Post-Christmas Bling

Remember when I said yesterday that "not much has changed" recently?

Well, this changes the picture a bit.

I'M ENGAGED!! :-D

I'm so full of words but I can't get them out just right.  Hopefully one of us will be coherent enough to share the full story soon, 'cause it's a good one!

Happy New Year, my friends!  I never dreamed 2011 would leave me with such a big smile on my face.

Out Of Dust

Hope you all had and are still having a wonderful holiday season!  I haven't written lately because not much has changed, though much has happened.  I got the straight A's I was working and wishing for!  I also enjoyed a very pleasant Christmas day filled with food, gifts, contentment, and thankfulness.

Tonight for a small gathering of friends and strangers I shared a brief piece of my heart from heavy thoughts that aren't fully formulated yet.  We had to attempt to answer three questions:

Where have you been?
Where are you now?
Where do you want to go?

 The answers I shared weren't so much answers.  It was more so a recognition of a need to find answers.  Now tonight has brought me this song, as I sit and ponder on those things.

Bling and Leopard Print

  
Meet my most fun theatrical persona yet: Ginger.  She is a Snooki meets Fran Fine parody.  She has huge black hair, orangey-tan skin, and talks with the best ridiculous Nue Jore-see accent I can muster.  She is madly in love with her boyband-wannabe husband, Stephen (pictured here; played by Rob Anderson). You can come see Ginger this weekend in The Splendor of Christmas on Friday or Saturday!

(Last weekend I played Ginger in front of an audience of 1,500 people.  She was a smashing success. :-)

Girls Like You Always Get To See Ireland

I finished registering for my spring classes, and taking a look at the topics I'll be pursuing begs the question, where am I going after graduation?

Acting for the Singer
Movement for the Actor
Independent Study: Stage Management (to receive class credit for the production I am SMing)
Abnormal Psychology Honors
Business Management  Intro Women's Studies
Applied Voice (private voice lessons)

Three of these classes are necessary for me to graduate, and the other three are of interest to me.  The psych class will make the third I have taken under that topic in college (completely unintentionally).  I had five classes and then felt like my semester wouldn't be full enough, so I added one more (because the independent study will end in March, and is nothing like taking a traditional class).  Perhaps there is something slightly wrong with me... 

I excited and proud to know that I'll be graduating with honors and that I am a woman of many talents and interests, as my transcript attests.  I'm sure at this point that my future holds more than theatrical endeavors.  I guess simply having a degree is a very good start to figuring the rest out.

Christmas Fuzzies

"Casual Concert", put on by the department's vocal students, was last week.  I'm so happy with how we sounded and with the audience appreciate we received.  If you care to, you can hop on my YouTube channel and watch our ensemble pieces.  But I especially wanted to share "Yes Virginia, There's A Santa Claus".  It was such a moving and lovely piece to sing.  When I looked out into the audience after my small spoken part, my mom was already crying!  

"You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart." -Francis Church, New York Sun, 1897