Paint and sweat, a good combination if you ask me.
I stayed after for four and a half hours in set design yesterday. I still ache, yes, but it's rewarding and there is always a price to pay. I finished the rest of the backdrop. Oh my gosh, it's a good thing I am not afraid of heights. (I'm a little backward, I love heights) I have no balance what so ever, so I had to be careful, especially when I stood on a chair on the extremely unstable balcony of one of the set pieces. I could only think 'am I skateboarding or painting?' I was up there about twenty-thirty feet or more off the ground. I got used to the wobbling of the set piece after a while. I'm going to get myself into trouble one of these days, always assuming I'm invincible. It was a lot worse when I was standing on the lower gate. It kept on shifting beneath me and in the morning, I almost fell twice. Not the best thing to do early in the morning. I felt seasick. I held on to the side of the backdrop to at least give myself the illusion that I wasn't going to fall.
Nine more days until opening night. Nine more, and there is still so much to be done. Every year everyone makes it happen, every year there is a miracle, so we're all hoping and praying that we'll get that prescribed miracle. And a big one at that.
So, no pressure, I'm practically the head painter in my class. Eesh. I don't know if I can keep that title but okay...
I'm sore because my manly ego kicked in when set pieces had to be moved. I knew it would kill my back, but I just get tired of asking for help. Eventually I did, after moving several pieces, for fear of my vertebrae exploding. After what went on in dance, I just couldn't stand it anymore. There were so many routines and stretches and exercises I had to pass up because 'it would be bad for my back'. Blah. I hate just sitting there, fidgeting. I want to get something out of the class, even if I have no grace.
I usually swallow my pride and ask for help (or at least as of lately), but after all that, but I hit that limit. Nuh uh. I really hate not being able to do what I could do so easily before. That's why I hate asking for help, because I know that I can. I would prefer to do it myself. I'd rather not need anyone to help me and not I'm not only talking about lifting. I guess this is what life is trying to teach me right now- how to rely on others. I hate having to rely on someone else instead of my own means as I would have. It makes me feel so helpless at times...
My third week in set design, I joked that we needed workman's comp for the class. I'm not joking anymore, we need it. We use all the heavy duty equipment, drills, jigsaws, you name it. And you don't really have to know how to operate them, in order to use them. We have no safety gear. Ferrin will just tell you what to do. Someone is bound to lose a finger or an arm. Anna twisted her ankle after the stage broke beneath her. So not only can you fall from way way way up there, you can also fall from the main level. Comforting isn’t it? If you survive all that, then you deal with everyone else's wrath, including the teacher's. And then teeth will be ripped out and limbs will fly. It's funny to watch all the squabbling in the mornings. We got a lot of attitude in there, it makes things interesting.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed until opening night. Hopefully it will pull through.
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It's times like these that I revel in the irony of "Drama" both on the stage and in real life, they are essentially the same. Even more so, those who are acting seem to have more of it off the stage than us regular folks. Funny stuff.
But mainly I think you need to hear something that I made it a point to learn early on: Asking for help isn't a weakness, it's one of the strongest things you could ever do.
Think about it. Ponder it. Adopt it. All I have to do is think of all of the prideful people that I know that take it to extremes of never asking anyone for any sort of help. They constantly berate themselves for the tiniest failures, and can end up seriously hurting themselves trying to do things that they can't do, or can't do then. I have one name that will likely always be at the top of that list. But there isn't really any shame in asking for help. If the freakin' thing weighs a ton, and you're trying to lift it by yourself, what's going to happen? Not anything productive for anyone but your doctors pay. I will push myself to the edge of my limits constantly, but this also helps me to realize what they are. I know what my limits are, and I know where I set them. It makes it easier. Obviously I can't be in two (or many more) places at once, so I often rely on people for things as trivial as handing me something that was four feet away... Sure, I could do it, but there are other things to consider.
For you, you best consider your health and your potentially volatile vertebrae (you should have a chemist and your doctor look into that, someone might want to know about your exploding vertebrae).
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