Hellooo Hartwick!

Well.
I have arrived! I can't quite with great honesty say that I am entirely unpacked, but most things are in their place and my room is starting to look like a place where someone is--which is an improvement from this time 24hrs ago.

This week I have rehearsals for the skits that the new students see at the Welcome Weekend. That's why I'm here early. I'm pretty psyched to be here a week early and to be spending it with friends!

I'm going to try to update at least every-other week. We'll see how that goes.....

Advice for Incoming Freshmen

Dear Class of 2017,

This fall, you will embark on one of the most marvellous journeys life has planned for you. You will make new friends, discover new interests, and, most importantly, learn who you are. But only if you let yourself.

When I went to college, I literally knew no one at my school. I am literally the third graduate of my high school to attend my school, but that isn't always the situation for everyone. So for me, I had no choice but to make new friends at school. If you are going to a place with people I know, my advice to you is to try to not be with them for the first month or so. Chances are that in the new environment you will meet people that you may even like more than your old friends from high school simply because there is a larger pool of people. I don't mean that you should abandon your old friends (part of my attempt to not do that is this blog!), but expand!

These new friends that you make will probably have a whole set of interests that you haven't explored, especially if you haven't declared a major. I went in to school with the Theatre Arts half of my major decided, so I can't really speak to being undeclared, but I do know people who went in thinking of being a math major and met a religious studies major and loved what she was studying so much that he ended up a religious studies major. For me, a lot of people in the Theatre Arts major like Doctor Who, and that is how I got in to it. Now, I run a relatively popular Doctor Who blog (TARDIStyle.blogspot.com). I never thought in a million years that I would have started to like the show (I could write a whole separate post on why, but I wont, at least not now) and it quickly turned in to something I love. 

This above all, to thine own self be true. Some say that college is a chance to reinvent yourself. And it is, in some sense. But that is not to say that you should dress goth when you're a hipster, listen to rap when you're in to punk rock or fake an accent. For me, my "reputation" in high school was no where near accurate to who I really am, and college was an opportunity to align me and who people think I am. You won't have another chance to do this, really.

A great change in who you are is about to happen, probably for the better. You have to let yourself become the kind of person you want to be.

Sincerely,

Ley

Catching Up

Hey there!

Its been a while, I know. Things have been happening--my apologies for not keeping y'all updated!

Here, chronological order for ya!

Sept 13
Casting for the mainstage, "Enron" was announced that day. Unfortunately, due to the lack of female roles in the show, and the director's quite understandable decision to cast true to gender (it was not his goal to be addressing gender roles in big business in this production), I was not cast. But I was called back both times! So confidence is great.

September 14-15
24 Hour Play Festival!
I had the great privilege of directing, which is super awesome as a freshman-I think I was the only first-year director! :) We performed "The Murderous Rat" by Sarah Walsh. It's and interesting piece of work in which the protagonist, It was about a rat, Jewel Pepperjack (Megan Steely)  whose uncle had been killed by a rat serial killer and to cope with it she makes herself an imaginary friend/hallucination named Muffin (Sam McCol Garfinkle). Then Muffin wanted to avenge the uncle by killing the killer and Jewel is all like "you can't solve murder with murder" And eventually Jewel kills Muffin but because Muffin is a projection of her id she kills herself in the process... Its one of those things that you just really don't know how to feel about it because its sad because the Megan rat is like all crazy, but then there are a bunch of cheese puns...because they're rats... (ie oh my gouda). Additional cast members: Honour Harlow (Linda Sargento) and Jeromy Slaby (Rex Swiss). Make up by Brittany Lester.

Sept 19
After much tension, my roommate (name ommitted to protect my butt) decided to move two doors down. She wasn't too keen of being great friends (or even friends with me) because if we were to get into a fight as roommates, it would effect our friendship and if were were to get into a fight as friends, it would effect our roommateship. But I'm sorry-I you're going to live with someone and leave your worn underwear on the floor, you at least have to be friends with them. Now I have a "super single." Her bed has become my couch! I lovee it. Someone might move in eventually, but that's a "might" and an "if." And I want to keep it that way!

Sept 21-23
I was home! I saw my kids (I do not have kids, I am speaking of my BFFLs from BTC), and got to go out to their post-casting dinner. Yay! I also saw Jason and Fiona. Just talking to them was worth the 7h10min trip to get there (note that Oneonta is only three hours away from Hastings. Oh how I love public transportation.)
Allyson, my brother's fiancee (OK not really; they're 13, but its gonna be true some day) had her bat mitzvah...I was so proud of her! And at the end, when they named the persons whose yardseight was being observed, I said my great grandmother's name...I was two days off, but close enough.
Then there was a fantabulous party. Yes, there was the Cupid Shuffle!
Later that day, I went to Westchester Sandbox Theatre's production of "Avenue Q". I was less than pleased by their performance, especially the lack of quality in their set. I'm pretty sure it was made of unpainted form board. And it wasn't the real puppets! Sigh. I really wanted it to be good. I really did.
Sunday was Peter and the Starcatcher with my Fundamentals of Acting class. It was absolutely AMAZING! Great performances by all.

Sept 29
Alumni and Homecoming Weekend
That was the Monologue Festival! I directed Kara Kavanagh in "Literally, a Monologue". Although our dress rehearsal was akin to the Titanic, she made me proud to have my name attached to her performance in the end. Kudos!

The Cacophony

THERE ARE UPS AND DOWNS to dorm life. I may know this intellectually, but at this moment in time, I’m having trouble seeing the ups. The reason for this is, that at this moment there is an alarm clock in the room next to me that will not stop blaring. It’s not just an ordinary one, no; it’s one for über-heavy sleepers. Our walls appear to be cinderblocks and it is loud enough to wake me up, I imagine, with the door open. The second reason is that when the room to the building sets off an additional alarm when open for an extended period of time. I sincerely hope and pray that this will stop. Or at least become background noise.