Nomophobia, Auditions and Meetings

There have been a lot of behind the scenes changes with this blog, nothing that you guys will really notice, but I have definitely learnt a lot about hosting and domains and DNS servers. For my beloved readers, the only difference is that when you are on my website, it will always say amandalynnpetrin.com, as opposed to ‘adreamisawishthatyourheartmakes’. Exciting for me, and might explain why the links weren’t working if you tried to visit at certain points over the past few days.

Nomophobia: The anxiety caused by not having your mobile phone with you.

Monday was a really big day for me, made a million times more everything by the fact that I forgot my phone on the charger that morning. It is often a battle with me to do things that scare me or make me nervous, especially when I can find a valid reason not to do it. On Monday, when I finished working at McGill, I wanted nothing more than to go home and blame it on the lack of a phone. Still, there was a tiny voice in my head reminding me how proud of myself I would be if I went to my appointments, even with the odds stacked against me. It might have been the knowledge that I couldn’t let the guy know I wouldn’t make it until at least a half an hour after the time we were supposed to meet that pushed me to go to my meeting about a webseries, but I was glad I did. By some miracle, I had taken down the addresses for my meetings the night before, so I just had to figure out how to get there without my phone acting as a GPS.

The meeting ended up going really well. He noticed that I was shy, probably because I was stressed out of my mind in addition to my normal shyness, but I didn’t want him to remember me as the shy girl, and it was for a comedic webseries, so I pushed myself to be more outgoing and tried to be funny. This mostly amounts to self-deprecating humor and sarcasm, but he seemed to enjoy it. We talked about the project, that is still in the early stages of development, as well as about my career. When he asked what kind of roles I would like to play, I inadvertantly described the character he was auditioning me for. At one point, he asked what character (or persona) I would take on if he asked me to right there and then, and I was coy and asked how he knew I hadn’t been in character the whole time. It was a joke, but at the same time, the character I was playing was ‘outgoing me’, or in the words of my cousin, she was ‘not Amanda’. Still, she was fun to play 😉

Next, I had an audition, and while the meeting had been somewhere I kind of knew how to get to, I actually had no idea where the audition was, other than a landmark I had seen when I looked it up on google maps a few days before. So, I debated one last time whether I should call it a day and ask to send in a self tape before driving to the landmark and wandering around until I found my audition’s location. I was half an hour early, so got to talk to a guy who was auditioning for one of the male leads, before it was my turn to go in. I played Wendy Davis’ audition game, and set the intention of doing the scene with the choice I had made and not chickening out to do a safer read. In the end, we talked a bit about the project and the characters before starting, and I made the executive decision not to do it as I had planned, since it wouldn’t fit. The two guys running the audition were incredibly nice and really took the time to give the actors every chance to give them what they wanted. I think I must have done the scene at least 10 times, with about half of them being with the choice I had initially wanted to demonstrate. I think I made a good impression and might be considered if they did another project, but I am not sure I succeeded in being seductive or conveying that I was confident and comfortable in my own skin. Still, it was a lovely experience and I really hope to get to work with them at some point in time 🙂

On Tuesday, since there was no class with Suzanna, I went to see No Escape with my parents. It was a movie I had thought I would wait until it was on TV, but it was actually really good. And I need to be in shape like Lake Bell. Not just so that I can play the roles where I have to do the things she did, but so that I can survive if I am trapped in a war torn country or a natural disaster. It happens.

Afterwards, I slept at my cousin’s, and we caught up and watched a chick flick, like we used to forever ago. It was really nice, and she even made me breakfast the next morning. Not 100%, but I’m pretty sure it was worth the parking ticket I got.

As for today, I went for coffee with Carolyne, and we ended up staying there for almost 4 hours, discussing our careers, Fall plans, birthday plans, Plan Bs (as in what we will do if the acting careers don’t work out. She has a deadline that’s slightly closer than my 2020), blogs, vlogs and everything in between.

“If you know you are going to fail, then fail gloriously.”

-Cate Blanchett