"Unless · one · is · a · genius, · it · is · best · to · aim · at · being · intelligible. · "

Today is my first day off in a long time. So I'm going to take a moment, breathe, and write. First in this entry, as in life, will be theatre.
I saw SF Shakes' Comedy of Errors on Friday. I think that Memorial Park is magical, so it is the perfect setting to watch Shakespeare, in my opinion. Now, CoE is not one of my favorite plays (alright, they look alike, we get it), but to my surprise I liked it. It was very modern - Commedia in execution (in a similar way to Ashland's Servant Of Two Masters) and I very much covet the bubblegum pink wig. It was excellently cast, too. The woman who played Adriana was astounding, as was Cassidy (as usual).The girl who played Luciana made a vocal choice a la singing in the rain (And I ceeehnt Stan' im!), which somewhat buried her words, but it was funny. Overall, yes.
Next was Tommy, which I finally got to see! It only took about a month for me to get over there. Again with the well cast. I hadn't ever heard Isaac sing (I know, right? I only seem to go see the ones where he doesn't. Odd.) and I plan to form a picket if he doesn't play Roger in Rent next summer.mprmike and Molly were stand outs (and I'm not just saying that because he might read this!), although greatly missed at FMT this summer! Nicholas (the coolest kid ever) needs to be in every musical that occurs. Ever. And John creeped the hell out of me. I mean... Uncle Ernie...yeah. The Cousin Kevin I had never seen, but he had a great voice too. Probably one of my favorites. So yes to Tommy. The only thing I say asde from that is that I'm glad that the sound balance got improved from what I heard was  not so great on Preview night. So much nicer to be able to hear the singing of talented people.
Next was As You Like It at the ilusive Sanbourn Park. I got lost. Twice. Having said that, it was totally worth it. everest_climber was basically born to play Rosalind (if I bump heads with her, will some of her talent transfer to me?), and basically rocked that stage...in a regency period kind of way. Angie Higgins did a great job with the storybook concept. I actually enjoyed that concept more that the one I saw on the West End. Take that, big theatre. A lot of CLTC people were there too, which was nice. Vera fully made Audrey one of the most hilarious Shakespeare characters ever, which astounded me, and (his name escapes me but) the Silvius was great. As was the Oliver. And the... I should stop now. Go see it. It's fantastic. And hilarious. And other good things.
That's for theatre, onto movies. I saw Julie and Julia, which was excellent. Streep was obviously amazing, being her, but Stanley Tucci was the performance I loved. I was just a movie full of characters, and I think most actors, whether they like cooking (I am a total amateur, but I loved it) or not, will enjoy it. Then I saw 500 days of Summer, which was very artsy and indie. I really liked the film, but you need to go in with an indie frame of mind. The soundtrack and cinematography alone make it worthwhile.
As to the future, I have a few auditions coming up. One of which I am totally and unreasonably obsessed with. And which I need to find a monologue for. Drat.
Alright, well, that was very pretentious and artsy, as entries go. I'll write about me next time. Maybe. Perhaps. We shall see.

I want to go to New York.
I'm not greedy though. Not for more that four hours. I just want to see Next To Normal (after September 7th, when the love of my life comes back from preparing for his new role). That's all.
I'll be a good girl forever.
Please?

I was telling people to have a good weekend as I was leaving the theatre this afternoon, after the matinee, until Sean pointed out to me that it is, in fact, Sunday. Sure doesn't feel like it.
Have a survey, as I put off reading 70 pages of art history.

1. What time did you get up this morning? 10:46. Thank god for matinee Sundays.
2. How do you like your steak? I don't.
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince
4. What is your favorite TV show? I'm watching Bones, Lie To Me, Kings, and Doctor Who, and waiting for House, Castle, How I Met Your Mother, and Torchwood to come back.
5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? Positano, Italy.
6. What did you have for breakfast? Toast and tea.
7. What is your favorite cuisine? It depends on my mood. Right now I'd like chow mein and mushroom chicken.
8. What foods do you dislike? Pickles and cheesecake (not necessarily together).
9. Favorite Place to Eat? With friends.
10. Favorite dressing? Ranch, but not if it's too sweet.
11. What kind of vehicle do you drive? Toyota corolla.
12. What are your favorite clothes? Pj pants and a t-shirt or tank top.
13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? Italy, France (again), and the bahamas.
14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? Of what?
15. Where would you want to retire? Somewhere quiet. With a big fluffy pillow.
16. Favorite time of day? Evening, although I get my best ideas at 4am.
17. Where were you born? Slidell, Louisiana.
18. What is your favorite sport to watch? British football or cricket.
19. Who do you think will not tag you back? I'm not tagging, so everyone?
20. Person you expect to tag you back first? Do it if you want. I am merely procrastinating and too tired to write eloquently.
21. Who are you most curious about their responses to this? I'm curious about whoever takes the time to amuse me.
22. Bird watcher? Not by profession, no.
23. Are you a morning person or a night person? Not morning. Definitely not morning. At least not without legal addictive stimulants.
24. Do you have any pets? Nope.
25. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? I'm tired. And screwed for art history.
26. What did you want to be when you were little? A ballerina.
27. What is your best childhood memory? So many.
28. Are you a cat or dog person? Kitties are cute,
29. Are you married? No
30. Always wear your seat belt? Yes
31. Been in a car accident? Only with the wall outside City lights. Fucking pink wall...
32. Any pet peeves? Do not get me started.
33. Favorite Pizza Toppings? Mushroom and olives.
34. Favorite Flower? Pansies, daisies, Cherry Blossoms, sweet peas.
35. Favorite ice cream? As much chocolate as possible, in any form.
36. Favorite fast food restaurant? I frequent subway, togos, and chipotle (occasionally). Does whole foods count?
37. How many times did you fail your driver's test? None.
38. From whom did you get your last email? Facebook notification
39. At which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Hamleys or Foyles in London.
40. Do anything spontaneous lately? No. My entire life is scheduled this summer, and for the rest of eternity.
41. Like your job? I do.
42. Broccoli? Is yummy when steamed throughly. And sometimes raw.
43. What was your favorite vacation? One where I'm not running around (as seems to be my wont.)
45. What are you listening to right now? Blissful silence with the TV on in the living room. History channel, I think.
46. What is your favorite color? Anything suited. THat sounds odd, but it changes with my mood. Mostly green.
47. How many tattoos do you have? None
48. How many are you tagging for this quiz? None.
49. What time did you finish this quiz? 9:43 am
50. Coffee Drinker? Always.

I apologize. I am so tired. Now to reading.15th century art history for the win?

I remember the good old days, when I would promise to write lj entries and actually do it. In the last month I have:
- Auditioned for a franchised agent (it was a final for a class).
- Auditioned for Leslie Martinson (see above).
- Gotten significant leads to a well paid job (fingers crossed, my final interview/try out is next week...)
In the next week I have:
- An internship interview at City Lights
- An interview for that job
- (hopefully) A trip to go see Spamalot
- A date to see Up! with my father (maybe).
- My final days of conservatory.

Also, I have a new blog, on which I have written nothing so far. But I like the title.

http://aspiringtoeloquence.blogspot.com/

Alright. Ready, go.

Ok, I don't have time to write a real journal entry (or the promised one on Ashland), but so far this week I have
- Gotten callbacks for Hello Dolly and Producers at SBMT (both ensemble, which is FANTASTIC for me. More dancing = yay).
- Started writing the paper that was due today ( I didn't get to it this morning...)
- Realized I need to go to Capezio in the morning
- Watched about 10 episodes of Bones (I have recently become addicted)
- Tried to pick a play to read from in my auditioning class. Any role I want. SO MANY CHOICES.

Ok, not really. but a lot of people have been doing this, so I thought I'd try.

DIRECTIONS:

- Go to Google image search.
- Type in your answer to each question.
- Choose a picture from the first page.
- Use this website (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php) to make your collage.

QUESTIONS:

1. What is your name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What is your hometown?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. What is your favorite movie?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What is one word to describe yourself?
10. How are you feeling right now?
11. What do you love most in the world?
12. What do you want to be when you grow up?

I'll do a proper BEDA post with poetry and insight and things in the morning, aite? :) We haven't had one of those in a while.

Today was a good day. But right now I should actually be done with packing for Ashland (where I am going for four days of fun, theatre, and window shopping - I will not spend money i will not spend money i will not spend money i will not spend-). However, so far I have successfully avoided this by watching house, working ahead in my dialect homework, and reading. I pack light, always, so I should be okay.
Notebook - check.
Camera - Check.
Laptop bag - need to fit it in my bag. Aaah.
In other news
- I feel better, but my cough has reached such epic proportions that everyone is going to be afraid of me.
- I had coffee with Anna this morning, and it was good.
- Auditions for my show went well. God, casting is difficult. I'd never found it that difficult before.
- I own a LOT of shoes. Seriously. Also, several pairs of them are too big.
- My car is still in the shop. They discovered more things that needed replacing.
-I still haven't touched my guitar. It is so pretty. I fail.

I'll post something creative soon, hopefully from Ashland this weekend. I'll probably do my BEDA post in the morning, though, just in case.
Ok.
I really have to pack now.
Ready, go.

Today was one of those days.
On the same note as seeing everything differently when you're sick, this irritation has made me step back and look at the program I am involved in and made me realize something scary:
I am practically still in high school.
Honestly, some of the situations and conversations I find myself in, with people significantly older than me, are ridiculous. And I hate the way that some people feed off of drama. Not the fun kind. The gossipy bitchy kind.
And so I am irritated. Today was one of those days where i found it impossible to pretend that everything wasn't irritating.
But do you know what? Even though I'm stressed, sick, haven't packed, have tons to memorize, need to see if I'm getting my old job, need money, and don't have the time to do a lot of things I want to get involved in ...
I just checked my mail, and my copy of Awkward Ballads for the easily pleased has arrived, my book order will be here soon, I'm going to Ashland for the weekend, and I'm having breakfast with an old friend tomorrow.

And for the moment, all of those things are enough.

It's still Monday somewhere, right?
I just completely forgot. I got home about an hour ago and there was mass argumentative chaos (which I excluded myself from and went to watch How I met your mother and Doc Martin on DVR) at my house. Stretch class was frustrating - again, as I was put as a kindergarden teacher with a group of noisy, argumentative, rude students (whose stretches were mostly some kind of confrontation) and I was given the task of connecting with them without trying to "control" them (I.E, without using discipline.) This, as I have experience teaching, was impossibly difficult for me - she basically said she wanted me to ignore all outside distractions and connect with one at a time. A teacher DOES NOT do that. Ever.
Apparently I did better in Old woman rehearsal today, though. I think the fact that I am still deathly ill - I have reached the coughing stage- may have something to do with it, although I need to work with the cane some more... my back is killing me.
Last night I randomly started watching all of the fiveawesomeguys videos from the start. It started off as an exercise to see if I wanted to make my first video response, but turned into me getting through 30 in one night. oops.
In other news, I miss my car already. Three days is going to be so long. And expensive.

Problem: I am in Ashland this weekend. Please let the hotel have wi-fi so my BEDA does not end with failure.

Gotta go. More tomorrow, after the first run through of the show. Oy. Should have lots to say.

Today, I left a show at intermission for the first time. 'Distracted', at Theatreworks. I'm not going to go into depth about why right now, but it just didn't draw me in at ALL, and what with me still being sick, I wasn't really as tolerant as I usually am, or persistent in my efforts to sympathize with characters I never saw (although I sympathized with the absent characters more than the ones I had to watch).
In other news, I have done very little of the things I ABSOLUTELY WAS GOING TO GET DONE (Caps for sincerity) this weekend. Which means... well, very little actually, except I am going to be getting less sleep than I would like. But I have to get up absurdly early tomorrow to take my car in for its insanely expensive repair work.
Also, I spent an absurd amount of money on Amazon. On the bright side, I will have lots of fun books (and True Blood season 1!). On the downside, less gas. Or food. Or time to read the books. Ah, well, it's a trade off.
I've been thinking recently that I should keep track of all the books I'm reading. I mean, I can't even remember how many books I read in January. Or during spring break. I do have a goodreads account... I just haven't actually made the time to go do things on it. (Mental note to self that will be completely forgotten, just as the plan to go to the Recycled bookstore.)

Oh... NEWS: the scene I posted a couple of blog posts back is going to be onstage as a part of a student written/directed show thing. It'll be nice to see it performed, even if only a few people see it. There is a kind of satisfaction that comes from watching your words become reality -- I imagine authors probably feel similarly when they see their book in print. I won't say the same of actors because I know I, at least, hate seeing myself on camera or onstage. It makes me completely neurotic. But authorship is something else entirely.
Okay, I have to go get some things done for tomorrow (and maybe watch Dollhouse... we'll see...). Happy 26th day of BEDA... wow... 26 already?

Seeing as I ended up sleeping through 12 hours of today, there are not a whole lot of news worthy events to report, other than there are a lot of things that I need to do today, and I have done none of them. Instead I have been watching DVR'd reruns of Torchwood (Season 1... early) and Doctor Who (Season 4...some of which I actually hadn't seen). And also faffing around ( yes, I did just use the word faffing ) on youtube. Basically, lack of productivity...
Also, for reasons that completely surpass my understanding, my parents are shopping for another car.
Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, but Gilly, doesn't your family have four cars? And only three people who can drive? And aren't two of those cars less than three years old? [Perhaps if you don't know these things you aren't thinking them. But I certainly am.]
The answer to all of those questions is yes. When I ask my parents why they need another car, however, the reasoning I am given is something along the lines of "Because we can". Which is ironic, because if I used that reasoning to justify buying a couple of books on Amazon then I'd get an earful. But 40,000 dollars for a new convertible (never mind that my mother has one already, and my dad has his vintage MGB)? No problem. I'm supposed to apply for scholarships for college when I transfer, because "college is quite expensive, and you can't count on money lasting nowadays". Obviously they have better things to spend their money on.
Still sick, so this one will be short too, because my head hurts. I know, I suck. Maybe I'll do BEDM to make up for it. Or BEWAY (Blog every week for a year). I should do it more often though. It's interesting.

In my dialect class this quarter we have been learning IPA, the International Phonetic Alphabet. Not only do I find this fascinating because other languages are inherently interesting to me, but, if you will pardon my reverting to superficiality for a second, IT LOOKS SO FREAKING COOL.
If you don't know what the phonetic alphabet is, then you can see it in any good dictionary ever - online there's usually a link to IPA†. It's sometimes called the pronunciation key. It has some weird squiggles in it. Usually that's a simplified version, but you can look it up if you're interested.
Some example of the awesome-looking phonetically spelled words include:
kruʃəl : crucial
dʒɪliən: Gillian, my full name.
ædɪkwɪt: adequate
sɛrəndɪpɪti : Serendipity

I'll do some full sentences later - I'm still sick, so I'm going to go meɪk maɪsɛlf səm ti.

Happy 24th day of BEDA!

So, the plague remains, but I have decided to do something resembling an actual blog entry, on account of me so utterly failing in terms of quality for most of April.
Rehearsals (as I believe I've mentioned in passing) have started for my 80's metal version of Doctor Faustus. Which is... interesting to say the least. I've never been a fan of concept productions of that much imagination, but I think this one is well thought out and going to be pretty awesome.
My mum brought me wonton soup, and that makes me happy.
However, if I am still sick next week when we go to Ashland, I will be extremely unhappy.
What I've noticed these past two days is that the world is so much less pleasant when sick. I become INCREDIBLY grouchy and easily irritated. I'm sure I'm a TOTAL joy to be around.
Alright. Sorry. The sickness wins. I have to go take more medicine. At least this is more that three sentences, right?
Love, honestly,
Your very poorly,
Gilly

"Today is one of those days which the pages of history tell us are best spent lying in bed."
- The Philadelphia Story

I am coming down with something resembling the plague, so this'll have to count for today. Sorry guys, I have to go to bed or I'll pass out.

I am an English rose. I wilt in the heat.

Dear California,
It is April. A-P-R-I-L. This is spring. Not summer. Not for a month and a half. So why, might I ask, was it 96 degrees at 6pm this afternoon (god knows how hot it was earlier. While wearing a corset in acting class I though I was going to die), and, the bigger question, why is it 89 degrees AT 8:30 AT NIGHT?! What is this?
Please sort this out.
Sincerely,
Gilly.

No, but seriously, guys. It's hot. Very hot. Like, I thought I was going to pass our earlier. One of my friends has informed me that it is supposed to cool down (and maybe even *gasp* RAIN a little). Let's hope so. Because heat makes me lethargic. And lethargic is no good. And costs me a lot in iced espresso/tea drinks.
In other news, my car is shiny. I washed it (or got it washed) in preparation for it's long awaited surgery next week. After my unfortunate incident with one of the useless yellow poles (which literally serve no purpose other than to provide something to dent your car on) in lot 1 at school, I have had a pole shaped dent. Next week, the dent shall be fixed, and the shocks replaced (I'm not entirely sure what those are, but I can make an educated guess that they stop me from bouncing around everywhere, and so would like ones that work). So I'll be without my car for a week or so... but that's Ok, because at the end of next week I'm going to ASHLAND. (I capitalize to show my excitement). I have not even remotely prepared for the awesomeness that will be that weekend, except to decide that I am not going to spend my tax refund until then, and then put whatever is left toward my giant amazon book order (which shall include True Blood season 1 on DVD).
Curious thing I just noticed: The heat/air conditioning vent in my room is directly under my window. WHich means that the vast proportion of the air goes under the curtain to fix the temperature of the window. Not as useful as it might be, I must say.
That is the most decent length entry in a week. Not rife with content, but at least it's a step up, right?