September 26, 2008: Paper One Done

Dear Friend,

I finished my first paper for my Augusto Boal directed study. The directed study requires that I read three books by Boal and report on them. I also need to compare what I’m doing in my internship to whatever book I’m reporting on. For this first paper, I compared some of the games and principals explained in Games for Actors and Non-Actors to those used in the Viaţa Camp. I’m really bad at sitting down and writing papers, I become very impatient with the process. However, I had the entire day all for writing the paper, didn’t really start writing until noon and finished around eight-thirty/nine o’clock. I call that a success.

During breaks I went online and checked on facebook for periodic updates. Romania is eight hours ahead of the Midwest, so not much was happening. I also looked up Northwestern videos on youtube. I watched my friends doing improv, acting in music videos, and interviews for Terror Texts. Yeah, it’s apparent I miss everyone, but seeing a lot of them on the Internet helps me feel a little closer to home.

During supper, Iris’ mother, Cristiana, asked me questions about my impressions of Romania. Iris translated, which was quite the challenge. Her mother seemed intent on saying everything she had to say, sometimes interrupting Iris when she tried to translate for me. By the end, I had confessed that Bucureşti was busy and messy yet beautiful in it’s own strange way (Cristiana did not agree,) that I was in my fifth year at a Christian liberal arts college (which took some explaining,) that Romanian women are indeed beautiful (she asked, and I felt the diplomatic thing to say was “yes,”) that America has an obesity problem, and that I was in Romania to work with A.R.T. Fusion. Iris explained her mother had a friend that moved to the States and still kept in contact with her, but that she had never had the opportunity to spend time with an American.

The weather was horrible today. It wasn’t raining like yesterday, but it was just as grey. I also felt as if my body was fighting a sinus infection of some kind. Getting home and going to bed was the only thing on my mind after I finished the paper. I figured I had put in a hard days work and a good night’s sleep was well earned.

Noapte bună.
Kailen