Create the plotlines, La la la, Forget the plotlines, La la la... (An open letter to the characters of "Glee")

While I would love to give you an update on how the OSTA Showcase is going, that can wait. There is a far more pressing issue at hand: Glee. Yes, I'm a Gleek. Don't be hating. Ladies and Gentlemen, I now submit, for your approval, a series of open letters to the characters on Glee. (Just FYI, this is meant to be a silly rant, not a legitimate message to a collection of fictional characters. Don't worry, I'm aware that the people in my magic TV box are not real. Honestly...) NOTE: THERE! WILL! BE! SPOILERS! FAIR WARNING! SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT!!!! There, now you can't say I didn't warn you.

To Kurt and Rachel,

I have a bit of a newsflash for you: NEITHER OF YOU HAVE ANY MUSICAL THEATER EXPERIENCE. Other people do. You can't seriously be that shocked that the competition for a spot at *insert made-up drama academy name here* is so intense. I know that it's scary and intimidating. But guess what? You have to deal with that. You are both going into an INCREDIBLY competitive field, and you are going to have to accept the fact that there are going to be people more talented than you out there and it will be extremely difficult. All you can do is be confident in knowing that you are extremely talented as well (yes, you too Rachel, as much as I hate to admit it) and work your ass off until you make it. Specifically to Kurt: You are going to have to learn to accept rejection better. It's theater. It is a simple fact that you will not always get the role you want because, quite frankly, you are just not right for it. If you can't just suck it up and deal with the fact that you are not right for the role of Tony in West Side Story, you will never make it in the theater business because it will crush your soul. You have two options: 1) You can whine and moan and desperately try to re-audition, which will just make you seem pathetic and make you feel much worse when you get rejected, or 2) you can graciously say "Why yes, I would love to play Officer Krupke" and then have the time of your life playing the absolute shit out of that part. Your choice.

To Sue Sylvester,

Yes, you are incredibly witty and evil and track-suit-horse-estrogen-fierce, and we all love that about you. But you have officially jumped the shark. You were never a believable character to begin with, but now it's just freakin' absurd. Just....just stop.

To Tina,

Get better dialogue. I know that's a writing issue, not a Tina issue, but....it just bugs me. A lot.

To Artie,

You. Are. Magnificent. Seriously. Just keep being awesome. (Hey writers, have him sing more please? He's clearly the best of them all).

To Quinn,

Okaaaaayyyy, someone sprinkled too many Crazy-Flakes into her cereal bowl this morning, and I'm pretty sure it was you. I get that you feel like going through a rebellious phase, and that's great. I love dyed hair, I really do. But....you gave up that baby two years ago. I hate to be harsh, but why now? Why the crazy obsession with getting Beth back now? She has spent the most crucial part of her infancy being raised by Shelby, and taking her away from her mom now would have disastrous consequences, both for you and for Beth. Face it, you are not even close to responsible enough to raise a child. And even though she is genetically related to you, you are not Beth's mother. Shelby is. She is the one who has been giving her the love and care she needs for the past two years. Don't forget, you agreed to give up the baby for adoption because you knew it would be best for BETH. Even though it hurts to hear that, it's still true. Also, listen to Mr. Schuester. Even though he's been acting kinda weird this season, everything he said in that little tough love speech of his was completely true. The Glee club has always been there for you, and you know it.

To Puck,

You seem like a really good person, you really do (deep down, that is. Deep, DEEP down.) Now's the time to prove it. Quinn is being completely irrational, and you know in your heart that Beth belongs with Shelby. Don't do anything that you (and Quinn) will regret.

To Shelby,

Okay, first of all, I'm slightly concerned about your severe memory problems. You appear to have completely forgotten that you were once hired as a surrogate to carry a gay couple's child, and somehow, in your mind, you came up with the notion that you gave Rachel up for adoption. That's generally an experience one doesn't forget. I would recommend seeing a psychiatrist or something...But anyways. While I think Quinn is being completely irrational, I definitely think that you are partially at fault here as well. Did you really think that you could spontaneously come back to McKinley and dangle the baby in Quinn's face like that and not have any repercussions? I certainly hope you hired a kickass lawyer before coming back. It's wonderful that you want to include Quinn in the baby's life, but you need to realize how unstable she is right now. And, for the third time, think about what's best for Beth. Seriously, everybody! We're dealing with the fragile psyche of an infant here!

And finally, To Blaine,

First of all, congratulations on your wonderful scientific achievement! For those of you who haven't heard, Blaine has discovered something that enables him to age backwards! Remember in the second season, when he was older then Kurt? Not anymore! Now he's a year younger! It's amazing! Second of all, OHMYGOD WHAT AN AMAZING AUDITION. That was seriously an awesome performance, and we can all tell that you are perfect to play Tony. Just perfect. Here's a little piece of advice: don't throw that away. Grow some backbone. I know Kurt is older than you (?) and he wants the part so bad that he's just peeing himself with eagerness, but you can't let him stop you. Even though you love him and all, the fact that you're clearly a better Tony than him is okay. He'll just have to deal with it. (See, Kurt? Deal with it! Let him be Tony! It's not the end of the world!)

Sooooo, Glee writers....remember that whole continuity thing? Might wanna give that a try sometimes.(That's right, some of us are paying attention.)

Tragedy Tomorrow, Comedy Tonight!

Just over a year ago, while participating in a musical theater workshop in my hometown, the other cast members and I were lucky enough to meet Julie Reiber, a successful, working Broadway actor, and get all sorts of advice and information from her regarding the realities of the theatre business. When asked what, in her opinion, would be the number one piece of advice for a person trying to make it as a professional actor, she said this: "Take every single opportunity that comes your way. Go on every single audition that you possibly can, constantly put yourself out there and force people to see you over and over again. That's the only way to get yourself noticed."

Upon arriving at Oberlin, as I was trying to learn how to get involved with theatre, I got essentially the same advice from the theatre faculty and upperclassmen. So, that is exactly what I did. And this is how I came to be involved in the OSTA and OMTA Fall Showcases.

OSTA and OMTA are the two primary student-run theatre organizations on campus (Oberlin Student Theatre Association and Oberlin Musical Theatre Association) and they put on several shows throughout the year, the first of which are their Fall Showcases. All of the theatre majors and faculty members strongly recommended auditioning for these as a first-year, because it would be the quickest way to get involved with theatre on campus and meet all of the other theatre students. So, being the little go-getter that I am, I decided to just get out there and audition for both.

The OSTA showcase consists of several 10-minute one-acts written and directed by upperclassmen, and....well, let's just say that they are by no means considered high-caliber work. They are definitely intended to be humorous and fun, not to be nominated for any Tonys. Just as an example, at my initial audition, I read a side from piece called "Busty," which tells a story of two women of very conflicting personalities working together in creating a state-of-the-art sex robot (see what I mean?) After auditioning and being called back, I ended up being cast in a one-act called "Reach Across the Aisle," which presents an episode of Jerry Springer-esque talk show all about controversy in the music industry and how all modern musicians are just trying too hard to offend their audiences. I play the role of Thurston Whalehumper, bassist of the goth-rock band "Tears of a Robot" who has also just released his new solo album entitled "No, Seriously You Guys, I Am The Anti-Christ" (known for the hit single, "Your Babies Were Delicious.") It is a hilariously funny piece, and I'm so excited to be participating in it. The performances are actually this coming weekend and it's certainly going to be a very interesting showcase overall. As a little sneak-peek, here's a nice little quote from Thurston Whalehumper, commenting on how hard it is to offend people with music today: "I remember back in the 90s, all it took was a little fake blood and white contact lenses and you had the parent teacher association on your ass like runes on a calculus textbook (sigh) Kids are so jaded these days..."

In addition, I auditioned for the OMTA showcase, which is comprised of several musical theatre numbers and scenes (thankfully, none of which were written by students). And I had the incredible luck to be cast in one of my all-time favorite songs, from one of my all-time favorite shows, written by one of my all-time favorite composers. And now, as I depart for the adventure that is my first college-performance-tech-week, I leave you with a recording of that song, for your morbidly humorous enjoyment. You are welcome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnnVd3wgTX0

Here's to the girls who stay smart

Okay, so here's something that you may or may not know about college. Somewhere in the midst of going to crazy parties, joining clubs, complaining about dorm showers and discovering who they truly are, college students actually do have to attend classes and do work. (I know, crazy, right?) So I figured I'd do a nice little post about my academic experiences at Oberlin thus far. Just to get it out of the way. (Because who really wants to read about school stuff, right?)

So, first off, I'm going to tell you a little story about a class I'm taking that I totally did NOT expect to enjoy, but ended up being pleasantly surprised by: Principles of Economics. To be perfectly honest, there are three main reasons I registered for this course. 1) I wanted to balance out my schedule a bit and not have my entire first semester be filled with humanities-esque courses. 2) It fulfills half of the Quantitative Proficiency requirement for graduation (look it up on the Obie website if you wanna know more about that, because it's far to dull for me to spend blogging space on). And 3) It would be nice if I could actually understand a bit more about the economy and subsequently get more of Jon Stewart's jokes.

Shockingly enough, I discovered pretty quickly that this class is actually....interesting. And it makes sense to me. It's not one of those subjects that I would love to study but goes completely over my head (i.e. most sciences). And apart from being interesting and making sense, I also have a professor who can hold my attention isn't completely unintelligible and impossible to follow! That's basically a three-fold-win for a college course right there! Generally the classes are typical lecture/note taking style sessions, but we actually discuss some pretty interesting content. And we occasionally do some highly entertaining experiments in class, which involve using an online simulation of a market for a certain product and having each student take on the role of a buyer or seller. Doing that showed a demonstration of how the market responds to changes in asks, bids, etc. So much fun. (Wow, I feel like such a nerd right now...)

Okay, now I wanna discuss another class that I'm totally loving right now (this is probably the class I will reference most often in this blog): My first-year seminar class, "Beyond Disbelief: Can Literature Tell the Truth?" Being a HUGE literature nerd, I'm totally not surprised by how much I'm loving this class. It's my only small class really (16 people) and it's entirely discussion-based, a nice change from my other classes which are mostly lecture-based. From the looks of it, most of our discussions will be about poems that we read (thanks to the most amazing book ever). However, we started the course by reading David Shields' Reality Hunger, which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone who knows how to read and has been doing so for a while. It's truly fascinating. As is the class itself. Today, for instance, one group did a presentation of a poem they had read and analyzed (E. E. Cummings' "Buffalo Bill's" for those of you so nerdy that you wanna go look it up) and we spent the entire class discussing it. Fifty minutes dedicated to discussing an eleven-line poem. For a person like me, that's just about the most wonderful way a class could possibly be spent (again, me = huge nerd).

But, yeah, that's probably about as interesting as I could possibly make an academics-based blog post, so next time I'll get back to writing about the entertaining aspects of college. You know, auditioning for a million theatre things at once, hating yourself a little after going to fourth meal, spending your nights watching Quidditch matches and/or Disney movies, waiting for an hour in line outside the auditorium for tickets to hear Ira Glass speak.... God I love college.

"Where ya going?" "Oberlin." "Oh...."

Approximately two weeks and five days ago, I made the monumental, life-changing, seven-hour-long trip from my hometown of Binghamton, New York to Oberlin, Ohio, where I would be going to college. (Actually, it was exactly two weeks and five days, I counted.) So, given the start of this incredibly exciting new chapter in my life...I figured I ought to start a blog.

I actually used to have a blog, when I was in high school, but at some point, I just got crazy busy and stopped updating it regularly. And then every post I did had to be a huge summary of all the things I didn't write about before, and....well, it just sucked. So I just stopped altogether.

But I really had a lot of fun keeping a blog. I love writing, my blog provided a place to write about something I actually enjoyed (instead of things like the primary causes of World War Two and the literary techniques used by Thomas Hardy and every other stale, tired essay topic one would encounter in high school.) And lately I kept thinking to myself, "Hey, Joan, maybe you should start another blog! You know, about college stuff, or whatever!" But then myself would respond "But I'm gonna be pretty busy with work, and auditions and other collegey-related things..." So I thought "Well...okay." But then my awesome roommate decided to start a blog, in hopes of applying to be a professional Oberlin Blogger, and I thinking to myself again: "See! Seeeee! She's doing it! She's blogging! You should try it too!" Then myself finally decided to jump on the blogging bandwagon. Probably not professionally or anything, but more for fun than anything else. I can't guarantee I'll put up regular posts ALL the time, but I'll do my best. Maybe a couple of times a week or so...

So. Things to know about me. My name is Joan! I'm a first year student at Oberlin College, and I'm hoping to major in table-waiting. Whoops....I meant Theatre. I do a LOT of acting and singing, and I absolutely love it. It really is the only thing I can truly see myself doing for the rest of my life. (And Oberlin seems to have a pretty kick-ass theatre department, so I'm pretty psyched about that.) In addition to acting and singing, I also love writing songs, playing my guitar and (brand new!) ukelele, reading, watching Friends (to a sometimes unhealthy extent....), procrastinating, texting, watching random stuff on Youtube, making sarcastic jokes, and laughing until I get that incredibly painful (yet heart-warming) cramp in my side.

So, even though I've only been here two weeks and five days, I can already tell that it's shaping up to be FLIPPIN' AWESOME semester. I'm enrolled in four classes: Intro to Theater, Intro to Economics, Psychobiological Perspective on the Arts (I know, sounds impressive, right?) and a literature seminar class called "Beyond Disbelief: Can Literature Tell the Truth?" Lots of work? Yes. Sometimes tedious? Yes. Still pretty enjoyable? Yesyesyes.

Outside of classes, I am already trying to get involved with as many theatre/music things as possible. I've already auditioned for and been accepted into the female a capella group, the Acapelicans, which I am so excited about. I've also been cast in the Student Theater Fall Showcase, which consists of a bunch of extremely silly and entertaining ten-minute plays, written and directed by upperclassmen. And in the upcoming weekends, I'm already scheduled to audition for a few other things, so I'll keep y'all updated on that.

That's all for now, but stay tuned, folks! With any luck, this will not be as short-lived as my last blogging attempt...Fingers crossed!