First Day of School- LD5, September 7, 2015

Today, summer is officially absolutely over.

Luckily, Alexa and I didn't have to be at BADA until 11am, so I got a pretty relaxed morning getting ready and cleaning up for the maitenance service. And, of course, I took my first day of school selfies:

Keeping up the tradition, Mom :)

My first ever BADA class was my Acting Shakespeare class. We got to know each other and our teacher, Russ, before diving into material straight-away. This will be the class I have the most often, which is good, because honestly it's likely the class I need the most help with. Our first work with text was from Hamlet, where Hamlet is instructing the players on how to perform their play. Literally, it's Shakespeare telling us actors how to act, in a way, but for the most part it's easy to understand so it was nice to start with. We were assigned sonnets to work on and also instructed to revisit the monologues we used to audition for BADA. I don't think I've pulled that one out of the old folder since I was auditioning- yikes. But I've gotten it out again tonight and the words are still in my brain pretty well. It shouldn't be hard to remember.

We had a quick lunch, and our weekly All-School Meeting. The most important piece of this meeting was when and where we pick up our tickets for our first show we're seeing tomorrow!!!! It's going to be fantastic and I'm very excited :D

Right after the meeting was our Movement class. Most of Movement was games to learn the names of the people in my group, as well as several trust-building exercises. Needless to say, we know each other much better now!

My last class of the day was High Comedy. Today's class was more lecture-based, since we were all getting to know our teacher and we all had to be taught what High Comedy was, anyway. Here's the short answer: Comedy that takes the society of its time's norms, rituals, and expectations, and mocks them by exposing their faults by means of language. It's funny because we know, in the world we live in, how this situation is "supposed" to be. Easy example would be Oscar Wilde and if you've never heard of him he's one of my favorite playwrights and you've now got a book to read/show to go see.

By the way, I don't want to go too into detail about my thoughts on everything as an actor, since I think that's harder to relate with and understand unless you're an actor yourself. So class reports may be more about the general subject we learned about or what we did, or just some general feelings of mine, but don't worry- I've got a notebook where I'm working on the nit-picky details.

After class, I made some errands with Olivia and Alexa to Boots and Argos, and then by myself to Rymans and Waitrose. "All the British stores, Rachel!!! How are we supposed to know what those are?!?" I hear you, though I'm positive I've talked about Argos and Waitrose before. Just to reiterate though:
Boots= Pharmacy, a la Rite Aid but with only the medicine and cosmetics section.
Argos= Costco meets the Apple Store
Rymans= Your street corner Staples
Waitrose= Your favorite grocery store, even if the other ones might actually be cheaper. Whatever, you don't care.

I've been working on homework since I got back, with the exception of reading a newspaper I picked up and making dinner. There's a lot of work to do, and most of it is either reading or on my feet. I did some reading tonight, but luckily I'll have a nice break tomorrow for practicing and more reading... and then maybe figuring out where I'm going to explore and what I want to do when I'm not in classes. I am in London, after all, and my student visa requires me to be kicked out of the country at some point. Need to make the most of it until then.

So, we're back to being busy, but what's new?

Fight on, friends