Friday, September 18, 2009

Life goes on.....but what's happening with Thom?



Alright guys....

Hope you're well....

Right, it's been a long time since my last blog, but that's because I either didn't have anything to write or I wanted to let it all pile up and write it in one post, I don't know, what do you think?

Right.....where to begin? Um...The summer just went, and I did quite a bit.

Firstly, I was job hunting and that failed, all the jobs were taken by BLADY students, it's not fair. So, I ended up painting my house for my parents, it took a while but it looks a lot better, and I got a fair bit of money for that. So, I can now put on my CV Decorating as i decorated my house.
Secondly, I went to my first funeral in the summer, it was very sad, I didn't know the person that well, but my mum did and my grandparents did and she was my godfathers mum, so I felt I had to be there to support my family.
Soon after that, I went to Centre Parks with my mum, big sis and lil bro, and had a quite a fun time, did my first ever paintball session, was immense, hurt though but still immense.

What else...I went up north with my family, stayed in a cottage Alnmouth, it was about two minutes from the beach so it was really nice. We travelled up to Edinburgh whilst staying at Alnmouth, got to see the Fringe festival again for the fifth year running, and it's still awesome, I love it up there. I saw some pretty good theatre. A company which people should see is Gecko, they did and show called The Overcoat and they were FRICKIN' AWESOME, I loved 'em. I also managed to see my friend's show Borges and I by Idlemotion. They were good, but......they were no Gecko, but they were still good. Idlemotion is a company people will soon hear about more and more.

I've also, now, moved into my new house in Canterbury, Kent. It's really nice, and in a good location, 5 minutes from town and 10 minutes from Uni, so it's pretty good. When I first moved in though, it had some really tacky wallpaper in the hallway, stairway and landing. That's a picture of my house and the wallpaper above, but luckily, Sean, my housemate managed to get it painted. It's now magnolia and it looks ten times better, it gets more light and it feels more homely. So, cheers Sean mate. A thing that bothered my about the house though, was being greeted by bills and also having to sort out the internet. It's sorted now obviously, but before, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had to get a line rental from BT and get broadband from O2 (O2 is cheaper if you are and O2 customer). It's sounds easy, but believe me, it wasn't. I spent a lot of time on the phone with BT and O2 trying to get it sorted and there was a lot of waiting. I had no internet for 2 weeks, I had to go to my mates house to use it. But everything's cool now, just need to pay the bills

OH! Nearly forgot, before the summer, I auditioned for Edward II by Christopher Marlowe and being directed by Kent Theatre Company. I got it! WAY! And have a few parts in the play. From the look of how the rehearsals are going it looks like it's gonna be pretty good. Pretty good indeed.

Anywho, that's about it so far, I think. If I remember anything else, I'll let you know.

Later

Sunday, May 17, 2009

University

Hello out there in the land of the web,

This is my first blog post, so sit back and enjoy a little about myself

I have now been going to university for 8 months, that's including the christmas holiday and easter holiday, and I am loving it here.....except for the essays, but no one likes writing essays....except for maybe english students.  I am at The University of Kent studying Drama and Film studies. I love the drama side of the course...but...the film, not so much. I mean, yes it's interesting but if you do joint honours here you only do half the course, so we end up doing just theory, which is boring. So, I applied to change course and as of next year I will be doing just Drama, Mdrama and theatre studies... the 'M' stands for masters, so at the end of the four year course I should have a Masters, from then on I'll shall be known as 'MASTER SHORT!' ... I like the ring of that.

Ok, back to my life thus far. Im in a really cool house in the Parkwood area of the university, it's like a little village, nice and peaceful. I have 5 cool housemates, all really nice and I have really cool neighbors as well. The campus is really pleasant and serene, with lots of places to go and really cool social places, like Mungos, Woodys, KBar, Origins and many others. Canterbury is also really nice; a beautiful place with a old, historic Cathedral, which I have yet to go into, but I will soon. The city has many, many pubs in, however, in terms of clubbing, not that much. I mean yeah, it's got a few, but I suppose it could do with a few more, Im sure there are other social areas that I have yet to find, but I've got another three years to find them. Anywho, there is one really nice place here which I really like, and that is the view of the City from the top of the hill near Keynes bus stop. It's simply amazing, I'll post a picture one day, I haven't got one now, but I'll get one soon.

There's loads more to say, but I want to wrap it up, so I'll tell you about one more thing. I was in a really cool play last term, House of Illusion written and directed by Kate Lennon and Heather Ward, influenced by Punchdrunk Theatre Company and the plays The Balcony and Night at the Circus. The play was of a promenade style. Those of you who are unaware of what promenade style is, it is basically where there is no set stage or seating area, the entire building or area is the stage, and the audience walk around the area and see what they want to see whilst the action is being acted out around them. It is really cool style, I love it! The only drawback is that there is no backstage so the actors are constantly acting without anywhere to stop and take a breather. But nonetheless, I loved it! And I wish I could do theatre like that all the time. The character I played was Mr Sugar, in Nights at the Circus he is only a small role, however, in this play, each part is a main role because as I said, we're constantly "onstage". Even if there isn't a scene to act in, we were still acting and improvising in our areas. It is hard to explain what the main plot of the play was as each character had their own story to perform. My character was a client at the Brothel who paid for sex and raped a prostitute when he got angry. He also had a fetish for wings and was mesmerized by Fevvers' wings (Fevvers was another character within the play who was the star attraction due to having real wings on her back). The play does not end nicely as my character, Mr Sugar wins by killing Fevvers in order to get the wings. So....yeah....sorry.

Anywho, that's about it, I'll try and post regular blogs, later
T