I've been focusing on the positive, the good aspects of this life I now lead on the opposite side of the planet and the new work that accompanies it. This is my first "real" job. As an actor/teaching artist work was sporadic with prolific times of long hours and great progress going hand in hand with times of complete stasis. There is a consistency here that I am unaccustomed to, a daily routine, a rigidity that I often push against. The incredible director Anne Bogart writes that only within the container can we find freedom (while she speaks mainly of the actor/director and the necessity for setting choices into place when rehearsing, I find her words extend beyond the world of the theatre). This is my container right now, my boundaries are set from 7:30am to 3:30pm - but within the confines of classroom walls, attendence lists, ringing bells, and curriculum goals, I may have the opportunity to experience unparalleled freedom. My work here is to ignite imagination, to transform the space each class inhabits so that the "math room" may simultaneously be a courtroom, a palace, a bedroom, a kitchen, a forest, a ship, a club, a bar, a living room, a rocket to the moon... My own imagination thrives in that liminal state, betwist and between reality and fantasy such that the line blurs between the two. I can only hope my passion is infectious, that some of these students walk away changed, with a greater perspective and a child-like sense of wonder when encountering the world. Perhaps these are grand aspirations. But, as Marianne Williamson says:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?

So, who am I not to be? Who are you not to be?