Moab

Picture taken by me!

A few weeks ago I went to Moab with my family for UEA vacation. We rented a huge RV and when my parents picked me up from school in it, it was a little awkward and embarrassing, but I ended up having so much fun. On my trip to Moab I learned how to drive, bought a pair of super awesome socks and had some really good gelato. I learned how to drive in a razor, which is kind of like a golf cart except faster, and meant for rock crawling; by rock crawling I mean in the vehicle which is very scary.

There were many times in the razor where not only did I think I was going to cry or throw up, I thought we were actually going to die... Luckily we didn't, which is great. Most people probably would not have reacted the same as me but when I was sitting in the backseat of it looking directly up into the blue sky it was pretty freakin' scary. Multiple times I thought, this is the end, we're gonna flip. 

Picture of me freaking out taken by my mom.

Anyways, even though I thought we were going to die I had a lot of fun and got to drive which was very cool. After all of the excitement, we biked into town and shopped around a bit. We had pistachio gelato at a local store and went to a very cool art gallery. Then we came across a tourist shop and they had many amusing shirts, pants and socks there. I decided to get a pair of ten dollar socks. I know that is expensive for socks, but they were a necessity and trust me you'll understand why. The picture of the socks I got says it all.

Image courtesy of Blue Q Socks

My trip to Moab was very fun and filled with near death experiences, as well as joy, socks, and yummy gelato from a local gelato store. In the end, I was sad to go home because I had tons of fun there and made some memories I will never forget. Make sure that if you go to Moab, check out the tourist shop and for sure look at the socks! Thanks for reading, see ya in the next post!

~Ariel

The Neighbourhood, Valfre, and Super 8.

Over the past nine days I worked after school and on Saturdays for Shrek the Musical I got a little bored and sick of listening to the music from it. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy the musical, but after seeing it about 5 times I got a little bit tired and probably wouldn't be able to handle listening to the whole thing six more times. Luckily on Monday of this previous week I discover The Neighbourhood's new album, Wiped Out. Ever since I have been kind of obsessed with the album and especially a few songs on it. I particularly love the songs Cry Baby, Daddy Issues, and R.I.P 2 My Youth by The Neighbourhood if you happen to check out their album. It's right below so you totally should!

Image courtesy of iTunes and The Neighbourhood

Not only did I avoid boredom by blasting music in my ears over the sound of the musical, I also sort of stalked Valfre's Instagram. Lately Valfre's style has really impacted my drawing style as well... Haha, oops. Honestly, I'm not really sure where this blog post is going right now, but I figured I would tell you guys about my new obsessions.

Left picture by me, right image courtesy of Valfre

Image courtesy of IMDb

Last night, during our intermission break for Shrek the Musical I was invited to join someone's film club, which I think will be really fun considering I love film and animation. After they invited me to join they told me that their cousin was a film double/understudy for the main girl character in one of my favorite movies ever, Super 8. I was very happy to first of all not be the only one who loves that movie but also was blown away imagining how great of an experience that must have been for his cousin. She got to work with Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams! I'm so jealous.

For those who haven't seen Super 8 (which you totally should watch if you haven't) it is about a group of kids who make science fiction mini movies. One night they go out to a train track to film a scene and a truck drives directly onto the tracks, colliding with the train. What no one knew though, was that in the train was a creature from outer space. The story follows the kids on their mission to keep the alien from attacking and killing may people.

Anyways, that's about all I can think of to say for this post. I guess that's why procrastinating probably isn't always the best choice, but hey, I still wrote another post! Two posts down, only one more to go. So thank you for reading guys and look forward to another post really soon! Love yall!

~Ariel

Shrek.

Fabulous picture by me!

It was about eight o'clock on Wednesday night at our final dress rehearsal for Shrek the Musical when I realized.... I still have to write three blog posts. Not only do I have to post three blog posts, I have to make three different DIY projects! This was going to be very difficult for me since I still had stage tech after school on Thursday and Friday till ten o'clock, and on Saturday from one p.m. to midnight. How was I supposed to do this all? That's when I decided my blog topic probably needed to change.

Now, flash forward to Saturday and it is our last day of Shrek. I still have only written half a post and I can't think about what to write about. I then figured I would write about all the behind the scenes tech stuff I got to participate in. In the end, even though now I have seen Shrek the Musical a total of eleven times I thought it was a really great show.

Obviously, after the whole crew seeing it eleven times, we were pretty sick and tired of hearing the song Big Bright Beautiful World in the beginning and over-joyed when we heard I'm a Believer at the end. That being said, I still really enjoyed seeing the show every time I did.

Although the tech things I did weren't that complicated and difficult, I felt very accomplished and proud of the show the crew helped put on. Throughout the nine days we worked I became a lot less shy and made some new friends that I probably wouldn't have without this production. At the end of our Saturday double show I even had a really awesome moment that was kind of like the lift from Dirty Dancing but way less cool and I almost fell on my face.

Image courtesy of Popsugar

So, after all of that, we striked. Striking is pretty much just cleaning up all the props and taking the drops down and taking apart the wagons. Striking isn't necessarily fun but Dave really helped us make it so much more fun by giving everyone in the crew flarp. If you don't know what flarp is, it's noise putty. It pretty much is silly putty that makes fart noises. Thanks Dave for going to Walmart at eleven p.m. on a Friday night and buying forty flarp containers. That must have been awkward...

Thanks Walmart for Flarp

Overall, I really enjoyed being part of the stage tech Shrek the Musical crew. Also, Kat I'm so glad you were ogre-joyed with our performance, I know that Chris and I are the best bride ever! I hope everyone on the team had as much fun as I did in the end, and thanks to Will once again for slapping me in the face with flarp. Se ya next time!

~Ariel the gargoyle