voith and dickshun

I've been taking a voice and diction class at the local county college. I'm not sure why I'm doing this, exactly, except perhaps I'm harboring some pointless dream of doing some voiceover work in the future. You know: adding a spoke to my "career wheel."

Given my acting background and the heady mix of praise and adulation I've received the last few summers as baseball/swim meet/bingo announcer (example: "Gee. You're funny. You make swim meets sound not so boring."), wellll, it's enough to make me plunk down some dough and attend classes twice a week where I can flaunt my life experiences in a classroom full of young, boneheaded college students who don't know the difference between JFK and RFK.

Class started in September, and this is about all I've learned: the "th" sound is rare outside of American English. And, oh yeah: James Earl Jones was a stutterer, and then was mute until high school.

And: I've listened intently to my instructor's hilarious stories not once but twice, even, and it's only the beginning of October.

I've started once again, just like in high school and college after that, cartooning and editorializing in the margins of my notebook when I'm not fully paying attention. Comments include:

"OH, this woman's going to drive me INSANE. We have to go over really simple things, like old movie plots, like SINGING IN THE FUCKING RAIN, just to bring her up to speed on popular culture." (This is referring to my classmate "Bambi,"--no kidding, Bambi--who is the class suckup, which isn't an attractive feature for a 40-something woman.)

Followed by a cartoon of a starlet with big boobs.

And here, look, Bambi asks this question of the instructor, which I've duly noted in the margin: "This is a nosy question, but...why did you get divorced after 28 years of marriage?" OMGAAHH. The instructor politely brushes her question off. Bambi is not the brightest color in the crayon box.

And here are some more margin cartoons, mostly of heads...I'm relearning to draw mouths.

"OK, when does the learning take place?" I ask plaintively in the margin. "I didn't pay to hear stories."

That's the class. We gave autobiographical speeches last class, which was rather fun, but I'm afraid the kids didn't get most of my jokes. Maybe they were too esoteric. Or maybe I wasn't speaking clearly!

I'm going to say more about the kids next time.