I'm not use to not wanting to lose weight. I'm not used to actually kind of liking my body and how I look. I'm not used to telling myself it really is okay to get a small coffee if I want it, or skip working out, or that the 0.9 pounds Wii Fit told me I gained is not the end of the world. I kind of want to go back though. I felt really empowered changing my body like I did, learning how much food I actually needed, and what was just want, and actually enjoying working out and making myself strong. I want to want to lose more weight. And part of me is just tired of it all. Another part of me is scared that in all of this, I will slowly go back to how I was the past year and gain it all back.

Strange thoughts because I just can't bring myself to do my workout routine from start to finish without stopping ten billion times because I'm bored.

And I'm back at home.

Sophomore year was a doozy. Especially this spring semester. BFA auditions were in the fall but they made me really focus and I got so much work done. Not so much this semester. Some of my grades aren't up yet, but the ones that are, I'm a little pissed about it.

For starters, Speech class. I got an A on my workbook, a 3.7/4 on my final performance, a 3.6/4 on our open scene and a 3.4 on my one quiz. Anything else, I've never gotten lower than a 3.4. By the end of the semester, Ilona kept telling me how much I had changed my voice completely. The comment on my final performance was "Man, you have worked so hard this semester and it's really paying off. You are becoming so riveting to watch." In fact, when we were working on these final monologues, Ilona had no critique for me because I had learned so much this semester that I had nothing more to worry about. The next lessons would wait until Speech 23. So I was doing so well there was no reason to teach me something? Then how did I get a B+? I deserved an A in this class. I worked my ass off. I'm kinda pissed. I might email Ilona and be like, can you explain my grade? Because, really, I deserved at LEAST an A-, if not an A.

Then in Scene Study with Peter, I also got a B+. I'm gonna accept this one with a grain of salt. I had thought I was doing really well. He loved our Antigone scene, or so Michelle and I thought. Both of us got straight Cs through every performance of it. ... well then .... However, I got an A- and B+ on my journals, so I guess that saved me a bit? Plus, he absolutely adored my performance of Sonya in Uncle Vanya. I find that so amusing. I thought I did so well with Antigone and just mediocre with Uncle Vanya, yet Peter saw it the other way. That tends to happen. I didn't think I did well on my Shadow Box or Agnes of God performances, and yet Jean said it was the best in the class. So... if I like it, then it sucks. But if I don't, then I'm good?

After class, I asked to meet with Peter about a few things. I wanted some audition feedback and I wanted him to cast me as Shakespearean characters for a multitude of reasons: 1) I have a personal goal of reading all the Shakespeare plays before I graduate, and I might as well start with ones I could use for acting; 2) I have Acting for Shakespeare with him next semester, and if he tells me who I can play, I can have a grip on the types of characters he sees me as, so I can read those plays before next semester. 3.) I have to have a new Shakespeare monologue for Speech, to be performed the second day of class. It doesn't actually have to be new buuut 4) The Shakespeare Festival auditions are that fall, and I might as well choice my audition piece and work on it in class with Ilona. His response? "After seeing you perform today, I think you could do anything."

Wow. What a compliment. I was a floored. After that, he got more specific. His first choice for me? Juliet, in Romeo & Juliet. THAT floored me as well. I don't think, nor has anyone indicated to me, that I could play Juliet. Jean always cast me as the stronger roles, never the romantic ones. In fact, I had never even worked with a guy or on a love scene until Uncle Vanya (and Uncle Vanya is barely a love scene). So for Peter to tell me I would make an amazing Juliet was strange. I don't look young. I didn't think I did well with love scenes. But this is a good thing. This means I have expanded the types of characters I could play! He also said he would love to see me as Celia and/or Rosalind in As You Like It, and then Portia in the Merchant of Venice (Jean told me this character as well). He went on with a bunch of other characters that could work, including any of the women in The Merry Wives of Windsor or Much Ado About Nothing, Lady Percy in Henry IV, Part I, or Brutus' wife in Julius Caeser who's name is escaping me. The only characters he had reservations for was Ophelia and Lady Macbeth, because I would need a good Hamlet/Macbeth, and Beatrice, because he hasn't seen me master words enough to play her. Which is okay. Now I have goals. Ophelia is my favorite Shakespeare character, and I definitely want to play her at some point. Something to work too.

He gave me a lot of other things to work on, too... since he thought I bombed at auditions. The song, ironically, was probably my best part, but still bad. It was "a little thin", Anna Christie was "one action" and Tony Kushner had no changes between the two performances. I felt pretty awkward in his office after that. He gave me a very interesting way to work on monologues though. Write one emotion or action on a notecard, and make a bunch of notecards filled with them, like anger, or petulance, or joy, and then pull a notecard at random, and then do that emotion/action for the entire monologue. Then you can see what lines work with it and what doesnt. Or you can pull a new card for each line. I thought it was cool.

All my other grades are passes for the Writing Proficiency Exam and Drama 55. I got an A in voice lessons, but that was a given. And then I had a B- in Movement which I am totally pleased with. I was sure I would get a C, like I did in Movement I. I mean, I think I improved and did okay, but I didn't think Robert would agree. I'm just happy I got a B.

In other news of my life, since my internship fell through and I quit JCPenney for it, I was without a job for the summer. On Friday, I found out that Carol had surgery and was out until this Monday so that was probably why I hadn't heard anything back from reapplying. So I left her a note saying I was available this summer if she needed the help. Just in case, I went and applied at a bunch of places in the mall, including Victoria's Secret. Who hired me on the spot. :) I start tomorrow. I'm super excited. They're paying me almost as much as JCP, which is nice. I didn't expect to close to what I was making there after working there for three years. However, if Carol calls me and offers me my job back, I'm taking it. I'll make more money, I already know what I'm doing, and I have a lot of friends there. I'm gonna try and work both jobs, but Victoria's Secret would become my second job, and JCP would have top priority. That scares me. I'm awful at going in to work places and saying what I want and what I'm doing, and I really shouldn't be.

Also, I've lost another five pounds, bringing my total lost to twenty. Which is super exciting. It's a lot harder to take off the weight now. I'm hoping I won't gain anything back while I'm at home, or while I'm working at the mall where this is Starbucks and Coldstone and Taco Bell... and a bunch of other really bad things for you that I enjoy. blah.

I still need to unpack and I've been home for three days. It's pretty bad.

I have my song, however, I have it in the wrong key. I need Come Rain or Come Shine in E flat. I have no monologues. I cannot find a one minute or less monologues for Saxophone. Auditions are in a week.

I am so screwed.