When I counted up my credits at the end of last semester, I discovered that I was exactly one credit short of junior status for this year. This was thanks in part to my Voice and Movement coach, Scott. He's very demanding of his classes and knows just what it is his expectations are. Vocal Production is a required class for a Performance Major. In other words, everyone who wants to grow up and be an actor has to take this class. I have no desire to grow up and be an actor, I was perfectly happy writing plays and learning about theatre. However, when the choices my freshman year were either Act or Be a Techie, I decided I may as well take the Act route. With this came Vocal Production.
Vocal Production is, oddly enough, a movement class. We were supposed to come to recognise the places we held tension in our bodies and to learn about "tremor points". Tremors are what your muscles do when they're relaxed or strained in a way they are not accustomed to, something like that anyway. Basically, tremoring makes a human being look like they are having a seizure. This is supposed to re-train the muscles of the body somehow or another.
This was too much for me. I've never been too comfortable with movement, and dance choreography and all that sort of thing. It's body self conciousness and a few other things as well, but it was such that the class left me in tears and feeling physically sick.
Scott informed me about a month into the class that there was no way that I was going to be able to pass the class. That's a real vote of confidence, isn't it? "No, sorry, there's nothing we can do about it, you're going to fail and I can't see a way to stop you." My choices from here were either to drop the class, or stop going and take a failing grade.
Since I only had the minimum number of course hours, dropping the two hour class would mean that I was no longer a full time student which could play havoc with financial aid as well as ensure that there was no way I would be a junior the following semester. My grade point average, however, was high enough that the failure would not be a problem. Summer classes would not be an option as my summer had been planned since March of that year and I would be booked with a camp job from June 1-August 11. So, I voted for the fail. Scott thought that was unfair to me and so he went and dragged in the head of the theatre, Eric.
In spite of the situation being fully explained to him, Eric would not allow me to fail. Instead, he convinced one of the directors of a show to take me on in the capacity of an invented crew position. This was all very great and nice that they would invent a position for me so that I could be saved from an F that wouldn't hurt me in the least, but this would be worth only one credit hour. Not two, like I needed to retain my firm grip on financial security and reality. Thank you very much Eric and Scott.
So, financial aid time comes around and I get the shaft because I am exactly one credit hour short. I need this money. How do I get it? Well, stripping and blood donation are neither of them very stable or rational means of support and I also needed to pick up course hours if I could.
It turns out that until the rank of sophomore, it is possible for students to take CLEP tests. Passing a CLEP (sounds like an STD) is the equivilent of taking a full semester course and the credit hours are the same. I looked long and hard and decided to take a test worth six hours in something I both knew something about but did not want to sit through the class. Hello Social Sciences and American History. I have no problems whatsoever with the history, but the Psychology, Sociology, Anthoropology and Economics that made up the "Social Sciences" aspect are not classes I want to sit through.
Today I went and took the test. It was required that I make either a 50 or a 55, depending upon which information appeared in a couple of places. I scored a 58. This is not a raw score, so I have no idea exactly what that number is supposed to reflect on a more than 100 question multiple choice exam. Not that I care to worry over it much; I got six credit hours in the course of an hour and a half and paid less than the cost of one three hour university class, I am now firmly ensconced in juniorship (for lack of a better phrase) and I won't have to take Sociology or Economics classes while I'm here.
Following up on yesterday, there was no three mile walk taken today. There was a huge swath of time between my finishing the test and Nathan's six o clock show call.
Nathan works at the big half commercial half school of music theatre on the university. He either works as a valet attendant or loading in and out Broadway road shows- last year's series included Cats which hauls three semi-trailers around the country. Tonight was the Music Department's Benefit Concert where he is filling in for a girl with a broken ankle, and I am not at all certain what he's doing. In all probability he won't be finished until eleven.
Anyway, Nathan was playing the Lost Levels of Super Mario when I left at two for my test. When I returned he promptly decided that taking a nap would be the best possible decision. I didn't mention the walking, other than to hand him the page I pulled out of the phone book the other day and put a mile and a half diameter circle on it with the university as a centrepoint.
He went to sleep anyway and I read Angela's Ashes, which I picked up from a used book store two weeks ago for three dollars with Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca which the fellow gave me for free because it's a good book and a bad edition- the glue in the binding has ceased to adhere to anything. Out of the two, I would advise Rebecca, and if reading it is too much trouble, the movie with Diana Rigg and Emilia Fox is also worth it. Angela is all right, but I'm not too bothered with whether Frankie's family makes it back or not. I think I've read too many modern novels recently: The Reader, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors and White Oleander were all books I've managed to pick up recently for one thing or another, and, well, I'm sorry that everyone's lives have sucked from 1930 to the present, but I don't wish to symphathise any longer. They're not completely horrible books, The Reader is the best of the three and the first German novel to be translated into English for years.
I would much rather read about how the mysterious death of a woman effects an entire English estate rather than a rehash of how a character's life sucks because they were beaten or denied pleasures or Catholic and never managed to deal with it. Such is life, my friends: sue�o.