Just Do It

I am amazed and proud and heartened (and sometimes a little in awe of) the things that my kids have done over the years. The debating; the public speaking comps; the musicals; the eisteddfods; the leadership roles at school (and College) that they have both taken on; the field that Megan has chosen to study and work in. They have never had a problem putting themselves out there - definitely a trait they inherited from their father; all their other qualities are mine though :-).

So Drew tells me he wants to audition for a tv show that Fox 8 is calling auditions for. In my world - why would you ever want to subject yourself to the torture of something like that? In their world - it's exciting and fun and I'm so gonna do it. (Actually, that's Gibbo's and Kat's world as well). One of his answers on the on-line application was that he "finds anxiety and fear give him an energy rush". All anxiety and fear gives me is a headache, a loss of appetite and a sick feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.

So by rearranging the weekend, Meg and Drew set off this morning from the Hodges, heading for casting call at West End. On arrival (at around 8.30) the woman asked Drew what his "session" time was and he said he didn't know. He filled out a few forms; Meg signed as his legal guardian. They went off and checked his emails on the ipad - and found that an email was sent at 10.50 last night, telling him that his session time was 1.20pm! He'd last checked his emails around 10.30pm! They'd arrived a bit early but that was ok - the farmers markets were on so they bought some goat cheese and olive bread and went to see Chris.

When they came back Drew had to fill out another form or two; Megan was standing beside him. The girl asked Megan if she was auditioning; she said "no, I'm with him". The girl said, "well I need you to wait outside". Meg was a bit miffed; she wanted to go with him. She rang me with a lump in her throat; she'd lost sight of him then saw him walking up some stairs with a bunch of other kids.She is so her mother's daughter.

To cut to the chase - he didn't make it through to the next round. About twenty of them went in together and were put into pairs. They had 30 seconds to tell the other person about themselves then had to tell the judges what they'd been told. Then around eight numbers were called out - these people had to do some improvisations then only three of those were picked.

So he missed out but he's not disappointed. It was a great experience in handling nerves (and he was VERY nervous) and it was good to actually go through the process of a casting call. I've always told them that you only need to do something once to then have an understanding of it which means next time, the situation won't be so daunting.

Tonight Meg is going to take him to her favorite Indian restaurant; they'll enjoy that.