How Fortuitous

Welcome to the [Comfort] Zone.

Presentational Styles is the twinkling dew on my morning grass. It is the start to my day and the first ten minutes of class will determine my mood for the hours that follow. I like that.

Do you want to know why?

Because (thus far) the people who make up the class pass around this little orb of light that gives you the feeling that's comparable to that of the little claymation child when he uses a Puffs Plus tissue as a remedy for his little pointy red nose. I enjoy the thought of these 2 hours waking my body up and putting me in a good mindset in order to face the rest of the day's challenges.

Breathing and touching and improvising, oh my!

Kashi's breathing technique was a nice little treat. I realized I breath a lot from the chest and hopefully vaccum lung practice will aid in my acting breathing. I'll admit the first time I did it, I felt like a dementor sucked the life right out of me. But alas, I was nowhere near Hogwarts. (itisn'trealitisn'trealitisn'treal). But the SECOND time I did it- that's when I reaped the benefits of the exercise.

On a serious note, I want to say that I truly enjoyed improvising today. I feel like I learn something completely new and exciting every time I partake in it. These activities trigger something in my brain that says "Quick! Relate to the scene!" and this trigger gets faster and faster the more I do improv... if that makes sense.

Kashi said something today that kind of stuck with me. As we were going around the circle, attempting to tell the story of the Three Little Pigs using different genres of....stuff, she said: "Don't think." Now, I have the tendency to overthink things-- just in general. Someone asks me a fairly simple question and I sift through the crap in my brain in order to produce the most valuable answer. But that's what everyone does, right? The problem is that I have a lot of crap* up there and it takes me, personally, a heck of a while to sift through all of it. Then I end up stumbling over my words and doubting myself and it's just a mess.

Moral of the story: I have a hard time just going with my first instinct; the thing that pushes its way to the front first. I'm working on it.

*When I say crap, I don't mean the full numerical definition of pi or the solution to a Rubik's Cube. I mean I absorb a lot of CRAP.

And now for something completely different...

Have you ever read Naked by David Sedaris? He is a gem and a half. I found something that might interest those who are involved with R & G... or just have a sense of humor.

"I received a copy of Shakespeare's collected plays...Reading the words made me feel dull and stupid, but speaking them made me feel powerful. I found it best to simply carry the book from room to room, occasionally skimming for fun words I might toss into my ever fragrant vocabulary. The dinner hour either became unbearable or excruciating, depending on my mood:

'Methinks, kind sir, most gentle lady, fellow siblings all, that this barnyard fowl be most tasty and succulent, having simmered in its own sweet juices for such a time as it might take the sun to pass, rosy and full-fingered, across the plum-colored sky for the course of a twilight hour...Hear me out, fine relations, and heed my words, for methinks it adventurous, and fanciful, too, to saddle mine fork with both fowl and carrot at the exact same time, the twin juices blending together in a delicate harmony which doth cajole and enliven mine tongue in a spirit of unbridled merriment!'

"I had the drama bug and Lois had a car...I called her the moment I learned the visiting actor had scheduled a production of Hamlet...We auditioned, and because we were the youngest and least experienced, Lois and I were assigned the roles of the traveling players Hamlet uses the bait his uncle Claudius...Our fellow cast members were in their twenties and thirties and had wet their feet in such long-running outdoor dramas such as The Lost Colony and Tender Is the Lamb...I worshiped these people. Lois slept with them. By the second week of rehearsal, she had abandonded Fortibras for Laertes, who, she claimed, had a "real way with the sword." Unlike me, she was embraced by the older crowd, attending late-night keg parties with Polonius and Ophelia and driving to the lake with the director while Gertrude and Rosencrantz made out in the backseat."

-Katie