we've all got our junk

And my junk is Deaf West’s Broadway Revival of Spring Awakening.

Here’s what happened:

I received a lengthy text message which included a detailed description including persuasive reasons as to why I must must must

you (all three images taken from this video)

must

must cont.

see Deaf West’s Broadway Revival of Spring Awakening, including the fact that it is life changing. This text was from my theatre-cousin-sister-best-friend-actress-person, so I had reason to believe this was reasonably reliable information and a reasonably good idea. My family was already planning a trip to New York (from which I returned absolutely recently), so I thought we could make this happen.

I started researching ticket prices and dates immediately.

It happened quickly, but my sister-cousin-best-friend (who lives near the greatest city in the world, work) bought two tickets, each for $108.25, which I payed her back in a cash-filled envelope with her name on it. We arrived in New York City on Thursday after a two hour drive from the Newark Airport (gridlocked. surprise, surprise). Our tickets were for Friday night.

I don’t have words to explain it.

The show was amazing; it was brilliant. It was beautiful. Half of the cast, more or less, was deaf or hard-of-hearing. Each character either had two actors, one signing and one for voice, or one actor who both sang/spoke and signed. I don’t want to spoil anything or say too much, but the way they did the whole thing was stunning. The voices for the signing actors were sort of like their minds or consciences, or a more real version of themselves. I don’t know how to explain it. It was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Really. Look @ this masterpiece. (photo from here)

During ‘Totally Fucked’ the whole show sort of hit me. It’s so POWERFUL. The whole thing. I can’t speak, or type rather, but it was ridiculous.

In a good way, of course.

Afterward, my lovely sister-cousin and I waited by the stage door. I was "sort of" in shock.

Joshua Castille liked my cotton candy hair. AH. I signed ‘thank you’ and ‘beautiful’ over and over to Treshelle Edmond. She hugged me and was super lovely and I was internally freaking out in the best way possible.

I can’t describe.

I wanted to learn ASL (American Sign Language) when my mother took classes. And then I wanted to learn it even more when I met friends who sign. And now, because of this show, it is absolutely vital that I learn ASL. I just have to. I know a little little little bit, but I simply must learn more.

According to the card thing that was in the playbill, you can find local ASL classes at signlanguagecenter.com, or learn by downloading the ‘Marlee Signs’ app. I haven’t tried either of these things (yet), but I’ll take their word for it, and maybe you could too.

If you want to fully immerse yourself in the Deaf West Spring Awakening life, you don’t have to see the show. If you can, by all means, but we can’t all live in New York City or fly there on a whim, can we now?

Here’s what you should do:

Listen to the soundtrack. It’s honestly not very long, and it’s very good. For the fulfillment of all of your teen-angst needs, you can find the Original Broadway Cast Recording on iTunes here. I highly recommend it.

Here’s what else:

Learn ASL (tools above). It’s way cool. And honestly super useful if your friends speak it too.

Watch the Vlogs of Purple Summer (found on YouTube here). These cast vlogs are super cute. I’m only on Episode 2 and I’m already in love with everyone. It’s a great time.

There’s always YouTube mining as well. Do some searches and see where you end up. The internet isn't such a bad place after all.

oooh ahhh

This show is absolutely brilliant, Deaf West is brilliant, the cast is brilliant. It’s all just brilliant.

Just like that,

me

P.S. Happy New Years Eve!!
P.P.S. What the actual hell is going on with the spacing ITHOUGHTIFIXEDIT

here's what I like: books

Books. I like books. I like them a lot. Books are words that turn into images without one stroke of a pen to make the picture, because it’s all in your head. It’s a bit like Alice. I take it back; it’s exactly like Alice.

If you were confused, this Alice.
(image from here.)

Because of life, I haven’t had much time to read books lately, but somehow they always manage to keep in my life and keep me sane (or make me go insane). As of late, the books in my life have been few, but without further adieu, I present them to you, all in a queue (which is a fancy word for line, ooh):

The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography - James M. Rubenstein

This, as you may have guessed (you smarty) is my geography textbook. Somehow or other, it takes me about twelve years to get through one page of this book. Don’t get me wrong, it’s interesting as hell, if you think hell is interesting, or interesting as something else, like rainbows (besa el arcoíris??) if you don’t. Point being, the information is interesting, but the way it’s written can be… sometimes not.

Find it here if you want it, which you probably don’t.

Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut

I read this book for English. I can’t decide if I liked it or not. That is to say that I enjoyed the story (I think), but it’s always hard to tell with books read for school. A book read for any reason other than your own desire to do so is one that I believe will not be best enjoyed. Even a book recommended by your fellow book-loving friends (bless their hearts) will not be quite as climactic as one you’ve selected yourself. That’s just the way it is. I am, however, a big geek* for books set in World War II, which it partially is, and books so dripping with wit and weirdness that you find yourself cleaning the table with a dishrag every time you pick it up. Which it is.

Find it here if you want, which you might.

45 Arias - Handel

This is the new voice book that I just bought today. As is evident, it’s Handel, which is classical, which is opera. Opera is a word that either scares people and makes them run away and hide or fall on the floor of Costco and laugh until they pee themselves, so we’ll stay away from it for now. Classical is so fun. If you’re into singing, I would, in all honesty, highly recommend it. It sounds like it wouldn’t be, but just take my word for it and know that it is.

Find the book here.

Holt McDougal Online - Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Otherwise known as my.hrw.com. HRW, and who knows what that stands for, will be the death of not only me, but also my entire math class, and most likely the teacher’s seven or so other periods. There is no way to describe this abomination except to say that it makes me not like math. I LIKE MATh. Shoot me. Except actually please do not shoot me, or anyone for that matter. I would strongly advise against it. Anyway, HRW, whatever the heck it means, is horrible, and even just typing about it makes me want to forcefully tear out sections of my hair. And I like my hair very much.

You don’t want to find this book.

The Boston Girl - Anita Diamant

This novel is what I am (not really) reading in my free time. I say "(not really)" because I hardly have any free time at the moment, what with auditions foR PETER PAN WHIch I haven’t discussed on this blog but what’s to say right now anyway, and with other things such as an essay which I should possibly be working on right this very moment instead of going over the five-hundred word suggested guideline in this blog post, etc. Anyway, I like this book a lot so far and would recommend it to people who like books such as this.

Find it here.

The Odyssey - Homer

Although I did read The Odyssey for school, I actually did mostly not dislike it. I’ve taken to calling Penelope “Penny,” which is super cute and lovely and if you’re having a child soon, which you’re most likely not because as far as I know, most of the people reading this are either teenage girls or my English teacher, who is a grown man, but if you are, you should name your child Penelope and call her Penny. Unless it’s a boy, or some other gender, in which case, name him/her/WHY IS THERE NO GENDER NON-SPECIFIC SINGULAR PRONOUN IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IT RUINS MY LIFE ALONG WITH HRW.COM whatever you would prefer. On second thought, name your child whatever you would prefer anyway. Unless it’s Derfla, which is Alfred backwards and comes up when you look up “most horrible name ever” on Google, in which case I beg you not to do that.

(If you really want The Odyssey, you can most likely find it anywhere.)

Other books I strongly recommend are Life After Life, I’ll Give You The Sun, Eloise in Munich (that’s a thing, right?) NO IT’S MOSCOW SORRY, Eloise in any other place at any time such as Christmastime or Paris, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Howl's Moving Castle, anything by Sophie Kinsella, and the Harry Potter Series. That should give you some variety.

I want to be Eloise. (image from here.)

Your obedient servant,

Not quite Alice, but close enough.

__________________________________________

*I’ve determined through extensive research and intense questioning that geek is a term used to describe a person who likes weird things, a dork is a person who does weird things, and a nerd is simply someone who’s smart. But really I think you should use them however you’d like. It is, after all, your book.

in which I explain how you can become a pig too

I was going to write a post about the ten out of twelve rehearsal we had yesterday. But I’ve just now decided against it, as that’s not necessarily a fun thing to experience firsthand, and in that case why would one want to experience it secondhand? So instead I’m going to talk about stage makeup. Because that ties in and it’s much more interesting anyway.

Stage makeup is absolutely ridiculous. I love it so much. It is the most fun thing to put on, so satisfying to take off, and just altogether a jolly good time. Right now, as you know if you’ve read any of my other posts, I’m doing Shrek the Musical, so there are some… interesting makeup looks taking place.

As a pig, I’m supposed to be pink. A funny thing happened where the girl who designed the makeup looks for fairytale creatures forgot to do the pigs, so ours was a last minute design. It’s adorable though, and all's well that ends well, so no hard feelings.

Get the look: Pig

You’ll start with the “normal” stage makeup look. That said, if your stage makeup looks normal, you're almost definitely doing it wrong.

First, you’re going to need some foundation. Lots of it. In fact, just cake it on there and see where it gets you. You’ll probably need more, but at least it's a start. Make sure it’s a shade or three darker than your actual skin tone, because you don't want to end up looking like a piece of paper under the lights.

Speaking of paper, you also don’t want to look flat. Even if you’re a pig who’s supposed to be chubby, you still need to contour. In fact, you can contour to make yourself look more chubby. Start by creating a shadow under your cheekbone. Rounding out this shadow will also round out your cheeks. The easiest way to do this is to make a fish face and draw two lines with your shadow colour where your cheeks naturally cave. Cave isn’t the right word, but you know what I mean. Unless you don’t. Oh well. Anyway, draw two lines underneath your cheekbones and blend downward from there. To round out the cheeks, you can extend this line sort of to the bottom of your nose. You’ll also want to contour your nose a bit by darkening the sides and highlighting the bridge. Contour your jawline as well by darkening your neck and directly underneath your jaw. If you’re a guy and/or want a sharper and more masculine looking jawline, you can also highlight above the jawline. To finish off, just add some highlights and shadows where you think they'll work out. It’s really an in-the-moment process. 

a visualisation of what your highlights/contouring
should look like in a general sense

More contouring info can be found in this educational video, but keep in mind that you'll want to be about eight times more dramatic than this for stage.

The next thing you’ll need is some blush. For normal stage makeup, you can simply smile very widely and plop some blush on the apples of your cheeks. When doing the pig look, you can do this, but we’ll be putting on more blush later. Much more blush.

your blush look at this point

Now for the eyes. Remember that you’re going for a magnified version of the Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman look. Your eyes need to be dark and obvious as… Oh, I don’t know. Something very dark and obvious. First comes eyeshadow. Obviously, for this look you’ll do pink. Cover your lid with white, and add in some different shades of pink on the edges, in the crease, etc. You should probably highlight your brow bone as well, but that step never seems to actually work for me. Eh, do it anyway. Next, line your eyes with white. Yes, white eyeliner. Right above your lashes you should have a line of white, as well as some in the inner corner, outer corner, and in the waterline. This will help your eyes look larger. Draw a black line above the top white line and line the bottom in either black or dark brown under the water line. I like to blend out the bottom line, but that's optional. Actually, all of this is optional. Now, apply a ton of mascara (and falsies if they suit your fancy).

a lil step-by-step for ya

Fill in your eyebrows next. Almost all of the guys in Shrek literally use black eyeliner to fill in their brows, and the girls could probably get away with going darker than they are at the time being. You can hardly go wrong here.

For pig specific cheeks, you’ll need a ridiculous blush that looks absolutely like the colour your tongue gets when you eat a red lollipop. Or like a maraschino cherry. Or like the little number icon on the messages app. It’s whatever you please, as long as it’s ridiculously red. Take this red on your finger and smile really widely. Draw a circle on your cheek and fill it in. And then add more on top of that. In a circle.

There you go.

For lips, you can't go wrong with bright pink. I like to overdraw my cupids bow and my bottom lip a little bit, but it's really up to the discretion of your very own. Blot some concealer on them to reduce shine, which will be amplified x one million with the lights.

And of course, you’ll need a pig nose. I apologize in advance for how uncomfortable it is. When in doubt, just remember how cute you look as a pig and everything will be alright. In the end, you can always un-pig with Pond’s cold creme. Or coconut oil. Take your pick. 

(The pigs are German but I don’t speak that language and even though Google Translate is almost definitely incorrect...) auf wiedersehen.

discussing why teaching yourself is a fine idea, the universal language, and words that don't exist

I taught myself to play “I Am Not a Robot” by Marina and the Diamonds on the piano a few days ago. Now, this could be a post about how sad my life is, how tragic that I spend my days teaching myself to play powerfully empathetic tunes on what looks like a large xylophone as shown in movies before colour television.

(See what I mean? I'll settle for "not really.")

Or.

Or, it could be a post about how teaching yourself is a fantastic way to “waste time” by doing something actually productive. It is immensely satisfying to be able to play a song that you know, and even more so if no one else showed you how to do it. I cannot describe to you the enjoyment of having the chords sound dare-I-say correct. When you start the song on a D and it comes out exactly as it does when you listen to the version Ms. Diamandis herself released in 2010 as her third track of her first album “The Family Jewels," it's just gratifying if I do say so.

The satisfaction that notes are universal. A C chord played at Carnegie Hall is the same one a lowly thirty-one-year-old plunks out as he tries to find the meaning of life, or at least a way to get out of his mom’s basement. The excitement that comes from the fact that there is the slightest possibility that I could harmonize with someone on the other side of the world, if the accident will. That a note in “See I’m Smiling” could be the same as one in “Seven Nation Army” as one in “Für Elise.” Now, who knows if any of those have the same notes at all, but just the possibility and the probability. What I’m saying is that it would hardly be unlikely.

Music notes are among the few things that are truly universal. Music breaks language barriers, economic barriers, political barriers, physical barriers. Caen las murallas, amiright? Music notes convey emotion because of where a dot was printed on a page and what sign comes before a measure. And that's insane.

Some disagree, arguing that lyrics convey the meaning of a song. I ask them, then, why do we have notes? For fun? Does so-and-so from that one opera sing in a minor key just because they’re picking and choosing? No. S/He/Xi does not. It’s done that way to convey certain emotions. The fact that the human ear, and maybe other ears, for that matter, can hear emotion without the language that we created is only fitting. It’s also somewhat of a miracle.

So that was a fun stream of consciousness.

As a spacer, let's add in this picture from the floor of the Marina and the Diamonds concert, because relevance etc.

In other news, on the yesterday-of-yesterday I had a “what-the-heck-even-is-irregardless” moment. Which, in fact, what is irregardless?

For those of you confused, I’m referring to the literal word “irregardless,” which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Let me break it down for you. Regardless means “without regard” which means “without paying attention to the present situation” or “despite the prevailing circumstances.” "Regardless" is already a negative word. The prefix “ir-“ is also negative, as in irregular, irreplaceable, irrefutable, etc., making “irregardless” a double negative word (or shall we say “word”).

People apparently got confused, probably because of the “irre-“ trend going on, and started saying “irregardless” where they should have been saying “regardless.” Now “irregardless" and “regardless" are used interchangeably by people who aren’t peevish about those sorts of things, and also probably never had a grammar geek for a mother. It's probably hereditary. Anyway, "irregardless" is apparently now in the dictionary, but at least it’s categorized as “informal” or “non-standard,” which is the least they could do.

Then again, so is “ain’t" as it turns out, so being in the dictionary barely means anything at all.

If you’d like to read the article that I turned to for answers during this time of crisis, click here. If not, that makes sense, as many people most likely don’t really care about that sort of thing. I say it's all in heredity. Cheers.

I'm benignly gentile.

Part I:

The best way to learn new words is by reading. However, if you’re kind of ridiculous and are against that or, like me, don’t have time at the moment because of what is known as the fiery pits of homework, music is a good, less time consuming alternative (pop, ha).

Por ejemplo, “benign” means “not harmful.” This was one of my vocabulary words in English, but I knew the definition beforehand because of a lyric in Marina and the Diamonds’ (aka the actual queen of the world) song “Hollywood.”

“Your mind is just like mine, all filled up with things benign…"

the Marina and the Diamonds concert AHH

Part II: Now, to musicals: an alternative to Hebrew School? (NOT REALLY)

The Last Five Years taught me that “goyishe” means someone or something that is not Jewish. “Shiksa” (as in “Shiksa Goddess”) is a gentile girl or woman. Finding this out lead me to look up what gentile means (which is also "not Jewish").

Shrek the Musical lead me to look up the word “Kafkaesque,” in turn leading to extensive reading of Kafka (as in Franz)’s Wikipedia page, thus leading me to find that he was a Jewish German-speaking author of novels and short stories during the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries.

The Fiddler on the Roof explained that “l’chaim" is a toast to life, and a billion other things about Orthodox Judaism. I saw it with my friend Rachael, who happens to be Jewish. At intermission, I grilled her on everything Jewish mentioned in the play, which is literally everything because the whole plot, for those who don’t know, is about an Orthodox Jewish village in Russia during World War II.

zees eez rachael and iy goeen to feedlare oan zee rouf

These definitions, and probably others to be totally honest, leave us with the task of figuring which of these conclusions is true: 1.) The world of musical theatre is fascinated in Judaism 2.) It just so happens that three of the musicals I’ve seen/listened to/been involved in recently have all had major references to Judaism (it’s all a big coincidence/the universe wants me to know more about Judaism) or 3.) Judaism is a super-big, worldwide religion that comes up all over the place and it’s only natural that musical theatre is included in that. In all honesty, it’s probably the third one, but I like to think that things happen for a reason (because imho life is more fun that way).

Just as a general side note, most (if not all) of the Jewish people that I’ve met have been some of the nicest people I’ve known as well. Who knows if there’s a correlation (and that’s not to say that your religion defines you or that any religion besides Judaism is inferior! Or superior! I’m not Jewish, or any other religion for that matter, so this is totally not meant to be offensive to anyone; it’s just my minuscule compilation of experiences.) Additionally, for much of my elementary school life I was fascinated with Judaism and actually kind of wanted to be Jewish (mind you, I’ve never been religious so I had nothing with which to compare it).

Takeaway:

Marina Diamandis can help you ace your English tests.

If you have any interest in subtly learning about Judaism, look to musicals.

Anyway, ttfn. Nice seein' ya.

wishing I were German + a mini lesson

Accents are pretty weird things. Everybody has an accent, and it’s not difficult for us to talk in our own, but it can take a lot to learn other accents accurately and be able to speak in them.

I’ve always been an accent type of gal. I’ll randomly switch from my own accent to British to Indian to Aussie to Russian to Scottish to Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor knows what else (ha). The research behind this habit has originated in the caves of random life experiences and seeped its way into my cerebral sponge from movies, exchange programs, the internet, other human beings (if you can believe that), etcetera. I’ve never had to learn an accent for any purpose other than wanting to do so. Until now...

As a pig in Shrek the Musical, I’m supposed to be German. Let me just say that being German is pRETTY GOSHDARN DIFFICULT THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I hardly even have three lines, but I feel like I’ll be able to better impersonate my character if I put myself in a German accent mindset (think in German, sing in German, etc.) (also, German is kind of a classic, you’ve gotta be able to do German) (also, it's way more fun to be German than American, let's be honest with ourselves here, kids).

I watched a few videos of some Germans speaking English, and then a video of a British voice actor doing a German accent, and then listened to the International English Dialect reading whatever whatever website. Even after all of this, I still manage to sound Indian, Russian, or French when trying to sound like I'm from Deutschland, although I do admit my German accent is now only slightly worse than okay. 

Anyway, as a person who’s generally alright at accents, this has been a new challenge (that I 100% brought upon myself because I could do an accent that sounded enough like German to get by in saying lines before I even embarked upon this journey).

Not-so-side-note that I thought I’d point out: The German accent is really pleasing and beautiful. It can sound harsh, especially when one is actually speaking German, but even then it has this good… GAH, I don’t know. I like it a lot. In English, which is mostly what I have been listening to (actually, all of what I’ve been listening to), it can sound sweet or comical (and surely many other things as well) either/any one of which is alrighty-okay with me.

A mini German-accent lesson from someone who clearly doesn't know what she's doing at all:

a little chart of consonants that I found on the top of my head

Other points:

Vowels are a nice Ice Mocha Blended between British and American. Kind of.

Earlier today, my friend advised me to speak like I was complaining, which sounds eh but helped me a surprising amount.

Germans don’t speak with their mouths open very wide, which is a useful thing to keep in mind.

At the end of the day when you come home to me and you're another day older and all is said and done, and when you’re simply much too tired to remember all of these rules thank you very much, there’s always that coughing up phlegm thing. You know what I mean. You know exactly what I mean.

in which I explain how I became a pig

Of course, this all took place on the one day on which we didn’t have our origami-like level-block-things-on-which-you-stand. I had absolutely no idea where I was going, as I had been blocked into all of the songs as a different character and the three little pigs stick together. On top of that, one of the other pigs wasn’t there that day, so there was this other person that I had to pretend was there while the present little pig lead me around like a puppet. BUT I’M NOT A PUPPET, I’M A REAL BOY. Well no, actually, I'm not. I’m a pig. And female. But it's whatever.First, some background information that slowly dissolves into the story:

My high school is putting on Shrek The Musical this year.

I auditioned mostly because, well, why not? At first, I was going to audition for the auditioning experience, as at the time I was still on the swim team and I thought I wouldn’t have enough time. But of course, when I got there and saw all of my people-that-I-actually-like theatre buddies, I decided that, as a matter of fact, I did want to be in the musical.

I was not expecting to be called back, especially because on my audition form I had written “auditioning to audition” where I was supposed to write the name of whatever character it was my heart’s desire to portray. Also because the casting director was age-ist. But that’s whatever.

Anyway, when the callback list was up, I was on it. I wasn’t called back for any major roles, but I was okay with it. When I got to callbacks, we were informed that they had been expecting more people to audition, and that everyone had been called back. Of course. Still, I said “I’ll take it.” Considering my lack of on-paper experience (or any other experience, for that matter), I couldn’t expect to get a lead, or even a role with lines or a solo. And that's totally okay, because if it's fun, it doesn't really matter how many lines you have.

In the end, I was cast as a Duloc citizen, a guard, and a happy village person, as well as a fairytale creature tbd by costume availability. Alright, I thought. I can deal.

About forty people had auditioned. The teacher had been told to expect sixty, which is sort of a mess to begin with, but again, whatever. Right off the bat, a few people crossed their names off of the cast list. Within the first few rehearsal days, a bunch more people had decided that they no longer wanted to be fairytale creatures (which I honestly don’t understand. Who wouldn’t want to be a freak?).

At this point, our group numbers looked kind of ridiculous because we had gaps everywhere (well, have, present tense).

Now, with five weeks left to rehearse, we have twenty six people in our cast. TWENTY. SIX. PEOPLE. At the very least, the cast is supposed to have forty to fifty members, and we have TWENTY SIX. Okay.

More backstory:

This one girl literally showed up for rehearsal two and a half times. I’m not even exaggerating; I’m fairly certain that's an accurate approximation of her attendance. She was the third little pig. At this point, you can probably guess where this is going to end up, but I’ll tell you anyway just for the health of it (I saw that on a paper towel dispenser. Clever paper towel manufacturers). And because I probably shouldn’t end a post in the middle of a story.

So.

We arrived at rehearsal last Friday and this girl is not there. AGAIN. Not only that, she also didn’t tell anyone that she wasn’t going to be coming. AGAIN. The director said "She’s cut," and that we needed a new third little pig. Short-story-shorter, she picked me.

Some minutes later, the girl showed up. The director took her into another room, and, from what she later told us, gave the girl the option of either playing a smaller part or dropping the show. The girl dropped.

So now I’m the third little pig.

this is who I am now (picture courtesy of GazetteXtra)

Of course, this all took place on the one day on which we didn’t have our origami-like level-block-things-on-which-you-stand. I had absolutely no idea where I was going, as I had been blocked into all of the songs as a different character and the three little pigs stick together. On top of that, one of the other pigs wasn’t there that day, so there was this other person that I had to pretend was there while the present little pig lead me around like a puppet. BUT I’M NOT A PUPPET, I’M A REAL BOY. Well no, actually, I'm not. I’m a pig. And female. But it's whatever.

time takes time, and so does everything else

I recently began an essay with the definition of the word “immigrant.”

I’m going to begin this blog post with a definition, albeit not the same one.

Time. Time is primarily defined by the dictionary on my school-issued Mac as "the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.”

When someone says, “I need more time,” they do not literally mean that they need more of the indefinite continued progress of existence. What they usually are referring to is the dictionary-app’s third definition of time, which is "time as allotted, available, or used.”

We need more time is (sadly) something that is said far too often in rehearsal for the musical at my high school. We cannot, however, have more of the continued progress of existence, and we also cannot have more time set aside to rehearse. When I questioned as to why this was, I was greeted with an answer that had something to do with the fact that we couldn’t rehearse during the summer. To me, the answer seemed simple: push the play back a few weeks in order to give us more time to rehearse. For reasons having to do with holidays and people who make decisions for schools, this plan wasn’t put into action.

Some people are planners. (e.g. the people who make decisions for schools). They set specific times (second definition: a point of time as measured in hours and minutes past midnight or noon) for everything they do, even counting to the second as to not throw their day into chaos.

My cousin has a professor who begins walking to the podium at the front of the class exactly twenty seconds before 10:15 am (when the class is scheduled to begin). If students aren’t in their seats by the time she reaches the podium, they are to leave. Her TAs are like guards, making sure no student comes into the class who wasn’t present at the given minute (or, in this case, second).

My aunt reached the JFK airport at some amount of time that is represented in minutes by a number greater than 60. For those of you so uneducated as to not be familiar with the specific rules of the John F. (which, as it turns out, stands for Fitzgerald) Kennedy International Airport, one must arrive at exactly one hour before the time of their flight departure (or boarding time, or something like that). (I’m joking of course; I do not expect you to know the policies of that particular airport, nor would I be offended if you happened to.) Anyway, by the time my aunt got through the horrendous security line, it was, you guessed it folks, 59 minutes before whatever that particular time was before which she needed to arrive 60 minutes. Because of this strict time rule, my aunt was not allowed through security, and something happened along the lines of she-missed-her-flight-and-had-to-go-to-the-trouble-of-booking-a-new-one-oh-bother. Or something like that.

Time is also important in my life. Although I am not a super-planner (I rarely plan even a week in advance), I participate in many activities which take up time. For instance, I have rehearsal every day after school (which ends at 2:25, 1:45 on Mondays) until 6:00 pm, possibly before. On top of that, I started taking dance classes, which are about a 30 minute drive away, as well as a new theatre class, also 30 minutes away, each of which are from one to two hours long. On top of those, I also have the general high school homework load of endless biology reading and math assignments, with the occasional essay or memorized speech.

What I sometimes look like after a day filled with filled time.

I very much enjoy doing all of these things. There was a time (ha) not too long ago that I did activities that I did not particularly enjoy. They were fine; however, they were not my PASSION/I didn’t have any passion in doing them. Passion is, as they say, a whole nother (dear FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT nother is not a word) corn grove (well, actually, I’m fairly certain that I made that one up, and that no one, or at least almost no one, has said that ever in the history of the world.)(Wait a second. Does corn not even grow in groves?! That's trees, gah. Cornfield.) Point being, I used time for things I didn’t like. Now I use time for things that I do like. Everything is much more fun. Shocker!

Even though I enjoy all of the things that I use time to pursue, sometimes I feel a bit… stressed out. I cannot, for whatever reason, get more time; I can only use less time to do things that I like in order to dedicate more time to things that need to be done, such as homework, that I don’t necessarily like, but I also don’t necessarily dislike. This is a constant dilemma. At this point in time (wow, I’m good), I’ve decided to just stick with the stuff, because I’d rather be doing lots of things that I like and also have to do some things that I don’t like than be doing some things that I like and also have to do some things that I don’t like and then have some time where I’m not doing anything at all.

If that makes any sense.

So, just to summarize...

1. Time is important.

2. Don’t use time to do things you don’t like.

3. Do use time to do things you do like.

4. Eat ice cream when you want it, even if it’s late and the ice cream has caffeine in it because it’s coffee ice cream.

5. Carpe diem ^^^ (or night, depending on what time 'tis)

6. Wait, what?

7. Never mind; I was just testing you.

8. Oh, okay.

9. Get to JFK International Airport more that 1 hour prior to whatever the time is to which you need to be 1 hour prior.

 10. Stress isn’t always bad, it’s just a side effect of using time to do many things that you like. 

11. In conclusion, do whatever you want, as long as you have time (and it doesn’t negatively affect anyone else), because there is only so much time anyway, so why spend the time in which you could be doing things you enjoy to do things you don’t enjoy that you don’t have to do.

Today has been a day of wordy explanations. I could talk about time for all time. Maybe I'll do a Part II sometime.

Anyway.

Ciao.