acting – Letters From Liz.

Hey, guys. Welcome back to TNTH!

With the school year now in full force, it’s common to meet new people and classmates in your classes. From experience, I realize that after asking someone new what their name is, the second question that follows is usually “what’s your major?”

It’s amazing just how quickly their expression changes when you tell them you’re pursuing a degree in performing/creative arts. It’s like you can feel the judgment through their eyes, and it’s such an uncomfortable feeling.

It’s sad that we live in a world (or a city like NYC) that as young adults, we have to choose our paths according to how practical it is and how much money we will be making in the future. The purpose of higher education is to develop people as intellectuals in order to make it in the real world. With that being said, a lot of people gear towards majors that are very financially promising: business, pre-med, biology, psychology, social work, education, nursing, etc. Those who tend to pursue a degree in anything that’s creative are usually frowned upon on. In most cases, most people view those majors as those that people who are not “that smart” pick because “it’s easier”. It’s not dealing with logic and math and science and every other major that umbrellas under that division.

I am an English major. Even more so, I’ve been an English Major for the last 6 academic years. On the outside, it looks practical. It’s broad enough so that most people assume you’re pursuing English for a practical career. In the six years I’ve been around other English majors, I’ve noticed many of them pursue English to teach public school and eventually on the college level. It’s a common goal for pursuing a degree in a subject; I bet other subject-related majors have students who want to teach with their degrees.

Me, on the other hand, don’t want to teach English. I didn’t get my bachelor’s in English to teach and I’m not pursuing my Master’s in English to teach. I do not want to teach.

I want to write.

Continue reading “SAS: Be Proud of your Creative Arts Major! (9/16/17)” →

Due to grad school being immensely demanding, today’s post isn’t about a specific year. Sorry for those who really like to see year-specific TBT’s.

Instead, I wanted to share a favorite memory of mine.

This memory takes place in the summer of 2016, aka one of the hottest friggin’ summers ever. I had just graduated college and got myself together to start grad school in the fall. Over the course of my senior year of college, I took two Acting classes to fulfill my drama minor requirements, and I met some amazing people throughout my time in that class. If you read my post about friendships, you would know that throughout my college career, I didn’t make friends. At all. I was excited to finally call these people my friends.

During the summer, we all decided that we needed to plan a hangout day immediately; we really missed seeing each other twice a week for school. After a month of getting everyone on the same schedule, we decided to have dinner in Chinatown.

This right here, is the Acting Squad. There were more of us in it, but we were the ones who were able to make it to our night out in the city. From top to bottom, left to right, it’s James, Tori, Yashira, Me, Liz, and Jalika. I met Tori, Liz, and Jalika in the first level of acting class, I met Yashira during a drama class we took my junior year of college, and I met James in the second class for Acting. Because we had an amazing professor (shoutout to Jed!), we were able to connect and become really close with each other inside and outside the classroom.

This night in particular, Tori had recommended we eat at this Ramen place in Chinatown. Definitely the best ramen I’ve had in my life. That’s not even an exaggeration.

Look at Jalika in the cut, tho.

After literally dying of laughter in the ramen place, we decided to extend our night and explore the city. We walked, a lot, and on the way we took some pictures together. (Funny story: we had a Chinese couple take one of the pictures for us. That’s how bad we all wanted to be in a picture together.)

This was totally the picture.

We walked all the way to Union Square, where I saw a #BlackLivesMatter protest happening there. It’s one thing to see it through social media, but to see it in person makes the effect of it feel more real. Instead of stopping, we just continued to walk some more, joke around some more, and stop in any place that appealed to us. Can you tell who picked to stop here?

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Even though we only did this once that entire summer, I will forever cherish us all being together. These people are the reason why my 2016 was amazing. These people allowed me to be myself and allowed me to be friends with them. They liked me for who I was, and I liked them for who they were.

Unfortunately, the group disbanded, and a lot of us are doing our own thing, dealing with our own classes. Tori and Jalika are wrapping up their last semester of college, Yashira transferred to a college closer to where she lives, while Liz and James are both dealing with their junior year of college. And then there’s me, dealing with grad school. Oddly enough, we all still attend the same college, but because of grad students being mainly night students, I only get to see Tori, who drives me to the bus stop on her way home. Out of everyone, I’m the closest to Tori; she was like my best friend of the group and we ended up just clicking. As for the rest, I see them doing their thing through social media, wishing that sometimes we could go back to sitting outside of 1P-218, talking and laughing and crying and rehearsing for our acting class.

This memory will forever be one of the biggest highlights of my 2016 because it’s something I will cherish for a long time. Whether we all grow apart or not, I will always be cheering them on in whatever they decide to do.

Love you guys.

Side note: I still wonder who wrote the tomato fantasy secret about Jed!

-Liz (:

Tag: acting

SAS: Be Proud of your Creative Arts Major! (9/16/17)

#TBT: Favorite Memory of 2016.