2017 had to be what felt like the longest year I’ve ever been through. I was thinking about it the other day and literally, I realized that Sherlock Series 4 premiered at the beginning of 2017…I couldn’t believe that when I realized it was true.
This year has been a roller coaster in so many ways and as per the course of 2017, I’m late on writing my end of year review…even if this one is going to be a bit different from past years.
I’m getting ready to leave for the past – 1864 to be exact as I’m a Civil War Re-enactor. I have been since I was 16 and a friend came into class, handed me a permission slip and told me to have my mother sign it and that on Saturday I was going with her to Gettysburg to get something to wear. I had found a fascination in the American Civil War when I was 13 and going out to do this peaked my interest in a way the same way that dressing up for the Renaissance Faire or Wild West Re-enacting (which I also occasionally do) did. History fascinated me and I wanted to know every little detail from all sides of the story and every single person. I didn’t ask any questions. I was just excited. That’s how I came to join the Chesapeake Signal Detachment with the Provisional Army of the Confederate States (PACS).
This blog post was originally written as part of a series for The Welders. It was posted to their blog on July 25, 2017.
I am 28 years old. I graduated from high school ten years ago, graduated from undergraduate six years ago, and graduated from graduate school four years ago. When I was 11 back in 2000, I had a love for all things anime and Japanese. It was the thing to be into for me and my group of friends. We weren’t the most popular kids in school. No, we were the kids who were spending our weekends at the mall buying model Gundams, figuring out how to convince our parents to make us Sailor Scout costumes, finding new music genres in J-Pop and J-Rock, and reading and writing fan fiction on the internet back when you had to label things “lemon” to indicate explicit content.
I never set out in life to be a stage manager. I started acting, if you could call it that, when I was in high school and the musical came around. I did 12 musicals and 1 Shakespeare from the time I started high school to the end of my freshman year of college; a various combination of them on stage and in the pit band. I took a chance at directing my sophomore year of college and then at the end of the year a friend of mine, my very first director (Lucas), decided that I was a stage manager. It seemed odd to me at the time that someone who had never been a stage manager was asked to do that job. But Lucas trusted me.
That’s how I ended up stage managing 7 more shows after that first one. 8 shows where my job was to make a director’s vision a reality.
Six years ago I embarked on a very interesting project. Take 48 hours, a genre drawn from a hat, and a required prop, character, and line of dialogue, and see what comes out. This is the 48 Hour Film Project, an international competition to see how quickly filmmakers can race against the clock to make a film.
My mother has this story that she likes to tell where I’m three years-old and I’m sitting on the front porch of our house in sub-urban Baltimore with suitcase waiting for a cab to come down the street and whisk me away to the airport. When the neighbor asked where I was going, my response was a simple, one word place. “Califorja”, which roughly translated from three years-old me to mean “California”. I’m unsure why I was heading there, but I can only surmise that I wanted to be in Hollywood and that I had seen so many movies where you catch cabs when they come down the street and that was what I was doing. Needless to say, I didn’t make it the airport that day. Apparently I became angry with the neighbor when he asked if I needed a ride. I don’t try to pretend I understand the workings of a three years-old me.
This last year is what I am calling the year of lost adventures. It’s not that there weren’t adventures. There definitely were as this post will prove, but rather that my blogging skills this year were rather lost. I had ideas of photography projects and writing projects that didn’t pan out for various reasons. So it seems fitting to call 2013 the year of lost adventures. Anyway, without further ado, here is the year in review for 2013. It is full of adventures and I can only hope that 2014 holds just as many.
I’m sure you’re wondering about the title of this post. I will explain I promise. But, it’s a long story that culminates in me holding this beautiful piece of paper that I received in the mail not that long ago. But, that’s how the story ends. I figured now was as good a time as any to make this post. While I technically walked in May, my diploma didn’t come until August…which means I get to celebrate it now according to my university…and I’ve been holding on to this post for a while. Bit nervous to post it. Ok. Now. Let’s start at the beginning.
Continue readingFor the third time in the last three years, I have attempted to write in the challenge known as NaNoWriMo. The challenge is simple. Write a novel (50,000 words) in one month (30 days). Sounds easy enough. However, there is a distinct difference, I have found, between sounding easy and being easy. Writing 1,667 words one day for a month sounds easy…until you have to take into consideration all of the other projects, commitments, and general things you have to do because life demands them.
Twists and Turns Photography 