It Really Puts Things Into Perspective…
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Hey everyone,
So I’ve been here at school freaking out about life and the things I have to do, because everything is so hectic right now. It was only today, that I had a sort of epiphany, where I realized just how confined to my own program I am right now. Looking at the trials and tribulations of my friends and family I realize just how much less stressful my life is than I thought. Specifically my brother and my father have been having truly stressful and trying months. We’ll start with my father. My dad (Michael Donovan, and no, not the director who is all over my resumé; they are different people) is a city councilman in Allentown Pennsylvania.
Earlier this year he was assaulted by some teenagers he asked to stop go-karting in a park they were not allowed to be riding motorized vehicles in. One kid punched him in the face and broke his cheek bone. My father, did not push the full wrath of god upon this kid to make an example of him, instead he talked with the boy, the judge, and the boy’s father, and came up with a suitable juvenile sentence. I can tell you if I had been hit, I would have gone after him in a heartbeat. Later on this year my father went next door late at night to ask his neighbors to quiet down and to bring their barking dog inside. When he knocked on the door, he was answered by an angry woman who was screaming at him, and she slammed her glass door in his face. The door shattered, covering him in glass, and he (wisely) left the scene after calling the police. Soon after he was served with two cases, one for criminal harassment, and one for destruction of property (she maintains that he broke her door). The harassment case was thrown out by the judge at the end of the summer, and the DOP case was voluntarily removed by the complainant after receiving a letter detailing the penalties for the consequences of wrongful use of civil proceedings and abuse of process. You can read the details here on Bernie O’Hare’s blog. The time between the charges being dealt, and the dismissing of the cases was a few months, however, and over that time many biting personalities in Allentown were able to take potshots at my father over the case (Bill Villa being the #1 instigator). These people have been coming after my father a lot recently, and this is the other trial my father is constantly facing. On his public blog he hopes to allow a forum for people to get ideas through to the city council. As with all political public blogs, these bring out the best and worst of people. Recently he’s been getting a lot of the worst from Bill Villa and his supporters. In that blog post I just linked, Mr. Villa said that he was “positive the charges against Mike Donovan are dead-on target and completely justified” in a comment on that same post; he still comes after my father without acknowledging that my father did indeed have his name cleared. If you read my father’s blog, you can see all of his supporters and haters coming out to help or hurt him in their own way. On top of these things my father is busy being a dad, a husband, a professor, a city councilman, get tenured, and write educational papers. Wow, way to take on the whole world Dad with more calm and poise than people with half your issues.
My brother is the other person whose troubles just put mine to shame. If you follow his blog at all, you know that he has had some travel issues getting back to Beirut where he is a journalist.
(I may have a few of my facts wrong here, so Will, Mom, anyone else who knows more than me please chime in) Will came home this summer to do visit after being away for 10 months, and he was scheduled to fly back to Beirut on September 11th (does that set off any warning bells for anyone else?). During Obama’s speech at the Pentagon, the Coast Guard held a training exercise on the Potomac, which frightened the secret service and caused them to shut down eastern seaboard airports for a while, and by the time they were reopened, my brother’s flight to Amman, Jordan had already been missed. So he waited for the next one (you can imagine there aren’t that many flights to Amman every day) and when he arrived in Amman, he was informed that because the Lebanese government had collapsed, he was not being allowed admittance into the country. You can read about it at his blog, but needless to say he was not allowed into Beirut to go to his apartment and gather his belongings, he was not allowed to visit his bank, nothing. He’s been living in Amman ever since hoping that they will allow him back in, but it’s not looking likely. According to his blog he will be heading for Dubai to work instead, and that he expects to get back into Beirut sometime early in 2010. So until then he is without many of his belongings, but he still has to pay rent. The Middle East is definitely a crazy place. *UPDATE* My brother will not be living in Dubai, as it turns out he will be coming back to the states and working in North Carolina for one of his old jobs for a few months.
So with all those things in mind, my life just doesn’t seem all that hard. I’m plugging right along in Ithaca, and really the work I’m doing is challenging, fun, and exactly what I want. The problem is not the work, but the amount of time it takes to do it. My school day tends to start at 8 or 9 AM, and factoring in classes til 5 or 6, Children of Eden rehearsal from 7-10, and then rehearsal for Review after that, I’m very brain-fried. Now that I’ve mentioned the beast I guess I’ll talk about Review. It’s upon us. Even as I write this, half of my class has performed their scenes (I’m not until Thursday) and I have to say they were awesome. There is no doubt that my class is extremely talented and we are really working to better the program here at IC. I myself am working with Mary Malaney (Michigan native), and Mallory Newbrough (Maryland native). Our scene is awesome. It’s from Wonder of the World and I think we have done some great work in class and together on our own time and I’m excited to present it to the faculty. Children of Eden is also coming along, and it’s going to be beautiful. It opens in a little less than a month, which is a terrifying thought, but I’m excited to see how it all comes together. If you are in the Ithaca area, or want to take a trip and come see an amazing show, this is the one to see. You can see the schedule of dates at the Ithaca College Department of Theatre Arts website. My life is one long cluster of work, rehearsal, classes, more work, sleep. If I’m lucky eating fits into there. However this is the life I signed up for, and frankly, I’m loving every second of it no matter how friend I may get. Anyways I’ve rambled on long enough, but the basic point of this little post was to organize my thoughts into words; because the fact of the matter is, the things I’m worrying about, just don’t matter in the scheme of things.
All the love to everyone,
~Ned Donovan
