Hello everyone!
Itās been a long time since I last blogged; over a month in fact. As of now Iām going to do my best to blog AT LEAST once a week.
So at the start of this blog I wrote that I had TWO challenges to pursue: the career of my dreams and the body of my dreams. The thing I am struggling with right now is the balance between the two. I do believe it is entirely possible to achieve two completely separate goals but I find that as soon as I concentrate on one the other slips a little and vice versa. These two goals AS WELL as supporting myself with promo work which I feel at times needs the same amount of networking and chasing as acting work.
For example, I was doing really well in October looking for promo work so November was completely full but then I realised that I hadnāt spent any time trying to achieve my career goals and I was forgetting that the whole reason for earning money was to support myself as an actor (yes, I know I need to practise what I preach in my previous blog!) And then in the last couple of months I really tried to make things happen for me career-wise, which did pay off* but rehearsals, learning lines, weird non consistent day to day routines, meant that I wasnāt working out as much as I would normally and I stopped being as organised with my meal planning so that suffered.
I must admit, I am a somewhat disorganised person, and I have monkey brain in that I will be doing one thing and suddenly remember another thing I need to do which will then be probably interrupted by something else. And that results in three unfinished tasks.
Iām not scared of saying I am struggling. This is a challenge and if it were easy then it wonāt be as rewarding when I eventually achieve it.
For Christmas I got a lovely diary from Paul because he knows how much of a monkey brain I have. Inside it says it is to help me “organise all your auditions, rehearsals, shows, promo and training for 2013” I’m sure this will be a HUGE help and there is even space for me to put ideas for my blog too!
I will also use the time Paul is back home in Ireland to eat really well (without trying to make excuses its not so easy trying to eat healthily when you live with someone who likes to eat sweets most hours of the day) I Ā sometimes feel a bit bad making poor Paul eat paleo with me because it is MY goal not his but he has been 100% supportive and not grumbled once! (okay maybe once when he didn’t like my Paleo no carb lasagna which was basically a giant burger in a pyrex with some courgette slices – not the most exciting.)
Iām also using the Christmas period to entertain myself with…
THE MOBY PUSH UP CHALLENGE
This is just a bit of fun for when Iām bored over Christmas of annoying my sister (isnāt it funny how you revert to childhood when you go back home?)
I learnt this at Clan and basically what you do is put on the song āFlowerā by Moby and everytime the song says āUPā you go Up and when the song says āDOWNā you also go upā¦ no Iām joking you go Down obvs. This is a real bitch because there is a lot more time between the upās so you are stuck in a press position š¦
Here is my second attempt (I tried it at Clan and got just over a minute) This time I splatted (thatās the only description I can think for what I did) just under a minute before the end of the long down section. Still pretty proud of this considering earlier this year IĀ couldn’tĀ even do a proper press up (I did it with knees on the ground)
http://youtu.be/DzH9Cf5egGM
Hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and I will make another post before next year, I promise!
Shona x
*Update on the exciting things happening in 2013, Mrs Leeās Ladies in Oran Mor in Feb, Three Sisters in Oran Mor in March, talk of playing the lead in a sketch show and a wee business idea with George where we basically get to practise scenes and get paid for it! Hopefully this will all lead to bigger and better things!