I Eat Breakfast Twice a Day 5 Days Out of the Week.

I auditioned for a group called the Paperback Rhinos. They're the other improv group on campus besides 5th City Improv of which I am a member. I decided that I wanted to try to audition for the group to see if I would be accepted again for my talent after not really having auditioned for 3 years to get into an improv group. Let's face it. After freshman year, auditions were just a formality for the spring improv show. I auditioned with about 12 other people, and was unable to make the second night of auditions due to the fall nite o'mime. I was called back on Sunday to do more scene work and some long form stuff. There were 10 of us at call backs, from the 20 or so who auditioned I'm guessing. After call backs, they told us that we would know if we made it sometime between Sunday night and Monday night.

Cut to 1:30 in the morning. I've been asleep for a few hours now, and my roommate has just fallen asleep as well. All of the sudden loud banging occurs at our door. Both Emily and I bolt upright and stare at eachother, then the door, and the back to eachother. She asks if it's drunk people. We wait some more. The pounding gets louder. We wait again. Who's ever knocking is almost breaking down the door. I get out of my bed, trying not to hurt myself in the process. I creep over to the door and unlock it so I can peek out. I see 8 faces peeking back at me. "Fuck!" I yell. I shut the door and unlock it all the way and open it back up and stare at them. I'm half asleep and don't have my glasses. I'm a bit disorentated. "What the hell?" I ask.

"Hi Pichler." Joe Meyer says.

"Uhm, can I help you." I ask again.

"No, not really. But you can take this." Joe says. He hands me a piece of paper. I look at it. There is a picture of a baby in a rhino outfit.

"Really?" I say sort of excited.

"Really!" Joe says way too enthusiastically.

"You guys are psycho." My roommate yells from back inside my dorm.

"No, we're improvers" Joe yells back. "Okay, bye then." And then him and the rest of the improv troupe leave Currier. Katie (the girl across the hall pokes her head out of her room.) and gives me a look of 'WTF is going on at 1 in the fucking morning?' I jump up and down and say yay! Then I go back to bed.

*****
So I have a job on campus at the Hillcrest Market place doing various things depending on the day. Tuesdays I work in the salad room working and prepping fresh produce, Thursdays I'm in the bakery with Pat. She's like the grandma I never had and together we make cookies, cakes, pies, treat bars, etc except in mass amounts. Then Saturdays I work as cook's help in the morning then switch to whatever they need me to do in the afternoon. I really enjoy my job. Except lunch rush on game days. It's like the calm before a storm. It will be nice all morning, just a slow stream of people coming in to eat, then around 2 or so a flood of black and gold gushes into the Market Place. It's crazy! Constantly having to restock food and make sure that things stay clean. I can't tell you how many times I've been burned by reaching into the food warmer and having my arm touch the shelves. It's like playing operation in hell. It's all fun though.
*****
On a more serious note, in my acting class my teacher assigned us to do an action objective scene. It's hard to explain, but I'll do my best. Someone you care about is in a life or death situation. You have to save them, but there has to be a strong chance that you WILL fail. There is no acting or planned actions allowed. You have to come up with all the details to the back story of your scene, but cannot speak. It's all about being in the moment. Also, the scene has to take place in an environment that is familiar to you. All of us had to bring copious amounts of things from our dorm room and set up our space. Most of us set up a bed room space since that was the easiest.

My scene involved me trying to save Nick from putting a bullet through his head. He had been drinking at a party he through and had gotten drunk even though I made him promise me that he wouldn't. I call Nick and he flips shit. He thinks that I've found out that he's drunk and am going to break up with him or yell at him. He locks himself in his room with the gun that his brother bought him for safety since his apartment is in a rough neighborhood. His friends can't call the police because they're all underage and are drinking, and he is threatening to shoot himself they do. His friends call me and tell me to get back from Iowa City to Des Moines ASAP.

Now for the second half. My mother had bought me a small lock box to keep my personals in when they weren't in use. It has a 4 digit lock code, that I had never bothered to change from the factory setting (which was all randomized) because I forgot about it when I set it up. I wrote down the code on a small piece of paper and put it away safely amongst my personal items. Now I have to frantically search for it five weeks later. I don't remember where it is. It could be anywhere. I tear through my scene. In my space I have a box full of personal letters, a journal stuffed with pieces of paper and more letters, books upon books, and all of my school materials. I rip through everything. I'm getting more and more upset as time goes by. I have to get to Nick. I can't let him do this. But I can't find that paper with the code to the safe which has my car keys. I go through everything and fail to find it. I don't know what to do. In one last attempt I grab the lock box (which is attached my my chair by a cable which can only be undone by opening the box) and try to pry it open by messing with the combo. It's a less than great quailty box, and somehome I managed to pry it open. In shock I grab my keys and leave. That's how the scene went. It's hard to fully explain. But there were moments in my scene where I felt like I was going to be sick. I was crying and my hands were shaking. It was hard to concentrate on what I was doing. This excericse was incredible.

~Until Then

I may be a pirate

But for those of us who have so many questions about surviving on campus. Enjoy.

~Until Then

Pepper spray and Soviet Jackoven-urface.

I auditioned last week for all the fall shows and managed to land three callbacks- Hidden in this picture, Iron Hymen (the musical), and Sex with a Censor/Katie and Frank. Call backs we're nothing like those in Valley. I was only actually reading for 10 minutes or less and then I could leave. The director(s) didn't talk much to the call back-ers, and didn't say much after. I managed to to get cast as Ruby a production manager in Hidden in this picture. It's a one act, maybe shorter, directed by a graduate student. It's a 4 person cast about filming the last 11 minutes of a movie (similar sounding to Tropic Thunder) and there are cows standing in the field. I haven't read the script yet, but it sounds really great. I was really pleased that I got cast as a freshman.

I went to the Iron Hymen call back and that was about the most unusual experience in theatre I've ever had. There were five of us, and each person was given a character from the script to read, monologue style. The director picked out 5 or so lines from the script and the reader had to animate them. There was no actual dialogue in the call back. Also we had to sing happy birthday (however we wanted to interpret that) to a stick figure named Fred on a whiteboard. Fred wasn't having the best of birthdays, and we needed to cheer him up. Lets just say that there were some interesting renditions of Happy Birthday. Oh, before I forget, the parts to be cast in Iron Hymen include Skinny, Tubbers, Whorebot Lindsey, Queerbag McGee, and my favorite...Soviet Jackoven-urface. That's call backs at Iowa!

On a completely different note, last night at Dirty Burge (our dining hall on the East side) some douche bag decided that it would be awesome to spray pepper spray in the middle of the dining area. I was out to eat with 5 of my friends, and in about the last 5 minutes of my meal experience, I noticed that a lot of people behind me were coughing. I didn't really think much of it. Then my nose and throat felt irritated and I tried to suppress it, but I couldn't. I started to cough along with the entire dining hall. It wasn't a 'clearing your throat' cough, it was a "fuck shit I'm chocking' cough. I left the hall, and as soon as I cleared the barrier between the hall and the eating area I was fine. But I stayed for a few minutes talking with a few girls about what happened, and during so more and more people emerged from the exit with red eyes and they were coughing like mad. God, I love the people here.

~Until Then