Guest blog!! An amazing one at that :]
When I last saw my dearest Stefanie Senior, we were eating at Casablanca and talking about college. She had just started, and I was going to move in a couple of days. Just listening to her, she seemed to be having a blast. The question is, how is she now? Well read on and find out!
ADVENTURES IN PARKLAND-LAND
EPISODE ONE: MIDTERM
Or, Things I Have Learned in Nine Weeks at Parkland
Here I am: Halfway through my first semester of college. First of all, what the hell happened to the last seven weeks? I mean, I shouldn’t have lost that much time between school, work, homework, rehearsals, auditions, light hangs/work days... never mind.
Anyway, back to the real focus of this article- things I’ve learned at Parkland (so far).
1. Nobody Gives a Shit Where You Went to School
In my first couple weeks at Parkland, I spent a lot of time recanting stories of high school (what else did I have to talk about?), which of course prompted the question, “Where did you go to high school?”
Now, coming from Uni, I was used to an environment where school became your label (“He’s Princeton, she’s WashU, he’s Harvard”, etc.), so I got a little nervous answering this question. I was worried that I might be excluded or teased for being from Uni: “Oh, do you think you’re better than us? You’re SOOOO smart!”
Guess what really happened?
“Where’d you go to high school?”
“Uni.”
“Oh, so you’re a smart kid?”
“Well...sure.”
“Oh, that’s cool. Wanna get some lunch?”
I mean, that’s pretty much it. Nobody really cared that I went to Uni. Nobody thought I had lowered my standards by coming to Parkland; nobody thought I was going to be condescending and rude, just because I went to a “smart-kid school”. The attitude was, (and is!) “Whatever, that’s high school; this is college.”
Go figure.
2. College is Some Serious Shit.
Coming from Uni, it’s really easy to assign values to everything- especially school subjects. It’s easy to say, “English doesn’t matter because I have Calculus to do,” or “I can do that tomorrow- I have to do this right now,” or “I’m pretty much only doing this because it looks good, not because I care about it.”
Even as a very dedicated theatre student, it was very easy to write something off as “It’s ‘just’ rehearsal,” or “It’s ‘just’ a high school show,” which is nice when you’re trying to keep yourself from going crazy, but not so nice if it’s something you actually have to take seriously.
Then, I got to Parkland. I’m still in the process of convincing myself that acting is a perfectly viable career option and not something I do for fun.
I suppose this is the long way of saying that nothing I’m doing in Parkland theatre and none of the people I’ve met and worked with in Parkland theatre make me feel like I’m wasting my time. My acting teacher never talks about acting as a “last resort career”; she tells us about her experience with professional acting and, without bullshitting us, gives us advice about how to make our potential acting careers the best they can be.
I don’t ever feel like I’m surrounded by people who don’t care. Unlike high school, there seems to be no such thing as caring “too much”. In fact, it frequently seems as though the most frustration and impatience is directed towards those students who don’t seem to care enough- which, for me, is rather refreshing.
3. Growing Up is Hard to Do...
There is nothing quite like watching yourself grow up. It’s very weird- it’s like having an out of body experience for which you are completely present. Since going to Parkland, I’ve had to do a fair amount of growing up. I got a job two weeks before school started, so now I’m making my own money and paying for my own things instead of having my mom pay for everything (most of the time, that’s nice, unless it’s things like car repair bills). Short of living on my own, I’m pretty autonomous: I have my own car and a completely separate schedule from my mom, who is also going to work and school at the same time. Our living situation sometimes seems like roommates rather than mother-daughter, because between work, school, rehearsals, and homework, not to mention attempting a social life, we hardly see each other.
I’m taking more charge of my life now, which is both nice and scary. And the future is sort of looming in on me in a similar “sounds-both-exciting-and-scary” kind of way.
But never fear! It isn’t all bad. Most of it is actually really fun- as long as you remember to enjoy it. Don’t ever, ever, EVER micromanage the fun out of your life. College and your own personal coming-of-age will both be fun experiences, if you let them.
These are three of the biggest things I’ve learned at Parkland, but they are by no means the only things. I learn new things every day at Parkland- things mechanical, technical, practical; but also things theoretical, hypothetical, existential, and everything in between. I’m fortunate enough to be surrounded by instructors and mentors both that I respect and that treat me with respect; to study with students who are just as passionate about their theatre education as I am about mine; and to have my friend circle filled with new and interesting people, all of whom force me to think and stretch my intellectual and professional capacity more than I could ever have believed.
And it’s only been 9 weeks.
Much Love,
Celinda (And Stef!!)
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