Things I Keep Forgetting to Write About, But That Happened Awhile Ago

Yes, blog readers, I have some stories in the vaults!

1)I got hit by a cyclist. Yeah. On my third or so night here. Thankfully I didn’t die, because that’s an embarrassing way to go. I was on the Jack the Ripper tour with my school group, walking towards the front of the crowd. We were all following the tour guide across the street (with the green walking man signal and everything) and this biker was coming towards us. The group sort of split up in order to let him through, but he didn’t know that and the streets were wet, so he swerved and even though he hit the brakes, the roads were wet, causing him to skid and collide with me. Thankfully, he had slowed down enough that it only caused me to stumble, but it did give me a shock. I thought he was going to yell at me- that's the usual response- but his apologies were just as profuse as mine. And even though I wasn’t hurt at all, I got asked if I was okay so many times by my very caring schoolmates that you would have thought I had been run over by a car. It's nice to be loved :p

2) The Globe wrote me back. How cool is that? When I was looking up theatres to audition at, that was, of course one of them. I knew it was a long shot, but I wanted to try anyway. As per the instructions, I waited until January 3rd (the day I arrived in London. Yes, the first thing I did was mail out a casting submission) and emailed my headshot and resume. I figured that was it. I mean, it’s SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE. But even though I would only be able to do the first production, it was Much Ado. I’m the perfect age for Hero, and she has very few lines- the ideal situation when Shakespeare and I are put together.
A few weeks later, I got an e-mail. A personal e-mail, not a form letter. The woman who wrote me, Chloe, said that because auditions are by invitation only, they wanted to see me perform. She said that if I was in a show, I should send them the details and they would come and see me. You all know the issue there, so I won’t go into it, but either way- I got an answer from the Globe. Perhaps they answer everyone just as nicely, but I like to think my resume had something to do with it.

3) My friends and I (and a poor random lady who happened to be standing near us) were treated like criminals in the tube station. When Lauren came to visit, we of course had to take the tube home. When we went into the Camden Market station, I had to top up. Casey and Deanna went through the gates, and I thought Lauren did, too. This is why I was so surprised when I went through the gate and didn’t see her with the other two. Finally, we saw her on the other side and waved. She tried to get to us through the gate, but her card wouldn’t let her. Sometimes this is due to lack of money, but a lot of time, the gates just malfunction.
A security guard saw her having trouble, and he must have also seen us wave to her. He asked her what the problem was and she answered that she didn’t know. “Did you have someone pass their card over to you so you could use it?” He gave her a look that said that she didn’t have to answer- he knew that she had. He know wrong, however. None of us had done this- it’s illegal and pretty easy to get caught. One of the first things we were told when we got here was to never use anyone else’s card because you will be found out. This is true, as we saw that night- no matter how many times Lauren stated that it was her card, the guard wouldn’t believe her. He looked at the other three of us. I was standing closest and he pointed at me. “You. Let me see your card.” If I had actually done something wrong, I would have been extremely panicked. As it was, I knew I had done nothing and so stood there calmly as he scanned my card and saw that it had only been used once in the last few minutes (plus, Mr. Security Guard, if I had lent her my card, she still would have been holding it.) He did the same thing to Casey, Deanna, and a random woman who happened to be walking by. Eventually, he had to admit that we were all telling the truth and the gate was just malfunctioning. Sorry to disappoint you, sir.


Tonight, I return to the theatre for the final four shows of the run. Tonight's behind-the-scenes experience will be memorization for me. Adaptations performance in Thursday morning! The last few hours has been all of my group members and me Facebooking in rapid-fire abou plans, final drafts, and script changes.