Yeah, I tripped

If you've been following, I was in EB's fall production of Pride and Prejudice as the wonderfully pretentious (but really a softy on the inside) Mr. Darcy.  This I'm going to cite as my reason number one for my lack of posteral activity.  I realized going into drama that it would be a time commitment, but I had never really experienced what "Tech Week" meant (hell) until this year.  Rewind all the way to three weeks ago: that week was our week of rehearsal-until-seven-pm.  That week I discovered that my inability to focus on homework when there were so many fun and distracting people around me was definitely going to bite me in the ass.  After night 3 of staying up way past my bed time to get all my work done, I decided to get a little more efficient.  I managed to get a little more sleep, but I was still woefully unprepared for what was to come.

I had heard of Tech Week only in agonized groans and slightly annoyed explanations up until that point ("No, I can't hang out, I have tech week." "That sounds like fun, but I won't have time, it's tech week.")  Monday night I finally got home around 10:30ish, exhausted and having managed to complete pretty much no homework at all.  I soldiered on though, finished my work, and slogged through school on Tuesday.  Tuesday night wasn't as bad (I had started to get used to this little sleep), and practice that night came with the added bonus of getting our costumes.

As Vikky aptly pointed out, my character was a little bit of a costume prostitute (those weren't exactly the words she used, but I have to think of the children).  I had three jackets and five vests to wear throughout the play, although I never had as crazy a costume change as some of the girls.  There were dresses sitting back stage for Kat, Anna, and Devin to jump into in between their scenes, but I got to leisurely put on my vests and jackets in the cast room.  The costumes were very cool, and I'm definitely thinking of bringing back the mutton chops, swept back hair, and cravat look for the 21st century (I swear it would be sick with a vest and jeans).

A quick dress rehearsal was all we managed Tuesday, and we didn't even have the time to finish.  Wednesday I took a mental health day from school, and came in for my last drama rehearsal (potentially ever, at least at the high school).  Wednesday's rehearsal consisted of a rehearsal and then a dress rehearsal, and just before getting on stage for my first scene of the dress rehearsal, I realized that the next time I was standing where I stood, I'd be going in front of an audience.  That rehearsal was pretty terrible for me; I forgot lines, nearly laughed at a bad time, and to top it all off was my wonderful screwup of Kat and my final scene.

Spoiler alert: if you haven't read Pride and Prejudice yet, Darcy and Elizabeth kiss at the end.  And of course, that kiss was the final scene of our play.  It was a romantic moment, Kat and I at down center, the lights beginning to dim and the spotlight highlighting us.  We said our last few lines, I took her hands, took a step closer to her, and tripped into our kiss.  Oops.  Neither of us could hold it, and we both cracked up mid-kiss.  I do have to say though that the trip was not entirely my fault; our stage rotated, it was made of three sets built on essentially a giant lazy susan with platforms built in front.  Where the lazy susan met the platforms there was a gap of about two inches, and weight on either side would push one side down, leaving a height gap as well.  That night we happened to end up right along that gap, and I didn't realize that my foot settled into the gap during the last few lines.  I tripped into the kiss that was supposed to be our finale the night before my first performance ever.  But then Jon told me something that managed to make the whole trainwreck of that dress rehearsal seem like a good thing: "Messy dress good show."

It turned out Jon was right.  Our opening night was great, even though there were a few mistakes here and there.  I had the jitters, of course, although I managed to talk myself down for the most part.  Kat's coping mechanism was pacing in circles, which actually managed to distract me from my own nerves.  My first scene went fairly well, except for the teacups.  When I get nervous, my hands shake.  Perfectly normal reaction, but it can look pretty bad if you're holding a little notecard (a la my closing argument for Mock Trial a few years ago) or if you're holding a teacup.  With a little saucer.  When the two met, there was a nice little china 'clink', but combined with my tremors that 'clink' turned into Morse code.  I tried my best not to let it phase me, but lifting the teacup to my mouth I was sure that I was obvious that I was shaking.  I felt better as soon as I got off stage and Zach turned to me and said "those teacups were a bad idea."  At least I wasn't alone!  After that, I decided that my shaking was a "character choice," because I had entered the scene pretending to be cold anyway.

The rest of the first show was amazing fun.  I sat backstage and listened to the lines, the laughs, and the drama, loving every minute of it.  Of course, I managed to mess up some of my lines when proposing to Kat for the first time, but the scene was still one of my favorite scenes.  I loved acting the moment when the reality of the rejection sets in, and the hurt and regret can't be covered with anger or arrogance any more.  Walking past Kat, turning and saying "I wish you.. every happiness," and then closing the door was a powerful moment, but my favorite moment of all was the pause, and then the look back at the door, overwhelmed by what just happened.  It was such a fun, emotional scene to play that I would actually get back to the cast room still a little shaken.  Those were the moments that made me love this play, for the love story and even for the very British, dry humor.

Every night after that first show got better for me, as my nerves started to fade and the play became more important than my fear.  I probably owe a lot of that confidence boost to the reception I got after the show on the first night.  I'd only ever experienced the "congratulate the actors as the come out from backstage" from the congratulate-or side, never the congratulate-ee side.  So when I saw my friends and got a (great) group hug, I realized how much we had accomplished as a cast.  After every performance, hearing "good job!" "you were great!" "that was spectacular!" didn't inflate my ego, it made me proud to be part of the beautiful thing that the group of people I had spent countless hours with for the past months created.  So a special thanks to Kat and Becky for convincing me to take the plunge, to the all the drama seniors who welcomed me into the drama family, and to everyone who made that experiences one of the best I've ever had.  You're all amazing people, and whether or not I do the Spring musical, I'll always love the time I spent with you all.

Oops.

Wow, so it's been about three weeks since my last post!  I realize I've been totally remiss in my blogging responsibilities, but I promise I'll make it up to you all with at least two posts about my crazy last few weeks.  Between the play and family situations, I've barely had time to sit and think let alone blog.  So here goes, first post coming up shortly!

When We Were Little

My friend Steven just posted some pictures of us when we were in second grade:

We were doing a competition called BrainQuest (tagline: "It's O.K. to be Smart!"), which was like trivia questions.  We had three classes in second grade, and each one had someone representing it: Steven, Mike, and I were the three who got picked.  It was a lot of fun, and I won at the school level, but got whooped at the regional level (I was never all that good at trivia, sorry Academic Team).  

These pictures are a fun reminder of how much (and how little) we've all changed since we were little kids.  There are always a bunch of people on Facebook with profile pictures of them as little kids, and now with the "memories" section on Facebook I've been seeing old photos pretty often.  I was rocking that plaid button up shirt and the bangs, Steve had the up-do and the vest, and Mike looked very little.  Appearance-wise, we've all changed a lot.  My hair is longer and curly now, Steve's is shorter, and we're all a lot taller (although even then I was the tallest).  But looking deeper than appearances is different.  I was a nerd then and I'm a nerd now, but I don't know if Steve or Mike would say the same thing.  I feel like I've gained a lot of confidence, and I'm much more comfortable with who I am than I was in second grade (I probably didn't even know who that was back then).  I'm more outgoing and (maybe) less weird.

I don't think I'm this kid anymore, 

although I still love wearing capes and the curls are making a comeback

I feel like everybody has changed since we were little.  We're shaped by our experiences and our friends; some people turn into nerds (cough Amy cough), some people turn into athletes, and some people end up with a not so great crowd.  Whether the changes are for better or for worse, life changes us.  Now we're facing the next step in our lives: college.  What I really wonder is how much that will change me.  I don't really know what I want to major in, and really in the long run I only have a vague idea of what I want to do with my life.  College is a different world, and as much as I've had tastes of it, I've always had the understanding at the summer programs that there was an end that was very close.  At the summer programs I wasn't starting a new life, I was just experimenting.  But getting to college, as I've talked about, is an opportunity to reinvent ourselves.  

What would it be like if I could meet the old me and the future me?  How different would we be?  What could we tell each other?  Sadly, time is linear as far as we're concerned, so I'll never get an answer to those questions.  But I can always try to remember who I was and how far I've come.

Your thoughts:

Is it really O.K. to be smart?

How have you changed since you were a kid?

How do you think college will change you?

What would you say to your future self, and what do you think he/she would say to you?

Food for Thought

I'm going to start adding a new section at the bottom of my posts, inspired by Anna.  It'll be a few discussion questions to get some more comments going.  I know a lot of you visit, but don't leave comments, so hopefully this will give you guys something to comment on!  Comments are really satisfying, I like thinking that my posts are doing more than just being read, that they're also provoking thought!

Your thoughts:
Should my questions look like this?
What should I call the section? (because I don't want to steal Anna's name for it)
Will you answer the questions I put up?

My UPenn Visit!

We had off today and yesterday for NJEA conferences, so I seized the opportunity and took the train down to Philly to spend some time at the University of Pennsylvania!  I took courses there in the summer of '09 (see here), and since a lot of my friends (including my roommate) were a year older than me, I now have a bunch of friends who are freshmen at Penn.  I took the train from New Brunswick to Trenton, and then from Trenton to 30th Street Wednesday night and met my roommate Matt at the station.  Matt was nice enough to let me stay in his roommate, and I met his new roommate David, who is a very cool guy.  Wednesday night I ate dinner at Beijing (terrible Chinese college food that's way cheap) with Ellen, James, and Matt, and then hung out in Matt's room.  Abe came and joined us a little later in the night, and we talked for the rest of the night about politics and college stuff.  I slept on an airbed that Matt's parents had brought a few weeks earlier, so I brought sheets and was actually pretty comfortable.

Thursday was classes, starting with Astrophysics with Prof. Bernardi and then Russian History with Prof. Holquist.  Astrophysics was a lot of fun, we talked about stars and how we analyze things like distance, temperature, and luminosity.  It was a surprising amount of math and geometry, which I found really cool, although I guess not so surprising once you realize that it's astrophysics. Russian History was really intense, and in that class more than Astro I could tell that I had missed a good part of the class, probably because I caught Astro just as they were starting a new unit.  The rest of the day was pretty relaxed, I ate lunch with Matt, Arielle (another friend from the summer), and Arielle's boyfriend Kevin.  Fun times, and then I went to talk to Prof. Sen. about recommendations and all that jazz.  It was nice to catch up with him again, he's a really nice guy and was an excellent professor (not to mention that he advises for the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics department, which is likely the major I'll be pursuing).  The rest of the day was pretty relaxed again; we went to Commons for dinner with Lizzy, one of Matt's floormates.  It apparently was national apple harvest day, so they had wicked (wicked) desserts.  Strudel, pie, little iced cakes, muffins, turnovers, and vanilla ice cream with hot apples and cinnamon.  Shwow.  Glad to know that dining won't be a problem.

Friday was Biological Basis of Behavior with Dr. Medina pretty early in the morning.  I went to breakfast with James (it was his class) and then went to lecture, which was pretty short, only about an hour.  The lecture was a guest lecture on the neurological basis of sleep, which was very cool (and ironic because I was pretty tired).  The only bad thing about the guest lecture aspect was that I didn't get to hear Dr. Medina lecture, but it seemed like a very cool class nonetheless.  On my way back I bumped into Bhargavi, a girl from EB who was two years older than me.  It was really coincidental, we were both just going through the quad gates at the same time, so we had lunch together at Houston Market, the a la carte dining hall.  I left around 3:10, barely missed the 3:31 train from 30th Street Station because there was traffic and had to wait for the 3:49.  When I got to Trenton though, the announcer gave us the wrong info about the train to New Brunswick, which was actually on a *different* platform that wasn't accessible from where we were.  There was a whole platform full of people who missed the 5:03 train as a result, and we all had to wait until the 5:49 train, which was not fun.  I got home eventually though, and it's not like I was in any hurry.

My trip was a lot of fun, and I definitely know UPenn is still a really strong choice if I get in.  Really, UPenn is my first choice, but I didn't apply early decision because I didn't want to be locked into it if I get in.  I want to see what kind of money I get from other schools, see where else I get in, and just generally play the college game.  I seriously hope that the decision not to ED won't bite me in the ass in the future; I'm a legacy, which helps the most when applying early, and if I don't get in regular I'll probably always blame the fact that I didn't apply early.  Penn is a great school, Philly's a cool city, and I'm more than excited for college.  The only bad news is that I've got the whole rest of senior year to go (plus applications, guh).  Visiting has gotten me more excited, and hopefully it will motivate me to do some more really good work on my applications!

Signatures

So Anna and I were not paying attention in IPLE today and instead were practicing our signatures.  Anna was enjoying my fountain pen, and I was struggling to make my signature more consistent (Anna had the opposite problem, hers was "too neat").  I thought it was funny though, that I was trying to make my signature more neat while she was trying to make her signature more messy, even though both of our signatures really fit our personalities.  Signatures are very obvious badges of who we are, they represent us on legal documents and are just another level of personality on our names, which are already a big part of our identities (as I discussed here).  Reasonably, I want my signature to be consistent and cool, with some nice swoopy-ness and the right amount of messy.  I want it to reflect my personality, so it should be kind of big and maybe loopy.  Importantly though, I want to get it good enough that I sign it the same way every time.

For me though, consistency isn't that easy, because even my handwriting has a decent amount of inconsistency.  My handwriting depends on the pen I'm using, the paper it's on, my mood, lots of things.  But my handwriting is definitely reflective of my personality.  I like using a thick inky pen, and I have fairly slanted writing with strong vertical lines.  When I'm done writing on a page it looks really imposing and illegible, with a lot of slanted lines that stand out prominently.  It's a kind of quasi-cursive that's kind of loopy, very fluid, and pretty fast as well.  But I can't seem to manage to reproduce that effect on my signature.  My signature always somehow seems to be contrived, or too controlled, or too messy, or too something.  It's never the same, and it's never really right.

While I'm still jealous that Anna's handwriting is so neat and pristine, I still like my handwriting.  It's loose, it's fun, it's just a little bit aggressive, and I like to think it's very me.  Thank goodness though that I don't have the practice that I did last year though, handwriting 3+ pages of notes a little faster than weekly for APUSH.  That is an experience I'd rather not repeat.

Holmes

I've always been a big fan of Sherlock Holmes.  I read all of the books when I was a kid and I've always loved mystery stuff.  The BBC is awesome, and early House had a really good Sherlock Holmes vibe to it.  So I was naturally super excited when I saw that the BBC was making a new version of Sherlock!  It's set in the 21st century, but it still has a distinctly old school British feel.  I really really suggest it, it's awesome and it's free online.  Here's the link.

Try it out!