Monthly Archives: November 2015

Peak Performance Week (or Pushing Myself To The Max)

Posted on November 16, 2015 | 1 comment

It’s been a crazy few weeks at Orangetheory lately! First there was Hell Week. Then there was Recovery Week (which didn’t feel like a recovery but more like a normal week). And this past week was Peak Performance Week.

We had a Peak Performance Week back at the beginning of the summer, and I had a pretty great time with it. I got some PRs, challenged myself, and felt like I had set some good benchmarks to try to beat. Not all of the challenges were the same as the beginning of the summer, but it’s nice to have something to compare to. Especially when that last time it was right before I tore my calf muscle. I was able to see how close to fully recovered I am.

Monday’s challenge was a 10 minute run/walk for distance. The goal for all the runners was to get at least a mile done in 10 minutes. So technically the goal for me as a power walker was to get half a mile done. I know I can do half a mile in 10 minutes, so I set my own goal of trying to get to .6 miles in 10 minutes.

I did most of the work at 6% incline and as much as I wanted to increase my speed, my hips and calf weren’t having it. So while I didn’t get to my personal goal, I think I did pretty great.

10 minute distance

Wednesday’s challenge was something that I was really looking forward to. It was the 1 mile challenge. When I did this over the summer, I had a PR with my mile. While that was amazing, it was very disappointing for me how I wasn’t able to translate that mile time into my 5K (and yes, I know that the PR was pre-injury and the race was post-injury). I knew that my mile time wasn’t going to be a PR. But I really wanted to prove to myself that I could do better than I did at my race.

I spent most of my mile alternating between 3.4 and 3.5 miles and hour. In the last minute, I bumped up the speed as much as I could. And when I was done, I was so happy with myself.

1 mile time

This is about 30 seconds slower than my mile PR (which isn’t that much) and about 50 seconds faster than my mile time from race day. I needed this boost because I had still been feeling a bit low from my race. I know that somehow I could have done better, but I’m not sure what I would have had to do. So showing myself on the treadmill that I’m not as far back from fully recovered as I thought really made me feel great.

Friday was a pretty exciting day for me. First of all, it was my 150th workout of 2015! That’s amazing to me! Also, Friday’s challenge was the 2000 meter row. I’ve had so much rowing lately that I knew I could do some great work on this challenge. My PR for my 1000 meter row is 4:58.9, so my goal for my 2000 meter row was anything under 10 minutes.

Since I knew the row would totally take it out of me, I chose to do that first instead of the treadmill like I usually do. I set my rower to count down from 2000 meters (it would also stop the clock once I reached that distance) and tried to not look at the screen. I counted the strokes in my head as a distraction and once people next to me were finishing I knew I must be getting close. I rowed as hard and fast as I ever had for those last 100 meters and when the clock stopped, I almost couldn’t believe my time.

2000 meter row

I was a little more than 16 seconds faster than my goal time! And since distance rows are a weakness of mine, to be able to do this was amazing! The only downside was that after the row we had to go on the treadmill and my hip gave me one of the electric shocks I get from time to time and my calf muscle was feeling like it was pulling and tearing. So I got off the treadmill and did the rest of my cardio on the bike. I wasn’t happy to be on the bike, but I needed to do that to keep my body from being in pain and damaging itself.

Overall, I would consider this Peak Performance Week a huge victory for me. While not everything was a PR, I proved to myself that while I’m still recovering I’m getting closer and closer to where I was pre-injury.

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Default ThumbnailTruly My Peak Performance (or Exceeding My Expectations) Default ThumbnailPeak Performance Week (or Getting Closer To Some PRs) Default ThumbnailAnother Peak Performance Week (or Working Extra Hard) Default ThumbnailGoing Big During Peak Performance Week (or A Week Of PRs) Default ThumbnailAnother Peak Performance Week (or Some PRs and Some Not-So-PRs) Default ThumbnailDaily PRs (or I Did Reach My Peak Performance)

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Halfway Through Class (or Not Thinking About The Next Step)

Posted on November 13, 2015 | Comments Off on Halfway Through Class (or Not Thinking About The Next Step)

I’m halfway through my UCB class. In about 4 weeks I’ll be doing my 101 graduation show. That show still terrifies me a bit because I feel like we (or at least I) won’t be ready in time, but I’m trying to put that fear in the back of my head and focus on what we are doing now in class.

Each week in class, we do focus on a particular aspect of improv. This past week was all about characters. While I’ve done character work before, I really enjoyed this class because new ideas on character types were mentioned that I’ve never used before. I’m surprised that I never thought of some of these types (like being high class vs. low class) never came up in my past studies. But I’m glad I know them now for the future.

I did have a bit of difficulty in class with some of the character work. There was one mimic game that we played and I went first. I was a bit unclear on the instructions (if I was supposed to mimic an accent or just the general attitude of the other person) so I had to start over several times. I also hate having to do accents because they are extremely tough for me to do. I’m partially tone deaf (it’s why I’m not a music person) so accents sound funny to me. I can hear someone and thing that I’m mimicking it perfectly but in reality I’m not doing any accent.

After starting over several times, I decided to just focus on the attitude of the other person and made it through the game. But that set back really was tough on me. I don’t think I’m the best actor or best improviser out there, but since I was so confused I wish that I had more instructions or that I asked more questions so I knew what was expected. All the other students seemed to mimic the attitude and not the accent so I guess I made the right choice.

This week I also went to another improv show. This one was a show that was performed by teachers from UCB (my teacher wasn’t in it). It was a really great show and even though I’ve fulfilled my 2 show viewing requirement I’m thinking of going to that show again next week (it’s a rotating cast).

Some of my fellow students are already starting to think about taking improv 201 as soon as we are done. I’m still torn on if I’m going to continue or not. I’d like to complete all 4 levels just to say that I’ve done it. The cost is a bit of a set back. I think I have a year from the time I graduate improv 101 to decide if I’m going to take 201, so I’m going to allow myself some time to think about it all. I like not having to commit to the next level right away and I want to make sure that I’m making the best choice financially as well as for my acting career.

For now, I’m just going to focus on enjoying the last few weeks of my class, having a great graduation show, and doing the most growth I can in the class.

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Default ThumbnailMaking Strides In Class (or Relaxing And Having Fun) Default ThumbnailHomework and Other Work (or Taking My Class Seriously) Default ThumbnailMore Comfortable In Improv Class (or Making Friends With My Classmates) Default ThumbnailFiguring Out The Next Step (or I Need To Keep Acting) Default ThumbnailGraduation Show (or Completing Improv 101) Default ThumbnailBack To School (or Another Round Of Improv)

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Time For New Headshots (or Adding Some Personality Into My Photos)

Posted on November 12, 2015 | 1 comment

I changed my hair a little over a month ago. As soon as I did it, I planned on getting new headshots taken. Since I don’t have the same hair color anymore, I wanted new photos that reflected my new look more accurately. I had every intention of doing the shoot within a week or so of the hair color change, but due to crazy schedules, that didn’t happen.

For this shoot, I shot with my friend Adam Emperor Southard. I’ve previously done a fun shoot with him, but this was my first time shooting headshots with him. And I used Kate Hollinshead for my hair and makeup (Kate did my hair/makeup for my last 2 headshot shoots and I love what she does!).

The hair and makeup took about an hour (that’s pretty normal) and we were ready to shoot as soon as that was done. I’m still in the post-college/young mom/office worker category a lot for auditions, so that’s the look that we were going for. We did a mix of studio photos and outdoor photos, but all of my favorites came from outside.

Headshot Options

All of those photos are unretouched, but they look almost good enough to post on the online casting services already! I think that Kate did a great job getting the perfect natural look for me (which of course takes more makeup than I’m used to) and Adam was able to get some great shots with fun expressions. I’m always self-conscious at shoots because I feel like I don’t have enough looks. And when I try to replicate looks I’ve had in the past, they come out looking weird.

Even though my shoot was only a 2 look session, I convinced Adam to let me do a couple of photos with my new Mighty Petunia top (if you shop there, don’t forget to use the promo code “Bombshell”!). I love that tank top so much and I figured it would be fun to get some photos that I might use on the blog or other places where I don’t necessarily want to use my headshots. Since I was doing non-headshots, I told Kate that we could go bold with the hair and makeup. I was ok with whatever she wanted to do, so she went with curly hair and a bold red lip.

Fun Options

I love how those shots came out and I’m so grateful that Adam and Kate indulged me in adding a bonus look.

I’ve already sent my favorites to my agents and included some of the crazier photos with them in case they wanted to use one for fun. They picked their 6 favorites and 2 of them came from the crazy look (including the tongue out one for a kick ass rocker look)! I’m so glad that I took a chance with these photos because I never take chances like this and it seems like it’s paying off!

I’ll be getting my retouched photos today or tomorrow and then I’ll be getting them up on the casting sites, ordering new printed headshots, and doing new business cards (that link gets you 10% off that site!). It’s not cheap to do all of this, but thankfully I will get getting some money for Hanukkah at Thanksgiving so I will be putting a bit of that toward my acting expenses. It takes money to pursue this career, but it’s totally worth it to me.

I love when I work with a photographer and I get exactly what I need plus more! I’ve had some not-so-great experiences with photographers in the past where even after multiple reshoots I don’t have what I need and the money I spent on it was totally wasted. I’ve learned which photographers I work well with and I love having a couple of people who I trust to do headshots for me. I’m sure that within a year or so I’ll need to do photos again. But right now, I’m just so excited to get these photos up and available for casting directors to see the attention they get me.

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Default ThumbnailA Mini Photo Shoot (or Enjoying A Voter Freebie) Default ThumbnailExpress Headshot Day (or Another Fun Podcast Event) Default ThumbnailGetting Pretty (or A Fresh Look For My New Pictures) Default ThumbnailAn Amazing Photo Shoot (or Dress Like A Woman) Default ThumbnailMaking A Movie (or Pulling An All-Nighter) Default ThumbnailNew Headshots (or Trying To Be A Quirky Office Girl/College Student/Young Mom)

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A Friend Weekend (or Getting Up Early and Not Doing Much)

Posted on November 11, 2015 | 1 comment

Since my friend Kate was going to do the Hard Rock Cafe 5K with me, she came down for the weekend to hang out (she lives in Northern CA now) and spent some time with me. I hadn’t seen Kate in a while, so I was excited for some weekend catching up and hopefully some fun too. But even though she was coming into town for the weekend, since she was coming in later on Friday and leaving early on Sunday we only had about a day and a half to hang out. And we had a race to do so it was going to be an interesting mix of craziness and relaxing.

Kate got to LA on Friday afternoon after I was done with work. So I got her at LAX and we went to an early dinner at Lyfe Kitchen since we knew we were getting up early the next morning. It was a fun dinner and we got to catch up on all the crazy and random stuff that has been happening lately (we’ve both had some tough times lately). After that dinner, we went to my house and went to bed pretty quickly.

On race day, we were up at 4:30am and then had the race at 7am. After the race, we had breakfast at Hard Rock Cafe and then went back to my house. We spent some time relaxing and then went out on a fun and random shopping adventure. Neither of us bought anything, but it was fun hanging out how we used to in high school.

After our shopping adventure, we headed to another early dinner. This time, we went to Bottle Rock for some wine and yummy food. I love going to Bottle Rock because there is always great wine and the food has never disappointed me. Plus, it’s not loud or too crazy on weekends so you can relax there and not worry about people being obnoxious next to you.

We both got wine flights and of course I got 3 different sparkling wines.

Bottle Rock

I drank most of my tastes (they were all so yummy!) and we got a bunch of different things to split between us to eat. We tried a bunch of food and got some dessert (we burned off some calories by doing the race that morning and we had both skipped lunch). But since we had been up for so long that day, we didn’t stay out too late that night.

The next morning, Kate had a flight back home. But before her flight we went to iHop near LAX to have breakfast. It was another good meal and again it was fun getting to just talk.

I’ve missed having Kate in LA and it was nice to have her back here for the weekend. Even though we didn’t go do a ton of stuff (and there were so many things that I thought we could go and do), it was a great visit. We both have said how it’s nice to be such good friends that it’s ok if we don’t do much or if we have a quiet hang out.

Kate will be back in LA next month and I’m hoping I’ll get to see her again then (she’s coming into town to see a different friend and I am working a lot the weekend she’ll be here). But even if I don’t get to see her on that trip, I’m glad that we had this fun and chill weekend this past weekend to hang out and do our best on our 5K.

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Default ThumbnailA Speedy Friend Visit (or Making The Most Of 24 Hours) Default Thumbnail4th Of July Weekend (or An Early Holiday) Default ThumbnailOne More Outing To Bar Food (or A Friend Leaving LA) Default ThumbnailGirls Weekend (or Hanging Out With My Mom And Aunt) Default ThumbnailBar Food Hangout (or A Quick Friend Catch Up) Default ThumbnailHard Time At The Hard Rock Cafe 5K (or At Least I Looked Awesome!)

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Hard Time At The Hard Rock Cafe 5K (or At Least I Looked Awesome!)

Posted on November 10, 2015 | 6 comments

This past Saturday was the Hard Rock Cafe 5K (this year they also had a 10K, but I wasn’t going to do a 10K). It was my 3rd year doing this race and I was really excited to be doing the race again this year. And even more exciting, my friend Kate flew down to LA for the weekend to do the race with me (more about our weekend adventures tomorrow).

I wish I could tell you that I killed it at the race and everything went amazing. But sadly, that wasn’t the case.

I’m not 100% sure what happened, but things seemed weird starting the night before. As I was going to bed, I said to Kate how it didn’t feel like the night before a race. Maybe it’s because someone was sleeping in my living room. Maybe it was because I hadn’t gone to the bib pickup that day to get all my race stuff (Kate and I were going to pick our race things up on Saturday morning).

On race day, I was up at 4:30am and we were out the door by 5:15. Traffic was light so we got to the Hard Rock Cafe nice and early. We got our race stuff, went back down to my car in the parking structure, and got ready. Once it was closer to 6am, we went back up to the street to warm up and make sure we had good spots in the starting area so Kate could avoid the walkers and I could be out-of-the-way for the runners.

Hard Rock Cafe

And of course, we had to take a pre-race photo together.

Pre Race Photo

Kate went up to the front of the pack after that and I hung back and tried to relax and not stress out about the race. While I was waiting for the race to start, I managed to make a few new friends because of the awesome tank top I was wearing that day (hi Susie!!). The race was supposed to start at 7am, but we ended up starting closer to 7:15am.

Right from the beginning, things didn’t feel right to me. My legs were stiff from waiting so long for the start of the race and I was feeling pain in my shins and calf starting at the half mile mark. As much as I wanted to push myself, I was struggling. I checked out my tracking app on my phone at the 1 mile marker and saw that the first mile was about 30 seconds slower than what my mile time was at my PR.

At that point, I realized it would be pretty impossible to make up that time plus be 30 seconds faster on the next two miles, so I stopped trying to push as hard and decided to just focus on finishing without having to take a break.

Right after that realization, Kate was passing me going back toward the finish line. She was having a tough race as well (but she ended up placing 4th in our division, 7th in women, and 41st in the entire race).

The rest of the race seemed to take a while. I tried to focus on the streets going by and knowing that I will be done with the race soon enough. My race photos are all pretty serious looking since I was so focused.

Race Time

As I was almost at the finish line, I saw Kate hanging out there waiting for me to finish. She walked next to me for the last minute and we both were sharing how we had pretty bad race days. I crossed the finish line about 90 seconds slower than my PR (I split the different between my time at the Hard Rock Cafe 5K last year and the Hollywood Half 5K in April).

Even though I didn’t PR, I still got my amazing medal!

Post Race Selfie

After the race, Kate and I got breakfast at the Hard Rock Cafe and I got one last photo on the stairs to the Dolby theater to celebrate completing my race.

Oscar Stairs

As soon as I got home, I added my newest medal to my wall (which is starting to look very full now).

Medal Hanger

Even though the race wasn’t great for me, I did it and I didn’t finish last (which is something that I am terrified of doing one day). I’m so proud of Kate for how well she finished in the race and I’m glad that neither of us really gave up.

While I love my race medal (it’s so sparkly!), my favorite thing from the race was the shirt that I wore! I ordered a tank top from Mighty Petunia after doing a random google search for motivational tank tops. So many motivational tank tops are silly and cheesy, but I love the messages that are on the Mighty Petunia tanks. They are fun and I am already picking out which ones I want next! And I got a ton of compliments on it at the race.

Since I loved my Mighty Petunia tank top so much, Cathy (who is the owner of Mighty Petunia) has given me a promo code to share with all of you! If you buy something from their site, use the promo code “Bombshell” and you’ll get 10% off of your order. And the shirts are so reasonably priced already so the 10% off is just icing on the cake! I hope that you guys will take advantage of the discount and support this great business!

While my race day wasn’t great, I managed to find ways to keep a somewhat positive mindset and was able to focus on the things that made me happy (like my tank top and the medal I got at the finish line). My next 5K is in April and while I’m hoping I’ll PR at that race, I just want to have a more positive race experience and I’ll be happy.

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Default ThumbnailHard Rock Cafe 5K Take 2 (or Trying To Not Be Frustrated With A PR) Default ThumbnailI Can’t Believe My Race Time (or A 5K With My TIU Friends) Default ThumbnailRevlon Run/Walk (or I Survived 5K #3!) Default ThumbnailTraining For A 5K Without Planning On Doing Them (or I Think I’m Only Doing 3 5Ks This Year) Default Thumbnail5K #7 (or I Was Prepared For The Worst And Got The Best) Default ThumbnailOnce Upon A Time: The Rock Opera (or An Awesome Giveaway!)

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Shopping, Tough Stuff

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Recovery and Preparation (or Back To A 3 Workout Week)

Posted on November 9, 2015 | 1 comment

After surviving 4 days of Hell Week last week, I was happy to have a bit of a calmer workout week this past week. While this was considered a recovery week from Hell Week, this was also going to be my last workouts before the Hard Rock Cafe 5K. So I wanted to make sure that I got myself in the best position as I could to have a great race.

I knew going into the week that it was going to be a 3 workout week. And because there was a potential conflict on Thursday (plus having 2 rest days before the race sounded good to me), I did my workouts 3 days in a row. Doing 3 days in a row is tough and doing them the week after Hell Week is even tougher. But it was the best option for me so I was going to do it.

The workouts were a bit easier this past week when compared to Hell Week, but they weren’t easy. Each day was challenging for me and I had a couple of days where I was feeling a bit sore. But I’m glad I pushed myself.

One day this past week had 10 all-outs on the treadmill! That’s insane! Each all-out was a minute or less, but we would only have a minute or less between all-outs to walk and recover. I did my all-outs at 8% incline and either 3.5 or 3.6 miles an hour. That was really pushing myself and I was exhausted after it was done. But I got it done and continued to prove to myself that I’m getting closer and closer to increasing my speed on the treadmill again. It’s still difficult for me, but doing these little sprints are helping to get me ready to upping my speed again.

I had a pretty bad day on the treadmill on Wednesday (my third day in a row), but I’m thinking that it was more due to being tired from so many workouts in a row and not my actual ability. I had to keep taking breaks on the treadmill and the incline got very difficult for me to do. When I was supposed to be at 10% or higher, I was only able to be at 6% without pain. I’m trying to not let that get me down and focusing on my success on the treadmill, but it’s tough not to view that as a setback.

As far as my floor work this past week, I’ll admit that I took things a bit easy. I tried to be tough with the weights that I used, but for some of the arm work I went down a weight because I was feeling some odd soreness. But again, a recovery week is not the worst thing in the world.

I’m back to crazy work schedules for the 2 weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, but I’m hoping that at least one of those weeks will calm down enough to do 4 workouts in a week. And I’m doing another Thanksgiving workout down in San Diego this year! My dad and Aunt Cindy will be joining me again and my Aunt Nancy will be trying Orangetheory for the first time! That week will be a 3 workout week because of being out-of-town for so many days, but I’m ok with that since spending time with my family is more important than getting in a bunch of workouts.

Tomorrow, I’ll do my recap post of my 5K and let you know how my Orangetheory training paid off!

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Baby Steps Back To Cooking (or My Check In Kicked My Butt Into Gear)

Posted on November 6, 2015 | Comments Off on Baby Steps Back To Cooking (or My Check In Kicked My Butt Into Gear)

I recently did a check in with myself on how I’m doing for my goals for the year. I’m actually pretty proud of myself on how well I’m doing on my goals and that I may get pretty much all of them checked off by the end of the year.

But the one goal where I would have to give myself a failing grade would be cooking more often for myself. I got into the groove of cooking for a while, but the novelty of it wore off (yes, it felt like a novelty and not a requirement) and I got lazy again. I haven’t been eating take out or at a restaurant all the time, but I’ve definitely been taking advantage of frozen meals and easy things.

I feel like cooking for myself on a regular basis is going to be a battle for the long run. Part of the problem is my eating disorder. I can forget to eat and then when I get hungry I’m starving and want something to eat now. I don’t want to have to spend time cooking something.

I really should be on an eating schedule and set alarms to remember to eat at the right times. But my schedule can be a bit crazy so sometimes it’s not possible to eat when I want to. There are days at my day job where I’m on back to back customer calls and chats for a couple of hours. Sometimes, I don’t get a real break the entire shift. I can usually run and grab a protein bar or banana to eat, but microwaving food sometimes takes too long and my food might sit in the microwave for an hour after cooking before I can eat it.

The one meal that is easiest for me to control is breakfast. With the exceptions of Mondays (when I’m doing a workout at 7:30am because of my class), I always have at least an hour after waking up before I have to work. That’s more than enough time for me to make some sort of breakfast for myself. I’m still usually preparing something that requires minimum effort (avocado toast, peanut butter on toast, fruit, or ricotta cheese and honey), but it’s still better than other options that are out there.

With lunch on workdays always being something tough for me, I’m moving my focus on to dinner. While it’s not easy to cook after getting home from an afternoon workout (when I’m starving when I get home and need to eat pretty quickly), there are still plenty of evenings or afternoons that I can bulk cook or just make something that will have leftovers for a day or two.

I need to get back into the habit of doing that. Every time I say that, something is weird in my schedule that makes me say that I’ll start next week. Next week then has issues in it too. And it’s an endless cycle. I’m taking the baby steps into cooking dinner at home. I’m trying to get things at the store that make things easy to prepare. It’s not the cheapest option, but it’s still cheaper than eating outside of my house. And if the leap from where I’ve been to cooking is too big, these smaller steps can help bridge the gap.

I’m still working through this and like I said that it’s an ongoing battle. I hate that this is something that comes so easily to so many people and it’s so tough with me. But hopefully I can start transitioning back into cooking so that next year I can be closer to the goal that I set for myself this year.

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Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Miss You Already (or Women Filmmakers and Cancer Patients)

Posted on November 5, 2015 | 1 comment

I recently had an opportunity to see an advance screening of “Miss You Already”. I was excited enough to go see a new movie, but this screening also had a Q&A with the director, Catherine Hardwicke, as well as with Toni Collette and Tyson Ritter, who are actors in the film. While going to screenings are a fairly regular occurrence through my union, my WIF membership, or other industry opportunities; this one ended up being very special for me.

The first thing that was so special about this screening was the casualness of the entire event. Usually when there is a screening with a Q&A, after the Q&A is done the cast and crew are whisked away by their publicists and other handlers and are in their cars before the audience gets to move. There’s almost never interaction between the audience and the guests.

That was not the case with this screening. It seemed to be not only a WIF event, but a crew and production team screening. Many people in the audience were involved with the film in various positions and they had a little after party after the screening that my friend who joined me for the screening and I got invited to join.

I got to talk to Catherine Hardwicke a little bit. She’s seriously amazing. She’s a big advocate for making sure that more movies are made with female directors and writers. Men are a majority of writers and directors and things really should be more balanced. She is an incredible director and I feel honored that I got to meet her and she spent a little bit of time talking with me (and taking this awesome picture with me).

Miss You Already

The other reason why this screening was so special to me was the subject. Without giving a ton of spoilers away, one of the characters in the film gets a breast cancer diagnosis. The character has to go through several of the same treatments that my mom went through (the character had a similar type of breast cancer). But the way the character reacted to her cancer was very different from how my mom did and that made me feel so grateful for my mom.

When my mom was diagnosed, she told me pretty much right away. I wasn’t able to share it with friends right away because we wanted family to know first and my mom to get through some things before the news was shared. But it was a pretty open discussion with us all. I could ask my mom anything I wanted to without fear of her reaction or upsetting her. A lot of things were (and still are) unknowns, but nothing was hidden from me or anyone else in the family who wanted to know.

After my mom’s surgery, I saw her in Tahoe when I went to visit my family. While I was there, I got to see my mom’s scar and what things looked like. That helped me feel much more comfortable with everything. When you look up post-mastectomy photos online, they can seem both scary and unbelievable. Seeing what it looked like on my mom normalized things.

Through surgery, chemo, and radiation; my mom kept a very positive attitude. Yes, technically cancer at any stage can kill you (or the treatments can kill you or make you sick), but as a family we just focused on positivity and recovery and believed that my mom would get through this just fine. That’s exactly what happened, but I know that even if it wasn’t that way my mom would have still maintained her positivity. Again, that all made me feel much better about the circumstances and helped me avoid googling things that I shouldn’t.

For all I know, my mom just put on a brave face for us all and it was much scarier and more horrible than I know; but if she did protect me from the negativity I appreciate that.

Obviously, my mom’s cancer story isn’t everyone’s cancer story. Not everyone has the ability to stay positive or immediately get a fatal diagnosis. And my family is much luckier than most because almost everyone is in medicine so we understood things without having to do as much research (and that research is so terrifying). And even though the story in “Miss You Already” isn’t my mom’s story, it’s so refreshing to see a cancer story that tells things honestly and doesn’t make it seem easy or so hard that life is over from the moment you are diagnosed.

“Miss You Already” opens this weekend and I really encourage you all to go and see it. Not only will you be supporting a fabulous movie, you will be telling the studios that films by female directors are popular and there should be more of them. Both of those things are very worthy things to support.

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Default ThumbnailA Screening At The Walt Disney Studios Lot (or “What The F@#- Is Cancer And Why Does Everyone Have It?” Default ThumbnailCancer Questions (or Hopefully This Will Help Someone Else) Default ThumbnailAn Evening Of Fabulous Women (or Getting More Involved At Women In Film) Default ThumbnailMy Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (or A Movie With A Fun Friend) Default ThumbnailF#*k Cancer (or Proof That My Mom Is A Badass) Default ThumbnailThe Sorority Nobody Wants To Belong To (or Getting Support From Strangers)

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Posted in Acting, Family, Tough Stuff

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More Comfortable In Improv Class (or Making Friends With My Classmates)

Posted on November 4, 2015 | Comments Off on More Comfortable In Improv Class (or Making Friends With My Classmates)

I’ve gone through 3 weeks of my improv class so far. So I’m almost halfway done with this first level! I still miss Kip quite a bit in class, especially when the things we do are very similar to what I did in his class. But I’m also feeling much better about moving on.

I’m getting comfortable in the class too. It’s always awkward at first when you are thrown into a class with 15 strangers. And we’ve had a couple of people who either haven’t been able to make it to another class after the first one or who have dropped out. But the 14 of us still in the class have started to bond a bit.

When I went to the improv show after my first week of class, I went by myself because I didn’t have anyone to go with. I had a good time there, but I wished that there was someone there to laugh with and chat about the show afterward. But I’m starting to friend my classmates on Facebook so we can try to meet up for a show in the future (I’m still required to see 1 more show, but I’m hoping to go to more than that).

I went out to lunch after class this week with one of my classmates and really got to know her better. She and I are some of the older people in class (many of them seem to be in their early twenties) so it was nice to get to chat about more grown up things. And it turns out that she had a very similar hip surgery to what I had!

Getting to know my classmates has made my performances in class better. I’m not trying to look good or impress anyone. Even though I’ve had several years of improv training (and doing shows), things at UCB are different and I’m working on breaking old habits as well as rebuilding new ones. But the freedom that I’m starting to feel is really great.

Just this past week, we had a game where we had to sing different songs. That was going to be an issue for me for a couple of reasons. First, I can’t sing and I’m pretty much tone-deaf. And second, I don’t know many songs. Fortunately, I do know show tunes and was able to use them for the game (I actually think every song I sang was a show tune). Nobody made fun of me for my horrible singing. And when I didn’t know more than one line of the song, they sang with me so I could try to remember.

All of these things are making me feel better about having our class performance in a little over a month. It’s coming up so quickly and hopefully we will be pretty bonded as a group and will be able to do a fun show. I’m thinking about going to another level 1 graduation show to see how it works. That might make me feel a bit better about what I am expected to do. Right now, I have it in my head that it will be like a full-out show. I don’t think that will be the case, but unless I see it for myself I will have that same idea.

I know I’ve said this before, but I’m so glad that I was able to get the money together to do this first level of classes at UCB. I’m still debating about doing the next level, but I don’t have to decide that anytime soon (nor do I have the money to do that anytime soon). But the feeling that I’ve gotten from being in this class now has made me so happy and my only regret is that I wasn’t able to do it sooner.

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Default ThumbnailMaking Strides In Class (or Relaxing And Having Fun) Default ThumbnailGraduation Show (or Completing Improv 101) Default ThumbnailHalfway Through Class (or Not Thinking About The Next Step) Default ThumbnailHomework and Other Work (or Taking My Class Seriously) Default ThumbnailBack To School (or Another Round Of Improv) Default ThumbnailFinding Soul Mates (or Why I’m Having A Tough Time Finding An Improv Class)

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A Busy Halloween (or Dressing As A Box Office Employee)

Posted on November 3, 2015 | 1 comment

I love having fun on Halloween, and I had been looking forward to the party that my friends throw for months! I knew I’d have to work on Halloween morning from 8-11 for my at home box office job, but I then found out that I would need to be working at my other random box office job not only on Halloween but the next day as well. So my plans for doing a fun costume ended because I knew that I’d be working a lot that day and wouldn’t want to change after work before going to the party. And I knew that my time at the party would be limited since I’d have to work the next day (and even though the clocks “fell back” I needed to get up early in the morning).

My jobs went pretty easily. The first job was a bit busy with everyone hoping to get into the sold out Halloween shows, but since we cannot add seats to shows all my customer calls were pretty fast. The second box office job was a bit crazier since it was a sold out show and we had to make sure that everyone sat in their assigned seats, but overall it went pretty smoothly.

I don’t have to dress fancy for the random box office job, just nice casual. So that evening I was wearing jeans, a nice top, and some boots. And I had a headband with cat ears on it that I added to my outfit when I got to Chris and Marie’s house.

Halloween Costume

Not the most creative outfit, but I joked to everyone that my outfit was “box office employee” and everyone understood that I was coming straight from work.

Marie and Chris really outdid themselves this year with the party. The house and backyard were themed to Jurassic Park. They had lots of dinosaur themed things around including cardboard dinosaurs stalking the party.

Jurassic Park

They even made a jeep with a t-rex chasing in the background. They made sure that the side mirrors had a picture of a t-rex in them too!

Jurassic Park Photo

Of course, I had to take advantage of that amazing photo opportunity to have a great party picture!

Halloween Photo

Even without being in a decent costume, I still had a great time on Halloween. Getting to hang out with my friends is always fun and I loved seeing all the creative costumes everyone came up with (I didn’t stay for the costume contest so I don’t have pictures of the winners). Even though this is a very competitive group with costumes, nobody judges anyone for showing up without a costume. So even though I felt bad for my lack of costume, nobody really cared.

I don’t have a ton of stories about the Halloween party because it really was just a fun hangout with everyone. Some of the people at these parties are people I only see at the parties so I tried to make sure I take the time to catch up and socialize with them. And since I had to leave before it got too late (because I was tired, had to work the next morning, and I wanted to get on the road before too many people thought about driving drunk), I didn’t do much more than hang out.

The next great party that should be at Chris and Marie’s will be the New Years Eve party (unless a scheduling issue comes up and they can’t have that party). And after that will be the Oscars party where I know I want to have an amazing costume. But even though those parties are a few months away, I have the awesome photos from Halloween to look at and make me smile until then.

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Default ThumbnailHalloween Awesomeness (or I Am Covfefe) Default ThumbnailA Halloween Outing (or Dressing Up As Me) Default ThumbnailBulu Box (or Testing Out A Subscription Box) Default ThumbnailBusy Busy Busy (or Triple Job Day) Default ThumbnailHalloween Hangout (or I’m Just A Regular Puppet) Default ThumbnailLow-Key Halloween (or A Work In Progress)

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff

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