Day 5 — Your dreams. /Number 02 - A picture of what you wore today

Dreams.
Aspirations?
What you imagine going to sleep at night?
Could be either, couldn't it.
Could be both simultaneously. Not for me though. I'd have the oddest aspirations if it was the case.
I guess I'll discuss both.
My dreams, to be frank, scare me. The dreams I remember I remember in detail, and there are just odd details. I haven't had a nightmare that I can remember since before I was thirteen, but my dreams and what they have the potential to mean are freaky. I think every time I have told a dream to someone, the looks on their faces have been incredulous or scared. Of me or for me, I don't know.
So I'd prefer to discuss my aspirations.
I don't know how many of you know this, but I kind of have the idea of my future set out. I don't know how many of you are interested either.
I'm expecting in ten or so years time, I'll be a teacher. I'm not necessarily hoping for that, I'm just expecting it.
I'm planning a few things in the future between now and then, but how they'll work out considering the state of my current friendships is debatable. I was always hoping to travel with friends in my gap year, but I'm not taking a gap year. I think we get about seven months off anyhow, so a few of my friends and I decided we'd buy a van and road trip around Australia, or at least part of it. I can't even remember the people involved, but it would be nice. It's not an original idea at all, and it might not be a plausible one, but it's nice to have something in mind.
I'm doing all TEE subjects for my six next year. My aim is, quite plainly, university. Specifically, the University of Western Australia. If I have the capability to get in.
Apparently you can fail English and be an English teacher though.
But UWA is the highest in the state, so I doubt that could happen there.
I want to do an education degree, majoring in English and minoring in drama. If that's the right terminology. Become an English and Drama teacher.
That's not my dream though. I'd be lying if that was all I wanted in life.
No. I think I mentioned this before, perhaps even numerous times. To act, in theatre. That's my dream. I don't want to be famous, just to be known, just maybe, once in life, to be wowed at, to leave an impression in someones mind. I'm not that memorable a person.
I want to get into Theatre at WAAPA, and every year for about 5 years, after I go to university, if I am able to do that, and once I've secured a job, I will audition. Only 18 out of about 300 get in each year, nine males and nine females.
So I'm not going to be heartbroken if I don't get in. There are others far more talented than myself, I realise that.
You know, it'd just be nice.

That's my ultimate goal in life. To act on stage and make a living from it.

I have minor and short term objectives as well.
I'd like to travel across Australia by train, alone, by the time I'm 30.
I'd like to write and publish a short story, play, or monologue.
I'd like to have a best friend.
I'd like to get a B average at the end of year twelve.
I'd like to get a job in the next few months.
I'd like someone to remember my name when they're sixty, someone who hadn't been friends with me at that point, for good reasons.

I don't know. My dreams might not mean anything. I'm one person in more than six billion.
Maybe a dent, a pinprick on the world would be nice.

...I don't think any of what I just wrote made sense. The whole post.

As for what I wore today?
Knowing what school I go to isn't a good thing on the internet. =].
So you can have a look at my shoes.

I do like contrast. And I love Converse.

Thanks for reading.

Memories

I started writing about my sibling post for the day.
But I reckon I might just write about experiences.
I said already that I'm not going to focus on it every post.


I'm in the middle of watching a DVD recording of my musical that I did for drama last year, on the night of my birthday. My birthday was in December. The academy I'm at sure took their sweet time getting them to us.
This was the best night of my life, and the best birthday I could possibly have asked for. I get this thrill performing to any audience, no matter what character I'm playing, or if it's to an audience of one or of hundreds of people I don't know.
True, I've only had that experience twice, but it was fantastic.
I don't know. I have a passion for acting even more than a passion for reading, writing, and analysing. That's saying something.
I know I'm not too great at it, but it lets me really live.
Who knows. My life could be acting. My life in the future might be devoted to acting. I hope so.
But teaching will do.

Watching this actually makes me cry, especially a particular scene.
Nostalgia's a bitch. Lesson taught my friends. One friend in particular.
I'd give anything to re-live from about 6 PM, the 11th of December, 2009. I could fix so many things, I could get to live again, I wouldn't have got involved in things I have no right to be involved in.
Or last year, sometime in March, when it was simple enough.
I'd be happy. It's been a while since I can remember that, honestly. I'm always smiling though.
You can't tell.
I hope you can't.

I am not enough.

Repetition

Acting.
It's a beautiful, meaningful thing.
At least stage acting is.
It loses its meaning once you've tried to memorise something over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. And the only thing going through your mind is the piece you're trying to memorise.
Today I performed a monologue, for my school drama class. It was a monologue I wrote.
Our task was to write a monologue that lasted from four to six minutes, and preferably a monologue that had some meaning to us. Mine had every ounce of me put into it.
My school drama teacher said it was perfect, after I changed it from its' original ending. I, being a perfectionist and not being happy with no critique, took it to my extra-curricular drama class and had that teacher look at it.
She looked up from it, and she looked me dead in the eyes and told me it was amazing.
I didn't believe it. Literally, not some airy-fairy "Oh my god, are you serious? I don't believe you just said that!"
But I just didn't believe it.
But there isn't much you can do to improve with no critique.
So I memorised it, and decided on costuming, lighting, and props.
And we've had SO bloody long to work on it. I am thoroughly sick of it, and I bloody hate the thing now, and I don't see any perfection, let alone an ounce of good writing within it. I just wanted it to be over with.
Finally, our times were scheduled. I was to perform it on Friday, the 14th of May.
And then, when I'd packed all my stuff for it, the day I was going to perform it I started vomiting. So I put it off until today, Tuesday the 18th. It was a long four days.

Okay. So imagine I'm sitting in a darkened room. Suddenly, the lights come up behind me, so my face is in shadow and I'm an outline on stage. You can see I'm sitting on a quilt, with a pillow next to me, and a plush toy in my arms. I'm wearing childish summer pyjamas. I begin to speak.

It's dark. So dark at night.
In the day, there are so many colours. Red. Green. Blue. As I say the colours, coloured lights that match them flash up.
I point, and I wave, and I tell people to look. Look at the colours. They're beautiful.
But they don't listen, or they don't hear. The words don't come out.
They look. They nod. They smile. But they don't see.
There's a cloud. They have a cloud.
Or a mist. It blocks out their... understanding
Thoughts. They're so full of them, that they can't see.
They look at me with sympathy. Really, they're the ones missing out.
I don't have to be critical.
I can laugh, and just laugh, I don't have to understand.
I can cry. Just cry.

But sometimes I wish people would just notice me. Me. Not what surrounds me.
Here. I put my fist on my chest... Or here. I put my other fist on the other side of my chest looking confused.
Will people ever stop and talk to me? Rather than glance at me with pity, then keep walking?

People aren't always very fair. Or nice. Don't they know I do not like looks of pity?
To come across something that you don't like that much every day- is it a good thing for a person to experience?
I don't know other peoples thoughts. Perhaps that isn't what they're thinking.
Or maybe they do realise who I am, and what I need. They just choose not to give it.

I need help. But I also need compassion.
I can't help being who I am.
I may not be smarter than everyone else, or as smart as.
I may not get my point across as easily.
Sometimes I might be annoying.
I'm not something wrong, I'm just... different.
Every step of the way, I need guides.
But guides are people.
People I love.
People who love me.
They respect me, cherish me, admire me, and let me know that.
They still can't see.
But they're not blind.

I raise my head to gaze directly at the audience
Think about it. How blind are you?
Not many people know that much. I close my eyes. With each statement, I cast my head farther downward.
Dumb. Whispers. "What's wrong with her? Why does that girl look funny?"
Close your mouths. Open eyes and stare at audience without lifting head up. Don't let that word 'retard' escape.
Imagine throughout the whole piece, light had been building up from the front gradually.
Raise head to look at audience directly. Are you deaf, too?
At this point, the light- almost fully bright at front now, switches back to the outlining me it did at the start of the monologue.
I play a recording of my sister with downsyndrome speaking. "It's dark. So dark at night."

At least, that's how I hoped my monologue would go.
It basically followed the structure I set for it, but I forgot my lines thrice, and had to have a single word prompt.


So my monologue is based on an issue very important to me.
My older sister has down syndrome, and I love her to bits.
I wrote the monologue from her point of view, her thoughts, at least I tried. Of course I incooperated a lot of elements,but I kept it as simple as I could so as not to detract meaning.
I also changed the character- in the character workshops we did, I developed my character to be a 12 year old girl called Iesha, but still with the same disability.
I didn't base it on anyone but my sister, but I got the name- a name I love- from someone I know.

I did the monologue, but I had absolutely no feeling performing it- it was as if, I don't know, I was this shell reading lines and trying to put emotion into it
I got some great comments from Mr. D though, and friends and some not-so-much friends told me that it was great. So I can't have been so bad.

I don't want to ramble too much about it.
So thanks for reading.
I do appreciate it.

Brittany.