First Days of School

THIS. HAS. BEEN. AMAZING. SO. FAR.

Sorry for all the dots, but I just really have to emphasize how I feel. School kicked off, as of yesterday, with not so much of a bang as you might think. Loads of information was both handed out and told to us and by the end of it, your head, at least mine, was spinning.

The day started off nice and easy by showing up at the school, naively picturing me arriving pretty early to a line that was going to be filled with a maximum of, say, 25 students. We had all been told to meet in the school lobby between 10-12 in the morning for our introduction and registration and by getting there at 10:10, I thought I would be early.

As I arrived at campus, much to my surprise, there were around 40 people ahead of me in an unorganized mass, while even more people stood in line up front for their registration. I was happy to be proven wrong, because it could only mean, more classmates, more new friends, more talented people and lots of more fun! When I finally entered the "organized" zone, the mass behind me had filled up nicely and I could easily count another 30, stretching all the way out of the building.

After getting through all that paperwork and registration, they told all international students to be back by 2pm so I had plenty of time to get to Starbucks, down a couple of cups and plan my next move. I there, looked through the binder that the school had given to me and found 7 different plays/scenes. 6 were sonnets by Shakespeare where we had to pick one and learn it by heart until first class, and the other was a dialogue from the movie "Up in the Air" which was to be rehearsed, practiced and good to go for the audition that was today. I, of course, started with the sonnet as it's more complicated to learn something by heart and perform it by yourself, than to learn a part of a dialogue and perform it with someone else.

I actually learned the entire sonnet by heart in under 3 hours and was mighty proud to have done so. I went for lunch at 1:15 and then headed back to school for the international introduction. There I met with a lot of people from all over the place, many of which I befriended easily and got along with really well - including a former teacher from the UK, a Danish actor, a super natural investigator and a recent high school-graduate.

The international meeting took about an hour, followed by a general meeting for everyone (acting-, photography-, broadcasting- and musical theater-students) which included basic info and introduction of teachers and a short presentation of all students. We afterwards had a general actors meeting with our head of program who went over our section more specifically. Imagine both my relief and disappointment when he told us that the sonnet I had put so much effort in to learning was due to our first Shakespeare class - in 8 weeks - much ado about nothing, ain't it so Bill? We were all done by 5pm and much to my surprise, nearly everybody left straight after the meeting and no info was given about the auditions that were supposed to go down later that day.

I must have been greatly misinformed or greatly misunderstood something because when I approached our head of program wondering about the auditions that my admissions counselor had told me would go down after our introduction, he just looked at me and shaked his head. "The only audition you're doing, Fredrik, is tomorrow, I've already told you that". Boy, did I feel stupid, even though it wasn't my fault (I believe..).

I had dinner with the Danish guy, Andreas, who's a great guy, with A LOT of experience in front of the camera. He's been in several commercials, shorts and ads and is actually gaining quite a reputation in Denmark. We split up wishing each other good luck with the screen test/audition that was happening today and I went to get my new, (finally) discounted MacBook Pro! YOU'RE MINE YOU 17" BASTARD!

I'm stopping here, giving you some time to breathe, but beware, First Days of School pt. 2 is coming soon!

Don't be a stranger! Loves