Peace of My Heart

Start of college

2009-10-04T10:48:00.002-04:00

MOVING IN/WELCOME WEEK
The week I moved in there was a Welcome Back concert featuring Matt Nathanson! It was incredible. (: Tom, Chelsea, Rachel (roomie), Laura and myself went along with tons of other students.

One day during my first weekend, Brien came over to go longboarding & while we were waiting for the rain to pass, he did a little redecorating in my room. Haha

There was a chalkboard war. Haha. I told him he had to write something nice so he wrote: "Amazing, talented... & mean" haha

SHOWS (:
In August, my friends and I went to several shows that our friend Jake (from HSM2) was playing at in his band.

ROCK QUARRY
These are from several trips to the quarry over the past month or so.

CAYLA'S SHOW
These are from Cayla's show at the Watershed that Laura, Rachel & I went to.

BRADLEY'S SURPRISE PARTY
Bradley was my dance partner in HSM2 & he's moving away in a few weeks to go to AMDA in NYC. This was a surprise party his mom put together for him. (:

News I don't have pictures from: the theatre department at my college is putting on the first all-undergraduate (except the lead character) production in 13 years. It's an excellent production of Cyrano de Bergerac. Seriously, it's brilliant. Today will be the third time I've seen it. The costumes are all in steampunk style. And the fight choreography is so stylized and incredible.
I'm currently doing Sleepy Hollow... again. (: I did it last year but this time around I'm playing the lead. My first lead role. (: Fun stuff.
& starting tomorrow I'm starting rehearsals for my first stage managing job with the college. I'm really excited about that. (:

FLORIDA

2009-08-13T01:30:00.000-04:00

Sunday, August ninth, my best friend Meredith and I flew out to Ft Myers, FL to meet my parents & then drove down with them to Sanibel Island, where my family and our friends had been going every year from the time I was born until I was about 7 or so. This was our first time going down there since then. My parents had already been there the past week.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 9th.

After we arrived in Ft Myers, Mere & I went to lunch with my parents and then went to the grocery store before heading to the island. At said grocery store, we picked up this awesome float that almost was lost when it attempted to make an escape from the bed of the truck. So we put it in the truck with us for safekeeping. Obviously there wasn't enough room.

Beautiful first look at the island

Brett & his dog Bailey a few houses down the row from ours

Dad's truck & our neighbor's house.

What ended up becoming the daily routine:
Mere & I floated for a few hours while the daddies fished.

Dinner the first night on the island @ Biddles Bucket

MONDAY, AUGUST 10th.
I really wanted to buy a longboard ever since Brien got me interested in it. So I decided I'd look around for one on the island. I didn't think about the fact that everything on an island like that is going to be touristy and overpriced. So we decided the next day we'd go shopping off the island in Ft Myers and I'd look around for one there. After a full day of shopping at various shopping complexes, we finally found a few places that sold boards I liked. Somehow I convinced Meredith to buy one as well. (:

Mere's board is the top one, mine is the bottom.

Going across the bridge on the way back to the island.
Looked like it was going to drop us off into nothingness. (:

Meredith, myself & Emily at The Pink Flamingo for
dinner with both my family as well as Emily's. (:

TUESDAY, AUGUST 11th.

Meredith & I planned what we didn't realize would turn into an all day longboarding excursion. We started out at our beach house, and longboarded all the way to the shopping street, and then all the way back home. It was at least a good 3 miles each way. At one point I ended up losing my cell phone and we had to back track to find it. By the time we finally got back to our house, we went straight to the pool and hopped in.

Stopping for Mt Dew slushies at the Seven 11. (: Delicious!

We stopped to buy bandaids at this little shopping center. The bandaids I bought were toast shaped (I kid you not) and this little guy was a prize inside the box. (:

We ended up having a little photoshoot with him. These were two of the many pictures. (: Haha what fun.

This AWESOME tree out back at the cutest ice cream shop I've ever seen in my life.

That night we went back to the ice cream shop with my parents to actually get ice cream & ended up taking even more pictures. Story of my life.

Didn't get to eat here, but I was obsessed with this restaurant! It was completely Alice in Wonderland themed. (:

HSM 2 Wrap Up.

2009-08-07T14:58:00.001-04:00

TUESDAY, AUGUST 4th.

We all went to Raime's house to hang out and watch movies. & of course we ended up going swimming in her pond later.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5th.
'WIDCAT PROM' CAST PARTY.
The next day, I had already planned to throw a cast party so everyone already knew about it. It was Wildcat prom so basically everyone came dressed up. Avery stayed with me the night before to help me get everything set up for the party. We went a little crazy with the decorations. Everyone brought lots of food & all looked amazing in their prom attire. Some of the guys dressed up like it was 50s prom. So cute. Before the night ended we all went swimming. That night Ginny, Jake, Brien, Meredith, Matthew, Cassie, Avery & Michael all stayed at my house and everyone minus Mere & Cassie went to Carowinds the next day which was literally the most perfect day of the summer, if not of the entire year. It was a great way to end the HSM2 madness. (:

Picture post

2009-08-04T12:29:00.000-04:00

FRIDAY, JULY 31st. SHOW.

Cast onstage at the end of opening number
Back row from L to R: Myself, Brien, Emily & Addie

Corey & I after opening number (:

FRIDAY, JULY 31st. AFTER the SHOW.

Brien & I in the back of the truck fetching paper plates
to make the paper plate awards with Becca & Jake.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1st. PAPER
PLATE AWARDS & CAST TALENT SHOW.

Lainey & I being silly as we start presenting the paper plate awards.

Our amazing production crew showing off their signed & framed
posters the cast gave them. From L to R: Walter (director), Jocelyn
(producer), Camille (musical director), Liz (costumer), Bobby (stage manager).

Lainey, myself & Jocelyn at the beginning of the girls' number. (:

All of us girls Getting our Heads in the Game. (;
L to R: Morgan, Jazzmin, me, Lainey, Ginny, Emily.

Bakari, Avery, Emily & Judson as Hannah Montana & the JoBros.

The beautiful Mellie doing an a cappella
tribute to Mr. Jackson.

Another MJ tribute. Bart & Lori doing "Thriller".

'That's the T' with Corecca Lawmer. (:
Becca & Corey hosting the talent show.

Lainey dancing.

Corey being silly after a costume change.

Lainey & Corey dancing (: Haha

Hermon, Michael & Brien performing "Crank Dat Bobby Craft":
'NO CELL PHONES BACKSTAGE!' (: Haha

Hermon, Brien & Michael.

Du Cr3w's CD cover I created for them haha.
From L to R: Garrison, Eddie, Hermon, Michael, Brien & Bakari.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 2nd.
FINAL PERFORMANCE.

Brien & I's last picture on stage together. Ironically it's the best
out of all 20something that we took each night during this scene.

Bakari, Jake & I.

Jake & Ginny (Troy & Gabriella).

SUNDAY, AUGUST 2nd.
CAST POOL PARTY. (:

Brien & Bakari with their matching
sunglasses on the way to Lainey's pool party.

Brien, Bakari & Jake being fed chips by Raime.
"Do not feed the animals. Thank you."

Brien & I.

Ginny (:

Brien, (Judson), Brien & Mellie

Clockwise from L: Bakari, me, Brien, Matthew, Ginny,
Cory, Lauren, Lainey, Jake & Michael (at bottom).
I ADORE this picture. It's probably my favorite from the entire run.

Closing weekend

2009-08-04T02:38:00.004-04:00

This weekend has been absolutely insane, busy and a gigantic rush of emotion. Our last three shows were this weekend and I've slept barely at all. So why I'm up at two fourty five in the morning writing a blog is beyond me. I should definitely be sleeping right now.

So we'll start with Friday night. We had a show, obviously. My best friend Meredith and our friend Scott came to see the show and then they both came out with the cast to Sonic afterwards. The service was horrible and it took forever for them to get my food to me, but it was all good. After Mere & Scott left and right before we were all going to leave, our waitress tripped on her skates and fell & her coworkers who were outside on a break start laughing loudly at her & she started crying and went back inside. So Ginny being the sweetheart that she is, took all of us up to the door to give the waitress hugs. She must have gotten ten or twelve hugs from the cast. Right after that Jake, Brien & I headed over to Becca's house. Every show we do, someone makes the Paper Plate Awards. They're just silly little awards for things that people have done through out the run of the show. (I'll type some of them in near the end of this blog.) So Becca, Lainey & I took control of them this year. Becca & Jake left a little earlier so it was up to me to lead Brien in his car behind me to Becca's house, even though I'd never been there before. Of course I passed one of the roads I was supposed to turn on because it was so dark & I couldn't see the street sign. So we had to turn around in a gas station. Later Brien told me he thought I was taking him there to kill him hahaha. And then when I finally get on the right road, I pass the house cause I didn't see the drive way and we had to turn around again. Haha. So Brien has NO faith in my directional skills whatsoever now. Finally we got to Becca's house & immediately hopped in the back of Lachlan's truck & headed off to Becca's shed down the road to grab some plates & then went back to the house. Eventually Lainey, Bradley, Bart, Danny & Michael came over. And SOMEhow we managed to fit all of those people (plus Becca's friend Anna who was already there) on Becca's bed. After a long massage/back scratching fest on the bed, Brien and Michael disappeared to work on choreography for a "secret" performance they were going to do at the cast talent show. Even though I knew all about it already (since I usually hang out in the guys dressing room more than in the girls), they'd act sketchy and like they weren't up to anything every time I walked in the room. Everyone except Jake, Lainey & I left around 3 in the morning. Becca & I finished all of the paper plates but then ended up staying awake until past 6:30 in the morning, even though I knew I had somewhere to be at 10 in the morning.

So Lainey and I get up at 9 & head off to the theatre to meet the rest of the girls in the show for a secret rehearsal. For the past week or so we'd been rehearsing for a top secret talent show performance. Last year, the girls had planned to do our own rendition of "Getcha Head in the Game" but never got around to doing it. So the girls this year ended up learning ALL of the choreography perfectly to perform at the saturday night talent show. We managed to keep it a secret too. Our producer was in on it and played Troy in the dance. Anyway, after our talent show rehearsal at the theatre all the girls went to lunch together. Then I headed back home, got ready for the show and went BACK to the theatre. We had another FANTASTIC show and then started getting ready for paper plates and the talent show.

Paper plate awards went awesome. Lainey and I were the two that got to present them since we made them. The theme this year was the "You Betta ______" since everyone was constantly using that phrase around the theatre. Some of the highlights:
BRIEN: "For making the downstairs dressing room one of the most popular hang out spots: YOU BETTA PECTORAL." (: Explanation: his hot bod. Duh. Hahaha
MATTHEW: "This is someone everyone wants, but can't have: YOU BETTA JAILBAIT." Explanation: he's adorable & fifteen. Haha
HERMON: "For everyone's favorite catch phrase: YOU BETTA 'STOP IT! YOU LYIN!'" Explanation: he said it ALL the time.
GARRISON: "YOU BETTA MHMMMM" Explanation: After Troy & Chad's fight every night on stage it would be completely silent & Garrison always goes "Mm!" or "Mhmmm!" on stage really loudly and made all of us break & start laughing.
JUDSON: "For cussing on stage during a show: YOU BETTA... $H!T."
LAINEY: "For seeing just how wet she could get Jake every night: YOU BETTA SOAK." Explanation: She was in charge of making it look like Jake had run through a sprinkler. So every night she'd soak the rag in more water than the night before.
BOBBY: "YOU BETTA NOT: talk, laugh, text, call, think, breathe, blink, enjoy this show." Explanation: Our stage manager who kept us in check by not letting us do ANYthing (:

After the paper plate awards, we had our talent show. The girls went first with our "Getcha Head in the Game" number. I don't think anyone saw it coming. Our choreographer from the year before was sitting in the audience and was CRACKING UP the entire time. & we got a standing ovation. At the end of the number we dropped the balls off the stage in "you got served" fashion & took off our shirts that we made to look like jerseys to reveal the backs of our wife beaters which when we lined up spelled out "NOW YOUR TURN" (: Yesssss. The rest of the show consisted of a very well put together cha cha number, a Michael Jackson a capella tribute, another MJ tribute (Thriller), two dances on pointe (one of which Corey participated in, complete with tutu and pointe shoes), a few tragic drag queen numbers, some comedic performances. But by far the best ( of course right behind the girls performance (; ) was the boys "surprise" group performance (even though I already knew all about it). Bakari wrote and produced and recorded this awesome track called "Crank That Bobby Craft" poking fun at all of the things he'd tell us not to do. Brien & Michael choreographed a dance to it and then all the guys performed it, complete with bandanas (Bobby's signature clothing item). Even though they'd only started putting it together at about 2 that morning, it was really well done. I was impressed & gave them a standing ovation. They deserved it. Afterwards we hung out until really really late at the theatre. I got in a little argument with a certain person I won't name, and got really upset about it. And then right after I talked to them, I went downstairs and the first person I saw was Bart, who will be moving back to Boston for school in a few weeks and I immediately burst into tears. Of course the person I'd had the argument with came downstairs and saw me and I'm sure they thought I was crying because of them. Which kinda was true since I was already upset about the convo I'd had with them. Anyway. Shortly after that I left the theatre & the person I'd had the argument with left around the same time. While I was waiting at the stop light, they pulled up next to me in the turn lane. & I could tell they were trying to catch my eye cause they kept inching their car up bit by bit. But I couldn't look at them because I was crying so hard because of everything. It was by far my worst car ride home ever. I could hardly see the road through the tears. But I got home and calmed down & got a good night of sleep.

FINALLY, Sunday. Closing "night" even though it was a matinee. Before I even got to the theatre I was crying because I was listening to the HSM3 soundtrack in the car and certain lyrics were KILLING me. Jake FINALLY burned me a CD of his band, Cherry Case. The show was the most amazing closing I could have ever asked for. Right after the first song every night I took a camera on stage. Brien and I stand together because him and Avery are supposed to be "flirting" with Lainey and I on stage. And almost every single night we took a picture together. Every single one I either cut off one of our faces or it was blurry or something else was wrong with it. But finally on closing night, we took the best picture we've ever taken together on stage. During "Everyday", the second to last song, there's a part where we're all in lines and we hold hands with the person standing next to us. Well the person next to me is Bradley, who's also my dance partner for majority of the show. & he also happens to be moving to NYC for college this year. So (as I predicted early on in the run of the show) as SOON as he grabbed my hand during that song I started crying. But I contained them for the most part through the rest of the song. As soon as the song ended I grabbed him in a big hug & started crying again. During the part right after that song and right before the next song, the ensemble is supposed to walk around and talk to each other while the leads are saying their lines at the front. There wasn't as much talking going on tonight and everyone was hugging EVERYONE, even if we hadn't been on that side of the stage during that part of the show at all for the entire run. Of course I cried for that whole 2 minutes but only a little bit, and i had my tears cleaned up by the time the last song started. But as soon as THAT song ended, I started tearing up again. And by the end of curtain call almost every person on stage was crying full out. Even some of the guys were crying.

Afterwards, we packed up all of our costumes. Ginny, Jake, Bakari, Michael, Raime, Brien and I went to Beezers for dinner. Meredith met us there and then we all headed over to Lainey's house for a pool party which was SO much fun. Right after that a bunch of us went to the Blue Lagoon again. Meredith drove me and Brien to meet everyone & then everyone else piled in the car to head to the Lagoon (since it's trespassing, we only wanted to take one car). When we got in the water was FREEZING. and of course there's only a few places at the bottom where there are rocks you can stand on, otherwise you can't touch the bottom. So we were all cuddling together to keep warm while still trying to balance on the rocks. And we were so cold that we got giddy and EVERYTHING was funny. So the laughing didn't help our balancing act at all. Eventually we got out and dried off & headed back to the car. Then Meredith headed out and Brien and I hitched a ride with Bradley to Raime's house where everyone started watching a movie. I got upset about something that Brien said (in addition to some other things I was already upset about) very early on in the night that was supposed to be a joke but I didn't hear it like that at all and got really upset. I hardly talked to anyone until they were all about to leave. I was going to ride back to the theatre with Brien & Becca to get my car and then bring it back to Raime's house so I could leave whenever I wanted to in the morning but OF COURSE I couldn't find my keys. & I called Bradley and Meredith to try to find them but Bradley didn't know where they were and Meredith's phone was off. So I started freaking out even more thinking I'd lost my keys. & I really wanted to talk to Brien about what had happened with him to make sure everything was okay but of course I didn't know how to say what I wanted to say (I suck with words, especially in situations like this when I get upset over little things. Which I promise doesn't usually happen this often. I guess just with the show closing I've been really emotional over the past few weeks.) & he'd already started walking to the car for Becca to take him back to his car. So Raime, knowing that something was up and that I wanted to talk to him called him over and then walked away so I could have a chance to talk to him. He of course told me (in a nice way) that I needed to calm down and stop freaking out so much. He stayed for at least a good five minutes with me to make sure I was okay and that I knew he wasn't upset with me. Finally I went to bed after they left. I got in touch with Meredith in the morning and found out my keys were in her car. So Raime took me to Meredith's work to get them & then all the way back to the theatre to get my car. So now I'm at home by myself. My parents left for Florida this morning (technically yesterday morning) so I've got the house to myself for the next few days. But almost every night one of my friends will be staying with me.

Anyway, one of these days I'll make a post entirely for pictures of this weekend. And now for some entertainment. Hopefully people that aren't friends with me on facebook can see these cause they're hilarious.
Getcha Head in the Game
Crank Dat Bobby Craft 1
Crank Dat Bobby Craft 2

First Holdover Show

2009-07-30T03:11:00.002-04:00

Last night, my three best guy friends Steven, Ross & Scott dropped in for a surprise visit at about one in the morning. They tend to do that, and I absolutely love them for it. Especially since I hardly have time to see my friends away from the theatre when I'm doing a show. We went for a walk at 1:30 in the morning, and they had me cracking up the entire time. I've really missed my friends that aren't in theatre with me. Despite the fact that I'll be really sad when this show is over, I'm really excited to have more time to spend with them before they go away for college.

Tonight was our first holdover show. Which means we only have four more shows left. I'm really sad and am definitely not ready for this show to end at all. I've had such a great time with this cast and doing this show. I'm going to miss everyone so much. Luckily I'm staying in town for college so I'll get to see a good number of these people after I'm done with this show. However there are a few people who are going away for college. Ginny's going to another college in state, but its still a good way away from where I'll be at. Bart & Bradley, however are going WAY far away for college. Bart will be going back to his 2nd year at Boston Conservatory & Bradley will be starting at AMDA in NYC. ): I'm going to miss those guys so much its not even funny.

Anyway. Tonight after the show, a few people went to see our director play in his band, but you had to be 21 to get in. And then some more people went to see Ginny's brother's band play at another venue. Pretty much Brien & I were the only ones not going to see a band play and were looking to get some food. So Brien said he'd go to Sonic with me if "we longboard first." I agreed not thinking about the whole "WE" part of that sentence. I've skateboarded before, but never on a longboard. And that was years and years ago. So I was pretty much freaking out and thinking I was going to kill myself. Or him. Haha. But once I got past the fact that the board bends a lot, it wasn't so bad. After a little while we went to Sonic & then down to the Riverwalk Park for a little more longboarding. Even though it wasn't with a whole big group like most nights, tonight was still a lot of fun. And I got to see my best friend for a little bit before I headed home, which was a plus. (: She was downtown with some friends so I got her some food from Sonic & took it to her after Brien & I left the Riverwalk.

Another good day (:

2009-07-29T01:06:00.003-04:00

It is SO hard to watch someone you like be with their significant other. That's all I'm gonna say about that. On to my good day! (:

Make up for the commercial!

So today was the filming date of the commercial I was cast in. Yesterday they called and asked if I had a girl friend to come and be an extra in my shot. So I start talking to girls in my show and realize that they're all either too young (you had to be eighteen I believe) or were out of town at the beach. So one of the girls in my show suggests this girl named Cayla, who is mutual friends with a bunch of people in the show with me. I'd seen her play a show at the river a few months ago & briefly met her after she came to see our show, but we'd never hung out or anything but I figured I'd give it a shot anyway. So she agreed to meet me today @ the shooting location and do it with me. (: So we met there this morning and went in & straight to the wardrobe lady who made me try on a whole bunch of different shirts & then finally picked one. Right after that we went to lunch & it turns out Cayla knows the guy that was doing sound for the commercial. So we sat and ate chinese food with the crew & then went to hair and make up. Finally we went up to the library where my scene was being filmed. The shot was set up like she and I were having a conversation at one of the tables. The camera was behind her so basically all you see is the back of her head. So when she camera starts rolling, she and I are supposed to be adlibbing, and then I look at the camera and say my line. Every single take we had the same exchange. "So Cayla, are you excited about your show tonight?" "Yeah, I'm hoping a lot of people come out!" & then I say my line to the camera. But there was one take where instead of saying what she normally did, she goes "No, not at all." Haha, so of course I forgot my line for half a second and then started laughing and we had to stop rolling & start over on that take. But in all it only took about 4 takes. After the shoot, I was supposed to make plans with Brien to hang out for a bit, but of course he ended up sleeping in late & then eventually bailing on me. Lame. Haha.

Bart, Michael, Lainey, Lauren, Emily, Brien, Addie
& Morgan publicizing the show on the news! (:

Lauren & Lainey showing off their
chalk advertisement for the show downtown.
"HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 2
@ Workshop Theatre till Aug 2nd
(803) 799-6551 for tickets!"
(or workshoptheatre.com)

At six I headed over to the theatre to walk around the town with the cast and hand out flyers to publicize our last week of shows. There ended up being a news crew downtown so they had a short spot on the news to publicize. Right after that Michael, Addie, Emily, Brien and myself went to this little venue downtown to see Cayla play, along with a few other bands. It was a lot of fun & all the bands were really good. (:

Me in the alley next to NBT

Michael & I had an impromtu photoshoot
in the alley before Cayla's show! (:

Good day? I think yes. (:

myspace.com/caylafralick (:

My awesome Thursday

2009-07-26T20:59:00.003-04:00

Thursday was absolutely the best day of my summer. Avery (in my show), Meredith (best friend), Scott (friend) & myself all went to Warped Tour in Charlotte. It was incredible. We got there and walked around for a while, picking up stickers and other random free stuff. & I got two shirts, one being a green Warped Tour shirt & the other a PETA shirt that says "animal testing breaks hearts." While we were randomly standing there looking at shirts and stickers, Avery tapped my arm and pointed at some girl and asked if it were one of the girls from Meg & Dia, & it was but neither of us wanted to walk up to her and ask for a picture (I know we're chickens haha)

Meg & Dia (:

Only a little while after we'd gotten there while we were planning out who we were going to see throughout the day, I got a call from an agent my former drama teacher got me in contact with about a commercial I'd submitted my picture & resume for. He said I'd booked the job and told me a little be about the people I'd be speaking to in the coming days & when and where I was going to be filming at. So that was an awesome start to my day.

Caleb from Forever The Sickest Kids

The first band we went to see was The Devil Wears Prada, which is a little more hard core than I usually listen to, but they're still good. The crowd, however was insane. I don't mind the pushing & moshing and whatnot when I have real shoes on but I had flip flops and the number of people stomping on my feet was just a little too much. Haha. So Avery and I left to go check out some other stuff before the next band we wanted to see was going to play. A little later on we went to the Smart Punk Stage to wait for Forever The Sickest Kids' set. While we were waiting we watched the end of Dear and the Headlights' set and all of Lights (who was amazing and adorable, even more so in person). Then came FTSK. We were right up front as close to the stage as we could get (considering there was a three foot gap between the crowd and stage with bouncers there to kick out crowd surfers. lame.) Their set was AMAZING. They're even cuter and better in person. Then we made our way over to the stage right next to that one to watch Meg & Dia who are also adorable & super talented.

Dia of Meg & Dia

Right after that Avery & I decided it was about time for us to leave considering we had another show to do back at the theatre (which was another hour and a half or so, not including traffic, away from where we were). We hadn't seen Meredith & Scott since Devil Wears Prada, & we had her keys & shirts and even her & Scott's phones so we had no way to get in touch with them to give their phones back. I called people who I knew had seen them through out the day but couldn't find her. So we decided probably the easiest thing to do would be to hide her stuff in her car (she doesn't have automatic locks on her car) and leave a note only she would read. On the way back to the entrance, Jonathan (lead singer of FTSK) walked by and I literally freaked out, but couldn't work up the nerve to ask if I could get a picture with him. So we just pretty much walked him walk by.

Jonathan (Forever The Sickest Kids)

At this point its already raining. But when we were walking past all the merch tables, I spotted There For Tomorrow under their tent so Avery and I stopped for a second so I could get a picture with Chris, their drummer. I didn't get to see TFT at Warped, but I saw them in Augusta in February the day before Valentines Day this year at an AMAZING show with them, We the Kings, The Cab, The Maine & Versa Emerge. THAT was an incredible show.

Chris & I

Anyway, after I got my picture with Chris, we headed to the parking lot and were putting Mere's stuff in her car when I got a call from her on some random person's phone. So instead of leaving her stuff in her car, we planned to meet at the gate and pass her stuff through the gate. While we were sitting and waiting for Mere to come out, Lights walked out and past us and ONCE AGAIN we didn't say anything. Lame. I will never again let a performer walk past me without getting a picture with them first. So finally we got Mere's stuff to her and headed back home.

Once we got back in town Avery & I stopped for sushi (yummm) at what is quite possibly the best sushi restaurant in the state. Then we went to the theatre where I got my favorite parking spot ever (number 22). & then we did the show, which was an awesome show. In the middle of the show, Meredith sent me a video message of 3oh!3 performing "Don't Trust Me" since I had to miss their set, which was seriously one of the coolest things ever to open my phone and see that. After the show we all went to eat at the local post-show hang out place, Yesterdays, for a late dinner. & then over to Corey's house to watch Madea Goes to Jail. But right before we went over there, Eddie's car got towed so we had to take him home and then as soon as we got to Corey's we realized that Eddie had the movie. So we ended up just hanging out for a few hours. Then I took Brien & Becca back to their cars at the theatre and headed home for the night. It was seriously one amazing day/night.

Ruined

2009-07-20T15:14:00.002-04:00

My worst trait is the one thing that is constantly making me ruin EVERYTHING for myself. It doesn't matter if its a friendship, romantic relationship, or anything else under the sun. I worry about things to the point where I absolutely turn every situation that I want to go right in the complete opposite direction. If I like someone, I worry about things like if they like me or if I'm getting on their nerves or if I'm doing every little thing right until they really are annoyed with me or until they can't stand to be around me anymore. Right now a similar, though more complicated, thing is going on with me. And I absolutely want to kick myself for once again ruining something that could have turned into a relationship, whether romantic or just friends. And this is a person that I really enjoy being around. Even if it weren't going in the direction I wanted it to go in, I still would love to be around this person and be friends with them. But now I have a huge feeling that because I once again over reacted and froke out about every little thing, that friendship is going to be completely gone.

I've always been a believer that if you let go, what is supposed to happen will happen. I'm always giving people that bit of advice, but when it comes to me following my own advice, I fail miserably. In the past few days, one phrase has been coming up from all around me by people that I know. It's pretty much the same idea. "Let go & let God." I'm finding it so hard to let myself let go. I know that as soon as I do, things will probably work themselves out. But I can't let myself be out of control. And I hate that. I wish I were one of those people who could just let things happen and roll with it. But as soon as something does start happening I have to make sure that things continue in the direction I want them to. Which is where everything starts falling apart.

Cast party & late night adventures

2009-07-18T03:27:00.003-04:00

Everyone hanging out & dancing @ the party (:

Tonight was the cast's first big cast party where majority of us attended. There have been several night where a handfull of us have hung out (at least four of our six nights together a week, we hang out), but never an organized party with food bringing and DJing and such. There was a lot of food and dancing and acting crazy, cause we all know theatre kids aren't shy. I had tons of fun. It was by far the most fun I've ever had at a cast party for any show I've done.

Mr DJ, Jon @ the cast party!

Corey & I in the middle of a photoshoot @ the
cast party. With Bradley creeping in the back (:

Jake (who plays Troy in our show) asked me and a few others if we wanted to go to what he calls the Blue Lagoon. Basically what it is is a lake in the middle of the woods. There's a cliff you can jump off of into the water if you want or you can just walk down the rocks to get in. Well me, Jake, Gabby, Danny, & Brien left the party early to go tonight (technically last night considering its 3:30 in the morning now) & our director, producer, choreographer and stage manager all gave us crap about making sure we didn't kill ourselves or come to the show tomorrow (technically tonight) complaining about a sore throat or broken ankle or anything. Haha. But luckily all of us survived. None of us that were actually in the show (me, Jake & Brien) actually jumped in. Danny jumped in & Gabby sat out of the water all together since she didn't have her swimsuit with her. The walk to and from the car was absolutely terrifying though. This place is way back in the middle of the woods and takes a good walk to get to it. The guys kept talking about all the scary movies we've ever watched and kept freaking me out. Then after we'd only been in the water not even for ten minutes, we heard a noise that we swore sounded like a person yelling. So we all hopped out of the water and headed back to the car shortly after it. But it was definitely worth it. It was a great way to end an already great night.

Jazzy & Ashley dancing the night away @ the cast party (:

Corey, Ginny, Bart, Raime, Matthew, & Mellie (:

Show time! (:

2009-07-11T16:22:00.004-04:00

Jake, myself & Mellie @ Raime's on July 4th!

The title of this post has a few different meanings. First the not as obvious (but still pretty obvious anyway) meaning. I don't know how many of you out there have done a show before, but it seems like when you're doing a production, every little thing flies by so fast. Its like we're living in hyper time. Kinda like in that movie Clockstoppers. Maybe its because we see each other so much that everything progresses so much more quickly. I mean I see these people more than I see my own family. In the past two weeks, so much has happened its not even funny. And not just as far as progressing the show towards getting everything ready for opening night. But even with things going on backstage. Relationships that are formed off stage between cast members progress so much faster. I've known one person in this show two years, there's a good handful of them that I did the show with last year, and then the rest of them (which is most of them) I've only known since this spring. And I feel like I've known them my whole life. These people have become such an important part of my life and its ridiculous how quickly that happened. Just a few months ago, I didn't even know most of these people. And now I can't imagine being without them.

Spending the fourth of July with my cast members.
L to R: Bart, Michael, Raime, Kristie, & Mellie.

& now for the other, obvious reason for the title. My musical opened last night!! We've been working so hard. I haven't had a whole lot of time to update this thing, but even if I did, it would only be a bunch of random show terms so unless all of you people who read this are theatre people, you probably wouldn't get what the heck I was talking about. But I will run through a few of the cool highlights of the past month or so. First, our set is really really cool. We've got a lot of these gigantic, complicated rotating set pieces. Probably the hardest part about rehearsals was getting all the set changes going smoothly. But now that everything is rolling (literally, for the most part), it looks really cool.

Brushing my teeth while my cast members grab
some breakfast @ the four a.m. news show shoot.

On July 3rd, we had a live news show promotion scheduled at FOUR IN THE MORNING. Mind you this was after we'd already had rehearsal until 11 the night before. So a whole lot of us went over to one of the girls' houses and watched a movie and then headed right back to the theatre at three the next morning to get ready for the news show. But as soon as we got there we learned that the guy who was supposed to be running the segment hurt his back (? or something like that) earlier and the week and wouldn't be able to get there, but that they would send a film crew to take some shots of the show and air it later in the week. So our director decides that since we were all there anyway, we were just going to rehearse at four in the morning and then have the night off. And honestly, it was the best rehearsal we'd ever had. The film crew kept calling and saying they were going to be later and later, to the point where we just decided that we had been waiting for too long, so we were just going to leave at the end of rehearsal. But of course as SOON as we were dismissed, they showed up (& with the news guy who was supposedly hurt) and we had to stay for another hour or so for them to get the shots they needed for the news segment.

Bradley, Corey, Lainey, Bart, Raime, Michael, myself & Hermon
@ IHOP after the early morning rehearsal/news shoot.

Afterwards we headed to IHOP together and it was the most hilarious thing ever. We were all exhausted & completely life inappropriate. You know when you're so tired that everything around you seems really funny & you forget that the people that HAVEN'T stayed up all night exist too? That was our entire cast, who took up the majority of the seats in the IHOP downtown. Too funny.

Brien & I on opening night! (:

So last night was opening night and it was the best opening night we ever could have asked for. Of course, it was consisting mostly of our closest friends and families so they weren't too hard to please. But every person I talked to after the show absolutely loved it and only had good things to say about it (except for the occasionally bad sound quality due to us using a CD track instead of a live band). Afterwards a bunch of us went out to get dessert and then headed off to Raime's (the same girl that I'm always referring to when I say I stayed with a female cast member haha) for the night. There was so much craziness going on. It was literally the CRAZIEST opening night post show that I've ever experienced. I won't go into detail, but it was crazy. Just believe that. Haha. We've got another show tonight and then a break until Tuesday, so I'm thinking I'll be coming straight home tonight. I am so tired. Haha

With Lee after the first show!

My Love Life

2009-06-05T01:58:00.002-04:00

My love life is basically nonexistant. I'm generally a very independent person and don't like serious relationships. Generally, I said. I've had very few real relationships that actually lasted. My last real relationship ended in December of 07. Ridiculous. Most of the time I'm happy just being single. And usually during these times when I'm enjoying being single, I have guy friends that want to date me (its happened MANYYY times) & it breaks my heart seeing people I honestly do care about get upset because I don't want to date. But then as soon as I actually want someone in my life, EVERY SINGLE guy is unavailable or uninterested.

I'm going through a phase that I call my "show crush" phase. Every time I do a show, I end up crushing on majority of the straight guys. My little crushes usually dont last for even a week before I move on to the next guy. Right now, its the same deal. I'm doing a new show with some new people. And I've already narrowed it down to a few possibilities, but I found out today that my front runner has a girlfriend or something? Lame. Anyway, I'm sure in about a week or so I'll have rotated through all the straight guys and then be completely over it and not want to date anyone at all. Until my next show. Ugh. I just want someone to cuddle with I think. And flirt with. Probably not actually date. I like cuddling. Ugh.

In the mean time I started my new job today and it was quite possibly the quickest and easiest job attaining process ever. I literally applied at about eleven yesterday morning and got a call from the owner by five that afternoon asking if I wanted to train today. Good stuff.

"I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!"

2009-06-02T20:10:00.005-04:00

This has absolutely nothing at all to do with the post I'm about to write. But I'm watching "I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!" Can we just talk about Speidi for a second? "I'm too rich and I'm too famous for this," says Spencer. First of all, he's rich and famous for doing nothing. Being on a reality show. Good job. And second... its for charity. Don't you think you should be able to be a good person and do something for a good cause? Even I would do crazy stuff and live in a jungle for a few weeks if I were earning money for a good cause. Okay thats all have to say about that. I will say that Frangela are endlessley entertaining. Frances is one of the few reasons I watched Hannah Montana the very few times that I have. Her and Billy Ray. And that one time David Archuleta was on it. Anyway.

The past few weeks I haven't had much to write about at all. Like I said,
there was my birthday cook out. And then the day after I made that post was my actual birthday, which went really well. (: One of my good friends brought me cupcakes to my first class. I only had one and then gave the rest to my friends and they looked adorable eating their cupcakes. (: Haha. They enjoyed getting messy with the icing. Sad that almost all of us are seniors in high school and we're still playing with our food. I love my friends though.

The Sunday after my birthday, my best girl friend took me to dinner at the Melting Pot, which has to be the coolest gift ever. She also had a gift for me in her car that she wanted me to wait to open. We went to a friends party afterwards and I left before she did. So I still haven't gotten it haha. But I will sooner or later. She's going to Florida with me at the end of the summer so if anything I'll get it by then. I was in my last show as a high school student at school. At the top of the post is a picture with my cast. And we took the drama department to Frankie's Fun Park on Memorial Day. That was a lot of fun too.

Other than those few things these past few weeks have been really uneventful. I've had a really bad cold so when I'm not rehearsing, I'm spending home time on the couch or in the bed coughing up a lung usually. It sucks really bad but I've been on meds so I'm getting better. I'm thinking by the end of this week I'll be back in good health.

I'm officially done with high school. I'll be graduating this Friday. And the parents have decided they won't extend my curfew until I get a job which sucks. But hopefully I'll find somewhere i really enjoy wroking so it won't suck as bad.

Rehearsals have been a lot of fun. And they're happening more often as the days go on, so we've been getting really close as a cast which is really awesome. As I mentioned before, I did High School Musical at the same theatre last year, and now we're doing the sequel. We have a good number of our original cast back, but its still only about half and half. Some of the veteran Wildcats were a little worried about how well the old guys and the new guys would mesh. So its really awesome to see that we're getting along so well. We've been hanging a lot outside of rehearsal too. Some nights we go to dinner after rehearsal, some nights we just go to a cast mates house to chill and watch movies or swim in pools. And a few times we've gone to this really cool swing from a tree that goes over the river. Its really ridiculously cold so it sucks when you actually fall from the swing but its fun for the rest of the time.

Lainey & myself @ the river (:

Ginny looking like a ballerina on the swing

Birthday Cookout (:

2009-05-17T13:51:00.002-04:00

I'm supposed to be writing my final essays for English (which are due tomorrow) but I had an urge to write this instead. I should have already done them by now and had every intention to do them yesterday, but I got really really sick and spent most of my day sleeping it off. Then I woke up, took a shower, went to dance rehearsal, left early and came home to get ready for my 18th birthday cookout/pool party. Sadly it rained on and off all day/night. But that didnt' stop us. About fourty or so of my friends came by at some point throughout the night. A lot of people that said they'd be there ended up "forgetting" and not showing up, which sucked. And even a few of the people that were there decided to be really antisocial and sat inside watching TV for a large part of the time they were there. If everyone could have fit in my living room to watch TV or whatever I guess it wouldn't have bothered me as much. But its like, I can't be everywhere at once. So I ended up having to choose which of my friends I wanted to spend my time with. And it didn't come down to who but rather where, seeing as I wanted to stay outside in the pool. There was one guy that I honestly hardly noticed he was there. He spoke to me when he got there, and when he left and spent the rest of the time chilling on the couch. And didn't even bring me a card or anything. That sounds really selfish, but I honestly didn't ask anyone for anything for my birthday. And if he had spoke to me for even a few minutes I wouldn't have cared that he didnt' bring anything. Like one girl spent the entire time with me and she'd forgotten her card for me at home (which is kind of different because she actually made an effort to recognize the fact that it was my birthday). But no, this dude just came in and chilled on my couch like it was his house we were invading for the day or something. That was my only problem. Its my one day out of the year completely for me, at least recognize that if you're going to come to my party.

Well, I'm off to start on part two out of the three essays I have to write before 3 oclock tomorrow! Then its off to rehearsal at 4.

First Rehearsal

2009-05-12T00:01:00.003-04:00

I'm going to go ahead and apologize for what will be another pretty short entry, and probably not very interesting for most of you. But its a big part of my life and will be a huge part of my summer so I may as well start sharing now while its fresh and new. (: I'm a performer and for the past two summers I've done musicals at my local community theatre (Workshop Theatre, check it out!). Two years ago it was The Secret Garden, last summer it was High School Musical, and this summer we are doing the sequel to last year's production. Originally our director wanted to get back the entire original cast in order to do the sequel, but we ended up having some people move away from town, commit to other things, or whatever else. So we have 12 of our original cast members and the other 28 or so are newbies. At first I was a little wary of having new people, and was curious to what those people would be like and how we would mesh together or clique apart into clearly defined groups of newbies and veterans. We had our first read through Saturday, which went really well. And our first real rehearsal was today. It went better than I ever could have imagined for a first rehearsal. And all the new people are incredibly cool and talented. The summer is looking like its going to be really bright. (:

When we got to the theatre, we were waiting for the improv group to finish rehearsing in the Gallery for us to be able to step in and start our rehearsal but it turned out that they had the room booked for longer than we thought they did. So for the first 30 minutes of rehearsal, we were stuck outside. It was hilarious though. Walter, our director, downloaded the piano application on his iPhone to use to find our pitch. It actually worked really well and we got to work through most of our first song by doing that to split ourselves into correct harmony parts. After the first half an hour we got to go inside to finish up the rest of what would turn out to be a really fun and productive rehearsal.

Father's Day

2009-05-10T23:30:00.003-04:00

Yes, I realize that today was in fact Mother's Day, but I'm writing a little bit about my dad today. Ironic.
I was adopted before I was born, so I've lived with my (adoptive) family for my entire life. And somehow I've inherited most of my behavioral traits from my dad and very few from my mom. Because of the insane similarities in our personalities we tend to butt heads a lot. We're both sarcastic, terribly headstrong, and have horrible tempers. My temper very few people have seen. My dad is one of the very very few people on this earth that can get under my skin enough to truly make me angry. And I hate that. This evil person that I don't even know, or know how to control, just comes from no where. Exactly a week ago my dad got into a stupid argument that I honestly don't even know what it was about. But he upset me so badly that I just left. I went to a friends house and just sat and talked for a few hours before going back home. The same thing happened yesterday only it was a lot worse. Things get out of hand so fast that I don't think either of us ever see it coming. And it sucks. I love my dad, but I wish we had a more stable and normal relationship where screaming at each other wasn't considered normal or a weekly occurance.

Loss

2009-05-08T21:44:00.000-04:00

I hate that my first blog post is going to be a rather depressing one, but this week has been pretty rough. Two things have been lost this week, one which was mine to lose and the other was someone else's but still affected me a lot, nonetheless.

I'll start with the one of my own, even though it happened more recently. Well... it was finalized more recently but its been a long time coming. There's this guy that I used to date. We broke up December of 2007, so we've had quite some time to get over each other. We were still pretty good friends until the beginning of this year. He got a new girlfriend who is absolutely stunning and from what I've heard from other people a really sweet girl. I've never had anything against her seeing as, obviously I want my friends to be happy and have good relationships. But for some reason my guy friend has been saying that gets really upset/mad when we talk even if its just for the class that we're in together. This has been going on since they started dating a couple months ago. He's even broken plans with me to work on a school project because she didn't like that we were going to be together. She and I have even tried to work it out, and I've let her know before that there was nothing to worry about & that I'd never do anything to put their relationship in danger. So for the past few weeks, my friend has been slowly distancing himself from me more and more, to the point where he literally ignores me when I try to talk to him in class. I've tried to talk to him, and he said that he wasn't going to stop being friends with me because of her, but things haven't gone back to the way they were before. Just the other day I invited him to come to a cook out at my house for my 18th birthday next week. Its a really big deal to me to have my friends there to celebrate my last high school birthday. And he told me not only could he not come because his girlfriend wouldn't like it, but also that he couldn't "associate with me anymore because it was bad for his relationship."

I hate that feeling of knowing you've lost a friend over something stupid. I'm not saying that his girlfriend is the stupid part of this loss, but I will say that I don't think its ever okay to compromise a good friendship for a high school relationship. I'm also not saying that all high school relationships fail, but the vast majority of them end up not working for the long run. I don't know, maybe thats just me not wanting to accept changes that inevitably will happen sooner or later. But I really don't like losing people when it can be helped. ):

Okay, the next loss of this week. The one that wasn't my own relative/relationship. One of my friends who I absolutely care the world about lost his mother on Tuesday to cancer. I'd honestly only met her once and spoke to her briefly on the phone a small handful of times, but it hurt so bad. More than I ever could have imagined. But just knowing that someone I care about so much is hurting tore me to pieces. After I found out from another close friend about her passing on Tuesday, I spent the next four hours crying. And after that, I slept for literally 12 hours until I had to get up the next morning for a doctor's appointment. Going to the doctor didn't help the depression that I was in at all, considering I had to get shots and I'm terribly afraid of needles. And as a side note, I don't generally refer to my sad days as me being depressed. In fact, I never have. No, I wasn't suicidal. But I've honestly been distraught all week. I'm usually a pretty chill and happy person. But this knocked my feet out from under me. Thursday, I got out of school early to go to her funeral. One of my amazing friends went with me, both to be there for me and for our mutual friend (& his sister & the rest of his family) and we met another one of our friends once we got there. It was unbelievable how many people were there to celebrate his mother's life. My friend and I got there half an hour before the service was to begin and the parking lot was already packed. Fifteen minutes before the service began, people had to start being seated in the balcony because of how full the church was with friends and family and coworkers, and even a few people who had never met her but knew her through other people.

The funeral service was beautiful, and it opened my eyes to what an amazing person she was and how lucky I was to have even known her the little bit that I did. It lifted my spirits a lot to learn that she was a meticulous planner and organizer and that she had time to plan for her children's future without her. Of course, I spent the entire hour crying, especially at the beginning and end when the family was led in and out of the church. Just being able to see my friend and his sister brought tears to my eyes. But once I got home, I felt like a weight was lifted. I'm still sad, but I know that with time, my friend will be okay. And until then, he has all of us to help him through.