eng-beng lim
there is a wide variety of random particulars that i could talk about
today. i'm back at school now and that means a reemergence in a
place i love. it also means being with people who amuse me more
than i care to explain ("for fear i'll make them sound too amusing?" i say sarcastically, wondering why i decided to say that they are "more amusing than i care to explain")...
but even though i'm in this fun world and there's plenty to say about it... and even though i had history of the holocaust yesterday... and even though we had acting for writers this morning - and that was quite the experience... i decided when i sat down that it is most pertinent that i sort out my thoughts regarding the class we just left: history of the theatre.
last year, we took cinematic expression - which was film history - but really it was more like film history! because it was taught by greg taylor. the fact that greg taylor is not a celebrity is a major oversight on the part of the entire world. as far as i can tell, greg taylor is not even interested in being a celebrity, nor is he really in a field that would lead him to celebrity. but none of that matters, because a man who upon learning that schlesinger was dead proclaimed "he's rotting?!" deserves to be a celebrity.
i figured that history of the theatre would be a class similar to cinematic expression... just for stage. boy was i wrong. here's the thing: history of the theatre is not taught by greg taylor (naturally.) but instead, it is taught by a man named eng-beng lim.
last night we received an email from eng-beng lim requesting that we please have the text book by class today. this seemed to be in the same vain as those reading projects that they make you do over the summer in high school. also, it seemed as though eng-beng lim was attempting to turn our class in to a collective version of "that kid" -- the one who has his homework done before it's even logical for it to be assigned.
before i go on, i should warn you - i will most likely not refer to eng-beng lim as anything but "eng-beng lim" within this entry at all. even though properly, i suppose, he should be "professor lim" or something like that. no, he is eng-beng lim.
being that his name is as such, we sort of assumed that he was going to be asian. AsianThing (unrelated) had informed me that eng-beng lim was a new professor to the school. yet for some reason, i still expected this eng-beng lim to be a semi-washed up, older, random asian man who just happened to be teaching at purchase college - now that whatever else he wanted to do has bored him... and by bored him i mean not provided him with enough money.
boy was i wrong. (yeah, i said it, again.)
eng-beng lim, as it turns out, is a very young, very well-dressed, adorable, short asian man who has remnants of having grown up in singapore leftover in his voice. he is soft spoken and he was wearing a very pretty green button down shirt with a blazer. i say pretty because i mean it. pretty shade of green.
for some reason eng-beng lim thought that the best way to put us in to groups for our upcoming group project was to be confusing. so he had people raise their hands and was randomly making groups. i'm not sure what was going on, but it sure looked confusing. our suite + amanda (who is secretly in our suite) cheated the system though, slyly pretending that we all just happen to have an interest in roman theatre.
after all of the confusion, eng-beng lim telling us his background (and very tactfully flattering all of us by saying he came here from USC because we are renown as one of the best theatre schools in the nation and he is thrilled to have the chance to work with all of us...his words, not mine), and eng-beng lim explaining to a girl that eng-beng is his first name and lim is his last name (she thought that was all his last name. some girls are so silly.), eng-beng lim decided we were going to read a play out loud.
we looked at the play, some of us cool kids who were sitting in the back, and noted that it was only five pages. "oh wow! this'll be swell!" we though it charlie-brown-type voices. a five page play read aloud couldn't possibly take more than fifteen minutes.
eng-beng lim asked the class who wanted to read aloud, and he chose people. for some reason he cast girls as guy parts. at a later time he had to clarify that those parts were supposed to be men even though women were reading them. that confused me, because why didn't he just have guys read it?
the girl that eng-beng lim chose to read the stage directions was really the icing on the cake of the class experience. i guess she's a robot, because she had no inflection in her voice. she also had trouble reading simple words like "breadbox". it's understandable that some people can't read... but if you couldn't read, and you had no emotion in your voice - why would you volunteer to read? and why would you make me listen to you?
she read the first paragraph of stage directions, setting up the setting for the play (really? "setting up the setting"?) after which eng-beng lim, in a very serious voice - as though being very helpful, said "those, are stage directions. they tell us what's going on." i'm pretty sure everyone was happy he had clarified that.
but the thing is, that she read that paragraph in a dead person's voice. and then, as we were reading the play, every now and then there'd be a stage direction before dialogue, and all the sudden her ghostly voice would fill the room - fumbling on words and forcing randie and i to almost burst out laughing.
which would have been even more awkward than just her reading. and that was pretty awkward on its own.
also, in the half hour we had left to class, we didn't even finish the five-page play.
i don't even know what else to say.
but i'm incredibly glad to have met eng-beng lim today.
but even though i'm in this fun world and there's plenty to say about it... and even though i had history of the holocaust yesterday... and even though we had acting for writers this morning - and that was quite the experience... i decided when i sat down that it is most pertinent that i sort out my thoughts regarding the class we just left: history of the theatre.
last year, we took cinematic expression - which was film history - but really it was more like film history! because it was taught by greg taylor. the fact that greg taylor is not a celebrity is a major oversight on the part of the entire world. as far as i can tell, greg taylor is not even interested in being a celebrity, nor is he really in a field that would lead him to celebrity. but none of that matters, because a man who upon learning that schlesinger was dead proclaimed "he's rotting?!" deserves to be a celebrity.
i figured that history of the theatre would be a class similar to cinematic expression... just for stage. boy was i wrong. here's the thing: history of the theatre is not taught by greg taylor (naturally.) but instead, it is taught by a man named eng-beng lim.
last night we received an email from eng-beng lim requesting that we please have the text book by class today. this seemed to be in the same vain as those reading projects that they make you do over the summer in high school. also, it seemed as though eng-beng lim was attempting to turn our class in to a collective version of "that kid" -- the one who has his homework done before it's even logical for it to be assigned.
before i go on, i should warn you - i will most likely not refer to eng-beng lim as anything but "eng-beng lim" within this entry at all. even though properly, i suppose, he should be "professor lim" or something like that. no, he is eng-beng lim.
being that his name is as such, we sort of assumed that he was going to be asian. AsianThing (unrelated) had informed me that eng-beng lim was a new professor to the school. yet for some reason, i still expected this eng-beng lim to be a semi-washed up, older, random asian man who just happened to be teaching at purchase college - now that whatever else he wanted to do has bored him... and by bored him i mean not provided him with enough money.
boy was i wrong. (yeah, i said it, again.)
eng-beng lim, as it turns out, is a very young, very well-dressed, adorable, short asian man who has remnants of having grown up in singapore leftover in his voice. he is soft spoken and he was wearing a very pretty green button down shirt with a blazer. i say pretty because i mean it. pretty shade of green.
for some reason eng-beng lim thought that the best way to put us in to groups for our upcoming group project was to be confusing. so he had people raise their hands and was randomly making groups. i'm not sure what was going on, but it sure looked confusing. our suite + amanda (who is secretly in our suite) cheated the system though, slyly pretending that we all just happen to have an interest in roman theatre.
after all of the confusion, eng-beng lim telling us his background (and very tactfully flattering all of us by saying he came here from USC because we are renown as one of the best theatre schools in the nation and he is thrilled to have the chance to work with all of us...his words, not mine), and eng-beng lim explaining to a girl that eng-beng is his first name and lim is his last name (she thought that was all his last name. some girls are so silly.), eng-beng lim decided we were going to read a play out loud.
we looked at the play, some of us cool kids who were sitting in the back, and noted that it was only five pages. "oh wow! this'll be swell!" we though it charlie-brown-type voices. a five page play read aloud couldn't possibly take more than fifteen minutes.
eng-beng lim asked the class who wanted to read aloud, and he chose people. for some reason he cast girls as guy parts. at a later time he had to clarify that those parts were supposed to be men even though women were reading them. that confused me, because why didn't he just have guys read it?
the girl that eng-beng lim chose to read the stage directions was really the icing on the cake of the class experience. i guess she's a robot, because she had no inflection in her voice. she also had trouble reading simple words like "breadbox". it's understandable that some people can't read... but if you couldn't read, and you had no emotion in your voice - why would you volunteer to read? and why would you make me listen to you?
she read the first paragraph of stage directions, setting up the setting for the play (really? "setting up the setting"?) after which eng-beng lim, in a very serious voice - as though being very helpful, said "those, are stage directions. they tell us what's going on." i'm pretty sure everyone was happy he had clarified that.
but the thing is, that she read that paragraph in a dead person's voice. and then, as we were reading the play, every now and then there'd be a stage direction before dialogue, and all the sudden her ghostly voice would fill the room - fumbling on words and forcing randie and i to almost burst out laughing.
which would have been even more awkward than just her reading. and that was pretty awkward on its own.
also, in the half hour we had left to class, we didn't even finish the five-page play.
i don't even know what else to say.
but i'm incredibly glad to have met eng-beng lim today.