Almost all the leaves have dropped

Dear Mr. Harvey Fancey Paws,
It's Sunday, of course. It's colder today. The leaves have mostly dropped off the trees. I'm absolutely in love with the view from my dorm window -- it overlooks the park, the one Marcin posted pictures of -- and the fruit stand. On a Sunday it's like a scene from a European art flick. Lots of yellow leaves, mothers with baby prams, tiny people bundled from head to foot chasing pigeons, people walking dogs, and lovers strolling.
It was a weird week. I think my body has finally started to feel the strain of never sleeping enough. Early in the week we saw "Woe from Wit" performed by the graduate students. They're a very impressive bunch. I was underwhelmed with the beginning of the show, not because the acting wasn't great -- mostly because I was just too sleep deprived to get excited about anything less than spectacular. Spectacular happened later on when the chorus got involved. I'm actually very curious about choruses; I don't know very much about it, but I've never seen a chorus I didn't like. There is something so incredibly powerful about a unified ensemble voice and body, and when you can marry that with a strong individual character, the end result is enthralling. Other than that, I didn't see any shows. It's my fault for not signing up to see any. Stupid me. Oh, except for last night. We saw one of our acting teachers in a farcical comedy about a play going horribly wrong. The show itself was okay; it was funny but nothing monumental. Sasha however, was extremely enjoyable to watch. Maybe I loved his performance because I love him so much, but either way, I enjoyed myself. I would like to explain my teachers better via this blog, but I feel like the only way to accurately describe them is through impressions. They are both such characters...with very different views on acting. Sometimes when Alex and Sasha start arguing in class, I feel like a little kid sitting at the top of the stairs listening to my parents fight -- and I don't know whose side to take. It's very confusing. Like everything in that class. I'm sure any actor reading this will know what I'm talking about when I say this -- I'm going through one of those phases when I feel like I know nothing, and I can't do anything. I'm not on a plateau; I'm getting worse. I've been journaling a lot, trying to figure out what is going on, trying to tell myself that I like the frustration because it means I'm being challenged. I've realized that Ithaca is actually very focused on training their actors physically. And I like that; I think it really works. But when you are doing a new etude every single day and you don't have a script to analyze...things get a little hazy. When I have a script, I can tear it apart and find the character, love them, pick out objectives, tactics, and write in my subtext; then I take my friends -- laban, rasas, bioenergetics, and so on and so on -- and make something cohesive. When I make an etude I function as writer, director, and actor...and without thinking I just start doing stuff, ussually physical stuff, as I try to "create" my etude. And in these instances I am not being vulnerable, and I'm not motivating everything in an organic way, I'm just throwing myself around on stage and it sucks. But obviously I know what the problem is...and in theory I know what I should do to fix it. But theories are bullshit, pardon my french. (I don't understand that idiom. There is nothing french about the word "bullshit," in fact, I can't really think of anything more American) I wish that someone could give me something tangible to focus on, because looking at everything from an intellectual standpoint is making me mildly suicidal. kidding. Was that in poor taste?
So yeah. Yesterday was a very hard day in Acting, so I wisely decided to take it easy and not go out last night. I ate my feelings and observed the drunks when they came back at curfew. I'm sure I've mentioned the Babuski before -- they let us in and out. In the dorms, the halls and kitches are all under survelance, and the babushki sit in front of the monitors. I know for a fact that many interesting things happen under the eyes of the babuski, specially on the weekends. I think that would be fascinating job. If acting doesn't work out, I'm coming back to Russia to be a Babuska. Kirsten's roomie was drunk, and because of her aversion to vomit, she slept in my room. Kenya was a very emotional drunk -- something about lost pasta was making her cry. So she ended up sleeping in my bed too, though she got up and vanished sometime around 7 am.
And ALL OF A SUDDEN it was after noon. So we woke up and went to brunch. This time Kenya, Sam and Lizzie came with us. And that was good, and so was our trip to the grocery store, and so was the junk food I ate, and now, so is sitting in my room typing on this blog, sipping green tea and observing the park outside.
ANY WAY. This was a poorly constructed blog, but I'm not going to edit it. If you're lucky, I might spell check it in a second. This concludes my rant. The end.
Hannah