Act it out, if you will [Vincent]

(This is a long entry – over 1400 words, wow. Kind of contradicts my disclaimer below then = = I’m sorry that I write about my boring all-and-sundry day, but I promise it’s only because the first two days of uni are especially memorable. Being the usually forgetful me, I shall have much less to blog about for the rest of the semester. Heh.)

Disclaimer. A certain fellow blogger remarked that I “spend WAY TOO MUCH TIME online”. While I do admit that I am quite subject to some form of OCD so that whenever I go online I must complete certain tasks before carrying out others, work is still teh (sic) priority. As a BA, I have to do much reading, but that’s especially enjoyable because I simply loooove reading. (And I like reading ahead of the syllabus, so that helps too.) I’ve explained the blogging-late-at-night thing in my previous post.

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I’ve been looking forward to today ever since I got the email from the Chinese Theatre Group over the weekend. Woot, acting is something I’ve never tried but have always longed to attempt. (Who could resist the temptation of the limelight ? And given that I’m usually a shy and not-so-talkative person…)

So there was much anticipation going on while I tried to get through my day of lectures, all the time telling myself not to get over-excited too early. Not to mention that at the same time (even during lecture hours), I was trying very hard not to forget the lines from my audition material. I, for one, am verrrrry well-known to have an incapacitated short-term memory. Gah.

Mmm speaking of which, I’m currently having trouble remembering what I did today…

Oh I had A.Maths, that’s right. I felt quite happy yesterday in my first maths lecture, and well, today too. Mostly because I’ve read the textbook before class and understood what the lecturer was trying to show us. MATRICES. My school was against Methods CAS, so we did normal Methods instead, which meant no matrices were involved. Hence the extra effort I had to put in, in order to understand everything. But yeh, being asian, it sort of got through quite naturally. (Sometimes I’m glad that it helps being part of a specific racial stereotype, sometimes not…)

Then a two-hour break, the first 30 minutes of which I spent wandering around Union House, travelling in pretty much the opposite direction to everyone else. Saw some friends near the stationery store (I just realised I didn’t get my paper today again), went back to get a chicken fillet burger, and ventured back out into the (extremely windy) Union Lawn only to find my friends have disappeared… Eh ? Around 10 minutes was spent searching for them, and ha, there’s people from my first high school too. Fun.

And somehow I ended up torturing myself by accompanying a friend all the way down to the new Commerce building (oooh all shiny and uhhh, SPOTS – no wait, say COW). Why was it a torture, you ask ? Because my laptop was weighing down on my bag a lotttttt. I’m almost beginning to suspect that soon enough this would entail a visit to the doctor about sore shoulder blades. Or does everyone else get this problem too ?

The trip back up to my first PPE lecture was even less enticing, but I did get through that and managed not to die near the Old Quad so that some philosophy professor could walk by my still body and comment on the beauty of being in such stillness… Yes anyway, PPE (for Philosophy, Politics and Economics, but I’d much rather it be PhiloPolE – something like philopoly to the ear) was… a bit less interesting than I’d thought it would be. Or it could be to do with my frustration at the WiFi not working on my laptop still. Or it could be the Philo lecturer (out of three, one for each strand of this IDF subject). But the thing was, I was about to nod off. Argh, not good. This probably just meant I needed a quick lie-down on the South Lawn after PPE. So that’s what I set off to do straight after the lecture, except…

… I bumped into yet another person from school (hey this is getting into a habit without my consciously making it so ; there just seems to be so many of us around). He had to fix up some problem with his tutorial, so I followed him to the Psych building. I took Psych in VCE, and I’m of course much fascinated by the human mind. Well never mind that. (No, this is not a pun.) The point of mentioning this little trip was that this was when the winds struck, and my friend (who would appear at first sight to be built out of a single slab of marble) was remarking how the wind was even about to push him over. Italics over. But really. If he’s to be pushed over, then poor me was probably about to be swept up like Dorothy into that Land of Oz. (Oz…)

So was this the “extreme weather” mentioned in the VicPolice SMS last night ? I’d guess so. But tornadoes (or are they called cyclones in the Australian-Pacific region ?) don’t occur in Melbourne… Or do they now…

(Ugh the internet connection just got cut off. I had to retype the following paragraphs.)

This friend needed to get some textbooks, so off we went to the Uni Bookshop, my second visit there today. I’m wondering, is the solution supplement for Anton and Rorres’s Elementary Linear Algebra in stock at all ? More people from school outside the Bookshop. This is amazing – almost every third person walking by is from school…

My last and favourite lecture of the day : The Secret Life of Language, my Ling subject for the semester. Saw Olle there, but I only realised he was there after standing outside the theatre for a couple of minutes. Heh, sorry there. As we were filing into the theatre, this girl said hi, so I said hi back, and thus went my first non-self-instigated social contact at uni. Oooh Malaysian accents are cool. And it’s especially nice if you are able to communicate in more than one language (think three) with a new acquaintance. Adds to the familiarity, you see. And on top of that, a common interest is a nice touch too. Hey, who said you have to change yourself to make new friends ?

SLL actually finished ahead of the scheduled 5:15 pm, so I had plenty of time to find my way to the Arts Centre for the play audition. I think I actually went through the Performing Arts Centre on the way though… But there seemed to be only one way through that building, so no drama there (ahem). Arrived at the Arts Centre with about ten minutes to spare before the 5:30 audition, so I took some time trying to memorise my lines. Ugh I’m not good at remembering stuff. Drill drill drill. The audition venue got changed several times, with one of the intermediary rooms named Black Hole (ehhh).

Owing to the play being produced in Cantonese (with English subtitles, part of which will probably involve some contribution from yours truly, but we shall see how I fare in that department later), everyone in today’s audition session (there are several) was fluent in Cantonese. Yay for familiarity again. After a few theatre games, we had the obligatory self-introductions, followed by everyone’s monologues. Then a small group collaboration, and monologues of a slightly different nature from before. All in all, it was enjoyable. Even if I’m not going to get a part in the play, it’s at least been an experience. And what’s not to like ?

Actually, people may be surprised when I tell them that I went for a play audition. I’m usually quite the keeps-myself-to-myself person (but still approachable), yet acting is so out-there, if you know what I mean. Although I’ve done lots of singing in high school, I’ve never had the courage to go through with an audition for either the school musical or drama. But I still enjoyed watching them, especially if the leads were people I know, such as those from choirs =P

Living someone else’s life under the limelight is both interesting to experience and spectate. I’ve always cast myself in the latter role, but why not try to experience it firsthand ? And so there I was, in my first ever play audition. Act it out, if you will, or rather, live it out, if you will, I’d say. If it’s your dream (even those wildest ones that tend to turn into nightmares at times), go – for – it.

(And I’ve got my fallback plan anyway. Since the CTG is apparently short of script translators, so as I’ve mentioned above…)

One lecture tomorrow =P

cenvii