Now we are working on our final project for the next two weeks. What I am going to do for my final project is I am going to perform a poem called the “Sweet Agony”. This is a serious poem, and it is also very sad and dramatic, which might be a big challenge for me. I have to work really hard on understanding what the author is trying to express through the poem and find a good way to act it out.   I actually really liked this poem when I first saw it, I think it is a very “deep” poem and I also think the language that the author uses is very beautiful, which makes me have the desire to act it out. I have an idea of having background music while I am performing because I think it is going to make the atmosphere even better. This is totally new for me, and I am not very sure how the result going to be, but I will still try my best to understand the poem and try my best to stay in the character. I think I also have to work on my articulation and my tone a little bit in order to make the poem sounds better. I hope my final project is going to be great!!


(This is the poem that I am going to perform)
Sweet Agony
What do you see when you look in my eyes?
A freak? A nameless being?
Or maybe simply another face in the endless sea of people
What do I see when I look at myself in the mirror?
I see pain, laughter, tears, smiles, fatigue, and endless energy.
What do I do 
When the world I live in
Doesn't know I am suffering?
I feel the scars
On my heart
My arms
My wrists
And I think back to a time when I was truly alone
Wondering the streets at night
The sky dark and stormy,
With the cold rain falling down on me
It was like the sky was crying
All the tears I was too afraid to shed myself
That was along time ago, 
but still I can feel the sharpness of the blades upon my soul
My skin
My heart
Sometimes at night I sit up
Stare at my window
And cry, for all the pain I still sometimes feel.
I wonder if life is meant to be more then this, 
This town
These people 
These feelings
I am like a caged animal, 
Trapped inside bars
Locked in, with no hope to escape
I scream
Yell
Cry
But no one hears me
I stand alone
On my own little path of life
That I have been on for as long as I can remember
With a broken heart
A broken soul
A broken mind
Still I struggle on
So that I can maybe see beyond this world
Of darkness and despair, 
So I can see the world beyond,
Of love and life and happiness
So here I stand,
A smile on my face, 
Even though I am being torn apart on the inside.
I will continue to smile, 
And feel
And love
And I will survive; survive to tomorrow
So I can learn to trust again
And this sweet agony
That has been with me all my life
Will be dispersed
Become nonexistent
Gone
No more.
And I will finally
Be 
Alive.

Source: http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/sweet-agony

Final Project

Now it is nearly the end of the second semester. Our acting class is about to do our final project. I have learned so many useful things from this class, and I am thinking really hard about what I should do for my final porject. I have tried a lot of different ways of performing in the class so far, and I really liked them. For my final project, I think I am probably going to do a serious or comedy monologue, and I am also thinking about doing a slient movie again.

I want to do serious (or funny) monologue because I want to practice my confident in speaking. Since English is my second language, I am always a little bit shy when I am performing for the previous few projects. Lines are my weakest part of performing, because I didn't know how I can make them more interesting. A monologue is a very good way to practice my confident in speaking, I am going to pay close attention to how I should express my lines in an impressive way and what actions I should add in my performance. This might be an interesting challenge for me, and I think I will start looking at different monologues online and see if there is anyone that I am really interested in.

I also might want to do a slient movie again because I had so much fun during the first time I was doing it. I am better at acting more than speaking, I have a lot of facial expressions when I am performing, which might interesting for the audience. And I also know how to edit videos on the app iMovie, which might be helpful for doing this project. So these are probably th reasons why I want to do this project again. But on the other hand, I think I really should do something that is more challenging for me, I think I should try something new and I also shoud face my weakness and try to improve it as much as I can. So I am still deciding which one I should do.

I really hope I can make some big improvements on my final project, and I think I will be working really hard on it.

“The Dead”

   Since John Jiang is a friend of mine; I’ve heard a lot of things about the play even before the actual performances has started. At first, I learned that it is going to be a “tragedy”, and all the great actors at CA are going to join the show. I was really excited about the show, because I knew it was going to be really fun. As what I thought, I was really impressed after I watched the show, and I’ve learned a lot of useful things from it. All the actors that participated in the show were amazing. I was also very into the scene the whole time while I was watching the show.
   There are so many good things about the show. For example, all of the actors presented their lines in a clear and strong voice. Everybody was very familliar with their lines; I could tell they must have practice them thousand of times. I also couldn’t really tell if they have made some mistakes or not. All of the them were very into the characters and they were well-prespared when they were performing. During the “party" part of the show, I felt like everybody was very relaxed, so it really made me feel like it is a real party, and I was a part of it. I really liked the atmosphere of that scene. I also thought they were drinking real alcohol during the show, which makes the play more realistic and interesting. There were also few funny lines which made the audience laughed hardly.
   There were also a lot of serious parts happened during the show. The one that impressed me the most was the scene of Sam and John talking at the very end of the play. They were fighting because Sam sang a song about the boy that she loved, but the boy probably died for her, which made her very sad. This made John very angry because the woman he loved, his wife, has loved somebody else besides him. I also loved the monologue that John presented at the end of the show, I was really touched, and I also loved the monologue itself. I was even still into the scene after I left the black box.
   After I watched the play, I felt all of the people that participated the show were so talented. For example, they have sung many different songs, and every single one of the them was amazing. They all had beautiful voice. I also really liked the piano part, it made the atmosphere of the scene even better. my favorite character would be the character that John Jiang presented. He did an amazing jon on expressing the traits of the character, and he was very relaxed during the show. His voice was also clear and loud.
   The only thing I think they could improved a little bit was to make the flashback parts of the play easier for the audience to tell. It was a little confusing when everything just stopped and John started to talk. The way that I think they could do it was to dim the light in background and have only one light on John, because this would make the audience easier to tell what is happening. Everything else was really good.
   I really liked the show a lot. According to the performance of all of the characters, I started to know what I should do when I am performing. I should try to be very relaxed, and I should be fully into my character. I shouldn’t be shy, and I shold enjoy every single second on the stage. This show made me want to work harder which I believe I will be doing. I loved the show so much and I had a great time watching it.

Our class has been working on an very interesting scene for two weeks. At the beginning of the project, we couldn't find any good scenes online, so we decided to come up a scene ourselves. We discussed a lot and we made a scene on a hot topic, which is the presidential debate. We made our scene really funny, and we came up with a lot of interesting lines. I played the moderator, Jack played Donald Trump, Giovanna played Hilary Clinton. We all had so much fun while we were working on the project. 

I also learned a lot of important things by performing this scene, I've done so much things that I've never tried before. The things I think I did well was I spoke in a pretty clear and loud voice. I also had a lot of facial expressions, I was more willing to present myself than before. These improvements  all made me liked the project a lot. We didn't get bored at all when we were practicing, we actually enjoyed it a lot because the scene was funny and interesting. We were having a lot of fun.

There are also some things that I think I definitely need to work on. For example, I think I need to work on be more exaggerating when I'm performing, so the audience won't get bored. I also need to work on developing the character more, which can make the audience learn about my character by looking at my performance. For the next project, I think I need to participate more and be more active, I think I need to share my ideas with the class more and join the discussion more. This was my favorite project, I enjoyed it a lot and had so much fun while I was working on it. I also had some improvements which I think would be very useful to my life.

Debate scene reflection
After I watched the video of our debate, I found out some strength and some weaknesses.
The first thing I think we did well is all three of us were pretty into the characters. My peers did a really good job on presenting the traits of their characters, which really made the scene interesting. We presented our lines in a loud and clear voice.

But some weaknesses we have are we weren't very familiar with all of lines, so there might be some mistakes during the proformance. And I think we also had too little movement, this might makes the audience feel boring. We should move around a little bit more and interact with each other more. Also I think I can exaggerate my character a little bit more, so the scene could be more interesting.

We've been working on the project "silent movie" for the past two weeks. It was a really fun project, and everybody in our class had participated a lot.
When we first started the project, I had no idea what we should do. When the class was discussing about the script, I was thinking really hard about how to make the script more interesting and absorbing. After that, I came up with the idea of the old lady walking down the road, and when a car comes, the old lady pretends the car hit her in order to get money from the car accident. I came up with this idea because this kind of event actually happen in our real life. And it is pretty easy for us to act it out because the plot isn't very complicated.
The role I played in the silent movie was the greedy, old lady. The thing I think I did well was I had a lot of facial expressions, and I actually "fell", so it's more true for the audience when they watch it. Also, my body language was pretty exaggerated, so it might be pretty funny for the audience.
All of my classmates did an amazing job on this project, they've been working very hard and we all listened to each other and we worked together. The only thing I think we can improve is we should add a background sound when the car comes in order to show it's an car accident. Also, there was a little problem on filming. We shouldn't see Josh pushing the chair when Jack is driving.
But it was still a very fun experience, I would love to do this project again if I get a chance.

Movement project and silent movie

     Last week we did a really fun project which was called the movement project. For this project, we had to pick a piece of instrumental music and then perform it out with a partner. The piece of music I picked is called “Summer” by a Japanese musician. The thing that was easy for me during the movement project was to have good facial expressions, I knew what kind of emotional I should have during the performance. The thing that was a little bit difficult for me was to think about what movements we should have during the performance, and what ending we should have. Because I didn’t want to make the sudience confused at the end. My partner also did a great job, we had a lot of discussions on what movements we should do and how to make the project better. During the practice, we’ve changed a lot of details in order to make the performance more vivid.
     The thing I think I could’ve done better is to have more movements and more the performance longer. Because our final draft of this project was just barely a minute. I think it would be more interesting to the audience to have a longer performace. The piece of music I picked was really happy and relaxed. Like its name, it makes people think about summer when they hear it. So my partner and I performed as little kids that are playing together, which will make the audience feel interested and happy. The piece of music was also pretty rigoroso, so I wasn’t very difficult for us to add movements in it. I actually really enjoy the time that when we were performing, I was pretty into the character and I thought it was really fun.
     Now we are working on a project called the slient movie. I think the easy part for me is to find the pieces of background music that we are going to use, and it wasn’t very difficulat for me to think abouta a script. The difficult part for me is to think about the details of the slient movie, how are we going to let the audience to know what we want to express? We have to work on this more. All of my partners are nice and they all putting efford into the project. It think the background music will change depending on how the ploting is gonig to be, this is going to make the movie more vivd. I hope it is going to come out great!