December

Time is going by incredibly fast. I'm having a hard time believing that I'm already finished half (HALF!) of my class time for my MA. I had 10 days of classes and now I'm off until Jan 16.

So, what have I been up to this December? Let me reflect.

I've seen some great theatre. I think I may be rekindling my love of theatre. I recently saw:

August Ostage County- at the National Theatre from Chicago's Steppenwolf theatre.
-13 actors, a 3 story house set, 3 acts, hundreds of props and fantastic acting!

No Man's Land by Harold Pinter- somewhere in the WestEnd.
-I now LOVE Pinter. I'd never seen a Pinter Play performed before. It was so funny. So interesting. Staring Michael Gambon (Dumbledore!) and David Bradely (Filch!)

Sarah McMillican's Not Nice at the Soho Theatre Comedy
-a decent stand up show by a cute sounding Scottish Divorsee. It was inspriring in the sence made me realize that my show is good and that I should work on stand-up more.


CORNWALL:

I spent a weekend in Cornwall with my flatmate Heather and some of her friends. We were staying at a cottage in Prussia Cove very near Penzance. Yes, like the musical Pirates of Penzance. (And of course, I kept singing ‘climbing over rocky mountains’ the whole time). Although I have to say our Cove is much more picturesque than Penzance is. You can see photos and more info about our abodes here: http://www.prussiacove.co.uk/index.htm

One of the highlights of our visit to Cornwall was from our ‘rules and regulations’ book at our cottage. Amongst the rules of how to clean up and where to find the brooms it mentioned that we should be on the lookout for ‘pirates and smugglers.’

Then when we went for a walk up the very narrow cobble stone road we asked a man if he knew if there was a pub nearby, in true pirate style his response was, “yar.” We found the pub, but when we got there we found that it didn’t open for an hour. So we wandered into a social club just down the road, where our group had the only three women in the room- luckily accompanied by three men. We were welcome, but watched while we waited for the pub to open. Then after our greasy pub dinner of whatever and chips, we were walking back in the full moon light along the narrow road when we noticed some bright lights pulling out of a farm driveway. The lights were red and blue. The car was white and long. Then the picture became clear: it was a white limo, all pimped out with florescent lights underneath the car. We still have no clue what that car was doing there but we had good fun trying to rationalize it: drug deals, graduation party, wedding, pirates?

MY BACK:

I hurt my back in September and am only now taking care of it. I just started some treatment at the British School of Osteopathy. Osteo-what? Yeah, that's what I said. Here's what they say:
"Osteopaths primarily work through the neuro-musculo-skeletal system, mostly on muscles and joints, and pay special attention to how the internal organs affect, and are affected by, that system. Relevant psychological and social factors also form part of the diagnosis. Another important principle of osteopathy is that the body has its own self-healing mechanisms, which can be utilised as part of the treatment."

It sounds wholistic. Thus far it's been an assesment and some massage. They are worried that I've slipped a disk and that my muscles are tight around the injury causing a slight scoliosis as they try to protect the injured part. What fun!

This all came, I think, from running in Sept. I will never run again. I'm sure that all my time sitting while reading and writing isn't good for me either. Oh, if only I could live in theatre school forever...

To be continued...