My Cardboard Balcony

Yes, I know this is late. I was out bowling and eating bad food with my sister and her new beau. I had a plan going for this introspection, so, yeah, here we go. Orientation for my teaching credential was this week, over a span of three days. Not only was I basically pushed into getting a Twitter account (seriously, though, it's a good tool for educators), but I also got to see a lot of my former classmates as well as new faces. What's interesting is that, while mostly everyone in the program right now is assigned to a school site, I, being a part-time student, am only taking a couple of classes and won't be sent to a school until the fall of 2015. In retrospect, I'm kind of happy for being able to wait until I observe and student teach because it is such an enormous step forward, and I'd like to tackle things one bit at a time in order to really get through everything. It's nervewracking, but exciting. The final night of orientation, I was unexpectedly aske...

NOTE: This is the fourth full-act play I ever wrote, at the age of nineteen. While I cannot specifically remember when it was finished, I am going to hazard a guess that I was done with this play by the summer and began writing my fifth full-act play in the winter of 2010 while studying abroad in Ireland. This is Act III of the play. Enjoy. Can't Hurry Love: A Play In Three Acts by Belinda Roddie CAST (in order of appearance) SAMANTHA “SAM” MELICK, a lesbian novelist ANDRE GRIFFIN, a bartender-turned actor AMELIA MELICK, an actress and Sam’s older sister LESLEY EVERARD, a questioning English university student MRS. MELICK, Sam and Amelia’s mother MR. MELICK, Sam and Amelia’s father SIMON HART, Lesley’s boyfriend SETTING A Pub in Yorkshire, England WRITER’S NOTE: All stage directions and emotions listed in this script are open for suggestion. Altering them should not decrease the caliber of the play, but they should serve as guidelines for the director a...

I clung to the bars of my jail cell, silently pleading for another cup of water. I knew the warden could see the desperation dripping from my eyes, in the form of both sweat and tears, ridiculously salty and stinging the skin surrounding my nose. After a few minutes, she finally caved, filling a metal mug with lukewarm tap water and handing it to me. "You can always ask," she murmured aggressively, which I knew was nonsense, but I happily accepted the opportunity to wet my parched tongue.