Back home for Christmas!

At mine (and Jenny's!) 21st (25th!) birthday meal!


And the semester is over! Almost as quickly as it started, time ran away and suddenly 4 months are gone and I am on a plane hotfooting it back to the UK for Christmas!! It has been a whirlwind of a semester, busier than I ever would have planned it (haha), but I wouldn’t change it for the world. I am currently sitting in Chicago O’Hare airport, waiting out the five hours between my planes! I will post this online when I get home (eeek!) seeing as I don’t have the internet here.

So, what has happened since I last updated? LOTS of final assessments and exciting things like that – I almost finished my play (Mind Art) and I plan to do the rest of it on the plane or during the holidays at home. I am quite proud of it – obviously, its no work of genius, but its alright and maybe at some point I’ll find a director and someone will stage it. That would be very nice!! I ended up getting A’s in all of my modules – on one of my assignments I got a 50% bonus, which is a little bit ridiculous, because I know the work wasn’t perfect – but hey ho, I’m not complaining!!! I now know exactly what classes I am taking next semester and it is looking like it will be quite an exciting time!! So far next semester classes are:

- Participatory Theatre (OK, I get no credit for this, but it sounds like fun!)
- Stage Directing
- Advanced Theatre Games and Improvisation
- Studio in Stage Management (Stage Managing a show called ‘Our Town’ wooo!)
- Independent Study (doing research for a devising project on the myth of Penelope)

It all sounds very exciting, far better than what I would be studying if I was in England, in my opinion! On top of this, I should be doing some work experience at First Stage, if they ever contact me again (!) – they are MIA at the moment, my parents are visiting for a couple of weeks in April, and hopefully lots and lots of travelling! I am sure I will end up doing lots more than that though – I might make more time for socialising, but we’ll see!!! I am very happy with my work/life balance in America most of the time (I have time to go out or eat or hang out with friends, which is nice – I am starting to see where I went wrong last year!). I am still ridiculously happy in America, which is fabulous – but it will make it very hard to leave. It’s even difficult leaving for a few weeks!

I managed to go to the theatre quite a lot at the end of the semester. The University staged a brilliant version of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ – where even the lovers were funny! The lighting was amazing, the acting on the whole was good, it was just a good show! I also saw a modern dance show, which I loved (I really miss dancing, it is a shame I will never be able to go back to it really). I also saw the directors scenes, which were in general really good! I want to make more time to see more theatre – weirdly in America studying hasn’t put me off going to the theatre, it has done the opposite! In England, I was getting a little fed up with theatre, but in America, this never is the case. And I know I am learning stuff, which is fantastic!

I spent a lot of my last week before Christmas in Milwaukee just hanging out with friends – Meghan and I cooked dinner (twice!), I went to a play reading and hung out with Colin, I went to eat with the Paradise lot at Shiraz, and just hung out in the lounge with the internationals!!! Also, with the internationals, we did Secret Santa and went out for a meal to a place called the Safe House – this was a REALLY cool place to go, you have to do a task to get in there, if you don’t know the password, the exit is ‘secret’ and the whole place is a rabbit warren of spy memorabilia – and the food is pretty good too (although expensive)! For Secret Santa, Jack gave me a wonderful hat, which I actually love – my hat addiction is back with the cold weather! We then had some drinks, and then went to an Irish Pub/bar – the first time I have been out in America since I turned 21! It was a really good night, with really good company – obviously, I still don’t LOVE going out, but this was a good night, and a positive experience, so we’ll see! I did manage to get drunker than I ever have done before (I blame the generous bar-people who poured the drinks) and therefore was dying yesterday – I always wonder if the hangover is worth it!

The weather has turned FREEZING but we have had no proper snow. On one evening we were at a tutors house for our final ‘exam’ and it was PROPER snowing, which was really exciting, but we have had no such luck in Milwaukee! It is a lot easier to survive than I thought it would be, but wearing leggings under jeans, and lots of layers is definitely necessary, as everyone said! Apparently, January will be colder, brrrrrrr – but at least them we maybe will see some proper snow!!!

Anyway, I better go now – I want to have a frappucino before catching my flight home – I am so excited to be back, but sad to be leaving – ahhhhh!

Merry Christmas!

Ciao Ragazzi xxx