What I’ve learned since college graduation

This transition has been one of the most challenging things I’ve navigated thus far. My whole life has been spent as a student and now I am a professional, no negotiating that. There’s a lot of freedom in shedding the title of student but also a lot of responsibility. The reality is I’m still very much learning and a student to those around me, but I can’t hide in the standards of academia any longer. I have to learn to learn on my own.

A major lesson has been creating my own schedule, especially as someone that doesn’t work a 9-5 job, navigating what to be doing when balancing seeing friends and family, continuing to develop as an artist while getting a pay-check in a different field to pay the bills has been a bit challenging. Social media, especially blogging took a backseat while I figured the other things out. Now that routine comes a bit easier, I can sit down to write without worrying I’ve forgotten something major.

I’ve also realized that no one actually knows what they are doing. We all just are making an informed guess of what the best plan of action is with very little clue of what is actually “right” From realizing my mom calls her mom when she needs help to finding out the performers I admire most have mentors that are helping them navigate the new twists and turns, I’ve found out there isn’t a point where you actually feel like an adult, everyone is just guessing with confidence.

Graduating college is a huge accomplishment. I grew up in a place where a college degree was a normal next step. It almost felt like just as much of a requirement or norm as graduating 8th grade. I definitely did not give myself the space to be proud of how much I’ve done in my degree program and celebrating that as the accomplishment it is. It might not be a STEM degree but its worth celebrating just the same.

Nothing goes as expected. When I started college I thought I would be graduating from an entirely different school then I ended up at, I never imagined there would be a pandemic, and I had no clue the ways it would change my curriculum. I also never imagined the ways studying theatre would change my feelings about it. Its honestly empowering.

When deadlines are flexible do it at your pace. In the real life grown up world not everything has a due date, it needs to get done but not necessarily by midnight on Thursday. At first this was really challenging for me and I was assigning arbitrary deadlines on things, but the reality is without a deadline I can do it at MY convenience, what the heck, how cool is that.

The process is no one’s business but my own. In school there’s so much emphasis on doing it the way you are taught, at least in drama school the teaching is learning the different methods and routes you can take to achieve the result. Now no one cares how I get anything done, just that it happens. I actually get to pick my way of doing things, not my teachers.

I know there will be so many more lessons to come, but boy am I proud of how far we’ve come!

Lets get back to our regularly scheduled programming

Closure? I don’t know her

I’ve honestly been really in a slump the past couple weeks. After finishing school and walking out of the building for the last time on a seemingly random Tuesday after a voice lesson, I really haven’t done anything theatre-y.

I’m emotionally absolutely exhausted but also totally numb. I mean, to be fair coping with leaving a chapter behind without having an opportunity to tie it in a bow is upsetting to say the least.

I think through life though and remind myself that some of the most important things didn’t end with a celebration or a hullabaloo, but a hug, a tear, and a see you later. We can’t demand closure from experiences designed to move us forward, its a blessing but not a requirement.

Even with that, it feels strange waking up in the morning to put on dress shoes not dance shoes. It feels strange walking the route to school but walking further to go to work. Its strange, not bad, but strange.

I’m still allowed to start the morning with a vocal warm up and a stretch. A beautiful thing about studying the thing you dream of is it doesn’t end with a diploma in your hand.

Sure I’m not doing theatre right now, but my body is still an instrument, an athlete’s body. I can continue to train, condition, and fight for it.

The dance studio and the gym, vocal warm ups and lessons, reading, journaling, watching listening. These are all a part of my routine, the same things that made up my curriculum.

So do I need closure?

The friends I stood with in class are here for the most part and if not are just a text away.

The learning that happened in the classroom isn’t restricted to that.

The faculty is still and always will be accessible to me.

So what am I even going on about it?

Is it an ending at all or just a see you later with a hug, and a tear.

Jen

Booked, blessed and BURNED OUT

Jen stands back turned overlooking the balcony at the oculus, a crisp white building with large skylight

I’ve taken an unintentional social media break. Between the hectic nature of graduating in just a month and a half, covid vaccination, spring break and the Easter Season, I have needed a break. It wasn’t a break a planned, I just didn’t have the ideas or time to sit down and create content, and thats okay. My life is experiencing a more major “rebrand” than ever before and the mental energy it takes to prepare for this adjustment is major.

As of now, it doesn’t look like I will be performing this summer, unfortunately. But by Fall it looks like we should be able to get back into the theatre. Right now however, Grad showcase is taking all my energy. It is a scarier, bigger commitment than any show I’ve ever been in because its ME. Getting to do graduation showcase is a huge honour, and just a really exciting capstone to my educational experience. So no, I don’t have a summer stock contract to flaunt right now, but I am performing and that is the spirit of booked and blessed.

I was able to receive both doses of my covid vaccine in march and it took me a while to recover from my second dose. On Saturday (tomorrow when this goes up) I will be at my 14 days and wow is that a weight off my shoulders. I feel safe enough to go to the gym, to eat indoors, to go shopping, and to live. I didn’t realize how overwhelmed I was with anxiety from the pandemic. I feel like I’ve taken my first real deep breath in about a year.

I’m also planning for my summer, and next few months in NYC. Making a game plan to hop into the industry itself when we are rolling again, finding employment beyond theatre to pay all the bills, planning routines, and visions for how my day to day looks and what my goals are for the rest of the year. Transitions are exhausting, but so so exciting.

I find that my burnout hits the most when I’m in a period of “crash” After the excitement ends I don’t quite know what to do with myself and I end up tired, withdrawn and burned out. So, my inadvertent social media break happened.

There’s so much happening in the next few months that I cannot promise consistent posting but I will do my best and lets hold on until summer when I hopefully we be able to catch my breath again.

Happy spring,

Jen

Chronic Illness in the Audition Room

art of my broadway dressing room a friend made for me in middle school

The last couple weeks have been full of questions, discussions, navigating and negotiating. I’m so blessed to be in an environment where my questions, musings and concerns are not only heard but welcome. I had the opportunity to work and chat with a well known and very busy casting director. We spent over two hours discussing the facets of my illness and how best I can advocate for myself and how I can get allies advocating for me behind closed doors.

My original question to him was is my social media presence in relation to my health a poor choice and the answer was a resounding no. He loves that I have a cause and something to stand for, He also assured me that the more I am the one in charge of my narrative the better off I will be.

We then discussed some specific scenarios, questions of at what point do I need to reveal limitations, what happens if my social media is brought up, liability risk among so much more.

So whats the conclusion we came to, whats the plan for me to manage a reputation as “the girl with the thing,” when do I speak up, how am I going to do this.

I treat it as an injury as far as casting is concerned. Genetic disorder/syndrome don’t need to come up until a contract is signed sealed and delievered, or I’m asked. I know where my limits lie, no one can tell me what I can’t do and no one can force me to do something I do not feel is safe.

My social media presence continues, it is important to me to advocate and exist visibly as who I am. My social media is a part of my ability to control the narrative. They will look for my narrative before the narrative others create on behalf of my illness.

As I continue working especially with some NYC contracts and the crowd around here learns about me and my reliability as a performer I will gain allies behind the table. Those that when my being sick comes up say “yeah but she’s done this stuff with no problem, this show is no different” those that push the conversation from my illness to whether or not I’m right for the job.

It was so scary to open this problem up to him. He’s someone that I will be seeing in the audition room for years to come and his perception on my illness could be a huge factor in my success. But he’s an ally to me now. He was working with us for a few weeks and saw me work, perform, grow, adapt.

On days I struggle the most to feel motivated especially right now without being able to get my fill of live theatre reminders of the absolute beauty and love in this community inspires me.

This man took time out of his busy schedule to talk with me about a problem that applies to very few. He consulted with producers, and other casting folks, he looked through my social medias, he researched my disorders just to help me.

That’s far more than I asked for or expected in my wildest dreams but an excellent reminder that people care, people want to understand and help, and that this little theatre kid is going to make it work.

xx

Jen

First Week of School

Thank you all for bearing with me, I really wanted to focus on school without the additional time commitment of blogging. As much as I love it, sometimes a girls just got to get down to business

The week started off really smoothly, the hybrid model works so well for our program and it really excites me. We did have a few technical difficulties but really nothing to write home about ya know?

Then things got weird on thursday, I was in my final online class of the day when I got a text from a school friend in a different section if I was still in school, I said yes and she told me “not for long” well that was concerning to say the least, but within about 5 minutes the president walked in to inform us that there had been a positive covid-19 test in the student body, he asked those that were in person to leave so the school could be cleaned and we would resume on Monday.

That led to the weirdness of doing dance placement auditions Friday morning online in my tiny little kitchen, also apologies to my downstairs neighbors. But the goodness is the single case has been contained and the school has been cleaned, so we are all good to return to in person classes beginning monday.

I’m so proud of how my school is handling this situation, they are doing everything they can to make sure we don’t experience any holes in our education and feel the same sense of community and camaraderie as much as possible.

Its so hard to believe that this is my last year of school, I’m so ready to share more of my adventures, especially in regards to living on my own, exploring NYC, and getting into the real world.

Happy almost fall,

Jen

College Audition Timeline

When I was a senior in high school I remember looking at all the deadlines for college auditions and being incredibly overwhelmed. I pulled out my planner from my senior year to write out the deadlines I gave myself.
These are all general guidelines and are from a couple years ago, be sure to follow all the instructions from each program. I used a spreadsheet to keep track of all the deadlines for each school and specific requirements.

August 1st-Have a list of schools you are auditioning for and make that spreadsheet friend. Register with a coach if you choose to go that route, and make sure to compare and contrast various coaches and the perks you can get.

August 15th-Pick your prescreen material and add anything to your book you need to meet specific audition requirements

September 1st have your prescreens filmed- doing this before senior year gets chaotic was a LIFESAVER

October 1st submit applications and prescreens
Nov-December schedule auditions, book flights and hotels for unifieds. Book auditions as soon as you hear from a school, spots go quickly

January-March Auditions- make sure to do some walk-ins at unifieds if you attend, you may find your dream school that way.

March-April If possible visit top choice schools, or see if you can do a virtual tour or attend admitted students day

May 1st Commitment day- Make sure your deposit is in for your choice school. Pass those AP/IB tests and keep your grades up.

Break legs through this process, it’s incredibly overwhelming but a great display of your talent, independence, work ethic and motivation,

What do you want to know or wish you knew about college auditions?

Jen

Advice for Conservatory

For anyone that is an incoming or prospective student at a conservatory, I have some words of wisdom for you. This will be focused on musical theatre but a lot of it applies to conservatory life in general.

1) Know how to function independently. Conservatory life is college life accelerated. The maturity, professionalism, and level of functioning needed is so much higher. If you just graduated high school and are generally independent you will probably be just fine as long as you pick up some more life skills this summer, but if you aren’t independent, you may want to defer a semester and work on independence.
2) Get organized, you are living independently, in an intensive school program and a lot of people are working in addition to these things to fund there training, make sure you have an organization system that works for you and stick to it.
3) You know those adult tasks your parents don’t have to think about, yeah those learn how to do them. Learn what medications to take and when, read laundry labels, have recipes you can make for friends at the drop of a hat, learn to shop sales, clean gross messes. etc.
4) Know for sure that this is what you want. A conservatory isn’t like attending a 4-year university, you can’t change your path, most of the time credits won’t transfer and you will be pushed to the very edge. If you aren’t sure that your creative path is the one for you, definitely think this through.
5) Be ready to work from day one, there is no lollygagging work begins immediately, even in the get to know you stage.
6) Find your self-care routine, I settled into a pretty amazing Monday morning self-care routine last semester and it was so helpful in feeling charged and ready for the week
7)Care for your body, not just through self-care but go to the doctor when you are sick or injured, speak up for yourself if you need to sit out for any reason, go to the dentist, take your meds.
8) Find outlets outside of school, for me its this blog, my Instagram, time with friends, and working out. Find that for you.
9) ask for help, talk to other students, your teachers, even your family, you can’t do it alone and odds are whatever you are struggling with someone else is too.
10) Find the joy, conservatory can be incredibly overwhelming, its so helpful to remember at the end of the day that you CHOSE this path, we are in a lucky few that our jobs are our deepest passion, so even on the hardest days, find that joy again.

Reach out and ask me any questions about conservatory life, but you got this!
Jen

How I’m staying in shape for theatre

Theatre is hard. It puts a lot of demands on your body and mind. Staying in shape for it is so important and will make jumping back into conservatory curriculum much less nightmarish.
I stay in shape vocally by warming up every single day. At least once a week I block out an hour in addition to my warmup to work on rep, stylization, and performance quality. Usually, this ends up happening two or three times a week because I have very little else to do right now but sing.
To work on dance I stretch daily and take virtual dance classes once a week. Steps, BDC, and some of my favorite dance teachers are offering classes. But youtube also has some amazing classes especially for ballet barre and they are FREE!
For acting, I’ve been reading a play a week and picking out scenes and monologues for characters I am interested in whether I’m right for them or not and diving into the text like I do when preparing for rehearsal. Keeping my instincts and analytical muscles sharp.
My school is doing weekly masterclasses with cool people from the industry and that’s a great opportunity to continue practicing focus and being a good audience member and learning from observing which is what a lot of time is occupied with at school.
I’m journaling every day and working on meditation to keep my mental health good and continuing to do some exercises from Linklater voice and speech which offer not only physical release but mental release as well.
I also am staying in top physical condition working out 5 times a week and keeping up my stamina.
In a conservatory program, you make a lot of progress in a condensed timeframe. I do everything I can to make sure I can pick up where I left off instead of having to rework things I’ve already spent a lot of time on.

Do something today that will make you better tomorrow,

Jen

Ehlers-Danlos awareness month struggles

I went into this month excited, I had started my sickstagram and was ready to share my knowledge and experience on Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, but then I was reminded of issues I had put aside on my feelings about a particular EDS organization.

I have so many questions for this organization in why things are being handled the way they are, why diagnostic criteria changes without medical guidance, why a woman with no medical history is the face of a disorder that needs medical professionals pushing for us, where does the money from our donations and fundraising go.

This organization reminds me of the problems in the chronic illness community on social media. I feel that these organization contributes to a competitive nature in the community to be “rarer” and “sicker.” I feel this organization glamorizes the realities of connective tissue disorders but advertising hyper-mobility but ignoring things like prolapses, surgical procedures, and comorbid conditions that aren’t as easy to glamorize.

The organization relies a lot on h-EDS patients for content, I want to learn about the rarer types too because they also deserve support and understanding, but a lot of the time rarer types of EDS can’t be made pretty.

I personally want to spend time learning about rarer types of EDS and how we as a diagnostic group can advocate for them. I want to find medical journals with facts about these disorders to share with my practitioners. I want to educate myself so next year in May my awareness month campaign is diverse, informative and useful.

If you have any questions about why I feel the way I do about the whole situation don’t hesitate to DM me I’m happy to answer any questions I can or point you in the direction of people who can.

learn something new today,

Jen

Going back to NY?!??

I definitely feel like I need to address this topic, but before I can get into the nitty gritty I have to give some background.

I decided I was going to come home to CA for spring break because of how much cheaper aifare was than usual due to covid-19. I still didn’t think much of it and felt pretty safe. On Thursday of the week before Spring Break we were informed that school was closed until we got back from spring break so they could do a cleaning and make sure we were safe. I still didn’t think all that much of it.

I packed up my stuff to go home for spring break. We were then told they were going to cancel the week after spring break, then we were told online classes would happen till May, and then finally we were told online classes for the rest of the semester.

I along with many of my peers left almost all of our belongings in NYC. So that is a YIKES. But alas what can you do. Initially we are told we had to pick up our belongings by June 9th, I was freaking out and trying to figure out how to do that safely for myself and my family.

Then about a week ago we were told they were moving everyone out of the dorms into a new dorm building by May 22nd! that’s one way to stress a girl out, but then we found out if we were not on campus or couldn’t come pick up our stuff they would store it for us until move in for the Fall in September.

Thank Goodness! That’s a huge weight off my shoulders, so now, no stress. I also am able to pick up my stuff at any point in the summer as long as I let them know I’m coming. So if I’m ready to get back to NYC in July or August that’s totally doable.

I’m so relieved I don’t have to go back to NYC, but I’m also itching to return in the Fall.

I hope we are able to hold classes in person in the Fall term or that will be a really stressful, tricky decision to make.

Stay safe and healthy,

Jen