Here’s to reminiscing about the past ten years. I hope I remember things accurately!
2000 – When 2000 started, I was halfway through my junior year in high school. I was awarded the bronze medal for acting distinction in duet acting from exams by LAMDA. My partner and I did Lysistrata, The Miracle Worker, and a third I can’t recall. At the beginning of my senior year in high school I took over the theatre department website. I was the stage manager for the “board play”(the play that was cast by our Thespian troupe’s board), a dinner theatre whodunit called Mayhem in Mayville. Our regular fall play was Tom Jones and I was actually Tom Jones’ mother. I directed the freshmen in their Shakespeare. I did LAMDA exams again for solo acting and was awarded the silver medal for acting distinction. I got the coveted “great use of pause” comment from my judge and he told me the story of why he likes the use of pause so much. I was cast as Bielke in Fiddler on the Roof and we started rehearsals for it. I got my braces over Christmas break.
Favorite movies of 2000: Miss Congeniality, Where the Heart Is, Center Stage, Almost Famous
2001 – It was the second half of my senior year in high school. We did Fiddler on the Roof in the winter. My group and I got first place in the classical drama catagory at the Fullerton College High School Theatre Festival for our version of Hecuba. I was a narrator for our children’s play, Stuart Little. My senior play was a depression-era play called The Diviners. I was Luella, one of the town ladies who kept falling off of her bike. The best thing is that my great grandmother, Grandma Neva, came to visit from Iowa and saw me in the play. She lived in that era, so I was especially excited for her to see my play. I was so excited to introduce her to everyone after the show. When I introduced her to my drama teacher, my teacher said “I’ve heard so much about you.” and Grandma Neva said “I hope they were good things!”. I sang Father’s Eyes solo in our spring choir show. I went to the third annual California Youth in Theatre Day at the state capitol. I was voted “Most Unique” by my class. I got my first cell phone in May. In June I turned 18 and graduated from high school. In the summer I built my first computer and learned to drive. I got my driver’s license less than one week before starting classes at Fullerton College. Shortly after turning 18, one of my good friends from high school who was also going to Fullerton College had to leave her house before her parents could kick her out. She bounced around to a few different friend’s places until one day she called me on my cell phone from a payphone at school and I had just driven by. I turned around and picked her up and she started telling me that she couldn’t stay at the friends’ house she was at anymore because their dad was coming home or something, and she just broke down. I told her she would come home with me and we went right away to pick up her things. Without even asking anyone about it, I took her home. Gramma seemed unsure at first, but I knew she would be staying with us.
Favorite movies of 2001: Ocean’s 11, Legally Blonde, The Princess Diaries, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, A Knight’s Tale, Moulin Rouge!
2002 – My second semester at Fullerton College. I did a touring show of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to high schools around the area. I read Harry Potter for the first time in my Children’s Literature class but I didn’t like it yet. In the summer I was hired in at Disneyland as an Entertainment Host. I saw The Two Towers six times I think.
Favorite movies of 2002: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, A Walk to Remember, Reign of Fire, Equilibrium, Catch Me If You Can
2003 – I can’t seem to think of what happened at the beginning of 2003. I was probably working at Disneyland for the holiday season(January). I started dating Jerrod in May, just before that year’s E3. At the time he was working at Black Ops Entertainment, a game company that no longer exists. I worked at Disneyland again that summer and I got a kitten and named her Alice. The sequel to The Matrix was terrible and pretty much spoiled The Matrix for me for years. To make up for it, I had to go see Holes again. The TV show The O.C. started, making Orange County more famous.
Favorite movies of 2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, X2, What a Girl Wants, Holes, The Italian Job, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, Uptown Girls
2004 – I continued to date Jerrod and he started working at Insomniac Games. I got a beta gmail account in February. It was the first Leap year since junior high for me, since there was no leap year in 2000. I babysat for a morning Bible study group at church. Jerrod and I went to the Final Fantasy concert in LA. I worked at Disneyland on Thanksgiving. I found out that Christian Bale was going to be the new batman. I turned 21 in June and built my second computer, with an AMD Athlon 64 processor. My favorite Chinese food restaurant, Golden Choice, closed. My best friend Erin graduated from college at San Luis Obispo. I got my first iPod, a pink iPod mini. I got my braces off. I tried digital scrapbooking. I read the rest of the Harry Potter books (up to book five at the time), and started shipping Ron/Hermione as sort of a closet fan. It took me a couple more reads to warm up to the book series in general! I was a big fan of Smallville, The O.C., and Veronica Mars this year. A 250gb hard drive was $199.
Favorite movies of 2004: Ella Enchanted, The Prince and Me, 13 Going on 30, Mean Girls, New York Minute, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, The Incredibles, National Treasure
2005 – I was really looking forward to saying “aught five”. I took some classes at Orange Coast College in an attempt to transfer to Biola. In July, Jerrod took me to the Stephen Sondheim 75th Birthday Concert at the Hollywood Bowl. It was amazing! But it was the night before my family reunion, the G. Neva Convention. I went straight from the Hollywood Bowl to LAX and flew all night to Minnesota, took a cab to where my aunt was staying and we drove to Ledyard, Iowa where my 93 year old great grandmother lived. It was an excellent day, seeing Grandma Neva as well as my second cousins, some of whom I had never met. I stayed for another week with my aunt in Wisconsin before going home. The sixth Harry Potter book came out like the day before I flew home. I bought a copy in the airport to read on the plane, but took off the dust jacket so people couldn’t tell what I was reading. I took a road trip with Erin up to Oregon and stayed with her at her great aunt’s house for a few days. On September 8, 2005 Grandma Neva passed away, almost exactly 3 months after the G. Neva Convention. We flew back to Iowa for the funeral and I made a slideshow which was shown at the service.
Favorite movies of 2005: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Batman Begins, Sky High
I’ve been at this for hours, and I’m only halfway through, so I think I’ll make this part one and do the rest later!
