Still going at it

I haven't quit, ya'll!!! Although, I've wanted to...I'm too lazy for my own good. But that helped me keep motivated. I figure, maybe if I lose weight, I won't feel as lazy...right?

Today was another upper body weight day. I don't hurt - yet. I'm still eating tomatoes...they're growing on me. I don't "like" them, but I can tolerate them better.

My mood has slightly improved since the last post. I'm not getting that many Barco calls, so I just take each call I do have as mellow as I can.

My song assingnment that's due in a few days is a bit hard. It's a bit more...classical...than what I'm used to singing, and it goes up pretty high. I'm working on it though. I do want this, so I'm going to sing whatever Juliet wants me to sing and however she wants me to sing it.

I was feeling very blah this past week, and for a day or two I thought, "Why am I even bothering? I'm no good, I'm old, I'm fat, I'm never going to make it." I found myself going down this horrible spiral of depression the moment I thought those words, and that kind of helped me get back out. When I'm not performing, when I don't have the intent of doing it again...it's the most horrible feeling in the world. That's how I know how much I love theater, the idea of me not being a part of it is crushing!

So I took a deep breath, felt the crushing weight on my heart at the horrible prospect, and then let it go because I am not giving up.

Tada! I'm outta that grave I accidentally dug. Gotta keep it moving, and not look back. Never look back. Keep your eye on the prize.

Maybe I should play some Eye of the Tiger, seems appropriate. :P

The Wall

I've hit a wall, not on my diet though. LOL. I've done ok there. I've lost 8 lbs, which is pretty surprising. Sorry I haven't updated, my schedule was all turned around and I couldn't find the time.

 My Barco training is done, today was my first day at my desk w/ the new account. IT WAS HORRIBLE!!! It started out fine, customer wanted to place an order, then I find out she was going to pay w/ a credit card and I crashed and burned. I couldn't process the damn thing! I kept putting her on hold and everyone was busy on the phones. Finally she said she was gonna call back and place the order after work because she had been on hold for too long. :( Epic fail.

 I was so freaking distraught, I was on the verge of tears. I knew I wasn't ready to get on the phone by myself, I kept telling my trainer, and they thought I was overreacting. But you know, I've been working at TJG for almost a year and I've been trained on 6 different accounts. I know when I'm just scared, or when I feel uneasy about the program because I don't have enough practice. This is different. Somewhere around the 2nd or 3rd day of training I hit a freaking wall and I did not learn anything. I'm so frustrated with myself, because it's been like this all week. I had a bad voice class this week too. I felt like I let my voice teacher down. Instead of improving, I did worse this week than when I first started coming to her. The worst part is, I was trying. I really was. She kept telling me to put my entire body into it like I usually do, and I thought I was.

 I just feel like a failure in everything I've done this week.

 My Barco account lead got the supervisor to move me for the next two days. I'm sitting in the back with them so when I get a call, if I need help, they're right there. That's good, I guess...

 I feel like a failure though. I feel really dumb. I'm used to being able to do things once I've had some practice, and I had 7 days worth of training. I should be able to do this! But I'm overwhelmed.

 I need something to go right next week. I hate feeling so discouraged with every aspect of my life, which is how I'm feeling.

Day 5; excuses.

I seem to have so many excuses this week, and the funny thing is, I'm not trying to make excuses. Things keep happening. How do people do this?

 Earlier this week - Monday to be exact - I got my period. Yippee. I was feeling a little weak and some minor discomfort, but it was ok. I exercised through the pain and dealt with it. Then yesterday and today when I woke up, I was in so much freaking pain. I popped some pain medicine and went to bed. No exercise.

 So let us do the math: Out of 6 days, I exercised 2 of them.

 Failure. Almost epic. My eating - except for my Rice Krispies - has been good, though. Tomorrow is my "free day" but I don't know if I should take it or not. Yes, I haven't eaten any of the yummy things I've been wanting to eat, but I haven't exercised....so I don't know.

 I may take it, because last night I was dying for some flan and chicken wings, which I was in the fridge. I'm weak. LOL.

 I want to say the next week will be better, but I have to train for Barco Monday, Tuesday, and Wed and I have to be there by 8:30, so I have to work around my schedule until Thursday when I get back to normal.

 This is pissing me off.

Day 3 and 4

I am exhausted! I haven't slept very well in the last two nights. Yesterday was my first day of Barco training, I had to get up at 7 a.m. which sucks since I'm not a morning person and I couldn't do my weight training in the morning.

I could barely keep my eating schedule right. I only had 5 of the protein instead of 6. And definitely didn't drink 10 cups of water. By the time I got home it was around 7 p.m. and I had other things to do, so I wasn't able to do the weight training. GRRRRR.

 Today??? Epic fail. Another Barco training this morning. I was going to wake up earlier to go do my cardio in the park, but I didn't hear the alarm. *Sighs* It's 8 p.m, and I've had 2 of my meals. And a bowl of Rice Krispies. Was NOT supposed to eat that. :(

I will not let this deter me though. I'm allowed to mess up, I just can't give up. There is no Barco training tomorrow so I'm back to my schedule.

I can do this!!! I will not give up.

Day 2

1:30 p.m. on meal 2. I should have been on meal 3, but I took a nap this morning and slept through my second meal. Guess that means I'll only be eating 5 meals today.

 Today was my cardio day. I walked to the park and did my thing. I think I bit off more than I could chew. I was exhausted 10 minutes into it, and could feel my body at all. I need to start slower and progress a bit slower. I'll get the hang of it.

 I've gotten used to the whey shakes. I'm putting more ice in them and they taste good. I didn't make my 10 cups of water quota. I think I had about 5. I'm way behind on water too. I'm about a cup in.

 Tomorrow and Thursday will be tricky. I have to go to be at work by 8:30 for Barco training. I made tomorrow's lunch today. Since tomorrow is my weight training day, I'll have to do them in the evening when I'm home. Thursday is my cardio...I'm thinking since it's only 20 minutes that I'll wake up earlier and do it. But I'm not sure, when I got home today from the park I fell in bed and couldn't get up for almost 30 minutes. LOL.

 So I'm halfway through my baked chicken breast and tomato sandwich and I'm full....do I need to eat the whole thing? Probably....I dunno. I better stop blogging, I gotta leave in 15 minutes for work and I'm not dressed yet.

 TTFN!

Day 1

It's almost noon and I'm eating my second meal of the day; bowl of Special K and a Whey shake. They taste a little bad, but I'm dealing.

My first day hasn't been perfect:

I started my upper body weight training at 8:16 a.m. instead of 8. Out of the 5 exercises I had for my 45 minutes, I was only able to do 3...in 54 minutes! It was my first time messing with the weights, so it took me a bit to get the hang of changing them. Then there was a grasshopper....nuff said. Threw me off a bit. Since the book said not to exercise for more than 46 minutes I decided to just finish w/ my Hammer Curls workout and call it a day.

 Let me tell you, it was horrible!!! I got really thirsty and started drinking a lot of water during the workout, and then when I finished I felt nauseous. Ended up throwing up all the water I had consumed. Pathetic.

 Then I fixed myself a whey protein shake and I was supposed to eat a bowl of special k, but I was not hungry at all. So I ate yogurt instead. Took me almost an hour to eat the yogurt and drink the shake. I also drank some more water.

In theory I drank 2 cups....I did throw up a lot of it though....so I don't know if I should count it or not. LOL.

One thing I learned from my first day of weight training: I am weak! 10lbs was the most I can lift on side raises and dumbbell extensions. I probably could have done more then 10lbs max for the hammer curls, so I'll keep that in mind for next time.

So this is how my first day has started; not all that great, but I'm not giving up. It's only day one, it'll get better. I'll get better.

Long Time No Blog

She's alive!!!

I am shocked to see that I haven't blogged in such a long time. I mean, I knew it had been a while, but not 9 freaking months!

I went through a lot of weird stuff after I moved from CT to PA. You could say I was reborn...sort of.

You see, I put my dreams of becoming a published author aside to pursue my biggest dream of all: Theater.

I don't want to come off as the type of person that can't make up their minds about what they want out of life, or the type of person that never finishes anything, never follows through. That isn't who I am.

I didn't get tired of writing. I didn't stop loving to write. I didn't give up.

I had a really good publishing company show interest in my story. They wanted me to do some more revisions and rewrite it a bit, and if I was willing to do that they wanted me to resubmit it with a possible book contract. That was exciting, daunting, and downright awesome! I knew I could sit down and rewrite it. Yes, it was going to be hard work, but I was up for it.

But then something happened.

I realized - really realized - that I was a writer. I wasn't published, but I was a writer. I had spent the last 2 years networking, and talking with authors, reading and writing, working on my stories. I finished the first part of The Cotton Candy Girls series - something that I honestly thought I was never going to be able to do. And I finished the second part too! I was capable of writing a story with a beginning, middle, and end. I was a writer. If I threw myself into my revision and did it well enough to get offered a contract, I would get published. Then I would work on revising the second part, and writing the third part of the series, and so on and so forth.

Don't get me wrong, all that sounded wonderful. But there was a part of me that wasn't happy. I love to write, but no matter how much I love it, and how much I want to do it; I want to do theater so much more. I let others intimidate me and make me doubt my talent, and I let my mother bully me into giving it up. I never had a chance to try to succeed, to try to achieve my dream. That is not fair. I did not want to become an author and have my happiness diminished because a part of me would always regret not trying and not knowing if I could make it as an actress.

Part of me felt it may be too late. I wasted 6 years. But another part of me thought I still had a chance. I still had a small window of opportunity to realize my biggest dream of all. I've never done things the "right" way but I've had the same results.

So I'm giving myself this chance. I can always be a writer and pick up where I left off.

Now that we're on the same page, I can move on to what I really wanted to blog about:

In order to be a successful actor and get the roles that I want - the lead - I have to work on 3 issues.

1. My pitches - I'm slightly off pitch at times. It's not all that noticeable, but the important people will notice and I'll never get passed an audition. (BTW, Musical Theater is my goal, just in case you got confused when I started talking about pitches)
2. My age - I'm 24 going on 25 now, if I get into the school I'm applying for I won't start until Fall 2011. I'll be 25 almost 26 by then. I'm a soprano and sopranos mature vocally faster than all other singers. Their peak voice age is 23-25, it's when their voice completely grows up and is ready. I need to get in NCC and get out ASAP. I don't have time to explore other interests, I need to take the required classes and get out there before I'm too old to play the lead. Thankfully I don't look old. But this is still a concern.
3. My weight - This is my biggest problem. I am very overweight. I can't move around stage, dance, and sing if I'm not in shape. I need to lose weight and I need to lose a considerable amount. In theory, if I show signs of losing weight the entire time, I have about 4 years to get to my ideal weight. They need to see that I'm serious about this and that I am constantly improving my fitness level, otherwise they won't cast me. Musical leads are not fat, except for Hairspray, but I don't want to be "the fat girl from Hairspray".

So starting tomorrow I'm all about losing weight. In a healthy way, of course! I read the Body-For-Life book and my goal is to lose 20 pounds in 14 weeks. That's 3 months. I will be exercising 6 days a week, alternating each day from cardio to weight training. I'm also going to be eating healthier. 6 days a week, I'll eat 6 small meals a day consisting of 1 part protein and 1 part carbohydrates. I will also add a vegetable on 2 of the 6 meals. Sundays will be my free days where I don't exercise and I eat whatever I want. Don't worry it's part of the routine, it's in the book, I did not just randomly decide to give myself a free day. :P

I will be blogging daily to let everyone know how I'm doing. I'll tell you what I ate and what exercises I did. If I need to vent, bitch, moan, complain, etc, I will do so here. That means I may have multiple blogs a day.

Get ready, because the next 84 days are going to be interesting.