My Aura is Yellow

Every day, I wake next to a pile of empty Mountain Dew bottles and cans. I head to the kitchen, down my heart meds with a sip of Dew, and grab a bottle for the road. When I get to school, I squish the now empty bottle into my locker, the slight disturbance causing empty bottles to fall to the floor. I gently toss them back on top and smile at my growing collection. At lunch, I get a chai latte from Einstein's to get me through the afternoon. When I get home, another bottle of Mountain Dew preps me to do my homework. During StudProd tech week, my house ran out of Mountain Dew, and I didn't have 10 minutes to run to Walmart and buy more. I was ill. I cried. I raged. I yelled onstage, backstage, on the elevator, and in the car ride home. My cast members told me I had a problem. My mom informed me that she was going to take steps to cut the caffeine dependency out of me. So I went to Cracked in the mornings to buy my Mountain Dew. Mom couldn't stop me if she couldn't see

Dear heathens, For some unholy reason, there is currently no creamy peanut butter in my house. We have crunchy, and we have extra crunchy. To anyone and everyone who has participated in the crunchy peanut butter consumption that made my family think this was acceptable, I blame you. You will not be forgiven for this. And we need to talk. What are you doing? Why do you do this to yourselves? Peanut butter should not have a notable texture past sticky. I don't care what kind of bread you use. I don't care what kind of jelly. I don't care if you skip the bread and jelly altogether and eat your peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon. Doesn't matter to me. Let's just look at peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a moment, though. The standard recipe is two slices of bread, one spread with peanut butter and one spread with jelly. What we  don't do is attempt to slather CRUNCHY peanut butter all over the sandwich and completely destroy the integrity of

If any of you have ever been in the same building as me, you've probably heard me professing my love of Jonathon Larson's iconic musical Rent .  Rent  and macaroni and cheese are the only things that consistently cheer me up, no matter what's happening in my life. It is not only the reason I got into theatre but it is one of the biggest influencers in my life. Rent  is a rock opera, the first of its kind. The musical depicts a year in the lives of 8 New Yorkers, most of whom are poor artists with AIDS. Ironically, despite being written about the importance of AIDS awareness and research, Jonathon Larson died of an aortic aneurysm caused by undiagnosed Marfan Syndrome. Marfans is a condition that no one really knew about in the 90s, and in 2017 is still in need of awareness and research.  Jonathon Larson died the morning of Rent 's first Off-Broadway preview performance. He died less than 24 hours from his work changing musical theatre forever. He died confident that

The date is July 11, 2017. The time is approximately 9:30 PM. I am in the basement of UIUC's Nugent Hall at the College of Media's 360 Sports and Entertainment camp. The MLB All Star game is on television and at least 15 campers have crowded into the room. We are not all actively watching baseball. A football is being tossed around, some people are focused on the foosball game on the other end of the room. My attention is dedicated to the Jimmy John's sandwich in my hand. A speaker blasts music over the sounds of the TV, but even the most crazed fans among us don't mind. That is, until someone requests that Jay Z be added to the playlist. I roll my eyes, an action I intended to keep to myself. I get called out. Something along the lines of "You got a problem with Jay Z?" is said. The room seems quieter now. [It should be noted that I have no substantial opinions on Jay Z's music, I've never listened to much of it, and I understand and respect h

Dear Macaroni and Cheese, Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. You've been there for me longer than the best of my human friends. I trust you more than anyone or anything else. You are the purest part of my life. As in all relationships, we've had our challenges and bad times. I remember when I was too impatient to finish cleaning a pot, cooked you in still-soapy water, and had to throw you out because I might "ingest chemicals" and "poison myself" and "die." As if you weren't worth it. I remember the many times I gave you too much milk or too much butter, the times I've burned you. I remember when my cousin found a cheesy, dead ladybug snuggled into a bowl with you. I remember when another cousin ate too much of you before we went swimming, and she got the sole public pool in Paris, Illinois shut down while I watched you, regurgitated, floating down the deep end. Sure, there have been awkward moments, but none dampen my

Currently, the biggest thing happening in my life is A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, as performed by Uni High. Going into this, I thought, "yo, you're a senior. you've got all the time in the world to learn a really huge and challenging Shakespeare role." No, Kat. Stop taking responsibilities. Get some sleep. It's too late. I play Helena, arguably the most important character in the show. I'll start by saying this show is super fun and I'm really excited to take on the challenge.  I guess I'm pretty nervous about that. Shakespeare's works are hard enough to capture when reading silently, alone. It's daunting to memorize these lines, understand my own words, and identify with a woman I don't ever want to become. The thing about Helena is she's pathetic. She spends all her time chasing after Demetrius, a colossal douchebag. [Am I allowed to cuss on this? idk @ Dr. Majerus lmk if that's not ok.] Essentially