Getting an Education

My butt is sore and my neck hurts but I absolutely love my classes! There is a lovely feeling of security that I get from knowing I'll only be here for a semester. I can relax and not become so consumed with grades and judgment and trying to work towards a goal that will mark me as a "better person." Instead I can simply enjoy my classes, try to hold nothing back, make mistakes. No pressure. I think in the end I'll get more out of the experience than if I was trying super hard to succeed, to get the A+++, to have the most credit hours, to cross the most things off my list. It's very freeing.

Monday mornings I have my Film Form & Analysis lecture. This week was all about editing, which I found fascinating. I never really realized how movies were filmed and cut together or things like the process of continuity. I'd really like to learn more about editing and possibly get a chance to edit some film on my own. (We will be doing a group project that involves editing together stock footage). I think if I don't go into acting, film editing would be my second choice. I think I would be good at it because it sounds like it would be something that's a little bit tedious (which I actually enjoy doing) and would allow for some creativity but would also have the guidance of the directors vision.

In the afternoon I've got my tutorial for the Film class. The professor (teacher's assistant, maybe? Not sure what the term should be.) seems a little intense and highly efficient. It's a fairly large group, but the people seemed intelligent and interesting.

The source of my intensely sore muscles comes from the acrobatics class I have on Tuesday mornings. Everyone in Drama Centre is split into two groups (First and Second Years/ Third and Forth Years) for movement three days a week. For an hour and fifteen minutes we wrestled, jumped, tumbled, cartwheeled, attempted funky backwards rolls, and did a couple of simple lifts. It felt good to be doing something physical again. I'm looking forward to the daily dose of extra exercise. I'm hoping to be able to leave the class being able to do a handstand and a round off.

This morning we had a dance class in the place of acro. I'm excited about this class because I'm a crap dancer and I'm hoping this will help me get better and faster at picking up dance routines. I joined the First/Second Year group today but I think I'd rather be with the Advanced group. I handled the first group pretty easily and I'd like to be able to challenge myself. Today we did basic contemporary like movement. Nothing too difficult. I only had trouble because I was near the back of the large group and sometimes had trouble seeing.

Fridays we get Yoga, which I'm super excited about because I love Yoga. I'm terribly lacking in flexibility and I'm hoping consistent practice will help loosing up my hamstrings a little.
For our "acting" class Jeff, Nate, and I were placed with the third years in the comedy/clowning class. We'll be doing 2 weeks of stand-up comedy and 2 weeks of clowning. I'm not sure what that's going to consist of exactly (I think we'll be putting on a performance during the break) because for the past two days we've been working with a woman on what they called "Big Voice." Basically she is working on helping us with our projection.

Flinders uses a different voice system than we learned at Butler so it's tricky trying to learn the new warm-up exercises and trying to understand the vocabulary they use. Some of the methods are really different from what we taught, but I think I really like their system. Today we had to perform a small monologue we prepared and after working it with the professor for a while I had an awesome break through. I think a lot of what I was saying at the top came into play during the class. I was less nervous because I wasn't putting as much pressure on myself. I was able to commit and go big. It was a really good feeling.

We've also been placed into a first year class called Video Tech. We will be working in the TV studio learning how to handle the cameras, boom and operating boards. I'm really looking forward to this class because we don't get anything like it at Butler (as theatre majors). I think it will correspond nicely with my Film class by letting me have a little bit of hands on experience.
It feels really good to be busy and in classes again. I was starting to get a little bored and homesick but today I was thinking about how sad I'll be when I have to leave Australia. I am going to learn so much and have so many awesome experiences in my classes. Sometimes I worry that I was foolish to pick theatre as a career but after class I can't stop smiling and giggling to myself. I may be exhausted and sore but I've got high spirits.

Pub Crawling

On a less educational note, last weekend I went on a pub crawl with the DJ Village and had a blast. I got to meet several new people and got to dance and party in the city. At the end of the night the bus took us to McDonald's (which they call Mackers here) and we walked through the Drive-Thru (I guess this is common here as well). Last night I was back in the city, at the Garden, celebrating the birthday of Carissa. (A third year at Drama Centre)

Katie and I are talking about going to see a Fringe show this weekend and I'd like to go back to the beach before it starts getting cold. I hope everyone had good spring breaks (or will have good spring breaks).

Recovery Breakfast after the Pub Crawl (Diana, Angela, Cameron, Katie)