SWING SCHEDULE!

Hells yeah! I drafted my swing schedule! I wasn't joking about all this dance business peeps! I went scouring the internets and found 2 dance studios that work with my stupid stupid DGA schedule or lack there of and 1 probable. Even if the 1 probable doesn't work out Im not too disappointed since the others are a total go!

Pasadena Ballroom Dance

They happen to be the place where all the swinging cats in LA hang out. Over the course of my research I found that much goes on in the way of swing dancing in Pasadena so... it's wonderful that their schedule meshes with mine because not only will I be getting to know the people on the scene I'm sure this will also help find out where else to go to get more out of swingin' in LA.

Sunday 4:15-515 Jitterbug and East Coast Swing!

The best freakin kind of swing there is! Fast and loose! So I have to drive 30 minutes to get there....thats the sacrifice of the schedule...This is the one class that I know 100% I can make EVERYTIME no matter what. So Im paying for the 6 week course this Sunday (hopefully the wisdom teeth will have cleared up by then).

Now here are the Saturday times that get a little wonky because of DGA Trainee Seminars

Saturday 10-11A Pasadena offers a Lindy Hop Course!

Waking up that early on Saturdays when Im not working--piece of cake- I'll be going this weekend (again pending the okay-ness of the teeth). But getting up that early after working a 70 to 80 hr work week? Not so much...

Oh, and if I dont want to drive out the 30 minutes so early I can do the Lindy course on Monday nights (this is of course the Im not working option). And again if Im not working I can go on Wednesday to mess around with some West Coast swing as well! Pasadena Ballroom you're a gold mine!

West Adams Studios- Right down the street from me!!!

Swing Level 1 Drop in classes for 10$ each on Saturdays 12-1

I'll be able to make these every other Saturday because of trainee seminars but you bet your freakin ass Im going! Its so close to me and totally affordable.

And there's the Culver City place that offers Swing on Saturdays from 3-4 but the classes are consecutive and may be difficult to work around since I wont be able to attend every week because of the seminars. The consecutive is what kills it...

But Im so excited! I will be swing dancing once again...oo I cant wait!

For Relaxing Times...

I love waking up whenever the fuck I want. Its like a magical fairy has visited me. I wake up, under piles of blankets of course, with Alfred (my space heater) lovingly warming me and I lay there savoring the fact that not only do I A)not have to be anywhere but also B) I can do whatever the hell I want.

The majority of today was spent futilely running around town after books and things. After drafting my 50 list I really had the urge to find used bookstores around town. Sadly, I forgot that its freakin New Year and so many places were closed. I don't really NEED to go running around town looking for places considering the fact that an amazing freakin used bookstore is walking distance from me on Franklin (Im referring to Counterpoint) but since they were closed I went in search of others in Glendale. Brand Books was also closed but looked AMAZING and I fully intend to return and then across the street was a place called Mystery and Imagination Bookshop, which with such an amazing name, was not AS cool as I would have liked. I had a hard time finding the things I wanted... their "sectioning" was kind of confusing.

Needless to say I went there, then visited the Glendale Goodwill where I found quite a decent copy of Middlesex for 2 bucks and then went to the Glendale Galleria to swap out these tights for earrings at their Claires. While there I also retardedly bought 16$ worth of Godiva. OK sue me I'm weak for chocolate....I regretted it later...

Oh! A couple days ago I went to the Out of the Closet near me and found some amazing stuff! I've been wanting wine glasses and you could not believe my luck! I found these:

I'm fairly certain that they're at least from the 50's...They were all grimey and gross, but I saw through it :) And after a good washing they came out beyond beautiful! They have this incredible gold leaf edging that's roses. SO happy. Total cost? 9$.

Also found this incredible old reference book published in 1950 titled "Year: Mid Century Edition." It covers the mid-century in photographs and short blurbs and is so amazing! Fantastic coffee table book if anything. Granted, I'm reading the thing and I think I'll get a lot out of it. It's a different way of learning history; shows a lot of what people thought of the events then rather than now with all the years of distance. Also lots of random little tidbits that don't really make it into our history books. You know, stuff that was considered important then that didnt really carry over til now.

What else?

Mollie's on her way to LA! Cant wait til she gets here (Thursday).

Jessica (my new roommate) gets here on Wednesday! Also can't wait for that.

Getting my wisdom teeth removed on Tuesday...eish...terrified.

Loving my iphone! It really is life changing.

Waiting for a call from Janet...come on DGA place me place me!

Thats the news peeps. Thats the news.

50 Book Challenge

There's no better way to start the year than with challenging yourself. So call it a New Years resolution of sorts.

This idea was stolen from Ashley M. and her blog and slightly adapted for my own purposes.

THE CHALLENGE

I have drafted a list of 50 books I know that I would like to read. Of these 50 books I will read at least 30 in the next coming year. That's it, that's the challenge. I'm sure I'll discuss each book as I finish it here so you can keep up with my progress if you like. And now for the list:

1 Beatrice and Virgil - Yann Martel

2 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

3 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

4 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

5 The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

6 Let The Right One In - John Ajvide Lindqvist

7 The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

8 Sophie's Choice - William Styron

9 The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie

10 The Magus - John Fowles

11 God is Not Great - Christopher Hitchens

12 Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

13 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

14 The Girl Who Played With Fire - Stieg Larsson

15 The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest - Stieg Larsson

16 The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

17 Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins

18 Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins

19 Hero - Robin Mckinley

20 Bonk - Mary Roach

21 Eating Animals - Jonathan Safran Foer

22 Manifesta - Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards

23 Second Nature: A Gardeners Education - Michael Pollan

24. The Strain - Guillermo Del Toro

25 Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

26 The Enormous Room - e. e. cummings

27. Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness - Edward Butscher

28 The Ethics of Ambiguity - Simone De Beauvoir

29 The World Without Us - Alan Weisman

30. Under the Banner of Heaven - Jon Krakauer

31. Through A Glass Darkly - Karleen Koen

32. Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse

33. The Piano Teacher - Janice Y. K. Lee

34. The Gendered Society - Michael Kimmel

35. The Second Sex - Simone De Beauvoir

35. The Feminine Mystique - Betty Friedan

36 The Purity Myth - Jessica Valenti

37. What to Eat - Marion Nestle

44. The Hangmans Daughter - Oliver Pötzsch and Lee Chadeayne

45. The Beauty Myth - Naomi Wolf

38. Orlando - Virginia Wolf

39. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Wolf

40. A Room of Ones Own - Virginia Wolf

41. Survival of the Prettiest - Nancy L. Etcoff

42. The Passion - Jeanette Winterson

43. Middlemarch - George Eliot

44. The Shining - Stephen King

45 The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield

46 The Drowned Life - Jeffrey Ford

47. A Murderous Procession - Ariana Franklin

48. The World According to Monsanto - Marie-Monique Robin

49. Beautiful Creatures - Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

50. Spook - Mary Roach

Christmas Break

Well its over! My first show.

64 day benchmark in the DGA Training Program.

Thats an awesomely hefty amount of days on one show. And what a good show to be on it was :)

Now its time for a break. Time to relax, to work out, to have fun, to get and give presents and then come back and start fresh!

I'm excited about the gifts I have to give. Im excited about my time in Sarasota with my parents who I havent seen in so long. I think all in all the break will be great because Im saying that it will be.

When I return I want to focus more keenly on the program. I really need to start learning the rules and knowing all the little details. I need to do more of my observation days. If I have breaks I plan on reading, dancing, working out.

Its all going to be new and different when I come back. My new roommate (who consequently has already started moving in and is making me overly happy with her presence), Mollie moving walking distance from my house, and a new show to be on are all going to really create a different experience of Los Angeles. I can't wait.

The Cultured Life

Its about damn time that I returned to the cultured life :)

This past weekend I went to the Pantages for West Side Story. It was great! I love the fact that I can ride the subway one stop, pay 25$ for rush tickets and enjoy some broadway. The show was good overall. The male lead perhaps a little weak and the ending a bit of a disappointment but other than that I had a GREAT time. Me and Josh and Ellen had dinner beforehand and ice cream afterwards and I think I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

I didn't stop there though because the next time I HAD to go see Black Swan and oh my god was it great! I love, love, loved it. Im debating on going again... It was beautiful and well acted, the story was great and Aronofsky only lost me once (lost me as in I felt he went a bit over the top, which is really saying something considering his movies). I have to say that mentally I felt a kinship to the movie given my recent dilemmas. The torn and crazy feelings are certainly familiar to me of late. Hurray Natalie Portman! You were superb.

And on that same note I suppose today I was inspired and decided to see what would be playing while I was in Sarasota. I found out that the Moscow Ballet would be in town on the 26 doing one performance of the Nutcracker. I asked my parents if they would like to go and they actually said YES! This ladies and gents is HUGE. My parents never go anywhere and for my, action movie watching father, to actually WANT to go to a ballet is pretty unusual. So yay for that!

Got this week and next week left on Mr. Sunshine which, BTW has an airdate now! Feb 9th on ABC Wednesdays right after Modern Family! Its a great time slot so hopefully the show will become popular and get picked up for a second season. I cant believe though that my time here is going to come to an end. It really was a great first experience.

Swing Dance

So ever since high school when ballroom became a fond memory for me Ive been missing dancing like no one's business, especially swing. There's just never been time or money for it. In undergrad I never felt like there was any extra cash, or I was with a boyfriend I, myself, didn't feel comfortable going off and dancing with someone else in a partner capacity. In grad school there was just no money and then in film school no time whatsoever.

I think its high time to stop thinking about it and start really, seriously, making an effort into me returning to swing dancing. I realize that while right now I may not have a lot of time (and I DO have seriously exhausted feet from work) Im going to try to make a real solid push to dance.

Swing is tough because its not as popular as salsa or ballet and you can't get to a place that just offers random time classes (especially in my case on the weekends) and since I cant very well sign up for a monthly class that happens every, say, Tuesday since I work like a madwoman I need to check the schedules for free classes and dances in the meantime and once Christmas break hits and Im back from visiting Sarasota try to get in as much as I can. I know its 15 or more a lesson but you know what, fuck it. Once I feel comfortable again to do it I can go to the Sat. Sun dances. So thats the plan right now. To make a real, wholehearted push to go to just about every class I can make during whatever time Ive got off after Christmas and before I'm onto the next show.

Lets see if how well I keep up.

Thanksgiving and various other things

Well I made it through that holiday. Id say sortof unscathed.

Thanksgiving went well. The plan for BIG event went off without a hitch. People came, brought LOTS of food, hung out and had a great time. 19 people in total at the end of the night.

It was great to see everyone. The next day me and K. went on a hike up in Griffith Park over by the abandoned zoo and did some geocaching. Then he was out of town once again. We had a break up talk and he left with things mostly unresolved so no real change in that department of life.

Im back on set and things are moving along fairly well. Only this week and then 2 more left on Mr. Sunshine and boy have I learned A LOT. I think over the Christmas holiday I really need to take the time to sort of reanalyze the things that are important to me. Or maybe Ive been thinking too much about that??

Trying to make a conscious effort to include more of the swing dancing in life. Ive got up on this website that tells me when all the swing nights in LA are so lets hope that I can start making it to some of those. As well as lessons...

Salmans is on her way here today! Later on this week some hanging out with her and a photo shoot which I cant wait for.

Lots of cool developments in the future:

Mollie is still on her way over in January which I think is going to blow my mind when she actually gets here. And theres also Wycoff arriving and moving in in January as well. New roomate, new friends in town, new show and what with knowing more about the job Im doing.

Oh and also coming this week is the new shirt I ordered from Threadless!

House Brawl