AAAGGGGHHHHH!!!

Spring break? No way. It's going to be like home school. Wake up at 8. Do sociology homework, PIG paper stuff, study for AP psych because I have a test the Tuesday we come back, do my AP Lit 5 centuries of poetry research project, do practice AP Lit exam assignments, write a practice summary, art history STACaPEDIA entry, Brecht summary, 2 charcoal drawings with a written statement, a revised artist statement, prepare a book presentation, and shoot/edit a movie. Go to sleep at 12 AM. Wake up at 8 the next day and do it all over again. Not to mention, my last college audition, seeing a show at Muhlenberg which basically takes up a whole day, going prom dress shopping, going to passover Seders, and starting to make my decision about which college I want to go to next year. Deposits are due May 1st, which means I have to make my decision about a week prior to that. !@#$%&*&^@#$ Alright so I guess you could say seeing the show and going dress shopping are fun things, but in the context of everything else I have to do, they're going to be rushed and will turn into something I have to do, not something I want to do. I know I'll get everything done. I have some weird ability to be able to do things like that, I just wish that my Senior spring break wasn't so jam packed with work, work, work. What happened to "Yay it's spring break! Let's have sleepovers and go into the city, and take dance classes and see Broadway shows and have some fun."??? So maybe you're saying well why did you save everything for spring break. I kind of didn't have a choice. I just finished a show. I've been doing work constantly. Staying up until midnight or 1 AM every night doing work. I'm turning into a hobbit. I stay in my room and do homework. I only leave my room to go to school or dance. No joke. Second semester of senior year is supposed to be easy. I don't ever remember being this bogged down with work during this time of year. Ever. And I'm blogging because it's supposed to make me feel better, but I'm not sure if it is. I work my ass off all the time, and it's paying off with all these college acceptances and stuff, but I don't even have time to really appreciate them. I celebrate for ten minutes, and then it's back to work. And then there's the issue of sleep. Do I stay up as late as possible doing work and risk getting sick from sleep deprivation or do I take care of myself and go to sleep?

AAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!

Theater traditions

My mom is the theater arts director at the Sid Jacobson JCC in East Hills and she produces five or six shows a year. Every year I choreograph the show for the 3rd-5th grade group. This year we did Grease. Interesting choice for kids who don't understand much about sex, pregnancy, and cigarettes. Anyway, today before their final performance, I was in the dance studio with all the kids and this one little girl Paulina starts gathering all the kids together in a circle. I've known Paulina since she was five years old. She's now a fifth grader. I used to do all the summer stock shows at the JCC, so I've worked with her a lot. Before shows, it was always a summer stock tradition to shake it out, do the hokie pokie, and pass the pulse. Similar to the High School traditions that we do every year before the show. So Paulina starts gathering all the kids together to do the traditional warm ups. I was so proud to see that my group of friends and I had left behind some sort of legacy doing shows there, that was now being passed on to a new group of kids. It was really cool. We taught them well.

You'll Never Walk Alone

Another Herricks High School show has come to an end. I cannot even begin to express my gratitude to everyone who came to support me and the rest of the cast, crew, and pit. Thank you so much for being a fabulous audience every single night. You restored my faith in Herricks theatrical audiences.

It's still really strange being a senior. When the alumni came opening night, I kept thinking of them as "the seniors" when in actuality they're college freshman and I'm a senior. I made my "senior speech" before the show yesterday. Now that was really weird. The past 3 years, I've listened to seniors give speeches, but this time it was me who was making one. I didn't really know what to say, although I'm pretty sure words can't express what I want to express. It's important to me that the traditions continue. The warm-ups are the same ones we've been doing since middle school and the idea of a senior speech is special too. There's a legacy that each group of graduating seniors leaves. And we want that legacy to be passed down so that we're not forgotten. "As long as there is one person...who remembers you-it isn't over." (the Heavenly Friend) That's whats so unique about school shows. They don't have the professionalism that a professional production has, but they have a bond between cast members that can only be acquired through years of going to school together. I've grown up with certain members of this cast, and that is what makes it so hard to take the final bow.

Thank you so much to the entire cast, crew, and pit for making my senior show at Herricks a memorable one. I am honored to have had the chance to work with all of you before I graduate. And who knows? Maybe some of us will get to work again some day in the future...

"Walk on with hope in your heart and you'll never walk alone. You'll never walk alone"

P.S. - Good news, good news! This past weekend, I got acceptances into musical theater programs at Wagner and Cortland!

Welcome to hell week

The show is going to be beautiful. I was talking to Megan today and it's amazing how lights make it look like an actual show. The chunks are coming together, under some really cool looking lighting. I'm throwing myself into this show and absolutely loving it. My lifts with Jared today were the smoothest they've ever been. The dance is exhausting. When I throw myself into the bed, my chest is rising and falling so violently. It's a great workout!! And it's really fun to dance with the people I'm dancing with. We're all working so hard, and it makes me really proud of all of us. Also, today the scene between Doug and I was scary as heck! I feel like I actually forgot that I was talking to Douglas Fabian. And the look on Doug's face when he is about to show me the star-I felt like he was a pedophile or something. It was really sketchy. But I like it. When I got off stage I felt like I had been sucked into a vacuum and thrown back out again. It was weird. But cool.