This Week's Lineup

I'm still alive! Here's the breakdown. This is mostly so I can organize my thoughts; I apologize for the dull format and will post like a normal blogger (if such a thing exists) after the show.

MONDAY
Class from 8am to 10pm. There's technically rehearsal this evening, but I won't be there because making up labs is really complicated and it has to happen the same week you missed your own lab section. Way more hassle than it's worth, especially since I need all of my spare afternoons for studying. This week's lab is business as usual, nothing too exciting.

TUESDAY
Pretty sure we have a lec/dem but I don't know where exactly.
I had a Bio paper due last week, but when we turned them in, our professor let us peer review one other paper for extra credit. This Tuesday, I'll get my revised paper back and have the afternoon to write it over. I did my best but I'm sure I'll have to do a lot of it over again. No matter what, I will never meet anyone's standards, and I need to just accept that.
In the evening, there's a tech rehearsal! Costumes, props, lights, and sound: the whole enchilada.

WEDNESDAY
Another long day ending in the last tech rehearsal.

THURSDAY
Prospie weekend! I'm not hosting but my friends are.
Another lec/dem, maybe? I'm not really clear on our schedule.
Final draft of the case study paper due today!
OPENING NIGHT!

FRIDAY
In the afternoon, I'm doing some baking for the show (bake sale during intermission). I think I'm going to make homemade oreos and cupcakes decorated with words from the show and bees. There's another show in the evening, after which I plan to sleep, possibly before I even get home. I might just curl up on one of the benches on set.

SATURDAY
Collaborations! There's a picnic lunch on Chapin lawn and people do presentations of research projects. I have to attend two lectures relating to Biology for some more extra credit and if I have time, there's an interesting-looking presentation on gender in choreography that I'd like to attend. I doubt I'll get to that, but it looks good.
My mom is swinging by NoHo from Boston on her way home, and she's stopping by to see the show! I'm so excited, it'll be great to see her. After the Saturday show, we have strike, then the cast party, which I haven't heard anything about but I'm sure it'll be nice.

SUNDAY
Much as I would like to sleep for the entire day, I will get up early to see my mother off and shut myself in a very public part of Neilson (the more people are around, the more work I get done because my shirking is obvious. Nothing like shame for a motivator!) to study all day long. I will get everything and then some finished so I can land on my feet on Monday.

As it was written, so it shall be.

Waterworks

What with stress and hormones, I had a rough day today and kept crying at the drop of a hat. This is a seriously annoying habit of mine that dates back to my birth; I cry so often that when I was little, my teachers would send me home with notes that said, "No tears today!" because those were pretty momentous occasions. It was especially frustrating because it always looked like I was trying to get attention, but I really was as sensitive as an orchid petal and virtually anything made me burst into tears. Now as an adult-in-training, I know just how inappropriate it is to frequently cry, but I can't control it any better than I could as a kid; the difference being that an adult crying looks manipulative rather than simply attention-seeking. I'm honestly not trying for some kind of effect here! Today I left Biology and after trying to call both of my sisters, I sat on Chapin lawn and cried with my face in my hands because I'm sure I'm going to fail Bio, won't get into graduate school due to mediocre grades, and never become a physical therapist. I thought about how my dream was going to die and it's not like a B.A. in dance makes me qualified for anything! Luckily, this was late afternoon/early evening, so there weren't many people around and I could have a cry in peace, but the worst part about hormonal stress tears is that you feel just as bad afterwards as you did before your crying jag.

I don't want to alarm anybody here; I really am okay and my problems are not nearly as serious as I'm making them sound. Even the part about a degree in dance isn't true; there are tons of (not particularly well-paying) jobs I could get with my future degree. Today everything felt horrible and I was depressed all day and cried in front of my professor AGAIN so now he probably thinks I have some sort of chemical imbalance, but I can fix it. Things will be okay, I will make it work, and if all else fails I can always become a Rolfer or a masseuse. I mostly just wrote this post to put this anecdote in perspective:

Today was a terrible day, but as I was taking a shower I noticed how shapely my calves have become. It's a testament to my incredible vanity that I actually thought, Mediocrity won't be so bad if my legs look hot. 

Venturing into the belly of the beast

A few weeks ago, I went to the Lazarus Center (Bringing your career back from the dead since March 2012!), also known as the Career Development Office. (It's named after an alum, not the Biblical Lazarus, but I still can't hear the name without thinking of one or two snarky quips.) The Lazarus Center sends hella emails that nobody actually reads about how to ace an interview/score an internship/arise from the mailroom, and since I have a keen desire to succeed, I made an appointment with an advisor to discuss my Future. He turned out to be unbelievably kind and supportive, gave me a ton of really valuable advice, and directed me to some very helpful people. It was a really great experience!

Today, I went to another super-helpful resource that I had not previously given much thought: the Jacobson Center. The Jacobson Center helps with writing assignments: you make an appointment, upload your essay a few days in advance, then go in to get feedback from someone other than your professor. I admit, I didn't go of my own accord; my Bio professor assigned us a case study paper and one of the essay requirements was a visit to the Jacobson Center. There's a person who specializes in science writing, but she was swamped, so I just made an appointment with someone who was available when I was. He was a very pleasant man; though he admitted to being out of his element, he gave me some very helpful advice. I know how to properly use footnotes now! (My high school insisted on MLA and parenthetical citations regardless of the subject, so I'm shaky on other citation styles.) Because my paper was only a page long, our appointment was pretty snappy, but I feel good knowing that my argument is logical and coherent and that the joke I made at the end is amusing.

I wonder what my next adventure will be. Maybe I'll go to the Center for Work & Life. I'm not 100% sure what they do, but I could explore.... still, that might have to be an adventure for next semester. The year is rapidly coming to a close (why yes, that is extraordinarily nerve-wracking! Thank you for asking!) and I'm trying to crack down and focus on what's right in front of me.