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2010-10-17 - 9:47 p.m.

Longest day ever.

6:45pm(ish) on the 5th I board the plane to Europe and we take off roughly on time. I am seated next to a man from Northern Ireland with the most wonderful to listen to lilt. Seriously, I keep asking him open ended questions just so I can listen to him talk. At one point he spends half an hour discussing Guiness with me. I have a man crush. I explain my school and housing situation to him and he says, "Well, with 5 girls you might be spoilt for choice there, young man." Only all Irish-like. I can't help but grin.

8pmish- I take advantage of the free TV and movies to keep a promise and watch Toy Story for the first time. Cute, but not nearly as great as Up. I am finding it easier to sit through computer animated movies, though, so maybe at some point I will get around to seeing The Incredibles.

8:30pmish- Dinner is served on the flight. Beef with Irish potatoes, salad, and...ugh...cheesecake for dessert.

8:31pm- I put the Italian dressing onto my salad.

8:32pm- We hit a pocket of turbulence causing me to spill my salad into my lap. FML. I am gonna smell like vinagrette for the next 36 hours. Joy.

After doing my best to clean myself off in the airplane bathroom, I read, watch Toy Story, A-Team, Family Guy, read, and play a little Lego Batman. Surprisingly quickly, the pilot, also Irish as hell, announces that we are beginning our descent and thanks us for flying Aer Lingus. Ham and cheese croissants are served.

7:00am GMT (1:00am CST)- WE actually got in to Dublin almost an hour early thanks to a favorable tailwind. While that is cool, my connection isn't till 3pm local time (what will feel like 9am for me after not sleeping all night) I look to kill time at the airport. I also sadly turn Whistler off for the last time and stow him in my bag until March.

8:00am GMT (2:00am CST)- I get some Euros from an ATM and notice that apparently it's never too early to have a Guinness in Dublin. Well, when in Rome.....

8:05am GMT- The publican finishes pouring my Guinness and it's ready to drink. It's wonderful. It really is way better in Ireland than in the US.

9:00am GMT- Ok, while the Guinness was wonderful it was also a mistake, mixing depressants with tiredness, as I'm almost ready to nod off. I force myself to walk awhile and then go into the best looking restaurant in the airport for breakfast. For 10 Euro I have an "Irish breakfast" consisting of 2 puddings (I still have no idea WTF they were but they were good), 2 fried eggs, toast, a sausage, and 3 hash browns. Coronary followed appromixately 20 minutes later.

10:00am GMT- Crashing hard again, I turn to Red Bull to save me. IT works for awhile.

1:30pm GMT- My internal clock now says it's 7:30am. I've been up for 24 hours officially and still have another hour and a half to kill before my flight. Desperate to stay awake, I force myself to walk laps around the airport, drawing funny looks from more than one person.

*But ken, you ravishingly handsome devil, you ask, why didn't you just take a nap at the airport during this down time? Well, you see, my plan to avoid being ass-kicked by jet lag involved forcing myself to stay awake until I actually got to my room in Birmingham and it was nighttime. if i stayed awake for 36 hours and went to bed at 8pm local time, I was betting I would be pretty acclimated to local time when I got up the next morning. in order for this to work though, I had to make myself not sleep for awhile despite my body telling me it was getting impatient*

3pm GMT (9m CST)- WE board for Birmingham and head out. I read some more but the words keep blurring on the page. Apparently I am not someone who can still be functional after being awake more than 24 hours. I'm suddenly really glad I didn't continue down the "I wanna be a doctor" career path.

4:30pm GMT- I get my bags and head through Customs, only to discover there was no one there. Seriously. My passport got stamped in Dublin and apparently that's good enough, cause there was literally no one even at the customs desks at Birmingham airport. Everyone just waltzed through and went to find cabs. I follow suit.

5:00pm GMT- I get to the house I will be living in for the next year. No one is home. This is a problem cause I don't have a key yet. THe real estate agency is about a half a mile from the house and I know how to find it, but A) I don't know if they're still open (and a phone call on a borrowed cell phone yielded no answer) so I'm not hopeful. And B) I'm just too tired to carry all my luggage down there. I was hoping to at least drop my gear off at the house before I headed down there to sign my lease and get my key.

6:00pm- I'm cold and there are wolves after me. Seriously, no one is home yet and I'm starting to run out of options. I gird my loins and prepare to carry all of my heavy awkward bags down to the real estate office. Luckily, they are open.

7:00pm- I am unpacking in my room when the new roommates begin trickling in. They seem like nice people. Of course, I am tired enough at this point that they could be a group of Manson cultists and I wouldn't care, though. (seriously though, they are cool. I'm actually having a lot of fun living here)

10:00pm- after unpacking, introductions, and a quick shower are taken care of, I am officially ready for bed. It is 10pm GMT, which means my body thinks it's 4pm on Wednesday, and I've been up since 7am on Tuesday. I think about trying to go for the full 36 hours awake but decide the hell with it and it's bedtime.

Next day- Plan works. i wake at 8am with no problems, no fatigue, and I am good, immune to jet lag and summoning sickness (cause i paid the kicker cost)

Anyway, more on other stuff later. Class is fun, roomies are cool. Oh, and I am not just the only boy in this house, i am the only boy in the program. FUn fun. And we are doing 12th Night for our workshop production. With seven girls and one man. Figure that one out.

Class is busy- they are scheduling us for about 30 hours a week of actual in class time, plus homework and such. Here's the class schedule for the first week that we just concluded- (someone show this to Ken and Bob)

MOnday- 9am to 1pm- Acting workshop/tutorial. 3:20 to 4:35- Period Movement. 4:45 to 6:00- Singing diagnostic/Ensemble singing class. 6:15 to 7:30- Speech

Tuesday- 11:45am to 1:00pm- Acting diagnostic (more on those next entry)
2:00pm to 3:15pm- Stage combat. 3:20 to 4:35- Contextual studies

Wednesday- 10:30am to 11:45- Practical Voice. 11:45 to 1:00pm- Technical singing (different from Ensemble singing). 2:00pm to 6:00pm- Acting workshop: Shakespeare (essentially 12th Night rehearsals.)

Thursday- 9am to 10:15- Voice Tutorial (different from practical voice). 10:30 to 11:45am- Organic Movement (different from Period Movement). 2:00pm to 6:00pm- Acting workshop

Friday- 9:00am to 1:00pm- Acting workshop. 2:00pm to 6:00pm- Acting workshop.

yeah, 8 hours of 12th Night rehearsal will be my friday for the rest of the semester. The schedule seems to be that every week, minus the diagnostics. already we have assignments due in 5 of 11 classes this week.

So i had best get back to work. more later this week.

Cheers.

Ken

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