She also said she would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did not know what she meant, and he held out his hand expectantly.
“Surely you know what a kiss is?” she asked, aghast.
“I shall know when you give it to me,” he replied stiffly, and not to hurt his feeling she gave him a thimble.
Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie (via fuckyeahliteraryquotes) (via perfectingmistakes)
Midterms are over for me!
It’s been a stressful past 2 weeks because of my first ever set of college midterms. I took 2 of my tests in what is know as the Polluck Testing Center. It’s a building with computers lined up where you take multiple choice tests. It was really scary to go my first time because I didn’t know what to expect. Basically you walk in and put all your belongings in a backpack or testing center bag. Then you swipe PSU id and that prints a ticket that a person at the desk hands to you. It will have your name, photo, class, year, (etc) and it will also give your assigned seat number. Each row has a different letter and they are numbered down the rows. When you get to your seat you have to put that printer ticket in the holder above the monitor (it just slides in) and hen take the test. To begin your test you have to press alt+ctrl delete and sign in with your PSU username and password. At the end, you sign out, take you ticket and recycle it in the blue bins at the end of the row, walk out and swipe to leave.
Sounds like a lot but it really wasn’t so bad. It was very organized and stress free.
Theatre 120
Something occurred to me today in acting class that I have never before considered. I was brought up to believe that it was the strongest people who were able to keep to themselves and handle things on their own, as many of us customarily see as “true.” People generally avoid opening up to people to appear more stable, or secure in themselves. I, even, have fallen victim to this cycle time and time again in my life and from my experience, it gave me a false sense of empowerment.
I realized today that this may be a common misconception. I noticed that the people with the most obvious courage were the ones who were able to bare their hearts for our sake, and their own. It takes a special kind of person to be able to stand before a group of people and be completely honest with them. Truth is something we seldom find in our everyday interactions with people.
I think this is what makes what we do so difficult, and also so important. When a true actor stands before an audience and reveals truth, this may be the only glimpse of truth any given audience member sees for a significant amount of time. Perhaps this is what makes true theatre so captivating.
It astounds me that I have gone eighteen years without ever recognizing the strength in someone willing to cry before me. Perhaps this is why being in the presence of someone who is emotionally unstable makes us somewhat uncomfortable: because we are intimidated by his or her strength.
There is beauty in honesty, and there is courage in truth.
There is strength in what we do.
Long day
I’ve been in classes or doing homework all day. I took a 2 hour dinner break but I have basically been going since 9 this morning when I woke up. I am happy to say that all of my immediate homework is finished however! I just need to read some of this play for my Theatre 100 class, which stinks but I’ll get it done. Don’t get me wrong, I love reading plays I just am a really bad reader and we only get one week per play. So that stinks like poo poo. I feel like I get so much more accomplished with my days out here; like today for example, I went to Theatre 100 class from 10:10 until 11:00 then I came back to my dorm and read the required chapters for my religious studies class and did three sections for my online class. Then I went to religious studies at 2:30 and found that nothing in the textbook correlated with his lecture whatsoever. I got out of class at 3:20 and walked down the hill to College Ave and picked up my prescription. After that I went to the post office and bought stamps and mailed a few things back home. I then walked all the way up the mountain that is Penn State (what a hike) and worked on more of my online class before going to dinner in Pollock at 5:00. I took the bus to Pollock and ate with my friends then walked back to my dorm and finished up todays work of my online class. I then read my chapter for Cultural Anthropology class for tomorrow and wrote my journal entry for my acting class tomorrow. I also printed my script somewhere in the midst of all that and had time to talk to my boyfriend on the phone and on Skype a few times, which of course was the highlight of my day. Once all this was said and done I wiped down the bathroom floor in our common bathroom since I didn’t finish the job I started yesterday when I cleaned the shower and the counters. I’ve been a busy bee!
Yesterday was much more relaxed but I still managed to do three loads of laundry, and clean the bathroom (except the floors). I worked on homework and took an entire online test (which required me to read the online sections, book sections, submit exam questions, and take a survey to unlock the weekly test). It was very stressful finishing that test since I had a deadline of 11:55 that night.I wish I were more on top of things with the online portions of these classes. My goal is to complete this weeks assignments a day before the deadline (just to get some stress out of the way).
I hope things keep up like this, I’d like to be this productive all the time…but at the same time a nap tomorrow sounds really nice…
Target hosted a shopping trip and they payed for the bus fare. It was good! The best advice I can give is to get in line EARLY. We waited in line for well over an hour. They bring out old registers and “makeshift” cashier stations. I spent under $200 though! It was a great night though, lots of fun(:
This morning there was a Q&A opportunity with the director of Radio Golf by August Wilson as well as two of the cast members and two other men who had done an inordinate amount of professional theatre and specialize in the works of August Wilson. Our acting instuctor, Steve highly recommended that we attend. It gave us an opportunity to ask working professionals any pressing questions we might have had as well as gave us insight on how in depth the professional world can get into script analysis. Though the discussion was centered around the works of August Wilson, they spoke about the universal of all shows.
I took notes during the discussion, so I decided to share them with you!(:
I will attempt to crossover my notes into paragraph form as best I can and still have them make coherent sense.
August Wilson specifically wrote about Pittsburg, PA in all of his shows. He wrote a play for ever decade starting in 1904 until the 90’s when he ended his “cycle.” By writing about one location they believed he was speaking to the universal of all people because this place evolved as others did. They believe it showed the general life. They quoted Wilson to say, “When you write for the specific, you speak to the universal.”
They discussed how every one of his plays had a “lost” character (spiritually in most cases). They discussed a common link in almost all shows that Wilson mentions the City of Bones where they say this is when the character finds themselves spiritually and they decided to stay with their culture.
They discussed that a person’s history and their culture are intertwined with who they are and that is part of these characters finding themselves.
The director noted that the title of the show Radio Golf had layers even in that. In radio, you don’t know who your audience is. It isn’t right in front of you with theatre, so you’re speaking to everyone and anyone. The second part, “golf,” could be referring to the fact that it can be a game played solo or the idea that the farther back you swing, the less control of where the ball will go. This idea would explain that if we keep stretching out for the furture we may not control as well where we are going. That we need the past and culture to keep us grounded.
His work about 1904 and his play on the 90’s were his only plays he wrote simultaneously and they believed that both plays spoke directly to one another. Where one is very grounded in religion, the other isn’t linked as closely to religious beliefs. They said this could be because he believe today there isn’t enough focus on religion and we need to go back to our roots. That the media is making this a world where we keep trying to move forward too quickly.
They briefly discussed that in every one of his shows they make the everyday man a hero (like a garbage man, in the example they used).
They said August was a high school dropout who self taught himself. They said he would listen to people talk and that was what gave him the inspiration to write his plays, and that is why the words of his play have so much meaning. He used the words and stories to write his plays.
That’s just about all the sense I can make out of those notes, looking back. Hope it was interesting, because I enjoyed myself during the discussion. It was exciting to see that PSU offered this kind of experience to first year theatre students.
EARTHQUAKE IN STATE COLLEGE!?!
So I am sitting in my round chair and I feel it start trembling so I get up to see if it is pushed against a wall that a vent is by or something. When I stood up my alarm clock behind me dropped off the shelf and broke. I immediately sprinted to the flat screen and held it on the shelf because it was beginning to fall over as well. I just looked around as I was holding the tv and the walls were moving, my dream catchers chimes were sounding and the door was swaying. Scariest crap of my life.
I walk downstairs and Maggie said she felt it, too. We then ran into David who said when his teacher started to feel it she ran through the center aisle and out of the lecture hall without saying a word leaving the class sitting in confusion. At least he got out early.
Then we went to our Thea 100 class (acting) in the Pavilion theatre and when we were in the basement a man came in and said, “If you start to feel the effects of an aftershock please evacuate the basement.” So we had class upstairs instead. Thank god.
On a Freshman note…this is the Daily Collegian. It’s the school newspaper and I had the pleasure of reading it for the first time today. It is a great way to stay updated on school news, sports, and even world events. The articles about yesterdays earthquake were really interesting.
The main article Quake shakes State College by Lynn Ondrusek stated that, “Gloria Fan and Nina Abbott were sitting in their COMM 205 (Women and Minorities and the Media) class when the projector screen started shaking.”
Another article called State avoids damage by Christina Gallangher said, “Desks rattled. Classroom projectors shook. Pencils fell from desks. And a crowd of students flooded out of campus buildings.” it later described the precautions Penn State took to ensure student safety and to preserve the campus. The nuclear reactor on campus was shut down by direction of Associate Director of Operations Mark Trump. “Trump ordered the reactor’s conductor to turn it off immediately after several staff members felt the ground shake. Shutdown took less than 30 seconds, but Trump said it “could’ve been even faster” if someone pressed the emergency stop button.” The article later tells us that, “The Office of Physical Plant and police teamed up to inspect every building on campus for damages. Electrical engeneers also assisted, studying the infrastructure of the buildings”
There’s a lot of good information in these newspapers. I’d recommend picking one up when you’re at campus. There was even a third article about the effects it had across the east coast, and so much more.
This is “the crew” (minus Maggie) from Saturday night. Meeting people is a lot easier than you think on campus. These girls are the best!
I recommend finding all the people in your theatre class for 2016, 2017, (and so on) so you can all get to know each other a little prior to moving in. That’s what we did and it turned out to be a GREAT move. You can even video chat with everyone before move in day!
