Change is gonna come :)

Happy Friday! (Hey look, It's actually a post on Friday too)

I've got some really exciting news!!! I don't know if I can contain it all into one itsy bitsy little blog post-- so bear with me if it's a bit long...

To get it out of the way:

1) On Monday, I auditioned for an ensemble at my school called Etude Ensemble, which is run by the legendary Donald Mckayle. Etude is an ensemble of about 18 dancers who perform old and new repertory of Donald Mckayle. Ever since joining UC Irvine, I've always wanted to be apart of this ensemble, so auditioning for this was very important to me. And though I may have been running off of little to no sleep, it turned out to be a great audition!!! :D

I can happily say I am now apart of the Donald Mckayle Etude Ensemble at UC Irvine for the 2013-2014 year! Words can't describe how incredibly happy I am to have received the news Tuesday morning. Again, this quarter has definitely been one of the roughest life transitions I've gone through, so it was a blessing to hear news like this. It's inspired me to keep working hard and pushing myself to be the best that I can be-- and I'm so thankful every day that I am fortunate enough to be in such a great university that offers opportunities like this.

2) I just have been hired as a new camp counselor for Steve and Kate's camp! Yay, I have a summer job! I've always wanted to go to a summer camp when I was little, so I guess I'm living those childhood dreams! yippee

And now for some other highlights/lowlights of my week:


1) I trekked out to LA with a friend of mine to watch a small show called PopRocks on Tuesday the 28th! It was put on by Andy Mientus, Michael Arden, and Lady J and it was night full of seriously fun singing. I also met some really cool people. It was just a great night out and I loved every minute of it! Though I wish there were a couple of musical theatre covers thrown in there, the pop songs they covered were like candy for my ears :D

[Photo Credits to Amelia Lourdes]

2) Last weekend, I was supposed to go home to possibly train for a summer camp job as well as present a scholarship check to one of the new Beach Blanket Babylon Scholarship winners. However, unforeseen plans with school came up and I ended up not being able to go... Which I was pretty sad about because I had a good friend of mine in the competition and also knew of the other two dancers.

But, staying in Irvine worked out anyways because it was actually one of my dearest UCI friends 21st birthday so of course, I was able to celebrate his birthday with good company. Had loads of fun, and to put it bluntly: I have some really awesome friends.

3) I got to do a photo shoot over the weekend with one of my best friends here at UCI. She's always liked taking photos as a fun little hobby, so I'm really glad that she's starting to do more with it because she definitely has an eye for the camera.

Here's some snapshots :D

If you like her photography and want some photographs done for any occasion for a cheap price, please contact her at her Facebook Page ---> Lauren Woo Photography

As for the downsides of this week, I cracked the internal screen of my Droid Razr Maxx which was heartbreaking because it was definitely one of my favorite phones to this date-- What happened to the Gorilla Glass being unbreakable?! So I'm currently back to my old phone from last year, which I just reactivated. Thought it's obviously much slower and not as high tech as my Razr Maxx, it will have to do for the time being. It's funny going back and looking at all my old conversations and pictures from a year ago.

Another downside is that a lot of the seniors this year will be graduating! :( It makes me incredibly sad because I feel like I didn't get a chance to spend a whole lot of time with them this quarter... It's been extremely busy for them this quarter, and I really do hope our paths will cross again. In fact, I'm sure they will, because the Dance/Theatre community is really small (something I've realized over my year off).

And with that, I'm signing off! Nighty :)