Spring Break

1. This term has been difficult. My hunch is that I've entered a new level of this training that is a long plateau. It's not quite level. It slopes upwards a few degrees. Any improvement is a micro notch (I'm mixing metaphors). My sense is this is a difficult part of the training. Yet, our failures in Acting class seem to be victories for our professor/talent coach (and not in this sadistic/punishing way--it's more: "YES! YOU'RE LEARNING!" kind of thing).

2. Spring break is here. We have an entire week off. I've allowed myself to indulge, but I'm already starting to feel guilty. Mad Men and Battlestar Galactica call, but so does my to do list, which I can now do on my own terms.

3. The amount of grading on my plate is ridiculous. I have 50 discussion board responses to grade, 50 hand-written quizzes on Fences, and 50 critiques on The Crucible. The first two batches need to be completed by Friday. The critiques have a little more wiggle room. The upside is my students this semester are much more intelligent.

4. The action/objective scoring in Acting has been immensely difficult for me. I'm in two scenes. It's the same scene with a different partner, and the work we're doing is vastly different. On Friday, I began the first scene and had an intense (but short) bout of stage panic. I couldn't recall where the portrait of Ezra Mannon was (it's all imagined and placed differently, depending on the scene). This bullet point probably means nothing to many of you readers, but I thought it was noteworthy.

5. We've had a couple prospective students visit this past week. It's helped me zoom out. It's easy for me to become engrossed and myopic through this "slog" of the training. Seeing their drive and enthusiasm has been refreshing. I'm transported back to a year ago,  tracking all that has happened since auditions, receiving the offer, working on the reading list, figuring out moving, completing the first term, etc. A LOT has happened. The skills I've got are palpable, and working on Cripple of Inishmaan has been great to see what is sticking (plus I'm honing a Western Irish dialect). I'm a different actor. And we're working our way toward being second years, which is a different kind of training/responsibility (from what I can tell).

6. I wish I had summer work lined up. It's hard not to be discouraged about everything when this lack of work is a looming cloud. I have a couple other auditions lined up in the coming weeks. I need to get some monologues on YouTube to send to a few theatres.