Forgive me, dear readers, for not putting fingers to keyboard and updating you on my life in the past week or so. I appreciate your endless patience- it takes time for battles to be fought and wounds to fully heal.
Oh goodness... I hardly remember what happened on the 27th...I'm needing to look at a calendar to remind myself!!!
Oh yes, Thursday. Wednesday night, I was up late trying to pull out a first draft for my Writing 150 paper.... it didn't really happen... and I felt super stupid about it in class on Thursday morning... Went to LiteraTea to blog, had my theater history class (meh), a discussion session for Sociology, and then it was getting ready for the theater again.
Art of Success opened on Thursday night. The theater was in quite a bit of a nervous scramble, but we didn't start too late, and the cast did well!! No huge mistakes, as far as I can remember. Successful opening!
Friday was much of the same. It was a bit rainy for a lot of the day, and we spent time in my discussion session reviewing for our Theater History midterm... oy vey...
The rest of the day I worked hard trying to finish a decent amount of homework before the weekend started... but it didn't really happen. I walked to the show in the rain... A lot of cast members did, actually. It was a rainy weekend!! Again, the show went well. Nothing extremely extraordinary to report there, except for not as much homework as I'd like being done.
Saturday was a theater day, alright. There were 2 shows- matinee and evening had the same cast. Oh, Art of Success is double-cast. I don't know if I mentioned that before. Both shows went well, though during the first one we forgot to have an important prop set which got a bit awkward. Whoops. Saturday was also pretty rainy... Plus, Cafe 84 is closed on the weekends. That means for food, I had to walk all the way back to EVK and then all the way back to the theater. It's not really that big of a deal, I guess, but it's really annoying when it's rainy. Long day, and attempted to get homework done that night too.
Sunday was much of the same, but a bit better. There was one final closing show, and the cast was pretty sad to see the show close. There were lots of tears, so I tried to distribute a good amount of hugs. As for me, I was sad to leave a lot of the new friends I've made in the BFA's. They're really nice kids! I was really excited to get time back though. It's not a show I would/do miss, even though I'm glad I did it.
Strike didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would!!! I can't tell you how nice it felt to leave the theater at 7 when you thought you would be there until 9:30. Hallelujah!
Now don't get me wrong- I love being at the theater! But when you're tired and hungry and worried about homework and there's a lot of manual labor-type work involved in what you're doing? It's nice to get off a bit early. Besides, I'll be visiting the McClintock a LOT before this semester is over. That's where Fortinbras is both rehearsing and performing!
The rest of Sunday night, at least until pretty late, I Skyped with my beautiful sister Melissa and studied/crammed as much as I could for my Sociology midterm the next day... It was nice to have her company. I don't think I could have done it without her.
Monday... Oooooohhh Monday...
If you're just skimming this entire blog, Monday is the day to actually stop and read.
I got up extra early Monday to study more for Sociology. I also had to put on a dress and pick up some props to use in my Scene Study midterm scene! Francesca and I had our in-class rehearsal. I got some good critiques that I've been thinking about a lot since the rehearsal. John pointed out some things in the scene that didn't seem quite right, like having us walk around more and really thinking more about our motivations. He also called me out on playing the end of the scene. Whoops.
(In case you didn't know, that's when you act the scene but it looks like the character/you already knows what happens)
I also got called out on indicating when I'm listening to people. Apparently, I do this when I'm not acting too!! Have you ever noticed me doing that when I talk to you? I'll nod a lot, or I'll give you obvious signs that try to tell you "Yes, I'm really listening." I am listening, but I'm also trying to tell you I'm listening, so... I'm not really listening as much as I could be. I've gotten better with that though, and am starting to consciously not do that. It's been really helping my listening skills! I hear and understand things a lot better!!
Anyways, I crammed some more for my midterm in the few hours I had before the midterm... Whew. I studied enough, and I remembered the information just fine, but there was a lot on the actual test that we had to do. I used every single second, but at least I gave an answer to each question!!
I don't remember what I did between class and rehearsal. I'm pretty sure it was a combination of working, trying to work, wasting time, and freaking out about everything I had to do in the next 48 hours....
Rehearsal was super fun, as always, then I came back to the dorm room to write my Writing 150 paper....
It was a difficult paper to write. I wasn't fully invested in the topic, and was having a lot of trouble forming how I wanted the paragraphs to go. So... it took a while.
I got 20 minutes of sleep that night. Most of the time I spent in the lounge, hoping the change of environment and the open space would help me concentrate better than my dorm room with a sleeping Jinny.
I finished the paper. It certainly wasn't the best it could have ever been (it was too long, for one thing), but I finished it. I also successfully pulled my first all-nighter.... ever. If you don't count the 20 minutes of sleep. I sure don't.
I dozed off a little during every single class I had that day. But still, I made it through Theater 130, Writing, and Theater History. I got an extension on the crew paper I had to write for Theater 130, even though I was told my grade would suffer a little bit. That's ok. There's no way I would have finished it, so I'd rather take the 5% grade deduction.
At around noon, I started my midterm project for 130. It was a set design project for "Lysistrata." Guess what? I finished it in 5 hours. Boo to the freaking yah. It wasn't all that bad either!!! Again, it might have been better, but I'm happy with it for now.
Turned it in, took a nap for 3 hours, and woke up right as I was supposed to be at Mark Study... I was supposed to only sleep an hour and a half.... Aaaahh!!!
But when I got up and started to go over, I realized that I felt totally weird... really disoriented and strange and dizzy.... So I just took it easy in my dorm room the rest of the night. Skyped, called home, relaxed.... went to bed as early as I could. *sigh*
So, how was my all-nighter and the day after? The lowest point of my USC career. Ever. I am NEVER doing that again if I can help it... The entire day I was feeling totally awful and exhausted and groggy. I was more emotional than normal too, since my brain was a bit compromised... It was awful. I was still recovering from it on Wednesday.
Speaking of Wednesday, it was a meh day. Partially because I was recovering, and partially because not much really happened. I spent the evening studying for my Theater History midterm the next day.... but I really didn't care about it. Nope.
Let it go... let it go....
Thursday itself started as a nice day! I was feeling nice for once, and my writing class was nice!! We spent it in the library and got help researching for our next paper. Yes... yet another paper... This one is going to be progressively harder, but I'm excited about the topic. I need to work on it more in the upcoming few weeks.
The 210 Midterm was next. And it was awful.
Again, I studied enough. I knew the information. But there was WAY too much on it and not enough time to answer each question!!! The majority of the class had the same problem. We had about an hour to answer 10 short answer/essay questions, plus we had to identify each play and the author and the character speaking from a short passage she gave us from each play. It was too much. It was horrible. My hand really hurt afterwards.
I don't even remember what I did with the rest of that evening. I think I figured that I just wanted to forget everything and chill... I did have rehearsal, and that was lovely! I always enjoy rehearsals :)
But that was the battle. I fought, I barely survived, but I finished. Therefore, I kinda win.... kinda.... I don't know. I think I got my butt kicked more than I conquered. I survived. That's good, and that matters!
If you all don't mind, I think I'm going to put off writing about this weekend until my next blog post... I'm tired right now. I don't actually know why- I don't feel like I have a reason to be very tired based on the weekend I had. Nevertheless, I'll be more tired if I don't sleep! Learned that the hard way on Monday/Tuesday....
How was your past week? Let me know!
Fight on, friends.
