Mommy, I've got a boo boo :(

[Monday, 27th February 2012]

Somebody needs to fix that damned broken plug down at the Experimental Theater.

I mean the plastics are bloody sharp, and somebody could get hurt, like me. Well maybe I'm just that accident prone. Bleh. That's not cool.

Anyway, back to theater. Well today wasn't exactly like the same old Mondays. My dad was waiting for me in college, because we have to go somewhere else right after my class. So yea, after delivering Rey's package of 16 photocopied books, I went to finish up my applications, and find my dad. We were talking as usual as he ate his breakfast and pretty soon, my two dodgeball girlfriends, Reena and Grace came about. So we chatted until its 7.45 and I had to go.

Leanne, Vhina, Wilson, Wei Lim and David were there. Apparently I was so called "late", because I always come extra late. Haha. The door was locked so we had to wait until Rey come and open the door for us, and pretty soon he did. So we went in, settle down and class soon started.

After the usual briefing of the upcoming assignments, we began the warm ups; The usual walking in space. As a warm up, we had to tickle each other. No, that's not cool. I'M TICKLISH. So I was going around trying to not get tickled when at the same time trying to tickle others. Obviously I received a few tickles from other people too. Then it happened. I was just around the broken plug area, and I didn't see it was there. There were some people nearby, so I went in to tickle them, at the same time, they too tried to tickle me. So as I was dodging, I didn't see the broken plug and my toe bang to it. As a result, I have two cuts on my toe. Ouch. But that's not the point.

Then our work begins.

The Keyword for today is Status.

Status meaning high and low status. I've done this back in theater 101, so its not something so unfamiliar. But because they were Ms Pat's students around as well, he has to go through that again.

So we started with walking around, and we were given a number. I was number 1. At first the number 1s had to put their legs slightly wider apart, chest out, head held high. This was the stature of a high status person. Number 2s had to put their chest inwards, head down, leg slightly closer together. This was the stature of the low status person. At first we walked around like this, and then we, the number 1s had to initiate eye contact with the number 2. When I made eye contact with the number 2s, I felt superior, and to be honest, it felt good! Maybe because in some ways or another I have been at a higher status more than I have been a low status. Maybe; I'm not sure though. Then we had to make eye contact with the number 1s. When I looked to the number 1s, there were a sense of hostileness, and competition among the number 1s. It was as if, we're trying to push each other down. But others also felt acknowledgement.

Then we had to switch roles. So I had to play a low status person. To be honest, I felt somewhat miserable in this one. It didn't feel really good, because it's like the higher status were trampling all over you and you can't do anything about it. It felt like the higher status were looking down with pity. Although when I did make eye contact with those of the same status as me, it felt better. Still somewhat down, but in a way, I felt like I knew I wasn't alone. There were some degree of acknowledgement there, and it felt good. I could feel like naturally there were some little smiles escaping the corner of my lips.

Then after a short discussion, we were back in our groups again. This time the high status were gangsters, picking on the lower status nerds. I was part of the gangster. Damn I didn't know how to be a gangster. Not one and never gonna be one. So I did what I thought gangsters would do. Put my hands in my pocket, and walk proud as ever. Then it was time to go and pick on someone. I chose to pick on Lih Seng (woopsss). I was like, yea I need you to do my homework for me, I want it by tomorrow, if not you'll pay. Haha. Then, we switched status again. This time the high status were the rich kids and the low status were the poor kids. I didn't know what to say to them, other than yea good for you and nodding to them, and start to feel bad about myself, because I can't have what they have.

Then it was a status switched again. High status, smart, low status, stupid. But there was a catch. We're besties, so we have to be nice to each other. I was the high status one, and we had to pick a low status person to talk to. Looking around, I saw Vhina without a partner, so I went up to her and started talking to her. We started talking about our grades, and I tried to make her feel better, and even offered to help her, so she could do better next semester. To me, this comes naturally, as I was in high school, the same scenario plays out. I had better grades compare to some of my friends and because I was good friends with them, I would try and help them out so they would do better. When they did ask me about my marks, I would feel bad telling them if I knew I had done better, in fear of making them feel bad. So, I would just say things like, "oh I think I did quite well", "I'm pretty happy with my results" etc.

Story of my life, well sort of.

Then it was time to switch. This time was all about beauty. I was low status and I was pretty conscious with my body because I have very big, urgh, butt? HAHA. But I do get that in real life. People comes up to me telling me I have big butts. Damn, whatever people, I have curves. Well, better than being completely flat right? And yea I did walked around, very shyly, and self conscious. What made it worse was that I had a crush on this guy, so I picked a guy and I started kind of following him around. OMG I sound like a stalker. Anyway, so I did that and then I had to go up to him and ask him out for the upcoming dance. OMG NOOOOOO!!! I have never done this in real life, because I'll be too shy to ask the guy or whatnot. URGH NOOO! But I had to do it, so I went up to Wei Lim, and I stopped him, and asked him if he wanted to go to the dance with me, very silently. I swear I couldn't even hear myself properly, I don't know how he heard me, but then he said YES!! YAY for me! I wanted to ask more but I swear I couldn't get the words out. I was so scared. So I simply said, "so I'll see you then?" and walked off. As I walked off, I took glances at him again. Awkward. I tell you when Rey asked us to shake out, I was feeling hot, I mean literally hot. I could feel the back of my neck and my face getting hotter. I was in character.

We had to grab a block and pair up next. I wanted to pair up with Leanne, but no same sex pairing, and we had to split up and look for someone else. I saw Adam's pair getting up from their block, so I quickly went to sit down with him. We had to make up a scene starting with a fixed set of lines. So me and Adam quickly went to practice. But man the time wasn't enough and we end up improvising halfway. My attention to detail was so bad. URGH. One of my worst performances man. But no worries in time. When one was suppose to be higher than the other in terms of status, I appeared to be matching him in terms of status. Which was a complete fail.

One thing I learned today. Rey won't watch if he can't hear what you're saying. The trio group didn't get to finish their skit because they were called because of their projection 3 times. Sooooo... ALWAYS PROJECT YOUR VOICE. Shouldn't be a problem for me, because I'm loud. Hehehe..

PROJECT. PROJECT. PROJECT

Calling you, Calling me

[Wednesday, 22nd February 2012]

I just realize how my title sounds like a song, but whatever.

So today is performance day and because some economania people who had an event on Friday removed the tape, I have to re-tape the whole area again. So there I was at 7AM taping the floor again. Maybe I should put in red there DO NOT REMOVE or something like that. I was done pretty quick, so Vhina didn't have to come.

Leanne came in pretty early too. 7.45 and she was in and it wasn't until 8.30 does the class start. So we both started talking and helped set up the back drop that serves as our door. Pretty soon, Lih Seng joined us and others began to join us.

The piano was there from Friday, they hadn't moved it back into the music room downstairs yet. So I started just messing about with it, and Adam soon came and played with it too. Once he was done Lih Seng took over. He started playing Someone Like You by Adele, to which Leanne and I started singing too. Rey soon walked in and well, we had to stop because class was about to start. He briefed us as usual and we had a short warm up and last rehearsal.

Then the performances started.

Valerie was again first. She did a call to Domino's Pizza. I thought that she was better than last week. But she didn't exactly pay a lot of attention to details and could have been better. Slowly one by one went on and performed their own skit. Again I was within the last 5 people to go.

I performed my skit, although instead of using the floor as my bed, I used 3 blocks to make the bed. I thought that wasn't a good idea, and I shouldn't have done that because I was very conscious that I was on a block, and was scared of falling off. I also thought that I could have been better in terms of my projection. Rey said that I did use the 4th wall, but not as much as he would liked it to, which means that I need to look to my fourth wall object more. The walk as well. I should have been more lazier. I didn't really feel that lazy, maybe because of my nervousness. He said he liked the book though, so that would be a plus point.

I need to again work on more detailing and rehearse my skit more. Filza's one was amazing and I see how much that extra rehearsal can pay off into my own skit. So I'm going to go and plan out my upcoming skit that involves 3 people! I actually can't wait to get this one started.

Rehealsal Notes - Assignment 3

So in this assignment we had to do a phone call.

So I had an idea of calling my mum saying how I need to stay back later. But problem was I have nothing to do when I make the call, whereas we had to be doing something as we make the call.

So I wrecked my brain trying to come up with another idea and voila, I found one. I was going to receive a call in the middle of the night where I'm trying to sleep.

So here's the object exercise:

Who am I?

- I am Celine, a college student, who just finished preparing for her music presentation and the paper assignment that comes with it. I'm tired, stressed out and not exactly in a good mood.

 

Where am I?

- In my room, just coming in from the toilet, preparing to sleep

What time is it?

- Around 1AM in the morning.

What surrounds me?

- The walls of my room, messy table, a bit messy bed, bright white light, doors to my toilet and to the living room.

What are my relationships?

- I want my bed, I want my sleep. I have a relationship with the caller, who is a friend of mine within my close circle of friends

What are the given circumstances?

- I need to sleep, but just as I was falling asleep I was woken up by an unexpected call from this friend

WHAT DO I WANT (objective)?

- I want to sleep and get some rest before the big day of presentation.

 

WHAT IS IN MY WAY (obstacle)?

- My friend needing help with his assignment

 

WHAT DO I DO TO GET WHAT I WANT (ACTION)?

- I lazily got up and helped him find what he needs, and then go to sleep.

And here's the script with the beats in it, mine you its not the Eric in our class.

>Enter the room< I opened the door< yawns< turns off the light to the bathroom>Go to sleep< walks to my bed < unravel the blanket < lies down < sleeps off

*Phone rings*

>Answer the phone< looked for the phone >I can't find it = turn my body around to the other side < answer the phone

Celine: <sleepily. Hello?

Eric: Hello, Celine?

Celine: uh huh?

Eric: You know the music assignment right?

Celine: Yea, what about the music assignment? <rubs eyes

Eric: What are we suppose to write in it?

Celine: Errm, she asks us to write about the musical elements. You know the melody, harmony, rhythm, beat, all those.

Eric: Did she talk about those?

Celine: Those are the things she's been talking the past few weeks.

Eric: Where in the book are those?

Celine: Urghhh, can't you find it yourself? <Kicks off the blanket, pull myself up. One sec, one sec. <walks towards the table< sits down by the chair< opens book< looks for the page. Err It's from page 2 to page 60.

Eric: 60 Pages long?!
Celine: Yea it's 60 pages long.

Eric: How am I going to get through that?!
Celine: You can always use the notes she gave us what.

Eric: Oh yea hor.

Celine: Anything else?

Eric: I think that's all. Thank yea. Good night.

Celine: Ok, night. <hang up.

>Go to sleep< walks towards the bed< puts phone down< lie down while pulling the blanket over < sleeps 

Seems pretty good to me. Hopefully Rey likes it. Let's just wait till Wednesday to find out! :D

Awkward~~~

[Monday, 19th February 2012]
[I've been lazy, as usual]

Monday morning, NO, theater, YES.

Ok let's start. I arrived at 8.45 as usual, earlier than last week at least, and guess what I found.

SOMEONE HAS TAKEN OFF THE MASKING TAPE!!

So that means I have to re-tape the floor again. That's not cool, that's not cool.

Well that aside, we started with the usual signing of our attendance, fixing our contact details etc. Now comes the good part.

We start with walking around in space, and as usual, making a sense of privacy, which was normal.
Then Rey started to make us look into the eyes of the people whom we past. That was still OK. Next was to tap the shoulder. I honestly didn't know where this was going, and I thought this was pretty normal. And next was to tap the heads of the people whom we past. Sucky thing is that I'm short! I can't simply tap other people's head without having to tiptoe or something. But it was still pretty normal to me, and it was great fun as we let out a few giggles and stuff (I don't think we should do that)

Then the awkward parts came. WE have to tap each other's backside. Yes, you heard me, BACKSIDE. That was awkward considering I'm in a male dominated class, and there were only like 5 girls. Obviously this was received with a bunch of laughter, but I suppose, this was to be expected to come out of Rey, and yea, we had fun, tapping each other's ass. Oh God that sounds wrong.

Next one was we're suppose to pair up. So I paired up with Leanne. This exercise we had to taunt each other, and chase after each other's backside. It was good. It was like one of those little children's game we played back when we were young. Screams, shouts, laughter could be heard inside that Experimental Theater, in that morning. Interesting exercise I must say.

And then we had to change pairs, and Rey doesn't want a one gender group. So I went with Lih Seng this time, and while our class was an odd numbered class that day, Zong Yong joined us to make a trio. At first I was like oh no. But I realized from being under Rey from theater 101, that it was just my brain trying to be safe. I quickly get rid of the thought and had fun instead. It was fun; we had this whole teamwork thing going on, where one taunts and the other spanks. Well I did receive a few spanks, but it wasn't an offending or anything. It was simply part of the fun. The following part was harder and one that I always dreaded, kind of. We had to do things in slow-mo. Man it was tough. I mean you always have that urge to speed up and stuff. But we learned something here, and that was to control our body, and sometimes let things happens. Once in a while we had to freeze and this is tough. I knew this since Theater 101, especially when you end up in an uncomfortable position.

Again, we had to switch partner. I was going to go with Vhina, but Rey told us it has to be a mixed group. So I looked around and end up partnering with Josh.  We both go way back since the Fall 2011 semester from sharing the same American Lit class. Again we had to do the whole tapping of the backside again, at slow-mo, and then Rey decided to add a word and we had to move according to the word. First word was Ballet. It was still OK I suppose. I mean we had to move gracefully, and having to do it in slow motion made it a little bit easier I suppose, and besides being someone who loves to dance, though untrained, it makes it all the more comfortable.

Next word was one that puts a lot, if not most of us off. The word was SEXY. Yes, SEXY. I suppose it was kinda expected, but doesn't mean that I was comfortable enough to do it. Again it took me a while to get used to it. But I think Josh and I did a pretty good job. LOL. I mean our faces were like literally centimeters away from each other. I was quite surprised that I wasn't scared or uncomfortable being that close to someone. Maybe it was because I'm already comfortable being around him. But if you tell me to do it outside theater class, OH HECK NO. Regardless, I suppose that wasn't kinda enough, as Rey commented our class being the most unsexy class at all. Well I suppose it will be, in time, in time.

Last but not least, was VIOLENCE. We accidentally sped up, and earning a little scolding from Rey. When we did slow down, man it was tough, because we had to fall on the ground and stuff. Maybe I should have given Josh more chance to push me down (whoopsies). Most of the time it was him falling down. But yea, I had to help him fall down, luckily he wasn't that big and wasn't something that I couldn't handle. In the end, I had to pretend kill him, and after that do an exit where I walked off as if nothing happened.

Being in a theater class it is important to be comfortable with each other, and this exercise is what it's helping us do. It's also teaching us to give and take, although I think I could and should have given more instead of taking so much. Next time I need to learn to give more chances for my partners. It's also about being in control of your body. Being in slow motion is hard because we don't have enough control of our body to do that. But I'm sure we will get better.

Well the next part, Rey had us relax down after an exercise. We laid down on the floor, relaxing and feeling our breaths go deep inside our stomach. It felt so good that I think I nearly slept. At some point I could feel my body felt so heavy that I was sinking through the ground. It was much faster than when I did it in Theater 101. Rey soon had us pairing up again, oh thank God otherwise I'm pretty sure I would have fallen asleep.

We sat down and had to stare at Rey. He then picked up his hands and we had to follow. It was hard to see, because I was pretty far from him and Teck Sern was blocking my view. But I could somewhat tell where his hands were going. We then had to turn to our nearest neighbor, and mine was Zong Yong. Josh, who didn't have a partner end up coming with us. We sat down in a triangle and stared at each other. I had to go back and forth from both Zong Yong and Josh. At first I didn't get anything at all. Slowly and slowly, I began to receive sadness from Zong Yong, at the point that I was going to tear up. I could feel myself choking. But from Josh, his stares was somewhat scary. I swear I didn't want to look at him, and I end up forcing myself to. Rey then wanted something to happen. I didn't feel it the first time. I saw Teck Sern getting up and sitting down by the benches. But I continued to stare at the two boys. The second time Rey asked for that, I felt that it was time to move. I got up, and made my way to the benches, and besides it was a good excuse to go to my bag and get my eye drop because my eyes were getting very dry. I sat down for a while there, as if thinking what to do. I still felt that choke in my throat. Soon I made my way back, and sat down with the boys, the same thing was still there. Thank God pretty soon, Rey called it off.

Through this exercise, I realized the importance of eye contact, and through your eyes it could reveal so many things. Though there was no changes visible, there were small, tiny changes that somehow changes my emotions. It was truly a great experience to be able to feel that.

Rey then told us about our upcoming assignment. The next one was to do a 2 minute skit of 3 phone calls and through those 3 phone calls, we had to play 3 different personas. I had a rough idea of what I'm going to do with mine. I was going to do a skit of receiving a call from someone I dislike, from someone I hadn't been in touch for a while and from my mum.

Well I can't wait for next week class, to see what Rey has in store for us. Something challenging would be nice. :D

SUCCESS!

[Wednesday, 15th February 2012]

First performance, yes you heard it, SUCCESS! At least I think so, and I was happy with the results.

Today was the day I dreaded the most for the past few days. It was the day of the showcase of our second object exercise, and it was my first time to show the class what I've got.

AND I WAS CRAZILY NERVOUS!

I came early, to sort out the acting space Rey asked for with Vhina, and with the help of Wilson who happened to be there early as well, we managed to finish it pretty fast. By 8 am most of the people came, some whining that they had forgotten class starts at 8.30. Makes no difference for me, I come to college like at 7 am everyday. I have no choice :(

Pretty soon Rey joined us and we began the usual routine. Taking attendance, small briefing and warming up. We had 10 minutes to warm up and I began with walking within the space, trying to get the feel of my upcoming performance. After a few minutes, I began to play with my props, getting use to the feel of it and practicing as if how I would do it if I was up on stage.

Pretty soon, the skits started. Valerie opened the day with hers. I thought it was ok, but majority of the time, she was giving her back to the audience, so I felt that was a little bit of a shame. Lih Seng's one was good, it was believable. As he was massaging his leg/knee, whatever, I could actually feel the pain on his knee as if it was on mine. He had some good sense work, but as he left the stage I didn't know what he was going to do and where he's going. I thought it felt as if like he just has to leave the stage because he has to. Wei Lim's train scene was nice. But I thought it was too draggy, Rey liked it though, but that's just what I thought.

I wasn't called until there were only 2 of us left. It was only me and Teck Sern left to do our skits. Damn I was scared. I didn't want to go last. Luckily, Rey called my name first, so I quickly set up and started my scene.

It didn't go the way I had rehearse it though. I was nervous, my hand was shaking, and my heart was beating very fast. Because of that it was pretty hard to coordinate my hand to put the hook inside the small openings of the knots, and I was I tell you, kinda frustrated. Finding out that I did something wrong pisses me off even more and finding there were tangles on my yarn doesn't help. I tried untangling it and it frustrates me even more that the tangles were unsolvable. GRR. So I stormed off.

Rey didn't comment much. But Lih Seng thought it shouldn't have been so tense and annoyed. But Rey did mention about the feeling coming from the action, which I assume I did. YAY! Another thing that Rey said was that I was focused! I couldn't be happier that I had some good remarks.

But because he didn't comment much, I didn't know what I had to work on. So I came up to him after I packed up and asked what I could have done better. He said that it would have been more interesting if I had actually expected the tangle more and be all like, "Not again", kind of thing. He also added it would have been more realistic if I had looked at the paper more. To add to that, I personally think, that if I hadn't been so nervous I could have done a better job.

Rey presented us with the third assignment. That is, we had to have a phone conversation. We can either give a call or receive a call. I have an idea of what I'm going to do already, I just need to script it and practice it. I'm going to do me calling my mum to let her know I was going to be back late, and don't pick me up at the usual time. She's not happy, so the scene will be about me trying to calm her and work out a solution. Hopefully it'll work.

 A piece by Roy Lichtenstein, one of my favorite pop artist

Rey did gave us some tips that is to listen and give pauses for the person to reply. Majority of bad actors doesn't give space when they are pretending to talk on the phone and it's fake. So I'm going to have to work on the pauses and the length of the pauses. I hope it'll turn out well! I still have to think of what to do when I have that phone call. Because we unconsciously do things when we're having a call such as fiddling with a pen or scribbling things. I'm thinking pen and paper, but those are so cliche and everyone's gonna do it. So I'm going to have to do more brainstorming since we need 3 props, phone not included.

So far I'm pretty happy with today, I just hope that I will improve in my next assignment!

Rehealsal Notes - Assignment 2

Assignment 2, the second assignment whatever you want to call it, would probably be the first solo performance I do in THTR102. And heck, I was nervous as hell!

I wanted to make it good, so I wrecked my brain trying to think of something. As I was discussing with Leanne about this assignment, I thought of  doing a putting make-up scene, where I screwed up and end up leaving without make-up on.

BUT, while I was at home in front of the computer, I saw the hat I was halfway making towards the end of the Winter break and inspiration strike!

HAHA, I just had to put this meme. Anyway, I had an idea of doing crocheting for my performance, and with the tangled yarns as the obstacle. So I was doing my crocheting as usual, and I made a mistake. Having to open it again, annoyed me. As I was redoing the stitches, the yarn became tangled because it wasn't rolled to a ball, and that pisses me off even more. I tried to untangle the tangles, but it was so tangled, that I couldn't work it out. Annoyed, I walked out of the room to get some fresh air.

This is what crocheting looks like :D

I didn't plan mine out much. I simply sat down, do what I felt is natural for me and then wrote the beats down. It came naturally for me for the crocheting part, because I do it a lot and I mean A LOT during the winter holidays. I thought by me starting inside the room would be better as it would have suggested that I have been inside the room for quite a while. The size of the beret that I was making was also quite big already, suggesting I have been working on it.

A few obstacles that came to me was that the yarns didn't get quite tangled up, so it took me longer to get to the tangles as I pull the yarns. I actually have no idea how to deal with this problem, so I kind of didn't work on it too much. Another problem was to know how many stitches I had opened. To counter this, I had to limit the number of stitches I opened to one group. I thought that this was a good number as I don't have to redo that many stitches and could be done pretty fast.

As I timed it, I sort of knew that I wasn't doing too much because I was actually doing pretty well in terms of timing. The timing were pretty close to 2 minutes; plus minus 10 seconds, which I thought was pretty good.

I actually liked this piece. I thought that it was different and it was something so natural and organic for me to do. So I hope that the others would like it too!

Highschool of Stereotypes

[Monday, 13th February 2012]

Monday. Urgh. But waking up early is the only urgh part of the day.

It's theater day! Yeepie!

When I arrived at the experimental theater, the people inside were already busy. They were moving the blocks, and the screens that we used. So I quickly put all my stuff down, took out the masking tape Rey asked me to bring last week, and quickly helped the rest of them. I was tasked to create an acting space by using those masking tape, which I'll be doing on Wednesday before class. Hopefully it'll be done by then.

So the usual stuff began. We took attendances, wrote down all our details, such as phone numbers, emails and blog pages. Then Rey explained about our next assignment, which is having to do a 2 minutes piece of us being alone in a room doing something. Difference is that we can go in and stay inside or start with us being inside and leave the room. He also pose another challenge for us. He wants our super objective to somehow change throughout the course of that 2 minutes. Which was quite challenging for me.

So we started with the activities. Again the ball and the Yes1 - Yes30 thing. This time we all got better and we managed to reach Yes30 within 5 tries. YAY!

Because we managed to do that, Rey upped the level. This time we had a distraction. It was quite like playing monkey in the middle at first. The first few did their distraction as if playing monkey in the middle. That was until Rey stopped and re-explained the whole thing. It was pretty fun and funny because we had to do different styles whenever another person takes over. When it was my turn to distract, I chose to be insulting. There were no hard feelings of course, but I did get a couple of "ohhhhhsss". But it was good fun, because I simply shout out whatever my mouth feels like shouting out. I actually felt a slight resentment towards the people surrounding me due to this character. There was a lot of spontaneity in it and I thought it was awesome.

More people acted as a distraction; there was a "slut", a "gay-who-couldn't-stop-laughing" and some others, and at some points we had to react to whatever they were doing to us. Then it was Lycel's turn. Lycel chose to play a cheerleader, who pretty much slept with everyone. At first we didn't have a character, and it was hard to react, because most of the time I didn't know how to react. But then Rey asked us to choose a character. I chose to be someone who completely resents her. I suppose something like her rival or what not. Some others chose to be a geek, some her lesbian partner, some gays, some nerds etc. I thought it was cool, some of the reactions are plainly based on what we know of the stereotypes. So from the audience point of view, it would have been very entertaining. Sadly though, the ball never got to me, so I didn't get the chance to act much. Don't worry there's always next time!

One thing that was particularly powerful was the scene between Lycel and Filza, and this scene was personally directed by Rey when they repeated it. Filza played this dark "witch" kind of character which I thought was awesome. I thought she played it really well. The basic storyline goes such that Rosanna (Filza) has some power within her and she sees things that haunts Amber (Lycel). She tried to help Amber but by turning her ugly. At first Amber tried to resist, but as she lets Rosanna affect her it became really strong. The atmosphere in the room completely changed to this dark, heavy feeling. You could feel how Amber was starting to get affected by this dark aura. It was chilling.

One thing that made it work was the silence.  Once again I was reminded how silence had worked wonderfully back in theater 101 in Winter 2011.

~ Silence is Golden ~

There were some problem with the acting. There were times when some of us were hesitating of what to do. This is because we were trying to think up of something to do. This wasn't new to me, but having left theater 101 for a year, I needed a reminder.

One solution would be to read their body language. Majority of communications among humans are through non-verbal medias such as body language. Rey demonstrated it by walking slowly and somewhat to me, intimidating way, and then asking me in a soft tone for the ball, to which I stupidly did on impulse replied by saying "No, its mine". Well I think its stupid.

But overall, I had fun today. It was great to be back in theater again. I hope I'll get to act more next time. Practice makes perfect after all right? I shall work on my second assignment and I hope he would like them!

He forgot about ME!!!

[Friday, 10th February 2012]

Yes He did. Sadly, but I'm kinda glad he did. (bad girl)

It was a Friday morning and theater class was scheduled at 8am and our first skit was due today. As usual we were early and pretty soon after I walked in, Rey got into the class. Nervous, I asked Leanne and Vhina what they were doing for the day, and then this was where I found out that what I did was wrong. Luckily, I had another idea, but I wasn't comfortable doing that idea because I didn't rehearse it much.

As the time pass by, everyone began pouring into the class and turns out half of the class didn't do the object exercise, so I had the choice of either sitting out or performing my skit. Still unsure, I thought I'll give it a shot.

After walking around in space, getting into the zone, those that prepared had to stand in a line. I thought I was second last in line. But when he asked to turn around, turns out I was second. I still didn't know what I was doing, that's why my entrance was very unclear as to what I was doing. I thought I would do me going to sleep and waking up, but again I thought that would be too much. Regardless I did it and I wasn't happy with it at all.

After getting our props we took turns to perform. Leanne had was chosen to go first, then the others follows. For some reason, Rey didn't call me and when he called the other person who weren't called, he said that it was the last one and we were running late.

Conclusion:

HE FORGOT ABOUT ME!!

But I was kinda glad, because I knew that even if I had gone and done mine, it wouldn't have worked out well. My original plan there were too many things that I tried to do within that 1 minute. Even though, I came up with another scene where I just do the bathroom part of it, it was unrehearsed and I don't think my acting would have been up to standard.

But regardless, even though I didn't perform mine, I learned a lot. That is don't try to do so many things at once, and focus on the little things. I particularly liked Teck Sern's tying-a-tie piece. I thought it was brilliant idea yet simple and could be done easily in 1 minute. I thought it was organic and natural thing to do. And to be honest the part where he screws up in the end and gives up, I thought that its a very natural thing to do. Don't ask me how to tie a tie, I would fail like terribly.

David's idea of his contact lenses coming out was something that I could relate to. I wear contacts and I HATE it when it drops out. But I thought that there were some things that were somewhat unnatural to do. Maybe because its the way that I do things. First of all, I never had an incident where both my contacts fell out at the same time, and when it does, I don't rub my eyes over and over again.

Also I learned that timing myself would be very important to see if you're doing too much or not. In my case, me going overboard on the time was an indicator that I was trying to do too much in that one minute.

Rushing out is cliche. Being late for something is cliche. So one thing that I have to do is to find a different reason to exit the area. Why is it tough? Because we tend to overlook other reason for having to leave the room. We find it natural.

Well, the new assignment would be slightly tougher, I bet. 2 minutes, 3 task and obstacles in it. I'm going to start planning and rehearsing and I'm sure its going to be better than my first one!

Rehealsal Notes - Assignment 1

And here comes the assignments.

In the first week, we were tasked to do a one minute skit of us doing something very simple. Well it had to have an entrance and an exit, something that I missed before the actual day that we had to show it, as well as being in one room (I have to admit).

So I started with finding out the daily things I do in life that's simple and can be done in one minute. So I thought maybe a waking up scene would be good.

I started with me on the bed, sleeping, when my alarm woke me up. Its 5am in the morning and a long day at college waited for me. It sucks. So being the lazy girl I am, I tried to go back to sleep again, but God forbids. Dragging myself out of the bed, I started washing my face and hand as well as rinsing my mouth.With still heavy eyes, I walked out of the room.

Seemed simple right? That's what I thought. At first I wanted to give it 10 seconds before I actually wake up, but when I timed it, the total time went overboard by 30 seconds. Not a good thing. But I experimented and turns out that 3 second of silence before waking up gives a decent timing.

Acting lazy and waking up in the morning isn't hard for me because I do it EVERY morning. I always would try to get back to sleep, but my conscience would work something up that I end up having to wake up anyway. But what was hard was the bathroom scene. I find it hard to imagine the tap and the bowl. Even though I touch it everyday, I never gave it much thought as to how the positioning was, how I turn the tap on and off. In reaction to that, I spent more time in front of the mirror looking at what I was doing, and working on the scene with the tap.

I had trouble as to how I was going to make my phone ring. I thought about asking someone from the audience to make a sound, but I didn't think that would be wise. But since my phone was a touch screen phone, I could make it as if it was by chance that my hand was on top of my phone and activate the sound myself.

I'm not so confident with this piece actually. I was scared that it wasn't good enough. Maybe partly it was because that it was the first time for me to be composing entirely by myself. I didn't have the time to go and meet up with friends due to a tight Thursday schedule and entirely no class on Wednesday. But I'm hoping it'll be good enough!

And I am back to the dream called life

No I have not blogged before. EVER in my life...

So I'm pretty proud of myself to start one.

Well partly because I rather be writing my thoughts than typing them out, but that's another story.

So, after a long one and a half months holiday, college starts again. But it wasn't exactly a relaxing holiday with university applications and such. Regardless it was somewhat productive I suppose.

But the most sucky part is that college starts on a TUESDAY. WHY Taylor's WHY? I want my theater class on Monday. But yea, that's life, doesn't always go your way especially when you're in Taylor's.

And after a long week that seemed to drag on forever, Friday finally came. The only thing that could make me jump out of my bed at 5am on a Friday morning is a THTR102 class. Yeepeee~!

Let's just skip to the good part. :D

Well, I was pretty nervous going into the class, since I don't know who is in that class. Sucks right? Yea and the experience I had in Theater 101, a year ago, didn't help much either. But, God must have loved me, as I headed to Experimental Theater, I bumped to, Leanne! YAY! So I wasn't alone!

We both were 10 minutes early, a habit from THTR101 and pretty soon the room began filling in. Turns out I actually know most of the people in that class, which is a good thing and hopefully they are all co-operative. Actually they should be because this is Theater102. Rey joined us soon after.

At 8am sharp, the class started. It began with filling in names, and blog address on the paper that Rey provided, it went to the usual boring thing that all lecturer does. Yes I do admit that it is boring, cause I don't see the point of doing them. No one follows it properly anyway, and I bet majority of the students don't know what's in the Course Outline. But of course, Class Policies are a different matter, but being under Rey last Winter semester, I pretty much know what his class policies are.

Once the boring part were over, it was time to do the fun stuff. The lights go out and we began to walk in space. I had almost forgotten how it felt like to walk in those spaces, but everything began returning to me soon enough. It was followed with running within the spaces while screaming and saying "I love you" to each other. It would have felt awkward, but it didn't which was awesome. There were some funny moments in there, all the fun of a theater class.

The activities were then followed with the "Yes" game. We had to pass around a ball while saying Yes and a number. Because there were 15 of us, Rey made it so that we go up to Yes 30. Tough? Yes. Prolly because of dodgeball, I can't throw my balls high anymore, so majority of my balls went down to the stomach below area (grrr). But oh wells, after about 10 tries, we managed to go up to Yes 30.

And as usual the discussion came. This exercise was all about eye contact, and working together as a single entity. I need to work more on this, and I think it will be easier since the class is full of passionate people who wants to achieve the same goal as I do. I can't wait to get down to work with these people.

Following that was the first homework. We were to make a 1 minute piece of doing something very simple. I think I'm going to do my waking up script. I have an idea of how to work it but of course I need to try it out first. Hopefully Rey's going to love it!

After a year of leaving Theater101, I can't wait to get to Theater 102. Many people told me that it wasn't going to be very transferable. But I didn't care. I loved the stage, I love theater and that's why I'm doing it.