Shoes make the best "to yourself" presents.  They're never depressing like clothes can be - because they never change their size, unlike my waistline.  Here's a pic of me as Queenie that Zac just resurrected.  It made me miss that show so much.  Mind you, this was me 4 years ago.  This was when my shoe addiction first truly began with a pair of silver t-straps, thanks to my favorite musical: The Wild Party.  Seeing a musical tomorrow with James.  

  

Queenie was a blonde...

Do you think about me now and then?  Do you think about me now and then? - Now I'm coming home again.

April 26th - May 2nd

April 6th - May 2nd

!!!!! ( <- Current frenzied state)

Sunday

Today was incredible.  James and I had brunch and then went to the gym for an hour.  I did an intervals on the treadmill for 15 minutes, did legs and arms and then did another 15 on the treadmill.  I have to admit, I was pretty tired, but it's getting back into it that's hard, I know.  I lost 2.5 lbs in a week though, which I was really happy about.  We came back, showered and went to Hyde Park (which will be happening a lot this term, I hope).  We laid in the sun and James read Bridget Jones's Diary, hilariously enough.  

Almost a cloudless sky, therefore plenty of sun!

  

Sunday in Hyde Park with James

Happiness.

  

James reading.  Then James prompted me to take my pashmina and let it blow in the wind :)

We came home and had a strangely good dinner at Nutford House.  We were like, "This is actually good.  Can I say that?  Knock on wood!"  We made cracks the whole time.  Maybe we were just really, really hungry?  Then came back and hung out.  Did some ballet later on.  

Monday

Like the start to some bad 80's movie it's that time again: Back, back, back to school again...(that was for Jen).   

James and I hit the gym at 6:30am for a quick 30 minute cardio session!  Honestly, I've never had so much energy all day from it.  I also slept well last night, so that helped.  We've agreed to wake each other up every other day.  James is in charge of Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I am in charge of Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.  Saturday he works a double at the Palladium, so gym-ing it is out of the question.  Showers and breakfast were had.  Then it started raining and got cold, which I saw as a bad omen, but tried to stay positive :)  

James and me on my last first day of school.  

"Driving the bus"

It was great to see everyone... it was good timing and I wasn't overwhelmed.  I was a bit worried because there's been a lot of stress circulating, but everyone seemed happy to be back, and best of all relaxed, for the most part.  We had Seminar with Katerina in the morning.  I met with Thomas in the library around 9am.  He brought me chocolate from Germany (shame on him!) to thank me for all the hard work (about a month, really) on the Powerpoint for our Research Project.  Katerina explained what was coming up for us this term, fielded questions like a champ and went through the timetable.  She mentioned she'd spent a lot of time grading papers, and there was a nervous laugh when she pointed out that when she read the essays she could see the fear in them.   Things to look forward to: 

-  Microphone Technique leading up to Radio Plays with a head radio producer from BBC (!)

-  a full day with Cicely Berry

-  a full day with Catherine Fitzmaurice

-  Accent and Dialects with Tim Birkett

-  2 Lessac workshops led by Katerina (the only Lessac practitioner in the UK)

-  lots of Public Holidays that fall on Mondays (less stress!) 

We had to go around and say what the most interesting thing we did over the break was.  Mine was, easily, Jen's visit.  Nia got engaged, people travelled, etc.  After we covered more business we parted ways for lunch, rehearsed our RMO presentation and made adjustments to the Powerpoint.  Then we reconvened for a discussion on where we are at with the presentation and what we need to work on for tomorrow.  Then we successfully presented to one of our RMO tutors, Bex.  She liked it, gave us notes and then we went to the Hampstead for a chat.  

The last thing I had to do today was check to see if there was anything wrong with the Keynote presentation being transferred to a Powerpoint file or if I'd have to reformat it.  Turns out, I did have to.  Turns out I wasted many, many hours on this presentation only to be told that I cannot bring my computer in because there are too many people presenting tomorrow and they want everyone to use a USB stick instead of plugging their computer into the projector.  So having only heard this a few days ago, via email, I spent almost 2 hours in the library on a computer with Thomas to my left for moral support, box of chocolates cracked open, on the edge of flipping out on the tech department - reformatting and literally dumbing down my Keynote presentation.  Thomas was very sweet though, thank God.  If I had been by myself, I would've lost my mind.  I also managed to dictate verbally my email to Katerina regarding the situation as Thomas scribed for me.  We sent the email, finished the dumbing down process and got the eff out of there.  I was fuming.  Thomas reassured me it would be fine and we parted ways.  I headed to Katerina's office to see if she was still there so I could vent my frustration but she'd already left.  I caught James on his way out of a tutorial and he gave me a huge hug.  We ate chocolates on the bus ride home.  It's my turn to be the wake-up-call tomorrow.  I'll have to work extra hard.  Good thing Thomas got a small box for me :)

Tuesday

Hit the gym at 6:30am.  Not sure how long this will last, but staying optimistic that it will be long enough for me to get in shape before I come home.  I proclaimed, "I will not come home fat and pale."  Lots of eating right and trips to the gym and weekends in the sun at Hyde Park with James will hopefully remedy that.  

Research Methods Conference Day.  I tried very hard not to freak out yesterday concerning the Keynote/Mac vs. Powerpoint/Windows bullshit.  Today was not any easier than yesterday though.  I went in early to fix it up a bit more and to print off a handout for the panel.  My team were nowhere to be found until about 10:20am...as they went to the Conference Welcome intro thing.  We were supposed to meet at 10am to rehearse.  We met after that and rehearsed in the student bar (hah!) and then went to set up ourselves in the room.  We were first, presenting to a small crowd and the panel.  It went up virtually without a hitch....the only thing to totally fail were the video clips, which I had gotten reformatted by the head tech guy yesterday.  He apologized profusely for all the bullshit that had gone down with it and Katerina told me not to be pissed off, but I was raging mad.  I don't think anyone realized just how much effort I'd put into it.  I had a brief 30 second cry afterwards...out of disappointment from the whole debacle, despite it going fine, as well as exhaustion and sheer relief of it being over.  It's one more box I can tick on my way to getting my MA with Distinction.  I'm getting Distinction even if it kills me.  I'm also going to get this scholarship.  I'm willing the universe to make it happen.  How's that for resiliency?  

I had lunch with most of the MAVS crew and then watched the other presentations.  There was a great one on beatboxing.  They even taught us a bit.  I love this course.   If I can use beatboxing to teach Shakespeare - I'm gold.  

I'm going to take a well deserved nap, have dinner then work on my research proposal.  James stopped in around 9pm to tell me about his day.  He's knee-deep in work as well and we're only two days in.  He's been put in charge of their large production they're doing in Cornwall at the Minnack theatre.  What a day.  Sigh.  63 days.

Wednesday

James's turn to wake me up.  On my day off.  I told him it was fine last night and that I knew I wouldn't go back to bed after that, so I went in and did leg strength training then we had breakfast.  I got some work done and went back to the gym to do 15 minutes of treadmill intervals, arms and then another 15.  It's getting easier, which is nice!   Showered and headed to find a new journal for this term as well as get my phone charged.  The journal I wanted was out of stock and after going to four Vodafone stores I gave up.  The usually have a charger machine (where you put your phone in a safe and plug it in and take a key...you pay like £1 for 30 minutes or whatever.  They didn't have the right charger for my phone, so I called Customer Service again and they said the charger was out of stock but that they'd send me one ASAP.  Right.  So I had to send an email out saying I would be without a phone until further notice.  

I went to school to do some work and then got sushi and tried another store for my journal on the way home.  Success.  The sushi was exactly what I needed.  I sent some more emails and took a nap when I got back.  I figured I'd relish in taking a nap before my schedule becomes too crazy.  Dinner was pasta that didn't taste like anything and brocolli.  Maybe I'll lose the weight after all!  

Thursday

Day 5 of gym-ing it with James.  A success.  Granted, I slept so horribly last night (a wonderful combination of stressing about the phonetics exam today, the drama with my phone and generally feeling like I need some more love in my life) that I barely could get out of bed, but nonetheless - got up as to adhere to the best friend pact to get fit, to wake James up.  I didn't think I'd be able to do much more than walk, but I actually did more than I usually do.  We got breakfast and took the tube (it's that time again to drop £70 on another month of transportation).  I printed off the preliminary research proposal I'd put together for my meeting with Katerina, then went to the dreaded Phonetics Exam.  This is a nice chunk of our final grade for the MA and although I've got plenty of experience with phonetics, I was still worried because a good portion of it was new territory.  I think I did fine; enough to, in the very least, pass it.  

I went to the PhD presentations (the final day of the conference) to see James Palm's presentation (the director from Trinity).  He was so pleased that I came and afterwards we chatted.  He said he had to run but that he was going to email me because he heard there is going to be a voice teaching position open at Trinity.  (!!!)  I was like, "Um, I have to go home for the summer!"  

Then my meeting with Katerina went pretty awfully.  She told me I got a 55 on my essay which hit me like a ton of bricks.  Mind you - a 55 is equivalent to a low B in the states, so it's not as bad as I originally thought.  I did have a bit of a cry about the essay out of sheer frustration (am I emotional lately or what?  Shouldn't I be used to these high stress situations by now?!)  because I'd redone the whole essay after getting feedback from her and it still wasn't good enough.  Katerina kept saying, "You're disappointed.  Why?"  I know it's just a number, but I thought I deserved better than that.  She said that the content of my essay was of high quality but the structure lacked so there wasn't a through-line.  She said this would be high quality BA work, but I'm at an MA level now.  I wish someone would tell me what the hell that means.  Then she offered to tutor me.  I've never been good at asking for help or accepting help when it is offered.  I always had the gut feeling that if you needed a tutor then you really weren't meant to be at that level.  Adrianne and I chatted about it and she made me feel better.  Peter (from LA) and I chatted too and it was good to have some of my close friends put it in perspective, but I just had this overwhelming, "That's just not good enough" feeling.  

I got a 64 (high B) on my practical performance, which was improved from last term.  I was still really disappointed as I'd put in twice the work.  Katerina kept sayingthat I was being hard on myself and reassured me with things like, "You had a lot on your plate last term with your migraines and anxiety," and "For you to pull these grades with those circumstances means you are doing really well."  It was just the initial emotional reaction of someone putting a numerical rating on your blood, sweat and tears, you know?  And to be told that those numbers are lower than you expected is disappointing.  I'm tired of just being "good" - I came here to make this my career and it should be something I'm great at.  It shouldn't be something I happen to be good at.  It should be something I truly excel in.  

Everyone I saw from my course after the meeting I put on my happy face for.  I can't deal with their negativity.  It comes in masses and it makes me want to run away screaming.  They just drone on about all their stress and I just want to shake them or wave my hands frantically and say, "You're not the only one on this course!!"  I keep my bitching to a bare minimum and it's mostly to Kate and James because I know they'll be objective and honest and at the same time - compassionate.  I was compassionate all term one and put myself out on a limb to help everyone who needed computer help and phonetics help.  Now I feel like saying "do it yourself"...my patience is running very thin these days.  

I'm also not getting any emails, which means I'm sending more...which can only make me look more pathetic.  Learning to be patient is rough work.  

I treated myself to a frappucino on the way home.  I probably could've eaten a whole box of oreos and 1/2 gallon of milk in one sitting, but I figured I'd be good.  Hah.  No sense in kicking my ass at the gym at 6:30 every morning if I'm going to ruin it with my worst vice: chocolate.  Maybe my biggest vice is email.

Friday

I skipped breakfast and the gym this morning.  I slept even worse last night.  I tried really hard not to think about all that went wrong yesterday and how screwed I am, but failed.  I brought Sarah's birthday present, some cards for my mom and Jen and Grandma to the post office.  Then I had a grande frappucino (this morning called for grande) and got on the tube to meet Thomas at Bank.  We got a train to Greenwich and after showing him around Trinity we laid in the grass and ate our lunches.  Thomas has chosen to use my accent for his presentation and I've chosen his.  He's Austrian and I thought that because the first accent I ever taught was German (poor Matt Tracey was my guinea pig) that I should learn how to do it right now that I'm on this course.  I like Thomas, he's very positive and focused.  He's a bit of an over-achiever like me with wanting to do lots of extra work to gain the most from the experience, but I think this is a good thing.  

Thomas and me in the grass outside Trinity.  

Thomas trying out a David Carey voice exercise in the courtyard at TCM.

Me trying to soak up some sun.  Looking pretty pale and awful.  This will soon change I hope.

Then at 2pm we watched the Trinity musical theatre students for about a half an hour and I introduced Thomas and then we went to our classrooms to teach.  My students were actually really disappointing.  They'd retained none of what they'd learned first term and had gone back to old habits.  I felt like I was starting all over again.  Some of their responses to the exercises made me want to pull my hair out.  I don't know how to help them.  I felt pretty helpless myself.  I kept thinking, "Maybe I'm not cut out for this.  Maybe I should've just gotten married and had babies."  When I saw Thomas afterwards, he said he couldn't do his lesson plans because most of them couldn't even just stand there and breathe properly.  But we only see each student for 25 minutes, 3 times over the course of this term.  How am I supposed to prepare lesson plans for these students?  

Of course I don't have a phone and I'm supposed to meet James to go out for birthday drinks with his course.  I get home feeling completely despondent and tell him I am not up for it.  He and I are planning on going to the movies on Monday, so I said we'd at least have that time to hang out.  He told me not to do any work tonight - to just chill out.   I sent some dumb emails (sometimes I swear it's as bad as texting) and then had to get out of my room.  I don't know how I got to Starbucks and back and downed another frappucino but I did.  I felt like such a zombie.  Then I had a good cry to Tim and he tried to set me straight.  I emailed Katerina asking for some advice and then set myself to the task of developing a new research proposal that is Katerina-approved.  

Saturday

I slept so horribly last night.  I kept getting up and trying to do work and getting about a paragraph in and then giving up again.  This must've happened a half dozen times before I finally exhausted myself.  Then I woke up around 3am and made a schedule for my dad of a back strengthening program for him.  He'd gotten an MRI because his back has been hurting and the doctor said he just needed to strengthen it.  So I sent that off and then tried to sleep again.  Up at 6am, read for a bit, back to bed.  Up at 10am hit the gym for an hour, back to do ballet and then breakfast by myself (James was severely hung over from last night).  Then back here to work on my new research proposal.  The old research idea was "seeking to provide theatre actors with the tools necessary to overcome the inhibiting vocal phenomena the occurs with stage fright through Fitzmaurice’s 'destructuring' approach to vocal pedagogy."  But because Katerina didn't like it and said it was too broad she wants me to have the research idea be "seeking to apply the Fitzmaurice approach to vocal pedagogy to text exploration for theatre actors."  That doesn't really help me because the research I'd done is on destructuring and anxiety.  I can use some of the anxiety research for my IPP (Independent Practical Project) but at this point I don't even know how to contextualize this work.  I emailed Jeff Morrison (voice teacher from Marymount), Bex (tutor from CSSD), Tara (my PAT tutor from Term 1), Katerina (obviously my course leader) and Christine Berg (my assigned MAVS grad mentor who's just moved back to Canada) - seeking guidance and help.  I'm not good at asking for help, but I'm feeling like I've just painted myself into a corner and I don't know where to go.  So I've been moping, listening to Jeff Buckley and checking my email a million times hoping someone's got an answer for me.  

Then Jen came online and Skyped with me.  She certainly snapped me out of my self loathing and put things into perspective.  The reality check consisted of: "you're passing this MA course where the grade doesn't matter so long as you're passing because in the real world they're not looking at your grades, just your ability to teach and qualifications"...also that I will be fine and am a capable teacher who should just deal with what's in front of me as far as my students go.  I can't expect them to be hard working or brilliant every time they come in, no matter how much time I've spent working with them.  If they don't do the work themselves outside of class, they'll never progress.  In a nutshell, snap out of it.  

She proceeded to talk me through how I needed to write my research proposal and sent me on my way.  I went to Starbucks (I swear these goddamned frappucinos are saving my life) and then to the library to get the text books I needed for the "contextualization" part of the proposal and came home.  I worked until dinner then made my plan of attack for the long weekend (we've got Monday off for a bank holiday!)  A bit frenzied today I decided to hit the gym again.  Elliptical for 30 minutes - hurrah for me and feeling guilty about frappucinos!  I should be able to, in theory burn 300 calories (because I did today) in 30 minutes every morning.  This is an uplifting thought.  I was listening to Michael Jackson, maybe I should credit MJ instead of my guilt.  Weighing in tomorrow.  (I weighed today because I couldn't wait and all was well).  Abs and a shower then more contextualization to do.  Feeling much better now.  

April 19th - 25th

April 19th - 25th

Sunday

Like I said, we got up early to go to Victoria to catch a train.  We got to Gatwick around 7am and stood in line to check baggage for 40 minutes.  Then we paid for the extra luggage and I walked Jen to the Departure area.  She said, "You'll be fine.  No stress.  70 days.  Love you," gave me a hug and off she went.  I cried for about 30 seconds and quickly recovered.  I slept on the way back into London and then when I got back I showered and prepared for my first professional paid accent coach gig.  This actor named Henry needed help with a Texan accent, which to be frank, I'd never taught and barely knew much about.  But I did what research I could considering the library was closed last week and my lack of resources.  

I went to his flat in Finsbury Park which was gorgeous.  He was an attractive actor in his late 20's, from Bristol, who'd done all of this research and homework for the role.  The role was an evangelical cowboy for the next film coming out by the guy who did The Wicker Man.  I was shocked that he was so good at the accent.  I gave him a few notes and then we just talked really, for almost two hours.  He wrote me a check for £30 and then I told him I'd be in contact regarding him wanting to learn General American.  I felt bad, although in retrospect, Kate said I shouldn't because I came in and did my job.  But I did initially feel bad because his accent was so close to perfect that I didn't have very much to do.  I came home and ate dinner with James who was back from Portsmouth and we watched The Producers.  Movie night with James is always "gay movie night" because he basically has only chick flicks and musicals.  It's like being home really, because that's all my mom and Jen watch most of the time anyway :)

Monday

I skipped breakfast to sleep in, trying to capitalize on sleeping in as much as I can before I have to be back.  I got ready to go and went to London Bridge early to grab some lunch at the Vaults, which is within London Bridge Station.  I was meeting Chris, Kate and Corin for a Research Methods & Outputs meeting at Chris's flat at 2pm.  Chris picked us up at the station in a ridiculously expensive Jaguar, which I drooled over for the entire ride as I sank into its real leather seats.  

The meeting was good, I showed the Powerpoint and all seemed impressed.  I feel a lot better about it because I'd really done a lot of work on it, and everyone was pleased.  Chris's flat was so beautiful...it made me want to have a place of my own even more.  When we were done Kate and I went to a Starbucks to chat and catch up a bit, which is exactly what I needed.  I showed her all of the pictures from when Jen was here.  

When I got back to mine I did ballet for about an hour and got some more work done on the Powerpoint (which made my eyes hurt).  This Master's course has really aged me, I think.  I've got eye strain, legitimate wrinkles and bags under my eyes from lack of sleep and stress I'm sure...I'm fatter and I've got back strain, I've got migraine and sleep issues, and am generally fatigued.  Is this what being an adult in the real world is like?  Because if so, I don't want anything to do with it.  I'm still able to do full splits on either side, and grand battement over my head so take that aging process.  

Tuesday

James and I had breakfast and then went to the gym.  We came back, showered and decided to go for a walk in Hyde Park because the weather cannot be enjoyed whilst indoors.  

James in his wicker hat and shades that he's very proud of.

This picture obviously came out really dark, but you get the idea.  Lake.

Hanging out in Hyde Park.  Brits and Americans unite.

I love this one.

Wednesday

Day 1 of the Theatre Noise Conference.  Strangely, I was the only one from my course, other than my course leader in attendance on the first day.  I was surprised because this conference is a big deal.  I got registered and hung out with Katerina in the Embassy Theatre then after the welcome speech and first keynote speaker I went to the paper presentations that Katerina was chairing.  It was tiring though, so I left about an hour early so I could make it home for dinner.  Dinner was wretched, per usual and then I went to the gym later on and did ballet as well.  Consistency is key.

Thursday

I got up early to attend a 9am Roy Hart workshop that Katerina also attended.  No sign of MAVS until later on when I met up with Kate.  I had lunch by myself in the sun behind the Hampstead theatre, which was just divine.  Solitude before having to be surrounded by MAVS for the next 60-something days was something I needed to capitalize on as well.  Met up with Kate and we went to the Round Table discussion led by Catherine Fitzmaurice, whom I'll be studying with this summer in her certification program, as well as two of her associate teachers.  When I walked in and waved at her she asked me to come down and chat with her.  I was a bit nervous because despite knowing her for a few years now and taking several workshops with her, she's got such a presence about her.  She's lovely and open, but she is powerful.  She asked me if I would be willing to demo her work, which I immediately agreed to do.  She and the other teachers were very gracious as one of the teachers is pregnant and the other was an older man in jeans.  So they got started with the discussion and then she called me down.  I did one of her basic leg tremors and she gave verbal adjustments to soften through the arms and chest and then the breath dropped in.  She's so observant.  That was one of the main things she spoke about too, that she doesn't have a technique or a method really, she just teaches her potential teachers to look and listen, which is the most vital part of being a voice teacher: hearing and seeing to make adjustments.  Anyway, I did the tremor and then they asked me to sit on the panel in case they wanted me to demo anything else.  The great part, other than being apart of this incredible conference discussion was that the whole thing was being filmed and archived for the British Library (whose resources are not unlike the NYC Public Library of Performing Arts at Lincoln Center).  I was thrilled to have made a permanent mark on the UK!  My very first and very small claim to fame.  

Kate and I hung out a little afterwards then I came home and had dinner with James.  I went to the gym later on and did interval training (which killed me) and strength training legs and arms.  Then a long shower and some emailing before bed.  

Friday

Day 3 of the conference was hyped up because the legendary Cicely Berry was speaking.  She has been head of voice at the Royal Shakespeare Company for the last thirty years and has written five books, which we use as bibles at CSSD.  She trained Catherine Fitzmaurice when Catherine attended CSSD and basically - Cis Berry is the Mother of Voice Studies.  She's a goddess.  She spoke and was quite candid.  She said a lot of things I knew from her books, but it was great just to be in the same room as her, honestly.  Despite her age, she is an incredible force to be reckoned with.  

Theatre Noise Conference - CSSD

  

They set up one of the black box theaters with all of this sound equipment and audio specialist stuff.  

Cicely Berry.

Tara McAllister-Viel and Cis Berry

Catherine Fitzmaurice and Cis Berry (!!!!!)

When I got home afterwards I had dinner with James and then he talked me out of going to the gym to instead indulge in some Ben & Jerry's and have another gay movie night.  I almost declined but his enticing offer was that, "It's the last Friday before we're back!"  So I sat through Bridget Jones's Diary and RENT.  Total twinkie movies.  I didn't even eat much of my ice cream, I was feeling so guilty.  Then I went online for a bit and got to bed early.  

Saturday

There were jerks outside my building at 3am for about an hour and half, smoking, talking loudly and playing music out of their car with the doors open.  Mind you, there's no ventilation whatsoever in my room, so I have to have the window open.   But I couldn't sleep.  I slammed my window loudly, but all they did was just looked up for a moment and then go back to what they were doing.  I wanted so badly to mouth off at them, but I resisted.  Needless to say, I slept horribly from then on.  I got out of bed around 10am and then had brunch with James.  I came back to my room and did a massive clean because Kate was coming over.

She got here around 1pm and we worked on phonetics.  Then she, James and I went for a nice long walk in Hyde Park and then went to a juice bar on Edgware Road.  Kate came back to mine for a bit more and we had a nice chat about Fitzmaurice voice work and our aspirations for this term and beyond.  I really love Kate, I'm going to miss her the most when I leave.  

Then I worked on the Powerpoint, blogged and had dinner with James around 6pm.  I tried to call Jason to chat about details concerning NYC but he wasn't around.  I've got plenty of time to get it sorted though, so no worries.  

This is for Jen, who as an Easter present brought me a stuffed bunny that smells like chocolate for when I get a chocolate craving.  This has become a running joke now.  Also, Adrianne sent me a link for a chocolate inhaler, not unlike the nicotine or asthma inhaler, apparently it helps people break their addictions.  I look like death in this picture because there are no lights on.  She's discovered "snapshot" on Skype - that's how this lovely picture came to be....I was trying to make her laugh.  Now everyone can laugh at me and my unhealthy addiction to chocolate...You're welcome :) 

April 18th

April 18th

Day 5

Saturday

Saturday morning was the grand packing day.  Jen was not convinced that I could fit everything that I had (mostly clothes now that I had both summer and winter clothes with me) into my two suitcases.  She wanted to prove this so we packed all of my things into my suitcases only to find she was right.  So we bought a third suitcase for her to bring home and Jen the Clean Sweep Monster attacked.  She did things like make me choose three sweaters, and I had to tell her why I needed to keep them.  It was nice to purge a few things, and she even got me to throw away a jacket that I'm overly attached to that I've had for probably five or six years.  It's way past its prime and I kind of wished I could've kept it for my kids, but it was it pretty bad shape.  My good friend Sarah from home has been trying to get me to get a new one for a while.  I just really loved that jacket.  Anyway, Jen got me to throw it away, and to prove that it was thrown away she took pictures.  It was rough.  

She looks innocent, but she's really out to clean sweep my whole life if she could.

  

Jacket love.  Jacket separation.  Jacket despair.

After we packed up the new suitcases and weighed them we headed out to Hyde Park to catch a bus to Notting Hill Gate to meet Kate.  Our plan was to hit up Portobello Market, have lunch with Kate, then go to Abbey Road and get some night pictures with Big Ben.  

  

We forgot to get a video of Jen singing the Portobello Road song :(

It was a mad house.

  

Cameras for Dave.  Carbs for me and Jen :)

  

Rosso Pomodoro for real Italian food.  More of the market - this guy had a little coffee shop out of his mini VW van.

  

Kate and Jen browsing.  Andy Warhol shop with a print mural.

Jen, Kate and me (I'm cheesin' as Dave would say).

We stopped in a store where Kate spotted a dress she really liked.  Then Jen pointed to a dress that was...perfection.  I tried it on.  Jen and Kate were crazy about it and so was I, so Jen bought it for me, despite how much it cost, and said that she wouldn't have to buy me Christmas or birthday presents next year.  I think it's worth it.  I didn't let Jen take it home with her, so hopefully Kate and I will get to take our new dresses out on the town for a night before I come home.  Jen also made me swear to guard that dress with my life :)

Abbey Road

  

The famous cross walk.  The famous Abbey Road Studio where the Beatles recorded.

Jen and I crossing ala Abbey Road album style.

  

What I wrote in January.  Also found what Tim wrote in January.

  

Making a new mark.  A long one, but a good one.  Right under some brilliant person who only wrote "boobies".

  

Jen's contribution to the wall.  Some tulips.

  

Then we walked back to St. John's Wood Station so I could show Jen the Beatles Coffee Shop.  She took my picture and accidentally cut out Paul, which technically makes me the fourth Beatle :)

  

Chim-chimney.  Jen loves the chimneys.  This next picture was after we headed out to take night pictures and were just about to cross the Westminster Bridge.  There's this garden at the end of this driveway to the Marriott.

  

Sisters.  Parliament.

  

Big Ben.  London Eye.

Jen finally in a phone booth.

  

Me.  Jen.  I really like Jen's picture because I got the blurry bus going by in the background.

Sisters :)

Proof that Jen survived the Nuthouse.

We got GBK and ice cream for our last "hurrah" before we both returned to our normal non-indulging lifestyles.  It was nice to take our time today.  We had to get up really early (Jen got up at 5:15am and I got up at 6am so we could make it to Gatwick two hours early for her flight).  I hope Jen had a great time, I know I did.  

April 17th

April 17th

Day 4

Friday

I was happy to have a day off from blogging, but my excuse for not blogging was that I took my migraine meds and then a melatonin and by the time I got through uploading those pictures I was so ready for bed.  Here's an account of Friday's outings.  We started our day off right by sleeping in - yes vacation!  Then we got up and headed to Buckingham Palace to take pictures.  Jen had this all planned out, she was especially excited to see the guards and wanted desperately to get her picture with one.  You can't get your picture with a guard at the Palace, but you can get one on some random side street near St. James' Palace, as Jen researched on Thursday night whilst I was passed out.

In front of Buckingham Palace

  

Kollwitz sisters.  This is my "it's really cold out" face.

  

Buckingham Palace

I love this one.

Then we walked down the street a bit to where Jen thought there would be guards for her to get a picture with.  There were two but they were behind a gate thing.  We got pictures though, and a video.  Jen was really excited.  

  

Pink taxi.  Guard #1

Then we walked to the spot where she had read about where you can get a picture with one, but there weren't any on duty.  See pic below.  After that we walked to Trafalgar Square to go to the National Gallery.  

  

Tulips.  St. James's Palace.

  

No guards here.  Sorry Jen.  Me trying to slyly point out a tiny car.  There was a man in it.

  

Trafalgar Square.

  

National Gallery.  Jen: "Look!  Pet the lion!" 

  

Jen being a tourist.  The famous archway.  Only the Queen can go through the middle one.

  

Trafalgar Square.  I swear, we waited so long for the wind to pick up so Jen could take this picture.

On our way to find a bus that was headed in the right direction we came upon a large crowd of people and then Jen realized why.  There were guards on horseback.  Intense.  After getting her picture we got on the tube and headed to King's Cross Station to check out Jen's final tourist-y desire: Harry Potter's Platform 9 3/4.  I have to admit, I was not thrilled about this, but it was pretty cute when we saw it.  

SO HAPPY.  We found guards on horses.

I was getting excited about tonight...

  

There was construction but we found it anyway.

  

Jen is so happy.  I'm kind of making fun...

  

King's Cross Station.

  

King's Cross.

  

We took the bus back to the halls to get ready for dinner and the show.  Jen climbed the stairs so she could say she rode on top of a double decker bus :)

After we got back and changed into our theatre-going attire, we went to a last minute dinner at Prezzo which was awful.  Can I please just get some DECENT Italian food here?  It's killin' me.  Then off to the theatre we go.  We saw, in case you hadn't caught on, Billy Elliot the musical at Victoria Palace Theater.

  

Yes.  West End theatre.  Gotta love it.

  

The first pic you can actually see the theatre (gorgeous) the second pic you can actually see me.

  

Theatre go-ers.

  

I look really tired.  Outside the Victoria Palace Theatre.

The show was good, and I was particularly impressed with the set and lighting design.  Elton John had done the music, which I also enjoyed.  It's quite a story.  Jen will forever tease me because I cried during the dead mother scene, which is the cheesiest part of the whole show.  Elton John struck a chord and I miss my mom, okay?  Sue me.  I'm not made of stone.  

  

Heels.  Boot.

There ya go, Gram.  Finally wearing the heels you love!  

April 16th

April 16th

Day 3

Thursday

Warning: The blog which you are about to read has been temporarily taken over by another Kollwitz across the pond......

Missy is currently sun-burned and grouchy and tired, therefore I will be bringing you Day 3 of the Kollwitz sisters in London.

Today we woke up way too early to go to the London Victoria station to catch a bus to the sea-faring costal town of Brighton.  As I read in a tourist guide on the internet before I left, "Brighton is the representative coastal city of all British sea towns."  Missy has been here before to see Nia and for Christmas with Tim, as you have seen the pictures before.

Before we boarded the train, I was quite famished so I had my first toastie: brie, tomato, and cucumber on a baguette.  Then Missy made us take the train pictures again.

  

Me indicating our destination, Missy eyeing her ticket.

  

Missy looking thrilled, Me reading the Metro

English Countryside

Once arriving in Brighton, we hoofed it down the street towards "The Sea and The Lanes."  I was quite grouchy so the first part of the morning, we were both a little cranky... plus the "South Lanes" shopping area was a disappointment and I was getting irritated walking around all these lame shops.

    

Clock Tower and the Lanes sign

Then Missy thought that shoving food in my mouth might lighten my spirits.  (Although she didn't say this, looking back I now see her ulterior motives.)  So we went to some hippie whole foods grocery store/restaurant called Bill's.  (Who is this Bill you ask?  Dunno. But he definitely is a sprout eating, play with your food kind of guy.)  The place was colorful and interesting with nicely displayed produce and interesting pantry goods.  I ordered some weird pizza with stuff I didn't know (Some veggies including rocket??, cheddar, and pesto.)  Missy got a panini with cheese and veggies.  When our food arrived... it was ... weird looking. Like someone had sat behind the counter and decorated it with veggies.  It kind of looked like green hair sprouting out of the couscous.  Anyway... it wasn't that good.  Different, yes.  But not that good.

    

   

Seriously Missy, What the hell am I eating?

After our escapades at Bill's, we continued on to what Missy promised would be a more exciting shopping experience in the North Lanes.  Well, she was right.  I got some gifts and souvenirs and there were actually some pretty cool shops.

(Okay, so there are supposed to be pictures here but Missy is sleeping and I accidentally deleted them and I am too lazy to figure out how to re-insert them right now.  Anyway, one was a lane of shops, one was a sign that said Mama-san, and one was a Run DMC shirt.)

Then we walked in the direction of the pier.  Yes, I may have tried to point us in the wrong direction but the Lanes are confusing and we went every which way. I got disoriented.

  

Taj Mahal wannabe building... and a pretty flowering bush.

 

Okay that part of the building was cool and these flowers were very pretty.

 

Then we finally arrived at the pier and the sun came out! So we walked most of the way down the pier enjoying the nice sea breeze.  The waves made the most awesome sound because the beaches here are actually made of rocks- No sand!

  

Self-explanatory

  

Again, the coastline...

This is one of my faves from today... I like the shadows on the boards.

  

Okay, so we didn't discuss the face we were going to make and we just happened to do the same one... Ha.  Oh and I always wanted to know what I'd look like blonde.  I don't think Missy was impressed. 

  

Okay, these very pretty beach chairs are like typically linked to Brighton Beach (They're all over the souvenirs.)  So we decided to take our own pics... and quite a few of them.  Note the pretty smooth beach rocks as well.

  

Another one of my favorites!

  

Yummy. 

  

Our first attempt failed do to operator error and not being able to count to 10. :)

The second one is again, another fave.

  

These are the end of our stroll along the beach before meeting Missy's friends Nia and her fiance, Miltos.

Then once everyone had arrived we went to a beachside cafe to have some Pimm's (apparently a typical summer British beverage, a mix of lemonade, some kind of ale, and something else with fruits and cucumber???)  It wasn't bad at all, citrus-y and refreshing. After a jug, we strolled down the rest of the seafront until we came across these sheds with colorful doors (another site linked with Brighton).  Apparently people rent these shed boxes for like ridiculous amounts of money so that they can open them and sit in front of the beach?  They were pretty colors at least. 

    

The Beach sheds... 

Walking in Brighton, and Nia and Miltos

After a stop at a pub for more Pimm's and some pork scratching (the most disgusting bar food snack I have ever tasted but apparently "very British," we went to Otello for some banging Italian food!

  

Then the day was over and Nia drove us to Hove station and we caught the bus back to London Victoria and bused ourselves back to Missy's dorm to crash, sunburned and tired.

  

  

  

  

Tomorrow we are sleeping in (score!) and then going to Buckingham Palace, The Mall, Trafalgar Square and The National Gallery... followed by King Cross Station (Harry Potter) and Abbey Road (Beatles) and the off to see Billy Elliot the musical in the evening.  So... for now... Cheers love.