I WAS IN THE NEWSPAPER!!

Yesterday, the Thames River Times ran an article on the drama show. Front page for the win! I am proud to say that this is the third time I've ever made the front page of a newspaper! I managed to find a link to an online version of the article here: http://www.theday.com/article/20100513/NWS08/305139480/-1/zip06&town=Ledyard&template=zip06art

It does, however have some typos. Should be Kato McNickle. Not "Kata". Should be David Tang. Not "Tand". Oh, well... Anywho...

This particular link will give you the article, and two pictures featured in it, but not the front page pic. That particular pic was taken while we were singing the opening number of the show and features (left to right) Nathan, Tori, me, Kyla, and Tang, and is captioned " 'Star Wars' Stories: At LHS, drama students tap their inner Jedis".

It's shiny... you can bet that I'm saving this article, and hanging it on my wall...

~Laura

Geez...

Today I did... absolutely nothing. I went to school. Came home. Worried about the latest trauma-drama in my life. Was on the computer for a bit. Watched some "Seinfeld" with Dad. Really didn't do much.

Sigh...

Life is so boring now that the drama show is over...

~Laura

THE TIME OF MY LIFE!!!

I'm sorry I haven't posted since Thursday, I've just been so busy and having so much fun!!

Friday was the final performance of the drama show and we all did totally AWESOME!!! We all chipped in to by flowers and cards for the adults that helped out with the show, and a plastic lightsaber that we all signed for Kato. After the show, we had the cast party!! For the first time, I was the host of the cast party, and it was SO much fun! Food, and silliness, and cuddling (Tori glomped onto Nate, and me, Kyla, and Hannah formed a cuddle group).

Then tonight was... MY FIRST JUNIOR PROM!!! It was AMAZING! The time of my life! My dress was so beautiful! I looked and felt more lovely than I have in a while. Hung out with the EGE and mandachan and Tang. Tang was kind enough to be my dance partner for most of the songs and he's pretty good! Lots of fun. SO much fun. So many amazing memories made!! I'll never forget any of it.

And now, I must go, as it is midnight, and I have some interesting new developements in my life that I must mull over.

~Laura

Heh...

I just wanted to make an apology for being all whiny and emo yesterday about prom. I was just having one of my angst days and I needed something to bitch about.

Today, I'm much more excited because it is the OPENING NIGHT OF THE SHOW!!!!

I'm totally excited! It's gonna be awesome!!

In addition, for the first time ever, I am hosting the cast party! I'm also in charge of getting cards and the cast gift to Kato! I'm basically just going to walk around Wal-Mart until I find something....

ANYWHO!!

Come to the show! It's at 7:00... or possibly 7:30... I can never remember. But come either today or tomorrow.

~Laura

Bad Pun

Today is the first dress rehearsal for the drama show, a Star Wars cabaret. I find this humorous because today, May 4th, is official Star Wars day. Why? May the Fourth be with you. Terrible, terrible pun. But it amuses me. What's more amusing is that Kato did not plan for the first dress rehearsal to be on Star Wars day.

:)

~Laura

Some Special Upcoming Dates

What I'm looking forward to in my life:

• Tonight - A benefit chorus concert raising money for the Matt Buriak and Lauren Candler Scholarship fund. I have to wear that awful dress shirt/cummerbund/bow tie and sing three songs.
• Friday - Leaving for the Music Trip!! Lots of fun in New York/New Jersey. Museum of Natural History, seeing "Wicked" on Broadway (for the third time), Six Flags, singing, acting like an idiot with my friends....
• May 7 and 8 - The Star Wars cabaret in drama. Loads of fun.
• May 23 - KATHERINE COMES HOME!! My very very best friend and non-blood sister returns from college for the summer. Will be spending as much time as possible with her.
• Some time early June that I'm not positive about - POPS Concert. Biggest chorus concert of the year. Awesome songs.
• Some time later in June that I'm not positive about - SUMMER VACATION!!!!!

And those, my dearies, are the events that I am counting the days til....

~Laura

Busy...

Went to school. went to drama (Kyla got roped into it, now she's in our show!). Came home. Ate. Gonna chill. Maybe work on my thesis paper. Then go to Premier. Then watch House. Then shower. Then watch Castle with the EGE.

~Laura

"Your lips say 'no'..."

"But your eyes say 'NO! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!!"

Thus spoke Kyla. In all of her awesomeness. To celebrate the fact that "Avatar" has just come out on dvd, I bought it and Kyla slept over the other night to watch it! This is probably my new favorite movie. Some people didn't like it plot-wise, but I really did. It had a message. A message I could understand. And really fucking awesome blue people. (I want to be a Na'vi in my next life if you couldn't tell...).

So me and Kyla watched "Avatar" (still as awesome as I remember it), and after that we played "The Sims 2" for a while. It was awesome. We made Lady Gaga fall in love with Alice Cullen. And we're gonna make Edward get knocked up with an alien baby (We hope it's a girl so we can name her Trudy), then he'll die tragically, leaving Trudy to be raised by Alice and Lady Gaga.... Yeah, I'm not sure what we were on when we played this, but it was fun!

Then Kyla kicked my ass up and down the street at Monopoly. Kicked it after fucking me over by owning the properties I kept landing on (plus like 3 houses on each...). I really need to get better at this game.... It was fun though, we hurled insults and terrible names at each other for the duration of the game, but we meant it in the "best friends, i hate you = i love you" way, so it was awesome.

Then we went to sleep. And then we woke up. And went to the Tech call for drama which was today. Where we painted stuff...

All in all, lots of awesome fun with Kyla!

~Laura

Drama Pics!!

Some awesome pics from yesterday's rehearsal of the drama department's Star Wars cabaret! Awesome pics for an awesome show! I may put up some more tomorrow...



The girls of the show! Left to Right: Tori, Hannah (with a Princess Leia figurine...) and Me!

Me in my Princess Leia costume with a random stuffed cat (don't ask).

Me with a fuzzy pink journal which I will read from for "The Princess Leia Diaries".

Cast pic! (Well, minus James...) Clockwise from top left: Tori, Hannah, Tang, Me, Nate.

Nate (left) and James (right) practicing their scene from "Clerks"

Tori (left) and Hannah (right) dueling.

Me in my Luke Skywalker costume (yes, I play both Luke AND Leia) dueling Tang while Nate (the Emperor) watches....

James practicing for the "Clerks" scene.

Nate doing his "Papa Palpatine" skit... VERY amusing!

I love group shots! Left to right: Hannah, Tori, Tang, Me, and Nate.

Cast plus our director Kato! Left to right: Tori (with an odd blue plushie on her head), Kato, Hannah, Tang, Me, and Nate shoved out of frame.

Another group shot! Hannah (with Darth Vader and Leia figurines), Me, Tang, Nate, and Tori!

And that are all the pics I'm posting for the night! Bask in their amazingness!

~Laura

Long day...

After staying up until three in the morning (I couldn't sleep because of the muppets!), I woke up today at eight o'clock to go to a bloody tech call for drama at the school.

I got there at nine because my mom needed to be at work by 9:30 and I had no other way to get there. Of course, I was locked out until Mrs Gwin (the nurse that helps out with drama a lot) let me in... blah.

Once we got in, it was three hours of hauling big pieces of wood that were once sets that have really piled up backstage. Like, seventeen years worth. Ugh. That's pretty much what I did. Since I can't be trusted with power tools (some sets needed to be dismantled), my job was basically to try to rearrange what we were keeping so that we'd have more space. I also went on several "dumpster runs". Those were actually really fun. Me and my friend Tang (who is also involved in drama) loaded up all the pieces of wood that we were throwing away onto this cart-type-thing that the janitors gave us (it's called a "dolly" I think...) and dragged them all out to the dumpster, where I threw them all in javelin style. And when we had room on the dolly, Tang and I took turns riding on it... because we're so very mature.

After all this work, my dad came and picked us up and took Tang and I out to lunch at Valentino's.... (their garlic bread is AMAZING, but there isn't much else there that I like.) and then on the way home, Tang completely astounded me in that he could identify the song "Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones just by hearing the first two notes! But anywho...

Very long and tiring day but also lots of fun with Tang and other awesome people!

~Laura

Doing Nothing...

Not much to tell. Had a great day. Worked on my stuff for drama (Kato said to me "You must have been raised by flower-children...." huge compliment to me!). Fun. Finished my thesis outline in one hour (huge accomplishment). Watching Bones now. Big episode. Watch Fringe episode. Another big episode. Going away now. Apologies for short post. More apologies for failure to speak in complete sentences.

~Laura

Weekend's Here! Good God Almighty!

"Let's get drunk and be somebody!"

No, not really. I'm just quoting a song. I have no idea who sings it, but it's a country song...

Anyway.... THREE-DAY WEEKEND!!

As tomorrow is Good Friday (still don't know why the kooky Christians named the day their savior perished in a gruesome and painful manner "good"...), we have no school! I will be using that day to go shopping with my mom and grandmom. Fun!

On a totally unrelated note, the weather is bloody GORGEOUS! After all that rain too... well, you know what us New Englanders say: "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes and it'll change." I may go out and read in the sunshine for a bit before it turns nasty again.

Today, we were SUPPOSED to have drama rehearsal, but I was the only one who showed up. So I read over my monologue and some other stuff, and then the school nurse, Mrs. Gwin, was nice enough to give me a ride home.

Yeah, this post is kinda random and vague and weird but I'm in a weird mood. Hyper and tired all at once. Kinda like someone slipped me some Nyquil... oh well. I'll wrap up this post now 'cause I'm too lazy to type more and there isn't much else to tell...

Ta!

~Laura

ugh...

Not much to report. Had a not-so-awesome day. (Except for drama... drama makes me happy...)
I'll post something cooler when I'm in a better mood.

~Laura

Not much to report

Today was basically normal. Really nothing new. Here are some highlights:

• I FINALLY finished my watercolor painting for Drawing class. Bloody thing took me WEEKS of study halls to get done.
• In Premier, I'm sharing a solo with a gal named Tori (not the one from Drama). The irony: I got the solo my friend Cela wanted, and she got the one that I wanted.
• In Drama today, we went over the final light saber battle from "Return of the Jedi". I was apparently not reading the part of Luke dramatically enough, so Kato said "Laura! The fate of the galaxy is in your hands!" My response: "That is so... sad..."
• I decided that, for shits and giggles, I'd change all the names of the contacts in my phone to names of characters from movies, TV shows, books, etc; that I think correspond to them. Thus, the EGE is now Mr. Universe (from the movie "Serenity"), mandachan is Faye (from the webcomic "Questionable Content", highly recommended by the way), and Laurel/Eliz is Haruhi (from the anima/manga "Ouran High School Host Club"). I do not yet have Matt's (from "Fencing Insanity") number, but when I do, he will be either Inigo Montoya or Wesley (both from "The Princess Bride").

And that's everything I have to say for today!

~Laura

Oh, la!

First off, I apologize for not posting yesterday (not that many people care...) but some shit was happening and I was in a bad mood and didn't feel like posting so there!

Anywho.

Today was musically amazing! In addition to some sunshiny weather (even if the temperature is a bit low...), I had Concert Choir today! Which is always fun. We're really coming together on our three pieces that we're performing for our next concert (A benefit concert for the Matt Buriak Scholarship Fund). We're working on "O Whistle and I'll Come to Ye" an old Scottish folksong, "I Want to Be Ready" a Gospel/Spiritual piece, and "Alleluia" which... really can't be described in words (other than "amazing"). But, most exciting of all, we began working on a song that we will sing in both a competition (that I'll talk about later...) and as the finale to the Pops concert in May: "Finale B" from RENT!!! I LOVE RENT! And I LOVE "Finale B" (which is funny cuz I've never heard any "Finale A") It's such an amazing song. I highly suggest listening to it, if not watching all of RENT.

In other musical news, for the drama show, the opening will be a song medley comprised of various John Williams themes ("Indiana Jones", "Jaws", "Jurassic Park", etc.) with lyrics all about Star Wars. (even more than I suggest listening to "Finale B", I suggest listening to this song! It's hilarious! Youtube "John Williams is the Man") As the only soprano in the show, I get a lot of awesomeness in this song! I get to sing the high part of the chorus (The "Indiana Jones" theme), while the other girl, Tori, harmonizes. I also get to vocalize the "E.T" theme while this guy Nate sings some really funny lyrics about Luke Skywalker whining... it's great. I'm really liking the way this is coming together! It's a lot of fun! I'm in the spotlight musically (which almost NEVER happens!), I get to sing quirky songs, and we all sound GREAT together!

Yep, music = happiness.

And that is my word spew for the day!

Musically yours,

~Laura

School, Stress, and Star Wars

Today was... ugh, a Monday.


School was the usual. First block Forensics, in which I acted like a loon because I was operating on less than three hours of sleep (cruelty, thy name is insomnia); then Homeroom, where the exhaustion hit; Concert Choir, lots of fun as always; Algebra, which is slowly sucking out my soul; and finally History, where I fretted and worried about my thesis paper (I don't have the best track record with thesis papers) and attempted to read about JFK without falling asleep.


After school, I had Drama rehearsal, which was, in a word, amazing. Our spring show is a cabaret-style performance consisting of skits, musical numbers, and reading interviews we've collected. The theme: Star Wars. Specifically, "Star Wars changes lives, man!" in the words of my fellow actor Nate (hard to convey his inflections in blog form, but if you hear it... just the way he says it is really funny!). Today we practiced some light saber choreography, and cold read a couple of skits we'll be using (homages to "Clerks" and "Robot Chicken"). Lots of fun. Will probably have a blog post dedicated entirely to it sometime in the future.


Now I'm home... for a little while. Having eaten an entire tupperware container of risotto (Thank you Mommy....), I will be heading off later to an after school a cappella group called Premier. I'm gonna be miserable because rehearsals for Premier tend to drag... and I'm already dead tired. But upon my return, I shall curl up in bed (preferably with some comfort food), watch "House", and get some sleep.


And that is a day in the life of me! Hope it wasn't too boring for you... Oh yeah! And thank you to the wonderful mandachan for sending people over here from her blog! Love you manda!

~Laura