So long and thanks for all the fish

It's our last day of school today. The fact that I'm sitting here at 6 o'clock writing this and that I've already been awake for some time shows a probable case of excess of alcohol last night more than anything else. But I think I was woken up by thoughts and feelings about all of this ending as well.

It has been two weeks of almost constant work. Days of 9am-9pm or 9am-10pm. My commande itself didn't go that well and I'm finding it hard to let go of and come to terms with. I ended up making a huge change to it on Friday night and re-working it over the weekend. I had been directing rather than being in it and decided to be in it because I wasn't able to get my (brilliant) actress to do what I wanted her to. (It was her suggestion). I worked much faster from the inside. Great lesson. Despite what everyone has said to me my entire life I am obviously not a director.

I regret extremely that I didn't ask to go on Thursday instead of Monday as it clearly wasn't ready and there were others that were. Regrets, regrets. The teachers said that it was good what there was but they wanted more. It was too short. I think they were being overly nice. . I didn't play it very well due to exhaustion and it not being ready. When you have rehearsed enough a part settles into your body. It wasn't in my body.

I was very lucky though to be cast in others people's work, and have had some nice comments on my playing in theirs. It was a real pleasure to enter into people's different worlds.

The profs have been very careful in their feedback all week, trying to right wrongs and send us off on a good note. I haven't entirely believed some of their feedback. I was watching the profs faces as they watched one of the performances and was able to see their reaction to some of the pieces and then heard a rather altered version in the feedback afterwards, above all yesterday when they were clearly trying to send us off on a good note. After such frank feedback for two years it rang a bit false.

I am so sad to leave. It has been the best two years of my life. I am scared and hopeful and excited and regretful and most of all so, so glad that I have had this amazing experience. I don't know if it's changed my life, though I suspect it will have done. I think it's changed me and changed me more than I yet realise. I feel I have two years of happiness in the bank and that I am well set up with a stock of good feelings for what it to come. I am clear about what I want for myself for the future.

When I arrived at Lecoq I was anything but clear. I had fallen out of love with theatre and with acting. I didn't believe in it any more and it was like loosing my religion. Again. I have been in love with theatre ever since 'Bandycoot'(early puppet show at Croydon library - the crocodile ate the cake), and decided to be an actress after reading my first full length book 'Mr Galliano's Circus' at about five.

I had a bit of a bumpy time towards the end of first year and retrospectively I think I was making the decision whether to stay as a performer or not. And how that could be possible. My amazingly talented friend A**, clear queen of the class, had a visit from her mother. She quoted an agent friend of hers who says 'I've never met a happy actress'. It's a bitter profession and more so for women. There are more actresses and fewer parts and the parts that there are are less diverse and more stereotyped - mother, hag, whore. I am out to prove him wrong. I think Lecoq has given me the tools to be a happy actress. I think I can.