Since it’s a WhoopsieDasiey Wednesday, and I have been kind of indulging in the ‘fall’ stories, I thought I would change it up a bit. Let me remind you all that a fall is not the only time one might say ‘Whoopsie Daisey.’ For example, if someone were to make a mistake… or over do it on something like say, alcohol… that would be a ‘Whoopsie Daisey’ moment, now wouldn’t it?
This story is about MacTen. Yes, dear, you. Specifically a very large ‘Whoopsie Daisey’ moment that she and I shared back in Oxford, England. Well, to be fair, JumpSki was there too.
I believe I mentioned this program back in one of my travel blogs, but all the same, MacTen and I were lucky enough to attend the prestigious British American Drama Academy at Oxford University. I had just graduated college and she had not yet turned 21. But in Europe, you’re 21 when you’re born, so she was taking full advantage of that particular freedom during this ‘Whoopsie Daisey’ moment.
It was the final day of the program. All of our scene work had been presented, which was the culminating portion of the entire summer. We, as students, had been attending only 4 classes a day, but they were intense and they were taught by brilliant English and American teachers who were all MORE than qualified to be teaching us, to say the least. I can’t speak for everyone when I describe these classes, but I will give it a go all the same.
Shakespeare class. For me it was taught by a fiery women by the name of Irina Brown. She was Russian and she took being Russian very seriously. I wouldn’t joke about a thing like that. This woman was a nightmare, and the first half of the summer, I hated her. She embarrassed me. She called me out on my weaknesses. She was relentless. She expected so much. But of course, as I grew over the summer, both as a person and a performer, winning her respect became one of my highest goals. It might have taken me a minute to realize, but those are the types of people that are put in our path to teach us… more than anyone else, and I learned a great deal from that woman. I will never forget her. Aside from her erratic behavior sometimes, this woman wore only one thing the entire month of July. Every single day, I kid you not. JumpSki can vouch for this. She wore a floor length jean skirt, and an over sized, oatmeal colored, knit sweater. Her hair can best be compared to the main of a lion simply because her face kind of resembled a lion. So there ya go, there is Shakespeare class.
Movement class. Another teacher I will not soon forget but for entirely different reasons. I am smiling now as I think of him. He was completely opposite Irina. His name was Ben. Just Ben, can’t remember his last name, but we called him Big Ben or Uncle Ben. He was quite tall, impossibly thin and old as can be. There is something in the water in Europe because these people live forever. He was completely insane, but in a ‘I’m high on drugs’ kind of way. He called me Wendy Bendy- which I never quite figured out… because I am NOT flexible in any way- and he always spoke as if he were singing. Every word was drawn out. At the talent show that summer, he wore butt-less pants and played a song on his bare ass. And once in class, he spent the entire 1 hour 45 minute period running us through an exercise that required us to act like we were on a sinking ship. That’s it. For nearly 2 hours, he dictated the weather and we reacted as if on a sinking ship. Crazy but brilliant. That will make you think!
Audition Techniques. In this class I had my biggest break through as an actor. We only had this class once a week, so four times total, but we were expected to have learned a new monologue each week. That sounds simple enough, but learning a new monologue means reading the play from which it comes, researching the era, researching the character, blocking, practicing, memorizing and not to mention, FINDING a new one from Border’s books across the road. I did a monologue from “Tongue of a Bird” that I won’t soon forget. This class was very intense, but I can’t recall much about the teacher, specifically.
Modern class. In this class we worked on very modern, very obscure pieces. For half the month I had Barry… bless his heart. He reminded me entirely of what you would picture an older English gentleman to look like. He had a comb over and wore knit caps, as well as sweater vests. But he was so darling and brilliant. He taught me so much about character research and development, even for the most simplest of roles (if there is such a thing). And for the second half of the month, we had a lovely, young, black man as a teacher. I forget his name at the moment, but I know that he called EVERYONE ‘my baby’… but really it was one word: mybaby. “That was brilliant mybaby.” “No, do you see what you’re doing there mybaby?” Oh yes… his name was Leo, I remember now. He makes me smile too.
And of course Voice class. Not singing. Voice. Like speaking and accents and pronouncing things correctly and all that. This class was where I struggled the most personally. I have a hard time placing my voice correctly. One bad voice couch in college, and everything is ruined. But the teacher was Linda Gates. I’ll not soon forget her name. She was the most entitled, but lovely woman I’ve ever met. So pompous but loveable. I don’t know how she pulled it off. That class often got long and boring because we were sitting most of the time, and nearly running ourselves into the ground the rest of the day, so here and there we would ask her a question to get her off topic… she loved name dropping and getting off topic, if it meant she got to tell us a story about something amazing that had happened to her. She literally spoke with her nose in the air, but you had to love her. She was my only American teacher. Taught in Chicago. Some of the students actually had her as a teacher in the states.
So anyway, that is a taste of my favorite summer to date, but that is not entirely off topic. I had to kind of give you all a little back ground so that you might understand the weight that was lifted off our shoulders the final day of classes. No more scenes, no more rehearsing well into the night on the lawn while the bats dive at us, no more reading plays at all hours, or performing monologues to the walls… all was done. All was performed. We were free.
And in celebration of this, BADA put on a HUGE closing night dinner in the great dinning hall. And by great dinning hall I mean just that. We are talking Harry Potter style. 3 long tables of students, with the faculty at the table at the far end of the hall. Seriously, the movie was filmed just down the street.
We had a great meal- only the very first and the very last meal there were eatable… it was England after all- and all the wine and champagne one could drink. So we students felt that we could really let our hair down and have a good time. 140 kids, most of whom were under age, letting their hair down for a party with the faculty is a terrible, terrible idea. But alas, we had to comply. And party we did.
I can’t say that I remember dinner too clearly. There was great chocolate cake, but I can’t be sure if I actually remember that or if I only remember the pictures of it.
A well known actor spoke at the dinner- I’m not one for names, someone remind me who it was… he was in Shakespeare in Love- and I can’t remember anything that he said, but I remember being moved. When the time came for dinner to be over, even though we had been terribly over served as it was, MacTen decided that it would be a good idea to ‘barrow’ a few bottles of wine and take them back to our rooms before heading down to the dance, where more alcohol was being served. I think her logic might have been that they were charging at the dance, who can know for sure?
So about 10 of us went back to our room, MacTen the ringleader, and we had a few more glasses of wine before heading down to the dance.
I don’t remember the dance at all.
I do, however, remember telling MacTen that I was pretty sure I would be puking and her consoling me and telling me that it would be okay if I needed to do that. I remember going back to my room to drunk dial my boyfriend back in the states- this boyfriend is SinkinShip who will come into play soon as ‘cheat’ number 3- and of course getting off the phone angry. It was sometime in the morning for him, but don’t worry… he was drunk too. And I remember heading back down to the dance and sitting on the steps outside laughing at ALL the drunk people and watching the kids kiss whoever their crushes were throughout the summer. Alcohol has a funny way of lowering your inhibitions.
Then, all at once, MacTen told me that she just needed to throw up a little and she would be fine. Now, for MacTen to throw up… this is pretty much par for the course. For ME to throw up… well, there have only been 3 times that I have thrown up for drinking in my nearly 27 years. Age 20, Age 21 and Age 25. I am not proud of any of these. Surprisingly enough though, this night was not one of those nights, despite the fact that I had announced that it would be.
So anyway, MacTen and I head to the bushes, yes the bushes, and she ador places her finger down her throat. I have to marvel at her every time she does this. I have never been able to do it. My body fights throwing up like you wouldn’t believe. I have done the stick my finger down my throat game, I have even had someone else do it not believing I was doing it right, and nothing. Never. I just can’t make it work that way. But MacTen, she is a seasoned pro. So she handles her business in the bushes of Balliol college. But don’t worry, she was not out of place. As she was puking, a friend of ours comes up and pees in the bushes just a ways down from us. This is why, people, the legal drinking age should be 21. Kids just can’t handle their shit.
After this escapade, I decide to take MacTen back up to my room. As is sometimes the case, once the chamber is open, there is really no stopping it. It’s kind of a 50/50 game. It either frees up the rest of the night and everything is fine, or it makes everything worse. In this particular example, everything got worse. And if you have ever found yourself in a similar situation, you know that a best friend puking is as good as a shower and a cup of black coffee for a drunk person. I went from feeling sick myself to mom mode in about 20 seconds.
On our way up to my room, we stumbled across JumpSki. Now, at the time he was 28. Much older than the average student at BADA, but he was just as plastered as any one of them. This does make me think that perhaps it was not just the young age of everyone there… maybe there really is something in the water in Europe. JumpSki was like I have never seen him, and he was one of my closest friends. JumpSki had driven me home and held me up more than once in our past partying endeavors, so it was quite the surprise for me to find him in such a state. But what else could I do? I threw his arm over my other shoulder and led him up to my room.
Now, I have to take a minute to explain my room here. It was huge. Please take note of the pictures I have included. This college was built in 1212 by a group of magical gnomes. Well, that’s a lie, but it was magical.
My room was on the third and top floor. The winding stairway up to the third floor was cement and echoing like you would imagine a castle. And then of course my room was equally as imaginative; tall ceilings, fireplace, large open space, iron windows. It was beautiful.
In all these rooms there was a small sink. I tell you this because once we got in the room, both JumpSki and MacTen needed to use the sink at once. Luckily, an admirer of JumpSki’s and all around brilliant Irish lass, CrazyBuckley, came in at just that moment and was able to usher JumpSki to the bathroom in time. I, however, was left with MacTen and the sink.
This moment, and MacTen will confirm it, sealed our friendship forever. There is no way I will not love this girl for my whole life after what came next.
Vomit.
Lots and lots of vomit. Into the sink, yes, but just a little, no! And for some reason, she had to have the water running. I tried to turn it off, as it was filling the sink just as quickly with water as she was filling it with her dinner, but she insisted- between gags- that it be left on. And so it was. But this left me with somewhat of a terrible predicament. The sink was filling and there was no sign of letting up. There was only one thing to do, and I only had about 2 seconds to think about it…
Yes, I had to scoop the puke.
It was either that, or let it over flow onto the carpet. And if I let that happen, I would still have to clean it up and my room had a much higher chance of smelling like puke the remainder of the night, so yes, I decided to scoop. I am not ashamed. It was horrible, but I would do it all over again for her. Sorry to be graphic but once I got the chunks out of the drain, the rest kind of went down easier. And before long it was over… well… not exactly.
Shortly after this a series of events unfolded very quickly. A cute boy- the brother of one of my classmates whom I had been flirting with that night- came looking for me and I could do nothing but put him in charge of MacTen while I went in search of more towels. I peeked in at JumpSki, but he was in good hands with CrazyBuckley, so I tried to sneak into my hall mates room to steal some of her towels.
I opened her door, the light from the hall lit up her dark bed just in time for me to witness her throwing up into her garbage can. Shit. So I went inside, soothed her until she fell back asleep and then proceeded back to my room with the stolen towels. No sooner had I returned, did cute boy take off for good. But then, just as I was getting MacTen settled into the nice bed of towels I had made her under the sink, in comes her crush of the summer and up goes MacTen. It was as if she had never filled my sink. She was ready to rejoin the party, no problem. She doesn’t remember this part, but luckily neither does the guy. He too had been overserved.
MacTen finally passed out.
I moved to the bathroom with JumpSki. I must have spent a good hour in there with CrazyBuckley, while JumpSki apologized over and over again, not really sure if it were me or Buckley he was hanging onto. And as our bathroom was communal, and we occupied it for most of the night, we got the occasional head popping in to fill us in on the goings on of the rest of the students. As it turned out, most everyone was in rare form, and bad shape.
After a lot of coercion, I convinced Jump to leave the safety and security of the cement bathroom floor, as much fun as I was having in there, and brought him to my bed of towels to snuggle MacTen. Finally, the night was through. I slept in my bed, while my two drunk friends cuddled on the floor under the sink.
The next morning was… well… interesting. There were a lot of headaches and a lot of garbage, and unfortunately for the janitor, a lot of dried excrement everywhere. But it was also the day we all had to say goodbye… One of the harder days of my life I might add. Letting go of a summer like that, an experience like that, is not easy. The people you meet and the people you share that experience with are with you forever in a way. MacTen and I became the friends that we are because of that summer, but she was not the only one…
I had met another brilliant friend that summer: Will.
He doesn’t get a nickname. I have never seen him since, but I still count him in my best friends and because that summer was so huge in shaping me into the person I am today, he was a huge part of that as well. He was in my class and across the hall. I spent nearly every moment of that month with him and I got to know him better than most. When I think back to that July of ’05, I remember a lot of work. I remember endless studying and reading and never taking any shortcuts… always doing all the work. But I also remember hours and hours of conversation with Will and MacTen. I remember going to clubs. I remember trips to London, the bombings of London, and I remember scooping puke out of my sink. Truthfully, I don’t know how we fit it all in. But isn’t that always the sign of a truly good time?
So that morning, we all said our goodbyes. Looking back, I think those Brits are onto something, getting us all so drunk the night before we all leave each other. Everyone was so hung over and so worried about the brightness of the sun and catching their next mode of travel, that no one really spent too much time crying over those goodbyes. It was kind of just quick, like a band-aid.
It’s funny to think that that amazing program ended just that way, but it did. Random? I don’t know. Everything happens for a reason. Maybe I didn’t get to say all the goodbyes that I would have said, but who needs goodbyes? I was right where I was supposed to be, right Mac? I think so…
Mac, Me and Jump:
Tags: acting, adventure, alcohol, BADA, Balliol college, best friends, Brithis American Drama Academy, Dinning hall, England, Europe, experience, friends, Harry Potter, humerous, life, life lessons, love, memories, mishaps, mistakes, Oxford, Oxford University, party, performing, puking, summer abroad, teachers, theatre, throwing up, travel, true stories, twenty something
Adventures of a twenty-something! 