I hate National City.

Well, the exciting events of yesterday and today have been me not being able to use my ATM card for some reason. We went to the bak beforehand, had everything worked out, my ATM card has been working fine...until Sunday. Now, ever ATM is declining it. Had mom call National City, they said it's the people in Russia's fault. Call the bank in Russia - Citibank (which happens to be a branch off of National City) and they say it's National City's fault. So, Mom is currently trying to figure out what the problem is with our correspondance that helped me get the international thing set up. This is the kind of thing that you do not want to happen when you're not at home, by the way, because there's literally nothing I can do. It'll all work out and everything will be ok. I have faith...and I know my mom won't quit until it's resolved today. ha ha. She's a tough one.

In regards to classes - we started off with movement today. My right leg is pretty much behind my head, and my left is a little more. So of course, in Russia, they push you to the max. So, Vladimir, the instructor, comes over and pushes them behind my head. So, yes, I had both feet behind my head today. CRAZY! Danielle - there's a lot of balancing exercises I think would be fun to with you where we share the weight between each other, you hop up on my legs and lean back with me just standing there. Pretty cool. It'll be fun. Vladimir now does a short warm up because we should be able to get warmed up in that amount of time with everything compacted instead of spreading it out throughout a longer period of time. Then the after-training is more intense.

Acting was good. We did this exercise where you had to hold hands with everyone in a circle. Study their hand by feeling it. Know it. Then run around the room. Freeze. Close your eyes. Find the people that were on either side of you by feeling only hands. It was really cool and really helped to heighten your senses and keep you aware. The specificity and detail involved in finding your partner can be used onstage with a scene partner or even a prop or object. Everything matters in an object - look, size, texture, smell. All of these probably seem like games to some of you - which they are. However, each game has its meaning. He doesn't tell us what the meaning is, I just gather what I've learned from it and that, to me, is the meaning of the game. I'm generally right because you get a good sense of each exercise. We also did this one where three people were along a wall: one in one corner, another in the middle, and one in the other corner, backs facing the fourth person who was down center stage area. This fourth person had to direct sound and energy toward one of those people and if the person thinks it's them, they raise their hand. It's harder than you think because the sound bounces off the walls. You have to direct all of you towards this one person otherwise a couple people raise their hands, or no one does. This exerces deals with directing your energy to your other and not just having it go all over the place. You need to have a direct connection, and this exercise helps to establish that connection.

We went and watched out Acting professors second year students final showcase tonight. It consisted completely of etudes. Here are some highlights. At the beginning, the entire class simulated a thunderstorm and rain. Amazing what sounds you body and mouth can make. I felt like I was in a storm. They also did animal etudes and objects such as marionettes, like we have done so far. My favorite was actually girls in a line being guitar strings. They would roll their body when their guitar string was strum. Then one broke, and a guy replaced her which crated this sexual tension. Hilarious. It's amazing to see what kind of a life a guitar string would have becasue each string had its own distinct and funny personality. Another one that stood out was everyone was seated as if in an orchestra and an instrumental song started playing. Everyone brought up their imagined instruments and each played their instrument as if it was there. You could see the weight and shape of this imagined object. Astonishing to see how they created this image with nothing there. I really felt I was at a concert. I get blown away more and more everyday.

The second part was them doing etudes as people such as teachers (old, cranky, nerdy, stupid ones), auditionees for the MXAT (skanky, ghetto, nerdy ones). So funny how each had their own personality. The last part was people etuding singers, lip synching but with the music on in the background. This included Elton John, a boy band who had cheesy dance moves and did the stereotypical dance moves, rip off the shirt with water ( a watering can actually - really funny), a fan blowing their hair. Then there was Britney Spears who was slightly conservative with baby one more time and did then ripped it off for a lot more a revealing outift for Crazy. Then there was Enrique Iglesias and Gloria Gaynor. They were all great. To study a person or character so intensely to get even the lip quiver down to a T. Amazing the amount of work and effort the students put into things. This attention to detail is what gets actors places. Awesome to watch.

Tomorrow we have our final dance class. I'm really sad about that because that's one of my favorite classes. I love them all, but I really like this one. It's going to be both groups combined so that we can show each other the dances we've been working on. Then Chekhov, Acting, and off to see a show.

I'm going to write in my journal and head to bed. Hope all is well in America. Night!