Mamma Mia Mayhem weekend

It's here. After months and months of rehearsal, we've finally reached the point of no return...

Tonight, Fri.: We put on our first show of the community play we've been helping kids rehearse for months, "Mamma Mia." Annette and I don't have parts. We're part of the backstage crew. We move sets and props around on-stage, which I guess is pretty exciting. ^,^ We also have to keep kids quiet in the wings (so the audience only hears the action on-stage), and make sure they don't miss their cues (because some of them still do. O,o Yep. And we've been rehearsing this since 2011 started.)

Hopefully the play will be a success, and we'll deserve the cast ice-cream social that will take place later.

Tomorrow/Day after, Sat./Sun.: Back-to-back dress rehearsals. Hopefully we won't make too many mistakes in tonight's show, but if we do, I hope it drives the kids to do much better in our second (and thankfully last!) show, which will be on...

Memorial Day, Mon.: This show will take place in the afternoon, instead of the evening. We'll have a slightly different cast, with older and different main actors, but the ensemble will be the same.

My brother, Adam, will be playing a lead role. Sam, one of the 3 fathers. ^_^ It's a big part with lots of lines and a couple songs for him to sing. I can't wait to see him rule the stage! I may be biased, being his sister, but I think he's one of the best performers in this play!

Later we'll celebrate the end of Mamma Mia with a cast pizza party. Yay!

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So that is what's happening. 4 straight days of listening to ABBA songs, watching dance routines being performed and perfected, and switching heavy sets around. It will be crazy times...

I actually am split between being excited for and dreading this "Mamma Mia Mayhem" weekend. =P Well, it'll be over soon enough. Then it will be June, and I'll feel like my Summer will finally begin... and I'll need something else to fill my weekend!

no more games!

At long last, I'm happy to say that I am forever done with these 2 games that consumed my hours on Facebook: Tetris Battle, and Hanjie.

I am the master of Tetris. I got to the highest rank there is, and that's rank 50: God of Tetris. ^_^ Problem is, it's lonely at the top. Once you get to rank 50, you can't go any higher. Oh, you could keep on playing, but you'll never go to rank 51, because that's where the road ends. Oh well, fine by me. Since I'm the best, I have no reason to play that game anymore! Yay!

As for Hanjie, I may not have solved all the puzzles available in the Facebook game, but my sister Annette did (good for her! ^,^). So they're all solvable. Which means, I could do them all if I set my mind to them, but I don't feel like it.

These apps have been removed from my Facebook, never to bother me again. ^_^ I'm so proud of myself.

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On another note, it's Chris Colfer's (Kurt Hummel on Glee) 21'st birthday! Yay!

You wanna know something interesting? On Facebook, it seems as if I have one friend who is friends with Chris Colfer! O_o I don't know how that is... but awesome! One degree of separation from one of my favorite TV actors!

Even though I don't know him personally, I tried seeing if I could "friend" Chris myself, but I got a message saying he already has too many friend requests. =P lol! Yeah, I'm sure all the gleeks want to be his friend. ^,^ Ah well. Still love him anyway!

Happy Birthday, Jacoby!!!

Wow, I realize that I've never written a post celebrating my best blog friend's birthday before! That is such a crime! >_< After all, he's celebrated my birthday when I turned 18 and 19, so I ought to at least give him a shout-out for turning 20! ^,^

Look at him! Can you honestly believe that this guy is 20? Maybe it's the black-and-whiteness of it... but seriously, I think he can still pass for a teen. ^,~

Hang on to those beautiful eyes and charming smile, Jacoby. Keep up that young-at-heart spirit. And maybe use the black-and-white format more often, because you look particularly awesome in those kind of pictures! lol. ^_~

Hopefully you'll get my little "surprise" in the mail very soon! Until then, though, think of my call earlier this morning (I sang "Happy Birthday" to him) and this blog post as my presents to you.

Talk to you later! Hope this birthday was every bit as awesome as I know you are, my friend. ^_~

*Hugs!* Bettina.

PS: It won't be too long before I catch up with you! I'm so excited!!! ^_^

must... stop... procrastinating!

A very charming charlieissocoollike video (yes, I still watch him. He is just so hilarious! ^_^) about the science behind procrastination. I saw this the other day, but actually procrastinated posting about it. lol! =P
But really, I think procrastination may be a real problem for me. I have mentioned this problem on my blog before, years ago. It's sad to see that I haven't been able to shake my habits in all that time. ~,~
A couple posts back, if you'll recall, I mentioned that the reason I've been oversleeping lately might be because I'm not excited to wake up. Well, on the one hand, it's hard to see how that's true. My week is pretty exciting:

• Every week-day I help my family work on building up a very special website that will probably be released soon. (Maybe sometime I'll write a proper post to tell you guys about it!)
• Every Tuesday I go to Toastmasters, to improve my public speaking/leadership skills. (Although this hasn't been much fun lately, because our day meetings haven't been well-attended lately, and our night meetings are now full of first-time members. We hardly have any veteran members left... ~,~)
• Saturdays (and now Sundays!) my sister and I assist in rehearsals for our local community production of the play Mamma Mia at our Town Center. My brother Adam is one of the 3 dads. ^_^ Annette and my jobs include switching sets, getting props on stage, and making sure the kids don't miss their cues.
  
Today was a dress rehearsal, and we'll have another one tomorrow. Our first show is NEXT FRIDAY! And then we'll have the second show 3 DAYS LATER on Memorial day!!! Ahhhh! >,< Thankfully, we only do 2 shows, so after May, this will all be over. I can hardly wait...

On the other hand, I think I have an idea of what I've been missing so much lately...

Writing.

Yes, I still want to be an author. Very much! It is such a huge dream of mine! But I haven't been proving that to myself recently, because I haven't written any great poems (except for greeting cards), or explored ideas for short stories, or worked on my big debut novel (which will NOT be about Imazia. I've given up on that...)

Well, at least I've started blogging a little more often. I've felt kinda guilty about procrastinating that. And now I've admitted that I have a problem. ^_^

I have a feeling that when Summer comes, I'll have a lot more free time for writing...

But one thing I will have to do very soon is quit playing Tetris Battle on Facebook. It is terribly addicting.

Just today I made it to Rank 41, which makes me "Superhuman"! Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

*sigh* You see my problem, yes?

Jack's back!

I'd say it's pretty obvious which movie my family and I just came back from watching. ^_^

Don't worry, I won't give you guys any spoilers whatsoever. But I do have to say that this Pirate movie, compared to all the others that came before it, absolutely rocked!!!

Seriously. Even if you hadn't seen movies 1, 2, and 3 before, this film stands extremely well on it's own. Lots of action, plenty of funny parts, an amazing story, and best of all, it's ALL about Jack Sparrow.

Oh, I'm sorry. Captain Jack Sparrow. ^_~

Speaking of Sparrow, my brother Adam dressed up as the Captain when we went to the theater. He definitely managed to turn some heads!

Don't worry, he's not really drinking rum. It's just water in a bottle. ^,~

It's actually a wonder that he was let in with that costume, seeing the sign that they had at the door. lol.

oversleeping...

*sigh* I don't know what it is, but lately I have found myself to be sleeping in reeeeeally late...

Okay, okay, maybe I can attribute this to the fact that I often go to bed well past midnight (silly vampire girl, I am. *hiss!* ^,~). But most of the time I am still easily able to wake up and get my day started at a decent hour. Lately, though, this hasn't been the case...

I'm the kind of person who, when I have something to look forward to that day, can wake up at the drop of a hat. So maybe my problem is that... I don't have something exciting enough to get me up early enough? O,o

Hmm...

What the heck?

This is so weird! My most recent blog post, the one about my thoughts about "Prom Queen", has inexplicably disappeared! It's gone! Erased from existence! Destroyed! Eaten by some crazy monster! (Hence the scary Pacman image. =P) I can't find it in my collection of posts, published, in a draft, or otherwise...

A couple days ago my friend told me he was unable to comment on my blog, and then I couldn't even get to Blogger to fix things, because an error message kept popping up. What the heck happened, Blogger? Whassa matter for you?

In the meantime, my post is still gone! >,< I don't want to have to write it all over again... so can you please help me, my friends? Who uses Google Reader, or a similar RSS Feed site? I'm sure there is still a copy of my post somewhere, so you can perhaps email it to me and I'll repost it here. I would highly appreciate it if I got some assistance here... And if any of you has this same unfortunate problem, of Blogger eating your most recent post, then I'll be glad to help you out.

Aww no! It looks like the monster attacked my friend, Graham, as well as me. ~,~ Sorry, dude. Here, I'll send it back for you... *sent*

Your welcome. ^,~

Hey... wait a minute... I know what must have happened to us! It's Friday the 13th! We've just gotten unlucky today. =P

Haha, I'm just kidding. I'm not superstitious. Still... pretty weird, huh?

Edit: Wow! I just figured it out now. For serious, this time. All the blogs I follow that posted in the last day or so got their last post erased! Everyone else who posted earlier than that went unaffected...

I'm sorry for fellow victims, Jacoby, Saxton and Amy SLB. !,! Do you guys want me to rescue your posts too? Because I will. ^,~

Another edit: Never mind, my friends. I got my post back. Yay! ^_^

My take on "Prom Queen"

What started as a comment on my good friend's review of the newest episode of Glee turned into it's own post! lol. I don't like hogging anyone's comment space, so instead of leaving a novel under his post, I decided to share my opinions of the episode here. ^,~

*SPOILERS!*

1) Sadly, I never got around to finishing Season 1 (I should, though!), and I missed out on the whole Jesse St. James drama. Oh, I've read about it and was aware of him as a character in the series, but I hadn't seen him in action before. He's certainly a talented singer. But I can tell he broke Rachel's heart. I didn't like him at all. How did she fall for him again?!

2) Karofsky did seem much more human in this episode, didn't he? That was awesome. ^,^ You could tell how much of a crush he has on Kurt, and I believed him this time when Dave said he was sorry for bullying him. He should totally have come out and danced with Kurt! Maybe it would have been awkward, but it would have helped him grow a lot more...

Buuuuuut... Kurtofsky? Really? O,o I wouldn't go so far as liking Dave *that* much. With all due respect, I'll remain a heavy Kurt+Blaine shipper.

3) I totally thought of you when they did Jar of Hearts! ^_~ Really nice cover!

4) Eh. Not much comment. It's an interesting storyline, though, making for thatmuch more drama.

5) I was soooo surprised! Never would have guessed that Kurt would win the crown, not in a million years!!! ^_^ Happy as I was, though, it didn't make much sense to me, for a few reasons:

• Who put his name in the running for prom queen? A friend? An enemy?
• Was it a prank? Or did someone honestly think it would be cool for him to run?
• How on earth did Kurt just happen to win?! All the students really just voted for him? Or did someone rig it? (How does the voting for prom queen/king work anyway? Since I never went to high school or attended prom, I'm ignorant in this area...)
• I was confused too when Kurt was initially horrified. I didn't understand his thought process... can someone explain?
• Who is Kate Middleton? O_o

Still, all in all, it was incredibly exciting and rewarding to watch this episode. Totally much better than last week's "Rumours". ^,^ I wonder what will happen next...

Come on, Facebook. Really!

Has anyone (who belongs to Facebook) noticed the new messaging system Facebook has? As far as I can tell, they only released the feature yesterday. Now they save all your messages by the person you had the conversation with, not by subject. AND they will save all your live chat messages now. O_o Last night I noticed, after I had a chat with a friend I've made recently (*wink* if he's reading this. ^,~), that I could see everything we talked about, as opposed to having the conversation disappear into the ether as soon as we said goodbye and logged out.

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure I really like the new system. Messages and chats should not be grouped together. Messages are like tiny in-site emails, so there's a reason you want to save them. Chats are candid conversations between friends. Before the new feature, chats were private and fleeting, and it was fine that they got erased. Why would you want to go back to old conversations? Also, what if someone hacks into your profile (god forbid)? Now they're able to read all your exchanges with any of your friends, including your private chats!

Granted, you could archive or delete your conversations, but it doesn't seem like they worked on that part very much. You can only perform these actions one message at a time! I mean, come on, Facebook. Really! ~,~

Another thing: what's with the @facebook.com email address? What am I supposed to use that for? I already have a wonderful email account with gmail, thank you very much.

I remember when Facebook rolled out the new template for the profile page a few months ago. I noticed a few people, including my friends, complaining about it, saying the old one had been perfectly fine and they wanted it back. Well, that new profile seems like it's here to stay. It's okay. I've gotten used to it. But this, the new messaging, I will not stand for.

I've recently been reading "Born Digital", a book for parents, teachers, or anyone who's curious about the psychology behind our new "wired" generation. It's quite a fascinating read, and I promise to review it properly on my book blog once I'm done with it. It talks about the new creativity and convenience that digital life has given us, but it also covers issues such as privacy, copyright infringement, information overload, and things of that nature. This book has given me a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to the web now.

So yeah, I have to say I'm not happy with Facebook's new way of dealing with messages and chats at all. I'm certain I'm not alone on this. It just doesn't feel right. It's like a small invasion of privacy...

I'm going to try something here. I'll share this post on my Facebook Wall, and see how many people read it and respond to it. If you belong to Facebook and share my views on this matter, then please share this link on your wall. Let's see if we can cause a stir, get Mark Zuckerburg to notice us... I mean, I'm guessing we won't get that far, but still. Let's give it a try! Make our voices heard.

Come on, Facebook. Really!

5 Things I <3ed about Glee's "Rumours"

1. Sue is back! And she's meaner than before! Grrr! >_< Bringing back the school paper so she can print wild lies about everyone in Glee club? How positively evil! (I love it. ^_^)
2. One of the commercials during the breaks was for "It Gets Better". I don't know about anyone else, but that was the first time I'd seen an actual IGB commercial on TV! (Well, it also seemed to be a commercial for Google Chrome... but still!!!) It was amazing, and very well done! The fact that it came directly after a part of Glee means that, if you didn't know about this inspiring movement before, then you sure as heck know about it now. Whoo-hoo!
   
   Oh, I found it on YouTube! YAY! Check it out now! ^__^
3. The Fleetwood Mac covers. They were quite good, particularly the last one, "Don't Stop". Which brings up another thing I really liked...
4. Sam's little siblings! They were so cute! ^,^ For a while I was thinking the episode was all over the place, and wasn't really good, but when they appeared, I couldn't help thinking, "awwww!"
5. Well, this doesn't really have to do with this episode, but I loved the preview for the next episode, "Prom Queen". Looks really exciting. Just the 2 seconds of Kurt's tux... lol!