How Do You Measure a Four Day Trip to Tampa?

I had no performance friday so it was just like, do whatever I feel like. I went to an improv workshop with some big sweaty guy, but watching other teenagers do improv is so incredibly painful because they all do whatever they think will be funny for teenagers, and, spoiler alert, it’s rarely funny. I left early and my friend Gabe and I hung out by the vending machines while he flirted with girls and I just tried to get them to read my blog. Neither of us really succeeded. Afterwards I went to a writing workshop with this teacher who started off talking about the definition of playwright, and then ended with doing other stuff. This one kid would not stop asking stupid questions so I just sat on my phone and wrote a play about Ted Cruz being the Zodiac Killer. We were all supposed to write scenes so I just went with an idea I had already started. The kid asked questions until the end of the session and finally the instructor guy was like, “how about I just read what you wrote after class?” “Oh I didn’t write anything,” replied the kid. It was a two-part workshop so we decided to not come back for fear of dealing with the annoying kid. Drama kids are better at just avoiding problems than confronting them, and that’s the way we like it!

Lunch was overpriced pizza, but overpriced can be used to describe every meal here except the first night when we had mall food court Chinese food. I went with a group to a musical theater workshop where I stayed in the back because I’m a much better rapper than a singer, and if you’ve heard me rap, then you know my singing is atrocious. We had to leave after that and go to some fancy dinner, which is code for ‘not a lot of food.’ Then I watched/slept through a performance of Romeo and Juliet, except before it started, thespians demonstrated exactly why they are the worst people to do anything with. They started doing the wave, but instead of the traditional way, they just dabbed around the auditorium. Then when the lights went out, they used the freaking flashlights on their phones to communicate in morse code. I fell asleep seven times during Romeo and Juliet, but it was only really bad because I started snoring in the third act. When it ended, we were all thankful, and we headed back to our hotel. All of the guys, except Daniel Crasnow, went to go play poker with Mr. Carter, who beat us all. We ordered pizza and rode the elevator down with a very very drunk girl. On the way back up a bunch of old men asked for our pizza. After we ate we began to execute our insane prank. So Mr. Carter’s suite was connected to the other group of guys’ suite so we bugged our way into his room and I dropped my Bluetooth speaker behind the chair. We connected it to Gabe’s phone which I had recorded the phrase, “are you living your life to the fullest?” So I had to go back to my room but I made sure Gabe knew to keep playing it. I got the following chain of messages:

Monologues Saturday! GoNNa WiNG iT!

A Snazzy Title

Greetings from Tampa!

I’m in Tampa right now at the Florida State Thespian Festival and I am PO’d. I am writing this after performing our ensemble scene but I will get to that.

I took two workshops today, both about playwriting. The first one was a little wacky because the lady running it didn’t have us practice writing or tell us about the industry, but she did have us release each of our chakras. Before we could release our chakras, we had to find our hidden impulses by lying on the ground and thinking about memories. My hidden impulse was to leave, but not before making the class into a joke. The lady called people up to share, and as they shared they had to sway and rotate in place. It would start off with “I am __ years old. I do this. I see that. I feel this.” All in the present tense. The first two people tell stories about literally the worst moments in their entire lives. I told something a lil less dramatic:

I’m 17. I’m at the Florida State Thespian Festival in Tampa. I am excited for the workshops, especially the improv one. Elliott, JP and I go to a workshop. We have fun. I perform a scene about a sock filled with butter. I leave and I see my friend Annie from work. She and I hug. I see my friends leaving and I am running after them. Running. Running. I know that if I’m not with a buddy I will be in trouble with Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter has a beard that’s pretty crazy. I see my friends going on an escalator in the distance. I run to catch up but another group is about to cut me off. I leap onto the escalator but my ankle buckles and I fall. I try to be strong. There are pretty girls all around. I use inner strength to not cry (for the girls). Elliott’s mom is the chaperone. “Are you okay?” “I’m fine.” I’m not fine. I am sweating profusely. I keep my arms down to hide pit stains. I hobble off of the escalator and walk out onto the terrace. I watch Elliott practice his monologues. I want an ibuprofen. Mr. Carter arrives on the scene. He asks if I need to call my parents. “I’m fine.” I’m not fine. The thespian dance is that night but I avoid it. I go home. I go to the hospital. The doctor gives me a brace. I wear the brace for a week. “Eh.” 2 months later I am in theater class. I am doing an ensemble scene with Jomari. Jomari is pretty. Jomari has a website called Jomari.com. We perform a scene from Twilight. Rounds of applause. I go back to my seat and trip and sprain my ankle again.

The next workshop was all about creating podcasts because they have such a far reach. A non-traditional playwriting workshop because it had nothing to do with writing. I told the guy that my co-Vice President, Julia Schmidt, was Ira Glass’s cousin. Thanks for letting me name drop Ira, Julia.  Then I got up and had to tell my story.

So our ensemble scene. Carter has us run it twice an hour before we performed, and he gave us some really constructive notes. It got progressively better. Like it was master craft level of performance. So we all make it into the room on time, unlike when we were missing Chloe at districts right when we were about to perform. I slated, “Hello! We are Freid & Co.” It went great. We had to move a table and two chairs to the center of the room, and later in the scene, I’d have to physically flip the table and then Julia would put it back. We made sure it wasn’t too heavy. It SEEMED STURDY. So we start this scene and it’s going great, but then James does some blocking where he jumps up on a table and walks to the end. Well, this rickety ass table started to tilt over, and the end near me gradually rose up in the air. I had a line, but also saw James about to fall on his ass, so I slammed my hand on the rising end of the table to keep it from falling, and I delivered my line without acknowledging my heroics. We finished the scene, which ends with my gay lover pulling a gun (plastic grapes in this scene) and shooting blanks at everyone. Funny right?! Uniquely comedic?! A bit absurd?! YEAH! All of these were decisions made on purpose. We get our results and they give us an ‘excellent’ for not grounding the scene in reality. I disagreed with this choice and the language I use was colorful to describe how I felt.

The rest of the night was drab. I ate dinner, I saw a play, I went to bed. It turns out WiFi is $13 a night, though, so like EFF THAT!!!! I get a bed to myself which is definitely one of the best parts of this entire trip.

Another Day in Paradise

So this morning I woke up at 6:30 and pulled a real Jacob by remembering I hadn't finished last night's homework. I started typing it up, expecting to have all the time I needed because we get to school late anyway, but then Sophie started screaming at me to get ready because we had to actually get to school on time today for some BS standardized writing test she had to take. I told her that she couldn't just demand people to move faster in the mornings when she makes us late every single day. Then she yelled at me, and my mom yelled at me, so I got moving. I grabbed my stuff off the printer and my lunch and got my ass in the car. Half of my paper didn't print because nobody got ink for the printer, so that's just a sad little fact. We started driving and Sophie was reviewing literary terms. "Point of view, third person perspective, imagery," she read off. Then she started naming transition words. "Is consequently a good one?" she asked me. My mom suggested she focus more on the spelling than the words. I knew she was trying to be helpful, but I said "good one mom!" Then Sophie was offended because she thought mom had just insulted her so she started whining. "I'm serious! Spell course, as in 'of course'." She spelled it C-O-R-S-E. Mom corrected her: C-O-A-R-S-E. Ok so that was ridiculous

I got to school, and I started walking through the hall when all of a sudden a stout black lady grabbed my arm. She said, "I thought about you yesterday because you are so funny!" I had no idea who the hell that woman was. I said thanks and kept walking. Then it dawned on me that she was the substitute teacher from psychology a week ago when I did stand up comedy for 45 minutes in class. But then if the sub liked me... How did I get in trouble the next week for being distracting in class??? I got to first period and I sat through math class only so that I could have my teacher print my thing for me. The most difficult part of the day was trying to unwrap a Moon Pie in history without Miss Rushing hearing or Drew getting pissed off. Well in my effort to quietly open the plastic wrapper, I spent 15 minutes just making noise. It's a struggle we can all identify with.

After school, I had to go to Miss Ponti's room to talk about ToK, but all that really happened was she told Cristy and me that our presentation was pretty much completely wrong. So that was disheartening. Then as Cristy and I were going to our respective afternoon destinations, we ran into a police officer who asked us for our 'certificates' whatever that meant. I thought he was just making a joke like when Josh Schwartz's dad pretended to be a truant officer when he saw me at Panera on IB senior skip day. I acted like I was pretending to find a certificate and then just kinda laughed, waiting for him to stop the ruse. Then Cristy called him Jimmy and I realized he was her soccer coach and was asking her for a certificate and I just kinda looked like an idiot.

Tonight's dinner was a nice homecooked burrito from Tijuana Flats, and I know exactly what my mom would say if she read that. "Well would you have rather I cooked??" No, I would not rather that. I spent the rest of the night watching a combination of Criminal Minds and NBA basketball. My mom asked me how I know so much about basketball and I said, "well I've got to do something while I'm not studying."

Back on Track

P-p-p-pizza for dinner, that's how I start my night. I came home tonight after rehearsing for The Hobbit, and I am covered in glitter and glue. I'd like to give a big ol' shout out to Julia Schmidt who sprayed me with glitter: Thanks, Champion. Being an eighth of a dragon is a lot more fun than I thought it would be, and a lot of that is because I actually have free time for the first time in three years. I even worked at the JCC for a couple days after school. Of course, while I was there, all of the kids I had over the summer decided to go back to their regular routine of being allergic to boys, so that just means they yelled every time they saw me. I asked one little girl whether I should go to UF or FSU and she said, "Uhh both. One in the morning and one in the afternoon." She is going places.

So essentially the only thing I really have left to do before I graduate is finish up my chemistry IA but that is proving to be more difficult than I thought it would be. Although I read the list of chemicals I needed to her, somehow I ended up having the wrong concentration of something today so I basically had to throw out my data. I went up to her and said, "so my reactions are happening really fast." Then she asked the class, "did anyone here overhear what I said to Jacob yesterday??" No one answered so she explained to me that I asked for the wrong concentration yesterday. Interesting. Not pointing fingers, just noting an interesting anomaly. Our group 4 presentation is scheduled for the same time as the last tech rehearsal for The Hobbit, and where I thought I was getting to just skip group 4, it looks like Emily Wagg and I will now have to be the group's lone presenters for the first half hour. The only problem is neither of us understand the science behind our project because our project doesn't really use science... (gotcha-pack.weebly.com).

Honestly, I don't know why I've come to school for the last two weeks because we've done hardly anything, but if I say that to my parents, they'll say, "then why do you have so many missing assignments?" And I really have just not found a good answer for that yet. When I come up with one, I'll share it on here. Until then, come see Chushingura, October 8, 9, and 10!