Karma

I have been trying to avoid posts like this on this blog, as I've wanted to downplay my spiteful streak whilst down under, but Henriette said I was allowed a little bit of gloating every now and then and I choose now, rather than then.

Today, I had my practical phonetics tutorial- it was on Praat, a programme with which I am passingly familiar. My tutor, whom we will call Dick, because that's a name people can have and no other reason, asked us to name certain phones as they came up; I answered his questions, correctly, I might add; he snapped at me 'why don't you stop butting in and give other people a chance to answer?', so I didn't answer any more questions during the tute.
And neither did anyone else.

There were entire minutes of silence, where Dick fervently waited for someone to identify the correct phoneme, and no one did. These silences were so pregnant people kept on asking exactly how many babies it had in there. And all Dick could find to punctuate these soundless eons? The only words he could find to fill this room, so devoid of the noise that he claims to understand? 'I feel like a failure'.

Good.You should, Dick.
I fully intend to not answer any more questions in Dick's classroom, and let the deafening sound of his own complete incompetence ring loud in his ears as a class full of undergraduates show him exactly how little he has taught them. I'll let the crippling screech of his inadequacy echo throughout that cacophonous room and smile as he sinks deeper into a depression of his own making.
Because I am nothing if not obedient.

Oh, and to add a cherry to this delicious revenge cream cake; he handed out assignments today and I got a H1.
Match point, dick*.

*Deliberately left uncapitalised.

Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor

And then it was May.

We are not amused.

I must confess a touch of panic about doing all that I want before I leave- I have seventy days left in Australia, if you count the final few hours I will spend trying to sleep in Sydney Airport, which I am doing only to give this post a nice round number to which to attach itself.
I've been trying to make lists of all those things I want to do before I must shuffle off this antipodean coil, but there are just so many. In the top ten there are certainly see the penguins again (either St Kilda or Philip Island, it doesn't matter which- hell, even the aquarium would count if I do the motherfuckin' PENGUIN PASSPORT!), visit Tasmania or New Zealand (Old Zealand just looks dull, to be frank), or both if there's money. I want to see another part of Australia- Adelaide, Perth or maybe even Uluru, which I apparent keep mispronouncing as 'Ayres rock'.
I think back to Jason, and the madcap antics of his final days here- which were only in December, but now seem like they happened before the invention of Radio (I swear, I remember them in Sepia with title cards)- how he kept repeating all the things he longed to accomplish in Oz, and how, when he clicked his heels together and vanished from sight, there were still so many he hadn't brought to fruition; like visiting the Silver K Gallery or the Ballarat Wildlife Park. And then I look back on my Edinburgh bucket list and see that I only did about half the things on there before I got the heck outta dodge, and I begin to think that maybe you'll never do everything you want to, no matter where you are; I'm sure there must be something in Shropshire I haven't done, like...
...
Moving on.

So, I'm waiting until my exam timetable is released, which, according to my venticelli, will be this Friday, and then I'm gonna plot out my remaining few weeks here, and just try to see as much as possible and remind myself that you can find pictures of everything on Google, so travel's just flogging a dead horse anyway.

After being bitten by a retroactive spider...

So, I've decided that this is my blog and I can do what I want and I'm gonna write a blog post a month after the fact, and what can all of you do about it?
(You may have noticed that there have been three different blog posts in the last two days- this is because I have an assignment due and it's never so easy to write as when you're meant to be doing something else.)

So, 24 hour play- Andrew encouraged me to do it, and I'm so glad I did. It's not the first such endeavor I've undertaken, but it's the first time I've been on the acting side of the coin. As you will see at the end, this was quite a debut.
The 24 hour plays at Melbourne are structured differently to those of Bedlam (fancy that!). For one thing, things are much more randomised; writers and directors find each other in a weird mating ritual involving blindfolds, a circle of onlookers and, at least in my case, a half-eaten mannequin with the word 'Kerrick' scrawled on it (and, honestly, all the best rituals do); each writer/director pair is then assigned the number of actors to which they will have access using dice. I decided to join group number one because a) I wanted to meet new people and thus, sadly, not team up with Andrew and b) I hadn't spoken for, like, eight minutes and that's just too long.

As you can see, I chose the cheery bunch.

Group number one would later become B.E.S.T., whom I believe I have posted about before- they consisted of Laura, David, Wilson, Maddi, a third Daniel, a second Declan and a first Greta. Declan was our director, Wilson our writer. We were then assigned, through the use of slips of paper in various hats, a random object (a paintbrush), a starting location (a wedding), an event that must happen over the course of the play (someone winning something) and two words we must include ('clutter' and 'hydrocarbon') he concocted for us a dark comedy called 'confetti and everything'. Set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and concerning the adventures of a princess and a painter, I played an alcoholic priest and...well, I won't spoil it.

Over the course of the rehearsals, I acquired several new in-jokes ('mazel tov' and 'deep inside death' being the primary among them), some new friends and a badass top hat, which I sadly didn't just steal for myself. Definitely worth the eleven hours' rehearsing, I feel. 

So, without further adieu, gracious ladies, obliging gentlemen, and, of course, Jari, I present to you, Confetti and Everything.

"If you want to milk plows or cow fields"

So far, in the course of my adventures in Oz, I've acted against someone who's in Neighbours and auditioned against someone who was in Summer Heights High, not to mention being the same audience as Geoffrey "I'm disinclined to acquiesce to your request" Rush. But now, I think, I have reached a whole new height of star-interaction.
For, you see, yesterday, Tuesday the 9th April 2013, at 2.15pm, on a sunny afternoon in Melbourne, I made a short film with none other than motherfucking Sportacus from Lazytown.

As badass as scarface?

Not only that- I had actual lines (the humorous spoonerism that resulted from such makes the titles of this post) in a film with Sportacus. I was even DIRECTED by Sportacus. He told me he liked my line reading.
Swoon.


Daniel, you're not the only one who's acting career has taken a major leap forward in the past two weeks. 

The most easter(n)ly break yet

Wow, what a break!
This was my fourth consecutive easter away from home (I know, I know, I'm such a rebel) and probably the most jam-packed that I can remember.

On Good Friday, Victoria, Michael and I went to the Melbourne Aquarium (Michael was the host of the Australia Day barbecue I attended, and also Aspen's sweetheart); I always enjoy aquariums and zoos- there's just something about watching animals that I find incredibly interesting, even when they're not really doing anything.

I swear to God I stared at this thing for ten solid minutes, waiting for it to move.

Also, there were PENGUINS! And there's even something called 'the Penguin Passport' where you can ENTER THE MOTHERFUCKING PENGUIN ENCLOSURE!!!!!
So, yeah, that's happening.

On Sunday, we had an easter egg hunt, which was so well thought through that half the eggs weren't even found and, to my knowledge, there are still some to be claimed. Victoria and I also teamed up for an egg and spoon race, and came second, but only because I wasn't allowed to use my pasta spoon, which is, apparently, 'cheating'.

The next day, I travelled to Somers to stay at Maddi's (one of the B.E.S.T.ies) summer house for a couple of days. It was totes sweet: we swam, played pictionary (I won), Smart ass (I won) and Jenga (I toppled it and thus, you guessed it, won), had fires on the beach (which is illegal, so if anyone asks we sat on the beach at night in a rough circle around a patch of sand). But the best part is that Laura and David declared their love for one another while I was trying to sleep- I just love being friends with couples.

I stayed at Maddi's until wednesday, then returned for an evening Amadeus rehearsal.

The next two days were spent rehearsing Aussie Rules, during which I learnt some yoga positions and got to practice dying in other people's spotlights, both of which are, I think, skills entirely transferable to the workplace.

Then, on Friday evening, I travelled to an Amadeus rehearsal camp in the most cineliterarily named town I've ever encountered- 'Rosebud' (I really wanted to patronise the Rosebud cinema, but sadly did not get round to it.)
'Rehearsal camps' are apparently a not uncommon thing at Melbourne Uni (and, I think, Australian theatre in general), but I had never heard of one before. From my direct experience, they involve: acting, singing, alcohol, photoshoots, improvisation, king's cup, alcohol, would you rather?, truth or dare, alcohol and lots of conversation about the Amish. I can only assume that this is typical.
I also got to go for a quick dip in the sea in between run throughs, meaning I swam in the sea twice in a week when there's still snow on the ground back home. This is my life now.

There are two superlatives connected to this easter break: it was the week I spent least time on the internet in at least five years, as neither Maddi's house nor the Rosebud brothel had internet, so for four days out of nine I didn't log on at all.
It was also the holiday where I drank the most, with another four days ending in tipsyness. Progress. 

But all good things must come to an end and I am now back in the world of schoolery: I have an assignment due on Thursday and have just recieved inspiration for a possible linguistic study in the future. Fun times?

La voce to me

Yesterday, I went about the course of collecting actual Linguistic data (I know, I know living red letter). I ventured into the suburbs of Central Melbourne with a flotilla of my fellow Linguistadors and recorded a 22-month-old girl named Molly talking at us.
It was actually a lot of fun: Molly showed us her DVDs and was surprisingly film literate for a toddler, having seen Finding Nemo, Alice in Wonderland and The Little Mermaid, which is more than Esmond- although she insisted Ursula the sea witch was nice and liked Ariel. Not an interpretation I'd encountered before.

Although...

She also argued with her mother over whether a pink koala toy was a pig or a marsupial and won with the astounding display of reasoning 'koalas aren't pink', which none of us could refute (although Koala joeys are hairless.) She also brought a little of that lovely child reasoning when, upon being informed that a dentist was a 'doctor who looks at your teeth', she inquired, with some alarm, 'why?!'
All in all, not a bad way to collect data for one's subject; in fact, Barbara told us about a man who gave his children special backpacks which would record his young children speaking...and caught his wife carrying on with, as Barbara put it, 'Mr. Neighbor'.
So, practical, too.

In other news, I went to two parties this weekend, and so am just the belle of the ball, aren't I? One was a get together with the guys from B.E.S.T., who were my 24 hour play group (I meant to blog about that...oops), where we watched a bunch of movie musicals and realised just how rapey Grease is. Sadly, I had to go to bed before Les Mis was put on, otherwise I very well may have brought Gavroche back to life, nine years (what the hell?) after his untimely death.
T'other was an Amadeus get-to-know-the-cast affair, where two very promising candidates for quotes of the year were delivered. One came from Henry Shaw, director extraordinaire, and was in the manner of a film trailer voice-over; t'other came from Dave, who plays Salieri, and was a brand new species of Pokemon; both can be found on the Quotes page.

And, finally, according to Victoria Andrew, I was in tune for an entire song last Wednesday. This is a personal record.

He ate your father in front of you

So, Daniel got into Drama school. Aside from being the single biggest contributor to this blog (after myself, of course), Daniel also holds the distinction of being one of the few actors I have 'discovered'.

And what a discovery it was.

Of course, Danny boy himself might dispute this, and argue that he even had some professional roles in Spain but buckus, I say, that damn Spider is where your career started in the English speaking world!

This guy.

The only person whom I believe could challenge me as title-bearer of Godfather of Daniel's theatrical career is Ian, and though Daniel did indeed have lines in Vatnsdal, I don't believe that play truly tapped into Daniel's talents. His cackling, baton-twirling, cross-dressing talents. All of which TWWOO used to great, if somewhat psychodelic, effect.
And, thus, I'm very proud to say that another one of my babies has hatched into a beautiful butterfly. Now, Joseph just needs to make something of his life.
Like that'll ever happen.

In less self-congratulatory news, I got to watch someone else directing my work for the first time last Sunday. This is only the second time someone else has actually helmed a project to which I contributed the script: but during The Ten Minuters I only ever saw the finished product, not the 'making of'. And I have to say, it was weird- seeing my words come to life but with no control over how they lived. I now know how my parents feel. No wonder they're always so disappointed with me.
P.S. For Posterity's sake, this play is Aladdin, a pantomime I've written to be performed for sick children. (And also children who are ill- get it?)

And finally, I've started Language in Aboriginal Australia and it's really fascinating- the culture is so different from what I'm used to that it means everything I'm learning is completely unexpected and brand new. I haven't had that for a while.
First Language Acquisition is also proving as interesting as I'd hoped and I was actually presented with some tangible proof for innatism, which I never imagined would happen and may merit further investigation.
Phonetics has sadly segued into ear training, which boils down to weeks and weeks of watching one's tutor/professor repeat the same sound twice and ask 'did you hear the difference that time?' to which the answer is inevitably 'no'. Not as frustrating as syntax, certainly, but quite bad.
So, all in all, quite a good term so far.