So today I attended my first open mic night ever at my high school and it was pretty cool. My favorite part was when my two friends went up and did some improvisation work-one portraying the person I have a crush on and my other friend portraying a fellow student. It was just so funny and amusing. I loved being able to watch others perform. Some acts were not perfect, some students let nerves get the best of them, or forgot some of the words to their song, but there is something to be said about having the guts to stand up and perform in front of others and to keep on going even if a mistake is made. I can tell you right now that if I were up there and I made a mistake I would probably have walked off…just because I’m weird like that.
But the show didn’t start till 7: 00 P.M. and school ended at 3:15 so I had to spend hours in school but I had a great time. For the first hour and a half I finished some homework then I hanged out with my “girlfriend” and some of my other friends. We had an amazing time laughing and joking. I remember hanging out with one of my friends in the bathroom and we took pics of each other standing next to the mirror or doing stupid and crazy things. One time my friend dropped her phone and she fell with it. We were in hysterics! And one of my friends brought her boyfriend, and so we are all hanging around talking and laughing, when I can not remember why, but I decide to take off my skirt. I did have pants underneath the skirt but I guess my friend's boyfriend didn’t know that so when I got up and started taking off my skirt he says in this surprised voice, “what are you doing?’ it was so funny. I can not even describe the look on his voice or his tone of voice. His eyes just lit up in shock. Me and my “girlfriend” laughed about it for quite awhile.
After open mic me and some other seniors went out to this ice cream place called The Cup. I was graciously invited by my friend el gato, which was awesome. When we got there we ordered ice cream and sat or stood around this one tiny table and it was just a fun time. I stayed quiet but I loved listening to everyone else talk. I didn’t always understand what they were saying or who they were talking about but it was still cool. I for one didn’t feel so alone.
Today was an awesome day, I know I said that so many times but it really was. I didn’t feel so alone today. I felt connected to others. And for some reason today, during open mic, I started to think that the loneliness that I often feel burdened by is experienced by many of my friends at school, even when they hang out with each other.. And it’s so weird because I think about how all of us are encountering the same type of loneliness, yet the fact that we are going through a similar experience does NOT bring us closer together. I think it’s because we are all so afraid of letting go and letting others in and allowing others to let go. We just stay wrapped up in our own little world and we don’t really let others into it. Or sometimes we just hurt each other so much that we cause others to be afraid to let go. I know that’s what happened in my case. I have been hurt so many times by my family that many times I feel like I c not trust anybody, I mean if the people who were supposed to love me left me and hurt me, how can I expect others not to the same? It’s hard because that thinking just isolates me and causes me to feel even more pain. But I fear getting hurt and being abandoned and alone so I push others away and end up feeling pain, abandoned, and alone. It doesn’t make sense. I have even been distancing myself from God which has hurt me the most. I don’t think many people understand what it is like to feel so close to God and then to just not be able to feel Him at all. I’ve just been so scared to really trust Him and let go. I still have a lot of trust issues and perfectionist issues, but I am trying to let go.
Drama Honors is going a lot better. I still haven’t really spoken but I am learning to relax. My teacher is so extremely funny and so is the rest of the class. I think I’ll talk about drama honors and playwriting tomorrow…this entry is already long enough!
Friday, January 25, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
journal continuation
Even though the One Acts class is over, I will still continue to update this journal periodically since I am taking Drama Honors (English) and Playwriting, so my experiences with the theatre are not quite over. I hope to continue being involved in some form of theatre for the rest of my life, even if it’s not professionally. I do have a little bit of a passion for theatre even though I’m still trying to figure out whether my motives are “pure.” If you haven’t noticed I am a little bit insecure and I have a little bit of an inferiority complex. I feel beneath people a lot of times, so I feel that in order to compensate for my inferiority I need to try and work ten times harder and do ten times better than anyone else. And I’m a little worried that I want to be involved with theatre solely because I want to prove to myself and to others that I can act, that I can be involved in theatre. Don’t get me wrong, I have always liked acting, but I \usually only acted when I took a course at school or when we did dramatic readings in some English classes. The reason motive is so important is because I want to enjoy acting, I want to enjoy the whole theatre experience without worrying about whether or not I am good enough. I don’t want to be afraid to go out for auditions because I feel that I am not good enough. I don’t want to just always be a member of the audience. But this lack of self-esteem hurts a lot. It hurts to always see another person and feel inferior to them. It hurts to always want to hide into the background and disappear. And it hurts that a lot of people think that it’s easy to get over self-esteem issues. Please, if only things in life were that simple. You can’t just get over self-esteem issues by thinking positively, contrary to what others say, there are other underlying issues that need to be considered and resolved in conjunction with the self-esteem issues.
Even now, I feel a need to justify my feelings for an invisible audience. Worrying that others will see me as nothing more then a nervous, cry baby, selfish girl. But then again, this is my journal and this really is one of the only places that I can turn to where I can express myself freely. I don’t need to hide behind a mask and hide my pain. Adults tell us teens and young adults that as we become older we will (hopefully) become less self absorbed and that’s a great and necessary thing. But I also feel as if older adults are advocating repressing our emotions and problems. Obviously we can’t go around expressing all our feelings all the time. We can’t not stop going to school just because we don’t want to. (Well we can, it’s just not advisable) and we do need to move outside of our convenient little boxes, but we can’t hide nor should we have to all the time. I know I am wandering but I need to get this off my chest. One of my teachers has a favorite saying that he got from his first boss and the saying runs along the lines that “if you don’t have a good attitude about something, pretend you do.” The quote does make sense to a point. A person can hate going to school but they shouldn’t fester on their hatred all the time or they will only make themselves and others more miserable. Yet the quote can also be taken to advocate phoniness. Lying, hiding who we are and how we feel. It’s just stupid most of the time.
I bring this subject up because of my drama honors class today. It was the first day and I saw all these incredibly academically smart people enter the room and I felt so self conscious. And of course I said something and my teacher completely shut it down and dismissed what I had to say. I feel like I’m trapped in a room with people in another league. Like I’m the poor peasant who has been allowed to partake of a rich person’s feast. The peasant stands around feeling self-conscious about their stench and raggedy close. In the long run grades aren’t important, how well you do in high school is not going to matter in the end, but its hard to be in environment where it’s basically you have to do good in school or you will fail at life. Drama honors seems like it will shape up to be one of the classes where I feel truly alone. I feel alone a lot of the time actually and I know probably everyone or almost everyone at my school feels the same way but unlike everyone else I can’t distract myself from my loneliness. I can’t try and run away from it since I don’t really hang out with anyone outside of school. But I can’t let that get me down. I need to pray to to God and work through all my issues of loneliness and depression. I won’t let the fact that all the other students have been in like a billion AP classes keep me from taking something from this class. I won’t let the actions of my teacher get me down. I can learn so much from this course and damn it I will learn something.
Even now, I feel a need to justify my feelings for an invisible audience. Worrying that others will see me as nothing more then a nervous, cry baby, selfish girl. But then again, this is my journal and this really is one of the only places that I can turn to where I can express myself freely. I don’t need to hide behind a mask and hide my pain. Adults tell us teens and young adults that as we become older we will (hopefully) become less self absorbed and that’s a great and necessary thing. But I also feel as if older adults are advocating repressing our emotions and problems. Obviously we can’t go around expressing all our feelings all the time. We can’t not stop going to school just because we don’t want to. (Well we can, it’s just not advisable) and we do need to move outside of our convenient little boxes, but we can’t hide nor should we have to all the time. I know I am wandering but I need to get this off my chest. One of my teachers has a favorite saying that he got from his first boss and the saying runs along the lines that “if you don’t have a good attitude about something, pretend you do.” The quote does make sense to a point. A person can hate going to school but they shouldn’t fester on their hatred all the time or they will only make themselves and others more miserable. Yet the quote can also be taken to advocate phoniness. Lying, hiding who we are and how we feel. It’s just stupid most of the time.
I bring this subject up because of my drama honors class today. It was the first day and I saw all these incredibly academically smart people enter the room and I felt so self conscious. And of course I said something and my teacher completely shut it down and dismissed what I had to say. I feel like I’m trapped in a room with people in another league. Like I’m the poor peasant who has been allowed to partake of a rich person’s feast. The peasant stands around feeling self-conscious about their stench and raggedy close. In the long run grades aren’t important, how well you do in high school is not going to matter in the end, but its hard to be in environment where it’s basically you have to do good in school or you will fail at life. Drama honors seems like it will shape up to be one of the classes where I feel truly alone. I feel alone a lot of the time actually and I know probably everyone or almost everyone at my school feels the same way but unlike everyone else I can’t distract myself from my loneliness. I can’t try and run away from it since I don’t really hang out with anyone outside of school. But I can’t let that get me down. I need to pray to to God and work through all my issues of loneliness and depression. I won’t let the fact that all the other students have been in like a billion AP classes keep me from taking something from this class. I won’t let the actions of my teacher get me down. I can learn so much from this course and damn it I will learn something.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
one acts showcase
Ok so I haven’t really updated my acting journal because I didn’t really want to think about performing My name is Rachel Corrie because I was so nervous. But guess what? The one acts class performed for our showcase yesterday and it went awesome! Everyone did well, including me. ! or so I’ve been told. I’m not sure how I did, I have to check it out when I get a copy of the showcase on DVD. But Mr. Chandler and Mr. king said I did well and also some random parents I didn’t know said I did well. Ugh the last two rehearsals before the show I was so nervous. I like cried. Especially the rehearsal on Friday. I was crying to my English teacher telling her I wasn’t sure I could do it that I would have to talk to Ms. Winter about not doing it and I was just a mess. I did talk to Ms. Winter and she told me to go ahead and rehearsal it and we would see where I was at. But that rehearsal actually went well. And yesterday I was so nervous before the showcase! I was freaking out a little.
But apparently I did well. so I’m glad. It’s funny because during the opening monologue I am lying in a bed, wake up from sleeping, well I decided to take my glasses off and put them on when I “woke” up but then my glasses fell off and I had to do the piece completely blind. Which I guess is good because I couldn’t really see anyone except my best friend Sarah who was sitting in the front row. And then towards the end I am supposed to be reading an excerpt from one of Rachel’s emails but then the email disappeared from the lap top I was using and so I had to adlib. It was pretty hilarious. I am just glad it’s done because it represents me getting over my fears. I’m sad the class is over though…but I learned so much. My friends had been so understanding and they rocked yesterday during the performance. And Ms. Winter was so understanding and she helped me through all the millions of times I freaked out. I mean it’s just amazing how everyone has grown. I loved watching the others performed and there really is so much talent at MA. It’s just awesome. I loved watching my friends transform and I loved being able to see how they changed through out the course. All most of the audience saw was the final presentation but they didn’t see all the tears and struggles that we as actors went through, They didn’t see all the hours of hard work and all the hours of procrastination that we put in. they didn’t see the tears. (I wasn’t’ the only one that cried)The nerves. It really was an awesome experience. And I loved being able to perform parts of, My Name is Rachel Corrie. I’m thinking about performing the whole show for post term. If I do do it, it would have to be like a charity/ fundraiser thing. I’m going to start thinking about it after midterms. Which reminds me, I need to study for my freaking math midterm tomorrow….
But apparently I did well. so I’m glad. It’s funny because during the opening monologue I am lying in a bed, wake up from sleeping, well I decided to take my glasses off and put them on when I “woke” up but then my glasses fell off and I had to do the piece completely blind. Which I guess is good because I couldn’t really see anyone except my best friend Sarah who was sitting in the front row. And then towards the end I am supposed to be reading an excerpt from one of Rachel’s emails but then the email disappeared from the lap top I was using and so I had to adlib. It was pretty hilarious. I am just glad it’s done because it represents me getting over my fears. I’m sad the class is over though…but I learned so much. My friends had been so understanding and they rocked yesterday during the performance. And Ms. Winter was so understanding and she helped me through all the millions of times I freaked out. I mean it’s just amazing how everyone has grown. I loved watching the others performed and there really is so much talent at MA. It’s just awesome. I loved watching my friends transform and I loved being able to see how they changed through out the course. All most of the audience saw was the final presentation but they didn’t see all the tears and struggles that we as actors went through, They didn’t see all the hours of hard work and all the hours of procrastination that we put in. they didn’t see the tears. (I wasn’t’ the only one that cried)The nerves. It really was an awesome experience. And I loved being able to perform parts of, My Name is Rachel Corrie. I’m thinking about performing the whole show for post term. If I do do it, it would have to be like a charity/ fundraiser thing. I’m going to start thinking about it after midterms. Which reminds me, I need to study for my freaking math midterm tomorrow….
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