La Sotto Voce

This is going to be my forum to make a public apology. So bear with me. This probably applies to you so keep reading.

I am a terrible friend. More accurately, I am terrible at keeping friends. I push everyone away because of one thing or another and then I just run, without giving anyone any word on what my plan will be. Something in me snaps and I am off out of their lives just as quickly as I've managed to remove them from mine. I hate it when other people do that to me, obviously because the things you hate in others are actually the things you do. I mean, I am obsessively checking my phone for a text that will never come because the person I am waiting to make contact has made that decision to remove me without telling me any reason why.

It's a twisted world to live in: constantly seeking love from those who don't want you and leaving the one's who love you because that seems just too good to be true. I constantly feel like I am losing friends because either I am alienating them or they are alienating me.

Here is where an apology is due: I'm sorry if I've managed to do this. I'm sorry if I played God and decided that I didn't need you in my life. And if you felt some pain losing our friendship, then I was absolutely wrong in every way shape and form. Today in Burnham's class, we talked about how my generation is afraid to trust genuineness. I am a horrible offender of this. I only feel compelled to trust you if I am the one making the effort and being honest. However, if you want to reciprocate that then I run like a dog with his tail between his legs.

I don't want to be this person anymore. With transferring on the horizon, I am already severing ties that I don't think will make the cross-state bond. What I should be doing is fostering these connections so they do just that...make the cross. So I am saying to all of you and to myself that this is the first quiet voice speaking out against my own failings as a friend. La sotto voce is screaming to save me from myself.

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted.

I've been trying to write in here for a very long time but the task of allowing myself to open up even a small portion of my heart is sure to lead to the damn breaking and an all too sudden release of the pent up anguish I've been trying to subdue. But perhaps, that won't be the case tonight because I am as numb as I am loose. There is a certain place in drinking that I think most writers spent a great portion of their lives. It's this place where you finally set your pen to paper. When you finally abandon all the sadness and tears and worries and fears and just let your words ooze onto the blank expanse. But they ooze in the way you've planned. Your brain still hangs onto the fact that it is telling a certain story and not allowing that story to be colored by the feelings and the emotions that take reality and twist it. No, I am not ready to bear my soul because I have my wits about me still. I am tired of my own whining and self-deprecative feelings so I am going to drown them in alcohol and nicotine and whatever substance I can get to take all of these emotions that are ruining my reality and extinguish them.

I hate feelings so down. I think I understand Sylvia Plath a little better now. I understand depression a lot better now. I think that I need to understand how to confront it and use it in my writing but I cannot write unless I am under this level of sedation. This level of sedation turns off the pumps of chemicals in my brain that tell me that I am worth nothing and that this writing is read by no one because no one cares. And yet, when I am in this state, I am still thinking all of those things but writing seems like maybe this is my paper trail. That when I fall off the face of the map, at least people have this trail of the thought of what I was.

I've been thinking a lot about that lately. When I'm gone, what will people remember? What will people who have completely dropped out of my life in these past few months have to take with them? I want them to remember all of the times I was there for them as much as I want them to remember all of the times that I hated them and that I was mean to them. I want them to remember me for who I was at that moment because I don't want them to know me once I have chosen to lose them from my lives. And then I think about the people who are here with me now, friends who I honestly care about, and I start worrying about losing them and then I wonder if they care if they are losing me.

I want to be transient again. I want to not care about where I am and who I know. I want to lose people like I lose socks. Because like Holden Caufield said, "Don't tell anyone anything, because then you'll start missing them"

Ted Hugh's Poem on Sylvia's Death.

I don't want to die. Die is too strong of a word because then I would cease to exist and that wouldn't work because eventually, I am sure I will want to exist again. But right now, that death feeling is what is living inside of me and eating me from the bottom of the soles of my feet right into my aching brain. I don't want to die but I have this odd desire not to live right now either.

I have no purpose at the moment. I'm just writing this blog that is entirely for my own processing of the world, which is entirely static at this moment. So I am just writing about my inner psychosis which only brings to light things that I would prefer to leave buried in my repression. And then I do some homework which feels like I am just going through the motions, without reason or passion or desire to further my learning. I guess the best analogy I have right now is that I am treading water.

After a while of treading water, you get fucking tired. Fucking tired of doing something so mindless and fucking tired of having nothing to occupy your wandering mind but the fact that your life really fucking sucks at the moment. That's the point I've hit.

I'm not waving but drowning. And actually, I'm not really waving at all. I want to wave but right now, I don't know how because I am just too fucking tired wallowing in my own sorrow to make myself wallow less and get my hands above water.

...I don't know where I am to go from here. I am not sure how plotting my course will save me from myself and the life I've created. I do know, however, that writing all of this has to be inspiration to swim to some floatation device.

Back to December.

The new Taylor Swift single out, Back to December, is all about regret. She loses someone that is important to her, a fact she realizes only after he is no longer a part of her life. That old adage, you don't know what you have until its gone, rings in one's ears as they listen to this ballad.

Most of the time, I know who I need in my life. I don't think it's a sixth sense or anything. I just think that I am so picky about who I really care about that there is no reason should I be trying to hold onto extraneous people or situations. When I first heard the song, it reminded me of someone I had been seeing and where I first felt the heart string tug surprised me. Did I miss what we had or is T.Swift trying to turn me into some sort of sap? The momentary lapse in mental footing passed and I could return to the logic of the situation: we weren't right for one another. The way I handled the whole shindig is beyond inexcusable but at the very crux of my immature behavior was the undeniable notion that, no, that wasn't meant to be.

But then there are other people and I swear to God everyday that if I never saw them again, I would be a much healthier and happier person. So I keep telling myself that, rehearsing the lines when people ask if I've seen them, and try to convince my stubborn self that I really don't need them in my life. There are so many reasons why I shouldn't care and why they shouldn't care about me (another vestige of my immaturity at its finest) but there is nothing I can do to make myself give up having them in my life.

I think having a time line on life here is also impelling me to freak out about the end note, a phenomena I experienced full force this summer post CLOC. And while I know that the friendships that matter in life will actually span states, years, divorces, whatever, it is still hard to come to terms with the fact that next year, this time, this life here will be continuing while I am off starting a new adventure. And maybe, just maybe, I need to figure out who really matters before the time comes to put that to the test.

My Own Craziness.

I watched an episode of House tonight where the patient kept a blog detailing every aspect of her life. The reason she started the blog, she explained, was because it was easier to share her feelings and thoughts when there wasn't a face attached. She asked Dr. Chase what his conversations were like with Cameron before they broke up...Was it just where they would go to dinner or how their days were or was it something meaningful? Later in the episode, her husband accused the blog of becoming like a performance and that his wife was writing to please her audience of readers.

I felt this strange mix of emotions for this fictional dying woman. And then I felt a strange mix of emotions for my dear blog here. I suppose that it is pretty apparent that I don't write about specifics here. You never really get a daily dose in the life or a complete anecdote of an incident. All of this is analysis, the story has been stripped to the morals and the themes and then bolstered with paragraphs of wordy diatribes that further obscure the details of the event that made me sit down and write. This approach to writing is nothing new and is a hallmark of many of my sophomore attempts to write a short story or memoir for creative writing class. I love details and deep thoughts but I cannot bring myself to detail an event or tell a reader what exactly happened. Perhaps I am preventing myself from being my own Holden Caulfield, the unreliable narrator English teachers warned me about in high school.

While some writers reserve their strangely analytical thought processes to remain in print format, I've earned myself the title of "delver". It's a hat I don't think I should wear as proudly as I do. I love to think aloud with people and to ask questions to get them to a revelation or myself to one. I like to think that there is a reason for everything and that that reason is influenced by a multitude of other nitty gritty things that I should be able to piece together. But this exploratory process is only done well with best friends...the kinds that doesn't judge you or look at you like your crazy, they may call you out but never tell you to stop the madness. So, yes, dying fictional patient who writes a blog but didn't die, my last conversation with my ex-nothing was indeed meaningful.

As for the writing for an audience thing, this is my Off Off Off Off Off Broadway in corn pasture Iowa way of sharing my thoughts. If I am writing solely to shed myself of the burden of my pent up psychosis, I type in this word document that is merely a collection of free writes. I pound out a page of thoughts, unfiltered words and cruise through pains and joys and whatever else told me to open that damn file. Speaking of which, I think my subconscious agrees that this should have been a free write because I have accidentally opened Word about five times since I started writing this.

I'm not sure what this entry says about me or what this blog as a whole says about me as a member of the blogging society. I'm also not sure what mind boggling thoughts are keeping me from falling asleep right now but I do know, beyond reasonable doubt that blogging is just boggling with the l moved.

Bangs, Baubles and Bumpers.

The woman who changes her hair is ready to change her life

- Coco Chanel

The night before we all left CLOC, my friend Brynn decided to cut her bangs. Embracing the wonderful state of limbo Brynny was about to find herself in as she reentered reality, measures were taken to show that she was indeed ready to face the changes ahead. Sometimes when we are faced with the possibility of change in our lives, an uncontrollable approaching switch in routine, we decide to change something that we are in control of. It's as if the process we fear the most is less scary if we are in control of some aspect of it. Brynn entered into a world of unknowns and fill in the blanks with positively fierce bangs. On a side note, for all of you non-CLOC kids, Brynn faced this monumental change with total and utter grace. She never once said that she was sure of anything but it never seemed life there was something she couldn't handle if it came her way. Brynn's strength and courage throughout the season and especially on this subject was one that I admired greatly. I hope the best for her and can't imagine anything less for such a wonderful human being.

My version of the hair transformation (I've beaten this mop up over the past months) was to clean the Batmobile inside and out. The thing that takes the most abuse and that I love so much never really gets my tender love and care. Today, impelled by some long dormant inner conscience, I decided to clean my car. If you know me and that janky mobile at all, you know the extent of this process and what a feat it was for me to clean of my own free will. With each cleaning measure it became more clear that if I could clean the Batmobile I could handle anything next year was to bring. The car, coming with me to Cincinnati for the first time, is a clean slate...she's still got all of the dents of my adolescence, the scarpes of my careless summer adventures but now she's all TLC's (with toothbrush cleaned wheels even) and ready for new shenanigans. I have no idea what's to come next year...I have no idea what I want to do as a career...I'm toying with about 800 bad ideas for both scenarios and all I know is that Brynn's bangs, my clean car and Coco Chanel say that anything is possible.

A Number.

I've decided that age is a very transient phenomenon. Our state of mind, our capacity to handle stress and change, our emotional responses to scenarios, all defining markers of a certain age, change drastically in every day life. There are so many times when I feel as though every fiber of my being is trying to be another age. I always feel so defined by my age and yet I hardly ever act 19. I suppose there are moments when I am embodying what it means to be a 19 year old, going off for her sophomore year of college but I hardly ever think to myself "You are being such a 19 year old right now." I can be five years old or twelve or fourty-two or really anywhere in between.

Age is a mental state. When you watch your best friend leave and feel alone, scared, sad and just overall want to throw a tempertantrum to get them back, you are 5 again. You're back to a time when screaming and crying either got you what you wanted or kept you amused until you forgot what hurt you and found somewhere else to focus your attention. When you send text messages to a friend in the room about another friend in the room, you are 14 again. You're back to a time when you are judgy just for the sake of being so and you are insecure enough to pick on everyone to make sure that you weren't the one getting picked on. When you're leaving childhood home and feeling a pang of lose, you are 18 again. You're back to a time when the real world was just some fantastical place that you wanted so desperately to be a part of only to realize that growing up meant leaving things and people behind.

So maybe age is a relapse into former mental states ingrained in you. Maybe its just you, the you now, deciding that the best way to handle what you are facing is to return to some familiar way of dealing. And perhaps, age is an addition formula. Each year adds to you and who you will become.

In each 19 year old, there is a five year old and a twelve year old and all those years in between.

Almost Like Being in Love.

As months and shows come to pass here at CLOC, this delusional way of life sets further into our psyche and habits. What at first seemed like an impossibly hectic schedule has become second nature to us. The friends we've made within the confines of this company have effortlessly become as close to us as those friends we've known exponentially longer. I think that by condensing a process that most of us know to take many more days than what we're given here makes the reality created here consume us far quicker and with an increased emotional intensity unmatched by any I've been a part of. We find ourselves receding deeper and deeper into the realm of CLOCadoon, a mysterious land that exists only for 9 shows, because trying to handle the facts of the real world on top of the stressors here feels impossible in the moment.

But reality has a strange way of rearing its head even in the recluse of CLOCadoon. It's funny how it works. I'm thinking about how much I wish I had a coffeemaker here and then I think about having one in my apartment next year, apartment with no furnishing, classes I need books for, friends who think I am dead...And down comes the carefully built Jenga tower protecting my fictional reality here. CLOC is just a summer and when I get out of here, I'm back in my real life, the life I've been utterly neglecting here in favor of emotional stability.

As the Jenga facade crumbles, one starts to question the newly exposed fantastical reality. The rosy colored CLOC glasses get removed, I don my all too real jade specs and objectively look at CLOCadoon as one would a travel brochure. I see me being unmistakably myself and being friends with people who are really and truly friends I value outside and inside of fictional lands.

I feel confronted with the fact that CLOCadoon will disappear into the mist and fog but the lessons I've learned and the people I've become close to will always be a part of my real world.

Every chapter of life, place you've lived, school you've been to, is its own mysterious land that arises only for a certain period of time. It will disappear and the people involved might fade with it but what matters is that it happened and served to change you and your 'real world'.

Punctuated Thus.

I made a very bold statement today. It went something like, “I am truly myself here” and just as soon as the words fell so effortlessly from my lips I started to weigh the gravity of the sentence. What does it mean to be truly one’s self? What does it feel like to know, entirely, who you are? Is knowing who you are meaning that you feel comfortable with the unknowns of your life and of your personality or is knowing being entirely sure? Do I know when I am truly myself or is that a case made by those around me?

As these questions swirled in my conscience, I started to think about all of the other times I’ve said that phrase. Each time was in a different scenario, in a different time of my life, in a different place entirely and I was almost entirely different every single time but each time I said, with certainty mind you, that I was myself.

I think that admitting that you are truly yourself at certain points in your life is a way to tabulate the portions of yourself that you have become comfortable with and have enough confidence to admit that you appreciate about who you are. Each of the times I said I was myself came as a marked decision that I was comfortable in the skin I was wearing at that moment. This year alone, I’ve said that loaded statement four times. The first time was at the beginning of the school year as I became friends with the CCM girls. That time, I was myself, the artist. The next time was when I became very close to two friends and considered them my best friends. That time, I was myself, feeling, emotional, dramatic. The third time, I was changing my major and accepting the fact that I care too much and am too weak to ever make it in the world of theater or stage management. That time, I was myself, the empathetic and unsure. This time, I am being goofy and five and not trying to hide any of my oddities to please people who are older than me. I am myself, the responsible child.

So each time we make the claim that we are entirely ourselves, we should consider ourselves self confident, if only for even that moment. Because for one small sentence, we are saying that we are proud to be living the life we are, exactly how we are. We human beings change, along with most other things in this world, and therefore the proclamation is saying that in this moment, this me is who I want to be and I am beautiful for it.

I can say the afore said because of the people I have met here at CLOC and how wonderful the entire company has been to work with. There is no reason I feel as though I need to be anyone other than who I am at this very point in my life. That is the greatest gift I can ask for from any group of people and artists.

Accustomed to My Face.

There is something about playing the role of Eliza Doolittle that makes men fall in love with you. Professor Higgins even warns the audience at the beginning of My Fair Lady by saying "by the time I'm finished with you, there will be men falling for you in droves." Little did he know, he would be one of the masses. But is the reason the male sex flips for the actresses who play this character all a by product of Higgins' creation or are there other forces at play with this cockney turned princess?

First and foremost, there is the character Eliza Doolittle herself. A strong-minded low class flower girl, Eliza originally takes speech lessons in order to better herself and her lot in life. But as the lessons continue, Eliza becomes malleable and meek in order to play the role of the Professor's lady. The classic enjenue changing for her leading man in order to illicit his affection. All too soon, however, Eliza realizes that regardless of how much she changes for the Professor, he cannot show her genuine affection. Lady Eliza is now colored by her strong cockney sense of self and independence. There is something very attractive in that transformation from baudy self-assured feminist (in a manner) to a strong-willed by socially attune lady. Overt cries for women's rights and treatment tend to scare men off whereas strong, confident women who believe in a certain moral system are valued by men who are not looking for a Stepford Wife.

Another character plays a vital role in this affinity for Ms. Doolittle because of his stubborn inability to accept his feelings for her. Professor Higgins, modern literature's narcissist, reminds men to treat a woman that matters to you like she matters to you. The male sex can sympathize with Higgins' inability to express emotions and yet feels a desire to protect Eliza from a man who is hurting her. Men wants women who love them and try to do things that please them but they also want women who are sure in themselves...or at least that's what I've observed...

That all explains why I believe men fall in love with the role of Eliza but what I am claiming here is that this affinity goes beyond the character and to the actress playing the part. Acting, to me, involves assuming the plight of your character to some degree. In the case of Eliza, one must be willing to undergo the rollercoaster of emotions toward self-confidence that the audience witnesses on stage every night. The by product of internalizing this transformation often becomes realizing that it is present in one's self. Most little girls want to be princesses and Eliza ends up realizing that she has been a princess all along, a self confident and strongly independent princess.

This analysis fails to address the role money and class play in Eliza's transformation as well as which men are attracted to this type of woman. Someday in a classroom, I'll have my students do a similar investigation but until then, I am missing a very large segment of Guys and Dolls blocking...

Bear Necessities.

Last night, well, this morning if we are acknowledging the passing of days, I finally sat down in my bed and wrote. It was 1am and I had just finished balling my eyes out. I think that part of the reason I cried so desperately was because I had hadn't had the chance to write for over a week while here at CLOC. I had been thinking and allowing my observations and feelings to flood my overtired brain until they finally claimed my sanity and I broke down into tears.

There has to be a million and half reasons why I was balling last night. One of them had to have been how overtired I was. I am running myself into the ground here. I can feel it in my body but most importantly I can feel it in my soul, the little part of me that needs moments of time to herself to type letters or blog entries, to read, to refresh myself. I've been moving at a pace that is so constructive for how I work but so detrimental to me as a human being. I can feel my ability to support all of my actors slipping between my fingers as the hours of work pile up.

Another reason I was crying is because I am so done with stage management because I feel so lonely. I think that that was the indicator during Peter Pan that I should not be in this field. During that production, I felt the weight of what it meant to be ostracized from the group of people you were working with. As CCM and my real world experiences started to build, the gap between me and the companies grew. And now, with all of that behind me and all of this CLOC stuff in front of me, I feel so alone and I cannot imagine doing this for the rest of my life. You have to be in a role of power and a role of respect and yet you need to be reachable by the people you are working with and yet you need to be working hours that doesn’t allow you to foster any social bonds. Here is where stage management fucks you over. I am way too dramatic and way too much of a softy for this theatrical world. I don’t have the fighting spirit that Heidi does. I cannot ever put the needs of a show in front of the needs of my cast members. At the core of my being as a human, I believe that the most important thing is for people to feel loved and respected. I think that theater tends to prize the product whereas teaching certainly prizes the process. I mean, of course, you have all of these schools that need to have acceptable test scores to keep funding and such but if you are a really good teacher you can get those scores through a process that focuses on the child. I know that this is going to be a very hard career choice and I know that I will make no money but I really, honestly, think that this is where I need to be and what I need to be doing. I need to be a teacher because I want to change the lives of children and make them feel this whole person thing. It’s something that isn’t valued when instilled in adults or people my age. That’s why me as a stage manager wouldn’t carry over into the real, professional world. I am built to work with people that I can make feel warm, fuzzy and loved.

Here I toe that line between professional theater and an opportunity for me to make these friends that I can make feel like real people who are loved and cherished for all of their talents. If nothing else, I love them for who they are and what they do and their happiness and well being will always mean more to me than the quality of the show we put on that god damn stage.

Well, dear CLOC and stage management, this writer is not dead yet. Actually, she just needed some material to stock pile and now she will be back full force. Typing in the middle of the night with no restraints, just flying fingers with absolutely no purpose but to empty this giant pit of emotions that is my brain and conscience.

Where Would That Get Me?

"We go days without having a meaningful conversation, and I used to miss you so much when that happened...but it never seemed like you missed me. And I guess, because of it, I stopped missing you"

Okay. This is getting ridiculous. I've been sitting here for a good hour attempting to write this blog entry. I've been burning through metaphors like trees in a California Forest Fire. I even found an old Xanga entry from a friend of mine and tried to tie that, subtly, to what I am feeling right now. But, alas, the attempts to bull shit everything I am feeling are falling short. I think that that marks some serious progress in my development as a human being or, perhaps, it marks a loss of creative steam. Which ever case it may be, I need to write this and I need to write it like Boom, Boom, Pow.

I am coming back to things on my own terms. First of all, stage management. Here I am at CLOC, stage managing 9 productions in a summer with literally no time off. And yet, I am enjoying myself because I am no longer hanging my hat on this career choice. This summer is about making friends, having fun, doing shows and being myself. It's about defining who I am in the theater world aside from CCM and PC and all of my experience up to this point. It is the divorce agreement between me and stage management. This is what you get, this is what I get and that is that.

And then there is the friendship thing. It's weighing on me in a way that I hoped that it wouldn't. I don't feel like I need to change for anyone ever again and if I start to do that, I will not be a happy camper. But, by the same token, I feel so inclined to write things to people and tell them why I can't handle them or why I want them back in my life or on what terms. My issue with that is that I am the one trying again and is it really worth it if they are unwilling to accept that they've hurt me. I have really true, wonderful friends and I don't want to under appreciate them in an attempt to get through to those people who, to some degree, do not deserve my attention or love.

What is worth saving? What is worth returning to with a fresh prospective? Will you listen to what I have to say? Why do I still care? Do I still care?

All of these unanswered questions will have to remain while I spend the rest of my day finishing The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Overdramatize it.

"I could write and write. All it takes is a motion of the hand in response to a brain impulse, trained from childhood to record in our own American brand hieroglyphics the translations of external stimuli. How much of my brain is willfully my own?"

- Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals

I am almost frightened by how much I am seeing my writing reflected in the free-writes of a woman who shoved her head into an oven at the age of thirty to commit suicide. She was born in Massachusetts and would be Mimi's age if she were alive today. The first section of journal entries in the book are from Plath's early college years and the things she writes about are so appropo of exactly everything I am feeling at this point in my life. She is so real and so tangible. But at the same time, she is so frightening because I see this girl who is teetering on the edge of living to live and living to write about it.

I recognize that precipice so readily because I know that to be exactly where I am standing. Writing has always been my escape, my outlet, my own entangled world of words and metaphors and untold stories. And now I've started to live there. It's the vacation that is lasting far too long.

It's days like this when I feel the pull to overstay my welcome in my solitude and literature that I most desperately need people. It gets hard to wrench yourself away and accept the world. I consider writing, in its purest form, to be nothing but an aspect of depression: a need to be away from everything and everyone except for your own twisted mind.

I praise God for my writing moments and when I get the inspiration to embrace the depression/feelings but I also praise Him for blessing me with people who have the place in their hearts and minds to know when I need them to rescue me. Tonight alone: I had Caitlin to talk to about boys. I had Taylor to dance with, fall on the floor with and hug. I had Jordan smile at me when I needed it most. I had Ellie (Brisket) to make silly faces at me. I had Nick playing his amazing music that brightens my day every time I get the chance to hear it. I had Serenity to go get dinner with. I had Alex to walk to Jimmy John's with. And now I have Dana to fall asleep in the same room as.

I have all of these reasons, these beautiful people, why I will never become Sylvia Plath. I am far too in love with these human relationships and the way they influence me as a person and as a writer.

Creative Maximus.

Charge on, young, semi-confident writer and see what deep depths you can avoid today while banging on your keys in your Sad Café.

Yesterday in both Fundamental’s of Directing classes, Burnham addressed the idea of a window. It’s kind of this beautiful metaphor for something that I feel like I understand but can’t believe I have a full grasp on. It’s alluding me just that little bit. The world looks like the world you are looking through the window you are looking out of. So we have two realities here: the world, reality, and the reality that your schemata and way of looking at the world have created. Your window is like your personal pair of rose colored glasses through which you can see the world, tinted in a manner that makes it more appealing to you. Things that are important to your mental model stick out and are over dramatized in comparison to the things that are of less importance to you, personally. The beauty of the window metaphor is that it highlights the fact that you can see your reflection in a window. There is nothing that prevents you from taking a moment to examine yourself in that window rather than what you see through it. That’s the beauty of introspection. Some windows are too fascinating to look out of and don’t allow time for one to see how they are perceiving things. Other windows, however, are tailored specifically to showing us who we are in relation to why we do what we do and how that influences our current state of being. For example, the window of relationships in my life is reflective; all I see are the mistakes I am making because of my parents. Each window represents another portion of your schemata: relationships, stress, schoolwork, morals, eating habits, etc. Each one of those is a very important part of your hardwired mental mapping and that individual pattern of yours can be either very apparent to you or very obscured from you.

Another point that Burnham brought up with this was that once you see your own reflection and realize who you are becoming or what you embodying, that you get the rebellion right. I guess that point is one that is more specific to the event that took place or the reflection that you saw. The idea that you can rebel in the right way connects to the reading from last night about the creative maxims. We need to use everything that’s been given to us. If we look in the mirror and we see a crazy mother, we need to find a way to make that crazy mother into a creative thought that can inspire a great work of art. It’s using our windows and the views we see through them and in them to create more things and become deeper, more inspirational artists.

To Succeed.

I've spent a lot of this past week working through free-writing and paying attention to that creative artist within me. It's been extremely healthy for me to sit down every night and bang out one page, singled spaced diatribes about my day. I've also been reading a lot this week, most importantly a book on the art of writing called Thunder and Lightning by Natalie Goldberg. This book has really helped me understand myself as a writer and accept the fact that writing doesn't need to be brilliant or profound, it just needs to be honest, from the heart and accessible. One of the many writing exercises Goldberg speaks of in her book is sitting down to reread your old free writes and then spending another page writing down what you felt like were the points you harped upon in your free streams of consciousness.

That was the hardest for me because I had to introspectively analyze myself and my thoughts. A little part of me wished that I could have just deleted that giant word document and moved on, but alas, what would we be if we didn't change and grow from inward reflection?

One of the points I found myself focusing on was less of a point and more of a collection of mini vignettes of the most beautiful human beings in my life. I've always had a hard time letting people know how much they mean to me. I feel like they could never be aware of what an impact their being in my life has had on the course of it all and who I am as a human being. And I want them to. I want them to feel a hundred times better about themselves because they've touched someone's life in such a beautiful way that it should be announced. So I write. I spend my nights free writing pages upon pages about you all. Sometimes I am even able to share them with you, so that you can see how much you mean to me, how much you've served to mold me into a better person.

I hope that, as time passes, I am able to share my writings with you and tell you just how much you mean to me. If you feel the same way as I do, with those essential people in your life, I encourage you to remind them how much they mean to you in whatever manner you see fit. To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, "To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

Let someone know that they have succeeded.

This is my Teaching Credo.

So here I am, embarking on a new chapter of my life, a chapter that started in that classroom fall quarter of this year, and I need a new credo. This credo will lead me into my new field with a new set of expectations and concerns and hopes.

As a teacher, I want my kids to learn to love themselves and to learn to love to write and express themselves in whatever way they see fit. I need them to know that writing isn’t about the five paragraph essays or the thesis statements. That is completely different brain that handles that. Writing to write is about synthesizing everything in your schemata with everything in your life and spicing it up with all of the feelings and emotions you can’t express. Real writing is getting your story on paper. It doesn’t need to even be a story. It can just be these ranty things that I keep doing. It is just the most healthy thing in the world to sit down and empty your brain into words. It is like taking the most inexplicable theory in physics and translating it for dummy’s. While the same exact principle doesn’t apply to writing, it is the same concept: making something that is indescribable possibly understandable by a wide cross section of individuals.

I want writing to become a place where they can escape from everything that is hurting them in their lives. I want them to know that they can find refuge on paper, in their words. I want them to know that I will always be willing to read what they have written. I want them to feel safe in the English language and in the fact that I will always be there to support them as people and as writers and as thinkers. I want to be the teacher who will wear the macaroni necklace the kid has made for her because she thinks it is beautiful. I want to fill the role in the lives of my students that teachers like Caitlin have filled in my life.

I couldn’t make the change I am making right now if I didn’t have faith in the system of teaching and the role the influential teacher plays in the life of a child. Most every hero I have in my life was my teacher at some point. They cared for me as a student and as a human being while I was in their class and even now, years after our classroom discussions came to an end, they are still reaching out a hand for me and lending me words of confidence. That’s making an impact. That is changing someone’s life by being a part of it. That’s making someone secure in themselves, in the choices they make and in the support system they have if everything comes crashing down. I will be that teacher.

I cannot speak enough to the importance of that type of scaffolding in one’s life. Teachers got me through my step dad leaving, my grandpa’s death and now through my life changing decision to become a teacher. The only person I can say that I knew would always be here for me, since I got to CCM is Caitlin Kane and she is a model for everything I want to be in a teacher and a person. She is the most comforting person in the world and is so passionate about teaching and everything she does that it makes you wonder how she has enough room in her heart to love everyone as much as she does. I think that the decision to become a teacher has been living in me since the beginning of senior year but it took someone as strong, supporting and wonderful as Caitlin to assure me that I could do it. I needed such an amazing model of success to look up to in order to find the strength within myself to make the transition.

I cannot thank God enough, eight million three hundred thousand and fifty two times over, for bringing the two of us together as friends. There is no one else in the world who understands so precisely my every emotion and thought and feeling. I hope that can live up to being the ‘same person’ as her.

Fall In Love Again.

When you choose to fall in love again, love again

And all the stars and planets are aligned within

Your tender heart will gently open, open

Soft at first, then with the strength of violins.

- Serenity Fisher, Sophie's Dream

It's 9:30am on a Saturday morning. I rub my eyes like a baby who has just woken up from a nap. Normally, the sun outside the window and the prospect of being inside all day would send me crawling back underneath the covers, moaning for the alarm clock to stop whining at me to get out of bed. But this was no normal Saturday and this certainly was no normal reason to be sitting in CCM all day.

I shot from my bed, changed into the best clothes I had for a cool spring day and ran to CCM. All of this may seem like a hyperbole to you, considering the last time I actually shot out of bed for something was to get Starbucks before class rather than after. However, the first full read through for Sophie's Dream was today and every fiber of my being reinforced what was going through my head: sheer excitement. Sophie's Dream is the Fringe Festival show in Cincinnati I am working on this spring and it is that show that I swear is saving me.

Normally, love stories and happy endings and all of that scare me to death (aside from The Princess and the Frog). But this one is that love story that makes you believe in love and introduces you to this wonderful sense of self that this culture tends to overlook. And to top it all off, this show came at the precisely right moment in my life. At a time when I started believing that I was nothing worth looking at or after and when I was doubting my creative self, I needed something fun and wonderful and musical and inspiring to hold on to. This show is that, all wrapped up in a warm fuzzy blanket with an Eddie Bear on top.

The show is about Sophie, a writer, who has lost confidence in herself and rediscovers it in her dreams through the help of three Tree Muses, Olive, Willow and Laurel, who represent Sophie in the past, the present and the future. Perhaps the most beautiful part of this process to me thus far is that our production team represents these three muses in a magical way. And the combination of the three of us in a room is creativity at its finest. I am Olive, the marvelously naive stage manager who is awe of everything this process is already, who looks up to her counterparts with this wide-eyed wonderment of what her future could become if she follows in their foot steps. Caitlin is Willow, living beautifully in the present and being an absolute star. She's got this intelligence and wisdom that is unconventional and so comforting. Willow, the best friend character, is Caitlin because I don't think there are many other people in the world I could talk so freely to or feel so safe with. And then there is Serenity, brilliant, brilliant Serenity, who is our Laurel. She has her life together in the amazingly creative configuration that allows everything she does to shine. It's fantastic how talented she is. This script is to die for. The music is awe-inspiring, repeat-worthy, magic. And she is one of the nicest, happiest people on the planet.

The script is now on its fourteen version. You know what you get when you get to the fourteenth version? You get this marvelous piece of theater that lightens your heart and grounds your feet at the same time. Add a director who is stepping into the light to let her brilliance shine. Add a playwright/singer/songwriter whose songs have been lodged in my brain since I heard them. Add a wide-eyed stage manager who is learning to love her craft again and is in awe of the beautiful idols she has to work with and look up to.

That leaves us with, ladies and gentleman, Sophie's Dream.

Recipe for Disaster.

I have problems.

The first step to having a problem is admitting it. The second is analyzing it and figuring out why. The third step is figuring out what you can do about it. The last step is conquering it or assimilating it or accepting that it is a part of you.

So, there is the first step. I have admitted that I have a problem. Actually, I have multiple problems. Actually, today, I feel like I have just about a million and a half problems. What is worse is that I keep feeling like I am doing absolutely everything right today and for approximately 7 seconds, I am proud of myself. Then, like a Mac truck without any brakes, I am the pedestrian in the crosswalk who gets blindsided by the oncoming, out of control vehicle. Before I get completely side tracked, I'll leave this metaphor to die and tell you that I am failing at life today and have no idea why.

Here is where we come to Step 2: Understanding. I feel blindsided and confused and I start assigning myself problems. And then to those problems, I start assigning a hundred different ways from Sunday why I have those problems. I always start with my parents and work my way down the timeline of my life from there.

-Like any self help recipe, I'll supply an example:

a. Problem: I push people away because I don't understand or want to know what love feels like.

b. Why: Divorced parents. Love = someone leaving = pain = hurt = trust issues.

c. What Do I Do About It:...That leaves us at Step 3.

I've got the problem. I've got one possible answer to the reason why and now I need to think about what I do to solve this issue. The logical first start would be to trust someone. Let's hypothetically say that I am capable of that. Now, let's say that I find someone I care about enough to trust and I do so. I give them love and support and everything else underneath the sun because that's what the remedy calls for: unbridled adherence to the solution.

All that leaves is Step 4, correct? So...

A. Someone returns that love and I conquer one piece of my problem.

B. Someone returns that love and I am conscious that a change has occurred but am unable to accept that the problem is dealt with.

C. Someone breaks my trust again and I accept that loving people really does suck.

With all of that said, I hope that I have helped you realize how to come to terms with problems in your life. As for me, I've come to the conclusion that if you end up at point C by the end of Step 4 enough times, you stop admitting that you have a problem.

Sleepless Long Nights.

When I am stage managing, I am in control. I am living and breathing and thriving on the order that I have created. I run 30mph faster than even the greatest mistakes that the production will face to ensure that everything is under control. I am my own maestro, in a way, controlling the pace and ebb and flow of rehearsal with the flick of my Timex. It's this dazzling light scape with blinking stars and soaring comets and halos around the moon that I know, every complicated event, like the back of my hand. In those moments, I revel in the beauty of complexity and flourish due to my understanding of it all.

When I am living, however, lying underneath the stars, taking a long stroll, Easter egg hunting, those are the moments I am in limbo. I am swayed by the chill in the air, the smell of fresh cut grass, the prospect of finding something no one else has. So I walk into all of this without my notes and without my rehearsal reports and I am just expected to live. I must sit and watch the blinking stars, the real soaring comets, the real halos and question them. I'm constantly questioning and awaiting answers and being forced, due to my impatience, to fantasize and create reasons.

But perhaps, I grow as much from the moments when I am flailing, grasping for some semblance of control and subject to the time schedule of God and other human beings, as I do from the time I spend in charge. This week has been the 'Week of Wins'...and it has lived up to its name thus far. The very point of this week is to win at life and schedule our lives to experience life without a schedule.

And right now, at this point in my life, I can appreciate the beauty and wonder of questioning and living in limbo because of the amazing people who have helped me realize that I am Allie beyond the Stage Manager. It's scary to be standing at the threshold of your life and find ourself losing footing. It requires some of the most beautiful human beings on this planet to hold your hand and tell you that that'll love you for who you were and who you are about to become. It's those beautiful people that you have the best nights of your college life with and who have a hand in changing you for the better for the rest of your life. It really is difficult for us, as humans, to tell each other we love or care for one another. So the most amazing thing that can happen is when those words can remain unspoken and you know that forever, through whatever, this love, this comfort item, this best friend, will always be there for you.

I had some metaphor about potted plants that I had here earlier but I think what I just wrote is perhaps the best note I will ever be able to leave an entry on. The voice in my head is saying: Quit while you're ahead, sweetie.

Through My Jade Specs.

jad·ed [jey-did] (adj.): 1. worn out or wearied, as by overwork or overuse. 2. a constant state of being for most CCM students, esp during the run or tech week of a production. 3. a state of being which requires one to don black clothes and a pair of jade specs (see specs).

sp·ec·s [sp·ek·s] (noun): the slang word for a fierce pair of eyeglasses.

I’ve been writing at my desk for the past three days. Dana says that I sit at my desk when I am lonely or when something is bothering me. It’s kind of funny because it is true but also because the location of my desk would suggest the entirely opposite motivation. My desk is the first thing you see when you open my door, whereas my bed is cleverly hidden behind my closet so that no one can find me. Normally coated in mounds of paperwork and books, I shift the usual desk crap only once in a while to reveal a small section of the wooden surface. So here I sit, wedged between my papers from today, my tissue box from last quarter, my three hole punch and my poetry book that is a staple on this messy array.

Yesterday, my desk meant a space to work. It meant me separating myself from dorm society to finish my project of the moment: a self-help book called Through My Jade Specs. Hours of tracing and writing and typing and doodling compiled itself in this short pamphlet designed to make people smile. When I was finished, I ran down the hall showing off my accomplishment. And, God, did that make me happy. I loved seeing people happy about my work and listening, excitedly, to my words.

The project started because I was sitting at Starbucks free-writing about how dead I felt inside and how much I needed some inspiration to give me a bit of purpose. Yes, I admit, that entire free-write was a bit overdramatic (I compared myself to an exploding soda bottle and said that the only vibrant thing in my life was my new hot pink cover for my eReader. It hit a whole new level of pathetic.), but it did lead me to the idea for my pamphlet. Designed as a part workbook/journal/doodle pad, I wanted to share simple tips and wise words to make people smile. The book includes quotes, to-do lists, love lists, text messages and a few pieces of advice. I have no idea what I am going to with it but it made me happy to make it.

I just want people to be happy because I want to be happy. I want them to be happy and I want that happiness to make me happy. Writing is such a selfish art. It wants its audience and it wants to be the only coherent voice in the room. It wants to be the center of attention and the reason people smile or cry.

One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time and in others' minds. - Alfred Kazin

How to Return Home.

Your bare feet sliding on the old wooden floorboards,

Home just as you left it but still you’re shaken,

Like walking into a museum somehow out of time.

It’s all the same except the girl in the hallway,

Where she’s been and who she will ripen into,

Your childhood’s on the other side of a sprawling divide… too wide

- How to Return Home, Tales from the Bad Years

You’d all laugh if you knew where I was at this hour of night so I won’t humor you with the details. Instead, I’ll leave this my own little inside joke that I can laugh at whenever I look back on these entries.

Yesterday, I walked into the office of my drama department at my high school. There was Ms. Furlan, the conductor/music teacher who is still struggling to call me the right name, poking furiously at a new texting phone. With every button whack came a new explicative. I laughed, both silently to myself and loud enough to draw Ms. Furlan’s attention. She laughed right back and started running through her list of possible names for me as she gave me a warm hug. Mrs. Potter, my director, walked in only moments later and I poked fun at her for still not being able to text.

This scene has played itself out hundreds of times since I started working in the theater department. It was so routine and wonderful. I easily entered conversation with Mrs. Potter about school, theater, shows and the drama festival this weekend. It was effortless and comforting. I felt like I was putting on my favorite old sweatshirt. It’s warm and wonderful and clings just right. I am always so happy wearing it until I reach the arms up and realize that I outgrew the damn thing. It’s still my comfort item but there is no way to make the fabric grow and stretch the new me.

I guess you never expect the change. You know that you are going to grow and mature and become something new but you never expect that the things you loved so much at one specific point in your life could change just as radically as you yourself have.

I left my five little girls this summer. Five freshmen girls I met when I was a junior. Five little women that I will always refer to as freshmen. Five little girls who I will always remember as they once were: gawky, with braces, with eyes as big as stars and dreams as big as their hearts. And when I left, I assumed they’d change…get boyfriends, new haircuts, decide that they like math. But I never really thought they’d grow up in the time I’d be without them.

I came home and had coffee with five beautiful women who have changed their minds, dreams and goals and found out that love is what your heart feels. Women who are taking the weight of the world on their shoulders and excelling under the pressure. Women who believe in themselves. Women who are so mature that I wonder what one more year of high school and college itself will bring for them. Women who I consider to be some of the most beautiful human beings I have ever met in my life.

I look at them and how far they come with a certain reverence. I haven’t been able to objectively look at myself like I have them. But I hope that my growth and change as a person from the time I got to CCM until now, six months later, reflects itself like it does in these women.

Love, AA, AP, CG, HC, KE

40 Moves.

Today, winter finally left Cincinnati. I woke up this morning to a hundred chirpping birds outside of Alice's window. After the annoyance of the sound subsided, I accepted the cacophony as spring announcing its official arrival.

It's been a long winter. Winter break ended immediately and suddenly we were thrust into this hell hole of time sucking activities that buried our emotions under two feet of snow and stress. And now it all seems like a blur. I vaguely remember the events, faintly coloring in details that reflect my current mentality and obscuring those that remind me of past hurt. It feels like whatever happened was just a nightmare and as haunting as it was at the time, I can do nothing about it but live with the consequences. Perhaps the memories are less like nightmares and more like hazy drunk stupors. In the moment, the whole situation felt surreal and wonderful but, in the morning, as more recollections come back to you, the only prevalent thought is: "I did what?"

As spring dawns, I can only hope that everything that happened has happened for a reason and a purpose. The rebirth of spring can only call me to make less mistakes then I did in the static landscape of winter. I can only be expected not to repeat my blunders.

I challenge you all to revisit the hazy details of the past three months. Maybe even make a list of all of the significant events (for all of you who took Script this quarter with Burnham: your own personal 40 moves) that took place over this quarter. Everything good, everything bad, everything that you pray will never happen again. Take a moment to look at those events as you are now, through your current lenses. Then decide what you'll learn from each one of those moments. See the lesson in the absurdity.

To Do List for Everyday in Spring Quarter:

1. Make someone smile.

2. Make someone laugh.

3. Make someone cry...from too much laughter.

4. Tell someone "I love you."

5. Find a flower and let it know how beautiful it is.

6. Look a friend in the eye and tell him or her: "Thank you for being a part of my life."

7. Think of something to write for #7.

8. Be awesome.

Turning around on a one way street.

Winter's occupation seems to have conquered, overrun and destroyed everything, so that now there is no longer any resistance movement left in nature. - John Knowles, A Separate Peace

The recent beauty of sunshine and blue skies has brought me from my Puritanistic response to winter: hide until it's over. Suddenly Winter Quarter seems just like a nightmare, so real and alive in the moment but only a distant memory by the time you wake up. Suddenly I am looking at the same sun I spent my summer idolizing and enjoying.

It was sunny one afternoon on Cape Cod this summer. Katy and I were cruising around town in my dad's car, relishing the fact that we weren't driving my 'jank mobile' through the quiet summer town of Falmouth, Mass. The music was blaring, as per usual with us, the windows were down and we were running out of gas. I pulled over, whacked at the GPS and decided that since I had never been to a BP station (and one was listed only a half mile away) that that was where we were going to go to get gas.

Katy and I arrived at a deserted gas station that had one pump that hadn't worked in any recent decade. There was a driveway off to the side of the station and I decided to pull up it to make my car turn around easier. Thank God, I was a youthful driver who couldn't do tricky turn around and really wanted to go to a BP for gas because up that driveway was the College Light Opera Company.

"9 weeks. 9 shows. Best summer of your life," Katy explained to me, being the more theatrically aware person in our friendship. Later that night we saw a show there and I decided that that's where I wanted to work. I talked to people about it and the dream seemed out of my reach being that I am only a freshman. But I knew that eventually that was where I was going to work.

Thanks to Katy, BP, GPS and my driving ability, I will be the stage manager at the College Light Opera Company this summer in Falmouth, Mass. I am beyond ecstatic for the opportunity to work with such talented performers and musicians and to live on the beach for 9 weeks doing what I love. I await the challenge of being the head stage manager and I cannot wait to remind myself why I am doing this.

CCM and Winter Quarter, you haven't defeated this kid yet.

How to Save a Life.

For the most part, we start our infatuation with the theater and this art form as young child. Dazzled by the beautiful costumes, astounded by the glamor of our predecessors, in awe of everything you could become on stage, we began to blindly stumble into a world so appealing to our innocent imaginations. I've worked with hundreds of kids at this point in their theatrical career and I can honestly say that the look on those kids faces when the curtain goes up is worth every penny I have to my name. It's not even just that opening moment that has me hooked to working with kids. They have this wide eyed, wonderment that turns quickly into a work ethic and a sheer love for what they are doing. If I didn't have that experience with theater as a kid, that fascination that turned into a passion, I would never be where I am right now.

And then I see the cast of the CCM Prep musical: 70 children who are under a militant regime, producing a musical that will only be seen by their parents and siblings. Looking at those kids, forced to remain quiet at all times, yelled at for any minor misstepping, treated like they are older than they are, I saw the aspects of theater that make me hate it sometimes. Those kids were whipped. I saw them being put through exactly the same regiment that CCM puts its college students through that kills their love for what they are doing. Suddenly theater is no longer that glamourous dazzling wonderful place where kids experience and play on their passion for the craft. It becomes this fight to put on the most professional production a cast of 8 to 14 year olds can put on. I tried making faces at them to make them crack a smile and I got were blank stares and shh's. All I could think about was: "If this is what theater had been for me as a child or a high school student, I would be a math major."...and I hate math.

I can put up with a lot of things and I can take a lot of things as I am dealt them but children being whipped and those innocent spirits being crushed before they even get to experience the passion for what they are doing is not something I can turn a blind eye to. So my goal is to make this the best theater experience they've had here at CCM. I am going to make them laugh by making horribly silly faces and by telling them silly jokes and if their laughter is heard offstage then I am doing a heck of a job. I've learned all 70 names because every kid deserves the chance to be called "Jenna Susan Marie." I want these kids to love what they are doing now because if these children are the future of theater their spirits will already be crushed before college institutions like CCM get the chance to try and squelsh them forever.

I want the things that I had before.

CCM is all about self-esteem and a belief that you are good at what you do. That's the only way to succeed here because you are in the presence of artists who have mastered your same craft and nurtured their talents for just as long as you have. The only thing that can set you apart is your belief in yourself and your skills. Its a confidence, not a cockiness that you must exude.

Flashback to senior year. I've stage managed most every show my high school did. I stage managed at a community theater for adults and children. I stage managed in Boston at an opera company. I stage managed in New York at a small theater company in the East Village and got hired back. And I'm thinking: "I got this stage management thing down. My paperwork still needs a lot of TLC and I could use to be a little more proactive and professional. Sure, I have stuff to work on and that's what CCM will help with. I just need more experience."

Cut to now. Welcome to CCM, where we are all stripped down to bare essentials. Where prior experiences mean everything to you but nothing to anyone else. Where the only way to prove yourself is by being set up to fail and not doing that. I've accepted that we're in college and no one is going to tell you that you are doing well or to keep your chin up but I didn't expect to be faced with a program that just assumed you aren't talented. Where the only belief in your skills is the one you possess and take ownership for. It took a combination of PAing, crew assignments and lab hours to break me. I can't pin point exactly when it happened or exactly why but I lost faith in myself. The prospect of internships and job opportunities has started to instill fear in me. Was I capable of stage managing still? Would I fail horribly and forget everything I had learned over the past five years? Can I still do this? I've gone from being the girl who took a train to New York City to stage manage with a company of professional adults on a whim to the girl who won't accept her job back at her old community theater because she doesn't think she can handle the production.

I need to start believing myself again before I can convince people here to believe in me.

I just don't understand how
You can smile with all those tears in your eyes
Tell me everything is wonderful now
Please don't tell me everything is wonderful now

- Wonderful, Everclear

Up In The Flyloft.

Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. - Ryan Bingham, Up In The Air

Today, I finally had that end of the quarter breakdown. The one that seems to be looming just like the tear that needs to be shed or the words that have to be choked down. You feel it coming until the impending feeling becomes a part of you. It took the question: How heavy is water? for me to lose it. But this meltdown didn't come in the form of tears or resistance, it was just laughter escaping me for no seemingly logical reason. I laughed and I laughed and I giggled and I cracked jokes until I sought refuge in my room and sank into my bed. I turned on the movie Up In The Air and I vegetated.

The movie opens as I expected it would. The main character shows us how efficient and uncomplicated his life is without any human connections. Everything is routine and everything is peaceful. But, of course, it's all too good to be true and two women enter into his life. One, 'himself with a vagina' and one, a young girl wavering between the main character's life of sterility and seeking love.

The world of theater has always held this same mystique to me and I've always wondered what it means to truly give up hope on having a family, falling in love, having friends and what all that would feel like. The main character, Ryan, had it all until he met Alex and understood love and felt wanted and discovered what he'd been missing.

And to some degree, I think that's what has happened to me here at CCM. I'm not saying that I don't have friends at home or that the people I met prior to this place never meant a thing to me. That time in my life was just too raw for me. The window into what is reality was so obscured with crap that I couldn't fathom anything beyond it. So I relied on stage management and let that blind me to everything. I had 'people' that needed me and that I needed and that was enough for me. The bond was so surface but it was all I knew and all I understood and when everyone left at the end of a production it seemed timely and inevitable. This sounds so miserable and so saptastic and that I will sum up my experiences since being here at CCM as 'eye opening'. My best memories from this year all involve people...friends, coworkers.

So the question is: where do I find that middle ground between my career and the people I love? Where do I create those extra hours in a day to go to rehearsal and hang out with friends? When do I decide that I need to stay up with a crying friend rather than sleep? Will CCM manage to squelsh both goals and both unattainables? Will I strive to be the best stage manager and leave people behind? Will anyone care?

So really, there were a lot of questions and all of them will have to remain unanswered. Until then...

The stars will wheel forth from their daytime hiding places; and one of those lights, slightly brighter than the rest, will be my wingtip passing over.

We expected something, something better than before.

Last night, a friend of mine responded to my blog post. He told me a story of how ultimate frisbee helped him survive freshman year here. Then he told me to find my frisbee.

Senior year of high school, you are sitting at your computer with the collegeboard up. An immense amount of colleges and universities sit in a never ending drop down list, just a mouse click away and you are thinking: "What on God's green earth do I want to do with the rest of my life?" And then you cogitate on what you love to do and what you are good at you and you have to seriously consider making something you love into a job.

Senior year of high school, stage management was my passion and my job. I knew nothing else that brought me that amount of joy and accomplishment. And now I am here at CCM "doing what I love" and I wonder if this is what stage management was destined to become, just my career and no longer the fire within me.

Freshman year of college, I am "living the dream" and looking for what brings me joy and reignites me and teaches me about myself. So I return to these things that has always been with me: my words. These are my medium and my first love. I've decided that I need to make sure that I don't let this part of me die. I need to just write it out sometimes and share with everyone.

Freshman year of college and I am going to start writing the first 'serious' play I've started since junior year of high school. I want it to scream for me and tell everyone what I want them to hear right now. And I want to perform it here because I want CCM to know that this kid is about making her own way and leaving her own unique mark wherever she goes. And I am going to do it.

Writing is my frisbee.

This is more than I bargained for...

I am officially jaded. And its the kind of jaded that you can feel in your head, in your heart, in your sore feet, in your exhausted eye lids and, worst of all, in your smile (or lack there of). It's a secret kind of jaded that I'd prefer to keep hidden behind a giggly facade of wonderment that gets me so far in this business. It's kind of a eagerness, almost, that is really just compensation for how hollowed out I feel inside.

I am the jaded jack-o-lantern. When the little candle is on inside of me, I shine and look full, even happy. But when it is daytime and I am all but exposed, I am just a hollow orange shell with a creepy smile.

I am over CCM, in the best possible way. I don't want to be here. I know that that sentiment is just winter term and the exhaustion of living through heaps of shows, homework and snow but I still feel like a little, rational part of me feels that way too. This place is running us ragged just to run us ragged. I feel like it doesn't have a point, aside from making money off of the productions. I feel like we are all just hampsters running on wheels creating the electric current that makes this place run. And then what? We get jobs and we leave and we are just hampsters running from wheel to wheel because that's all we know to be good and holy. Is that it? Is that what this school was meant to do? Because it obviously wasn't intended to help foster connections between people. There is too much competition, too many divisions, too many expectations, too much gossip for that to actually happen. While we are here we create fake bonds to tide us over and keep us from trying to jump off that wheel to make life easier. It's like the military man who is still in love with his high school sweetheart just because he needs someone to occupy his mind in the strenuous world of war.

I am jaded because I know what I want to do but I don't want to be ruined and destroyed and beaten to a crisp in order to do what I want. This is not what I bargained for...