An Update | My Life

Since it’s been well over a year since I last posted anything properly on this blog (Packing Up My Life | Moving Away), I decided that an update on what I have been up to during the past year is very much needed. I have been battling with myself to start the whole blogging thing back up again, as every time I sit down and begin writing a post, it either ends up being scrapped or a whole heap of uni assignment’s are piled on top of me and it ends up being abandoned (seriously, you should see my Drafts tab at the moment- full of posts with just a title!) I’ve decided that, since its almost New Year and all, and my next uni semester isn’t going to be anywhere near as stressful as the last one (6 assessments due in the space of a week was NOT fun), I will *probably* have more time to sit down and write, which is something I have always loved doing and is therapeutic for me. I realised that, to do this, I’ll probably need to give you all an idea as to what’s been happening in my life before I confuse you all by mentioning something in a future post and you’re all like “Wait what since when did THAT happen?!”

 

Well, I might as well begin with all the boring stuff. I’ve just finished my first semester of second year on my Drama course (Being a Drama Student ). Last year was great, came out with some good grades and great friends. I’m now living in a house with 3 people on my course (I was right about my flatmates from last year, the “everything’s great with them” didn’t last long! We won’t go into that though…). This semester was ridiculously stressful, as I mentioned above, but I am glad its over and I know next semester will be so much better, as we are finally doing modules which I feel I will enjoy. I also have my house for next year sorted out; I will be moving in with a girl who lived in the flat across from mine last year and one of the girls who was in the same flat as me last year too.

I also have a boyfriend, who I actually met not long after I published my last post. We’ve been together a year and 2 months now, and it’s all going swimmingly. We went on our first holiday together at the start of September to Tenerife, which I won’t be doing a blog post on as I spent too much time drinking cocktails by the pool than taking pictures! But other than that, we’ve just been doing the usual couple-y stuff, dates and trips etc.

 

As for the blogging scene, I gave up on My Trending Stories (Changes | An Update) as similar as my excuse with this, I just got way too busy and I wasn’t keen on the set out of the website. I may begin posting there again once I’ve got into the swing of things again but, for now, I’m taking baby steps.

Lastly, mental health. If any of you remember the slightly dramatic, slightly agony-aunt-teen-magazine-esque post I did on here around a year ago (which has since been deleted because it was a pile of c**p) then you might be wondering what has happened since then. I still struggle with self-image on a daily basis (I don’t think it ever will fully disappear, it will always eat away at the back of my mind), but it is SO much better since that post. I’d just gone through a fairly awful break up with a not very nice person who’s intention was to constantly bring me down, and as a sensitive person, it really knocks you back. Moving away from home, and ultimately moving (kind of) away from him, helped. But Harry (current boyf) has also helped considerably, as well as finding friends at uni who I know won’t judge me or bring me down, who are always supportive and kind. I’m moving forward, slowly but surely, to being comfortable with myself again. It may sometimes feel like I’m taking one step forward and two back but I am getting there.

I feel like that is enough wittering on about myself for now. My social media, as always, is linked right at the bottom of this page if you are wondering what I have been up to or what I will be up to in the future. As always, if you have any requests for posts or questions about anything I’ve written here, feel free to comment or DM me on social media, I will always answer! I hope to get a new post up within the next week (don’t quote me on it though!) I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, and an even better New Year!

Iona 🙂 x

 

 

Being a Drama Student

I’ve always loved drama, and since a fairly young age, I’d always known that I wanted to do some kind of career on stage. However, when I started to take acting seriously, and decided to take a path straight into an acing career, I started to realise how much my choice was looked down upon.

People assume that I’ve just decided I want this career on a whim, that I didn’t even think it through. And they couldn’t be more wrong. I wouldn’t be on a college course, learning 4 monologues and a 10 minute duologue within a few weeks, plus taking part in professional shows outside of class, if I hadn’t thought this all through. When people ask me what I want to do as a job, and I answer with “Actor.”, people’s faces drop, and they start trying to suggest other jobs for me to do: ” But acting is such a hard career to get into, haven’t you thought of being a journalist? Or how about an author? Your English has always been good!” No. Just stop. I don’t want to spend my days behind a desk poking at a computer, I want to do something I enjoy. Something I’ve always enjoyed. I’m not in it for the fame or the fortune, I’m in it for the long run. To step onto a stage, and live someone else’s life for a few hours. To make people afraid, happy, angry, upset, confused; to make them forget the outside world, or make them think about what they can do to change it.

And don’t just assume that drama is piss-easy, because believe me, it’s not. It’s one of the most demanding things you will ever have to do. I’m in college all week, from 9 until 4, and I spend all day acting, dancing and singing. In acting I’ll either be rehearsing my 10 minute monologue, or one of my two shorter 3 minute ones. Or I’ll be practicing my duologue, or devising plays. In my spare time (two 15 minute breaks, or my hour lunch) I’ll be researching my characters, writing an in depth character profile (age, looks, aspirations, feelings etc) on each and every one of them. Or I’ll be doing the theory side: working on practitioners like Stanislavski, Brecht or Artaud, and studying how they have changed drama into what it is today, and trying to implement their work into my pieces and writing essays on them. If you come into our dressing room, we’ll all be practicing our dances, or flexibility exercises, whilst singing the song we have to learn for out next singing lesson. Then, when they day is finished, we’ll either use this time as more rehearsal time, go home to write log books, or go to rehearsals or plays we are doing outside of college. Our weekends are similar to this too. So don’t ever say we have it easy, because we sure as hell don’t. It’s physically exhausting, I don’t think there’s ever been a day where I don’t come home shattered or aching. Yet you don’t really see us complaining, we love all of this, and would rather be up on our feet, throwing ourselves around or pretending to be a man, than sat behind a desk trying to remember everything we’ve been taught over the last year.

And, I guess , in that sense, we do have it easy. We don’t do exams, we just do our thing in front of an audience, and we enjoy it. But it is absolutely petrifying. Within that audience, you could potentially have a talent scout, or the director of the original play, and the pressure to play your character right, without completely screwing up, is enormous.

Yet, us drama and arts students still get put on the shelf: over science and maths, we are the lower priority. In my previous school, all the maths students who had won awards for some mathsy quiz were always mentioned and talked about for weeks, but when it came to one of us drama kids preforming in our local theatre, we were ignored. The science kids got new, shiny, expensive science equipment, but we were still stuck with a crappy lighting rig with three lights that worked and a few ripped lighting gels. But how would people cope without the arts? No EastEnders to watch every night, no new films in the cinema, no theatre shows to watch when you’re feeling fancy.

People seem to take us for granted. People don’t seem to understand the amount of thought we’ve put in to getting into this career. Would we really take on the stress and piles of work everyday if we only wanted fame and fortune? If we really hadn’t thought it through? Because, believe me, if that was the case, I would have quit a long time ago!

Inspired by this article, which I spotted the other day: http://thetab.com/uk/norwich/2015/11/06/drama-is-a-real-degree-so-19185

Featured Image: Nell (Jasmine Cox), Rose (Iona Moss (Me!)!) and Jordan Roberts (Foreman) in The Blood Between Us. Copyright: Chris Lewis Photography

Road Trip | Los Angeles

So, this is my last blog post for a while. I have exams coming up and I’ve kind of run out of adventures to write about. However, if any of you have any suggestions for future blog posts, then please leave a comment. The last thing I want is to leave my blog empty until August! When I first found out that I was going to California, LA had been the place I was most excited to visit. However, when I got there, it didn’t seem to be as amazing as I expected. Perhaps that was down to the fact that we didn’t spend much time there and everything was a little rushed (we only stayed there for 4 days). The apartment we stayed in was near Silver Lake, and was right up on the top of a hill. The owner of the apartment lived beneath us, and every morning her two dogs would come up to see us and have cuddles on the sofa. Shops and restaurants were all really close by, and every morning we got a much needed workout when walking back up the hill after having breakfast in a really hipster café on the main street. Our first day there was spent getting all the touristy parts of LA out of the way. We headed down to Hollywood Boulevard and walked along both sides of the street, occasionally stopping to take pictures of the stars whilst disgruntled LA residents tutted  at us. We then had a look around the Dolby Digital cinema, and at the hand and footprints there, and this made me realise actually how big some celebrities feet are…

We then attempted to find lunch, but with it being peak tourist season, the queues for most places were very long. Then was the  tour of Beverly hills, with a very sketchy tour guide who I don’t think knew as much about the famous houses as he said he did…

  

Day 2: It was time for the obligatory Barnes and Noble trip. As a huge bookworm, I was incredibly excited: the prospect of being able to find books, or versions of books, that aren’t available in the UK was overwhelming. And the LA B&N did not disappoint. 4 floors of books. 4 FLOORS! I could have stayed in there all day! I picked up an exclusive copy of The Maze Runner and If I Stay, before exploring more of the strictly- American shops. That evening, we headed back to Hollywood Boulevard to see the absolutely amazing musical Once! I’ve never really been into musicals, but I had goose bumps the entire way through. I’m an actor myself, and I could never act, sing and play an instrument all at the same time…

 Day 3: Was the day the childishness came out: Universal Studios. We had fortunately been able to pick up a VIP pass, so there were no queues for us! I’d been to the Florida Universal before this, which is bigger, but both are equally fun. We went on all the rides, whilst taking occasional breaks to explore the costume museum and, of course, get a studio tour!  It was so interesting to see into the back stage area of some of the most well-known Hollywood Movies. Plus, the tour guides are so funny.

Day 4 was unfortunately our last day in stunning California. Our flight was that evening, so we had nearly a day to do one last explore. That morning we ate our last breakfast: waffles with Vermont maple syrup and Madagascar Vanilla cream and French toast, before heading off on a hike up to Griffith Observatory for some stunning views of LA. Then, off to Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach, which unfortunately were slightly rushed since we needed to head off to the airport to catch a 12 hour flight back to the lovely UK(!) I was so sad to leave California, it was such an amazing experience, and I cannot believe how much we did in just 14 days! We may have had a few disasters, such as wallets being lost, and GPS’s breaking before heading into the desert, but I would never change anything about that holiday. Someone please take me back?!

Such sadness! That was my last blog post for a while! 😦 However, if you want to keep up with my daily shenanigans, head over to my Instagram(s) where I am posting every day this month (on bothaccounts! That’s 2 pics a day!!) @iona_moss  and @bl.ck_  .I really hope you enjoyed this little series and if you want to see more, there’s pictures on my Instagram (you may have to scroll down a bit, it was nearly a year ago!) but I also did a little artsy video on my youtube channel: :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmYdWHcFqzg ! Plus, there may be more of them to come in the future (not sure when, but some time this summer!)! Lastly, thank you to everyone who has liked and followed me over the past few weeks, it makes me very happy that people aren’t ignoring me and are actually enjoying what I’m writing! There’s only a small number of you, but its all so nice! See you soon, hopefully! X

You got that James Dean, daydream, look in your eye…

Road Trip | Nevada: Las Vegas!

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? You know when you’re getting close to Vegas when you start seeing random casinos popping out of nowhere in the vast desert. After a 6 hour drive, it was nice to finally see some civilisation. The hotel we stayed in was the MGM Signature, which is an absolutely gorgeous hotel, and is massive. Our hotel room was basically an entire flat with a huge balcony looking out over the airport and, unfortunately, the boring side of Las Vegas (the side with all the casinos etc was on the other side of the hotel, but we were only staying there for a night so we didn’t mind). We arrived fairly late in the day, and by the time we had finally found the hotel (the directions were very confusing) it was time for dinner. So, we headed out into the heat to find the Cheesecake Factory. After an hour of walking (we were told it would take 15 minutes, but the streets were very busy) we finally found it! However, there was a huge queue outside and we had another fairly long wait to get a table. On our way back to the hotel we had a bit of a look around. Firstly we look around the massive mall were the restaurant was. The ceilings were all painted to look like the sky, and parts of it were decorated to look like European streets, with cobbled roads and fountains in huge squares. There were huge fish tanks outside the restaurant, with every fish imaginably swimming around inside it. Outside the mall were even more fountains: ones with huge lions that sprouted water from their mouths, and of course Caesar’s Palace fountain show. One of the things that amazed me was the amount of street performers: we passed several (very attractive) Thor’s and Loki’s, Power Rangers and Transformers. There were even a couple of children street dancing, which slightly worried me since it was around 11pm, and way past their bed time. But I suppose it is Vegas. I spent most of my time exploring in a daze. You are surrounded by flashing neon lights and, after a while, you start to become very confused and dazed, especially if you are very very tired. However I battled through the heat and the bright lights and finally arrived back at the hotel very sweaty  and a tad confused. We spent most of the next morning by the pool, which was first time in two weeks we had had a chance to relax. It was nice just lie there and stare into space instead of sitting in a car and worrying if you’re going the right way and hoping that you don’t get lost. We then packed up and headed off for our last 3 days in Los Angeles! To see more: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmYdWHcFqzg Instagram: @bl.ck_      @iona_moss See you next Friday! (Which will unfortunately be my last post for a while, but I’m working on things so that I can get more up as soon as possible. Any requests for what you want to see from me in the future?)  

Road Trip | California & Arizona: Barstow and the Grand Canyon

As much as I love the city, there’s nothing better than escaping into the unknown and being at one with nature!

We set off from Santa Barbara mid afternoon, and headed into the desert. I’ve never experienced the desert before, so as we drove further and further away from humanity, I had never realised how vast and empty it was. There’s nothing around you but sand, a couple of cactuses and the occasional small group of houses (which got me thinking about how they survive out there???). Occasionally we would drive through big stacks of golden/orange rocks that towered above you and created the only kind of shade from the blistering sun you would find for miles. We didn’t stop at all on the way there, as getting lost in the middle of a desert in the dark is not the most appealing idea. We finally arrived in Barstow, which is basically a truckers town: there a few motels, lots of food stores, fast food restaurants and shops that sell things like Sat-Navs, radios etc. It wasn’t the most exciting place in the world. But the one thing that shocked me about this place was how hot everything is: as soon as I stepped out of the car, a sudden gust of hot wind hit me. Everything in the desert is hot: the wind, the sun, everything. How people survive in this heat beats me.

The motel we stayed in was lovely. There was an indoor swimming pool, a gym and a  Jacuzzi bath in our room, which made a change since the motels we’d been staying in had (what felt like) 1 foot by 1 foot showers that had the worst water pressure ever, and it felt so much nicer. We spent one night there and set off the next morning for the Grand Canyon.

The drive was pretty much the same as the previous day: sun, sand, cactuses, more sand, more cactuses. However, as we got into the Nation Park green trees began to appear, which I was very grateful for. I mean, the desert was interesting, but seeing nothing green or alive for 24 hours was a bit too much. Finally we arrived at the Grand Canyon, and out hotel was a huge log cabin right on the edge of the canyon. The view from our window was insane: you could see the canyon perfectly and it was such an amazing view to wake up to. That night took one of the shuttles to a view point further down from the hotel and  watched the sun go down. I have never experienced anything like it: the sky set on fire and the canyon’s rocks caught the orange and everything was lit in a firey light. I could quite happily relive that memory again and again.

We woke up to a rather hazy view of the canyon, but it was still amazing. It looks so unreal: like it’s been CGI’d there and I couldn’t quite believe I was stood there looking down into it. We took a short walk around it, looked in some of the shops and grabbed some lunch before heading back into the desert.

On the way to Las Vegas we stopped in Kingstown: yet another truckers town, and had lunch at IHOP. America seems to be the only place where it’s acceptable to eat pancakes and waffles for lunch, and I wish it was acceptable in the UK. Several pancakes later, we headed off. On the way there we stopped at the Hoover Dam, which we looked at from a very windy bridge (the hot wind completely knocked the breath out of me and I could feel myself burning very quickly so it was really just a ‘take a quick picture and run trip’). However it was an amazing sight.

Las Vegas will be the next post, and then Los Angeles. However, he next two posts will be my last posts for a while: I have exams coming up next month plus I have exhausted my travel juices and have nothing else to write about until summer s I shall see you all then! YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmYdWHcFqzg