Workshop 5 :(

Today in workshop we started off (after the meditating) creating situations in our head that would make us scared. At first Jim Bonney talked us through it. He made us picture walking through a park on a cold winters day and being handed a sick baby. The person who handed us the baby then ran away and no one would help us. We were then able to come up with the rest in our own heads. Fear is the most difficult emotion for me to bring up when I act. I kept going into anger and sadness. I feel like I keep that emotion buried so deep that it's easier for me to bring up anything else.

We also worked with scenes. These had more backstory, but it was fun when we improvised them and cameup with the situations ourselves. I worked with Alex and his character was trying to convince me that the rumor going around about him and my mother was false. My character believed everything and even blamed it on herself. It became really interseting when Jim Bonney raised the stakes so that Alex slept with my mother and I knew this but only stayed with him for the money. It was so much easier this way. My character had a reason to go along with everything he said. Without this I just acted like an idiot who couln't see what was right in front of her.

Workshop 4

Todays workshop was great. We did a lot of the same warming up exercises that we usually do, but this time was different. Instead of releasing our bad energy away from us, we soaked up all of the good energy. We were happy, dancing around and couldn't stop laughing. It felt amazing. I love feeling connected with the rest of the group.

Later, we worked on some scripts. He had us pair up and then one at time the pairs would go up to act. Each time the situation was different. We all had the same words, but we each put our own meaning behind it to show a different story. This really emphasized that the words are just words until you do something with them. I paired with Becky and our little back story was that we were best friends and my boyfriend got her pregnant. It was intense. I wanted to kill her and protect her at the same time. Everyone did an amazing job today, I don't want this workshop to end.

Workshop 3

I got a little more emotional during this workshop then I have so far. When we did our support circle exercise, I was one of the students that went in the middle to "absorb all of the good energy" from the others. It was weird. I didn't actually go all the way for any emotion that I experienced, but I experienced a lot. At first I felt happy, but then the group all put their hands on my shoulders and I was told to "release my inner child, when this happened I became really sad. I almost started crying. It was over really fast though and I went back into a shaky state and then again back to happy. Later we listened to "Iris" by the goo goo dolls. Many people got emotional from this. Again, I didn't go all the way, but quickly experienced many emotions. The song did not effect me as much as the emotional responses from the people around me did. After spending so much time connecting with each other, it was hard to see them upset, and I became upset.

Fourth Quarter Project

For my what-I-do-when-I'm-not-in-a-workshop Project, I am going to reunite with my film group to try and do a remake of our movie that is ten times better. For the beginning of this week, I'm hoping to fix our script and add more Father/Jenny and Tim/Jenny scenes. I really want to explore the characters and make them deeper. So far we re-wrote the ending, this time Jenny is a much stronger person than she originally was. When we are done with this we will start filming again. Maybe we can get a classroom scene in on Thursday.

When the entire movie project is over, I want to write scenes and film some of them (if we have time).

Workshop 2

I left workshop on Friday feeling a little more steady than I did when workshop was over on Wednesday. On wednesday I left feeling relieved but also shaky, like anything could push me to the extremes of my emotions. This time I was more sure of the way I felt, which was happy.

At the beginning of the workshop we all laid down in a circle while Mr. Jim made us visualize a forest. He made us imagine finding a child in the forrest, and eventually we discovered that the child was ourselves. I thought that this was really interesting. At the end of workshop a couple of the girls and I were talking about how badly we treat ourselves, but we will do anything to protect the child within us. This reminded me about something that Mr. Jim said about how the best thing we can do for ourselves is acknowledge the way we are feeling. If you are angry, you should accept that you are angry and not try to hide it from your inner child because that's the only way you can find her again (or something like that).

We also listened to a song about loneliness while we swayed together in a giant group hug. I felt so surrounded and safe after this. It's funny how music can influence you so much.

Workshop 1

Workshop today was so different but at the same time so familiar.

At the beginning of workshop, we had a meditation like exercise, where we would concentrate on breathing and clearing our heads. We did something like this in Joy Hoopers workshop as well. But it was different this time, I'm not sure why. I guess it's because everything else is different, time has passed, we're in a different environment with different people and a different workshop teacher.

We then did a series of exercising that had to do with repeating, much like we do in STAC but he gave us the words or sentences that had to be repeated. It got very loud, and I liked it. I was amazed at how one simple little word like "no" can change you. You can be thinking about nothing in particular but once you start repeating no you become angry or powerful depending on who you are repeating with. At the end of the series of different repeating exercises I felt relived, like I'd been holding everything in and now that I let it out I was the strongest person alive and that nothing could stop me. It was a very interesting experience.

Towards the end, we played the machine game and then "meditated"some more, this was a nice way of winding down. I felt like I could burst into any emotion if I didn't.

Big Book Presentations

My poor blog, I have abandoned you. I am sorry.

Anyway... today was an interesting day. I think that I might have prepared too much as crazy as that sounds. Or maybe it was that I didn't prepare enough. Either way, the presentation did not go the way that I wanted it to.

I basically scripted all of the main points that I wanted to say on index cards but when I went to present, everything on the index cards where forgotten. This is because I was a nervous reck. I didn't expect to be nervous at all. I was actually pretty calm as I waited for my turn and I thought that because I am usually very comfortable with the STACies it would be easy to talk in front of them. Boy was I wrong. I don't know what happened but things came out of my mouth that I didn't even prepare. I wasn't even sure what I was saying. New ideas kept popping up. I originally wanted to talk about emotions and Pert's theory of mind-body connectivity but I ended up going on little rant after little rant. I'm not sure if people understood them. I'm glad that I came with notes though, because in between the babbling I would loose my train of thought and have to look down at my notes to pick up again. But whenever I looked down to remember where I was, my notes where behind what I was saying. This caused awkward pauses.

I honestly do not remember what I said other than, "opiate drugs", and "um". I need to learn to calm myself down and talk slower so that I know what's coming out of my mouth. From what I know today, I could have given a speech about clam chowder.