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.