Massive Update
-or-
Why I’ve Been Speaking In Movie Selections

First there was The Play. My cast was great—especially the leads; they even electrified me and I’ve read/seen the play a million times. StOlafBoy came to visit, and the Aged Ps used their spring break to fly out for the week and spend whatever time with me they could. We went to the movies and saw The Ghost Writer (welcome back, Ewan McGregor crush), and we went to Five Guys for lunch, so all was right with the world. StOlafBoy showed up on the day of the show and so he joined my parents while I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off before curtain. Aside from a couple line flubs, it went well. Having an audience made me realize what I need to do when I go back for the next round of revisions (this summer—more on that later), and reinforced the knowledge I have had for a while but somehow still kept resisting of who the real main character is. That was good to know. I also decided to stop trying to stretch this into a full-length show and be content with it as a one-act. Figuring that up has really freed me to go back and play with the beginning, which is slow, and the ending, which is abrupt, without messing with the middle, which is solid gold.

So that was all great.

The rest of StOlafBoy’s visit was low-key but fun. I had a lot of work to do, as did he, so I showed him the sights, including an abbreviated ice cream crawl, one day and the next day we met up with HSClassmate for drinks at Triumph Brewing Company and reveled in our classiness. It’s always fun to introduce high school friends to Princeton friends and see what happens. In this case, as in all the other instances so far, it was a success.

And then the show I did dramaturgical work for opened. In the last few weeks I got to go to rehearsals in Manhattan and work with the stage manager and literary associate of the company doing research, and also running less glamorous errands to Staples. Then the cast moved into tech at Princeton and my life got swamped. Still, it was great sitting in rehearsals, sending in notes, and in general feeling useful and efficient. It reminded me of Florida, where the reward for good work was more work, but this work was less manual labor and more split-second Googling. My classmates and I got to be in the talk-back at the end of the second show, and I even got a few laughs. So that was good.

Then there was prison. Every Monday morning I’ve been going to a men’s prison to help out a teacher in one of their preexisting classes. I answer questions, provide another pair of eyes, and in general make sure my teacher, Ms. T, doesn’t get swamped. Right off the bat we were told that friendliness could be interpreted as weakness and that “undue familiarity” was a huge no-no. Now, I had no problem with the second half, but my main means of putting people at ease is to adopt a, let’s face it, kind of flirtatious tone. That was obviously NOT going to happen in prison, and so as a result, even though I successfully tutored for weeks on end, it wasn’t until the last class of the semester that I feel I truly found my voice there. Which was a shame for this semester, but bodes well for next year if I can remember what I was doing right. For one, I allowed myself to laugh. That’s important.

Also prison-related was the dinner the Princeton group (founded by alums) that organizes these volunteer trips threw for us in the swanky faculty dining house. One of the alums there talked about he was inspired to set up this program in part because his father had taught Leopold and Loeb at the University of Chicago, had remained in contact with Leopold during and after his prison sentence, and had always believed that no matter how horrible a crime a person may have committed, they should always be given the chance to do better. That really moved me, as did the seniors who spoke. Some of them had been involved with the program for years, and some had just started this semester as I had. There was also an administrator present from the other of the two prisons we send people to (I go to the slightly less intense one) and he was very thankful, but mindful that there were still ways we could improve on the program, on both ends. So it was a great, thought-provoking meal. I still have more musings to do on my experience tutoring in a prison, but that’s for another entry.


Throughout all this: Junior Independent Work. I was writing about John Banville, John Le Carré, Alan Bennett, Julian Mitchell and their writings about Cambridge Spy-like characters, so that was great and addictive. I would have liked to have worked just on my JP for weeks on end, but that’s what senior year and the thesis is for. My adviser was great (albeit difficult to get in touch with—when you get an appointment with him you camp out outside his office well in advance of the meeting time), a rock star in his field, and, most importantly, a really nice guy. When I wound up my JP (yesterday!) I felt like I still had a lot to say on the topic, so I’ll definitely be extending this into my senior thesis and sticking with the same adviser. So things are falling into place.

Things not falling into place: not getting into the Program in Creative Writing. I’m still thinking my way through this, but I’m cool with it. Like I said, I’m excited to Cambridge Spies it up next year. I have a bit more to say about this, but I’ve already been away from this paper longer than I should be. Until then: May the Fourth be with you (har har).