Exhaustin' Austin

It was a jam-packed couple of days. I was on campus from 9-5 both days, had 5 interviews, and sat in on probably 6 or 8 classes, all of which I really loved. I was particularly affected by a class called Application to Improv, where the teacher really just sort of let the class run on its own. She admitted she had no idea where it would have gone that day, and I was genuinely moved by that and where, in the end, the class ended up going. Plus, then we sat around in a circle and TALKED about what we liked and didn't like about what we had just done. No judgement. It felt novel and special, and it had just been such a long time since I was in a classroom like that. I also got to sit in on two classes taught by current MFA third-year students, both of which were acting classes for undergraduate non-majors. Again, I was struck by the game-ness of the students and the care of the teachers. It seems to be an incredibly supportive and productive environment, and that was exciting for me.

It's never easy to tell how you're doing in an interview. The faculty I talked to seemed perplexed by my choice of applying to the school, so that makes me wary. Apparently, I'll hear about acceptance within the next week(!)

Other than my experiences on campus, it was an odd couple of days. I stayed in a pretty crummy motel, off I-35, within about 20 minutes of campus on foot. It was definitely nice to be able to walk to and from where I was staying, but every time I came back to the hotel, there seemed to be more and more furniture in the parking lot. Literally, armoires and TVs and mirrors, like they must have been gutting the rooms. I kept expecting all my stuff to be gone when I got back to mine.

Tuesday night, I was exhausted and ordered food in for dinner. It took 1 1/2 hours for it to arrive and, when it finally did, I ended up having to eat my minestrone soup with a fork. It did feel particularly indulgent to be in bed at 8 and eating pizza. Almost like I was on vacation. I discovered that I didn't have FOX, so I missed both days of American Idol and ended up really bottom-feeding by watching The Salt N' Pepa Show, Celebrity Rehab, and The Rock of Love 2 with Bret Michaels. Even I felt kind of guilty about that. Oh, I also woke up on Wednesday, mysteriously chewed up by some kind of insect.

Texas TV is funny. I happened upon a show called Seniorcise (I kid you not), where an old woman was leaning on a chair, calling out calisthenics, in her Southern accent. I had to watch for a while, I found it so fascinating. And Brangelina visiting some TX county made the nightly news.

Wednesday night, I was able to explore the nightlife a little more, with the help of a buddy from NYC and his cousin. We had Mexican food and then parked it at a local bar for hours. The toy vending machines at the restaurant sold things like Jesus Christ tattoos and Glow Crosses on strings. I had to have a cross, naturally.

My travel day yesterday was pretty much a disaster. I was woken up before my alarm at 530 AM and told that my flight had been canceled but that I was booked on a later flight on a different airline. All fine. Got to the airport early, finally boarded, and sat on the tarmac for 1 1/2 hours. There was a computer issue on the plane and instead of just giving us another one, they canceled THIS flight. Luckily, most of us were able to get on the very next flight out, but I had a 2 1/2 hour layover in LA (where I consumed Burger King for the first time in probably more than 10 years and felt horrible about it). It took me 5 more hours than it should have to get home. And this was on about 3 hours of sleep. Oh, plus, I got secondarily screened in Austin. Frisked and everything, and they went through my very exciting backpack, full of sordid items like a book, a journal, and a magazine. Even the attendants were like...is this all you have? Ha. I expected I would sleep most of the flight from LA to SLO, but I couldn't keep my eyes off the cloud cover in Southern California. It seriously looked like hills of snow, and once in a while, I'd see really shimmery sections of clouds and couldn't figure out what they were--maybe rain? Of course, we continued to fly north, and the shimmery parts were ocean water. It was a seriously stunning optical illusion.

I'm happy to be back in Cali. And I think the trip, in general, went well. I was struck particularly by the students, who all seemed content to be there and really bright. They felt like Berkeley students, frankly, and I think I could probably have fit right in to the group.

We shall see in a week or so.