Auditioning for NUS Stage + Completing Week 1 of College

At long last, we've broken into the new semester. Tomorrow, I attend the Theatre and Performance Studies lecture in person for the first time. Diving back into learning and school felt like a mountain climb after such a long period of no academics, but I'm glad that I'm finally doing it. 

Academics

My lessons this week were completely online. The first week comprised mainly overviews and introductions, so everything was pretty straightforward. For this semester, my modules are:

• TS1101e Theatre and Performance
• FAS1101 Writing Academically
• GEA1000 Data and Reasoning
• HSA1000 Asian Interconnections
• HSH1000 The Human Condition

I'd love to talk about the two integrated modules first (HSA1000 and HSH1000). Ever since the conception of the College of Humanities and Sciences, we have all been complaining about the creation of the integrated modules. However, I'd now safely say that the integrated modules are the most fun I've had this week in class. The professors genuinely care about the class and their students, and I'm probably the most inattentive student there is - but they managed to capture even my imagination, and that's something. I was absolutely enthralled by the content and by how excited the teachers were to bring this new core curriculum to us.

As for GEA1000, obviously the mathematical gene in my family skipped me, because I have no idea how to use the R Commander beyond opening the library. I just reviewed the lecture again and I'll be damned because those scatterplot graphs are kind of beautiful and I kind of want to learn how to use them, but I'm also incredibly confused about what I even have to do. Someone tell me what's up please? The complete lack of live lectures is really worrying. But we get weekly quizzes! Yay! (Can you hear the pain in my voice?)

FAS1101 has been kind of boring so far - it's like the General Paper but on steroids. I do listen to the pre-recorded lectures, and maybe I've walked away with a bit more of semantics on how reading and writing should be done. That said, it is an entry level writing course focused on basic conventions and grammatical rules. I don't expect much and I'm quite confident about this course, but I'm also a little lost as to exactly what they want us to be doing.

TS1101e. Wow, I have so many feelings about this course. This was all I've ever wanted, and it was probably one of the key reasons why I waited for NUS to offer me a place despite getting a place in NTU Literature (and likely a scholarship had I been more enthusiastic in the interview). I wanted to study and practice theatre, and finally starting out in a path that I'm passionate about feels like a culmination of so many things that have led up to this week. The first day of class was a little rocky because someone, either another person or myself, woke up on the wrong side of bed. Naturally I hope things improve tomorrow when we meet live for the first time and hopefully we let bygones be bygones because look, I care about this course, I care about my college journey, and I sincerely do not want the very first lesson I have to be the beginning of hard feelings. That said, the content in class was everything I've dreamed of and more, and I absolutely adored being able to watch different types of theatre right from the beginning.

Extracurriculars

I sent in my audition for NUS Stage on Friday afternoon. I'm honestly excited to be part of a college theatre company, and I can't wait to be making bold choices and living lives in the many performing arts venues of NUS. I hope to stay involved in at least one theatre group for all four years in university (my wording is deliberate, I may or may not have plans to transfer to a BA or BFA program), and to get as many lines of credits onto my professional resume as I can.

My audition was Catherine's Act 1 Scene 2 monologue from Proof by David Auburn. While I was unsurprised to see its inclusion on the list of female monologues, it felt a little like deja vu as all of the character work which I had already done for this role just came back to me. I had memorized this monologue and the entire scene forward and backward, which made preparing for this audition a breeze considering how they technically did not leave us with much time to film a proper selftape. I threw in a bunch of newly conceived acting choices, and I'm particularly proud of the growl/voice crack that I threw into my final sentence. I did not hold back on any emotions this time, and hopefully that earns me a live audition with the Stage panel.

Other CCAs (co-curricular activities for the uninitiated) that I have some interest in includes NUS Climbing, where I hope to do a little bouldering and highwall. I'm also curious about what NUS Dive does, and open water diving sounds like such a cool and uncommon sport. For the time being and barring a clash of timing, I might stay on in the NUS Comedy Club too. It's a useful skill, but being in NUS Stage already and spending the other half of my time on TAPS, I'm unlikely to stay on for long as I need to have a life outside of acting as so many others have advised. If I'm given the chance to stay on campus next semester, I'll come back with updates.

And that should be it for this week! Thanks for accompanying me on this epic journey all this while. With school starting, I may post less often as you've probably already noticed from my disrupted schedule. I hope to come back with updates once in a while and as often as I can, but there may be entire chunks of time and white space between my posts. No matter what, I'll be back with all of my stories in and out of the theatre.