I was wrong; I did have 12th Night rehearsal today in addition to Macbeth. Macbeth went very, very well and 12th Night barely went at all. I was either pissed off about being back in regular classes or too fucked up after Macbeth, probably both. I also had almost two hours off between rehearsals, which is way too long a break between works even if they are polar opposite energy requirements.

When I got home I contined my KotOR 2 revival, getting off Telos around eleven thirty (with a break in there to do some speech work.) I had planned on going to bed at midnight but I started to work on my fight scene and got more into it than I thought I would. It took my half an hour but I locked in Neo's opening stance flourish and set out his first three strieks and his first block and reposte. I'll talk to Prince about it tomorrow but now I fdeel a little guilty for not putting any work into it over the break. Whatever, I made a choice and I'll live with it.

Tomorrow shouldn't be too bad; group one did authentic movement with Leslie today so we'll certainly do the same and speech will be a decent enough diversion. I'll be fucking exhausted though; what the hell am I thinking still being up at this hour?

The strike is off; we have a regular day tomorrow. Luckily regular Tuesdays are Voice and Shakespeare SS, and I think I'm only doing MacBeth with Dixie and The Wife; no comedy for me...

Worked on my Berowne monologue with Ian today, and it went so well we barely used the whole twenty minutes. I've said it before out loud, but since it wasn't on the internets it doesn't count: the strike was awesome. It was like actually working, not doing bullshit core class busy-work like day-before-they're-due word lists and twenty-minutes-before-class movement pieces. Of course it's not like the core classes are useless, but working with Dixie and Ian has been so much more professional and worthy; I don't feel like I'm wasting my time and money on those pieces. I'm literally dreading doing sonnet work tomorrow, and it's only going to be ten/fifteen minutes of text-based floor work. I could do it with my eyes closed - hell, I probably will.

At least we get Stage Combat back on Wednesdays; Prince and I have got to get our Matrix fight in gear now that classes are back on.

In other news, Seann and I rented Hulk: Ultimate Destruction on Thursday and it's totally awesome. It's like Spider-man 2, but instead of swinging around the city you smash things. Everything(s).

Also Oblivion came out last Monday and has pretty much made the 360 decision for me; once I get paid for the Hamlet gig and get my tax return, so sometime after the tour.

Speaking of the tour, Alex got the ok from ACTRA so she should be joining Dave and I under the Black Sheep Theatre banner on our tour of the Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Saskatoon Fringe Festivals. We're doing a show by my friend Tom X. Chow called 'Can't Get Started.' It's funny. And poignant. But mostly funny.

I watched Princess Mononoke Saturday night too, which I hadn't seen in a while. Gorgeous film, it still makes me gasp sometimes, especially the last half-hour. Plus that goddamn Forest Spirit/Deer God face is the creepiest/prettiest thing ever.

I've also started working on New Unity, the third evolution of the Monolith series. The goal this time is to simplify the story and make it more realistic by confining the narrative to one or two characters and really locking down things like governmental organisation, place locations, etc. It's funny that even after eight years of work I can still easily take this thing down directions I hadn't initially thought of, some major and some not-so-major. Big changes for this iteration are: Tom is the only narrator, the outside invader has been replaced by internal colonial unrest, and the character voices are more individual and adult. One thing that's going to be tricky is maintaining a probable level of realism while serving the plot; something that's always been an issue since I'm not a physicist or a fighter pilot. I do play a lot of Wing Commander though...

Time to sleep, got to be fully alert to read sonnet 29 on my back for half an hour tomorrow.

I haven't been up this early since Vocal Masque day three weeks ago on a Monday. If coming home after midnight after seeing V for Vendetta and playing StarLancer for two hours to calm yourself down with the full knowledge that your window of healthy sleep time is dwindling like rose petals is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

Not sure what the cause of it is, but I'm definitely losing some of the intelligence I once had. Base things, I mean, like being a good speller or recognizing dangers inherent in the metropolitan process of this century.

For example, I just looked at a can of frozen juice my roommate bought and thought to myself "What the hell kind of fruit is 'Framboise'?"

Thank you

Right, well here we are in the midst of post number one of Failed Attempt (at an online journal) number 3.

All previous failed attempts were under the same banner, that of 'Life of Darby', a chronicle of my life after high school graduation generally falling into three categories: observations (varying in poetical content, lamentations of my social/romantic life (varying in rhetorical content), and geeky ramblings (varying in validity/correctness).

Each previous attempt failed due to lack of interest, something I fully expect to transpire here, but hopefully with the duress I have suffered in the past few months, due to life aboard the USS Young, this will serve as a mine for my slowly depleting mental sanity.

Anyway, to recap, since my last post on LoD I've started at George Brown's Professional Classical Acting program and am involved in a tumultuous love/hate affair with the entire institution. We're the first year to be operating in a new, commercially-focused building we're sharing with Soulpepper Theatre. The arrangement is difficult, as we are limited access to our building during performances and the general sense among the Team is that we're not taken seriously.

Not being taken seriously would appear to be the theme of the first year of this program, in fact, as many of our assignments are made to us to seem extremely important while the rest of the program and the faculty regard everything we do as a simple rite of passage. This may be only due to the attitude of Team Awesome; I've never worked with a group of people who assign such gravitas to such a myriad of topics. It is occasionally exhausting.

We're on strike at the moment, entering our third week of one-class-a-day scheduling. Happily this one class is an extremely enjoyable study of Shakespearean scenes with two very capable instructors. I get the opportunity to explore the (arguably) three categories of Shakespearean text: Comedy, Tragedy, and Romance. I have a brief but hilarious bit part as Malvolio in 12th Night, one of my favorite scenes from MacBeth, and I'm doing a Berowne monologue near the end of Love's Labour's Lost. Add to this the fact that Prince and I are doing a fight scene from The Matrix for stage combat, and the year could go on like this until April as far as I'm concerned.

unfortunately it looks like this respite into serious, focused work will end sometime this week and we'll be back into the ludicrous four to five one-hour classes a day schedule we've been dealing with all year, leading to the quality of my work dropping in every class no matter how much I enjoy doing it while I'm doing it.

On the social side I've met some incredible people this year, some forgettable people, and some total assknobs. The secondary reason I came her in the first place was to network, and I could form a versatile working company tomorrow if I had to. Some of the most dimensional people I've met are stuck in this tin can with me, and it works to our advantage. I'm doing that MacBeth scene with my girlfriend, who is of the most complex and radiant women I've ever met.

I've been playing a lot of Guild Wars in the past week, got my Ranger/Warrior up to lvl 10, and started to put the usual suspects from the fantasy story into the game as well; so Mathis the Ranger also has his father the Warrior and his wife the Mesmer backing him up. (Though of course they never appear together because they're all on the same account.)
I've also modded the hell out of Bridge Commander to a point where I enjoy just flying to different systems and taking pictures for my wallpaper. It has replaced Spider-Man 2 as my relaxing game.
Queen Video is slowly amassing all of what little money I have, I've been going through their wonderful TV/DVD selection, currently with the complete series of Bill Oakley/Josh Weinstein - produced Mission Hill sitting on my tower case. I've also downloaded the first season of the Battlestar Galactica revival, helmed by ex-TNG and DS9 exec Ronald D. Moore. If it had been released during my mad-hot Wing Commander love affair (Still present, as my bi-weekly visits to wcnews prove) I would have been my obsession.
I live with a girl in my program who happens to be best friends with Alex, so things work out nicely. Our apartment is currently gripped with Zelda-mania, mostly Wind Waker but I brought my 64 down to mess with Ocarina.

Which reminds me that last weekend I was in Ottawa for two days shooting a short film in which I portrayed a paranoid schitzophrenic with spouted lines from Hamlet. I should get paid $1000.00.