Wow, Wendy.... Strike two.

So, my Acting III teacher, Wendy Mortimer, lost serious points yesterday in class. She already went off on a rant on me alone one day in class, which I discussed in a previous post. But yesterday, after everyone got done running our scenes, she lectured us all. And this was bad, I mean she was getting emotional. I was sitting watching the scenes, impressed with the choices that I was seeing and the improvements that I was seeing in everyone. When the last group finished, she closed her laptop and said, as she walked down the pruis steps, "Ok. We need to talk." And proceeded to give us this ridiculous lecture about how we have all hit this wall and how none of us are hitting the guts of the pieces and how none of us have that extra "something" that is missing in all of the scenes. She was so frustrated the whole time, telling us about how we were all just not getting it and she wished there were some way that she could teach us. Now, the past several weeks in acting, I have dreaded going to class. And I know that many of my friends and peers have felt the same way. And I think that it is interesting how my acting classes are my least favorite classes that I have, and THOSE ARE MY MAJOR CLASSES. AND I DREAD THEM. Hell, English is more fun for me, I look more forward to English class than I do for the classes in which I work on the craft that I plan to use as a profession. I think it is also interesting that each project we have worked on in Acting III, we have, as a whole, gotten progressively worse. This should not be the case. And Wendy tells us things like, "some of you may not even click while you're in school, which is fine. Please, you should not be doing your best work in school. This is a safe environment in which you can PLAY." But she making such a big damn deal about it, and making everything so damn serious to the point that many of us dread acting, and go into our work expecting to fail. Because we know that nothing will be good enough for her. I am taking everything she says with so much more than a grain of salt now. She has severely lost something from me. I don't know what it is - respect, the degree to which I care about her opinion, whatever... but she's lost a great deal of it.

WOW!

It has been a good year since I last played that terrible game, World of Warcraft. When I say terrible, what I mean is a mix of terrible agony and absolute bliss. There is nothing better than coming home after a hard day of school and escaping into a realm of elves, orcs, swords, magic, and dragons. But as with all online games that I have tried, once you reach the highest level in the game - the fun is over. Some games, such as Final Fantasy XI, take a much longer time to reach that level cap. But once you get there, the game switches entirely to a gear hunt. You spend all of your time, at that point, trying to get into linkshells or guilds with lots of other players. Once you manage to break into one of these elite groups, you spend hours a day, many times every day of the week, or atleast well over half, trying to defeat high level dungeons and get gear that rarely drops, if ever. The fun is all in the levelling up. The questing and the friends you meet along the way. But recently I started another character and I plan to start the journey anew. Sorry school, sorry classes, looks like you're about to take a hit...

'Due'ga Hideki

Duse: Hey, get out here

Duse B: I am out here.

Duse: Ah, shit.

Duse b: What's da plan.

Duse: To get our dues.

Duse b: Well, yeah...

Duse: Well, shit, L's in there somewhere. I don't know.

Duse b: What? How'd he find us?

Duse: Bitch, he's L, how does he do half the shit he does?

Duse b: Shit.... you got a deathnote?

Duse: I got two.

(Duse holds up fists.)

Duse b

Duse

Duse b

Duse

Duse b: We'll talk about that later Suzan Lori Parks, let's go.

Duse: Hey!

Duse b: Come'on.

Duse: This is gonna be tricky, have you ever seen L?

Duse b: I'm pretty sure I saw him on the Tyra Banks show once?

Duse

Duse b

Duse: Bitch, no.

Duse b: Oh Shit. Then no.

Duse: Then I guess we're gonna have to do ass-kickin' on sight! No prisoners.

Duse b: And then we get our dues?

Duse: (looks up) ...Some dues cant be paid in cash, L.

Duse b:

(A grenade explodes at their feet. They jump from the smoke down to the street screaming what eye witnesses could only describe as sounding like "Duuuuuuuuuuuueeeeeeeees!")

You're on my bad list today, Wendy Mortimer.

So I had a really bad day the other day. It was a busy weekend, straight through. I had my show twice, and all of the time that I wasn't in the show, I was either working on homework or filming for this T-Com student who's film I'm in. Saturday I had to show up at 5:45 for the play, (for fight call - there's a lot of combat in the play, so fight call is kind of early) and I didn't get out until 11 because a guy came to judicate the play. Once I got out, I was at Pita Pit from 12 midnight until 6:30 am. trying to film scenes for this T-Com student's project (we were only supposed to film from 1am to 2 or 3am. All this said, I had absolutely no time to put any work or research into my scene for Acting 3. So I came into class on Monday, tired as a dog and without much preparation other than having read the play and thought about the character a little bit. And my acting teacher, Wendy, pretty much ripped me a new one. She told me that if I came into a professional rehearsal like that, I'd be fired. She asked me, "you're never going to bring this kind of work again, are you?" "No ma'am," I replied. She pretty much stopped giving me notes and was only working with my partner. And the worst part was, I was making choices about the character, and she was confusing my acting choices as lethargy. It was just a bad, bad day. But fuck Wendy Mortimer, in the last scenes we did, my partner was having a bad day, so she just left the class, and Wendy sympathized with her. She let us go Friday instead of Wednesday that week. But here, I got completely reamed out. What if I had just left the class 'cause I wasn't feeling well? What, should I have just asked to go on Friday instead? WHAT THE FUCK WENDY, COME ON!!!!!

Topdog, Underdog

So, Jet Li vs. Jackie Chan. I am writing about this topic because I have been a Jet Li fan for a long time and so many people say that Jackie Chan is better. It irritates me every time (especially when they argue with me), so I am going to get to the bottom of this vicious falsehood. People seem to like Jackie Chan for two reasons: He is funny and he does clever stunts (and all of his own stunts.) Jet Li is not funny (in his movies) and he does not do as many clever stunts (or all of his own stunts.) So, let's establish that Jet Li and Jackie Chan have two different styles. But what are they? What category are the two of them compared in, in which we can determine who is better? Jet Li and Jackie Chan are both martial art superstars. What does it mean to be a martial art superstar? Let's take the first half of the title. Martial art. It would seem to me that to be a martial art superstar, you must be excellent at and have a masterful understanding of martial arts. Let's look first at Jet Li. He was the national wushu champion in China for several years. He trained in many actual forms of Chinese wushu from the age of 8 and on. Since he was named the champion in China, I think we can give him the title of master. How about Jackie Chan? Jackie Chan trained in the Peking Opera School... Opera?! What does that have to do with martial arts? Basically, Jackie Chan learned how to jump around and do alot of acrobatic stuff associated with performance. He learned how to look like he was fighting. And this is very apparent in his movies to anyone with a knowledge of martial arts. The things he does are flat-out fake. The only thing that people find interesting about his fighting is all the stunts. Maybe part of the problem is that no one knows anything about martial arts, so when they watch him fight, they are willing to accept what he puts out. Jet Li, on the other hand, is a beautiful martial artist. Every movie he is in, he carefully thinks about and chooses what fighting styles (both externally and internally) best represent his character. His fights are a beauty to watch because he doesn't have to lean on a lot of stunts. He is also not funny. Let's face it - neither Jet Li nor Jackie Chan are very good actors. But Jackie Chan plays the same goofy character in every movie - and that is Jackie Chan. Jet Li plays a serious guy in alot of his films, but especially lately he's started to put more acting into his work. All in all, if you want to see a guy jumping off walls and through car windows, why don't you go rent a Tony Jaa film? He does all of that (I might add even better than Jackie Chan) but with some brutal martial arts as well. But if you want to see a true master of the art of combat work and create art, go watch some Jet Li. It'll do your soul good.

Yummus

I had some pretzel chips and hummus from Noyer last night. I had never tried hummus until this summer - it just sounded like one of those things that I couldn't possibly like. But this summer, a couple of my friends got me out to a hookah bar and I tried some. This was top-of-the-line Mediterranean hummus, with warm pita tortilla-like stuff, and it was so good - I couldn't get enough. I hadn't had any since then, and I saw it in Noyer last night and had to have some. I'd been avoiding getting it because we have a friend that talks about hummus aaaaaall the time, and now we just call him hummus. I knew if I got anymore that I'd have to admit that I actually like hummus. But who has to know? Please, don't tell them. I've also never smoked before, until that hookah. I guess it's still not exactly smoking, but it's the closest I've been. At first it was kind of fun, but when my head started spinning, I was kind of weirded out. And after a while, my throat started to get sore and I had to stop. I also had some coffee, but I'm as much of a wimp when it comes to coffee as I am with smoking. I had to pour like 6 packets of sweetener and some cream in there, and it was a pretty small mug. All in all, I'd like to go to a hookah bar again, so I can experience some things (like smoking and coffee) to a tamer degree - except for the hummus.... That, I will experience in full.

There are probably a hundred different types of different martial arts, without even going into the different styles within each martial art. Actually, if you go into all the different kinds of chinese kung-fu, you'd probably be far beyond the hundred mark. Let's discuss a few of these martial arts. We start out with Karate and Tae Kwon Do. Karate is Japanese and Tae Kwon Do is Korean, but I start with the two of them grouped together because they are very similar. They are two of the most commercialized martial arts that exist today, and they are both very stiff and rigid if you ask me. They are very basic, with your "knife hand"s and your "low block"s and such. Tae Kwon Do just has a few more kicks. Aikido. This is a much different martial art, all based on center of balance. This martial art takes longer than most to be able to use effectively in combat. It's all about very subtle movements and trying to softly and swiftly take away your opponent's center of balance and easily making him succumb to where your body is moving. This martial art was original created for the samurai - it was what he resorted to if he somehow lost his sword, so many of the movements resemble what it might look like if there was a sword in his hand. Ninjutsu. This is a very sneaky and deceptive form of martial art. The ninjas were all about defeating their opponents mentally and then physically, so you will never be able to predict how a ninja will attack. They are true masters of the art of mental warfare, so they will mislead you with their physical actions. Kung Fu.