Cali

Hello! I am writing from the top of week three in Califonia. Impression so far: awesome.

I love the area, I like what I've seen of the theatre, I'm enjoying the show.
I haven't been to the beach yet, but I like knowing that it's not too far.
I have a busy schedule, but I like knowing that I have good friends nearby.

(I even got to see some yesterday.)
I live far away from work, but I haven't hit bad traffic.

(I like my highway commute very much.)

I caught a glimpse of the Hollywood sign as I was going to my friend's house yesterday.
I am having frozen yogurt with a girl I met at USITT who has the same internship tomorrow.

Everyday is a bit of an adventure, trying to learn my way around this new place.
Everyday is a bit of a routine, which is comforting but doesn't give a lot of writing material.
At any rate, living here comes pretty naturally.

I am certainly looking forward to exploring more!

Start Spreading the News...

I'm leaving in May
I'm gonna be a part of it
New Jersey Shakes!

This is my clever little jingle to say that I finally have a place to go this summer!  I have taken a stage management internship with the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey.  I will be assisting professional stage managers on professional shows which will be a tremendous opportunity to learn more about stage managing, help sort out what it's like in the professional domain, and meet lots of people who are working in the industry.  Currently this is a summer position, but there is an opportunity to continue during the year if I'm available and they want me.  I'm looking at a couple other full-year internships, but don't have anything definite lined up.  Splendidly enough, this is the company I interviewed with at USITT.

Thanks for all the prayers!  I am so grateful that I've been given this opportunity!

Happy BIRTH-day!

Happy birthday, Evelyn! Here's to a child that managed to show up even Alana in dramatics (for the time being at least) by drawing out the labor process as long as possible then choosing to be born on the side of the road. And here's to Jules for sustaining such peculiarities! Congratulations to the whole family!

Last First

As I saw on someone's facebook, "Today is the last first day of school."  I overestimated my alarm (okay, I set my alarm for what it's going to be later in the semeseter when I need the snooze more) so I'm killing time before my first class, music appreciation.  I have only two project based classes this semester and only one show, which is roughly a third of the schedule I'm used to keeping so I'm hopeful that I'll have a lot more time to go adventuring.

It's been the perfect lead-in to the year and it's been wonderful to see people.  It feels so good to be back among the people that I have learned to love over the past three years, with voices that I can automatically recognize around the corner and jokes that we share so easily.  I want to milk it this year more than any other and find a way to be with them more and more, to make the get togethers happen as opposed to just saying, "someday, we'll have a tea party..." "someday..."  I also have a scheme in motion to get together with my few outside theatre friends.  These plans are so much more difficult to achieve since we don't inherently know each other's schedules.  With luck, our schedules will line up enough for once a week.

Anyway, the time went quickly and I have to move on.  I hope you all have a wonderful day like any other while I go make the most of my last first day.

Irony Never Fails

Here's the first irony which is closer to a catch-22 really. When I have time to blog that usually means that nothing is happening. Literally. Nothing. However, whenever something is happening, particularly if they're exciting somethings, I do not have the time to pop online for a quick and quirky anecdote.

All this to segue into a complaint that I have had virtually nothing to do this summer. Between cooking regularly (and washing a lot of dishes), reading several books, seeing friends, watering the lawn, watching way too much TV, and checking my email entirely too often, I still have many open hours for computer games, sleeping late, going out of town, and redying my hair blue. Beyond that, I have time to stare at the wall, wish I had something to do, and still have very little information worth mentioning to an outside party.

I went to a couple of rehearsals for Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well with my Baylor friend, Victoria, who is playing the lead. I was hoping to help, but the play is part of a festival so the theatre is providing most of the technical support. I did however enjoy meeting and listening to the director, who is very knowledgable and friendly. He was in Miss Congeniality :) Victoria and I watched it one day and were delighted to recognize him for his five minute appearance!

In pursuing this, I was afraid that I had missed the opportunity to volunteer for a production of The Music Man. Randomly, a Baylor guy, Carl, who graduated two years ago contacted me about volunteering as a dresser for the show. I hate anything costume related, but was desperate enough to agree. Rehearsals and the first weekend of performance was last week and the show runs every weekend until August 15; a week before I need to be in Waco. After being there a week, I am glad I ended up on the costume crew since the crews I would have volunteered for seem sketchy. Carl is a professional, so I'm learning a lot about costume crew that I never knew and need to know. I also enjoy the cast--they take a lot in stride. It's outdoor theatre, which is a new experience, but I like being outside and (fortunately) I like the show.

The irony continues in this: the day after I started working for the show that would tie up most of my nights for the rest of the summer I got a call from Express offering me a job. Express was the first store to interview me and even called me back to say they were having trouble getting in touch with one of my references which was the only hang-up. Then I went for almost a month without hearing from them. Apparently, the manager had moved my application into the orientation folder early since she had been planning to hire me, then couldn't find it when she wanted to call me and had no way of contacting me. She finally found it and still wanted to hire me. It's a little annoying that it took so long for the job to come through, but I suspect that will make her more sympathetic to my show schedule. If she had hired me earlier, I don't think I would have been able to do both.

So, I am making the shift from nothing to full days again and as usual it all comes at the same time in ways I didn't expect. It couldn't have come too soon!

And just for the sake of this post, I'll share one more irony. As I was thinking about what to put in this post (early!) this morning, I was opening the door to lug sprinkler hoses around the sticky grass when the breakfast I had been waiting on popped out of the toaster. Go figure, right?

A New Den for the Salazars

First day in the new home (please forgive the backlighting):

Miguel found for himself a nice place to lounge...and roar.

In such a crazy day, David kept finding things to hug.  As he told me, Guanabana was his "secondary huggie" and Coke Bear was his "firstendary huggie"

"I'm not even tired!"

Alex found a quarter and wanted to play with it, so he asked for "Heads or Iowas"

We went to Texas Roadhouse for Andres' birthday and, no, we didn't make him sit on the saddle and have it yelled out to the restaurant that he was turning 25.  What we did have was Rachel drawing on a box.  You decide for yourself which is more entertaining, but I think we know where the boys stand.

sarahneedsajob.com

It all started in portfolio class.  Our final project was to make significant progress on a website for ourselves.  I had the hardest time finding a website builder that I liked so I ended up choosing a random one and throwing stuff in at the last minute.  I finished the class convinced that the kind of website I wanted to make with slideshows and side bars, etc. would be ridiculously expensive.  Yesterday, I picked it up again, trying to make some headway to my pathetic site which led me to two places.  

1) I downloaded a random new web server called Opera.  It's actually quite a bit awesome.

2) I became convinced that the builder I was using (webs.com) was useless.  After only a few minutes of searching I found wix.com and my life was changed.  I have spent a large part of the day working on my website and it is in very useable condition.  

My brother jokingly called it "sarahneedsajob.com," which is a fairly accurate description.  I would like to invite you to visit the real site wix.com/sarahchanis/portfolio.  If you need to make a website or if you're looking for a new browser, I would recommend either program.

A Perfect Storm

A science test, a drawing, and the first rehearsal on Monday. A major drawing and a rehearsal on Tuesday. A complete portfolio on Wednesday.

The read-thrus went swimmingly. The first (Monday) was a buzz of organized chaos as we met all together for the first time to take a look at what we are about to create. The second (Tuesday) was a more intimate, more detailed disscusion of the play involving the principle roles instead of all 28 cast members. What a relief to finally have the groundwork! I now know who my assistants are, who my cast is, and we are entering the point of execution as opposed to a year's worth of speculation.

After Monday's rehearsal, I spent seven hours bent over a light table creating an intricate drawing for my scene design class. I left the theatre at 9:15am to run errands for my next project, my portfolio. The portfolio elicited another all-night work call for Tuesday, allowing me only 5 nonconsecutive hours of sleep in the last 63, but I am extremely proud of both projects. They turned out to be high quality and very presentable which was of course the goal. The fortunate part of this situation is rapid approach of Spring Break and the fact that it is all truly behind me now. Here is what happened to me on Monday night:

(photo taken around 5:00am)

Bella

I never thought I would be a rodent person, but Bella has won my heart. In fact, my emotions on Friday started with confusion, moved to infatuation, then anxiety. The addition of a pet does not upset me, but I was having difficulty understanding the reasoning. On Friday, all I could fabricate are as follows.

Plausible reason #1: Christina had an impluse buy.

Plausible reason #2: Christina's bio-pre-med major required her to take care of a mouse before some lab experiment.

Finally, late in the evening I was able to ask Christina and was happy to learn that Bella was a semi-impromtu present and very definately NOT a lab experiment. I never had much admiration for rodents, including the sterotypical hamster or gerbil, but I am absolutely smitten. It's love at the first sight of her goofy looking spotted clumsiness.

Perception

I find it odd how perception can impact us so much. This week has been completely influenced by the thought that a day should be going differently. Coming back from Christmas break it felt like I had been gone for as long as a summer. Greeting people gave me the same long-lost sensation that comes after a couple of months, not a couple of weeks. This intense perception of seperation also stems from my own willpower of completely severing the ties between the last semester and this new one.

However, since I jumped right into the semester it feels as though we have been going at this for months. It seems unbelievable to me that I saw my sister less than a week ago because my interaction with her is so completely removed from the world I'm living in now. There are classes, meetings, rehearsals, crews, dinners, errands, all familiar and continued actions giving the perception of an endless past of chores. It seems strange to walk through the theatre in the evening and find only one or two other people when normally there are at least three rehearsals taking place at any given time, but of course nothing is happening yet.

At the time, I am indifferent to most of these perceptions. They are not good or bad, they just give me an odd sensation when I realize that what I feel is happening is actually untrue.

Another odd sensation is the product of jet lag. A normal bedtime is anywhere between 1am and 3am and hopefully not later than that. A normal time to rise is between 9am to 9:30am and hopefully not much later than that. The latest I have gone to bed since coming home is 11pm and the latest to rise is 7:30am. I feel so productive! The first day of class I had checked my email, changed my class schedule, played some minesweeper, showered, emptied the dishwasher, and made breakfast all before 8am. It boggles the mind. Seriously.

Photo Hunter: Hope

This week's theme feels so appropriate for a new year! This past semester was extremely discouraging for several different reasons and even on New Year's Eve our attempt at celebrating turned out to be disappointing. Mom and I tried to see the fireworks display at the Hong Kong Harbor, but the streets were packed several blocks away so all we could see were a few puny fireworks from the top of one building. All in all a bit of a letdown.

My friend, Meg, asked how the new year was since it was still 2008 in her time zone and I told her about the disappointing celebration, along with the good things -- a long sleep and a finished book. I got her email back saying, "I hope the rest of your 2009 is a lot grander than your first few moments of 2009..." As I was moving on to the PhotoHunter reminder email I was thinking in response to Meg, "I'm hopeful" and found the word "hope" as the theme. Coincidence? I think not.

Now, the picture...there is no greater hope than the hope of salvation and abundant life which can only be found in a relationship with Jesus Christ. This is my friend, Alyssa (bright green swimsuit), right before she was baptized while we were in Thailand.

I never put much stock in the change of year because while it is advertised as "new" nothing actually changes any easier than it does any other time of the year. Still, it is a natural stopping point so may 2009 be a year of hope.

Photo Hunter

Merry Christmas to All

I am writing from the end of a wonderful day, celebrating the beginning of the biggest adventure of all -- the life of Jesus Christ leading to the sacrifice to redeem us all. May the surprises this day brings be full of joy, love, and laughter and pave the way for your own adventure!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Photo Hunter: Breakfast

Our breakfast at the ever classy KFC before visiting the Great Wall of China. These little pastries had quite a lot of energy packed in though, as we did an extreme amount of physical activity and did not become hungry again until late in the day. Maybe not the breakfast of champions, but definitely the breakfast of intense sightseeing.

Photo Hunter

Peer Pressure

I never wanted to be a blogger, yet here I am. At this time, I would like to point the finger at my sister, Rachel, and say, "She started it!"
I have spent the four months since Rachel began her blog hoping my other sister, Julie, would produce her own blog, but also knowing that if Julie did, I would feel compelled to start one of my own. Julie's blog is now established, so the time has come. I realize that this is not exactly peer pressure since no one told me or even asked me to do this, but I do feel like I gave in to somebody somewhere.
All that to say, welcome to the personal commentary on my life. I feel confident that I will find myself in plenty of ridiculous situations to merit a blog. If not, well, that's just me too.
Enjoy ;)