From the Library to Home

I returned home from the hardest and most stressful semester yet last week. Remember when I said I loved the library? The smell of the books, the thrill of the hunt trying to find the right book with the right information...well that's still all true. I still love the excitement that comes from finding that book on the shelf, it's just...when last Wednesday rolled around...I was ready to get the hell out of there. While finding reference books to take pictures of drawings and old magazine photos of 30s fashion was fun, I was done with the whole intellectual part of school. Then I spent a total of 13 hours finishing my costuming project, which was again was fun especially while belting out showtunes in the costume shop, I was still ready to go home. I was ready for Christmas. Unfortunetely (but also fortunetely), we had to leave 308 behind and close it's doors for the last time because we all moved out. Ashley is on her way to Ireland to study abroad, and Megan got accepted to be an RA next semester. She's going to be moving into Champlain's Quarry Hill ("The Q" as it will lovingly be called) January 3rd. So this is goodbye to our precious 308 where we have had amazing memories and fantastic times...

The first thing that had to happen when I got home was to decorate. My mom and I spent all last Friday decorating the house. We got the tree inside (a week before Christmas, yikes!) and while it's kind of a Charlie Brown tree, it's still pretty with the white lights and old ornaments. On Saturday I went outside and put lights all over the front of the house. If you ask me, I think we won for best house decoration, if a little late. Then came the baking. We baked peanut butter blossoms with chocolate on top and sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles with M&Ms and gumdrops! If you can't tell I got a little excited about the cookies.

One of my family's biggest Christmas traditions is that we always watch the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation starring Chevy Chase. I think it's my mom's favorite movie. Anyway, every year we try to rent it somewhere because we don't actually own it. So, we tried at the Lyndon State College library (my mom works up there), but alas there was no movie. My mom was pretty dissappointed. So my parents went to one of the antique stores in Lville and found it on VHS. It's pretty weird that VHS tapes are antiques now...just saying. We got to watch the movie. It's a hilarious movie and I think it'll always be a family tradition.

Something else that' happened so far over this break is that, while my boss forgot to schedule me for hours this week (don't get me started), I have free time (at least for this week). So, Eden made a special trip up from Plymouth to see her family and Megan and I. It was so awesome to see her. I miss that girl!

Anyway, it's shaping up to be a beautiful Christmas season. Break out the eggnog, Santa hats, music, and mistletoe and let's rock this Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Ingredients For a Lady Gaga Costume

PREP: 6 Months.     YIELDS: 1 Kick-Ass Costume

1 Pink Bob Wig
1 White Vinyl Bow Headband
1 Pair of Aviator Glasses shaped like the theater masks with Lace tied to it taken from the UVM costume shop scrap box
A Shit Ton of sparkly eye, face, and lip makeup - made for hookers
1 Piece of sliver, shimmery fabric used as a necklace; also taken from the scrap box
1 Women's Leopard Print Bathing Suit Top with gold chains
1 Navy Blue Suit Jacket
1 Pair of Pink Tiger-Striped Booty Shorts
1 Pair of Rubber Winter Boots
2 Strips of Crim Scene Tape
Bobby Pins
Rainbow Nail Polish (done by Ashley)
1 Pink Dishwashing Glove

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!

These random raven/crow/bird things were swarming Champlain campus on Halloween day. Creepy.

Peace out!

Screaming

Screaming can be such a fantastic emotional release. Not only for the person doing the screaming, but also for the others around that person, especially when the scream is hilarious. It can be, oh, say, Megan losing her flip flop and suddenly outbursting on the front lawn of a middle school on our way back from Champ Farms in a rain storm. It could be Ashley when I tickle her feet or me after she kidney shots me in the back. Just an instinctual reaction, of course. It might be me playing King Creon in my group's scene project for Dramatic Analysis. Or it could be Stanley Kowalski screaming for STELLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!



We just had to read and watch A Streetcar Named Desire for Dramatic Analysis so I have Marlon Brando on the brain. Screaming is such a release of emotion that it can be entirely therapeutic. Seriously. Try it sometime. Just let out a scream when something happens. You'll feel so much better.

I think that might be why I love acting so much. It's an incredible release. All that pressure, any emotion you have, can be released just like that. Acting may be even more therapeutic honestly.

Something to think about.

And for those of you who haven't see A Streetcar Named Desire, here's for you to catch up:



Peace out!

Lazy Weekend

Good morning! I just woke up from a very lazy weekend. It's been a pretty lazy, yet relaxing (and occasionally busy) weekend. Friday I spent my afternoon searching the Bailey-Howe Library here at UVM for a book of eight plays-one of which I have to read for my acting class-and failing. I couldn't find the book at all. I checked the call number five different times using the computer on the third floor. It just wasn't where it should be. Or so I thought. I gave up, and decided I would find the damn book some other time this weekend.

That night, Megan and I went to Burlington Bands 101 at Nectar's sponsored by our favorite local Btown newspaper, Seven Days. It was basically a showcase of local, homegrown bands in the area.

It was pretty fun. Some of the musicians were really good. (Like the keyboardist in the first band. He was absolutely amazing.) The music was fun, except when the music turned country and got twangy. Not my favorite. But it was still nice to be able to get out and go do something. And we got swag bags of free stuff!

Saturday was a very nice, lethargic day. We slept in until around two o'clock and then just sat around besides going downtown for a little while. Oh, and we started watching season two of Heroes (we're kind of behind on the times, okay?). I did get quite a lot of homework done that night, though, which is always a good thing. Except that the Internet was kind of fail. Ashley, Megan, and I went for a walk to the waterfront and sat on a bench and stared out at the water, and we just talked. There's something incredibly meditative about the waterfront. Really awesome. Anyway, yesterday was a little busier. I joined one of the UPlayers officers at the Student Government Association's club workshop because none of the officers could go and I volunteered. Yep, I am that stupid. Anyway, after the boring lecture I went back to the library to find the book in question.

There's something extremely delightful and fun about searching library stacks for books. Most of the books in this library are really old, and everything has that musty smell. It's incredibly quiet, and usually no one else is around in the stacks but you. It makes me feel like one of the Hardy Boys are Sherlock Holmes. One of those guys. For some reason, it's one of those things that makes me really happy. I finally found the book, I had the call number and the shelf location wrong. But the hunt was fun.

After the UPlayers meeting, Megan came up to UVM to watch this film with me that I had to watch for Dramatic Analysis. It was this old production of Shakespeare's King Lear, only it was done in the Japanese style of Noh, Kabuki, Bakukari doll theater, whatever. It was awful. It was pretty fun to laugh and make fun of the weird poses everyone was in and the intense overacting that was going on. On a factual level, I completely understand the style. I don't understand what the point of it is in theater. Like, why does everyone have to scream everything? What does that do? And, I still don't understand Shakespeare. I know, I'm a theater major and I don't like Shakespeare. Whoa. I just have a hard time connecting to the characters emotionally. Their stories have no bearing on me whatsoever. I just don't care. Make me care, Shakespeare, MAKE ME CARE! That's what I'd tell Shakespeare if he was still alive. Oh well...

All in all, a pretty good weekend. Hope you had a good weekend too.

Peace out!

Callbacks

Let me tell you about yesterday. This story begins on Thursday at 6:20pm when I had my audition for UVM Theatre's A Doll's House. I chose a monologue from Judith Guest's novel/film/play Ordinary People. It was a monologue where the teenage son in a family was committing suicide. I felt very good about the audition, and it WAS good. The next day I was on the callback list, with callbacks scheduled for that night. So I went, prepared to move and to read. That night, Megan, Ashley, Jess (Lowell, we were all hanging out that night. We went and saw The Last Exorcism. Not that scary, but humorous.), and I went to check the second callback list (there were supposed to be double callbacks the next morning.) These were cancelled, however, with a sign that read:

CAST LIST TO BE POSTED BY NOON TOMORROW

Needless to say, I was freaking out, and I was definitely nervous...

Enter Saturday. I left 308 for breakfast and the cast list. The latter was somewhat of a fail. I didn't get into the show. I am still SO proud that I made it into a callback which is a major accomplishment in itself. And even though I didn't get in-I got to participate in an amazing callback learning experience. I mean, we did an interpretive dance! That's pretty awesome. However, the events that followed definitely added insult to injury. I tried to go to my dining hall (Cook's Commons on UVM Central Campus) but went to find it closed. Apparently as a part of its new hours-Cook's Commons closes on Saturday. Awesome. Then later on Champlain campus, I dropped a roadblock (yes, that's right a roadblock, don't ask) on my foot, my toes to be exact. I thought I had broken them because it was so painful. My toes turned red and got cut, and now they're a fantastic color mix of black, blue, and red.

We had to press on though because earlier in the week Megan and I bought tickets to check out local playwright Maura Campbell's Flower Duet presented by Green Candle Theater Company and preformed at the FlynnSpace black box theater. Most importantly, our friend Natalie Miller starred in the show. It was amazing and the acting was completely brilliant and natural. A gorgeous piece of contemporary theater. And the best part, it was completely Vermont-made and produced. So cool. Check out the reviews: The Burlington Free Press and The Times Argus.

Later after the show, a meeting with my scene partner, and dinner Megan and I met back up to meet two of my UVM Theatre friends Alice and Zoe at Edmunds Middle School to go contra dancing. This would be the second time we've gone to a contra dance, the first being last year when Ashley's parents took us to her aunt's contra dance. It was so much fun, such a fantastic workout and art. It did not do wonders to my toes however which still hurt and are still bruised. They will heal, just as I've gotten over not being in the play. There is so much other stuff to do, and there will always be other opportunities. For now, life is going on.

Peace out!

Rain

Last night, I finally gave in and went outside with Ashley. All night after the Hang Ten dance at UVM Ashley had been begging Megan and I to go outside where it was much cooler to escape the horrid heat that had been haunting us the past week. Everyday the high temperature reached into the nineties and everyday we begged for rain. We looked forward so badly to the weekend when the forecasts promised for cooler weather.

So at 3 AM, Ashley and I stood outside talking on the front porch when all of a sudden, it started to rain. It came in droplets to begin with, staining the sidewalk like the henna on my arm. With a wild ecstasy, Ashley and I ran out onto the lawn, yelling "RAIN! IT'S RAINING!" We danced on the front lawn. It started raining harder, and the wind blew. It felt so amazing and refreshing after this week of pure hell. It was like fresh air after holding your breath for a really long time. We ran upstairs to go wake Megan up.

"Meg, wake up! IT'S RAINING!"

"Yeah..." she rolled over and went back to sleep.

We ran back outside and ran to the field by the playground downtown. By the time we got there, the rain had drained down to a sprinkle so Ashley cried, "DO A RAIN DANCE!" This prompted me to take off my shirt and start running around the field while screaming at the sky. While this seems drastic and crazy, the most important thing is that it was raining, and the first week is over. Not more hot weather, no more awkward greetings, no more "first days". Now the routine begins, and the year starts. I think that was the most exciting part of the rain.

Peace out!