End of day 3 (again)

I'd had this great post about today all written out and then I lost my wifi signal... so I apologize but this one will be shorter.
It took me less time than I had thought it would to get from the school to the hotel this morning, so I got there about 25 minutes early only to find that the doors were card-locked. How do you want me to audition if you make it impossible for me to get in? Anyway, a student heard me knocking and took pity on me. Once again, I was the first one of the day, there was supposed to be a guy before me but was coming from Kentucky and hadn't made it yet. So they took me early. I did my monologues, they asked about me, I asked about the program, and that was it. The whole thing took about 10 minutes.
The program itself is different than a lot of the others I've looked at. It's original works based. They take 10 students every 3 years. The first year is spent building ensemble, coming up with original stuff. The second year a guest director is brought in to create a show with them. The third year, the class does an outreach with a pre-chosen group and collaborate a show with them. For example, the current grad class is working with refugees living in Columbus, helping their families, teaching ESL, etc. Their final show is based on the refugees' stories. The next grad class will be working with Columbus Public Schools and Stand Up for Shakespeare, getting the kids excited and participating with Shakespeare. As part of the that, the grad class will go to Stratford during the first year to study with the program administrators, then one of them would come be the guest director during the second year. Finally the grads would go into the schools to do Stand up for Shakespeare. So yeah, the Shakespeare thing, the creating your own shows thing, the ensemble thing all sounds like me. The problem is I just didn't feel much of a connection with the faculty, I didn't feel like they were particularly interested in me or whatever. Admission here has to go through the school before the department can start making any offers, so it could be a while before I hear anything from them either way.
Anyway, since the whole thing was over so fast, I decided to drive around a bit. On one side of campus I found a theater and a Starbucks. On the other side of campus I trolled that awesome street of tiny book stores, bars, coffee houses and tattoo parlors. After driving off my adrenaline letdown, I crashed at the hotel for a few hours talking to Mom and Adam. When hotel room fever set in, I headed out for a movie (Defiance) and picked up Chinese food.
Tomorrow I'll catch my flight to Providence. It's been sort of on-and-off spit snowing here, so I hope that doesn't cause any problems tomorrow.
Christian out.

end of day 2

Well, I'm currently in my hotel room in Columbus, OH. It's been a crazy couple of days!
I left Omaha early yesterday afternoon and drove to Bloomington/Normal, IL. I met Cassie, Marly, and Amanda (currently a senior at Northwestern, also auditioning at ISU) for dinner. Then Amanda and I went back to watch a run-through of the show Marly is currently assistant designing. It's called BreathBoom and was about women in gangs, hard but fascinating. After the rehearsal, Amanda and I headed back to Cassie & Marly's apartment while they finished up crew stuff.
During conversation, Amanda and I realized that we knew shockingly little about our auditions. I'd been told we needed 2 monologues, she'd been told 3 (good thing I memorized those back-up monologues last month!). Neither of us knew where we were supposed to be or who to check in with. We also found out later from Cassie that they apparently expect students to audition in business attire, which neither of us had with us. Slightly frustrtating.
This morning, Cassie hung out with me until my audition, which kept me from being nervous. I think it went well. There were 2 guys doing the audtions, they both seemed very nice. I did my monologues. One of the guys had me re-do one of them with different pieces of direction, which I think I did. They asked me to tell them about myself, so I talked about 88, why I wanted to go back to school, and why I was interested in Illinois State specifically. They said they were looking for 8 students, and that they'd start making offers in the next 2 weeks. We've been told that they're only planning on taking 2 girls (the grad students feed directly into their summer Shakespeare festival and Shakespeare just doesn't require a lot of women), so apart from having overwhelming competition, I feel good about it. Afterwards, Cassie, Marly and I met up with Drew (graduated with me from Northwestern, is currently a 3rd year lighting design student at ISU). Then we found Cassie & Marly's boss Julie and another grad student and all went out lunch.
I hit the road for another six and half hours, it should have been less, but I got lost at an interchange in Indianapolis.
Now I'm showered, crashed, drained... and set to do it all again tomorrow. Woohoo

Yay, birthday

Hi Everyone, thanks for all the "happy birthdays!" It was a good day. Work was fine, normal, whatever. I didn't really broadcast that it was my birthday because there aren't that many people who I care if they know there anymore. I did have a good conversation with Mom and got what felt like hundreds of messages on my facebook page (I think that's one of the great things about facebook, it has reminders and is the most convenient way to communicate). I picked up food for Adam and I on the way home, and when I got there he had cleaned up the apartment and had flowers and a present waiting for me (Best Husband Ever). Instead of a cake, we got chocolate peanut butter milkshakes from Coldstone and watched a movie at home. All in all, not one of the big-production birthdays I've had in the past (right, Mom?), but it was a good day. So, now I'm 26... Which sounds weird but doesn't feel any different yet. Jake's birthday is the 13, I think we're having a family dinner sometime toward the end of the month.
Tomorrow I'll leave for Cassie & Marly's around noon. I think I'm ready. I tried to print updated resume's and letters of intent, but for some reason the office suite software we use on our laptops doesn't translate real well and kept freezing up my computer at work. We're going to save them to a flash drive and Adam will print them for me at the Tea Smith and I'll pick them up on my way out of town. It's nice that I don't have to rush out in the morning because I'll have a little breathing space and not stress so much about getting everything done tonight.
Actually, one of the things that has me most nervous is dealing with a taxi when I'm in Providence. Do I pay in cash, or can they take cards? How much do you tip for a taxi? This is the stuff I've never had to deal with before but will probably still be cheaper and less hassle than renting a car.
I'm scared. Pretty much, these three are all I've got, if they all say no I'm going to have to do some serious re-thinking about my life goals.

I really don't want to have that conversation with myself.