The most eye opening, maturing and ultimately life changing experience.
I studied a year abroad at the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles California in 2015.
LA is my city. I knew it was my city when I visited for the first time spending a whole school term there when I just turned 15. It’s sunny, vibrant and full of opportunities. Coming from a tiny town in Limpopo, it was the biggest change.
Everything happens for a reason. I got my full scholarship to the academy a whole year before, but something held me back for 2014. Little did I know that something was falling in love. The next year I packed my bags and started my new adventure. I was on camera for the first time, working on sets, filming at Universal Studios and having class at Warner Brothers. I was thrown into the film industry and I couldn’t get enough. The facilities overseas are exceptional, everything is bigger and better and you are in the position where you are forced to grow, or you will be left behind. I stayed in Burbank, LA, just down the road from school and met my two very best friends, my sisters. Meeting online and then moving in together was crazy, these two British girls crept into my heart so quickly. Three foreign girls and we got through everything together, and my everything I mean the everything:
At 16 rand to the dollar at the time, I could not live the lifestyle I was used to, well I shouldn’t have but still did. My 21stbirthday surprise at Disneyland, driving through Wisteria Lane at Universal Studios and dancing across the fields at Coachella, you can’t put a price on those memories. But when it came to non-luxury things like grocery shopping, transport, rent, and extra school fees, it was a major struggle. $600 for half a room in a two-bedroom flat, we barely had enough for the rest of the month, but prioritized fun over everything. But we got through it together. We threw more parties than we attended and met people from all over the world. I acted in every genre of movie and expanded my knowledge and skills immensely. Had a long-distance relationship that only made it (and me) stronger, missed him and my family more than anything.
The devastation when getting taught about how we have to go home and can’t come back until we have working visas, which are extremely difficult to get, but was also the fuel to my fire of ambition. Adapting to a new culture and having to tip 20% ALWAYS, learning how to say hello to all my friends in their mother tongues, performing in downtown LA theatres and hiking up to the Hollywood sign. I realized my strengths, more importantly my weaknesses and came back, honestly, a completely new person to who I was when I left as a fully-fledged Pretoria Poppie. I found my style, I found my voice, I found my passions, and I found my city.
Thanks for reading! x
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