Counting My Blessings

Okay. There was a third option I left out at the end of the last entry. Keep watching Extras and instead of doing homework, try to think of positive things in my life. If I don't, I really will end up turning emo and cutting myself.

#1) Extras: Season Two for $12.99 - David Bowie just wrote a song about Andy being a fat, useless idiot. I love it. Ha! Maggie just chipped in on insults for Andy. Poor guy.

#2) Enchanted on Blu-Ray

#3) Smokey Joe's Cafe is going REALLY well.

#4) I have an AWESOME concept for my SAST show.

#5) Even though I hate the department as a whole right now, there are some GREAT people in my theatre department. There are fellow students who will do things like my scene for directing class and will let themselves go and do whatever I ask them to do. There are teachers who will let me vent and will spend their spring break watching Arrested Development because I told them to. There are other professors who tell me my work is good, even though I know it sucks.

#6) I have an amazing friend who lets me call her whenever I can find a free minute and will just let me vent until that free minute is up. She never tells me to shut up, she never puts me aside, she never judges me, and she never asks for anything in return. I feel really bad that our friendship is so off-balance, but someday, she's going to need to vent again, and I'll listen to her. Thanks, Teri!

#7) I've wanted to ask a certain girl out for THREE YEARS and have been too chicken $!%# to do it. Turns out, there was interest on her side, too -- or at least she's making me think there was. We're hopefully going to be able to sync up schedules soon...

#8) Despite the normal, stupid, little problems, I really do have a good family. For the first time, ALL of the endowed members of my family were able to go to the temple together last weekend to see Traven get sealed to his family. We also got to go to court to make his adoption legal on Friday. I have amazing nieces and nephews. Even the ones who come from the mother I don't get along with. When I was freaking out about my computer tonight, Zach said "It's going to be okay, Jeremy." He's probably used to seeing much worse freakouts, the poor kid. But it almost made me cry. (I did NOT swear in front of him, fyi.)

Tired Traven at Disneyland

#9) I really like the callings I have in Church right now.

#10) I got to take part in an awesome fireside last night.

#11) I'm going to have three new honorary nieces/nephews this year. I'd call them goshchildren, but I'm going to start letting my friends assign their own goshparents instead of just barging in and declaring myself goshfather. I'll make them the offers, but they can feel free to refuse. I am a little stressed that Rhys is going to be born during hell week for Wizard of Oz, though, and I won't be able to see him much. I'm hoping Heather can keep him in for a couple extra weeks, even though she'll curse my name for saying that...

#12) I'm glad I have good music in my life. Lately, I've been addicted to Maroon 5's B-Sides Collection as well as OneRepublic's album. And of course, my remix of "Apologize" makes me giggle every time I hear it.

#13) One month from now, I will only be stressing about one show. Two and a half months from now, I won't be stressing about ANY shows.

Okay. 13 is a good number, right? :)

I really better do my homework now. Thanks for listening.

Think Positive

I was going to try to post a positive blog every night this week, but so far, this week hasn't been too wonderful. So, I'm going to post to remind myself all the things I'm thankful for. Be careful, though. Some of them are really things I'm bugged about but masquerading as things I'm thankful for.

Tonight, I'm thankful for:

Queer Eye. I'm about to start watching the final episode, and I know I'm going to tear up. I've loved this show from the beginning, and it always makes me happy when I'm pissed off. It's a good thing I've been recording it for Teri, who doesn't have Bravo. I'm going to copy the discs before I give them to her. Also, on tonight's episodes, they've made references to both Punky Brewster and Amy Grant. Nice.

Great theatre. I've been reading scripts like crazy the last two weeks to find scenes for my directing class. I'm obsessed with Take Me Out, The History Boys, and The Guys. I ended up picking Take Me Out for my scene. The Guys was my first choice, but since I was one of two people in the entire class (of a whopping six) that prepared more than one option like we were supposed to, I had to switch to a scene with three people. I got all of my first choices for casting, though, so that's good.

Stupid horror movies. There have been TONS on TV this month. The best way to watch stupid old horror movies is edited for TV. I watched Children of the Corn 2 last week, and loved it. I have probably 10 more to watch on my DVR, but I've been too busy. I've decided that I'm going to be brave and get through Hellraiser for the first time this year. In the past, it's made me feel too creepy to get through it, but by gosh, I WILL make it through.

Nieces and nephews. Gosh, I love those kids -- even the ones whose parents I don't always get along with. I've had fun watching scary movies with them in the few spare hours I've had this month. I'm crashing tomorrow night and hanging out with them all evening.

Non-blood nieces and nephews. I love my friends' kids. Bristol talked to me on the phone tonight and was SO excited that he gets to come trick-or-treating to my house tomorrow. And he promised he'd hug me, and then he told me he loved me. It was adorable. After seeing him for a minute last night, it got me thinking about how much I miss seeing Julie's and Wendy's kids. What kind of goshfather am I when I let school get in the way of my duties?

Shrimp Fajitas. Enough said.

Friends. I got to spend Sunday evening with the Pollocks, the Broadbents, Kimber, and Stephanie. It was great. I made incredible clam chowder, too. Then last night, Teri and Quincy came to my show, so I got to see them.

Nights off of my show. First Sunday, now Halloween! Even though the problems I had been having have pretty much completely disappeared and parties involved are acting like they never happened...I still am not enjoying the show. Tonight, we had a surprise photo call. I should have been home by 10, but instead, I got to stay for an extra hour. Guh. If this were professional theatre, I would have been breathing down the Equity deputy's neck BIGTIME.

Free songs on iTunes. I'm so broke right now that I'm not going to be buying any music anytime soon, but I've been storing up those free downloads, and I've started listening to them this week. Dang! There's some good stuff on there for free. Check it out.

Michael W. Smith Christmas albums. Thanks, Kimber! The new album sounds like a long-lost soundtrack to a Home Alone movie. I'm especially thankful that it's closer to the second Christmas album's orchestration than the first Christmas album's synth-pop feel.

Cars. They get us where we need to go. They run on gas, which gives us a great excuse to blow money. They get bad alignments which cause our tires, which are only 18 months old, to go bad. They cause us to blow $300 that we don't have on new tires. They require us to pay for registration and inspections every year. God bless them.

Homework. I sure do love spending every minute that I'm not at school, teaching, or at my play by working on research papers, studying for tests, and reviewing scholarly journals.

Kids who threaten to kill themselves for attention. Guh! I'm not a public school teacher, and I still had to talk to one tonight and try to convince him that it's not the best way to express himself.

The cast of Young Frankenstein performing on The Today Show. I'm stoked. I set both my DVR and my DVD-Recorder to tape it just to be safe.

New York trips that include lots of shows that only cost $850. What a bargain. It sucks that there's a $200 payment due this week, but I'll deal.

I've been writing this for over a half hour, and I'm about ready for bed, so I'm going to quit now.

Random Musings

This is going to be a total journal entry. You'll probably be bored by the second paragraph. There are many unique uses of bold and CAPS, and because it's late and I'm tired, I have no intention to re-read before I post. There could be spelling/typing errors, bad grammar, and thoughts that I should have deleted while proofing it. And there's a good chance I'll be trashing you in this blog. Heads up.

First off, GOB is dead. He stopped eating for some reason, and started hanging out on the bottom a lot. I'm pretty sure he realized that there was nothing for him at the top of the tank, so he gave up. I got home from school yesterday, and he was gone. Tobias seems to be taking it well. A little too well, to be honest. I think I may have to launch an investigation tomorrow.

However, two nights ago, my newest nephew was born. By law, the birth mother had to give it a full 24 hours to make sure she didn't want him, and she was apparently quite excited to sign him over to my sister and brother-in-law last night at the 24 hour mark. I went to visit him this afternoon. He's TINY. And he has a funny cry. But he's still cute. Anyhoo, here is Traven:

This week the theatre department held auditions, which I had to participate in because I'm on scholarship. I did two monologues: "An Unwelcome Confession from Someone Whose Hand Is in Your Mouth" and one from He Who Gets Slapped. I felt really good about them afterward. And I got called back for two shows.

First, there was The Heiress. Chris Clark is directing, and he was well aware of the fact that High School Musical doesn't open until September 14, and therefore I'm unavailable until then. The Heiress opens on September 27, which is a REALLY short rehearsal time. There's no way I could do it with only a week and a half to come in and learn the part. The combination of that and seeing a certain other guy on the callback list let me know right up front that my audition was going to be a waste of time. However, I still worked on memorizing my sides and went through the whole callback process, which was great. I got to work with Alex (who is incredible and ended up getting the male lead) for a while, and I had a lot of fun.

Tonight, I had a callback for Ah, Wilderness! I should be running away from this show due to the fact that it sounds so much like O, Pioneers! that I want to gag. However, the newest faculty member, John Graham, is directing, and holy crap, he's awesome. I have a theatre history & lit class with him, and I love it. I went to the callback tonight, and even though I don't feel all that great about how I did, it was without a doubt the most fun callback I've ever been to. I was getting excited about everything John had us do (even some of the non-realism stuff, which I hate because I suck at it).

The last few days, Dr. Petrie (dept. chair) has been asking me if I'd be interested in directing one of the three short pieces that make up Canyon Suites. I told him(as I've been telling Chris and Steve Purdy all summer) that I really want to act this semester. I haven't been in a show since Christmas Carol in 2005. Two years is MUCH too long. He keeps asking me about it, and I can tell he's struggling to find three directors that he trusts. I think I'm being really selfish in turning him down, but at the same time, I have to direct a short show next semester because of my directing class.

At callbacks tonight, I was called back for 2 different roles. There were two other guys there for those 2 parts, and I think there was 1 other who couldn't be there tonight. I felt pretty sure by the end of the audition that Adam and the other Jeremy were going to get the 2 parts. Then as we were leaving, Adam told me that he was pretty sure I was going to get one and the other Jeremy would get the other. As we talked, I remembered that in our class with Petrie today, Adam had said that he was more interested in directing, and I said I was more interested in acting.

There's no way to do both Wilderness and Canyon. So, now I'm worried that if I get a part, it's just because Adam wanted to direct. I never get much feedback on my acting, which is frustrating, because I know there are lots of things I can improve on if someone would only point them out. And now, if I get a part, I'll be constantly stressing that I got it because Adam wanted to direct, and not because of my own acting. *sigh*

However, this could be just a moo point (like a cow's opinion- it doesn't matter), because the other Jeremy and the guy that wasn't there could get both parts, and then I'll have to go to Petrie and say "Okay. Can I please direct now?" And then everybody will have something to do. But dang, I miss the stage. And having the chance to be in a play that John's directing and with some of the other people from callbacks who I'm pretty sure will be cast- UGH! I really want to do this play....

On a non-theatre related note, I'm loving school so far this semester- despite the massive homework amounts. And I'm pretty sure I'm going to die of boredom in my THREE HOUR educational psychology class. If you wouldn't mind texting me between 10 AM and 1 PM on Thursdays just to make sure I'm alive, I'd appreciate it.

Something else that's bothering me later is a stupid junior high-like friend issue. A few weeks ago, I overheard a friend saying something to another friend which may have been the single most hurtful thing I've ever had a friend say about me. At first, I decided to just ignore it, because I was POSITIVE that I had heard wrong. But ever since, whenever I've talked to this friend, things have just seemed weird on their end. The more I think about it, the more I realize that there's no way I heard wrong, and they really did completely stab me in the back. Argh. It's times like this that I'm actually thankful that school keeps me so busy. I don't have to deal with the issue as much as I would have to otherwise. Needless to say, a great deal of trust has been lost with this friend, and even though they were just frustrated and probably, er, hopefully didn't mean what they said, I don't have a desire to be around them much right now. Don't ask if it's you. I won't tell you anyway. I just had to get it off my chest. I feel better already.

I think that's all I have on my mind right now. I could talk about how much I'm in love with my Playstation 3, or how much I'm in hate with my $%! DVD-R/VCR which has apparently broken down despite being a mere 7 months old. And I could talk about how excited I am for youth theatre to start up next week. But alas, I'm tired, and I want to watch Ghost Hunters until I fall asleep now.

Here is my gift to you for reading all the way through this journal entry. If you don't already know this song, you should make friends with it immediately. I randomly caught this in the middle of the night when I turned on my DVR and VH1 was playing it (who knew VH1 still played videos?!) Despite my dislike for Pink, I absolutely love it and I've been listening to it on repeat all day today. Enjoy!

Happy Easter!!!

I have a new nephew. He's precious. His name is Owen. Here are some pictures of him. (I sound like I'm in second grade.)

I went and saw Scary Movie 4 with Crissa tonight. LOVED it. I love stupid humor.

Youth theatre rehearsal went pretty well today. Aside from some kids who think that Spider-Man is better than Batman, nobody came close to facing my wrath.

And I left youth theatre for a little while to go to Julie's baby shower. I wish I would have gone later. I was just there while they ate, and I wasn't hungry. Oh, well.

I like pizza. And blogging. I love that I can type whatever I want, and it doesn't have to make sense. People can choose to read it, or not. And I don't have to use complete sentences or proper grammar. And it's MUCH better than a journal, where you have to actually write. I think I'm starting to forget how to write because I type everything.

Kids

I love kids. I got to spend the afternoon helping my friend Teri with her 1-year-old son, Bristol. She was making Valentine's cards for him to give people that had places to trace his hands, and she bought finger paint to use instead. My job was to paint it onto his hands, and then she stamped them on the cards. It was a blast. Then while we were waiting for them to dry, we watched TV for a little while and played with him. As much as I dread getting married and having to grow up, I can't wait for the day when I have kids of my own. Even something as simple as catching a 1-year-old as he jumps off a table to you is a BLAST and can provide several minutes of entertainment. *sigh* I have the cutest goshson ever!!!

*Goshson= Mormon equivalent of "godson"