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Tuesday, October 17, 2006
No One Shits JamIt's 635 pm, and I should be at home, working on my last two essays for this semester. For this year. For what could possibly be the last two essays, ever, in my life. Yet I'm in the library, using the computers because my laptop has crashed and I feel just slightly ever so helpless. All alone in an empty flat, with nothing but the telly, and I can't even go online to find out the tv program.I feel like I've reached yet another crossroads in my life. To be, or not to be. Is that really the question? Suddenly I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a Olympus and I know I'm capable of so much if only I dared to try and scale it. But I'm scared. What if I fail? What if I fall? What if I give up halfway? What if I reach the top only to find that the view isn't as beautiful as all those postcards depict? All I have to do is just turn around right now and go home to my comfy bed, where dinner awaits on the table and a supportive family awaits. Do I want it enough to dare to risk? Or rather, Do I have what it takes to keep me going all the way? I think that's the question I should be asking myself.What are my options?A. - to Honours and extend my decision on what to do with my life by a year.B. - apply for Honours and defer it for a year and try and crave a life for myself here in that year. Problems: - Who will want to employ someone with no sales/hospitality experience?- I will always be the token Asian character in whatever plays I audition for.- Where will my money come from? I need a day job to sustain myself, I can't keep taking money from the dad.- How do I break the news to the family?- How do I solve the visa problem? I can't stay on in that one defered year with a student visa, can I?C. - finish up my degree and go back to Singapore and start from Ground Zero and try to break into the theatre scene. Problems: - Will I be able to get back into the Singaporean mentality, and way of life? - Have I gotten my fill of the freedom and liberation here in Melbourne?- Will I sell out and do typical non-challenging, non-provoking theatre?- Can I make a difference?- Will my spirit diminish because it's not fed by the environment it's in?So many questions, yet no answers prevail. Peter says we have to trust ourselves. I can't trust myself. I can't even decide what I want for dinner, let alone what I want to do with my life, and if I'm brave enough to stick it through.Sometimes I think I'm just too conditioned to the Singaporean way of thinking. I want the safe route. I want security and insurance. I want to know that nothing is at risk. I want to know that I will come out tops. I want to know that I will succeed. And that very strain of thought goes against the very core of my theatrical being. Theatre without risk is not Theatre. How can I compromise these two dichotomic atoms in me? Do I trust in myself enough to know that if I work hard, I can and will succeed in being an actor and a theatre practioner? I don't know. I want someone to tell me that they believe in me. Because I don't know if I believe in myself. Maybe life is like taking on a role in a play. It's a constant discovery and exploration. And you keep hitting obstacles and problems, and sometimes you solve them, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you throw away things that don't work. Sometimes something works, but it doesn't fit in with the rest of the theme. Sometimes you feel like you can't overcome something, and you work ever so hard at it, but to no avail. And one day, everything magically clicks and falls into place, and Voila, you've found your character. Will that day come?I've been working on a monologue from Lady Macbeth for the past three weeks, and up til this morning I had difficulties with the opening lines. Yet I magically cracked it today. It was believeable. I was astounded. At that moment I thought. 'I can do this.' I picked Lady Macbeth not because I wanted to impress. Not because I thought too highly of myself. I picked it because I was ambitious and I knew I had someone there to guide me through it. Right now I need someone to walk with me, to reassure and guide me, and tell me that I can do this, that I can embark on this route that I seek. That I can immerse myself in this volatile life of uncertainty and ride the waves. I will never emerge tops. It's a fact I have to face and embrace. I just need someone to tell me that I can do this. Because I don't know if I can.To turn the negative into positive. It is possible. I need to constantly remind myself. And as Peter says, 'No one shits jam.' So true.
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