Ellen's Great List of the Future

Hi everybody!

Brace yourself...this may be a long blog...

SO! I went to Vegas for Thanksgiving! It was so weird to not be home. I really missed it but me and my friends made the best of it! We all got up and watched the parade and Home Alone. Then we dove into the kitchen and made our own T-Day dinner like big kids! I made the mashed potatoes. :) After that we went and explored VEGAS! It's exactly like you would imagine it to be. Big and flashy. I felt like I was in an episode of CSI. We only got to walk around the Strip one night so I didn't get to see a ton of stuff BUT I did catch the fountain show that was playing to Christmas music. I really liked it.

We left Saturday morning and drove back to LA. As soon as we pulled up I had to book it to go to a film shoot for our webisode series, BITE. We started filming at this small coffee shop in San Pedro at about 7:00 and then worked there till about 1:00. It was a very productive and great night but I WAS EXHAUSTED especially when we had a call time the next morning at 6 am!

One of our producers (and my friend) Kelsey Navarro has been making a documentary about Twilight fans over the past year and has made some great connections in the process. So the other night we had a few of said "great connections" come and make some cameos in a few episodes. His name is Kaleb Nation and his friends Madea and Annie came too. They were all really fun to work with but get this.....Kaleb is a published author and practically a celebrity in the Twilight fan-dom. He is known as the Twilight Guy (twilightguy.com) He's a writer so he went through all the series and then broke down each chapter and told it from a guy's perspective. People loved it and now he has a HUGE following on the internet. SO since he came and was in our shoot he did a video blog about it and posted it on his site and then provided a link to our BITE page on youtube and within ONE day of posting his blog we now have nearly 700 subscribers to our channel and almost 2,000 views of our little teaser trailer that we made.....this is insane.... I'M THE MAIN ACTRESS FOR ALL THIS!!!!! oh my goodness. I had no idea it would take off this quickly.... I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed with all this. The thing is....I'm not trying to sound cocky or anything...but this COULD really take off. I know the teaser doesn't give you much to chew on right now...but after everything we filmed Friday and then all day Saturday I feel like any fan that remotely loves vampires will enjoy what we've made. hahaha...oh dear.... :)

Also...don't be startled but I dyed my hair! It's pretty dark...so I guess if you want to see it you better go check out our BITE page... it's youtube.com/bitetheshow

In other news... this is my last week at my internship. It's crazy....time has just really flown by. I've really enjoyed working with the people here and apparently they've enjoyed working with me too since they told me to seriously give them a call if I move to LA so we could discuss job opportunities. :) I guess there's another possibility to add to Ellen's Great List of the Future!

PAM AND ED COME TO L.A. THIS SATURDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!

VEGAS

It's 1:41 a.m...my roomies are asleep, and I'm laying on my bed listening to our fish make bubbles in his bowl.

I just had to write....
I LOVE this time. It has to be one of my all time recurring favorite moments. The still of the night before you travel somewhere. All your bags are packed, they're sitting beside the bed, everything is set to go, and all that is left to do is to lay in bed and be excited. It's even MORE exciting when your destination is VEGAS!!!! That's right! Sin City! oh dear! I've never been before. Drove by it once with the fam about 10 years ago, but never actually went in.
I'm going with Maggie and Danielle and staying with one of Maggie's friends that lives there. Not only is it Vegas but it's just simply somewhere outside of LA. It's going to be nice to have a change of scenery.
DON'T WORRY everyone....we'll be safe! These two are very safe and responsible girls :) (I know what you're thinking right now, Dad) "It's not you girls that I'm worried about...it's everyone else" We'll be safe. :)
Alright, well I've reached that point where my eyes are taking their time with their blinks so I should probably go to sleep.
Goodnight everyone! Next time you hear from me I'll be in VEGAS!!!

Dreaming Tonight

I'm dreaming tonight, of a place I love
Even more than I usually do.
And, although I know it's a long road back,
I promise you...

New Moon, Frog, Christmas

Good Morning!

I should have read my last post because I honestly can't remember what I talked about and therefore what to talk about now! Oh well...I'll wing it. Sorry if I repeat myself.

I believe I mentioned before my frustrations with a sassy French 112 class that wasn't wanting to fit into my dwindling college career, but while John and Andrea were here they helped me muster up some courage and just email the main registrar at Union.....yup....just remembered I already told this....hahaha shoot. Well you all know it's a happy ending! So now I get to graduate! HAHA oops!

MOVING ON! I'm going to L.A. for the semester to go to a film studies program...haha j/k....

Let me think of something new....I went to see "New Moon" at the Grove the other day! I'm no Twi-Hard but I definitely liked it! I need to watch it again though just to make sure it was the movie entertaining me and not all the insane fans in there that would nearly bust out in tears every time one of the actors took off his shirt.

Another movie I'm completely excited about is "The Princess and the Frog"!!! It comes out December 11th! (the day after my program ends out here) so I'll already be on the road home. That's alright though. I told my sister that I want to watch it with her anyways!

I'm getting so excited about Christmas! I feel like every time I close my eyes I just see my home in Sparta in all it's Christmas glory. I can't wait to be there. Even though I've been already listening to Christmas music a little bit, tonight is going to especially get me pumped up for the Season....they're lighting an enormous Christmas tree in the Grove tonight. It is HUGE! There's also apparently going to be lots of entertainment and such, like Cirque Du Soliel! I really hope we get to sing some carols too. They're my favorite. I'm trying a new thing this year...really listening to the words in Christmas carols. They're beautiful. It's hard to really listen to them since you already know them so well, but if you think about them they're really touching.

Oh! I forgot to mention....we've started filming our webisode series! The story is still about a coffee shop but instead of coffee they sell blood and instead of baristas they are bloodistas and instead of human workers, they're vampires. Haha, I know what you all are thinking "she just said she wasn't a Twi-Hard" I'm not! This is a spoof of Twilight! We shot some last week and then all day yesterday. It was super fun! I got do a lot of action and running through a park! I've already seen some of the footage and it looks pretty sweet... I can't wait till they're done and we start to air them! Stay tuned for details...

Fall 09 Graduate, Twi-Hard, Lights and Display Contest!?!

I have had a very productive day (a Mitch day if you will) here in my 5x5 cubicle at work...

I started the day off by creating my new concoction of single serving sized Tennetea. For those of you that don't know, Tennetea is the new term for exceptionally delicious sweet tea. A recent hit here in LA amongst my circle of friends. So! I made the tea, came to my spot and turned on some Christmas music via pandora.com, then I got to work emailing and also doing a few projects for my boss.
So, in the midst of my Christmas jamboree I receive an email from the registrar at Union. This is a big deal since I just sent her a major email the other day explaining how I wasn't very happy with Union since no one was helping figure out a solution to a French class that I need in order to graduate after numerous emails to various people and months of waiting. SO I was a little apprehensive to open this email... I click on it...and it is nothing but good news! She's arranged for me to take FRE 112 as an independent study over January-term so that way I'll be DONE by February and still considered a FALL 09 graduate! YAY!!!! Thank you Lord! So, then I sent some more emails about registering for said class and such. Then I also bought a ticket to go see New Moon with my friends this Friday! I'm pretty excited. I'm definitely not a crazy Twi-Hard but I am still excited to see it!
Then I went on to write out a list of things I want to get accomplished this December once I get home. I've decided I want to go out more and do things with my family. We all like to stay home and just relax with everyone, which is perfect!, but I also think we should try to mix in a few more activities. Like maybe throw a Christmas party, or go see the Nutcracker in Nashville, or some Christmas lights festival. When you go out, home just seems all the more sweet. Which is definitely something I've learned this semester.

Their Visit...

Alrighty...a little bit of updating to do.

So, it sort of turned into a bitter sweet week for me. At first, I was super happy about all the things that I had previously mentioned in the blog before, mainly being that my family was going to come out and visit me for the weekend. However, through a sad turn of events, I found out Wednesday night that Erin and Neal wouldn't be able to come due to a tragedy of their own. My brother John and his wife Andrea were still planning on coming out though and they did on Wednesday evening. After walking a couple laps around LAX we finally met up! I brought them back to Park La Brea where my lovely friends had dinner waiting for us! Aren't they great!? Unfortunately John and Andrea were completely exhausted because their clock is three hours ahead and might have come across as big duds. hahaha i'm just kidding guys! They liked you! I think.... :) Thursday, I took them to class with me then we hit up the Grove where we walked around for a bit and had Pinkberry for the first time. They LOVED it! Then we drove out that evening to Costa Mesa to stay with Debbie and Greg. Friday we rode bikes down to Newport beach where we took a little nap while watching some surfers then we came back and Debbie and Greg had started making a Thanksgiving dinner for us since I won't be able to have one at home! It was so good! Then Saturday we went out to Huntington Beach and watched a surfing competition and had a great lunch a Ruby's. They have the BEST milkshakes ever!!! Next we went and saw 2012 (it was pretty epic) and finally came back for some r&r and dinner at the house. We drove back to LA this morning and I took them to Ecclesia, a church I've been going to since I've been out here. Then we met up with my friends at In N Out for lunch which was good but we're still completely full from all the food we've had this weekend so now we're all feeling a little queasy....Then we toured around LA a bit and now I think I've worn them out because they keep on collapsing on my bed. But that's alright :)
Well they keep on interrupting me so I'm having troubling concentrating...haha....I better go entertain them some more! Erin and Neal, I love you guys so much. I've been thinking about you a lot. I'm praying for you and still can't wait to see you when I get home!

Top of the World

"I"m on the top of the world lookin down on creation and the only explanation I can find is the love that I've found ever since you've been around, your love's put me at the top of the world..."

I suppose you could say I'm feeling completely different than I was on last Monday. It's kind of scary how drastically my moods can change, but there a few reasons I'm feeling better....let me explain:

First off, I'M DONE FILMING CANDY!!!!!!! YAY! Don't get me wrong I LOVED working on pre-production stuff, making all the costumes, and pulling everything together, but on the set is stressful. It's okay though cause now I'm done! This past week was basically my finals week and it's only the middle of November! Now I've got about a month to only worry about my internship and one class and nothing else other than sides projects me and my friends are wanting to do. YES!

Secondly, I mentioned before that I went to the Ellen Show. It was a lot of fun! I loved watching all the producers and production people running around making sure that everything runs smoothly. PLUS we had AWESOME seats! Second row on the aisle, we were about 20 feet away from Ellen. Because of our amazing seats there was a camera pretty much right in front of us. That plus our kick butt dance moves earned us the privilege of being singled out by said camera dude who took his camera off the tripod and pointed it right at my face! I haven't seen the episode yet (airs today) but my friend back home just texted me and said I was on tv! Sweet!

Thridly, tonight I get to see pretty much my all time favorite musical artist IMOGEN HEAP IN CONCERT!!! I can't wait! She seems so super cool! She's been a little sick though so I'm praying she'll be alright, not only for tonight you know but in general as well! :)

Fourthly, to top everything off... MY FAMILY IS COMING TO TOWN THIS WEEK!!!! I have the BEST brothers and sisters possible! They're all coming out to visit me in LA! YAY!!!! I've been missing them all so much and now they're actually going to be here! I just have to think of some cool things for us to do!

Basically I'm doing pretty good. And to top everything off, my dad keeps sending my text pics of a litter of kittens at our house that I get to see in about a month. I love kittens.


- 5 points to anyone that can name the band that sings the lyrics at the top of this post. (erin you are excluded from this contest...)

Bakes Potato, Ellen, Relax

Ahh.....I'm doing much better :)

It's amazing what a baked potato can do for one's morale....
So, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done to pull "CANDY" together, but I think it's going to work. I'm gaining my optimism again. :) Also, I've seen the footage and it looks pretty stinkin' good.... hooray!
Another thing to pep me up is my amazing friend, Danielle, invited me to go to the "Ellen Show" with her tomorrow! YAY! It's funny, I've grown up always kind of hating Ellen because people would call me Ellen DeGeneres and I didn't like that. But now I'm just excited about to be going to a show! I haven't been a part of a live audience yet and I'm really pumped now! Maybe she'll give everyone in the audience some gifts! or just me! because my name is Ellen too!
Wow, I just realized I legitimately have a little bit of free time! Maggie and I are going to hear Tony Lucca tonight at the Hotel Cafe. It's supposed to be a nice chill concert that she got free tickets to but it doesn't start till 9 and it's only 7:18 so I've got some time to RELAX!! oh, this is nice...
Well, everyone, I love you all and thank you for being so encouraging especially over the past couple days. I really needed that. :)

Allow Me to Update...

Hello everyone! Yes, I know...it's been a while since I've updated. Let me put it this way... everything I've ever said about being busy/stressed/overwhelmed all pale in comparison to how I've felt this weekend. Filming for "CANDY" is officially underway. I don't even have it in me to retell all the mishaps and problems we had throughout the weekend. I will say that I personally didn't have any major problems with my production design stuff and it's one of the few things that went fairly smoothly and our footage is actually looking great! Everyone just got really stressed out during the shoot and with all the things that went wrong and so today I think I was just feeling the stress of everyone else and just felt depressed all day long. Today was probably the worst day I've had since I've been out here. Like I said I was just depressed and feeling the stress of lots of different things all at once. I kept receiving encouraging little notes all day from my friends and while they helped they also hurt because it just made me miss them more and then my mom called this evening and I just kind of broke down. SO! That's been my weekend! Yup.
I'll be fine! No worries! I would assume everyone has these sorts of days. However, I did receive one of the best endings to such a horrible day. I look in my mailbox and miraculously there is a package from one of the CLOSIES!! Not just any package but a package that has....the SCARF!!!!! yes, THE scarf.... for those that don't know about the scarf, just know that it's very special and made my day.
Also. Romeo and Juliet was not the best choice of a movie to end my day with. Such a tragedy... oh Romeo...