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It's been awhile since I've listened to a Yann Tiersen track, but I've just popped one on now and it's transported me to that place where I haven't been for a long time - that corner of my head in which I write! It's a funny old wedge-shaped, door-stopper-sized spot where curly swirls of ink spell out rhymes and phrases to be folded up like a hanky and tucked away neatly in the pocket of my mind until that moment finally comes when I put finger to keyboard. You know, I used to keep a diary (technically, I still do - just haven't touched it for 4 months!). In fact, the top shelf of my bedroom cupboard is rather full of diaries plural. I remember when I first arrived in Berlin I used to write every day I was so inspired! Some of most imaginative stuff stems from that novel period of wide-eyed exploration. I still have oodles of words floating about my head and sometimes images leap out in front of me, but generally these days my creative juices are being slurped by drama school. And when you're not trying to feel your splat, or your spine or remember your line, then you tend to be salvaging your scattered ego off the floor - need I say more?! Amongst all this, in, under, over and within all this, 'normal' life continues and I evolve.

A recent example of 'normal' life being our flat's communal purchase of a pet fish to enliven our living room. (Note the use of the word 'enliven' here - this will help irony along later in the story...) Natalie came up with the brilliant name, "Chips", though she unfortunately never met him (or her) as s/he died within 3 hours of Steve and I bringing him/her home! (I just remember Steve phoning me: "What does it mean when a fish is swimming on its side?" "It can only mean one thing, Steve - death!") Since it was meant as Nat's birthday pressie, Steve and I insisted on trying again with Chips II a week later. Well, let's just say the highlight was Nat got to meet Chips II, but unfortunately that was it as s/he too died a day later. That's two fish in one week down the dunny! Needless to say, currently we have a lovely tank full of water, pebbles and a dying weed to enliven our space! We do intend on going for a 3rd-time-lucky Chips III, we're just waiting for the right moment. Otherwise, the other changes to the daily grind lately have been a half snapped-off key stuck in my bike lock preventing me from using my bike over the past month, an activity I have actually really missed. In other news, London actually got off its arse and produced a sun for a gorgeous 2-week period, only to fade back into predictable rain again. (And it's 30 degrees in Berlin right now!!!! Ach du Scheiße!) Also making Andi headlines recently is the completion of timetabled classes at school! Yes, I'm now finally ready to take the training wheels off and hit the road publicly which means finally performing in front of an audience who is paying to see me, rather than a bunch of fellow students and a row of teachers scribbling notes and dishing out marks. This is exciting! It's the next step - the first in a new chapter - the delicate transition from drama school into the industry! I do admittedly feel somewhat like a half-baked potato but I am trying to embrace the crusty softness!

So even though I haven't exactly been doing much (private) creative writing lately, I have, however, been writing my MA which entails me writing an original script and putting it on. In my case, 'putting it on' involves me researching, writing, choreographing, acting, dancing, directing, stage managing, as well as lots of crying and laughing! The title of my MA is "Taming the Underdog: a theatrical challenge to the dominant versions of history which inform Australian postcolonial identity." Of course, it had to be political (the librarian at school who read my script even said it reminded him of agitprop!) My inspiration mainly stems from Louis Nowra's "Capricornia" which comes under the banner of Settler/Invader plays. This has been a colossal project of mine and has been a tremendously exhausting but exhilarating adventure and it's all coming to a climax as we speak because Monday sees the beginning of rehearsal week (we only get one week to put the show together with our cast!) and the following week will see us performing it in front of the adjudication panel. It's all very exciting really. I've ordered my sand to fill the stage, just gotta fill the buckets with water now (ahh, now I've got you curious?!) I'm very passionate about my chosen topic and have written a performance piece of which I am relatively proud. Of course, it is ridiculous doing an MA on top of a 40+ hours a week acting course, so naturally I feel what I've written does not quite come up the standard I believe I could achieve had I had more time but, bla bla bla it's all excuses, you're thinking, aren't you?! Well, we'll see how it all pans out very soon! I am currently procrastinating from finishing the accompanying Project Map essay which also forms part of the overall assessment.

So that's where I'm at, boys and girls....mmmm...and I thought I was actually going to write a poem or short story or something there, but ended up rambling about my life!! Oh well, isn't that what blogs are for?

The bubble of drama school.

One of my favourite Hollywood actors, Cate Blanchett, once said: "One of the liberating things in going to and training at drama school is that you lock yourself away in an impolite often quite destructive environment to stretch things to the edges. I'm not saying 'place the actors in danger,' I just mean that it needs to be a space, like the actual performance space, where things are transgressed and boundaries are pushed."* This pretty much sums up the kind of experience I am currently undergoing at my drama school here in London! (It also explains my lack of blogging over the past few months!)

It's been a time like no other (then again, when is time ever the 'same'?) and I definitely feel like I'm living in my own little drama school bubble which can make it hard to communicate to and be understood by the outside world at times. Each day gives birth to bursts of baby epiphanies, as well as tender moments of confusion or disillusionment. I have found self-awareness (often leading to self-analysis) to be the most important tool for learning and the easiest way to access this, I have discovered, is through the senses. Hearing, seeing, smelling, touching, but most of all, feeling. Drama school is a place which talks a lot about one's 'centre.' We're being reminded to constantly 'root' ourselves in order to connect our feelings to what we say. We have a range of classes from Acting, to Actor & Text, to Verse, to Voice, to Speech, to Dance, to Movement, to Stage Combat, to Radio Acting, to TV Acting, to Sight-Reading, to Singing. And we also work constantly on production after production of various plays - recently we performed Chekhov's "Platonov" and currently I am working on Shakespeare's "Richard III" and "Antony and Cleopatra." We work with a healthy combination of teachers and industry professionals (directors and actors), which I find such an important mixture to have access to. So far, attending drama school has been both a thrilling and vulnerable experience for me, and definitely invaluable life experience in general. It's a bit like therapy, and yet a lot like growing up by being a kid again! It's all about breaking down layers of socialisation by ditching 'bad' habits and shedding inhibitions, whilst simultaneously learning to trust your impulses and commit to whatever they may be. It may sound daunting but that's why it's not for everyone! I'm now almost half-way through the course and am thoroughly exhausted so cannot even begin to imagine what the second-half is going to look like!.......

*"Playing Australia." Elizabeth Schafer and Susan Bradley Smith. Rodopi, New York, pg. 218.

Naval-gazing

I've been doing a lot of this lately. In fact, it's pretty much an integral part of my everyday at the moment. And it's not like I'm just lounging around (as if on a beach) watching my belly slowly tan. It's the kind of naval-gazing which is a highly internalised exploration and excavation of the core of my (Andi's) apple so to speak. Indeed an apple a day keeps the doctor away, yet the more I bite, the more undiagnosed symptoms (of a disease I want to have) I seem to pleasurably stumble upon. It's kind of like weaving your own web in order to reach outwards, only to inadvertently trap yourself as your own victim, in your own entanglement of enquiry, and thus collapse inwards onto yourself. Hence the naval-gazing!

I guess there's a very good reason why Drama Schools have a rep for being masters of DECONSTRUCTION and I now understand and agree with this concept! This may shock many of you who know how against the idea of drama school "institutionalisation" I was for many years. Well, this has now completely changed! The simplest answer I gave give to this is my realisation that you cannot be anyone else unless you can first be yourself. And in order to "be yourself," you need to know yourself. I certainly think the last 3 years of Berlin's (at times) sharp edges have brought me much closer to myself because I don't think that you can really know what's in the marrow of your bones until you've had it scraped out by means of a personal struggle or the need to really fight for something..... I was just pondering over a rather witty boxing ring analogy there when a random image entered my mind - has anyone seen that Monty Python "Live at the Hollywood Bowl" boxing sketch where Graham Chapman boxes against himself?!?! hahhaaaa!! It is one of my all-time favourite Python moments!... so I just thought about it then and thought about myself being in my own boxing ring at the moment kind of feeling my way around, accidentally knocking myself out here and there! I guess my teachers or my fellow students could probably give a rather amusing running commentary of my progress!.... But it is all sport really. I have to allow myself to be in the race in order to run it, now, don't I?

So we're currently working on our first production for the year which is Oedipus (Seneca's version, adapted by Ted Hughes). I'm playing the part of Manto which is exactly the part I wanted. She has this fantastically image-driven scene in which she essentially describes the sacrificing of a heifer and a bull to her father, a blind prophet, who is to then interpret what the omens from this sacrifice mean. I love the pace and immediacy of this scene, but most of all I love the gory, yet beautiful images which the rich language allows me to conjure up whilst playing this scene. My lines are pretty much learnt, it's just a matter of fine-tuning now.... Other things on the go school-wise are a monologue which is being recorded for radio, a song presentation of which I am currently teasing out the character aspect, and a lovely, ripe old Shakespeare sonnet for Mountview's Sonnet Festival in the final week of term. But all that is a mere microscopic insight into the life of a drama school student. I don't really have a life outside of school but I don't care a bit! Anyway, gotta go now.... back to naval-gazing!

The Big Smoke.

So I've made it to London, bursting my way into this chaotic scrambled egg of a city on Tuesday! From the word go, things have moved very quickly and I get the sense that this is an unrelenting city who waits for no-one. I feel like I have to be a lot more on alert here, and all the time, so as to not allow myself to slip behind the pace that London demands. My first impressions are busy, busy, busy! London certainly has none of Berlin's wide, open streets, and available seats on public transport are rare and just generally, you get the feeling you're much more of an ant here! My first few days were unfortunately tainted with that never-ending bitterness that I just can't seem to shake at me being, once again, disadvantaged by my foreign status, in particular, by my non-EU, non-UK status. Many of you know I had a hell of a time getting my visa to even be allowed to enter this country, and just when you think it's all over and you finally have your visa, it doesn't stop there! I arrived at Stansted Airport and was questioned when passing through Immigration, having to once again re-produce some of the documents I had handed in already for my visa application. Of course no-one had told me I'd need to have all those documents on me when arriving at the airport - I had assumed since I had already been given the visa that I would just have to show my passport with visa. But no! It's never that simple! Apparently my naivety was rather ignorant because the immigration officer told me, "it is common sense that you need to produce your documents when you arrive even if you already have a visa." Common sense?! This is probably the same kind of common sense which fits in with the British Embassy in Germany requesting specific documents, me going to the hassle of getting them and then over 300€ later, being told "Oh, don't worry about that. We don't need to see your academic records from University!" (As if that idea had been my own?!), even though that had been one of the VERY reasons why I had been called in for a second visa interview at the British Embassy in Düsseldorf! So, when I'm standing at Stansted Airport, the organised person that I am, and I am told UK Immigration supposedly has protocols which are "common sense" I don't quite know whether to laugh, cry, scream, tear my hair out, tear the officer's hair out or what.....! Anyway, as usual, things got sorted out, EVENTUALLY, and so I finally entered this bloody country at last!

I had a bit of a bumpy ride into London as my easybus (here comes the irony - easy - ha!) broke down on the way to London from Stansted. And then the tube's were on strike so the only way to get into the centre was to catch a string of buses and walk a few miles with my 18.5kg backpack on my back, for which I currently have to wear a back brace due to back pain. Of course I'm not supposed to carry heavy weight but since the tube was working against me, resulting in all the buses being too full to allow more passengers, I didn't have much choice! The short of it all is basically - I eventually arrived! And now, 4 days later, all is well. I have found a funky flat with Natalie (U.S.A) and Stephen (UK) - also students at Mountview drama school with me. Of course that process was also stressful and document-full! Apparently the landlady, as well as wanting character references, bank statements, etc also wanted tenants who had UK-Guarantors, which of course for Nat and myself was rather impossible! Anyway, after many phone calls, e-mails and some faxing between American-UK and Australia-UK, we got everything together within 24 hours and managed to get our application for tenancy approved!!! (This gigantic process for getting a flat would also never happen in Berlin!) Hence, we move into our place in leafy Muswell Hill (zone 3) on Tuesday and I cannot wait. I am so in need of my own space! As grateful as I am to be able to stay with my mate Lara for free, sharing a bed with her snoring ways every night is not always convenient!

So people...that's my news so far! Till next time!

ps - I miss you, Berlin! :(

So this is it!

Through seemingly endless space and time, somehow my 3 years here are just about up. I look around my room blankly, my blank walls staring blankly right back at me, not having been this naked since I moved into this room in February. And the pieces of my Berlin life - 3 entire years - have already found their new home, my boxes having arrived in London today. All I have left are some clothes and a box full of random articles which just didn't quite make the cut and hence will be simply given away to friends. A desklamp, an oil burner, a Barbara Streisand record (don't ask!), a clock radio, some books, CDs, a fake flower, my pot plants...and the list goes on. I had never really thought about what it would be like to actually leave Berlin and now that I'm doing just that, I'm really not quite sure what I am feeling. Certainly a mixture of sadness, melancholy, exhaustion, excitement, anxiety, anticipation, nervousness, a sense of not being finished with this city, yet knowing I want to take a new direction - all the feelings you get when a new change is about to take place, I guess. Half of me feels like I've already left Berlin, with my mind now focused on the new chapter ahead. But really, most of me knows I don't want to leave, but I have to. And this "have to" has been growing stronger with every day to the point where the pull towards London is in turn growing stronger and stronger. I have absolutely no doubt in the world that this is the right decision and that is certainly a comforting factor. Berlin is a city to play in. It's a place to experiment, explore and discover yourself in, but it's not a place (or at least not for me) to take that next step and give a career a real go. It's a place to get pissed every night and not have to worry about it. It's a place of non-stop public transport. It's a place which not only encourages, but somehow FORCES you to slacken off. It's a groggy, sleep-in kinda city where you rarely see suits or any kind of routine. Indeed, it is a structureless city, forever remaining at the whims of each individual. I've barely had one single month during my time here where I've had to get out of bed to be somewhere at the same time every day. It just doesn't work like that here. Or, at least, my life here hasn't worked like that. And so, although it pangs my heart to have to leave, I just know that I can't wait to have some structure again. To have to strive, compete and work bloody hard to achieve something. And to be a bit of an ant in the big smoke for awhile too. Don't get me wrong. I have achieved a hell of a lot in my time here and I've had the guts to do things I'm quite sure I never would have done had I remained in Melbourne the whole time. But, I have a feeling I will achieve 3 years of productivity in 1 year in London! Yes, this means I will be rather serious for the year and yes, God forbid, I may just have to be sensible and on my best behaviour for the entire year - but if that's what it takes, I know I'll do it alright!!!!!!

I almost can't believe how much I've grown up here or how much I've grown with this city. When I see old photos of me with my bleach blonde mophead, my beergutless belly and my all-round tinyness, I just can't believe how much I've changed, or rather, how much I've become. I don't feel so small now. I feel big. Large. Full of experience. Gosh, I remember when I could hardly speak German. I still don't know to this day how on earth I ever had that 2-hour conversation with Kerstin on my second day in this city when I was looking for a room! To think I didn't know a single soul when I arrived in Berlin! What was I thinking?! I'd never been here. I'd never met anyone from here. So what was the attraction in the first place? Whatever it was, thank God I felt it and followed it 'cos this city has given so much to me. It has taught me so many lessons. It has slapped me in the face and ignored my tears when I was down. It has mocked me, teased me and thrown me all over the place. But boy has it given me everything I now have! The lot! And I do think it could give me more too, but just not right now. Sometime in the future. 'Cos right now, I need a new source. A new well to draw my water from. A new personality to whip me into shape. And so... here I am at the end of such a huge chapter of my life thus far and I'm ready for the change. I'm ready to take the plunge into the deep end. I'm ready for London.

So this is it!

Poor, neglected bloggie boy...

... long time no see, read, hear, smell, touch, taste, etc, etc. Ca fait longtemps! Lange nicht mehr gesehen! But I'm still here - no panic! All is well. In fact, there's LOTSA news. My absence from Blogspot can be explained by a few things (see, I feel I owe it to you to explain myself!):

- I have had a 'creative lapse' for a little while now which has resulted in me having little desire to write; ie - sogar überhaupt kein Bock zu schreiben! Zumindest kein Bock, was schönes zu schreiben, und da ich immer das Gefühl habe, (wenn ich hier was schreibe) ich muss unbedingt was interessantes und irgendwie kreatives schreiben, ist das eben schwierig, wenn man in voll unkreativer Laune ist!

- I have a new cyber-addiction/obsession/fascination..... namely, Facebook! Yes, I have chosen Facebook over myspace (not really deliberately though) and hence I have been wanting to nurture my new-born baby (webpage)! But alas, to the detriment of my Blogspot, which has remained empty-bellied for well over a month now. (Though this has now been rectified by these very words!)

- I have been working crazy hours, doing crazy jobs! Admittedly, this is not a very solid excuse since one can ALWAYS find time to surf the 'Net since it is "open" 24/7! But yeah, I've been working lots of bits and pieces jobs, mostly hospitality work through a temping agency which sends me off into random hotels each week to do things such as room service (no, not nearly as glamorous/thrilling as it sounded to me originally - in fact, as my mate, Lara, in London, who did such a job for a long time, said to me the other day on the phone: "Room service is only fun if you don't HAVE to do it. If it's your job, then it sucks!" Soooooo true!). I've also been chucked behind the bar several times at another hotel in their private function room. Of course, I'd never worked with beer taps before, never made cocktails (that aren't mere rocket-fuel!) or even mixers. This was indeed an interesting experience that first shift which was for 1,500 guests attending an Abiball! Basically the shifts are unimaginably loooong (try 15 hours, with a half an hr break if you're lucky!), at sleep-disturbing hours (try 3pm-6am Fri and Sat, or, for eg, what I'm supposed to be doing this Sat 9pm-8am!), and more than poorly paid (I'm not even going to say here 'cos it's far too shameful. Let's just say it's the kind of wage I earnt at, say, the age of 16 at Michel's Patisserie in Eastland Shopping Centre, Ringwood, Melbourne!!!!) Through this experience, I have learnt three things:

1. There is no such thing as a minimum wage here!
2. I suddenly remember again why it was I left hospitality in the first place many yrs ago!
3. How to write a resignation letter in German!

Within 2 hours' time I will have quit this job and hence my miserable mumblings about it will also stop. Other work I have been doing has been mostly English-language-related ie. correcting texts in English, teaching English and tutoring still. I've also just applied for freelance translation/correction work and will supposedly be having 3 job interviews over the next week or so. for other random jobs. I am also signing up for every damn Market Research project which is seeking "testers" that I can! Any way to get quick and easy cash really....

In other news, I have just booked my flight to London. That's right! THE flight. My initial departure date of mid-August has slowly but surely been pushed further and further towards September, until, finally, I have booked a flight for 4th September! It was also greatly influenced by the fact that it only cost me 1 cent - 1 EURO cent which, I would like to point out, is LESS THAN 1 AUSSIE CENT!!!! My bus transfer from Stansted to London cost me more than the flight itself! (I am suddenly reminded of that fantastically boppy song by the Rock n Roll Diktator and friend of mine, Jörg, "(I like) Globalwarming!" - I wonder what his flight attendant 'daughter' would have to say about that?! hehehhee! That's an in-joke for those who saw Jam Sandwich!)

So, anyway, off to London it is for me. In case you haven't yet heard the news, I finally got into Drama School and will hence be studying Acting at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts as of 17th Sept this year! Yippeee! Just gotta find me a place to live now....

What else? mmm... my bro and his girlfriend are arriving in Berlin next week and will stay with me for a few days which should be just lovely! Following this, I am going to Freiburg for a few days with Peter (my boyfriend) to meet his family and his home town! The Dalai Lama will be in Freiburg during that time too!!! ooohhhhh!!! I've got my bindis out and ready already! Then, after our return to Berlin, my best buddy, Bea from Melbourne is coming to stay with me! More yayness!

And that, my dear friends, is the story of my life at present.... I think that's enough words to fill my blog's belly again! Till next time! :)

Couldn't sleep last night...

....why??????

'COS I GOT INTO DRAMA SCHOOL!!!!!!!!! DOO DAA DOO DAAA!!!!!! YIIPPPEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

I wanted to go dance on the clouds but it was a bit difficult due to the fact that it was after midnight and it was so dark and I was lying in bed (well, on the couch) and everyone else was asleep and I'd just got off the phone from my just as excited mother and I had bees buzzing about inside me as if a firework wanted to explode them all out of me!!! I just stared at the blank ceiling for what felt like an hour with the kind of smile that has "satisfaction" all over it and a jumble of weary energy bursting through my veins! Ahhh...... such relief! Such excitement! Such...... EXHAUSTION!!!!!! The funny thing is. I had a major crisis last weekend after getting through to several Round Two's of auditions then just not quite making the final cut. I was so panicky. I thought the game was all over, red rover. But isn't it funny how often we have to have that crisis in order for everything to then suddenly fall into place again? Simon used to say to me (when he lived in Berlin): "You have to first lose your balance in order to find your footing again." And I think it's dead true. And, by the way, not only did I get into the school I wanted to get into (Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts) but I also got another offer for London School of Dramatic Art on the same day! So nothing, nothing, nothing, then suddenly 3 days before it's all over, right at the end post, suddenly, 2 schools want me! Isn't that just so typical?! Right at the last moment!!..... so, I still have one more audition to go on Saturday, plus I'm still waiting to hear back from Bristol Old Vic following my shortlist there, so anything could happen!!!! But at least I know I have a place SOMEWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

See ya back in Berlin on Sunday! Can't wait! :P