Possibilities and Off to El Paso

Guess what I'm doing the rest of today, and for most of the day tomorrow?

Absolutely nothing!!

It feels incredibly weird to have nothing to do right now, after weeks of always doing something or taking breaks to be a bum but feeling vaguely guilty for doing so because all the stuff I needed to be working on was still at the back of my mind.
Today, though, there's literally nothing I need to be doing. Everything is temporarily under control in the box office (and the department secretary is out of town this week and since she's really the person I work with most directly, there's no one around to actually pay attention to whether or not I'm doing my job anyway). Shockingly, everything is temporarily under control with my thesis project as well. I turned in my official proposal last week and it's being reviewed right now. I should hear back on it by the end of the week but I have no reason to believe it won't be approved. As for actually working on the show, I'm feeling good about everything. I wrote the press release over the weekend and helped the director with the program notes, which are two of my most important, these-two-items-are-absolute-necessities jobs. I have a whole bunch of ideas for my lobby display, and while I do need to start putting that together, there's no reason it can't wait until after my trip to El Paso. And this morning I gave my lecture in the Dramatic Theory class. I thought it went...okay. It wasn't fabulous, mainly because I was still prepping my lecture right up until 9:00 this morning, so there wasn't really time to practice the lecture and I just sort of went in and winged it. All things considered, though, it was good. The class actually answered questions and participated in discussion, I felt at-ease for the most part, and I got quite a few laughs. Considering the fact that I don't actually think I'm a very funny person, it's amazing how much stock I place in the ability to make my students laugh. Maybe it's because my favorite professors were always the ones that could make me laugh. My second-favorite professors have always been the ones that made me feel like an equal and kept a conversational style in their lectures, and thankfully I think that's one of my strengths (and also one of the reasons I'm better suited to teaching college than high school, I'll admit--high school teaching doesn't always lend itself very well to seminar-style teaching, although I really wish it did). So anyway, the lecture went well, and the important thing is IT'S OVER! That means the whole stupid TA class is over. Now that Mandi's show is over, too, I just have my thesis and my Thursday night class to focus on, so that's good.

The other really productive thing I've done is narrow down the doctoral program search. I've decided to fill out applications for five or six schools. None of them are in Texas. I don't know why I keep getting hung up on that because while I do enjoy Texas I never intended to spend my entire life living here anyway. Plus it's not like I didn't already leave home in a very big way and have some sense of culture shock when I moved from El Paso to east/central Texas in the first place. That's certainly equivalent to an out-of-state move. A full day's drive from home is definitely out-of-state in most parts of the country. But yeah. If any of these options work out, I won't be a Texas resident by this time next year. It's a weird thought. Of course, this is assuming any of these options end up working out in my favor, and that's a pretty big assumption.
So what have I narrowed it down to? Well, there are the major, major long shots. One of them is an Ivy League school with an extremely prestigious and competitive theatre department (and it's not Harvard, so hmmm, what could I possibly be talking about?). When I say "long shot", that's pretty much the understatement of the year. I just got a pep talk from a friend about how I shouldn't be negative about my chances but as far as this particular school is concerned, I'm not being negative, I'm just being realistic. This is maybe for the best, though, as I think my grandfather would have a heart attack if I did get accepted at this particular school. He keeps forgetting that his beloved Princeton doesn't have much of a theatre option. Anyway, the same thing goes for long shot number two, an almost-equally-prestigious school in northern California. It'd be nice, but I'm not gonna hold my breath. Plus I don't know how I'd afford it.
I think I'm heading into this application process with a decent resume. My grades couldn't be better (3.9 as an undergrad and a perfect 4.0 in my current program that I don't plan to lose between now and January). Although I think I could get a better GRE score if I took it again today, the GRE score I earned my senior year of college is acceptable and meets the minimum required for all of the programs I've researched. (I have a verbal score that I think is pretty impressive and a math score that I think is average at best, but since when do theatre people do intensive math?) I haven't done much (read: any) professional theatre work, but I've done a lot of college theatre work both at TCU and here. And my work is varied. I have experience directing and ADing, stage managing, and I think I'll have more dramaturgy work on my resume than most people. I've even done some acting. I've done two study abroad programs, one of which has given me the opportunity to name-drop some pretty high caliber names on my resume. I'll have presented a paper at a national conference (a small one, but national nonetheless). I have a minor in secondary education and have teaching experience, which should be a big plus. And my work has a lot of variety. The fact that I've dramaturged both The Rover and The Rocky Horror Show should be kind of intriguing, I think.
So yeah, I am going into this with some good things. I'm also going into this with some pretty notable deficits. The lack of "real world" experience is a big one. The fact that I'm only (almost) 24 is another. And there's the whole foreign language thing. I think I can honestly say that I have a "working knowledge" of Spanish, but I'm not sure what exactly "working knowledge" means. Plus Spanish isn't really the language of choice for theatre studies. French or German would have been the smart choices, but I picked Spanish when I was 12 years old and hey, it seemed like a good decision at the time.
So yes, I'm going to apply to the longshot schools. I mean, why not? The fact that my advisors don't think it would be a total waste of time to fill out the applications makes me proud. And I feel like I owe it to them to at least try. The worst case scenario is that I'm out the super-expensive application fee and they tell me, "Sorry, not this year." But if I don't try I'll never know and yeah, I'll probably always wonder. Plus I'd rather apply to as many schools as possible in one go. Once you've filled out one application you've pretty much filled out them all, so it would be stupid not to give myself as many chances as possible, even the not-really-a-chance chances.

So now you probably want to know where I think I do have a chance. Well, to be perfectly honest I'm scared that right now I don't have a chance anywhere and I'm going to have to get more experience somewhere and try again in a few years. And that's not the end of the world, I know. But there are four other schools I will be applying to this winter that might actually consider my application. I don't want to get too detailed because...I don't really know. I just don't. On the off-chance that I do get into one of these schools and move in the next year, I'd like to be able to retain some degree of online anonymity. Paranoid much? But yeah. Anyway. One is in Ohio (not the college I'll be speaking at next month, but maybe I'll at least be able to get a small feel for that part of the country), one is in Minnesota, one is in Maryland, and the other is another California school, this one in southern California (waaaay southern California).

So there are my options. I may still add one or two more, depending on if I turn up anything else interesting and to up my odds. But for now it seems as though before the end of next year, if I get lucky, I'll be in California, New England, Maryland, Ohio, or Minnesota. Talk about variety. Of course, I probably won't actually have to choose. I'll be lucky to just get one of those options, ya know? Still, I suppose I could be happy in any of those places. I can't really envision myself living in any of those places, but I can't envision myself staying here, either. I like the Austin area, I like it more than any other place I've ever lived, but there's just not much else I can do here for now. The truth is, I can't think much further than January. But I'll see what happens.

Or, you know, I'll still be here in Texas, bartending and wondering what the heck I'm going to do with my life.

The possibilities are endless!!

Oh, by the way, I'm off to El Paso tomorrow for Drunken Craziness With Everyone I've Ever Known in El Paso, Including Old High School Teachers and Probably the Mailman. This event is also known as My Parents' Huge Birthday Bash. My parents both turn 50 this month (Dad already had his birthday and Mom's is at the end of the month) so tomorrow they're shutting down my dad's bar for the night and throwing themselves a big party. I think it's going to be ridiculous. People are flying in from out of town, and I think my parents invited every single person they've ever met in El Paso. It's going to be open bar all night long. I'm pretty sure there's going to be a live band, and probably karaoke (my mom and her girlfriends love to get everyone drunk and make them do karaoke; the last time I went to karaoke with my mom I got so drunk I kissed my mom's best friend's son whom I've known since I was six weeks old,and while it was totally his idea and our mothers were thrilled, I'm not planning a repeat performance). My dad has rented a limo for the sole purpose of chauffering drunk people home. Oh, and for picking my siblings and I up at the airport tomorrow evening since we don't get home until 5:30 and my parents will apparently be too busy primping by that point to pick us up at the airport. The El Paso airport is not the sort of airport where people generally get picked up by limo services, so we get to be those pretentious assholes. Grand. Still, I'm excited. At the very least I'm bound to get a good story or two out of the evening, if I can remember much of it. Because hey, it's open bar and there's a limo to drive me home, you'd better believe I'm going to drink a stupid amount of alcohol! You should probably call me tomorrow night, I bet I'll be amusing.
And then on Friday we're seeing Dave Matthews Band and THE ROLLING STONES. Eeeeee! So exciting!!!
And one of the best parts is that when I told one of my professors today that I was going out of town, instead of being concerned she just said, "It's probably a very good idea for you to take a few days off right now. You know, step back and assess everything from a distance so you don't get overwhelmed." And the department chair said, "Have fun! Don't worry about anything, we've got it under control!" So not only do I get to skip class and work for the rest of the week, I'm doing it with the blessing of the department. Sweet.

Anyway, I'm off to waste the rest of the afternoon. A friend suggested eating cookies and masturbating, but I think I'm leaning towards more Grey's Anatomy and a nap. At least for now...Ha.