Falling Into Place

This week was a good week.  And a bad week.  I handed in a script that was ten pages shorter than it was supposed to be, and I went to a few classes without the homework, but this week is still a really good week.  Because everything seems to be falling into place in a way that makes me really happy.

I had a long chat with my boss/advisory about a huge range of things (including the most recent episodes of Fringe and Once Upon A Time) and I realized that I have a lot more figured out than I realized, which is really exciting.  Last weekend I signed up for another class which fills up my course load to the maximum sixteen.  I realized that I have a few options for where to live next year and none of them suck.  Then, near the end of the "meeting" she pulled my other boss in and we had my what-are-you-going-to-do-next-semester conversation.

Granted, I'm still not sure the class I registered for is the right one, and I haven't actually picked where I'm going to live next semester, but I certainly feel a lot better about my life right now.  And even though what I handed in today wasn't quite what I would have wanted, it's actually really nice to not have to worry about it anymore.  Meanwhile, I still have ten pages to write over two different papers, but I'm actually starting to look forward to next semester.

Especially with work next semester.  I was stressing out over the uncertainty of what I was going to be doing for work next semester.  Not that I was in huge fear of my job, just that I know there are a lot of new people coming in who would be great for the show I've been working on and I had a sense that I wouldn't be do it come next September.  I found out this week that I'll be working with a show that is basically how I became interested in Frequency to begin with.

Meanwhile, I'm taking guesses as to who the new hires are going to be and getting super excited for the summer.  Nearly four solid months worth of not having a direct responsibility.  The summer idea list keeps growing, but there are very few "chores" that have gotten on it.  Besides applying for study abroad and trying to figure out a pitch for the fall, I'll mostly be catching up on TV, reading and hanging out with friends... in Berlin.  No big deal.  (by which I mean, really-big-i'm-so-excited-i-could-die deal)

Finally everything is falling into place.  Now if I could only finish these papers...

In Which I Go On About Travel Plans

Now that my plans are a bit more official, I don't feel awkward sharing them.  As of this past week, I am officially going to Berlin, have a place to stay for a month, and am flying out of Rome.  How my friend Allason and I are getting from Berlin to Rome has yet to be established, but that's not the point.  The point is that I'm spending a month rehearsing for a performance, then galavanting around Europe.  I can't even describe my excitement.

I'm flying out on the 4th of July, continuing the not-yet-tradition of flying out of the country on Independence Day, spending a few days on my own before checking in to What Moves You? a Eurythmy conference (eurythmy is quite difficult to explain, simply put it's a dance form with specific movements for music or spoken word, but that definition seems constraining to me).  

The conference is a month worth of rehearsals cumulating in a performance in early August.  The conference is being held at a school in Berlin.  After the performance Allason and I have ten days to make our way down to Rome before heading back to good old San Francisco.

So far I've bought myself a travel book for Berlin and started making marks in it of what I want to do.  Allason and I have brainstormed ideas of what we might do too, but we haven't made any hard and fast decisions yet.  Have I mentioned that I'm excited?  I am.  Quite.  I'm going to be spending a month with some of my favorite people in the world seeing new things and (hopefully) speaking in a language I don't quite understand (My teacher said my pronunciation is getting better though).

Anyone have any ideas?

I'm in Love with the Idea of: Drinking Beer in Foreign Countries

I'm a 20-year-old college student, so admittedly I have only drunk when in foreign countries.  No really.  Okay, not quite, but almost really.  Anyway, ever since a conversation that I remember overhearing about how real people drink beer straight from the bottle / can, and reading Gossip Girl after which I associated fruity cocktails with bratty, stuck up, rich kids; I thought that real people drink beer.  Straight from the can.  These "real people" may have a glass of wine at a dinner party or a specialty drink for different occasions (a mint julep while watching a horse race of example), but for the most part real people drank beer.

My problem is: I kind of hate beer.

Beer is light or dark.  It's thick.  It froths over the edges of the glass and makes strange patters on the glass.  Beer makes my teeth feel funny.  Funny in an icky, I-haven't-brushed-my-teeth-all-day sort of way.  Beer is sticky and smells weird.  I just don't really like it.

Cocktails on the other hand... brilliant.  Sugary, liquored up wonders that taste great and make me a little bit happy.  I can drink a few of those, but then again, that's not always the greatest idea in the world...

Beauty in the Broken: Waldorf

I often find the things that are the most broken and beat up the most beautiful as well.  Anything can be beautiful, you just have to look hard enough to find the beauty in it.  Sometimes it's hard.  Sometimes it's buried underneath layers and layers of history and pain.  Sometimes the ache has instead brought the beauty to the surface in a way that wouldn't be possible otherwise.  

The fact that this former mining town is called Waldorf is not lost on me.  I wonder what the name comes from.  I know only the connotations it holds for me, not the history of the name in this place.  We had a bumpy ride up through a dry creek bed and we went in the complete wrong direction, but eventually we found Waldorf.  Gold flecks glimmered in the dirt piles as we ate lunchmeat sandwiches made that morning.  The place felt familiar.  Like an old friend.  Perhaps it was the shared name with my school.  Perhaps the quiet.  Perhaps more.  I think most of all it was the silence.  The thought that no one had lived here, truly lived here, in decades.

It was beautiful.

Around the World: Montreal

This past weekend was a whirlwind trip to Montreal with my family.  We ate yummy food at farmers markets, and had way too much gelato.  We traipsed all over the city, shopping, wandering, searching for maple flavored things, taking public transit (my favorite thing about almost any city), and going to a concert at the Basilica next to our hotel.

While we were there I thought about the most Candaian thing I could possibly buy.  I landed on a winter jacket.  Of course.  In the middle of summer.  We were the only ones in the store.  We felt a little foolish.  I regret nothing.

I came home on Monday evening to be able to go to my summer class on Tuesday afternoon.  I spent way too long in the Chicago O'Hare airport doing homework.  It's actually kind of weird that I spent so much time there while I sort of live there.  Oh well, that's a thought for another post.

Anyway, some pictures from my trip.  Amazing how I thought I took so many pictures, and yet I have so few that I'm actually happy with.  Boo.  Oh well.