Clown school is the study of choice.
Wait, no — that’s economics.
Clown school is the study of…
Well, now I’m thinking about choices.
Here they are:
- Study the Shakespeare lines for next week
- Drink alcohol at the local bar
- Sit with people drinking alcohol at the local bar
- Run
- Eat
- Clear out my email inbox
- Write
- Rehearse with classmates for this week’s presentation
A day only has so many hours.
School takes four, plus thirty minutes on either side to prep and recombobulate. Add eight hours for sleep (okay, nine — I like to wind down in bed :), and you’ve got thirteen hours accounted for. I like running every day, so add an hour for stretching, run, five-minute abs, and shower. That’s fourteen hours. Ten remain.
So if the math works so well, why have I been failing?
Sequencing.
I haven’t been eating lunch, so I’m starved after school, which is prime socializing time. If I brought my lunch, I’d be less famished at 2 p.m. I like doing movement class fasted, so I’ll keep that. But maybe a nice burger patty and baguette for lunch… could be nice. 😋
And then, who to socialize with?
Drinkers have it easy: go where people drink → drink → hours disappear. I don’t enjoy drinking, nor do I enjoy drunk people, so I’ll pass. (I gave it a try today. “Maybe this context is different,” I thought. Turns out it’s students slowly soppifying, discussing people who aren’t present, maybe one bit of information every thirty seconds, and a lot of “what was that?”. And when someone stands up to leave, it feels like monkeys pulling the escaping monkey back into the boiling soup.)
I’m glad I ran. I’m glad I ate. I’m glad I wrote.
I’d like to be more social. The key, I think, is to socialize in my own way.
It’s day two. I’ve not yet clicked with the people I’m going to click with.
I grabbed coffee with a student today. That was nice. Worth doing. An enjoyable hour.
There are thirty of us. Will I get coffee with everyone? At one per schoolday, that’s six weeks. 😬
I prefer meeting people one-on-one. Spending time in depth. Learning what makes them tick.
I’ve scheduled dinners for tomorrow and Thursday. I hope to find people I enjoy seeing socially.
The class itself has been nice. Not much to it, but nice. We’re learning the definitions of words by repeated use. A few tactical elements (“Show your teeth! We want to see your teeth!”); mainly punishments (“You forgot the game: you get a zero!”).
I want to meet my people. To find the ones I fancy. Then, to build habits around those happenings.
9 a.m. wakeup. 9:15 a.m. rehearsal. 10 a.m. movement class. 11:30 a.m. lunch. Noon improv class. 2 p.m. rehearsal. 2:30 p.m. phone call with my sister, perhaps while running. 3:30 p.m. rehearsal, study, socialize, catch up on life… 🤔
Clown school is about choice, if only because everything is.
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Julian Wise 