I’ve had a few negative experiences with caffine lately - likely caused by a serious increase in my coffee intake over the past few weeks.

The first one happened a few months ago, after I returned from Hawaii. I’d been awake for about 30 hours already, and still had to go in to school for the second half of the day (plus theatre rehearsal). So I decided I try out one (make that two) of those Starbucks Doubleshot Espresso drinks - which actually tasted quite yummy… 15 minutes later, I was completely wired. My friend Anthony, who sits next to me in computer science, spent the entire class watching me ramble and tap my feet and laugh slightly uncontrollably.

I haven’t touched a Doubleshot since.

But this past week, I think I went a little crazy on the Greenberrys and Java Java. I’ve been stressed out about Mother Courage opening this week - not the mention getting home at 1:30 some nights because of how late tech week rehearsals have gone. That, combined with a few Grande coffees for a person that rarely goes too heavy on the caffine (and an unfortunately incidident involving Blue Raspberry-flavored Jolt), equals a very jittery, nervous, and slightly paranoid seventeen-year-old. I was seriously on the verge of a nervous breakdown on Wednesday.

I’m writing this post at Java Java drinking a Cafe au Lait. This post probably doesn’t make much sense to anyone but me.

I need to stop drinking coffee….

I’ve found myself spending a lot more time downtown lately… Maybe it’s the gaping 2.5 hour window I have in the middle of every school day with nothing to do, maybe I’ve just needed some escape time from the rest of my busy life - who knows? All I know, is that it’s gotten bad. I’m in Java Java almost as much as Shawn Decker (who practically lives there), and I’m pretty sure the guys at Christian’s know my order at this point. It’s also a bit awkward when you’ve become so much a part of the downtown scene that others of a similar sexual orientation start cruising you. Let’s talk about feeling uncomfortable…

I’ll be spending even more time downtown this next month however (if that’s possible). Tonight I’m going to my first sit-in rehearsal for Mother Courage and Her Children over at Live Arts. I’m running sound for it, and it opens in a week - so I figured I should get a taste of what I’m signed myself up for. I’ll go out on a limb here and say you should all come see it when it opens next week - the script is amazing, I’ve heard the music is as well, and the renderings I’ve seen of the set design look pretty darn stunning.

Not only am I doing this month-long run of a show just days after Anything Goes wrapped up - but I’m also thinking about auditioning for The Complete History of America (Abridged) down at Play On Theatre. And of course I’ll be auditioning for the annual sketch comedy show Dessert Theatre 2008 at CHS next week [I'm trying to stock up on acting experiences before my 4-year-long theatre-free period known as film school].

I like killing myself with work, thank you very much.

You know, I’ve almost posted about a dozen times in past two months (even written a few posts out, but by the time I finished, they were irrelevant) – but it just never happened. I’m not even sure as I’m writing this that it’ll ever be read by anyone. I can use the general excuses: senior year, the musical that just wrapped up yesterday (Anything Goes), or even just 17-year-old laziness. But the truth is, I just never bothered.

So I figured I’d do a post on that musical:

Yesterday night, all the seniors involved in Charlottesville High School’s Theatre Department were sobbing on stage after their last main-stage show in high school. Surprisingly enough, I was the only senior not creating huge streaks in their stage makeup (which, given my reputation for sobbing at terribly cliché moments in every movie imaginable, was odd). That last show was probably the most depressing of my life, though. All the seniors were miserable for most of it – I spent the entire time consciously trying not to think about how this would be the last big show I ever did at CHS. Furthermore, since I won’t be doing theatre in college (and I somehow don’t think I’d be that competitive in New York anyway), last night was essentially the last show I’d be doing in years.

All of that hasn’t sunk in yet, or I probably wouldn’t able to type all that out with a straight head. As far as last shows go, however, I couldn’t have asked for it to have gone better. I had a lead role that was incredibly fun (British accent the entire time), a solo (which Allyson and I nailed for the last performance), and left much closer to everyone in the show.

I’ll link to the pictures that were taken as soon as I put them on the Theatre CHS website (my costumes included yellow running shorts a la Michael Cera in Juno, and a silk bath robe…).

This has been quite a busy week for me. Last Thursday, I was doing the NBC thing, when I got one of those “big breaks” you hear about. The photographer I was working with let me shoot the entire story we were working on (about the Albemarle County School Board), and because of various circumstances leading to the fact that no one was physically in the newsroom to edit the piece together, I got to do it. The producers took a little while to warm up to the idea (I am still an intern, after all, and they had scheduled that piece to lead the 11o’clock news) – but eventually they decided to let me go for it. I still haven’t actually spoken to back at the station since they’ve seen the final piece, but I think I did an okay job – a few mistakes, but nothing –too- major…

More drama: Last period of the day on Friday, I get called down to the Media Center: apparently, I was scheduled to take the Earth Science SOL. The only problem? I’ve never taken Earth Science… I explain this to the unfortunate teacher that had been relegated to SOL duty, and after being told by the assistant principal that she didn’t know what to do, we go on a 20-minute pilgrimage across the school, first looking for my guidance counselor (out for the week), eventually finding a different guidance counselor before being referred to the chair of the guidance department before being referred right back to the assistant principal we started with.

In the end, we managed to find out that I need to take one more science SOL in order to get an advanced diploma (*sigh* - bureaucracies…). The second snag? The SOL testing was only going on for one more week, and since I was going to be in Hawaii that whole time… So now I need to wait until April to take the Biology SOL (a class I took four years ago and hated). And though I seriously doubt I could even manage to fail that test now, for years after I learned the material, my diploma status is still technically in limbo for the next three months. FUN!
And then of course there’s the fact that I’m going to Hawaii this week for my grandparent’s 50th anniversary (yes, I know it’s a bit ridiculous… :P). I was supposed to fly to Chicago on my own, where I would meet up with my grandparents for the 8-hour flight to Honolulu. Naturally, the tickets were messed up, and now I’m flying the whole way on my own ?. Ah well, I guess I kind of like being out on my own… Relaxing, in a way.

P.S. – I wrote this in the Chicago airport, just feet from the exact spot (next to the moving walkway) where I thought up the idea to do a music video for MMMBop, which led me down a series of adventures in videography that eventually got me into NYU. Yay!

So a little more information about my previous post:

Carnegie Mellon has great film and computer science programs, and so does Chapel Hill; NYU, on the other hand, has the Tisch School for film, which would pretty much be my dream program. *sigh* Welcome to the next year of my life…

I wrote that almost a year ago, when I did a post about how the next year of my life was going to be just about as horrible as possible. I’m glad to say that the past year of my life has definitely not been as horrible and stressful as I once imagined it to be. In fact, I’d say it was pretty darn good.

But pretty much exactly a year after I went onto CollegeBoard.com and tried to find the colleges I’d be applying to over the subsequent year, my entire college-search process has finally come to a close. Friday afternoon, after feeling like throwing up all day waiting for it to come, I got a letter from New York University, telling me I’d been accepted into their Film and Television program (that “dream program” I’d been talking about).

So, Ima goin to NYU!

I’m still waiting for everyone else at school to start getting really mad at me for being done with the whole college thing, right when they’re frantically trying to get their applications in. High schoolers can be vicious…