What an amazing week this has been! I was scared that it would fail in comparison to the last week, but was pleasantly surprised that it was just as wonderful, just in different ways.
The week started out with lots of Uni work. I spent most of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday working. I finished a draft of my essay!!! Which was a great accomplishment and got another Spanish assessment under my belt. My psych tute was really awesome this week, though. I was hypnotized! We are studying this phenomenon in my personality class and actually had the chance to experience it this week. I can not believe it, but I was hypnotized by a tape! Crazy, right? Well it happened. The whole class chose whether they wanted to participate or not. Slowly we were taken out of consciousness into a state of deep relaxation where we were given suggestions. I responded to a little more than 2/3 of these meaning that I am of medium/high hypnotizability. It was really strange to feel so out of control of my body despite the fact that my mind felt so clear. One of the suggestions told us that we would not be able to shake our head no even if we really wanted to. When I tried it was as if my neck had locked. As soon as the speaker told us that our neck could move freely, it was as if someone had inserted a key and magically fixed my neck. The same thing happened with being able to open my eyes. It was a really awesome experience, and one that I’m not sure I’ll ever have the opportunity to have again so I’m quite happy I took the chance!
I have also started to have more rehearsals for Caberet this week. I am really excited about the show. It is so different from anything that I have ever been in. It is an incredibly dark show, made especially dark by our director. It will definitely be a much harder character to play than the happy go lucky fun characters I played in 1.5 spot, after all I portraying a call girl selling myself to stay alive. I’m excited about the show though, because like 1.5 spot, I’ve already met so many new and amazing people who I know that I will have a great time with!
On Wednesday night, the start of my weekend, Kim and Carly came over for dinner and a poster making party. We are all so excited about So You Think You Can Dance and we decided that we need to be those hard core fans that come prepared with homemade amazing signs in hand. After our feast we continued to snacking on enough chocolate to feed a small nation whilst making up our amazing sayings. We went with a seasonal theme because Kim found these awesome cut outs that were for all the different seasons. Here’s what we had…
Kim – “Ben, you’re the bee’s knees!” Our spring/summer poster complete with bumble bee.
Carly – “Talia, there’s snow-one better!” Our winter poster complete with snowflake.
Abby – “BJ, you’re bloomin’ marvelous!” Our spring poster complete with flowers.
Me – “Charlie, you are my sunshine!” Our summer poster complete with smiling suns.
(mine was double sided) “Charlie, I’m fall-in’ for you!” The autumn poster complete with leaves.
Thursday was going to be an incredibly productive day. It simply did not happen. Have you ever had one of those mornings where you just wake up angry and there is absolutely no explanation for it. I was angry at the world on Thursday morning. I didn’t want to do my homework. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want to do anything. I just wanted to sit and eat biscuits (cookies). I don’t know if I had some annoying/frustrating dream that I didn’t remember but was subconsciously affecting me or what, but I really needed to fix my mood. I decided chocolate was not the best solution despite its deliciousness so I went for the healthier but more expensive option of retail therapy. I headed over to Mac Centre, the big shopping mall by Uni, where I actually needed to go for my weekly grocery trip. Before I got groceries, though, I thought that there were a few stores I should probably visit. I am amazed at the healing powers of a good shop. My mood was considerably altered after a few small, really I promise I didn’t go too crazy, purchases. I was motivated enough to go the gym that night and kick my butt in a back to back spin/ab class! So even though I didn’t really get anything done Uni-wise, I feel like the day was quite the success since I turned my mood right round J
FINALLY Friday arrived. It was the day we were headed to So You Think You Can Dance Australia. I had decided this was going to be a productive day since I’d lost out on Thursday. Failure yet again. Beyond baking some seriously delicious muffins and going for a swim I was a lost cause. But, I legitimately could not sit still long enough to read a single page in a textbook. I wasn’t just counting down the hours, I was counting down the minutes and bouncing around the apartment singing/dancing/screaming about the amazingness awaiting us! Eventually the time came for us to catch the train. After getting a bit turned around we found the television studio and hopped in line to get our places! We were on the left side of the stage right on the floor. Initially we were in the second row, but when the people in front of us saw how hard core we were with our signs they let us through to the front. We were there for about 4 hours. It was so much fun to watch how the show was filmed. One of my favorite parts was filming the audience screaming scenes for like 15 minutes before we had even seen anything happen. Eventually the dancers came out and we started screaming for real. We saw 8 amazing dances! We were pretty psyched because several times the cameramen came right up to us and zoomed in on our signs. After their dances, the dancers would run by the audience members slapping hands. We were all so excited to touch our fav’s hand. It was seriously like we were those crazy teenagers at their favorite band’s concert. Charlie touched me and I think I melted a little. It was ridiculous and wonderful all at the same time. After an amazing show of some of the greatest dancing I have seen in my entire life we waited around in the lobby for the dancers to come out, and they did! We met 5 out of the 6, and they were all of our favorites, too. We got them all to sign the posters we had made and every one of them said that they were the best posters they have seen all season! They were all so nice and down to earth, pausing for pictures and autographs, even starting up conversations. I nearly passed out when Charlie came out. I love the teenage girl crush I have on him so I am embracing every possible quality of it I can. I got a picture with him as well as his autograph. It was wonderful because he actually talked to me for a minute too! He totally loved his double sided sign! My friend Carly was snapping pictures for me and caught some great moments with it! She decided that we’re pretty much dating since he put his hand around my waist in the picture, haha. After finally meeting everyone we could, including 2 choreographers from the American show, Tabitha and Napoleon, we headed out. Our next stop was Pancakes on the Rocks where we were served happiness on a plate. I had the Blackforest Cherry pancakes which had a chocolate pancake, a buttermilk pancake, chocolate chips, chocolate ice cream, cream, and cherries. It was a beautiful thing. This restaurant is seriously one of the greatest places in the world! We made it back home around 2 am, exhausted, but still spewing excitement and disbelief over how amazing the night actually was. It all felt like a dream. We had built it up so much that I think we all thought it would fall short of our expectations, but it went so far beyond them! AMAZING!
Saturday was another wonderful day. My friend Steff took me to all her favorite places in the city near Chinatown and Darling Harbour. It was my 3 month anniversary of being in Australia so we found that reason enough to celebrate by eating our way through the city. We took the train to the city and started our day off with Yum Cha (Chinese lunch) where there are constantly carts rolling by and people asking you if you want any of the crazy foods on them. They mark your ticket for whatever you take and you sit and enjoy. It was so great, and Steff made some wonderful choices on our food. For dessert, we stopped at Emperor’s puffs where we each had two of the hot custard filled puffs. Just beside there was a man cutting out silhouettes for $2 and saying he did it in under a minute. We each got one done. It is a really fun souvenir from our day. From there we went through Paddy’s Markets which is this huge market place that has everything in the world in it for uber cheap prices. Steff also had me try Easy Way tea. It is a really big chain here. It’s basically like a fast food tea place. I had no idea how to order because it’s quite complicated. I ended up with an iced green tea with passion fruit flavor and mango jelly at half sweetness. It was SO good! The mango jelly (jello) sounded really weird at first but I promise that it was amazing. Good things these places are everywhere because I want to try all the flavors now. After our tea we looked through the shoppes in China Town before heading to a young artist’s art show on Oxford Street (where Mardi Gras was). It was a fun show and we scored some free art which is always great for decorating my room with. After a good walk we made it back to Darling Harbour where we made our way to the Lindt Café to have our special treat for the day. I had the most amazing hot chocolate I have ever had in my entire life. By far. It was perfect and it was even made with soy, but I swear it tasted like whole milk. We also had fresh macaroons there. I opted for a passion fruit chocolate filled one that was to die for! We headed back to Uni after our dessert to see our director from 1.5 spot, Jane’s dance show. We sat with two of our other friends from 1.5, Kate and Maddi, at the show and were Jane’s cheering section. The show was a burlesque version of the Wizard of Oz that was really fun. Jane was the Scarecrow just like I was in the ballet! It was so great because it was really relaxed. We got up and danced at one point and ate dinner right in the theatre.
Sunday finished off the weekend quite nicely. After an all day rehearsal, Carly and Kim came over to watch SYTYCD since we had seen it live we figured we needed to watch it together on TV. Carly’s birthday is on Wednesday so we also made it into a bit of a surprise party for her. We had a nice dinner while watching but we could only eat on commercials because we were so distracted by the fact that we had been there. We could see ourselves in the background quite often, but then after Charlie’s dance…there I was holding my sign for him. I had a CLOSE UP on Australian National Television! We all screamed at the exact same time on the same pitch and just pointed. It turned out that every single one of us made it on TV with our signs. I had 3 different close up shots and lots of background ones! SO EXCITING! It was also super cool to know what was going to happen before it actually did. My favorite part, though, was being able to see the dance from a completely different perspective, after the editing process of choosing the best camera angles and such. It was a really fun night to relive together!
I know, I know…amazing week! I am having a blast and a half. This week is packed to the rafters with a lovely mixture of crazy stress up until 5 pm on Friday, after that I am free for 2.5 weeks of glorious holiday. I will be around Sydney until Easter Sunday when I’m leaving on my travels to Melbourne, Adelaide, and Western Australia! I am getting so excited, but I also cannot believe that the mid-semester break has already arrived. Time is literally flying by!
Miss you all!!!
Love, Anna
SYTYCD sounded awesome! Makes me wonder what would have happened had I gotten further in the competition...
ReplyDeleteUMMMM, did you just say 2.5 weeks? I hate you.
ReplyDelete