Word Choice

This quarter in school I am taking Composition 101. Most people aren't to fond of Comp (including most of the people in my class). It involves a lot of writing, including essays. I, however, absolutely love it. Writing has always been a passion of mine (I mean come on, I have a blog), and even the essays don't bother me, because I find them very easy to do.

In class this week we had an exercise to help us use more varying word choice. I myself just like using fancy words, so this was exciting for me. I have also been in a poetic mood lately, so most of my writing has been reflecting that. Our first assignment was to write a 6 sentence paragraph, but you were not allowed to repeat any word (this includes I, the, a, etc). Also, it had to make at least some sort of sense. Mine is as follows.


Six sentences stumble though our minds. Confusion lingers over the task at hand. Quiet students jot down phrases. Pencils touching paper echos off dim, yellow walls. Patience runs thin. Words draw near as ends meet.

The second assignment we did was far more difficult. We were to write a 4 to 6 sentence paragraph. The problem, however, is that we were giving a list of the 100 most used words (link to the list here), and while we could repeat words, we could not use any on the list.

Joseph sells inspiration. Bushels, towers, ideas galore. Thoughts overflowing stacks lining walls. Writers block attacking creativity. Thus inspiration withers, crumbling beneath heavy loads.

I found both exercises very fun, and a great way to play around with word choice. Feel free to try either (or both) of these out, and let me know what you come up with in the comments!

Goals

When I was little, I never made goals, I never even thought of them. I’m not even sure if I knew what goals were. Over time, school taught me (or attempted to), that I should make goals, telling me how important they were. I always found this part of the class to be utterly stupid. I would always write some bullshit answer about getting good grades (which, by the way, I did get. You can even ask my mom.)

Now that I am growing into adulthood (I know Mom, I’ll always be your little girl), I find that goals have become a necessary part of my life. I have to get through college to get me degree, so that I can start a career. I have to budget my money to save up to my goal of eventually moving. The more that I think about it, the more that I realize that by achieving these goals, I simply create another goal to do something greater. It seems as though the rest of my life is an eternal process of making goals so that I can go on to make more goals. It makes me wonder what is the point, what is the final goal to end all goals?

This could go two ways really. One way to think about it is that life is a constant, overwhelming struggle. However, you can flip that and consider it a good thing, because you always have something to look forward to, a reason to keep going. I’m not really sure which is the proper way to think of it, or if both are true and right.

But all of this leads me to another, more important question: Is life about the end, or the journey to get to the end. Everything that I know makes me believe that all of the experiences in this thing called life are far more important than the achievement of any final goal.

Rant Blog

I hate group projects. No, I loath group projects (loath is a stronger word than hate, right?) The main contributing factor to said extreme negative emotions is that many people are unreliable. So, if you get stuck in a group with someone (or worse multiple people) who is unreliable, you're pretty much screwed. It is inevitable that that person will not pull their weight, and you'll have to stress out and pick up their slack. Frankly, I hate doing other people's work for them. I also don't like being taken advantage of. Its completely ridiculous that an entire group should look bad because one person is a selfish prick. So, pretty much the point of this post is for me to rant a bit and say to all people doing group projects : Don't be an asshole.

Really? You know who I am?

I always feel weird when people who I don't think know me come up to me and say hi, especially if they address me by name. I get a funny feeling that that sentence doesn't make much sense to most people, so let me explain. Being involved in theatre, and now improv, I know a lot of people I don't actually know. This could be actors from plays, people in other improv troupes, or even just friends of friends. To say the least, I recognize a lot of people in the community that I am no actually acquainted with. Being myself, I automatically assume that people don't know who I am, especially people that I think are really good at what they do (although, I think most people are better at things than me, so this applies to most people.) So when one of the aforementioned people comes up to me and greets me by name, I'm usually thrown off.

For example, last week I was at an improv show (as an audience member) and at the intermission someone came up and started talking to me, asking how I was, etc. This person was the director of a show I had auditioned for. It would be normal if I had actually made it into the show, or saw this person frequently, but I did not even make it past the first audition. I think I had perhaps seen this person twice in the past 3 months, and that was in a large group of people. It seemed very unlikely for him to remember me, considering how brief our interactions had been. But, come intermission, he walks right up to me and says something along the lines of "Hey Melissa, how have you been?"

I'm still getting adjusted to people recognizing me. Having people come up to me and say things like "Oh, I saw you perform a while back, you were really funny." seems so strange to me. The fact that people enjoy scenes I do enough to commit me to memory fascinates and confuses me. I've come a long way, but I'm still the awkward shy person I've always been at heart.

Random Tuesday Sept 14, 2010

1. Its my first day to college today. I'm only taking 3 classes, and only one a day, but I'm still super excited. (a bit nervous too, I've been out of school for over a year.)

2. While baking cookie today, I managed to give myself a nice little burn. It's rather annoying, but on the plus side, its on my middle finger, so I have an excuse to innocently flip people off.



3. I'm more than halfway through the third book in the Artemis Fowl series now. I've been reading so much lately. (Three books in one week is VERY strange for me.)

4. I can't think of much to say in this particular post, so here is a video of me telling my friend Mark that I hate him. (Mark, I don't actually hate you, I just hate your giant light when its in my eyes.)

Random Tuesday Sept 7, 2010

1. I randomly decided to start re-reading the Artemis Fowl series. I'm almost done with the first book. I first read Artemis Fowl when I was in 6th grade. After all of these years, I still love them.

2. I made another t-shirt design this week, and I plan on making more in the next few days. You can find all of my recent designs at my shop.

3. I've been completely addicted to a site called we heart it lately. A lot of it is stupid girl stuff, but every once in a while I'll run across something really cute or meaningful.

4. Its starting to cool down a bit in Vegas, but I want it to get colder faster so that I can start wearing long sleeves again.

5. Insomnia is a bitch.

6. I love tea so much I might be secretly British.

Random Tuesday Aug 31, 2010

So, I haven't posted a blog in a week. I know, I know, I'm horrible. I figure I'll try to get back into the swing of things by doing another Random Tuesday.

1. I've been really stressed out lately. It's made me lose a lot of motivation, but is the complete opposite of what I need right now.

2. I really hate getting in trouble for other peoples' incompetence.

3. I'm 19, I own a teddy bear, and I sleep with it every night. I'm no ashamed of this, in fact I think its kind of cool. For those of you wondering, my bear's name is Andrew.

4. I have a list in my head of all of the things I would do if I were to win a large sum of money. The top few things on my list are open a high yield savings account, buy a macbook pro, and visit my mom.

5. This may be a bit repetitive from previous entries, but improv is my favorite form of therapy.

6. I started designing t-shirts. I have a few simple designs online at spreadshirt. I plan on making more soon, when I have the ambition.




7. This picture is amazing.

Chocolate-y Goodness

There is something about a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream (maybe even some sprinkles) that I have always found comforting. I think that warm drinks are inherently nice, but there is something about a big ol' cup of cocoa that really hits the spot.

When I was little, growing up in Alaska, after a long day of playing in the snow with my older brother, my mom would make us both hot cocoa. Nothing can compare to the feeling of being really cold on the outside, but have the hot cocoa warm you up on the inside (its kind of like a warm and fuzzy feeling, more warm and less fuzzy.) Then Mom and I would sit by the window and watch the snow fall in big, white flakes.

*As a side note, I would just like to say that playing in the snow with my older brother totally sucked. He never followed the rules (not that we really had any) and he would always be mean and throw snow balls at me, or white wash me so I would run in the house crying. Older brothers can be such jerks growing up. I'm glad he's nice now.

Anyway, back to hot chocolate. Another instance that I can recall of chocolate-y goodness bringing me joy was when I was having a rather crappy day. Though, this bit of comfort might have been more due to who I got the cocoa from than the drink itself. So, crappy day, and I decided to go to a local coffee shop (Kaladi Brothers, if anyone was wondering.) Either it was very obvious I was down in the dumps, or this guy was a psychic. I ordered my hot chocolate with whipped cream.

"Would you like sprinkles on that? They're rainbow."

Did he even have to ask? Up to this point, I didn't know that Kaladi's even had sprinkles. To say the least, I was excited (I fucking love sprinkles.) So, while making my drink, he chatted with me (and yes, we talked about nerdy stuff, because we're cool like that.) Then, he gave me my drink, topped with a mountain of whipped cream, adorned with rainbow sprinkles. It was amazing.

So, now I am sitting in a restaurant, after a particularly frustrating day at work, writing, and getting ready to go out to karaoke with a friend. By my side is a mostly consumed cup of delicious hot chocolate. Life seems just a little bit sweeter right now.

Connections

So, my friends over at TinyChatterings have spent this week talking about passions. A trend I have noticed, is that almost all of them talk about friends, or people, or just connections in general. I think this is a very interesting topic in this day and age.

The story used to go that you only knew people you were around in day to day life. Be that people from school, people from work, people in your town or city, or family. It was a small inner circle, and that was pretty much it. Now, this is not the case at all. Not only has it become easier to keep in contact with people who at one point were part of that local inner circle, but we now have the ability to make close connections with people in different cities, different states, different countries, even different continents. Of course, there is a bit of trouble with this, with internet criminals and all, but we're getting to the point where it is much easier to weed out those of a less honest nature, and make true friendships with people who may be halfway around the world.

Frankly, I think its fucking awesome (pardon my obscene English. That's right, I don't say pardon my French. Honesty people, honesty.)

I absolutely love the fact that I can find people who are passionate about the same things I am, that understand my weird hobbies, and can love me for it. As a nerd, close friendships in a limited local circle is not the easiest thing to come by, much less ones that involve very specific hobbies. Growing up, I was never really a social butterfly, because I didn't really feel like I fit in. I think this is the case with a a lot of people (come on nerds, you can admit it.)

But this isn't the case with the internet. How else could a conference like Vidcon have happened? I spent 4 days surrounded by people who were just like me, and I honestly don't think I have ever felt more like I belonged anywhere in my entire life. (ok Melissa, stop getting all Vidcon nostalgic) I have made so many close and compassionate friends just from those four days. Through those friends I have branched out and found even more people that I have become very close to, despite the fact that we life thousands of miles away. I can spend hours hanging out with friends on skype or tinychat, and when I say hanging out, I mean it in the most literal sense. True, we are not in the same room, maybe not even the same country, but the time that I spend with those friends is just as fun as the time I spend with friends in my own city, if not better. We have inside jokes, we play games together, we share stories, and when we're not feeling so great, we cheer each other up and say I love you.

I cannot even begin to explain how amazing it is, and how great it makes me feel to have so many close friends. You could say we haven't met, but I don't agree. Sure, I have never been in the same room with them. Sure, I've never hugged them, or heard their voice from something other than computer speakers. Sure, we've never felt the warmth of each others' skin. But I have met them. I know them. And I don't care what you may think, I love them.



Image Credit- Verachan

Random Tuesday

So, my momma recently sent me a link to Yarn Harlot's blog. Stephanie (the author of said blog) does this cool think called Random Mondays, where she just posts some random thoughts, so as to be able to blog, without having to have coherent structure. I think its quite refreshing, and an awesome way to have a quick, creative little blog. So I am thieving it (lets pretend thieving is a word. Wait, is it actually a word?), so here are some random little thoughts and ideas.

1. I fucking hate some drivers in Las Vegas. Try looking where you're going every once in a while.

1b. On the topic of shitty drivers, don't be an asshole.

2. I have a dog who only has one eye. He used to have 2, but he had glaucoma, so one had to be removed. I'm thinking the lack of eye actually makes him cuter (if its possible for Nacho to be any cuter). I also made a video about it.




3. I'm not a vegetarian, nor do I have any intention of becoming one, but I absolutely love vegetarian food. I had a veggie sandwich earlier, and it was absolutely divine.

4. I randomly decided to wear shorts today. I never wear shorts. This decision made me notice a bruise on my calf. I still have no idea how I got it. Stupid anemia.

5. I still think its a little bit funny that I'm an anemic insomniac. Its not a fun condition, but I think its amusing to say.

I Love British Boys

So, I believe the title and picture are fairly self explanatory. I have always as a certain adoration for England and all its bounties, but I have recently come to realize that I adore its men more than I previously realized. While I have had British friends for a while, I have recently started actively chatting with a new one. He is, as the British folk would say, absolutely brilliant (being attractive doesn't hurt either). This is my brief explanation of why I have not blogged in a few days. I have been working day shift lately, so I've been tired, and I've been spending a lot of the rest of the time talking to said cute British guy (but enough about my cute British friends James...)

On the topic of British folk, I figure I should mention something that I intended on blogging about the other day, but I was lazy/sleep and did not. A few days back, my friends at Spankwagon invited me along to cover an event that Comic Oasis was putting on in honor of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. The event ended up being dull, so we opted to go out and get a bite to eat. There is this little pub in Vegas called The Crown and Anchor (its a lovely little place, you should check it out), so we went there. In case you're for some odd reason wondering, I had the fish sandwich, and it was divine. Anyways, my friends and I hung out for a bit, and they started noticing a strange habit of mine. I pretty much constantly have to be messing with something, generally I'm fiddling with my necklace, or other jewelry. I don't know what it is, some call it a nervous tick, but I do it constantly. Anyway, in this particular instance, I was tearing up the corner of my paper place mat, because for some odd reason I like to unconsciously destroy things. I do it all the time during movies, because I'll just chew my straw to death (though this one is kind of funny, because it freaks out dates.) Eventually, I decided to stop being crazy destroyer chick and got out a pen, as to divert my energy elsewhere. I ended up drawing something decent considering it was around midnight.




This blog is completely pointless. Ugh. I wish I came up with a better idea for this. So hey! Watch Melissa ramble on about cute British boys and pubs and drawing. I'm so weird.....

Until we meet again...

Over the past few days I have been coming up with ideas of what to blog about, and either didn't have the motivation to write them, or decided against the idea for another. Right now I'm even going through the debate in my head of which of those topics to choose, or if I should come up with a new one all together. But the later seems less pleasing, because then I fear I won't ever write those that I thought of in the past few days. So I'm just going to start writing and see what happens. I word of warning, this may be more on the melancholy to gloomy side.

I hate wanting things that I can't or shouldn't have. By this I don't mean I wish I had a million dollars (though I do wish I had a million dollars, that would be quite nice), I'm talking about less material or trivial things. For instance, I wish I could be in a different place in my life. Don't get me wrong, my life is going pretty good right now, but I have many better prospects in the future, so I wish I could just get to that point. First off, I wish I were moving sooner. The thought of it, and how happy I will be when I move excites me, but the fact that I have to wait so long to earn up the money to move makes me wish that I could just hit the fast forward button on my life. Another thing about looking forward to moving is that it makes my current situation seem bad. I mean, why would I be happy living here if I am so excited about the prospect of leaving it? I don't actually mind my current living situation, but knowing that I will be in a happier place when I move makes this seem less glamorous. This is not helped by the fact that Las Vegas is really hot (have I mentioned how fucking hot it is in Vegas? Because I always feel the need to say it.)

Another thing that is a bit depressing about my current situation is that I am so far away from all of my vidcon friends (although I would like the note that the only reason I call you guys my vidcon friends, is so that people reading this who are friends of mine in Las Vegas shall understand.) Vidcon, particularly all of the people I met there changed my life, and in a big way. I can honestly say that I have never made so many close friends, with so many amazing people, so fast. After just a few days, I could honestly say I love you to these people, and mean it in a very deep sincere way. The fact that I currently live so far away from all of you is very hard on me, and if I could skip to next year and see all of you, I would do it in a heartbeat. But alas, my time machine is broken, so this is yet another wish that I cannot grant myself. However, this sadness is made slightly better by being able to talk to all of you, some on a daily basis. Though, no amount of Skype or Tinychat can compare to see you in person, hugging you, and having amazing adventures together. This is yet another reason that I wish moving were closer in the future.

Then there are the friends that I have that I will not be near, even when I move. There are the friends that live in far of places, reaching even to the UK. I can't see you until next vidcon, at least, and that makes me so sad. Every day we get closer, but the distance between us stays the same.

I try to convince myself that a year isn't that long. I mean, its already been a month, and once school starts, time should seem to pass even faster. But I can't shake the feeling that its going to be a rough year. That is why I am so thankful that in the mean time I can talk to you all, and that I can make new amazing friends every day.

Our next meeting is far off, but we make due with our late night conversation. So until we can see each other in real life, I'll see you all online.

For the love of improv

Some of you may be surprised to learn this, but I was very shy when I was younger. To an extent, I would even say that my shyness lasted up until about a year ago. I used theater as a way of initially getting out of my shell, though I still had a lot of self confidence issues to get over before I really considered myself more of an extrovert. Self esteem is something that I have battled with for most of my life, as I think is the case with many people (particularly teenage girls, because you know, we're all whiny and high maintenance.) I still concern myself with trivial things like appearance and trying not to say stupid things around cute guys, etc., though I feel that for the most part I'm happy with myself as a person. I contribute a large amount of that to the self confidence I've gained over the past year, particularly the past few months.

Theater was good because it made me feel like I was part of something, somewhere I more or less belonged. However, I rarely received parts of a status higher than a towns person(or an extra, whatever you wish to call it.)So what still brought me joy, also became my own mental form of rejection, because while I was still a part of it, I felt like I was just in the background, like the tree in an elementary school play (mind you I never played a tree, but you get the idea.) Then I decided to move to a state where the only people I knew were my father, and my step mother, whom I had met only once. I had never been to Nevada before, and I didn't have any back up plan if something went wrong. Brilliant idea on my part. I also had moved here with the intention of going to school for theater, which generally is a bad idea because making good money off of acting is difficult, which only added to my preconceived notion that I wasn't very good at it (a result of my not so glamorous list of previous roles.) So, I didn't go to school for theater. I got a job, seriously considered moving back to Alaska (because somehow I thought that would help my lack of higher education and no idea what I was going to do with my life.) That plan fell through, so I eventually decided to go to school, and I am now enrolled to start studying Criminal Justice in September.

Now back to the actual point of this, my self confidence issues. After 5 months working at my job that treated me like crap, I quit, thus alienating myself once more, having very few friends from there already, I rarely had any human contact outside of work other than family (which totally doesn't count in this case. I love my family, but if they're all you see, it doesn't quite cut it.) So I got on the internet. I found meetup.com, and started typing interests. In highschool I had done one or two improv shows, and I felt like I wasn't very good at it, but I though screw it, I'll try it anyway. This led me to Sin City Improv, which lead me to the Improv Jam.

The Improv Jam is an interactive show, where if you want to play, you can. Basically the host says "For this next game I'll need 4 people." Then they will explain the game, and you have the choice to volunteer for the game or not. All the games are similar to the sort of thing you might see on the tv show Who's Line is it Anyway? I never fancied myself a particularly funny person, especially when its on the spot, as is the case with improv. However, after going up a few times, I found myself completely comfortable, entertaining a room of strangers. It was like the feeling I would get when I first started theater, the thrill of being able to get on a stage and have people actually be interested in what I was doing.

So the Jam became a weekly tradition for me, a little dose of belonging and comedy to escape from the mundaneness of my day to day life. Eventually that crowd of strangers grew to be my close friends. That was how I met Casper, who while barely knowing me, asked me to join the improv troupe he was forming, called Big Fun. I became known to people as Big Sweets, or a reoccurring nickname from Alaska, Melza. I actually felt like people wanted me around, that I could make them laugh, and that gave me a sense of self confidence the likes of which I have never known.

Last night was the one year birthday of the Improv Jam (though only my 3rd month attending.) It was a night filled with party hats, cupcakes, and laughs. Last night was also the first time I've been able to see a few of my friends since vidcon (so give or take 3 weeks.)I was greeted with one of the biggest hugs I've ever received. Its moments like that that make me so happy that I took the risk and moved to a different state, that I quit my shitty job even though it meant alienation, that I got over my fear of rejection and got up on that stage at Insurgo so many Tuesdays ago and let an audience accept me.

So happy birthday Improv Jam, and thank you for letting me share it with you.



The Improv Jam happens every Tuesday Night at

Insurgo Theater
900 East Karen Avenue #D114
Las Vegas, NV 89109

From 9pm-Midnight
Cost $10

Welcome to the bloggity

Hello everyone out there in internet-land, I'm Melissa. For anyone who has no clue that I'm talking about, or who I am, or why this 19 year old girl is making a seemingly random blog, I direct you to my youtube channel. So, pretty much you were correct with the assumption that I am a 19 year old girl making a seemingly random blog.

So a little about me for those who are not my friends/family/stalkers. I'm a 19 year old girl (have I mentioned that yet?), who grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, who just recently moved to Las Vegas, Nevada (and yes, it is a big change, and yes, its fucking hot here). I also fancy myself an amateur video blogger, aka vlogger (thus the youtube address stated earlier). I'm a nerd, geek, dork, or whatever you would like to call me. I'm a theater kid, and currently involve myself with improv comedy on a regular basis. Starting in September I will begin college, studying Criminal Justice.

But enough talk for those who don't know me. Most likely you're reading this if you are subscribed to me on youtube. Well, welcome to the vloggity. Being my bored, strange, and slightly obnoxious self, I decided that maybe the world wanted to see/hear more of me (because lets be honest, who doesn't want people to care about their, though possibly boring and mundane, day to day life?) Actually, this is coming more out of boredom, and my desire to get back into writing on a regular basis (though for some odd reason I think pretending I'm incredibly conceded is funny. Also I apparently like parenthesis)

So, TADA! I made a blog. Whoop-di-freakin-doo. This will most likely consist of random thoughts and ramblings, though I'll probably also have extra behind the scenes looks at my videos (ohhh, fancy). But, feel free to comment anytime and tell me stuff to do or write about, because honestly I'm not really that creative to do something like this on a regular basis and make it interesting (please help me, I only pretend not to be boring).

All righty then, I suppose I should wrap up this already fairly long winded blog post (I tend to write a lot, which may be annoying in blog form, but a totally awesome skill when it comes to essay writing. I already covered that I'm a nerd, deal with it). So, if you have read this far, congratulations, I'm glad that you find my rambling at least mildly interesting. Feel free to comment, leave suggestions, or troll.

Talk to you later internet!