prodigal blogger

it has been a year since i last published to this blog. i suppose i should just give it up but something compels me to keep it. i feel like perhaps i should be posting my insights, adventures, encounters, endeavours though i have been too busy to make it a priority - particularly since setting back off down the road of academia - too worried about posting some true opinion that will burn a bridge or say something i want to take back later. like, lately, i am asked "how is your MFA going?" well, if i told you my feelings i might be hurting those of someone else, people who are trying their best to do a great job in a staunchy, old academic environment. if i relayed the facts, such as, i am in such financial straits that i have stopped sleeping, i've spent only 7 hours this term doing any actual directing (projects that were, for lack of a better term, forced upon me), the rest writing, giving seminars, critiquing terrible plays and building bridges out of toothpicks, it might give the impression that i am wasting my time. if i stated, as you might infer, that i am frustrated and disappointed with the above facts then would i be belittling the other opportunities that this year has afforded me? - experiences that i otherwise wouldn't have been given had i not embarked upon this two year deal with the academic devil: working alongside an internationally renowned master teacher of Shakespeare, not for one but two consecutive groups of professionally geared actors; assistant directing said master in one of Shakespeare's best loved plays; coaching movement for a french theatre company's production a play so beautiful it didn't matter that i couldn't understand half of what was being said; meeting, interviewing and observing a slew of national theatre artists; developing a vocabulary and extremely valuable toolkit to compliment the strengths and skills i have acquired over the years; being afforded the opportunity to direct classical productions with huge casts and good production values; being contacted out of the blue for unsolicited work; to test out teaching skills and theories on a whole new generation of theatre artists; to act as a motivator, mentor and friend to said students; to alway have the excuse when contacting people for something i want or need that "i am an MFA in directing student" (i hate cold calling). i believe that this time of suffering and hardship, lack of sleep and food, will pay off in dividends when i finally can put those three letters after my name. i am on a path to manifesting a greater goal right now and when i get to the end this suffering i'm enduring now will be little more than an anecdote... i hope.

"why do you keep hitting yourself?"
"because it feels good when i stop."

"why oh why oh why did i go back to school?"
"because it will be worth it when it's over."