Weekending

The weekend went by so quickly but that is the case for just about every one of them... Linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday.

Saturday, Donnie and I worked on our taxes. This is normally something that I do on my own and I generally do it in a few segments. But, due to my procrastination and Donnie's participation in the process, we got it done in one pretty big chunk of time. Our taxes aren't complex but they aren't simple either and it's a taxing (pardon the pun) activity which is why I almost always procrastinate (though this was the longest I had ever waited to start them) doing them. Doing almost anything sounds better than working on taxes. It was a huge relief to get them done. 

Sunday was church followed by a couple of errands followed by Abby's play at college.

By, "Abby's play" I mean, Abby's play. She was in a short play that consisted of a monologue. Hers. Ergo, Abby's play. There were two other acts but neither of those were monologues. These acts were all directed and performed by students. This was not an official Miami University production to be performed at the performing arts center. Rather, it was done completely by students and performed by students. No monies were used to advertise for it and it wasn't listed in the calendar of events on Miami's calendar. So even though in most regards, it wasn't a big deal, well, I kind of think it was a big deal. Abby memorized six full pages of lines. She would be the only one speaking so in order for it to not be a five minute performance meant that she had a lot to memorize.

She worked really hard on memorizing her lines along with doing all of her school work. She studied her lines during her spring break so that timing worked out well. By the week of the play, she had all her lines  memorized. She told us that not many people would be at the play and she didn't think parents would be at the play since it was at a small venue, it wasn't advertised, etc. She basically told us to not come but then late on the Saturday before the play, she told us that one of us could come. I got to be the lucky one :). So, late Sunday afternoon, I headed over to her college- one of the main benefits of her not going to a school far from home is that we can bop over there pretty quickly and easily. I gave her a few things she had requested from home and from the store, set up my iPhone on a tripod to video her, and settled in to watch the show.

She did a wonderful job though she did make one mistake. She recovered really well- her monologue was a comedy and she added impromptu comedic flair to add levity to the mistake. She was upset with her mistake but she kept going and didn't miss a beat. I was so proud of her!! 

This girl...

Earlier in the day on Sunday, I was a busy bee deleting pictures off of my iPhone to free up space to video record her play. Sifting through almost 25,000 pictures was time consuming but not an altogether unpleasant task. (Note to self, delete blurry pictures right away. Why keep them until I need to delete them to free up storage?) I came across a picture I took of a page from my Kindle when I was reading the book, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles with the following quote underlined, "For what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim."

This quote reminded me of Abby's endeavor with this play. She knew that not many people would be in attendance. The play would garner her very little, if any, acclaim and she knew that going into it. Yet, she did it. She auditioned for the role, she was given a good role, and she spent hours memorizing pages and pages of script all while knowing there was very little in it for her except the challenges and joys that performance art entails. 

 

Abby and Julia, her director

I am woman! Hear me direct and perform a monologue!!

I brought my Nikon with a good zoom lens but I didn't get great pictures with that. I had intended to research the best settings for (what I assumed would be) the room's lighting but I never got around to that and so I didn't get great shots. These are just still shots from the video that I took.

Abby and Julia after the show

Abby is hoping to do a non monologue play next. I can't wait to see her on stage again!!