Oh...How You've Been Missed

          I have been playing softball since I was old enough to swing a bat. My mom played, my sisters played, I played, it was a family thing we all got involved in and for the most part I had a pretty good time. I played percussion from the sixth grade through tenth grade for my school band and I absolutely loved it, mostly it was the people that really made band for me, especially in high school, but I did love playing the instrument as well. Now you may be asking yourself, how do these things have anything to do with each other? For me, they are both things I quit before the time had come for me to be ‘too hold’. They are also both things that I forgot how much I loved, missed and actually cared about.

          Like I said, softball was a family thing and I’ve played for longer than I can remember. I have always been a pretty good player, with all those years of experience I gained some really decent skills. I’m a boss at in fielding, I can do outfield, but I’m not awesome at it(too much running) and once I get used to it and if I don’t sike myself out, I’m a decent batter(not so much slow-pitch, but fast-pitch I like to think I’m much better at it). Unfortunately for me, Havre City League Fastpitch is dominated by one family, and if you’re not a part of that family, well you’re basically boned! I think you can take a wild guess that I’m not a part of that family. For the most part I dealt with it, I mean you just kind of get used to it after a while, but one year I kind of let them get to me. See, the mother of that family went out of her way to ask my mom if I would join the traveling team, and I figured ‘why not? Don’t have anything better to do.’ After joining, paying, practicing and everything, working just as hard as every one of my teammates and being just as good if not better than some of them, I sat the bench.  It wasn’t even I sat the bench for one game and then I got to play; nope I sat the bench for two whole tournaments. Needless to say, I didn’t rejoin the team again the next year, although every year the same woman went out of her way to ask my mom to try and get me to play that year…no thanks. If that didn’t piss me off enough, the favoritism this family played for each other ended up ruining the entire league, no one wanted to play because there was always the one team that was completely stacked and every other team was bad. Then the one year they apparently didn’t realize they stacked another team more than their own; they canceled the city tournament basically because they knew they weren’t going to win. That was my last year playing, granted I will say that it was also the summer before my senior year, but I still could have played the summer after as well, but it was just a big joke so why bother?

          This past summer, I played again. One of my friends needed a girl to fill in on this co-ed slow pitch softball tournament so I figured why not? I didn’t have anything better to do that weekend, and I don’t mind helping out a friend. So I went, I played, we lost (a lot) but it was a good time. I had forgotten how much I loved softball thanks to city league being such shit, but playing again, even on a losing team, I still had a relatively good time. I also filled in for another team who was short girls and that wasn’t as fun, their head player was an asshole, but I still had a fun time playing. I ended up playing in a badball tournament later that summer. Badball is softball but you run the bases backwards, you are put on completely random teams (drawn out of a hat), and then your positions are pulled out of a hat as well. That was a real blast! It sucked because I ended up playing outfield a lot, which we covered I’m bad at, but I still had a good time, not to mention I had a good team. My sister and my friend (the one I helped out on the first tournament) were on the same team; yea my team kicked their team’s ass! I had a really good, positive team the first day and for the most part on the second day, although on the second day they were all hungover so we ended up losing out, but it was still a good time. But I forgot how much I loved softball and I might actually have to thank my friend for helping me remember how much I do love the sport (although, I’ll never give him that satisfaction to his face, he’ll have to read this, so I think I’m good).

          As far as percussion goes, here is the short story. I started playing percussion (drums) when I was in sixth grade, I originally started playing because a boy I liked said he was going to (please note, he lied to me). After playing them for a while, I actually really enjoyed playing them. I was so prepared to be a full-fledged band geek all through high school. This changed when I met David Johnke, the high school band director. David is a trumpet player, who spent most of my freshman year letting the current juniors and seniors teach the younger kids how to play. Then sophomore year he decided to have two different percussion classes, advanced and intermediate. Upperclassmen were advanced, lowerclassmen were intermediate and I personally didn’t really learn anything from Johnke that year. All he did was get mad at me because my pinkies naturally stick out and they were supposed to curve in, although that never effected my playing in any sense of the word. Then he would get mad at me when I would state my opinion on things, granted I was kind of a smart ass sometimes, but I never felt that I crossed the line and I think if I had I probably would have gotten in to more trouble, but I didn’t so I think I’m good. However, I always just felt like he was just rude to me. He was one of those teachers who picked favorites and I wasn’t one of them. He would get mad at me when I would point out the obvious and I always felt like he was extremely unprofessional when it came to dealing with me. Like I said, I was kind of a dick sometimes and instead of ignoring me like a teacher should, or dealing with it in another manner, he turned into a teenager and tried to be all ‘cool’ about it. Frankly he became just as big of a dick as I was being (is this an everywhere music teacher thing?). I have never really been one to quit things but at the end of my sophomore year, I quit band and discovered that when he realized I was quitting Johnke was much nicer to me, but it was too late to make me come back. Now that I am in college, I am realizing that since I don’t have to deal with this asshole anymore, that maybe I can get involved more in the things I used to love.  Next semester I am joining the university band in hopes of finding a band director who isn’t trying to relive his glory days. I have seen how much fun the people in band have here at UND, and I remember how much fun band used to be for me. Watching them and listening to them makes me miss percussion, so I really hope this whole thing works out for me.

           I guess the moral of this long post, is to never give up what you love. Although there may be people who suck and make it hard to be involved, don’t forget what you love and don’t give up on it. Hopefully it all works out for me and I can somehow get more involved in softball here at UND and the band thing works out too, because I really do love those things and I am passionate and I care about them. So if there is something you are passionate or care about, don’t forget it because of assholes, go for it anyway.

Be A Decent Human Fucking Being

                As I have previously stated when talking about Jonah Mowry, I hate it when people only take notice of one person being bullied or hurt in any way shape or form when one person make national coverage. THIS IS RIDICULOUS !!!!! I have come across this at least twice since I started college this semester and it is driving me absolutely nuts. The first off is National Suicide Awareness Day and when Amanda Todd committed suicide. Just to point out right now SOMEONE SHOULDN’T HAVE TO DIE FOR THE NATION TO TAKE NOTICE!!

                When it comes to National Suicide Awareness Day which was in September, everyone writes the word ‘love’ on their arms to signify that they support those affected by suicide. I am all for this concept of supporting people who have contemplating suicide or who have been affected by suicide. However, I saw some girls on my Facebook who had made their profile pictures the pictures of the writing on their arms and I became angry.

                These girls, who shall remain nameless, are spending one day of the year with the word love of their arms because they like to think they make a difference. The problem with this is that the other 364 days in the year these are the girls who are mean to everyone, who walk around like they are above everyone else for whatever reason.  I hate these people because if you really want to make a difference in the life of someone contemplating suicide don’t sit and judge everyone, don’t be a bitch to everyone.  Seriously, it doesn’t take a lot to be a decent human being, all it takes it just the smallest amount of work from you. In all reality, all you need to do is live your life and not be mean. I’m not even saying you have to be super nice, just don’t be a dick. It’s not that hard, I promise.

                As I have previously stated, I haven’t always been the nicest person around, occasionally I can be a big old bitch but it is my sincerest hope that people in my life realize, I have only ever went out with the intent to hurt someone two times in my life, and that the rest of the time when I’m being a bitch, it’s never meant to hurt you and normally I’m just being sarcastic or trying to deal with my own feelings, because that is something I am terrible at. I apologize to anyone who I have ever hurt, because I know what it’s like to get hurt by my peers and it sucks, so I am truly sorry if I have ever done that to someone.  But I can also say, as someone who has thought about and tried to commit suicide that all it would have taken for me to change my mind was hearing from someone that they cared about me. That was all I needed and I didn’t get that at the time when I needed it. Luckily for me, I stopped myself and there hasn’t been a day since that I have regretted my decision to continue my life. But seriously, how hard is it to just text/Facebook/call someone who seems to be having a bad day and tell them that you care, to listen to them, to just make sure they are ok. It’s not difficult.

                Next point, Amanda Todd, a 15 year old girl who was bullied for a mistake she made when she was younger and this bulling lead to her eventual suicide. Just like Jonah Mowry, I am not in any way trying to be disrespect to this girl’s memory and my thoughts go out to her family. However, all of these people are now coming out in support of this girl. Where was this when she was alive? She had posted a YouTube video telling her story, but nobody seemed to do anything for her until she was dead.

                What does that say about us as a society, that the people in her life, the kids at her school, were willing to persecute this girl for one mistake she made as a kid? Seriously think about it. As I previously stated it doesn’t take much to be a decent human being, but if there had just been one kid, one parent, one something that would have been willing to be a little bit more than a decent human being, it could have saved this girl’s life.  But no, everyone is so wrapped up in their own little world, that they refuse to take notice until she died, that is pathetic in my eyes and honestly makes me disappointed in society.

                Now I am not saying I am perfect, or that I am more than a decent person 100% of the time, but now a days, I would never go out with the intent to hurt someone and I hope that I can teach that decency to my own children when I have them, I hope you will do the same. I also challenge you to go out and just smile in acknowledgement of other people, just be nice. I know you have your own problems and concerns, and you may be stressed beyond belief, but just flash a smile to someone while you’re walking to work, or on your morning jog or in class. If nothing else, studies show that if you force yourself to smile, it is more likely that you will feel a little bit happier. So it’s a win-win situation that takes like zero effort from you. If you seriously can’t do even that, just go out and don’t be a dick for an entire day, don’t say anything mean to anyone and just be passive, even that would be better then hurting someone else.

My Generation

              Before we start, I want to tell you right now this probably has nothing to do with what you think it does. That being said, let’s talk about My Generation, the Musical Concert event that was put on as the Spring Show in March of 2012 by The University of North Dakota’s Theatre Department. If I had to compare this to something it would probably be North Dakota’s version of Glee, part of me wants to leave it at that, but of course the other more dominating part of me is going to tell you more.

                I honestly thought that it was actually a really good production overall. There was a group of about 16 girls and boys helped build the show on the songs that the director, Emily Cherry, choose. They did songs from all sorts of genres, the following be a list of songs that they did (as far as I can remember)

1. Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night

2. Soul Sister/No One Mash-up

3. The Lazy Song

4. Cowboy Casanova

5. Sexy and I Know It

6. Facebook Song

7. Gravity

8. We Are Young

9. 21 Guns

10. Set Fire to The Rain

11. Born This Way

12. The Song of Purple Summer

13. Stereo Hearts

14. Not Over You

                These songs are not in order but I’ll give you the overview on my opinion on them. First off my favorite song was probably 21 Guns. It had this intense performance that just really went with the lyrics and it was just awesome basically. Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night, it was a good song, but I didn’t really like the choreography to it but it wasn’t bad once the entire cast was in it together. We Are Young was pretty awesome, my only critique would be that it almost seemed too staged but it was good. Born This Way was the finale and it was pretty awesome, they went full Gaga and got some pretty crazy costumes going and everything so that was all pretty cool and Stereo Hearts was intense because they stomped the yard in the choreography which was awesome! I think they sped it up too much to go with the stomping but the guy who was rapping along with it couldn’t quite keep up, so if I would have suggested slowing it down just a smidge. The song of Purple Summer was a fantastic song, I think it has a great message and it was really intense and just well done.

                All of those songs were done with the entire singing and on stage. The Solos were Facebook Song, which is from YouTube and it was good, but I think that they were trying too hard to add more of an internet aspect and that is why this song got added and I wasn’t an overall fan of it. Gravity was absolutely amazing, it was sung by Daniella Lima (sweetest girl I have ever met!) and along with the song they had two dancers dancing along to it and it was just an overall beautiful song that I loved watching the performance of. Set Fire to the Rain was such an intense song, I think it was almost too intense, I liked it and thought it went well, but I think the singer was trying too hard to add intense emotions to it.  Then Not over you was a duet that I thought was interesting, I liked the song overall but I didn’t like how they made up this story to go along with it. It was the only song that made me feel like I was in a theatre watching a musical and I just didn’t think the story they put behind it fit with the show.

                Each gender had its own song, the females going for Cowboy Casanova and I think this one of those songs where they were once again trying to hard add variety to the show by putting in country. I also think that it should have been more of a female empowering song like the males got but it was still about this guy that screwed them all over (at least that’s what I got out of it). The Males tapped Sexy and I Know it for their number and it was overall really funny. I think they did a really good job, I had a hard time taking some of it seriously because I know the guys in the show and it was weird watching them pelvic thrust and stick their asses up and down in the air but whatever, it was funny. It was probably one of the most memorable moments in the show because it was a moment when they boys brought a girl up from the audience and interacted her in the show and that was super awesome (I got to do it for one of the tech nightsJ).

                Soul Sister/No One Mash-Up was done at the beginning of the show as a duet and I’ll just say I wasn’t a fan, I think if that song had to be added, I would have personally used different people. I think they tried too hard for ‘sexy’ and the two people they had just looked awkward together. The Lazy Song was a trio of boys, I only think of the voices actually fit with the song and the other two just threw it off and made it sound bad, I wasn’t a fan. Out of all the performances that was probably my least favorite.

                As much as I hate to say it, I think that I could definitely tell who the director’s favorites were, they got the most stage time and I’m not saying they aren’t talented but I think some of the cast members kind of got the shit end of the stick when it comes to stage time. And maybe it wasn’t a matter of favorites, maybe it was a matter of a talent, I however think that each cast member should have been featured more evenly.

                Overall I thought the performances were lovely, I saw it multiple times so it was good. It is currently being held in consideration for performance at the Kennedy Center American Collegiate Theatre Festival 2013. Part of me hopes it doesn’t go, that isn’t because it wasn’t a great show, I don’t want to have to cut my Christmas Break short to come back and work on this show some more. Yep, I’ll be selfish about it, I only get so much time during the school year to spend with my family and friends back home, I don’t need any less. However, I won’t have to cross that bridge till at least December so baby steps.

                I hope you guys enjoyed my review and stayed tuned for all the posts that I have coming. Feel free to share my blog and comment or let me know what you think through Twitter or whatever. Have a fantabulous day!

Life and Other Drugs

Yep! As you can now officially tell, I’m ALIVE!! I won’t to start off this by telling you all that I am extremely sorry I stopped updating after Spring Break last year, but life got crazy and busy and I didn’t really have anything to say. However, here are a few updates for the sake of updates but I do have a couple different things written and that are being written so that I can stay active.

First off, I FINISHED MY FIRST YEAR A UND!!! Yea, that’s right, I made it through a very rough freshman year in college and I am now in the middle of my first semester of my sophomore year which is almost turning out a little interesting (for lack of a better term) then last year, but we’ll see I still got a semester and a half before I see the outcome.  

My previous semester at UND ended on a high note, it seemed that the closer and close it got to summer the better and better my year got. Me and my roommate ended up having another girl sleep on our futon for the last couple of weeks of the semester but the three of us had some awesome late night talks that I seriously miss. I think it was just an overall great year at UND, there are definitely some individual things that I wish I could change but as a whole I think it turned out pretty awesomely. It definitely helped me change for the better personally and it made me take some huge steps that I always thought I wouldn’t take, but I did it and it turned out to be pretty awesome.

The summer of 2012 wasn’t as amazing as I had originally hoped it would be, it had its awesome moments but it didn’t turn out how I wanted it to, but nothing ever does so whatever. I spent the majority of my summer working at my local Wal-Mart, which sucked ass! It wasn’t the work itself that was hard or even the people I worked with, it was the costumers who for the most part just sucked and made me honestly hate my life. I got so depressed and exhausted that at one point I honestly just broke down crying in the middle of my shift once and that kind of thing NEVER happens so it sucked. I also spent the first half of my summer working on a play called The Curious Savage (one of my posts will be about this soon).  The second half of my summer got a little better than the first half but it still wasn’t really what I wanted. Mid-July I actually played in a co-ed softball tournament for one of my friends’ team and although we lost pretty much every game I think, I still had a good time. I didn’t really know anybody on the team except for my friend, but I forgot how much I LOVE playing softball, and how much I suck at batting slow-pitch, but we’ll get there probably in another post too. This inspired me to take on another softball tournament in August which was super fun because my team was kind of awesome. Along with that I got to run/direct a children’s theatre camp through the local community theatre in my hometown which was awesome. Then there was the End of Summer Awesomeness, which will be getting its own post as well so more to come.

Then it was back to North Dakota to start off my second year in College which, like I said, has been interesting and I think it is going to continue to get interesting as well. So I’ll keep you posted on that.

I feel bad that I haven’t been updating as much as I should, after updating you can tell that it isn’t like my life is super busy or anything. I just loose motivation easily so I hope you’ll bear with me here as I update and backtrack on my life. Along with my life stories, I also have some rants and other things that I will be sharing soon because I never seem to have a loss for words in most situations. So thanks for sticking with me and I hope I don’t disappoint my readers.

Also just because, I hope you guys will share my blog with your friends if you enjoy it and even if it’s just my rants or learning about my life feel free to share it or talk to me. You can always get me on my twitter and let me know what you want to hear about, I’m sure as long as it is something I can research I’ll have some sort of opinion on it.

All My Sons

The University of North Dakota’s spring play was All My Sons by Arthur Miller and I went and saw it a couple of different times. Not only just for fun so that I could see the completed production but also for my job as the Assistant Prop Manager I get to go see it plenty of times to make sure that all the props are working and being used and put where they are needed. So after seeing it at least five times here is my review.

I with start with the staging of the play. I thought that all around it was staged really well. I honestly think it would have been better in a proscenium theatre, not in a thrust setting, most because a lot of the staging got awkward to watch and if you weren’t watching it from dead center you got a lot of the actors back, so I guess most of that was just maybe the directions should have been more evenly distributed, I guess would be a way to put it.

I thought the set really fit the time period; everything looked how you would imagine it for that time period. It was very simple and that worked really well for the play, I did find that one of the lines was something along with lines of ‘all the roses are gone,’ there were still roses on the bush the character was referring to, so they should have thought that one through a little bit. All around the set was well done.

The lighting was simple as well, there was a nice lightning storm at the beginning but that was about it as far as complications goes. Everything else was very simple and worked really nice. The sound was nice as well. It had simplicity but it was also very realistic, it had birds chirping and crickets which I thought were a nice touch.

The acting is where it gets a little difficult for me to call it a good production. Now I can look at this play and say honestly, that for the most part it was extremely well acted. They had guest artist Darin Kerr come in and play the character of Joe Keller. I thought he did a really fantastic job. Along with Emily Hogenson and Nick McConnell doing great jobs as Anne and Chris. However as far as the main characters go, I don’t understand the casting behind Kate. Now doubt Chelsea Pollert may be a good actress, I just didn’t find her right for the part. I felt she played Kate very one sided and she always looked like she didn’t know what she was doing on stage, like she was lost. Which I guess could be a strong character choice if she would have played it right, but she just didn’t play it right to make that choice. I just over all wasn’t impressed with her.

I did however think that all the other actors did a great job with each of their parts and congratulate them the entire cast and crew on a job well done. Especially those props, they were fantasticJ

Spring Break 2012

Since I am writing a bunch of blogs on my way back to school from Spring Break, I feel I should also write one about Spring break. Let me tell you, spring break was interesting to say the least. I went home Saturday the 10th at bumfuck hour in the morning because I don’t have a car so I get to take the train home. Which let me tell you isn’t bad and for the most part it is fast but at the same time I would much rather have a car to take me to and from school. As long as the train is running on time and everything is going as planned it is about a ten hour train ride from Grand Forks to my home in Montana. And although it is not always the most reliable mode of transportation train rides are pretty comfortable for the most part.

But the night I got home I immediately felt super loved because waiting for me at home is my 5 month old niece, plus my mom and sister. Seeing them always makes me smile because my oldest sister is pretty much my best friend so it is nice ot be around her most the time and then well, who doesn’t love a good mom hug, right? Not to mention I have a little 4LB dog waiting for me at home who is always excited to see me.

Later that night I got to go my high school’s production of Lord of the Flies with an all-female cast. I unfortunately didn’t get to see the male cast (which I think I would have liked more but whatever). I did enjoy the female cast for the most part. However, there will always be a part of me that goes back to productions and looks at some of the cast members and thinks, “Yea, I could do that ten times better.” But that is mostly my ego talking (although there some people who I know I could do better then.) But afterwards I got to see a bunch of people that I haven’t seen for a long time and who I missed very dearly and it was great to see them. A lot of the younger people who I went to school with basically think I am awesome so getting that ego boost from them is always something nice to experience on your first day of break.

On Monday, I got to see a really close friend of mine which was super amazing because I missed him a bunch. I love talking to him because he just makes me smile and laugh and it is really easy to ignore the suckiness of my life when I am around him, so that was basically the best way to start my week. Unfortunately my afternoon being happy was cut short by the arrival of my annoying middle sister LeAnne.

Don’t get me wrong, I love LeAnne, she is my sister and although I am currently sick and tired of everything about her, she is still my sister and I will always love her. I do however currently hope she gets hit by a bus. Not really enough to kill her or anything to just seriously injure her. But she was down in Helena living and going to school there and decided to come up for the week to see me. Frankly she was being a dumb bitch all week and by Friday I was done.

It started Tuesday and Wednesday when we went to a near-by city to go shopping while my mom had to have a meeting. So I and Katie went shopping and LeAnne came down a little later in the day and joined us in our shopping endeavor. First thing with that is, Bitch didn’t have any money so she will do anything in her power to get what she wants and most the time she gets it just so she will shut the fuck up because nobody likes to listen to her. Then we got stranded. Because of the wind the five of us got to spend the night in a hotel together after spending the entire day together, well of course nobody wanted to be there but we made the best of it including going and getting new swimsuits so we could go swimming which for the most part was fun. But the five month old baby didn’t let anyone sleep past 4:30 in the morning so that sucked. But needless to say, we had way to much family bonding time.

The rest of my week was pretty uneventful until Saturday when LeAnne became an even bigger bitch and pulled the last straw between me and her. The story goes like this.

LeAnne got evicted from her apartment and kept all of her shit in my room for about a month while she slept at her boyfriend’s house and I was at school. Not a big deal and I didn’t really get a say it anyway (I promise if I did she would not have been staying there). LeAnne is one of those people who go by the saying, “what’s yours is mine but if you touch my stuff your dead.” The only problem with that, is it doesn’t go over very well when she stays in my room with a bunch of stuff I left behind while I’m off at college which included a pair of shorts she had of mine in her suitcase that she was living out of for the week. Now she had left a jersey of hers behind and to be a good sister I offered a trade, Her jersey for my shorts and she said fine. Silly me for thinking I could trust my sister so I put the jersey down by her stuff and guess who still doesn’t have her shorts, me. I mentioned my shorts to her again before I left and she got angry at me. Because apparently I was in the wrong with asking her to unzip her suitcase and give me what is mine that I bought with my own money.

Now I know it sounds childish to fight over shorts and be angry over that, but I am just so sick of her attitude and how she thinks she is better than everyone else when in all reality she isn’t. But I won’t go too far into that because that could be its very own post and very well might be sometime in the future. But I let I walked away because once again somebody always has to be the better person and anyone who knows her knows it will never be LeAnne. So fuck her.

One night I had so much one my mind and I just needed to clear it so I went for a walk and I got to the guy mentioned above and it basically made my night 100Xs better which was amazing. I was honestly afraid that my feelings for one night would ruin my entire break, but it didn’t, so that’s a plus.

Then came Saturday, which was originally supposed to be my last night in town. It was also St. Patrick’s Day, my uncle’s birthday and my former high school’s prom. So I got to eat waaaay to much and then go and watch a bunch of my old classmates walk around in pretty dresses at Grand March. I got to see a bunch of people there who love me which was much needed and I was having a really great night, up until I left grand march, which thanks to Kelsey reminded how important I am to my so called ‘best friend.’

The problem with Kelsey is that she suffers from only child syndrome and she really only thinks of herself. Like for the three weeks I was home for Xmas break my best friend of ten years saw me twice and didn’t even say goodbye—her excuse is that saying goodbye to me is too hard on her. HEY BITCH, NEWS FLASH IT’S HARD ON ME TOO!!! Instead of saying goodbye to one best friend every time I leave, I have to say goodbye to all my friends and family so fuck you. She wasn’t going to see me at all this time until I seem to have got it through her head that best friend should actually want to see her. But by that time I was feeling like shit. I did however text the guy who makes me super happy and he was super sweet to me for the rest of the night, which I definitely needed (in case you didn’t catch on, yea this guy is kind of amazing, but regardless we are just friends=)).

Although I was supposed to go home Sunday, something got fucked up in my tickets and so I got to spend Sunday raking up leaves in my yard and jamming with my niece before I went on another walk to enjoy the weather because I was sure that when I got back to Grand Forks the weather would not be nice at all. However I woke up Monday morning to at least five inches of snow that had knocked out the power lines and cell towers, so that was awesome. But now I am on a train back to Grand Forks and now am officially skipping my classes tomorrow because we had to go 20MPH for about four hours because of the storm, so fuck speech tomorrow.

Don't Call Me North Dakota--Call Me Fighting Sioux

Hey everyone, so I know it has been forever since I have posted so since I am on a train headed back from spring break and it looks like I am gonna be on this bitch for a long time, I felt I should write a little bit for you this lovely blog. So here is the first blog that I am going to post.

I go to the University of North Dakota and as you may or may not know our mascot has recently been called out. We are currently the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux and the NCAA made a rule that universities cannot have Indian nicknames for their athletic program. Please Note: I don’t know the exact wording or anything exact about the rule. All I really caught on from it is that they don’t want offend anyone so they are forcing any school with a tribal nickname to stop using said nickname. Currently UND can’t change or stop using the nickname because there is a state law that makes UND keep the nickname.

I think that NCAA is wrong in their request to get rid of the nickname. I mostly think they are wrong because honestly if you get rid of tribal nickname so as not to offend the tribe itself they who is to stop the NCAA from getting rid of the use of any other nickname because it offends somebody?

The way I see it is the NCAA abuses their power of collegiate sports and nicknames are only the beginning of it. I have heard of many athletes from different colleges being investigated or barred from playing for the tiniest of rules. There are two stories that I have read and remembered and I want to re-tell to you.

The first being of a women’s basketball player who originally went to school in the U.K. and took an exam over there that I believe is the equivalent to our ACT(I could be wrong, I don’t know much about the British school system). Then this player came to America and because she didn’t do as well in school as she wanted to she went to an American school and repeated her junior year. This player is now not allowed to play in any of her collegiate basketball games because according to NCAA ruling she had to enroll in college by a certain time after taking her test overseas to qualify to play.

Now on this one, I kind of get it, rules are rules. But Really? Who was the asshole who made that rule?

The next story comes from my school’s hockey team. One of our freshman hockey players was not allowed to join our team this year because he went to an online school that had a paperwork mishap. Now, I’m sure there was more to that story, but that is what I got out of it and I just find both of these to be absolutely ridiculous but nobody is going to stand up to the NCAA because they are the NCAA but come on. There needs to be some lines drawn with the organization themselves so they are checked into power and not completely power hungry.

Ok, so obviously I don’t know everything about the NCAA, in fact I try not to even care what they are doing because in all reality what they say and do has little to no effect on my life. I do know that I am not alone in thinking the NCAA is being a little stupid.
So do you guys have your opinions, stories, and comments whatever? Let me know and remember to look up the facts and everything else for yourself as well, don’t just take my half-assed stories above, do your own reading and let me know.

KCACTF

Ok, so I know I haven’t posted in a while, but life has been crazy, so among the other things I want to tell everyone about, I am going to start with the second week being back in North Dakota.
The week of Jan. 15-20, I went the Kennedy Center American Collegiate Theatre Festival; most people refer to it as KCACTF or just ACTF. This year ACTF was in Ames, Iowa at the Iowa State University. It lasted from Sunday till Saturday and I had a great time!
I was really unsure about how I would view it when I was done, I am not normally good in big social situations and in some ways this wasn’t really a big difference to what I expected. But I like to think I did a fairly good job at coping. I did stick kind of close to other people from UND, but I think it helped me get to know them more. Which was needed considering I will be working with those guys as long as I am at UND (well, most of them).
We left Sunday morning at like 6:00 in the morning, which sucked, I pretty slept the entire trip to Ames, I got up for Breakfast and lunch…well you know Sunday was rather uneventful, we checked in went swimming, which I guess was pretty fun, there were a lot of drunks down in the pool area which was funny to watch.
I spent most of Monday watching the Irene Ryan scenes, which is a competition at the festival. I knew six contestants and their partners from UND and only one of those six made it to the next round, which I thought was absolutely ridiculous. Obviously I didn’t get to watch every scene in the first round of performance but, out of the scenes I did see, I thought it was bad judgment on who moved forward and who didn’t. I did find out later the entire system is flawed so it is just kind of a big game of chance and not necessarily talent, but whatever, it’s done it’s over with.
Over the course of the week I went and saw two full-scale productions. The first one I saw was God of Carnage, which I have to say, was a really good production. I had never seen the show and was definitely not expecting projectile vomit to happen, but it did, which was a little gross at first, but I also think effective as well. The only thing I found was that perhaps the actors should have been more reserved in the first half of the play just to add to the second half of it a little bit more, that was my only pet peeve and despite that I think they still did a fantastic job.
The other show I saw was called Six Characters. I just thought this overall performance was great; it wasn’t as life changing to me, as it was to some of my fellow UND theatre students, but it was good. I really enjoyed the overall performance and how it was all put together and then kind of message it sent. My pet peeve about this show, wasn’t even about the show, it was about the people afterward. I agree that it was as big of a deal as some people were saying it was, but I dislike when theatre people go into a show and then afterwards sit and critique it for hours. I understand a few things here or there, but to sit and just pick a part the entire performance, I feel like that is a little rude.
The actors in the show are just trying to do the best they can with what they are given. That is the exact same thing that we as theatre students do for performances, we go out there and try to do our best.
Friday morning I got to go to a workshop called ‘Acting after KCACTF’ where, Rich Sommers came in and spoke to us about his experience after KCACTF and now making her profession acting. It was a very informative session and I really enjoyed and liked what he had to say, for those of you who don’t know Rich Sommers is a part of the cast of the T.V. show Mad Men. It was really great; at least I thought it was. Apart from that, I also got to learn some basics about staging an onstage fight, which was really fun to watch, unfortunately I didn’t get to participate but I got to watch which was better than nothing.
The dances weren’t anything special, at least form what I understand, I didn’t actually go because I hate dances. They make me feel awkward and it’s just an uncomfortable situation that I never put myself in. But I really enjoyed getting to know all the people from UND better, which was probably one of my highlights of the trip.
So, after reading over this I have realized that this is kind of uneventful but yea. I just felt that I should write this blog and hopefully now that I am back in school and into the swing of things I will be able to write more and everything. I hope everyone had an amazing holiday season and I hope your 2012 is going swimmingly.