"These winter days seem dead and long"

Lessons of the week. 

• Walking in the rain is not always miserable. There's a certain amount of liberation that comes with throwing your defiant umbrella in the trash... and comfort in knowing that you have the privilege of owning more than one pair of shoes and socks.
• A rained-on bagel is just as good as one that hasn't fallen victim to the weather.
• Just because the Scholarship Office loses your application that you've slaved over for weeks and days and hours, is no reason to cause a ruckus. It'll probably toss your chances of getting the money.
• Doing work for a class that you're not enrolled in, is not the worst of mistakes, because a tiny miscommunication and ignorance of the process of the lovely university school system, provides a tale of situational comedy for the future.
• Good company should always be appreciated, because bad company is dreadfully unpleasant.  
• Never underestimate the weight of an awkward situation.
• If the benefits of a socially unacceptable concept truly outweigh the negatives, you needn't worry about the social repercussions.
• Eating too many peeps will make you sick.
• Relaxation very well may be a myth.

I think we feel sometimes powerless faced with the problems of the world, because we forget to or fail to realize how much we can affect other people--- the capacity we hold as human beings to influence the people around us, and that if we chose to put positive energy out into the world, we have the power to make productive changes.
There's a distinct choice between complaining, and actively looking for a solution to the problem.

I found this article a couple of days ago. Just some excerpts I thought to be practical.

The following is from an informal interview with Augusto Boal when he was a Brazilian City councillor in 1996. (Boal is a theatre director and founder of Theatre of the Oppressed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Oppressed.)

Augusto Boal

{BOAL: […] Just to take care of your family, or friends, your mafia-

SCHECHNER: Still that's what most people do, they look out for their own. They think, "There's no chance for all these people I see in the streets to have a good life because there are too many people, not enough jobs, not enough room, not enough doctors, schools, livable housing, etc…, etc." The very few get richer and the very many get poorer. There's no way to imagine all of the people now alive- not to mention the billions more coming-- having access to what is needed for a full and dignified life. It seems hopeless. A hundred million are helped, but next year there are 200 million more…"
BOAL: But what is the question? Is it, "What should you do to help others?" or "What should you do to help work with others to help themselves?"

SCHECHNER: Tell me.
BOAL: Okay, charity is good. But we can be charitable only to a small number of people, not to the whole world. But if we are together with other people in changing something, the effects multiply.

And later in the piece...

{BOAL: At the base of both is truth that you cannot teach if you don't learn from those you are teaching, An Argentine teacher uttered a phrase I love very much. He said, "I taught a peasant how to write the word 'plough,' and he taught me how to use the plough."…I teach the old techniques that I learned many many years ago. I keep doing them with much enthusiasm. And then people say, "But don't you get tired of teaching the same technique?" I say, "No! Because it's not the same people! Theatre is a language for me. I am talking in English. I cannot get tired of talking in English, because I am talking with you, I am talking with you. You are giving me things and I am giving to you. Whether it is English or Portuguese or whatever: we meet people. …}

Here's the complete article, just in case you might be interested, "Augusto Boal, City Councillor: Legislative Theatre and the Chamber in the Streets: An Interview." authors: Richard Schechner, Sudipto Chatterjee, Augusto Boal

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1146719.pdf?acceptTC=true

It touches on some concrete outcomes of what listening, collaboration and/or understanding can bring.

This American Life.

An episode that I think is pretty fantastic.

Over the course of 6 months, Ira Glass hosts this show from the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center, where a cast of inmates were rehearsing for William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

If you're not partial to Shakespeare, or theatre in general, I think this episode will shed some light. Also, it beautifully highlights the parallels from Shakespeare's drama to present day struggles.

The "epic, over-the-top, complicated, dense, hard-to-understand, boring, lame, stupid,"
                typical nature that people assign to Shakespeare
       may hold some truth,
sometimes,
but
the grandiose situations & complexities that exist in the artificial worlds of the 1600s have

relevance to our situations and complexities today. 

They allow us to question, examine and maybe comprehend some of the most difficult things with which our society is faced.

Like: murder, revenge, hate, love, family, good & evil,.... just to name a few.

Give it a listen, or not. 

It's free.

 Just click "play episode."

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/218/act-v

A short lesson on destiny and common sense.

If you don’t know the story of Oedipus, I recommend reading Oedipus the King (or Oedipus Rex, whichever version.) Because I think it’s pretty ballin’

But the basic story line goes like this:
Oedipus gets this self fulfilling prophecy that he’ll kill his father and marry his mother.
And then he does.
His wife/mother is like, holy shit, and kills herself.
And then Oedipus discovers her,
And gouges his eyes out.  

Three Days of Rain by Richard Greenberg

Pip:

“It’s just, like… if some oracle told you you were going to kill your father and marry your mother, wouldn’t you just never kill anybody and stay single? … And then, if you did inadvertently kill somebody, in the heat of the moment or something, and later started dating? Wouldn’t you be smart enough to, like, avoid older women? I mean, to me the story is not your destiny awaits you. To me it’s… you know… Do the Fucking Math.”

"Wine-faced Dionysus, who runs with the maddened girls." sounds like a party to me.

The fourth floor stacks in the library are horrendous. Maybe one day I’ll write a letter, when I have the time or when my dissatisfaction gets the best of me.

I appreciated Whitney Jo coming to talk today. Pursuing a professional acting or theatre career is not the most stable of endeavors. I don’t think artists can help but hang on every word of the stories of personal fulfillment and success that come trickling down from the people that have stuck with it.

If I could do something else I would. I’ve tried several times to convince myself that I could be happier doing something, anything else. I’m a person who enjoys stability and certainty. For the first time in my life I feel like my heart is overpowering my logic.

Things I’ve seriously considered/researched pursuing after I discovered my passion for theatre:

Veterinarian (small animal)
Neuropsychologist
Industrial Psychologist
Registered Nurse
Law
Horticulturalist/ entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship
Getting a business degree
Teaching higher education
Scientific research in ANY field (except geology, of course)
Broadcasting

It doesn’t make sense to go into a field where the majority of the people do not have a theatrical job. (I couldn’t find the figure, but I know that’s outrageous)
Thank Dionysus that I don’t live and breathe to be on stage.

So, thanks to all of the cliché inspirational concepts that people like to throw down before the youth. I’ll take all the inspiration and encouragement I can get.

I feel like this is worth mentioning:

My friend Will, a very wise man, is currently pursuing communications degree with a film concentration.
While talking about transferring somewhere with an actual film program to pursue this passion, he said to me, “Now, if I’m going to get, forgive me but, a worthless degree, I want to get the right worthless degree.”

"I would, but I need the eggs."

I started this semester off on the wrong foot.

Right now, if I were actually capable of shooting myself in that metaphorical foot, I think I would be more productive. 

I think I would get more sleep if my passion were accounting.
(Maybe not, I’m not too great at Math. I’d probably spend my nights studying. ah, darn, oh well.)

I feel like my innate desires to make sense of things and explore the complexities of human emotion, are a little too exhausting sometimes. 

Today was not good.
So, I read sonnets. 

This is one of my favorites. 

Sonnet 37
“As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store:
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That I in thy abundance am sufficed
And by a part of all thy glory live.
  Look, what is best, that best I wish in thee:
  This wish I have; then ten times happy me!”

So, I get that this is probably about someone who loves another person. (Go figure, a Shakespearean sonnet about love, a stretch I know.)

But I think that this principle of loving something because of it’s
“worth and truth”
or
“beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,”
or whatever, is kind of nice. 

It expresses my love of theatre. I doubt that in real life I’ll ever be required to dress up as a man and enter a courtroom in pursuit of saving my future husband’s best friend, but I can read or see Portia in the Merchant of Venice, and go, “Wow, that’s beautiful. She’s awesome.”

And, no matter how much he cared for me, no man has ever treated me to the string of endless poetry that is Berowne in Love Labor’s Lost.

Loving these things, these qualities helps me to share in the greatness of the art that is presented to me.

We’re scientifically inclined to want to love, hope and aspire to be something great.... Or to want to search for love, hope and greatness in the world. If we can somehow find greatness in the world to share with someone or something, then we are not “lame, poor, nor despised.” We’re a part of something greater than the emptiness we sometimes feel in solitude.

Alvy Singer
from Annie Hall,
written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman, 1977:
After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I... I realized what a terrific person she was, and... and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I... I, I thought of that old joke, y'know, the, this... this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken." And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" The guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs." Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y'know, they're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and... but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs.

Memphis is warming up on me.

Wendi Thomas is so badass. Whether or not you agree or disagree with her views, her current job description is pretty cool. I personally enjoy the way she goes about it and the attitude she has toward the backlash that may come her way. 

She answered before I asked the one and only question I could muster up: How do you deal with all of the negative that people throw at you? 

I was happy to hear her say that she didn't read the comments on her articles. Most of it was ignorant targeting of certain parts of the articles or just racist. It was refreshing to hear that her voice does not change because of fear.

So often I feel that people don't speak out because of the fears we associate with the social risk of giving an opinion. We adjust to the climate of the group that surrounds us. 

I'm such a fan of social change and education advancement through artistic mediums, and I appreciate Wendi's personality and artistic wit being so present in her articles. I thought she was a perfect semester's first guest. 

I believe that art can change the world. It can most definitely change the world of an individual. 

"It's wonderful that you can write something and change somebody's life" -Wendi Thomas. 

bits and blog pieces

What an odd way to start an academic class. I enjoyed energy and took the positive vibe with me the rest of the day. Energy is a such powerful catalyst. I'm thankful to have such a passionate instructor. It makes a world of difference. 

I feel like this blog is asking me, "What 250 words do you have to offer?"  

I'd like to say, "I don't have any interesting topics to discuss right now, thanks though. Maybe after a couple of classes. I'd just like to get a feel for what this whole 'blogging in English class' thing is supposed to be about."

And under its breath, "Cool story, bro."

It is a tough crowd indeed. 

Let's see where this goes… 

How funny it is, what we choose to put out into the world when we know that people are meant to watch. 

I would like to be more liberal with my thoughts, but don't put in much of an effort to make such fluidity happen. It makes me appreciate when conversation comes naturally with a person. 

Conversation is one of my absolute favorite parts of life. 

Dancing is also one of my favorites, not that I do it well. Dancing/ moving/ flailing ridiculously to music, because of it's carelessness, is an ability I cherish.

Swan commented today on the general refusal to dive into the arena of critical exchange. 

Her enthusiastic energy contrasting with ours, led me to an obvious realization: it is not always a normal thing to walk into a room full of people and be open to communicating with them.