Chocolate Madness!

21 Apr

For the love of gawd, stop with all the chocolate! Just…Stop!

I don’t do the whole Easter thing but the amount of chocolate I have somehow ended up with is ridiculous! It is all gifted-to-me chocolate and I have done my best to re-gift some of it but I still have a whole bunch of it. And before you say something silly like “why don’t you throw it out? or give it all away” please remember that I am a girl and therefore love chocolate and some things you just don’t throw out, I mean c’mon, what a waste! It’s bad karma to waste food I’m sure of it! lol 😉

Just today I got given an adorable little basket with lots of chocolate eggs in it. It was given as a thank you gift and while she was giving it to me she was apologizing for it being a day late, I loved her reasoning, she said the Easter Bunny got lost and couldn’t find me but he kept trying and voila! he found me today, well, found me via her lol

cute little basket

cute little basket

with chocolate inside, Mmm!

with chocolate inside, Mmm!

There’s actually a lot more chocolate in there then it looks like in the picture and just by looking at it I can feel my ass getting bigger, sigh.

I also have a Lindt chocolate bunny, he’s got a cute little collar with a bell on it. I fully intended to give it away Easter weekend I just didn’t know who to give it to so it is still here, with me, staring at me, judging my willpower against chocolate. Thing is, I can’t eat that, and not because I have some semblance of willpower, it’s too large for me to eat in one sitting but if I eat it’s ears (which seem the most logical spot to start) and then set it aside I am leaving the poor bunny maimed and deaf and that just seems cruel…

awwww, such a cute little bunny rabbit

awwww, such a cute little bunny rabbit

Oh and get this, in some weird twist of logic I don’t want to give the bunny to someone I care about because it’s basically giving someone a present that is super bad for them, I wouldn’t give someone a pack of cigarettes so why would I give them a chocolate bunny that has the potential to make them fatter, increase their BMI and entice them away from a healthy food choice? sigh, pathetic huh? I’m gonna turn in to that lame person that thinks bringing raw veggies without dip is an acceptable potluck snack…oh wait…I already think that, crap… 😛

I also still have the care packages from England that I am making my way through, Mmm! I opened these tonight…

omg sogoodsogoodsogood

omg sogoodsogoodsogood

The bottom is crunchy, like a cookie, then the soft gooey traditional Cadbury Creme Egg centre all surrounded by milk chocolate. Holy hannah! Cadbury is a genius! I usually buy myself one, yes that’s right, One Cadbury Creme Egg for Easter and thoroughly enjoy it. I don’t eat the chocolate though, I open up the top, use a finger to scoop out the yummy gooey centre then throw the chocolate away…one of the super rare times I won’t eat chocolate lol. These don’t give you the option, you kinda have to eat the chocolate but they taste so good I don’t mind. These will not last long, of that I am already certain lol

I have loads more chocolate around here but don’t want to bore you with pictures of all of it lol

On top of all these ticking-chocolate-timebombs I also ate an incredibly large quantity of food yesterday at the Easter brunch my work held, my stomach may never recover, omg all so tasty, all so fattening, all of it in my tummy…or at least that is what it felt like yesterday lol When I make food I plate it not on a dinner plate but on the small plate that comes with your dish set but at the buffet they were using large dinner plates so I had one of those and I, get this, actually covered the entire bottom of the plate with food! Normally you can see a good chunk of my plate when I use the little plate but yesterday I covered the entire bottom of a large plate! How is that even possible?? I didn’t eat all of it but truth be told, the food I didn’t eat was left behind only because I didn’t much care for it, so I can’t really take credit for resisting some of the food on the plate lol Then there was dessert…let’s not go in to details about that k? It’d just be embarrassing. Let’s leave it at there was dessert, I ate it. 😛 What amazed me was how there I was, silently appalled at how much food I had put on my plate but most of the people there had pyramids of food on their plate, towers of food, basically a whole lot more food than I, and they ate it! People *shakes head* we are all gluttons at times lol

So here I am, someone who doesn’t generally do anything for Easter and I over-indulged in a huge meal and am surrounded by Easter themed chocolate. It’s like I crossed over to an alternate dimension…

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by Mary Anne Radmacher

21 Apr

live with intention.

walk to the edge.

listen hard.

practice wellness.

play with abandon.

laugh.

choose with no regret.

continue to learn.

appreciate your friends.

do what you love.

live as if this is all there is.

 

I know nothing about Mary Anne Radmacher except this poem/quote is credited to her, and I love it. 🙂

When I worked at an office downtown that I haaaaated I used a mug that had this quote on it, every time I felt squashed by the cubicle walls and corporate culture (which fyi, was every day!) I would re-read the quote and remind myself the job was temporary, there would one day be an end to the torture and if the fates were with me I would one day make enough money acting I would never be in such a situation again.

I may not be making money at my acting yet but I got away from that company and am working somewhere that isn’t nearly as bad, phew! Escape is a good thing! lol

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Insomnia Much?

20 Apr

I have not been sleeping well at all, ugh. Which is ridiculous cause sleeping is one of the things I do best! Well, after 3am it is lol I have always been a night owl so going to bed prior to 2am is a chancy thing, I will most likely toss and turn wondering why I am wasting time lying in bed when I could be doing countless other things. If I go to bed around 3am odds are decent I’ll fall asleep in a more acceptable length of time. However, going to bed at 3am is not a smart thing to do when you have to be up at 5:30am for work. sigh.

It’s not just last night though, it’s the past week, I just haven’t been sleeping well. Not only do I have a ridiculous time falling asleep, once I am asleep I’m not staying there, I wake up throughout the night and my dreams are weird, and not entertaining weird but disturbing weird…normally I like dreaming, I have vivid dreams that tell a story in a chronological order, it’s like watching tv that my mind makes up, it’s awesome! But not this past week, nope, just weird annoying dreams.

When the alarm goes off and I finally get up I don’t feel rested but I don’t particularly want to go back to sleep cause sleep just ain’t doin nuthin for me lol 😛

insomnia

I’m not really sure how to deal with this, so my approach to the problem has been to try to wear myself out so I will sleep better. Let me just say that so far, it isn’t working. 😦

Yesterday my dragon boat team had a fundraiser, friends and family could pay $10 and come dragon boating with members of the team, get a feel for it, have some fun on the water, see what it is all about. It went great! The team raised money, the people who came out had lots of fun, I invited a friend and her two daughters and they loved it! I am now considered even cooler than I already was in their ranking system, and hey, I didn’t even have to bribe them with chocolate! lol 😉

I thought for sure being up early for that, then putting in a full shift at work would wear me out and I’d have a great sleep last night. Ha-bloody-ha!

That so didn’t happen! *pout*

I was super tired when I got home but could I sleep? Nope. Just lay there, couldn’t get comfy, tossed and turned much to the cats annoyance until I eventually drifted off only to be woken repeatedly through the night by absolutely nothing at all *groan* then the alarm goes off at 5:30am and I didn’t even bother with hitting snooze cause what is the point? I didn’t hit snooze! You probably don’t realize how big of a deal this is but let me explain, snooze and I, we have a complex relationship where snooze promises me ten more minutes of precious sleep so I can finish a dream but not be late for work and in exchange I don’t break the alarm. It may be a mildly threatening relationship where snooze cowers in fear of failing and then being beat, but hey, it works for us. 😉

So now it is a little after 10pm, I am tired but not, I want to go to bed cause I have to be up early tomorrow for work and I want to make sure I am rested enough to go hiking after work buuuuut a big part of me is wondering why even bother going to bed when I know I’ll just lay there, jealous of the cat who instantly falls asleep as soon as his head touches a surface. The brat. 😛

 

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Rest Days

19 Apr

I’m not sure how I feel about rest days. I know for muscle growth you need them, but generally you can have a rest day that isn’t really a rest day. That makes no sense to you I’m betting, what with you not being in my head an all lol

If you are working on building muscle it is easy to have a rest day because you just divvy up what days you work various muscle groups. So, Monday might be arms and shoulders, Tuesday  legs, Wednesday back etc. You are still going daily but you are also giving certain muscle groups a rest.

A year or so ago when I was following an extreme workout regime given to me by a super fit friend I got one rest day a week, my week looked like this:

Day 1 – short cardio, arms and shoulders

Day 2 – cardio, core

Day 3 – short cardio, legs

Day 4 – cardio, core

Day 5 – short cardio, back

Day 6 – cardio, core

Day 7 – rest

I personally feel a rest day needs to be earned, and because I am super hard on myself I feel that until I am at the fitness level I want to be at, and am maintaining, I have not earned a rest day. Doesn’t mean I don’t have days I don’t exercise, but that is due to scheduling or sheer laziness, not because I have it marked down as a rest day lol.

rest day 3

This past Wednesday though I consciously took a rest day. The previous Sunday I went running, did a bunch of squats and some upper body weight work, Monday I went for a hike, Tuesday I had dragon boat practice. The run alone caused me some muscle pain, mostly in my legs, well, most likely the run combined with the squats lol, but whatever the cause, there was muscle pain. The hike on the Monday was not planned, I was supposed to be doing something else but it ended up as a hike (on a new trail, yay!) but that did nothing for my muscle pain, especially when I wasn’t content to just hike so I did interval work while hiking. By that I mean whenever there was a flat section I would either stop and do squats, change from walking to doing walking lunges, plank, do some push-ups or do calf presses (standing ones, I would find a curb or log to balance on). During the course of the hike I did each of those exercises three times, each time a set of 12, it made me feel the hike was a better workout for the inclusion of the extra work.

But yeah, so by Tuesday my legs were kinda pissed at me lol and the run I was going to take before practice did not happen. By the time Wednesday came around all I could think was my legs would never forgive me if I went running or hiking that day so I did nothing exercise-y. I did some house work but not enough I feel it can be counted as exercise lol

Thing is, while I am not adverse to building muscle, when I think about building muscle I think of my back, shoulders and arms, mostly because that is where I need it for dragon boating. I don’t really think of my legs, which means I don’t generally give them a day off. The days I decide to not go running or hiking are usually days my knee is acting up, so I give the knee a break but that break is in no way meant as a rest day for my leg muscles, shrug.

I count my runs and my hikes as cardio, and I’m sorry but who gets a rest day from cardio? Nobody!…Least, I don’t think we are supposed to, are we?  But this past week made me realize that I am dummy and sure I am getting cardio when I go hiking or running but I am also building strength in my legs which means I am working the muscles, doh! Sooooo now I am wondering if I should be spacing my runs and hikes so I don’t do them every day, or at least consecutive days because I need to give the leg muscles a rest between workouts…

Why oh why do there have to be so many questions when it comes to working out?? sigh.

I think for now I’ll just follow what my body says, if the legs are hurting to the point the hike won’t feel good but will just be painful I won’t hike, but if I think the hike will stretch the muscles out and make them feel good well, bring it on! lol 😉

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Stir Fry Sunday: Mediocre Is The Best Praise I Can Give

13 Apr

Hey look at me, making stir fry on a Sunday again! Sadly, it wasn’t that great of a stir fry, but they can’t all be, right?

it doesn't even look good, sigh.

it doesn’t even look good, sigh.

I used vermicelli noodles, topped with a sweet and sour sauce. The veggies are Europe’s Best brand, the Zen Garden mixture (that is code for veggies commonly found in stir fry lol), they were heated in a pan with a stir fry sauce. Then on top of that was half a honey garlic glazed chicken breast and half an avocado (cubed).

The best I can say about it is it was mediocre. Definitely not my best! I wasn’t all that hungry though so there is the possibility that I was all “meh” about it cause I would have been perfectly content not eating anything. I made enough for two meals, the other portion is patiently sitting in my fridge, waiting for tomorrow to come when I will once again eat it for dinner…let’s hope it tastes better warmed up! *crosses fingers*

The reason I made stir fry was because after work I actually had enough energy to workout (shocking I know!) and I figured my body would want dinner since it had been forced to be active, apparently I was wrong. But hey, whatcha gonna do? I already had it made so not like I was just gonna ignore it.

Sundays and Mondays are my chill work out days. If I manage even a walk around the neighbourhood I am happy. I start work at 7am which means I am up at 5:30am and since I’m a night owl and don’t sleep well prior to 3am I usually accomplish those two days on roughly 3 hours of sleep each. Sucky.

Today I was determined to exercise after work so I took my workout gear with me, the plan was to change at work and go for a run in the neighbourhood I work in. I find the drive home lulls me in to a state of “I need a nap” so well that no matter how determined I am to workout once home, it just never happens. The solution seemed to be to avoid that situation completely. Well, let’s just say I’m not always a genius lol I forgot to take my pants…yup, that’s right, I had changed my upper half and went digging through the bag for my yoga pants and hmm, nothing there…oops! I thought I would get home and say screw it, it’s a sign I shouldn’t workout but instead I lectured myself, saying I was half dressed to workout so I might as well finish changing and go, and I did! Yay! 🙂

It was a fairly pathetic workout, I ran (well, jogged/walked) for a little over 5km, then did a bunch of squats, then did some upper body weight work with a set of dumbbells I have, then stretched, then declared it time to hop in the shower. 🙂

I know it’s not a great workout but like I said, on Sundays I am happy if I manage to go for a walk and this was better than a walk! You know that quote about how it doesn’t matter how slow you run you are still going faster than the person on the couch? I hate that quote, making yourself feel better by thinking poorly about some faceless person, not cool. So I changed it, I kept reminding myself while I was running that I may be slow but I’m faster than the lazy me who goes home after work and naps, and that should count for something, right?

On a junk food sidenote, I have received two care packaged lately, one from my mom and one from my uncle, both filled with junk food from England. Man-oh-man! My tastebuds are sooooo happy! My waistline? Not so much…This evening I snacked on something called Fruit Salad & Black Jack. Don’t let the name fool you, there is no fruit lol They have the texture of a Starburst, which I love! but the flavour is, hmm, not my favourite. There are black licorice pieces which I thought would be great, I love licorice, but it tastes like licorice combined with fruit and one piece leaves my tongue numb, ick. The other pieces taste fruity, I couldn’t narrow that down to a specific fruit flavour if there was a gun to my head, just a generic fruit flavour, those pieces I kinda like. I’ll be done the bag freakishly fast since I’m only eating the fruit pieces and the bag is mostly licorice pieces, I’m trying to look at that as a good thing, saved calories ya know? 😛 lol

2014-04-13 21.23.02

I will be bombarding you with English candy updates as I graze my way through the two care packages. I would love to be able to say it will take me ages to eat it all but English junk food is way better than Canadian (I’m sorry! I know that is non-patriotic but I love the food from across the pond! Please don’t kick me out of Canada! lol) and it won’t take me all that long to decimate  what has been sent to me. Guess I’ll have to push the workouts up to the next level or I’ll be doomed! DoooOOOOoooomed! Too dramatic? Nah, I didn’t think so either! 😛 lol

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No More Back Up Plan

11 Apr

You may recall a short while ago I blogged about thinking about going back to University, specifically, going to Law School. I was torn between being a grown up, sucking it up, and just going already and following my dreams and staying with the acting. I had almost convinced myself that I would start studying for the LSATs and take the necessary steps to apply.  I would be a good lawyer, shrug, and I’m sure I would find it entertaining and challenging but it’s not acting. Nothing will ever be as good an option as acting. However, acting doesn’t pay very well unless you make it to the top and I’m sick and tired of being poor.

Turns out I don’t get to make the decision about going back to school, the government has chosen for me.

For those not in Canada let me explain how student loans work here. You apply, hopefully you get money, you go to school. Once you have been done school for a certain amount of time (6 months or a year, I can’t remember which) you are supposed to start paying back your student loans. However, if you are poor, which most recent graduates are, and not making a lot of money you can apply for Repayment Assistance. You send in a form, the people that manage the paying back of government student loans look at the form and decide if you are so poor you don’t have to make monthly payments.

I have always been that poor. 😦

When you qualify for Repayment Assistance the government pays the interest on your loan and you don’t have to make any payments, or you might have to make payments but small ones that are calculated based on what you earn.

Like I said, since graduation I have always been poor enough that I haven’t had to make monthly payments.

Well, the student loan people in all their “wisdom” have decided that I can now somehow magically afford to make monthly payments on my student loan. Uh, what?? I go a good 3 out of 4 weeks every month unable to buy groceries and only survive food wise because I work somewhere that has a kitchen and the chefs will feed me. I literally live paycheque to paycheque and now I have to find an extra $90 a month to give the student loan people??

student loans

Who does the math over there?? Do they not realize I live in a ridiculously expensive city? That I live on my own and therefore have to rely on my paycheque to pay for everything, no spouse/partner to help me out? That I have car payments? That I have other bills that I struggle to pay? Do they not realize that a person, no matter how little money they make, still needs to have enough left over every month so they can buy something fun otherwise they will go a little nuts?

The thing is, they know everything about me due to the nature of the organization. They have all kinds of info about me because of lending me money for school. They know what I earn, what my expenses are, where I live, the cost of living here, that I am human and sometimes need to buy something fun, they just don’t care.

They were more than willing to loan me money when I was younger, and stupider, and didn’t really grasp how hard life would be when I was done school, living on my own and trying to make ends meet and now that I am older, hopefully a bit wiser, and in the stage of life where I should be paying them back but can’t afford to, they don’t care.

They want their cut, just like everyone else and screw my need for groceries, rent, or anything else my money strains to pay for now.

As if that wasn’t mean enough the letter I got from them today telling me how much my monthly payments are also says:

“you are now restricted from future student financial assistance benefits, in the form of new student loans and grants should you decide to return to school in the future”

Huh.

So, even if I was the most gung-ho person ever with regards to going back to school it wouldn’t matter, cause I can’t afford it, they won’t give me money for it, and even if I somehow found a way to earn extra money I wouldn’t be allowed to save it up because they would increase how much I have to pay them every month.

While I can see the logic of not continuously loaning money out to people who can’t pay it back I can’t help but feel the system is flawed. I went to University, did well, decided to pursue an acting career, haven’t made money at it (yet!) and am now thinking about going to Law School. I’m pretty sure the argument can be made that lawyers will always be needed and it is a slightly more secure career path than acting, so you’d think they’d be ok with helping someone go to school so they can then earn a higher income which would enable them to not only be a more financially contributing member of society but also pay back their student loans.

But since the world isn’t run using my logic I must follow the rules they have set out, flawed as they are, which means no possibility of law school for me.

Good bye back up plan *waves somberly at UBC Law Department* guess I won’t be seeing you soon.

student loan meme

Sidenote: I am well aware not being able to pay back a student loan is a “first world problem” and I don’t mean to come off as a whiny, spoiled brat, I’m just frustrated with the student loan system. you can’t get a well paying job without a University education, you can’t get a University education without student loans, tuition keeps getting hiked up which means loan amounts keep getting hiked up but once you graduate the promised well paying jobs are not there and so you are shackled with a huge amount of debt, with a high interest rate, and a low paying job. All because you followed the rules that said going to University was the way to succeed. *rolls eyes*

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New PFD

3 Apr

You know that excited feeling you have when you get something new that you’ve wanted for a long time? That happy-dance-big-smile-want-to-tell-everyone feeling?

That was me today! 😀

I finally got my very own PFD!

Thanks to my awesome awesome brother who gave me a SportChek/Atmoshphere gift card for Christmas I am now the proud owner of a PFD.

I waited this long to buy it because I had to wait for the store to stock them again, stupid winter sports taking over the store lol I was that annoying person who called every week, sometimes more than once a week, asking if they got the new stock of PFDs in yet. I almost got to stalker level…if a person could stalk a PFD that is… 😛

Want to see it? Well of course you do! lol

It's miiiiiiine!

It’s miiiiiiine!

It is Salus brand, made in Canada and all black – as you can see. 🙂 I specifically wanted an all black PFD because (1) I hate all the colours most PFDs are and (2) this way it doesn’t matter what colour my team jersey is I won’t clash. Hey now, don’t judge cause I think of these things lol Oh, and (3) I always prefer black. 🙂

I wore it for practice tonight and it got fully drenched by the pouring rain, I’d say that means it is officially broken in lol It was comfy, it didn’t get in the way of my stroke technique and I’m sure if I’d fallen out of the boat it would have kept me afloat so yay for it passing it’s first test! 🙂

Oh, and a little happy sidenote, I exercised twice today, twice! I went for an hour and a half walk with a friend early afternoon. I forgot to turn on my Runtastic App so I’m not sure how far we walked but we kept a steady decently fast pace, no meandering! I’d guess around 5km, maybe more, which is ok. Then of course the dragon boat practice which was two hours of technique work and cardio.

All in all, it was a good day. 🙂

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So Far So Good

2 Apr

Last month I tried this thing, I wrote on a calendar I have hanging on my bedroom wall every time I exercised and I highlighted it in pink. This way, I could see at a quick glance how much or how little I was exercising. I wasn’t going to push to exercise more than normal, I just wanted to see where, in my normal routine I drop the ball.

2014-03-31 19.02.14

Uh, wow, I dropped the ball a lot! If you count the pink on that calendar page I only exercised 10 times. 10 times out of 31 days, uhhh…what?? Talk about being a lazy butt and having proof of it! 😦

I am guaranteed two times a week because of dragon boat practice but I’ve got to stop slacking the other days! The easiest day to exercise, besides my dragon boat days, is Wednesday because it is a day off. Fridays through Mondays are where I suck. Those are my work days. If I don’t get my exercise in before I go to work Fridays and Saturdays I won’t get it done because of how late I get home. Sundays and Mondays I am usually so tired after working the morning shift I do nothing but crash.

But, like I said, things have to change.

So, I changed them. 🙂

This past Monday we had beautiful weather, sunny, warm but not hot, the cherry blossom trees are in bloom, a perfect spring day. I left work late but was determined when I got home I’d go out and at least walk, enjoy some of that sunshine. I ran in to my landlords when I was leaving the house and asked if their dog might want to come with me, they said yes so I had a super friendly golden lab with me. I didn’t care where we went so we followed her nose. Lemme tell ya, her nose took us on a weird, convoluted route.

the route the dog chose

the route the dog chose

I had planned on only walking, normally I get down on myself if I walk more than run but I was tired and my goal was to get some sort of exercise even if it wasn’t as intense as I would like. The dog however had other plans, lol. She wanted to run and who am I to say no to big cute doggy eyes? I am not that strong! 😉 So, it was a jog/walk. The green parts on the map are where we walked, the yellow was a jog, the tiny little orange section was more of a run, you can see that didn’t last long lol In total we went 5.45 km in 1:02:33.

Then Tuesday I had dragon boat practice so two hours of exercise there, yay! I usually (read that as Always!) sit left side of the boat but we were short people who sit on the right at practice so I ended up sitting on the right side. It was…odd…My body is used to sitting left so it was a tad more painful than normal but not bad painful, just, the other side of my body was getting worked more than it is used to, so muscle pain. Actually, I’m still feeling it today. *groan* poor muscles! lol

Today I went for my first hike of the season. I am soooo glad it is hiking season again, I didn’t realize just how much I missed it till I was out there, on a trail, in the wilderness, away from everything. Well, almost everything, I was with a friend lol We went slower than I would have if I went alone but the point is that we went…right? I used my Runtastic App to track the hike, like I did above with the dog walk, but my phone battery was low and it died while we were still on the trail so I don’t have full data on the hike. I plan on redoing that hike so I can get accurate distance and time it took. The app recorded a distance of 8.12 km in 1:36:06 which sounds horrible buuuuut please take in to account we were on the side of a mountain, on trails, going slower than my normal pace. Take a look at the picture below, you’ll see where it stopped tracking (where the red dot is)

the hike up the mountain and back

the hike up the mountain and back

The numbers on the trail are the app marking the km’s so we went up 5km then turned around and started back down, using my oh-so-non-impressive math skills I’m thinking that means we did 10km. Pretty snazzy math that! 😉 The red dot just past the number 8 is where the phone died but obviously I am not still on the mountain and I made it down and if I went up 5km then I had to come down 5km so yay for 10km! Unfortunately I didn’t notice what time the phone died at, and I didn’t take note of what time we started the hike or what time it was when we got in to the suv at the end of the hike so there goes any hope of my figuring out the math for how long we were hiking. Hence my needing to do the hike again, to get accurate numbers.  I don’t mind doing it again though, it is a really nice easy hike, a good one to start the season with. 🙂 I try to ease in to hiking season cause it can be brutal on my knee, sigh, this will definitely be a go-to-trail when I want easy, meant to relax me hiking, not intense-push-to-the-limit hiking.

So let’s tally things shall we? We are three days in to the week and I have exercised three times, booyah! I know I’ll be exercising tomorrow so that’s in the bag. My big challenge will be Fridays and Saturdays, for some reason doing some form of exercise before work on those days always seems so impossible. I don’t know why I can’t make it happen! I irritate myself with this failing weekly. Maybe this week I’ll manage it, after four days of being active maybe I’ll be so used to getting some sort of exercise it’ll be easier to get out of bed and head to the gym…maybe?

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Awesome Sunday

1 Apr

Why can’t every day be like this past Sunday? Seriously, it was so much fun! Well…for me, others might not be that impressed with it lol 😛

It started off with something that wasn’t funny at the time but now is so sit back and enjoy a story that clearly shows you juuuuust how dumb I can be! 😉

cant brain today

I didn’t have to work on Sunday, I had booked the day off so I could attend an Acting Workshop. The class didn’t start till 11am which meant I didn’t have to be up until 8:30am which is sooooo lovely compared to my normal wake-up time of 5:20am on a Sunday cause of working at 7am. Ugh.

Anyways!

So I get to sleep in which right there is a great improvement to the day lol I set the alarm for 8:30am the night before and blissfully drift off to sleep. Cue the morning when the alarm goes off. I couldn’t believe how tired I felt considering I got 6 hours of  sleep but oh well, I roll out of bed, stumble my way to the shower and attempt to wake myself up while not drowning under the water spray. Next comes uber careful make-up application. More careful than normal since I am about to spend the day in front of a camera and I want to look good lol. After the make-up is complete I head towards the bedroom for hair and clothing. On the way I check the clock on the microwave to make sure I’m not running late and the time says, brace yourself!…6:22am. Um, what? That can’t be right, I didn’t get up till 8:30am. So I check the time on the stove clock, 6:22am. I start to get suspicious, they can’t both be wrong, can they? So I then go and check the one clock I know will never lie to me, my phone. Whaddya know, it says 6:23am.

What?!?! What is going on?? I check the alarm and there it is, my alarm is set for 8:30am so how in bloody hell did I end up with an alarm going off at 5:20am?

Turns out that while yes, I did set an alarm for 8:30am I forgot to turn off my alarm for 5:20am. Ooops! I was so tired when the 5:20am alarm went off, what with that being my approx 3 hours asleep mark I didn’t look at the clock, I just got up and started to get ready. I jipped myself our of 3 hours of sleep! *groan*

I did what any sensible person would do, I dried my hair, put my pajamas back on, crawled in to bed, spread my hair above my head on the pillow so I wouldn’t dent it while sleeping (just go with it, it’s a long-haired person thing), sternly lectured myself about not rolling over and ruining my make-up, and went back to sleep. Ahhh sleep! Since I was more than half ready for the day I got to sleep till 9am, wOOt!

*rolls eyes at self* I couldn’t believe I did that! Well, actually, yeah, I can lol but still!

What could have been taken as a bad omen for the day totally wasn’t, phew! My day was awesome – hence the title of this post lol 😛

The workshop was amazing!! As in completely, utterly, I wish I could do that everyday, amazing! The two ladies that ran it are Casting Directors so the workshop was half about getting to work on acting stuff and half about networking. Sometimes I suck at networking, I get stupidly shy at the worst moments and as a result come across as an idiot, or a bitch, or people thinking that I think I am better than everyone when that isn’t the case at all. It’s just that I’m a bit of an introvert and am socially awkward. I work really hard at being human when being social, I’d usually much rather be watching, not participating. But sometimes you just can’t do that, ya gotta participate. And I have to say, I did a damn fine job of it this time. The ladies were great, I made them laugh, they seemed to like me, they seemed to really like my acting. It was all kinds of perfect. 🙂

The hope is that now that they have seen me on camera, worked with me, met and hopefully liked me, next time my agent submits me for a project they are casting they will be all “oh hey, it’s H! we like her, let’s bring her in!” See how that works? Networking!

I was going to go for a run in the are afterwards but it was raining and I forgot about one important thing. Hunger. I often forget I am going to have to eat throughout the day, I really wish I didn’t since it takes up so much time, sigh. I drove home, made a delish wrap (I put honey glazed chicken, Mediterranean and stir-fry veggies in it, oh and I spread two triangles of Jalapeno Laughing Cow Cheese on the wrap), called and chatted with the parents for a while, attempted to digest what turned out to be way too big of a wrap (I put way too many veggies in there, so good but omg my poor tummy lol). Then I basically chilled with the cat before I went out in the evening.

I loved Sunday. Not because I got to sleep in – sorta. Not because I got to not be at work – though that was nice. Not because I had an interesting start to the day which gave me a funny story to share – that’s a bit of a bonus. But because for a chunk of my day I got to be an actor. I got to play. I got to be in front of the camera, working on scenes, some improv, some scripted. I got to meet two amazing casting directors who gave me great feedback, constructive criticism, and who provided an open and safe environment to act in. I got to hang with other actors and talk about the industry. I got to feel like I was being pro-active towards my acting career. I got to feel alive. *happy sigh*

I wish everyday could be like Sunday. 😀

happy

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Does Growing Up Mean You Have To Give Up?

29 Mar

Do you know what you were meant to be?

Some people believe there are destined career paths for all of us and it is just a matter of knowing yourself and knowing what that career path is. Sort of like your career soul mate.

I’ve known what I’ve wanted to be before I understood it was a career. We didn’t watch a lot of tv when I was growing up, mostly what was on the tv was news, hockey, once every four years the Olympics, oh and Saturday morning cartoons lol. Basically, the shows that had real people in them were things that actually really did have real people being themselves (like news anchors).

When I got a bit older and started watching things that weren’t cartoons I wanted to be so many different things because I thought the characters I saw on tv were real people. If I saw a show and there was a cop character I really liked I wanted to be a cop. Hell, when I watched Free Willy I was torn between wanting to be a runaway kid and a marine biologist lol I actually spent a chunk of time learning about dolphins and whales, pestering the trainers at the dolphin exhibit in the mall with all sorts of questions about the health and habits of dolphins because I wanted to know everything about them. I thought by being a marine biologist that would make me like the character in the movie. Oh my twisted logic! 😛

Growing up I wanted to be a lot of things because of this misunderstanding about the people on tv and in movies. Sure, kids want to be lots of different things as they grow up but all the careers I chose were because I wanted to be that person on tv, not because of the career itself.

As I got older I started learning more about Hollywood and tv filming etc and I was hit smack dab with the realization I was screwed. Hollywood is in LA, I can’t work in LA, I’m Canadian. I’m not going to be randomly spotted by a scout, or have an easy time figuring out how to get an agent cause not only am I in Canada, I am in the freakin prairies! Nothing film-wise happens there! I shoved down my desire to be an actress because it seemed impractical (I come from a very practical family) and more than that, it seemed impossible. I didn’t tell anyone what I wanted to be because I feared their responses, so I kept my wanting-to-act a secret and just daydreamed about it. Those daydreams were half torment (constantly thinking about something you are convinced you can’t have sucks) and my only escape from the life path I seemed stuck on.

growing up sucks

Then I learned about film school. I was close to finishing my Bachelor of Arts Degree and getting more and more depressed thinking about how when I finished my bachelors I was going to go write LSATS and go to law school and while I’d be making everyone in my family happy I’d be quietly miserable. It was either that or get my Masters in Sociology which was more tolerable of an idea but less likely to get me a career when I was done so what was the point? A friend showed me a pamphlet about the film school he was going to for Digital Game Design, as I was flipping through it I saw they had an Acting Department. I was floored. You can go to school to learn how to act in Canada? How did I not know this?? Probably because I was so busy trying to hide from myself just how desperately I wanted to act. I asked if I could keep the pamphlet and tucked it in my bag. I carried it around with me for days, pulling it out, re-reading it like it was some forbidden text. I checked the school out online and it opened something in me. The box I had stuffed my dream in to opened a crack and I experienced a little bit of hope that just maybe I could have a chance to follow my dream. I applied for Acting School on the sly, didn’t tell anyone, I figured if they didn’t accept me no one had to know and if they did well, I’d deal with that if it happened.

It totally happened. They got my submission package, it included two self-taped monologues, and I got immediate acceptance. They actually apologized for taking a day and a half to contact me but they had to wait for one more person to view the monologues before officially accepting me even though everyone who had watched my tape said yes to taking me in. It seemed unreal. I was so excited I wanted to get up and dance lol

So here I am, years later, living in BC, still trying to earn a living at acting. I had the unfortunate luck of getting a string of not-great agents (one literally disappeared!), and having day jobs that barely pay the bills meaning all the investments I as an actor am supposed to make to be viable in the industry very rarely get made (new headshots on a frequent basis, demo reels, appropriate wardrobe, continued acting classes/workshops and more). Acting is one of those things you have to invest a lot of money in to before you’ll get anything out of it and I never have the money, I’m impressed if I can pay my rent, bills and buy groceries all in one month! lol

A friend of mine lately has been on my case about going back to school, she says I am wasting my brain at my day job (which yeah, ok, I am) and she feels I should give up on acting and get a responsible career. sigh. She’s not the only one, I know my parents would love it if I’d quit with the acting and do something that was more sensible. And yeah, I’ve been poor a long time, and some days I think I’m done with it and can give up my dream if it means I can have a larger, steady paycheque that allows to me to pay my bills, get out of debt and maybe even save a little but when I really sit down and think about it I cringe. Not about the money part, of course I want more money, but the giving up on my dream part.

Acting is…it is my thing. It is what I was meant to do. Nothing else makes me feel the way acting does, whether it is working on a scene, being in front of a camera, plotting my rise to fame with my agent. Just the idea of giving up, of no longer trying makes me sad. But I know I have to grow up at some point, and maybe I am at that point. Maybe I can’t wait for a time where I don’t feel despondent about quitting acting, maybe that will never happen, maybe I just have to push all my dreams back in to a dark corner in my heart and forget about them, squish them down and become like everybody else, doing a job I don’t love but that pays the bills with a little left over.

With that in mind I have an appointment this coming week for a tour of the Law Department at UBC. If I’m gonna go back might as well go back to the original responsible plan right? I had convinced myself I was ok with this tour, that it would be interesting and maybe I was up for a change until I got an email from the University I got my Bachelors from. It was an email with highlights of what people have been doing and one of the highlights was about a play being put on by students there, my first thought was if I go to Law school I’ll never have the chance to perform again, I’ll be giving all that up, and my heart hurt a bit. Why does growing up and making grown up decisions have to include the death of my dream and involve my giving up on what I want?

Growing up sucks.

were adults

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