My Everything Hurts

...and within a period of two days, I was packed up and moved out of my wonderful single in UHeights to the tiny double in Wills, but it's not all that bad. Somehow I found a way to take the lofted bed and fit Megan's loveseat under it. It created quite the batcave effect, which has been a pretty awesome addition to the room so far. I'm just waiting this week out now until Joe arrives on Sunday and school starts.

I'm so completely ready for school to start. Everything is in order, schedules have been made, books have been bought (In 14 different orders on Amazon as well as one from UVM.), and supplies have been organized. Megan and I just talked about how exciting it's going to be to pack up our backpacks Sunday night before  the first day of school. I could not be more pumped and ready to go. I'm also super excited about being a TA and doing Hairspray rehearsals.

These all came today.

I actually had quite the stressful day right before getting completely moved out and going home for the weekend. It began when I went to the UVM Residential Life office, like I was told to do, and waited for ten minutes at the front desk until someone came out into the lobby to ask me if anyone had been helping me. Since no one was, the woman went back in and got me the key to my room. Once I was packed up, I moved a bunch (basically everything I owned) to Wills. When I went to lock the door, however, the key wouldn't turn in the lock. After swearing profusely, I ran to the front desk of my new dorm where the office manager was just about to take off for the day. She got me the right key all the while wondering why ResLife gave me the wrong one and where they got it. Needless to say that key worked.

Then, when I tried to turn my computer (Bertha) on to see if there was wireless in my new dorm, the screen fizzled out and went dark. I screamed and raced to the Computer Depot in the Davis Center with my baby clutched in my arms. There they hooked her up to another computer and determined that the problem was probably physical, so I had to send it in to the company. After talking with a thickly accented Indian customer service representative for an hour, we determined that there was definitely something wrong but my warranty had run out. It was cheaper to buy another computer.

Moment of silence for Bertha...........


Now enter Marcus, my new computer, who is very sleek and runs with Windows 7. I'm hoping Marcus will serve me well. This is my first blog post with him, and it's working quite well. Thank you, Costco! (Yes, we got my new computer at Costco.)


This weekend I also got the chance to go see Chase's directorial genius in Hairspray at the Haskell Opera House. I really missed that place from last summer, and I especially missed Lissy (who was amazing in the show), Chase (who needs a Broadway stage, stat), and Kat (who continues to astound me with her stage managing abilities). It was great to see everyone and take in an awesome show.

It was weird to watch the show and then come back to Burlington to start rehearsing it. But rehearse we did. Matt and I have been carpooling to rehearsals and totally rocking them. Hope you can all make it to the show! There will be links up soon over in the right sidebar. ------------------->


In the end: my back, my neck, my arms, my abs, and my legs are killing me. The dances are hard and I was totally drenched in sweat on Sunday but it's totally worth it. I missed working this hard for theatre so much. I felt so broken from lack of theatre (yet again) after having it the whole time last summer, and having this opportunity to perform on the big stage at the Flynn is absolutely amazing. For people like me, and Matt, and Chase, and Lissy, and Kat, anything is worth it for theatre.


And sweat is worth it.


Here are some more pictures from Megan and my drive yesterday to the Champlain Islands. It was a lot of fun and we found some Vermont nut free chocolates!

Another highlight from this weekend:





Peace out!

Cross Country Skiing

I've been a bad blogger. And I promise, I'm trying to reform. I'll work extra hard to make sure not another two weeks goes by without a blog post. It's very hard when you don't have Internet at your house and you have to hole yourself in the student lounge at Lyndon State College frantically trying to catch up on everything that would have been done had I been at school with regular Internet. Parents *cough cough*. Anywho, enough with that...I hope everyone had a joyous and merry Christmas and a very very happy New Year. We had a very small Christmas but it was nice. On Christmas Eve my parents, Megan, and I went to church at my old childhood church and sang carols. My parents and I had a very relaxing Christmas day and on New Years I got to see my brother, his wife, and Iris again. Then Megan and I went on a night drive to Rosie's house (another one of our friends who lives in Barre, we love her to pieces) and to the First Night in Montpelier which we had no idea existed. It was basically a giant block party and they lit giant crate paper Japanese lanterns which flew into the sky. There had to have been hundreds of them. It was beautiful. We tried looking for Erin while we were there, but to no avail. Oh yeah, then Megan and I went to the Cumby's (the same one we almost got robbed in) and made friends with these two po-po's (police officers for those of you who don't know street lingo homie) who were getting coffee. Then we got this hypershock coffee with 50% more caffeine in it. Intense.

Unfortunetely, this break has been somewhat stressful. I've been thinking about a ton of future and money and plays and such... Because I didn't get any hours at McDick's (I'm not going to spit out the whole corporate name for you again), which I know is because of this crappy economy but still...I've started thinking about finding a new job. Meanwhile, I also auditioned (and got called back for) Hairspray though Chase's company Act Three Theatricals being performed at the Haskell Opera House this summer. I want to be in the show so bad, but if I need a new job with wonky hours (I'm looking into working at LSC because it's so close by and there may be awesome job opportunities), then I can't do the show. It's all very dramatic and stressful (but hey, that's my life, right?).

Because of everything being so stressful, I've been thinking about those times during the winter when all I felt was calm and peace. It goes back to my freshman year of high school when I was on LI's cross country ski team. Yes, I know what you're going to say, "OMG, Ryan did sports!?" Yeah, it's crazy. I did it for a PE credit, okay? High school sucks. Anyway, sometimes we would go to Burke Mountain, or my personal favorite, to the Wildflower Inn on the Kingdom Trails to practice and ski. Of course I always fell behind everyone because I have zero strength and physical endurance so I was always alone on the course. I would be so slow that it would get start to get dark and I would still be making my way along the trail trying to reach the end. And when I would get lost, that would be even better. The thing is, it was magical. I would be so cold that after awhile I wouldn't even feel the pain in my legs and thighs or the sting of snow as it slapped my face. Dusk would settle and the sun would cast a massive glow over the entire mountain. The snow looked like cream as a glided over it. The trees were tall and imposing, and yet they glistened with the ice that trickled from their branches. It was a moment of peace. I didn't even care that I was always the last one to the bus and I came in last place for every race I competed in. I was enjoying the beauty of where I was.

Peace out!