Postgrads

So right now I am currently (or in the beginnings of) applying for postgrads (although right now I am writing this blog).  This, in itself, is making me crap my pants spontaneously at random intervals throughout the day.  Then you have the fear of how do I pay for it?  My life is essentially: I’m poor (see previous post on money), finish my degree, even more poor, apply for postgrads, get into slightly more debt, possibly be accepted, huuuuuuge debt, graduate, file for bankruptcy, eventually steal all the essential things I need ending with me in me in jail.  And believe me, I would not do well in jail.  What a life.

Anyway, I am trying to write my personal statement and I keep hitting barriers.  Now the basis of a personal statement is to big yourself up as much as you can (note to self, never use the term big yourself up), but don’t over-do it so much as to cause violent wretching (dry or wet) on the part of the reader. 

My problem is I can’t get the happy medium.  First I am a critically shy boy who will combust if anyone makes the slightest contact with him.  Ideal candidate for a musical theatre student, I know.  Then I re-write and I am the most arrogant, obnoxious twat in the world.  Nobody is better than me, I am so talented that it’s a wonder I haven’t been famous since I was a foetus. 

Where is the middle-ground?

So far I can’t see any.    What am I meant to say?  I am reasonably talented (I wouldn’t be applying if I didn’t think so) but they don’t want to read that I am reasonably talented.  They want an already well rounded actor/singer/dancer.  I am currently one and a half of these things, but again this would not be well received.  I feel, with me, you need to meet me before you can judge me.  If you have read any of my previous posts you will notice I am a rambling idiot that writes everything that comes into his head.  I haven’t mastered the art of the delete button yet.  Therefore how will a personal statement be of any use to me furthering my career?  Answer: it won’t.

Any suggestions for my predicament are welcome.  Or if, by some weird coincidence, someone that reads this knows me well enough and is an exceptional writer with a high regard for me loves writing personal statements, go ahead.  I will in no way stop you from doing so.  Please.

I started writing this and then realised I have nowhere to go with it.  So this is the end.  Ha Ha

Money

Money, money, money.  Where have you been all my life? 

That kind of makes it seem like it has now made a surprise entrance.  It hasn’t.  And I can’t see it making one any time soon.  I have been perpetually poor for the last God knows how many years and have had all my ridiculous needs and wants funded by the amazing Bank of Mum and Dad. 

Cash machines are a real worry every time I step up to one.  Check balance?  As they say, ignorance is bliss.  Just charge on and go for broke.  This brings the worry of: are you going to eat my card?  Will the cash machine just start laughing hysterically at me for thinking I may have more than £5?  Then, obviously, everyone in the queue would join in just like the hellish feeling of a naked dream.  Luckily none of these things have happened…yet.

I always find it amusing and insulting that cash machines have the cheek to ask if you would like an advice slip.  Would I like an advice slip?  No, of course I do not want an advice slip.  It would simply tell me I am a moron who should not be allowed any of the magical paper inside the machine.  I clearly am not responsible enough. 

On the other hand, I sometimes wonder if it will just give me actual advice; Your room is so untidy; I would maybe clean it if I were you; Seriously, you are actually wearing that.  CHANGE!!!

When I do go for an advice slip it just confirms my suspicions (if you can call actual knowledge suspicions) that I am, still, poor.

Yesterday, however, the money fairy was definitely looking in on me.  Hello there big envelope from the tax man.  Automatic thought was I cannot pay whatever money you want from me.  On closer inspection I find that they in fact owe me.  A whopping £700.  How?  I have no idea.  Am I going to enquire?  Hahahahahahaha NO!  What if it is a mistake?  I’ll pay it back in teeny, tiny instalments that will last my entire life. 

What are you going to do with this money? I hear you ask.  Well as you have probably guessed, I realise I have to do something good with it; cut my overdraft down to size; pay my credit card; put in into a savings account.  This is sensible and I know I should.  So why is my over-riding thought SPEND IT ALL?  Buy everything your heart desires (in the bracket of £700, obviously.)

I, as yet, have no idea what I am going to do with it, but I shall most definitely keep you posted.  Unless you happen to be behind me in a cash machine queue one day and hear the machine laughing.  Then, I think you know what I did.

Alcohol

Why is it that no matter how many times we say we won’t do something, we always end up doing it?  Worst culprit…alcohol.  Let’s face it, how often have we said, “I’m never going to drink again” or words to that effect?  I, for one, am a frequent user of that sentence.  A few days ago I was out and was drinking copious amounts of wine, every glass was going down like a dream, the heart-to-heart chats were happening, we’re such super friends etc etc etc. 

Then the next day… 

…BAM…

…Hangover from hell.  And what do I say?  That’s right, “I am never drinking wine ever again.”  Fair enough this is not as extreme as I’m never going to drink again.  What use would that do?  Then I would just be a moaning sod every time I was in a social situation.  Well, not every social situation, I’m no alcoholic or anything, just the ones where alcohol is involved.  So the next day is pretty uneventful, not a drop of wine passes my lips.  I’m thinking “Hey, this could work.  No more wine for me.  I am so strong.”  Uneventful day passes and we’re onto the next day. 

Uneventful day number two is going great, university, rehearsal, then planning on going home when someone utters the sentence, “Do you fancy going for a drink?”  Obviously I say yes, I don’t want to be rude.  So we go out to the same bar as the previous night but I am strong Raymond now, I know I am going to stick to vodka.  (Vodka?  Yes, it may seem worse, but believe me the next day it is a pussycat compared to the bitch that wine is.)  So I go up to the bar and before I know what I’m saying some hellish demon takes over my body and asks for, none other than, a glass of wine.  Nooooooooooooo!!!  This spirals into another glass, and another glass, and another glass ending in me leaving a friends house at 4.30 in the morning with a belly full of wine.

I know what you’re thinking.  I bet this story has a happy ending and he had no hangover the next day.  Well, YOU’RE WRONG!!!  I lost an entire day of my life.  Sleeping all day, if you can even call it that.  It was more like trying not to move while my eyes are closed to stop any possibility of vomit surfacing.  Toilet visits, all happy visits, no unexpected chats with Hughey.  Bed again to try to stop the room spinning.  “Sleeping.”  And now, at 22:35, I am finally feeling like a human being.  Only, a human being who has now turned nocturnal.  Another thing I need to remember to thank wine for.  So I shall be awake until all hours of the morning waiting for my alarm to go off at ungodly o’ clock tomorrow so that I can start a new, fresh day.  Not involving wine.

Moral of story (it’s not a story, just me telling you how horrendous I feel, but you can’t win them all) is that I am never drinking wine ever again.  EVER! Hopefully…

Musicals (and a weird ramble half way through)

OK, so now for a proper post.  As I said, I love musicals – watching, listening or partaking.  Can you partake in a musical? 

Okay, so a look at thesaurus.com tells me that I do not partake in musicals, it makes very little sense if I put any of the synonyms in. 

Do I absorb in a musical? No. What would that even entail?  

Allure in a musical?  Well…

Arrest in a musical? Again, no. 

Bewitch in a musical?  I’ll leave that up to the audience.

I haven’t got a huge back catalogue of shows I have seen, but let me tell you, I have the biggest amount of musical crap on my iPod.  Things even the composers of the shows themselves haven’t even heard of.  I mean, obviously they have, but you get my drift.   Right now I’m listening to Spring Awakening which is lovely and all, but does it have any correlation between song and book?  Answer, not really. 

I went to see this a few weeks ago when NoNonsenseProductions put it on and was both impressed and disappointed.  Their production team was diabolical – sound guys essentially shouting a conversation over the top of the first act, then not turning mics off when characters left the stage in act two.  There’s nothing more distracting than hearing the cast chatting in their dressing room while the leading lady is singing about her abortion – however the cast were all very good.  The leads were excellent, even if the male was slightly too camp to pull off the “deflowerer” (not a word) of the leading lady.

New thought.  My new favourite people are Michael Kooman and Christopher Dimond.  These guys are like Rodgers and Hammerstein, but cool.  They use swears and everything.  They seriously need to make it big.  If they don’t it will be a crime to every musical theatre lover.  It’s not often I find a team in which every song they have written I like.  These guys are that good.

Welcome

Well, a few things you should know about me before you proceed.  I'm Raymond.  I have a sense of humour that not a lot of people get.  I’m slightly obsessive, I’m slightly compulsive but I am NOT obsessive compulsive.  I am a music student (in my final year) and I work in the theatre.  Yes THE theatre not a theatre.  I love musicals.  I’m gay (see previous statements), but I’m a funny kind of gay. I smile when Cher or Dolly comes on the jukebox (mostly because I'm the one that put it on), but just as happy when a good dance tune comes on or even Einaudi. I annoy females because I don't notice things like new haircuts or the fact that the straps on her dress are in fact her bra straps. Who knows things like that? I dance in my room to my iPod without the curtains closed (that's right, who cares if people can see you.) I've almost eaten my body weight in pizza huts and I love it. I am a Highland Dancer and have been since I was 3, I've played the violin since I was 5, I can play every recorder there is (a little embarrassed about that one, and yes there is more than one.) I'm a student which means I like to drink, but hate to work and find ways of putting things off until the very last minute, the way I see it I could die tomorrow so what’s the point in putting all that effort in when it could totally go to waste?  Although saying that, I have gotten much better at productivity.  And, in turn, saying that I am actually meant to be researching my dissertation as I write this so maybe I haven’t quite got it down yet.  I love sharing inappropriate thoughts with others.  I have three extremely close friends who are probably going to feature pretty heavily in this.  I love using teeny, tiny sentences.  And apparently, going by this section, I also love using brackets.  Who knew?