And it's nearly the end of the week

Well, a week has been since my last post. I have been super busy. And not getting a heck of a lot of sleep, but I am pleased to report it is day 4 in the big room. So nice to have my own space to escape to! We've had rehearsal after rehearsal and Em and I both feel we need to rein in the going out next week... We have been party central!

Midsummers is going really well, I want to do a lot more work over the weekend though, in terms of really clearing up beat changes etc. We had a run through yesterday of what we have done so far which felt hammy, but gosh you can achieve so much if you organise! Ashlee's got us doing 15 minute blocks of scenes - at first I was like, 'Are you kidding - That is way too short!' but if you really focus those 15 mins and prepare well for it, it works. Not my ideal way to rehearse but all good eh.

Colonisation - I'm having loads of fun now. Creating in this short time is difficult, but I love creating characters - My bourgeois character Winifred is sooo much fun. We have been conducting improvisations around what we have written and because it is imperative for Winnie to have the moral upper hand all the time, as soon as people stop listening to her, she just repeats the same word over and over in a sort of musical tone. It is horribly annoying but quite brilliant. I also played with switching from Winnie to my Missionary Scotswoman Beatrice to the bawdy Ethel - who the best way I can describe her is to say she is kind of a pirate prostitute.

On Monday night, Em and I had a delightful dinner date at Mambo Italiano, where we shared fabulous pizza, salad and wine. We made bffs with the bar tender and basically, without going into detail, it was a bit nice to pull away from the group for a night. We took heaps of hilarious photos and I am very thankful I have such a good friend here.

Tuesday night was back at the Powder Room, where the girls were bought drinks all night and danced up a storm. The hilarious thing about Steamboat is that the gals are a bit chicken about dancing in public, but because Emma and I don't care, we dance outrageously to fantastic music for half an hour while people stare at us, then little by little they join in and we have a great time, making friends. I managed to acquire a football hat from one of the lads. Poor guy, it is worth quite a bit, but ho-hum, it is a bit better than the gaudy gold and white cap I got from the $2 dollar shop that Mum had a conniption about before I left. I spent $3.50 the whole day and managed to have the best time! We met Alex's friends Curtis and Mikey, who are just the nicest of nice lads. And hot babes too...

Wednesday, everyone was feeling the burn, in fact we had carried Adam home the night before as he tried to swim in the river on the way back to the whare. It was one of those nights! Rehearsal that day was mildly lethargic all round, a little flag to Em and I about trying to keep wild nights out till the weekend!! That night we went to a mixer to hand out PiKnik Theater cards and get a bunch of free stuff, like pomegranate and pear lip balm from the local bank, and a stress ball from a computer company. Food was eaten, no drink was drank - detox time! We spent the rest of the evening beached on the couch watching DVDs (don't see 'The Invention of Lying' it's shite) and eating popcorn and snickers ice cream.

Thursday was very productive, lots of good work done and a fun evening ensued making the Steamboat Tourist Calender...! I think it had a lot to do with the fact we went to Zumba - which is a brilliant workout dancing to hiphop and Latin American music. It was such a freakishly diverse group of people doing it: we had 65 year old men bumping and grinding, a gaggle of hockey mom's, 13 year olds, a woman with one leg, and a larger than life Samoan (who is constantly mistaken for a Mexican,) a chubs New Zealander (me), and Em and Adam.

Last night we went to SunPies, which is a bogan bar, but loads of people insisted we go to experience Hurricanes, a $7 cocktail which was delicious but unfortunately you can't taste the alcohol, so once I had had two, it was dance time... we went home trolleyed.

I did not go to bed till 6am so am operating on 4 hours sleep. I think I might go to the gym - I have been really good about going even when tired or a bit bung. I wear my unattractive adidas rugby shorts and a hideous blue top and pump iron for about 50 minutes. Yay America.