I began grad school with those same feelings that many students have on the first day of school (especially in a new school). Did I have all the materials I need? Why can't I find the right backpack at home? Did I pack a large enough lunch and snacks for my 9 hour day? Did I remember my steel toe shoes? You know the usual stuff any student asks themselves. But my biggest worry was whether or not I would live up to everyone's expectations of me. I fought to be in this program for an entire semester and then I had to defer for a year. Was I going to be rusty? Had I lost any of the skills I had already learned? The questions ran through my head constantly. But the answer I have come up with is that yes, I can not only do this but I can and will exceed everyone's expectations including my own. If I am rusty it is ok, I am a student, and I am here to learn. But this answer took a month to figure out.
As school started I looked over all of the syllabus' and realized that luckily homework wise things weren't going to be too crazy yet. They were giving me time to adjust. But on top of whatever homework we have in class we are also working on 4 productions a semester during the 20 hours a week we have to work in the scene shop as our assistantship. So that is where for the first couple of weeks I got a little stressed. Our first show of the season is Hair and I am the props master and puppet designer for it. At first I wasn't a huge fan at being given a production team role on the first show since I am a first year grad student but now I am kinda glad for it. Now 6 weeks later, I attended the opening night of Hair last night and although it had some sound problems it was a very good performance. I will post pictures soon. Now for the other three shows this semester I am either a painter or carpenter so I won't have anymore production responsibilities outside of shop time. So now I can focus on my homework and working on my design for Dangerous Liaisons which I start meetings for on Thursday. I'll come back to that later.
Besides the productions I also got to go to Canada for the first time 4 weeks ago. As part of the Design Collaboration Class the 1st and 2nd year Design students (lighting, costumes, and scenic) take a trip every year with the 5 professors who teach the class to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario. The trip lasts only 60 hours and 24 of those are spent driving on a bus so it is an extremely quick trip.
We saw three shows: Twelfth Night, Titus Andronicus, and Camelot. The were all amazing performances but the best and most gruesome was Titus Andronicus. The shows we saw were performed in two different theaters and they are both thrust theaters (seating on 3 sides of the stage) but only the director of Titus really knew how to direct a show in a thrust, so that no matter where you were sitting they were all good seats. But the production of Twelfth Night that we saw was directed by Tony Award winner Des McAnuff and it featured actor Brian Dennehy. The acting was great but I wasn't sold on the design collaborations for the show. The lack of being able to see the actors well from where we were sitting because Des directed it as if it was performed in a proscenium theater was very annoying too but overall it was a good show. We also managed to squeeze in a tour of the Festival Theater (it is the oldest of the 4 theaters used for the shakespeare festival) and we got to watch a change over.
Dan (the other 1st year MFA Scene Design student) and I in front of the Festival Theater.
Each of the 4 theaters has more than one show performing in it during the festival so after each performance they have to change all of the scenery for the next show. Watching the change over wasn't that impressive because I have had to be a part of those. But what was impressive was seeing the change over for scenery that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Man, having money makes things simpler, cleaner, and faster in theater. :) Who knew?
I do love my food, as I am sure you know, so I wanted to try something new on the trip...I mean if you are going to Canada than you need to try something Canadian, aka poutine (french fries and cheese curds covered in gravy). For lunch a group of us went to this little place called Boomers Gourmet Fries. We found out from the owner that they are going to be featured on the Canadian version of Food Network's "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives."
Barbara (1st year MFA Costume designer & fellow tall girl) and I eating our Poutine.
Since our trip to Canada my life has been full of homework and Hair. Although I love my work I look forward to times like last night. After attending the opening night of Hair two of my roommates (Alex and Matthew) and I went out. First we hung out with some of the other theater people at a bar called Atlas but it was a little dull so the three of this went to this "bar" called the Root Cellar, underneath my favorite restaurant here, Farm Bloomington. A couple of Alex's professors who are from Portugal and Belgium were the DJs for the night at Root Cellar and it was great European style techno music. Some people might not like it but it makes me feel at home. (Since I was an exchange student in Belgium) The three of us and a lot of other people from the Informatics department (Alex is getting his PhD in Informatics) had a blast dancing! I love the European style Discotheque dancing where everyone just dances and there are no couples. It is ten times more fun and inclusive.
Dancing is my favorite way to relieve stress. Now that the stress of Hair is done it is time to focus on other things like the show I am the set designer for this season, Les Liaisons Dangereuses. I have had a couple of small meetings with the director and some of the other designers but Thursday starts my official meetings. Our production meeting process is much more extensive than what it was at my undergrad. That is good because although there are more meetings it means that everything we have to do for the design process is spelled out more and we have due dates for everything. That makes planning our time much easier. I am much happier with the level of organization IU has.
All I have done is talk about school.....so...life....that thing I try to have outside of school. My life outside of school consists of hanging out with theater people or my roommates, trying to start a garden, and making sure I do my share of chores around the house. So not much right now mainly from the lack of husband and time. This is the longest Jeremy and I have ever been apart and it is proving to be harder than I expected. I would have thought that after getting married that being apart would get easier, since there is less stress than a "dating" relationship where you are still worried about something going wrong. Now I don't have stress but more strain, romance is even more important when we are apart but at the same time having romance makes us miss each other more. I will be glad when grad school is over. If I wasn't doing this for the good of my family (and future kids) than I would never have left Jeremy. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is worth it. I miss him constantly; he is my best friend and the love of my life although I never thought it would be easy to be apart from him, I never thought that it would be this hard especially since we were long distance in undergrad. Last night this was very apparent when Hair became the first school show I have done in 5 years that Jeremy hasn't gotten to see. I admit when I realized that I cried a little, when you get used to something or someone it is hard when they aren't around. That whole "not knowing what you have until you don't have it anymore" bit is what I wind up living through everyday.
I realize I might be ending this post on a sappy and sad note but that is what life is like for me right now: missing Jeremy and working hard.
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