I guess…

I shall write to you again. There are some news I really want to share. 🙂
No 1: Acting. I’ve been to an acting workshop of the theatre academy in Cologne, on Sat 23 Oct and Sun 24 Oct, and it was about an introduction to acting in general. On the first day we’ve listened a lot and learned that acting is about letting go of conventions and inhibitions, really. We had a great warm up and we’ve done some really interesting and cool exercises. They were mostly about our own personality and expression, such as energy trainings and a great practise that was about motivating the others to stand up which made us learn to mean what we’re saying, if you follow me. It was kind of fascinating to see where the problems come from (that people don’t do what you want them to), and I noticed a lot of them being either nicely but without any insistence, or it was insistent but unfriendly! Weird. Anyway, afterwards we had a little impro about imagining a situation, and that was so very rewarding. 🙂 For the first time I just felt absolutely safe and good during an improvisation. Much of that had to do with the great atmosphere created by the group and our lovely teacher.
The next day was more about acting itself, about creating an impression and playing a character that was very different to ours. It didn’t feel that easy at all, and there is a lot I have to work on, but even more that I have learned. So all in all it was a great and helpful workshop that really made me love acting once more, and it was a lot of fun too! 🙂
So the other thing about acting is that I’ve started taking acting lessons now, in a group of some of my very best friends, and our teacher is another good friend of mine who is an actress and theatre directress. So far the lessons have been great and I’ve learned even more. I’m planning the shooting of my short movie script, and I now really look forward to it, because due to those lessons I feel more sure about being able to get what I want from my actors/actresses. It really is so important for an aspiring director to learn a lot about every aspect of making a movie/drama, so the more I know how to act the better I know how to work with actors. Easy equation, isn’t it? 😉
No 2: The Cambridge Certificate. I mentioned it before, it’s a certificate that will get me into every english university, and since I want to study abroad (UK/NZ preferably) I really need to make it. And I’ve finally done the exams – on wednesday and saturday – and I’m pretty optimistic about it. I know the results on Dec 17 and will let you know the outcome at once. 😉 The oral part of the examination was most exciting for me, since I didn’t feel that sure about my English speaking abilities lately. But our group went to the English Institute in Cologne and we just started talking in English and our examinor was a lovely British lady, so that was alright (I was afraid they might be American ;)). So yes, I was very nervous, but in the end, although I know I’ve not done everything very well, I’m pretty sure that I have enough points there to have achieved.
On Saturday it was most exhausting: The rest of the exam took place. The first part, reading, took 75 min and I was able to concentrate and we had a very humane test. The next part was writing, the one we all were most afraid of. First task writing a letter, second choosing between writing an article, an essay, an information sheet or a review. I wrote an article about travelling and both the letter and the article felt really good, although I took one hour to write the (shorter) letter and then half an hour to write the (longer) article… But anyway, we all have a great feeling about it, so the lunch break was full of relaxed chattering. The last two parts, though, were way more difficult than we would’ve thought. Use of English, where we had to fill in gaps with prepositions etc. and built sentences and stuff, was alright, but not easy, really. I know of some mistakes I’ve made, but hey. The last part, the listening, was quite hard really, because we had the feeling that every answer might be right, and the last task was tough because we had to gather implicite informations for two parts at once. But anyway, I do know of even more mistakes I’ve made, but I still feel really sure that I’ve made it. Again, we know for sure in about a month, and until then I simply will boycott any stress occuring. I’m in need for a break, and the fact that we’ve written all the school exams of the first quarter (most of them with a very good outcome :)) makes me feel even more like I’ve deserved a little break. 🙂