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.

Havre Ice Hawks High School Hockey Team

I have something to talk about and this first paragraph or so is more for clarification then anything, some people get confused sometimes. I might have mentioned before that for nine years before I went to college I played hockey for the Havre Ice Hawks High School Hockey Team. It was a co-ed team where there was only me and one or two other girls on a team full of boys. The way it worked was was there was a group of boys who were one year older then me who I started playing with and then played with every other year til I was in high school. Then there was a group of boys, who were younger then me, who i played with every year I didn't play with the older boys, once again until high school. Then there was a group of boys who were my age that I played with every year.

Last year, my senior year in high school my team got a new coach because our old coach was the father of one of the older boys who graduated so he didn't want to coach us anymore. So we got a new coach and much younger coach, he was 21 compared to our 15-18 year-old players. Needless to say we had some issues with the whole coach respect thing because he was so close to our that we only have to took him seriously. I myself thought he was drop dead sexy so it was hard to take him seriously as a coach.

Because of our team wide lack of respect for our coach it, we didn't listen. Not to mention the boys on my team have egos the size of Jupiter with little to none to back it up with, we don't have anyone who is the next Sidney Crosby or anything, we had our decent players but attitudes got in the way from us being a decent team. Needless to say, we didn't do very well, we beat the teams who sucked super hard but we could never manage to beat the teams who were even at level with us, we ended up in fifth place, which isn't bad but really its because at state we scored more against a really shit team when the sixth place team couldn't score as much against a better team. But its whatever now, at least for me.

I'm back home for Christmas break this year only to find that a bunch of players from last year have quit playing because the same coach was chosen again to coach the team this year. What really makes me upset about this is, the coach isn't the one playing the game boys, the players are. The coach can only do so much before it is up to the players to man up and do something about the scoreboard. I hate that the boys are blaming the coach for their losses, just because they aren't used to his coaching style because he likes to do things a little differently. To an extent i think it has something to do is that he takes it a little bit more seriously then what they were used to before.

This coach likes to bring in his experience playing with a Juniors team, which is probably a good idea, i enjoyed the things we did last year, it actually kind of help me get into the team a little bit more after spending at years of group of boys hating my life. But it was different so they rejected it.

I mostly needed to get this off my chest because I need people to know how stupid they are being, how stupid this entire situation is. I have been pissed at these guys for most of my life so it really isn't anything new, but for them to quit a sport they said they loved because they lost, its pathetic and disappointing. Like even though they were dickweeds, i thought maybe they had a little bit more self-respect and dignity then this.
Oh, also if you think I have just defending the coach because I am basically in love with him, you are definitely mistaken. This coach could be but ass ugly and I would still be appalled by the way my former teammates are acting. Because I know a lot of them are dicks, but I hoped maybe they would be better people then that, i guess I was wrong.

Roommates

So I have touched base in an earlier post about my awesome roommate, Ashley, but I wanted to talk a little bit more about college roommates.

The way my dorm is set up is that instead of having community bathrooms you have what are called suites. You walk into our common area and there are about eight doors around the room. If you step into one of those doors you will be lead to a bath room which has four other doors to go into. One door will lead to the shower, another to the toilet and the last to each lead to a separate dorm. So four people share one bathroom, which trust me, it’s actually pretty awesome. I was a little iffy about it at first but after experiencing it and hearing a bunch of others complain about community bathrooms I feel like as a freshman, I have it pretty good.

In my dorm there is me and Ashley and then next door is Britney and Xiaowei, she is an international student from China. Between the four of us it has been an interesting experience. I and Ashley get along great, I like think that we are pretty good friends and both of us are so laid back and chill that it is really easy for us to get along. Then there is Britney and Xiaowei who don’t exactly see eye-to-eye. The two of them don’t communicate and unfortunately Britney has to leave our suite because she can’t seem to stand Xiaowei. Now me and Ashley are being drove a little nuts by Xiaowei. She doesn’t seem to have any sort of basic social hygiene. I’m not saying she doesn’t shower or anything, it’s just she doesn’t clean up after herself, it mostly pertains to the bathroom, I never really go into her room so I don’t know about that, but that doesn’t really concern me. The biggest problem is that we don’t know how to talk to her about the problem. Neither Ashley nor I feel like even if we did talk to her, it would do anything. We don’t think she would quite understand what we are saying; there is just a big language/communication barrier between us that sucks, hardcore.

It’s been a semi-unsanitary semester but it’s almost over, and we have a plan that might get rid of her, maybe…Ashley and I are just hoping that Xiaowei doesn’t have her other Asian friend move into Britney’s empty space…here’s hoping. Our best bet is that we are going to talk to our RA and hope that helps out a little bit. But we’ll see.

Switching away from Xiaowei, I want to talk about my roommate, Ashley. So basically I and Ashley are basically polar opposites except for the fact that we are super laidback. She is very much a girly girl, athletic, she loves pink and is fairly academic and randomly all over the place all the time along with being pretty into God. Me on the other hand, well I am an atheist girl who has way too much testosterone in her system for her own good who hates pink and would rather sit back and chill with my laptop then go out and party on a Saturday night. Granted we do have some things in common, like I said we are both really laid back and we love hockey (for different reason, but we both love it). We both come from different kinds of family and different backgrounds, but we get along super well.

I guess I would just say to everyone, if you have roommate/suitemate issues, keep the communication line open, Ashley and I didn’t and now we are paying for it so…yea. This may not be my best blog, I don’t really feel it had a point but I’m gonna post it anyway. Have a great weekend and Merry Christmas=D

-Crysta

Someone Shouldn't Have To Die For People To Take Notice

Ok, SO I was originally going to write a blog on my roommate…instead that one will come later and now there is this one. I want to start by linking the following video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdkNn3Ei-Lg

Next I want to say that I have NOTHING against Jonah Mowry, I applaud him for his courage and I am in no way attacking him or anything.

Here is where my problem starts and the basis of this problem is that a 13 year-old boy shouldn’t have to make this kind of video to make people pay attention to his problems. I have seen it a bunch in the past couple of years, no one will take note of someone and their problem until after something tragic has happened to them.

For example, in May of this year a young girl from my area in MT committed suicide because she had been bullied, and apparently her life sucked (not to be insensitive, just a statement). But then about a month after, some of her friends started a thing, I’m not entirely sure if you could call it a charity or what, but they sold bracelets, made t-shirts had a walk around town in recognition of the organization, the called it Hope4Hailey.

I have nothing against organizations like this, kudos to people for standing up to the issues around them…however, we shouldn’t wait till after someone kills themselves to stand up to the issues around us. Or till after something bad happens to one of their friends or someone close to them. People should want to stand up right now for someone who is being bullied in front of them.

Speaking as someone who has not only been a bully at times but as also been bullied, I know how difficult it is too be a bullied. I know that sounds weird, but I was bullied and ended up becoming a bully to some people at times, I think it was my own little way of getting revenge I think. I hope that I never hurt somebody enough to where they took extreme measures, as far as I know everyone I picked on is still alive and well.

But I was bullied to the point of taking extreme measures. I had a lot of things going on in my life and tried to commit suicide when I was in the sixth and seventh grade. I, like Jonah, pulled myself up and saved myself and my life got better. I can’t help but notice that nobody took notice that I was being bullied, and nobody ever will. Not even the adults around me took notice because that is how the world works. The only way somebody would have taken notice of my problems was if I would have actually taken my suicide attempt seriously, that seems to be one of the few times people pay attention.

So I guess the sum of this blog, without continuing to ramble on, is that we should take notice before extreme measures are taken. A 13 year-old boy shouldn’t have to make a YouTube video to make his friends and family notice there was something wrong. A freshman in high school should have to kill herself to escape her life. Somebody shouldn’t have to be killed in a drunken driving accident for people to take a little bit of notice about the cause. We as people should notice now all the problems that people have before something bad happens to someone we love to take notice.