SerenaObhrai.com

wooooooo! is how i begin this.

i’ll take this slowly and one step at a time, cos i have a lot to say. each paragraph should be something new, to give you an idea of what’s been going on with me since march 18th. they may not necessarily be in sequential order, cos i’m a ‘tard like that.

shooting on the four days for our movie was a fantastic time. we did all work hard, even though so many of us were not that impressed with the film idea in the first place, but we did the work anyway (kinda cos we had to!). so anyway, the film shoot was fun, overall. kudos to rebecca and her dad for giving us the location to shoot. unfortunately, some outside scenes had pretty bad sound, so let’s hope they can fix it.

the final performances (weds april 19th) went smashingly well. not just our class, but all the three groups on the whole did extremely well. it was so good to see everyone having so much and finally relaxing and taking the time to excel at what we do best. some more than others, of course. i was so very proud of our class for performing and maintaining a good balance of nerves and energy for the stage. then graduation and the movie screeners happened the end of that week on the friday (april 21st). watching ourselves on screen wasn’t that bad. also, i found that most of the stuff i shot wasn’t actually edited, so i guess i did good enough work for what was required. of course, in true NYFA fashion, the sound for our movie cut off half way through the movie, which disgruntled a lot of people. we had to wait a long time for this to be fixed, but people were keen to see the end of the movie, so they did hang about. which was nice james and i got a big ‘awwww’ during our intimate (not sexual) moment outside, which was adorable, hehe. rebecca’s step-mum also piped up (cos i’m talking about the baby james [who was vic in the movie] and i are about to have) and says “those’ll be some beautiful children!” haha. she’s very sweet, i like her. then we all went out for food and celebrated the end of NYFA september 2005 group in style by going to brooklyn and joining in the festivities at erika’s apartment and on the roof, and drank lovely frothy beer out of the keg.

my parents also came over for the week, which was superb. home-cooked mummy’s food again, and there is still stuff left in the freezer. gotta try and finish it all off before i move outta here. they left on the saturday (22nd april) and i made it on home at 4:55am, and they left in the cab at 5am. haha, i’m so funny sometimes. mum was pretty mad, though well, my excuse is that i told them i’d be there to see them off, i just didn’t tell them when

on the sunday (23rd) i flew to chicago to hang out with my friend, jonathan pitts, who runs the chicago improv festival. it’s the biggest improv festival in the world – chicago’s second city, i think, was where improv was born, so it was quite a week. i get there and he tells me we’re going out to dinner with some norweigens who are performing at the festival during the week. agreeable me says ‘bring it on’ and we go to dinner. there are three guys and two girls at the table, and jon and i. it was a nice mix of culture and countries. so, i tell them i live in new york and one of them pipes up (gunnar) and he says that they had a friend spend the last year in new york oo, he went to the new york film academy. i was taken aback. i said “i just went to the new york film academy, doing acting”. gunnar then said “yeh, so did our friend, it’s harald”. OH MY GOSH! it’s only harald who i’m good friends with and have been out with many a time during the last 9 months! small fucking world, i tell you. so, that was a good introduction to the norweigens. i spent the next week being looked after, and looking after the norweigens, and i had a fabulous time. i learnt so much in the workshops we all took, and i was on a scholarship thanks to jonathan, so i got them all for free. i did about 10 workshops that week, totalling like 600 bucks. all for free. i was a lucky bunny. also, i got to stay with jon (he just gave me some keys) and i could come and go as i pleased. it was a superb week, that inspired me to work for so much more and create an improv troop with my actors back here in nyc.

i called a meeting when i got back and the actors all came over, listened to what i had to say, and were all up for it. basically, during my week in chicago so many people thought i was a peformer. and i was just hanging with performers. so, i figure if they’ve seen my work in the workshops and thought i was performing, then perhaps i should be. so, i set myself the task of entering next year’s one. also, the norweigens invited me to perform with them in norway! wooooo! these guys and gals are irreplacable. they made me feel so welcome and looked after me so well, i can’t even begin to explain the love i have for them all. they really are a great bunch of people.

so, i’ve been back for a few days sorting my nyc life out and now i’m flying to indiana on tuesday for a photo shoot, staying with paul (my lovely director friend) and his family. paul’s editor is a photographer who’s done some pretty good stuff, including ‘vogue’ covers, and he apparently wants to take photos of me! sweet. paul showed him some footage (the same footage where i nearly drowned), well, the treated footage so far as much as he’s done, and gary (the photographer) wants to take pics of me cos he finks i’m goood lookin’, innit hah, i just find that funny.

got a voiceover gig next week also, on monday. music dave is currently working on graphics and sound for ‘neverwinter nights 2′. he’s getting some people together to record lines and sound effects for some minor bad-guy type characters and i’m gonna be doing some of the pixies and fairies. excited about that, cos i’ve never done voiceovers or modelling shoots, for that matter!

gonna move out of my apartment at the end of the month too, to save cash. paul says he’ll put me up until his lease runs out, and then in that time i’ll be looking to buy an apartment, which my folks said they’d pay the downpayment for, and with rent from peeps i can pay off the mortgage. sounds like a plan, stan.

i had a job interview friday gone, and they loved me and wanted to hire me straight away. they even offered me another position; they wanted me that badly. so, the person taking the interview goes to speak to her superior and comes back and tells me they’re not willing to sponsor me for the job. i have to basically get the visa and then they’ll hire me. it’s all bit retarded if you ask me because i need a sponsor for a job before i can get a visa and i need a visa before i can get a job. it’s quite upsetting really to see people be interested but not bothered to do the paperwork. kinda makes me lose faith, a little.

well, i think that’s about it really. i love nyc and i’m planning to stay here for as long as i can. my plans for the next year are to hopefully go to norway and possibly sweden (via london, hoooome is calllling) by the end of 2006, and then have the norweigens visit me in nyc in february of next year for my birthday. oh, and big ben’s wedding is in july in india… if i go to that mum’ll pay, but it does mean i have to spend three weeks there and not just the one for big ben’s wedding. mum’s good friend’s son is getting married and she’s going to that wedding, so i’ll have to stay for that too. it does mean new clothes and parties for three weeks, but it’s also the stress of parties for three weeks and travelling so much. i love to travel, you know that, but it is hectic and a bit of a mind-fuck when you do it so much. but, i love it at the same time. going to india also means i get to see university people i haven’t seen for about a year and that’s always a good time. and of course, not to mention seeing a good friend of mine get married!

so, it’s been a busy last coupla weeks, and hopefully a busy next year too. i’ll obviously keep things updated here a little more often, now that i have a bit more time on my hands… gonna go now and update the rest of my acting resume and gear up for going to indiana.

it’s been lovely, chaps…

snooch out.

…it’s been a while, eh?

well, to be fair. i haven’t done much and am sharing a drink with a friend whilst i have dinner be cooked for me. which is nice. the last month or so have been pretty uneventful. apart from my birthday which was okay, i guess. lotta people i wanted to spend the day/night with but couldn’t cos they couldn’t make it, so that was gutting, but they have made up for it (not that they had to). so, i went to a bar called ‘serena’ for my birthday and four days later for valentine’s day i took a friend out for drinks (cos we were both alone) and he introduced me to a merlot called ‘serena’. so we got fucked on serena, with serena. pity we weren’t at serena. oh well, can’t have my cake and eat it

oh yeh, so the other day, i also found a coffee (sold at shtarbucksh) called ‘serena’. so, i guess this is the city for me then, haha. trying to find a permanent job, at the moment, actually. wanna try and stay here if i can… i’m sure my parents will freak though – but to be honest, i’d ratheer sort any remnance of a career out if i can. do the psychology thing on the side (did i mention i got accepted to do a masters in forensic psychology starting october?) and the acting thing in my spare time, until it gets (IF it gets) more serious. these are crazy times – i hate having to be responsible. also want to get more acting training in if i can, but of course that costs more money… stuff that i don’t have.\

ugh… suddenly don’t have the impetus to continue… watch this space…

love you…

x

p.s. we’re past day one of our movie shoot!

well, xmas and new years was eventful. i didn’t really get to sit around much and chill – spent a lot of time seeing people, especially family. so, the family all got together (first in nottingham and then in shropshire) and many games were played. twas a fun christmas for the first time in years with the whole family together in th same place; eating and drinking merrily. there were about 13 of us at one point playing cranium and my-oh-my was that a lot of fun, as well as the biggest headache on the planet. haha. new years’ was spent on old street with everyone together, again a whole bunch of fun, cos i got to see all the friends again.

i flew back today, and have just been chilling… school tomoro

this is so not tre cool. the fucking train and bus drivers are all trying to strike on a day where everyone in school relies on them to get to the school and set up for the performance in the evening. what a day to choose! what a damn day to choose! :/ it’s past midnight and there has been no decision, and the mayor is all “keep your fingers crossed new yorkers”. and you can only carpool below 96th if you have 4 people in the car. how stupid is this? i need to be at 14th!

i’m gonna start walking now from queens…

performance is tomoro night… /me quivers. tomoro day is all about preperation and rehearsals in the actual theatre. i open the night also, with my scene partner, so i’m pretty goddamn nervous, but stupidly excited also. i have two crazily painful lumps in my neck (both of which appeared sometime between last night and this evening) – which i hope are due to stress and not gonna kill me or anything. might cover them up with a plaster or something – i’m a bum after all, i can look like a cripple and it only helps me to get into character i am going to perform tomoro even if it kills me to do so!

got some last minute costume things to prepare and then i’m set and gonna hit the sack. didn’t sleep a wink last night, scared myself somehow, thinking there was a deranged man at my door and out my window (god knows how he made it to both) coming in to get me. was quite cold and pretty damn scared, i tells you. i think that’s how i got the lumps – they could be stress related. all the while i thought i was dreaming. maybe i was? pah.

i was sleeping good also these past few weeks, but the stress of the performance this week and last week brought back my insomnia. i am pretty damn tired. my face also has suffered – got little red patches and spots on my cheeks. arg! who knew performing live would make this happen – it didn’t happen the last time!

anyhoos, going to sort stuff out… then sleep a much needed sleep. i leave you with a samuel beckett quote:

“Try. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

so, doctor has no idea what’s wrong with my back… he says my spine is just a little twisted and he can see no problems with my x-rays. mary (my movement teacher) says i should take my x-rays to an orthopaedist… she’s all worried, aww

i cracked quite a funny joke today in acting for film about fawlty towers and faulty tapes (an old one my mum said once by accident) and no one laughed. the room was dead, and everyone stared at me. now, this was because i was being filmed at the time… oh my, the embarrasment… the yanks know very little about british humour! *cry* and they call themselves actors. pah.

so, our performance looms closer; in fact, it’s in 8 days! i’m actually very excited at this point. we’ll see how it goes, and of course i’ll keep you updated. should have all my manhattan buddies attending it, so that should be gewd thank god for samuel beckett!

xx

so, yeh, we got snow /me dances.

phoned the docs on thursay and friday, twice each day, to see if they had my xrays and they said no. they said on thursday that they’ll have them for friday anf when i called on friday they said the xray place still has them because their computers went down and they haven’t been able to look at them properly. sigh. i’ll call back monday, i guess.

managed to spend friday night drinking for about 14 hours straight with friends, and spent only $14! and two of the drinks i bought weren’t even for me. i had about 6 drinks bought for me by complete strangers, the rest were by friends randomly, and i did two tequila and tabasco shots with a barman (who some of my friends knew). all in all, a good night

so, i had my xrays on monday. doctor said call him 3 days later – which i assume to mean that’s when he’ll get them. i called today (wednesday) cos i got impatient, but receptionist said call in the morning and she’ll call the radiology department to find out where they went. the back pain is affecting school, my sleep, my temper, my scenes with other people and my general movement. i’ve seriously had enough. on the xray day the woman said she wanted to do more because “it didn’t look pretty and that the bones weren’t in the right places”. now, that freaked me out (i’m already in only my knickers because i had to put on a robe and am laying on a metal table in some awkward position… i just felt defeated and humiliated), and i had nothing left in me to ask her more questions. so that either means my back is messed up or her xrays didn’t come out right. i don’t really know what to think or feel at the moment…

i had a panic attack on sunday night and luckily i had a friend staying over to get me my meds. i can’t take the muscle relaxants in the day because they make me drowsy and i fall asleep, so i stopped taking them, but that night my back just seized up. all the muscles from the top of my neck down to my coxis had seized around the spine and i couldn’t move. i have no idea what i did to make that happen, but it lasted about an hour, and i was in serious pain. i had to shout for my friend to get me my muscle relaxants and water cos i couldn’t move. now, that’s like the second or third time that’s happened in the last 3 years, so i dunno what to think. but it hurt like hell, and i just panicked afterwards and just cried. sigh. it’d be nice if it was just my hand that hurt or something, instead of something like my back that affects everything. grr. so, yeh, things are a bit slow at the moment.

i can’t jump around anymore or move very much. in one of my classes today jordan walked in late, and we were sat in a circle (improv class) and he just tapped me on the back for me to move over so he could squeeze in and it just hurt. later, as if he didn’t already cause me enough damage (this is during the mimic round where you imitate everything one person in the circle does), avinash waves his arms about (we’re all copying him) and then slaps the back of his fellow neighbour. and, yes, you guessed it. jordan smacks my back right in the centre where it hurts, and i just yelled. it was quite a funny moment looking back on it now, but at the time i just wanted to break his neck! haha

so, everyne’s geared up for christmas already over here. it’s been like this for a few weeks now, as soon as halloween ended, the chrisrmas decor went up. we have a christmas tree which is all spangly and sparkly (i think it’s like 6-8 feet and all REAL!), and i’m yet to add the angel on the top – that’ll be my addition – but, haven’t found a nice one yet. it hasn’t started snowing yet, and today was a crazily warm day for winter, so hopefully the weather gets its arse in gear and gives me snow!

ok well time to get some kip, got schooly tomoro.

sleep tight you wonderful people.

-xxxxx-

…but i’m still ‘ere and still alive. bit tipsy, but you know how it goes. big cities get to you after a while. anyway…! since my last post i’ve done a few things. let’s see…

halloween:

halloween rocked! our class was the only class that made full use of the halloween spirit and dressed up. we had an 80s prom queen, a kinda gothic queen, erm… an 80s roadie (who actually looked like sharon osbourne), pregnant britney, link from zelda (me), a toilet, a bruised bum, a fortune teller and aragon… oh and a dude who was himself but in summer clothing (narf). this day was super cool; everyone could get away with everything. we even ended up filming monologues on this day, so we got to see them on film! haha, they all sucked because we were all uber hyper because of halloween, but anyway, that day ruled. we started off going to liz’s place, after buying bottles of wine at the local offy. this just ended up in people removing costumes and drinking heavily. then we ended up going to the halloween parade afterwards (down spring street), which was jam packed full of people, and for some reason we all ended up walking a whole bunch before actually catching the parade. by this time everyone had had enough and we’d all packed ourselves into a bar ordering drinks. i had organised a little party back at mine in queens, so i invited those that wanted to come back to mine, to mine. when we got back here, the mayhem started. adam (rebecca’s bloke) arrived, and so did shcuba steve and his friend from downstairs. lots of drinking ensued, but finished early as we all had school the next day. james (aragon) did have a sweetass trick that he played on me though. along with everyone else. i went to the bathroom to fix my blonde wig, and they had decided to aid james in his party pranks. the night ended with a beer can being lit, my face covered in black marks and everyone falling over themselves laughing because the game rules stated that you can’t laugh. it was a good trick though, i have to admit. won’t give away details, i may use it one day

medical:

well, on the downside, my back’s been playing up again. been to the doctor twice so far, and have an x-ray scheduled for next monday. not a good sign, i guess, but the doctor doesn’t really know what to do. sheesh, it’s costing an arm and a leg to see any medically certified dude/dudess here, and it sucks. i have to do all the paperwork myself and take said paperwork to necessary people to get seen, and prolly bring it back again. they don’t do anything here. lazy buggers. no one knows what’s up, and no one prolly will, to be honest. anyway. let’s hope it’s not serious else you’ll have an annoyed weena on your hands.

friends:

i’ve met so many more people on the course, the list keeps growing. i’ve pretty much made friends with the entire 5 groups that started in september, and we’ve all been out a few times to get to know each other; by coincidence really. it’s been fun though, met more brits: eleanor, kitty, darren and graham, and loads of others: paolo, nicholas, harald (not sure if i mentioned him before, but i shot a scene with him for a director), christopher, fabiola, pedro, tristen, steven… i could go on, but it serves little purpose. all in all, i love the school and the people in it. ask me in 5 months, and i’ll have a different tone, i guarantee you.

shooting:

shot one more scene from a movie, just by chance – a girl from the july program called me (darren passed on my number) and asked if i could fill in last minute, so i said yes. i ended up going in at 12 the next day (collected the script from the director the day before at about 10pm at columbus circle just before hitting a house party downtown). partied all night and got home abot 3am. got to the shooting the next day, and find out that the lead actor (tristen) hasn’t made it, and darren has just turned up. tristen gets outcast and darren and i end up acting in the scene, which was quite an emotional battle. had to spend the day crying, but i managed it pretty much. need to still get this on film.

erm… i’m a little wooozy now… if i remember anything else, i’ll update you…

-peace out-

…so we had a performenace today. i was so fucking nervous. okay, we all were. the room at the back smelt of dirty underwear we were sweating so much, and nerves were at an all time high. there were three of the five groups performing tonight (26/10/05) and our group was by far the strongest. this isn’t just my own personal opinion, but all of the audience’s too. even the people in the other groups thought we were strong. i’m not sure what made our group like this, but a lot of people have mentioned the fact that our group has bonded the quickest and was the best out of them all. not sure how this helps (maybe we help each other more with constructive criticism?), but something seemed to work tonight. i was so fucking proud of us tonight that i can even cry now, if you ask me to relive it. we were all so nervous but stood by each other so much, i just can’t even explain in words how that makes me feel. i really am absolutely choked to have such a fine class. we were the only class clapping insanely for our own classes performances, when we could see that we all hit our cues so perfectly – even though adam screwed up (he totally redeemed himself though)!

each of our monologues, though only about 3-5 minutes long, are ingrained in each other’s minds so much we can relay them back to each other. the other 11 people in my class i am lucky to have there beside me. i know i keep dwelling on it, but if you saw how hard we all worked for this shit, then you’d see that tonight definately paid off. we even had THREE people in the class who people said they couldn’t understand (their accents suck) very well, but their acting pulled off their performances for them. the other classes were not weak by any means, in fact, i was honestly chuffed to see how many skilled actors there are in the program already, but there was a certain pazazz in our class. out of the three groups also we had the lone teacher than no one really knew – the other two groups had the same teacher. i’m pretty fucking sure this means something with regards to our performances.

i had damian (fellow actor from the march program), darren (fellow actor from the july program) and shcube shteve (neighbour downstairs) come and see the performance. kraki couldn’t make it cos of work and curtis is just… well, i have no idea what the hell he’s up to nowadays. he sent me a message telling me his life was great and didn’t even respond to my message about my performance tonight, so that ticked me off a little. god knows what he is thinking. i should get my work on film, so hopefully you guys can see it soon i apparently ‘nailed’ my performance and people were laughing left right and centre. my monologue wasn’t even that funny, but it came out fucking awesome, i impressed even myself. there was no time where i slipped out of character, nor did i fuck up any lines, and damian, who i respect a lot because of his acting/writing ability, was so utterly impressed with my performance tonight that he was just stunned and couldn’t say anything more than “i am so proud of you”. this means a lot to me. people i kinda respect a lot value my work = mucho bueno.

and to top it all off; i had a director come and ask me for my name and number for future performances! of the three classes (about 36 people), i was the only one he asked. i’m not sure what this means to me yet, but i’m sure it’ll hit me soon enough.

needless to say, i am fucking chuffed… cheers to you all who support me. time to hit the sack, got school tomoro!

love you all…

xx