Ups and Downs

Wednesday, 7 December

As I’m sure you’ve gathered from my lack of posting these last couple weeks, things have gotten BUSY here!  Today is one of those wonderful days where I have a big break between rehearsals, so I’m attempting to catch up…  Highlights from the last 15 days:

Work
We finished learning our first show (Villains Tonight) and have run it several times.  Cleaning and polishing continue 😉

Now rehearsing our second show, The Golden Mickeys.  I’m on ensemble track for that, so doing lots of vocals and some choreography.  Understudying Cruella de Vil in this show as well, which is a really fun part!  My friend who is the principal Cruella is quite a good dancer, so u/s’ing her track for the rest of the show is quite a challenge for me… but I’m working very diligently off to the side and after rehearsals, often assisted by one of my incredibly-talented and lovely-in-general dancer friends 🙂

More sword work.  I am almost a convincing pirate now.

After being squeezed into my harness tighter than Scarlett O’Hara into her corset, I got to do some more flying – this time higher and faster!

I reached my 30-day employment mark, got my Disney cast id card, and am now entitled to receiving those discounts I’ve told you about 😉

Play
More fun cast events, including a homey and tasty Thanksgiving potluck, a crazy trivia night, the most hilarious surprise birthday party I’ve ever attended, and kicking off Secret Santa 🙂  Christmas shopping with a friend, spending some time singing with her, too, and planning out duets we want to work on!

Enjoyed quite a bit of practicing for fun – singing through some of my favorite songs, challenging myself vocally, treating those times like voice lessons – I miss my teacher back in San Diego!

First snow of the season – one week ago today!  In spite of my greatly preferring warm weather, it was actually kind of nice – big, wet flakes.  Still doesn’t feel like Christmas, though – partly because I’m not rehearsing Christmas music for the first year in a long time 😉

Read the entire Hunger Games trilogy in about 4 days… (maybe that’s really why I haven’t been blogging – I pretty much rehearsed, read, and occasionally slept those days).  Great series, though!  I’m a little embarrassed to say that I also went to Breaking Dawn part 1 and liked it… cheese and all 😉

Spiritual/Personal Growth
Feeling motivated to be more giving in general and to set goals, so I’ve spent some time recently thinking about what I want for this contract, and life in general.  Who I want to be, what I’d like to achieve – and working on setting some short and long term goals.  Recent services from our San Diego church that I’ve listened to online and our cast Bible study here have reinforced that feeling, so a lot of us have been trying to help our community in small ways – like giving a yogurt to the homeless guy in front of Starbucks on the way to rehearsal.  Just trying to be the best person we can be in general.

One of the projects I’m motivated to do right now is organize music for a retirement home here.  I love doing that – and since I’m surrounded by such talented, like-minded people, I think this will be the perfect way to share our gifts and spread some holiday cheer.  A friend and I visited 2 places this past weekend and are working on organizing it 🙂

A few days last week were tough for me – combination of rehearsals and outside things, like severing those last ties to San Diego – it’s still hard to say goodbye to our home there.  Fortunately the funk has passed, but I’m sharing it because I think it’s important to remember that even when you get your dream, there are still rough times that you’ll have to work through.  For me, it was feeling dull and unimportant – not getting a chance to shine/be praised when other people did.  Sounds silly and selfish, especially if you’re not a performer, but I think it happens to all of us…  Since we’re not rehearsing my solo parts yet, I felt like I wasn’t contributing (and of course, began to feel like maybe they don’t think I’m any good…), but was constantly trying my hardest to do things that I’m not very good at – or that no one saw (understudying scenes).  Long choreography rehearsals for the numbers I’m understudying made me feel overwhelmed and discouraged, which is funny, because I’m actually getting it pretty well – much better than I would have if I hadn’t taken dance all summer/fall.  And the people here are so helpful and positive, and believe I can do it – I just need to believe I can, too!  It’s always stressful for me when I don’t excel at something (thus, my antipathy to sports) – especially if I’m still not great no matter how hard I work – or when it takes me a long time to grasp something that other people are just somehow able to do! 😉  Even if it took them years of training to master it.  I’m not sure what the solution is, but rational thinking and my usual positive outlook on things have returned, and this week is off to a very good start, choreography and all 🙂

Switching gears… in case you’re still reading – and interested – here are some of my first impressions of Toronto that I’m finally getting around to posting:

I’ve never seen so many coffee shops!  In our area, there’s at least one on every corner, often more than one.  Some places even have multiple Starbucks on the same block!  Pleased to report that Tim Horton’s are almost as frequent… and consequently, I’ve had more doughnuts since I’ve been here than I have in probably the last 5 years combined… but at least I’m dancing a lot!

Where are all the dogs?

It’s so expensive!  Average price for cereal: $6.59.  Lots of fun, unusual stores here, but…

People here are very fit – it’s refreshing coming from the US!  Maybe it’s because the food is so expensive? 😉