Oh...Uh...Hi?

*cough* Uh...hello?  Is anybody there?  I wouldn't be surprised if everybody left me for more consistent bloggers.  I mean, it has been over a month since I last posted.  But I swear that I have a good excuse for my absence!  Life has kind of exploded lately.

First, 39 Steps, a show that I assistant stage managed at Baton Rouge Little Theater, opened.  

Me and my good friend Ronald, who played Richard Hannay.

That same weekend, I had the final rehearsals for and the performance of Singo de Mayo, as a part of my musical theatre class at school!  I had such a blast this year.  Look for a blog post about it in the near future.

Singo de Mayo was on a Sunday.  The following Monday, finals week began with a double final day.  Yikes!  Luckily, all of my finals were done by Wednesday, so I got a little break during the day Thursday before 39 Steps started again that night.  We had a show Thursday night, Friday night, TWO shows Saturday, and a matinee on Sunday.

Our stage manager, Mel, and the light board operator, Ms. Ellen.  Saturday was Ms. Ellen's birthday, so we went out for dinner between shows to celebrate!

I wasn't feeling so great after the show on Sunday.  I was nauseous, shaky, and exhausted.  By Sunday night, it had developed into a full blown Summer Flu that was making it's way through Baton Rouge.  I tried to just wait it out to see if it would go away on it's own, but when Tuesday came and I still felt like crap, I gave in and made a doctors appointment.  And it's a good thing I did!  Even though my flu symptoms were on their way out by the time I had my appointment Wednesday morning, the doctor heard rattling in my lungs and ordered me to get a chest x-ray, which showed that I had developed pneumonia!  The pneumonia actually wasn't nearly as bad as the flu.  It just made me really tired.  The timing sucked though, because my brother and grandmother came were in town that same weekend.  I barely had enough energy to even go out to dinner with them!  But I trucked through.  I was still able ASM the final weekend of 39 Steps.

I was still at risk for being contagious until 24 hours after I had taken my first anti-biotic, so I wore a mask my first night back at 39 Steps just to be safe.  I didn't want to risk getting anyone sick!  We needed everyone as healthy as possible for this show!

I also had just enough energy to go the LSU School of Music and Dramatic Arts Commencement Ceremony on Friday.  Why?  Because Chris graduated college (again)!  This was actually Chris's second degree.  He graduated with his music education degree a couple of years ago.  This year, he finished up his music performance degree.  Yep, I got me a smart one. :) Congratulations, Chris!

So proud of him :)

By Sunday night, I could feel the pneumonia fog lifting, just in time for me to start two weeks of babysitting during the day, which I absolutely loved.   After babysitting wrapped up, Summer school began!  But not before a busy Saturday.  Saturday the 2nd began with a rehearsal for an LSU Musical Theatre Troupe performance.  Eight of us had to revamp, edit, and, in some cases, learn completely new parts for musical numbers we did in Singo de Mayo so that we could perform them in Vidalia, La. As soon as I was done with the rehearsal, I drove to Lafayette to volunteer at the Louisiana Speech and Hearing Association Conference, which was such an awesome opportunity.  I served as a session monitor for a class on Vestibular Assessment and Management (which means assessment and treatment of balance and dizziness issues as they relate to the ear).  The target audience for the class was audiologists.  Even though I'm on a speech pathology path in school, I still found this class really interesting (probably because it's so different from what I'm focusing on)!  The speaker was great and I learned so much.  I wish I could have stayed for more of the conference, but I couldn't because I had to go home and get ready for...

...Beaux Arts Ball!  Every year, Baton Rouge Little Theater has a ball to honor and recognize all of the volunteers from the past season!  It's always so much fun.  There's mingling, food (really good food!), dancing, and an awards ceremony. The awards ceremony is kind of like a mini-Tony's awards. They give awards for Best Actor and Supporting Actor in a Comedy/Drama and a Musical and Best Actress and Supporting Actress in a Comedy/Drama and Musical.  The nominees and winners for those awards are chosen by a completely anonymous group of people.  I actually won Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy/Drama a couple years back for my role as Sybil Chase in Private Lives.  This year, 2 cast members from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum won awards, as did 2 cast members from 39 Steps! They also give awards for best Backstage and Front of House Volunteers, of which the winners of both were incredibly deserving. 

A fun addition to Beaux Arts this year was a photo booth.  Photos by Staci set up a fun photo booth and provided lots of props for us to use in the photos.  Thanks to Dow Louisiana Federal Credit Union for sponsoring this (as well as our entire season)!

This was my 5th Beaux Arts Awards!  And my first one with Chris!

We brought our friends Mike and Elyse to the ball this year to add to the fun!

Summer school started up this week.  I'm taking my last general education Spanish course (finally)!  I'm really lucky this summer in that I've got a really awesome teacher who actually makes the language interesting and easier to learn.  Spanish really is a beautiful language.  It's just easy to forget that when your being tested on it.

Finally, this past Thursday, I took a trip up "north" with my mom and Chris to perform with 7 other musical theatre students for the fine citizens of Vidalia, Louisiana... in a bank!  We did fourteen musical numbers, including "Anything Goes" from Anything Goes, "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair" from South Pacific, "Seasons of Love," from Rent, and a medley from Jersey Boys (which is such a huge crowd pleaser!).  We had such a great turn out and everyone really seemed to love the show.  Chris played the drums for us and my mom got to fim it.  I'm so glad she got to come :)

Rehearsing "Seasons of Love"

Jersey Silly Boys

All of us with our teacher, the fantastic Terry Patrick-Harris!

"To drum or not to drum?"

I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair!

"Seasons of Love"

So yes, life has been very busy for me lately.  But it's also been very good to me lately.  Sure, there may have been a few inconveniences.  But there has been so much love in my life and I've had so many wonderful opportunities lately!  I'm happy.

I'm not complaining :)

May the 4th Be With You!

Happy Star Wars Day!   I know I'm such a dork!

It's Friday, which means it's time to fill in some blanks!  But before we get to that, let me fill you in on what I've been up to lately.

First of all, it's dead week here at LSU, but I personally believe it should be called "Death Week."  School life is super busy with classes wrapping up.  I've been using every free second I have to study.  Well except for the seconds I'm using to write this blog post.  But this is for my own personal health!   There's so much in my brain right now that I'm having trouble thinking through the simplest things (What's my name again?).  I need a brain dump!

One of the big parts of dead week for me this year is preparing for Singo De Mayo. What is that, you ask?  Well, this semester, I am taking LSU's only (undergrad) Musical Theatre class (C'mon, LSU, get with the times!).  For our final exam, we are performing a showcase of songs from musical theatre this Sunday, May 6, at 7:30 PM in the Shaver Theatre in LSU's MDA Building.  This showcase is called "Singo de Mayo."  It really is a ton of fun and we always have a huge crowd, but it's a lot of hard work! It really is amazing all that we can do and get accomplished in one semester.  If you're in the Baton Rouge Area, you should definitely check it out!  Go to http://www.music.lsu.edu/ for tickets!  OR, if you're not in the Baton Rouge area, you can watch the whole thing streamed live at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lsu-school-of-music.

As if that didn't keep me busy enough, I am also also assistant stage managing The 39 Steps at Baton Rouge Little Theater.  We've been in tech rehearsal all week and the show opens tonight.  And you definitely don't want to miss it! This show is absolutely hilarious!  It's pretty tech heavy too.  Luckily, the crew is absolutely fantastic.  They are so on top of everything and make my job so much easier.  I am having such a blast working with them and the cast!  It opens tonight and runs through May 20th.  For ticket info, go to www.brlt.org.

And, to top it all off, the boyfriend has started making me run (something that my body just wasn't meant to do).  Guys, I totally suck at running.  After about a quarter of a mile, I'm ready to crawl into a hole and die.  Right now, we're running the "small" lake at LSU and every time we pass ducks, I always beg them to let me stay with them.  Did y'all know that ducks have a stink eye?  I've been using the Nike +GPS iPhone app, which, in theory, is pretty cool because it tracks your route and pace and how many calories you've burned.  But then when you check your pace and it looks like this, it doesn't seem as cool anymore...

Look at all that red....just sitting there being so.....red.  Stop taunting me, red!

So, yes, life is crazy busy at the moment.  But it's a good kind of busy.  I'm busy with things that I truly love doing (well, except the running.....but supposedly I will eventually get good enough at it that I'll actually be able to tolerate it.  And then (hopefully) I'll eventually enjoy it.  Supposedly...).  Still, I'll be very relieved once I make it to Wednesday and I'll be able to take school out of the equation for a while.

Oh, and on a slightly unrelated note, my allergies have been a beast this week!  Has anyone else been having major allergy problems like I have? 

Fill in the blanks on your own blog and link up here.

1.  My bedtime routine includes taking a shower, brushing my teeth, and washing my face.  I hate going to bed feeling gross and dirty.  Once I'm in bed, I usually spend about 30 minutes or so on my laptop or watching tv.  I know sleep experts say you're not supposed to do that, but I do it anyway.  It works for me!  Of course, that's on a normal day.  Lately, my night time routine has consisted of just falling and hoping I hit the bed. Because once I'm down, I'm not getting back up.

2. I am super busy this weekend, but also super excited about this weekend.  I'll spend tomorrow afternoon studying, but other than that, I'll be doing theater stuff all weekend!  I'm super excited for Singo on Sunday night!

3. I can't stand fruit because of the smell and texture. Yuck!!

4.  My idea of relaxation would be a week at the beach with a book, Pinterest, and people I love.  Luckily, I get that every year. :)

5.  If I had an extra $50, I would use it for gas or put it toward my credit card bill.  I know, that's not a very interesting answer, but that's life, you know?

6.  A recipe I've been dying to try is anything on any of my food Pinterest boards!  For example...

Source: kalynskitchen.com via Emily on Pinterest

Pesto and Mozzerella Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Source: closetcooking.com via Emily on Pinterest

Artichoke Bread

Source: crockpotladies.com via Emily on Pinterest

Crock Pot Cheesecake

Have a wonderful weekend!

TGIF!

This past week was my first week back at school.  I am so in love with all of my classes!  Well, at least I think I am.  We'll see how my Acoustics of Speech and Hearing class goes.  That one may be tricky—the word "physics" was mentioned today (never a good sign in my book!)  But other than that maybe, I really do love going to school.  But I have to say, I am exhausted tonight!  My class schedule isn't that heavy (only 14 hours this semester—up to this point I've been taking 17), but my body still thinks it's Winter break and doesn't want to wake up before 10 or go to sleep before midnight or 1.  This makes for a very sleepy Emily.  So TGIF!

Source: photoblip.com via Jess on Pinterest

To celebrate, how about a little....

If you want to participate, answer the questions on your own blog and link up here.

1.  Where do you hide the really good snacks?

I try really hard not to keep snacks around my apartment.  I generally don't snack that much, but if the mood strikes me and I have "snacky stuff" around, I will start snacking and won't be able to stop myself, so I've learned it's just best to not keep stuff around.  But when I do have really good snacks, I keep them (tightly sealed) in my bedside table.  Right now, I think I've got rice cakes, Lance crackers, and dark chocolate chips there, but I don't touch them much.  I'm more likely to grab a bowl of honey nut cheerios or make half a sandwich than reach under the bedside table.

2. Do you keep your vehicle clean?

I try really hard to keep my car clean.  I am really lucky to have the car that I have, so it's important for me that I take care of it and keep it clean.  Plus, I like to think of my car as a "decompression zone" of sorts.  Somedays, my commute to and from work/school is the only time that I can relax (not too much, of course!) without having to focus on school or obligations.  Just me and my XM radio.  But if my car is messy, it stresses me out.  

That being said, there are usually one or two empty/partially empty diet coke cans in my car.  

3. Have you ever been to Vegas?

No.  And normally I would have no desire to go to Las Vegas, but I love The Beatles and would love to see Cirque de Soleil's Love.

4.  Warm room/light blankets or cold room/warm snuggly blankets?

That's a really tough question for me!  But I think I'm going to go with cold room/warm snuggly blankets.  I hate the cold, but I think waking up in the middle of the night burning up is the worst.  At least you can add blankets when you're cold.  

5. What is the worst flying/airplane experience you've ever had?

Oh my goodness...this is a long one.

I was 16 when Hurricane Gustav hit my humble town of Baton Rouge.  My neighborhood was hit pretty bad and we weren't projected to get power back for 21 days.  I stayed home with my parents for the first week.  Once they had to go back to work,  flew up to Charlotte, NC to visit my grandmother for a week because school wasn't supposed to start back up for at least another week and I didn't want to sit at home for a week staring at my toes with no electricity.  Unfortunately, the day I was supposed to fly back from Charlotte, Hurricane Ike made landfall in Louisiana and Texas.  I made it to Memphis for my connecting flight just fine, then boarded the plane to New Orleans, which took off and was expected to arrive on time.  But once we got to New Orleans, we hit really awful turbulence and couldn't land immediately because of wind shears.  We flew around in circles over New Orleans until our fuel got low enough that we either had to land or fly back to Memphis, so we headed back to Memphis.  Mean while, unbeknownst to me, my parents are on the phone with the airline frantically trying to get information about the flight and panicking because the airline is telling them my flight never even took off and that I must have "wandered out of the airport" because I wasn't responding to their pages (Yes, the airline LOST an entire flight of people).  We get back to Memphis and are told that we will have to get in line to try to get on the next and last flight to New Orleans.  Lucky for me, my parents pulled the "Unaccompanied Minor" card and got the airline to bump someone on the flight so I could get home.  So I went to the gate (which was located right across from a karaoke bar—What genius thought that an airport would be a good place for a karaoke bar?) and waited.  After a couple of hours, they page me at the gate desk, where I find a very annoyed looking airport employee asking me why I didn't answer any pages all afternoon.  She didn't quite know what to say when I told her that I couldn't answer pages when I'm 30,000 feet in the air.  But she took me to the room to UMs and told me that the flight to New Orleans most likely wouldn't be leaving and that I should probably fly back to Charlotte and try flying back after the storm passed.  So then she took me to the plane to Charlotte, where I had to get on before everyone else.  Once we landed in Charlotte, they wouldn't let me off the plane because I was a UM.  It took me about 15 minutes to convince the flight attendant that, yes, I was in fact competent enough to find my way out of an airport without any hand holding and would he please let me go before I lost my ever loving mind?  

So, long story short, in the span of a day, I flew from Charlotte to Memphis, then to New Orleans, flew in circles over New Orleans for 45 minutes, then back to Memphis and back to Charlotte.

My gosh, just writing that makes me want to kick an airplane.

Scroogin'

I am trying so hard to get into the Christmas Spirit and failing miserably. I don't know why.

Maybe it's because this year I have time to relax after finals, so I don't really need the anticipation of Christmas to keep me alive or sane? I don't know.

It just doesn't feel right this year. I just can't make myself care. It's really depressing, which makes it more difficult to get into the spirit which makes me depressed which makes it difficult to be spirited and it's a vicious circle.

Well, on the plus side, I've signed a lease and I know where I'll be living next August. But I'm not going to tell you where because you're not supposed to post that stuff on the internet. ;)

Bieber Fever

We've all seen the video of a 3-year old crying about Justin Bieber (and if you haven't, go find it on youtube. It will melt your heart). Well, her 3 year old dream came true on thanks to Jimmy Kimmel.







On a completely unrelated note, my first semester at LSU is over. 5 A's and 1 B (that really should be an A). Finals week left me for dead, but I survived and it is all over. And those auditions that I was so nervous about? I got the part :). Now I have a 5 week break ahead of me and soon I'll be bored out of my mind and counting down the days until next semester starts. But for now, I'm happy with sleep, family, sleep, Christmas shopping, and sleep.