Monthly Archives: October 2015

Following My Doctor’s Instructions (or Days Off From Vyvanse)

Posted on October 16, 2015 | 1 comment

At my last appointment with my therapist, we covered a bunch of things. We discussed my decrease in exercise due to my calf tear and the anxiety it caused me (if only I knew then that coming up there would be a week where I could only work out once). We talked about my happiness checklist and the fact that I’ve continued to do it every day as he asked me to. I’m still one of the only patients who has actually followed through with this homework assignment he has given to many patients. And we also talked about how I was doing on Vyvanse.

I’m very torn on Vyvanse. Since increasing my dosage to 2 pills a day instead of 1 pill a day, I’ve noticed that it does help me more often. But it doesn’t help all the time like I wished that it would. I know that it’s an aid and not a miracle drug, but that doesn’t stop me from wishing it was a miracle drug.

While it does help at times controlling my hunger (and I do sometimes forget to eat most of the day) it isn’t a weight loss medication so I’m not seeing a huge change on the scale. I know that I shouldn’t judge the medicine’s success by what number is on the scale, but I do.

I expressed these frustrations to my therapist when I was there last. He brought up a suggestion to me that I’ve been trying to test out. He wants me to try going one or two days a week without taking Vyvanse. He wants me to do that on days that I’m not doing anything that may put me in a tough situation with food.

At first, I didn’t want to do this. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Since this is a time release medication it’s good to have days without it so my body doesn’t get used to it. I’m close to the maximum dose that my therapist would prescribe, so he doesn’t want to keep increasing it because I will max out soon. So having days with no medication and then days with medication is a way to keep my body from getting used to the dosage.

I wasn’t sure when I’d try doing this at first, but then when I got sick I just forgot to take my medicine (despite the alarms I set on my phone). There were 3 days in a row that I didn’t take it. Those 3 days were pretty much a blur to me due to how sick I was, so I can’t say if I felt that different compared to when I’m taking them. I tried another day without medicine this past Sunday (it wasn’t a busy day for me so it seemed like a good day to try it) and I did notice a difference. It’s almost as if my anxiety got worse because I was terrified on how I would feel without the medicine.

But I got through the day just fine and since then the past few days have been better days for me. I don’t necessarily feel like the medication is working more. But it feels like the concerns that I have in my head every day are a bit quieter for me. It’s not going to be easy to find days that I’m ok with not taking my medicine, but I’m going to try to find one day a week that I can do it. If I can’t, that’s ok but at least I’m making a real effort in trying it. And knowing how much better I feel this week is motivation to keep having a day off.

Of course, I still wish that Vyvanse works more than it does. It’s unrealistic but I can dream. But at least now I have a much more positive opinion of Vyvanse than I did before and I think that will help with the success of the drug.

Are any of my readers on Vyvanse? I’m curious about your experience on it because when I’ve done Google research it seems like I’m having a unique experience. If you don’t want to comment (and be public about being on it), feel free to use the contact page to send me a message privately.

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Default ThumbnailAnother Therapist Check In (or Showing Off My Happiness Checklist) Default ThumbnailOver A Month On Vyvanse (or A Meeting With My Therapist) Default ThumbnailA Year On Vyvanse (or Help Is Expensive) Default Thumbnail1 Week On Vyvanse (or Hoping To Answer Some Questions) Default ThumbnailWith The Good Comes The Bad (or My Vyvanse-Free Weekend) Default ThumbnailA Quick Vyvanse Update (or I Guess Forgetting Helps Time Pass)

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Injury After Injury (or I Swear It’s Not Because I’m A Klutz)

Posted on October 15, 2015 | 1 comment

I feel like the past few months have been me dealing with one injury after another. Of course, there is always my hip issues. Those are probably going to be around for the rest of my life (even if I have surgeries to fix them). Then I had my torn calf over the summer. I was hoping that would be better in a few weeks, but I’m still dealing with the recovery from that (but I’m feeling almost 100% again).

Because of the hip issues and the torn calf, I started favoring walking differently. This has been an ongoing issue with my hips (my shoes for the last 10 years have worn down in funny patterns), but with the calf I started to favor the other leg. In doing that, I caused some ankle and knee pain.

Then because of who knows what, I started getting the most epic blisters on my heels. It’s not because of my shoes (I’ve used the same type of running shoes for a while now), so I’m not sure what’s causing it. But it made it more difficult for me to walk and do other things.

I’ve been a klutz my entire life. I’m rarely without a bruise or a scratch of some sort. In fact, right now, I’ve got a pretty nasty bruise on my knee where I bumped into my front door (don’t ask). But these issues are not klutz related ones. These are real injuries.

My dad has said that this is what comes with becoming an athlete. And while I agree with him, it’s not fun and I feel like there must be something I can do differently to work on preventing or limiting these issues.

I’m working on stretching more throughout the day and trying to get up from my desk as least once an hour to move around. It hasn’t been easy with the injuries I’ve got right now, but I want to start building better habits for the future. I’m also trying to limit the number of painkillers I take in a week. I still take one before each workout, but I know that taking them only dulls the pain that I feel and doesn’t always allow me to know when I’m pushing myself too much. If I don’t have a painkiller in my system, I should feel pain sooner and therefore know to stop what I’m doing.

It’s funny to me that I’m dealing with so many more injuries now than I did last year when I was starting my workout routine. Of course, there was the quad strain after my very first Orangetheory workout that had me struggling to walk for a couple of days after (thank goodness that was just that one time). But since then I’ve been relatively injury free until this summer. Maybe I’m working that much harder in my workouts? Or maybe I was overdue for some injuries and they are all happening now.

No matter what, unless I’m horribly sick like I was 2 weeks ago, I’m not letting these injuries prevent me from working out. I’m looking at them like a badge of honor. Because unless my klutz injuries, I’ve earned these by kicking butt.

I just wish that they would hurt less and get better sooner.

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Default ThumbnailTransitioning Back To Normal (or Going Slow) Default ThumbnailThere’s No Problem With Orangetheory (or My Side Of The Article) Default ThumbnailTrying To Be Patient (or Did I Re-Injury Myself?) Default ThumbnailWorkouts With Modifications (or Dealing With A New Injury) Default ThumbnailLearning How To Maximize My Injury (or Feeling More Normal) Default ThumbnailBeing a Graceful Klutz (or Why I’m Black and Blue)

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Evil Twin Brunch (or Catching Up On Life)

Posted on October 14, 2015 | 1 comment

With being super busy with the Convention, being sick, and just trying to catch up on my day jobs; I feel like my fun time has been limited. I’ve been working on scheduling more fun things (adding them to my calendar is helping me remember to actually do the fun things and just not plan to do them). Going to the screenings helps me relax and have fun. But I also need to be social (going to the movie with a friend isn’t exactly social).

I knew my Evil Twin had the same pilot audition that I did, but we weren’t there on the same day. So I suggested that we get together for brunch to discuss our auditions and just have a fun day out.

We decided to meet up on Sunday at Luna Park (I’ve been there for dinner, but never for brunch) since it was between where we each live. We got there pretty much when they opened (we weren’t sure if it would be really crowded or not) and ordered some drinks right away.

While they have bottomless drinks for brunch, I knew I only needed one mimosa with brunch. We ordered pretty quickly so we could start with our catchup chat.

While I had a pretty good audition for the pilot, my Evil Twin didn’t have as great of a time. There were issues with the office running behind (it happens), parking difficulty, and construction blocking how you would normally walk to the office where casting was located. I was so grateful that she warned me about all of that after her audition so when I had mine the next day I gave myself extra time to deal with all of that. These issues with auditions happen from time to time, but they can throw you off your game if you aren’t expecting them.

She also told me about another audition she had this past week (I wasn’t asked to audition for that one, so it was cool to hear about it) and then we moved on to our usual random catch up.

Of course there was talk about Disneyland (she’s going when I can’t go but hopefully we can do another Disneyland day soon), family, and her cat who happened to get out the other day and seemed traumatized by whatever he saw on the other side of the door.

Eventually, our food came and I might have ordered too much because I took a really long nap at home that afternoon. But their brunch was just as delicious as their dinner and the mimosa I ordered was so strong that I couldn’t even finish half of it!

Evil Twin Brunch

After hanging out for a couple of hours, we both had to head out to do our Sunday errands. Even though it was a somewhat short visit, getting one on one time with my Evil Twin really did boost my spirits and help me feel back into the normal swing of things. It’s always good to spend time with someone who completely relates to a crazy and sometimes unknown schedule. We are lucky that we both were able to schedule our brunch easily and didn’t have to reschedule a time or two.

My schedule is still a bit crazy, but it’s starting to normalize and should be relatively normal (unless I get a ton of auditions) until Thanksgiving week. It will be nice to have some normalcy and expected things in my schedule before things get crazy again with time off at Thanksgiving (and going to spend time with my family) and the craziness that my day job experiences around the holiday. It’s so weird that I’m already thinking about the holidays, but they will be here before you know it!

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Default ThumbnailThe Past Few Days (or The Crazy Life I Lead) Default ThumbnailBrunch Time (or Keeping Up With Our Group) Default ThumbnailGoing From So Much Excitement To Normal In A Few Hours (or Life As An Actor) Default ThumbnailAnother Day Another Audition (or This Is The Life I Love) Default ThumbnailBack To Normal (or Catching Up On Life) Default ThumbnailThe First Mentee Meeting Of The Year (or Catching Up On Life)

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Watching Some Inspiration (or A Weekend Of Screenings)

Posted on October 13, 2015 | Comments Off on Watching Some Inspiration (or A Weekend Of Screenings)

I realize that I’m pretty lucky with the screenings I get invited to. Some of them are because I am current on my SAG-AFTRA dues and I get to vote for the SAG Awards. Some of them are through Women In Film. And some of them are because I pay to be a part of the SAG-AFTRA Film Society.

Most of the screenings I go to (with the exception of the voting season for SAG Awards) are through the SAG-AFTRA Film Society. Prior to this past weekend, I had been to lots of movies through them. Most of them are either in theaters right now or about to be in theaters. And on the rare occasion those screenings include a Q&A.

Late on Friday night, I went to go see “The Walk”. I knew the story pretty well because I had seen “Man On Wire”, but I think that this film was pretty awesome. The screening was in 3D and my palms were sweaty the entire time the walk was going on (the friend who joined me said that he was barely able to breathe that time because he was nervous). It was a fun movie to watch and even though I was really tired Saturday morning I’m glad I went out to see it.

And on Saturday I got to see “Steve Jobs”. I was looking forward to this movie because I love the actors who are in it. I picked a screening time to go to that worked out with my schedule and was ready to go. But then a few days before the screening I found out that the screening time I was going to was also going to have a Q&A with the writer, director, and 3 of the actors in the film.

I was excited to attend the Q&A (which fortunately was after the film because it’s always weird when it’s before the movie you are seeing), but I knew that that movie was going to be extra crowded because of that.

I got to the theater pretty early and was a decent way back in the line, but I managed to find a pretty close and centered seat.

The movie was amazing. I had read the biography of Steve Jobs that the film was based on, but the movie was so different from what I expected. It pretty much takes place in 3 distinct acts (each act is a somewhat real-time representation of a certain day). The pattern of the movie was fascinating to watch and it felt like the movie flew by.

And soon as the credits were done, the Q&A started.

Steve Jobs Screening

It’s always fun to hear about the making of a movie, but what truly inspired me was hearing how they did the rehearsal process for each of the acts. The actors had over a week of real rehearsal time (not being distracted by wardrobe fittings or other things) where they were in a rehearsal room with the set being marked out by tape. This way, the actors had time to get used to the dialogue (and there was a lot of dialogue) and not have to worry about taking up time on the set while the crew was there.

They got to do this rehearsal process for each of the acts (rehearsing for the week or so prior to filming that section). This is not normal. Most movies don’t really give actors real rehearsal time to work on their characters, lines, and relationships. But hearing that some directors feel this passionate about making sure their actors had what they needed to do the best performance possible really made me happy. I can only dream that I get to have an experience like that on set one day.

Normally when I go to screenings, I have fun because it’s a day or night at the movies. This past weekend, going to the movies inspired me to keep going and keep pursing my dream. Just seeing the passion in the filmmakers’ and actors’ eyes proved to me that I’m on the right path.

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Default ThumbnailA Night At A Screening (or Forgetting What Non-Screenings Are Like) Default ThumbnailA Summer Of Movies (or Grateful For Union Membership) Default ThumbnailWrapping Up An Awesome Year Of Movies (or Still Loving SAG-AFTRA Film Society) Default ThumbnailEnjoying Movie Nights (or Watching My Screeners) Default ThumbnailInspiration On TV (or I Voted For Her) Default ThumbnailA Night Of SAG Awards (or Watching Union Unity)

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Getting Back In The Groove (or Recovering From My Sick Break)

Posted on October 12, 2015 | Comments Off on Getting Back In The Groove (or Recovering From My Sick Break)

After only being able to do 1 workout the week before, I was pretty nervous about how my workouts would go this past week. Would it not seem so bad or would I hurt like I did for a few days after my very first Orangetheory workout ever? I decided to not push myself too hard and see how it went.

Monday was definitely a struggle. I felt like I was huffing and puffing through the entire workout but my heart rate stayed pretty low. I sometimes have that problem with my morning workouts, but this one felt worse than usual. I really tried to do what I could, but I felt like I had taken 1,000 steps back in my workout progress. I was also possibly holding back a bit since I knew I’d be at Disneyland that afternoon. I’m just grateful that my calf is starting to feel better because that was one less thing I had to worry about.

My Wednesday workout felt a bit more normal. The only big issue I was dealing with was some horrible blisters that I got on both of my heels (not quite sure what happened, but they are still horrible). I didn’t have any pain leftover from my Monday workout like I thought I would and I was doing things at the same speed/weight that I was doing them before I was sick. The only thing that is still behind pretty significantly is my rowing power. That doesn’t seem to make progress like I would like and I’m wondering if it has to do with my calf, my hip, or maybe a combination of both. I’m adding it to my list of things I want to talk about with hip surgeons when I start meeting with them to decide for sure who will be doing my next surgery (and what my next surgery will be).

Friday I finally felt back to normal. And not only did I feel back to normal from being sick, I felt almost back to normal after the calf injury! For that workout, we spent the first half of the workout (about 26 minutes) on the treadmill without a break. When we had walking breaks, I brought my speed down to 3 miles an hour, but the entire workout time I was at 3.5 miles an hour! I’m almost back to what I was doing pre-injury! I’m still not able to boost my speed during the push and all-out paces, but knowing that I did 3.5 miles an hour for 26 minutes gave me a huge confidence boost! I’m feeling better about my next 5K and that I will be able to PR (even if it’s only a few seconds faster).

I feel like I might be ready to start back at 4 workouts a week occasionally. I’m still a bit nervous on how my calf might feel, but I haven’t had any popping or pulling sensations in it for about 2 weeks now. I think that it’s finally completely healed and I want to get in the extra workouts so I can still meet my 2015 workout goal. I also feel like while I’ve been pushing myself due to injury or illness, I haven’t really been pushing myself for real. It’s just been pushing myself to get back to what I can usually do.

Orangetheory will be doing Hell Week again during Halloween week. I’m feeling pretty sure that I can do 4 workouts that week. But I’m starting to think that maybe I should make it a challenge for myself to workout each day of Hell Week. Last year, they gave out a prize for doing that, but I don’t care about getting a prize. I care about proving to myself that I’m not in recovery mode anymore and I’m back to improvement mode.

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Default ThumbnailAlmost Normal (or Guess I’m Definitely Missing The Dri-Tri) Default ThumbnailAlmost Back To Normal (or Making Progress) Default ThumbnailWorkout Struggles and Wins (or My First Early Workout In A While) Default ThumbnailWorkouts With Modifications (or Dealing With A New Injury) Default ThumbnailStill Taking This A Bit Easy (or Not Going To Push Too Hard) Default ThumbnailTaking A Break To Be Sick (or Hitting A Road Bump)

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Lots Of TV (or What Season Is It?)

Posted on October 9, 2015 | 1 comment

You may have noticed that I haven’t written a post about the fall TV season yet. I usually post something about how I do my research or how I feel about the new TV shows (or their trailers).

I’m actually pretty behind on my fall TV viewing this year. I haven’t had as much time as I have had in the past. It’s a combination of having my workouts in the evenings, different events around town, and the SAG-AFTRA Convention. I’ve got about 10 new TV shows on my DVR that I haven’t had a chance to check out. But I’m not as stressed as I’ve been in the past because I upgraded my DVR with my cable company so I can record 6 shows at once instead of just 2 (I rarely record more than 2, but it’s nice to have it when I need it).

I’m hoping that I’ll be catching up on my research in the next few weeks or so. But while my focus was on the fall TV season, it’s now on pilot season.

Pilot season is typically after the new year and into April or so. That’s when the networks decide what shows they want to consider for the new TV season. I’ve heard for years that pilot season is disappearing because of cable and new shows coming on TV all throughout the year. But in the past, my pilot auditions have always fit into the classic pilot season timeline.

Until this week.

While I was at Disneyland, I got a text from my agents that I had an audition for a series regular on a new pilot this week. I was a bit shocked to get a pilot audition in October, but I’m down for whatever!

As I mentioned in my Disneyland post, we left pretty early. So as soon as I got home I printed out my audition sides and got to highlighting.

Pilot Script

Since this is a very big deal audition, I wanted to take it as seriously as I could. And since I had a couple of days before the audition, I had time to get coached for it. I checked with Marci Liroff first since I have worked with her in class in the past, but she’s busy casting a new project. She gave me a referral, but I also heard back from Peggy Lane O’Rourke, who I met through the SAG-AFTRA election (she was on the other side and technically my “enemy”).

Peggy and I really connected while we were campaigning for the election and again at the convention, so I decided to drive out to her for coaching. And of course, we did 1 hour of coaching and 3 hours of goofing off and chatting. But that’s totally fine with me because she got to know me better as an actor and I think she understood my abilities better.

Audition Coaching

I think the coaching session went really well. I had some points in the script where I knew the choice I was making wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do either. She helped me discover and develop what I wanted to do.

And when I was in the room, I think I did a great job! One of my biggest issues in the audition room is talking too fast, but I actually got a note after my first read that I had too much air in the reading and she wanted me to speed up! That’s a first for me!

This pilot isn’t supposed to shoot until January, so even if I do get a callback I might not hear anything for a while. But no matter what, I know that I did the best that I could in the room and I have no regrets of any of my acting choices (and because I could hear through the door, I know my choices were very different from the other girls auditioning before me).

Now that my preview of pilot season is done, I can get back to focusing on the fall TV season and seeing what shows I want to target and what shows I can see myself fitting into.

Hopefully in the not-so-distant future, I will be on one of those shows. And it doesn’t matter to me if it’s a series regular or a 1 line part. I’m making strides to making my dreams come true and that’s all that counts to me.

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A Speedy Disneyland Day (or Getting My Halloween Rides In)

Posted on October 8, 2015 | Comments Off on A Speedy Disneyland Day (or Getting My Halloween Rides In)

When I’ve got a free Monday, I go to Disneyland. It’s one of the advantages of having an annual pass. And since I won’t have a free Monday again until December (I’m going to be in a class on Mondays for a while), I had to take a trip to the parks this week to see all the Halloween fun.

I went with the same friend that I’ve done my past few trips to Disneyland with since she lives around the block from me and we have similar attitudes on being laid back in the parks.

We got the parks around noon and it was really crowded. I wasn’t expecting a Monday during the school year to be that bad, but it reminded me of a Monday in the middle of the summer. Maybe some local school districts had the day off?

As soon as we got into Disneyland we knew our game plan was pretty much to do the Halloween rides first and then see what we want to do after that. But first, we had to make our traditional first stop and get a Dole Whip!

Dole Whip

It was nice to be able to enjoy the Dole Whip and not have to eat it super quickly because it was melting. We sat in the shade and enjoyed our treats before heading to our first ride of the day.

Even though the Haunted Mansion has their holiday overlay of The Nightmare Before Christmas from Halloween until Christmas, I try to go on it once during Halloween and once during Christmas (at least). We ended up getting stopped on the ride a couple of times, so I was able to get some pictures of the ride without worrying too much that I was ruining someone’s experience on the ride.

Haunted Mansion

Our next ride was going to be Space Mountain to see the Ghost Galaxy overlay, so we rode the train around from Haunted Mansion to Tomorrowland. The train is going to be closed for at least a year starting in January, and I love it a lot so I’m going to try to ride it each time I’m in the parks before it closes down.

I’ve missed going on Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy most years, so I’m glad I got to ride it this week. I swear that the ride was so much faster than it usually is and it was a lot darker so I couldn’t see the track at all even though we were sitting in the front of the ride.

And of course, we had to do a silly pose for the photo (we were trying to hula dance to celebrate our love for Dole Whips).

Space Mountain

After that, we decided to head to the Disneyland Hotel for some lunch at Trader Sams and rode the monorail over to Downtown Disney (I was feeling a bit lazy that day). This was my second time at Trader Sams and it was just as fun as it was last time. I still didn’t get a drink, but one day I will try one of their fun and festive drinks.

Trader Sams

While we were sitting and enjoying our lunch, we both realized that we were exhausted. I had found out while at Disneyland that I had an audition with 7 page audition and she had a class that she was thinking of attending that evening. So even though we only rode a few rides and we would potentially be hitting rush hour traffic home, we decided to call it a day.

But we did make one more stop before going back to the car. The last time we were there, we saw these churro ice cream sandwiches in Downtown Disney and thought they looked yummy. We didn’t get them then, but we decided to try them this time.

What we didn’t realize is that the churro ice cream sandwiches need to be assembled by you and the ice cream is just a container of it (and not easy to scoop out with a plastic spoon).

Churro Sandwich

I ate one part of the churro and tried to brush the cinnamon sugar on to the ice cream to have that second. It wasn’t quite an ice cream sandwich, but it was pretty yummy. I just don’t think that I’ll be getting that again (it was also way too much food!).

Even though this was a super short trip to Disneyland, I got my Halloween rides in and had fun with a friend. And while I won’t be able to make it back on a Monday until December, I might try to go on a Sunday sometime in the next month or two. I’ll know going into that trip that it will probably be very crowded but at least I know I can have fun when I only do one or two rides. It gets me my Disneyland fix.

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff

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The Convention Gala (or An Evening Under and With The Stars)

Posted on October 7, 2015 | 1 comment

With all the business surrounding the SAG-AFTRA Convention, I’m glad that there were a couple of fun events planned as well. Most of the fun things were free (like a screening I decided to skip because I needed to catch up on sleep), but there was one ticketed event as part of Convention.

The gala did cost money to attend, but I justified it by saying that I was saving money by not having to buy food during Convention (since they fed us) so I got a ticket before they sold out.

Part of the gala was the American Scene Awards, but mostly this was an event to have fun, dance, and get to know the other delegates there.

Since Convention was at Universal and the gala was at WB, I didn’t want to have to go home to change (I never would have made it in traffic). Fortunately, one of the SAG-AFTRA staff members let a couple of us use a meeting room to change in at the hotel. While there wasn’t privacy, none of us minded since it was better than having to change in the bathroom (I don’t want to have my bare feet on a public bathroom floor).

After we got ready, we carpooled over to WB were there was some on-site parking for us (most people bussed over, but I wanted to have my car there to get home quicker). The parking was pretty easy and we were on our way to the backlot right away so we could enjoy the party.

Gala

Of course, when there is a step and repeat, we have to take a photo.

Red Carpet

The museum was open for us to enjoy, but I ended up not making it up to the second floor. I was having too much fun seeing my friends there and enjoying seeing everyone dressed up fancy.

We moved over to the buffet to get dinner and to the bar for drinks (just sparkling water for me) and then found a table to sit at for dinner and the awards.

WB Backlot

Yes it was cool to see the awards, but I really just enjoyed having a fun night out. There are so many things to vote on and debate about at Convention, but this night was all about fun. I goofed off with people at my table and was just silly and giggly (it’s been a while since I felt like that).

Gala Friends

After the awards and getting dessert, it was time to move over to the dance floor. There was a live band there and they were pretty awesome!

Dancing

I’m not much of a dancer, but when there is a good band and lots of awesome people, I can’t turn it down. I was jumping around and pulling people into our group to dance. I’m not sure how long I was dancing, but by the time I was ready to go I was super sweaty and my feet had blisters. And I didn’t even care because I had such an amazing time!

I was worried about the timing of the gala, especially since I don’t live super close to everything. And yes, I was a bit tired the next morning, but it wasn’t unbearable and it was totally worth it. Bonding with my fellow delegates and getting to know people from all over the country was amazing and really helped me not feel like an outsider in the union anymore. I had gotten some haters during the election who didn’t believe that I should be a delegate due to what they perceive as a lack of credits. I questioned things a bit, but even beginner actors have the right to be active in the union government. I don’t regret things at all anymore and seeing everyone having fun all night made me realize that I totally fit in.

The next gala (and Convention) is 2 years away, but I’m already counting down the days. This entire 4 day process really was an eye-opening experience for me and reaffirmed all the choices that I’ve made in my career. And if I can feel that from my first Convention experience, I can’t image what will happen after my next one!

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fun Stuff

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SAG-AFTRA National Convention (or I Had No Idea It Would Be Like This)

Posted on October 6, 2015 | 4 comments

I’m going to split my recap of the SAG-AFTRA Convention into two posts. Today will be about a majority of the 4 days I spent at Convention and tomorrow I’ll write about the gala.

I’ve mentioned this on here before, but when I ran for my delegate seat I wasn’t 100% sure what I was in for. I knew that it would involve attending the National Convention, but that’s pretty much all I knew. I have been wanting to get more involved in the union for a while, so this was jumping in with both feet.

With National Convention coming closer, all the delegates got lots of emails with schedules and things that we would need to be aware of. The Convention website (and later the app they created) had all the amendments and resolutions that we would be voting on during Convention. Some of these things made sense to me, but many confused me. Fortunately, I have friends who know more about the union than I do that I can trust and they explained things to me and helped me understand which way I was wanting to vote on each thing.

The first day of Convention was Thursday evening for the delegate party. I don’t have any pictures of this because I had to run an unexpected errand right before the party and ended up arriving an hour late (the party was only 2 hours). I checked in and got my delegate badge and bag filled with information for the weekend.

My Badge

I got to see a bunch of my delegate friends at the party. But since I knew the next morning would be a very early morning for me, I didn’t stay too long.

The next morning was the first day of “real” Convention activities. We voted on the Executive Vice President as an entire group and then we divided up to vote on Vice Presidents for our regions or categories. The voting took time, but I appreciated that because on Friday (and again on Saturday) I was working my box office day job from Convention. I got permission to do chats only and not phone calls, but I still had to focus on my customers. So while the voting was being done or counted, I sat at my table and worked (most of the other delegates used that time to talk to friends or meet new people from other parts of the country).

Convention Room

We also spent a lot of time at Convention voting on the amendments and resolutions that we had been sent prior to Convention. I really can’t say too much about what happened during that voting. But I do want to say that while during the elections over the summer there was very much an attitude of one side versus the other, at Convention everyone came together as one and we all worked to make sure that what we chose to do is in the best interest of all performers, recording artists, and broadcasters in the union.

We also got to hear from our National Executive Director, David White, about what is coming for the union and what he wants us to accomplish. I’ve met David White briefly before, but getting to hear his report was so inspiring and I’m so happy that he is our NED and helping us make the union the best that it can be. Again, I’m not able to share a ton of what was discussed, but there are some really great plans for the future that should be announced in the next few months.

At one point during Saturday, we got to split up and chose a workshop to attend. There were a couple of different options and it was tough to choose one, but some of my fellow delegates and I decided to all try to attend different ones so we could share what we learned. It was interesting hearing the issues that members of the union face and learn what we can do to fix things, whether or not we are personally affected.

While a lot of the business was work, the staff (who did an amazing job putting together and coordinating Convention) did try to make things fun for us too. Every morning there was a breakfast (I only took advantage of that on Sunday when they had some eggs, bacon, hash browns, and fruit) and on Friday and Saturday there was lunch provided. Friday lunch was good, but nothing too special. But Saturday lunch was provided by several food trucks!

Food Truck Lunch

I got to enjoy some tacos and ice cream before heading back into the Convention room to get back to work. The food truck lunch was a highlight for many of us and a much appreciated break from working so hard on getting things done.

We heard speeches from our President, Executive Vice President, and Secretary/Treasurer to hear what their plans and goals are for the next 2 years (when the next election and convention will be). There have been so many things done in the past 2 years and I know the next 2 will be just as productive, if not more so.

I know this sounds like a lot of information. It is. I’m still a bit overwhelmed on everything I experienced. A friend of mine asked me to explain why I thought that Convention was so beneficial for me as an actor. The best thing I came up with was that before it was like I was a tourist of my union. Now I’m a citizen or resident of the union. I had no idea about the issues that the broadcasters or recording artists deal with, but since we are one union it is important for all performers to help them with their fight. I learned so much about what I can do when I see things that aren’t on the up and up and how to properly report them to the union (I haven’t done that properly in the past). I learned about how there are so many things in the works for the union that can’t be announced publicly yet because that puts those things at risk for not being able for being done. But most importantly, I became more proud of being a SAG-AFTRA member than ever before and want all my fellow union members to feel that same pride.

I hope that this is just the beginning of my political career with SAG-AFTRA. I know 100% for sure that I will be running as a delegate again in 2 years. I don’t know if I’d want to be a board member yet, but I’ve got plenty of time to learn more about that position and to decide.

But for now, I’m taking the inspiration that I feel from Convention and making sure that I keep this feeling and momentum going and share it with you all.

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Workout Failure (or I Tried My Best)

Posted on October 5, 2015 | 1 comment

I was nervous when I wrote about my last workout recap because I knew I was scheduled to work out 3 days in a row last week due to my upcoming crazy schedule. I’ve done 3 workouts in a row before, and they have never been easy. I don’t want to have to do those regularly but it’s always good to challenge myself.

Before I talk about what happened, I’ll talk about my Monday workout. The treadmill is still going well for me. I’m not ready to push myself with speed on the push or all out paces, but I’m getting close. And the fact that my base pace is almost what it used to be is still making me so happy. I’ve got about a month to go before my 5K and that is motivating me every time I have to get on the treadmill (it’s still not my favorite thing to do).

My strength section went fine. It wasn’t anything fabulous, but I did it and I pushed myself to fatigue as often as I could. I don’t like to do that (even though I know it’s good for me) because when I get fatigued, my form gets sloppy and I can hurt myself. I’m not sure how to push to fatigue safely, but that’s something that I’d like to look into more.

Monday after my workout was my epic doctor afternoon. I know that you can sometimes feel off after a flu shot (and my arm can hurt from those and tetanus shots) so I was prepared to have a bit of an off workout on Tuesday afternoon.

At about 1am on Tuesday morning, I woke up in a disgusting sweat, my head was foggy, and my body ached like there was something punching me constantly. I managed to be able to take my temperature after a bit and discovered that I was running a really high fever. I know that you can’t get the flu from the flu shot, but there is a slim chance that you can have a bad reaction to it which includes fever, sweats, aches, and other flu-like symptoms.

I decided to call this “fake flu”.

I posted online about my fake flu and some friends shared with me that it can last a day or two. Obviously, with my fever and horrible sweats there was no way I could go to my workout. I had to late cancel that class and I ended up napping for 4 hours after work and then going to bed an hour after that.

I still had hopes that I could go to Wednesday’s class, but I spend another night with a high fever, sweats, and the rest of it. So no Wednesday class for me.

I ended up pretty much recovering from fake flu by Wednesday night (I feel totally better now), but 2 of my 3 workouts of the week were not going to happen. With my schedule for the SAG-AFTRA Convention no class times would work for me again until Monday (trust me, I checked even for the earliest class time on Thursday and Friday and that would have made me late for Convention).

This is the first time since I started going regularly to Orangetheory over a year ago that I didn’t get at least 3 workouts in during the week. I wish I could say that I was fine with that, but I wasn’t. I was really mad. I wished that I had not gotten the flu shot then and had waiting for a Friday sometime when I could spend 2 days being sick without missing a workout. I wished that this had happened any other week where I could have made up the classes on other days in the week. And I’m hoping that this set back won’t prevent me from meeting my workout goal for the year.

I knew that one day something like this was bound to happen. I honestly thought it would be whenever I get my next hip surgery since that might take me between 6 weeks and 6 months (depending on which surgery I go with) to recover. I’ve worked out sick before, but this fake flu was different from anything else I have had before. It happens to everyone. It’s not the end of the world (even if it feels like that a bit).

I just have to be thankful that this week I should be able to do my 3 workouts and hopefully I can make up some extra workouts in the coming months so I can still meet my year goal.

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