My name is Isabel, and I'm really stupid

We're back! Term three! Clown and the comic worlds! Yowza!

And you know what? It's hard to be funny. We haven't even properly started yet, but it's very clear that this work is going to be at least as challenging as it is joyful. On Monday we started with the Red Nose straight away, and the Birth of the Clown, and it was just a lovely, beautiful thing to see these simple personalities emerge in our colleagues. Some were curious, some were hysterical, some were paranoid, some were very quiet, and all were wide-eyed and wondrous. Very few people managed to be "funny", but to me that was hardly the point, at least so early on. Besides, we've got several more weeks of this work to go yet.

Yesterday was a bit of a change in gears, however - we ditched the red noses in favour of huge wigs, silly hats, and Groucho Marx glasses, as well as other accoutrements of absurdity. The entire afternoon was an exercise in genuine stupidity - how do you enjoy yourself to the extreme regardless of audience reaction? When the proverbial crickets are roaring in your ears because you are so painfully UnFunny, how do you have the time of your life? The last exercise we did was a solo one - people went up one at a time to tell an unfunny joke of their choice, but had to completely crack themselves up in the telling of it. I told the Muffin Joke, a la Janna ("AAAH! I'M ON FIRE!"), and ended up in tears on the floor. Good tears. Laughter tears. And was giggling the rest of the night at it.

I'm willing to bet that this is one of the last times this term that an exercise goes so fantastically well for me. The tides shift so quickly in this work. But how fantastic to have an evening of laughter, of unself-conscious joy. I love this school, and I'm so happy to be back.

(I know I owe a post on Paris. It's coming!)