Pride

Just a little thought:

When you put hours of work into something, whether it's an essay, or an entire iPod's worth of tunes, or a cake; anything quantifiable that can be judged by another. When you've put as much thought and effort into it as you possess, and you really think you've done a good job. The emotion when you get that piece of work back, and the person marking it put nowhere near as much effort into looking at it as your attempt deserved, or someone scrolls through your music ("You still listen to them?) or someone disagrees with your cake-decorating style.

Your righteous anger when you've worked truly hard at something, and it's just not appreciated as it should be.

I wish that's how people could be when any platform, be it a television programme or an advert or an acquaintance, makes you feel bad about how you look.

'Hey, Big Shot, I've created this body with 19 year's worth of thoughts and experiences, of course you won't think it's perfect, because you have an entirely different idea of perfection to me.

But it's too late. I've put all this effort in and now I'm not going back. This is what I think is right, and I've got the evidence to prove it. I'm alive, aren't I?

Just because we have a difference of opinion over this, it doesn't mean either of us is wrong. But you should know that you can't change my view by looking down on me.

We make up a diverse and interesting world, and we need a world's population's worth of thoughts to make it as rich as it can be.'

Our appearance and our actions, all going in to create the delicious assortment of humans there are.

Stay positive, and stay yourselves.

Yours, proudly,
Abby

Binary

We like things to be simple. Easy to work out.

If we can't work something out, we like to have an assumption to fall back on. Gives us security, because we like to know things. Stuff. We can see this through scientific experiment, the constant questioning of our existence and the world around us, and the appearance through the ages of religion, to comfort and explain.

You know what's not simple? People.

Think about objects you can put into nice categories. Cars, bicycles, trains, and a finite number of objects we ride on/in are 'methods of transport'. French, Japanese, German and Sign Language and a finite number of ways of communication are 'languages'.

You know what you can't put into categories? People.

We wish it were easier. We wish there were good people and bad people. Did you know that under Gaddafi, Libya's literacy rate went from below 20% up to 85%? Jus' sayin'. Good people to bad things sometimes, and bad people do good things sometimes.

There aren't only normal people and weird people. There aren't only people who think like you, and people who don't. There aren't only atheists and religious extremists. Everybody's a mixture of everything, and we all believe little bits of everything.

You see, the problem with the boxes and the labels and the filing cabinets we insist on creating for everyone else is that soon you put yourself in one, too. The two categories which follow logically are unfortunately, 'Us and Them'. It seems so unfair to ourselves, is the human race really as boring as all that?

Let's celebrate our differences, and love our individuality. Let's recognise that the categories containing humans are infinite, as much as are the fingerprints we leave behind.

Yours, uniquely,

Abby

Undeniable Rights

You know how there are two sides to almost every argument? Whether eating meat is right or wrong, whether everyone's eyes see colours in the same way, how our old Earth was begun, why children are growing up so fast, what the perfect diet consists of?

You know how I put 'almost'?

Some subjects, when they're placed in plain view for us to see, cannot be argued against, or evaded, or ignored.

We're all struggling with the changes the government have made to fix our economic situation. Raised taxes, ridiculously high student loans, redundancies. Cut grants for adults with learning disabilities, changed eligibility criteria, different methods of assessment, shaking the security of many people with disabilities. Imagine how much more difficult it is to be independent, or to fund old age, or to adapt a home to your needs with a disability.

Disabled adults have exactly the same requirements to live a purposeful life as non-disabled adults. They need to be able to get around and have a social life. They need to have a place in society. They need a job or occupation. Nothing more than everyone reading this desires. But imagine if you'd missed a key part of education due to ill health, or you needed medical equipment in your home. How much harder it becomes to live a life every adult has the right to.

It is possible to eradicate this problem. Rosa Monckton, British charity campaigner, has set up a petition to ensure financial support for adults with learning disabilities for their whole life. Children with disabilities are usually lucky enough to grow up in a supportive environment with their family around them. The question is this - who supports them when their family are gone?

It is essential that this petition gets 100,000 signatures. There are no advertising tricks; my email address has never been sent to by anything connected to e-petitions. You sign your name (with as many email addresses as possible) and you make a change to an issue which shouldn't even be in question.

Please, please, sign. Please share this blog post or the petition itself far and wide so that we can support a worthy cause. Share on facebook, tumblr, by e-mail, tweet it, any way we can get the numbers up that you can think of. Thank you for doing the right thing.

The petition

Yours, gratefully,
Abby

With every 'no' you're closer to a 'yes'

This post is, frankly, about the millions of auditions well, four which I attended this week, none of which I will know the result of until tomorrow at the earliest. It had to be done straight away before I received the terrifying emails from directors; I might think something entirely different in hindsight, and I wanted to explore the thinks I am thinking at present, unclouded as they are by anything so unattractive as knowledge.

The plays are The Three Musketeers, Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice. I know which one I desperately desire a part in, but am loathe to write it. There is only so much potential failure I can set myself up for on the internet.

I have already had two unsuccessful auditions this year. Admittedly, one was a musical I went along to as a bit of fun (aside from the shower, whilst cleaning, or in order to make a fool of myself, I don't sing) but oddly the rejection from this actually stung the more, sure as I was of my incapability of holding up a harmonic line, than the serious play I actually thought I could get a part in.

I think the reason being told you haven't been chosen for a production seems so harsh because we take it personally. I was self-conscious about trying to take myself seriously and sing well. I was rejected by the Director. I used this as proof that I am, as I suspected, terrible at singing. Also, that I am worthless, will never do well in auditions, and should leave University immediately Comic injection - you're allowed to laugh. As it turned out, when I asked for my audition notes the director told me the main reason I hadn't got a part was because my style of singing wasn't right for the production (is Hair; I used to be a choral singer. Go figure.) and because I was so nervous. Not quite what I was beating myself up for...

Auditions are terrifying because we're all a little afraid of being ourselves, as we might not be picked. Of course, you're playing a character and not really yourself at an audition, but aren't these characters merely an extension of your personality? The direction you take a character, or the movement you perform in a workshop is your own personal choice, and it seems as though it is this choice which is unwanted.

To become less afraid of auditions, and to be affected less by directors judgements of me, I need to remember that the ultimate casting decision is down to one, possibly two, people. Just because they weren't in love with the way you performed a certain part, doesn't mean the whole world will think like that. As in auditions, so in life; not everyone will become your friend, and this is in no way a bad thing, nor different for anyone interesting on earth. Another matter I need to come to terms with, incidentally. If you have opinions on any topic, feathers will be ruffled elsewhere.

My advice therefore, is to put yourself out there, and be a little different. In what situation would you be chosen for being the same as everyone else? I can think of few. Stay true to what you believe, that which you enjoy doing, and how you wish to behave. That way, if a director doesn't pick you because you're the wrong height or build, or because you have the wrong kind of voice, you'll know that next time you will fit the preconceived image they have of the character, and your personality will shine through and illustrate you as the sort of person they would like to work with.

This is why I had to write this post before knowing - this way it is neither smug and patronising, nor bitter. Although it may be garbled, as it is four minutes past two in the morning.

Yours, anxiously waiting,
Abby