Just a little update :-)

So, it's been a while since my last post, and I'm sorry for the delay. But a lot has been going on lately, mainly with school and shows and rehearsals and all that jazz (cue music for "All That Jazz" from 'Chicago'). Friday I had my audition for the musical theater program at Sam Houston State University. I have to be honest: I'm terrified. After getting rejected from the school of music at Sam, I'm worried that if this audition didn't go well that I will end up back at square one; stuck at Kingwood for ANOTHER semester and then try to find another college to apply to and go through the whole process all over again (it's a pain in the a** to apply for colleges; all the forms you have to fill out, all the paperwork you have to turn in, ugh) so yeah, I'm definitely extremely freaked out about this.

This semester has taken its toll on me, both mentally and physically, but it's almost over; only 1 week left of school, and then finals week. This semester I'm involved in a lot of shows and productions. The dance concert at the college, of course, is May 2nd, and thankfully that will be over before finals week, then I am also involved in a showcase with the Chamber Singers on May 11th and May 12th, the weekend after finals. It's basically like a talent show, where we will do various acts and songs. We're doing it to raise money for our recruiting trip in May that we do at the beginning of the spring semester and at the end of the spring semester. On the trip, we go to different high schools, sing for the choir kids there and try to convince them to come to Kingwood after they graduate high school. And at the end of the trip, we always go somewhere fun, like Galveston or to Artesian Lakes, but we need money to be able to do that, so we've been holding bake sales to earn money and we're going to do this showcase to earn more money. The auditions are on Monday, and I'm wanting to do a dance I've been working on, a monologue, and I want to sing a song, but we'll see what happens at the audition on Monday. Then, on May 18 and 19, the Kingwood Chorale is having our concert that weekend, and so that's another weekend where I'm booked.

Then I'm also doing another show at the Nathaniel Center with Opera Leggera. That show is called "As Time Goes By" and it's going to be a show with lots of different musical numbers from the 40s, 50s, 60s, and I think some 70s too. That's just music though, so I don't have any lines to memorize or anything, which is less stress on me. That show isn't until June though, so I've got time to learn all the music. And then, of course, my birthday is coming up. Going to be 22. Damn, I'm getting old.

But what I'm looking forward to the most is the trip to England and Scotland this summer. I'm so excited! I've only been on a plane once, when I was little, and I've only been out of the country once, to Canada, so I'm definitely excited about this trip, since I'll be going with some of my favorite people in choir and we get to sing in some really amazing places. We will be leaving on June7 and take an overnight flight, so we'll be on the plane for about 8 or 9 hours. We're going to stay in York for 3 days, then we go to the Lake District for 2 days, and then we head over to Edinburgh for 4 days and we come home on June 17. Only 40 more days until we go!

Well, I guess that's it for now. I'll post more once things start to calm down again and I have more time to get on here, haha! Until next time, ciao!

Dance Break! :-)

Not much to say tonight, unfortunately. Or maybe, fortunately, depending on how you look at it. Anyway, there's this song that I found recently that I have added to my never-ending list of Favorite Songs, haha! It's a song by Shakira. It came out 2 years ago, and apparently it was the official song of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, but that's not why I like it. It's just such a fun song to dance to! And I've even kind of started choreographing it a bit, so if I'm here next semester, I might try and make it a group dance (which, depending on whether or not I make it into the musical theater program at Sam Houston, I might be at Kingwood another semester *sigh* yeah, not what I had planned, but whatever). So, anyway, here's "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)" by Shakira :-)

Confession #20: Sometimes, I feel like I'm playing "Russian Roulette"

I'm sure you all have heard of the game Russian Roulette before. Well, I'm going to be honest, I never knew exactly what it was until recently, when I looked it up. It's a game of chance, and the stakes are as high as they can get: life or death. There are a few different variations on the game, but the usual way of playing it is simple. A person takes a revolver, puts a single bullet in it, then they spin the cylinder, place the muzzle against their head and pull the trigger. The game can be played with more than one person, of course, but usually it's a game played alone. Well, I came to a conclusion today. Life is a lot like playing Russian Roulette; you take a chance on killing yourself when you take risks, and there are a lot of risks in life. Risks of rejection, risk of failure, risk of physical death, risk of losing everything and everyone that you hold dear, and the list could go on forever. There's so much risk involved in life, and sometimes when we take a risk, we end up with a bullet in our heads. I hate to sound so pessimistic about life, I'm really not; I try to see everything with some kind of silver lining, or at least try to find some good in the bad things, although that's not always easy. I'm just saying, I hear people say all the time (I myself have asked this question multiple times) "Why can't life be simple?" Well, I wish it was, God knows I do, but it's not, and that's a hard reality to accept. So, unfortunately, sometimes we just have to pull the trigger and see what happens, because in life, if you don't take some risks, nothing will ever happen to you, good or bad, and isn't it better to have SOMETHING happen to you than to have NOTHING ever happen to you? What a boring life that would be, plus we would never learn from our mistakes or from the mistakes of people around us.

So, I know this is considered an "old" song by most people, since it came out in 2009, but I just recently heard it, thanks to a friend of mine from school. She sent me the link to this song, and the moment I heard it, I felt a connection to the lyrics. I would prefer not to go into detail about why this song means something to me; I've learned to keep certain things off of my blog. So, here you go, "Russian Roulette" by Rihanna.

Confession #19: Some people are just plain old "Mean"

You know, it's really quite sad, the world we live in today. You can't trust anyone; everyone is suspicious of everyone else, and no one really knows what anyone's true motives are for anything. There is absolutely no sense of trust anymore. And, maybe you've noticed this as well, but I think that people have gotten even crueler in the last few years. If you've seen the news in the last few years, bullying, both at school and on the internet has become major problem. See, the problem is, is that when people think of bullying, they think of it as one kid being mean to another kid, and when people think of bullying they typically think of it as involving psychical violence. Well, it's not just kids who are involved in this, and it's not just about being psychically violent. Anyone can experience being bullied, not just kids on the playground at school. Sometimes, bullying happens in the home too; older siblings bullying their younger siblings, or parents bullying their kids (well, I guess that would more be considered child abuse, but I think it's still kind of the same thing) and it's not just about psychical violence. The worse kind of bullying is the psychological kind, where words hurt more than a punch in the face ever would.

I personally have never actually been bullied, like at school or by kids who were picking on me and giving me a hard time, but I've experienced bullying in other ways, so I can understand what it's like. To me, bullying is what happens when someone puts you down and makes you feel small, and that can be done in both the psychical way and definitely in the psychological way. I've experienced more psychological bullying than psychical, and I think that has hurt me a lot more than if someone had beat me up. People have said horrible things to me that have made me feel worthless, insignificant, hopeless, and have led me down some dark roads in my mind that I never wanted to go down. Like I said, some people are just plain old mean.

I heard this song just the other day. I know, it came out last year, so most people think of it as "old" now, but I don't care, I love the song, and I love the message it has. I would like to dedicate this song to all the mean people in my life. You may have hurt me in the past, but I'm not going to let you get into my head anymore; I'm not going to let you take me down that road again. So, here you go, this is "Mean" by Taylor Swift.