Day Uno

First day of Shakespeare was pretty solid. In our stage combat class, Dave, our instructor, asked me to be a fight captain, which I am excited about. I don’t think it means too much exactly, but at the very least it’s an opportunity to show that I can be dependable and take responsibility. So that’s a good thing. The only other thing interesting that we really did was our first read of the script. The script itself is fairly complicated and difficult, but once we started picking it apart line by line I saw that there are a lot of fun things to work with. I’m excited about my character; he’s fairly low class, but in a couple of scenes he has to have the last word, and it’s often a jab at one of the characters. Working with that should be entertaining. I also got a glance at the model for the set we’ll be using for Macbeth in three weeks. From what I could tell, it’s mainly just three ramped platforms that crisscross as you move upstage. It sort of looks like a giant wheelchair access. That should make combat interesting given my height, but we’ll see what happens.

In other news, I now own a microwave.

This One’s For Grandma

I just got back from a Mass that had started an hour before I got there. Guess next week I’ll know better.

My New House

At this point, it more or less looks like a couple of boxes exploded in my room. In other words, I haven’t made it very far on the unpacking front. I figure at least now it looks like there’s stuff in my room instead of having it just look barren. The house is pretty nice; it’s sort of small, but I think that’ll be fine. My roommate arranged the furniture in the living room so that it feels like we still have some space to work with. Pluses to the house are that we get tons of outside light, we have great water pressure, and the washing machine doesn’t have a quarter slot on it.

I just got back from a walk to the grocery store, which is about 20-30 minutes from the house on foot. I was kind of scoping out and refreshing my memory as to what was in the area and whether I could actually get to things. South Bend is a pretty terrible town for a pedestrian. I got kind of spoiled with Anchorage I guess, but seriously, how hard is it to put crosswalks at the stop lights? Luckily it isn’t as bad here as it was where I was living last summer; the biggest problem now is that there are about six restaurants between me and the grocery store. I think, especially after my birthday, that a lot of well intentioned trips will end with dollar hot dogs and dollar beers.

Shakespeare starts on Monday, so for the time being I’m just unpacking and settling in. Not very many of my friends are in yet, but it’ll be nice to see a couple of them once we start rehearsing.

4AM Chicago

Well looks like I made it back to the Midwest safely, after a run in with some interesting characters at the Phoenix airport. The very first person I saw in Phoenix was the man grabbing bags off of the plane that had just brought me from Spokane. Little did I know that his Crocodile Dundee hat, biker tattoos and 16 inch long scar on his knee was only the beginning of what my forty minutes in Phoenix had to offer.

When I sat down to wait to board my flight, I looked to my right and noticed a pretty young guy fully inked out. I guess he spent all his lunch money on those tattoos because he was eying my pizza pretty closely. On my left was the source of high pitched, off-tune lyrics. Judging from his guitar case and sketch book full of lines, I gather he fancied himself a musician. I actually thought it was pretty neat to see someone writing out lyrics on a page. It may seem kind of silly but up until now I had only seen that in the movies.

The most interesting group of people I saw was a family of about 15 whose average most likely clocked in around four or five. I can’t say for sure where they were from, but I’d guess somewhere close to the Philippines. Either none of them spoke any English or they just didn’t care how many different ways the flabbergasted flight attendant could tell them that they all needed to stay in one place. The kids were pretty cute; one little guy was a little upset but had staggered over to me; I was sitting right next to this family; and found himself a little curious about what I was up to. I wanted to ask them where they were from but I didn’t want to struggle with a language barrier and end up looking like an asshole.

Unfortunately my arrival in Chicago was greeted by much less interesting fair, unless of course you are fascinated by boarded up restaurants. I don’t how I can come to Chicago and leave without a hot dog, there’s something that just isn’t right about that. I’m about to hop on the blue line and go into downtown so I can get a train into South Bend. I think that’s the fastest/cheapest option right now.

Good News of the Day: I finally found that Time magazine I had scoured Washington to get a copy. I managed to read through the issue cover to cover before I touched down in Chicago, guess I’m stuck with my script of The Witch for the train ride home.

Goodbye Spokane, Hello Camera

Took the bus out to see Zoe today, I was pretty impressed with the Spokane buses actually. Zoe and I got a lot done on our play, I think she was stressing because writing the scenes can be pretty tough, but we figured out a lot of good ideas to use. As soon as I get back to South Bend I’ve got a lot of projects I’m going to need to jump on right away. Called my mom, I guess she got a new car, traded the 4runner for a Subaru something. I told her to keep her eye on the 25th of October to come down to Seattle for the ND v. UW football game. Hopefully I’ll be able to come over, that’d be a blast. Also I bought a camera online for $60, seemed like a sweet deal, so i should have pictures up this fall.

Tomorrow: Lunch with the fam and off to the skies.

The News So Far

I’m in Spokane getting ready to go back to Notre Dame on Wednesday. Until then I’m staying with Chris, helping him with some landscaping projects. Today we made a little gravel drive in his backyard that I think is for Tiff’s car.  He’s also putting in a new driveway in front that I’ve been helping with. At this stage we’re just hauling out a lot of dirt that is in the way.

Tomorrow I’m going out to the Valley to meet with Zoe and work on our play, Loyal Daughters and Sons. This will be the last time I get to sit down with her until after the play is over, so hopefully we’ll get a lot accomplished

New Blog

Hey everybody, and welcome to my new blog. Since I’m just starting out, this is all temporary, but I figured it would be a good idea to have a little site where people could drop in and see what I’ve been up to at college or whatever part of the country I happen to be in. Let me know what you think. Oh and also, if for whatever reason it’s loading to slow on dial-up, let me know and I’ll try and scale it back.