I should be working ...

So as the title says, I should be working. But I haven't updated about project week yet and I should. Because it was awesome. So for those of you who don’t know, I was doing invisible theatre for my project week. Invisible Theatre is when you go on the streets and do a pre-planned skit or whatever, but the audience doesn’t know that it is planned. So they think it’s a real situation. The idea is that it forces the public to think about how they act in society and how they treat those around them. So that was my actual project. Marina and I were leading it. However, we were staying at a house that we rented with another two projects. So we worked for part of the day and then when we got back to the house we got to mix and mingle with other Pearsonites so we didn’t get sick of one another. There were only five of us after all. But five stellar people. And we had so much fun. 

SUNDAY: I’m running around campus packing, cleaning and trying to ensure that everyone in my group has cutlery and a sleeping bag. Not an easy task when everyone (including the people I’m looking for) is also running around making sure of something or other. (ps. I only have two hours of sleep because Marina and I were hanging out around campus all night talking and watching dance videos). I finally get to the buses 15 minutes late. But everyone DOES have cutlery and a sleeping bag. So it’s worth it. We get dropped off downtown, say our goodbyes to everyone else. It’s a slightly tearful goodbye as we think it may be the last time we ever see those brave souls who have decided to hike the Juan de Fuca trail. (Don’t worry, we saw them two days ago, they are back and fully alive). Our two groups head out to the house, suitcases in tow. Everyone has given me their money for the house, so my wallet is stuffed with $1680, mostly in $20 bills. We get there, settle in, pay Dawna and then decide we need to go back downtown and get some groceries. So we all head downtown to have a lunch and do some shopping. Bargains galore. Unfortunately, we went a bit overboard on the pasta and have been suffering the repercussions ever since. 

MONDAY: Day one of the project. The other group leaves the house bright and early, our project sleeps in and doesn’t really get started till 11 o’clock. Heck, we’re self managed we can pick and choose whatever hours we want. We decide we want to do a skit about monetary inequality. How? Well ... we decided to go to a restaurant and not be able to pay the bill. Here is our ‘script’. 

venue: White Spot

characters: all of us

idea: people can’t pay the bill

issue: inequality

Pareena and Marina masquerade as international backpackers. Not too far a stretch, they are internationals at least. They go into the restaurant and order their food. Zuzanna goes in a bit later and sits alone quite near them. She plays the sophisticated woman, drinking tea and reading her book (her roles is to intervene if the situation gets out of hand). Claire and Emma come in later and sit near the other two. They are gossipy Canadian teenagers. When the -eena’s bill come, they discover they can’t pay it. They make a fuss, digging through their bags and scrabling to come up with the cash. Claire and Emma start to laugh and point and generally find it really ridiculous that other people have come to eat in a place where they clearly can’t afford to pay the bill. This is where the script ends and reality starts. The waitress asks what’s going on. The -Eena’s explain that they can’t pay. The waitress heads off to find the manager and see what should happen next. A man from the table over goes over to the Eenas and asks whats going on. They explain that they can’t pay. He offers them the cash he has, which is $10. Unfortunately, the girls need about twice that. So he leaves, he doesn’t even leave them the $10. Interesting. So the manager comes over and talks to the girls. Finally, he sends Marina running down the street to a money exchange to change her Brazilian currency into dollars. The exchange doesn’t do conversions with Brazilian money. Oops, so she runs down the street to another one, which is closed at this point. As a last chance, she heads to the harbour (a looong way away) to try the money exchange there. Alas, it is also closed. Meanwhile the rest of us are in the restaurant, dragging on our meals as long as possible to still be there when Marina gets back. The waitress goes over to Pareena to comfort her and tell her everything will be alright. Marina returns about an hour later. She explains that the exchanges were closed, but that she “went back to the hostel” to get her credit card. Guess what? The card doesn’t work. But Marina didn’t know this. It WAS NOT part of the script. so now shes actually panicking. She really can’t pay for her meal. But alas she has another credit card so they finally pay and leave the place. The others of us quickly following suit. 

TUESDAY: We decide to do a piece about teenage pregnancy, but also sort of about judging people based on appearance. It only really involved three of us, and took place on a bus. We ran it several times. I got on the bus dressed as a twenty something (it’s a miracle what fancy clothes and a pair of shoes can do) and sat down quite near the front. A stop later, Zuzanna and Marina got on and sat next to another passenger. They pretended not to know each other. The following stop, Emma (dressed as a pregnant teenager) and Pareena get on. They’re talking and having a good time when I start to ask questions about her pregnancy. How old is she? How far along? Too late to abort? Yes, how unfortunate. Will she keep it? Does she really think she’s responsible enough to have a child? And such. Zuzanna and Marina’s role was that of animators-the people who talk to the public about what is going on and try to engage the public in a discussion or reflection. When we feel we’ve talked enough, we get off the bus in a staggered fashion. We had some interesting reactions. We ran the skit during the after school rush, so we were often on buses stuffed with teenagers. A few girls gave up their seat for Emma once. Mostly, people just judged me for being so harsh towards the ‘poor pregnant teenager’. Interestingly enough, we had no verbal reactions. No one ever took it upon themselves to intervene. 

WEDNESDAY: On Wednesday, we had a fairly relaxed day. Later in the afternoon we went down to the waterfront. Earlier we had gotten a bunch of cardboard boxes which we ripped apart and wrote quotes on. So we sat on the promenade with our poster-ish things and just talked with people. It was nice. We definitely met some interesting people. Our questions were taken mostly from our experiences in the theory of knowledge course, so they were things like “how do you KNOW what you KNOW” and “what is life? where is life? why is life? how is your life?” and “when did you last listen?”. It was good fun. 

THURSDAY: Day off, mostly. We spent the morning preparing our skits for Friday, but in the afternoon we took some time for ourselves. We went and lounged in the sun, watched the sun set, had pancakes and wandered around (not in that order). 

FRIDAY: We went to UVic to do a skit about bottled water. I saw Anne Bateman. Luckily, she didn't see me. The skit was funny. I'm getting tired of typing. Can you tell? 

SATURDAY: This day really deserves a full fledged report. I got to be a homeless person for an hour or so. The skit was me sitting and being a homeless person nearby a bus stop (that was so that people would be stuck there and have to listen and see the scene that went on). So I sat there as a homeless person with no shoes and grungy clothes (not hard, I rarely do laundry) and a college sleeping bag wrapped around me with my little bucket out in front of me for people to drop change in. I have told this story so many times its not even fun anymore. Basically, I made was given a hat, a sandwich, a cigarette, a bottle of water (ironic after the previous day's skit), a place to go to get free shoes, a place to stay for up to three months, $10.02 (more than minimum wage) and most importantly (in my eyes) two people stopped and had conversations with me. It was crazy. Totally changed my view on homelessness. I'm making a radio show about it that should be up fairly soon ... I'll post the link when I'm done with it. 

So that was that. Oh, expect that on Saturday afternoon when we got back to the house we discovered that the toilet was plugged. And in my attempts to fix it, I accidentally flushed it again which meant that poop water went spilling over the toilet bowl and all over the floor and because the house was poorly built it started seeping under the walls and into the carpet on teh adjoining rooms. It was a mess to put it bluntly. And the plunger didn't even work. So Marina and I ended up playing in this crappy water fo ra few hours trying to clean it up. We got quite giddy after awhile. Some say it was the situation, others say it was the vast amounts of Mr. Clean that were wafting through the air. Who knows, all I know is that it was a great experience. Which isn't to say I want to plunge toilets for the rest of my life, no siree bob. But that it ain't all that bad when you come down to it. Just make sure you're doing it with someone amazing and be positive. And try not to remind yourself that in reality you are playing in someone else's poo. It really doesn't help the situation. 

Anyways, I'm back on campus now, have been for a week. Not that it really feels that way because all week I have had my nose in the economics textbook, either for my internal assessment or the exam. But those are done now. This week I have the half interesting half nauseating task of writing my first math essay. Yes Bethany, you heard right. A math essay. Nasty. Yet intriguing at the same time. I also get to write my World Literature essay. Woohoo! My two favourite subjects :) But yeah, thats sort of all the stories I wanted to tell. Now I shall go to bed. We get to "fall back" tonight. So that should be exciting. IT's always a debate right, do you pretend as though you didn't know it was happening and so get an extra hour of work in, or do you take advantage of the strange flip in reality (really, these sorts of things don't just happen. time doesn't just appear!) and sleep in for the extra hour ... since its not taken out of anything. I think perhaps I'll opt for the later. It sounds more exciting. Well ... you know what I mean.