all at once

Last week, I decided to be Joan from Mad Men for Halloween and dyed my hair red in a hotel room in Wenatchee, Washington. It, not surprisingly, looked like a four year old had done it, so Saturday I threw down some major cash to get it fixed. It looks pretty firey now, and I'm still adjusting to life as a red-head.

Sunday, Brian and Jon from work were super-heroes and helped me move into my new place. We, amazingly, did it all in one trip (except for a few things I'm going to pick up by car in the next week or so). I'm all moved in and loving living in NE. Goose is a fantastic room mate, $350 for rent is quite nice, and living 5 minutes to and from work is hard to beat.

Then, I got a bug in my brain in the past 24 hours about grad school. Part of it was looking up Deaf Theaters on a whim last night, part of it was looking at some of LJ's pics from grad school, and just thinking about what I really want to do. I've thought a lot about integrating puppets with Deaf Theater, but for some reason had always considered an entertainment/education model as opposed to an outreach program. Today, I started thinking about theater as a tool for education, community building, expression, and linguistic development for Deaf children. How naturally puppets and dance would fit into an outreach program. Also, that grad school would be the perfect forum to develop a model program for my thesis that I could potentially continue with grant support after receiving my degree.

So, I started looking at grad programs. Educational theater programs, interdisciplinary studies programs, MFAs in theater for youth... then I stumbled across this. First of all, just the name makes me drool. Performance as Public Practice? A phrase that succinctly describes my operating theory of creativity as a mode of being, expression, and engagement. Secondly, it seems to have the structure, context, and support I would need, while being open ended enough to allow me to develop my own program of study. Third, it's in Austin! A place I've already toyed with moving because it's close to family, and as a city is pretty stinking rad.

Phew. Exciting to say the very least.

To achieve my goals though, I still want to get certified as an ASL interpreter before moving forward with this, which at this point still means Atlanta for at least the next two years.

The cool thing, is that as I was thinking about applying, I realized that everything I've done up to this point actually contributes to this goal. Bread and Puppet, Playwright, Tears of Joy... I have learned about/participated in community engagement in theater, theater as a tool for social change, theater as a tool for personal development and growth, and entertaining and educational puppetry. I have experience leading workshops in puppetry, performance, movement, character, and playwriting. It is really pretty great to realize there really hasn't been a time since I left college during which I wasn't actively pursuing my insanely varied interests. All of which have lead me to here, now.

So, I'm really feeling in it right now. My ideas about the life and work I want to create are constantly evolving, and I've got to say realizing how all the pieces fit together is pretty neat.