define me. / Monday, 12 September 2011 @ 19:26
Brand new week, brand new day :)
It's time for Theater again. I'm beginning to like how Theater kickstarts my whole week as it's the first class of the day on Mondays. It warms me up and sorta gets me hyped up to take on the week.

Today's warmup was a reaaaaal workout. We played a game that Ms. Chan called "Keepy Uppy" which made me giggle like a child. She presented us a ball made of thin rubber and it was really light and bouncy. The aim of the game was really simple- keep the ball up at all times. Hence, keepy uppy. At first we all stood around and started throwing the ball at each other. Some of us were even afraid of the ball, haha. Reuben and I decided to be a little too ambitious and wanted to break the record which was at 50 people who kept the ball up. We were aiming for 300, hahaha.

And it was a major fail! We hardly reached 30 and not many of us were really running to get the ball. But after a few rounds, many of us warmed up and starting running and jumping even more. After that, we were split into two groups to see who could get the most people to keep the ball above the groud. It was really fun, and from this, we learnt the importance of teamwork.

The next activity- my favourite so far- was called "School of Fish". It was a game where we had to huddle in groups, and the person that was infront would lead with a certain way of walking around the room and the rest had to follow suit. We could do any action we wanted and once the leader turned and the group followed, the next person that was in front had to lead.

I found this really fun because I got to do any action I wanted, but of course it had to be an action that everyone could also do. This was where the leadership element was shown. Another thing that I noticed was a sense of competitiveness. This was when we were moving around the room, we had to be wary of the other groups as well. At the same time, we had to fight for our space as everyone was moving at the same time. This was especially significant when Ms Chan added the element of sound where we could make any sound we wanted while marching, walking, crawling, jumping around the room. Every group tried their best to make their own sound heard and I was even cheeky to just walk through another group's space when I was leading. Of course I only did that for fun and it was not encouraged :p

The next activity was one that affected me quite a bit. Ms Chan called it self definition. Everyone was told to sit in one corner of the room. Then, two people (due to time constraints) had to stand in the middle of the room, facing the crowd and be quiet for 2 minutes. The moment Ms Chan explained the activity to me, I was immediately nervous.

This is because I have always had low self esteem, especially a few years ago when I wasn't confident with my body size and shape. Although many people say that I have confidence and can speak up when I want to, deep down I was still quite shy and never liked a lot of attention or to be in the limelight. Giving speeches, doing performances was never one of my strengths. But I suppose that's what Theater class is about right?

So when it was finally my turn, my hands were getting sweaty and there were pleny of butterflies in my tummy. I stood in the center and watched the crowd. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone. The two mintues felt really really long to me. I became very aware of my posture and position and even noticed that I was biting my lower lip a lot. Later I learnt from Ms Chan that these were "gadgets" that we used to make ourself feel comfortable. In the end, I survived the "ordeal" and probably learnt a little more about myself- on how I feel about myself and my confidence.

Truly it was one of my favourite classes.

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