alex.

Alex is one of the many wonderful people I have met here at DU. I previously mentioned him in one of my posts as one of the makeup artists. He is a reformed theatre major and is always, without fail, singing some song from a Disney movie, which the rest of the room can't help but to sing along with him. I first met him at callbacks for "Julius Caesar" and had a blast preparing for it with him and the other guys in our group. Alex hardly knew me, but immediately gave me a hug when we were reunited for "The Old Women." 

He's that kind of guy.

age.before.beauty

Another shot I took backstage. Here, Katy is putting makeup on her hands to make them look old to suit her character as a very creepy old lady. She has the greatest makeup box ever, which she decorated herself with pretty much every musical you can think of and pictures from the shows she herself has been in. It amazed me how she did her own makeup every night and it always looked so great. The impeccable makeup simply added to her impeccable characterization of La Bossue.

lit.up

So this weekend was my show, I DID manage to get my voice back, though it dwindled down to practically nothing by the end of every show. I also had to overdose on every kind of spray, pill, syrup, and liquid right before my entrance, but I managed.

Anyway, this is a shot I took while I was fooling around with my camera backstage in the makeup room. I liked the pattern of repetition of the lights on the makeup mirror and lightbulbs are somewhat fascinating to me. Our times in the makeup room prior to each show are probably some of my fondest memories of this show. I got to hang out with crazy theatre people, including the ones I had already grown to love in my cast and the awesome makeup crew (made up of Jerica, Alex and Jenny). It was hard during the first two performances when I wasn't allowed to talk because forcing oneself to NOT laugh is nearly impossible when you're around those three.

desperation.

This is my life at the moment. Last week I started getting a wicked sore throat, which progressed into me losing my voice completely. Turns out I have laryngitis and an upper respiratory infection. I have since been jamming my body with every drug the docs throw at me and every old wives tale my neighbors and friends tell me.

Steroids: FAIL

Cayenne pepper+honey+hot water: FAIL

Halls cough drop + hot water: FAIL

Prescription cough syrup: FAIL

Dr. Pepper + OJ + cinnamon + honey + warmed up: FAIL

5 Nalgenes of water in 3 hours: TBD

The list goes on.

Pictured here are just some of what I've been using. I've also been going the last 5 days without talking, or speaking minimally, which has been a very strange experience. I now understand how the Little Mermaid felt. My deepest sympathies, Ariel. 

I wouldn't be so desperate to get better if the show I happen to be the lead in weren't tomorrow night. I've only been sick for one show before, but luckily I was in the chorus and could easily blend in. That is not the case here.

I need a miracle.

flashbacks&flashforwards

As I was uploading photos from my phone, I found this one from what I think was the last time I saw Kate. We went up to overlook the city of Boulder from the mountains, stargazed in Chautauqua park and got ice cream. Here, she is taking a picture of the stars. I miss the girl.

We recently had a conversation about her coming home from Minnesota in three weeks and how much of a daunting idea that is. I have the same fears about winter break; I'm afraid that if I spend more than a month back at home with all my old friends again and being around my family constantly, I'll have to start over adjusting at DU when I finally have to come back. But that fear is just a part of the whole process. Every time we have to return to our respective lives that we're trying to establish, the readjustment will get a little easier because soon it will become the only life we know.

social.network

Khumbo, Katy, a guy from Katy's floor and I went to see "The Social Network" tonight. I've lost my voice completely thanks to laryngitis and an upper respiratory infection so I needed something to do that didn't require me talking. I've wanted to see this movie for a long time and was thoroughly pleased with it. I have no doubt that it overdramatized and romanticized the real story of the birth of Facebook, but that's cinema. Mark Zuckerberg and his fellow founders were nothing short of geniuses--I don't think anyone could dispute that. It's amazing to think that a couple of Harvard undergrads managed to revolutionize the world, connecting over 5 million people in over 200 countries. They've changed the way we run our lives. I check my FB more than twice a day on my laptop and phone. It has become my primary source of keeping in touch with my friends from high school, a fact that is both profitable and somewhat sad. I wrote in my first essay for my Media class that if I didn't spend about 130 minutes on FB every day, I could be using that time to make friends in real life, rather than pretending I'm still involved in the lives of my old friends in cyber life. But all our worlds are infected by the enigma that is Facebook. When I came back to my room after the movie, my roommate and her mom were ironically on the site. My first impulse when I sat down at my desk was to check my Facebook, even though I had just done so not 10 minutes before while waiting for the light rail. That's power.

children.of.the.theatre

This part of the film was taken when I brought my disposable to rehearsal. I have rehearsals for "The Old Women," a senior project play I got into, Monday-Friday from 10-12. My character, Louise, goes through some traumatic stuff (creepy old women, creepy doctors, creepy nuns, oh and getting her eyes gouged out), I get drenched in stage blood every night, and sometimes the emotions I have chosen to portray Louise (sense of abandonment, loneliness, and desperation) come through in my real life. But even through all that, it is during the preparation for this production that I have found myself the most happy since coming to DU. I solely owe this to the people I have met while doing this production. Katy, one of my new closest friends I've made since coming here is pictured on the upper portion and Khumbo on the bottom. Katy is my fellow freshman, my Gleek partner, and an overall amazing person. She never fails to make me laugh and is always looking out for me. Khumbo moved here from Africa last spring, and despite having no family here in the states, she so easily creates her own family with the friends she meets. She's a barrel of fun to be around and so hilarious. Inside jokes can't help but ensue when we're around her.
I don't know what it is about theatre kids, but they're different in the best way possible. Perhaps it's because in order to take on the role of an entirely different person than ourselves, we HAVE to be unafraid, and thus, let go of any inhibitions we might have. We have to embrace ourselves so much so as not to lose it and that makes us more comfortable in our own skins. It's funny how through every character we play, we actually find out something new about ourselves, and because of that, I think theatre kids are more real than any other breed of human.
Rule #21: Theatre is a god-sent. Praise it. Love it. Stick with it.

turning.back.time

Two weeks ago, Roddy gave us all black and white disposable cameras, so the next few entries are from that. This was the first picture I took on that camera, a shot of my cluttered desk complete with laptop, letter getting ready to be mailed to Bailey, Blurb book, coupons, textbooks, novels, and tea mugs. I had forgotten what it was like to take pictures and not be able to automatically see if it came out okay, as I can with digital so taking pictures on this thing was quite the experience. My friend Katelyn helped me developed the film, which I had never done before, and I was pleased that some of them actually came out.

you've.got.mail

Rule #34: In college, the greatest feeling in the world is getting mail.
This is a letter I recently received from one of my best friends, Bailey, who goes to Puget Sound. My roommate and I check our mailbox eagerly every day. We get such a high knowing that either somebody out there cares enough about us to take the time to write us a letter, or our subscriptions to magazines and online purchases came through. Either way, good feeling.

house.of.stairs

While at the library, my friends Lindsey, Anna and I had a bit of photo fun. One of the Hylaea installations was a video of turning pages in John James Audubon's Birds of America. Lindsey and Anna took turns taking pictures of making it look like they had giant hands that were turning the pages in the book. As I am sick, I didn't partake in the running up and down the stairs part, but I did get to reap the benefits of getting some cool shots. I don't know how I got so lucky with the red/orange tint of this photo, but no editing was done to this one. The angle with the multiple sets of staircases makes it particularly enticing to the eye as well. Kind of reminiscent of M. C. Escher's House of Stairs.

hylaea

So on Thursday in FSem, we went to an exhibit in the library about extinct birds called Hylaea: a video, print and book installation by Timothy Weaver. My favorite part of the installation was the projected video art synced with a mixture of bird calls of the species in the exhibit that still survive today. Pictured here is the sound dome from which the audio came and beyond it is the screen, currently projecting a beak. Being the digital art nerd that I am, I was fascinated by the blending of the habitats, feathers, beaks, and human cryptochromic proteins. The fact that Weaver chose to "weave" in (no pun intended) elements of humans is very interesting to me. It emphasizes the connection that all living things have, human or not. We're all living on this earth. We survive and thrive in different ways, but we have that shared experience nonetheless.

in.vogue

The library. The first time I got a real tour of this place I was overwhelmed. It just keeps going on and on and on and has just about everything you can imagine. Sure, there is now the internet to compile all of this information in a transportable form and that can be accessed from anywhere, but just to ponder on the fact that thousands of people took the time to write all of these books is mind boggling. An avid believer that magazines will not die because of the internet, I am a true fan of print if there ever was one. In fact, one of my favorite parts of this library, and a place I intend to thoroughly explore is the magazine archive in the basement (pictured here) which has every issue of Vogue ever published. Don't ask me how I plan to find the magazine aisle again, but I will eventually.

baby.on.board

Right off the bat: I don't like children. I am simply not a fan (my sisters excluded). Why do I dislike children? They're needy and they're dependent: two qualities that do not settle well with me. However, even I can sometimes recognize when a given child is "cute". This is an example of that. And oh look, shadows. Shocker.

follow.the.light

Clearly, I'm a fan of shadows. This is the walkway from the Ritchie Center to my dorm building. To the left is the soccer field, to the right, the lacrosse field. These "windows" cast these beautiful shadows every day and it never fails to take my breath away. I like the ever-so ominous figure of a man in this shot, too.

ritchie.center

One of my favorite buildings on campus is the Ritchie Center, which houses our gym, hockey arena, basketball courts, health clinic offices and, my favorite, long-course pool. I swam for seven years so I've seen my fair share of pools, but El Pomar Natatorium is definitely the nicest facility I've been in (for pictures, see my post of the swim/dive meet in January 2011). I'm not nearly good enough for the varsity team but there are a few other non-DU affiliated teams that practice there. I wish DU had a club team since I don't have enough time to join one of the existing teams, but I can still get my chlorine fix any time in one of the open lap swim lanes.


Next year, as a sophomore, I will be living in Nagel which is on the south end of campus. I can't wait to be closer to the theatre department buildings but I will definitely miss being so close to the Ritchie Center. Williams Tower (shown here) measures up at 215 feet tall and houses the bells I can hear from my room every day. As a freshman, we all got to have dinner with Chancellor Coombe at the beginning of the year, followed by climbing up the (very tall) spiral staircase to the bells. We even got to play them! The bells are controlled by a carillon, a set of 65 bronze bells. The largest one weighs six tons! Students have the opportunity to sign up to take lessons on the carillon at the beginning of the year. Not only are the bells beautiful to hear, but the glowing Williams Tower has proven to be a very convenient way for friends and I to find our way back to campus when we go on the occasional fro-yo run.

gears.not.gas

My bicycle has become an intricate part of my life since coming to college. My first class every day is on the opposite side of campus and, as I am not a fan of walking, I vouched for biking. Granted, my biking skills are probably even worse than my walking skills, but they have improved (with the exception of almost killing myself and another girl last Monday night). Nonetheless, I'm getting more coordinated and am learning my way around campus somewhat better. Not to mention I got free pizza and iced tea on "Ride Your Bike to Work/School Day."

I liked the repetition of the tires in this photo, taken outside of the library. The shadow the the girl in the background is pretty sweet too. (Forgive me, two sleeping pills + spending a day without really talking is beginning to take it's toll.)

vintage

This is one of my favorite parts of campus--right outside of Mary Reed, University Hall, and Daniels College of Business. Some of these building are the oldest on campus and hold so much history, so many memories that it's hard not to see the beauty in them. When I was touring colleges, I rated the age of buildings from vintage (like these), ghetto, or brand-spankin' new. The first and last were good. The "ghetto" not so much. So it's buildings like this that make me more appreciative of DU. It's graduates like Condoleeza Rice that make me proud to go to DU. And it's the memories I'm making now that make me pleased with my choice to go to DU.

...for.twelve.days?

So, I quit the sorority. Talk about short lived. I actually took this picture before I de-pledged, but I thought it was somewhat symbolic, especially with my last picture being of all the balloons on Bid Day. As you can see, these are a few of those same balloons that have gotten themselves stuck in a tree outside of the Gamma Phi Beta house. I would comment further, but I'll resist.

annie.leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz--the woman, the photographer, the wonder. Annie is nothing short of a wonder, nay, a photographic saint of our time. Her images are world-renowned and iconic, yet simple and honest all at once. The latter part can't be truly said of some of her more recent work, which are clearly very strongly digitally enhanced images, and some people (my self included) can't help but stop and think, "Does this just look awesome because it has so many celebrities in it?" But after that short spurt of doubt in dear Annie's work, I looked deeper and saw that Annie brings out a surprising side of every celebrity she shoots--something other people wouldn't automatically think when given the task of photographing Whoopi Goldberg, Keira Knightly, John Lennon and Yoko. Plus, I realized that they don't just let anybody photograph the "gods" of our time. Annie had to work her way up there.

Although her later work undoubtedly has the "wow" factor, it is Annie's early work that truly inspires me so profoundly. The simplicity is what shockingly makes the best pictures in a strange way. Too often, I get so wrapped up in the angle and the multiple focus points and the depth perception and the colors and the shadows and--it just gets to be too much. It's the same with life. I focus on so many things and want all of them to be perfect to the point that I over-think them. I over-do it, and it winds up being worse because of it. Hence, I have learned when it is best to just say, "whatever." 

Rule #33: Care less.

[[Oh yes, by the way, I write a list. A list of how to survive life. The rules may pop up in here once in a while.]]

So it is Annie's understanding of this concept that I admire. An understanding that when you strip away all the make up, all the wardrobe, all the fancy editing, you get a person. A person with a background. A family. A vulnerability. A weakness. A view of the world. A truth. In a way, I feel sad for Annie. Not that I know her personally or anything, but she must sometimes be sad that her job has turned into extreme sets and pyrotechnics. It has turned into show business, and for some reason, that seems lonelier than a person in their favorite t-shirt against a white wall. Nonetheless, she is on the path she is, doing what she loves, and kicking ass while she's at it. And for that, she's my hero.