above the law mentality

i must end this above the law mentality. i recieved a message in the mail saying that i have recieved 5 tickets in the past year on campus and that if i get two more i will lose my parking privlages, and if my car is found on campus, they'll impound.

yet i'm still not scared. and i need to still go fight two of them. blast!

the deed is done

well i stepped down from the seagull today. it took a lot of something to push the send button to tracey, but I can already feel the weight lifting from my shoulders. which right now is something i really need.

today tech week continues over from last thursday. i am completely exhausted, as to be expected. tech week's are known for how terrible they are. i think the sound designer is the pain in my side right now. when asked almost three weeks ago if we needed to sit down and work through what barta wanted his response was "no i'll be good for tech." bad news. the thing that takes the cake is his version of being ready. saturday he told me he was "ready." well ready to me should be "okay sound 1 standy, sound 1 go" etc, or something close to that. instead, he has a bunch of buttons on his screen that he's going to push to create a "masterpiece" and basically live mixed cues every night. this concerns me for more than one reason, but mainly because he is really the only one that can run sound. if he were to die tomorrow, we would be up a creek. (well i could probably finagle it to work, but that's beside the point.) yes, this makes me nervous. yes, i lose sleep over this. but, like it always seems to happen, come thursday we will pull through somehow.

for now, i'm in a heightened state emotion.

my new headshot, kind of

i've never had a real headshot taken. a cast member's wife took our pictures for the website. i think they look decent. my bracelet even made it in mine. haha

these are just a few pictures from the weekend. i got asked at the last minute to MC an activity for all the single's wards in american fork. i usually don't go to church activities outside of sunday, so i said yes to fill my quota. haha. it was called "the dating game." basically i stood on stage and cracked jokes while we hooked people up. i would have never put my name in the drawing to be a contestant, but being the one with the mirophone was quite fun. i dressed up in my "east coast" attire and made stacey be the dj. earlier in the day, i had been up at seven am to get breakfast (bagels, juice, etc.) for my cast so that when they showed up at 8am for rehearsal, there would be something to give them a little energy. then after a nasty comment made to me by the production manager, i stayed in the heat of the day (with the help of neal when i called him) and hung all the lights we could for the show. we must have borrowed more than i thought for macbeth. by that time it was about 3 and i was extremely tired. i tried to take a nap, but had too much on my mind to rest. so i showered, and met stacey for dinner at chadders, frantically ran home, and made it just in time for this MC gig.

i do really well in front of people. i may not be the best entertainer or jokester, but i can keep things moving and give people a good laugh here and there. must be the actor in me :)

after the activity, stace and i hit up the movie theater and saw Stardust. i have to admit, it was better than i thought it would be. some have compared it to princess bride. i can kind of see where they're coming from, but not really. so i recommend this film to anyone who wants to be entertained for a couple hours.

theater, life, theater-life

life is a funny word. type it over and over again, and then look at it for a while and then all of a sudden it takes on a new meaning. sometimes this happens to me when i type or look at the same word for a long while. wow--absolutely nothing on topic for my blog.

i enjoy theater. i enjoy all the aspects from the live audience even down to the costume designs. i guess that's why i involve myself in such an artform. but i would like to poll my readers (all two of you haha) on a question that i find myself asking with every production i involve myself with.

is it possible to involve yourself in drama without there being extra drama involved? it never seems to fail that as successful as the shows i've be a part of have been, there is ALWAYS unneccessary drama.

here are a few examples:

music man @ afhs -- two weeks before we open, neal decided he was done and that if our show was "spit* on a shingle" (* edited for michelle) it was our own dang* fault. the show was fun, but pretty much went down in history as a joke. we made seven dollars. granted we bought like 6000 worth of supplies and a new spotlight...so we probably made more than 7 dollars, but that's what neal tells us.

secret garden @ the scera -- first of all the drama with the warby's making an exit (the reason i did the show ultimately because there was a role to fill) one of our leads who we called "the chad" ALWAYS being late. lucky for me i was just acting and wasn't responsible for him :) and my favorite little girl.... SLAGOWSKI!

scarlet pimpernel @ the scera -- this show it was me, sadly, who was part of the drama. this was the nasty time when krystyna and i really started to part ways and she was in the show with me and was my dance partner for most numbers. an effort to save our relationship, nasty ending. mel also reminded me of the awful head butting between neal and mindy for who knows what reason.

macbeth @ the castle -- the whole delemma with strike. not even going to really get into this one. the wounds between me and the people it affected have been fixed and i'll leave it at that.

my fair lady @ the scera -- i don't remember a whole lot of drama happening with the show actually. i think the hardest part was having neal direct his wife and watch how they would sometimes fight. not the best of scenarios i think, but ultimately this show was fairly drama free. and as i remember a lot of fun too!

west side story @ usu -- riff came down with laryngitis. this was kind of fun drama, to be honest. i got to sing his songs into a microphone back stage while watching a monitor showing me the director from the pit. i couldn't see what he was doing on stage. we probably weren't together, but the sound coming from the speakers was GREAT! :) i made some good frineds from this show.

julius caesar @ the castle -- our production stage manager is falling apart as a person, leaving me to pick up the slack. something i ultimately don't mind doing because i want the show to be a success, but this person is also in the show and its affecting her acting and just her as a person. no one really wants to be around her because we're not sure if she's going to snap or laugh or whatever.

seagull @ byu -- haven't had much drama.... so far :) the only drama i see is that this show overlaps with caesar by a week or so. but that really isn't avoidable drama so i'm okay with it.

the rest of the unneccessary drama needs to go.... or does it? is it that drama that us theater geeks thrive on? i think part of me has to say yes. most of the time (when it doesn't directly involve you) it's entertaining to be a bystander. so as much as i really want this unneccessary drama to go away, it probably won't and i think i'm okay with that.

on a side note, film has a very similar unneccessary drama i'll save that for another post.

so two things i want to know from you: 1. is this "unneccessary drama" something that happens all the time?
2. i want examples. it doesn't have to be from a show. it can be any kind of performance. but i know it exists everywhere!

wednesdays

wednesdays are fun days for me to drive to work. from the moment i exit the freeway, there will be cars that will basically be following me to work. this, of course, is because many of these cars are going to the mtc to drop off missionaries. i try to observe the different cars and the emotions that the passengers are showing. some are happy, others are obviously crying, and then there are those cars that look like no one is saying anything. they're all just deep in thought. the best part of this drive on wednesdays is that I turn left into my work's parking lot before reaching 900 east. that's as far as i have to go. :)

audience participation necessary

So i'm in need of some new material to read on a daily basis. Now that I have learned how to utilize google reader properly, i would like some input on websites that you all (the 3 people that read my blog) visit on a daily basis be it for news, technology, music, etc.

help a brotha out.

a few thoughts that have been in my head

couple of thoughts for the day.

another successful 24th of july fireworks show. no cops. and! griff and i jimmy rigged what i bought to set off 8 of the big fireworks (some single some multi shot) to all go off at once. it was a great finale!

aside from that i've been thinking about my friendship ring and how it seems to go through waves of changes depending on what i'm doing with school or work, etc., and also just in general as I get older and grow up. granted i still have my core set of friends like griff, stacey, jules, mel, and ben who i can go days, weeks, or sometimes months (years in the case of griff) without seeing or hanging out with and we just pick up where we left off. i like those kinds of friends. i sometimes get frustrated with people when they say "why are you never around anymore?" "are you ditching us?" blah blah blah. jr. high crap like that. the fact of the matter is right now with a new job, two shows to prepare for, and a new semester of 18 credits to look forward to in the fall, my "me" time is precious because there's not much of it.

i'm really starting to realize who my real friends are. i like that. i'm finding out more and more that as much as i have the characteristics of an extrovert, i'm really an introvert in disguise who would much rather have five or six close friends rather than 20 "friends."

ok and now to the point of the friend thing. i see one of my friends as a huge extrovert, and this person has many different friendship circles, but i see people who are trying to be their friend getting upset because the friendship is more of a "when it is convenient for them" kind of thing. i sometimes wonder if in the past i've done this to my own friends, and i'm 100% sure the answer is yes. it sure is a mean thing to do. and i'm going to work on it, just as i hope my friend works on it as well. wow, those last few paragraphs would be great for a drinking game. a shot for every time the word "friend" is used.

******************

i'm really excited for this job to begin. tomorrow i'm going to go and fill out the official paperwork to be an employee. i'm also being "briefed" to be brought up to speed on the way the office works, what's expected of me, and then i'll just take off from there. yes, the actual show i will be helping to produce is quite cheesy. google: byu broadcasting living essentials. that will be my project for the next few months as we are preparing to shoot the next 12 episodes. (i'm in charge of 6.) i will do my best to take as much cheese out of the programs as possible, but also as I have learned from doing byu speeches, the crowd for day time kbyu programming is the demographic of older people with nothing better to do. so some of the cheese is a necessary part of the programming.

*******************

i went boating with jules and her family down at utah lake today. every time i get in the water i never want to leave. there's nothing better than cruising around in the boat, during the hot summer months, having tube wars. california would definitely be a great place for me to live someday. hopefully i'll have a nice job so i can buy a nice house with enough rooms for all my family to come and stay and visit. depends on what life has in store for me after i graduate in a few years.

*******************

i was talking to jon about this the other day. i think it's a decent discussion to have just to see what others' responses are. okay...the question is:

do you think there is a difference between an r rated book and an r rated movie?

i don't feel like i can accurately answer this question because i don't read for pleasure. haha. i don't read books at all actually. i try. that's a post for another day. so i'd like other's opinion on the question as stated above.

triple threat

well i got the student producer job. i'm really excited! now i'll have experience in theatre, film, and television. word.