Admiration

Today I heard my father on the radio and it made me really want to follow in his footsteps. He's a comedian and I've always thought that would be a great career to have. It's not always stable, but the feeling of amusing people is so rewarding that it doesn't matter.

I think I'd love to be so many things at once - actress, comedian, author, photographer and so many other things that I've considered. But they're the four main dreams. It's odd that none of them are particularly academic. Even so, I'll probably do a degree in some kind of science/psychology/philosophy at university if the whole RADA dream fails. Ultimately, I want to do both. I want to have an academic career and a creative career.

Hmm, I never imagined myself to be the kind of child saying 'When I grow up, I want to be just like my mummy/daddy'. Well, in some ways I do. I wouldn't want my mum's career (being a secretary seems a bit tedious) but I hope I've inherited her compassion and warm heart (and on a purely vain note, her young, relatively wrinkle-free skin). And I'd like my dad's comedy skills and that something about him that's hard to put my finger on but draws people in. Also, thankfully I think I have his fast metabolism. Both parents have plenty of charisma so I hope I've got that, too.

RADA

I've been searching for my true identity for my entire adolescence, but I now realise that it's been here all along. My dream is my identity.

I remember watching Blue Peter when I was about 11 (which was strange because I hardly ever watched it) and seeing one of the presenters visit RADA, the most prestigious and reputable drama school in the country. It seemed simply amazing - a highly exclusive group of promising young actors given the best acting advice anyone could receive. From that moment I had the recurrent vision of myself in that university training for the BA in acting, living out my dream.

I've never given up on that dream. No matter how convential it sounds, I've always wanted to be an actress and drama has been my only solace at times. A bad day, bad week or even a bad year can be remedied by stepping out of your own shoes and into those of another person's - anyone,
anywhere. I can be anything, do anything, in front of an audience that are all watching me, and at the end I might get a fraction of the applause.

Two years from now I'll be applying for universities and I'm quite positive that RADA will be at the top of my list of choices. Maybe it's not a realistic choice, and admittedly dreams of being an actress could be just that - dreams, but it's good to aim high. Consider this: in the conception of a baby, no one considers how slim the chances of the egg being fertilised by the sperm are. Whether someone wants a baby or not, they always think about the prospect of conceptionnd new life. So why should I focus on not getting in to RADA when I may very well have the potential?