Thurs, Mar. 14
... Nobody knows
Things with Cindy today went well... we basically went over my questionnaire, talked about the program, where I want to go, what I want to do, how I think I'm doing, how she thinks I'm doing... all that. It wasn't a "Let's Bash Alida" session or anything, but I definitely know she thinks I can be doing better. She knows I have more than I'm giving. Yah, so do I. I know there have been days when I've given it everything, and days when I couldn't give any more than I had. When everything I had to give was put into getting to school in the first place.
We were talking a bit about time and commitments and such. For the next two years, my life is expected to be the program. Next year, I'll be out basically every weekend performing, especially second semester, and the year after that, it's expected that I give everything to it. That the program is my life; that I'm not really involved in much else besides it, just because it's so time- and labor-intensive. It'll be good--I'm looking forward to some of it, but I can't give up the drama at church, especially. I've worked so hard to see it come, and it's my baby. I can't quit it now, just when it's finally starting to go somewhere. This is when I want to stay with it more than ever. I just don't know how much I can do. I can't do everything. But I don't know what I can or want to or should give up.
Cindy said that she doesn't want to discourage me from finishing the program--that she's not telling me I should just go with the two-year diploma--but that for what I want to do with it, I don't need the four year degree. I want it, though. I'm learning so much, and I don't want to give up on that now and be satisfied with just what I have.
I wish I could just take the theatre courses, be involved in all that, and forget the rest of the classes. It would make my life so much easier, and I could be finished in four years, instead of five, or however many it'll take me.
But I can't just take the two-year program. I'll feel like I'm abandoning something. I feel like I have something to prove; that I have to show people that I can do it. That I'm not going to give up halfway through.
I'll see how the summer goes. Regardless of whether I finish the two or four-year, I have to be back next year anyways. I don't have all the classes for the two-year diploma. We'll see how I'm doing; how stressed I am; how the finances are; everything like that. I may take one semester next year "half off"--still take my theatre classes, but not take the rest of them, just for a semester. I don't want to wear myself into the ground. I just can't give up on either the church or the school, and I feel like that's what Cindy's asking me to do.
I guess I understand that; I mean, I can see how she needs to have us committed to the program. I just can't give up the church. I'm committed there, too. I've been committed to seeing the youth drama get off the ground there for five years, and now it's finally starting to happen, and I can't leave that now. I feel like she just doesn't understand that.
She said that she likes the fact that my head's not in the clouds--that I'm not expecting to graduate and then get my dream job right away. I know Christian theatre is still very much a new thing, and that I'll probably have to volunteer and get my foot in the door--maybe for years--before I can get a job with it. That's fine with me, because I don't want an out of the home job anyways. I want to be a wife and mom, stay at home with my kids, and volunteer in ministry until they're older, and then get a job. So not being able to work right away doesn't bother me. Ideally, I'd be married before I graduate, and then start a family within a year or two of graduating.
I mean, who knows if that'll happen, and if I have to work once I graduate or whatever, that's fine; I'm not saying that I won't do it, and if I do, I want to be able to do it well. It makes for some pretty easily lost perspective, though. Why am I doing this? I know why. I know that I love it, and that theatre's in my blood. I can't imagine doing anything else. I can't imagine ever not being involved with it somehow.
So I guess we'll see where it all goes from here. Round and round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows.
infinite || abyss
posted at 8:17 p.m.
