Adjusting to new life...

I survived through my first day of college. Barely. It was thrilling and exhausting, and now I am just spending my night trying to reflect and allow my brain to absorb it all, because it takes quite a while to do so. The faculty were all very helpful, and very mindful of letting us know what exactly we were getting into here: the theater business. Yes, yes everyone knows how hard the theater business is. As one of my acting professors said: "okay, if you chose this major, you are either striving for being a good actor, which might get you jobs...or be a phenomenal actor...which will assure you a job". At least they were being realistic. But another part of realism here in this field: connections. It's all about networking. And I mean it when I say people get jobs because of it.

It's my turn, as a performer, to try to get discovered. Right now, I am taking it step by step. In my near future, my best hopes is to be discovered in the next two auditions at my college, upon which basically is a reassessment of what I did for them in the spring. They were open to us in explaining all that they do, now it's our turn to sort of return a gift...our vulnerability as performers.

Today was my first acting class, which was basically a Wagner acting information session, but we did a "silent" exercise to remind us of the way we must be keen to our inner voice along with discipline and focus. For the first time since I got there, I was able to be a person around the freshman class and the faculty, instead of feeling like fresh new meat at college. When everyone stood up when we were told to release our loudest sound to express what we were feeling during the silence, I honestly did not want to scream to the top of my lungs like everyone else did. It was gonna be more like a sigh than a foghorn...but that's just me.

I have learned that it is quite the challenge being in a conservatory along with a normal college campus life. Because, yes, we do get to do all the fun campus things, and have homework like everyone else, but we have to remember we are here to be performers, and it's a balancing and neutralizing sort of process we have to master to create an environment for ourselves. Something to think about.