Week 4 (October 5-11)

1. MOMA field trip last Monday October 5
Group 48 and Rene Houtrides (our teacher in Point-of-View class) walked to MoMa (Museum of Modern Art) along 53rd Street Fifth Avenue last Monday to check out the exhibit on Picasso's sculptures. It was challenging to appreciate an art form or medium which I was not familiar with but I tried really hard.

2. Standing up for an hour and fifteen minutes in Movement class last Tuesday, October 6
We did an exercise in Mark Olsen's movement class in which we had to stand up from a lying position in a slow continuous motion for an hour and fifteen minutes. This exercise, if I'm not mistaken, is a derivation of a Japanese Butoh exercise. From a lying position, we slowly moved a finger, then a hand, and then an arm - whichever suited us - as long as we did it in a slow and continuous motion until we made it into a standing position within the duration of one hour and fifteen minutes. There was a point in which I wanted to scream because I was in such an awkward position.  And yet the only way for me to get through it (within the principles of the exercise) was to trudge on ever so slowly. It taught me, in the end, that pain is just pain and I can get through it, however excruciatingly.

3. Calamansi Juice
Last Wednesday, Anthony and Anya (Group 48'ers) bought me some calamansi juice they found in a store somewhere in NYC. I totally did not expect this and it was such a sweet gesture although I had no idea what store they got it from.

4. Chill Weekend
I was craving for a time to breathe since I mostly spent the entire week running around from class to class or errand to errand. I did not go to anything "new" except hear mass in a Church nearer the school. St. Paul the Apostle Church is on 60th Street and interestingly has contemporary art displayed in it alongside religious figures.

Also, there was a "tiangge" of sorts within Lincoln Center last Sunday. The selections were not within bargain prices at all but it was fun to look at them.

We just finished three weeks of table-work for our First Year Discovery Project: Pericles by William Shakespeare. Roles were given out and we're all deep into rehearsals and memorizing. Showings will be in the last few days of October!