This weekend, I flew across the country to see one of my best friends from high school, and one of the few genuinely awesome people I know, make her professional acting debut as Belle in the National Tour of Beauty and the Beast. Um…what!?

It was madness. There were huge pictures of her lining the lobby. There were little girls dressed up as her milling in the lobby. There were audible gasps as she entered the stage in her iconic yellow dress. I feel like I just was one of those little girls gasping at Disney Princesses, now one of my best friends IS one. What is my life? When did this suddenly happen?

We went back stage. She showed us around her dressing room. We had dinner with the cast, and I grabbed drinks with her after the evening show. We reminisced about all the bastards that were bastardly to us our senior year of high school, who were jealous of her freakish talent and angry that I sided her her, and who now have babies, and ex-wives, and apartments next to our old high school. I feel like it was just last week when we were wandering around the mall in Ohio, gossiping about people we hated and how awesome our lives were going to be some day, and now…they kind of are.

*cue bragging*

I’m living in LA. I’m a part of a nationally recognized organization that takes about 4% of the people that apply to be a part of it. I make good money (for a 23-year-old). I have health insurance. I drive a pretty sweet little Prius. On weekends, I run into Mathew Perry and Elizabeth Perkins on the street. (Note: I love the UCB theater for that…) I have friends who feed my passion for fancy food and mash-up parties. I can vacay in Vegas. (Note: I GOT MY ROOM FOR VEGAS! yesYesYES!).

And my friend? She moved to New York last Spring, and got called into this audition a mere two months later. She ran into Julie Andrews in the bathroom at her temporary job in Macy’s. She’s touring the country, with her ensemble boyfriend in tow (with stops in San Fran, Chicago, Florida, LA, and HAWAII) as an effin’ princess and when she waves at little girls? They spontaneously combust into tears.

And those bastardly bastards from high school?  Living in central Ohio. Raising babies alone at 22. Working dead-end retail jobs. Performing in local theme park shows. I mean, maybe that’s what they want. Maybe they are truly happy, and maybe I’m overly judgemental, but (and you are free judge to me for it) the inner 17-year-old in me (and in her) who had to deal with side-long glances in the hallway, bitchy comments during my monologues (Note: I went to a performing arts high school), and snickers at the posting of cast lists is taking great pride and happiness in the fact that I’m “successful” and happy and awesome and they…to me…are not.

But that is not what I wanted this post to focus on, while it is fun to focus on that sometimes. What I meant to focus on is that sometimes I don’t recognize  my life at all. I’m used to changing and moving and doing new things, but sometimes I find myself flying down the 405 or walking around the Farmer’s Market or standing in front of a classroom of 14-year-olds or watching my friend waltz in a giant yellow dress in front of 3,000 people that I stop and think “When did this become my life?”

As long as it hasn’t sold yet, I’ll be calling the car dealership tomorrow to tell them I want the Prius. I still maintain I’m terrible at making decisions.

Other than that, my main excitement of the day came  vicariously through my sister who saw Jason Segal at Rite Aid in LA. (Me=supremely jealous.) When asked for details,  my sister said only “he was getting a prescription and then looked at Easter Candy.” Good to know.

In an attempt to counteract my general laziness of late, I’m going to try to cram the rest of my Australia trip into one post, or I fear it will never be recorded for posterity. This is going to be epic. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

(To read my first two recaps click on over to here and then here.)

After Sydney, we headed down to Sarah’s parent’s beach house on the Mornington Peninsula. (It’s like Cape Cod for Australians!) We made a quick stop at her mom’s work to FINALLY meet the famous Helen. She was, of course, 100 times lovelier than I could have hoped and quickly became my Australian mother. After a quick lunch we finally headed to the house, which was adorable! It was covered in amazing flowers and trees, with an oasis of a backyard and a huge screened in porch. It was beachy and homey and just absolutely fabulous.

That night was Christmas Eve so we settled in to watch Carols by Candlelight, a Melbourne tradition of famous Australians singing every Christmas Carol known to man. We danced to High Five and cried at Silent Night and then settled into bed. Christmas morning was a little emotionally overwhelming. First, we opened presents! Sarah’s parents got me an Aussie Bar-B-Q cook book along with some other fine Australian items (chocolates, Tim Tims, Australian ice-molds, etc.), which was ridiculously sweet of them. Despite my amazing trip thus far, I ended up calling my family and getting choked up that I wasn’t with them. It was the first time I’d ever been away from my Dad’s side of the family on Christmas, and even though I’m Jewish, it’s still a big time of year for my family. Sarah’s mom gave me a big hug and all was alright, espeically when we got dressed up, and drove down the coast for an amazing five course Christmas meal complete with ocean views and party poppers filled with paper crowns and plastic mustaches.

The rest of the Christmas and Boxing Day was a blur of enjoying Entourage marathons, playing with Sarah’s dogs Jackson and Griffen, pushing our way through crowded Boxing Day sales at the mall and generally relaxing.

Sharon and Jackson on the beach

Saturday, the day after Boxing Day, Sarah’s parents had a big Bar-B-Q with all their friends and family. It was great to meet more of Sarah’s friends and talk with some more real Australians about our trip. Sharon and I figured out at the end of the day that we ate for 5 straight hours – starting out with meatballs, meat pies, sausage rolls, and other hors devours and ending with grilled lamb, chicken, and anything else you can think of. I’ve never been more full but it was completely worth every bite.

Sunday, we had another shopping excursion on Chapel Street, meeting up with Sarah’s friend Taff, who looks like an Australian Lauren Conrad but way nicer. We shopped and ate (sadly, at TGI Fridays…why must these thing spread?) and ended the day seeing Slumdog Millionaire, which Sarah and I then talked about the rest of the night. (Seriously, if you have not seen this movie, stop reading immediately and buy yourself a ticket. Right now.)

Things get a little blurry in my time line here…I believe the next day Sharon and I took off on our own to take in the Melbourne Aquarium. My favorite part was probably seeing all the real life Finding Nemo characters and convincing Sharon to face her fear of sharks in the Shark exhibit.

Nemo!

Monday night things got a little interesting – We decided to take in Melboune by night, which we hadn’t done yet and which was beautiful. After walking around a bit, Sharon decided she wanted to hit up the Casino along the Yarra River, since she’d never been gambling before. After taking in the Casino’s spectacular light show (note the intense sarcasm) we made our way over the slot machines. Having both been to Vegas before, Sarah and I explained to Sharon how to play the slots then sat by and watched. After a few rounds, some chairs down the row opened up and we decided to play a few rounds ourselves while we waited for Sharon. I put in a $2 coin that quickly ran out then put in another, figuring that would be my final bet as Sharon was going down quickly. Then, Sarah had some luck and won $8! We were excited to be able to pay for a cab ride home. On my end, I was down to my final 2 cents and bet it all on one last go. I was about to get up, when the guy next to me shouted “Oo, you are doing so well!” I was confused, but then I saw that my last bet had turned into one of those mini-games that comes up sometimes. The guy next to me seemed super excited about it,  but I had no idea what it meant. It reminded me of the game that came up when I won $15 in Vegas, so I figured maybe I’d add to our cab fund. The game involved flipping over cards, like in a memory game. I started picking cards randomly, because honestly, slot machines make little to no sense to me. But then the cards kept matching and the guy next to me kept getting more and more excited, until I turned over one last card and everything started flashing. The guy pointed to the top of the game yelling ” You won big! You won big!” I thought for a second he was pointing to the $64 prize, and I was pretty pleased with myself. Then Sarah noted that the big prize was flashing…the $1850 prize. Yep, I won the big jackpot. On my final 2 cent bet. Sarah and I started absolutely freaking out! People came over to congratulate me. A woman from the casino came and made me sign a slip of paper then brought me out cash in a locked black box. All the while, I looked like this:

I still can’t believe I won. I also can’t believe people asked me if I was going to keep playing. Hell no! I took that cash and ran. I really wanted to go out and get drinks, but Sharon was a little miffed about my winning when I didn’t really want to go gambling in the first place, so I settled for going home and attempting to explain to my dad in a 4 minute phone call what had just happened. I’m currently saving my winnings (which are sadly much less in US dollars) to buy my new MacBook!

After the excitement of the casino, I was glad to be headed back to the beach on Tuesday to stay at a huge vacation house with 20 of Sarah’s closest friends for New Years. Looking back, I think our three days at the beach house were some of my favorite days of the whole trip. For three days, we watched the boys play their own weird “catch” game based on cricket (complete with beer and cigarettes in every hand that wasn’t holding a bat or a ball), played cards (I totally kicked ass at poker), watched movies, played drinking games, lounged on the beach, and talked and talked and talked.

The boys playing "cricket"

Everyone hanging out our first night at the house

Hanging out with Sarah’s friends added so much to my trip. I wasn’t just a tourist in Australia. I got to talk to all these people my own age about their lives, their views, their jobs, and about things of absolutely no importance. I loved seeing how they saw America and vice versa. They were also unbelievably accommodating  and friendly and so much fun. I wish I could be friends with them all the time! New Year’s Eve was especially entertaining as everyone got mildly ridiculous and I got an excellent Australian New Year’s kiss (or pash as Sarah would say.) I was more than a little sad to say good-bye to everyone come Thursday.

Luckily, Friday was filled with the excitement of Sharon and my tour to Phillip’s Island. Basically, we got on a bus in the morning, and headed to an Australian winery, then to a wildlife park where we got to feed Kangaroos and pet a baby Koala. (Sadly in the state of Victoria, you can’t hold the koalas. Fail.)

Sharon and the Kangaroos!

The day ended on Phillip’s Island with the world famous Penguin Parade, which is this huge tourist attraction where you go watch the tiny penguins come up the shore and into the dunes on the beaches every night. It was amazing – all these little penguins waddling together in giant packs up the beach and into the hills, all like they knew exactly where they were going, totally unbothered by the mass of spectators there. I recommend it if you think you can resist grabbing a tiny penguin and running home with it.

Saturday, we had another outing with Sarah’s parents, who by this point were officially our Australian parents. They took us to a place called Soverign Hill, which is an old west type town from Australia’s gold rush. They had horse drawn carriage rides, gold panning, and amazingly cheesy street performers, including a little old man who played the accordion and told us he had a niece who was a gynocologist in Kentucky. “Maybe you know her!”

Us with some (we assume) struggling Australian actors

This man was AMAZING

Sarah’s dad entertained us by buying a large walking stick and showing off his color guard moves. All in all, a lovely day.

Sunday was mildly depressing, as Sarah had to leave us. During the course of the trip, Sarah and I realized we are truly soul mates. I didn’t think I could feel much closer to her, but I can definitely say she is and will probably always be one of my best friends, despite the fact that a 20 hour plane ride separates us. She completely understands me (my love of staying in and watching television, my love of Nikon digital cameras, my love of adorable Australian boys…the list goes on and on) and provided me with a once in a life-time trip. Saying good-bye to her was definitely the only downside to the whole experience.

Sharon and I attempted to cheer ourselves up with last minute shopping, and later that night, Sarah’s friend Nick (who may or may not have been my New Year’s kiss…) surprised us by renting Pineapple Express and taking us out for our final dinner. (I told you Sarah’s friends were freakishly nice!)

Monday Sharon and I, somehow miraculously, packed up all our stuff and headed to the airport to fly back to the good old U.S. of A.

Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean

I ended up staying in LA for the next week, catching up with my best friends from the LA program, Grace and Patrick, hanging out with my sister, shopping with some sorority friends, and showing my future LA roommate Josh around the area I hope we end up living in. I, of course, hit up Joan’s on Third and had a major celebrity sighting (Jennifer Anniston, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette had dinner where we were getting drinks then walked RIGHT BY US out the back door and into a swarm of paparazzi. Total LA moment.) The whole time, though, all I could talk about was Australia.

I sincerely hope I get to go back one day.

"Victoria - THE place to be" - I couldn't agree more.

I have a few minutes before heading out to brunch slash final project meeting with my roommates, but I will tell these stories if it kills me!

Story #1: Thursday was a particularly long day at work where I may have almost fallen asleep several times at my desk. I dragged myself to class that night, sat down in front of my professor, ready to push through class. (Although, I do love my Thursday night class. All we do is sit around and talk about television.) Anyway, my professor says not to get too comfortable. We are going on a field trip across the street to see a taping of “The Soup”! (Yes, our classrooms are in the same building as E! We are also right next to The Weinstein Company offices.) So we packed up and headed across the street and into an E! studio. Behind us was the E! News Set (also the set of various scenes in Knocked Up) and in front of us was a giant green curtain, aka “The Soup” set. 

Now this is where I should pause and say that I am mildly obbsessed with “The Soup.” We have a series recording on our DVR, and my roommate who works at E! has basically stalked Joel McHale several times. This could not have been a cooler trip for us. 

Anyway, Joel came out and was adorable, as expected. The audience was very small and basically made up of friends of people who work at E! so we felt very exclusive. Joel came around and talked to the audience, and by some sweet miracle, I got to talk for our class. I made a slight fool of myself:

Joel: And how did you guys get in?

Me: I’m with my class, courtesy of Jason. 

Joel: Oh, yeah, the AV class.

Me: (a little condescendingly… unintentionally of course) TV Class.

Grace (whispering): That’s the same thing.

Me: Well, now I feel pretty stupid.

Joel laughs. I hang my head in shame. 

Watching the show tape was kind of surreal. It felt like a completely different place than what you see on television, and it was so interesting to see how he would try out a joke, see it didn’t work, meet with the writers, then come up with something so much better in two minutes. We tried to hear our laughter on the finished show, but alas, all we heard was the awesome stage manager yelling. 

This is probably not interesting to anyone but me, so I digress to…

Story #2: Thursday night was my friend Chrissie’s 21st birthday, so she got a table at Winston’s to celebrate. (Getting table service in LA has been a goal of mine so: check!) Anyway, Chrissie is kind of seeing Jeremy Piven’s assistant, and once we were a little tipsy, Chrissie got a text from him saying “I’ll be there soon. Jeremy might come.” We all paused to take a moment and think about how Jeremy Piven was probably coming to her 21st birthday party. I had flashes of my years of watching Cupid and Entourage, while Jillian basically fell to the floor. I put it out of my mind, thinking it wouldn’t happen, but came out of the bathroom some time later to find Jeremy hugging Chrissie and dancing with my friends! Sadly, by the time I got over there, my friends had already talked to him, and I didn’t want to be creepy and stalker like, so I simply danced by them and said nothing. Still…Jeremy Piven came to my friend’s birthday party! It was pretty exciting, for me personally. He was shorter than expected.

The rest of the weekend has been spent being tired, seeing “Saving Sarah Marshall” and then using that as an excuse to stay in and have a Judd Apatow movie marathon. (Very fun. I highly recommend it.) Tonight is a Passover Potluck that I fear will turn into me bringing my delicious brisket and everyone else bringing things like fruit and veggie platters and gefilte fish. Someone needs to bring an actual dinner dish. This is a concept lost on many college students. I’ll let you know how this goes. 

I feel I’ve neglected you, dear blog! This week has been crazy ridiculous. I didn’t even twitter today. *GASP* A giant amazing post is forthcoming, but to give you a taste, it includes not only me going to a taping of “The Soup” (Joel McHale totally talked to me out of ALL the kids in my class. OMGZ FANGIRL SQUEEE….and I loathe myself….) but also Jeremy Piven coming to my friend’s 21st birthday party. For real. Oh, LA…

Oh, and while it’s on my mind, Jim and Pam make me drip loneliness. I literally threw a pillow across the room when he pulled out the ring, both out of a ridiculous amount of excitement for them (Yes, I am that invested in fictional characters), and out of my own self pity. Damn the lack of real Jim’s in the world. Damn. 

My weekend in a nutshell. Here goes: 

Friday: I get up and get ready for work, as per usual. Ten minutes before I am supposed to leave, my boss tells me that it is really slow today, so I don’t have to go in! I decide to be productive and start writing one of my three final papers I have due in the next three weeks. Then, Jillian and I go out to lunch at Eat Well, then walk to The Grove to see Leatherheads. (Yes, it didn’t get stellar reviews, but my love of John Krasinski rises above the critics.) The movie is cute. Nothing life changing, but I was not expecting much. Friday night, we meet up with tons of people from our program at Happy Endings on Sunset, which is the bar equivalent of a frat party. The night ends up as most frat parties do. I’ll leave it at that. 

Saturday: Jillian, Grace, Grace’s friend Sam, and I head to Joan’s on Third for lunch, which is always a good idea. Afterwards, Jillian and I run some errands, stopping by Sephora and Bloomingdales, where I spend entirely too much money on moisturizer and Elle McPherson bras. We head out early Saturday night to go see Minnie Driver perform at the Hotel Cafe. She is delightful, to say the least. Her voice is impressive, and she tells some adorable and amusing stories about her songs. My love for her grows 10 times. Grace and I then head back home, because we are old women, while Jillian and our friends Rachel and Pauline go out and end up sighting Tom Calicio at S Bar! So jealous. Other drama in my life resurfaces, but I am still too paranoid to talk about such things on my blog. Maybe one day…

Today is just being lazy and making dinner for my roommates. It also includes Jillian and I stupidly sleeping through our registration times for fall classes and getting mildly screwed in the process. (You know what BU? I didn’t even want to take pilates anyway!)  Perhaps some Pinkberry is in my future as well. Only three more weeks left of work! This semester went by entirely too fast. 

Aaannnd, I’m back. Back to LA. Back to Work. Back to tiredness.

Our journey to San Diego was fabulous. We stayed in my uncle’s beach house, which looks more like an Italian Villa, relaxed on the beach, ate some amazing food, and watched Everyday Italian about 7 times, prompting us to eat our fair share of gelato and Italian food. On Friday, I met up with my parents, who are in town for my cousin’s bar mitzvah, and spent Friday and Saturday with the family. My parents drove me up to LA Saturday, and I showed them all the highlights of my area, even the CVS and Trader Joe’s. Exciting stuff. They were impressed by the sandwiches at Joan’s on Third, though, but really, who isn’t?

Now that I’ve breezed through those four days, I can spend a little time reminiscing about the amazingness that was Saturday night. Jillian and I scored tickets to the Gossip Girl Panel at PaleyFest ’08 back in January. We (or I) decided on the GG event back when few people were confirmed for the Friday Night Lights event and the Pushing Daisies event was already sold out, so GG seemed a good choice. I thought it would be quality, but let me just say that my expectations for the night were exceeded. The panel was hilarious, interesting, and entertaining. The only downside was having to get there early (which did help us score some sweet seats), and the annoying 14-year old girls beside me (who sadly reminded me of myself at all those *Nsync concerts).

The night started with the reveal that the moderator was Tim Stack from Entertainment Weekly – only my favorite magazine of all time. (It made up for missing Michael Ausiello of TV Guide, my favorite television writer, moderating the FNL panel.) Then Josh Schwartz, the inspiration for Seth Cohen and the youngest person to ever create an hour-long drama for network television (only a little something called The O.C. – now the producer behind both Gossip Girl and Chuck) came out to introduce a nice clip reel wrapping up the season thus far. After the clip package, the entire cast and creative team came up on stage. The girls looked beautiful, the boys adorable, and the panel began. Some of the boys seemed to think they were a little too cool for school at the start, but after a while, everyone opened up and had a discussion that was truly entertaining and informative. My favorite parts were probably Blake Lively discussing her mad guitar hero skills, Tim Stack asking about Josh Schwartz’s aversion to parties, and the constant references to a future appearance by a gay, jewish monkey on the show. To read a professional recap, you can go check out The Futon Critic.

After the panel ended with Tim Stack giving the smack down to some obnoxious girls in the audience who asked about the cast’s personal lives (really?), the crowd swarmed the stage for pictures and autographs. I didn’t for a second pretend to be above this practice and ran up as well. Jillian and I were quickly fearful for our lives as we were surrounded with young girls and creepy old paparazzi men with really bad BO. We kept getting close to the actors only to have them walk to another part of the stage. We also realized we didn’t have pens. Our lone goal then became getting a photo. We got the closest to Blake Lively, but the publicists and body guards started rounding everyone up. We saw our chance slipping away so we pushed our way over to the stairs where the cast was heading out. We got Blake Lively’s attention and asked her for a picture. She couldn’t have been nicer! She said absolutely, even as they were pulling her away. I went to take the picture of her and Jillian, when she goes “Do you want to be in the picture too?” I half answered something incoherent as she happily handed my camera to a girl next to us and asked her to take the picture for us. Success! My goal of getting a photo with a celebrity is fulfilled. I’ve also now seen one half of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, as I spotted Alexis Bledel at the doctor’s office.

So that was my first foray into PaleyFest. It only hit me a while later that I was that close to the cast of Gossip Girl. Oh, and Leighton Meester and Blake Lively are completely that beautiful in person. Flawless. Seriously. It’s unfair. I really do love that show more than I should. It’s just so saucy. Tonight is the night of other shows I shouldn’t love so much. It starts out with a little How I Met Your Mother (very acceptable – excellent show), moves into some Greek, (quality but underrated. Seriously. You should watch it), and ends with The Hills (so terrible, but SO addicting. I can’t help myself.) I’m off to prepare!

(To see the rest of my sweet panel pics, go here. Enjoy!)

Still reeling from my sickness induced tiredness, I decided to take this weekend easy. I mean, if you can’t relax on Spring Break, when can you? Friday Night, I stayed in and caught up on the latest season of Degrassi – a bit jarring since the last time I watched Degrassi they were in 10th grade and are now apparently in college – while my friends headed out to Winston’s, and of course, saw Sienna Miller at the table next to them. I do not regret relaxing though. How else could I have discovered that Paige and I are suffering form the same intern-hazing-induced stress?

Saturday, Jillian and I headed out to a relaxing lunch with our friends Jordan and Pauline at a cute place a block away called Eat Well. We each devoured our weight in sweet potatoes fries, aka orange crack. We then decided it would be a great idea to wander around Melrose. We started and ended at Fred Segal, as we quickly realized that nothing is really within walking distance in LA, plus we were tired. We ended up hitting up Hollywood Video and spent the night watching movies (The TV Set and Ratatouille) and eating pizza. Fabulous night in my humble opinion.

Sunday Jillian and I went on a number of outings. First, we headed out to Pasadena. I had been out there twice to help at casting sessions for the Pasadena Playhouse, and I had decided it was adorable and needed to be revisited. We had another delicious lunch (crab cake sandwich…mmmm), walked around a little art festival, and hit up some stores. (Is it just me, or has J. Crew got even more unreasonably priced?) When we got back, we decided it was too nice to sit inside, so we went and read by the Park La Brea pool. After a dinner of leftovers and things I found at the back of the refrigerator (I refuse to go grocery shopping within a week of going on vacation…), Jillian and I headed out to Milk on Beverly, which Pauline and Jordan recommended. I got schooled on what a Caramel Macchiato actually is when I complained that my drink was all foam – which is apparently all a macchiato is supposed to be – and bought some delicious coffee cake. Unfortunately, I was so caught up in this macchiato confusion that I forgot to ask for decaf and was up until four in the morning last night. I was already having trouble falling asleep. A shot of espresso certainly didn’t help the situation. Neither did the helicopter that flew over my building about 10 times at 3AM. Luckily, my pre-sleepless part of the night was happy, as I finally saw Once, which was beautiful and fabulous. I highly recommend it.

Today has just been showering, laundry, and soon, packing for San Diego tomorrow. This week will hopefully be more relaxing with some beaches and family thrown in, as my parents are coming out for my cousin’s Bar Mitzvah. If I’m MIA for a while, it just means I couldn’t bring my computer, but I’ll give the full Spring Break update when I get back.

I suck at blogging. I try to get over this fact again and again, imagining how I am going to commit to keeping everyone updated about my life in this fast and simple way. Then I move somewhere new, get a thousand and one things to do, and just completely forget to write anything. Not that I don’t have anything to write about. Things have been just crazy…however, after going to work at 9, driving home for an hour at 6, running to class for three hours, and then getting home at 10:30, I never feel like sharing all that craziness with anyone else. Maybe when all I have to do is work at one job I will feel like writing more. Hrm…

Anyway, let’s update quickly. I’ve been in LA for almost two months now. In that time I have been to a number of fun bars slash clubs – El Carmen, St. Nicks, Boulevard 3, 86 being stand-outs. I’ve seen a number of mildly famous celebrities – Sophia Bush in BCBG, Mr. J of Top Model fame outside The Ivy, that guy who plays Beverly Leslie on Will and Grace at the movies, and most excitingly, Alexis Bledel in a doctor’s waiting room. I’ve been on some fun weekend excursions to Santa Monica Pier and to Las Vegas for Jillian’s birthday, where we got to act like VIP’s at Tao – another crazy bar/club – because Jillian’s cousin works there.

On the work front, I’ve had to do some crazy things. At the production company, I’ve been sent to Ben Affleck’s house…twice. I’ve had to go grocery shopping, pick up prescriptions and new blackberries, buy twelve copies of the same book, and read some truly heinous scripts. I have, however, also made friends with some cool assistants, read some truly amazing scripts (J.J. Abram’s new pilot, anyone?), and learned my way around West LA and Santa Monica through my many errand runs. At the casting office, I have spent several hours on the phone calling out auditions, gotten chatty with some washed up talent agents, made possible cast lists that producer’s have praised, helped run auditions and chatted it up with some fun actors.

Overall, the experience has been positive, but also a little scary. Let me explain: being here has made my future life seem all the more real. I mean, when you are in college, you have this vague notion of what your life will be like, and it seems fantastic because it is vague and mysterious. Once you are out here in the place you plan to move to working in the places you plan to work in, it is much less vague. It is concrete and very, very real. You see what your life will actually be like, rather than what you imagine it to be like. Not that this real life is a bad life – it’s just like any life: There are good parts and bad parts and lots of errand running and making copies. You (and by you, I clearly just mean me) start to question if this is really what you want your whole life to be. Not that any other option is worlds better, but anything else you think of is that vague idea of a life, as opposed to this real one sitting in front of you.

I guess this is what scares people about graduating from college. I always looked forward to leaving college in a way, as it meant getting away from drunken idiots, 12-page papers written in a weekend, and dealing with a diminished, immature dating pool. I usually fail to realize the good parts of college – the four day weekends, the ability to nap daily, the general lack of responsibility, and the wonderfulness of all of your time being your own. Not that I want to stay in college indefinitely – I just always glorify what is yet to come rather than enjoying where I am, and now that I see what is ahead of me, I’m a little scared and a lot happy that I still have 6 more months left of college.

Or maybe this is all just the fever talking. Did I mention that is why I am finally writing? Because I have a fever of 101 and can’t get out of my bed? This probably isn’t the best state in which to contemplate the future. Oh well…