Did anyone see Oprah today?
It reminded me about something I wanted to talk about . . .

It has only been in the past couple of years that I have become aware of the education problems in the United States. I was very fortunate in that I went to a wonderful high school with many great resources and programs, and this school prepared me very well for my undergraduate career. At the time, I knew that I was very lucky to be where I was, especially after going to public schools from kindergarten through 9th grade. The elementary schools that I went to were pitiful - I was in a very rural, small town in southern Georgia, not far from where both of my parents were raised. I can only imagine what my life would have been like had I gone through that public school system through my entire school career. I know for sure - 100% sure - that I wouldn’t have been at Wake Forest the past four years.

Since coming to school, I’ve heard about how bad things have truly gotten through Teach for America. I first heard about it my freshman year, and my best friend Stephanie just finished her first year of Teach for America teaching in the Bronx in New York City. Teach for America is an AMAZING organization that I truly admire. From their website:

Teach For America is the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates of all academic majors who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in ensuring educational equity and excellence for all children. Our mission is to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity by enlisting our nation’s most promising future leaders in the effort.

This sounds like a really cool idea, but I didn’t realize just how amazing it truly is until Stephanie got involved. I encourage you to check out her blog Culture Shock - it’s all about her TFA experience (the posts are password protected, but she will give the password to most anyone who requests it). Not only is she truly making a difference in the lives of these children, but you can see how no matter how hard she tries, there are still obstacles to overcome. She has had kids dropout, sent to jail, become pregnant . . . and she has also had kids who have decided that they want to go to college. Kids who passed their state exam who wouldn’t have otherwise done so. It is facinating and inspiring to hear her stories.

A few months ago Time did a cover feature about the absurd dropout rates in America. Check out “Dropout Nation.”

If you haven’t taken a look at the problems in our education system, I recommend you give it some thought. If you are a parent, take an active role in your child’s education. If you have an interest in making a difference, check out StandUp.org.

And check out Part II on Oprah tomorrow - it will open your eyes.

Thirteen Things about LINDSEY!

1. I’m going insane lately - life is so incredibly busy that I haven’t had any time to post here on my blog, and that makes me sad at myself :(. But, I’m gonna do my Thirteen this week! I apologize for not doing it last week!

2. One reason I’m super psycho busy is because of the show, which is going FABULOUSLY. It is in intense crazy hard amount of work, but we’re loving every single minute of it. If you’re within a three hour radius of Winston-Salem, NC, I HIGHLY recommend you consider coming to see the show. We were just published on the cover of ArtView Magazine, and we have 2 more magazine covers coming out in the next week or so! Tickets can be bought at our website.

3. The other main reason that I’m going crazy is because my work from the classes that I took incompletes in last semester is due on Monday, and I have a ton left. I have a make up exam on Friday, so I’m nervous about that. The rest is due by email on Monday . . . lots of prayers are what I need.

4. This weekend we’re going to Charleston, SC to see a magic show. It’s by some 18 year old kid, and while it’s not similar in concept to what we’re doing (we’re taking “magic show” a step further and creating theatre from it), we are curious to see what someone else relatively close to us in age is doing. So, that should be interesting - especially since I’ve never been to Charleston! I’m excited :).

5. Also, my best friend Stephanie came to visit this past weekend. Technically she was here for a recruiting visit for Teach for America, but she stayed at my apartment, so we got to visit some. Not as much as we wanted to, because we were both incredibly busy, but it was the first time I’d seen her since August, so that was really awesome. I miss her tons.

6. A few friends and I started a NASCAR Fantasy League on the NASCAR website. We’re so ridiculous (especially since about half of us have no clue what we’re doing, and the other half are RIDICULOUSLY intense about the whole thing . . . they REALLY know what they’re doing). It makes us smile, and that’s what’s important ;).

7. I’m not having a hard time with getting ideas for posts and things at Reading Red Letters . . . I just have NO TIME to post there. I’m barely posting here, and when I am posting, it’s little quizzes and things. I want to spend my time writing those posts, and that’s something that I haven’t had time for. If you’ve been checking over there, please don’t get discouraged - as soon as this show is over on the 26th and my midterms are over on the 27th, I’m going to start some hardcore blogging over there. Watch out ;).

8. Does anyone have any fun new recipes to share? I have a few recipes that I use over and over again because they’re quick, and I realized that I’d like some variety if anyone would like to offer me some, haha! If you send me your recipes, I’ll post them on here with a link to your site!

9. I enjoyed answering your questions before, so send me more! What do you want to know about me? What do you want to hear me talk about?

10. I auditioned for a show yesterday and got called back! It’s a great Woody Allen play called Old Saybrook. Callbacks were today, and I think they went well, so fingers crossed! The cast list is supposed to be posted by Friday night!

11. We found out our lighting designer (an off-Broadway lighting designer, so a big deal!) will be coming in half a week earlier than we thought he would. YAY!!!

12. We’re going to be the morning segment in the news in a week and a half for the local Fox News affiliate. We’re going to be doing some smaller sleight of hand tricks as well as one of our grand illusions. So watch for us if you’re local!

13. Matt and Ben almost got ticketed for hanging up flyers tonight . . . hehehehe. A cop saw them putting them up and said they were hanging them against the ordinance, but he was just going to give them a warning. Check out our blog, Ben said he was gonna post about it.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
(leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)
1. Nicole

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OK, everyone quit yelling at me to update my blog, I’m updating it now, LOL!!!

Soooo much has happened in the past month or so. This is probably why I haven’t been updating like a good little internet nerd.

Let’s see, the last time that I updated was right after Tales of the Lost Formicans closed. Since then I was the sound board operator at the dance concert and I costume designed a one-act called For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls. It’s a Christopher Durang take-off of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie. So I had two shows going at one time, and life was really hectic.

Then, once those started to wrap-up I entered Hell Week. Not exam week - the week before exam week. For some reason all the theatre professors decided to make everything due the week before exams. This would make sense if we all had other exams to take - they’d want us to get their stuff out of the way so that we’d have less stress during exam week. However, for the junior theatre majors, all of our classes were theatre classes this semester. Literally, 4 out of my 5 classes were theatre. So this meant that all of our projects, papers, presentations, etc. were all due at the same time. I pulled 3 all-nighters in one week. Let’s hope that the next time I’m that deprived of sleep it’s because I’m on my honeymoon.

So I had a huge scene design project, a paper for my theatre management class, a scene to direct for workshop (and paperwork to go with it) and my prompt book. Oh the prompt book. It’s a ridiculously indepth analysis of the one-act I will be directing in the fall (The American Century, by Murphy Guyer). We turn in our prompt book 3 times - once at the end of junior year, once at the end of the summer, and the final time right after our one-act is performed. So, I turned in almost 100 pages of analysis during this last week of classes when I had all that other stuff due. I have about another 100 pages to do this summer. Yay.

Then, since I had hardly anything to do during exam week cause I was finished by then, I moved into my apartment. Yay, I have an apartment! I just couldn’t deal with living on campus anymore - I needed more space, my own bathroom, and a kitchen. So, I have those things now, and a fireplace. Lindsey is happy! So I moved all my stuff to the apartment all week long, by myself for the most part. But I didn’t mind that too much, cause it was nice to be done with classes.

Then, at the end of exam week, Living Parables left for our annual Florida tour. We went to Jacksonville to my condo for half a week, then Rachel’s house in Orlando for half a week. We only had 2 performances, but it was really nice to just take a week off and hang out with fun friends. We had a spectacular time, I’ll have the pictures up on my Webshots soon.

Then we drove back up to Winston-Salem and I hung out for a few days until graduation. Which was really depressing. A lot of my good friends (including my best friend) graduated, and it didn’t really sink in that they were leaving me until I was at graduation, sitting with my best friend’s family, and I realized that next year she’ll be gone, and I’ll be hanging out with her mom, but without her. This made Lindsey very sad, and she proceeded to invite herself to spend the night at said friend’s house and eat her mommy’s food. I love the Hills.

Then I drove home (tooooooo much driving between NC and FL) on Wednesday the 18th and made it back just in time to go to the 12:01 AM showing of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith! If you haven’t seen it yet, please do, cause you’re really missing out. It was AMAZING! Also depressing, cause this means that its over, but it was a phenomenal movie. Also, Hayden Christensen needs to meet me and marry me. I think that would be a good plan for my life. If you wanna see it, let me know - I’m interested in seeing it again. And again. And again.

So now I’m here at home, getting all my furniture ready to go up to NC next weekend. I’ve also been working a lot on Living Parables stuff, trying to get things ready for next year. I’m really excited about being the Coordinating Director for next year (somewhere I hear Stephanie Hill mocking me for my enthusiasm). The next big plan is to update my website because it’s been so long that I think my members have probably forgotten all about it :-(! I’m hoping to get it updated either tonight or tomorrow night, depending on how fast I can crank out this stationary (and it’s gonna be a huge update, believe you me).

So, I think that’s enough writing for this novel. Expect more updates in a more timely manner. Hopefully I’ll have internet access up in Princeton. Oh, BTW, I didn’t get the job with the theatre department. I’m really not sure why, and it actually upsets me quite a bit, cause I thought that I was a shoe-in. I mean, this job is perfect for me, and I thought I was perfect for it. But, I guess not. So I’m gonna apply for a job with Teach For America’s recruiting staff at Wake Forest (yes, I really am turning into Stephanie, but she’s encouraging it!).

To all my seniors - I love you and will miss you, you better stay in touch or I will hunt you down.
To all my real-life friends - next year will rock, please prepare now ;-).
To all my internet friends - I have so not forgotten you, please forgive me for being away for so long, I can’t wait to hear from all of you.
To the world - go see Star Wars. Also, I will be 21 in 16 days . . . brace yourselves!