Friday, April 23, 2010

Musings on The Future, and Other Serious Topics.

Tonight I went to see my friends in Opera Workshop perform Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). It was a little production in the recital hall featuring scenes from Mozart's famous opera, and I'm friends with almost everyone in the cast, PLUS the daughter of the director. So needless to say I got in free. xD

So I got there a little bit late because Pops rehearsal went over a bit, and I missed the first four pieces. But there I was, sitting next to my mom in the darkened recital hall, listening to my friends pour their hearts out into some of the best music ever written and I thought, "I would love to do this."

Now, we all know that I'm a Musical Theatre major. I love musicals. They're what bring me the most joy in the world out of everything that I've done in my entire life. I can totally picture myself in 5 years in NYC, living large and holding down a day job while I audition for shows and hopefully get in one some day. Somehow, it's always been in the back of my mind and heart, like no matter what I thought I might do with my life, Musical Theatre would always end up being the ultimate destination.

But I know that I'll only be able to sing the ingenue roles for so long before the weight in my voice kicks in like it did for my mom (we're essentially the same person, even down to the voice). Eventually, my voice is going to get too big for musicals. The only way I'll be able to keep doing it is if I do character roles and sing with half my voice. Do I really want to not sing fully? So here's the real question:

What do I do with my career once this happens? Do I give up? Do I go back to school to train for a job that I wouldn't enjoy nearly as much as what I gave up?

The answer, to me anyways, is completely obvious.

Of course not!

So I was sitting in that hall tonight, listening to my friends and I thought, I could absolutely do this. And in fact, after I've had my turn with Broadway (if it happens at all), Opera is really what I would love to do. And it unfortunately took me 18 and a half years to realize it.

My mother has been bugging me about it for almost ever, saying that if I gave it a chance, I would see where I would eventually end up. And as much as any teenager ever hates to admit it when they're parents are right, I can't find the resentment in my mother's correct observation that I "should" be feeling. But we've always had a rather abnormally close and trusting relationship. I was never that typical teenager who avoided questions from her parents and got moody or screamed that they were ruining her life. That was never me.

And unfortunately, I get the feeling that people look down upon my relationship with my mother.

It's a rather peculiar situation, one that no one should really ever have to go through. My mother is a professor in the same department in which I am a student. She sits in on rep class and hears me sing (she's not allowed to comment in front of the other students though. If she has something to say, she'll tell me at home). I should be able to go to a school free of parental pressure and just learn. But I see my parents every day. I still live at home. And they're in the same business. It makes it more difficult.

But ironically, I don't think that I could survive the situation if I didn't feel so close to my mother.

I don't think I'll ever truly work this through logically in my head, this whole same department, same household thing. But when it comes down to it, it's not about them. It's about me. Am I going to let my parent's presence in this school hold me back or bring me down? Hell no.

To those who don't talk to me because they're uncomfortable with the fact that both my mother and I are in this department: It's not your problem. It's mine and it's hers. So get over it. I'm not unapproachable. I'm a pretty laid back person. If you talk to me, I will talk to you back.
I don't think I'm a very scary person. Just please don't automatically associate me with my mother. And even though I joke that we're the same, we're not. We're different people. Very different.

So. What does all this have to do with going to see The Marriage of Figaro??

Once I figured out that opera was most likely going to be a part of my future career, I decided that I should try to be involved with Opera Workshop in the fall. I don't have the room in my schedule credit-wise to actually sign up for the class, but I'm fairly certain that I would still be able to attend the class and just do the performance.

This is all dependent on whether or not I get in any of the productions in the fall, which I won't know about until next semester actually starts and I audition. Oh well.

Oh goodness. Way too much ended up being said in this post. I had no intention of going in that direction, but it's funny how when you just start typing, the thought progression that you take ends up straying drastically from the simple topic you'd planned to start with.

*Sigh* I suppose I should end this now. Thanks for listening? Reading? Does anyone even read this? I doubt it, but it doesn't matter. It feels good to get some of this out in the open.

Farewell for now.

HPRT: Julia (who was in the opera tonight) and I were thinking we should get those plastic "Best Friends" necklaces that are cut in half but fit together, and I mentioned the fact that the jagged edge of those necklaces remind me of Harry's scar. I'm SO lame.
Current Song: Zac and Sara by Ben Folds
Current Book: Harry, A History by Melissa Anelli

Saturday, April 17, 2010

STRESSTRESSTRESSTRESS!!!!!!

Yes. Just like the title. I hate this time of year. It's all nice weather and everything, but you're so busy and freaking stressed that you don't have the time to appreciate anything.

Tomorrow, I have to go to strike for about 8 hours (4-midnight. Seriously???) which is just unbelievably inconvenient, not just for me, but for everyone involved. The people overseeing strike certainly don't want to be there until midnight, but it's looking like it'll take that long. Great.

Monday, I have the auditions for the first fall semester play, The Birthday Party, direct by my very favorite professor, Chase. Unfortunately, I also have rehearsal for Pops at 8 in the morning and at 6 that night, in addition to the auditions.

Tuesday, 8am rehearsal for Pops, mayhaps callbacks and evening Pops rehearsal.

Wednesday, 8am rehearsal, performance for my Introduction to Theatre class (which means that I have to find time in between classes and rehearsals and auditions to meet with them and memorize all of THAT), evening Pops.

Thursday is (thankfully) just morning and evening Pops, as is Friday.

Saturday: Dark day. And you can bet that I will shut myself away in the hole that is my room and just wallow in exhaustion and TV shows on my day off.

Next Sunday we are called at super random times all day for light cues. Really annoying but it's the way it has to be.

Next Monday is morning and evening and stress stress stress. Same with Tuesday-Thursday. It will all be over Friday night when we actually perform and have Pops.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

In between all of this craziness, I have to memorize and meet with my Beginning Acting partner for our final scene. I don't have a problem with meeting him, it's just WHEN DO I FIND THE TIME??

I really wish I could just fast forward to finals. Because through all of this, my finals week is really not going to be stressful at all. I only have 2 tests (one of which is a real test, the other is a quiz of sorts) and 2 performances. Big deal. Sarah-Jean has about 5 finals. I'm totally fine with my schedule.

HPRT: I met someone two days ago who'd never read Harry Potter. She made my soul die a little bit inside for her lack of knowledge.
Current Song: Henry Gale by The Oceanic Six
Current Book: The Routledge Companion to Critical Theory. Totally not for recreation.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Shame on you, Pope. And musings on life.

Ok, the title only has relevance if you go down to the bottom of this post and read my Harry Potter Related Thing.

Little disclaimer: Sorry about the ridiculously depressing post yesterday. It was depressing but like I said, it needs to be in the media's attention. Take their advice and write to anyone in power in your community, state, and especially the nation's capital.

Today was a generally good day, aside from starting off with me being absolutely exhausted from only getting 4 hours of sleep. There was really no reason at all for how little sleep I got, but I'll tell you now, I'm going to sleep like a baby tonight. Yay for classes that start at 11 tomorrow!!

Pops was great today. We sang through One Day More from Les Miserables, and it was so epically awesome that it just made me want to do Les Mis at some point in my life. Maybe a tour. Maybe a revival. That would surly be EPIC!!

Acting, meh. Rep class, meh. Art History, meh. Idk. I guess as the day kept going on I just became more and more indifferent to my classes. I did show up to them all, though, which is good. (I have yet to skip a class this semester, so seeing as there are only 3 more weeks of classes, I'd say that's pretty freaking good).

SPEAKING OF!!! ONLY 3 MORE WEEKS!

I cannot even begin to describe how badly I want this school year to be over. The only thing that is slightly concerning is the fact that I will be finishing my freshman year of college. Seriously, where does the time go?

I feel like I should still be 12 years old, living in Wisconsin, short and pudgy and still slightly immature. When did I get taller and become smarter and grow in maturity and in mind? I feel as though my life is racing by and that I don't even have time to register the change before I'm already done with another year of school. It's frightening to think that I only have 3 more years of school left after this one has concluded. My entire life, school has always just been there, another step to climb before my "real" life starts.

When I was younger, I couldn't wait to be out of the hell hole that was grade school, and now that I'm out, it's as if I would give anything to go back in. I know I'm certainly not ready for "real" life to begin. I'm a young freshman as it is, and therefore it makes sense for me to not necessarily feel up to facing the real world just yet. I suppose as college continues, I'll become more accustomed to the idea of going out on my own and finding work. In fact, I sincerely hope my feelings change. I see the current seniors, who are just weeks away from graduating and moving to large cities where they'll do slews of auditions, and they're all just so ready to be out there. I have to have faith that by the time I'm a senior, I will be just as ready as them to get out. Because right now, I'm just immature enough to be scared out of my wits of the real world.

I'm certainly not ready the way I am now, technically, financially nor emotionally, to begin that stage of my life (hence college), so I have to have faith in myself that I'll get there.

Back to reality!! I just did a homework assignment that was technically due at 9, but I totally forgot, so I just got it done. Yay! I hope my professor accepts it...

Hooray for college.

HPRT: The pope doesn't like Harry Potter. Well, guess what, pope? Harry Potter doesn't like you back.
Current Song: Your Song by ALL CAPS
Current Book: Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Monday, April 12, 2010

If you don't like being depressed... well, read anyway.

Today in my Introduction to Theatre class, we discussed a play that was to be read for today's class. It's called Ruined, by Lynn Nottage. I mentioned that I was reading it in yesterday's post, but the severity of the issues raised in the play didn't fully hit me until the three presentations were given in class.

The one presentation (done by my fellow classmates) that truly horrified me was about the rape and torture of women in war in the Congo. Not many people realize that this problem even exists because it's been eclipsed by the wars in Rwanda and Darfur in the media. I'm not saying that those were not extremely serious conflicts that demanded our immediate help, but the war raging in the Republic of Congo is immeasurably more fatal and brutal, and has been going on for much longer. One of the points made in the presentation was that the final death toll in Rwanda was under the estimated 250,000, and while that is an absolutely horrific number of innocent lives spent, the death count for the Congo is well over 1,000,000 and it is still climbing even today.

I won't go into any graphic detail, but let's just say that they then told the stories to two small girls who were sexually tortured and killed in very gruesome ways. This kind of torture has unfortunately become custom on both sides of the battle. This kind of behavior is specifically done to target the opposition's spirit, to instill a sense of fear in the locals and kill their will to fight the war. It would be bad enough if it stopped with the opposition, though. Often times women who are taken from their homes for months or raped and tortured in public return to their communities and are shunned by them, the very people who should be helping and supporting them.

As disturbing as this class was today, I think it was necessary for us to learn this information so that we can actually begin to reverse this kind of behavior. I encourage you all to visit this website. It's the UN's solution to stopping rape and violence against women as a weapon, called Stop Rape Now. Please, please, PLEASE visit this site and do anything and everything you can to help!

Sorry for extremely upsetting post, but I really felt that it needed to be said.

I think that about takes care of my blogging for the day.

HPRT: I brought my completed Gryffindor scarf (i knitted one myself) to show my costume professor today. She said it was gorgeous =]
Current Song: Whatever Evan Lysacek just danced to on Dancing with the Stars!
Current Book: An Actor Prepares by Constantin Stanislavski

Sunday, April 11, 2010

NaNoWriMo Woes

Ok, I realize that it's no where NEAR November, so why am I even thinking about NaNoWriMo??

Well, part of it has to do with the fact that I've had the new ALL CAPS album, Bmin/E, on repeat for the last week, so I keep listening to the NaNoWriMo song, which in turn revives unpleasant memories of my first and so far only participation in the writing competition last year.

I've had this great story idea since about 10th grade, but never acted on it until this past fall, my freshman year of college (partially because I had no time to even think about it my junior or senior years of high school). I wrote about two pages of it as a part of an application to the St. Lawrence University Young Writers' Conference, which I was accepted to for the fall of my junior year. Since then, the entire background of the story has been revamped and recreated, but the basic concept is still the same in my mind.

I guess the reason I'm so upset right now about this is not the fact that I failed NaNoWriMo miserably (although I find that 8,109 words is pretty good for a first try, but that could just be me), but rather the fact that I really, truly love the story idea and have since not had the opportunity to work on it. Spring semester has been ridiculously busy, what with working crew for the musical for the first two months of 2010, constant rehearsals for the huge benefit concert that goes up at the end of this month, my first real acting class that's so far really challenged me to make myself into a better actor, and the multitude of responsibilities that is just a natural part of college.

My freshman year has been a true challenge, one that I've really embraced, but unfortunately it's left me with ABSOLUTELY no time to do anything. Like read for recreation. I believe this semester I've read two full books for pleasure. THE ENTIRE SEMESTER! How depressing is that??

Currently I'm working on Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan. It's so unbelievably addicting, just like all other John Green books. But unfortunately I've had to put it aside to read Ruined by Lynn Nottage for my theatre class tomorrow (it's a play, in case you didn't know). But back to my story complaints.

I really, really do want to get back to writing it, but I'm afraid that I won't have time until after school ends, and even then, I'm taking a summer class so I can be in the summer show at my college. NO TIME!!!

We'll see what happens this summer. I sincerely hope that I can get back to it, because, to be honest, I miss writing. I don't think I've made writing a priority since 8th grade or something truly horrendous like that. My great aunt would be so disappointed.

Harry Potter Related Thing: I'm thinking about reading Harry: A History, after I'm done with WGWG.
Current Song: Summer of '09 by ALL CAPS
Current Book: Ruined by Lynn Nottage

Saturday, April 10, 2010

First post on a second blog. Go me.

Hello all.

Probably no one will read this. That's completely and totally fine. I really don't expect any attention and will dually not receive any. Hooray for anonymity!

I was originally planning to use this blog to participate in BEDA, however with the way my semester has been progressing, I naturally forgot all about it and it is now the 11th of April (seriously, where do the months go??) and far too late to begin.

Like the title of this blog says, I suppose I'll try to somehow incorporate some sort of Harry Potter related thing in each post and that'll be my "bit," whatever that means.

So, Harry Potter related thing of the day: I had to explain to my dad tonight at dinner who Kristina Horner was, and therefore explained the Parselmouths band. It was fun, really. My ridiculous knowledge of the Harry Potter fandom scares even me all the time.

Given the time of day (or night, as it's 1:34 am as I'm typing right now), I believe this will conclude my first blog post ever on Blogspot.

Thanks for bearing with me for this first post. I want to try to be better about blogging more regularly. I don't think I've posted on my tumblr in about a month. So sad...


Current Song: Christmas Wish by ALL CAPS
Current Book: Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan