:)

I discovered this... okay well I saw it on facebook, when I really should have been doing my homework.. I suppose I really should show it to some guys but I thought y'all would enjoy it as well...


Ode to Nice Guys

Shuffled..

Wow, two posts in one day. I'm def steppin' it up.

So this is something silly I've been wanting to do for awhile... and at the moment, I have a moment or two, so here goes.

First ten songs that come up when my Ipod is shuffled (keeping in mind that this Ipod only holds 200ish songs):

"We Dance" (Once On This Island) ~ Opening from musical I teched for this fall.. oh, dear..

"Here (In Your Arms)" (HelloGoodbye) ~ Oh, so mellow.

"If Everyone Cared" (Nickelback) ~ Nickelback sounds like Hinder which sort've sounds like Daughtry who should've won American Idol.. but didn't.

"Away With The Summer Days" (Youngstown) ~ Princess Diaries... first CD I've bought, ah early 2000s.

"Fabulous" (High School Musical 2) ~ Oh, dear this is getting embarrassing.

"Accidentally In Love" (Counting Crows) ~ :)

"All I Want For Christmas Is You" (Mariah Carey) ~ Clearly have not updated this in a while.. It is the ultimate Christmas/holiday song though.

"Over It" (Anneliese Van Der Pol) ~ Exciting because the singer has my cousin's name. Also the perfect, angry/annoyed/moving on song.

"Can't Hate You Anymore" (Nick Lachey) ~ Another moving on/getting over it song.. weird...

"Superstar feat. Matthew Santos" (Lupe Fiasco) ~ This song is just plain addictive.

Hmm, so that selection completely does not represent me/my musical tastes. Fair enough. Coming soon.. another "currently on my ipod" post!

Celebrate!

It has been awhile m'dears. A million things (both good and bad) have happened and time slipped away, and I realized it's been forever since I've posted anything at all...
Today is Easter and last week was Passover. Even though I am Christian in name, I celebrated both this year. And found both to be meaningful and enjoyable in different ways. Passover more because of the company I spent it in, old friends who I'd forgotten how much I love/miss (but I now remember!). And Easter because I got to see how different members of my family like to celebrate. Because for me Easter (or Passover for that matter) is not about what some holy text says happened around this time. It's about how you chose to spend the day. How you chose to celebrate!

My mum, for instance, sings a certain hymn every Easter. Loudly. If not at church than at least in the car.

My grandparents go to their Universalist Unitarian church, where they sort've celebrate everyone!

Without fail, I will do an egg hunt, which for me isn't even a Christian practice, it's a thank-goodness-it's-supposed-to-get-warmer-slash-oh-my-gosh-we-survived-the-winter kind of tradition.

Easter for me, doesn't mean church or singing, it means watching Godspell (fabulous musical whether you are religious or not.. which I'm not) and seeing my family.

Your own Easter/Passover/Springtime/anything else I'm forgetting traditions?

It's easy to get caught up in what you don't have. I certainly have lately. Or in trying to conform to a certain religion or tradition. Right now the sun is shining and I am not without hope that tomorrow, while it may be insanely busy, will not be brutally cold. And that in and of itself is reason to celebrate.

Don't do this! Stay above that! This WILL screw up your life!

So I've been home sick for the last two days. Which translates into way too much t.v., an awful lot of water and some really bad commercials. I've seen some so many anti-drug, alcohol, and teen pregnancy ads, it's absolutely crazy! And they got me thinking.. what's the point? Because here's the thing. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I've no intention of getting pregnant. And all of that has nothing to do with any of those ads. Because they tell me what, exactly? That smoking isn't good for you? That you'll behave differently? But I already knew that! What else? Surprise! Having a baby at sixteen will mess up your life. Well, I think I speak for most teenagers when I say, well, that much has always been clear to us.

And what could they say? Well, I'm not quite sure. They could say, how to avoid becoming pregnant and what to do if you end up in that particular situation. They could, instead of being all cutesy about it, show us what drugs will do to your body when your on them, not what they'll do to your actions. And maybe they could tell you how to be safe, no matter what you doing. I'm not really sure what they say. But what I do know is that the anti-risky behavior X ads may not be doing their jobs.

To be perfectly honest, I think that you can't stop all teens from doing risky things. Physically, it is wired into our brains to have a bad sense of risks and consequences. Yes, we can try to prevent things. But I think it's just as important to help people deal with the consequences of their actions. An ad warning against getting pregnant at age fifteen isn't going to help her figure what to do if she is already pregnant. Prevention is fine, but it has to be tampered with some kind of coping mechanism.

Une Petite Poem

Poem I used for an audition piece:

I can't be this happy...
It really isn't fair.

And because it isn't fair...
I know it can't last.

And because I know it can't last...
I constantly look ahead-
- to find the end of the road ?
- a mountain to climb?
- a bend at least!

And because I constantly look ahead...
I forget to enjoy the view right here.

Sweet Sixteen

So as you all learned from my last post, I was in a play that was competing in the High School Drama Guild Festival. Last week was tech week and yesterday was the actual competition. Before I went all the actors/techies who'd gone before told me that this would be one of the best days of my life. And despite how much fun I'd been having I really didn't believe them. I was so wrong. From when we got on the bus at six-thirty yesterday morning to when I finally arrived home at ten-thirty, it was one of the best craziest most exciting days of my life. We competed against seven other schools, and while it was a competition there was so much camaraderie between schools. We all decided to be super friendly and ended up challenging another school is a dance off! It was an amazing mix of Irish step, backstreet boys, flamenco and hip-hop! It was the best performance we've ever had! Plus, the techies managed to set up the entire set (which is huge complex and breathtaking) in under the required five minutes- cutting about 45 seconds off there time!

Then came the awards ceremony which was an hour long affair with lots of screaming, clapping standing and jumping up and down. I've never been so proud of so many people in my life. We won multiple acting awards and awards of set, makeup and music and (a huge honor) the stage managers! It was absolutely incredible because we all had this shared joy! The judge couldn't say the name of our play which is Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollection, it was great! (Interesting play by the way check it out) And yes, we did move on! (One of only three schools to do so!).

What does this all mean? Why is this post called "Sweet Sixteen"? Well what this means is that we move on the to semi-final round. Which happens to be March 14. Which happens to be pi day (3.14). And Albert Einstein's birthday. And my sixteenth birthday.

Before going to festival, I really wanted to move on. But I won't lie, I wasn't amped about spending my sixteenth birthday in this competition. Now, I've done a complete three-sixty! I am incredibly glad that we have an opportunity to compete again - a chance at John Hancock! And it's a pretty amazing way to spend your sixteenth birthday, with people you love, watching good theater, doing something you love!

Longest Best Most Intense Week Ever

So this week is tech week for the festival play. Fondly referred to as H E double hockey sticks (pardon if I've offended everyone), it is the biggest rehearsal week right before the first show. I'm talking at school until ten o'clock, I never seen the sun, and all I can talk about is theater. Sound horrible?

On some level it is horrible, I'm up late every night doing my homework (witness the time of this post) and I don't do any socializing outside of rehearsal...

But at the same time this is the most fun I've ever had! We are a super tight cast, I honestly love everyone! It's fun and exciting and scary and overwhelming all at the same time. Rather than school being the main event of the day, school is that place you go before the real day begins. And it is a long day. But we laugh, we act, we cry, we ice my knees, I get picked up put down, kissed, spun around, laughed at, hugged, sad, happy, excited, scared out of my mind...

So yes, I'm tired, I can't remember the last time I was out of the school before it was dark, and I'd really like to see my friends... but it is so worth it.