Dog Sees God: A More Emotional Reaction

I went and saw a play tonight called Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead. It's about the Charlie Brown comics, only instead of when they're kids, it's when they're teenagers. And I loved it. The set was adorable (it was very cartoon-y, which I loved), the lighting was GORGEOUS with some really fantastic gobo choices, and I really loved the cloud projections, or maybe they were screens. I'm not quite sure. But either way, I loved that.

But there were things I had problems with. It had nothing to do with the technical side of things, or the acting, or the directing, or anything like that. Actually, I would say that what I disliked about the play actually is a compliment to everyone involved with it. There is a lot of bullying in the play. Specifically bullying towards a gay character. And there is just a lot of intolerance in general, especially towards one of the characters who was over weight. It was really hard for me to watch. Being a person who has experienced a lot of bullying because of my weight in earlier years...I really struggled. Everything just flared up from my high school and younger days. I started to loathe the characters who were doing the bullying, almost like I plastered the faces of my own bullies onto their faces. Which made it a little difficult to want to talk to some of the actors after. Or mostly just one, who I had never seen in anything else. I found I could hardly look at him. I am still really shocked at my reaction. I thought I had gotten past that. That it wasn't a piece of hurt anymore. I guess I was wrong.

Side note: it's kind of ironic that I saw a play about inequality and LGBTQ bullying this month, seems as the HPA's current Horcrux is the bullying Horcrux.

Research

So yesterday I had a group meeting with one of my instructors about a group project we're doing. We had to show him what we had accomplished so far in regards to our project/research and we got marked. Apparently I had more done than pretty much everyone in the class, because he accused me of being a brown nose. :\

I know he was just teasing me, but seriously. I did my shit, I got things done on time, and I'm a brown nose? Pfft.

Maybe it's because I've taken university courses outside of Theatre that included lots of research. Maybe it's because I've done research papers before and knew what I was doing and/or how much time it would take and etc. But I'm not going to just let this thing slide by when it's worth most of our mark. Call me a brown-nose all you want, sir, but what this really is, is me showing my Ravenclaw side.

Vlogging vs Blogging

For quite a while now - I'd probably like to say a few years - I have been struggling with the desire to vlog. I'm not even sure why I want to vlog - putting my face on the internet, talking about silly, trivial things isn't something that most people want to do. I blame John and Hank Green, mostly. I discovered vlogging because of them. And now I'm subscribed to a hell of a lot of people on YouTube, all vloggers, and I suppose I feel like to become part of the community, to meet some of these fantastically fascinating people, I should vlog too.

But every time I tell myself I'm going to start vlogging again, it lasts for only a few weeks. I think that is a sign that vlogging isn't for me. I mean, blogging does basically the same thing, no? Not to mention that it's writing - which I don't get to do creatively nearly as much as I would like - and it's not as time-consuming as vlogging. I'll admit that's probably why my vlogging adventures always fail. It's the time thing. Figuring out what I'm vlogging about, writing down my points, setting up the camera, actually filming, editing, uploading (which takes AGES)....while I could just write some words down, make sure it sounds good and hit "publish" - it takes all of ten minutes.

Which is why I have officially decided that blogging is going to be my main form of communicating my life. I will probably still use my YouTube channel occasionally - for HPA things and special occasions, probably - but I think, at least for now, this is going to be my project.

Anna and the French Kiss [Review] (Spoiler Free)

As soon as I watched John Green's review of Anna and the French Kiss I wanted to read it. Maybe it was because my favourite author was recommending it, or because it was Stephanie Perkins' first novel and I wanted to support a fellow Potter fan, I'm not sure. But I knew nothing about the story. And then I looked up the story, and discovered that it was set in Paris, and had this absolutely gorgeous boy in it. I'll admit though, it didn't sound like anything spectacular. It sounded like another teen romance. But I ordered it anyway, because I still really wanted to read it.

And then I started to read it.

I could not put this book down. I read it in less than 24 hours. I sped through the pages, craving to know more about Anna (who I related to more than Cassia from Matched, oddly enough.), about St. Clair (or should we refer to him as Etienne now?), about Paris, about everything. Anna was basically me, minus the author father and the boarding school. She loves film more than she can really express, she's terrified of the unknown, she and her best friend have some crazy traditions and she adores her family. (Or at least, her brother and mother.) And Etienne...oh my god don't get me started on Etienne. I was as in love with him as every other girl in that book. Gorgeous, English AND French, yet American too, fun to be around. Sigh. Yes please.

I'm not usually one to read strictly romance books. I like romance in books, but not just romance books. Maybe I've been looking at the wrong romance books before this, I don't know, but there is something about this book that just made me fall in love with it. Stephanie Perkins' story, her writing, everything about it was just so fun to read. It is what would happen if John Green and Maureen Johnson collided and somehow made one new person. That is this book.

Matched - Allie Condie [REVIEW] (Spoiler Free)

I have never read anything by Allie Condie before - I'd never even heard of her before I picked up this book at my local bookstore. And I'll be honest, I picked it up because I loved the cover. Even after reading the book jacket, I was like "meh" - the dystopian features intrigued me, but a love story? I don't normally like reading romance books - they're all so predictable. You know, boy meets girl, boy and girl over come some sort of obstacle, boy and girl fall in love, the end. But then I started to read the book; I've started to read the first chapter of a book before I buy it. And before I knew it, I was on Chapter 6. If that wasn't a hint that I needed to read that book, then I'm not sure what it was.

The book itself started off slow, but it wasn't boring. Condie slides the reader very smoothly into Cassia's world, giving little tidbits of what is happening, but just enough so little alarm bells started going off in my head. This was not a good society, not at all, but at the same time, I could see how the human race had gotten to that point. The events of today, plus the little tidbits of history I gleaned from the book fit together to make The Society very well. I actually really liked what Condie did with The Society. I mean, I hated The Society, with their Officials and their pills and their single-path lives, but the entire time I read about them, I wanted to know more. As a writer myself, I was jealous that I hadn't come up with The Society myself.

The characters themselves were all very lovable and believable. I haven't grown attached to any yet, which is a shame - there is no Rue* in this book, I wouldn't cry if any of them died. But Cassia herself is very relatable, I see so much of herself in me; the want to do something good for the world, to make it a better place, her love for her family, not wanting to hurt anyone...I could go on.

Matched was one of those books that I couldn't put down - even if it took a while for it to get really exciting. Once the climax hit, I really couldn't put it down. I read until 2 am to finish it. I think that is as good of sign as any at the quality of book this is. I can't wait for the next installment.

One Year

Today is my one year HPA-versery! I couldn't believe it when I realized that last night. I knew it was coming up, but to actually have been on the staff for one year boggles my mind. It doesn't feel like that long. Not even close. But at the same time, it feels like I've been on staff forever - I can not imagine my life without it. I can't imagine not checking my email religiously, or tweeting for the HPA, or going to meetings, or fangirling with Taekia about Eddplant and the other boys in Sons of Admiral. Or writing to my HPA pen pals. Or sitting through livestreams, tweeting religiously. I can't imagine squee'ing about LeakyCon with my HPA roommates. I wouldn't have gone through my classmates and begged them to sign the Fair Trade petition - Merlin knows, a year ago I wouldn't have had the courage for that.

So I guess what I want to say is thank you. Thank you to Andrew for starting this amazing organization. Thank you to the staff for making it so much fun to volunteer for. Thank you to the DA for making it possible to keep this going. <3