At Seventeen

I learned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired
The valentines I never knew
The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on one more beautiful
At seventeen I learned the truth

And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say, "come dance with me"
And murmur vague obscenities
It isn't all it seems at seventeen

A brown eyed girl in hand-me-downs
Whose name I never could pronounce said
Pity, please, the ones who serve
They only get what they deserve
The rich-relationed home-town queen
Marries into what she needs
With a guarantee of company and haven for the elderly

Remember those who win the game
Lose the love they sought to gain
In debentures of quality
And dubious integrity
Their small town eyes will gape at you in
Dull surprise when payment due
Exceeds accounts received at seventeen

To those of us who knew the pain
Of valentines that never came
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for basketball
It was long ago and far away
The world was younger than today
And dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly duckling girls like me

We all play the game and when we dare
To cheat ourselves at solitaire
Inventing lovers on the phone
Repenting other lives unknown
That call and say, "come dance with me"
And murmur vague obscenities
At ugly girls like me, at seventeen

"At Seventeen" - Janis Ian

I think...

So I'm at that time again in which I have to play the waiting game. Some of you may remember my previous post about it (if you would like to read it, here you go!). In this post I was waiting the arrival of my Solo email for YABC. While I have recieved my email already for this semester, I'm still playing the game of endless patience while I wait for an email about an audition I just did for a show I REALLY want to get into.

So yes, I realised the irony of the repetition in my life and it got me thinking - and then I thought

HOLD IT.

Emily, why must you always stop and think about these things?




Paradoxically that got me thinking about over-thinking. A tendency that I have and suffer from.

I think about things too much, and I bet you any money that many other people think this as well. I'm constantly looking into things too deeply, trying to gouge out some further important meaning from trivial things.



An analogy I can think of is a story our Tap teacher was telling us about in YABC the other week. He said he was teaching the 'Cool' dance sequence from West Side Story to a bunch of Uni students. While teaching it, these intellectuals were asking things like 'What does this move symbolise?' and 'How does a triple pirouette here refer to the ever-declining respect and tolerance of today's social and ethnic minorities?'

My Tap teacher could only think 'It's a dance. You dance it.'

Essentially, I'm trying to say that I try to ask these questions about things that really I shouldn't bother because that's not their point.



I find that I overthink things the most in a few situations. For example:

• Boys. This is a give in. Girls are always trying to decode what a boy could possibly be meaning when he says this, or what this smile or that laugh can tell you about their feelings. In all honesty, most of my artful interpretations are nonsense and I bet I'm wrong about everything so really, I should learnt to stop over-thinking it.


• Auditions. For some reason, after an audition, my brain kind of fogs out the details and to compensate for this, I fabricate to fill in the blanks. This is a bad thing. I suddenly see the hmmms or the bland reactions as satanic portents of doom and a failed career.


• Days of Nothing. This refers to the days in which I laze about, play Sims, watch a movie and do pretty much nothing worth while. A day like this bites back at me once I'm trying to go to sleep. My brain, painfully ianctive for a full 12 hours, takes it's revenge by buzzing non-stop with thoughts about everything under the sun. This is when the majority of my over-thinking/analysing takes place, because the first two dot-points like to invade and have their say as well as everything else.

Yes. Overthinking, one of life's major pests.

News, News, News

Hello all!!

Now I was aiming to leave it a couple of days before

I posted again but I was so full of exciting news that I was about to burst and needed to get it all out of my system tout suite!

News piece #1:

I'M GOING TO PARIS AND LONDON NEXT MONTH! Yes I mysteriously mentioned it in a previous blog but did not elaborate just so I could increase suspense, did it work?

So yes indeedy, Emily is heading out to

Europe in under a month for 11 jam packed days of to

uristic wonder and french sophistication. It's all paid

for now, everything is organised now we just have to wait!

I'm going with my older sis, otherwise known as xena and we will be meeting up with several fellow blogging friends and some not so blogging, inc

luding rubix, and chatterbox, and wrong will meet up with us in Paris for some Disneyland adventure (!!! Disneyland !!!)

Another exciting thing is that we're staying on West End!! EEP!

It's been decided that we'll try to find attractive English (straight o

f course) musical theatre stars.

News piece #2

I bought an incredibly awesome wonderful professional proper-clicky sounding camera today. It takes beautiful photos but I have to learn how to use

it properly first. I did experiment a little bit today - here are some of the photos!

I love my new camera.

News piece #3

I'm writing a musical with Shming!

Yes, what started as a hilarious dramatic non-naturalistic piece about the Bermuda Triangle has actually been developed into a half decent synopsis, the first 4 songs and the first 6 scenes. Okay so we scrapped every bit about the Bermuda Triangle (sorry to those fans who loved this idea - and there were many I'm sure! It has potential!) and focused it around 5 year 12 students instead. It is incredibly exciting and it's moving really fast. Shming's musical talent never ceases to amaze me and I cannot wait to start workshopping it some more once the draft is done and get some people singing it!

News piece #4

While this isn't nearly as life changing as any of the other news pieces, it is an important part of my day. I took a gamble on a scratchy and... wait for it... I won! 5 smackaroos!

With glee I bounded up the the newsagents counter and demanded my winnings. And you know what the guy said?

"Do you want to buy another scratchy?"

Now we know how gambling problems start.

"No, I will quit while I'm ahead, take my five dollars and buy a packet of musk sticks and a push pop thank you very much."

It wasn't until later that I realised I really only won $1 as the scratchy cost $4 in the first place.

Damn the misleading world of passive gambling.

Want #10

So we're finally here. The end of my blog a day want challenge (please forgive me for missing yesterday. The internet was broken - it wasn't my fault!)

Once this is over I can get back to more infrequent posts (for those of you that are irritated by daily updates. *cough cough* Other half.) that talk about daily things. i can fill you in on my news and all that jazz.

Mais, premierement, here is my want #10.

WANT #10

To keep wanting...

I never want to stop wanting things. My wants are my driving force in life. They compell me to write life-to-do-lists, start crazy projects like writing a musical, commit myself to writing a book - if I didn't have wants I wouldn't audition for shows, get roles, learn new dances, develop skills.

Basically, if I didn't have wants I would just sit, at home, staring catatonic out the window and never do anything worth while.

(musical reference in that paragraph, anyone pick it up??)

My wants are so much a driving and vital part of my life that sometimes I think they could be the most important thing about me. About anyone in fact. We've established that wants make you try new things, get yourself out there - but they also create who we are as people. They form our personality to the point that without wants there would be little substance to who we are. When I meet new people, I love to find out about who they are by asking what they want to do, what their aspirations are. That is one of the most interesting and insightful things I can here about to get to know someone. Without those aspirations, no one would really bother getting to know each other because what is there to get to know?

So my big finale for this Want themed marathon is just this: to never stop wanting. To never stop reaching higher for new things, wanting better things for myself or wanting a change. To never stop having an opinion or wanting to make that opinion made. To never deny my tastes but to always want to show and share who I am through the things I aspire to.

I hope you out there reading this want the same thing.

Want #9

WANT #9

To know what I need

I'm nearing the end of my 10 want challenge, and this want is a rather important one. All people need to know what they need, so that they can fulfill these needs. I mean, if we couldn't understand or communicate what we need we'd be babies again.
To be a functioning adult (and I like to believe that I'm nearing the 'functioning' status) we need to be able to recognise what it is that we need. So many needs in that sentance.
SO we have to be able to say "I need food" "I need warmth" and all those other rudimentary physical requirement. But it's more than that. We also have to be able to say "I need to be stronger" "I need to accept help" "I need to learn to cook so I can feed myself and not collapse in a pile of adolescent incompetance"
So as much as wants are a base part of life, needs are what get us through so that we can survive long enough to develop wants.

So there you go. I want to know what I need so that I can need to want.

Want #8

Want #8

To have skills galore

I really want to have a lot of strings to my fiddle, as they say. I want it to be like in the sims (yes, I am a Sims addict) how you open up their skill panel and they have like 5 maxed skills and then all the little certificates to show how skilled they are. I would like that, although in real life form.
Everytime I see someone show great skill in something (mostly in something creative) I want to be able to do it as well. I don't care how random the skill is, I just want to be able to do it. I've gone through phases when I was younger when I wanted to be an awesome Irish dancer, then there was the time I wanted to be able to yodel. So maybe one day I'll actually learn these skills and be a pro Irish dancer yodelling portrait painting kazoo player. Sigh. A girl can dream can't she?

Want #7

WANT #7

To know what I want

In all honesty, I could not figure out what this post was going to be about. Superficially I have heaps of wants. I could say 'I want a new camera with video and awesome quality' or 'I want to go to another party soon' or even *gasp* 'I want a boyfriend'. But it kind of seems a bit pointless to talk about those things. You wouldn't be very interested in me listing new camera options and I wouldn't be very interested in writing it.

All those superficial wants put aside then, it's actually more challenging then expected to come up with deeper ones. To think of what I really want. Love? Laughter? Success? Yes, and more. But they're give ins.

So this is what todays blog post is about. I want to know what it is that I want. Wouldn't it be cool if you could just pick up a magnifying glass, aim it at your mind and there it is all spelt out for you in black and white. Emily wants this this and this with this time frame in mind, aaaaand... go! Achieve achieve achieve.

Unfortunately it's impossible so I'm resorting to option B: blog about it until I eventually figure it out.

p.s. Thanks to loversinmotion for their lovely comment :) Look everyone, I have a legitimate reader!

WANT # 6

WANT # 6

To be acknowledged.

This one is a tough one because I really should know by now that being acknowledged generally does not happen often in writing or performing. That's the tortured life of an artistic soul, right? The deep and meaningful reason behind art is the eternal struggle for the all impossible acknowledgement. I think that's a great dramatic tagline for artists. It has just the right balance of self-deprecating depression and empty justification. Wow.

So even though every performer/writer/artist/dancer/tight-rope walking mime knows this, we seem to be the people who need acknowledgement the most. How ironic. Performers rely on their confidence and self-worth, and yet they will always want to know what other people think.

Who came up with this equation?!

So yes. As much as I know it's ridiculous, I want acknowledgement if I can get it. I want to know that I'm heading towards the right career, I want to know if I have a chance. In a perfect world, I would want for the amount of recognition I get to equal the amount of effort I put into something but that's not going to happen. Nevertheless, I want it.

I wonder, does a lack of acknowledgement take away the meaning in something? If a person performs the most amazing song ever heard in the world, with the most beautiful voice, and no one is there to hear it, does this make it less amazing? Just lately I've being thinking about this blog as an example. I don't know who reads this (if anyone) because I don't get told by web-hits or comments and the like, and that's fine. But still, I find it an incredibly depressing thought to think that I write these posts and there's a chance they will go unread. Maybe no one will read it. It sort of makes it feel a bit pathetic really.

So do you agree? A lack of acknowledgement can sometimes really damage the worth of something. On the flipside, too much acknowledgement can do the same.
Happy medium, I think!




ANYWAYS!

Moving on from the wants for a minute. I have news.

I am going to Europe.

!!!!

You read correctly!! In a month's time I shall be in Europe, in another country, on another continent, surrounded by people speaking another language.
Exciting, no??
More on this in a later post! For now, goodnight blogging world!

Want #5

WANT #5

To have magical powers.

This one is pretty self explanatory. All I can say is that it would be pretty damn awesome.

WANT #4

Before I start with my wants I'll just direct you to the sidebar right here: -------->

There's two new blog links to some friends blogs. "The Life that is a Rollercoaster" and "Whatta Nerd" Have a look!

Now, moving on.

WANT #4

I want to inspire the imagination

I want to inspire other people to create in the same way that I was inspired. I want everyone to have an imagination that could rival any kid. I hate how we lose that part of ourselves as we grow up. I want to hold onto it, and I have to hold onto it as a writer, and as a performer because without a wild imagination I wouldn't be able to do either of those skills.

I want to inspire other people to want to inspire other people. I want everyone to keep a part of their childish self. I want everyone to be able to have fun spinning over monkey bars without thinking that they're 'too old for it'. I want to come up with crazy ideas and write them down into crazy stories and I want people to wonder, 'How on earth did she come up with that?' I want everyone to be able to see shapes in the clouds and faces in a splotch on the road.

That's what I want. For everyone to take pride in their imagination.

Want #3

WANT # 3

I want to be brave

I wish I was braver sometimes. Well, not brave exactly, more that I wish I had more faith in myself. Now that sounds like I'm hating on myself... it's not like that! Here's what I mean: I have self-confidence in many aspects of my life, where I lack is in how I think people percieve me. Maybe I don't give myself enough credit. I wish I was brave enough to go up to certain people I want to talk to, and just talk to them without thinking that by doing that I'll seem weird or annoying. I wish I could trust that I have an effect on other people. So this probably doesn't make sense without me spelling it out but I'm not really about to do that because there has top be some measure of privacy in a blog. Basically what I am trying to say is my perception of myself is unstable - it changes constantly and a lot of the time I doubt what there is in me for people to like.

Some girls have that natural sort of confidence that suggests 'of course you want to be talking to me' not in an egotistical way though. Just that self-assuredness. And I suppose that's what makes them attractive, that confidence.

I wish I had that confidence. I want to be more brave.

Want #2

WANT # 2

I want Adventure.

I really do. I want to explore somewhere new, I want to travel and start new projects and perform in new exciting things. I want something amazingly incredibly exciting to happen, and I want to be challanged by it and I want to learn and develop from it and come out of it as a better person, having seen the world that little bit more.

So that's more than one want, granted, but they're sub-wants under the main adventure tagline.

Most people want some sort of adventure. At least I hope they do. Who doesn't like being adventurous once in a while?

When I was little, I used to have a best friend called Cybelle, and we were just a tad over-obsessed with Harry Potter, but we would make up these amazing adventures (as kids do) in which there was plenty of magic, and there's was always a bad guy and we always won, of course. As kids we live through adventures like that all the time, and that's what's so exciting about childhood. Even though it's only our imagination, it's compeltely real to us. We get a little bit disillusioned as we grow older, don't you think? It takes a lot more to thrill us. An adventure isn't the same as it used to be.

I want a childhood adventure again.

Don't care how, I want it now

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately from people I know that have been talking about wants. What they want out of life, and for other people and for themselves.

Sometimes I think wants come across as being very selfish, but I don't think this is right. Yes, our needs are more important, but wants are like the mental focus where needs are the physical. They're not selfish because they're paramount to life. Really, if we didn't want things (and didn't verbalise those wants) nothing would ever be done. There would be no big inventions because no one would want to make change, there would be no relationships because no one would want to make the effort. You see what I'm getting at?

Wants are an instinctive and important part of human nature so there is no point denying the fact that we all want things, some reasonable, some ridiculous.

For the next ten days I'm going to post a want a day. Just ten major/minor/random wants that I have for this year. I'm not sure what they are yet so we'll so how impossible some of these wants are as we stumble along.

So:

WANT #1

I want to be in a Stephen Sondheim musical.

I've recently watched a filmed copy of the original cast of Into the Woods. It renewed my love for all things Sondheim. I can't see a greater honour than to be in one of his musicals.

The thing that draws me to them is the lyrics, and that's what he's famous for. He started in a time when the music was more important than the lyrics, but he ignored that. It wasn't about the lyrics fitting into the music, it was about the music working around the lyrics. All those wordy lines with rhythmic rhyming and then lack thereof - I just love it. The conversation like songs, fast paced and where every single word is there for a reason, not just to fill in a note or flesh out a phrase, but to actually say something.

So, that's want numero uno. I want to be in a Stephen Sondheim musical.

Stuck in a Rut

Although my last post was quite cheerful overall, I haven't been in the best of moods. So here comes a little bit of a rant, be prepared.

I feel really stuck in a rut lately. Like I'm not really moving anywhere. This year has been like that, understandably because it's been a bit of a limbo year. A transition year. All I've been doing, essentially, is waiting until the auditions.
But considering the effort I'm trying to put into making some big changes with myself, I'm not feeling any of it. My dance technique hasn't improved that much, and I wasted the first half of my year a little bit with not so great classes. My singing is the same, no improvements on belting here. I haven't done anything for my acting. Writing is neglected while I wait to hear from people. Socially I'm quite content but romantically I wouldn't mind some changes.

There's the bulk of my pessimistic rant for you.

I was talking to screws the other day during an epic texting session, and we concluded that this year is a big fat pain because all we want to do is go roaring into our career headfirst, do the things we really want to do, but we're stuck waiting, working in fish and ice cream shops, earning money, doing degrees and trying to improve skills. We want to have freedom to be adults but we want the security of home. We're kind of torn between a ridiculous need for new things and a fear of what those new things will bring. Like I said before, we're in limbo.

As I rant about this I try to think, what can I do to change these things? And really there isn't much. I can make plans as much as I'd like but essentially there is nothing I can do until something bigger shifts. Until I get into a school, or don't get into a school. Until I meet someone new, or hear back about my book.

So I'm really complaining about the inevitable here when I should be accepting it, but hey. The past few days have made me feel the impatience more so than normal due to my body hating me and throwing me a cough, a strained leg and a sore neck thus preventing me from doing basically anything.

Wow I really am whinging today aren't I?
Please forgive this anxious 18 year old.

Another thing I realise is I think I talk about myself to much. Just look at how many I's are in that sentance. I like to share what I'm doing, but enough is enough really. So here's a challenge, I'm going to try to go a day without talking about myself AT ALL. Maybe that'll make it difficult to have a conversation though?
Ok we'll try it as a social experiement. After tomorrow, I will see if it is possible to remain socially comfortable and not talk about yourself at all.

Cool. Done. Sorted. Rant over.

Thanks for listening :)

You've got to S-M-I-L-E

Lately my life has been filled with a lot of hilarity. And by my life I mean the life I vicariously live through intensely funny youtube shows. A Very Potter Musical (and Sequel), Maria Bamford, Demetri Martin and my recent discovery of Rock of Ages Productions are just a few of the things that get me my daily hysterical laugh.
I seriously don't know how I'd survive without laughing once in a while. I mean, I think I have a pretty good sense of humour. I appreciate comedy, I love a good laugh. In my mind I can't possibly understand how some people can not have a sense of humour. It's true. Some people don't.
This also makes me think about how completely inconcievable it is to me that some people's lives don't revolve around music. That people can ask, "What kind of music do you listen to?" and someone may reply, "Oh, you know, I don't really listen to music."
...
!!!
What is this?
Is this real? How can people possibly live their lives without music? It just doesn't make sense, especially to someone who sings constantly and walks around the house with iPhone in hand playing song after song.
So music, sense of humour, creativity - these are the sorts of things that I could NOT live my life without, and therefore, to me, no-one can live their lives without them. So there, beat that syllogistic argument.
But the reality is that people live extremely different lives to me, and as unfathomable as that is, my life is equally unfathomable to them. I'm that weirdo that never stops singing. No one can like music that much, they probably think.
Thank god I am pretty much only surrounded by musical junkies. And creative, generally funny people, who enjoy random sing-a-longs in the car and appreciate the fine, sophisticated taste of cookie dough.
Thank god for you guys.