Friday 2 October 2009

Kidnapped

Pretending to be some sort of amnesiac kidnap victim inside a sealed room isn’t what I normally do on mid week evenings, but in the seemingly never ending whir of the last week, it happened. No, this isn’t (yet another) drastic change of direction that is going to see me turning all thespian on you. It was part of a course run for people interested in social and creative entrepreneurship by a life coach. I’ve been considering life coaching, although I may also have to consider selling my least favourite internal organ to pay for it.

So, back to the point where I’m lying on the floor, trying not to giggle at someone making fake snoring noises and thinking ‘oh my god, what kind of bizarreness have I got myself into and do I really have to stay here for TWO HOURS’, whilst having flashbacks to the seemingly endless ‘PE’ sessions spent at first school pretending to be tree, accompanied by exceptionally insipid music. And I hadn’t finished my cup of tea too, but somehow felt that consuming it would be against the spirit of the activity.

The scenario developed with the discovery of a ‘dead’ body. I suggested we could eat it, and then stood around with my retrieved tea, feeling like a bit of a plonker.

We moved onto an improvisation based around pretending to be a gang of criminals whose leader has been betrayed and killed. Let me tell you know: should you ever find yourself in this situation, with a group of complete strangers, enthusiastically volunteering to play a hitman might get you a few strange looks. After reminding myself to try not to scare my fellow improvisers I actually started to enjoy myself.

I’d done something a bit scary, going along to group where I knew no one and then doing the only drama exercise I’ve ever done in my life, and far from going horrifically wrong, it was fun.

One thing I’ve missed since coming back from China is spending time with people who have aspirations and interests, and here I got it in triple scoop portions. Despite being so tired by the time that I skulked up to do my one minute personal presentation that I could have been filmed for an online dictionary as the definition of logorrhoea, when I left I felt more energised than I had done in a while.

I’m glad I pushed my earlier doubts to one side and got involved: there’s definitely a lesson there for me.

6 comments:

  1. Brilliant post, J! Love that you pushed your doubts to ones side and gave yourself over to the adventure of it. (Beautifully written as well!)

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  2. I had to google "logorrhoea." lol :)

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  3. Teeheehee. Methinks it fiddled with your head, J. Crackin use of language in this post.

    And Kidnapped's a great book anaw.

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  4. Funny description of your evening. I've always found that pushing myself out of my comfort zone generally reaps big benefits. It sound like perhaps that has been true in your case, too.

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  5. Great post, Jane. I needed to read something like that! A very good lesson and a good read for me as well!

    Nice to hear of your hitman tendancies, you might come in handy to me someday. ;-)

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  6. Kathleen - thanks. Sometimes my cynical doubting is my worst enemy.

    Pat - :) I try and keep you all on your toes!

    naldo - quite possibly. what really fiddled with my head is when I thought the only teabags were peppermint -argh! thankfully there were a few black ones lurking about.

    Janie - definitely! Now I just have to have the courage to go back!

    ms tb - well, I could do with a second stream of income...

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