Share-house living for introverts - the experiment comes to an end

What with the Halloween party and various extra people moving in/staying over at the house (seven of us at last count), I have had it. The wheels have fallen off this particular experiment, sadly. I reached breaking point last week, when Friday found me a nervous wreck after existing on virtually no sleep for several weeks. I tearfully booked flights back to Australia for Christmas (yay!) and decided that I need to move out in order to preserve my sanity.

So now, the house hunting begins again. I can't afford to live on my own (which I would do in a heart-beat) so I am going to try and find a flat to share with one other girl. Like I was was doing just 5 months ago.

*heaves world-weary sigh and slaps forehead at own stupidity*

Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something. Something like: Go home, sister! Your parents miss you! London in the Winter is miserable! You aren't designed to be a travelling nomad!

Playing against type

Phew [wipes sweat theatrically from brow]. I've just completed a four-day intensive acting course. After my well-rehearsed but poorly-acted Shakespeare monologue on the second day, the famously cruel director of the school made me sit down and asked me why I'd come on the course. I had been utterly petrified, to the point where I was on the verge of tears and/or fainting, and it showed. I got the words out, and they were "immaculate" according to him, but I was so paralysed with terror that I could only stand there like a post.

I'm pretty sure Juliet would have been pacing, flitting to the window and back, and making gestures of impatience as she waits for the nurse to return with a message from her beloved Romeo. But the most I could manage was to swivel my torso from left to right. My feet might as well have been super-glued to the ground.

Why? Why put myself through that? That's what I've been asking myself all week. But apart from that horrible moment (and it was only a moment), the rest of the course was really quite good fun. For me, as I tried to explain to the director, it was a kind of personal challenge - my own personal Everest, if you like (well, maybe just Base Camp). For an introvert like me, the thought of performing in front of an audience is far more challenging than the prospect of climbing a mountain. I know I could train to climb a mountain, and make sure I had the right equipment and support. The thought of it doesn't scare me at all. Even jumping off a waterfall didn't compare in the fear stakes to what I went through this week.

Before I went on the course, I would never have imagined that I could sing on my own in front of an entire class, or complete a serious dramatic scene in front of a small audience. For me, just getting through it was a little victory.

I particularly enjoyed the stage-fighting - especially the fencing - and the game of theatrical wink-murder we played afterwards. I thought my "stabbbed in the back" was really quite convincing. But my favourite part - which the teacher assured us was everyone's favourite part by the end of the four days - was the musical number. We learned "A Real Nice Clam-bake" from Carousel, and then performed it as a group, each of us singing a solo line or two from the verses. It left me on a wonderful, warm-hearted high. Maybe that's the point of musicals - they are much more fun for the actors than they are for the audience.

One of the boys from the class - a sweetheart who reminded me a lot of Omar from The Wire - told me afterwards that I should think about getting into some am-dram. I would have laughed and told him he was crazy a week ago, but now I find myself considering it.

Maybe I should start a theatre group for introverts. The In Crowd? Let Us Intertain You? If we could get the audience to sit behind a one-way mirror and not make any noise, it might just work.

Share house living for introverts

Last weekend I moved* into a big new home. A new home with four other (extremely lovely) people. Four of 'em though! That's the most people I've ever lived with in my life, apart from when I was growing up in a family of five (and I don't believe that counts because we were a family of hermits).

Lovely though all my new housemates are, I admitted to a friend last week that I was a little aprehensive about how I would cope with such a big share-house situation and confessed that I was treating it as an experiment (with me as the guinea pig).

I have finally come to terms with the fact that I am a true introvert, but other people rarely seem to understand why I need time and space on my own in order to not go totally bat-shit crazy. Non-introverted people just don't get this at all; and it's hard to feel you aren't being constantly judged by the majority of extroverted people who just can't fathom why you wouldn't want company for every little aspect of your life. One girl had her brother tell her, "we didn't know you were introverted; we just thought you were a bitch", and I'm sure there are a slew of people I've come across in my life who thought that of me; or maybe just that I was shy, aloof, snobby or very quiet.

Man, introverts get some bad press.

To help with the adjustment, I have tried to make my room as much of a haven as possible (it's a lovely big, quiet room on the top floor). But there is much to love about the rest of this rambling house (besides the people, natch) - we have a backyard with a barbeque, goldfish, 5 people's worth of kitchen gadgets, and OMG Sky TV! We also have a seriously big kitchen, and I am looking forward to getting stuck into some serious baking for my new flatties. It's been a long time between muffin batches.

Anyway, I'll let you know how it goes. Fingers crossed it doesn't go horribly wrong...


* This will be my ninth address in eleven years. It's fair to say that I am a bit of an expert with the moving now. The secret is to get boys to help you.