The Walk of Shame

Yup, thought so – I guess that’s what we call «everyday life» in this modern world of ours.

I’ve already made it clear that I’m quite used to the fast track from having a job, being a full time student, a full time gymnast and a musician at the same time – but all that was in some way routine, and my life was on autopilot.

This week, I gambled my wife away, along with my house, car and watch. I spent a whole day failing to tell a girl that «I want you to stay», with Rihanna shouting it in the bacground. After writing a research paper on the Warner Bros., memorizing four scripts and a monologue, reading half a book, and rehearsing a number of different scenes at school, I spent the last day of the week escaping three men who wanted to kill me for a computer chip.

In between these pastimes, there were parties – cause a college student can’t miss out on the social part, right? Well, for me there’s not much routine to all this – hence, I can no longer trust my autopilot. There are too many sidetracks and unknown fields, and I guess that’s why I ended up just a little too close to going down the wrong one this week.

Being here to learn acting, my autopilot tells me to do everything I can to get the most out of it – including voluntary work. Ironically, me trying to get the most out of school this week actually got in my way from doing the actual school work.

Having no time to do my research paper because of all the voluntary filming, I ended up writing all of it after midnight the morning it was due. And what do you do when books are required as reference, but libraries are closed and Wikipedia is not an accepted resource? You take a short cut, convincing yourself that it is not really cheating, and hope that your teacher won’t question it.

Cheating is similar to peeing your pants in the cold; it makes you warmer for a while, but then it all gets worse when it freezes on your legs. Well, I peed my pants at school this week (metaphorically, that is). And it really got cold, when I had to do the «walk of shame» the next afternoon – to the library, in my case.

To undo my sins, I had to get the books I had falsely cited, so that I could actually quote them without lying. I have never ever cheated before in my life (come on, I grew up in church) – but if not before, I have now learned my lesson.

From one misery to another – this week I cried on a film set. Although obviously sad, it was a big victory – as it was the first time on cue in my life. A small step for mankind, but a huge step for the actor Petter. That’s the good thing about missing family and friends so much it hurts; suddenly you can play sad convincingly. 

The next morning I starred in my first music video, where the misery had more of a romantic tone – thus taking me back to home ground. Drawing on the train metaphor, I’d say the crew here spent more time beside the tracks than in them, as opposed to the Greek efficiency that ruled on set the day before.

But I got lots of free food, and spent my breaks doing acro yoga with the lead actress, so this was actually the closest I got to recreational time this weekend.

Except the Oscar’s party my friends hosted that same night, where I arrived when others where leaving. I might have missed the Oscar’s (which is like a mortal sin as an actor in Hollywood), but at least I spent those hours in front of a camera, instead of watching others doing that. Besides, Leo didn’t win, so what was there to see anyway?

Last, it can’t be unmentioned that part of our packed week at school was an in-class film shoot, where I just happened to get the part as lead actor. That’s fun and all, except that the script (fourth to memorize this week) didn’t arrive to me until the night before shooting. Actually, no one else got it either, meaning everyone met unprepared.

Also, our teacher (who we’ve never needed so desperately) decided to be absent this particular class – leaving all of us totally perplexed. Just to add a tad of sweetness to our situation, a notice of change in our schedule was sent out last minute to the unreliable school email addresses that only some of us have – so that only half of us showed up when filming was supposed to start. Somehow, we still pulled it together and finished our project on time – and I am loving my class more every day.

Sometimes it seems almost too hard to keep up with that pumping, speeding train of life. Sometimes we loose the track, so we have to work even harder to get back on it again, and sometimes it is just a little too tempting to go for that easy way out. But for the first time in my life, I’m not questioning the journey. They can keep shoveling coal into that steam engine – thanks to some unknown hours in the gym I got good condition, and I’m going to run this one to the last station!

Life 2.0 is Khrono’s new blog, and will be presented with new blogposts every week. Petter Egge is a former student from HiOA and journalist at Khrono. He has decided to do something quit different. This is his stories.

Mars 4th 2014: 
Chronicle #6: «Teaser»

I was a journalist, a gymnast and a musician. I had everything I needed – except what I wanted. Thats why I decided to quit my job, say goodbye to my friends and family, and leave for acting school in Hollywood. The Video presented in this blog is a small taste of what life has been like the first few weeks.

Here you can see the video-blog.

Feb. 25th 2014: 
Chronicle #5: «In a cold sweat»

For a guy who has lived all his life by the rules and routines of a gymnastics regime, there is no doubt that life here is a tad more divergent. Having nothing to do at one moment is just as shockingly unfamiliar as it is to run from a film shoot to my roommates’ baptism in the next. At any point earlier in my life, the degree of variation stretched from sleeping, through eating and practice, to toilet visits, school and back to sleep. The circle of life has definitely taken a new shape.

The whole chronicle #5 here.

Feb. 18th 2014: 
Chronicle #4: «The Proposal and the Valentine’s»

Real life, as we will know it the next eight months (though dreamy it may still seem to me), is about to blossom. As the hassle of settling down slowly dies out, challenges of school is coming to life, growing over the heads of its students.

The whole chronicle #4 here.

Feb. 11th 2014: 
Chronicle #3: «Life’s a like a box of chocolate»

As we still can’t seem to get friendly with our apartment (at least our rent), it took my roommate and me no more than three days to decide to move out again. Already stretching our comfort zone with one bedroom, we are now downgrading to NO bedroom.

The whole chronicle #3 here.

Feb. 8th 2014: 
Chronicle #2: Move-in Day and monologues

When gas, water, power and insurance companies got back in to business on Monday morning, Murphy’s law did the same; what could go wrong – well, you know. For the landlord to let us move in, they needed confirmation letters faxed from all of the above – which should be no problem, since we asked them all to do so when opening our new accounts. After half a day of waiting by an empty fax machine, we dared to call them back with a friendly reminder – only to discover that they’d forgotten all about us. When they eventually faxed it, only one name was on the paper – and we’d really prefer that both of us could move in. 

The whole chronicle #2 here.

Feb. 5th 2014: 
Chronicle #1: «I need a dollar, dollar is what I need»

Ok, just to make it clear right away: I am NOT a blogger. Since the dawn of the blogosphere, my prejudices have kept me far away from its kind. But as we all know, the first unwritten rule of a struggling actor in Hollywood is that «Everyone must accept some kind of prostitution in order to survive up until the big breakthrough.» So, I could have fulfilled the stereotype of waiting tables between my auditions, or I could do a «Sylvester Stallone» – but instead I am now spreading trivialities about my still-to-be famous self. Oh, the irony.

The whole chronicle #1 here.