Please!

I'm writing a Shakespeare paper right now. Please pray for me whoever's reading this. I need it!

Thank you

-SteRoCo

February 14th

"Valentine's Day....bummer."

-Peter Venkman

If Shakespreare were alive today.....

... I would punch him in the stomach and then take his wallet. Don't get me wrong, his work is unparalleled and I've enjoyed everything of his that I've read so far (Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest are two real good ones). My problem right now is that it's SO FREAKING HARD TO PERFORM! At least at Ball State University it is. Perhaps it's just my Voice and Movement class, but we just got done performing our final scenes for our proffesors on friday, and we didn't meet their expectations. This resulted in them adding three more weeks of Shakspeare. We're now performing scenes from the SAME PLAY we just did (Two Gentleman of Verona, a piece widely regarded by experts, aficionados, and pretentious know-it-alls as one of the Bards lesser plays) and becuase of this, we don't get to work on dialects this year, which was one of the aspects of this class that I was most looking forward to. So Shakespeare, if you can here me, I just want you to know that you are a jerk-off, even if you are a genius.

Ok, so now that I've gotten that off my chest I'd like to say that I 've been stripped of my life. It belongs to the Ball State Theatre department. In exchange for it, I've recived a character analysis paper, hours of scene work, A play that I'm in called "Recent Tragic Events" in which I play a nice, nebbish, guy who falls in love( just like every other play i've ever been in), rehearsals for Reflex (the Improv comedy group I am in), and a breakfast burrito. Actually I bought the burrito myself. It wasn't very good. Anyway, to make a long story even longer, I am sort of busy. Blogging is not a priorty, hence my absence. But I was on somebody elses blogger earlier so I figured I'd update and gripe to America. Because America reads this blog religiously. So does Canada. Mexico stops by when he can. I keep buging Russia to take a look but apparently he's got his own problems. It's okay though.

Oh, I'm also apart of a new comedy group, only this one isn't improv. It's video sketches. Were gonna have our first show in April, I think. We've got three sketches we're going to film and I wrote one of them. Apparently, I'm also going to direct it, which is quite scary and cool at the same time. I'll give you the premise some other time, but lets just say that if you took The Godfather and combined it 2001: A space Odyssey, it wouldn't even be 1/4 of how good this masterpiece shall be. Mark my words! Mark them with a dark blue pen!

In other news, this spring break I will be going to Gatlinburg Tennesse. Me and a gaggle of fellow theatre majors will be staying in a very nice cabin/hotel (in other words, it's not a cabin in a "traditional" sense, it's for of a luxiours pad) and we might do some hiking and one not. Only thing is, I know what's gonna happen. There will be drinking most likely. Drinking that will not be had by me, no sir, but rather by my colleagues. It will make me frightened. I will curl up and hide beneath the foos-ball table for protection.
In all honesty it's not that big of a problem, as I do not doubt my abilities to overcome temptaions. But oh what harrowing temptations they be! The temptations of alcohol! The temptation of making a fool out of myself, and then not remembering any of it. The enticing allure of vomiting all over myself and embracing a slab of cold porcelain for the rest of the night. I don't know if I'll be able to resist the oppurtunity to wake up in the morning feeling like there are tiny little men with jack-hammers in my brain. How can a person bear to not start each day with a head-ache that makes you want to strangle a baby calf? Yep, somehow, I'll over come this temptation.
Now, for a change in pace, I will make a list of movies everyone should see:

Minority Report
Crash
Million Dollar Baby
Shaun of the Dead

Thank you for listening.

Let's see. Anything else interesting to tell you?....is there?... no, I'm seriously asking you, is there anything else?... I suppose not. I guess a lot has happened since I last updated, but the last time I updated was a long time ago, and I can't remember everything. It'd just be, "college this, Sleep-in that." It'd be the online form of Nyquil. I could bottle my blogger and sell it at wallgreens and then I'd be rich and I wouldn't be writing this blogger, because than I'd have a T.V. show and I could just sit there in front of a camera and tell you the types of things I write on this blog and you could fall asleep in front of the Television.

In all seriousness I can't think of anything else that would tantalize your web-surfing taste-buds.

But I will try, and update mor.... I'm sorry I couldn't even finish that statement without laughing.

To all who know me, I say " Auf wiedersehen!"

To all who don't, Never come back here again... or I'll find you.

-Sincerely,
SteRoCo

Hey...

Remember when I used update my Blogger?






















So do I .


-SteRoCo

I guess I should be happy.

I don't like not having anything to do. Sitting around all day, watching old episodes of MASH and eating doritos is not my idea of the "high-life" So why am I so completely stressed out right now? The shows over, so I am no longer a slave to the BSU Theater dept. (By the way if you go to the link that I put in my previous post, the picture I wanted to direct you to is no longer there. so don't be suprised if you don't see my bright, shining mug there anymore.)I have also caught up a little in my school which is always fantabulous. The problem is that no matter how caught up I get, the work keeps COMING and COMING and COMBING! That's right, it combs too! Work has a large bald spot. I'm in a class called Voice, which details the proper breathing exercizes when speakning, as well as the phonetic alphabet, and how to warm up properly for a show. We will be dealing with a lot a Heavy shakespear, and for one am excited about this. I've never been able to perform shakespear before, and now I'll be able to. We'll also be working with dialects, which will probably end up being my favorite part of the course. Whats the point of mentioning all of this? Well, the class is (enter expletive here)-ing hard! The past two weeks we've recieved Poems and exerpts, (such as Shakespear's Sonnet 65 and a passage from oedipus the king.) and we are supposed to type them up, transcribe them to the Phonetic alphabet, and than underline them in colored pencil, with each color representing, either a short vowel, long vowel, plosive consonant, glide consonant, taco consonant, a middle-little vowel, blah, blah, etc. etc. some one hold me...

It's just a lot of work. We also have to memorize them in order to perform them for my Acting Advisor Wendy, annunciating each and every consonant and vowel until my mouth sets on fire. I'm enjoying, but it is a buttocks-load of work. Now, combine that with my other acting class movement( in this class we study...movement.) Sociology, Pshycology, and Speech class, and you've got a lot on your plate. I'm just so tired of going for seconds.

But i'll get through it. You know why? You don't? Well, it's okay because the question was rhetorical. I'll make it because I'm getting a Flippin' College education studying the thing I love to do...sleep. And acting. Acting's good too. But seriously, I would be selfish in saying "oh my life is horrible, I'm LEARNING!" I'm just gonna hold out and get through it.

What else? A lot has happened since the last enstallment. My shows been over for nearly three weeks. Golly, it was a poop-load of fun. I can honestly say it's the best work I've done, And I'm not mentioning this because I'm full of myself. I've grown as an actor in the 1 and 1/4 years I've spent here at ball state, thanks to the terrific faculty I've been blessed with. In this show I learned a plethora of valuable acting lessons, and lessons in comedy, one of my favoritests things in the whole world! For example, in this play, which is a farce, there are more ridiculous situations then there are in an Three's Company. One thing that a comedic actor must not do in this type of genre is play to the audience or play the comedy. In other words, when you say a joke, you probably shouldn't turn the audince afterwards and wink as you give them a thumbs-up. What makes the jokes so funny is that all the characters that are thrown into these ridiculous sitoutions are completely serious or deadpan. This is just very valuable to me as an actor, (even if you readers out there couldn't give rats behind about it.) In one scene, I am chasing my wife around a kitchen, trying to console her, but she thinks I'm trying to kill her. as this goes on, my "stage son" is wresteling with a cop for a gun, and an old stroke victim woman succeds in both stabbing a limping, lisping, half-blind, half-deaf, deformed man, as well as stealing the hand pupet of an ex-convict and drowning it in a bowel of alphabets. eventually, my wife hits me in head with a frying pan and the gun goes off. Now, some of you may think this is just another one of my crazy-talk ramblings. It isn't. That's for later. This actually happens, put what makes it even funnier is that we convey that no matter how outlandish it is, it is still a dangerous situation. It's that serious edge that gives the scene it's humor.

Enough with the acting lesson. I just liked what I got out of the this show. Except for the part my I had to smoke Cannabis Free on stage, a herbal cigarette that smells a whole lot like Marijuana. Which I guess was appropriate, because our characters were supposed to be smoking pot. It's just funny when people come up to you after the show and ask if you used real marijuana. Any way, the stuff tasted like...not good. stuff. not good stuff. I did however like the people I acted with. That is my favorite part about acting. Not the fact that we perform for people who draw there attention to us, and not because it gives you rush to be on stage. The best part is the relationships that you form with your fellow actors in a show, and the bulding of trust that happens during the rehearsal process. The people that were in my original acting class will always be the people I feel closest to because in the begging it is such a scary expierience. Were all new. We're all being brought into this world together, and there is a real sense of camaraderie. I likes that a lots.
Now because I was in a show with a small cast that I bonded with, I've been going to more parties this year. There were a lot of cast parties. This may or may not be a good thing. For those of you who don't know, a typical college party consists of

1. Twister
2 Hawaian Punch
3. Amusing anecdotes
4.Good clean fun
5. Kittens

Now for the truth.

1.Alcohol
2.Alcohol
3.People acting like complete morons due to alcohol
4.Vomit
5.(on occasion) Naked Football. I'm not joking this happened once.

So the good thing comming out of this is that socially, I'm doing better this year. I'm made so really good friends (well it's more like ive strengthend friendships that were established last year.) I'm starting to get to know more people in the theatre dept. even if most of the times at parties I'm pretty much a wallflower.
These are good things.

The bad things are obvious. Temtations of alcohol, drugs (not as much) sexual behavior. All of these things and more can be yours, if the price is right. Well the price is not right, and I've not given in to any of these things. Just the smell of Vodka makes me want to rip my nostril hairs out anyway. I'm just gonna have to be careful.

I do have a core group of friends that I trust. Most of them, I had met a year before in theater bible study (which thankfully has just started againg this year after fear of it not happening.) My roomate is one of these people. He is a cool dude. He's a T-com major. He takes lots of digital pictures and makes t-shirts. that's pretty much it. (no it's not, he's a great guy.) but it is. By the way, it's really good having a roomate you know before moving in. It takes away certain unwanted elements of pressure and tension away from the first couple of weeks.

Is there anything else? Well, I did make it into a Comedy troupe called Reflex. We've been practicing for about three weeks now. Improvising is not an easy chore, but some One has to do it!.... Okay after thinking about it I suppose nobody has to do it, but it sure is a blast of fun! The first day of rehearsal was interesting. First of all it was on a saturday mourning 10:00, which interfered with my usual saturday schedule of sleeping to 2:00, grabbing lunch and sleeping more. It was enjoyable though, if a little awkward. I have somewhat of a inferiority complex and while we were playing these improv games, I was starting to feel as if I was doing that great a job. But I soon found out that everybody sucke....I mean... everyone had doubts. (nearvous laughter.) Of course I'm joking. That night I had the third run of my show, which made that paticular saturday quite a busy flurry of activity. Afterwards we had another reflex related event at like 11:00 a clock at night. The funny thing was, none of us new members knew what it was or what to expect. We show up at the building, and wait outside a room in the hallway. Finally, one of the leading members comes out saying to go inside. We do, and all that is in there is a lap-top on a table, surrounded by six chairs. We press play to hear a recording that tells us to blind fold ourselves and go back outside. So I ran into the corner and rocked myself in the fetal position out of sheer terror. After that I gave in and blind-folded my self with the socks that were on the table. (How difficult is it too by actual blind-folds you ask? Well for a college student, pretty imposible. ) We stumble our way outside and then are directed by a group of "annymous kidnappers" aka the leading troupe members, and stuff into a car. Now, this was pretty crazy, but also a fun and creative way of initiating us. It beats a hazing any day. The only thing is it was sort of poorly planned. We ended up doing a lot of wondering a round for now reason. We were taken outside and marched in a line. We were sat down. All kinds of arbitrary directions while blindfolded. One interesting thing I remeber is that no matter where you are in Muncie, you can here a train, which scared me into thinking there were going to lead us on to the train tracks and fake us out or something. But no. Just more wandering. So ANYWAY, eventually we were led to someones house, and into a darkened room. We were then asked to take off the bind folds, they turned on the lights and there in front of us were four papa Johns pizzas. (papa john actually graduated from ball state belive or not. And every single event involving pizza that I have gone to at this school has provided Papa John's. Coinicidence?.... yeah, probably.) It ended up being fun, except for the one guy in our trope who got his by a train. That was kind of a downer.

So this entire reflex thing is really exciting because not only will we do live improve shows, my roomate, who is friends with the leading member, is helping to put together a dvd of our performances, as well as original skethces we will film. All the members biographies will be put on it, and I just think that's wicked awesome. It's wiked sweet coolio magee. Yo. As you can see I speak college.

So that was an insanely long post. To those who stuck with it, thanks. To those who didn't, your off the christmas card list. There is more I can say, but it delves into more personal territory... which would actually be okay if this were a diary.... which it kind of is, ... but everyone has access to it.... so .... that's why bloggers are stupid. On a serious note, If you all could please pray for me that'd be great. I'm just swamped with work, and I need time to spend with the lord, but I'm not doing a very good job with it right now. For those of you who don't pray, hey don't worry. You can send me a letter saying... "go SteRoCo", or "there's nothing to it but to do it" or ... "I like your pants" to, you know cheer me on.
Any who, I hope you all enjoy your lives.
I will leave you now, with an important question. How come the new commercials from KENTUCKY Fried Chicken are playing the song "sweet home ALABAMA?"

Ouch!

Alright, if you'd like to know why I haven't touched my blogger...

www.bsu.edu/theatre

Go there. I've been extremely busy, and can't write much right now, cause I have to study for an awesome sociology test. To tide you over till next time, I'll just say that opening night went very well, My Mother was not offended by it (she probably was on the inside, deep down), I was cast in an Improv comedy Troupe called Reflex, And was blind folded and kidnapped on Saturday. And just so you know, the last thing I just wrote is actually sort of true. I know I'm a sarcastic Jack-Monkey most of the time, but this is a genuine incident. More on this later. Well, that's all for now. Until next time, Please Bathe and Pick Responsibly.

Ok, I should probably update this puppy again.

Hi. My name is SteRoCo. Actually this is my screen name for the Blogger. I've already told you my name in the very first post. Maybe I shouldn't have disclosed that information, but since I have, I will go all out and give you all my information.

My phone number is 765-555-cool
my cell is 219-awe-some
I live in antartica with my penguin wife and are 7 beatiful littlens. 6 penguins and a flamingo. (we adopted him.)
I go whaling in the afternoon and then come home to my fine-featherd spouse to find freshly baked Eskimo pies wating for me on the table. .... I.. I'm sorry, I apologize for everything I've just written. It's just that nothing that interesting has happened. Sure, I started class on Monday, beginning with a huge lecture room filled to the brim with eager, wide-eyed potheads and drunk- Oh, I mean....students... wating for speech class to begin, and then proceeding into pschycology which is like downing a bottle of Nyquil, but who wants to hear about that? NO ONE! NO! Not even you ! That's right! Stop reading this! YOU DON'T WANT TO. GET OUT!



Alright, if you not leaving, I'll just have to go on. Last weekend was pretty fun. Saturday I went to a party at my roomate's girlfriend's house, (there was alcohol but relax. The closes thing I was to buzzin' was when my cell phone vibrated.)The next day, I actually ended up preparing for class on monday, making sure I had all my books and what not. That night I went to a very different party, which consisted of a bunch of us watching six episodes of a criminally underseen show called Arrested Development. Seriously, I think the six people that were there are the only fans of this freaking show. But it is funny AND witty. There are so many jokes in one episode that you catch new things everytime you watch, and it's CLEVER! People with brains can even enjoy it. Most of the other stuff they show on television is crap (reality t.v., I'm looking in your direction) and it's sad, because that is the stuff people watch. This show is probably an aquired taste, but there are dvd's and "If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up." (I put it in quotes because it's from a movie. It's kind of a general quote but maybe someone can guess what I'm thinking of.) So anyway, everyone should give the show a chance.

Wow. I spent more time talking about a show than I did about my own life. Oh well, :)
The play's going really well, classes are going smoothly so far, and I'm not dead so everything is ship-shape. Now please, take care of your selves, and your families.