procrastinate

Procrastinate, verb.

Derived from the Latin cras, meaning tomorrow.

Not does that completely pertain to what I want to talk about , but it's also what I'm studying for. Yeah, it's that lovely time of the year where all your teachers make you take midterms and finals. I have a Literature, Biology, Latin III, and Algebra II midterm, and a Civics and Health final. I'm feeling pretty confident about most of them, except for Algebra II. Now, me and math have never really gotten along. I'm sort of in an abusive relationship with math. And leaving that little metaphoric thing, I've never had a good math teacher, except for Geometry. That doesn't really help me with Algebra II. But I've been studying a lot today, despite the fact that I am SO TIRED after festival/conference yesterday (yes, I am going to talk about it, I promise, not that you care), and my constant urges to just watch repeats of Greek on my laptop*. So, tomorrow I am waking up super-duper early (okay, like 8:30) to study, so I can go to the mall for a couple of hours, and still feel confident about the tests. Gosh, it really sucks to have to get up early on your DAY OFF. Sacrifice I guess, since I had an awesome Saturday!

So, I guess it's time I tell you about Festival and Conference!

Last weekend, Festival was about a three hour drive (plus time to stop), so I had to be at my school at five o'clock in the morning. Doesn't that sound like the most awful thing? Plus, one kid was a half-hour late - so we had to wait in the cold for them. Not fun.

We stopped at Dunkin Donuts on the way there, and put them into a frenzy, and carried on our way. We got there late because of that kid, and missed a lot of the 'meet people' part of the festival, which was NOT COOL! But, I took a Special Effects Make-Up and Improv workshop, watched IEs (Individual events, like contrasting monologues or a song), and participated in Tech Challenge!

The make-up workshop was so cool! The woman running the workshop put this really disgustingly amazing gash on my arm, and it was SO COOL. All in all, I had a really great time!

I think I had more fun at Conference this weekend, though. Just an FYI, there really isn't a difference in festival and conference, they were just called something different for some reason.

But anyways, the first workshop I took was African Dance: Raising Awareness on HIV/AIDs (HIV/AIDS was part of the theme for the conference). I thought it was going to be really silly, but it actually ended up being really amazingly fun and touching. Before we learned the dance, our instructor, who'd recently been to Ghana, told us that some women there who have babies and cannot feed them will end up having to have sex with men in order to feed their babies, and then they'll contract AIDS. I thought that this was awful, and that was the general premise of the dance.

Then, I went to watch IE's, and this time I was performing. So, after we watched some, we had lunch, and then it was my turn to go. I spent most of lunch practicing my contrasting monologues, and I thought that they were pretty good, considering I hadn't spent a great deal of time on them. When I did it, it was BAD. I had the acting part down, but I totally forgot the words when I got up there, and it was not so good. Somehow, I wasn't totally devastated though, since it was my first time, I guess.

After that, we had a performance from a local company's cast of Rent, and they did Seasons of Love for us, and we talked about HIV/AIDS and spaghetti. Now that probably sounds weird, but so people wouldn't feel uncomfortable talking about some topics, they created the euphemism spaghetti. Basically if you are going to eat spaghetti, you have to wear a bib, or else you'll get a stain. Even if you don't get marinara sauce on your spaghetti, just butter, you're still having spaghetti and can get stains.

Haha, get it? Well, it was sort-of the ongoing joke of the day.

We also had a performance from an improv group, whose workshop I took after.

On the way home, we had a some of the most fun I've EVER had. We stopped at Subway for dinner, about a half hour before the place closed, and there's like 25 of us. So we sent them into overdrive trying to make us all sandwiches. When we were all eating, they told us it was amazing what they'd managed, and they wanted to take a picture of us all to prove the awesomeness of what had happened.

Then, we had a dance party in the Subway, and our drama teacher was dancing and headbanging with us. It. Was. Amazing.

Alright, well, I'm going to go to sleep shortlyyy <3

K

*Okay, I know what you're thinking. "OMG eww, she's one of those girls who watches ABC Family and is a looserrr." Whatever. I am a loser, and it's my guilty pleasure and I DON'T CARE.

And also, if anyone else watches Greek, you may know that the show is possibly getting cancelled (SAD FACE!), so you should help Save Greek! Oh, and a lot of the episodes are on sale on itunes, and the new season starts next Monday! Woohoo! /endgreekfangirlness.

Friends <3

Today I think I realized how important and great friends really are.

As far as friends go, I have two basic groups of friends. The people I spend the most time with are who I call my Regular Friends, or the friends that I have who are in my grade, in my classes, eat lunch with, and do most of the normal teenagery things. Then I also have my Theatre Friends, who are the people I am in plays with, have been in plays with, go to festivals with, among other nerdy things! Since my school is a grades 6 - 12 school, it gives me the opportunity to meet and hang out with a diverse group of people, which is pretty awesome. I'm a freshman, but being in theatre gives me an environment to hang out with my friends who are in 8th grade, and my friends who are in 10th and 11th grade.

One of the best thing about being in theatre, other than actually being in the plays, is the theatre festivals. They are basically a huge convention full of people who are just like you, and won't judge you for what you're interested in. Plus, you get to take really amazing workshops from people in the business and are really talented, and see amazing student productions. At my last festival, I got to see this improv group called the "Purple Crayon" from Yale, see a short mime skit, and see this excellent performance of The Outsiders. The festivals also give you a great way to showcase your talent. You can sign up to perform in IEs (individual events, like a monologue, song, scene, and a lot of other things), and you get feedback from the pros. So far I've only been to one, but there is one this weekend, and another one the weekend after. I'm doing a monologue IE for the second festival, on the 16th. So far I've picked out a Little Prince monologue, and i've yet to pick the second one (you have to do contrasting monologues).

But back to my friends, I realized what I great support system I have, and how I've supported all of my other friends. I try to be there for them as much as I can, as tough as it can be. Even though I do so much with my regular friends, I have this whole other emotional relationship with my theatre friends. When you act, you share something with the people you perform with that you wouldn't share with others, because you have to trust these people to catch you when you fall. And believe me, at some point you will fall. But you have to get back up and keep going (wow, I just realized that was really corny). But, what I'm trying to get at is that when you act, you have to make choices, and sometimes you'll make the wrong choices, and you have to trust these people enough to let them see you fail and be down.

Honestly, without these people I'd be so lost. Not to say that I never have problems with my friends, because I do, I'm not perfect, as no one is. But, it's nice to have people who you love and who love you.

k

(sorry if that was just a huge mass of cornyness.

what can i say? i love my friends)