It has been a few days over seven months since I was last in Cardiff. Since then I got a very happy email, I was in our end of year production in June, I travelled to Rotterdam with my best friend and have been working my bum off not only at work but also in dance and singing class.

I can’t believe it has been seven months already, it feels so much shorter. In exactly a month I will have moved here and I’ll have a couple of days to settle in before classes start on the 7th of January. Excited does not really cover it.

Right now I’m back here with a purpose. I’ll be back at the lovely (seriously, it is gorgeous) building below for an audition. I’m hoping to obtain one of the scholarships that the college offers.

So this afternoon I’ll be singing my little heart out and in about three hours from now it will be all over and I’ll be biting my nails for the results. Not that I have any nails to bite really but that is not the point.

Oh and can I just say how amazingly supportive my friends and family have been for this whole enterprise? Every single one of them is delighted for me that I get the chance to attend what has turned out be to my dream school. If that does not say awesome then what does?

Have a lovely start to the week! With love and some vicks vapo-rub thrown in for good measure.

It’s been a while. The past two weeks have been incredibly busy with our two final rehearsal weeks for our end of year production. Long days, exhausted limbs and a grandma that wanted to go to sleep really early every day. Blogging somehow didn’t fit into that.

I have big news however. And no, I’m not pregnant, suddenly engaged or contemplating a sex-change (that first was actually asked by my drama teacher when I told him I had big news… erm… NO).

I got a place at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

To say I’m delighted is just completely and utterly inadequate. I found out last Tuesday really late in the evening and I think the dog of my housemate thought I was simultaneously choking, laughing hysterically and being murdered very slowly and painfully.

I kept logging in and out of CUKAS to make sure the words ‘guaranteed unconditional’ didn’t suddenly disappear. Same thing the next morning when I woke up: first thing I did, even before making myself a cup of tea, was checking CUKAS. It’s a miracle that their server survived. Yes, I might even have asked my bestie Julie to log in herself to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.

Ringing my mum was the best thing ever. She didn’t believe me until I started crying: ‘Mum, I’m SO happy!’ Calling Jules and my singing teacher was hilarious. It was late so they were both incredibly worried that something awful had happened. Crying and laughing at the same time at both ends of the phone: priceless.

I just feel so grateful to my friends, my family and my teachers for believing in me and supporting me (and oh God this starts to sound like a really bad acceptance speech…). It’s only today when I got home in Ostend and I had the letters from the college and CUKAS in my hands that it started to be real.

Is it January 7th yet?

I like a good adventure. Really I do. I then proceed to plan most of that adventure, or at least the travelling bit of the adventure. When it comes to planes/trains/busses I’m not too adventurous.

Tomorrow I’m off to Glasgow and world domination. Well, something like it I guess.

I’m ready for this audition and still I’ve got jitters. It’s so strange to have this day that I’ve been preparing for for over 6 months finally arriving. I guess this weird mixture of excitement and trepidation is going to follow me around for the next two days.

Keep your fingers crossed for me, will you?

I am now officially a musical theatre student. My audition and interview yesterday went well. I’m so happy and relieved right now. Quitting my job was a bit of a gamble but it turns out to be one worth taking.

I have to admit that I wasn’t exactly feeling the way the above picture advises when I set out in the morning to Antwerp. It was pouring (I mean really pouring) rain and on the highway I could barely see the car before me. However once I had passed Ghent it cleared up a bit and I got there in time.

I won’t bore you with the details of the two rounds but it went really well up until I had to do my monologue. Suddenly nerves struck and I was unsure about my text so I started talking really fast and forgot to project. Luckily for me the panel was like: ‘Where is the Karen we saw this morning?’ They gave me another text which worked much better – no more panicking about knowing the next line.

So from the coming Thursday I’ll be back at school at  the other side of the classroom. Back to student life.