Author Archive
Unconcious Living
One thing that irks me quite a bit is when I go into a public toilet and there are little pieces of toilet paper on the ground. How the hell do they get there? Do people just pull random bits of toilet paper off the roll and throw them there? How lazy is it to put it in the bin or in the toilet thus keeping the toilet tidy?
I couldn’t understand it at all, until today. I caught myself in the act of doing the exact thing I hated. I pulled the toilet paper out of the roll and the roll got stuck causing only the tiniest piece to tear off. I then proceeded to drop this piece on the floor before trying again.
How often do we do things unconsciously? Especially things that we don’t want to do, or that we don’t like doing, or even completely irks us when other people do it? How often do I do it myself?
Every now and again I know I at least need to wake up and pay attention to what I am doing because I am constantly guilty of this. I say I don’t want to do something then continue down that path.
I need to pay attention to what I am doing with the toilet roll before I turn the whole room into a waste paper basket. I ned to pay attention to what I am doing in my life before I turn my whole life into a mess I don’t want to live through.
Image by Urban Woodswalker (flickr)
Well I’m making friends all round today!
Yesterday one of the local amateur theatre companies that I have worked with before sent out a newsletter and it was for want of a better word…shit. It had spelling mistakes all through it, it was highly negative, there were sentences that didn’t make sense and very little information about anything the club was doing or had done. Even the updated version she sent a couple of hours later had text boxes overlaying one another so it was completely unreadable. It pissed me off. So I reformatted the thing, fixed the spelling mistakes, the grammar mistakes, made it positive, added a review about their latest show “The Importance of Being Earnest”, put some stuff in about their upcoming auditions and wrote a little thing about a director the club has worked with who recently passed away.
Today I got a response which was incredibly rude and I think if she had wanted to would have contained the phase “fuck off we are doing great”. I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t expecting a “Oh Emma thank you! You are our saviour!” but to get angry at someone for offering assistance? WTF! I could have sent the thing to the whole mailing list if I wanted to but I didn’t I sent it just to the theatre manager to which she got angry and pissed off.
Why do I even bother? Why do people immediately get defensive and pissed off when someone offers assistance? Is it better to discourage people from helping so that your pride isn’t hurt or is it better to actually admit that you need some help and be appreciative of it when it is offered, especially when it isn’t asked for?
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we should only offer help to those who ask for it. Maybe I am a self important bitch who thinks I know better when in reality I’m not seeing the whole picture. Maybe I should just shut up and keep my opinions to myself. Maybe I should just watch people destroy themselves and learn from their own mistakes rather than trying to help.
If the response is going to be anything like the one I received from this woman I am not bothering anymore. This club is dead set on destroying itself because it won’t admit that it is in trouble. It would rather go on thinking it is doing fabulously than actually accept that it is headed for a massive disaster. All I offered was help and instead of a thanks but no thanks, I got completely shat on.
It’s just not worth helping people anymore.
Image by la_sara (Flikr)
Well August has now been and gone and there was no phone call from Universal Studios to say that I had a job as a performer. I would be lying if I didn’t say I was upset by this. I was incredibly upset. There has been massive mood swings from me over the past few weeks, I have honestly been quite unbearable and I love Ben even more (if that is possible) for putting up with me when I am sure no one else would. Every day when the phone had not rung I would get depressed. I would be optimistic in the morning that “Today will be the day”, but by the afternoon that optimism will have changed to incredible darkness and depression. It was hard and now it is kind of relieving to know that there is some closure to it all, even if it isn’t the result I dreamed of.
So on to the next plan. I sent off an application for AIM (Australian Institute of Music) to study Musical Theatre. I even got back into my singing practice yesterday driving my neighbours nuts with voice exercises and varying performances of “Much More” and “Far From the Home I Love”.
In addition to auditioning for different courses I am working on my singing so I can finally record some performances and put my singing up on YouTube for everyone to see. Most of my friends have never heard me sing, or have only heard me at brief intervals usually after a night karaoke and cocktails. I also want to get fit and record some dance performances but that is a little further off. I want to get the singing done by the end of November at least.
This has been difficult but I feel stronger and more determined because of it. The last few weeks I have been unable to see any life beyond Universal. I was convinced that it was my only way out, now I can see a future beyond this and I am determined to succeed.
I’m excited! Tonight is the first Friday night in months that both Ben and I have been free from the responsibilities of work, singing concerts, rehearsals, other friends, another play I have to adjudicate or one of a myriad of other reasons why we can’t spend the night together.
We keep every Tuesday night relatively free as our movie night but having a Friday night free is something different. There is that nice feeling that we don’t have to get up in the morning and face the responsibilities of another day at work. It is a nice feeling that we are going to go on a “date” again.
It is what is keeping me smiling today. Can’t wait until tonight!
Last night Ben and I sat down and had a discussion about what we will do with our lives, and mainly my life, if I don’t get this contract in Singapore. With six days left until ‘the end of August’ has been and gone and the very real possibility that the jobs have already been assigned and I am one of the unlucky few who have to come to terms with missing out, we need a back up plan.
Sure it has been great thinking that all of our problems are going to be solved by one phone call from Singapore but what if that phone call never comes? What do we do then?
We made a list of what is important and what goals I have in regards to becoming a better singer and dancer and the possibility of making a career out of it all and we came to the following general plan.
- I want to study singing and dancing more. The last two years I have been very lazy in my study and as a result I haven’t really improved very much and in the case of dancing I have put on weight, lost a lot of flexibility and lost some skills that I used to find easy. What that means in real terms is I need to find somewhere and something to study so after scouring numerous course and finding ones that offer some of what I want, I am going to apply for BAPA (musical theatre), WAAPA (classical), WAAPA (musical theatre), and AIM (musical theatre).
- I need to stay at Kolbe till the end of the year which means I have to suck up the fact that I hate it here and deal with it. Unless I have another job to go to, this is my only opportunity to save some money for what is going to be a difficult year next year.
- Work more on my writing and start to produce some of the things I have written into some form other than just keeping it all to myself. Sure this opens me up to the potential for ridicule but until I try, I will only have failed.
- Stop looking just at what is going wrong and start to focus on what is going right. I actually have a lot of joy and happiness in my life I just get bogged down in petty crap.
I’m not pretending that I am not upset about missing out on this contract. It would have been a dream come true and would have made so many things simpler. I cried and cried last night when I thought of all that I had lost, but it is time to move on. I can sit here and mope about it or I can do something now. I can have something to look forward to again and besides this means that I can still play Hodel in “Fiddler on the Roof” at the end of the year and that is something I am looking forward to!
