Thoughts on a Birthday

It’s my birthday. I am officially 24 years old and have just had my first cavity filled (with a reaction to the anesthesia so I’m feeling a little loopy). I tend to have bad luck on my birthday, but I’ve decided to look to the positive in the few minutes I have left of it.

For starters, BGSU (my alma mater, Bowling Green State University) has featured me in a small insert in their magazine (better than nothing, right?) as one of their “Successful Alumni.” I’m actually fairly proud as I am the only one of my graduating class featured, at least in this edition.

Sure it’s small, but it means I did something, right?

In other news, I had an epic Twitter moment the other day! I’ve been watching SyFy‘s FaceOff, a reality show competition between special effects makeup artists (which as you all may know, I have a huge interest in, though my work is juvenile in comparison to these guys). If you haven’t seen it, go and watch episodes on their website because it is EPIC! One of my favorite contestants, Rod Maxwell, actually answered a Twitter question I had wondered for a while…

Not even a little ashamed at how awesome I think this is

And to make matters even MORE awesome, he wished me a happy birthday!!!

See! Proof!!!

My birthday has also been a symbol of something else for me: The coming of my favorite holiday, Halloween! And of course, Already Indie is on it as we present our first ever Shocktober series! View the trailer first here —–> Shocktober Trailer!

So I’ve got a lot of things going for me. Most importantly though, I’d like to personally thank my friends and family for getting me this far. I seriously wouldn’t be where I am now without all of you. I am truly grateful, even on days when I’m mood swingy or seem like I just don’t care, let me assure you: I do. More than any of you will ever know (unless they invent a way to show it all in which case you will know then). I really need to get some sleep, work in the morning, and I may still be a little spacy. Good night!

An old photo of me, thanks for reading!

There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents, and only one for birthday presents, you know. – Lewis Carroll

 

Random Acts!

Hello again!

The past few weeks have been incredibly busy for me and a lot of things have happened!

I have made the decision to stay where I am for the summer. I will be subletting for a friend and working to raise money so that I may eventually move to somewhere where there is more work. This decision was greatly affected by the opportunity I was given to join Random Acts, a traveling theatre troupe based in Ohio (for the time being). Not only is this a paid acting job (which is awesome), but it also gives me the opportunity to travel to potential living spaces while continuing to build up my résumé. This past Saturday was our first performance, which was in honor of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, entitled “A Titanic Mystery.”

I got to wear a replica of the Heart of the Ocean necklace from the film, “Titanic”

In this production (which I managed to learn in a week, memorization powers activate!), I played Madeline Astor, the character that Rose from “Titanic” was supposedly based on. The mystery part of this show focused on the whereabouts of the necklace throughout the production. The show was written by the director of Random Acts and a LOT of research was put into the show. The majority of the characters were all based upon people who were on the Titanic and we performed the show for a group of Titanic aficionados, who really knew their stuff! The show went splendidly despite a few technical difficulties and I am looking forward to our next production in a few weeks.

Onto Lionface news, we have unfortunately lost the space that we were to perform “Murder in the Cathedral” in. We were set to finish up paperwork and whatnot regarding the space when someone pointed out that there was already an event scheduled to be held there. So, for the time being, we are looking into different venues. Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened to us, but we always seem to manage in one way or another and I have no doubt that we will find another space that will work just as well.

Aside from my work waitressing, I have been getting more hours doing another thing I love to do: working with kids!

A gift from one of the many kids I work with

Kids provide endless fascination for me in that they are so much smarter than people seem to think. A lot of times, adults will try to shelter children and claim that they are simply to young to understand anything. I strongly disagree with this sentiment, I have watched children K-6 come up with their own unique characters, write their own play, build their own set, design their own costumes, AND perform their show for their parents all over the course of a summer. When faced with a challenge, some kids rise to the occasion even more than the majority of adults do. Recently, I had the opportunity to teach another theatrical makeup workshop with a few kids from one of the schools I’ve worked at. I was amazed at how quickly they were able to pick it up and soon they were creating designs and applying them better than a lot of high school and/or college students. I think the difference lies in enthusiasm, oftentimes the older we get the less enthusiastic we are about trying our new things. I believe that as we get older, sometimes we are less likely to want to try new things in fear that we will fail at them. Kids don’t tend to have that sort of hesitation, sure they might get upset if they fail the first time, but they seem to be more likely to try them again until they get them right. This is all my opinion, of course, but I think the world would be a lot different if we would take some of these childlike mentalities and apply them to our own lives.

I’m sure I will have more to write later, but as there are still things that I need to finish, I’ll leave it at this. Thanks for reading!

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” – Lewis Carroll