School time

     So I have just one more day and I'll be done with my first module of classes.  These last six weeks have been amazing.  We are generally in class from 9am to 6pm Monday through Friday, so it's been fairly packed so far.  One of the fun things about it has been that each day we are learning something different, using different skills.  One day we were working on hanging and focusing lights then the very next day we're learning sound board operation from a guy who is half Eddie Izzard and half Tim Curry.  That last bit was beyond awesome.

     So we've learned about making paper props, both on photoshop and by hand along with distressing.  I made this cool puzzle in that class.  The biggest amount of learning has been about the differences between the US and UK stage management teams.  I guess the job I've been doing is two and a half jobs over here.  The prompt script, the script that has all the cues and tech info, is nearly the same so I only need a slight adjustment there.  We had a class called Sloppy Props where I got to make a copy of my hand in vinyl (super creepy) and we talked about latex molds and plaster and so forth - our teacher reminded me of S.  That week we actually mostly spent down at the workshop, learning about putting up sets and safe manual handling.  Then a few of us went back on a free afternoon so that w could learn welding.  It was amazing, no other word for it.  It was scary the first couple of times but now I want to go back and help out, it turns out I am a natural welder.

     We also have toured some theatres recently.  We went down to Plymouth (south west England) to their Theatre Royal which is a fantastic facility.  Not only is the theatre space great, but the also have TR2 which is a workshop beyond imagining but also thier wardrobe department and these rehearsal spaces that are so large you can set up your set in there and rehearse just like it will be on the stage.  In thier workshop they are currently working on part of the Shrek musical set.  Well worth the three hour drive down in the bus.  We also went to the Riverfront in New Port (Wales) which was fun and we learned about counterweight flying (that's like curtains and set pieces that are attached to bars above the stage that you can  raise and lower).  Then we went to that iconic Welsh building, as seen in Doctor Who, the Welsh Millenium Center.  I'd like to work there sometime, they have a beautiful theater there.  Lastly we went over to Saint David's Hall which has one of the top ten natual acoustics in the world.  They have a lovely organ as well, over 3000 pipes.

     So I got my review of the first module yesterday, letting me know how I've been doing.  I just blushed the whole time.  It turns out that after my interview for the BA program they had a meeting about me and they basically decided last January that they wanted me for the MA program and all the rest was just formalities. *blush*

Cardiff

I figured I was gonna talk about my classes and thier progression and so forth but instead I'm gonna talk about life in Cardiff.

     So my very first night in my new home I went out with Chris and Shannon and Shannon's friend.  We went to the seediest clubs that Cardiff has to offer and Chris explained the last one we went to was a Chav bar, followed by his discription of what a chav might be.  He has a hilarious demonstration if any of you meet him sometime you should totally ask him to do it.  I was massivly broke at this point and living on apples, pasta and canned soup and subsiquently I drank very little in the first couple weeks.  But we had so much fun anyway, I learned the fine art of having fun with no money - apparently when you go with your friends to a bar you aren't legally required to buy anything! Who knew?  My classmate Matt had a birthday in week two (I think) and we were out for hours and I didn't spend a single pound.  So fun.

     Around week three I had money again and I tried to change my habits as little as possible (except of course now I eat food of a higher quality).  There have been some fun nights out, a fair amount of dancing (I know, shocking right?) and some drinking and we went and saw Matt in "Footloose" at a town hall of some kind and it was Hil-arious.  I love people doing the American accent, any time I get to hear other people's view of Americans in general I fall about laughing.  Canadians in particluar have a kinda funny view of us.  I won't go into that just now though.  I have told them that I am not your typical American and they cannot expect Californians to talk or act like me.  Otherwise I feel they'll have an even more warped view then.

     I do hang out with my classmates pretty much everyday and I love it.  I am so blessed to have fallen into a great, rather stange, group.  Just so you can know that they are our kind of people - on three seperate occations we have been in class early and decided what we really wanted to do was hide in the room from our lecturer.  Last Sunday Shannon and I built a fort in the living room, then we had tea and crumpets in it, then when Chris woke up we made him hang out with us in it.  These are totally my people.

     Which brings me to last night - We had been down to the Theatre Royal in Plymouth during the day and then we decided to go out since we have no classes today.  First we went to the campus bar where we met a friend of Shannon's from a previous visit, Sion, and we went up to Blakweir Tavern up the road.  I started talking with Sion and he is awesome, he's a musician and kinda cray, like in an old school punk kinda way but he plays hard folk music.  Shannon was dealing with girly issues (others not hers) so basically I just talked to him for a couple hours and it was superb.  Then he keeps hearing from his cousin that he should come on over to this other bar and he sheepishly asks us, explaining that's it's basically a dive where you meet nutters.  But at the same time he's saying he's not sure he wants to take us there and yet he'd really like us to come.  Quick clarification - at Blackweir most of my class was there, he was asking just Shannon and me.  He's adorable.  So he took us there in a taxi and it was almost a family party, this guy's birthday/open mic night.  Oh, and the taxi drive, it's like Sion and the taxi driver where speaking a different language, I knew the words they were saying, but what they meant by any of it I have no idea.  Sion explained he was taking us to this place and they cracked jokes and explained he was showing us a good time at this dive bar.  At the bar he played, we met his cousin Griff who also played.  We had so much fun with those two, need to hang with them again.

I guess that's all for now - love you!

Blogging?

I guess after being reminstrated by all and sundry I must start some kind of blog to keep all the cool people in the know about my life in Wales... not sure how this works, but here goes -

Nearly a month ago we said goodbye and it's been pretty weird and awesome and sad since.  I miss you guys more than I admit on a daily basis, but that's because even typing that has made me cry.  *Handkerchief break* okay, I think I'm okay.  It's easy to pretend most of the time because I am so busy usually and everything is so different here.  Thanks guys so much for an amazing send off and visit me as soon as possible!

On to happy things - I got to spend four days in London!  Mom, Aunt Kathy and I saw so many amazing things in London

it was lovely.  The first day we went to the London Eye and saw "A Flea in Her Ear" which has been one of my fave shows ever.  The cast was great, the Spanish guy in it practically made me fall off my seat laughing.  It was well teched and fantastically executed, half a sleep as I was when I walked in, it was way awesome.  The next day we saw the Globe, yes, THE GLOBE.  It was a theatre gal's giddy explosion, I could hardly contain myself.  Then of course we saw a lot more of London, and whilst it was all fun I don't really want to make a catalogue of things to see in London - let's move on.

Mom driving - wow, I've never been so stressed as I was being Mom's navigator as she drove through rural England.  Poor thing, she kept being close to tears with frustration.  However, her driving enabled us to see amazing things.  First we drove down to Windsor Castle and it was massive and had a half lived in and half museum type quality to it.  The doll house is amazing, if you ever get over to see it, it has running water!  I wish I could have taken pictures, not only to show you guys, but also so I could remember it all.  There was so much to take in at once.  Then we went over to Stonehenge.  As you drive along the road to go see it, you're wondering where the turn off will be, and then you just see it sitting by the road.  It's just right next to the road, sitting there like some mystical bus stop.  I would recommend going in January, there were so few people there that my pictures are unencombered by tourists - including me, I probably should have had Mom take my pic in front of it.  Then we were off to Bath.  Bath is lovely and so very old.  You can walk down most streets and feel like you've gon back in time - until a car drives by.  I convinced Mom and Aunt Kathy to stay at a youth hostel, which was novel.

At this point I was begining to get panicky, I didn't have accomodation sorted.  I felt with every mile we came to Cardiff we were driving to my doom.  I tried to be excited, all I managed was terrified.  But I gamely navigated Mom to Cardiff.  It totally turned out to be a non issue.  I called up Brian, my landlord, and he told me to come on over to look at a room.  That room I am typing in now.  We had fun in Cardiff while Mom and Kathy were here.  We went down to the bay and saw places Doctor Who was filmed.  We were walking along and saw a wall with a bunch of notices on it and wandered over to see what it was about - good gravy.  It was a memorial wall to a charcter who died in Torchwood (spinoff of Doctor Who), not the actor, his character died.  Houndreds of posts littered a bit of fence down my the docks - where am I?  What is this? We also saw Cardiff Castle, which my school is just above, and Cearfilly castle which was amazing, a bit of a ruin but wandering around a castle is always fun.  It wad water all around it and they'd fixed up a main dining room which was gorgeous.  Even after I moved my stuff into my new room Mom made me stay the night, she wasn't super excited about leaving me in Cardiff.  But then on Saturday night I was to stay in my own room and meet Mom and Kathy for church the next morning.  But when I got home it turned out two of my flatmates and a friend of one of thiers were going out so I thought bonding was a good idea.  Especially since these were the two that are in my class and I was going to spend great chunks of my time with them.  So that's how I met Chris and Shannon.

Chris is from Manchester and is a former dancer, although that former title is fairly recent.  He used to dance on cruise ships.  Shannon is from Toronto and is about as different from me as is possible, but she's awesome.  She has a BA in theatre and worked at it for three years before coming here.  We went out that night with her friend Seth who lives near London.  We went to a whole bunch of rather rediculous places that ranged in seedyness.  With all of that it was still fun and I got to know them, which was the whole reason for the exercise.

Of course, now I know them pretty well.  I see them all day everyday.  I walk to school with Chris in the morning and we all walk home together.  We're kinda the three headed monster.  The other six people in the program we at least get to leave for the night.  Last Thursday we were each going to go somewhere different and we all ended up going to the same place.  But they're awesome, so I'm not concerned about it.  I'm actually going to the opera tonight with Chris, but Shannon is watching Rugby with a couple other classmates.

I guess this got kinda long, so I'll talk about my classes and classmates later.

Love you!!!