Awaiting My Fan Mail

First, I think in light of my previous post, it is appropriate to mention that we had biscotti and chocolate cookies waiting for us on the kitchen table this morning.

I woke up late this morning - whoops. Despite being behind 30 minutes in my normal schedule, I was still able to make it out of the door earlier than I had expected. I normally try to catch the railcar around 8:40. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to nail down my commute time this week. One day my ride took maybe 10 minutes, when others have taken over 25. Today was a very slow moving day. I was able to spot pedestrians that I had passed at a previous stop walk by the railcar as we sat in traffic. I considered getting out to walk a few times, but I got blocked in by the congestion of people and decided to wait it out.

The morning was slow once I got to work. I spent some more time working on the receipt forms I had started on Monday, this time addressing envelopes and filling them with the receipt and a thank you letter. Zoom was filled later than usual; this time around noon. I was able to watch the filming of both the French and English versions again.

I haven't had time to find a grocery store yet, so I'm still buying lunch each day. I went again to the Mystic Muffin and said hello to Honey. When I got back to work, I got teased for eating at the same place each day - I don't think they understand that I legitimately don't know anywhere else to eat and I'm too scared to venture out in a 30 minute break to find somewhere new. I'll have to do some exploring this weekend.

I've found that I'm drinking a ridiculous amount of tea. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing; it's probably better for me than coffee. At work we have an electric water boiler, so there's hot water available all the time. I bought a package of Earl Grey tea from Second Cup, the coffee house across the street, and I brought it to work. I don't eat breakfast at the convent, so my first order of business when I get to work is to make a cup of tea and eat a granola bar. I always have one after lunch, and then I usually have another one or two as the afternoon approaches 5:00. They're turning me English up here.

The entire afternoon flew today. I watched Father Rosica film his advent reflections in French (during advent, they'll play snipets of these in between the regular programing). They transformed a portion of the recording studio to look like a living room, equip with a fireplace and fire, as his backdrop - it looked really nice. This took several hours to film, and when I returned to my desk to keep working on the envelops, it was after 5:00 before I knew it.

I was cleaning up my desk when I felt a slight touch on my back and an "Excuse me?". I recognized the gentlemen immediately; he was part of St. Luke's TV, a Catholic network station in Slovakia that had been spending the past few days touring the station. I didn't know this at the time, but they had come to use our facilities to get English and French speakers to do voice overs on their documentaries - which was why he was now talking to me. Father Rosica and two other coworkers had already done some. He asked me if I would be interested in trying to do two quick voice overs. Of course, I enthusiastically responded yes.

They had rigged up a voice-recoding booth in the studio. I immediately became nervous - there were four people from the network on the other side of the booth waiting for me. They put headphones on me and got me settled behind the microphone (where there was also a TV so I could watch the parts I would be doing voice overs for as I spoke). For the life of me I cannot remember any of their names. I just remember that there was a sound technician, the head producer from St. Lukes, and then a woman who had all the scripts organized - and then the guy who had asked me to come in, who was a cameraman. I sympathetically explained I was an intern and had no prior experience of doing voice overs. They were very nice and said we would just give it a try.

I was asked to read the part of "a young woman" in a documentary about a priest. The lines I did were short, maybe a sentence or two. I was trying to play the whole thing cool, but I was basically freaking out. I expected to leave after I had recorded the two lines, but the producer asked me to read more. All in all, I did voice overs for three documentaries. I loved the experience - it was really exciting and fun. After I had taken my headphones off, the sound technician and producer asked again if I had done any voice work before. They told me I had a natural talent and that I should look into doing more in the future. The producer had confessed that at first he didn't think I would be right for the part, but they really needed to finish the priest documentary. They saw I was the only girl left in the office, so that's why they had asked. Talk about being at the right place at the right time.

I left work on Cloud 9 and immediately called my mom, raving about how I was going to be famous in Slovakia in no time - my voice would be recognized by ever person there. I think my mom may have volunteered to be the president of my fan club, so we're set and ready for the fan mail.

I had been invited earlier in the week to join some of my coworkers at their apartment for mass and dinner. When I arrived there, I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of new faces. The group of people were really great - it reminded me of a get together me and my friends at St. Thomas would have; very Catholic, and very friendly. Father Rosica said mass and then we had dinner. I was able to make friends with some girls who were there and we made plans to go to mass together on Sunday and then brunch after. I plan to go to these Thursday night get-togethers in the future while I'm here.

I arrived back to the convent late and exhausted. Tomorrow I'll be busy all day with The Priests' concert - so that should be really exciting.

Much love from this Slovakian-Voice-Over Superstar,

Michelle