According to My Planner It's Still Week 6

Of course my planner is notorious for simply conforming to my needs and ignoring the truth of reality, but we can all just pretend that isn't true. Technically I never laid out what days my weeks began and ended, so this is still a week 6 post, that's completely allowed.

This week I want to talk about school, well about one class specifically. Honestly, if I was just talking about school this blog would become a long series of complaints about classes I'd rather not be in and work I'd rather not do, but that's a subject for another time. This post is all about actor's voice.

I know what you're thinking. What is an econ major doing in a class called actor's voice? The answer is, she's having a complete blast! Do you remember all the pretend games you used to play as child? Do you remember being a pirate? A knight? A princess? Now imagine you have a chance to play like that with a group of college kids. Welcome to actor's voice.

I'm not saying that the class is all about playing around, because it's really active and kicks my butt twice a week, but is SO much fun. We walk on all fours, we log roll, we crab walk, we have wheelbarrow races, and we bounce each other like basketballs. All of this is really hard work and I always end up really sore, but it's also a complete blast.

Then we turn on music and pretend to catch balls of energy and let the game evolve from there. We build castles, we have zombie apocalypses, people die and are brought back to life, we travel from one end of the room to the other avoiding the lava on the floor. Every single day we tell a story without words and build things and create things without talking to each other. We just feed off each others energy and see what happens, and it's magical. There really is no other way to describe it. What happens when you trust everyone else to work with you and build a story is nothing but magical and I'm always sad to leave that class.

This week we did our first round of animal etudes, which basically involves becoming an animal and working through a scene with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Scenes ranged from cats using the litter box to deer crossing the road to a jaguar catching a water buffalo. I was a snake in a cage who was fed a mouse. It's amazing what can happen when you decide to just "be" an animal rather than acting like one. Things become instantly recognizable, and so much more entertaining. I can't wait until next week's finals. I'm planning to be an owl.

Basically I've decided that this isn't a feeling I ever want to lose. Anyone want to get together and play pretend with me?

Until I next fail at failure.