November 5 – Day 49

I had just finished having a conversation about how this was the first day in Moscow that I had absolutely nothing to write about when life once again set out to disprove me. It had been a blissfully uneventful day. I did a little laundry, cleaned my dorm room, even listened to the Patriots/Colts game downloaded from the internet. It was bitterly cold and snowy outside and my pajamas were so comfy I could not bring myself to venture outside. I spent the entire day relaxing and reading with few interesting anecdotes as a result. But then Nick came in to rehearse. We were given our scenes for the final presentation on Saturday and at first I was sort of bummed not to get a scene from Chekhov. Instead I received a scene from Ostrovsky’s ‘The Diary of a Scoundrel.” I am not a huge Ostrovsky fan and at first read this play seemed particularly trivial and ridiculous. I wondered what exactly my professors viewed me as when they were choosing this piece but then I read through it with Nick. It is FUNNY! Actually funny and slightly raunchy (as much as was possible a hundred years ago) and the best part is that the character I am playing is irreverent, sexy and most importantly strong. She is an older woman who has seen and done a few things in her days to male counter-parts blush in unexpected ways. I spent the majority of my college lamenting over playing the weak, girlish victim and then discovered after I graduated that long before I was old enough to drink I appeared too old to play a my age. Since then it has been broken women on the brink of disaster and I have to say it can get to be a downer. It seems I only needed to cross a few continents to be perceived as strong and funny. It is a type of character I have always longed to play and the type of woman I always hope to be. Okay I am not 21 anymore (as my classmates constantly remind me) but that’s okay – I don’t think I was ever that good at it anyway but maybe the best is yet to come. It all seems to be getting better with age.