What the devil is going on here?!

So I want to audition for Mountview Academy’s musical theatre program next year. It’s a pretty prestigious performing arts college (well, academy) in England. Anyway I was stressing because I want to also audition for some schools here but in the Southern Hemisphere our school year is Feb - Nov and in the Northern Hemisphere it’s Sept - June. So naturally I was worried I wouldn’t hear back about Mountview before I’d have to decide on attending an Australian school (assuming I get accepted). On top of that I was also freaking out because I couldn’t find any info really on how to audition from another country. But I sent them an email and I heard back today and it couldn’t be better. They outlined everything I have to put on a DVD for them and the best part is I can send it in from October onwards and they will let me know in about four weeks which is actually even a bit earlier than Australian auditions. Everything just fell perfectly into place. I’m so excited about the prospect of studying next year - no matter where I end up.

Do you know what I hate? I hate that at 21 I feel like there’s pressure to make headway in my chosen career; like I’m running out of time. I hate that this pressure, in part, comes from me. I hate that it makes me scared to commit to anything long-term, even something as short as four months. I hate that the idea of studying a degree I’d complete at age 25 gives me reservations. But most of all I hate that I wasted all those years blinded to a passion and talent that was right in front of me when I could have already finished that degree by now.

Honestly, sometimes I can be so angry at myself for giving in to people telling me that performing isn’t a viable career. I’m almost always very jealous if I hear of a kid who leaves school knowing that they want to go into the performing arts professionally and starts on that path straight away. And then I hate that I already have regrets at age 21.

Guys! Just got back from my West Side Story callback and I NAILED Maria (oh god that sounds wrong THE SONG MARIA)! Seriously I think they’re going to offer me the part of Tony! Apparently I made some people cry! I was told by a classically trained singer that I was fantastic (I want her to be Maria)!

I don’t know how to explain it really but sometimes it’s like it learns my goals and just naturally starts changing to accomplish them. It’s happened with basically every aspect of my voice at some stage where I’ve thought “I wish I could do this”. I make my definite plans to improve that thing and then soon enough I start improving. I suppose it sort of makes sense that concentrating on one area and being aware of how my voice works could yield these results. But it’s just freaky sometimes.

Recently I’ve made definite plans to increase my vocal range - though note I’ve not done much in the way of actually acting on those plans. I’ve wanted to push my range up to be both a baritone and a tenor for quite a long time and now I really decided to invest in that. What’s more, I’ve got a callback on Sunday for a yet-to-be determined role in West Side Story. I have to learn Maria for it and I never went for Tony in the first place because he is tenor. Much to my surprise tonight I could clearly hit the top note in that song which I wasn’t hitting even a few days ago. Last week I was singing “Broadway Here I Come” from Smash in the car and without thinking hit Jeremy Jordan’s top note in that - it was a bit shaky but I know for a fact I wasn’t hitting it when that song came out a couple of months ago.

Basically I’m really excited because this is a singing dream coming true. Most lead roles for men in musical theatre are tenor parts so this is really important for my career too. I still have plenty of work to do but I’m really happy about it all and wanted to share.

Fuuuuu my parents do this thing sometimes when they come home where they basically surround me at my computer and like mess my hair or play with my ears and ask me all these questions and try to see what I’m doing.

And it’s nice that they love me and want to say hi and all that stuff.

But it is so fucking annoying that I want to scream.

And then I just shut down and don’t give more than one word answers until they leave.

Because honestly it’s just way too much all at once for someone who doesn’t like being interrupted and my natural response is “NOPE”.

And then I feel guilty because they’re just coming to say hi.

Just in case you wanted to see and stuff…

The last couple of days I have been finding myself a little disturbed by how my days disappear on Tumblr and how I can find myself quite glued to my dash even while consciously thinking I want to leave and do something. It’s an addiction. On top of that it’s been school holidays and my job right now only operates during school. Even though I’m back directing tomorrow I’m not content with this to continue. I have lists of things I want to do and frankly I no longer even know what life is like without many hours spent daily on Tumblr. I feel like I’m in a do-or-die phase of my life where it’s imperative I take action toward my goals lest I fall into my worst nightmare: apathy and complacency.

I couldn’t leave you though, or delete this blog. I shudder at the thought. You guys are all important to me and this blog is important to me for many reasons. But I have just finished Battlestar Galactica (it’s amazing) and thus free’d myself of a backlog of seasons; school starts back this week; I think starting this today I need to make a change. I will still most likely be on every day for the moment but I will be cutting back my time spent. Some of you may not even notice a difference. Basically on your end it will just less posts per day. Honestly I hope the change is a permanent one but I will still try to be as quality as I can. Just know that I won’t disappear - without this blog I’d have no where to write life announcements like this and feel like someone cares. So that’s the thing I wanted to say.

My iPhone just gave me my first ever singing lesson. I think it went quite well really.

I think this is going to be beneficial. It’s exciting! I did a connectedness exercise to try and blend all my ranges together. Before I started I was trying to sing the bridge of Lost in the Wilderness in a pretty high key for me and then afterwards it felt much easier to get up to those notes.

So up until recently I thought that my family was like 7 generations Australian or something like that. It’s actually not like a super common thing because Australia has a diverse ethnic pool and there have been many influxes of Europeans. But that’s irrelevant. Turns out my grandfather was actually born in England and moved to Australia at a young age. This means I could quite possibly qualify for an ancestry visa for England! It’s a system by which people with English ancestry can immigrate to the UK.

So, the really exciting part is that I’m going to be seriously looking at musical theatre schools over there despite having already been offered a scholarship to the New York Film Academy (I need to remember to qualify that as a PARTIAL scholarship because it’s the cost that is killing me). Studying in England and trying to break into the industry there is a much smarter idea for me and a huge advantage would be being able to work there during and immediately after school. Not to mention there’s a lot of to-and-fro between West End and Broadway and Hollywood and Pinewood.

So yes! I’m very excited about these new possibilities and we’ll see where it all goes!

As a boy I always wished I could be a bird so I could fly. Usually when life was difficult. “Wouldn’t it be marvellous,” I would think, “to just fly away like a bird?” Life is so easy for birds. They just sing songs and eat. I was conscious of the risk of being eaten though. All they have to do with their time is find food, find mates, not get eaten, lay eggs, sing songs, and then die. Of course they have to find food or they’ll die. They have to find mates and lay eggs too because they feel compelled to continue their species. They’re always searching for things, never satisfied. They’re driven by instinct; choice is really non-existent. They probably don’t even know why they’re being eaten. They don’t know a lot of things. There’s no learning, no appreciation, no questions and no answers, and no reason to do anything at all but it doesn’t even matter because instinct doesn’t require that. Do they even know what a bad day is or is it just another day regardless of whether they found that food or a mate or didn’t get eaten?

How dreadful.

No I didn’t want to be a bird anymore. A human storm of chaos and bliss and every shade in between was far more appealing. Being able to choose to live and know why I did and fight for a dream. I never did realise how similar to birds people can be. But I was afraid of becoming a bird ever since.

I always did want to fly though…

Team Starkid - Everything Ends

Everything Ends // A Very Potter Senior Year

This song just shuffled onto my iPod and hit me like a tonne of bricks. One of my closest friends in the whole world is moving far away. So far that I can’t see her if I really want to. And she can’t help me decorate for our parties that I can’t even invite her to now. And she can’t go see a movie with me when no one else will. Or convince me to buy two packets of chips for us so she can take one home when we don’t eat it. Or give me an excuse to get Thai food or go to a club purely for the dancing or talk about something completely out of her depth while I pretend not to notice she’s talking out of her ass. And it sucks. Everything ends and life keeps moving on and this is scary and it makes me scream “where am I?!” to no one.

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Just having a personal rant nothing to see here.

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This is how cool my parents were.

In the first photo, left to right, my big brother, me, and my big sister. I believe we had just put on a Spice Girls performance in the living room. I was Ginger Spice as she was my favourite.

In the second photo, me then my two brothers. I’m not sure what’s going on here actually - maybe just a game of dress-ups.

We had a box of dress-ups at our house that contained boy clothes and girl clothes and bits of fabric and hats and whatever else. As children there was no connotation surrounding dressing up as a girl. It was just another character to dress up as; just as out of the ordinary as being a pirate or a spy for young boys. Looking back at my childhood I am so proud of my parents - who are and were Christians - that they never pressured us to like things based on our genders nor did they deny us things purely because it was made for a girl. Mum once bought me a mermaid Barbie for my birthday (I really liked how the tail changed colour in the different temperatures of water and also she was a mermaid I mean hello). I could play with cars and polly pockets, Lego and dolls. I constructed my own interests. I really just thank them for that.

I think affection is something really important to me - more specifically ensuring I am communicating my affection - but I’m also quite bad at it. Touch and words are how I express my affection but I’m just not good at those things in practice.

Touch is one of my primary love languages but I feel too inhibited. However, when I put myself in hypothetical relationship conflict - i.e. if I were in a character’s shoes - I definitely want to aid communication through touch. Reach out and hold someone’s hand to show I want to be around them or hold someone to show support or curl up next to someone or hold their face in my hands. It’s just instinctual. But in practice I’m not confident in being so demonstrative and I guess I just always assumed when it comes to being in a real relationship it wouldn’t be an issue, I would feel comfortable enough to let go, but I won’t really know that until it happens.

On paper I’m great with words. Unspoken words are fine. But I’m shit at laying out my feelings with speech. I guess I don’t have to feel as bad about that because there are so many emotionally constipated people in the world that by comparison I’m probably above average. However, it’s something I really want to improve on. I have long espoused that good communication is of singular importance in a relationship. I find it hard to open up to the people closest to me most of all - but that’s definitely a shared blame. In fact, in this case I’d say that it is other issues that have caused me to withhold myself from those closest to me and result in this inability to speak my mind, because I’ve found I’m much more open with newer friends I’ve made. I also don’t like to upset people so holding my tongue is a reflex - unless I can write my thoughts. I guess I want to be as bold in person as I can be in writing.

Anyway, that’s enough vague stream-of-conciousness pondering on my own issues for one night/5AM.