It's that time again. Actually it was that time about 6 months ago when I was getting ready to leave for New York - I started a blog with the thought of keeping everyone up to date with my happenings without having to send 12 emails a day...because as much as I dearly love the people in my life, I do not have time to send 12 emails a day - as you know by now, I barely have time for one, which is why my communication is overall fairly shit and if you don't have Facebook access you're completely at sea re: my welfare/whereabouts/interest in your life.
I began my blog in all earnest but as you can see I made it to two posts and then stopped. There were issues - missing laptops, dodgy internet, time management, stress stress stress, but I've decided enough is enough - my guilt at being such a bad friend/blood relative is only adding to the stress. This way I am at least able to give you a little of my life and stay firmly connected to those most dear to me (and any other randomers who care to take an interest, dear or not.)
I had a great conversation with someone the other day. I aired to them all my fears about losing contact with people, being a bad friend etc and was given the advice to make it a rule to send just a short message every week, all at once, to the people I care about giving them the latest on life - doing it little and often is much better than doing sporadic huge emails. A lot of wonderful patient people have received messages from me that say 'exhausted/no time, proper reply later' only to wait yet another 2 weeks for anything in-depth, because sometimes I do quite literally come home too exhausted to even remember what's going on let alone tell someone else about it.
So, here I am taking the advice of that person. This will be something of a monster post to get us all caught up. From here on out you'll be able to dip in and out instead of going 5 weeks thinking 'what the fudge is she doing over there?' and...yeah. Plus, you know what? I used to write. I used to read books. Whenever I've had a blog going I've spent time looking up background stories of things I discovered that week and checking the news and stuff. Been a long time since I did any of those things with real vigour, so I'm hoping that by doing this I will force my brain to re-engage with life OUT THERE.
Let's do some pictures.
Welcome to AMDA, starring:My class D2 (previously D1, incidentally also my tutor group at school, funny huh)
Chuck (aka Chulsoon - from South Korea); Claire (Canada), Stephen, Jessica (sadly departed - she went home to Nebraska but is back in NYC soon to go to NYU) Joseph (Canada), Lola, Adam (BRITISH INVASION) Molly, Darius, Sivan (Israel), Teresa, Isabel (Brazil), Cassie. And me. There's one person missing from this picture and that's Mark Parello (not to be confused with Mark Verity aka Mr Teresa - see below).
Starring (heavily) my international family.Joris (Netherlands), myself, Maite (Spain), Anel, Lola and Cristina (Mexico)
My first friends at AMDA are still my best friends at AMDA, which is nice.
Also featuring (in no particular order) Shag the fat cat, Katie and Laura, Snowball, Kayley, some rock musicians, chocolate cake, Mark of Teresa'nMark fame, a Blue Man, Gene Kelly, the mighty Charles and ALL OF THESE PEOPLE.
PLUS a lot more people - other classmates, dance workshop crew, teachers, miscellaneous cats and dogs, hobos (they like my style), baristas, Irish blokes, War Horse cast members, eccentrics and fabulous folk.
That's some of the people in my AMDA New York life. I am very thankful for them because they all contribute to the endless mission that is getting me through the week in one piece. There's always a lot of fallout - emotional drain, physical pain, insane in the membrane...we go hard! But little things that affect me negatively never become big things because there's always this army of fantastic people to take care of me. I get fed by the more culinary-inclined ones, I get health advice from a registered nurse, confidence boosts and lessons in being fierce from the Hispanics and Latinas, we share clothes, shoes and recently, a plunger. I'm very lucky to be able to lean so heavily on them - it would be very easy to get sick of everyone, since we do everything together - everything. Live, eat, study, socialise, work, rehearse, explore, drink. Of course it's good to have breaks now and then and have your own space but in general I am more than happy to stick with my friends all the time - that's why they are my friends.
Oh, I could just gush about the joy that is my AMDA family but I'll be here forever. Aside from the people, my life is extremely full. School keeps us busy. They expect a lot from you but they also expect you to expect the most from yourself, which I like. Dim people will not succeed. This is a policy I appreciate immensely...I can't be doing with stupid people. Dim people are people who don't pay attention, or who don't ask questions when they don't understand. Or think they can coast through. I have become more and more emphatic in my views on this since being here. It's not question of academic prowess or ability - how's your spelling, how's your maths? It's about how you deal with the World, how you live your life. In this kind of environment it becomes apparent very quickly if you are a savvy type or not, and therefore if you will survive or not. In this realisation I myself have become, I feel, more savvy with my self-image, my ability to adapt to situations, my work ethic. My favourite teachers have always been and remain the ones who, instead of saying 'you don't understand? Here, let me help you...we will take as long as you need to catch up' say 'you don't get it? You'd better go and figure it out then, or ask some pretty intelligent questions, fast'. This also applies in dance classes - you can't do the step? Ok, go work it out, use the technique you've learned. Failing that, get a more realistic understanding of your abilities and ask to be moved up or down accordingly. On that subject I must give a brief but heartfelt SHOUT of gratitude to the mighty mighty Vanessa Golborn School of Dance - not just because they taught me my whole life but because they taught me to teach myself, self-correct and be aware of my own bad habits and issues. Also they taught me the mechanics of everything as I learned it - it's not just 'put this leg here and do this with this muscle' it's 'do those things because then this will happen and your life will be much easier'. AND they made sure I have a good dance vocabulary which a lot of people here do not have. I often feel intimidated by the dance majors here who can all fly, have 190 degree sidesplits and do 6 pirouettes instead of just 3. What gets me through is remembering that I have good training and knowledge so if I apply what I know then ok, I'm not a gymnast who can do all the acro and spectacle, but I can do the actual dance bits just as well as any of them. (And I'm cracking out decent triples on a fairly consistent basis, as of pretty recently so, I'm getting there. Also, funny thing - while some of them have crazy box splits or developpes they can't get their bodies flat to their legs whilst limbering. I can...teeheehee...I have to celebrate the small victories!)
The discrepancies between a general US and a European education continue to abound. Again, can't go too far or will not be able to stop, but suffice to say god bless Merrie Englande and her schools, her Shakespeare, her all-round education and her trad subjects. Thanks to that (and also probably thanks to my own family background, the things that were always on the peripheries of my childhood) I am able to instantly understand the Robert Louis Stephenson, Bard of Avon himself, Gilbert and Sullivan, lyric imagery, symbolism, etc etc etc that pops up on a day to day basis. Praise be to my English teachers and various drama figureheads for introducing me to all that stuff and instilling it as second nature.
So I spose this isn't the most comprehensive overview of AMDA life and my experiences so far, but it's a good start. Eventually I hope there'll be some kind of footage, for your viewing pleasure (and to prove that I am singing and dancing and stuff, not just hanging out with fun people and cooking all the time) BUT in the meantime do please know that I am thinking of everyone in Blighty all the time and how I wish I could share some of the day to day stuff with you (sometimes you need the gleaming rapier of Brit irony to slice through all the oh-so Amurrr'can stuff). And that although I do consider New York City home, I consider my little piece of Hampshire countryside just as much home and miss it and all that it encompasses, sometimes a LOT.
Bed calls...if I could work out a way to turn sleep into profit, I'd be a millionaire because it is the most valuable commodity around, here in the weird world of musical theatre. Second most is coffee, third is time. Fourth is food...maybe. Wait...no it isn't, it's rehearsal space, especially available dance rooms. Then food. Then lipstick.
Big big BIG love to my family, friends and teachers/wise people in England.
This is the Aretha Franklin version of song I've been assigned in my musical theatre class. This version is just something else...but the song itself is beeeaaautiful and there are many other wonderful renditions by Ella Fitzgerald, kd lang, Greg Porter, Maxine Sullivan, etc etc etc.
Oh, I could just gush about the joy that is my AMDA family but I'll be here forever. Aside from the people, my life is extremely full. School keeps us busy. They expect a lot from you but they also expect you to expect the most from yourself, which I like. Dim people will not succeed. This is a policy I appreciate immensely...I can't be doing with stupid people. Dim people are people who don't pay attention, or who don't ask questions when they don't understand. Or think they can coast through. I have become more and more emphatic in my views on this since being here. It's not question of academic prowess or ability - how's your spelling, how's your maths? It's about how you deal with the World, how you live your life. In this kind of environment it becomes apparent very quickly if you are a savvy type or not, and therefore if you will survive or not. In this realisation I myself have become, I feel, more savvy with my self-image, my ability to adapt to situations, my work ethic. My favourite teachers have always been and remain the ones who, instead of saying 'you don't understand? Here, let me help you...we will take as long as you need to catch up' say 'you don't get it? You'd better go and figure it out then, or ask some pretty intelligent questions, fast'. This also applies in dance classes - you can't do the step? Ok, go work it out, use the technique you've learned. Failing that, get a more realistic understanding of your abilities and ask to be moved up or down accordingly. On that subject I must give a brief but heartfelt SHOUT of gratitude to the mighty mighty Vanessa Golborn School of Dance - not just because they taught me my whole life but because they taught me to teach myself, self-correct and be aware of my own bad habits and issues. Also they taught me the mechanics of everything as I learned it - it's not just 'put this leg here and do this with this muscle' it's 'do those things because then this will happen and your life will be much easier'. AND they made sure I have a good dance vocabulary which a lot of people here do not have. I often feel intimidated by the dance majors here who can all fly, have 190 degree sidesplits and do 6 pirouettes instead of just 3. What gets me through is remembering that I have good training and knowledge so if I apply what I know then ok, I'm not a gymnast who can do all the acro and spectacle, but I can do the actual dance bits just as well as any of them. (And I'm cracking out decent triples on a fairly consistent basis, as of pretty recently so, I'm getting there. Also, funny thing - while some of them have crazy box splits or developpes they can't get their bodies flat to their legs whilst limbering. I can...teeheehee...I have to celebrate the small victories!)
The discrepancies between a general US and a European education continue to abound. Again, can't go too far or will not be able to stop, but suffice to say god bless Merrie Englande and her schools, her Shakespeare, her all-round education and her trad subjects. Thanks to that (and also probably thanks to my own family background, the things that were always on the peripheries of my childhood) I am able to instantly understand the Robert Louis Stephenson, Bard of Avon himself, Gilbert and Sullivan, lyric imagery, symbolism, etc etc etc that pops up on a day to day basis. Praise be to my English teachers and various drama figureheads for introducing me to all that stuff and instilling it as second nature.
So I spose this isn't the most comprehensive overview of AMDA life and my experiences so far, but it's a good start. Eventually I hope there'll be some kind of footage, for your viewing pleasure (and to prove that I am singing and dancing and stuff, not just hanging out with fun people and cooking all the time) BUT in the meantime do please know that I am thinking of everyone in Blighty all the time and how I wish I could share some of the day to day stuff with you (sometimes you need the gleaming rapier of Brit irony to slice through all the oh-so Amurrr'can stuff). And that although I do consider New York City home, I consider my little piece of Hampshire countryside just as much home and miss it and all that it encompasses, sometimes a LOT.
Bed calls...if I could work out a way to turn sleep into profit, I'd be a millionaire because it is the most valuable commodity around, here in the weird world of musical theatre. Second most is coffee, third is time. Fourth is food...maybe. Wait...no it isn't, it's rehearsal space, especially available dance rooms. Then food. Then lipstick.
Big big BIG love to my family, friends and teachers/wise people in England.
This is the Aretha Franklin version of song I've been assigned in my musical theatre class. This version is just something else...but the song itself is beeeaaautiful and there are many other wonderful renditions by Ella Fitzgerald, kd lang, Greg Porter, Maxine Sullivan, etc etc etc.
