Rehearsing Process of Six Little Dictators

Back again with a brand new post. So, my friends decided to write a show based on a popular play by Agatha Christie called "And Then There Were None", which we also did last year as our spring play. My friend Brian came up with it as an idea as a possible film or skit idea that we had to brainstorm last year. It tells the story of 6 dictators: Chairman Mao, the irrepressible Hitler, Kim Jung Un, the kick-ass Josef Stalin (played by me of course!), the longing to be like Hitler, Mussolini and finally the sickening Communist, Fidel Castro. They are all at a party hosted by Gabriel (the fallen angel aka the devil). All of a sudden, they start to get killed off one by one and they all have to figure out who's the killer before time runs out. I will not spoil the entire shaboozal.

I believe the rehearsal process is going pretty well. Today, we ran through the entire thing about 2-3 times, which went pretty quick considering that the show is about 10-15 minutes. I usually try out different ways as to meet my characters different objectives or what he hopes to achieve in the scene. For example, when Hitler accuses me of killing Gabriel, our host, co-director and friend Andrew told me that Stalin basically doesn't give a fuck about anything but himself and getting his own way. Whoever agrees with him goes with him. Whoever disagrees, well, *mocks head being cut off with finger and head going down*. To add to my "not giving a fuck", I mock Hitler by putting my finger underneath my nose, mocking his talking, and doing the Nazi solute. I think it was pretty funny, so I stayed with it. Hopefully the audience sees it too. I also try and look for a comfortable position to "die" in. Spoiler alert: I die by being poisoned by vodka. I need to hunch over the couch in a way that my stomach doesn't ache or my back. It should be more choreographed so to speak. I will get it eventually just like all of the others. One last thing is I feel as though I should have more stage direction so that I can have more interactions with the other dictators. Just because I don't give a fuck and think my idea is the best doesn't mean I can't physically interact with people. Is it because I'm old enough to be a grandpa that I can't get up, or I just don't want to because I could give less of a shit about what's going on? I think that's it. Overall, we are doing very well considering we are supposed to preform this by next week. Guess that's it for me now. See you soon, young artists!

Complaining #1

Ya know, I do judge myself too harshly when I'm doing work. I'm too afraid to start something new most of the time because it usually takes forever to get done, I keep on putting it off because I'm not that interested in it anymore, or I'm just not that interested. I know I shouldn't say "just", but what other choice of wording is there anyway to say something as plain as it can be, ya know what I mean? You could say "this is plain not interesting" or something, but that wouldn't sound right in either talking or in writing. Anyway, back to me judging myself. I think I rarely give myself a pat on the back once in awhile and need somebody to do it for me. It's not easy being so reliable on people when you're a big thinker and have so much going through your mind. That sounded like redundancy, which is basically repeating the same idea at least once in a sentence. It gets really annoying after you've seen it over and over again. I hate that I still think when writing, something always has to be perfect. I feel like it will always be too much for me to handle because I feel like it takes forever to come up with a good beginning. I'm trying to just start, but then I still have to keep in mind what I'm writing about and how I'm going to execute a project. I don't like long-term projects either because I don't know how to plan my time accordingly. My option is either to try and get it done all at once or wait until the very end (which altogether is wrong). I always keep everything in mind, but I always need help with the execution. The reason: insecurity. I have pretty major insecurity when it comes to schoolwork.

Dating back to elementary school, I would always try and do the work myself without getting help from the teacher, even though people saw how much I was struggling. I would sometimes cry over a question if I didn't know how to do it. That compared to kindergarten when I didn't care if I didn't get it and needed help with "everything". Haha, I remember one time my teacher had enough and would promise to give me stickers if I did one worksheet, which I don't think I ever did. I feel like I'm even over thinking my complaining right now because I'm searching for the right thing to complain about. I really need to become more looser with myself because I know that's not what everybody expects of me. It's hard when you're in such a competitive school where everybody's checking grades with each other on a quiz that won't even matter in the next month, unless you're planning on doing that subject for the rest of your career. If you have made a decision already and if you don't do well on some test, then you either need to choose something else to focus on or you got a lot to learn, my friend!

Another thing that is semi-connected to school is I haven't got invited to any other parties until except throughout elementary, the end of 8th grade, and before I joined STAC. I guess it was because I never found that connection with certain people in my grade. It was usually hard to do that. I agree with the fact that education progresses more difficultly as you get older, but that only depends on the choices you make. Up to this point in my life, I feel like I made the right decision with most of the right teachers following that. I won't disclose any names because it's pretty personal. I've definitely changed from middle school to high school in terms of taking the easy way out in terms of getting work done and making friends to hang out with. I got my struggles, but I only take help from people I trust. Sorry, I feel like I'm just blabbering on. Sometimes, I don't know where to stop in writing something because I think there's a difference between feeling something is done and having it actually be complete. I'm still working on that with writing assignments and I hope it gets better in the future.