Friday, November 25, 2011

The Texting Mannequin.

Soooo....I don't know if anyone's noticed, but I've been kind of MIA recently. The last couple weeks have been CRAZY. Reason being, the week before Thanksgiving is the week that all the teachers decide to make big projects/tests due. And due to my play being the week before, I was already behind. And then I've actually been surprisingly busy this week preparing for Thanksgiving. But now Thanksgiving is over and I actually have some time to accomplish some of the things on my "To Do Over Thanksgiving Break" list that has been slowly gathering dust...

Anyway, Thanksgiving yesterday was AWESOME. But I'll post about that tomorrow or Sunday, because I have another story I want to tell right now, and I like my blog to be in chronological order.


This is a totally random story from Tuesday but I want to share it because it's kind of hilarious. It was really awkward/frightening/embarrassing at the time, but now it's just funny. :-) haha, I will try to do it justice.

So, Tuesday my friend and I were shopping at Forever 21. We were trying on some clothes in the dressing room, but I got done first. So I was looking at the clothes right outside the dressing room while waiting for her.

I knew there was a mannequin nearby and as I was looking at a dress on one of the racks, I saw it out of the corner of my eye. I sort of did a double-take, because I noticed something I didn't notice before. The mannequin was looking at something in its hands.

Was the mannequin texting? It sure looked like it. Wow, I thought. They really have our generation nailed. I wasn't quite sure how a texting mannequin would help sell clothes, but hey, I'm not their marketer. What do I know?

Then I looked again. Was that a real cell phone the mannequin had? It sure looked like it. That's weird that they would actually buy a real cell phone for a fake person...

So I got a little closer. And closer, and closer, and closer...until I was right up next to it, just staring at the cell phone.

And then it turned and looked at me.

OH MY GOSH. Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh. It was a real person! Holy crap, it was a real person. A real person that I was standing about 2 inches away from. Staring at their cell phone. I wanted to die.

As soon as she looked at me, my reflexes kicked in. I have never turned around and pretended to be interested in an ugly piece of clothing so fast in my life. Seriously. It was almost ninja-like.

I was so mortified, and the girl gave me weird looks the rest of the time I was in the store. But I don't really blame her. I would have done the same thing.

Like that one time, when I was in the girls' bathroom at a restaurant washing my hands and a man walked in. (Yes, you read right, a MAN.) I gave him weird looks every time I saw him, too. Well, actually, I just cracked up laughing. But same difference.

Anyway, that story was probably A LOT funnier in person. And to me. But I thought I'd share it anyway. :-) And look out in a few days for stories from Thanksgiving!

Saturday, November 12, 2011

I Fell For A Prince...Literally.

As some of you may know, yesterday I was in a play, The Princess and the Pea. I played the part of the princess, and it went really well! And there were like, over 200 people there, which was frightening slash awesome! haha

When I say it went well, I really mean it. Because even the mistakes we made turned out to be pretty hilarious.

Example 1: One of the characters accidentally knocked over part of the set, a gate, during one of the scenes. To cover, he said "That sure is a flimsy gate you've got there!" It totally worked with his character and the audience roared with laughter.

Example 2: If you know the story of the Princess and the Pea, then you know there is a bed with like 26 mattresses involved. We didn't have that...but we had a giant box made to look like 26 mattresses and one real mattress on top. There was a little ladder to get up on the bed. I was wearing a big poofy dress and am kind of clumsy (I trip a lot). Rehearsals went totally fine--no problems with getting on and off the bed. Last night, however, I totally tripped and fell. On stage with the lights on.

But don't worry guys. I totally handled it.

In the next scene, I was supposed to come back on and talk about how I didn't get any sleep because I couldn't ever get comfortable. So, in the 45 seconds I had to recover, run to the other side of backstage, assure everyone that I was totally fine, put my shoes on, and get back on stage for the last scene, I came up with a line to add.

"And this morning, I fell off the bed." To my great relief, it totally worked and everyone laughed. (I was really nervous about saying it, because it would've been suuuuuper embarrassing if no one laughed. haha)

If you know me, you know that I typically panic under pressure. Whenever things like this go wrong in plays, I'm the one to freak out and not know what to do. Like in last year's Christmas play:

We were toys in a toy shop. I was a doll, and another character was a singing soldier (one of those toys with a string on the back, and when you pull it, he sings). In the play I see his string, I pull it, but before I let go there's like 2 minutes of dialogue. Weeelll....yeah. The string broke in the middle of the dialogue. So what did I do? I pretended like nothing had happened and hoped that no one noticed.

Yeah. EVERYONE noticed. Thankfully, the other characters were able to recover nicely from that one, no thanks to me.

I'm still super impressed with myself for coming up with, according to one of my friends, the second funniest line of the night (second only to "That sure is a flimsy gate you've got there!"--the other ad lib).

I'm fine, by the way. It hurt and I have an awesome bruise on my leg, but hey, I didn't die. I was embarrassed for like, 3 seconds, but then I realized how funny it was and was trying SO HARD not to laugh the rest of the play. And it helped that I came up with that extra line to add. It puts everyone at ease when you show that you can joke about stuff like that.

I can't wait to watch the video...I want to see my face when I fell. haha

P.S. Apparently "mattress" has two "t"s...I kept spelling it with one and Firefox was FREAKING out at me with the squiggly red lines and I was like "What is your problem?" and then I right clicked and it was like "two t's!" and I felt really dumb.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

With No Regrets.

This is the story of a girl who let one negative critique rule her life. A girl who failed to recognized her own talent. A girl who lost faith in herself.

This little girl grew up in a show-business family. Her parents were both fantastic actors and her dad could even sing. Her mom could paint almost as well as Picasso, and both parents had an ear for music. The little girl was pretty much destined to succeed at anything in the fine arts genre.

Pretty much ever since she uttered her first word, she was on stage in plays. She did plays, skits, and musicals for both church and school.

When she was about 9, her church started doing children's musicals. Of course, she auditioned. She loved acting, and was hoping to get a lead part.

Everyone was required to not only do an acting audition, however, but a singing audition as well. So, naturally, she auditioned for that, too. She had never really sung before, so she wasn't sure how things were going to go.

They went extremely well.

Her mom was the director for the musical, and therefore had inside information. Her mom found out that her daughter had one of the best singing auditions out of everybody.

The little girl was given a lead role and two solos. This was the first time she had ever sung in front of an audience.

And the last, for many years.

The next year, it came time for another musical. The little girl was 10 now, and thought she had the lead role in the bag. She received a callback on her acting audition. She did not, however receive a callback for singing.

She was not cast in a lead role. She was not given a solo.

She found out later, from her mother's inside information, that she was not even considered for having a solo. The judges apparently had not liked her audition. They didn't like her voice.

The little girl believed this critique. She began thinking that they were right and that she had no talent. She had no intention of ever singing again.

Well, that didn't last long, of course. She loved singing too much. Her mother enrolled her in voice lessons to improve, but that still didn't stop her from believing that she was talentless. The only people she ever let hear her sing were her mom and her voice teacher. They said she was good, but they had to. Their opinions didn't count in her mind.

This went on for about 5 years.

One day, her school decided to have a musical. Anyone with musical talent was asked to audition for a singing role. Under normal circumstances, the now 15-year-old girl would have done what she always does: fade into the background, and pretend to have no talent. Unfortunately, she didn't have that option. Her mom was, to her dismay, the director. She was, quite literally, forced to audition.

And she got the lead role, with two solos.

But that still wasn't enough to convince her that she could sing. Despite all the comments she got after the play, she didn't believe them. Not one.

In fact, it still took her 2 years after that to start regaining confidence in her ability.

After this musical where everyone realized that, hey, she can sing, many opportunities arose for the girl to sing more. And she was expected to take them.

Her mom wanted her to sing in the school talent show. She didn't.

Her parents and friends wanted her to join the worship band for the youth group. She didn't.

Her mom wanted her to audition for a recording as part of the elementary school girls' curriculum at her church. That one she did, but she regretted it. She didn't get the recording--because she sounded too mature. Not a bad critique, just not right for the part. But that didn't matter.

The judges' opinion about her voice from 5 years earlier still resonated in the back of her head. She still believed it.

Then the next school musical rolled around. Again, she was forced to audition. Again she got the lead part with solos. Again, she lacked confidence.

She put on a small concert for family and a few friends (her new voice teacher's idea, of course). This one was even worse than the musicals.

But then, she went on a mission trip. On this trip, she stepped out, and joined the worship band. She, along with her friends, led many in worship during this time. And she had a great time doing it. She actually found herself more confident than ever before, and realized that this was what she was supposed to be doing.

And finally, after three years of hiding behind the crowd, she joined her youth group's worship band.

With no regrets.

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In case you didn't figure this out, this is a true story. The little girl is me. Not to say that I'm like the new Celine Dion or anything, but I am starting to think that I'm not as tone-deaf as I thought I was for so many years. I share this story for a couple reasons: One, for anyone who doesn't get why I was so coy about my singing for so long. Now you know. 

Two, to show how I wasted so many years hiding my gift and feeling discouraged just because I had one bad singing day when I was 10. I chose to listen to the opinion of three people who happened to hear me on a bad day, over the opinion of hundreds who have heard me on more than one occasion.

Third, for some reason this story has been on my mind a lot lately, and writing helps me clear my thoughts. What better place to write it than here?