Enter - Real Life

So school is winding down, folks. Much slower than anyone else perhaps because of how late we get out, but winding down nonetheless. I graduate on Monday, May 24th. Things are winding down homework-wise as well, ironically. The middle of the semester always seems to be the busiest for me so I'm just coasting toward the finish at this point. I have 2 projects and 1 final standing in my way currently.

In other news, I have updates!

1) Unfortunately, I did not get Valedictorian. They gave it to someone from Biology. It's ok though. Being a finalist was cool enough and the president is going to recognize me for that at graduation anyway, which is so cool!

2) I have a place to live in VA for the summer! Have I said this yet? I don't remember so I'm gonna say it again. It's in a cute little townhouse that I'd be sharing with the owner (an older woman) and a grad student from George Mason. There is a dog named Rudy and a pool involved. Happiness.

3) I have an internship at CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore for the 2010-2011 season! So I am now officially employed through next May! Wooo! I get very little money at CENTERSTAGE but I get housed for FREE and I have the opportunity to bar tend at one of their 4 or so bars for extra money during events! I'm so excited! I'll be doing graphic design there too. So at the end of next year, I'll have had a full year of graphic design experience with this and Wolf Trap! All very exciting.

So now I am just excited to graduate and get the hell out of here. I'm sure I will miss it, but I will be about 15 minutes from school next year at CENTERSTAGE so I could always come back and visit if I want, but I don't have to see anyone here that I don't like! Win all around, I think.

April 19, 8:51am, Eastern Standard Time, from here on in I shoot without a script

Pardon my Rent reference.

I wasn't going to write a post this morning. I thought about it on the way down here to work and decided against it on the grounds that I should be doing work instead of pondering my life. I also vowed that I wouldn't waste time on Facebook. Forty-five minutes of Facebook stalking and blog reading under my belt, here I sit. Updating. Because of what Blythe's blog stirred up haha.

I'll summarize what I commented there (which may have gotten lost in cyberspace because it didn't show up after I submitted it) even though the two of you are the only ones who read this. I'll summarize for any potential stalkers because I think it would be exciting to have a secret reader. Anyway, enough of my dreams. I was thinking about how the prospect of graduation is affecting me. Let me give bullet points:

1) Into the Woods just ended. I miss the cast. I didn't even get to hang out with them. It's weird. I don't like it and I feel like it's bothering me more than it should.
2) Why? Probably because I will never see these people again in a month's time. It's so weird. I think that's my biggest problem with it. They will just be acquaintances I once did a play with. I have a big aversion to losing friends and growing apart from people. I feel like I want to hold on to people who have positively interacted with me forever. I realize that it isn't possible and it bothers me.
3) Now that the show is over, I have a lot of work to do to get the hell out of here - despite how much it scares me to get the hell out of here. So much work to do in fact that it makes me not want to care about any of it because it is just so stressful. Do I need a break? I don't think so. I think I need a vacation. Time away from everything and everyone that has been floating around in my brain for the past few weeks. It's too crowded in my brain right now.

Things that are stressing me out/exciting me/going to shape my future:

1) SCHOOL WORK - tons of it. I got behind during Into the Woods and wasn't able to fully catch up last week because I was so sick. But Monique, you are graduating in a month, why are you so stressed out? Just pass your classes and move on. Right? Wrong. I need A's. Why? Because...
2) I'm one of 6 finalists for Valedictorian which I am SO excited about but it's SO MUCH pressure. Before, I got A's because I wanted to. Now, I HAVE to get A's if I want this. The interview is this Thursday. I'll be interviewing in front of like 5 doctors. It's so strange. I'm not even nervous. Just concerned that I have no idea at ALL what they're going to be asking me. Unlike my...
3) Job interviews - well internship interviews. I, as I believe I said already, have managed to secure a summer internship. Whoo! Good. Now I am about to go in for my second round of interviews to be a Production Apprentice at a theatre called Imagination Stage in Bethesda, MD. These interviews are no surprise. "Why do you want to work here?" "What are your skills?" "Why is theatre important?" But what the hell are they going to ask at a VALEDICTORIAN interview? "Why are you better than the 4000 people you are graduating with?" How am I supposed to answer that?

And the surprising part is that I haven't even been feeling that stressed out. Not until today when I tried to figure out why I'm feeling so weird and out of sorts. I just felt like something isn't right and I couldn't put my finger on it. I tried blaming it on weird things but when I stepped back, I think I'm freaking out a lot more about all of these things than I thought I was. I think I'm just like psychologically imploding - as opposed to my usual psychological explosion during these times. Does that make sense? Instead of blowing up and having a nervous breakdown about all of the due dates and obligations, I'm just shutting down from the inside. Slowly, quietly, and discretely. It's a strange feeling.

Not that I am making it any better by sitting here writing in this blog instead of working on some of my projects to lighten my load a bit...

Instead of Doing That Which I'm Supposed To

Well, well, well. It's been a while, hasn't it? I knew this would happen. Oh well. Lot's of things have changed since we last spoke (yes I realize that I am talking as if this inanimate website is a person with which I converse.) (Also, on a complete side note, "I'll Make a Man Out of You" from Mulan just came on Pandora and made my morning).

Aaaaanywho, let's see.

Today is my one year anniversary! Crazy. It doesn't feel like a year. Years seem very short these days. I feel that this is a byproduct of aging and I don't like it. I much prefer the time when a school year seemed like an eternity, not a blink. School is about to end. Forever. I don't think I like it. I'm not sure though. I mean, I love the idea of being able to come home from work and not necessarily have any obligations. I realize this is not completely true because artists are always working but it will be much better. No "homework." I'm really looking forward to that. However, I've been so good at school for so long that it is a scary thought to now embark on something other. Weird.

I have a summer internship though! At the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts in Vienna, VA (20 mins out of DC). Now I just have to find a place to live for the summer that is cheap enough to maintain on my tiny salary. I also have an interview for a season long internship at Imagination Stage in Bethesda, MD on Thursday the 15th. Crazy. I haven't heard back yet from some of the other internships I applied to. And then there is still the matter of applying to Graphic Design jobs which I haven't done yet. Ugh. I just hate having to think about the future when I have assignments due tomorrow. It's so stressful. It's moments like those that make me long for the end of school.

I don't even know what I want to do with myself. I can speculate and I can go through the motions of doing whatever I end up with but I just can't decide. There isn't one thing that I can honestly say that I want to do for the rest of my life. And I hate that I feel like I have to decide like RIGHT NOW. I don't really; I know that. But sometimes I feel like I do. People just have such high expectations. Sometimes, I wish I had a moment to breathe and take it all in before I am forced to act. A moment of thoughtfulness could go a long way in decision making. And I like being busy! I just hate feeling out of control (like I do right now). However, the line between those two things is getting very thin.

It's a scary time.

Something Awesome?!

I have about ten minutes before work is over so I figure I'll do a quick update because I have been sucking - as usual - at keeping up with this blog. I am terrible at keeping blogs. Especially because I vowed that this one would be more devoted to art than to my daily life, I feel like there isn't much for me to say at this point in my life. I'm just trying to get through my last semester of college and figure out what I am going to do with myself next year. This weekend I applied to 3 more theatre internships. Hopefully I get one of them. I think that would be the best thing for me to do next year. Not a TON of money but something steady and concrete - which will be nice.

In other news, the show went well! Crazy actresses aside, everything was more or less a success! So that's good! They are probably holding a talkback right now and will move on to strike the show - which I don't have to be at as a designer! That's SO AWESOME. Strike always sucks. You're tired after doing a show and you have to put everything away - boo.

In other other news, I vowed I wouldn't mention anything until I found out more about it but seeing as there are two of you who read this and I am really excited about it, I figure here is a safe place to talk about it. Also, I hear that word has leaked out anyway because I was just approached my one of my most gossipy friends about it yesterday - so really it's only a matter of time before people start finding out. I was approached by the chair of the theatre department on Wednesday night at the show who told me that he was going to try to nominate me for... VALEDICTORIAN! WHAT?! Nothing is set in stone yet so I shouldn't be spreading anything around but I'm pretty excited. I want to know more about it. I know there is a nomination process in which there are interviews and essays and such but I don't know if the chair is trying to get me nominated to BE a nominee or if hes actually nominating me officially. Does that make sense? Like - if I've made it to the semifinals or the finals. Either way, I will hopefully be receiving more info soon. He is going to try talking to some of my other professors about it and get them to send in recommendation letters and such. AHH. I'll definitely let you know what happens.

The Novice Artist

I'm currently in tech for the Theatre Department's play series entitled Grrl Parts. It's a collection of commissioned and contest-winning play premiers with dominant roles (parts..."Grrl Parts") for women. There are three in this year's festival. I am designing costumes for one of them entitled This Girl I Used to Know. It is a modern retelling of the Minerva and Arachne myth.

It's been an interesting process to say the least. Let me start by saying that it has been a LOT of fun and the incident I am about to describe in no way dampens the experience.

This is the first time I've designed costumes alone for a department show (I've done club shows a few times, and I've assisted a few more). The director is...well, a bit of a challenge. She has very strong opinions about the visual aspects of the show but is not particularly good at conveying those opinions in a way that can allow me to quickly and easily fix the problem. To top it off, though she has such strong opinions, she cannot visualize things in her head. So if I say "Ok, you don't like this shirt. Would you prefer something more like a (insert description)" she says something like "Oh why don't we try that tomorrow, I'd have to see it." I am about to go to the mall today for about the 10th time in search of yet ANOTHER shirt for one of my actresses because she has to SEE everything before she makes judgment. Did I mention, also, that she is about 8 months pregnant?

I understand that not everyone is a visually driven person so this doesn't bother me terribly much (aside from the Arundel Mills Mall eating my gas money). What bothers me most is that now the actress (a freshman) has decided to begin including her input as well. She actually went around telling me and the director that she doesn't like one of her shirts last night, that it doesn't fit with her character, and that we should get a new one. She walks into the costume shop to ask me something and then adds, "Oh yeah and Colette is gonna talk to you about this shirt, I mean I'll wear it today but I don't like it. It's not something my character would wear I don't think." For the record, I disagree with her. As do the others in the costume shop. I didn't say anything at the time because I couldn't think of something nice enough to say but here are some versions of what I would have said if I didn't care about niceties:

- Oh really? Did I miss the moment where the program note switched to (her name), costume designer?
- Except what you think about the shirt doesn't matter, BECAUSE I AM THE DESIGNER.
- Actually, this is a conversation for me and the director. You'll wear what I hand you.
- Oh? Tough shit.

Any of those would do. But see, it's never very nice to tell someone that their opinion doesn't matter. And on top of that - as a fellow student, I don't think I should have been the one to do it. There were two teachers standing right next to me. They should have said something. Which they did - when the girl walked out of the room. I also feel bad because this actress means well, really. She was trying to help in the same way that she was used to in high school or clubs where everyone collaborated on costumes and other technical elements of shows. She hasn't been introduced to the professional world yet where actors go to fittings and say nothing but "yes this fits" or "no, this is a bit loose/tight." So who am I to say that her opinion doesn't count when I'm only three years older than her?

In the production meeting after the run, it got to a point where the director was suggesting that we get the girl to bring in some of her own shirts to try. FINALLY the stand-in Costume Shop Supervisor (our real one is on sabatacle and NEVER would have let this happen) said, "I hate using actors clothes. First of all, theater has the ability to destroy things. Second of all, and most importantly, you are diminishing Monique's job. She is the designer. Let her design the show. Let her pick the shirt." The director felt really bad after that and I was a bit embarrassed but I think it had to be said. No one was trying to take my job on purpose but it was becoming a collaboration between too many people. The less people with their hands inside the wardrobe, the easier it is for everyone to agree, oddly enough, because people accept their place and move on.

As I said though, this really hasn't put a bad taste in my mouth. It's just a testament to my lack of experience. Should I have stuck up for myself? Am I still to young to do so? Everyone in the costume shop after the meeting seemed to be behind me and thanked Celestine for sticking up for me. I just feel like I'm so young, you know - too young to be telling people to back off my job. Though, if the department is trying to teach their students how to work in professional theater, then they should treat their students as professionals when they are in positions of power, yes?

Am I wrong?