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!