Homoeopathy

I'm doing much better today.

It's been a week of itching and tiredness, but today my rash hasn't flared up. Hopefully the homoeopathy has started to knock it off. So many people go 'huh?' when I say I'm using homoeopathic medicine! It's weird that people don't know about it because I've grown up with it. I guess the majority of society is into conventional medicine. If you've never been to a homoeopath, I encourage you to have a consultation at least once in your lifetime, just for the experience! It's awesome, they ask you all sorts of questions about your personality, how you think and react. It's really quite novel. And as an added bonus, you usually get to go home with a cute little bottle of tiny white pills to put under your tongue that are quite likely to heal your suffering. It's also cheap. True homoeopaths don't charge much at all. And it's all very informal. They usually write everything down on paper, rather than tapping away at a keyboard.

So I had a few days off work (well, I still had to do one of my jobs, but that turned out OK).

I thought of this sentence when I was watching TV:

"Surely a thousand words is worth a picture," I said as I handed my short story to the illustrator.

Thought it'd be a good way to start a story, maybe. Speaking of short stories, I've been reading Morris Glietzman's Give Peas A Chance, which is full of cute little short stories. The second story made me cry, and it was only about ten pages long!

I've also finished reading Jane Austen's novel, Northanger Abbey, and Oscar Wilde's play, Lady Windermere's Fan.

I'm studying the Romantic poets at the moment. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Byron, etc. Some gorgeous stuff. I particularly like Shelley and Byron's writing styles. Coleridge is so long winded and Keats is so verbose and Wordsworth gets boring. Keep an eye on my diploma blog for more insights into my studies.

I'm seeing my gorgeous Clara tomorrow! YAY!!!!!

Overshare?

Weird day today. (Monday, which is yesterday now, but what's an hour or so?)

I don't know if this is the sort of thing you should tell the world because it's kinda icky... but I can't help it. I'm just too open.

This morning I got this awful rash all over the backs of my legs. I had a shower and it calmed down, so I went to my Snow White rehearsal (which was great!).

While I was teaching my brother phonetics in the evening, my top lip swelled up enormously and my whole face started to get puffy. The weird rash on my legs came back, but now it was all over my body. It was really itchy.

Unsure of what caused it, mum and I went down to emergency to see a doctor. They triaged me pretty quickly this time because they were concerned that my throat could swell up. It didn't. Dr Eaton (a fellow thespian as it turns out, and a merry old soul) explained that it's probably viral, but could be an allergy. They gave me a Telfast (and tried to give me Quarterzone but mum wasn't keen so I didn't take it) and sent me home with a script for more Quarterzone (which is a last resort - messes with your immune system, no thanks). So yeah, I'm covered in hives and I have enormous lips! The itching has subsided, but they said it could take weeks for the hives to go away. I'm just hoping my face goes back to normal very soon because man, I look hideous!

So everybody give me sympathy!

70

*- 70th post! -*

"I don't want to see you / cry like I always used to see..."

Saw celladore at the Prince on Thursday. Yay!

My Dardy kids just won Best Production in the SW 1 Act Play Fest. The other two youth plays were from the Rep club and they got awards too. Hopefully next year I can be in a play again instead of just being a teacher. Not that there's anything wrong with being a teacher, I just want to act!

I've been using little army men for staging and planning classes. I was so excited when I first got them. Mum came in and asked me what I was doing and I said, "I'm counting my men...wait, that didn't sound right!"

"How many've you got?" said she.

"Eighty-three!"

Their guns made them too bulky, so I cut them off, much to the dismay of my class of mostly boys who made scenes with them at BRECCY on Wednesday. I'd like to paint them, but I don't have time. I've been so flat out this week and it's not about to stop!

Mum went through all our photos last week and sorted them into albums and stuff. Every time I sat down with her to look at them I couldn't stop gushing about how cute I was as a kid! I was sooo cute. Awww!!! If I get a chance to scan some I'll show you what I mean!

*Yawn* It's been a looooong week. *Yawn*

Tonight I wrote a poem

Pedantry

sometimes your pedantry is beautiful
but sometimes it just bothers me
that you know so much more french than me
that your vocabulary is better than a dictionary
then you look at me with those eyes that know things i will never know
and you see me in your picture and it gives me aspirations
but i'll never match your knowledge and i'll never be a scholar
and every new thing you discover will only serve to tease me further
and every hundred dollar word you throw away
i will pick up in my unlearned lips and scream to give it meaning
sometimes your pedantry is beautiful
but sometimes it's just demeaning.

Writing puts the 'art' in my heart

"I wanna see the whole world, and I wanna write down everything."
- Harriet The Spy, 1996

When I first watched Harriet as an 11 or 12 year old, I was inspired. I wanted to write. Since the first time I wrote a poem when I was 6, I've known that writing would always be something I could own, and something that would own me. Over the past almost 15 years I have grown up through my notebooks, journals, capture books and keepers.

I love words with a passion I can not escape. No matter where I have tried to turn in times of *blehh*, the only place I've found the slightest bit of solace (besides in my fellow humans) has been in pencil and paper. When I am without words, I am forlorn. I am not a brilliant wordsmith. I am not a grand writer by any means. I am a slave, rather than a master, to the art of written expression.

I was going through some old emails, and found some lines from Roger McGough that I thought I might share with my blogreader/s. Here is an extract from the email (a fair while ago):

**

I've been writing again. I bought a huge book of Roger McGough's poetry and I've been inspired. I solely thank McGough for breaking my 18 month period of writer's block. His work is conversational and insightful in a way that, instead of intimidating me, draws me into my inner writer. How are these for some awesome lines:

"Valerie fondles lovers
like a mousetrap fondles mice"

and

"...we made love songs with our bodies
I became the words
and she put me to music"

and

"you will put on a dress of guilt
and shoes with broken high ideals..."

One of his poems is about how the sun likes horses because it makes hay, but doesn't like cats because it makes hot tin roofs. I like that sort of thinking. Another one is called "What you are" and every stanza begins with "you are the...". A couple are:

"you are the moment
before the blindman puts on his dark glasses"

and

"you are the distance
between the accident and the telephone box
measured in heartbeats"

**

On Friday, I bought the complete verse and other nonsense of Edward Lear. It's incredibly clever. I also bought seven other second hand books. 8 books for $50, not bad at all. But I'll have to stop because that's my second $50 book buying spree in two weeks!

In other news, Leigh played at the Prince tonight as Louis and the Honky Tonk. He was stupendous! I didn't wear a pointy hat.

We are...

Helena

Don't you hate it when you're interrupted mid-dream by a phone call?

I guess it serves me right for keeping my phone right next to my bed, and for sleeping in until the *unmentionable* hour of *gasp* 8:30, when Wooldridges opens and decides to call me about doing my timesheet!

I was in the middle of a dream where I was right inside the story of A Midsummer Night's Dream (a modern adaptation I suppose, since my unconscious mind sadly didn't click into iambic pentameter) and I was Helena, but I was in love with (Ly)Sander, who was in love with - get this - Penny! For some reason in my dream adaptation the writers had decided to call Hermia 'Penny', while keeping the other names the same or similar to the original.

Anyway, I was at the beach near a field of daisies and a washed up shipwreck. I was talking to someone else, probably Demetrius (although his name wasn't mentioned) but instead of loving Penny as well, he loved me, but of course I loved Sander! Nothing else really happened because my phone rang, but it was interesting all the same.

A dream about the Dream.

Ja'mie

I know, I know, you'll probably say I have no taste, but I think Chris Lilley's Ja'mie is a masterpiece. I'm glad someone had a go at satirising the private school princess stereotype because it had to be done, and if you ask me, Lilley's pulled it off very professionally.

Don't get me wrong, I find Lilley utterly annoying as a comedian. He's way over-the-top and seems to have an excessive ego, but these are the very attributes that work for Ja'mie. She is the only Chris Lilley character who I actually think is funny. I don't even mind sitting through the others just to watch her. She's classic.

I love it when she says, "no offence". It reminds me of the rudeness of some teenage girls and how much I wanted to hit people at school who said "no offence" so flippantly when they said something that was really offensive. Ughh!

Ja'mie is the epitome of 'shallow hot rich girl'-ness, and despite myself, I secretly want to be her for a day, just to know what it's like to be completely ignorant and have infinite self confidence.

But it's like, so not going to happen, no offence.

Spring cleaning

Spring is cool.

It's been alternating day to day between sunny and rainy. Not so good for the washing, or kids athletics carnivals, but lovely for me!

I have spent the last two days spring cleaning! I've rearranged my bedroom so my bed is by the window instead of jutting out into middle of the room. My computer has moved over a bit for maximum wireless network speed (yay), my mirror's by the door and my bookcase needs to be emptied before I can move it anywhere because it's too heavy at the moment! All this movement was only made possible by the sorting out of my overflowing craft box, which has now spread to many organised bags and boxes under a desk in my studio. The study desk in my studio has moved to the window for light purposes and the bookcases have moved next to it for convenience.

I'll be working hard tomorrow on two BUZ shows in quick succession at Eaton Primary. I really should be sleeping. Good night!

Diploma time

Hello my faithful blogreader/s.

My theory exam was a lot better than I expected. Just when I thought my workload was over, we sunk our teeth into my next 'unit' or the equivalent and I already have heaps of homework! Also, I'm going to be paid to do a play down in Dardanup - workshop, write, direct (and possibly even star in). On top of that there's still BRECCY and BUZ... and a social life again finally (I missed my friends!)... Yawn! And I have conjunctivitis :( so I'm doing the glasses thing for a while (which can get annying with head mics!)

Anyway, nighnighs time. Plenty to do tomorrow. Farewell!