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In the first day installment of the Blogust Series, I touched a bit on the fact that I am a firm believer of spiritual energy. Of course, when I bring that up in conversation, many people believe that I’m referring to a higher power of some sorts in some religion. While I do have my own personal beliefs about religion, I was never a religious person. I wasn’t raised with a religious background, so I never knew much about God and The Bible; pretty much anything related to religion.

When I say spiritual energy, I mean just that: energy. I believe those cliches that people seem to overuse in life: everything happens for a reason. I’m not saying that you have to analyze everything that happens in your life to figure out that reason; for the most part, I do take things that happen at certain times in my life and wonder why something would happen during such a time.

Confused? Let me explain.

Continue reading “Day 22: I Believe in Spiritual Energy.” →

Hey, guys – welcome back to TNTH.

With college coming around the corner (or already came) and public school starting in just a couple of weeks, many of those people who fall into the routine of going back to college at the end of the month already know what’s to come: another school year, another year of papers, finals, classes, grades; all that jazz. Some of you guys might be ready to go back and just become more productive once again, and some of you may already be dreading the thought of being busy with school. Whatever the emotion is that you’re feeling, you still are returning to a place of familiarity, comfortability, and acknowledgment. As a former college/grad student, getting back into the swing of things took some time, and yes, I did experience a form of anxiety returning back to that routine, but it wasn’t anything that left me wondering what was going to happen. In other words, it didn’t leave me uncertain about my future for the upcoming year.

Like you guys know, I graduated grad school this past May without the intention of continuing my education further. No PhD’s for me, honey. What that meant for me was that I’d go through the summer celebrating and getting the well-needed break I deserved knowing that when it all ended, I wouldn’t be returning to my college as a student. I am not forced to adapt to a lifestyle I never experienced before: working a full-time job, making money, paying bills, pretty much being an actual functioning adult. As I sit here and write this post knowing that next week I will not be starting my first day of classes like I’ve done for the last 6 years of my life, I realized the uncertainty and anxiety was more than just normal worries.

I’m currently dealing with a real-as-fuck “culture shock.”

Continue reading “Day 19: How I’m Dealing with “Culture Shock”.” →

Hey, guys – welcome back to TNTH.

As the months pass on by, trends are created and become viral much more quickly than (sadly) an actual cause that can help save or cause a change in society. I say this with disgust over a certain “trend” that I came across social media one day, and that trend is the “skinny legend” trend.

According to Urban Dictionary, the term “skinny legend” originated on social media, used to describe a fandom’s “fave”, or person that is worshipped in a certain group of “stans”.

A phrase used by a social media sub-group called “stans”. It is commonly used to refer to celebrities such as Mariah Carey who are glamorous and talented, no matter their weight. It is also used ironically to refer to cute animals, people, objects etc. Twitter trolls use it often in their memes.

It’s meant to be something ridiculous and stupid, yes, and the community who came up with the trend didn’t intend any harm by creating it, but no matter how you look at it, those who see it for the first time are going to think the obvious definition of it: someone who is skinny and iconic. And that’s when a harmless trend then becomes harmful.

A lot like the “triggered” trend that was circulating on the internet in the last two years, “skinny legend” holds that same discriminative aura. Those who will use the term “skinny legend” will use it in every conversation, talking about good-looking people who are society’s definition of “legends” and “iconic”. I mean, what fat person is going to write #SkinnyLegend on their caption knowing half of the social media community will look at them sideways? It’s a trend that makes it so being pretty and good-looking an exclusive club for skinny people, which yet again is going everything against those who aren’t “blessed” with being skinny.

Am I reaching? Maybe. Do I feel salty? Maybe. But I could care less about feeling included in a trend such as “skinny legend”. While its original concept was okay and passable of being a decent good meme or whatever, it still leaves way too much room for people to misuse the term. They will be people using the word for its literal meaning: BEING A SKINNY LEGEND.

So please, don’t just use it because you hear everyone else saying it (which I bet 9 out of the 10 times it’s being misused in society) and it’s the new black. Don’t call out your skinny friends and say “damn girl you’re a skinny legend”. Don’t even idolize your “favs” by calling them that either because, again, the made-up meaning of that trend doesn’t make sense in the first place and celebs are human beings too. The fact that the word “skinny” had to be added to that trend already insinuates that skinny equals perfection and beauty.

It’s 2018, cut the crap.

-Liz. (:

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In the last decade, I got to do some amazing things and had the opportunities to work and perform on various creative projects. I performed on Good Morning America, I performed at Carnegie Hall twice, and I was a part of the winning ensemble in the Brooklyn Philharmonic Chamber Competition. All these amazing memories and opportunities stemmed from being a part of my high school’s most prestigious choir, Performing Choir. I was a member of PC for three out of my four years of high school, and I honestly wouldn’t trade that experience for the world.

But that’s a different story for a different post.

After I graduated high-school and started college, projects like that never really came up. I was busy getting “gen-ed” requirements out of the way in college, and I was too shy to join some sort of club while being there. By the time I was a junior, I wanted to utilize my time better and start doing things to build up my resume. I had tried once to get an internship before my junior year started, but that’s an experience that wasn’t good at all. 

By the time I was on my winter break, I had found myself wanted to get an internship to get the feel of being a part of a production company, whether it was for the theater or for film. After looking, I found one for a company in the city called Poetic Theater Productions. They were looking for two production interns to assist them throughout their winter production season of Poetic License. This was now the third time I got called back for an interview and the first two didn’t go well. To say the least, I was immensely nervous for this interview.

hen I arrived at their location, I was greeted by the person who was going to interview me for the position. With a copy of my resume in my hand, I handed it over and allowed the interviewer to review my resume for a minute or two. Because I had participated at a non-profit affiliated with the company, a lot of the questions I was asked had to do with my experience there. The conversation honestly came naturally, and when I left the interview, I had felt really good. A couple of hours later, I got the email saying I got the job.

It was nerve-wracking going to work on my first day. I was there trying to get the hang of working a 10 to 4, and my first day was me and this other intern literally getting paperwork done for the actors participating in the two productions the company was running. By the end of the week, I had gotten assigned to work on the production entitled “Dijla Wal Furat: Between The Tigris and The Euphrates” The play was written by playwright Maurice Decaul, a former U.S. Marine officer who witnessed the Iraqi invasion back in 2003. Although the play isn’t a direct memoir of his experience, the play’s world is around that time period of the invasion and the Iraq War in 2003. The play shows you both stories of the spectrum; the Americans who are fighting to safely return home to their families, and the Iraqi people who are trying to survive on a day-to-day basis.

I can’t lie, it took a couple of readings before I actually understood everything that was happening, but by the time I got into rehearsals for the show, the actors seriously brought this script to life. Now, I’ve worked with a lot of student actors in my day, but to see those out of college with degrees and that actually belong to agencies and just working as professional actors… it was crazy seeing how talented these people were. For a show that only had 8 characters, these actors made it feel like a 20-character project, in all honesty.

Once the show dates were coming closer and closer, rehearsals got crazy intense. I wasn’t making it home until late at night, doing my school work at all crazy hours in the morning, and even sometimes during rehearsal breaks during the week. My weeks consist of me taking my three classes two days a week, running to the city and getting ready for another rehearsal. As tiring and stressful as it got, I still was able to be present and as helpful as I could when I was working. I loved doing what I did.

When showtime came around, I was in charge of mainly two things: controlling the soundboard during the show and making sure all the props and costumes were placed back in their appropriate areas after the show. Putting heavy fake guns in a bin and having to recheck if every little prop was in place was time-consuming, but as the shows kept going, the job became a lot easier. For the last night of the “previews” (which was really just a period for us production people to tweak certain things before the actual show dates), I invited my partner to come and see the show, and surprisingly he enjoyed it very much! It felt good to share with someone who knew me the work I’ve been doing for the last month and still have a good time.

The last day of the show was a bittersweet one; we all got dressed up for the last show and we had possibly the biggest audience that night. By the last show, doing this every other night felt like something I was supposed to be doing for life. I didn’t mind it either; watching the same show over and over again and enjoying it as if it was my first time doing so. But, the season was now coming to an end, which meant the shows were closing and my time with Poetic Theater Productions was coming to an end as well. I don’t even remember being all that excited for my little paycheck at the end of the season. I wasn’t even doing it for the money; I was doing it for the experience and it was an experience I wouldn’t ever want to replace.

I’m glad that my first job was something that I absolutely loved doing. It wasn’t no fast-food joint or retail; it was something that I saw myself (and even still see myself) doing as an actual job. Of course, once the production season was over, college was a lot easier since I was able to now just focus on school and not my job at the same time.

But I do miss it.

If anyone who I got the pleasure of working with during my time at Poetic Theater Productions is reading this, thank you so much for making my first experience in the theater world one to remember! You guys made me feel like I belonged, which I never seem to feel like I do anywhere and allowing me to be myself while working on such an amazing production was all I could’ve wanted coming out of an experience like this. To the production team, actors, directors, stage manager; literally everyone who worked on this production: thank you for everything, three years later.

-Liz. (:

Hey, guys – welcome back to TNTH!

It’s officially the middle of the month, and two weeks since the start of Blogust! How are you guys enjoying it so far? Personally, writing for the blog has made me feel more productive than I felt since I graduated grad school, so it feels good to be back and writing new content for you guys!

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but this summer has been hard and stressful for many of reasons, and I honestly didn’t have the energy to sit back and write when things were happening.

There were a lot more lows than highs this past month alone and I’m very glad that I get the chance to make things better for the remaining days summer has left. Although it’s not going to help solve every bad thing happening, it will at least give some of these issues closure, or further progress to get that closure.

I haven’t been around on the internet a lot this past summer because I honestly needed a break. I needed a break from seeing everyone’s posts about random things, and I was tired of putting on this facade on my social media that I was this happy ass person who is on the right path to recovery and “coping” with my anxiety.

As a matter of fact, it was the opposite.

As more issues rose, my anxiety did as well, which led me to do more coping and controlling it. I was tired, nevertheless. I was tired of the random anxiety episodes I was having whenever I was out, I was tired of worrying about other things out of my control, and I was tired of believing that things were just getting worse and worse as the days go, even though it felt like that.

In June, my family and I found out that my grandfather on my mother’s side was battling lung cancer. By the middle of July, we were given the news that the cancer was beginning to spread to other organs of his body and that he roughly had two weeks to a month left to live. Three days after that phone call, we had gotten the call that my grandfather passed away that morning, which was extremely difficult knowing I had a therapy appointment that same day. That following weekend, my family and I went to visit my grandmother in Pennsylvania, which you can read the travel diary for that trip here. To say the least, I did a lot of reflecting on my life and life in general on that trip, and here I am, now reflecting on the entire summer and what its taught me about life.

Despite the bad things, some great things happened as well! My partner moved into a new, beautiful apartment in Downtown Brooklyn (the weekend nights are absolutely beautiful in that area). I’m immensely proud of him and all of the blessings that came along his way; in no way shape or form did he see something like this come and personally, it still feels surreal to me that he owns his own apartment. Hard work and passion gets you places, and honestly, he’s been my motivation to do more for myself.

Also, my sister and I took some trips to the Sunset Park pool this summer! The last time I went to the pool was 10 years ago with some of my junior high school friends at the time. Because the community has grown tremendously since then, I’ve been worried that the pool was always going to be packed, which hindered me going all these years. My sister dragged me out the house one afternoon and we went and now that’s all I wanna do for the rest of the summer! It was so refreshing to go swimming again and catch some sun; it’s been years since I got the chance to do so!

Although a lot has happened thus far into summer, I do hope that the things I’m struggling with don’t hinder me from enjoying what’s left of the season. Normally, I would be getting myself ready for a new school year, so it honestly feels weird that this time around, I won’t, and that’s going to have to get some getting used to. Hopefully, that leaves me with some time to be productive, learn new things, and have some fun despite all of the negative things happening in my life. Not every day is going to be a fun and productive one, but at least I can get every other day to feel like that.

We’ll see how the rest of the summer treats me.

-Liz. (: