Eleemosynary

Saturday was amazing. After a long week at home working in the LI theater, preparing everything for the regional festival, it all came to a grand finale on Saturday. The night before, while on the phone with Megan, I prepared a lesson plan for the improv workshop I was leading and highlighting my schedule, making note of the in case of emergency phone numbers, just in case. I felt like a complete theater teacher. I loved it! It was much more stressful than I thought it was going to be, especially in the morning trying to get all the school groups registered and where they were supposed to be. It was like I had asked them to perform rocket science. But it was an amazing time nonetheless.

I have to give it up to Ashley Audette, Jill Bearce, and Heather Libbey (the leading ladies of LI's one act Eleemosynary) and the cast and crew of the show because they were one of the two schools chosen to move onto the state festival! I am so proud of them, they deserved everything that came to them, and the show was absolutely amazing. Erin was so impressed and basically excited about the whole deal, and while Jake blasted We Are the Champions over the loud speakers, I could tell just how amazing they were! I love you guys!!

Also at the festival, I got to see one of my old friends from Shout It Out who I haven't seen in two years. Anna Martel! She was there with her school performing. She was excellent!

Joe, Megan, and I returned to Burly World Sunday afternoon. The first thing Joe and I did when we got back was go to the dining hall to try and get something to eat. UVM DINING HALL FAIL. It was closed, but we ended up ordering Wings at 308, which basically made everything better. I was NOT looking forward to going to class the next day, at all. Ever.

But I did go to class today. Unfortunetely, I did go to English and Spanish today while trying to catch up on my reading. I did get my Spanish exam back though to find that I got a 95 on the exam! I might just have a hope for this class after all even though the professor is basically a tyrant, but we'll go with that. After my class, Megan (mmmmm...Megan) and Velvet met me to hang out for an hour before my theater lab today. Yeah, that was an epic fail. My theater lab was cancelled so instead of going to the gym, Megan and Velvet decided to grab me and go on an epic spring tour of the city of Burlington, taking pictures all the way. Here is the result of our labors:

It was a beautiful day. Spring is on it's way!

Peace out!

P.S. Megan finally got her pictures from her birthday uploaded. This is one of our favorites....

Episode 607: Dr. Linus

I'm kind of having to play catch up because of the lack of internet (I know, you're probably sick of me whining about it already), so here's the Lost blog, a couple of days late.


SPOILER ALERT! http://abc.go.com/watch/lost/93372 SPOILER ALERT!


This episode was absolutely PERFECT! It reminded me a lot of the old season 1 episodes that were purely based on character development and the intertwining of flashback with island activities. It was almost harmonious. Dr. Linus is one of my new favorite episodes.



I'm going to begin with Ben's fate on the island and how Ben has become an amazing protagonist in this story. Also, Ilana became a great foil to Ben, and the moment where she says that she will have him was astounding. I was very happy to see that Ben chose not to follow Not-Locke, even though I think that's what everyone was assuming. Ben really is full of love even if he has done some horrible things. He loves Alex and everything he has done in his life has been for the island, but the only thing that truly ever mattered to him was her. This is shown to us through the flash-sideways with Ben as a teacher. These flash-sideways are just getting better and better, even if they did start out kind of rough. But now, they seem more clearly defined. Ben abandoned everything he had for Alex. Also, Roger is alive? and they left the island? Well, of course that kind of makes sense. I don't think these flash-sideways are necessarily what would have happened if the nuke went off, I think they are more of what would happen if Jacob hadn't touched anybody. We shall see....

More goings on on the island: Richard has lost his marbles. But Jack (now this is weird, because usually it's Jack losing his marbles) reigns him back in and shows him the power of faith and destiny. WOW. Plus, we got some more Hurley moments like "cheese curds" and "dude, we're gonna blow!"

The best thing that I loved about this episode was when Jack, Hurley, and Richard were reunited with Sun, Ilana, Miles, Lapidus, and Ben. It was an extremely powerful moment reminiscent of other moments in Lost like when everyone returns from the Other's camp in season 3, or when the members of the raft are reunited with their camp in season 2. Totally awesome. Also, this makes the two camps (Locke and Jacob) more well-defined. Plus, the Sun moment was epic when her and Hurley embraced.

Lastly, we found out that it is in fact Widmore making the trip back to the island. How he found it again, we may never know but I think Widmore plays a more major role in this power struggle of good vs. evil then we first thought...

So those are my thoughts. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did!

Namaste!

Megan's 20th Birthday

Okay, epic blog post. Finally, I am home for spring break! It feels so good to sleep in my own bed again and to eat actual food. Plus, I’m realizing how much I truly missed everyone here. Once again, the downside is the lack of internet so I am going to attempt to squeeze in an enormous amount of info into one post. Yep, spring break is good. Let me tell you how it started:

Ashley and Ryan’s epic adventure. So, with the approach of Megan’s birthday on Sunday, 308 (basically me, Velvet, and Ashley) wanted to put something together for the occasion. This was sort of thwarted mostly because none of us had any money, or at least not enough to substantiate any activity we could plan. Instead, we decided to scrap whatever little money we had into making a cake. Thursday night, Ashley and I went to the store to buy cake mix, frosting, and chocolate chips (oh yeah…). Needless to say, it slipped our minds that we might actually need to get eggs and oil to actually produce this cake. Yeah, totally didn’t think of that. So Friday night, after getting lollipops and money at the bank, we went to Price Choppper to get those ingredients, plus some extra things I needed for the weekend’s birthday festivities. After running down the sidewalk with three bags of semi-fragile groceries screaming profanities to catch up with the bus and walking eight blocks at night and receiving assistance from a very helpful Wings driver (Wings always saves the day!), we made it back to 308. You can read the details of this adventure on Ashley’s blog: http://308feeleylove.blogspot.com/
Megan’s birthday weekend of spontaneous plan-changing. On Saturday morning, Megan and I woke up at 8:00 a.m. to get ready for Megan’s mom and gram to meet us at the dorm at 9:00 a.m. Or so we thought… Apparently, they had been waiting in the parking lot since 7 o’clock so that we could catch a noontime show of Avatar at an IMAX theater somewhere near Manchester, NH. Oh… After packing the car in a hurried rush, we sped down the road (with a pitstop at Dunkin Donuts!) and proceeded with the roadtrip!
We did make it to the showing, even if we were a couple of minutes late which was very surprising to me. Megan’s gram really stepped on it! Basically, Avatar was amazing. I hadn’t cried so hard in a movie like that since Wall-E, and that wasn’t even in 3-D! Anyway, this was Megan’s 2nd time watching it, and her mom and gram’s 4th time, and they still got emotional. You know it’s a good movie when that happens.
Anyway, on top of all this, Megan got sick around Thursday so the birthday awesomeness was also competing with a sore throat and later mucus, so that didn’t help things. We got to the hotel in Burlington, MA around five that evening, after spending about an hour trying to find the stupid place. It was like it was located in an entirely different dimension! We found it somehow after having to call the front desk. Apparently they get that a lot. The room was very nice (except for the coffee maker), and after eating at the Rainforest Café (in the GIGANTIC Burlington Mall after a 2 ½ hour wait for a table, but it was worth it), Megan went to the pool while I decorated the room. I put up streamers and balloons, giant WTF dinosaurs (it’s a Meg Ryan thing), pictures from Megan’s life starting from childhood, and I also got a cake with candles. We had a good time, despite everything that happened. We ended up watching P.S. I Love You and taking insane pictures in the hotel hallway and elevator.

The next day, we ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant where the waiter flirted with Megan’s mom and only charged us for two meals. We also went to a waterpark about fifteen minutes from the hotel. I have never been so wet in all my life. At one point, I couldn’t tell if it was water or my pee from screaming to death on the water slides. It was a good time, and the pre-teen girls that were there were fun to make fun of. OMG! THE JONAS BROTHERS!

After getting lost, going around in a circle, eating, and sleeping for an hour and a half in the car, we made it to Lyndonville Sunday evening. I wouldn’t take back a minute of that trip. I hope you had a really good (and spontaneous) 20th birthday Megan! Thank you so much for having me along for the ride!

So that’s basically how spring break started. And now I’m home and helping Erin and the Lyndon Institute Theater Company get ready to host and perform for the Vermont regional theater festival on Saturday. Can’t wait! How’s your spring going?

Peace out!

Correction!

In my last post, I said that the last time I had been to showing of Shout It Out was this past summer. I lied and forgot that we had a showing at the State House during Christmas break. Oh well. I need spring break. Now.

Theater Things in the Works

I just want to start by giving my deepest condolances to Velvet and her family. She's going through a very rough time right now, and I just want to say how I sorry I am. Love you girl!

There are a lot of things in theater coming up for me. For starters, last night was the first rehearsal for The Magic Table, the Gold Donkey, and the Cudgel in the Sack, a one act play to be performed during the senior's final project one act theater festival in April. I am so excited to be a part of it and to work hard again on a show. It's based on a Grimm brother's fairytale and it is incorporating Commedia del'arte, and Italian style of theater with masks. That's an awesome thing to have on a resume!

Also, this whole week during spring break I will be spending my time helping out at good ole LI. They are hosting the regional one act play festival next Saturday. They will also be performing a play that I wrote as an opener to the festival. I'm going to help direct, and to host a workshop during the day of the festival. Mainly I'm there to watch them perform. I can't wait to see them shine! (again!)

Finally, after having just checked my email, I noticed that Bess O'Brien has invited Annalise and I to a showing of Shout It Out at the South Burlington High School. It's on March 18th. It's been such a long time since I've been to a showing, the last one being this past summer when my parents and I went to Woods Hole, MA to a film festival where it was being shown. Now I get to go right here in town! Should be fun!

Peace out!

Episode 606: Sundown

And now, onto the Lost blog...SPOILER ALERT! http://abc.go.com/watch/lost/93372

First of all, I just want to say that evil Sayid scares the crap out of me. We kind of saw a glimpse of this Sayid when he shot little Ben Linus, but never to this magnitude. I believe the INFECTION is the "evil incarnate" that Dogen spoke of, and this evil corrupts the minds of people affected by it. This is what happened to Rousseau's crew, Claire, and now Sayid as with a smile on his face he tells Ben, "It's too late for me..." That was incredible acting! Go Naveen Andrews!

The flash-sideways in this episode was not all that important to the storyline except Sayid is no longer after Nadia because he feels as though he doesn't deserve her. The main awesome points of the flash-sideways were a) Martin Keemey is STILL dead, and apparently he makes good eggs and b) Jin? Hopefully there's a Jin/Sun flash-sideways soon. I need this cleared up.

As for that long ass-kicking scene in the beginning: WOW. Before that, I thought the fight between Sayid and Keemey in season 4 was the greatest fight I'd ever seen on TV, but now it has to be this Sayid/Dogen epic battle. Also, in terms of that last and amazing smoke monster RAWR scene and finale at the end of the episode: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! That is the perfect description of everthing that happened. WOW again. I think I seriously peed myself during that entire sequence.

So, I just wanted to summarize where everyone is at right now, just to get it straight in my mind. (this is on-island, not in the flash-sideways)

1. The evil losties (Locke's Team of Evil) which include Not-Locke (aka Smokey), Claire (who said that "He is coming to the island..." Seeing how Kate and her were talking about Aaron at the time, I can only guess...?), Sayid, Sawyer, Jin (I'm presuming he's going to be traveling with them now), random Others who have lost their faith and/or are scared Locke will kill them (including Cindy and the kids), and an unsuspecting Kate who is completely lost

2. Jack and Hurley who are still at the lighthouse and were rescued from the horrible scene at the temple by Jacob.

3. The good losties (Jacob's Team of Good) which include Illana (who seems to know everything), Lapidus, Sun (who was so close to finding Jin, but sadly he's in the jungle somewhere, see above), Ben (that moment between Ben and Sayid was amazing, but now I think Ben's going to have some issues), and now Miles who met them as he was trying to escape the temple

4. Richard Who I'm guessing is still running around the jungle, freaking his freak.

5. Jacob Still dead, still like Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Candidate Tracker:

X4-LockeX

8-Reyes

X15-FordX (I'm guessing because he's going with Locke, you never know though)

X16-JarrahX (I think it's safe to say...)

23-Shephard

42-Kwon (Could be either Sun or Jin, and it's still unclear where Jin's allegances lie)

Okay, that's my summary and thoughts on "Sundown." Stay tuned next week for more Lost!

Namaste!

More Than We Can Handle

Remember last week when I said I didn't want this blog to be a weekly thing? Yeah, guess that isn't happening.

I am a firm believer that God does not give us more than we can handle. But this past week has been awful. I have been getting so much homework because these professors just won't let up. Meanwhile, midterm exams are turning my brain into mush. Last week, I studied eight hours for my history exam on Thursday, a feat which caused me to get sick, not something I was looking forward to seeing how Megan's birthday is coming up and I really don't want to ruin the awesomeness.

This weekend was very good, even though I was coming down with this cold. We decided to have a slumber party at 308 by dragging the matresses from the beds out into the living room and laying them side by side. It was a good time and resulted in all of us watching old 90's shows and Donnie Darko. The night before that, Megan, Ashley, and I stayed up until 4 in the morning just talking. It probably wasn't the best idea with a cold, but it was totally worth it. Those kind of meaningful conversations keep you on track, and we had a great time.

Everything is paying off though. Even if I'm working myself into the ground with four exams at the end of this week, spring break is much deserved. Oh, I guess I also should mention...I GOT A PART IN THE ONE-ACTS!!! I checked the cast list Monday night and freaked out. This is going to be so exciting, and I'll keep you updated!

Peace out!