A wonderful half hour

    

     I have been the busiest person ever for the past six months. I've taken only three or four breaks and the rest of the time I have been doing homework, reading homework that is due the next day in a panic, sleeping very little, worrying way too much, dancing like I've never danced before in my life, discovering what I'm really capable of as an actress, trying to manipulate my vocal range, and stressing. Stressing every day. 

     But I finally found a few moments of peace. Just to think. Just to sit. Just to be. I had come home from a long day of school(coop) and I was tired. Honestly for the past few weeks I haven't been loving my life . I woke up every morning and I've thought,"Do I have to get out of bed? Do I have to go to rehearsal? Do I have to try and understand algebra?"Of course the answer was always yes but life felt like a duty, an obligation. It felt mundane. 

     But then today I felt something again. I felt that spark and passion that keeps me moving even when everything else is telling me to stop. It was so Beautiful outside . I grabbed my diary and darted outside, I sat down on the  bank and I realized that God is good and no matter how crazy my life is God will always be good. So when your feeling like I have been, grab your diary or a piece of paper and write down all of the wonderful things about your life and remember that God is good.

A blessing in disguise

       Busy.  Tired.  No sleep.  No time.  Messy mascara because I had to do it in the car.  A miss-matched outfit.  Chipped fingernails.  I forgot my dance shoes.  Where's my lipstick?  A voice that won't stop cracking.  A body barely able to move.  The strangest dinner you've ever had grabbed on your way out of the door.   Tingling rises up in me. Runny nose.  Red eyes.  No sleep.  No rest.  More caffeine.  Grab a tissue.  Pretend your nose isn't running.  Keep dancing.  Keep singing.  Keep smiling.  You can't be sick.  No sleep.  No rest.  C plus in algebra.  More homework.  No time.  Can't stop coughing.  Keep moving.  The tingling.  The cough.  The cast tells me to go to the doctor.  I laugh.  There's no time to be sick.  Keep dancing  Keeping singing.  Keep smiling.   Fall over. I lost control.  Miss school.  Sleep all day.  Blow  my nose.  Stop dancing.  Sing softer.  It's ok to cry.  It's ok to be sick. Rest.  Sleep. Ditch the dance shoes.  Watch a movie.  Make it to rehearsal only because performance is three weeks away.  Bring a tissue.  Bring the inhaler.  Keep smiling.  Cut out everything but rehearsals.  Rest for the first time in three months.  Crazy life where being sick is a blessing in disguise.

The crazy emtional balance of everything

I feel like that lady in Mom's Night Out. "I am  a blogger, I am a [student] blogger...."  How long has it been since I posted anything?  I'm sorry you guys, but LIFE....
   Not that I don't love to blog, it's just my crazy life,  Rehearsals, school, rehearsals school and did I mention rehearsals?  I have been drowned beneath homework and trying to get to rehearsal on time. My messy bun and my coffee cup have been my very best of friends, and sleep is positively optional. My production is very quickly approaching, and my whole life is a blur. I'm just trying to keep my head above water.  In a word my life is exhaustion.  I two words my life is beautiful exhaustion.
     The cast in my current production is rather large but I'm one of the two teenage girls.  The production is the story of the Bible.  So with only two teenage girls they are using us both of us in multiple places. I'm playing three roles, understudying one role and two solos, and I choreographed my own 16- count dance solo.  I'm bouncing from "The Women," (Revelation 12) to Eve, to Mary mother of God.  My emotions are flying everywhere.
      A lot of people who don't do theatre think that acting is becoming someone else.  IT'S NOT.  It's finding the similarities between you and your character and showing them to the audience.  It's not becoming someone else, it's finding someone inside of you.  It's learning something new about yourself.
      So since acting isn't "acting"  you can image my crazy emotions.  I leave rehearsals exhausted and emotionally spent.  I have literally cried for no reason on the way home.  Because of the emotional commitment, I've had to find creative ways to come in to rehearsals full so I can leave emotionally stable.

1.  Reading my Bible
2. listening to good music
3. stretching(Plea, tondue, split, straddle,)
4.  Riding my bike on a cool morning
5.  Texting a friend
6. laughing with my friends at drama about the craziness of trying to get this huge production together
7. Drinking lots of water
8. A hot cup of tea
9.  A large iced coffee
10.  Vocal warm ups(do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-do-ti-la-so-fa-me-re-do)
11.  Spending extra time getting ready(who doesn't feel more confident with a perfect makeup job?)
12. Wear high-heels to rehearsal just because feeling taller makes me feel good
13. Intentionally making sure my nails are done the night before(it's important, it makes me feel terrible if I look down and my nails are chipped)
14. Exercise!

      I know these feel frivolous, but seriously they help.  When your going somewhere to give something of yourself, you have to fill yourself up.  These things are important because they make me feel good, they help me prepare myself to be the best I can be.  They give me emotional rest so I'm ready to really be the characters I need to be.

Happy New Year!!!

      2016 Wrap up? I don't think so. This year.... well to be honest only a few important things happened. I got baptized so that was amazing, I went on my third mission trip, and I got cast in a big production of a premier play( part tba, one (or bothe) of two influential roles.)the rest of  the year was honestly kinda meh. I spent it wishing I was in a production and trying desperately to get through this thing our culture likes to call high school(I call it brain boot camp.) I mean I feel like I kinda wasted it. I wasn't in a production, I didn't earn  any money, and I almost drowned in homework.

      So 2017, I will not waste you. I will fly through high school. I will get a job. I will be in two productions! 

My New Years resolutions

1. Loose weight 
2. Try to keep up with the trends

Sound like anyone else you know? I thought these were my resolutions. I wanted so bad to be trendy instead of my classy and mature (my normal look.) I mean honestly half the time I'm a 15 year old whose dressed like she's thirty. So I decided no more. I'm done being the girl who doesn't look her age... until I went shopping...

My mom went into Anne Taylor and so I was looking around. I found this beautiful maroon dress. It fit perfectly. It was magical. It was like the dress was made for me. Yes it looked like a dress that a thirty- year old might wear but it also looked like a dress I would wear. 

I realized that I love dressing maturely so I'm changing that second resolution.

1. Dress how you feel. Express your emotions through your outfit. Notice the trends and pick and choose the ones you like. Mix trendy15 -year old with classy young women. 

My plans for New Year

Get my learner's permit

Be in that premier play

Dance in my dance academies anual gala

Participate in an actor's showcase

Be in the Christmas Carol

Keep my eyes open for other performing opportunities 

Finish my Freshmen year

Sing on church's praise team

Go on a few vacations

Go on my fourth mission trip

Begin my sophomore year of high school 

Rely on God to give me the stamina for all of it

Happy New Year!

Christmas and NYC

     The only thing I love more than Christmas is Christmas and NYC together.  Why do we associate the magic of Christmas and the magic of NYC? maybe because of a certain little boy who got lost in NYC when he wished his family would go away...

Maybe we associate NYC and Christmas so closely because of an elf who walk "All day and night to find his dad."

                                         
                                       

     There are so many Christmas movies set in New York, but I believe the magic of Christmas and NYC are associated because NYC is magical and Christmas is magical.  The most magical city meets the most magical holiday.  I mean think about it.  The birthplace of Broadway meets the celebration of the birth of Christ. The skating, the snow, the sky scrapers,the rockets, the thousands of people, and don't forget the tree. Christmas and NYC  are necessarily connected because of their combined magic.
     Doesn't it make you want to be their? "I'll be there for good someday to make my life and make my way..."(Wicked, One Short Day)  Christmas makes you think of NYC and NYC makes you think of Christmas.

So merry Christmas from the girl who wishes she were in NYC just about now.

November Recap and Discoveries

                                                    Recap

• Getting forgotten at school( my parents literally had a miscommunication and there I was with the two head teachers of my coup/school waiting for a family friend to rescue me) 
• Hunchback of Noterdame the new play!! It was perfection!  
• Usual Crazy(Drama,Dance,School,and Church)
•  Amazing boat ride with my grandfather, siblings, and cousins 
• Working out( run/walk, squats, dancing, sit ups rows etc)
• Decorating Thanksgiving boxes for families in need with the ladies from my church
• Thanksgiving
• Hallmark Thanksgiving movie event ( hosted by Candace Cameron Bure! she's just so sweet) 
• Enchanted Christmas village
• Moana
• St. Augustine ! 

 

The fall of Adam and Eve

Fashion discoveries

• Silver nail polish
• Knitted headband
• Walmart Christmas leggings! 
• Messy bun
• 
• 
  
• 
  
  
• 
  
  

• 

  I finally got my eyeliner right!

  
  

Food discoveries 

• Substitute lemon/lime juice and salt for salad dressing and save calories!
• Lemon water really does satisfy hunger
• Protein is your best friend 

( can you tell I went on a diet?)

                                                                            Theatrical discoveries

Hunchback of Notre Dame soundtrack by Alan Mekan

" I don't know if You can hear me or if your even there. I don't know if You would listen to a Gypsy's prayer. Yes I know I'm just an outcast I shouldn't speak to You but still I see your face and wonder , were You once an outcast too?"- Esmeralda

Moana

"I have delivered us to where we are
I have journeyed farther
I am everything I've learned and more still it calls me
And the call isn't out there at all it's inside me."- Moana

Second to God

Very excitingly I was inspired and wrote a play!! We were listening to the story of the pilgrim's and I heard the story if a teenage girl named Constance and two boys named Edward . I had to begin.  I was like this story needs to be a play..... now! I used notes on my phone and wrote the whole thing in one sitting. I now have major editing to do an SO MANY songs to write but I think it will be AMAZING. I know it sounds crazy but I think I might have something here!  I'm calling it Second to God and the moral is the consequences of putting an idol before God. Any-who I wrote the first song now I have a lot more. 

" This is the moral
We must leave when an idol is developed
You will loose your relationship with a jealous God
He will not allow idolatry to remain unpunished"- Chorus ( in the style of William Shakespeare) 

Define Debut

I always like to say that I debuted when I was an infant, and that is partially true.  When I was two months old I played baby Jesus in my church's Christmas pageant. I've always had a desire to perform.  When I was three I took ballet for a year.

I'm the one in the middle who forgot her ballet shoes

Ballet didn't work out do I moved on to singing.  At five years old I sang at an old-folks home accompanied by my seven year-old brother.

Shortly after, I sang I'm a little teapot and recited a poem at a home school talent show.

At about eight I played the angel at my Church's nativity.

Of course there were several in-home productions I wrote, directed, and performed.

This was a school assignment I was a girl on the Mayflower.

This was a play about a princess who was kidnapped by pirates.

                                              When I was ten I took choir for a year.

.

                                When I was eleven  I officially debuted on stage in a play called Jonah's                                               Druthers, it was a drama camp. At twelve I was again in that drama camp in a                                      play called Happily Forever After.

When people ask me when I started acting I usually say. " I began performing when I was seven with piano.  When I was 11 I started acting".  I should say, "I've been performing my whole life!"So let's be bold and tell people the truth!   When you started doing what you love is when you began whether that's acting, singing , dancing writing or whatever it is you do, you started at the begining.  I debued as baby Jesus now I'm going to play Mary in a very exiting premier play!  From baby Jesus to His mother Marry, I've been a performer the whole way.