what college students do in their spare time

if you're on facebook, you know by now the cult of "25 things you didn't know about me!". if you're not, please don't get one. facebook will take over your life and it will be horrible.
for the uninformed, 25 things you don't know about me is a note that you write about yourself...hopefully you have 25 interesting things to fill up the entry. so i was procrastinating yesterday, and i wrote one. i figured i'd post it here, too, just for fun.

drumroll, please!

a list. by ellen.
1. i really hate wearing pants. i don't think they're comfortable at all. which is why i love leggings. i wear them as often as i can. i like to think i look like a hipster.
2. i really love sunglasses. they make me feel glamorous.
3. I wish i was really into music and could tell you about this really cool indie band i love. i'm usually listening to the other people talking about great music, write the bands down, and go listen to them. it's how i earn my street cred.
4. i take my moleskine with me almost everywhere i go. i make lists, plan things, write important/funny things down. it's how i remember all the stupid stuff my friends say. ex, they WOUND their enemies (pronounced like winding thread)
5. i'm really proud of what i did in london.
6. i like to have life chats with mary joan negro. she gives me the courage to do the things that i want to do, deep down.
7. i really wish i was good at photography.
8. i think i am independent, to a fault.
9. onetime one of my "dear mr. president" letters was posted on mcsweeney's. it was one of my proudest white people moments.
10. the quote in the little box on my wall is from the website "stuff white people like". i'm not that self absorbed.
11. i really want to live my life doing theatre. i want to act badly. and i want to be an artistic director someday too. and i want to be good.
12. i love roofs with views.
13. i feel very silly filing this out.
14. my mom thinks i'm REALLY organized and that i manage my time well. i don't know where she got this idea. i mean, she used to live with me. and i'm filling this thing out.
15. if my parents get facebook, i'll freak.
16. i want to live in LA after i graduate. I like this city a lot, and I just started going out and seeing it.
17. i want to move to chicago and work in theatre after i graduate.
18. i'll go wherever hires me after i graduate, which might happen at the end of the fall.
19. i hate how women my age hate feminism. you're where you are now because of feminism, ladies. i don't know where this idea came from, that feminists have to hate men and not shower. i'm a girl. i dress up. i like being treated equally. i'm a feminist.
20. i'd love to marry someone tall, so i can wear heels.
21. i'm really glad i'm from the midwest.
22. i think south america is a wonderful place. i really want to go back.
23. i miss my friends and family when i'm gone, but i'm really terrible at staying in touch.
24. i hate my class on don quijote. probably becuase we don't talk about don quijote in class. we talk about los angeles and sci fi novels. it's making the experience of reading it...terrible.
25. i wish i had been in america when barack obama was elected.

back in sunny california

it's been taking me a while to get back into the swing of things here in sunny CA, but i'm trying as best i can. this semester i'm taking it slow, focusing on classes and my internship and kinda/maybe thinking about what i'm going to do with the rest of my life.
ah!
ok, so now i'm no longer thinking about my life plans.
that's about the amount of time i can stand to do that.

so, this semester, i'm working in the executive offices of center theatre group, one of the two big theatre companies in LA. everyone in the office is a lot of fun, and it's a very relaxing place to go to work. the executive offices are where the artistic director and managing director work. as the intern, i am at the very bottom of the fish in this pool. however, i do get to do lots of interesting things such as answering phones and filing. um...no, really, it's a great place to work.
i'm also making real money at the usc costume shop, putting away clothes in the basement and loosing all feeling in my fingers from sewing on buttons all day.

my travel plans for the semester are pretty low key, but i am going to seattle for a weekend to visit my good friend carly, who graduated last year. i'll be back in KC for spring break, too.

xoxo,
e

leaving londontown

sorry that my posts have been few and far between, but we have been hard at work on king lear. the show is great, and it's been one of the best play experiences that i've ever had. kelly is such an inspirational director; we always come home from rehearsal exhausted.

the show is on thursday, but we've been doing lots of performances for various people's families and we even did a run in regent's park. it was freezing and we got lots of strange looks from the passers-by, but quite a few people stopped and watched.

i fly home on saturday. i'm ready to be stateside again, but i'll definitely miss london.
anyway, i can't think about that too much, becuase it will make me sad.

see you soon!
ellen

oxford

this weekend i took a much needed break and visited one of my best friends, mel, in oxford.  she's studying at keble college this year, and so i spent the weekend running around oxford with her, taking pictures and pretending to be a college student again.

saturday, i got in around 1, so we got lunch at a local cafe and then walked around the city all afternoon.  this is the bod, or the bodleian, the really, really, really, really big library in oxford.  apparently it runs for miles, underneath the streets.  that night, we saw a really cool production of romeo and juliet that one of mel's friends was in.  it was a promenade performance, which means you mill around with the actors and a lot of scenes happen simultaneously.  it really imaginative but still a  good, coherent story.  

the next day, we walked around oxford again, visiting the oxford castle, which is really old (pre norman invasion!) and has a really great timeline in the sidewalk outside of it.

then we got ben's cookies, which make real-life american cookies (british biscuits just don't cut it after a while), with steve, the son of one of mom's really good friends from smu.  we snuck our way into christ church, where they filmed harry potter, by pretending we were students, and we took lots of pictures.

that night mel swiped some robes for me, and we had dinner in the keble dining hall.  there are three long dining tables, and you must wear your academic robe.  all the students enter and sit at the long tables, and then the professors in their full academic robes come in and sit at the high table at the head of the dining hall.  then some choir boys sang and we at dinner.  it was oh so harry potter and fabulous!

i grabbed the bus home late that night, and made it back for a very early 9:30 rehearsal of king lear.  the show is going wonderfully--i can't believe we're in our 3rd week of rehearsals!  it's going so fast!

happy thanksgiving everyone!  

drumroll, please!

so today was our second day of rehearsals, and so this morning kelly told us our parts.
i'm cordelia!
she's the good sister, who refuses to "heave [her] heart into [her] mouth" and declare her love for lear in order to recieve a part of his kingdom. he consequently banishes her, and she is taken in by the duke of france, and becomes the queen of france. she returns at the end of the play with the french army to take over england and save her father, and i won't spoil the end for you...but it's a tragedy.

xoxo,
ellen

election 2008-where were you?

election night, 2008.   it was our last night in barcelona, and we had decided to go dancing.  sticking true to spanish style, we grabbed dinner around 10 and headed out to a club around midnight.  before leaving, we had the bbc on, but knew that nothing would be happening becuase that was just when the first polls were closing--there is a 6 hour time difference between barcelona and the west coast.  

on the way to the club, we walked past a bar where they had put on the election coverage after the FC Barcelona game (first priority, clearly).  the first returns were coming in, so we popped in and watched a few true-blue northeast states go obama.  we then left to go dancing and get our mind off of things.

but when we left the club at 3, we knew that things would be happening.  we got back to our hotel room (with a bottle of optimistic champagne in hand) and turned on the bbc.  obama was up 175 to 95, but ohio and pennsylvania hadn't come in yet.  we watched as the BBC commentators interviewed such experts as eddie izzard and some republican in colorado.  clearly, the top peeps were taken by cnn and fox.   then ohio got called--and pennsylvania.  it was around 4, and we were beginning to feel confident enough to nod off...so one by one, we crashed on the beds.  but an hour later, at 5, ritu woke us all up, shouting, "GUYS HE WON! HE WON!"   we all jumped up and hugged each other, and smiled, and feel back asleep, becuase we had to leave for a flight in two hours.  

then we headed off to berlin, where we had a wonderful time.  berlin is basically like a big brooklyn--there is art, ethnic food, and music everywhere.  we listened to german music, saw an absurdist play (in german), saw james bond, visited the holocaust memorial, and on our last night made friends with a very charming and friendly gay german art magazine publicist.  

sunday was a rest and chill day, with the grandparents and poppa haun visiting.  

today was our first day of rehearsal--kelly is my director, and i'm in king lear, as a sister.  but i won't find out which one til tomorrow...so expect another update!

love,

ellen

p.s. to all the wonderful adpis who sent me that fabulous care package--i love you!

we´re in barcelona!

so on friday, we had auditions and that night found out what show we´re in. i´m in king lear! however, we don´t know what parts we have. there are only three of us girls, so we´re the sisters, and we know that amy is a bad sister, but between me and jaq we can´t figure out who is bad and who is cordelia. either way, i´m absolutely thrilled!

after celebratign the end of audtions and halloween on friday, we promtly boarded a plane! ritu, annie (my roomies), parker, tom and i are currently in barcelona. we leave for berlin on wednesday and will spend a few days there before heading back on saturday. barcelona is amazing. we live in la ribera, right next to the old gothic quarter. i´m getting to practice my spanish and translate for everyone, and it´s lots of fun. i forgot how much i love spanish culture and the people. everyone is so friendly here, and the men arent as creepy as they were in argentina, so it´s a perfect combo! yesterday we went to thepicasso museum, which was incredible. they mostly had his early and more obscure works, which were fascinating to see. it helped me to understand just how brilliant he is. then we saw the barcelona cathedral, which was amazing, and that night we went to a free jazz concert that was part of the barcelona jazz festival. these three guys played jazz for 3 hours straight and it was some of the msot incredible guitar playing i´ve ever heard in my entire life. we had a table right in the middle of the tiny, crowded club, and my clothes still smell like cigarettes, but it was amazing.

illl update when i can,
love, ellen