Men With Blue Faces.

Saw these on Sunday.
Laughed our socks off.
A very visual and surprising show.

Here I am in the computer room whilst behind me two lads engage in a playful tussle on their swivel chairs.
Not the most conducive environment for essay writing and all other things academic.
Fortunately i'm just checking emails and updating the blog.

It's all coming to an end.
Just two more practical assessment, four pieces of written work and this first year will be over.
Monday is the last official student night out.
Am probably in the miniscule minority not having been out on any, but may do on this time to mark the occasion.

Am here at my brother's, making use of the IT facilities and listening to hits from the eighties.

Also a big get well soon to Tinypoppet who occasionally comments on this blog.

Going Solo.

It came around very quickly.
Yep, today was the day I performed my first solo.
Not only a solo, but also dance/movement based.

The goddamned alphabetical running order placed me second.
To top it off it was also videoed.


Mine was based loosely around feelings of loss and panic.
Lecturer A was suitably pleased with all the performances.
At one point it looked like the video camera was refusing to work, so all in all I think she was relieved.
One of the class didn't show.
Maybe they don't want to come back next year?

One of the lads asked if i'd be joining them on the last student night out of the year.
It's a Monday.
In a nightclub.
Admittedly, not my normal Monday night activity.
But may well show my face.
Show them how to have a really good time....ahem.

Today's OM...

Good Thinking The Power Of Staying Positive

Our thoughts are not simply ethereal pieces of information that enter our minds and then disappear. The words and ideas that we think can shape our lives and drive us toward success and happiness or failure and distress. How you think and feel can have a profound effect on your ability to recognize opportunity, how well you perform, and the outcome of the goals that you've set for yourself. When you maintain an optimistic outlook and make an effort to harbor only positive thoughts, you begin to create the circumstances conducive to you achieving what you desire. You feel in control and few of life's challenges seem truly overwhelming because it is in your nature to expect a positive conclusion. An optimistic mind is also an honest one. Staying positive does not mean that you ignore difficulties or disregard limitations. Instead, it means spending time focusing only on the thoughts that are conducive to your well-being and progress. Positive thinking dramatically increases your chances of success in any endeavor. When you're sure that you are worthy and that achievement is within your grasp, you start to relax and look for solutions rather than dwelling on problems. You are more likely to imagine positive situations or outcomes and disregard the thoughts related to giving up, failure, or roadblocks. What the mind expects, it finds. If you anticipate joy, good health, happiness, and accomplishment, then you will experience each one. Thinking positively may sound like a simple shift in attention - and it is - but it is a mind-set that must be developed. Whenever a negative thought enters your mind, try immediately replacing it with a constructive or optimistic one. With persistence, you can condition your mind to judge fleeting, self-defeating thoughts as inconsequential and dismiss them. It is within your power to become as happy, content, or successful as you make up your mind to be. Staying positive may not have an immediate effect on your situation, but it will likely have a profound and instantaneous effect on your mood and the quality of your experiences. In order for positive thinking to change your life, it must become your predominant mind-set. Once you are committed to embracing positive thinking, you'll start believing that everything that you want is within your grasp.

Had a really interesting discussion with one of the dance lecturers about the possibilities for using dance within the field of criminal justice.
This got me thinking about the value of using different aspects of the performing arts within a therapeutic context, combining it with counselling.
Drama Therapy springs to mind: but I enviasge something slightly less formal.
Anyhow, it's just an idea for the future, but would certainly combine my previous experience/study with the whole performing arts thing.

A Small Moan.

Council Tax.
As a full time student I should be paying it at a much reduced rate ( if at all...not familiar with the exact regulations).
But am I?
NO!
Am still paying the full amount I was when working full time.
Just gearing myself up to step into round 3 with the local authority and try to sort it out.
Ding-ding!

Oh Dear.

In the one lecture a week when the whole year group meets....
Lecturer S was going through info. regarding next year's module choices.
Someone was reading a novel, quite indiscreetly.
The lecturer pointed out how rude this was.
I would imagine this made the bookworm feel quite small.
Who then excused themselves from the room in a rather petulant manner.
I mean, seriously.

Another day, another lecture.
Just a week or so ago here I was passing comment on how some students don't seem to cope with the 9 am starts, and this morning I didn't feel much like it.
Nor did the lecturer by the general dishevelledness of him.
Still, we all livened up and got some stuff done.

Yesterday was enrolment time for next year's modules.
Briefly I did mull over the idea of taking a year out and going back to work full time to save some money.
But like I said, it was only a brief thought.

I have another random observation to offer:

Sometimes when discussing parts of the course, or the games we play a lot of my younger contemporaries have far stronger opinions as to they're worth. Feeling that some are a waste of time.
Maybe it's being older, or maybe it's my newbie status in the world of performing arts, but they all seem pretty relevant: even hopping around holding my ankles.

I do remember feeling very strongly about such things as a younger woman. I wonder if it's a feeling of insecurity which fosters such strong feelings and opinions. A way of overcompensating?

Show Time!

This weekend J was in a dance show.
Now he's been part of a Boyz dance company for the last two months, and although he seems to love to dance. Performing in front of people was a major cause of anxiety.
He did it though, and the whole event was a huge success.
Very proud Mum here.

Well people.
What do I have to tell you?
Not so much as it happens.
Things plod on much the same.
Athough I am going to see KT Tunstall in June with the lovely Hoof and co.

This morning's lecture started in a let'sgobacktoourchildhood vein.
Playing What's the time Mister Wolf? reminded me of days gone by on the playground.
The overriding memory was of wearing silver shoes and doing the splits.
Such simple times.

This was sent to me today....

Staying Afloat

Riding The Wave Of life

Our lives are continually in motion, buoyed by the wave that is the universe's flow. As the wave rises and falls, we are carried forward, through life's high and low points. The universe's flow may take us to a place in life where we would rather not be. As tempting as it can be to fight the direction and size of this wave that propels us, riding the wave is intended to make life easier. When you ride the wave, your life can evolve naturally and with minimal effort. Riding the wave, however, is not a passive experience. It is an active process that requires you to be attentive, centered, and awake. You must also practice stillness so you can flow with, rather than resist the wave's motion. Because life is dynamic and always changing, it is when we try to make the wave stand still or resist its direction that we are likely to get pulled under by its weight. If you try to move against the wave, you may feel as if you are trapped by it and have no control over your destiny. When you reach a low point while riding the wave and find your feet touching bottom, remember to stay standing so that you can leap forward along with the wave the next time it rises. Trying to resist life's flow is a losing proposition and costly because you waste energy. Riding the wave allows you to move forward without expending too much of your own efforts. When you ride the wave, you are carried by it and your head can "stay above water" as you go wherever it takes you. It can be difficult to trust the universe and let go of the urge to fight life's flow, and you may find it easier to ride the wave if you can stay calm and relaxed. Riding the wave will always take you where you need to go.

I like this and have always found it comforting to go with the notion of things in life happening for a reason...and that in some ways it's all a question of fate.
This helps keep me happy and buoyant, most of the time anyway.

I really need water says lecturer A.
You need water?! It must be sooo tiring watching us all run around and hop about like loons.

I hope she appreciated my stab at humour.
We'll know a week on Friday after the next assessment, I guess.

It's taken a while but I now can state with a very firm conviction that the vast majority of the students on my course do not function well in the morning.
Take this morning as an example: a 9am lecture. The energetic lecturer asks how everyone is...knackered...ill...asleep.... are the muffled replies.
Having knocked back the Berocca* and got a full 8 hours, it's with ashamed reluctance I can admit here, that I was raring to go.
Is it not cool to be keen and eager?
Apparantly not.

So the lecture gets started and the random games begin.
Leading a partner by the hand with their eyes shut.
Most of us will probably have played a variation of this at some point.
It's all about trust.

Kiera, what do you think of what we're doing? asks another student.
I love it, I (keenly) reply.
I just find it a bit young, we did all this is GCSE Drama.
So did I, but it was so long ago that I can't remember it! (reminiscing)
It just feels immature, she concludes.

This mature student is clearly way past feeling immature.


*http://www.berocca.co.uk/

Sitting in the library, a phone rings.
Answered in that high pitched greeting young many young women adpot.
The person on the phone chats away about how skint she is and the state of her relationship.
Until the eagle-eyed librarian leaps up, strides purposefully across to the offender and suggests she takes it outside.

Well, it certainly made me chuckle.

Strike!

Today the lecturers are striking.
I cheerily hooted my horn whilst driving past The Picket Line.
I hope they're awarded their pay rise.
Either way i'm enjoying this unexpected day off.

Something Dark

This is the working title of the lastest show written amd performed by Lemn Sissay.
It charts the story of his life, so cleverly played out in this one man show.
A great perfromance which I was lucky enough to watch on Sunday.
I think that going along with a group of fellow care leavers added another dimension to this.

It's been a little while...mainly due to my computer turning itself off and not coming back on.

The weekend was fun: Saturday was spent visiting D. She Aries. In the nicest possible way, of course.

At midnight we hit a club. Only to find it disappointingly empty. Eventually crawling into our beds at 4am.

Pictured are D's cupboards: she assures me the OCD is well under control.

I've washed my feet announces H at a lecture yesterday.

Comments such as this are pretty common place in this student world.

Often i've compared Life to a Vortex of Randomness.
A great comfort to know it continues to swirl.

Not so moving but quite amusing....

...is this text received from my brother recently:

Coming soon at a theatre near you: BKS and the Apple, a nostalgic tale of bygone days when as the nose got browner, the marks got higher.
Featuring Sue Pollard as a frustrated science teacher dishing out A1 grades to prefect pupils.
Comedian Jack Dee appears in a supporting role.

Sounds rather like a regular commenter on this blog, don't you think?!

Broken Chords.

If you get the chance, see this show.
It's very moving.
And funny.
And the dancing's breathtakingly intimate.

By moving...I don't mean the sobbing into your programme kind. Although you might be.
More the there's a pain in my chest and I feel so sad kind.

Hurtling along the M1 really isn't the best place to shed a tear.
Trust me.