Back in the Saddle Again

I arrived back in Birmingham Sunday and, needless to say, am still ridiculously jet-lagged. Last night in my three hour stage combat class I almost fell asleep three times. Thank goodness we spent the first half holding rapiers and daggers and the last hour punching each other in the stomach and kneeing each other in the groin. This morning is proving to be even harder. Song class is usually a great hour of my life, but today all I wanted to do was sleep. I'm currently sitting in the library on campus and seriously debating if anyone would notice if I took a quick kip behind one of the stacks. It's a college, they wouldn't mind, right?

The flight here was uneventful. As I get older, I'm finding my love of flying ebbing sigificantly. I will always fly, I will always travel. But more and more I have painful anxiety when we take off, I have awful flashes of panic when we fly (How are we 30,000 miles over the ocean right now? How are we not dropping into the deep?), and I am always eternally grateful when we land safely. I'm not certain where the next few years will lead me, but I am thankful I don't have to do any 10 hour flights for at least 7 months.

I am so happy to be back at school, but I am hate being so far away from the people I love. I miss my family so much. Don't be fooled, it was so much easier to leave LA when I wasn't seeing anyone. I didn't mind the weeks away because I was excited for a change and ready to live a different life. I also knew I was coming home in 10 weeks and I know I can survive almost anything for 10 weeks. This time I left and the man I love is still in CA. Long distance relationships SUCK! I want nothing more to see him every day and I am not going back to LA for at least 9 months. That is a LONG time! (I can have a baby in that time! Instead, I will get my masters. :)

A rambling blog of some rambling thoughts from a jet-lagged woman running on too much coffee and not enough veggies. Reminds me that I need to go grocery shopping tonight! I promise, the next blog will have life changing thoughts and probably a few interesting stories about what I totally forgot I love and loath about this city.

Until next time........have a GREAT day out there!

My 2012 Resolutions and Goals

I love New Years Resolutions and I love setting goals for the year. I believe they are two different things that need to be laid out as such and then attacked as such.

Resolutions are things you promise yourself you're going to do: change eating, give up something, stop swearing.......things like that. They are daily or weekly changes you intend to make for the entire year. And they are only for a year. My best friend gave up soda for 2011. You best believe on 1 Jan 2012 he has a Coke. Resolutions are simple changes that last one year, initially, and then you move on. It's like a challenge.

Goals are things you set out for yourself that are long term, may take the entire year and are meant to improve your life in the long run. They are what you would like to see happen this year. You take steps every day to achieve these goals, but it isn't a challenge to yourself to change your life for a year. Unless that is your goal!

I always have a few resolutions and then a TON of goals. The goals are sometimes lofty, sometimes totally attainable. And sometimes they are on the list specifically because I know I will attain then and I can check them off. I set really big goals because I believe life can be really big!

Goals are fluid because life is fluid. Resolutions are constant.

Amie's 2012 Resolutions
- Run a mile a day (allowing myself to make up the miles missed weekly)
- No soda or fast food
- give up chocolate for Lent
- Write two blogs every week
- Keep a daily log of my activities (not emotions), a la Samuel Pepys

Amie's 2012 Goals
- Get my Masters degree
- Graduate with distinction
- run Paris in under 5:30
- book two professional shows in the UK
- sign with a bi-coastal (ideally international) agent at the NY showcase in October
- get weight down to at least 150 by end of third term (29 June) and maintain for rest of year
- get completely out of credit card debt
- work 20+ hours while at school
- understand and initiate portion control with my food
- travel to a new country once a month for the weekend
- maintain a positive relationship with the man I love and keep us moving forward
- work out 5 times a week
- run Asia marathon
- skype with my family weekly to maintain relationships
- watch the 2012 Olympics live in London
- don't get further into debt

I know people don't make resolutions because they believe they can change their life any time during the year. I believe that too. You can change your life every day if you want to. But how much fun to have a challenge, a tangible thing to say you did for the entire year! Go do it!

What are your goals this year and how can I help you attain them?

Happy New Year!!!

Always a New Christmas Tradition

The last day of school, my friend Katie at BSA asked us all what our Christmas traditions were. She's 24 and this was the first time she had been away from home so close to the holidays. I mentioned a few things that my family did when I was growing up, but it was hard to find something in the past few years that I did every year. I was almost bothered by it until I realized that my tradition is to find new traditions.

This year I am home for Christmas. This hasn't happened in five years. I am usually out caroling and drive home the day afte Christmas for a few days of celebration. I miss my caroling traditions (the gigs we always do, the pizza party we have, the dinners and the Knott's Christmas) and I miss my friends. I miss the man that I love terribly and I miss spending the holidays with him. We have our own traditions and the season is a little off because I don't have him around me every day. But the gift of time with my family helps to make up for all of that. And I am comforted knowing that this is the last year I sleep without him on Christmas Eve.

Because I am home for the first time in years, and my mother is living in a new house, this is a new year of traditions for my family too. There is no longer a "but we always" for anything. The holiday season is our oyster. We always make fudge, we always, make cookies, we always wear silly sweatshirts, we always wrap the night before Christmas, we always eat too much, we always ask mom if what we're wearing to Christmas dinner is okay.....those are all there. But this year we continue to embrace the new and the changes and the surprises.

Next year, as I blend my family with my bf's kids and their traditions, I know my holiday season will change again. I'm okay with that. We will shift celebration days, share meals with new family members and learn how to juggle time with all the different sides of the family. We might even have everyone over to London and spend the season there!

There might not be any more "but we always" but there will forever be lots of "sure, why nots".

Happy Christmas!!

Happy 33rd Birthday Miss Bjorklund

Happy Birthday to me!!

Let me start by saying I LOVE that this is the date I turn 33  --->  11/22/11. Cool, right?!!?

I spend an inordinate amount of time examining my life, examining my motivation. I work hard to become a better member of society, a better member of my family and a better friend and partner. There isn't much I do that I don't analyze and try to do better next time. All this while fully living in the moment and loving the life I am building for myself. This amount of self reflection and betterment, while totally worthwhile, is exhausting. So today, for my birthday, I'm going to reflect on the joy that was my day and worry about what to make of it later.

I was really sad last night. I literally cried myself to sleep thinking of how sad I was. Around me sat the wrappers of the feelings I tried to eat- a strawberry trifle, a bag of crisps, a can of Devon cream- and yet it wasn't fixing the problem. I was homesick, no two ways about it, and I was spending my birthday alone. Or so I thought.

This morning I woke up and was met with "Happy Birthday" texts. On the way to school Jack and Olivia (from the MA Voice course) sang Happy Birthday to me as we walked to the bus stop. Throughout the day I had to keep reminding myself it was my birthday, but there was usually someone around to say it to me which made me smile and fully take in that moment of someone wishing me well. It was nice. I got hugs from everyone, I got jokes from people and genuine well-wishes. The bonus of the day? I got to spend it doing what I love.

Not once today did I worry about where my life was going or what I was going to do after school. Not once did I think about calories or my body or fitting into my pants. Not once did I worry about saying the wrong thing or hurting someone's feelings. Not once did I wallow or wonder or worry. This was my day and I enjoyed it.

After school we all went out to dinner with Alex, our course director. We had a lovely dinner filled with conversation and lots of laughs. I chatted with Sarah, Chris and Eric on the way home about words we think are real or not and what they might mean. I got home and turned on my computer to see over 150 people had wished me a happy birthday on facebook. A reminder how lucky I am to live in an age where people aren't forgotten about.

I was then summoned over to the other house where I was serenaded again and had some tea with everyone. We talked about our names and movies and the upcoming Thanksgiving dinner. Their company is something I treasure and I was thankful to be there. When I got home, my roommates knocked on my door and surprised me with singing Happy Birthday to me, complete with a candle. I made a wish. (I would tell you what it is, but that will have to wait until next year.) Finally my roommates and I all slid down the banister in the hallway- something we've all wanted to do since we moved in- and bid each other good night.

This was a wonderufl day. It wasn't extraordinary. It wasn't life-altering-ly good or bad. It wasn't anything more than a simple, almost perfect day filled with perfect little moments. I am a lucky lucky woman. Today reminded me of that. If my 33rd year on this earth can be filled with days like this I will consider myself blessed.

Happy Birthday Amie!!

No weight, no scale, no problem

For most of the summer I weighed myself. I was doing the HCG diet where you weigh yourself every day. It was wonderful to watch the weight come off so quickly. However, it was not as much fun to watch the weight come back on. I have weighed myself at LEAST weekly for the past three years. There wasn't a day goes by I didn't know how much I weighed within 2 pounds. I was both frustrated and motivated by these numbers but felt I was healthy and aware. I felt in control and powerful because if nothing else, I knew what I weighed.


Guess what I don't have here in the UK. A scale.


It didn't even occur to me until about two weeks of being here. I baby sat for a fellow student and they have a scale in their bathroom. It was like meeting an old friend you used to know very well. I was so tempted to step on it and see what my number was, when I stopped myself. I didn't want to know. Even more than that, I didn't need to know.


My pants are looser, forcing me to wear the belt I brought with me. My tops hang better and my sweaters don't stretch across my middle. My clothes feel comfortable and, dare I say, almost too big for me. 


I am sleeping well and not getting sick, minus a few sniffles here and there. I am not breaking out or feeling greasy or weighed down. I am regular and I feel great. I have maintained the vegetarian diet and I love how I feel. I treat myself to a beer when I want one and chocolate when I want those. I eat a lot of food out of a can, because it stays on the shelfs longer, but I also eat an apple every day and greens every day. I drink three liters of water every day at school and then more when I get home. I haven't counted my calories since I got here, nor have I weighed myself.


And I feel great.


There is a part of me that cannot wait to get home and step on that scale. I know I have lost weight and I would love to know the number that goes with that to validate my "hard work". But more than that, I know I am healthy. Losing the scale obsession has been a true gift and something I really enjoy. I like now knowing. I like having to guess. I like that I can go back to imagining I'm in the 150s and loving my body. This is amazing! I am falling in love with myself and it feels so good.


Now, off for more tea!!

Friday Acting Loves

Remember that time I freaked out about having an eight hour acting workshop every week? Remember how I didn't know what I was going to do with all that time and wasn't just trusting that it would all work out? Well, I should have.

I have had three Fridays so far and I have survived each one of them. The first week we worked on Miracle plays and the very start of story-telling theater. We were handed a script and had to just play with it and block it and cast it. We worked out how the story would be told and what was actually needed. 8 hours- done!

The next week we worked on monologues from Shakespeare. We were each handed the same pieces and we read through them and talked about the choice of words and the phrasing. We looked at the metaphors and when the play appeared in Shakespeare's folio and how that effects the playing of it. We talked about the who and the how and the who. It was a day of on our feet exercises and studying the texts. 8 more hours- DONE! And I'm more in love than ever before.

(If you're following along at home, we worked on Richard III's first speech (Now is the winter of our discontent), the rape monologue from Titus Andronicus (Who is this? my niece, that flies away so fast!)  and the tent monologue from Richard III (Oh I have passed a miserable night). We also worked on some clown monologues: Lance's Two Gentlemen of Verona (Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping.) and the scene between the brothers in Comedy of Errors.)

Today (Friday) we worked on the character development of the play we will be performing as our end of term project, Thomas Middleton's Women Beware Women. We have not been cast yet, so we all are working  together to get to know the journey each character takes in the play. We spend the entire day working on the events each character experiences and how it effects everyone else. It was wonderful to have us all contribute to every character, not just the one we will be working on. We all had to know why the Duke did what he did and why Bianca did what she did. We all have to know what The Ward is doing and why the Mother says what she says. It's vital to the understanding of the play as a whole.

That is something I love about this process. It is wonderful to experience the joy of bringing a play to life without the business side of things. I have spent the better part of 10 years trying to "get the part" and then get the next one. I've worked on musicals and plays as a production and what ticket sales it can bring to the playhouse more than as a work of art that is being produced because it's amazing. I've gotten caught up in having to sell myself in an effort to climb the LA theater ladder instead of truly enjoying bring the story of someone to the stage. There are obviously exceptions to that, but on the whole I have spent more time trying to get cast than truly enjoying being an actor.

20 hours a week of acting workshop will definitely bring that love back. I thank the universe every day that I get to do this for a living. And one of these days, I'll get paid for it!

A Tuesday in the Trenches

Today I sang my song for Song Class. I'm working on "(Not) Getting Married Today" from Company. It's a beast of a song and I have been trying to memorize the words for 2 weeks. Along with two long-ass scenes and two sonnets. The song tutor (they call them tutors instead of professors here), Dominique, is really great with us and is able to pinpoint our problem areas and work with them. He and I worked with me breaking down each of the beats even more and showing the emotions more fully in my face. It was intense and I was mentally exhausted. I'm pretty sure you can't work on that song for more than 20 minutes before going insane. This is a proven fact.


Then Contextual Studies where we talked about the Renaissance period in history. It's really hard to squash 400 years of enlightenment into an hour lecture, but David is amazing and did it. It's such a joy to listen to him. I am constantly amazed by his wealth of knowledge and ability to engage us.


Acting Workshop was next and we finished reading Women Beware Women by Thomas Middleton. It's the play we're working on for our final workshop and are still in the initial reading of it. The play is really good and has some amazing, layered female characters. We are being cast as play for all our projects. That means we don't audition, the tutors just tell us which part we'll work on. It's interesting to hear the conversations everyone has speculating who will play which part. I'm interested in what I'll get to work on, who wouldn't be? But I also trust our tutors and know that they won't give us anything we can't handle or don't need. I'm here to learn and will willingly take anything I'm giving.


It was a great day at school and I am exhausted. Got to have some fish 'n chips at a quiet pub in Birmingham, which was really good. And a Guinness. Because you can't go to the theater without a Guinness.