February 29th - March 4th

February 29th - March 4th

Sunday

I had brunch with James and we decided what we'd do for the rest of the day.  We planned to go to Somerfield's for food shopping, then come home and work.  Around 4:45pm we'd go to out to dinner and then later on go to the gym.  Luckily, this plan was nearly flawless and I ended up having a great and productive Sunday.  We wanted to eat at The Globe, which is a nice pub on Marylebone Road, but it was packed, so we ate at a brasserie on Baker Street.  We both got healthy dinners as we chatted about how fit we were going to be by summer.  He got a veggie wrap and I got an endive salad with walnuts and warm goat cheese.  Delicious.  We also talked about when I would be visiting James in Portsmouth over the holiday break.  About an hour later we had digested and headed off to the gym.  I did 45 minutes of cardio (Woo!) and James got turned away from the pool because it was Ladies' Night.  Poor thing.  He came up to see me after I got back and said, "I got chocolate on my way home because I was so upset."  Haha.

Monday

I ate breakfast with James (I'm realizing how much time I spend with him and how much I'm going to miss him when I come home)...and got ready for class.  I had a Research group meeting at the Hampstead Theatre at 10am, but for the first 30 minutes or so it was only me and Thomas.  Then we found Kate and Corin.  We made a positive plan of action for the next few weeks, as everyone's been stressing.  I just took the bull by the horns and delegated jobs.  Everyone seemed to be happy that we were getting something done instead of moaning about how we didn't know where the project was going.  Maybe I'm a bit of a control freak, or maybe I'm impatient.  Either way, I get things done.

Then we had Movement with Anna (from MA Movement Studies) who was being assessed.  I really enjoy working with her.  She did a lot of spiraling up from the floor, listening to each other as an ensemble and working from impulse.  

In this exercise we had to breathe together, undulate through the spine, sense the top of the in-breath, the impulse to move together and stop together, which is hard when you can only see the people next to you in your peripheral vision.  It's an exercise for listening.

  

From Left to Right: Colin, Kate, Jeff, Niamh, Corin and Nia.  Then me, Alex, Thomas, Mel and Lu.  Clips of us doing the ensemble listening exercise.

She had us in pairs leading each other around the space, one with eyes closed.  Then she had us come into physical contact (a push or poke or press) anywhere on the body and the person just responds and then comes back to neutral.  Then we added in the sonnets.  When we switched over though I was working with Thomas, and it was my turn to have eyes closed.  He tapped me lightly (not his fault at ALL) and my spine undulated in such a way that something happened where a nerve was pinched...or something.  It felt like when you sometimes get a random, sharp, shooting pain up your leg when you're walking - but in my head.  It scared me so much that I was in tears right away.  It felt like someone had boxed my ears or I'd been struck in the head.  It had to be a nerve...I don't know what else could have caused that.  It hurt on either side of my head above my ears.  It ached for a bit after.  Anna and Thomas were really worried about me and had me sitting, drinking water by the open window.  I got some big lectures from Alex afterwards about how I need to see a doctor and get a CAT scan because it could be something serious.  I don't want to see a doctor who is not my doctor, who doesn't know me, who will just put me on some stupid numbing pills that will turn me into a zombie.  No thank you.  I'll deal for now and keep adjusting my lifestyle towards better health, better eating and more exercise...just try to live as healthfully as I can until I get home.  Then see if I can adjust something else.  I don't have much consistency here, so it's a bit frustrating.  Anyway.  

Here is a clip from when Nia and Jeff showed their work:

  

Nia and Jeff.

We had a short 30 minute lunch break where I sat with Colin, Mette and Nia.  We had a lovely chat and shared some chocolate biscuits.  Shame on me for eating chocolate, but I needed a little sugar.  Somewhere Katerina was shaking her head at me.  Oh, the guilt.  

At 1:30pm we began our three hour session with Joanna.  We did a lot of text work, looking at Shakespeare's sonnets and a piece from Winter's Tale.  The work was great, but we were all wanting to go home.  

  

Joanna Weir Ouston

Mette and Thomas

That was the first day in a long time I got home before 6pm.  I had dinner then later went to the gym and managed to get in 30 minutes of cardio (slowly but surely) and strength training.  When I got back I Skyped with my buddy Peter from LA about the movie he just made and about potentially visiting in the fall to feel out job opportunities there.  I'll be doing the same in NYC over the summer, hopefully something will pop up.  After I chatted with him Alex called me on Skype to chat about our teaching placement.  We're going to be doing accent coaching and we had to have a plan of attack for the next few sessions with them (considering she's only there for two more of them!)  I'll be there for about five more sessions with them.  Alex is going home to Australia for her best friend's wedding.  Our chat took about an hour (that would make it about 11pm) and I still hadn't done abs or showered.  I managed to do that and call my mom all before 12am.  Then to bed.  I've been sleeping better since I've gotten back to the gym.  Go figure.

Tuesday

Woke up with a little headache and took some Advil.  Didn't think much of it until after breakfast when it got worse.  I laid down and set my alarm but when I got up to leave it was so bad.  What's worse is that I felt nauseated, so I sent a text to Alex and Kate to let them know I wouldn't be coming in.  I also asked Kate what I should be eating if I felt sick.  She told me ginger in hot water.  Ugh.  Not exactly what I have here or what I want to be drinking.  Then back to bed.  I am getting a bit fed up with my lack of functioning.  There has to be something I am not doing.  What am I missing here?  

Wednesday

I slept in (my day off) to recover from a messed up sleep schedule from yesterday.  Then I got up and worked on my essay.  I went to school around 3:30pm and worked in the library for bit.  Then I met up with Corin, Thomas and Chris at the Hampstead to hang out for a little while before our 2 hour workshop.  Thomas and Corin brought in the most gorgeous equipment for me to use during the workshop.  They made friends with the head of tech, who gladly handed over this very expensive equipment for us to use!  I was like a kid on Christmas.

  

Sonnet workshop.  From my angle.

  

Our sweet set up: complete with hanging mic.  Discussion.

  

Discussion and then Thomas snapping a few pics of me behind this gorgeous camera...

  

That girl behind the scenes.  My dad would've loved this camera.  I know where I get it from now :)

Speaking of my dad, he's in North Carolina and Waynesville, GA on vacation to play golf.  I don't think it turned out the way he'd hoped:

  

Really pretty, especially the one on the left - but not exactly ideal golf weather.

Nice.

Got to catch up with Tim tonight which was so nice - exactly what I needed right now, as the stress is starting to build in these last few weeks of Term 2.  He shared a new Bon Iver track with me that I'm nuts about now.  Talked about a lot of things, mostly school and the summer, but most importantly: My brilliant cousin won an award for his paper on Beckett and I'm so damn proud of him!!!!  :D 

Thursday

We had Microteaching (Kate, Lu and Lizzie) and then seminar with our external examiner.  She tried to find out what was good and bad about the course.  It went well and reminded me how lucky I am to be here.  At 4pm I worked with my EVP group to time and put together our pieces in a logical order.  That also went well, although I wish we had gotten the chance to run them back to back.  Not everyone is off book, which is frustrating as it's only two weeks away.  Then I worked for a bit with Mette who is playing the piano during the song I'm doing.  We worked out timing and pace, and she got the chance to do some venting about her frustrations as an international, non-English speaking student.  She plays piano by ear, and really well too, so she asked if there was any other song I felt like singing.  I had her play some Copeland and Ben Folds.  It was really nice to be singing again.  I miss it.  I miss performing a lot, but feel that it's something I'll be able to come back to at anytime.  Maybe not dancing, as that takes some extreme discipline physically that I don't have time for at the moment, but definitely singing and acting.  

I found out from Katerina that I will not need to do another MFA program when I get back to the states, as it is the equivalent.  I may be a 24 year old professor after all!  I can't quite wrap my head around that yet.  At least I won't have to take out anymore loans.  I'll be paying off my time at Central School for a while as it is.  I better land a sweet job when I get home, as those checks will be coming soon, and I'll be off of health insurance by October.  Yeah, that's nothing I'd like to be stressing about now.  Let's just get through this Master's, shall we?

Friday

I spent most of today in bed recovering from a long, rough week or in the library digging deep into my essay and pedagogy.  

Someone came up to me in the library, clearly doing research and asked me, "What is your identity?"  Without even hesitating, I said, "My voice.  It is completely unique to me."  I thought about this a lot on my way home.  

I talked to Thomas online, who had been sick and missed class on Thursday.  He thanked me for catching him up and then asked me if I was aware how much I've helped him.  I said, "I'm just being your friend, Thomas."  It was one of the nicest things anyone has said to me in a long time.  He told me how strong he thought I was, and a great source of positive energy.  Thomas, not knowing my past, thought I'd always been like that.  I told him I'd just found it really, and that it came from the love of the work.  That because I love my work, my work becomes play.  He also mentioned how close I seem to be with my family.  I know I've been talking to them a lot lately on Skype, mostly because they're great at giving advice when I'm stressed (read: now) or wanting to check in and make sure I'm okay (migraines and anxiety).  They've really been so good to me; I don't know what I'd do without them.  I am grateful to have such a loving and supportive family.  I hope that in the future my family will be like that too.

Came home around 5:30pm, had dinner with James and later went to the gym.  45 minutes of cardio and then strength training.  I can and will get fit before the summer.  UWTB, as Adrianne would say (stands for Universe Will To Be).  

Sorry these posts are so short, I've got to balance my time wisely with getting this essay and other written work done.  

Saturday

I went to Kate's today to work on our texts for the Expressive Voice Project.  Then she made us an amazing lunch of spinach and rocket salad with tomatoes and avocado with olive oil, salmon with a chili chutney and hummus on seedy bread she warmed in the oven.  I was so happy to be eating fresh, homemade food.  

She did some nice work and I showed her the final product of my three pieces.  As I've mentioned the theme for our group is Dreams.  I'm doing the non-dramatic prose from Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, then a poem called Night Marriage by Carol Ann Duffy (which Kate found for me) right into a song called Dream Scream by Death Cab for Cutie.  I rearranged some of the lyrics so that I'm doing two verses of it.  I have to make sure my total time is under five minutes, which it was when we timed it out.  Hopefully they'll videotape our performances again and I'll be able to get a copy of it.  That'd be nice to look at my progression from my audition, the first EVP to this second one.  That's almost two years of progression.  The time has flown.  

Do you get to a certain age where time starts slowing down again?  Or is it determined by how busy you are?  Time always seems to do that - go slowly when you want it to go quickly, and pass inexplicably fast when you want moments to last.  

I came home, went to the gym (yes, cardio is actually starting to grow on me as something even remotely pleasurable) and then Skyped with my mom.  I was talking to her as my dad got in from being on vacation.  Wish I'd seen Jen too, but she'll be officially coming to visit April 13th-19th!  YESS!!!  

Also:  Adrianne is going home for her Brown interview soon and will blow them away!  :D  Big hugs from London, lady.  UWTB.  

Again, sorry for the lack of exciting posts, I'm really in the thick of it with two hell weeks approaching.  

Essay Due:  6 days

EVP 2:  10 days

Last Day of Term 2:  13 days

Days til Jen visits: 37 days