Our next unit in English is the Humor Unit.\u00a0 Throughout this unit, we studied various forms of comedy in media and popular culture.\u00a0 For example, we read the play Rhinoceros<\/em> by Eugene Ionesco as an example of abstract humor. We used these lessons to inform our own humor projects.<\/p>\n My proposal was to do a live stand-up performance tying into my personal struggles with anxiety, and how that impacts my day-to-day life.\u00a0 I feel like this is a great way for me to share a part of myself with my peers in a way that’s not too difficult or heavy. Hopefully, being open and genuine about my challenges (and mocking them a bit, because they can<\/em> be a little ridiculous) will help anyone else who might be going through something similar.<\/p>\n As for some of the humor techniques I would like to use during my performance, defusing anxiety<\/b> is one of them. \u00a0Considering the subject matter, it\u2019s fitting. My material might get kind of heavy, so the humor will have to lighten the tone and defuse the tension. I\u2019ll most likely use a lot of <\/span>exaggeration<\/b>, because 99% of what I say in real life is exaggerated anyway (see what I did there?). \u00a0I also would like to use an <\/span>anecdote<\/b> or two to establish a common thread within the stand-up act and help get my message across. <\/span><\/p>\n This is the transcript I came up with for my stand-up performance.<\/p>\n Umm hi, so, I want you all to know that I probably wrote this whole thing at 1am last night. That\u2019s a lie though, I wrote it a week ago. Or not. It\u2019s me, so, will you ever know the truth? Probably not! (I\u2019m so meta, right?) Enjoy me being an Unreliable Narrator for the next 3 minutes! It\u2019ll be the funniest thing you\u2019ve seen in your life.<\/p>\n If I do, in fact, save this all \u2018till the last moment, rest assured that it is not because I\u2019m lazy. In fact, I will have spent hours of the past few nights staring at a blinking cursor. You see, I get a lot of anxiety from a lot of little things. Anxiety that keeps me from doing those little things entirely, which leads to a whole spiral. I consider it a miracle that I didn\u2019t just skip class today, but I mean, I\u2019m only up here for 2 or 3 minutes. How hard can it be, right? I have my water bottle, my microphone, I\u2019m practically a professional. This is about as easy as can be\u2026 (crushes water bottle)<\/p>\n There\u2019s probably something wrong with my brain. When I was three a door fell on my head. That\u2019s all the context you\u2019re getting, sorry! A little mystery is good for you.<\/p>\n It\u2019s funny, the kinds of things I stress myself out about now. Public speaking, test scores, the Zenith project, my crippling existential dread. Just typical high school things. When I was a little kid my anxiety manifested itself completely differently. I worried about things like volcano eruptions in Seattle. No, that isn\u2019t an exaggeration, these were thoughts my little brain ran wild with all day. Brain activity, wow… it\u2019s been forever since I\u2019ve had any of that.<\/p>\n Thank you, thank you. I can\u2019t tell if your laughter is genuine or generous (if it\u2019s the latter I don\u2019t blame you), but either way thank you for humoring me in my attempts to be humorous. I know this has been pretty painful and we all want it to end, myself especially. Sorry if you\u2019re feeling cheated, I know I promised it\u2019d be the funniest thing you\u2019ve ever seen or something like that, but you really should\u2019ve seen this coming.<\/p>\n I did<\/em> say I was unreliable!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n You can tell that I took some liberties with the initial script I was meant to follow, in order to make it feel more natural. I felt most comfortable performing my stand-up as if it was just a conversation, without the pressure of telling every joke perfectly and following the script exactly.\u00a0 Overall, I’m very proud of how I stepped outside of my comfort zone and came out with a successful and funny routine.<\/p>\n You can watch my live performance below!<\/p>\n\t\t\tProposal<\/h2>\n
Pre-Production Script<\/h2>\n
Live Performance<\/h2>\n