Late night drive by--

Many things, all at once:

1) I am only about 28% done with my dissertation and have three days left to finish it.
2) I will not be back in the states until February 2010.
3) I have to move in twelve days, and I don't know where to, and I don't know how, being unemployed as I am.
4) I am turning twenty-five in this time zone in less than thirty minutes.

Oof.

And now: I am going to bed.

Welcome to my little corner of Hell

Thought I would just give you a taste of what I'm doing. Here's a shot of the brainstorming I've done for the third and final section of the portfolio (dissertation), wherein I lay out a 5 year plan for my career/future in 2,000 words. I open each section with a quote, but before I ever write anything useful, I just put down filler. Here's what exists in this space thus far (click on picture to enlarge):


Time to get back to it.

Dissertation? I have no idea what you're talking about...

I've come to terms with the fact that I've basically taken July off. I have gone to a concert, thrown a dinner party, seen two plays, been to talks about the futures of documentary and animation, gone to the movies (A LOT), done a lot of jogging, gone to a talk about The Wire that featured David Simon and George Pelecanos, have started a rehearsal & generative process for a festival of work that will go up at the end of September, auditioned, and started reading a really good novel. What I have not done is an extensive amount of any work on my dissertation. I did manage to contact my interview subject over the Facebook (Yes: the Facebook) and have sent him off a list of questions. This man is actually important, and very busy, and I will not be in the same country as him for a time, so e-mail interview it is. Now I'm just awaiting his response. I have also gone to the V&A's Theatre Archives, located at Hammersmith in the magnificent Blythe House to watch recordings of Improbable shows, which I thought would help in my dissertation, but upon viewing I've found that they probably won't. The two performances I watched were great, but had little to do with what I'm actually writing my dissertation on. Still, any excuse and opportunity to see Improbable's work is a good one, and I enjoyed that morning.

However, aside from sending off the interview questions, and the occassional skimming of some critical or theoretical text, I have really done nothing. I acknowledge this and accept it (there's really nothing I can do about it now), and plan to change. Yes, I will alter this downward spiral I'm riding and turn around and go upupup to academic and theatrical glory. And this journey will start soon, almost immediately. In three days. But August 1st, that's the day, the flood waters will hit and everything will start to fall into place. This is the plan.

It's unfortunate that hardly anything I ever plan on ends up happening. Alas.

That being said, I plan to get my head in gear about my work shortly. I also plan to blog a bit more. I'm really going to try--truly, I am. I know I always say it, but this time I mean it. I've changed. Can't we give it one more chance? Please?

What I do when I put off work:

It's past midnight, and I have just over twelve hours before the paper I'm writing about character building in a devising process on is due. Predictably, I've been putting it off. I wrote a strong outline, but then thought of a great cover page image, and have spent about an hour working on that.

Lame? Perhaps. Completely human? Absolutely. Here's what I've come up with so far:


Completely narcissistic? Could be. But I don't kid around when I call myself an actor, alright?

In the saddest news I've heard in some time, Karl Malden is dead. More on this tomorrow (today).

One More Time

At the request of Ms. Jen Schriever, I'm throwing this up here. It's all I'll have to offer for the next few days. Please forgive the quality and general rambleness--I desperately need a vacation, and also desperately need to make up the work I neglected while doing this.

In reality though, I don't need a vacation. All I really want is a salad. Okay, and maybe also a cheeseburger. I have always been a woman of simple needs.

(Mike--if you have watched this, you will have noticed: the video is doing that thing AGAIN. What the frak is wrong?!)