Sunflower Existence

My books so far of 2012

2012-01-06T10:33:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the year of the Water Dragon! :)

What better way to spend the beginning of the year relaxing with fantastic literature?

Here is what I'm reading lately...

1Q84

My boyfriend gave this to me on Christmas. It actually consists of three books in one, all tied together. It's almost 1000 pages. And I haven't been able to put it down. Almost finished, too!

The plot is really complicated, and sometimes the translation makes for repeated phrases and interesting dialogue choices, but it's amazing. It follows Aomame and Tengo (it takes place in Japan) and then there's a creepy religion and Little People and two moons and alternate universes and sexy female assassins and... yeah. It's great.

Trilby

My mom gave me this one on Christmas, incidentally. It was published in 1894 and follows a bunch of Bohemians and their friend Trilby, who is described as someone who "would be right jolly if only they were born a boy!" (Or something to that effect.) Trilby is a tomboy bohemian chick, and I like it so far. You should check it out if you're into super old school literature.

War and Peace

Ok, I'm not trying to sound like a snob academic: the book is actually not that bad of a read. In the beginning, a bunch of elite Russian teenagers get drunk on a windowsill, then tie a cop to a bear and throw them in the river. I guess that's what Russians do.

But, then again, I've been trying to finish this book for almost a year now. So... long... so... drawn out... urghmph.

I need more books. Suggestions? :3

And thus concludes another brilliant holiday

2011-12-28T09:00:00.000-08:00

I brought Winston to Texas for a big crazy Southern hillbilly suburbian Christmas! It was super super fun. More to come later.

I've missed ye, blog. But I have something exciting planned. It has to do with comic strips and daily updates.

WOOT

Exceedingly tired,

2011-09-28T17:23:00.001-07:00

I stand here at Queensboro Plaza waiting to catch the N train home.

Math quiz, women's studies, a voluntary biology seminar on the genetics of peat moss (which I fell asleep during,) then two hours of volunteering, where I tutor kids in English and Writing.

Sometimes I miss sleeping on a tour bus all day. But I really do enjoy real life better, no matter how hellish both can be.

Photo 1: I have new headphones and look like I've been sent through a tornado. (no Dorothy references)

Photo 2: here on the above ground station, you can see the manhattan skyline in the distance.

The price of eel

2011-09-26T17:38:00.001-07:00

went up! Therefore a previously $9.95 Grilled Eel Fried Rice is now an absurd $15.95.

Are they endangered? I certainly hope not. Because dammit, they're delicious.

My typically insane Monday was made a little better by sleeping in through math class. (don't listen to me, kids)

Anyway, ignore this post's content; I'm exploring the blogger mobile app and it's photo capabilities. Bear with me, readers. Oh, wait... I don't have those ;P

The nice thing about writing

2011-09-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

is that it doesn't necessarily matter if anyone will read it. It just feels good to get out there.

For example, I should be sleeping right now. I have to pay my electric bill tomorrow morning before an 8:30 a.m. math class, then I have a coaching, then a voice lesson, then costuming, then tap class, then a few hours of volunteer service tutoring kids. But this will eventually become a normal Monday for me. I'm still getting into the swing of that.

I am so weak.

Most people wouldn't complain about being this busy; that's why it makes me feel like such a weak person when I find myself feeling tired or self-piteous. I have no right to be self-pitying! My life has too many good things in it to feel overwhelmed. Right?

I think the real issue is that I have to spend a lot of time on trains, which drives me batshit, especially at rush hour. It's the noise. So much noise. So very loud, this city of mine. The trains are so. Very. Loud.

At night, I get a few moments of peace and I let myself fantasize about New Mexico spas and my dogs back in Texas and Christmas and crazy Tibetan monasteries I'll probably never be able to see. To be there. To be then, actually. Then and not now. Now is insanity. Now is restlessness and lack of sleep and so very much noise from loud, loud trains and so many people. Then is somewhen else.

But now is the now, so I have to work with it. That's all we can do, right?

Ahh! Real blogging!

2011-09-25T18:50:00.001-07:00

It's been too long! But... I'm going to start doing several smaller blogs instead of waiting weeks to make one big one. Not that my blogs are ever particularly nice or anything. Unless I draw stuff.

Anyway, I don't really have anything lucrative to say so here's a picture of some iced coffee from Starbucks after I gave my name as "Dr. Awesome."

Rush rush rush

2011-09-21T11:03:00.001-07:00

It's another crazy day!

I had two classes this morning, then had to rush home to feed the lizards and grab my shoes before tap class. Well, I have to leave in the next few minutes and my tap shoes are nowhere to be found. Oops. This'll be a fun class.

I'm trying not to let my overly hectic schedule get the best of me. I just really wish I had some days off to learn music.

Right now I'm sitting in my kitchen eating a pop tart

before I run out again.

Peeeace.

Untitled ramblings

2011-09-11T22:11:00.000-07:00

Auditions are a source of stress,

or maybe it's just that I'm often

an uncontrollable mess.

I work at a pet shop that isn't really a pet shop,

it isn't cruel like pet shops are.

We sell bird cages and amphibian terrariums

and reptile lighting equipment.

We also have caiques and lizards and snakes.

I love all of them.

Especially the dart frogs.

My life has been hectic,

and I'm running in circles

and I spend every day doing things

from morning until night

and I spend a lot of time on trains

and even though I want to read on those trains
and always bring a book,

I usually let my brain go comatose and stare at the advertisements
above the windows.

I read a poem today about the iphone

and how it is a cocky machine.

It is.

I want to return to nature and sit under a tree.

But I'm afraid of bugs in the dirt.

So I sit in my apartment instead.

The life

2011-07-31T10:20:00.000-07:00

What have I been doing with my life lately?

I got a baby bearded dragon, whom I've named Targaryan (Gary for short) and he is awesome and adorable. I've been taking care of him and making sure he grows up healthy, which is really fun for me, as taking care of pets is one of my favorite things to do.

I've been working on my apartment, getting things taken care of, and finally arranging my life together.

I've been stretching and working out (not as much as I need to be).

I've been making food for myself.

I've been organizing and cleaning.

I've been traveling lots every day around NYC, and spend a lot of time reading on the subway.

I've been meeting up with friends and having a great time.

So, have I gotten another acting job yet? No, but I will one of these days. It's even harder to get a normal job (coffee, retail, restaurant or otherwise) but I'll work on that too. I applied at various clothing stores, five different Starbucks, some bakeries... soon I'll apply at an exotic pet store. Anything to keep the Ramen in my cabinet. Haha.

So that's all. Not too exciting, but I'm finally getting a nice little life carved out for myself here, and it's all right.

A video from tour

2011-07-19T10:06:00.000-07:00

I just found this in my iMovie archives! I wish I'd put it up earlier. This is from a dressing room in-- somewhere either in Canada or Georgia, I want to say (I know, they're so similar, right?) but anyway, I decided to make myself a Korean pop star for some reason. This is before Act I, I think we're at ten or something. Seems it, since we're all in full costume/makeup. Anyway... here goes.

Thoughts of a non-equity actor at an EPA

2011-07-11T06:08:00.000-07:00

5:00 am
*Korean pop music begins blaring from phone*
SHUT UP SNSD IT'S EARLY AS BALLS zzz
5:10
...damn, I guess I'd better get up. Sucks I have to wake up the poor sleepy boyfriend to drive me to Flushing. I'd have stayed at my apartment for a shorter commute but we got home so late from the trip upstate that I crashed... Wait, what? He's already ready? How does-- nevermind. Where the hell is mah metrocard? Let's rock this shit.
6:30
Wow, I'm the only one here. This is weird. The doors are locked. Am I even in the right place?
6:40
Oh sweet, someone else. I guess we're supposed to form a line outside the building.
6:45
Yup. We do form a line outside the building. Now I feel bad texting Jen at the crack of dawn.
7:00
Need Starbucks. Need yogurt.
7:15
I made a joke about getting out of line and now I'm number four instead of first, but none of these other three girls laughed. I think they think I'm being passive aggressive. Now I'm self conscious. I will no longer try to make conversation and crack open a book instead.
7:30
I like Tolstoy. I'm going to tweet about Tolstoy and auditioning and how I'm sitting in the street.
7:35
Great, I'm that girl. The one obnoxiously curling her eyelashes. In her phone reflection. In the middle of the sidewalk.
7:42
Wait, there's dudes here too. I thought this was just a female call. Now I'm confused. Maybe they're having a call for another show today as well.
7:46
Talked to the girl behind me about how neither of us have been to an EPA in ages. ...great, now I have to... Er... well, uo yao bang sai. Bu hao. Very bu hao. (for those who are unfamiliar with the Chao Zho dialect, "bang" means to, er, "make" and sai is... well, "shit".
7:48
Can't get outta line, but desperately need to bang sai. Considering running back to nearest Starbucks.
7:55
I am entrusting a complete stranger with my stuff while I run south two blocks to the Marriott Marquis. It's bringing back a lot of memories of when I used to come here as a little kid with my grandma and mother. ...geez, what a spoiled kid. Aw look, tourists, how adorable, they look confused.
8:00
Returning to line. Bang sai completed successfully! Ten points for Ravenclaw!
8:01
Omg we're going in
8:05
AAAAUGHH I SIGNED THE 'CAMELOT' FORM INSTEAD OF THE RIGHT ONE AND CROSSED MY NAME OUT and now they're going to think I am sufficiently mentally handicapped that I can't read the right form. Maybe I should bring in War and Peace to prove that I can read big words and am not actually mentally handicapped.
8:06
I'm first in the list for this show! This never happens. Maybe this is an unpopular show. Wait, it's brand new.
8:10
Sitting next to the same girl I sat next to at the Godspell open call. What is my life
8:15
Holy balls she's from Texas and has done Casa Mañana work. WHAT IS MY LIFE
8:25
I am slowly realizing that I'm way too young to be auditioning for this role. Why can't I be like those girls who look thirty and sexy in their teens? I'm doomed to play preteen roles for eternity.
8:45
And now we play the waiting game.

Simple wisdom from an outsider

2011-07-06T15:29:00.000-07:00

Back in the saddle, y'all.

It's summertime, and that means lots of auditions for those of us who didn't get summer stock jobs (or, if you're like me, never, ever seem to get a summer stock job. Ever.) which is really great because it opens up lots of opportunities. It also means, though, that now I have to actually go on said auditions, and it has been more than a year since I've been to any audition. The last audition I went to was for the Wizard of Oz tour.

So I found some auditions, unearthed and brushed the dust off my rep book, and found my go-to dress and whatnot.

I started talking to the boyfriend about going to four auditions in a week. (Mind you, if you are new to this blog, my boyfriend is a science major. He has no knowledge of theater, nor does he wish to, to any extent. I think that's just fine.)

Me: "Wow. This will be my first audition in more than a year."

Him: "Hm, back in the saddle. How does it feel?"

Me: "Feel? Uh... kind of strange, I guess. Maybe I should be a little nervous. Like I'm out of practice, you know. I'll be rusty."

Him: "What? You're just going into a room and singing. You do the same thing at karaoke or the shower."

And then I laughed because I realized, yes, it's true, that's all auditioning is. You just walk into a room and sing part of a song. When you think of it that way, it's the simplest thing in the world.

Simple wisdom from someone who has never been to an audition and never will. (But if he does, it would be hilarious.)

Time to start singing again.

Apologies

2011-06-06T09:13:00.001-07:00

I'm sorry, I've been doing some serious blog neglect.

But I'm back, all four readers! Or three.

Anyway.

Currently I'm in Texas. I have been for a while. After tour, I spent a lot of time apartment hunting, then moving in and getting things settled. Now I'm spending a month with my family and my boyfriend here where it's roughly 101º every day and there are killer wasps the size of chihuahuas.

More later. Peace.

Fun with Decorating (How to torture your roommate)

2011-04-27T13:58:00.001-07:00

Hello all! I've been quite busy recently. You see, I am moving with my friend Lauren into a beautiful two bedroom apartment in Queens. It's a very exciting time, but moving always comes with a lot of stress, not to mention expenses.

Today I took a little break from furniture shopping and getting our electricity provider set up to play the Sims. But you see, this was not to play the Sims just for fun. I had the idea to recreate our new place in this little virtual world, make characters of ourselves, and to experiment with decorating. Because, if you've never played the Sims, it is TOTALLY possible to recreate your own life and living space, and then mess around with it. Which is awesome.

Before they let you make a Sim house, you have to design characters. I gave myself messy brunette hair and the traits "childish, excitable, bookworm, artistic, virtuoso." Lauren, with her blonde locks and Flight of the Conchords vest, is a "neat, vegetarian, bookworm, workaholic genius." My career goal is to be a composer and Lauren, an author.

Here in our front lawn, we seem to be discussing vegetables.

And then I tried to make the general layout of our apartment.

Err, it isn't exact. But whatever, I do wha' I wan'!

So first I recreated our kitchen, which isn't quite this huge, but left an accurate amount of space in this little nook we have back here. I put a little black table there to see what it'd be like with an Ikea breakfast table there.

Unfortunately, this left no room for chairs, because Sim people apparently can't shimmy into a small space. So I took that out, decided we don't have to eat and put in a sweet sound system for dance parties instead.

*UNS UNS UNS UNS UNS*

Moving on! I then made my bedroom, which, in retrospect, looks a little like a prison, and the living room

Which left only one room.... Lauren's.

Now, I have known my roommate for quite some time, and know her tastes in decorating. However... she is not in control of her bedroom in this virtual little world. I am. So, what is a good roommate to do?

Heh heh heh.

Oh yeah. This isn't the real world. This is Sim world, and I am God.

At first, I just filled it up with garden gnomes

but then decided I could get a little more creative with it. So, I transformed it into a pond! Because who doesn't want a pond in their apartment? Nobody, that's who.

Or a zen garden!

How about a gym? Lauren can just sleep on one of the treadmills. I'll even lend her a towel.

Or, you know, she might have a baby one day
Never hurts to be prepared, y'know?

Ok, ok. Time to be serious.

And make the room how she obviously would decorate it herself....

TADAAAAA!!!!!

PINK FRILLY GOODNESS!!!

Because Lauren, the communist hipster tomboy, should obviously want to live in something that makes the Barbie dream house look like a tool shed. I am just the best roommate ever. Look, even the lamps are pink. And see? There's a pink teddy bear! I think I'll name him Tiffany.

In the end, all that matters is that you know your roommate. I've made the best room for my best friend, all that she could ever ask for.
And as you can see, my character promptly started writing her theatrical memoir

and Lauren is happy as a clam with her surroundings. See, she's even cuddling Tiffany. And all is well.
:)

Book

2011-04-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone: It is here that I shall announce it officially.

I am writing a book! A memoir, to be precise.

Yes, I am going to compose a memoir of my travels on the yellow brick road. I don't have a working title for it yet, but I do have a general outline and very good idea of how I want the book to be. The title must be something snarky and comical, perhaps even a pun (the lowest of all types of humor) but, regardless, I am writing a memoir.

I figured if people buy boring autobiographies all the time (the most narcissistic type of book out there, gotta love 'em) then why shouldn't I write one? I know there's lots of books out there about the journies of working actors, including one by my professor's wife and another by a Producer's tour ensemble member... But anyway, there should be more. I've got two friends in my class who went on actual equity tours, Hair and In The Heights, and I'm thinking of letting them write passages too. Perhaps we can write a collaboration memoir. I'll propose the idea.

At any rate, yep, I'm writing a book.

Granted, I've started books before. There's one quasi-novel idea I've been flirting with for a few years-- a post apocalyptic world in which the female heroine travels to what is now "Old York" to live with her bohemian professor uncle, and they have to travel the world in search of the last remnants of nature and eventually find the "Orca Sanctuary", an underwater garden below the massive steampunk city in which a bunch of flying orca whales live who are actually reincarnated ancient philosophers. ...Yeah, you can see why I've only flirted with it.

A memoir is much easier. And who knows? Maybe trying to get this memoir published will pave the way for me to finish this Orca Sanctuary philosophers-reincarnated-as-orca-whales book. Or something.

Until then, I've got a lot of things I've been doing with my life. I'm trying to move into an apartment with my friend Lauren, so I've been alternately packing my things into boxes and looking up how to feng shui a place. It's gonna be good, y'all.

Oh, and

P.S. my hair is brown again. You're welcome, mom.

And thus it ends

2011-04-14T19:51:00.000-07:00

Almost as quickly as it began, my friends, my leg of the Wizard of Oz tour comes to a close.

I have so much to write about the entire process. And believe me, it will come.

It began with the audition: just another playbill.com open non-equity call, which my boyfriend encouraged me to go to.

Then callbacks. I got bronchitis, and the boyfriend's mom made me some kind of magical Chinese crack tea which made me sing well.

Then the call that I never expected, which changed my life entirely.

Then waiting for the contract, which almost drove me nuts.

Then rehearsals, which were a challenge, mentally and physically, and an adventure all in themselves.

Then the leaving, which was sad and exciting all at once. Then the great process known as the tour.

I am so, so lucky to have known with all of you wonderful actors and become your friends. I am a better performer and person after this wonderful, insane, sometimes awful, sometimes hilarious, crazy time of my life. Thank you to all of you.

fin.

Swag!

2011-03-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Today marks our final show in the United States. Tomorrow we head back over in to Canada to finish out this leg of the tour.

But more importantly, our swag orders came in!
I'm feeling a little under the weather, so I'm sitting in my hotel bed at 4 in the afternoon. But nonetheless, I'm wearing this sweet green track jacket everyone got with the WOZ logo.
KEEP ON FIGHTING
wooo

109 down, who knows how many to go

2011-03-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

I'm back in the Northeast!

So it's cold again.

A week and a half left!

107 shows down, 10 to go

2011-03-22T20:39:00.000-07:00

...I am not entirely sure if that number is perfectly accurate or not, but it seems to be correct from the chatter backstage, so I'll go with that!

Tonight's subject for blogging will be skyping with the boyfriend.

(He is absolutely the cutest.)

Our typical skype video chat conversation, which typically takes place around midnight, usually goes something like this:

Me: Hi baby!! What's up!
Winston: Rmph. Not much. Just eating some noodles.
Me: Oh that's cool! So today we had a show, but most of the day was free, so I slept until noon and then went to the gym for a whole hour! It was so nice!
Winston: *continues munching on noodle soup*
Me: And then we had bus call at five, and that was that time that I called you, but you said you were busy, so I said I'd call you at intermission, and then I went to do the show and it was totally a train wreck and nothing went right but whatever-- (*continues yammering about the day*) ...So, what did you do today?
Winston: Nothing.
Me: What? Really, nothing?
Winston: I had class and then I did homework in the library for nine hours.
Me: Oh. Jesus.
Winston: Yup.
Me: Oh yeah, you've been up since like six this morning, right? That's when you texted me! Wow. So, anyway, after that...
Winston: *begins nodding off at computer*
Me: WINSTON PAY ATTENTION TO ME
Winston: *starts awake* SORRY sorry I'm really tired.... *eyelids start to droop again*
Me: You really aren't a night owl, are you?
Winston: *zzzzzz*
Me: Dammit
Winston: *zzzzzzzzzzz*

On a luckier day when I'm able to catch him during daylight hours, we have intricate lengthy conversations about things like summer plans or Batman villains. Either way, even though he has a hard time matching up to my excellent sleep-avoiding skills, he's probably the cutest thing ever.

Also, here is a random photowhoring moment that has nothing to do with anything except the fact that I saw my bestest friend and love of my life KELLY WEAVER the other day on one of our two-show days in Florida, and not only did she pay to come see the show and then go out to Ihop with me afterwards, she also gave me back a sweater that I had been missing for more than two years. Turns out I left it in her car the last time I visited her, back when she was still working at Disney.I'm so vain, I bet I think this blog is about me.

And here are the badasses in action, at said pancake house:

As you can see, she has gone platinum sexy blonde and I've gone jet black. Barbie and vampire girl. ^_~

Not only that, she and her mom gave me a beautiful gift of a set of Japanese tea cups. How does she know I've been wanting fancy tea cups like that for EVER?? Because she is the greatest of great, that's what.

Love is all around me. <3

Over 100 shows later...

2011-03-21T22:57:00.001-07:00

Hello all! I have officially sung "Over the Rainbow" more than two hundred times. This includes rehearsals, all performances, sound checks at every new venue, and publicity with news stations. We've performed the show more than a hundred times now, and as we start heading toward the finish line, I can't help but reflect on how quickly it's all passed.

It's been a crazy ride. And right now, as I sit in my hotel room in Roanoke, VA, with Glinda sleeping soundly on the other side of the room (as I should be too, but the internet is more fun) I'm thinking about all the things I've missed about real life. I miss my boyfriend, and my family, and being able to cook real food. I miss sitting on a couch and watching a movie. I miss using a library. I miss having a closet and not having to dig through a suitcase full of wrinkled clothes. I miss having a real life, and deciding where I want to go for myself every day.

But there are things about tour I'll miss too. Like not having to do my own sheets laundry, or having clean towels every day. And free breakfasts (sometimes) and those amazing, wonderful beds at Hiltons and Radissons. (Seriously, have you ever been to one? The beds are like clouds. But anyway)

I have to go to bed now, it's so late! Goodnight.

Sorry!

2011-03-04T12:58:00.000-08:00

Good lord, you have no idea how busy I've been these past few weeks. I've been meaning to blog up a storm, but we've begun a horrible stretch of one-nighters and most of the time I don't even have phone service on the road.

We left San Diego... lovely, beautiful southern California... for Vegas, where we had a surprise golden day. I can't really do much in Vegas, which I've dubbed "Disneyland with hookers", but I went to Margaritaville, the mall at Caesar's Palace, and walked along the strip a bit.

Then we went some other places in the middle of the country and I typically don't even know where I am. In fact, I didn't even figure out where we were going all day today until I looked at my GPS just now after being in the hotel for half an hour. Dayton, Ohio.

Look for an upcoming blog about what may possibly be our jankiest show yet, yesterday: on a tiny stage with next to no backstage area, the poor folks of Muskegan, Michigan had to put up with one hell of a rocky show. It was really interesting.

Talk soon (I really promise),
-Kate

Bus bus bus

2011-02-15T11:03:00.001-08:00

Wow, thank you everyone. I really didn't know I had more than four readers. So... Thanks. :)

Sorry for not updating. I've been in Vegas.

Actually thats not entirely true, as I was only there one night. But still, it was really cool.

So this past week, we made the trek all the way from south Dakota (we had been in Canada, again, just recently) down through Utah and into las Vegas last night. Seeing as there are only three of us in this tour who are underage, Anna, Alicia and I made our own adventures and walked up and down the Strip (Las Vegas Blvd) exploring. In fact, Vegas is a lot like Disneyworld. It's a lot of fake things, and gaudy and touristy things, but that's sort of okay because no one is expecting it to be anything else.

Now I'm traveling through the Mojave desert and it's really something. I took lots of pictures that I promise I'll put up later. I am really excited about San Diego for a whole week. Maybe i should celebrate by dying my hair a crazy color or stealing one of the orcas at sea world and freeing it into the ocean Free Willy-style. Or maybe I'll just have an In-N-Out burger.

The Secret Day Off

2011-02-03T13:38:00.000-08:00

First off: I don't blog often because I am discouraged by it. I only ever get like two comments, which leads me to believe that the only people who read this blog are... my mother. And maybe Lauren or Joanna. So please. If you're out there, reading even a little, maybe you can leave a comment so I know that people actually exist who read this blog. Because a blogger with no readers has no purpose in blogging.

Anyway. Time for the post.

So, last week, we were still up in the northeast, and they gave us one long travel day into Boston, then a golden day in Boston, then a brief travel day into Schenectady.

Well, about four of us with loved ones (or Spiderman tickets) decided to blow off Boston and return to NYC for a glorious few hours.

I was finally going home for a little bit!!

First things first: I saw Qi Qi, my boyfriend's adorable little niece who had grown up a lot in just a few short months.

The next morning, I went to Pace very, very briefly to meet up with Wins so we could go eat delicious New York food. Pace was heavily snowed upon.

Then: Japanese food, of course. At my favorite place of all time, Udon West on Astor Place.

Our feast that afternoon, curry and rice
Hungry lovers
The feast is consumed.

Then, later, we went to Bryant Part (Winston's wonderful idea) for ice skating, to commemorate our one year anniversary that I would miss on Feb 19. Because, hey, what's more romantic in winter than ice skating? Not much.
On our way to Bryant Park

A friendly tourist couple watching the skaters took our picture

"HUG" hehehe

But this is probably my favorite picture of all...

Anyway, later that evening we met up with mah bestest friend Bird and Leslie (Picture will come later. For some reason my iPad found it too difficult to email it.)

After a [free] feast at the NYU cafeteria, thanks to Leslie's mad RA skills, Wins and I went on our date to Cafe LaLo on the upper west side, another of our favorite places.
They had a bunch of Christmas lights still up, which was lovely in the dark cold atmosphere outside.

Cake and cappuccinos are consumed.

Delicious day.

More on the second day later...

New app, and lots of snow

2011-01-15T14:35:00.000-08:00

Hey all. We've been in and out of internet service over the past few weeks, going in and out of Canada... and a lot of what we've seen is just rural landscape, where wifi has yet to venture. So it's been tough to get around to blogging.

In other news, I got a new iPad app that lets me make little journal pages for every day, so I thought I'd share some of those from the past few weeks/days to make up for my lack of blogging.

The great and glorious iPad of glory (and stuff)

2010-12-31T21:52:00.000-08:00

Sorry. I haven't updated in a long time because it was Christmas and I had to do lots of shows and also some Christmasy stuff.

And, for Christmas, I got an iPad.

It is awesome.

It is the love child of a kindle and an iphone, only a thousand times better.

The iPhone is super cool and cute and stuff, and is capable of many a task. Also, it is a phone. I mean, you can't really replace a phone.

And the kindle is (aside from being superior, in my opinion, to the other ereaders) a wonderful and glorious invention in itself, as I can carry hundreds of books in it that would otherwise fill my bookshelves and clutter my future apartment (which will still happen anyway)

No, the iPad is someting altogether different. Tablet technology is really amazing. I can do so many things on this awesome little machine.

I can blog. I can use the internet. I can write novels. I can play sweet ultra-graphics games. I can watch movies for hours. I can store my recipe books (and cook using them, and mark grocery lists, and find stores to get the ingredients.) I can keep a journal. I can read everything on my kindle. I can use Skype. I can text.

But most of all, I can make drawings. And now, this is all I do during intermission.

Namaste.
-Kate

Edmonton is cool

2010-12-23T13:35:00.000-08:00

So late Tuesday night, after the show, we drove from Red Deer to Edmonton, Alberta. And let me just say that Edmonton is way cool (literally and figuratively)

Wednesday I awoke early for a bus call taking us to the mall. We had a golden day, which means no show and no traveling! I walked around the mall with Ana and Stacey for six hours and never ran out of things to do.

The West Edmonton mall is INSANE. It has over 800 stores, an indoor water park, an ice rink, a sea lion habitat and show, a full-scale replica of the Santa Maria ship, a Chinese supermarket, bungee jumping, and a theme park with two full-size roller coasters. Yes, roller coasters.
It was crazy.

Happy cast members after the insanely awesome roller coaster ride.

(Thanks to McKayla Marso for the photos. I totally stole them from your facebook.)

At any rate, now I am chilling in my hotel, having much-needed rest and personal time before our show tonight. I downloaded the 2nd book in George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, which so far is incredible.

On The Road-- Foodwise

2010-12-12T22:49:00.001-08:00

Cooking. I never appreciated it until I didn't have it anymore. (Yes, this is related to touring)

I've never really done enough cooking. In high school I was always too busy. When I came back from college the first summer, I tried cooking a few things, like vegetarian gyoza for my family and baked cinnamon apple crisp at Christmas-- but I've never really gotten to bake, or cook--or, for that matter, sautee, grill, fry, whisk, what have you-- as much as I'd really like to.

In fact, when I suggested to my boyfriend that I was interested in cooking more when I had an actual kitchen, he laughed and said "You? You could live off pop-tarts and easy mac. That's like, all you eat."

Well, this was partially true. But not any more!

Something inside of me has snapped, and I know what brought it on.

On tour, you never really get the opportunity to make food for yourself, unless, like my roommate, you buy an electric skillet and get as many vegetables as you can whenever there is a grocery store near the hotel. Our meals are essentially planned for us: on long driving days, we rush off the bus for a quick lunch break, which usually means the nearest fast food option available. Around showtime, a group of us will sometimes go to a restaurant (if we have time) and try for something dirt cheap (acting ain't easy) and hopefully alcohol. (Not me though. Except in Canada. Woot!) The only time I've ever ordered room service was yesterday and today, when I had a bowl of vegetable soup brought up because I am sick and the nearest food alternative is a mile away in freezing rain.

Thus, touring has increased my appetite for: cooking.

It started with the food blogs.

Oh, the glorious, glorious food blogs. Pages of brilliant photography, laid out with instructions, peppered with witty stories about their creation and preparation... I love, love, love food blogs.

I tend to do this to myself. When there is no viable option for a good meal-- such as when I am unable to eat solid food after wisdom teeth, or if, like now, I'm stuck in a hotel room with nothing but cheap complimentary tea bags and a half empty packet of ramen-- I will go on the internet and TORTURE myself with images of beautifully prepared and seemingly delicious food stuffs.

So that's a hard thing about tour. It's hard to eat right. Luckily, I seem to have taken the route of avoiding fast food (except Taco Bell. I friggin' love Taco Bell.) and overall eating much less than I usually do in New York. Which is good, 'cause, along with the hardcore dancing in that blasted jitterbug number, I feel I may have actually lost a couple of pounds... but I digress.

My roommate is marrying her British boyfriend this spring once tour concludes. And the biggest difference between the English and the American is, she says, the English don't care about food, and find it incredibly humorous how dramatic Americans are about food; they think the world "delicious" is absurd. But we are dramatic about it-- We're passionate about the Food Network, we obsess over food for big events-- and the British don't care as long as there's booze somewhere.

But food is important. And awesome. I digress yet again.

So, when I get back, I'm gonna COOK.

I think I'll start with vodka cream pasta and garlic hasselback potatoes and maybe spiced poached cinnamon pears wrapped in pastry.

Domestic? A little. But I don't have to be feminist when I just want to make something delicious.

**This post may or may not have been influenced by the fact that it is 11 pm, I am starving, and I've just streamed Julie & Julia on megavideo. And my god, does that stuff look good. Mom, can I have a cookbook for Christmas? =)

Bozeman, Montana

2010-12-05T23:57:00.000-08:00

"DON'T BACKTALK THE SPARKLY FAIRY"

"AAAAAHHHH YES MA'AM *sob* PLEASE DON'T HIT ME ANYMORE"

Salt Lake City! (And St. Louis MO, and some Erie PA, too)

2010-12-04T10:56:00.000-08:00

I've been quite negligent with posting, but I've got some pictures!

First off, this was from Erie, a harbor city right on Lake Erie.

Boats!

We performed at the Warner Theater, which was cute. The outside was really pretty!
And my awesome friend Ali Upton came to see me :)

Then we went to St. Louis
Which was really nice, and my parents came, and that was splendiferous.

(This entry is rushed because I have bus call in half an hour for our next matinee, and I have to pincurl my hair, which takes quite a while)

Anyway, now we are in SALT LAKE CITY which is a really, really cool place. The environment is a tad religious, which is great if you are-- but as I am not in the church of LDS, I couldn't go inside the Temple (which is ok, because I hear they have a cool visitor's center which my roommate Sarah went to) and I got to wander around all morning looking at super awesome stuff.

For one thing, the graffiti and street art is BALLIN'

It's really awesome to see all the street art, because you won't ever see any other like it anywhere else. It's completely unique.
This doesn't do any justice to the incredible Christmas lights around town, but let me tell you-- they're beautiful. It's such a cool city.

Here you can see my ruby slipper Toms peeking underneath the glass table. Hee hee.

This morning I went wandering alone and found an amazing locally owned used bookstore/coffee shop combo, which is possibly one of the greatest things on earth that you can find on a cold wintry morning walk. I got a mocha and a marzipan almond croissant and read my book and enjoyed the snowy chill and atmosphere. Salt Lake City, I heartily approve of you.

Kansas!

2010-12-01T08:46:00.001-08:00

We're driving through Kansas, and although we aren't playing any cities here (en route to Pueblo, Colorado) it's interesting to visit towns that have things like the "Oz Museum" and "Toto's Tacos".

We pass a lot of windmills and prairie.
My friend Jesse (who plays the lion) got a bunch of us books for an early Christmas gift on Black Friday. Me and Stacey (our brilliant female swing/ensemble goddess) got A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. I'm not a big fan of fantasy, but let me just say, I am so happy that I ventured outside my comfortable genres (mainly classics, beatniks, and Vonnegut) for this book. It is amazing.
I love nothing more than getting completely wrapped up in a book, so much that I look forward to finishing lunch or hopping back on the bus just so I can get another chapter in. It's a lot of Kings and Queens and direwolves and thieves and princes. Actually, it feels like one of those books that I would get really into if I were living in the time of Little Women (the other book I'm rereading) and stayed up in an attic all day with my own personal dusty library.

I've only read a few other fantasy books (excluding Harry Potter) and they mainly focused on animals. Yeah, I'm a real big nerd for that kind of stuff. One of my favorite childhood books is called The Sight and it's about a wolf pack and has a whole bunch of magical elements and a prophecy and AHSOCOOL. (/neeerrrrrrrd)

But anyway.

I think I just saw the beginnings of snow outside the bus window!

This is really exciting.

On Lake Erie

2010-11-23T08:49:00.001-08:00

This morning, for me, was spent in my pajamas, eating dried mangoes, and watching the food network in a beautiful, luxurious Sheraton hotel on the waterfront of Lake Erie overlooking the Canadian border. I felt like a star, or a millionaire socialite on a Northeastern vacation.

Now I'm down in the lobby doing homework, but thought I'd update!

I've yet to figure out how to attach my camera and have it be actually read by my computer, but until then, I'll rely on the photos of friends who are actually skilled cameramen :)

Here are the famed slippers themselves, which are actually relatively uncomfortable heels. Haha. The gems are apparently really expensive, and they fall off a lot when I dance. Here you can see they are hidden behind a set piece, which the crew has personalized with band stickers. As crews are wont to do.
This is the backstage of the York Penn State campus theater, and ALL those boxes belong to our tour. We have about five huge 18-wheelers carrying all of our sets, props, and costumes every night, and it's overwhelming the amount of time and effort they put into this show.
Also, our lighting is the BOMB. Here they were doing a test for some of the Munchkinland lighting effects
...but just a few.

And everyone's favorite actor in the show is always Toto. Here is Loki, the Toto understudy who, dying to get a tiny bit of fame, posed elegantly for the camera while the jaded starlet Dusty (the usual Toto) hid in the background.
That's all for now folks. Will get back.

Day 2: Munchkins, dressing rooms, and Target

2010-11-15T15:27:00.000-08:00

Hello all!

Today I awoke rather late and rushed to put on some jeans and a heavy coat, and headed out to meet the rehearsal van. The van takes everyone in the hotel to the rehearsal hall a few miles away. There we worked on cover stuff (understudies) for most of the day, and after lunch break, added the local kids who play the munchkins.

To answer some questions: yes, the creative team (director and choreographer, Nigel and Leigh, respectively, who are British and lovely) do come with us to tech week. They rode with us on the bus, which Nigel jokingly said was an "absolute nightmare and I shan't ever do it again." The creative team (and, I think, crew and musicians also) stay in a separate hotel than the cast, as we are in the old fashioned downtown hotel.

I'm not sure if we're actually showing here, but we're rehearsing on the Penn State, York campus stage. Their dressing rooms are pretty cool, but the coolest part is this: I get my own dressing room. I had no idea I would get that! I asked Andrew (scarecrow) where our dressing rooms were, and he said mine was behind the dumpsters and if I needed a mirror I could use a metal spoon. Nevertheless, I have a real actual little room with my costumes in it, and a mirror with lights and it's all so exciting and I feel so darn happy about it. I'll post pictures tomorrow!

The munchkins are really, really cute. Actually, they're like puppies: well trained puppies, but not quite dogs so they're still learning.

Tonight the big thing is a Target run-- our stage manager is driving a van of whoever wants to go to Target. I think I'm gonna get some kind of fleece jacket and maybe some new socks and something healthy to snack on in the hotel. Oh, and something to boost my immune system. Seeing as my roommate is the first one sick, I have to keep on my toes and stay healthy...

Cheers!
-Kate

Day 1: York, PA

2010-11-14T18:07:00.000-08:00

Hola... as you can see I've temporarily transformed Sunflower Existence into a sort of tour documentation. It's mostly just so I can remember everything that happens, in a strange sort of way.

I've taken pictures but as they're on my big camera I haven't yet hooked it up to the computer. So here's what happened today.

I got Winston to take me (and my big ol' blue luggage, plus a purse, a makeup kit, and a backpack full of books) to midtown via gypsy cab and we arrived at the rehearsal studio where we'd been rehearsing for the past two weeks. The bus was loaded, sad farewells were bid, and we shipped off from New York on a big ol' bus. I read Sophie's World instead of doing homework. But that's typical.

Anyhow, there isn't much to write, but a little after we arrived at our hotel, which is a beautiful old fashioned sort of place, we took a cast trip to Wal Mart for anything we needed. Since we're doing a week long tech here in York, most people bought groceries; mine, of course, consisted of ramen and french bread (among other things.)

I really don't have much to write currently, other than tomorrow we've got a full day of tech, including a rehearsal with the local kids. My roommate for this adventure is Sarah, who plays Glinda/Aunt Em-- she's currently a little under the weather, which she's sleeping off so I have to be quiet as I shower and do homework... wow, this is a boring blog. In other news, I have lots of papers to write.

Love and peace,
-"Dot"

The very excellent happy good day

2010-10-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. Today, I didn't really learn anything new about life or myself. It was just a really awesome day and I wanted to talk about it.

Firstly, I had to sing at a luncheon for donors of my university. It was an extremely formal, country-club-esque setting and we got to eat super rich fancy food with hard-to-pronounce cheeses and garnishes, and we were served coffee in porcelain tea cups and stuff. One of those white tablecloth places with five sets of silverware kind of places. I felt like that guy in Titanic when he goes up from the third teir to the first to eat with all the well-to-do socialites.

But it was pretty cool.

And the weather-- god, I hate to be influenced so by external circumstances, but when a day is as beautiful as today was-- a quintessential New York autumn day. Brilliantly sunny, cold, breezy. I finally got to wear a scarf without sweating.

Walking back from the luncheon, I passed my mom's favorite NY scultpure...

...so every time I pass it I take a picture of me there and send it to her.

(I'm not showing you the version with my face in it, because it is hideous. Haha.)

After I got back to school, I sat outside in lovely city hall park for a while and read a book. Then I checked my email, and got super absurdly excited about upcoming events that I had to run to my school's computer lab and furiously type out some response emails. This was when I officially signed the tour contract. So, that's cool.

Afterward, I met up with the boyfriend, and we spent a while lazing about the park in the sunshine...

...and then I went to dance, which was just okay, since it's dance and I kind of hate dancing. But I did make a killer bun. That's big for me. (I suck at doing hair.)

But the day was still mucho happiness.

And yes, this was a completely pointless post. It's self indulgent, dull, and entirely useless to anyone passing along my blog and reading it. But I don't care. 'Cause I had a really good day.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Tour Contract

2010-09-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

Landing a national tour has been, as far as I see it, my first real theatrical success.

I have had a long history of baggage associated with rejection; there's always someone prettier, someone taller, someone who can dance better-- and since high school, being rejected in theater has hurt me more than is really necessary or mentally healthy. It all started with what I consider my most embarrassing failure, junior year of high school.

We were having auditions for the worst musical in all of history, Lil Abner. I didn't even care that it was the worst musical in all of history, because our school only put on one show a year and dammit, this was my time to grab the lead and establish myself firmly as Queen of The High School Theater Scene. Because that would make me Popular and Feared among all the other people, muahaha. (So I staunchly believed)

I was certain to get the lead female role of Daisy Mae. Right?

Then the cast list came out.

I was a nameless chorus girl.

My best friend Kelly saw the cast list first, and in her wonderfully sardonic fashion, disregarded the whole thing as pure idiocy.
I didn't take it so well.

My life was over. I was not established as the Queen of the High School Theater department. No one would look upon me with envy. No one would ever think anything of my skills. They would all go to the girl who was pretter and more popular who landed the role.
I had a wonderful family, wonderful friends, a bright artistic future, and I thought I had nothing to live for because I wasn't the lead hillbilly in a terrible hillbilly musical. That's how out of proportion I was.

The girl who did land the role, as you can guess, was a gorgeous, absurdly thin blonde, and all the little high schoolers went "OOH SHE'S SO TALENTED OMG BROADWAY."

Of course I compared myself to her. I was nowhere near as pretty, or thin, and she really DID look good onstage.I cursed the director, I cursed the girl who snagged my role, I cursed my luck. Why would these kids praise this girl?! I was the one who had been working in theater since I was six! I was the one who'd been in over forty shows! I was the one who had a professional voice acting job for five years! I'd worked in regional theaters everywhere! Why the hell had casting come down to this, where I was reduced to working with a chorus of ambivalent teens who would never make it in a real acting career like I already had?! I was smug and hurt at the same time.

My failure was tormenting. Daily I wallowed in self hatred and pity and spite for the world.

Still, my failures began to add up. I nurtured my bitterness, let it stew. And even when I went off to college, for every show I didn't get cast in, it would weigh me down, like I was carrying all my rejection in a giant backpack.
But that backpack kept getting bigger every time I didn't get cast.
Freshman year passed and I wasn't cast in All Shook Up, Carousel, or Bare...
...or Spelling Bee, or Quanah, or my 2nd favorite show of all time, City of Angels. In fact, I have only ever been cast in one faculty show, winter of Freshman year when I played the understudy for a workshop musical. (which is a whole nudda story.)

My backpack of self-loathing was quite heavy at this point.

I wish I could say I went through a period of enlightenment, and suddenly became a generous, forgiving person who understood where I needed to improve, but it really got me down. I was so discouraged by all the rejection, by all the ways I needed to improve as a performer, that all I could do was suck it up and audition outside of the city like my director told me to.

And then, after one little non-equity open call for the Wizard of Oz one morning, I got a callback for a dance call.

Then I went to that dance call. Got another callback.

Went to that callback. Sang some more. Well, this is nice, I thought, but with my history of rejection, it's not gonna go anywhere.

Then I got another callback. This time for the producer.

And then...
I got a call from the casting company saying I had been picked to play Dorothy in next year's tour.

I think it was the fact that I finally had to accept my defeat-- since my "defeats" weren't really defeats, they were just, well, other people being more right for a role than me.

So all I needed to do was suck it up.

I guess the lesson here is: there will always be someone better for a role, until there isn't, and then that's your turn. But you have to wait your turn.

The other lesson is that high school theater sucks, but don't worry, life just gets exponentially better after high school is over.

So don't let rejection get you depressed, because something better will eventually turn up and you'll be rewarded.

Being Alone

2010-09-28T08:16:00.000-07:00

There is a certain kind of bliss about being all alone. Those who know me may understand that, at times, I'm a very solitary creature. In elementary school, I had a really hard time making friends, so I would spend my hours on the playground by myself, happily swinging or making up songs or reading those Time Warp Trio books (which were the coolest back then.) Freshman year of college, I had this same problem; I was so afraid of befriending my fellow theater majors that I kept to myself, spending my freezing Saturday mornings taking long walks down to Wall Street and back.

Nowadays, I have many friends-- not to mention a wonderful boyfriend, whom I spend most of my time with; he is like my other half, and when we aren't in class, you can always expect us to be somewhere together, out exploring Chinatown or playing Halo at home.

But sometimes, when waiting for him to get out of class or work, I find myself alone again, like I used to be. And those times are happy too.

Being alone, satisfactorily, is a really useful skill to cultivate. Many people struggle with being alone but it's something I've really come to love and appreciate. However, there are differences between my alone self and my public self.

The first thing I've noticed is that when I'm alone, I eat better. For some reason being around friends makes me want to eat a ton of junk food.

But when I'm alone, I think things through carefully and don't indulge myself. Also, I really do like mashed potatoes better than cheese fries.

So what is it about friends that make me want cheese fries? It's like they're bringing out my crazy side.

Also, being alone, I come to a sense of peace, reading and thinking...
While in a large group or at school, I return to my normal state of awkward explosion mess.

So, for a lot of people, being alone is weird or awkward. For me, LIFE is weird and awkward.

Gotta go to class-- but afterward, I'm gonna hang out with Winston. It's my favorite thing-- it's even better than being alone. It isn't quite so lonesome. :)

A temporary test

2010-09-06T13:49:00.001-07:00

I am at the apple store in Southlake, testing out blogging on the iPad. Verdict thus far? My only issue seems to be making capital letters. I wish they had an autocorrect for that. In other news, I'm really excited about Portal 2. Ok, I'll write more later on a real computer. Do you think I could take this on tour instead of a laptop? Then I wouldn't need a new Internet card :P

Harry Potter Books, in summary

2010-08-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

This summer, I vowed to do something I never had before: read all of the Harry Potter series.

I'm currently on the sixth, even though I basically know what happens throughout the end.

So, here is a brief summary of the books as opposed to the movies:

THE HARRY POTTER BOOKS IN TEN SECONDS

1. SORCERERS STONE- Harry escapes a bad life and enters a cool one. Little kids swoon with envy. Insert storyline of "chosen boy" like in Star Wars and every other fantasy story existant.

2. CHAMBER OF SECRETS- They make friends and fight monsters! BEST FRIENDS FOREVER.

3. PRISONER OF AZKABAN- We meet the two most attractive characters in all of literary history, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, who have a questionably close relationship with one another. (Delightfully so, of course.)

4. GOBLET OF FIRE- Cedric Diggory dies, but reincarnates as a sparkly vampire in another movie series, so it's okay. Then Japanese women make body pillows shaped like him.

5. ORDER OF THE PHOENIX- Harry whines because no one understands him. (Well, he IS fifteen...)

6. HALF BLOOD PRINCE- Ron whines about Harry being popular and Hermoine whines that no one likes her, which is true.

7. DEATHLY HALLOWS- Harry wins. JK Rowling rakes in millions.

The end.

Beach Day

2010-08-11T12:00:00.000-07:00

Last week, me and the Chinese family took a trip to Long Island, to the beach at Robert Moses park. The day was a little cloudy, windy, and the water was freezing, but overall it's a lovely beach and I'd like to go back (when the water isn't sub-zero)

In the car, a very grumpy QiQi (pronounced Chee-Chee) is woken up from her nap.

She demands to play with the iPhone! Now!

From left: Adeline (who's going to Yale this fall), Qi Qi Hidalgo, and Jennifer, Winston's sister and Qi Qi's mommy.

It wasn't too crowded and the waves were really big!

Like, "oh shit" big.
I got knocked down a bunch of times.

Wins + beach = happy.

Happy feets.

Qi Qi approves of this beach. Almost.

Jennifer, Lena, and Qi

Emily the epically awesome

You almost got it there, Qi. Keep on truckin'.

The Great Gerbil Run

2010-08-10T13:17:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when Winston and I get back to his house after a particularly trying day of summer school, we just need to chill out and let our brains wander. Wins achieves this by playing Starcraft. I achieve this by being ridiculous (as per usual.)

How did I decide to be ridiculous today?

By making a giant gerbil obstacle course, of course!

The first step was laying down newspaper so they wouldn't make a mess on Qi Qi's squishy soft play floor that covers the upstairs living room, where I decided to build the course since it had the most open room. The run was rather small (I made it the "beginners course") and walled with books so they wouldn't jump out. I used books that I wouldn't mind messing up:

1. A Calculus textbook (Not mine. Bahaha!)
2. Some older, shabbier books
3. Winston's copies of the Twilight series (I should have smeared gerbil food on them first)

The incentive? At the end of the maze was half a granola bar! Which is the equivalent of a lifetime supply of salt & vinegar chips for me.

Gerbil course of DOOM. (not really.)

The entrance to the maze, marked by a pair of Vans
(I got a new watch. It's totally steampunk awesome.)

They must pass through a tunnel...

And a slightly larger tunnel,
followed by my copy of War and Peace,
which they have to jump over to receive the granola bar.

Our two ~~victims~~ contestants:

MAXIMILLION BONAPARTE SCRUFFYKINS
aka "Max"
aka "Winston's favorite"
and

DANTE INFERNO BEAZLEFLUFF AWESOMEPANTS
aka "Dante"
aka "Kate's favorite"

First, the race takes off with our first contestant, Dante.

Our hero first sits at the entrance, not knowing what to do. He pees next to Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles out of fear and confusion.

He ambles through both tunnels, then stands like a meerkat next to Eclipse, looking baffled.

Rather than leaping to victory, Dante decides to hang out on Tolstoy for a bit. He merely blinks at the granola bar.

Finally, after about a minute of wandering back and forth in the course, he steps over the War & Peace, finds the granola bar, and turns back. He is not impressed by the granola bar.

Time: 1 minute 20 seconds.

Next up: Max!

Max has a good start, sprinting like a bat out of hell to the tunnels.

He is deterred only by Vonnegut's Player Piano, which apparently is delicious.

Finally, he makes it to the last jump... but what does he do? Takes a shit on Tolstoy, then runs back to the beginning. Maybe he is trying to make a statement against Russian literature.

After dashing back faster than my phone can process the camera shutter, Maxie takes one final leap over the (now defaced) War & Peace to his victory nomming. However, his victory doesn't last long because I chuck the little bastard back in his cage and quickly take care of my beloved W&P. (The book is now fine.)

Time: 43 seconds.

The winner: Max!

Verdict: My favorite gerbil is retarded.

Blergh

2010-08-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

Currently I am sitting in Winston's house with his cousin Emily. Emily is one of my favoritest cousins of his ever.

I didn't quite understand the concept of cousins when I was very young, probably since I don't have any. This baffles my boyfriend's family. They don't know how one survives with such a small family.

My family is small, but lovely.

This is a short post but I NEED TO BLOG MORE.

This will become a place full of tour shiznit! Also, I'm trying to see if it would be possible to blog from an iPad... this will require multiple trips to the Apple store.

Like the new layout? I can haz update!

The editing html thing was tedious for the longest time, so I'm happy about this new enhancement to blogger that makes things a little easier (since, otherwise, I'm really bad at web design.)

Ok, more later. Zai tien!

Where I'll Go (Plus: My Boyfriend the Buddhist Monk)

2010-06-10T10:10:00.000-07:00

I want to go many places. I've been to very few. The following post is a list not of places I've been, nor of places I probably, in all likelihood, will ever actually visit... but, rather, these are places or events that I have always wanted to go see/do/experience. It's fun to write about.

1. Hogsmeade, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter or some shit like that

Now, this is cool. They're making a theme park designed to be the new Harry Potter world. So, basically, all us muggles can go and pretend to be wizards for a short time. Here, we can drink butterbeer and... probably buy wands, and... hell, I don't know what else. But there's probably a bunch of flying mythical animals and shit like that.

By the way, I'm kind of a fake Harry Potter fanatic; I love the world but have never managed to finish one of the books. Love Tom Felton, though.

2. The Iditarod, the big dog sledding race in the Yukon yay polar bears

Animal welfare activists will probably want to kick me in the nuts with this one, but I don't have any nuts, and I'm probably not going to run the iditarod either. As a kid I worshipped Balto, and thought it was my life's destiny to become a dog sled runner. There's a lot of hardships for the dogs, and the people too; everyone suffers freezing blizzards, lack of food, lack of sleep... kind of like being a college student in New York, but with less people.

3. A Tibetan Monastery 'cause it's cool yeah yeah

For some reason, Tibetan monks have always been my favorite kind of people. Maybe it's their peaceful Buddhist nature. Maybe it's because I'm a weirdo. Probably the latter.

In any case, I do plan on traveling the world someday and seeing a bunch of different temples and monasteries. Mad cool, ne?

...chotto, demo, fine...

My mum says my boyfriend looks like a monk, like the Dalai Lama or something.

Here is a picture of my boyfriend who looks like a monk
Cute, right? Hehe.

And here's if he ever actually decided to become a full time, legit, Tibetan monk

"srry, no lovin for Kate, Buddhist monks are like super solitary LOL
sux 2 be u"
"OMG WTF BBQ oh well I still luv u mah sexy monk lol"

Okay, so he's not actually Tibetan, he's Taiwanese. Still.
Speaking of Winston, that brings me to my next place.

4. Cambodia, specifically Angor Wat cows not necessarily included

Winston is mentioned with this entry because his father is from Cambodia, while his mother is from Taiwan. Cambodia is one of the places I have to visit because of its history: I have long been fascinated and terrified by the legendary Khmer Rouge genocide that took place largely in Cambodia. Much of Winston's family experienced this horrible genocide, and they fled the country and came to America. But that's an entry for another day, and a whole lot to write about.

Cambodia, then, is one of the places I want to visit in order to see the museums and countryside for myself. I want to be closer to what I've learned about.

5. Japan's cherry blossom season I think it's a specific neighborhood sugoidesu

Japan is beautiful, so I hear. The Japanese language is beautiful, and I've been studying it diligently, both in class and outside. The sakura trees of Japan are super famous because they're really pretty, and for a certain time in spring everyone goes to picnic outside so they can be around these giant pink trees.

Who doesn't love giant pink trees?

6. Anime Expo, hopefully as an invited guest and not a visitor ...I'm a dork

Anime Expo in Los Angeles is one of the biggest nerd conventions in the world. Nerds come from all over to rejoice in their nerdiness, and those who are not fully immersed in nerddom are dragged by nerd friends and become nerdified through the nerdy halls of nerdy goodness. I, myself, am a nerd. I know this. I accept this. And I want to go to AX really bad. I'm a voice actor for anime so I've been to one convention before as a paid, invited guest, and I got to speak on a panel and sign autographs and stuff, which was really cool. Being invited to AX means you've made it in the voice acting world as a real, awesome person. But I suck and don't get much work any more so it'll probably never happen. LAWLZ.

K, I gotta go. It's my last day in Texas for a long while, so I shall go hang out with my mum and my bestest fwends Lauren Bird and The Gwate Donana (Joanna) then tomorrow I get to see my Buddhist monk again! Life is swell. (Btw. Kelly. I miss you.)

GO SEE HAIR ON BROADWAY. THIS CHICK IS IN IT AND SHE ROCKS.

And read Anna Karenina!

~Kate the wordly wishful thinker

Book Haul

2010-06-05T11:33:00.001-07:00

* * *

So, I'm a self-proclaimed bibliophile, but I'd like to think that I've lived up to this title.

I friggin' love books.

I also have my kindle, Isolde, but her battery is dead and I left the charger in NY; I believe the kindle is awesome and everyone should get one. But even though I have my kindle and love it, I still love the feeling of holding an awesome sturdy paperback and flipping real pages.

So, while I wait for a new charger, I satiated my hunger for new reading material and indulged myself. You could say I over-indulged myself, too. But I'd sooner spend all my money on books than on food. (Which would help, actually, seeing as I'm on a pre-tour diet.)

In my backyard there's this cool little bench in a plant-surrounded nook

...which you'd think would be awesome for reading, but it's so damn hot and there are a thousand bugs of both the crawling and the flying/buzzing/stinging variety living in all that greenery.

So, on with the haul...

Anna Karenina, Tolstoy

the Prophet and other poems, Kahil Gibran, recommended by my friend Kelly

Mother Night, by my favorite writer in the entire world, Kurt Vonnegut, my hero.

So I'm gonna sit here for a while after I'm finished blogging and go read some Tolstoy. Go grab a book, everyone, and get off the damn computer ;-)

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. ~Mark Twain

Sunflower?!

2010-06-02T11:23:00.001-07:00

News update 1:
So, you may have noticed that I've changed the entire theme from "Strawberry Cup-Kate" and merged it with that other blog idea I had called "Sunflower Existence." This new title is referring to a Ginsberg poem that inspires me called the Sunflower Sutra.

Here is a short segment

A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent: lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye; to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited; grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden; monthly breeze!
How many flies buzzed round you innocent of your: grime, while you cursed the heavens of the; railroad and your flower soul?
Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a: flower? when did you look at your skin and; decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive?; the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and; shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive?
You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a: sunflower!

The entire text of the poem can be found here, if you aren't totally bored with me now.

Bear with me for a while. I'm gonna change the layout a shit ton of times.

News update 2:
I booked a national tour!

I will be starting the entire process in November, with two weeks of rehearsals before we open in Pennsylvania. I'm super ultra absurdly excited, as well as completely baffled as to what to pack. I'm gonna be on the road for five months; how on earth do you pack for that? At least I have my kindle, Isolde. Otherwise, lugging sixty or so books around with me might be pretty cumbersome.

Tweet me. I'm out.

Stuff I've done this month

2010-04-20T14:08:00.001-07:00

1. Learned a basic understanding of Mandarin from my boyfriend's mother
2. Taught her some English grammar lessons in return
3. Spent a night on the streets in freezing weather, using my backpack as a pillow
4. Auditioned for a national tour the morning after said night of camping out on the street
5. Got a callback for said audition
6. Wrote what seems like zillions of papers...

Ok, now I'm going to go work out. Inspired by the sudden drive to succeed (and comparing myself to Asian girl bands, which is a toxic idea but I do it anyway)

100 Days

2010-04-11T21:02:00.001-07:00

I follow a blog called Lessons from the Monk I Married, and one of the recent posts suggests that we all try to do something for 100 days in a row.

We do a lot of things like brush our teeth, shower, get out of the house... these are things we do every day but they don't count. What she means in the entry is that we try something for the better, and stick to it for a hundred days.

So I'm going to write every day. Where? Here! What will I write about, you ask? (Well, you don't ask, but I'm writing it anyway)

I'm going to do something for a hundred days. I'm going to eat healthy for one hundred days. Yes, that's what I'm going to do. Hell, if I can do it for a week I'll be proud of myself. This means no more pork buns for a long time. God, Chinese homemade food. Mmm. Goodbye dear friends...

So I'm going to try and start this. Let's get the ball rolling. I'm going to work really hard.

Peace love and cupcakes,
-Kate

Limerick Life Update

2010-03-28T10:25:00.000-07:00

My thoughts are quite shapeless in form
While sitting up here in this dorm.
Though it's break, so they say,
I'm still busy today
And my laziness now is the norm.

Tomorrow I've got an audition
So I've stockpiles of rabid ambition
I've something to wear
(given up on my hair)
To get summerstock work is my mission.

The life of an actor is hard,
and worse in this single regard:
Chinese families will sneer
at my chosen career
so his parents think I'm a retard.

JAPANESE 102: Revenge of the Grammar (a.k.a. Fuck Babelfish)

2010-03-21T23:59:00.000-07:00

こんばんは！
私はケイトちゃんですよ。
今、私は勉強します。ときどきちょっと難しいですよ。
私の生活はとてもたのしいです、でも　忙しいも。

I wish I knew how to write "I miss," because I would write how much I miss my best friends Lauren Bird and Kelly Weaver, who are each, separately, an equally absurd distance away from me... which is not okay.

In other news, all of the above grammar was written entirely by me with no help from an external translator! All from my head. So, because of this, I certainly hope the kanji is correct, otherwise who knows what on earth I've written.

(Kanji = Chinese characters. The Japanese language is made up of three different alphabets, two of which are phonetic [ひらがな and カタカナ] and the last of which is the entire Chinese character list, which amounts to a ridiculous amount of incoherent shapes that all mean something different. Needless to say, it's insane. The end.)

I am writing this at three in the morning. It's sleepy time. ところで、ウィンストンさんが大好きだよ。（ウィンストンさんは私のボイフレンドです)

Well this is fun

2010-03-15T23:11:00.001-07:00

http://www.formspring.me/Katethemusical

You go and you can ask me any random ass question and I'll answer it! Super fun!

The Perfect Movie Trailer For the Epic Win

2010-03-14T16:32:00.001-07:00

Ever notice how all film trailers are roughly the same?

...but obviously not too busy for a video game break

2010-03-08T21:26:00.001-08:00

Ok: so the game "Portal" is an epic, epic piece of beauty and genius that deserves to be played by everyone.

It is, at once, scientific, genius, and makes you feel like you're in a first-person shooter even though it's actually just a huge puzzle where you never hurt anyone (except for small, apologetic robots)

It is from this game that the world derives the wonderful phrase:

"The cake is a lie."

Furthermore, once you beat the game, the woman robot voice (who you're trying to obey/discover/destroy for the entire game) sings you a little song at the end.

Note: Before the ending credits, you've just beaten the main robot lady computer thing. But seriously, the game SINGS to you! And it's ADORABLE!

But there's no sense crying over every mistake,
you just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake!
And the science gets done, and you make a neat gun,
for the people who are still alive.

One word

2010-03-08T15:10:00.000-08:00

BUSY
BUSY
BUSY
BUSY
BUSY
BUSY
BUSY
BUSY
BUSY

.....quite busy.

After you write it a whole bunch it stops looking like a real word.

Bespectacled shark

2010-03-03T20:21:00.000-08:00

My Eerie, Scary, Weird Story of the Day

2010-02-25T21:20:00.000-08:00

Before I begin... this story won't make sense without a little background info.

1. If you don't already know, I am a huge fan of Beat poetry. Kerouac and Ginsberg are two of my favorite writers/poets of all time.

2. I am in a playwriting class, and we were asked to bring in a source of inspiration. I brought in the poem "Sunflower Sutra" which is one of my favorite poems of all time, written by Ginsberg. It's about Ginsberg and Kerouac sitting around one afternoon talking about life and beauty and shit.

3. We were then asked to construct a scene combining elements of some of the inspiration pieces people brought in. I considered the idea of writing a scene about these two disgruntled men; I considered writing a play based on the Sunflower Sutra. It would be brilliant. I never wrote the scene, but it has stayed in the back of my mind, begging to be written.

Yes, I had said to myself, those weeks ago, "I'm gonna wait til we get our one-act assignment, and then I'm gonna write a play about Kerouac and Ginsberg, and it's gonna be friggin' awesome."

That was, until the scary thing happened.

4. Our book for playwriting class is called The Playwright's Guidebook: An insightful primer on the art of dramatic writing by Stuart Spencer. It's very interesting and helpful.

Then I got to Chapter Six: "Event."

Chapter Six begins like this:

"In my college course a student, Kate, was trying to finish a one-act play based on Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. The play was a fictionalized account of an encounter between the two men in the early 1960's, when Ginsberg's star was continuing to rise but Kerouac's had fallen sharply. At this moment, Allen has come to visit Jack in the Long Island home of Jack's mother, where Jack has been living and drinking himself into oblivion... ...Kate was ready to bring the play to a conclusion and expressed concern over just how she was going to do that. 'I don't really know what happens at the end,' she said. 'I haven't figured that out yet.' "

What. The. Fuck.

A college student named Kate is in a playwriting class and decides to write a one-act about Kerouac and Ginsberg.

Eerie, no? Who is this time-traveling author and how did they get this published?

And you know I couldn't have come upon that chapter before I had the idea for the play, because that would require doing my homework ahead of time!

David Sedaris Delivers a Pizza

2010-02-24T19:40:00.000-08:00

I forgot how much I love this sketch.

That is SO New York

2010-02-22T22:43:00.000-08:00

What's the perfect day?

Here's a good idea of mine:
Ramen restaurant, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a snowy Central Park, and coffee. It was probably the most brilliant day in a long time, and definitely is SO New York.

Currently reading:
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Emma
Welcome to the Monkey House
Siddhartha
.....your mom.

Higher and higher and higher

2010-02-21T10:05:00.000-08:00

There are so many wonderful things that I want to write about in great depth and detail...
And I don't know how to say it. Rather, I can't say it, really. Not yet.

But I'm happy. I'm really, really happy. In a way that I can't say I've ever been before. And it's the most bizarre feeling ever.

"Connected". That's a good word.

To what, you ask?

I can't yet tell you. Not yet.
"It's the way I see everything I need, it's the way to be;
Let this be our little secret, no one needs to know we're feeling higher and higher and higher, higher and higher and higher."
-Little Secrets, Passion Pit

I may have broken some rules.

Words is in the improvements, say me you

2010-02-15T15:25:00.000-08:00

I've got the most brilliant idea for a short story!

The inspiration came to me as I was talking with my friend about the Korean language. I'm always trying to learn, and then he said something in a funny way and I joked that his English was getting worse as he spoke more Korean.

But it gave us the brilliant idea for a story. So the concept of romantic interest between two people who don't speak the same language is nothing new, but what if they both spoke English and the guy spoke something else as well, and due to some bizarre (magical or medical) circumstances, his English slowly starts to deteriorate and he can speak and understand less and less of what she says over time? Eventually his English will completely disappear and they won't be able to communicate. What happens then?

The concept is a little Flowers for Algernon-esque right now, but different. The significant thing is the idea that they can communicate perfectly at one time, but his once brilliant vocabulary slowly begins to dwindle until he can only rely on his other tongue's brilliant vocabulary, the one the girl can never understand.

Yeah. I wanna write that sunufabitch.

It's like, "No, you no talk pretty one day."

I'm also going to compose a multilingual musical, and every number/character will be in a different language (haven't decided which yet)

How to Deal with a Blizzard

2010-02-11T20:34:00.001-08:00

If your school gets canceled for a day due to snowpocalypse, and you should stay in, get work done, drink some hot tea... what do you do instead?

That's right. Brave the storm and spend all day running around town in freezing weather.

So the tribe and I decided to gather (as we usually do) and go in search of food (again, as per usual here.) Yup, rather than stay in bed, I spent my free day shivering and running and waiting for trains that shed gallons of icy water whenever they pulled into a station. And, I managed to get some blog footage in. Here's the real blog... and then, further down, there's all the footage I couldn't include because I hang out with weirdos.

AAAAAAND here's all the inappropriate goodness I couldn't put into a school-sanctioned video...

One of those moments

2010-02-07T20:49:00.001-08:00

I'm having one of those moments.

It's one of those moments where you stop thinking about what's going to happen tomorrow and next year, when you stop living in the future, and realize that right now is what you always wanted.

Right now is what I've always wanted.

And there are many more moments that I've always wanted, and I'll get them eventually. But right now is one of those many moments.

I'm drinking tea and listening to Kaki King. I'm wearing something that looks like Diane Keaton circa Manhattan era. I'm in a college dorm room in New York studying something that makes me happy. It's cold outside. I have lots of wonderful friends who aren't yet tired of me freeloading Metrocard swipes off them. The song has changed and now it's Sleepyhead by PassionPit, so that's awesome. Sure, my desk could be cleaner, and I could be finished with my paper by now (I've only sort of started, and it's due tomorrow) but this is one of those moments where I have to stop living in what's going to happen and relish what's happening now.

(I do, however, want a nose job, in other news. But that's for another day.)

And oooooohhhhhhmigod I have so much work to do. It's really startling. What a stressful semester.

I have so much to be envious of my friends for! One of my best friends is in Amsterdam, another of my bests is getting a majorly hot body through dancing and sensibility. Eventually I hope they both move up here and get a damn apartment with me already.

Saw Next to Normal tonight. I could do what she does.

Ok, time to stop procrastinating and get down to work!
Me sportin' the fingerless gloves. Aw yeah. (They do absolutely nothing for my fingers in 20º wind chill)

I made a picture for my desktop-- it's a collage of a bunch of women who inspire me, whether I aspire to look like them or sing like them or simply make art and do something original like they do. This is one of the photos from the collage
Kaki King, and though I don't have any goals oriented towards mastering the guitar like her, I want to make something original like she does daily. Also she's super super fierce and I don't even like using the word fierce.

K, this is about ten times longer than I planned. Time to go write a paper, study Kanji for a quiz, write two pages of Japanese, memorize a song, plan my work schedule for the week, and still get in my daily hour of Kindle love...

A blog for the ages

2010-02-04T17:35:00.000-08:00

This photo is kind of old, since it's from my first anime convention (en route to Kansas here) but it's a good photo to describe how I'm feeling lately. Please ignore my forehead, which looks like that of Hobbes.

Sometimes I have to learn how to say why I can't give my Japanese presentation that day.

God of Carnage was pretty cool. I don't remember who the actresses were alongside James Gandolfini and Jeff Daniels, but one of them was good and the other was meh.

While choosing a name for my Kindle, I typed in "Phineas" while my iPhone thought I meant, apparently, "Ojibwas." ... Seriously, phone?! WHAT THE HELL IS OJIBWAS??

Oh, and I settled on Isolde. My biffle's kindle is Tristan.

FUNimation makes the official twitter cast announcement! Check that shit out yo!

I need a real big update with lots of words. This is a filler. Dear family and friends, I must try to remember to put on a happy face, because no one likes a whiny little emo kid.

There's a segment of our situp songs in dance where the awful indie-boy singer goes "if you have problems, why don't you go solve them" and I want to yell WELL good thing it's just that simple, you indie singer who thinks it's hip to fall off the pitch! You do that.

put on a happeh fayse

2010-02-02T23:03:00.000-08:00

Dear Kate,

You should not be looking at this blog. You should be

A) Writing that damn student blog already.
B) Making a video for student blog.
C) Memorizing your hugeass long monologues in Japanese.
D) Working on Strawhats material.
E) All of the above.

...And if I'm not doing any of those, I'm most likely watching horrid Korean dramas with gorgeous pretty asian boys. Yeee!

Necessary College Vocabulary, Lesson One

2010-01-27T14:28:00.000-08:00

1. Sexile (n): comes from combining "sex" and "exile"; To banish a roomate from the room/dorm/apartment for the purpose of engaging in some lovin' relations with one's partner. Usually a pattern occurs where one roommate typically does all the "sexiling," i.e. getting ass, whilst the other more often becomes the "sexilee," resulting in their exile from the vicinity (and general lack of ass-getting.)

I totally got sexiled last night. I had to go into the bathroom to talk on the phone, but when that became occupied, I stood awkwardly in the living room and ate pickles.

2. Fire alarm (n): a screeching system of beeps, sirens and lights, equal in decibels to that of a jet engine, that must go off in college dormitories at least fifty times a month, especially when people are sleeping or showering.

After I had been sexiled, and the other and friends were all chilling around, the fire alarm went off. We thought nothing of it.

3. Spazzcakes (v): To freak out and go completely insane; (n) A state of extreme emotional and intellectual disorientation.

Then one of the roommates suddenly decided it was the candle one of us was burning that caused the fire alarm. This resulted in everyone suddenly going spazzcakes. Hint: (It was not the candle that caused the fire alarm.)

4. Fail (n, v, adj, adv): Self-explanatory.

I thought it would be a good idea to, instead of blowing out the candle, grab the candle and run. This resulted in drippy wax going all over my hand and arm, as well as the slick wood floor. Meanwhile the roommates were screaming to put on pants and get the hell outside or we would all burn to death.

5. Food Coma (n): When you eat so much food you feel sleepy and irritable and have no choice but to fall into a coma-like nap.

After all the stress, I cooked a whole pot of mac and cheese and, since no one would help me eat it, I consumed the entire box and fell into a food coma.

I am guilty

2010-01-26T17:57:00.001-08:00

I am tired of musical theater.

I am tired of hearing my roommates sing theater songs.

I am tired of hearing youtube videos of musical theater songs blasting from the living room.

I am tired of hearing the people talk about type and audition material.

I am tired of hearing them judge their peers and friends so harshly.

I am tired of seeing the same kind of songs and the same movements and the same things from people performing.

I am tired of hearing people belt.

I am tired of being judged by everyone in a career choice that will have no impact curing world hunger or homelessness or any of the world's problems.

I am tired of musical theater and its cliches.

I am in a weird mood.

It's only a week into the semester and my career choice is already burning a hole in my enthusiasm. I am a terrible person and should be killed instantly.

I could mull on this longer, but I've got 2.5 songs to learn.

Mostly, I am just tired.

Please don't be too hard on me.

But I'm just tired of being a part of a field that will not care whatsoever whether or not I contribute or not.

As I write this, my roommate is on the phone talking to someone about her belt and how she used it on a song. And I am so happy for her. She's megafuckin super talented. I envy people who have no doubts, who never tire of discussing vocal arrangements and character choices. I just don't know what's wrong with me. Is it just that I don't have the right temperament for anything?

No, I'm not making any rash decisions, and changing my major. I love the collaborative art that is theater. I think, though, that the MT-Concentrate (not MT cocktail juice) is making me go a little crazy. I don't know. You know what, just ignore me. Kthxbai.

[/useless rant]

There's a llama at the end of this post

2010-01-20T17:07:00.001-08:00

Ok: So I generally stray away from religion that's "organized" (most likely due to my decidedly disorganized personality) but it's really interesting to study and observe how people revolve their lives around religion... from an outsider's point of view, that is. Yes, we should all study religion and try not to be biased against any of them. (Which doesn't happen. Everyone's a little biased. I have to try really hard to not be biased against the predominant faith in Texas and all of the states for that matter, but it's hard)

Judging by that intro, you'd think this would be a long rambly rant-y post, but alas, it's not. It's a comparison of quotes.

A biblical quote one of my friends recently posted on facebook reads "Trust in the lord with all your heart and do not trust your own understanding." or something to that effect.

However, a popular quote among Buddhist scriptures reads "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, even if I [the Buddha] have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own understanding." (Truth be told, it's one of my favorite quotes of all time since it promotes being an independent thinker)

Interesting, no? Generally, all faiths preach goodness and kindness and helping the fellow man... but this, my friends, is one way in which they severely differ. Food for thought. [Insert deity of choice here] bless. Y'know, if you're into that. :)

And now, to relieve the headache I've most likely given you via my ramblings, here is a picture of me and a llama.

2010-01-10T22:11:00.003-08:00

Nanananananananananana BATMAAAAAN batmaaaaan

Nanananananananananana BATMAAAAAN batmaaaaan

That Entry That Everyone Writes God I Am So Conventional

2010-01-02T12:05:00.000-08:00

Since my wonderful favoritest person Kelly wrote a beautiful entry to ring in the new year on her blog, I decided that I should get down to it and finally make some new year resolutions.

1. I will improve my conversation skills in Japanese. This means I'll have to learn Katakana (one of the three alphabets) as well as some Kanji (the dreaded Chinese characters)
And I wanna learn the basic, basic, basics of French and Spanish and Chinese and Korean. And maybe Italian too. Actually, I will just devote a whole lot of time to learning lots of languages.
2. I will read many more books
this is very similar to Bird's. We both are new proud parents of Kindles so that should help.
3. I will lose about five-ish pounds
and I really mean it this time. But it'll mostly be about changing diet since exercising makes me want to kill myself and I do feel guilty about how much sugar I consume.
4. I will not eat meat unless it is absolutely necessary
i.e. family gathering where my grandma will disown me if I don't eat her beef because "we're made of meat" and all the other stupid excuses they came up with in the 50's to justify all the disgusting things they ate.
5. I will figure out what it is I want to do with my life.
Ok, so lots of people don't know this until they reach mid-life... but seeing as I'm a theater major who doesn't even know if this makes me happy, I figure I've got to do something before I find myself wallowing in unhappiness.
6. I will write music
and poetry and plays and short stories and I won't hide them in shame, even if they really are terrible.

Last Night, Ten Years Ago, and Tomorrow

2009-12-31T12:53:00.001-08:00

Last Night:
the PIRATE TRAIN

I was on a foreign island of a foreign country and it was hundreds of years ago and everyone's wearing period costumes, all fancy dresses; but mostly we're all immigrants, wearing shoddy draperies or tousled pirate clothes. I am with a small group of comrades and we are trying to hide, for whatever reason. We board a train. Now, there are good pirates and thief pirates; we're hiding from the thief pirates who are rumored to attack our train, and the good pirates (a more bumbling, old-fashioned kindly breed of pirate) are helping us. Most of the people on the train are poor immigrants, and they are fairly helpful. In my group of comrades, looking disheveled and messy in our ragged clothing (I'm the only female wearing pants, of course; I think we're thieves but not thief pirates) we don't have seats so we run from car to car talking to passengers about the current literature of the time period. Suddenly, the train is attacked by thief pirates and I freak out and duck under a seat until they leave the car. A little immigrant girl comes up and asks me to tell her a story. I agree to under the condition that she lets me hide under her blanket if more thief pirates come. Later I look out a train window and it appears we're on a very small jungle island. How far can the train even go, if we're on such a small island? Perhaps in circles. I'm not quite sure. I woke up some time after I started considering the terrain.

TEN YEARS AGO: FWAFA
I left public elementary school, an environment in which I had no friends and I cried daily because teachers were mean to me because I was constantly thinking but not about the given assignments, a problem that still affects me to this day, but I digress; I left public elementary school in fifth grade for this new school in the city where the Texas Boys' Choir studied. It was small and cool and adventurous and there I met some fantastic friends. We were the "punks" of the school. By that I meant that we painted our nails black with sharpies and laughed at the straight-laced "popular" kids and talked about how much society sucked and how much we liked Avril Lavigne. But I still studied hard and made good grades and all that, because no matter how much of a rebel I wanted to be, I couldn't shake off the nerd. Oh, and gray became my favorite color, which is still true to this day. But I made great friends from that time. I started working at Funimation as a voice actor and I started to value myself as a performer. And that was that, I guess. Yup. A whole decade ago, in 2000. Bizarre.

Today and Tomorrow: 2009 & 2010
2009: fade in on girl, about 20, sitting at computer, struggling to write a blog entry.
[Tracy enters.]
Tracy: What up.
[Kate looks up at Tracy]
Kate: Not much.
Tracy: I love that headband. I love going through your stuff. I always find lots of... cute things.
Kate: [types away]
Tracy: You writing some kind of happy family entry? ...no? Ok.
Kate: [continues to type furiously]
Tracy: Man, you type fast.
Kate: ...Wait, don't go away.
Tracy: K.
[There is a pause. Tracy puts things away in the room]
Kate: Do you have any New Years Resolutions?
Tracy: [looks over Kate's shoulder at screen] Why are you writing this all verbatim?
Kate: Urrrrr I dunno.
Tracy: Um, yeah, I'm gonna lose at least twenty pounds.
Kate: That works. [continues typing. Tracy sits on couch next to two useless but happy dogs]
Tracy: I'm always so sad to take the tree down. Especially this one. This one was so nice. Didn't you like it?
Kate: Mhm. [types for a while, then pauses and swivels chair]I love this tree. It's a little lopsided.
Tracy: Well that's cause it's a real tree. Oh look, iz Charlie, hey little buddy! [Tracy makes cooing noises at fat useless dachshund, who wags tail and pees a little] What dreary weather. Some time, though, you know it's gonna get up to 70 and we're gonna end up having drinks on the patio... Are you writing down everything I say?
Kate: [laughs] No...
Tracy: [coughs, hacking up a lung]
Kate: Are you feeling any better?
Tracy: A little bit, yeah. ...Are we going to Angelo's to see the Thayers tonight?
Kate: No, I'm going to Lauren's. I love Angelo's but I can't handle that much meat.
Tracy: When do you want to take the tree down?
Kate: I dunno. I'll help you though.
[Tracy fiddles with ornaments, then steps behind Kate's chair and looks at computer. She guffaws, almost as if offended, and saunters out of the room.]
Kate: [over shoulder] It's a playwriting excersize! ...Kind of!

"TOMORROW"
A collection of New Year Resolutions
1. I will become proficient in Japanese, and memorize the two other alphabets other than Hiragana (Katakana and as much Kanji as possible)
2. I will gain a basic knowledge of French, Mandarin, and possibly some other language.
3. I will be as kind as possible and gather up lots of good karma.
4. I will figure out exactly what it is I plan to do with my degree.
5. I will start writing a play called "Landslide Birds" that will make people laugh and cry and become philosophers.
6. I will finish planning my philosophical short film "Solipsist" and perhaps even work on filming it.
7. I will buy my brother Pocky because he just discovered that I ate his box he got for Christmas.

I would be more excited about Christmas

2009-12-14T21:50:00.001-08:00

but I've got a six-page research paper to write.

I would be more excited about Christmas

but I have five different points to research in the library tomorrow.

I would be more excited about Christmas

but I have two callbacks tomorrow, on top of the research paper I have to finish.

I would be more excited about Christmas

but tomorrow is the last big day of rehearsals for Once On This Island,
and I have to work on my part as the "Beautiful Goddess of Love,"
on top of that damn research paper.

I would be more excited about Christmas

but I have a full 8-hour (at least) work day immediately upon my return home.

I would be more excited about Christmas

but I have five finals to study for, including at least two that are ≥7 pages long and will take a full three hours to complete the same day I leave for the airport.

I would be more excited about Christmas

but I haven't done any of my Christmas shopping or gift preparing because of my insane life.

I would be more excited about Christmas

if it weren't for this feeling of "wait, why the hell am I complaining about time when I'm sitting here blogging about my lack of time to get excited about Christmas?"

I'm plenty excited about Christmas already.
The tree is up at the South Street Seaport and I just remembered that my mummy and ol' army man are coming up in a couple days.

I have plenty of time to get excited about Christmas. It's just a busy time right now.

Gotta remember it's the simple things that matter.

And on that note, I should go shower.

Peace, love, and pickles, everyone. Remember that you are, in fact, Seymour's fat lady.
xxx

Japanese 101: the Epic Adventure

2009-12-12T21:08:00.001-08:00

"I've gotta feeling that tonight's gonna be a good good night..."

Note: I must preface this entry by saying that if you are going to mock me for my blatant geekiness, then please stop reading this now and go watch something terribly generic and awful like The Hills or Gossip Girl, like every other average American with a TV set. Otherwise, you can shut yo mouf. I am my own person and I am quite proud of that fact. Thank you. Carry on...

"tonight's gonna be a good niiight..."
I should have played that song in my head yesterday morning, but there was audition music and awful Japanese techno and Korean girl-bands playing instead.

After a late afternoon voice lesson, I got a text from a friend in my Japanese class to meet them at Astor Place for a night of hanging out and general merriment.

Before we continue, I must introduce to you my friend group of Japanese class. Since I didn't take pictures, I drew them instead.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Andy: Speaks fluent Korean. Possibly the most "normal" of all of us, he is also most likely a ninja.

Winston: Scratch that, Winston is probably way more normal than Andy. He's chill and cool. He hails from the nation of Taiwan. 'Sup.

Jye-san: Far too adorable and awesome, she hails from the nation of China and sings in Mandarin. <3

Steven: Could be an MT major in a heartbeat but chooses to sing Korean pop music instead. Which I fully support. He'll be famous before me-- also speaks fluent Korean (and always makes better grades in Japanese than me.)

Dylan: Oh Jesus. Dylan, Dylan, Dylan. Where do I start? He's a self-proclaimed, perverted, anime lover with a weird, weird love for Asian females. And somehow he fits perfectly into our group. I hope that doesn't say anything about the rest of us.

Osiris: He has an Egyptian name and he can eat rice like nobody's business. Pretty quiet generally, but will randomly spout something subtly hilarious. Oh, and his hair is longer than most girls'.

Me: I'm your resident waspy female taking a Japanese class 'cause it sounded like fun. The boys spent most of the night trying to get me and Jye to make out. It didn't work.

THE COURSE OF EVENTS

1. We meet up at the Astor place Starbucks. It's friggin cold the whole night.

2. Tiny Japanese hole-in-the-wall joint where nothing is over five bucks and most of them don't speak English. All of the customers were Japanese, hardcore (That's how you know it's legit.) We got seated in the back and pigged out on yaki sake onigiri (grilled salmon rice balls) and sashimi and miso soup and eel and dumplings and anything else Japanese. Since the menu and bill were only in Japanese, it was good practice. And cheap.

3. We head over to a Tokyo toy store and Dylan dashes in to Pomme Frites because I mention "oh, that's a really good place to get fries." He's intensely thin, yet he eats a full course meal every five minutes. Anyway. We go inside the toy store and it's amazing and I have to restrain myself from buying every Gloomy Bear and Hello Kitty item known to man.

4. After that, we all head a couple blocks away and I quickly get some takoyaki (fried octopus dumplings) since, hey, it's like a night of Asian madness, and I may as well.

5. The Japanese supermarket. Our professor, Kurahara, had mentioned this store and how all the Japanese people in NYC go there, so we went and oh lord is it magical. No one spoke English (this is a common thing throughout the night) and we bought Pocky and noodles and oh my god whatever that Hello Kitty snack is and I don't know because I can't read Japanese and is this egg flavored? And then, why would they make Hello Kitty marshmallow snacks flavored like eggs? Because they're Japanese and they do what they want. (I realize this didn't make sense. It was my thought process at the time)

6. From there, we had some time before the real fun part of the night, so we went to a restaurant called Saigon-- due to certain delightful circumstances we got to pay about twenty percent of the original price, and this is a friggin nice restaurant. It's huge and fancy and the food is AMAZING. Our table shared fried noodles and shrimp dumplings and spring rolls and Thai tea (on the house) and rice and some kind of kimchi-beef thing (which I didn't eat because I don't eat beef or kimchi) but it was amazing. Brilliant restaurant. You should go there, and take your girlfriend to impress her.

7. Ba ba baaaammm...... KOREAN KARAOKE TIME.
So there's this Korean Karaoke bar place in the tiny but bustling K-town of Manhattan that Steven knew of. We got there and had to wait-- the place was packed busy, even so late at night. Our karaoke session didn't start until 11:45, a couple minutes after we arrived.

So we get there and the place is dark, with disco/ravey lights, a bar, and this really cool, dark atmosphere that's hard to describe. The music is thumping and loud, and hosts are dressed in classy black vests and suits, serving drinks and fruit trays to rooms. Here's the thing: Asian countries' karaoke is different from America's because rather than make a fool of yourself in front of a huge restaurant, your group of friends rents a room by the hour. This is your karaoke room, and there are two large TV screens, couches, a coffee table, two songbooks, and two microphones. So we went in and Steven and Andy (the two Korean-speakers) work out our deal with the hosts, and we went into the room and started plugging songs into the computer for us to play.

I sang Japanese songs, I sang English songs, I sang Korean songs that I didn't know what the fuck was going on but I sang them anyway-- we did everything. Everyone sang everything. We stayed in that room for THREE HOURS OF AWESOMENESS AND MERRIMENT. The time flew by far too quickly. The host kept bringing us beer and beautiful fruit trays-- it was so, so marvelous. And each time the host would enter the room, Andy or Steven would thank them and order more things in Korean (which is a highly attractive language, much more mature sounding than Japanese but less harsh than Mandarin.) We sang, we danced, we drank, we ate, we laughed, we sang some more, and we made absolute fools of ourselves in the best way possible. Jye serenaded us in her native language of Mandarin, Steven crooned Korean boy-band songs, Osiris and Dylan belted Beatles songs, and Andy and I acted out Barbie Girl because that's how we roll. It was pretty hilarious.

So we left the karaoke joint by... er... three something, and stumbled back out into the cold, bleak night of New York. By that time we were all pretty tired, but it took us two more hours of walking around the city and train-hopping before we somehow ended up back at the school and half the group had to go all the way back up to Queens.

The Japanese 101 Group's Epic Adventure came to a quiet close as I happily dragged my tired feet into bed, throwing aside my new Gloomy Bear bag, now full of Pocky and complimentary yogurt drinks from the Koreans. It was a good, good night.

Fin

Next entry: the differences in friend groups: theatre people vs. Japanese class people

2009-11-24T10:16:00.001-08:00

I'm making another post from my phone, how cool is this? I'm at LaGuardia. Nearly two hours early for a flight. It's a little crazy.

So here I am, biding time listening to the Postal Service and hoping it isn't too warm in the country of Texas...

Haha, Billy Mays is on the tv! It's amusing whenever I watch tv. Such a rare instance

Orca Sanctuary

2009-11-23T20:38:00.000-08:00

I have a vision of these whales
huge, sleek, glistening beasts
moving as if in their natural habitat
but through the air instead;
an expansive room
Aristotle, Socrates, Sophocles, Heraclitus, Plato,
Descartes, Kant, Locke...
they float, these megaton mammals,
yawning and sighing sorrowful whale-songs
with tails flinging forever in slow motion
What should I ask them?
They are the most beautiful things,
perfect giants, wet, seemingly,
although far from real water
Isn't the sky made of water?
To float with these sharp-toothed porpoises
is impossible-
to sing and sigh
they needn't ponder because they already know
When you unknowingly make so many people think, for years upon years,
you continue to live
but in a new sense,
and in a new body and form.
The whales sing what they have been
singing for hundreds of years,
kept in constant motion
in their sea-air-sanctuary.

I am Ai,
goddess of my own private world that doesn't exist.
I am a pirate, a lover of birds,
a lover of whales, a lover of philosophers
reincarnated as flying whales.
I am to find this sanctuary where the great old minds are
and ask them not the purpose of life
but why everyone keeps trying to find it so.
They are enlightened
they are orcas
and they are hidden

...What if I started a book that way?
Yes, it is literally about philosophers reincarnated as orca whales that fly around in this kind of nirvana-like garden.
What would happen if I tried to write an epic poem that spanned the length of a full-fledged novel? What if I wasn't brought down by the fear of being mocked for making a book about-- wait, what the fuck-- flying whales that are actually ancient philosophers reincarnated? And this girl who has to find them in their secret location so she can have the answers to life? What if I wasn't so afraid of posting these secret things, these things that I sometimes write in my private journal, that it didn't take me hours of doubt to make this post public? What then?

"I can haz teh enlightenmentz?"

Writingがすきです。
私は馬鹿です...
ケイトはかわいいじゃないです.
My Japanese grammar is ever so poor, yet my English grammar is written with such care...

Hours of fun in David's room

2009-11-20T23:49:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I go to David's room. He's like the dude version of me. We're both exceedingly geeky and love ourselves for it. We mostly play video games and eat Hot Pockets, but sometimes when he's playing I go to Brandon's computer and make movies.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/video/video.php?v=215565809950&ref=mf

A new stumbled thing

2009-11-19T14:35:00.001-08:00

Life

2009-11-16T15:55:00.001-08:00

is a crazy sonofabitch.

In other news, Thanksgiving is coming around the corner! And that means a kickoff for CHRISTMAS!!!!!1!!111!11!11!1one LOL OMG WTF BBQ.

So, I must tell you that I will soon get over my swine cancer death and make an AWESOME HUGE ASS POST with pictures and stories and lots of lovely wonderful things that make blogs fun to read. Ok, bye!

K so right now

2009-11-11T18:06:00.000-08:00

I am totally dying a swine flu death.

...Actually that's not true at all. It's just the normal regular old flu. You know, the normal flu that actually kills a thousand times more people than swine flu? (The media is so awful. "SWINE FLU: DEADLY TO EVERYONE?!" "ARE YOU NEXT? SWINE FLU OMG WTF BBQ")

I'll be fine in a couple days but this sickness is causing me to neglect all of my ridiculous amount of obligations that I for some reason agreed to because I'm overambitious. Those things include but are not limited to the writing center, student blogging, student video blogging, and others... things that I really didn't have to do but I did anyway, therefore making my life a thousand times more stressful.

Everytime I try to type "flu" I type "fly". I had to go back and fix it a bunch of times already. Fly fly fly flu flu fly fly flu fly

I Don't Like Carousel Part 2; AND, my next student blog

2009-11-07T14:58:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't posted lately, I've been
SCHOOL BUSY
which means busy with not-fun stuff.

Actually, one of my endeavors has been really quite fun, and that thing is being the spotlight operator for my school's production of City of Angels (not to be confused with City of Angles, the Geometry Musical)

Which I will write a student blog on later.

However, today's post will be a short one, as I just wanted to write down some lyrics from a song I have to learn for class. It's from "What's the Use of Wond'rin" from Carousel.

And those of you who really know me also know my stance on the show Carouse l.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand the time period and how acceptable this was back then. But the last chorus of my song just sounds like... well, it sounds like a dog is singing it. It really sounds like the girl is Lassie singing about her boy.

"And somethin' gave him the things that are his,
one of those things is you!
So when he wants your kisses,
you will give them to the lad,
and anywhere he leads you, you will walk,
and anytime he needs you,
you'll go runnin' there like mad!
You're his girl, and he's your feller,
and all the rest is talk."

Little known fact: Carousel is actually about Lassie Come-Home, the collie.

Peace out.

Oh, and GO SEE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS. It's awesome.

Aphros

2009-10-21T10:35:00.001-07:00

Our school has a literary magazine called Aphros, where students get poems and short stories and pictures of their artwork published. I had no idea this existed until I was working the booth for Writing Center Awareness Week (people walking by only noticed the candy we gave out) and I became addicted to reading other students' work. I might submit my "Tag Team" inspired by Ginsberg thing, but I'm not sure if it's a poem or prose or what. I write like this a lot. It isn't poetry; it doesn't really have stanzas, but it has short paragraph-type things that eventually taper into one or two lines.

I've edited it a little... I added more lines that reference Ginsberg from the original "America" and sprinkled in some Buddhist thought. Note the balloon boy reference as well. Haha!

Tag Team- inspired by the Beats

America he gave you all and he became nothing.
America when will we be told the real truths? When will you stop these nervous breakdowns over the newest fad catastrophe?
When will your people, and the other people, become capable of selflessness? What, even, is selflessness? What is there to care for, to listen to above the incessant murmur from your weary citizens? They care, but often for the wrong things. Perhaps I care about the wrong things too. How can we even be sure? America when can we appreciate the Beats without sending accusations flying about insincerity? Where is Kerouac when we need him?

We seek to become nothing.

America I grow nervous, not tired. Is this your intention? With the fumes of the Times the poisonous blogs and your noxious CNN? Pandemics and rages and who blew up, flew up into the sky this week. It's the impression we get. This is your second letter, America, to my knowledge, and you failed to listen when Ginsberg first wailed a lonely howl to your polluted sky.

Nothing, he learned, is all we can be.

America I could boycott your food and hurt only myself. America I could boycott your culture and nothing would change. America if I boycott my native country I shall end up on a boat slowly going insane like the man who already did that once in revolutionary era. Wasn't that a Vonnegut?

There is no chase: strive for nothing. It's all we can do.

America why didn't you listen to Ginsberg?

Dharma Bums is my favoritest.

I made a meme

2009-10-16T09:58:00.001-07:00

I JUST LOVE HIS LAST FACE SO FREAKING MUCH.

Triphallus, to Punctuate!

2009-10-15T08:42:00.001-07:00

I believe as human beings we operate under many different philosophies.

In studying the various philosoph(ers/ies) I've come to name some of the life philosophies I adopt depending on my situation. It isn't even a conscious thing, but the way I function in certain times can be labeled as one of the philosophies I've studied. Lemme explain...

When I audition or wait to hear a result, I am a solipsist. My thoughts can affect the outcome. If I believe something will happen, it won't; If I convince myself it won't, it will. (This also attributes to my theory of balance of good and bad in a day, which is pretty solipsist because it ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy anyway, and it is all a product of my mind.) The solipsist believes, at its most extreme, that their mind is the only thing that exists and everything around them is a product of their imagination and can therefore be controlled by it. I simply believe that the way I think will affect something I have no control over in the first place. I never said it was right, in fact, I accept its ridiculousness.

When I become angered by others, I am a moral absolutist. People are either completely good or completely bad and harmful. In my more neutral mind, I know this isn't true, but it comes out in the worst way when this happens. I don't forgive, I only forget to be mad. Terrible philosophy to adopt.

When I get discouraged by my own actions, I am an existentialist. Life is absurd. People are absurd, and act in such a way. I am absurd. You are absurd. Existence is absurd and surreal. Nothing matters, yet it completely does. I am a failure waiting for Godot who will never come.

When I am determined, I am a utilitarian. The things I strive for, I strive for based only on their ability to make me happy in the future. This usually fails me. When I become determined to dance well, for example, the actual act of dancing makes me so unhappy that it erases all trace of utilitarianism, no matter how good my initial intentions may be.

When I am sad, I am generally still existentialist, because life is absurd and pretty much sucks balls.

But most of the time I have to forget everything shitty around me and fall into some form of Zen, the only "philosophy" (if one can really call it that) that doesn't pull me one way or another. My head is tired from all the thinking I do every day. I tend to zone out, all the time. I'm not lost in a zone of "no-thought," in fact, I'm doing the opposite: I think too much. I follow a thought and follow and follow and the thought grows and becomes global:
Why can't I keep my balance on that pirouette?
Why don't I have good balance at all?
What if this affected the way I walk?
How will me doing a turn help anyone in the world?
Am I following a selfish profession? (I'm not, btw)
Why are people allergic to shellfish?
I heard somewhere that alpacas are the fastest growing industry...
Etc, etc, etc.
It's a vicious cycle.

My mind doesn't wander.
It sprints.
Into a manhole.
And through the sewers.

Don't even read this

2009-10-13T23:01:00.000-07:00

I would like to introduce Pickle Relish
And this is the reason I spend too much time on the internet.

You see, facebook has this terrible little app called Pet Society. You make a little creature and you earn coins to decorate their house and buy them clothes. Most of the pets look like rabbits, or hamsters, or something.

I don't know what Pickle Relish is supposed to look like. I bought her a giant retro red wig, a lolita outfit, and obscenely large sunglasses, and now she's a little punk hooker. Hamster. Thing. I'm not really sure.

I'll make a really good post one of these days, I promise.

I agree with Calvin, actually

2009-10-11T19:31:00.000-07:00

^^^^ click to enlarge! The tiny size doesn't do it justice at all! ^^^^

And this just because I found it really funny...

Ur doin it rong

2009-10-06T19:24:00.000-07:00

こんばんは。

I feel like I really need some positive affirmation right now. But then again, the only person who can give me that is myself... or so positive people say.

Today was one of those days where I felt like I'm the only person in the world who makes dumb mistakes. I know that isn't true (entirely,) but today was one of those days that just made me want to curl up into a little ball and read Calvin and Hobbes until I forgot about my mistakes.

Now I'm gonna go study for a Japanese quiz. さよなら。ありがとう

To make this post a bit merrier, here is a story from an audition.

There is a young guy and an older guy waiting to go in. The audition is strictly Gilbert and Sullivan.

Young guy: So what're you singing?
Older guy: Pirate king.
Young guy: Oh really? What's that from?
Kate: *facepalm*
[/operetta joke]

Sidebar: video.

My life as a comic

2009-09-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

MAH STUDENT BLOG IS FINALLY DONE FOR THE MONTH!

Except it kind of blows. And sometimes people getz mad at meh.

Hm... what can I do to make myself feel better?

...Maybe I'll just play the ukulele until I come up with something.

By the way, I'm not shirtless. It's a pink tank but it's way small and my hair is way big.

Once I was a cute little whipper snapper, with bangs, and I looked like this:

Now that my bangs have grown out, I look like this:

(that's my grandma! She looks pretty good for an old broad, right? I think we look kind of similar)

On Food in Dorms

2009-09-26T16:35:00.001-07:00

TODAY I WORKED SOOO MANY HOURS. Namely 7, which isn't a lot compared to the normal cubicle work day, I guess. But I stood in a booth and read lines in a high pitched voice. And I got lots of free anime DVDs. I gave 'em to my brother. :-)

And now I'm gonna try to "student blog". I'll edit (i.e. censor) it for school, eventually...

Thank God I'm out of the horrid freshman meal plan, which requires you to basically eat every meal in the cafeteria so as to spend all your money or have it vanish into the black hole that is Pace's debt as a university.

I have to write a student blog, and I'm procrastinating like mad. So I'm gonna write it about food and cooking for yourself in the dorm.

Preface:

My roommates are all really, really excellent cooks. Sarah makes healthy steamed vegetables all the time, Whitney has a well organized index of delicious home-cooked meals, and Rebecca always seems to be making some Brazilian dish foreign to my Texan palate.

And me? Usually I just boil water for Ramen and eat it out of the pot. OR, I eat goldfish crackers. Or frozen pizza. (Reminder: Kate needs to buy more frozen pizzas.)

Here are some recipes that are good for lazy college kids such as myself.

MICROWAVE SECTION:

1. S'mores Casserole
Ingredients: Small marshmallows, a chocolate bar, and teddy grahams.
Place a square of chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl, then pour marshmallows over it until you feel the ratio is about equal. Microwave for about 10 seconds or until the marshmallows puff up considerably. Take it out and pour teddy grahams, however many you like, into the bowl and stir up into a messy, sticky, teddy graham-y mess of smores tasting delight. It's the lazy man's s'mores in a bowl, eaten with a spoon. Don't blame me if you gain another freshman 15.

2. Microwave Ramen
Don't have a stove? Well, if you're dorming there's one down the hall. But sometimes you're just too lazy or they're already occupied. So you can make Ramen in the microwave if you're really desperate for that sodium-packed noodly goodness. Fill a big glass measuring cup, or a bowl, with water, and nuke for 2 minutes or until boiling. Put in noodles and boil another 2 minutes. Not as perfect as stovetop Ramen, but it'll do for a hungry student.

Other common microwave foods are easy mac, cup o' noodles, and other unhealthy shit, but those are a given. Of COURSE we'll eat those.

Downtown NY is kind of shitty for late night food choices because most of the local food joints cater to business men on lunch hours, not hungry/stoned/drunk/bored/otherwise ravenous students craving food.

Why is my blog so often about eating? Gah, y'all, Kate's a fatass. =P

I'm gonna go procrastinate more 'cuz my dad is home a couple weeks early from flight school and we're gonna go do family things, I guess. Yay for him not being in Iraq! He passed his fixed wing course! <3

Au revoir...

The Misadventures of Flying Standby at LaGuardia

2009-09-25T21:04:00.001-07:00

I am hooooooommmmeeee!

2009-09-25T20:14:00.001-07:00

Weird, right? I was just so excited about getting back into the business of school life, what with my Goodnight Moon poem tribute and all that nonsense, when suddenly work calls and I have to be quickly shipped back to Texas for some adventures in voice acting.

Which is kind of cool. I mean, it's really fun, despite how jaded I've become with flying in general.

I made a video during the day, starting with sitting at the airport and going until I'm sitting at my home base kitchen! (But obviously it was not filming the whole time. That would be a six hour movie. And there is only one Gone With The Wind, which is plenty.)

One of the great things about getting to visit home is that you get fed home cooked food. And if you're my mother's daughter, you get Tex Mex doggy bag food from the local Tex Mex venue. Which, considering we're in the best state for Tex Mex, is awesome.

Although I didn't like guacamole until I moved to New York...

But I veer from the point.

Tomorrow I go into work at 11 (whee! The life of an actor is sweet for those who stay up late on youtube!) and after that I may hang out with my BIRD.....

こんばんわ、よろしくおねがいします！

2009-09-24T12:56:00.001-07:00

Cheese sticks.

2009-09-23T22:18:00.001-07:00

It's very hard to keep a lightly sleeping roommate sleeping when you're up late and doing things. I feel bad. I tend to bang things around, sometimes.

So I wrote a poem, for very little reason other than it makes me happy to do so.

Two rivers got the best of me,
The Hudson and the Trinity;
yet only one led out to sea.
The bridges must be weeping.
While half my world is vastly paved
The other's wand'ring minds have caved
To Just How Many Souls Are Saved?
But hush, my roommate's sleeping.

Goodnight <3

2009-09-17T22:41:00.000-07:00

2009-09-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

私輪悲しい。とても悲しい。

It doesn't quite translate well, but screw google translate, I typed it myself and it totally makes sense.

P.S. I found this on stumble and it is pretty much me, perfectly.

"I am in a constant battle with my mind. i go from thinking that i am special for being "intelligent" to realizing that being aware of my being special is, in fact a sign that i am just seeking attention and simply something i like thinking about myself. then i realize that being aware of that fact counter-acts itself, and i am stuck in an endless paradox of myself. i have not yet learned how to stop and just say 'it doesn't matter' "

2009-09-16T23:48:00.001-07:00

I don't understand.

Future =
http://www.aavmc.org/students_admissions/career_center.htm

Schoolingness / Worst Audition Ever-ness

2009-09-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

School hath beguneth again, and thus the stress of auditions. I'll spare you the aches and pains I have with the closed environment of school theatre in general, as well as my insecurities about a college major that guarantees I won't have a job for more than a year at a time, and instead I'm going to make lists! Because lists are fun!

My roommate has a ton of gorgeous clothes and I'm totes jealous,
But it's cuz I'm a shitty ass cheapskate, for the record, and therefore my clothes are shitty. Haha.

THE PROS AND CONS OF HAVING DOUBTS ABOUT BEING AN MT KID
1. PRO: You.... think for yourself, I guess? psh. Everyone thinks for themselves.
2. CON: Your life is anxiety. My life IS anxiety.
3. PRO: You drink more. I will not be a lightweight dammit! ...Is this a Pro?
4. CON: Your friends sing in the streets. You say that singing in public is like using magic in the muggle world, and then they give you hateful looks.
5. CON: They hate you when your correct their grammar. I'M SORRY I JUST LOVE THE APOSTROPHE

WAYS MY ROOM IS AWESOME
1. Rebecca doesn't like overhead light at all, so instead we have those huge ass white paper lamps, two round ones from either corner and one gigantic wine-bottle shaped one by the window. It gives the room a romantic glow.
2. I HAVE A WINDOW WITH A GREAT VIEW OF DOWNTOWN/MY SCHOOL! :D It's next to my desk! I have sort of a little study nook.
3. I have a really sweet badass desk, with a lot of space and shelves, which is great because I already have to memorize a whole bunch of Hiragana by Monday!
3. My roomies let me put my art up to cover unsightly wall blemishes and fuse boxes.
4. We have a shit ton of kitchen supplies as well as a very lovely big kitchen.
5. All this space and I'm still in New York. Manhattan, nonetheless!

And so, I am going to TRY to have a glimmer of hope about the goodness of this coming year even though I had the official worst audition of my LIFE yesterday. Worst. Audition. Of. My. Life. And that's a lot of auditions to compete with for title of Worst Audition Ever.

Goodnight, Moon (My vers)

2009-09-02T21:22:00.000-07:00

In the great purple room
There was a cell phone
And a red suitcase
And a picture of--
The Beatles walking over the road
And there were three little sock monkeys sitting on chairs
And two little dogs
And a pair of socks
And a little toy ukulele
And an external hard drive
And a glass and some ice and a bowl full of rice
And a sleepy college girl who said "life is nice."
Goodnight room, goodnight moon...

What's Happening This Semester (and why I need to learn time travel)

2009-08-25T11:11:00.001-07:00

Hi. How are you today?
I'm stressing a little bit.

Here is my normal week schedule for this coming fall, as of now...

MONDAY
10am-11:15am : Japanese
1:25-4:10 : Musical Theatre History & Repertoire
4pm-5:50 : Critical Writing
(You may stop here and wonder: How can I make a class that starts at 4 when the previous class ends ten minute later? EXACTLY.)

TUESDAY
10am-11:05 : Jazz dance
11am-3pm : Work in the writing center (the predicament presents itself again here)

WEDNESDAY
10am-11:15 : Japanese
2pm-5pm : work in the writing center (a moderate break for lunch, joy!)
4pm-5:50 : Critical Writing (wait, what the fu... work til 5 then time travel back an hour so I can make a writing class? WTF)

THURSDAY
10am-11:05 : Jazz dance
12:20-3:05 : Voice and Movement with the God figure of our theatre dept
3:00-5:00 : work in the writing center (Once again, writing center, WTF?)

FRIDAY
10am-11:15 : Japanese
...and then presumably a voice lesson somewhere Friday. Oh lord I'm a busy sonufabitch.

An Epic Adventure

2009-08-14T21:38:00.001-07:00

This has nothing to do with anything, but now that it caught your attention (because everyone loves Little Foot) then you may as well keep reading. :)

This week, I went on an epic adventure. Because sometimes, those are just necessary.

My original plan was to fill up my little white volvo Ishmael and drive the 200 or so miles to Austin without asking permission. I figured Tracy would be at work and I'd be safe and I'd drive back that night. She'd be at work all day anyway.

Well, what ended up happening was that my friend Moseley's brother Matt was planning a drive down to Waco to visit his apartment for law school and thought it'd be cool to hang out in Austin for the day as well. So at 8 that morning (with Tracy's knowledge) I got picked up by Matt and Moseley and we headed down the crazy Texas freeway!

Our Adventure to Austin, Day 1:

1. We stopped at Czech Stop, which is a totally famous gas station / bakery / awesome food place. Definite yum. I can never go without picking up a ginger molasses cookie. I mean, how awesome is a ginger molasses cookie to begin with?

2. When we arrived in beautiful and exciting Waco, (a university and maybe some churches around it, oh, and Dr. Pepper) we checked out Matt's soon to be apartment which was really cool and industrial. I said it was bigger than probably anything I'd ever live in once I move fully into NYC. It's true. Cue Moseley and Kate Instant Dance Party! *uns uns uns uns uns uns*

The woman showing us the apartment probably disliked me a whole bunch because I remarked at how unique it was that Baylor doesn't have ANY co ed housing. Me: "So there's no co-ed buildings at all? Floors?"
Woman: "No. Everything is strictly men or women and they aren't allowed in the other's."
Me: "Huh, you know, you only see that kind of thing here in the South. All my neighbors are dudes!" *big goofy smile*
Woman: *purses lips, ignores me, and walks off offendedly*

3. A couple more hours of passing cornfield after cornfield and we came to AUSTIN!! Now, Austin is one heck of a sweet little town. I call it the biggest small town ever. Austin is made up entirely of UT students and bums, and often people may fit into both those categories. Everything is clothes shops and coffee shops and more indie little coffee houses, and some ghetto places and more coffee places. Oh, and if you drive just a little more you're in the middle of the wilderness, which is really cool. Number 3 on my "list of stuff we did" was go to Cafe Medici right across from the UT campus. The coffee was really strong. I should have expected that.

4. I realize that my trip is so impromptu that I have not packed enough clothes for a 2 or 3 day trip. So we head right down the street (I believe it is Guadalupe St) to an Urban Outfitter, where I get a dress for like 90% off because the zipper is partially broken. Man, UO stuff is always so overpriced so this was almost getting it for something reasonable. Almost. Mostly I'm just desperate to get a new dress. It's cute though, so that's a plus. I almost feel like a bona fide Austin hipster.

5. I realize that I am a way different breed of person than the Austin hipster. I'm a New Yorker. Bitches. ;)

6. Matt is hungry even though Moseley and I filled up on cookies, so we head to Mellow Mushroom and get some pizzaaaaaaahhhh. Meantime we are trying to find Will so we can hang out with him, since he is the one I came to visit and all that. He finds himself caught up in a long job interview. Matt says he wants to go see a mountain he heard about.

7. Matt drives like a lunatic and we go to the top of this huge ass hill, park, and climb up a zillion steps (probably closer to 30) where there's this sweet lookout point
and if you turn to the left from this point you can see the Austin skyline! We had fun looking at all the millionaire's houses dotting the hill below. I can see why rich people would get a house down here. It'd be pretty fun; college town madness and serene wilderness right next door.

So we wait around for Will. He has what I like to call Time Management Disfunction Disorder (my mother has it too) in which you completely underestimate how long it will take you to do something. The three of us realize we're outside in Texas heat, about 120 degrees (and of course Moseley and I are both wearing skinny jeans, because, hey, we need to look like hipsters) so we get back in the car and Matt continues to scare us with his insane driving.

8. We FINALLY meet William at a cool half-outdoor cafe called Spider House. Spider House is amazing. I'd have ordered a beer, and I should have seeing as the guy most likely wouldn't have carded me, but I got cold tea instead. The four of us sit outside at this place, which is the beautiful lovechild of the Hip Pocket theater and the coolest coffee house you have ever been to. It's all wooden boards and hippie furniture that doesn't match cuz it's too cool to match, and all these cool young people are everywhere being cool, and it's just so Hip Pocket if it were a coffee house. That is what Spider House is. Spider House is freaking amazing. No one is cool enough for Spider House. But that's okay, because Spider House will welcome you anyway, and make you feel really cool. That's how cool it is.

9. After this, we decide to go hang out at a lake. I think it's lake Austin (might have been lake Travis, although that one might be closer to Georgetown) so we drive there, the four of us, and climb down a bunch of jagged rocks and hang out there. The water level is low due to the drought. This makes the treasure hunting on the rocks much more interesting. We find capsized jet skis and petrified tree stumps.

10. The Moseleys depart and Will and I drive around while I remark on how cool Austin is. We head to Georgetown so I can stay with my grandparents. On the way we stop in the middle of a country road in nowheresville, get out and look at stars. We look at the stars for approximately 8 seconds, get bored, and continue the drive.

Then we start to pull into the giant undeveloped old people city of Sun City Georgetown and I see something in the road I think is a beagle.

THE DEER RESCUE STORY

I yell at Will "Stop the car. I think I just saw a beagle."
"Was it dead?"
"No, it was moving! It had big floppy ears and was kicking its legs! Except it was really skinny!"

He does a U and we come back to the animal. We stop. He gets out. It's a deer.

Yup. It's a deer. I'm gonna say it's a female because it wasn't breaking any tines. I named her Belle.
She was about this age, between fawn and yearling...
but obviously that isn't Belle. This probably isn't even a real deer, I just pulled it off google image. It just gives you an idea of how big she was. When we found Belle it was midnight, and she was lying on the side of the road with her tongue hanging out in shock, often going into flipping-out mode where she kicked all of her good legs while her front left leg hung limp, completely snapped and hanging on literally by skin.

The condensed version: I was really really upset. Will decided to help me because he knows I'd have probably never spoken to him again if he drove off. Nah, he wanted to help it too, even if he isn't as passionate about saving animals as I am. Another woman came who does this sort of thing all the time. She called all her friends at the local animal rescue places and none were open except for some random one in a town somewhat far away. My grandparents were already furious at me, first for being three hours late on account of helping Belle and secondly for helping a deer at all. My grandpa picked me up remarking how "there are too many damn deer around here. And they won't kill 'em either, they just ship 'em out to some ranch somewhere. It's dumb." I remarked that they were here before we were and that humans were overpopulated, not wildlife. He chose not to remark. He knows who I voted for.

So anyway, the woman helps us figure out a way to get Belle to the back of Will's car (she's equipped with towels and a burlap sack to lay her on; she'd have taken her but she already had two rescue dogs in her car. This part is really tricky because her legs are super powerful and her hooves are damn sharp, so we have to work together; Will takes the back legs and the woman and I take the front and torso. I scramble to give Will directions to the emergency vet place and he leaves. Cue twenty thousand worried twitter updates about Will and Belle because Will doesn't have a phone (real smart) and I want Belle to be okay.

Next morning: Will calls around five or six. He couldn't find the emergency vet nearby so he took her to the Austin wildlife rescue near his house. But they took her. And Will didn't die. And hopefully Belle didn't either. This all happened on Monday.

Then today, a couple of hours ago, Will said he went back to visit her and to donate money to the shelter. They said they take all their deer to a wildlife sanctuary in the country. I hope that doesn't translate to that "we took Sparky to a farm," parents say when Sparky had an old dog heart attack, and they are legitimately helping Belle recover. She didn't have any head injury, it was really just her leg. My dream would be that they would put a cute little deer cast on her leg and Will would have a cute little pet for his backyard until she got big and then she'd go to a lovely farm with a family who would feed her carrots and-- and anyway that was Austin.

The next day (Tuesday)

was spent at Petsmart getting Will a fish, a blue betta named Jerry. We drove around being bums and drinking coffee at various places. Later we ate ramen with his bum housemates and watched South Park: Imaginationland.

The next morning I went to the train station and took a lovely train ride. Train rides are so romantic and literary. I read books and listened to music while we whizzed through miles of endless fields of corn and cotton and sunflowers.
Out the window of the train. It was really cool. It was cool enough that I could ignore the woman one row over talking the ENTIRE FOUR HOUR RIDE, using terms such as "kinfolk" and excitedly calling me a "yank!!!" when she asked where I was from.

And that was Austin. Pretty much.

*RIGHT NOW*

I am sitting here with a laptop watching Flight of the Conchords. I got my wisdom teeth out yesterday. I look like the lovechild of John McCain, Nixon, a retarded fat bulldog and a chipmunk on steroids. I have been eating soup and hummus and ice cream, which is great. Apparently I sang during the entire surgery, and I dreamt I was at a Mt. Righteous concert whilst leaping over ancient Aztec structures with Will's fish Jerry who had incidentally turned into a monkey.
But if you follow me on twitter or facebook you've already heard all of this incessantly. I'm just so bored being bedridden and all that I seem to repeat my stories. Sorry.

Also, I took a whole six minutes to write this so if I don't get some communtz mah feelerz will be hurted.

No one likes a sad, contemplative blog entry

2009-08-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

...Apparently.

So here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.

This is my car in the background, named Ishmael. (Well, it's Trish's from high school, but it's the exact same make & model as my Ishmael.) Ishmael is what I'm driving right now since Atticus Finch, the red volvo, is quite broken. Proof that Trish and I had the same car!

This is me and my brother before the Harry Potter Half Blood Prince premiere, which was excellent in every respect. Although now I'm considering being a Slytherin for the next movie since Draco Malfoy was really smokin' hot in this film.

Jack is Harry, obviously, and I am just Ravenclaw Babe.

Naw. Ravenclaw for life. That's mah HOWSE, represent. Most of the costume stuff is thrift store, and the tie is a four dollar tie with silver spray paint. Isn't it awesome?!

My bffl Lauren was Luna Lovegood (who had an excellent funny role in this film)
xoxo

Maybe I should follow this advice

2009-08-07T11:02:00.000-07:00

...since I am sleepless and all.

source: http://www.ordinarycomics.com/march2008/web/17march2008.jpg

Every important book in my room reviewed in under a minute

2009-08-03T23:48:00.000-07:00

I LOVE projects. I don't know where I got the idea for this... it may have been done before, but I had fun making it.

Peez enjoy!

Don't worry baby, there are Cupcakes in the Sky

2009-08-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw Mount Righteous and they were AWESOME

(clicky)
Licorice Nights mp3

This was off their CD and it's one of my favorite songs.

Don't worry baby, there are cupcakes in the sky!
Everything will be all right, you're the apple of my eye!
We'll take a paper airplane flight to the licorice nights...

I love them. Their concert was so happy and awesome and exciting.

Here's the music video for, I think, maybe, their most famous song