We have completed (almost) our first semester of the year, except for this last week of wrapping up. A lot of water has passed under the bridge and we have encountered rocks and fast rapids along the way.
My "office hours" (when I'm available in the theatre) are from 10:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday. You can come in and finish up any work that you haven't done, or redo something you think needs redo-ing. The last journal for Drama 9 - 12 is to write about how you created your role play character. You can include things about what you wore or how you conducted yourself. It really helps me, because I wasn't able to interact with each of you during the chaos that is the extended roleplay.
I am going to be working on your marks this week. As you know, I am not adept at using technology and we have just switched over to the new marks program and so I imagine it will be another whitewater experience for me, but I have learned in my many years that somehow things get done and I won't let myself be defeated by it.
Now that you have semester one under your belt, take a moment and think about how things went. What did you do well? Where could you improve? When we make these transitions, it is good to look back and take stock. I realize more and more as time goes on that a lot of success is just showing up. If you miss a lot of classes, you might be able to pass, but you won't really learn, especially in Drama. The experience is what teaches. You might think that I arrive every day with a sunny outlook, but that isn't necessarily true. There are lots of mornings when I would much rather stay in bed, just pull the blankets over my head and sleep the whole day. But like Tom Wingfield, "I go". You have to be present in your own life to live it. Sometimes it's good to get out of yourself and out of your own head. Once I'm in class, I find it quite absorbing. I know, for lots of you, it is hard. You've got lots of burdens and baggage to carry. Maybe you find school boring. Maybe you wish you had a job instead. Maybe you have trouble making connections with other kids or with your teachers. I heard this piece on the radio yesterday about "right livelihood" which is a Buddhist philosophy in which you put the best of yourself into whatever you do. You put the best of yourself into your work (hinayana) and you open yourself up to others and the world and try to create a better world that way (mahayana) and we try to learn from what we do (vajrayana). Of course, I just heard this person talk about it for a half an hour, so I might be misinterpreting it, but I think the perspective would help all of us embrace our work and accept it as an integral part of our lives, not just that horrible time from Monday to Friday when we don't get to do what we want. It takes so much of our time, if we're just waiting for the weekend, it's as my mother would say "wishing our lives away". The person who was talking about it on the radio was named Lodro Rinzler and his book is called The Buddha Walks into the Office: A Guide to Livelihood for a New Generation.
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