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Today we did the funeral for the first time in over a year.
It was incredibly different from last time. I actually went back and read my padlet about the one last year to compare them. I pretty much said in my past one was that all of the loud sobbing and crying seemed forced and unnatural and that it was very distracting for me. It drew me out of my attempt to connect myself to the scenario. I felt the complete opposite this time.
First of all, when you said that this is what we were doing, I immediately started to think of things to substitute and got emotional, so I was pretty ready to go as soon as we got started. I tried to think of things that I could substitute that would really get me immersed, and nothing really came to mind other than my aunt again. She's the most significant loss I've ever experienced aside from maybe my grandfather. When the music started, I noticed that Jess was sobbing right away and I felt so so so so terrible for her. I wanted to walk over and comfort her but I didn't feel like that was the right thing to do considering the exercise. So I stood by myself for a really long time. People began crying right away which wasn't as distracting as last time, in fact it felt like we were all feeling the pain as a whole rather than each of us experiencing separate mental struggles. I started to cry too but I was trying so hard to hold back because once I start crying, I typically don't just cry a little bit. I end up sobbing and I didn't feel like I was in the place to do that. I just looked off in the distance and let my mind run free. I thought about not just my aunt, but all of what accompanied that experience. How my cousin and closest friend since I was little will never see her mother again. How she had to watch her mother slowly deteriorate over the years that she was sick. How my aunt will never see her kids get married or have children or go to college. How my aunt had to lose her hair, her strength, her money slowly and painfully while still trying to maintain the lives of her three kids as a single mother. How my mom must have felt watching her only sister slip away. How I'm going to feel when Clare has to watch me die or when I have to watch her die. How me and my siblings all held each other and sobbed together after the funeral service, which was the first time we had been that vulnerable in front of each other. Watching my cousin cry for the first time. Watching my other cousin sit staring at the picture of her mother with no expression, numbed. Listening to my cousin's choir sing at the funeral. How weak my aunt's hand felt when I held it for what felt like forever in the hospital room as she laid there the day before she passed away. What it felt like looking at the text message saying that she was gone. Breaking down in the middle of the speech tournament because of it. It all came in waves. I just wanted to watch this all play in my head and be alone. As I was going through this I started to get more and more infuriated with myself. Why didn't I reach out to her more before it was too late? Why didn't I talk to my cousins about it? Why did I push the reality of her situation away for so long that I never ended up understanding what was so close to being gone? Why did I do that? Oh my god I was so angry at myself. My hands were disgustingly clammy and my head was pounding.
I never got to see my aunt's body. For the funeral, we just had one framed photograph of her. Having Ben there to be the body felt weird. You reminded us while we were standing there to say goodbye, so I figured now would be a good time to do say bye to my aunt with him there standing in for her. I walked over towards Brandon, but kept a good distance away from everyone else. I sat down, but then Kaylee sat down next to me. I appreciated her presence at first, but then as I got even more and more angry as the images kept running through my head, I so badly just wanted to be alone. Despite that I didn't feel like I could get up and walk away to separate myself. I needed to be there for her, but I also really needed to be alone. I tried so hard to calm down because I was getting to the point of really really crying, but it wasn't too successful. I tried to look at Ben's body but I saw him breathing and it took me out of it immediately. I had to look away, so I just ended up looking at the floor as I continued thinking. I only looked at the body in my peripheral vision. In hindsight, I feel like I didn't really need to be up with the body to feel close enough. I'm not sure why, but I was significantly more comfortable separated. Being in the environment was enough.
When Ben came around to say his goodbyes, I'm not going to lie I wish that he had hugged me or held my hand or something like that. I feel like I needed that physical touch to be able to say goodbye, to imagine it like her reaching out to say goodbye to me, which is a nice thought to have. But he texted me right after class and told me that he was sorry, and that when he came by me, anger and hatred was radiating off of me so he didn't feel like he could touch me. That anger wasn't at him though, it was at myself. I didn't even feel like my frustration was that prevalent, but apparently he felt it to the point where he felt like he wasn't allowed to be near me. I feel like I really needed a hug or some kind of physical contact to help me say goodbye, and I didn't get that. And that's okay. I don't know if I let it go, but I feel more at terms with it than I did before, and I guess that's what matters.

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I genuinely enjoyed what we did today! It honestly was so much fun and I’m sure it’s just because it was adding an element that we all really enjoy and are fascinated by. Adding the lights and smoke and everything made it all feel more whole, which I think is something we’ve been craving. This whole time some of us have felt like we weren’t doing it right or it was off or something like that, but it felt like those tech elements fulfilled that. There were some really beautiful moments that genuinely made everybody audibly react afterwards and it was just so cool. Watching the other group and doing it myself was so enjoyable. We all jumped up so excitedly when you told us to go up to do the last exercise. It was so refreshing to see us all so excited about it. Some moments i experienced personally were when I ended up face to face with Ethan and we were doing the motion together, and when the same thing happened with me and Noah. With the smoke thing, we all noticed how everybody flocked to it. Obviously i wanted to be in it cause it’s super cool and really fun to be in, but I also felt compelled to go because everybody else was there. I guess another element of flocking. Noah was right, though, with it being easier to keep a soft focus in the fog. You literally can’t see anything but the grey of the fog and all you can do is keep going and keep doing your gesture.
When i was watching the other group, I saw how Frank jumped across somebody and literally slid across the stage, yet maintained his soft focus and his gesture. It was fascinating and really beautiful.
I liked doing the two gestures better than each of us doing our individual gestures because I liked seeing how we can end up interacting with them.
I’m actually really looking forward to doing this stuff with the contentless  scenes. I’m pretty confused right now as to what the expectation is, but I’m sure it’ll get cleared up as we move into it.

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I felt weird about the gesture grid work today. I had a bit of a hard time understanding exactly what it was supposed to be, which is my fault. At first I was going to be the witch, but midway through it just felt way more right to to an Evelyn gesture. It was so difficult not to act with it, especially because I'm working on it right now. My gesture was lifting up my hand and moving my hand as if I'm molding something. I guess this could work for the witch too because I molded Macbeth's actions and behaviors, but I think that just didn't feel right because it was so long ago. Evelyn just felt a lot better and more natural. Again, I had a really hard time maintaining my soft focus because I've been spending all this time trying to focus and connect to this character. We never tried it with somebody else's gesture, but the guys did and that definitely seemed more disconnected and neutral.
I loved watching the guys do the thing where they all did the same gesture. It was just fascinating to watch. They weren't making a story, but they did something beautiful that we all created a story out of. I honestly didn't even see that Brandon fell away from the group because it was out of my view, but when I found out that happened I was shocked I didn't even notice him missing from the group. I wish I was more willing to take risks like Ben did when he completely separated himself from the group and then became the leader. I'm working on it.
I've come to the conclusion that the guys are way better at this movement stuff than the girls. I'm not sure why that is, but it's very apparent.

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I feel like I'm writing the same thing every day, so I'm pretty sure this is getting redundant. But anyway, today was the first day we did movement stuff in a while so it was a little rusty getting back into the swing of it. I don't feel like my soft focus was as good as it normally is. I caught myself several times falling out of it and trying to make connections with others.
The circle work didn't feel as cool as it normally does. Maybe it's again cause we're rusty, but it just didn't feel as unified as it normally does. My feet hurt pretty bad and I was pretty much only thinking about that and to be honest I can't remember if that's what I'm supposed to be doing or if I'm supposed to ignore it and be an neutral as humanly possible.
The boys' grid work was really good today. I noticed the motif of this lunging thing. One guy did it and all throughout it the rest of the guys did it too. I saw a lot of interesting individualized things happening as well as some cool group work. I liked how Jacob allowed himself to remain individualized while Ben became a part of a group, but then separated himself when he started to push Ethan. That was my favorite grid work I've watched. I was very encapsulated and I couldn't stop watching.
Our grid work felt okay, but I definitely noticed we were flocking. I looked at all of us at the end and we literally were all just clumped up in the corner of the stage. I don't think it's necessarily wrong, but I know I personally would like to get out of my comfort zone and allow myself to be more individual.
I really liked the grid work we did with the cowbell. It was fun to me to switch up the intention of my neutral movements. I didn't know what to do for the reckless thing because I didn't want to just do something easy, but I realized I was thinking too much about it so I just did whatever felt natural. I jumped up on Frank's back which was cool. Then that went right into the joyful movement and I caught myself smiling just because it was fun, but I stopped almost immediately because I realized i needed to continue being neutral. Then I got down from his back and did the sorrowful movement, and I just made myself small and stayed still on the outskirts of the grid. Two people sat with me, but I wanted to be alone and it felt right to scoot away so I did. I liked that exercise a lot.

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Today was embarrassing. Our fairy tale was just so bad and everybody tore it apart, which is totally fine because they were all right. It's just embarrassing. It was all just a huge game of follow the leader, but nobody was actually going along with people who were trying to make something (i know i'm guilty of this). I just have such a hard time going against my storytelling instinct, which I know we all have trouble with. I feel like there's such a fine line between capturing the essence and trying too hard to act out every bit of the story. Also, finding some way to communicate in a way to everyone else while in soft focus is so frickin difficult. I know Brandon began creating something representing the father, but nobody did anything with it. Christina and I both started to develop a Cinderella and Stepmother thing, but then she got pulled away and we both just went with that and lost what we were starting. Also, I don't think I know what the essence of Cinderella is. I know the story, but I'm confused as to the overall theme of it. I'm honestly excited to take a day off of this tomorrow and have some fun.
I loved watching the Hansel and Gretel one. It was intriguing to see what people were creating. I noticed how Hailee at one point put her hand out next to Anna, clearly out of her line of sight, but Anna somehow sensed it and placed her hand right into Hailee's. It was so fascinating. I feel like the essence of Hansel and Gretel is a little bit clearer of this dark, painful loss and fear that people are going to hurt you. Or maybe they just made it clearer with their work. It felt, to me, like they were slipping really close to telling the story and deciding who was going to be what character, but overall I felt like it was a really strong example of what we're supposed to be doing. For some reason we couldn't do that, which is really disappointing.

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Watching everybody doing the grid work is interesting to say the very least. Observing what everyone is actually doing and making something of it for myself is a completely different experience from actually partaking in it. When I'm watching it, I feel like I'm actually allowed to make a story out of it rather than forcing myself to be completely neutral. Doing my own in front of everybody's was kind of nerve wracking, but I got out of it relatively quickly and stopped worrying about it so that was good. While watching the other group, I thought it was a pretty gutsy choice for Michael to keep on moving after everyone stopped. Especially considering the fact that he's new to the class, he did something that nobody seems to have really thought to do. I think that's something we should all think about - doing what feels right even if it doesn't necessarily go with the timing of the music. I know I have a certain connection to the music that I want to hold onto, like it's holding my hand. Maybe we should learn to not have the music guide us and instead just do what feels organic in the silence. See what happens.
During our circle work I had a bit of a hard time. I realized that I always focus a LOT on the unity of the group and our synchronization. Today, we weren't really in synch all that well and it caught me off guard. I noticed that everybody was using a different and I continually caught myself thinking "which arm should I put up? I'll put this one up. Wait no this one" or whatever so I wasn't maintaining my soft focus. That was all while I was waiting for my turn to go. Once I actually started doing the motion, though, that went away.

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I, quite honestly, am terrified to do our fairy tale. I know I shouldn't be because whatever it turns out to be is okay. I know it'll be bad, but maybe there will be something lovely that comes of it. In order to see if that happens we have to at least try. I hope we can create something like the boys did today. They all seemed super confused and the plot of Beauty of the Beast was definitely not all there, but the beast they made was super interesting. Jacob started falling in the middle of it, which I thought was a cool manifestation of the beast's loss of motivation to continue on living life after his curse. I don't know if that was his intention (if he even was supposed to have an intention?) but that's what it looked like to me. It was fascinating seeing all the boys come together to form one entity. Some of the boys, though, looked lost out of their minds. I have a feeling that'll be me when we try, so I'm going to try my best not to. I think that this is some super advanced stuff that we're doing here (maybe it isn't, but it definitely feels like it) and I know most of us are somewhat dreading continuing it because it is so difficult, but I think we all know the benefits that it's giving us. Several of us have spoken about how much it's helped us in auditions or other productions going on, which I think is really important to note. This stuff may seem weird and tedious, but it really is helping us whether we realize it or not. I really hope that our fairy tale isn't a complete train wreck.
The gridwork today felt better than usual. I only caught myself making a conscious decision to follow somebody one time. Other than that, it was completely natural just going with the flow. I thought the wave metaphor was really interesting. It genuinely feels like, when you're following somebody new, that you're just being picked up into a new wave. I found it easier to keep my soft focus this time, except for once when I ran into the speakers...sorry about that.

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The exercises we did today felt significantly better than they did yesterday. I felt more solid with the Macbeth text, but I am having such a hard time with the last one and I really don't know why. I felt like the circle exercise we did was the weakest it's been for a while. I just felt like we all were somewhat disconnected from each other and we didn't feel like the unified group we usually are. I always like the one where we all join together the best. I just really love how we fall into the internalized beat, or I guess the beat of the music.
I felt somewhat confused with the grid work today. I wasn't sure on if I was supposed to be following, initiating, or just doing what felt right. I ended up just doing what felt right. I followed sometimes, sometimes initiating, and sometimes just did whatever I felt like I should do. Due to this confusion, I had a difficult time keeping my soft focus. Eventually I found it and was able to keep it relatively well.
The second group I felt did significantly better today than they did yesterday. I didn't see too many forced stories. I noticed that Leia and Allison did a really great job keeping their soft focus while creating human contact. That was what I had the most trouble with. I got to the edge of the stage and I was like oh no I forgot to touch somebody. I just continued to do what I was doing until I got the opportunity to make contact, so that was when I made contact with Ethan and pulled him back towards me.

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Today was kind of frustrating. Everything just felt unclear and weird, I don't know. I liked where the beginning portion of class was going with the Suzuki text, but that was rough for everybody. I know we all had a difficult time memorizing the text, but that still isn't an excuse. I don't know why it left my brain for some reason, but I think I was also distracted by the fact that nobody else was doing it. I know that sounds like I'm putting myself up on a high horse but I promise I'm not trying to, I genuinely think it just caught me off guard that I was the only one speaking. When we all went back on stage and did the squatting stuff, though, it felt better. I think I just liked all of us being together and doing it as a unified group rather than split up into smaller ones.
The grid work was interesting compared to last time. Last time, I felt freer and more able to do whatever felt right because I was an initiator. This time, though, I was a follower. I tried to just go with who I felt natural following, but I was so distracted by everything that was going on around me. I tried to go into soft focus but I would end up just running into people or something like that.
The last exercise we did was okay for me. I had a mental story going on, but I don't think I made that clear in my physicality which I think was the goal. I think the second group had a more difficult task with having to make physical contact. There were soooo many stories going on with that group, though. It felt really disconnected and forced because of that.

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Today was not as challenging as the past few days, but I definitely found it a bit more interesting. During the beginning exercise when we would go down on our toes, I had a hard time keeping my soft focus and not thinking about what I was going to do. I always plan ahead and I hate improving, so it was difficult for me to let go of that. I tried for the first time, but wasn't too successful. I did my movement, but I wasn't deep enough in my soft focus. I planned out what I was going to do as soon as Dylan started to do his movement. The second time, though, was better because we were up on our toes. This time, rather than focusing on preparing, I was focused on my balance. I was too concerned with how much my calves were burning to try to plan out my action. That time, I just did what I felt like doing when it got to my turn. I always prefer the last thing we do with that exercise, though. I love the progression of all becoming a unified organism rather than a collective group of individuals. I also noticed that I still had a lot of tension in my jaw that I wasn't releasing, but I didn't notice that until midway through the second time around.
The next exercise was really fun, but I had an especially hard time with my soft focus with that one. I was trying to figure out what would be a good movement to initiate as well as mentally determining how long it should last, when in reality I should have just done what felt natural. Towards the end, I got more to that point of just doing what felt right. When I turned around, it was so weird to see how many people were following me. I felt like I could literally do anything and they would do it too. Having this awareness, though, kept me from my soft focus. I don't feel like I ever truly fell into it during the entirety of that exercise.
The final thing we did was incredibly theatrical and I loved it. Watching the boys create that story was fascinating to watch. I loved how subjective ;) it was. Hearing the various stories people put to it was very interesting, especially taking into account the fact that there genuinely was no story to it. It was all just the physicality. When I was doing it with the girls, I feel like I got very deep in my soft focus. I literally got to the point where every inch of my vision was completely blurred and I saw nothing but the fuzzy images of what was in front of me, which was fascinating. I wish the bell didn't ring while we were in the middle of it, because I feel like we had the opportunity to create something very interesting.
Honestly, I really love doing this stuff. I know I need to break out of my shell when it comes to physicality and I feel like this is definitely going to help me. I'm curious to see what assignments we're going to have to do with this.

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Our first exercise today felt a little different than yesterday. Since D pointed out beforehand how people noticed the tension in their bodies, I started to notice it in myself too. I know I have trouble with tension in my jaw because I've worked on that in vocal lessons before. For some reason, I always feel the need to keep my jaw locked and tight. While doing the first exercise, before going into my soft focus zone, I tried to relax my jaw and let it just drop a little bit. I kept finding myself going back to my resting state of having a tense jaw, so I would relax it. While going around the circle, I was distracted because I was anticipating my turn. Once we got into the entire group doing it together, I finally fell into our internalized beat. I wasn't so aware of myself anymore, but rather just going through our movement. I didn't really feel anything. I did notice, though, that I always needed to get my soft focus started by picking a random spot in front of me and staring at it. Eventually, as I fell further and further into it, I didn't need to focus on the point anymore. I'm not sure if need is the right word, but rather I just unconsciously stopped picking out the one point. When I came out of it, I noticed I would actually be looking at a completely different spot than the one I originally picked. I think this was my mind just going blank for a while and waking up again.
Today's second exercise felt significantly more challenging than yesterday. I found myself having trouble determining when I should initiate and when I should follow others. I noticed that people sometimes refused to follow my initiations, mostly likely because they were fixated on something else. This makes me wonder if I should be more forceful or attention-grabbing, but I don't know if this exercise necessarily calls for that. I feel like the soft-focus with the acknowledgement of everyone around was like just a very disconnected interaction. No story, just movement. Whenever I had an interaction with somebody, I would try to take some kind of initiative. Sometimes, though, the person would walk away too quickly for me to do anything. I wasn't sure if I should follow or not, especially because they were practically running. I probably should have followed. I'm aware that I'm having a hard time with this and probably not doing too great. I want to continue practicing so I can improve.

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I found the beginning part of today interesting with the concept of not trying to be in unison, but letting the tempo of the group internalized so that synchronization came to us rather than us forcing it to come. At first, I was pretty confused as to what the heck was going on but I got the gist of it relatively quickly. I honestly liked how we all just developed a unity as a whole group rather than a group of individuals, if that makes sense. Eventually I started visualizing the rising motion of our arms as the inhalation of our group, and the fall of our arms as the exhale. That's how I was breathing, and I guess I assumed that's how everyone else was breathing. It felt like we were all connected but in a disconnected way. We were unified as one, but we were individually connected person to person. It just felt like we were one organism moving as one.
I think the number one challenge of the soft focus is completely letting go and being 100% neutral. I am a very purposeful person, so I rarely do things just to neutrally do it. Because of this, I had a really hard time just having absolutely no motivation to move, yet still moving. I kept finding myself trying to make connections with people and I'm not sure if was supposed to anyway, but nobody was willing to connect with me or hold eye contact. As it continued, I found myself just recognizing the presence of the other people rather than forcing any kind of connection with them. I feel like I progressively let more and more go until I was in some sort of trance. I can't really pinpoint if I was actually focusing on anything (like the neutral points I was staring at, my walking, my movements) because I feel like I was just doing it. No focus, no motivation, I was just doing it. Sometimes, when I'm in the car or bus on the way to school, I sleep without closing my eyes. It sounds weird, but I'll just completely zone out without actually thinking about anything. My mind just goes utterly blank for however long I happen to be entranced until I realize that I'm doing it. Then I notice how wide my eyes were and how scary I probably looked. When I get out of it, it feels like I'm actually waking up from sleep. This is what it felt like to finish the exercise. My eyes felt like they were just looking through everything and all I really saw was the fuzzy outline of each person. Then, when we laid down on the ground and sat back up to get out of it, I felt like I was waking up again. Despite this trance I was in, the changing movements we had to do would temporarily take me out of it. It felt like a distraction because I was focusing too much on my individual self doing the movement correctly rather than just doing it mindlessly. Eventually, though, I would get back into it and be back to the state of neutrality. Like I said in class, it felt like an out of body experience. Coming out of it felt like I was returning to myself, my life, and my reality. I honestly wish that we had done that for longer. It was nice to get out of that and be neutral for a while.

I hope this is long enough for two days. If I need more, let me know please

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First of all, the cast lists came out and I am seriously so happy. I would show it more, but there are some people who I know are really upset so I didn't want to be obnoxious about it or anything. With contest, I think Evelyn is so complex and truly full of confusing layers that we I'm pumped to create and pick apart. I heard that you for some reason didn't think I wanted Evelyn or something, idk. Rumors or whatever. I really wanted Evelyn but I felt annoying going out and just being like "I want Evelyn so badly!!!" Maybe this is all false, but the point is that I just want you to know how happy I am with this. I'm incredibly excited to delve into her character. Not to mention I GET TO COMPETE AND TRAVEL AND EVERYTHING WITH EVERYBODY AND I AM SO FRICKING EXCITED. I think working in nearly exclusive close proximity with Ben will be cool, I don't feel like I've gotten to work super closely with him other than with Fuddy. I feel like it'll be interesting. Kaylee and I both congratulated each other as soon as the list went out which I thought was good. We even hugged! So we have progress I guess.
I'm also really pumped for metamorphosis. We had our first rehearsal today and I really loved it. I know how much difficulty I have taking physical risks, so I liked being able to step out of my comfort zone and do some weird stuff. I did notice though that genders seemed to group together. I hope we try to integrate genders a little bit more later on so that we're all comfortable with one another. I've also grown to really love this script. Christina and I read it together last night and everything was just so beautiful and breathtaking. I absolutely love how theatrical it is.

Alright, so theatrefest was WAY better than last year for sure. Little to no drama which was solid. Overall, the experience was incredibly beneficial for me especially because of the auditions. My mom kept telling me to "go in with an open mind" because she really doesn't want me going somewhere that's too expensive or far away. I talked to a couple schools and here are my thoughts on each.
ISU - I like it, the campus is beautiful and it is apparently a very renowned program, but it seems enormous. There are like 300 people in the program alone? That seems insane to me. I value the personal time and individual attention that comes from smaller groups of actors so I don't know how this program would fare. ISU offered me a lot of money for my academics, but I would have to go out and audition again for a scholarship and I don't know if that's possible with my family situation. Even if I could skype audition, I don't have a computer to do that and our chromebooks don't do that.
Monmouth - They really loved me apparently. I didn't even go over to the table, they called me over because the man recognized me. The guy happened to be the one I was staring at during my entire monologue and apparently it scared the sh** out of him which is like the best thing ever. He said it was intimidating but he loved it and how encapsulating it was. He told me that he would personally contact my admissions counselor and tell them my name and whatnot. He told me I got the theatre scholarship and the other counselor there told me that based on my grades, I can get some money too. I should be getting an email from them some time soon. They only offer a BA though, and I want a BFA. I applied for this school yesterday
NIU - I was walking by and they randomly called me over even though I wasn't called back. It was weird and i'm not interested
Southeast Missouri - I LOVE southeast missouri. They just have so many things about their program that I am in love with. They have a completely separate campus for their theatre program with a shuttle that takes people to the main campus. Financially, they have a great price (around $20,000) along with scholarship opportunities I can apply for. I'll be applying for that later. I should be getting an email from them soon too. I applied for this school yesterday.
I wish I could've talked to DePaul but they left before I could get to them :(

I went to a voice workshop which was super fun and helpful for opening up my "vocal floodgates". It was cool too to see  how much I already know because of choir and vocal lessons. I guess I knew more about voice in regular acting than I thought, but I hate that I'm afraid to take vocal risks. I don't know why that is.
I also went to a workshop about being an actor in the professional world. Some stuff I already knew, but a lot of it I never wouldn't known. It was incredibly helpful.
I also got a lot closer to Kaylee during fest. I'm sure large factor is that we were rooming together and we were just cast in a tiny show together, but it was really refreshing. Primarily, though, I got significantly closer to Christina. This makes me so happy. I really really really like her, she seems like a fantastic person who will help fuel my passion for theatre as I hopefully fuel hers too. :)

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I performed my monologues in class today. I like the pieces themselves, but I don't feel good about my performance of them. I felt like they just weren't strong enough for where I need to be. I don't know. Can we talk about them some time before theatrefest? I'm also having a lot of trouble deciding if I should sing or not. My vocal teacher told me that she thinks my song is very strong and it'll draw in a lot of colleges, but I don't want to turn off colleges that are strictly acting. I think singing is my strong suit. I wish my strength was acting instead. Haha remember when I was like yeah I'll be positive, so much for that. I don't want to just sit around and sulk or whatever but I feel like I could be a lot stronger than I am. I think I just need to work more on my own and spend more time on my stuff.
Auditions are today, which I'm actually not all that worried about. I think I've come to terms that I'll get placed wherever I belong and there isn't much I can do other than show who I am, which D already pretty much knows. I hope that if I don't end up in contest or GI, I can still come along to everything. I so badly want to experience it. It sounds like so much fun and it sucks that I haven't gone.

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Today’s college discussion, to be completely honest, didn’t put me in a much different place than i was before. I’ve been lucky enough to get to talk to Ava and Justin about college a lot, so my grasp on what i’m doing is significantly stronger than before. It was definitely still helpful and I’m glad we had it. Usually that kind of stuff kicks me into gear, which is what I really need. I have everything for my Juilliard audition prepared, but I really need to actually work on everything. I officially have all of my monologues chosen and memorized, so now it’s just a matter of drilling them, making clear decisions, and adding layers. My applications to Roosevelt and Juilliard are official, so all I have left are the auditions. I’m applying to The New School in New York because my mom said she likes it and when i looked into it, it looks really great. I need to make audition videos for that school and DePaul. Those are my next steps. I’m feeling so much better about all my college stuff, so now I just need to continue pushing. I’m really grateful to have Ava in my life. She has helped me out so much in this whole process. I genuinely don’t know where I would be if it weren’t for her helping me out. I’m feeling most prepared audition-wise for my song. This is because I have my vocal teacher and we’ve been drilling it a ton. She told me that I’m doing well, but she isn’t giving me many notes. She was at first, but now I’ve fixed them and there isn’t much more to the lessons anymore. I’ve picked up on the fact that I am willing to take risks emotionally and mentally on stage, but for some reason I have a lot of trouble taking physical risks. I told her this because during my song, my physicality feels weird and unnatural and I know it’s because I’m afraid to take it as far as I can or should. I want it to be as authentic as possible. She told me that we can work on it, which I’m excited for. I just wish she would give me more notes on the singing, too. I know it’s not perfect and I need it to be as strong as possible if I’m going to have any sort of shot of making it into Juilliard. She did offer to help me out with my monologues, though, which will be super helpful.

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It feels weird to do this again. Even just opening up the camera and seeing how different I look compared to Mac was shocking. My life is so different from how it was the last time I did this. So much has happened. I have completely different friends, my skill level has changed, I look so different, and the way my life works is nowhere near the same as it did before. Part of me is really grateful for that, but another part of me wonders how things would be now if it weren't for all those changes. College is pretty much the only thing on my mind as of late, whereas before I actually went out and did fun things and enjoyed myself. I wish that these college thoughts were actually productive ones, but in reality they're just continual streams of "oh my god hahahahhah i'm so screwed i'm gonna end up stuck in a box on the streets of some random city" you know the usual. Buuuuttttt I'm gonna try really hard to be more positive about everything so I can convince myself that something is going to come out of my work. Let's not get too intellectual yet let's start the positivity now
Alright, so I believe in a medium between the artist and the art. For me personally, I would not want to support the art of somebody who is immoral and sick. But at the same time, I don't want to lose the opportunity to appreciate and learn from that art. It's a battle between my artist self and my human self, which arguably are the same thing. I wish I could take one side so I could be solid in my belief, but I don't think I morally can. Seeing somebody on stage or on screen or reading the words of somebody who I know has done disgusting and reprehensible things is sickening to me. Eventually, though, I grow numb to it and forget who the person is and just see their art instead. So I would say that at first I can definitely distinguish between artist and art, which makes it difficult to appreciate it. This eventually fades away as I become immersed in the art. It isn't until afterwards that I'm like "wow, that person raped little children and I just thoroughly enjoyed the art they put out for the world to see." How can somebody respect the art of another person who has done incredibly heinous things? It feels terrible to say, but I think you just have to allow yourself to be blind to it. Art is art, no matter who the artist is. I love seeing the artist in their art. If they are in their art and it is real and raw and human, I can accept that. I don't support their morals, but I can accept it.