Category Archives: Work

Taking Care of Me (or Making Sure I’m First in My Life)

Posted on February 7, 2013 | Comments Off on Taking Care of Me (or Making Sure I’m First in My Life)

I will write about my audition and music video shoot. First, I want to tell you about my day before all that happened.

I woke up with a stuffy nose. I wasn’t sick (because the rest of me didn’t feel sick), but I must have been having an allergy attack. I took my allergy meds and a decongestant and headed off to work.

I had to open at work yesterday because my boss had somewhere else he had to be in the morning. I got there at 9am, but really didn’t feel like I should be at work.

I wanted to make sure I felt as close to 100% before both my audition and shoot, so I ended up texting my boss after 2 hours and asked if I could leave. Since there were other people there, he said ok.

I went home, and focused on me. I wanted to work on my lines for my audition. Between all my crazy work days, I didn’t have as much time to prepare as I would have liked. This audition has the potential to change my life, and I wanted to take it as seriously as it deserved.

Also, I knew that I’d be spending a late night filming at the shoot and wanted to make sure I was rested for that.

So after I texted my boss to let him know I was leaving early, I texted him to say that I might take Thursday off.

It seemed like a risky thing to do, but I know my boss would understand. I really need to focus putting me ahead of other people/things when I start to feel run down.

I’m not too good at doing that, so I’m proud that I did it this time.

As soon as I got home from work yesterday, I spent 3 hours doing research on the team working on the pilot as well as working on my lines.

I was able to leave for the audition feeling prepared and positive, which I know would not have happened if I left straight from work.

Yes, I’m losing money at my day job because of this, but to me, this is worth it.

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Another Busy Day Off (or Getting Everything Done and Nothing Done At The Same Time)

Posted on January 29, 2013 | Comments Off on Another Busy Day Off (or Getting Everything Done and Nothing Done At The Same Time)

Yesterday was my day off for the week. But that’s hopefully about to change! As of right now, starting February 4th I will be back to my old work schedule. I will still be working 6 days a week, but 2 of those days will be half days that end no later than 2pm (so I can still get things done during the day).

And this week will be a short work week for me since Saturday I will be doing my first 5K for the year, the Color Run! I’ve decided that I really want to protect my hair (I think my hairstylist friend, Erin, will appreciate that), so I made a stop today to Party City to pick up some supplies.

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I’ve decided to go pink for the 5K. So I have a pink wig, pink gloves, possibly pink shorts (I ordered them online and waiting for them to arrive before I decide), and I wanted to find some pink sunglasses but instead found some blue and silver Elvis style ones. I will totally be looking awesome.

And I’m excited because 2 of the 3 people on my team have said that they are thinking of walking with me! I had been preparing myself to walk solo again, but now I’m looking forward to maybe having some buddies with me to enjoy getting covered in colored cornstarch!

I also spent my morning on Monday at my usual spin class at SoulCycle with Sal. I’m sad because I’ll have to find a different class when my schedule goes back to normal, but fortunately Sal also teaches a Sunday evening class and I should be able to attend that one (any readers want to come with me sometime?). I really love Sal’s class. He is so motivating and never points out that I’m not doing all the jumps and standing up moves in class.

I left class sweaty like I like it.

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(I’m wearing one of the new tamis I ordered when I wrote this post)

And I spent my evening catching up on some TV and just enjoying the calm of my house. It’s exactly what I needed to get me ready for 4 days of work leading up to my 5K!

BTW, the podcast I work for is doing a fitness challenge. It’s a 90 day challenge and most people are going to be doing P90X. I won’t since I have to be careful with high impact activities, but I’m still participating. If you are interested in joining us, here’s the link for the FB group.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Work

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Live Podcast Episode (or Another Way You Can Support Me)

Posted on January 25, 2013 | 6 comments

I joke that I have a million day jobs. It really does feel that way. But in reality, I have more like 6 or 7 (depending how you count them).

One of my day jobs is production coordinator on the Inside Acting Podcast. I’ve  been a fan of this podcast since day 1, and in August I started helping out on their podcasts.

The two guys who host it, Trevor and AJ, are really great guys and I’m glad that they are my friends. I love helping out with this podcast because it really is a great way to learn new and interesting things about the entertainment industry.

The podcast has done 93 episodes so far. And for the 100th episode, we have something really amazing planned.

We are doing a live podcast episode partnered with SAG-AFTRA and the SAG Foundation!

The live podcast will be on March 12th at 7pm at the SAG Foundation office. Everyone is welcome to attend! And I’d love to see some blog readers there!

If you want to attend, you can email the podcast at insideactingpodcast@gmail.com and let us know you want to attend. Please only do this if you really can go. There is limited space, and we want to make sure the room is filled with amazing people!

And if you don’t listen to the podcast already, you should totally check it out! It’s available for free on iTunes or you can listen to it from the website. A lot of new people start from the beginning of the episodes and make their way through, and I think that is awesome! The podcast really has grown and evolved over the past 93 episodes.

It’s nice to have something happening in a day job that makes me this excited. I miss feeling this way sometimes. And I know that every day leading up to the live episode is going to be just as exciting!

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Being OK With Something Other Than 100% (or Not Being A Perfectionist)

Posted on January 18, 2013 | Comments Off on Being OK With Something Other Than 100% (or Not Being A Perfectionist)

As I mentioned yesterday, my schedule is a little bonkers right now. I know that this is temporary, but it has made me stretch myself pretty far.

I’m working on my day job, my acting career, this blog, being the production coordinator on Inside Acting, enjoying my newfound love for spinning, babysitting, and still trying to have a social life.

I’m so used to being a perfectionist and making sure that everything is always in order. Right now, I can’t be that person any more.

I want to dedicate 100% to one thing (or even 50% to two things), but instead, I feel like I’m giving 10% to ten things. I’m making some dumb mistakes at work (and have fixed them before someone else caught them first), and I’m losing sleep because I’m trying to tie the loose ends before going to bed.

I don’t think I can really drop anything from my life right now. I just need to be better at time management with my unscheduled time in my day. I know that there is some extra time that I could use better in my mornings before I go to work.

What I’m going to start to do is organize my time before work in 1 hour segments. I’m going to mark out what I want to do between 7-8am, 8-9am, 9-10am, 10-11am each day.

I don’t know if I’ll actually get everything done, but at least there will be a goal that I will be working towards and maybe it will help me not waste as much time on Facebook or other websites that are causing me to be less productive.

Hopefully my schedule will be back to something normal soon. And once that happens, I’m hoping that all this extra time management I’m working on now will make me even more efficient when I know my schedule from week to week.

Sorry I’ve been ranting recently. I wish I had more positive things to say, but as you know, I’m all about honesty on here and this is honestly where I am in my life right now.

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Scheduling Conflicts (or Maybe I Should Stop Planning)

Posted on January 17, 2013 | 1 comment

I’ve talked about my crazy work schedule for my day job in the past. It used to be Monday-Saturday with Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays being late shifts. Then it switched to Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays being late.

Now it’s changed completely again.

My office (which is the telesales office) needs to be support for the box office while the show going on now finishes its run. The box office is overwhelmed, and we are going to help clear the backlog.

Which means that we are supposed to be at work whenever there is a show. For the show running now, there are shows on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings along with matinees on Saturday and Sunday.

So for now, I’m working Tuesday-Friday until 8:30pm, and Saturday and Sunday until 5:00pm. I do have Mondays off which is nice (and when I have gone to spin class), but working every evening is going to be tough.

There isn’t a lot of time to see friends or do other things. And yes, I’m aware that I do have my mornings free, but I’m spending that time catching up on everything I need to do at my house (like cook and clean).

This new crazy schedule is only supposed to be for a couple of weeks, but I had things planned on Friday and Saturday evenings that now I’ve had to cancel.

And I’m scared to plan anything because I have no idea what the next schedule change is going to be.

I’m probably more frustrated than I should be about this because I was expecting to be unemployed right now. I had plans to do some fun things. I have family coming to visit me in a month and now I had to ask for 3 days off of work for that (I got the ok because my boss understands that we all planned for unemployment). I wanted to maybe go to Lake Tahoe and see my parents and dog.

And now, that just isn’t a reality.

I’m trying to be grateful that I do have a job, but I’m just getting annoyed that whenever I try to plan out things, my job has switched things on me. Maybe after this show ends things will be back to normal, but I just can’t count on that.

I don’t know how to plan out food, exercise, and just life in general when things are just this crazy at my day job. And I don’t want to find a new day job since this boss is totally cool with me going to auditions and I actually like most of my co-workers.

Sorry for this rant, I just had to get it out.

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Awards Season (or I Have No Idea How I Can Watch All The Movies)

Posted on January 14, 2013 | 2 comments

This is my first awards season as a SAG-AFTRA actor. This means I get to vote for the SAG Awards this year.

And since I get to vote, I have to see all the movies in order to make an educated vote. SAG-AFTRA actors are invited to screenings (like I went to for “Lincoln”), get free iTunes movie rentals, have free movies passes, and my favorite is getting DVD screeners.

This year, I got these three movies as DVDs:IMG_1257 IMG_1262 IMG_1249

Since I had seen “Les Miserables” in theaters, I don’t have to watch it again, but I definitely want to. I watched my “Silver Linings Playbook” DVD when I was babysitting over the weekend. And I went to a SAG Foundation screening of “Argo” on Sunday morning which had a Q&A with Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, and Bryan Cranston before the screening.

But I still have a bunch of other movies to watch, mainly my iTunes rentals. I have at least 5 that I feel I need to watch in order to be able to vote fairly.

But with only 1 day off a week (which is now Monday, but that’s a blog post for another day), I don’t know when I’ll have time to watch them. I’m planning on trying to watch at least 2 movies tomorrow.

I know that this is a total first world problem and I sound like a spoiled kid (too many free movies to watch, poor me), but it just bring back my issues with creating a work/life balance.

It is a reminder to me that I need to figure out a new way to get through this time in my life where my work is not my career yet.

But when I was watching the Golden Globes last night, I was reminded that it can be possible to make acting my work and career. I need to stick it out and not give up yet.

Who knows, this struggling time could be the perfect thing to say in my award acceptance speech one day?

😉

 

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Scheduling Life (or Trying To Remember What Day Of The Week It Is)

Posted on January 3, 2013 | Comments Off on Scheduling Life (or Trying To Remember What Day Of The Week It Is)

I’m pretty used to my schedule at my day job. I know what days are early days, what days are late days, and when I’ll actually get home with time to do something. But the past few weeks have been off due to the holidays.

I’ve had additional days off (which I’ve loved), early days are late days sometimes, and half days are full days. Starting today, the schedule is supposed to be back to normal, but since we were supposed to be shutting down in a week, I wonder if that is going to change.

I liked the regularity of my schedule. I was able to plan out trips to the grocery store so I’d have food to take to work for my lunch. I was able to figure out when I could workout before work (because after work when you get home at 9pm doesn’t work for me).

I’m at the tail end of the screwy schedule and I’m feeling it. My sleep is off, which could have something to do with staying out super late on New Years Eve. My eating schedule is funny too. I’m not hungry when I know that I should be eating, and when I am hungry, it’s when I’m in the middle of my shift and it’s too hard to eat and make phone calls at the same time. Because my days are not the usual schedule, I’m very confused on what the next day in the week is and have a hard time preparing for it.

I’m hoping that I can get back to usual quickly. I really want to get back on track with everything that I want to accomplish this year. I’m trying not to think about the unknown of what will be happening at work during the time that it was scheduled to be down. If I think about it, I start to stress out and wonder if we are going to show up one day and they just decide that keeping us open year round isn’t worth it.

I’m going forward now as if I am going to work 6 days a week year round. I know what days to shop for food and what days I need to have a plan for dinner before I leave for work. I also know when I can workout (but I’m hoping to find more time in my schedule for that).

Hopefully this will help me get where I need to go and allow me to again find time between everything else to have a life and focus on my real career.

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My 2013 Goals (or I’m Not Calling Them Resolutions This Time)

Posted on January 1, 2013 | 4 comments

Welcome 2013!

I’m excited to see what I can get done this year! In the past, I’ve always made resolutions, but for this year, I’ve decided to call them goals. Somehow they don’t seem as scary that way.

Here are my goals for 2013:

Continue on my weight loss journey. I didn’t lose as much in 2012 as I would have liked, but I did lose. And I’ve got my brother’s wedding in September and you know that those pictures are going to be around forever. I want to look back and not be embarrassed.

Continue paying down my credit card debt. Again, I didn’t do as much as I would have liked in 2012, but I’m working on it. I may not reach my goal of being debt free by my 30th birthday, but that’s ok.

Do at least 5 5Ks. I do enjoy walking various 5K events. In 2012, I did 3. This year, I’d like to see if I can do 5. I have my first one planned for February (unless I decide to do another one sooner).

Do my first 10K. There’s going to be one at Disneyland 6 days before I leave for my brother’s wedding. Unfortunately, due to that timing, my parents won’t be able to come and see me do that, so I’m looking at maybe finding one another time so they can come see me accomplish this.

Find alternative income. I love my day job, and I don’t plan on leaving it anytime soon. But I also need to find a way to make more money to help me work on my debt. And if I can find a way to support myself without having to go to a job 6 days a week, that would be great for my future.

Take an improv class that counts. I’ve taken improv classes in the past. I did a few years at LA Connection Comedy and also studied weekly with Kip King for almost 8 years. But in the commercial world, they want you to have classes from one of the main schools. So I’m looking at maybe taking classes at UCB this year so I’ll have that competitive edge on my acting resume.

Keep blogging. I think this one is pretty self-explanatory.

Any of you have some goals for this year that you are really excited about?

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Family, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Saving, Weight Loss, Work

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2012 In Review (or Looking Back Is Fun!)

Posted on December 31, 2012 | Comments Off on 2012 In Review (or Looking Back Is Fun!)

I can’t believe that this year is over! It seems like as I get older, the years go so much faster.

So as I prepare to have an awesome 2013, I’m looking back at some of my favorite memories of the past year (and some of the blog posts about those memories).

Favorite acting moment: joining the union. I had been SAG-eligible for a couple of years, but I had been putting off joining because then I couldn’t book non-union work anymore. When the union merger looked like it would happen, I finally joined (mainly to save a lot of money). I’m so glad that I did it and I don’t even miss the non-union bookings I used to get.

Favorite class(es): I took 2 different but both amazing acting classes this year. I took Marci Liroff’s Audition Class and Porter Kelly’s Commercial Class. They were both amazing in their own ways so I have to mention them both. I learned so much and feel like I’m going into 2013 as a much more prepared actor.

Biggest Laugh of 2012: the giant wine pours at Aria V. My friend Kate and I couldn’t believe the size of the “tastings”. And I might have had the biggest laugh of my life when I realized in the car ride home that they never asked for our Living Social deal and didn’t charge us for a thing!

Best (Almost) Additions To My Family: Technically, neither of these people are in my family yet, but I found out in 2012 that I’m going to be gaining a sister-in-law plus my cousin will be having another baby! I’m so excited! I will officially have a sister-in-law in September and my cousin’s baby should be here at the end of the spring, beginning of the summer.

Best Day Job Moment: when I got my current day job and was finally able to leave my old day job. At my old day job, I wasn’t treated so nicely. I was penalized for doing well at my job. I had personal items stolen from there, and was laughed at when I wanted them back. But in May, I was finally able to get out of there, and I’ve never looked back!

Best Social Events: There were a lot of fun events that I went to in 2012, but the ones that I seem to always tell stories from are my girls night out adventure to The Magic Castle and my friends Marie and Chris getting married. All the events I’m going to in 2013 have a lot to live up to!

Best Overall Moment of 2012: starting this blog! My friend Heather had encouraged me a while back to start a blog, and I never seemed to know when to start it or what to write about. But I did start it and now I can’t imagine not writing here! I’m hoping to be improving the blog next year (self hosting so I can add some more fun stuff is at the top of my list). If I’ve been able to get this far in half a year, I can’t wait to see what another year brings!

And on an unrelated note, if you are going out tonight to celebrate, please don’t drive drunk. It’s a stupid risk to take with your own life (and the lives of others on the road). I was in a drunk driving accident when I was 6, and even though I wasn’t injured, I still think about why the woman who hit us decided to drive drunk. If you do drink and feel even a bit unsafe driving, call AAA for a Tipsy Tow. It’s free to everyone (even non-AAA) members and they will take you and your car up to 7 miles home.

Have a wonderful New Years and I’m excited to have you all continue this journey with me!

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(My favorite pictures of my from 2012)

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Finding A Work/Life Balance (or Preparing to Not Be Unemployed)

Posted on December 28, 2012 | 4 comments

When I was hired at my current day job, I was informed that it was seasonal. The job went from May until October, had October and the beginning of November off, came back before Thanksgiving, and ended just after New Years. I was a little concerned on what my financial situation would be like from January to May, but once I understood how much I’d receive in unemployment benefits I calmed down a bit.

Working 6 days a week every week leaves very little social time. When you get out of work at 9pm (8:30pm now) and sometimes have to be at work at 9am the next day, you just want to go home and sleep. I couldn’t attend anything at The Actors’ Network since everything there pretty much happened during my work hours. I had the same problem with Women in Film events. But I was ok with that because I would have all the time I needed to attend these events during my (f)unemployment (as my friends referred to it).

But now, it seems pretty sure that the job is going to be year round and not seasonal anymore. There is a chance that this could change because they’ve never kept my office open year round in the history of the company. They might decide that we aren’t work the cost.

But if we are year round, I need to find a way to have a life and work too. I pay for my memberships at The Actors’ Network and Women in Film and want to enjoy those benefits. I want to have time to see my friends and go on dates.

We’ve been told at my job that on the nights we work until 8:30pm, we aren’t supposed to ask for the evenings off. Those evenings are the best times to work on those days. But I think I need to start asking for a couple of evenings off a month so I can at least go to some industry events.

I want to be able to focus on my career and not just my job. But I also don’t want to risk losing my job because it pays well and let’s me go to all my auditions.

I am starting to look at other job opportunities out there. I’m not leaving my job, not anytime soon. But if I can start trying out another job (maybe freelancing) and see if it’s something that I can survive on, then I’ll see what I should do.

I have no idea how everyone else has a work/life balance. Maybe I’m only comparing myself to those trying to balance work and life. I’m trying to balance work, life, and career. But of those three, I’m not willing to give up any of them (well, maybe work if I won the lottery or something).

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