Throwback Thursday

 

From March 2012: My Theatrical Experience

When I was a sophomore (18 or 19 yrs. old) at Boston University, I was in Equus starring Brian Bedford and performed at the Shubert Theater. That is, I was in one performance.

My friend, Teague, was a theater major at Northeastern University. She asked if I wanted to see the play Equus. She could get us special student tickets which allowed us to sit on stage. We would be medical or psychology students seated in an amphitheater and listening to the psychiatrist (Bedford) describe his treatment of a disturbed young man, Alan. Perfect! I was born to the role as I was a pre-med student studying psychology. We arrived at the theater and were shown to our seats on stage.  We sat on risers with other students. I didn't know the play, but it was very exciting to not only watch the performance, but to be "in" the performance. Until...

Jill, a stable girl, entices her co-worker, Alan to go into the stable late one night. Jill pulls off her sweater and peels out of her jeans.

 Okaaay. I squirmed a little in my seat. It's nothing more or less that I haven't seen before.

And then Alan takes off his shirt.

 I fidgeted a little more which earned me a hiss from Teague. Sit still!

Alan fumbles with the waistband of his jeans.

Ohmygawd, he's not going to...And then my parochial school training kicked in and I was repeating small prayers (coincidentally called ejaculations). Jeez Louise! He's not wearing his Holy Fruitofthyloomies! Jeeze Louise! He's Mother Buck Naked.

I could feel the heat rising to my face and my ears were burning. My eyes were bugged out of their sockets like a cartoon character, the pupil detached from the iris, which was detached from the eyeball, all stretched beyond the character's nose. I was sophisticated. I had traveled to Germany. I was a pre-med major. I had studied Anatomy and Physiology. I owned a Merck manual.  I'd seen the diagrams of the male anatomy.  But the young man on stage didn't resemble those flat pictures, and he was obviously excited to be on stage.

Understand, this was Boston founded by Puritans. Boston where Hey, Little Suzie by the Everley Brothers was banned. Boston where I had attended parochial school,  where the nuns wouldn't allow us to sing Louie, Louie because of the suggestive lyrics.

I didn't know where to look, and I was sure my eyeballs were going to burst into flame. Then an angel saved me. In the first row of the mezzanine, I could see a man in a dark suit and white turtleneck. I focused my attention on his turtleneck until the scene ended eight days later with the psychiatrist mercifully wrapping Alan in a blanket.

So ended my theatrical career.

The Friday Five Good Things

Five good things that happened this week.

1. Saturday was warm enough to eat lunch outside.

2. With a piece of cardboard and colored Post-It notes, I put together a tentative lesson plan for the Medieval Mania kid's class I hope to teach this Summer in Littleton. Calligraphy, making a small book, coats of arms, medieval games ending with a tournament where "knights" will duck walk through the lists and try to tip each other over.

3. Heavy winds and rain knocked a neighbor's tree into the electric wires. The wire sparked and the top of the tree caught fire. And we lost electricity at 4 pm. Police and the electric company observed the event and then left! The  wind or rain doused the fire. Electric company website stated electricity would be turned on by 9 pm. Tuesday nights we watch Supernatural at 9 pm. and a new episode was to air after a 3 week hiatus. We had cold lamb sandwiches for supper. At 7 pm, some dudes showed up in a bucket truck and cut the tree off the wires. At 8:30 pm, the electric company came back. Didn't think we were going to get our electricity back in time to watch the TV program, but the electricity company came through with 10 minutes to spare.

4. WPI is showing the movie Spartacus (the real one with Kirk Douglas) on Saturday and Sunday afternoon at 2pm. during Gaming Weekend. The Young One said the school had a copy of the film and was going to show it on a big screen. I oohed and ahhed and told her what a great movie it was. She's only seen the bit (and that might have been a spoof) where every one stands up and claims to be Spartacus. She invited me to go with her. Kind of her, but no 20-something wants their ma hanging around with their friends. Still was nice to be asked.

5. There were several days in the Good Things journal that were blank. Most would have been SSDD as Robin suggested. And there would have been so many of them.  A month or so ago, I came up with a solution to the blank pages. I decided to write out the lyrics to Harry Chapin's All My Life's A Circle Then I add dangles and bits as inspired by Joanne Fink's Zenspirations. Yesterday, I took the day to fill the blank pages and am now caught up.

How was your week?

Lunch with Sigi

The second workshop for the Art of Science Learning was held at Clark University in the heart of Worcester. Our afternoon assignment was to consider problems and opportunities about urban nutrition. We were to roam the neighborhood and observe assigned grocery stores and restaurants.

Before leaving for my destination, I decided to take my bagged lunch outside and enjoy the sunshine. I had driven by the university a million times, but had never visited the campus. I made my way across the quad to a group of stone benches facing a statue. Seemed like a nice place to have lunch. The students were on Spring Break so there wasn't a lot of activity. The temperature was in the high 30s to low 40s combined with the sunshine and a light breeze, the weather was quite balmy for New England.

As I read the plaque on the statue, my lunch companion turned out to be none other than Sigmund Freud. Who knew such an august visitor came to Worcester? Certainly not this Boston snob.

In 1909, Freud was invited to lecture at Clark University to help celebrate the anniversary of the university's graduate school, only the second graduate school in the country at the time. The statue was installed for the centennial celebration of the event.

Sigi and I sat in companionable silence. He was interested in the book he was reading, and I was basking in the glow of Spring fever.

My Theatrical Experience

When I was a sophomore (18 or 19 yrs. old) at Boston University, I was in Equus starring Brian Bedford and performed at the Shubert Theater. That is, I was in one performance.

My friend, Teague, was a theater major at Northeastern University. She asked if I wanted to see the play Equus. She could get us special student tickets which allowed us to sit on stage. We would be medical or psychology students seated in an amphitheater and listening to the psychiatrist (Bedford) describe his treatment of a disturbed young man, Alan. Perfect! I was born to the role as I was a pre-med student studying psychology. We arrived at the theater and were shown to our seats on stage.  We sat on risers with other students. I didn't know the play, but it was very exciting to not only watch the performance, but to be "in" the performance. Until...

Jill, a stable girl, entices her co-worker, Alan to go into the stable late one night. Jill pulls off her sweater and peels out of her jeans.

 Okaaay. I squirmed a little in my seat. It's nothing more or less that I haven't seen before.

And then Alan takes off his shirt.

 I fidgeted a little more which earned me a hiss from Teague. Sit still!

Alan fumbles with the waistband of his jeans.

Ohmygawd, he's not going to...And then my parochial school training kicked in and I was repeating small prayers (coincidentally called ejaculations). Jeez Louise! He's not wearing his Holy Fruitofthyloomies! Jeeze Louise! He's Mother Buck Naked.

I could feel the heat rising to my face and my ears were burning. My eyes were bugged out of their sockets like a cartoon character, the pupil detached from the iris, which was detached from the eyeball, all stretched beyond the character's nose. I was sophisticated. I had traveled to Germany. I was a pre-med major. I had studied Anatomy and Physiology. I owned a Merck manual.  I'd seen the diagrams of the male anatomy.  But the young man on stage didn't resemble those flat pictures, and he was obviously excited to be on stage.

Understand, this was Boston founded by Puritans. Boston where Hey, Little Suzie by the Everley Brothers was banned. Boston where I had attended parochial school,  where the nuns wouldn't allow us to sing Louie, Louie because of the suggestive lyrics.

I didn't know where to look, and I was sure my eyeballs were going to burst into flame. Then an angel saved me. In the first row of the mezzanine, I could see a man in a dark suit and white turtleneck. I focused my attention on his turtleneck until the scene ended eight days later with the psychiatrist mercifully wrapping Alan in a blanket.

So ended my theatrical career.

Following Directions - Week 2

This week's lesson is to Redirect. To take the focus from the pieces used before and to use them in a new way. We began by under journaling, that is to write thoughts down on the piece. These thoughts will be somewhat hidden by layering. Next, depth was added by using a charcoal pencil and blending with a stub trying to keep the light source coming from the same direction. A few colors of oil pastels were applied over the shadows and on the collage pieces. The colors were blended using fingers instead of the stub. The last phase was to paint a gesso wash over the entire page, removing some of the wash if things turned too white. This was to give the page cohesion.

There's some discussion going on at the Strathmore class site about doing things "right". I had started to wonder the same things as I worked on my piece, but I duct taped The Inner Critic and happily moved along. I was thinking I didn't see much depth in my piece, until I saw the scan, and I can see the knight popped off the page.

Another revelation occurred as I was working on the piece. Somewhere, I had read that creating journal pages wasn't so much about thinking things through, but following your inner voice. Things have been pretty tense this past week, and I needed some strength to get through the end of the week as I tried to tame the dragon. When I first pulled the collage bits for this piece, I thought it was just going to be some sort of fairy tale piece instead of channeling my inner resolve.

Do you work on your journal from intuition or do you consciously plan all the pieces parts?

College Search

We spent the Columbus Day holiday at WPI for their Fall open house looking over the school with The Young One. This is her first choice school.

We were treated to a continental breakfast while we went through registration and waited for the speechifying to begin. We had lovely croissants (though they could have been lovelier if they had been heated) and delicious hot chocolate. The hot chocolate earned high marks from The Young One along with the school color, crimson. Her favorite color is red. Hey, everyone needs a criteria for judging their school. (-;

After listening to speeches from Admissions and the Provost, and watching a slide presentation, we were sent on our way to learn about the many academic programs. The Young One chose Computer Science as the first program to learn about.

The professor stressed that WPI is very much a hands on school as exemplified by the school motto: Lehr and Kunst (theory and practice). Students are required to complete two team projects, one outside their major and the other in their major. The projects present the students with real world problems and the students must find a real world answer. Projects are done during the junior and senior years. Some of the projects are done overseas England, Ireland, Japan, Australia, Thailand, Africa to name some of the places. Real world problems, real world solutions in the real world. It will be a great experience for The Young One and will certainly broaden her horizons.

I was also struck by the fact how much college has changed in the 32 years since I graduated. Back in the olden days, we went to college, had our heads crammed with facts, churned the facts back and were awarded our degree. Then good luck if we found a job in our degree field.

The emphasis at WPI was not only on learning and doing, but preparing these young people to go out and work in industry.

The Young One chose Interactive Media and Game Development as her second session. The presentation was very entertaining and The Young One was very interested. This relatively new degree combines both Computer Science and Humanities and the Arts. Artists learn how to talk to engineers and engineers learn to make the program do what the artist envisions.

We were treated to a nice buffet lunch, cold cuts,rolls, bean salad, Caesar salad, stuffed shells, garlic bread and a very delicious pumpkin curry soup which smelled heavenly. There was also a very tasty apple crisp for dessert.

After lunch we hit the financial aid table. Not only are the academics at the school impressive but so is the price tag. A whopping $50,800 per year. If The Young One commutes, it would knock close to $12K off the total. Hopefully, she'll be eligible for a hefty scholarship. Only problem is the competition. There were 1000 students attending this Open House. There are a couple of Open Houses through the year. This Fall, WPI admitted its largest freshman class of 950 students.

We then went on a tour of the campus. It's not a large school (by my BU standards) and smack in the middle of the city. Though one forgets one is in the middle of the city. The buildings are a mix of new and ivy covered (the school was founded in 1865) and are connected by paved and bricked walkways, a grassy quadrangle, fountain, shrubbery and trees. It also felt very safe.

While the student guide was showing off the library, Himself nudged me. I turned to watch a young woman who was busy working on her farm in Farmville, which has become my latest, favorite pasttime. Nice to see a productive use of computer time.

Freshman who live on campus are guaranteed dorm space, such that it is, said The Little Princess. The freshman dorm we got to see had 3 students in the room. The beds were bunked over each student's desk. The Young One had decided she didn't want to live away from home and seeing the dorm space cinched the deal. Another Little Princess in the making (-; There are more luxurious accomodations. New suites, but these are reserved for upper classmen (i.e. Seniors). After Freshman year, students who want to live on campus are put into a lottery for rooms. There is not enough dorm space for all of the students. Some students elect to live in apartments off campus or move into the Greek houses.

After the tour, we split up. Himself went to listen to the admissions spiel while The Young One and I went to find out about Student Activities. There are over 140 clubs and activities. Sports, chorus, theater, Greek fraternities and sororities. Seemed to be something for everyone to get involved, to have fun and let off steam.

We came home tired, impressed and overwhelmed with all the information. Overall, a good day.

Have you been on the college hunt with your young people? What's your experience been?