Final Stretch

So our group project is coming together. I missed one class, but I've been coming pretty consistently for our project. It always seems like one person isn't going to show up and that just puts a wrench into our gears. The story should be nicely illustrated with our dances and we'll have a great narrator in Nimish, but otherwise things are going as planned. We are meeting tonight to flesh out the entire scene and hopefully we'll have it finished and ready to go for our thursday performance. I for one know that I won't have much time to do anymore rehearsal if we need it so it has to get done tonight.

Also, I'm not really feeling the shirtless performance. I'd rather wear the costumes than anything else. I guess I'm not terribly serious about this, but I still want to do a good enough job to show respect for the art form itself. Its about respect. You don't have to be the best or do the best, but you have to show that you put effort into respecting its style and so forth. The one thing that I do believe is important is respecting yourself. If you feel uncomfortable performing then you shouldn't perform in the manor that makes you feel uncomfortable because thats not respectful to yourself and to the art form. Performed Arts shouldn't make you feel bad while performing unless you are supposed to feel bad as an actor or any of those exceptions. My point should be clear a guess.

Yeah so thats my blog

So I didn't make it to last class. That sucked. I had a lot going on that day and ended up working through my classes instead of going to them. Its kinda stupid not to go to class. We pay for them for some reason it seems that sometimes it feels better just not to go. It really doesn't make sense because they only take up a few hours in a day. In high school, classes took up 7 hours at least and then you still had to do hw. Here most people will have maybe 3 hours of class a day on average, if that or maybe a little more depending on how they schedule their classes.

Anyway, I think that my group is doing a good job and I'm working pretty well on my own even though I haven't been able to meet with them. I guess our schedules just didn't work out. I'm really interested to see what the other groups come up with because I really don't know most of the people in the class that well because we really don't do much talking during class. Will the performances be reflective of what we actually think of the subject matter? I don't expect brilliance, but effort and commitment isn't hard to miss if its present in the performance. We'll see what happens.

Class 4.8.08

So I went to class today. I'm proud of that. Its frustrating when all of your group members show up, but we did make progress today so I'm happy about that. I forgot to do my stretching which I had gotten pretty good about in the past so I'm kinda disappointed about that. I was able to touch my toes last week so I was pretty excited about that. Hopefully I'll be able to do it again next week as well lol.

Thats all i have to say I think. Honestly, I just want to be able to work on my group project more than anything else.

I'm back, sort of...

So its been forever since I've posted something.

Its kinda sad, but I completely forgot about having this blog. I think a good goal is to be able to post here at least a few times a week up to our final performances...so maybe 10 entries total.

Lets see. I've been making class a lot more often than I was in February. I really blame my schedule on my poor attendance. It was kinda dumb of me not to schedule in time for lunch...after my 11-1220 class, all I want to do is go eat, which makes going to this class harder because I'm already hungry :(

I didn't go to last weeks thursday class, but i was there for thuesday. Joey told me that the Thursday class was really great and that it was one of the only times that he felt like everyone connected to each other in the way that the art was intended to do. That made me excited to hear and kinda pushed me to want to come this week. The attendance problem is bothering me some. I guess I'm not the most serious person in the class, but I do try to respect Francis by coming as much as possible. I think that there are some people in the class that only took it because either Francis or Sravya were teaching it. Thats a problem because if you are taking a class just because someone you like is teaching it doesn't mean that you are actually going to care about the subject matter. I like Francis. He's been good to me even though I haven't always been able to be just as nice back and I respect that. He puts a lot of faith in us. I'm not taking this class because I like him, but because I wanted to find out what made people so passionate about the Ramayana.

The previous classes that I took with him were amazing because the people in the class were amazing. Francis facilitates the learning process and never forces it on you and never tries to get you to understand something in only the way that he understands it. He's very good at helping his students develop their own ideas and interpretations by guiding them in the direction of self understanding within the realm of the subject. So having said that, the people in his class's were awesome and I knew that a good number of those people had also taken his SEA styles class. So ultimately, I wanted to be a part of that as well, so thats what lead me to enrolling. He did of course encourage me to do so, but i wouldn't have enrolled if I didn't actually wanted to learn. I'm not sure if everyone here actually wants to learn.

I'm also not as optimistic as Francis when it comes to peoples true motives in taking the course. When you are trying to get a group project done, I think its alight to feel a little bothered by the lack of attendance. If you aren't coming for the teachers at least come for your classmates. I don't blame any of you for having other reasons for not coming and i'm not judging you because I've definitely been missing classes, but now that we are actually doing something that should matter to each and everyone of us its time to step up and suck it up regardless of how much you like the material we are studying. This course counts as a grade and even if you could care less about Hindu tradition and the Ramayana, at least come to class so other people can get the benefit of learning that would come with having everyone there. Besides, we miss the full room and we miss our friends who can't come. We worry when our friends don't show up because we wonder if they aren't showing up because we are there and they'd rather be with other people at that time instead of with us like they should want to.

its a lot to think about, right?

So I finally showed up to class. I was proud of myself because I think I finally started to "get" it. Francis's class are never about what you are learning, but about what you learn from learning what you are learning...if that makes any sense haha.

my goals are still to reach my toes by the end of the semester and read the entire Ramayana, both of which I have a long way to go. If I can do those things I will have accomplished what I wanted.

I also need to finally finish up my movies and stop ignoring them. I have 3 films 3/4 finished Francis and its killing me that they just sit there with out text. I have a feeling that they'll be done after spring break because I plan on locking myself in my room at home till they are done.

Even though I enjoyed what we did last class and thought it was the right thing to do, I still think that it was too cold to have class outside, especially a dancing class :(

I guess thats why I'm not there today, its kind of a bad pattern. It seems that thursdays just aren't good days for me. I had an exam this morning that was way harder than I could have imagined, but thats fined, should have studied more. Hopefully the whether is nicer next week because I would like to go to both classes and learn what Francis has to teach. More than ever I wish that everything was the same as it was at the beginning of the week so that class could continue as normal, but sadly things won't ever be the same. All we can do is move forward and I guess having class outside is party of things never being the same. I understand the statement, its just that I was comfortable in PBK, but now I have to step outside of my comfort zone...again. I admire all of you who came to class today. You have more conviction than I do. Hopefully I will be able to join you next week :).

I've missed two classes. I'm not too proud of it, but I think that it was the right thing to do. I have reasons, but doesn't change the fact that I didn't go. I'm happy that I've gone to both Tuesday classes each week. I know now that having class back to back for 4-5 hours isn't what I want to do next semester. The schedule is great, but its just nicer to have it all spread out instead of everything all at once with no chance to breath between classes. Its not easy to transition from multivar to dancing, but thats not the reason for my absence...anyways.

I've found the class refreshing and I like the fact that I sweat. Hopefully that fact doesn't bother other people. I'm self conscious of the fact that I sweat a lot...I can't help it, I just get hot and I sweat, just one of those things I presume. I've been stretching outside of class, but haven't really made progress yet, we'll see what happens.