Houston Day 131

Yesterday was a much better day because I had stuff to do! A while ago I got in touch with a voiceover coach here in Houston and yesterday morning he helped me record a demo.  It was really fun.  I also did some accent work and recorded one of the spots in an American accent, and one in an English accent.  I'm thinking about getting a website together, so maybe you'll see it up there sometime soon.  John (the coach) was also talking to me about maybe getting into voiceovers for anime; apparently the U.S. hub for anime is in Dallas and he goes up there fairly regularly for recording sessions.
In the afternoon I had my second shift at Hope Stone.  I checked in the little kids for their creative movement class, assisted in/participated in the drumming class (such a bonus to just get to learn a fun new thing as part of this job!), and then taught the theatre class.  Gayla, the main theater teacher, called at the last minute to ask if I'd be happy to teach by myself because she had to go to a last-minute rehearsal for a dance show she is stage managing.  It was pretty fun!
So that's the challenge: just get some stuff to do! Auditions have slowed down for a little while, and Sound of Music, Express Children's Theatre and Hope Stone between them all aren't keeping me busy enough.  Am seriously thinking about going to grad school; there are some really good universities here in Houston. 

Houston Day 129 - some self-pitying whining

...and we're back in the land of despair.  Not really sure what the point of my life is, not really sure who I am, not really sure what I want to do, and often being blocked or disappointed when I do pursue things I want.  I alternate between feeling really bright and excited about everything I've got going on here, and realising I actually have very little going on here.  But if you tell me I'm just being aimless and I need to get a real job, I'll punch your face in.  I wish I had a real job, and I feel like a massive failure for not having a bright sparkly promising career like so many friends my age have.  And what on earth am I supposed to do? I know it's not strictly true, but I feel like the things I'm interested in and good at aren't really employable.  I'm so ashamed of myself.  And I don't want to be a stay-at-home mum.  I suspect getting pregnant just coz you're bored isn't the best life-choice.
I'm so unhappy here, but I remember my life back in Melbourne and realise that towards the end of my time there, I wasn't really happy there either, and I was just hanging out for this fresh start in America.  It makes me feel like I don't belong anywhere.  I'm just hoping that with a combination of time and effort, I can outrun the huge black hole for periods of time.  And as Janet says, I haven't been here for nine months yet; I haven't birthed my Houston "baby".

Houston Day 128

So I'm finally beginning to feel a bit better.  Yesterday I rode my new bicycle for the first time! I am hilariously awkward when starting, and when negotiating left turns in traffic, but it was fun.  I think I'm going to have to cycle to work on Thursday, which I'm a bit nervous about.  Also went to ballet class last night.  It totally wrecked me.  Hopefully I'll start getting some fitness back soon!
Tonight I'm going to the second rehearsal for a community theatre production of "The Sound of Music".  I'm just in the chorus, which means that I get to sing all that glorious churchy choral music that the nuns sing.  I think the last time I got to sing with a big group of people on stage was two years ago in "The Gondoliers".  Looking forward to it!

Houston Day 127 - on why I am not a dancer

I've had some good thinking time while I've been home sick (and still am- asthma takes forever to return to normal!).  A couple of years ago I read a brilliant book called "What Color Is Your Parachute?" which helps you figure out what you're good at and what kind of job would suit you.  Last week I did a couple of the exercises again, and established my favourite skills to use and the areas that interest me.
Skills:

1. generating new ideas
2. artistic presentation
3. public speaking
4. teamwork
5. extracting important information
6. team building

Areas of interest:

1. spirituality
2. singing
3. drama
4. classics
5. literature
6. music performance

Notice how dance doesn't really make an appearance? Have you, like Lucas, noticed what I've been hiding from, that I actually don't like dancing? I'm glad I've sunk so much time and effort into it, because it's a useful skill to have for auditions and shows, but from now on, I'm taking the pressure off myself.  I take a few classes, because it's good for my fitness and also for my CV, but I am not *a dancer*.  What a relief.

Houston Day 123

And that's it.  There it is.  Just like I thought it would, having a job has made all the difference.  Today I went to a meeting with a Director and the Artistic Director from Express Children's Theatre, and walked out with a script and a contract, then I went straight to my first session as an intern at Hope Stone.  One has totally shitty pay, and the other has no pay at all, for the moment, but it doesn't matter.  People are relying on me to do the things that I love and can do well, and I have sufficiently oriented myself to this city and country that I have the wherewithal to do that without crying.  I also pulled out of a show because I don't need to give up Christmas in Minnesota just coz I feel the need to desperately cling to every less-than-professional opportunity that comes my way.  Things are looking up.

Houston Day 120

Welcome back home....and now I'm sick.  Not sure if I caught it from Emma, or if it's just that the plane exacerbates my asthma, and no sleep because of jetlag and staying out late with Abby before an early flight makes it worse!
So I've pretty much been staying put at home since I got back.  Apologies to anyone who calls or Skypes for the next couple of days...I'm in no-speaking mode so I can save my voice for a callback audition tomorrow, and also coz talking makes me cough.  But it's been lovely to be back with Lucas.  I came back to a tidy house with bouquets of flowers, and also new bicycles (we've been saying since we moved we'd get some).  And he's just so much fun to hang out with.  The other day he spilt beer on the floor and pointed at it and cried like a little kid....maybe you had to be there.  He's also looking after me very well, and when I reminded him that my favourite thing to do when I'm sick is to get a TV show on DVD and watch it for hours, he went out and bought me the first season of Mad Men.  It's a pretty interesting show! Set in 1960, with much awkward pointed racism and sexism, and 1960s technology.  Favourite quote: "Of course we've only got the one copy.  It's not like there's some magic machine that makes identical copies of things."
I am going to my thrice-weekly dance classes at City Dance though.  It bothers me that I keep finding myself coming up with excuses to miss my classes there....homesickness, injury, etc...and I hate feeling flaky.  I think with dance classes I tend to find excuses not to go coz it's so hard.  But not this time! And tomorrow I have some training at Hope Stone before I start work on Thursday.  Yay!

U.K. Day 14 - Houston Day 116

I've had a lovely few days in London, staying at my fourth cousin Emma's place. Monday evening some rellies came over to hers for dinner - her parents Claire and Paul (my third cousins), her grandad Sid (my second cousin) and her cousins Felicity and Zoe (also my fourth cousins...although every time I see them it is fairly standard for us to have a disagreement about what our relationship is).

Emma was working and also unwell, so Zoe was my guide most of the time. She met me at the airport and on the Tube back to Emma's we talked intensely the whole way. I've only seen Zoe half a dozen times in my life, but we have so much in common that every time one of us visits the other one we just connect instantly. She's a professional choral singer, and her final dissertation in her theology degree was about whether music can convey spiritual truth. We've always had similar interests, even when those interests have changed over time - for example, we were both violists the first and second times we met, and now we're both singers (although because I'm not as classically inclined as she is, and because I don't specialise just in singing, I daresay I don't "count" as a singer very much in her head!)

Tuesday morning Zoe took me out on the town. I'll say it again, I love London. All of the old buildings are spectacular, and there's something wonderful and grounded about being in a place with so much history. America and Australia seem a bit flighty and aritificial somehow by comparison. We went to an exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, which was one of those wonderful "this is either a really boundary-pushing, socially perceptive piece of art, or an expensive load of crap" installations. It was in the form of a labyrinth, made mostly out of cardboard and mirrors, and invited the viewer (well, the placards said it did, and I did feel invited) to reflect on themselves, religion and society, and was supposed to have representations of the four major religions. We enjoyed walking around spotting each of them but only found three. Not sure what was going on there. Then we hopped into a peddle boat and talked intensely, non-stop about theology for an hour while we peddled around the Serpentine River, and crashed a few times.

We met Felicity in her lunch break. She studied opera at the Royal Academy of Music and teaches music at a posh girls' school. It's a shame I didn't get to see her more, but like with Zoe I'm sure next time we meet we'll just click again and we'll feel like it's only been a week. Then I went back to Emma's and had a nice afternoon & evening in with her - she works from home for a medical equipment company.

Wednesday I took a tour through part of Buckinham Palace, including an exhibition of the royal wedding dress. Spectacular, fascinating, beautiful. I'm not sure I could say which bits of the tour were my favourite, but I did like the White Drawing Room, which is decorated in white and gold and has a "secret entrance" for the Queen which connects directly to her personal part of the Palace. The royal wedding cake was on display as well, and it's still complete except for the little bit where they cut it...it wasn't eaten at all! I met Zoe for lunch in South Kensington and then went out again in the evening with Abby, one of my best friends from St Andrews, to see Jason Robert Brown's "Parade" at the Southwark Playhouse Vault. They did a great job of the show, which meant that my heart was pretty well shredded by the end. One of Zoe's friends played the lead and she had suggested that I go for a drink with him after the show, but he was obviously exhausted when I introduced myself to him, which is fair enough coz he'd just been lynched on stage. Southwark seems a like fun place. The theatre was built under a bridge, which meant that it was pretty cold and damp.  Sometimes you could see the actors' breath fogging, which was a bit incongruous because the show is set in the American South, which I know from experience is pretty bloody hot. Abby and I went for a walk and a cuppa after the show, and had a really good heart-to-heart, and a good gawk at Tower Bridge. She's been living in London for six months, finding it a bit lonely, working as an interior decorator and set designer. She wasn't into theatre when we were at St Andrews together, but apparently after I left someone liked her drawings once, and then she came to be the only set designer in the whole university! Going to see a show with her was great - I forgot how smart she is, and she'd just notice little things about the show that were so perceptive and really increased my enjoyment of it.
I'm on the plane now, and I'll post this when I get home. I've slept a little bit, which is nice, and I woke up to spectacular views of the northeast coast of Canada. A few days ago I was thinking that I was having such a good time in London that I didn't want to go back to Houston, but I'm looking forward to it now, actually. I get to see (and hug, and talk to) Lucas, and I know I'm going back to my own bed, the rest of my wardrobe, my house which feels like home now, to two new jobs, to warm weather and to roads that can comfortably fit two cars. I enjoy England's soft muted polite loveliness but I also like boldness and colour and friendly, outgoing, forthright people. I've had so much heart connection with old friends these past few days to keep me going in working on my new friendships in Houston, I think.
 
Check out my London photos by clicking here.

U.K. Day 10 - Houston Day 112

A country that has the thistle as its national flower and the bagpipes as one of its trademarks, Scotland has a little grimness about its beauty. But St Andrews is a beacon of light and loveliness. Six years ago I spent a semester of my degree at St Andrews, and Dad and I went back to visit it on Friday. Just being there made me so happy, and it was lovely to walk down memory lane (in this case, memory lane was called Abbey St and was the road leading out of the town centre to my student accommodation). I will go back there. One day I will do my masters in Classics or in their Centre for Theology, Imagination and the Arts, and I will live in one of those old sandstone flats with a brightly painted door, and I will take classes in 500-year-old buildings opposite the beach to the sound of the bagpiper who plays outside the supermarket once a week. I hope he's still there.



St Andrews

Friday evening the relatives started flocking in and the celebrations for the ordination started. Lynne and Chris Brown (my third cousins) came up from Nottingham on the train and we had dinner in a lovely French restaurant. Jill was networking like crazy with the restaurateur trying to get him to buy the olives they're importing from their grove in Sandon in western Victoria (between Ballarat & Bendigo for those of you who know and/or care).

Jill, Dad, Lynne, Chris & me

Saturday we met my uncle Neil off the plane from the south of England and then headed in to the ceremony. It was quite formal, and the bishop was wearing his mitre, and I bowed to the altar before I gave my reading! So Dad is now officially a deacon in the Scottish Episcopal Church (the Anglican Church in Scotland). There was a lovely connection to America: after the American War of Independence Church of England bishops were forbidden from ordaining American priests, which according to the Anglican tradition was really necessary to carrying out the practice of the church. So the Bishop of Aberdeen ordained an American priest so that the tradition could continue there. In thanks, the American Episcopal church gave a lot of nice stuff to the cathedral in Aberdeen, including shields from each of the states & colonies (I was proud to locate the Lone Star of Texas!), and the chalice that Dad served the Eucharist from.

Dad & the Bishop

After that there was a great big dinner with loads of family and friends at the Spanish restaurant Dad & Jill took me to on my first night there. As you'd expect, Dad knows a lot of interesting people! I had a great chat to an American woman who used to be an actor and was a part of the birth of improvisational theatre led by Viola Spolin in the U.S. in the sixties and seventies. She now works for the Scottish Episcopal Church. I also met some relatives I hadn't met before, Dad's cousin Graham and his wife Christine. Christine is fabulous, about sixty (much younger than Graham, who's 72) and slowly retiring from her job as an HR consultant. She's great to talk to, with a mind like a steel trap, loads of interesting stories and a sparkly, engaging personality, and she actually listens, which is more than I can say for some of the people I talked to over the weekend. I also had one of those lovely mumsy moments with Lynne Brown. I love my English family.

Some of Dad's colleagues and friends

Sunday morning was breakfast with the Browns and the Garners at Dad's place before heading off to St Congan's Church, where Dad now has the official role of Assistant Curate. It was a really lovely service and they seem to have a great community there. Church lunch was at the priest's house afterward. One of the people I was complaining about earlier, who talks but doesn't listen, was really getting on my nerves but everyone was being very polite and British about it and not breathing a word about how much he was making everything about him. But Christine handled him marvellously. He was talking to her at one point and correcting her on something she'd referred to incorrectly, and she said, quite politely but with a twinkle in her eye, "I feel I shall be a better person after this afternoon, with you adjusting me all the time." Sunday evening Dad, Jill, Uncle Neil and I played a board game called Touring England that Dad remembers really fondly from his childhood. He lost pretty badly though. :)

St Congan's

I'm at the airport now waiting for my plane down to London. Actually, I'm first waiting for Dad to run home and come back with a whole bunch of money he promised me - in typical Dad style, he forgot his wallet. My fourth cousin Zoe, who I love dearly but have only seen a handful of times in my life, is meeting me in London and tonight she and another cousin Emma are holding a big dinner for all of the cousins to see me. I can't wait! It'll be lovely to see them again, and also loads of fun to hang out with people who are younger than sixty!
More Scotland photos here.

U.K. Day 7- Houston Day 109

Facing southwest 

We changed our plans around a bit and ended up heading to Loch Ness today.  It's really beautiful, but in slightly grim, Scottish way.  Most places in this part of Scotland are a bit like that - the sky is darker than in England, the buildings are made out of granite, the hills are bigger than in, say, the Lake District of England.

Facing northeast

There's not much pedestrian access to the waterfront.  We went down to a jetty and walked around as much as we could, then had lunch in the Clansman Hotel overlooking the water and the hills.  No sign of the fabled monster, except for in the gift shop.
On the drive back to Fyvie we saw Culloden, a giant open field where the last hand-to-hand battle was fought in the U.K.  It's the Alamo of Scotland, except that it's not straightforwardly English v Scots, and not so much heroic as just awful.  The guy who won, the Duke of Cumberland, earned himself the nickname "The Butcher".  And it's also a field, not a building, which also means that it's a grave site.
So (as much as I have learned from the visitor centre, Wikipedia and Dad), it was the British government v the Jacobites, who took their name from James I, the first Scottish King of Britain.  The Jacobites wanted to return his descendants to the throne, and the British government didn't, coz they'd deposed the last one for being crap.  The Jacobite cause was at its heart about the divine right of kings, but varied geographically, had really complex associations with church politics and religious freedom, and in its Scottish manifestation had a healthy dose of "how good is Scotland" in there too.  Actually I think for some people it wasn't even about Scotland, but just their clan - Dad says that's very Scottish.
The Whigs (Cumberland's chaps) had many more resources than the Jacobites, so when it came to the crunch there were more of them, and they were better fed, better rested and better prepared.  They knew that their opponents in Scotland would use the Highland Charge, which finished off by fighting at close range with traditional Scottish swords, so they trained really well in how to run a bayonet through someone.  Which, at Culloden in 1746, they did, about a thousand times.  And then to totally crush Jacobitism in Scotland, they went round the country and killed a whole bunch more civilians, and took all their stuff.  Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Jacobite leader, took off "over the sea to Skye" dressed as a woman.

Culloden

Jill's in Edinburgh tonight, so Dad and I have the task of baking a cake to bring to the church lunch on Sunday.  We might also have to watch some television.  Damn.

U.K. Day 6 - Houston Day 108

My earliest memories of the U.K. are from a trip I took with my mum when I was eleven (earlier trips at ages one and three didn't really make it to my mental photo album, except for brief flashes of memories of being on the plane).  Being away from home sometimes makes me a bit jumpy, and I'm the kind of person who gets easily scared.  Mum, in contrast, can't get enough war history, so when I was too scared to go through Winston Churchill's underground bunker with her (complete with wax figures, which freaked the hell out of me), she left me with a bemused security guard so she could go round herself.  We both laughed about this recently when I told her over the phone that I won't be going to Tower Bridge, and I won't be going to Madame Tusseaud's, and I definitely won't be going to Churchill's war rooms.

Fyvie Castle

This time, I'm setting my own agenda.  Somehow, this agenda has still led to me being creeped out, which is not helping me fight the insomnia already present.  I visited Fyvie Castle today, and that has enough grisliness about its history to make me pretty jumpy and not likely to make it to sleep tonight.  So while I'm awake, I'll catch you up on my doings. It's lovely when you're visiting people to be a part of their normal life a bit.  Jill is working every day, and is going away for work to Edinburgh for the next two days, but Dad is in summer holidays at the moment so has kept his schedule pretty clear for us to spend time together.  He asked me what I wanted to do, and I said I felt like being a bit touristy.  So it's a nice combination of things that are a bit special and holidayish, and just hanging out at home.  Yesterday we went to Inverurie to run some errands and go grocery shopping, and then went to visit a whiskey distillery at Oldmeldrum on the way home.  It's called the Glen Garioch distillery (pronounced "Glen Geary"), and it's a cute little small one.  The whole point of it was just to buy some nice unique whiskey as a present for Lucas, something you could only get in rural Scotland, but Dad and I ended up enjoying the tour and the tasting as well.  And, shock horror, I tasted a whiskey that I liked!!!! So that was the present I bought for Lucas, along with some signature Glen Garioch glasses.  Plus I now know some things about how it was made.

Dad went to work today, so I stayed in Fyvie and walked to the local castle.  (I love how in the U.K. one has a local castle.)  It was a lovely walk and I was lucky enough to get some good weather.  The grounds of the castle are beautiful and there's a biggish lake.  I've been to the gardens a couple of times before, but haven't gone inside.  I got there today just in time for a guided tour, so I joined that and it was really interesting.  Loads of old artefacts and impressive rooms and eight hundred years of history.  I love history, but it also creeps me out a bit.  Even without thinking about the ghosts of the two unfortunate ladies who were murdered in the castle for having babies of the wrong sex and wanting to marry a miller's son, thinking too hard about those people who have been dead for so long, sitting in that same enormous room, lit only by a few candles as the dark, serious portraits of their important relatives glower down from the walls...well, it gives me the heebie jeebies.  I was planning to visit Oxford Castle when I go down south.  Maybe I shall rethink.

Fyvie Castle Lake

After Dad came home, we did a cryptic crossword together (a favourite shared pastime of ours) and had dinner with Jill and watched some telly.  Nice bit of normalcy.  Tomorrow Dad and I are going down to St Andrews, Friday visiting Loch Ness, and then more family arrive from England and the weekend of celebrations begin.  The main reason for my trip here is happening on Saturday: Dad's getting ordained in the Episcopal church (what the Anglicans call themselves here).  All bells and whistles in the Aberdeen cathedral.  Dad is so much more high-church than I ever was, I'm sure I'll feel awkward and stand or kneel at the wrong time or something.  But worth it to celebrate this important day with him!

U.K. Day 4 - Houston Day 106

Caught the train up to Scotland yesterday.  It was pouring rain again so I was extra glad we had the good weather on Sunday.  Made me a bit nostalgic to take the train to Dad's, because that was the train I took every couple of weeks to visit him when I was studying at St Andrews.  We're going to try and visit St Andrews some time this week, which I'm sure is going to make me want to go back there.  They have a department called "Theology, Imagination and the Arts".  Doesn't that sound totally up my alley?
Is so nice to see Dad and Jill.  They have done lots of renovations on their house since I was here six years ago so it was really exciting to see that.  They took me out for dinner last night to the same restaurant where we'll be having dinner Saturday night after the ordination.  Lovely Spanish place, and we ordered a tableful of tapas, which we couldn't finish.  Just like that, after a year of not seeing them, and six years of not being here at their home with them, we're sitting down to dinner like nothing happened.  Makes me happy.
For those who have been asking how Jill's leg is after her accident a couple of years ago, she can't bend it more than about 100 degrees, she can't run, and she has arthritis in that knee, which will need a knee reconstruction at some point in the future.  She can drive now (she couldn't for a while).  Not fair that something like that can happen out of the blue, but given how worried we all were about her, fantastic how well she is and how much movement she has regained.  She was in rehab for about a year, and is really disciplined about working it out and strengthening the muscles according to how the physio taught her.  I so respect people who just take charge of bad situations like that and make it (and make themselves) the best it can possibly be.  Gives me some inspiration for my own situation...
By the way, I'm writing this at 5.37am.  I can't seem to sleep more than five hours a night since I got here, but it's no biggie coz I'm not really doing anything that requires too much energy! This is a lovely holiday!

U.K. Day 3 - Houston Day 105

I love England. I want to live here, not in Texas. The downside would be exchanging lovely big kitchen and plenty of parking and lots of sunshine for one-lane roads that pretend to be two-lane, and lots of rain, and everything being more expensive.

Looking out the chapel window

Anyway. I got to Auntie Maria's on Friday (after feeling nearly the whole train journey like I was going to chuck. Pleasant.)  She lives in "Outreach House", a sort of house church. For those of you who know Cornerstone in Australia, think Cornerstone team house. Think of the kind of Christians who love God with their whole lives and show it by investing as much as they can in their local community. Her daily rhythm is made up of study and discussion and silence with her two fellow housemates (a married couple), then working in the only shop in the village, then tutoring kids in Maths in the evenings. They hold slightly larger church gatherings in their house and astonishingly beautiful garden on Sundays. There's a chapel in the garden built by her son, my cousin Derek, which they use for special occasions or solitary meditation or really whenever they feel like it.

She's been taking me around the beautiful Lakes District. Yesterday was rubbish weather (hello England), but today was gorgeous so we took a nice long picnic and walk around Derwent Water. I couldn't believe something could make me so happy just by looking at it.

Our evenings have been spent cozying up with yummy food and hot water bottles (unfortunately, it is cold enough to need them - hello England!) in front of the telly.  We watched a scream of a program on Friday...I think it's just called Miranda...anyway, it was funny....

A lovely weekend with lots of lovely long chats, lots of green hills and water and tiny roads and little stone walls.  There are some people who are always your family, no matter how long and how much change between visits, and most of my English family are like that to me, especially Maria.

More photos by checking out my facebook album - click on this link.
Lakes District photos
Tomorrow I catch the train up to Scotland to see Dad and Jill! Hurrah!

U.K. Day 1 - Houston Day 103

I love London.  I was only there for three hours in transit, but I love the way it looks, the way it's all centred around an excellent public transport system, the sense of economy (in everything but actual money).  I have a suspicion that my impressions of America and Houston will change after two weeks away.  Already today I've remembered so many things I miss.

In other news, I'm on the train on the way to visit my auntie in the Lakes District.  Have been feeling a little off in the tummy ever since the descent into Heathrow, so will stop staring at a computer screen.  But hurrah for my excellent little 10-inch computer, which is connecting me to the internet whilst being ever-so-portable.  Listen to that.  "Ever-so-portable."  My language changes the instant I'm in the U.K.  The part of me that is made up of my father's genes eats up everything else and makes me speak like I live here.