head + desk = *slaaaaaam*
Sorry if I've missed anything majorly important with you guys. LJ has just been on the back burner for me, with helping mom with the shop, keeping the different relations together in some level of amiability, and tons of other junk.
I AM still going to class for the present, even though we didn't go last week. That was solo night, too. So we missed that...each month, SOMETHING comes up so we don't go to solo night. It's a tad irritating, but..yeah...I've had a lot of trouble deciding what two songs I would play, so I guess that's alright. I finally decided on playing Count's Revenge via piano solo, and play/singing Bittersweet Joy. Because that song is depressed, but SO fun to sing.
The yarn shop has been open almost a year now. Mom is basically running it by herself, with little or no assistance from her two 'partners'. Thus, stress levels have been ENORMOUS with her. Since she's always working for the shop, her hosting business is going under, and we are falling on (if possible) even harder times than before. I don't think we've ever actually gone hungry before this....but there you have it. That's life, isn't it? Like dad says, "It isn't what happens to you that matters. What matters, what decides how you are remembered, is how you REACT to it."
We just recently got hit by a major snowstorm. No, wait. That's not right. We just got hit by a major ICEstorm. As in, it snowed maybe two or three inches, then got covered in tons of ice. Then it rained. Then that rain froze again. Loverly driving circumstances. Loverly. My dad had to scrape our car out of the driveway so we could all get to where we needed to go. Today it's starting to melt, but that means that there's tons of water in the streets. Yesterday I went for a walk down to the general store with my eldest cousin(Ally) and we were climbing over piles of snow pushed onto the sidewalk. It was like climbing over rocks. The scariest places are the long stretches of sheer, glassy-like ice, though. Because you don't know what you'll do if you trip, onto that ice-covered pavement.
We had our play about a week ago, and it was one of my first 'real' stage experiences. I was in the children's chorus at our Operation Christmas Child play, but that was basically standing in a pile of kids lined up in OCC T-shirts (think the chorus folks for the Les Miserables concert, you know what I mean?). I auditioned, but as I was ten and shy as all get out in front of people(heehee..), I KNOW, and am willing to admit I did terrible. I kept shuffling my feet, murmuring under my breath, and shifting the mic and script from one hand to the other. I'm sure I looked adorable and sweet, but it didn't get me a part for sure. The only other time was in our brief period with 4H years later, where I was much older, and much more confident. No auditions. Just five or six kids setting up a 15 min skit. There wasn't even lines or anything. Just a sketchy outline of what we were supposed to do. I said one sentence, placed a necklace around my neck, and walked off. I don't really count either of those as 'shows'. So this was my first 'show'. I had four lines, did the same commercial twice in between bits, and did some foley(sp?).
The night before the show, we had our first/last official rehearsal at the theatre. Now, don't think we didn't come prepared - we've been reading through the scripts, setting up sound effects, and working on characters for a couple months now. This was just our first 'official' rehearsal. We came into the back of the theatre(where the newbie me felt giddy at seeing a REAL backstage! XD Zomigosh! A couch!) and started setting up the stage. Basically, the 'stage' was several large, hollow wooden boxes that we stacked up into the right size. Enough for four mics, and several people to stand. I was following after the lady in charge, who also teaches our vocals with her husband(you can always tell the people who are really in charge. Everyone asks THEM the questions, and they continually look around as if to say, "Oh gosh, what have I gotten into?!") and trying to be as helpful as I could. Moving things, making suggestions on how to fit thirty-somewhat kids behind such a small stage, and organize where all the objects for sound effects were to go, fetching chairs, etc. By the end of the evening, this lady had thanked me numerous times, and hugged me several. I'm not quite sure I didn't get a boost of pride from that, but my more to-the-point side wonders why it was such a big deal. We were there to help, right? All I did was be there to help out. *shrug* I tend to do that for the peoples in charge - I hover around them and wait to make myself useful. Half the reason is habit - I've always done that for my mom. It helps her keep her sanity. The other half was sheer boredom - I had little to do officially, so I wanted to work out my nervousness at the upcoming performance by staying busy. But it helped, so there you have it.
(To further prove my nervousness to you all, let me state that plenty of bottled water was provided for the thirsty. I drank three in the first half of the show. After that, I refused to drink more. Because I couldn't keep going to the bathroom if my part - which was at the end - was getting nearer. I drank the Mountain Dew I brought instead. And I'm not a big drinker. This was just the need to keep my hands busy doing something besides turn the page of the script I shared with two other people.)
The commercial I did was...very amusing, all things considered. It was for Camel Cigarettes, and was a small conversation between a man and his...wife... Let's get this straight: I've never done anything near these kinds of roles/impressions, whatever you wanna call them. In the world of reality, I am the equivalent of Elphaba, and my SISTER is the Galinda. Petite, pretty, and bouncy flouncy funfunfunfunfun. I can be giddy if I want, I suppose. But most of the time, I'm just NOT. We read through the commercial a total of two times before performing it, and I'd never seen the script before. But that wasn't anything big - it was supposed to be a radio show, so I got to hold the script and just read it off. The REALLY funny part, was that I performed it with my sister's crush. Haha. The way the world worked. Once, he happened to grab a seat near me, too. My sister was seated on the other side of me, and I offered in a teasing whisper to switch seats with her. She offered me a glare that could cut through steel, then said no thanks. Hee hee...
But yes, my last line was, "Camel Cigarettes. Buy some today for YOUR man."
I nearly laughed on stage at having to talk about my 'big, strong man', etc etc. First read-through, Lady In Charge asked me to make it peppier. I explained laughingly that I never do these kinds of roles, that I play the tomboy, and she smilingly said this would be fine practice then. I wholeheartedly agree. It was weird, but fun.
Several kids, by the way, had these fake cigarettes, and smoke them throughout the show. They were just little look-alikes that puffed a small bit of smoke after having contact with your lips for a few minutes, but I SO wanted one.
Isabella, me entire family, my grandmother, our cousin's family, and the family that is friends to our family(which thus results in the entirety of our little 'community') showed up, and I was happy to see them, though I was hoping to not know where they sat in the audience. The lights helped, for which I'm glad. I did NOT want to be looking at my father while reading off that commercial. Not that my parents would object - in fact, they found it highly amusing - but I feared I would crack up laughing at their faces. Ha. XD
MTM was able to acquire a small part (that turned out to be bigger than mine, actually! Ha! Funny how the world works) because one girl dropped out, and she was in the beginning area of the second act of two. She did nice - I could even hear her. Her acting could use a little work(as could mine...I'm positive) but she did well. ^_^ My part is the second-to-last page, and I screwed up my favorite line. I happened to glance up and, you know, get contact between the other characters. Meet them in the eye to establish feeling of character. When I looked down, the guy to my left had a line I was supposed to reply to, something like, "We were as thick as thieves back in the day!" Then I was supposed to say, "Hells bells! We still are!" And that's how they discover that my charrie gave the former the saying 'hells bells!'. Which I love, by the way. Awesome saying. Anyways, I accidentally said 'We were as thick as thieves...', and he got confused, turned to me, and mumbled, "Uh, I think you said my line..." To which I laughed, looked at the audience, and cried out, "Hells bells, I believe I DID!" After that, several people onstage were mumbling different things or laughing, so no one really paid much mind. Mom said later that no one could tell - they probably didn't hear the guy say I stole his line. Ack, well. My bro said that at least I did well and stayed semi-in-character, while he went out to state a rather...um...to say bluntly, obvious line. But there you have it. Suckage too, kind of. I love that line. "Heeeeeelllls beelllls! We STILL are!"
The other fave line of mine is, "I loved the James'. Tell that truth, I've been meaning to steal this train for some time. Now with your guys' help," and here I raise my arm in good cheer, "we can BLOW THIS POPSICLE STAND!"
Then I say a goodbye and leave. Happy as can be. My first real part, and I had to make it interesting. Heh heh heh. I am grinning right now happily as I type this. It was an awesome night.
Otherwise, MT class has just kept going as usual. That dance instructor I mentioned before, who sometimes comes in when she can in between her other roles? The one who got several callbacks on broadway? Well, she said she would be here all month, and while I missed last week, I was there the week before. We did stretches, then work on yet another dance routine. New routines are hard to pick up on for me, especially anything remotely fancy in footwork, but I always have a blast. Anyways, during stretches(which I am probably one of only the extreme few who actually do them at home) we did right and left leg splits. I'm not positive, but I'm PRETTY sure she said, "good job" to me during those. I'm proud of those splits. I can't do them straight out side-to-side worth anything, but left/right leg ones I'm on the ground, just working on making sure they're pretty straight and that my torso is upright. *proud grin* So there. Splits are fun.
Since my cold, my voice hasn't been the same. My head voice went off into some distant corner of my insanity and won't come back. I might try bribing it with mountain dew. Ack, well.
Not sure if I mentioned it before, but sheet music to my song Dream Maker is now complete, and if you have Finale Notepad, I can send it to someone. *shrug* Whiskii? If you're still alive? Working on Bittersweet Joy, then it's Count's Revenge. Theeen we have Zuco's song, and Fantisma. Still editing Revenge(Ambose's song), and a new one called 'The Walk'. The latter is a simplistic ditty, mostly black keys and repetition, which I'm doing for the sake of simplisity.
BTW - ZOMIGOSH MOM GOT ME THE BOXED SET OF JANE AUSTEN BOOKS! YAYYYYY!!! I am reading aloud Pride and Prejudice to six or seven people, and they all have their own bookmarks made of paper with their name on it. Hehehe...
*huggles Mr. Darcy*
I AM still going to class for the present, even though we didn't go last week. That was solo night, too. So we missed that...each month, SOMETHING comes up so we don't go to solo night. It's a tad irritating, but..yeah...I've had a lot of trouble deciding what two songs I would play, so I guess that's alright. I finally decided on playing Count's Revenge via piano solo, and play/singing Bittersweet Joy. Because that song is depressed, but SO fun to sing.
The yarn shop has been open almost a year now. Mom is basically running it by herself, with little or no assistance from her two 'partners'. Thus, stress levels have been ENORMOUS with her. Since she's always working for the shop, her hosting business is going under, and we are falling on (if possible) even harder times than before. I don't think we've ever actually gone hungry before this....but there you have it. That's life, isn't it? Like dad says, "It isn't what happens to you that matters. What matters, what decides how you are remembered, is how you REACT to it."
We just recently got hit by a major snowstorm. No, wait. That's not right. We just got hit by a major ICEstorm. As in, it snowed maybe two or three inches, then got covered in tons of ice. Then it rained. Then that rain froze again. Loverly driving circumstances. Loverly. My dad had to scrape our car out of the driveway so we could all get to where we needed to go. Today it's starting to melt, but that means that there's tons of water in the streets. Yesterday I went for a walk down to the general store with my eldest cousin(Ally) and we were climbing over piles of snow pushed onto the sidewalk. It was like climbing over rocks. The scariest places are the long stretches of sheer, glassy-like ice, though. Because you don't know what you'll do if you trip, onto that ice-covered pavement.
We had our play about a week ago, and it was one of my first 'real' stage experiences. I was in the children's chorus at our Operation Christmas Child play, but that was basically standing in a pile of kids lined up in OCC T-shirts (think the chorus folks for the Les Miserables concert, you know what I mean?). I auditioned, but as I was ten and shy as all get out in front of people(heehee..), I KNOW, and am willing to admit I did terrible. I kept shuffling my feet, murmuring under my breath, and shifting the mic and script from one hand to the other. I'm sure I looked adorable and sweet, but it didn't get me a part for sure. The only other time was in our brief period with 4H years later, where I was much older, and much more confident. No auditions. Just five or six kids setting up a 15 min skit. There wasn't even lines or anything. Just a sketchy outline of what we were supposed to do. I said one sentence, placed a necklace around my neck, and walked off. I don't really count either of those as 'shows'. So this was my first 'show'. I had four lines, did the same commercial twice in between bits, and did some foley(sp?).
The night before the show, we had our first/last official rehearsal at the theatre. Now, don't think we didn't come prepared - we've been reading through the scripts, setting up sound effects, and working on characters for a couple months now. This was just our first 'official' rehearsal. We came into the back of the theatre(where the newbie me felt giddy at seeing a REAL backstage! XD Zomigosh! A couch!) and started setting up the stage. Basically, the 'stage' was several large, hollow wooden boxes that we stacked up into the right size. Enough for four mics, and several people to stand. I was following after the lady in charge, who also teaches our vocals with her husband(you can always tell the people who are really in charge. Everyone asks THEM the questions, and they continually look around as if to say, "Oh gosh, what have I gotten into?!") and trying to be as helpful as I could. Moving things, making suggestions on how to fit thirty-somewhat kids behind such a small stage, and organize where all the objects for sound effects were to go, fetching chairs, etc. By the end of the evening, this lady had thanked me numerous times, and hugged me several. I'm not quite sure I didn't get a boost of pride from that, but my more to-the-point side wonders why it was such a big deal. We were there to help, right? All I did was be there to help out. *shrug* I tend to do that for the peoples in charge - I hover around them and wait to make myself useful. Half the reason is habit - I've always done that for my mom. It helps her keep her sanity. The other half was sheer boredom - I had little to do officially, so I wanted to work out my nervousness at the upcoming performance by staying busy. But it helped, so there you have it.
(To further prove my nervousness to you all, let me state that plenty of bottled water was provided for the thirsty. I drank three in the first half of the show. After that, I refused to drink more. Because I couldn't keep going to the bathroom if my part - which was at the end - was getting nearer. I drank the Mountain Dew I brought instead. And I'm not a big drinker. This was just the need to keep my hands busy doing something besides turn the page of the script I shared with two other people.)
The commercial I did was...very amusing, all things considered. It was for Camel Cigarettes, and was a small conversation between a man and his...wife... Let's get this straight: I've never done anything near these kinds of roles/impressions, whatever you wanna call them. In the world of reality, I am the equivalent of Elphaba, and my SISTER is the Galinda. Petite, pretty, and bouncy flouncy funfunfunfunfun. I can be giddy if I want, I suppose. But most of the time, I'm just NOT. We read through the commercial a total of two times before performing it, and I'd never seen the script before. But that wasn't anything big - it was supposed to be a radio show, so I got to hold the script and just read it off. The REALLY funny part, was that I performed it with my sister's crush. Haha. The way the world worked. Once, he happened to grab a seat near me, too. My sister was seated on the other side of me, and I offered in a teasing whisper to switch seats with her. She offered me a glare that could cut through steel, then said no thanks. Hee hee...
But yes, my last line was, "Camel Cigarettes. Buy some today for YOUR man."
I nearly laughed on stage at having to talk about my 'big, strong man', etc etc. First read-through, Lady In Charge asked me to make it peppier. I explained laughingly that I never do these kinds of roles, that I play the tomboy, and she smilingly said this would be fine practice then. I wholeheartedly agree. It was weird, but fun.
Several kids, by the way, had these fake cigarettes, and smoke them throughout the show. They were just little look-alikes that puffed a small bit of smoke after having contact with your lips for a few minutes, but I SO wanted one.
Isabella, me entire family, my grandmother, our cousin's family, and the family that is friends to our family(which thus results in the entirety of our little 'community') showed up, and I was happy to see them, though I was hoping to not know where they sat in the audience. The lights helped, for which I'm glad. I did NOT want to be looking at my father while reading off that commercial. Not that my parents would object - in fact, they found it highly amusing - but I feared I would crack up laughing at their faces. Ha. XD
MTM was able to acquire a small part (that turned out to be bigger than mine, actually! Ha! Funny how the world works) because one girl dropped out, and she was in the beginning area of the second act of two. She did nice - I could even hear her. Her acting could use a little work(as could mine...I'm positive) but she did well. ^_^ My part is the second-to-last page, and I screwed up my favorite line. I happened to glance up and, you know, get contact between the other characters. Meet them in the eye to establish feeling of character. When I looked down, the guy to my left had a line I was supposed to reply to, something like, "We were as thick as thieves back in the day!" Then I was supposed to say, "Hells bells! We still are!" And that's how they discover that my charrie gave the former the saying 'hells bells!'. Which I love, by the way. Awesome saying. Anyways, I accidentally said 'We were as thick as thieves...', and he got confused, turned to me, and mumbled, "Uh, I think you said my line..." To which I laughed, looked at the audience, and cried out, "Hells bells, I believe I DID!" After that, several people onstage were mumbling different things or laughing, so no one really paid much mind. Mom said later that no one could tell - they probably didn't hear the guy say I stole his line. Ack, well. My bro said that at least I did well and stayed semi-in-character, while he went out to state a rather...um...to say bluntly, obvious line. But there you have it. Suckage too, kind of. I love that line. "Heeeeeelllls beelllls! We STILL are!"
The other fave line of mine is, "I loved the James'. Tell that truth, I've been meaning to steal this train for some time. Now with your guys' help," and here I raise my arm in good cheer, "we can BLOW THIS POPSICLE STAND!"
Then I say a goodbye and leave. Happy as can be. My first real part, and I had to make it interesting. Heh heh heh. I am grinning right now happily as I type this. It was an awesome night.
Otherwise, MT class has just kept going as usual. That dance instructor I mentioned before, who sometimes comes in when she can in between her other roles? The one who got several callbacks on broadway? Well, she said she would be here all month, and while I missed last week, I was there the week before. We did stretches, then work on yet another dance routine. New routines are hard to pick up on for me, especially anything remotely fancy in footwork, but I always have a blast. Anyways, during stretches(which I am probably one of only the extreme few who actually do them at home) we did right and left leg splits. I'm not positive, but I'm PRETTY sure she said, "good job" to me during those. I'm proud of those splits. I can't do them straight out side-to-side worth anything, but left/right leg ones I'm on the ground, just working on making sure they're pretty straight and that my torso is upright. *proud grin* So there. Splits are fun.
Since my cold, my voice hasn't been the same. My head voice went off into some distant corner of my insanity and won't come back. I might try bribing it with mountain dew. Ack, well.
Not sure if I mentioned it before, but sheet music to my song Dream Maker is now complete, and if you have Finale Notepad, I can send it to someone. *shrug* Whiskii? If you're still alive? Working on Bittersweet Joy, then it's Count's Revenge. Theeen we have Zuco's song, and Fantisma. Still editing Revenge(Ambose's song), and a new one called 'The Walk'. The latter is a simplistic ditty, mostly black keys and repetition, which I'm doing for the sake of simplisity.
BTW - ZOMIGOSH MOM GOT ME THE BOXED SET OF JANE AUSTEN BOOKS! YAYYYYY!!! I am reading aloud Pride and Prejudice to six or seven people, and they all have their own bookmarks made of paper with their name on it. Hehehe...
*huggles Mr. Darcy*