Embarrassment. – By @j_kburgess
By Jemma Burgess
Embarrassment.
For the majority of the people who were not at my interview day, this first bit on how I absolutely blagged my way into school is for you and yes, It was embarrassing. The interview day was nerve-wracking enough but I think we can all agree that the most intimidating part of the process was standing up in front of the whole past year to for 4 minutes to talk about yourself. Especially if like me, you were chosen to go last. I remember sitting at the front, slowly feeling the sweat build up of my brow as I watched each person go up and talk like genuine normal people about who they were and what made them tick. I slowly sank further and further down into my seat as I began to realise that I might have missed the whole point of what we were supposed to do because mine was not like this AT ALL. Eventually, Marc looked me in the eye and smiled as a sign that it was my go and to not fuck it up and I can tell you know my exact thoughts were, fuck it, if it all go’s tits up, at least I never have to see these people again. I started with a spoken word ( Which to some surprise I have never performed spoken word before) about my dyslexia and anxiety. I knew in exactly 1 minuet 20 a Scottish voice would be herd in response to what I was saying ( I thought that would be funny ) and at the end of this speech music was going to come on so it had to all be timed perfectly. It wasn’t. My mind went blank. All I can say is, 3 years of drama school payed off because I just chatted shit until I remembered what I was going to say. Dear sweet mother of joseph, I made it through the spoken word. It wasn’t over. This my friends is where the leap of faith moment comes in. I decided pre interview that after my spoken word, I would up the game abit and play Mr Blue sky, to which I choreographed a little mini movement piece. The movement got more and exacturated until I eventually lost a little bit of control, took my top off to reveal a shiny leotard over the explosion of glitter that had been pasted on my body. It was a bit insane but lucky, to my surprise it went down well.
The point of this story is that I felt extremely embarrassed and self-conscious before I got up. Self – doubting thoughts perpetuated my mind as I looked up my soon to be fellow co-workers. But I did it anyway and for that, I’m really proud of myself.
I wrote this in response to a conversation we had as a cohort the other day. Someone asked Marc if they should be posting their work on social media even though at the moment their work isn’t as good as they want it to be. To which Marc responded by saying ‘ You don’t have the right to think that you are doing good work right now.’ This stuck with me like the car on the Araldite ad. Of course we’re not going to produce fucking insane work right now. Were students. In our first term!! Boy do we have the potential. We shouldn’t be embarrassed to share or be scared to do make work. Were only gonna get better. I look back at my interview day and despite the fact that I was scared and embarrassed I still did it. I felt fearless. So starting today I’m going to try a little harder to do things that might embarrass me because you never know what might happen.
Peace x
