To Be or Not To Be...

Is that the question??

My acting teacher gave this performance of Hamlet's famous monologue today in class and it ROCKED! I was like, jaw to the floor, rocked my world, blown away.. She creates this scene without a word, using just actions to describe the emotion, she's about to burst into tears when she lets it all go and delivers the line. What... It was awesome. This class is pretty cool, let me just say that.
We get asked every day, "What have you been learning since the last time I saw you" and "What have you seen visually that held your attention?"
I started out having a hard time connecting because I didn't feel like I could be very vulnerable yet. I'm starting to let my guard down a little but I'm still struggling. Last week I was resisting tapping into any emotion when she asked me what I had been seeing lately so this was the answer that I gave, "Well.. my body lotion is supposed to be a gradual tanner... and let me tell you, it isn't gradual, my legs are totally streaked..." It got a good laugh out of the class but not exactly what she was looking for.. Today I had to get up and show her what the word "fuzzy" looks like... anybody? anybody? I won't sugar coat any of it for you, I rocked it. No sweat. haha. Just kidding.
We had to talk about ourselves for 5 minutes in front of the camera on Thursday and then we watched it without the sound yesterday to kind of type-class each other. I was pretty nervous to watch myself but it actually wasn't as bad as I thought. Everyone was so nice to me. They typed me as "All-American Girl" I got an index card from everyone in the class with all of their descriptions of me. Kind of interesting to see what people think of me.
She taught us a secret today that 99% of actors in Hollywood don't use. Sshhh.... can't tell.
Tomorrow, I have to speak about myself without using the word "I" so as to appear more universal rather than personal. Stay tuned... :)
Love ya!

What a world, What a life...

Hello Everyone!! and by everyone, I mean... Mom and Dad... :)
Crazy week I just had! I think the world turned upside down on me. 3 weeks ago I would never have thought that I'd be writing my blog and looking out the window to the city of Angels. But pretty cool, right? I'm learning so many things! Like for example, Halloween in Hollywood is no joke... 400,000 people on Santa Monica Blvd.! I guess there are other things to do on Halloween besides trick or treating? Whodda thought?? I think I'll call them... take it slowly... Hollyweirds in Hallowood on Hollyween. Also, driving... in LA, requires a certain skill. Did you know that? Not only is there traffic literally everywhere you turn, but the streets are like an obstacle course. Up and down the bridge, through the pot holes, under the tunnel, watch out for construction, no right turn, this is a one way, only park here during the hours of 7a.m. and 1 p.m. every other wednesday...Park next to a nicer car than yours and lock up everything electronic. I'm telling you, it's an adventure to get to class and back every day. Speaking of class... It really is true what they say about Los Angeles being a culture pot, we have a Russian girl, an Austrian, a German, an English and a French girl in my class. They're so cute, they always say things like, "What do you say, Integrity? This word I do not know" haha sometimes they mix their phrases up like Monalee does, it's really funny. More on my class later... The city is definitely a crazy place but when I get to come home and look out my window to see the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the city skyline, it's a pretty fun thing for me :) Dreams are coming true everywhere! "Anything is possible if you just Believe" haha. Okay Julie Andrews, that's enough.. Stay tuned for more adventures with Hailey and the city of Angels.
Love you all!

***Broadway Wishes***

Have you ever thought about what you would wish for if the Make-a-Wish foundation gave you a wish? Well.... there is a boy in Orange County that wished to be a Broadway Star. Apparently he's quite ambitious but the Make-a-Wish people basically made it happen last night. They gave him voice lessons with the best teacher in California and he performed with Broadway's biggest stars last night. I happened to be a volunteer at the event, thanks to my roommate who photographed the whole thing. So we're sitting in our little volunteer room and I hear, "I'll show you what shoes to wear, how to fix that hair, everything that really counts to be.... POPULAR" Holy crow it's Galinda singing Popular in the theater. I nearly passed out. We run over there and the stage manager says its cool we can go sit and watch. So here I am in the Orange County Performing Arts Pavillion watching real life Galinda rehearsing 20 feet in front of me. She's just in a pair of jeans without shoes on doing her thing and marking her performance on the stage. As if I wasn't already stoked enough, I hear someone say, "Bring Eden in, lets mark Defying Gravity" Oh PLEASE do!! I all but jumped right out of my seat. Elphaba and Galinda for real performing for me like it was my own private show. Really, does life get any better than this? There was a point during the actual show when Tim Halom was performing"One Song Glory" from Rent that I sat back and thought, "Nope, I don't think it gets any better than right here" Their voices were so incredible, I fell in love with music all over again. We had, Sandy from Grease, Elle Woods from Legally Blonde, Roger from Rent, and of course Elphaba and Galinda from Wicked, and I was in heaven.

Galinda Elphaba


Sandy


Elle Woods

Roger

The Whole Cast

What is it that Brightens Your Day??

Today.... was stressful.... to say the least. I flew in from Utah last night and I have been going nonstop since... Did I sleep last night? Nope, I don't think so. ALOT going on.. So this morning, I had to go take care of a lovely seat belt ticket. Really... a seat belt ticket. It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Especially for someone as poor as I am. I spend about 2 dang hours at the court house, going from one long line to the next until finally, I get to, THANK HEAVENS, pay my fine....I think they give you the run around so much so that you just go crazy until you're practically begging to pay the fine. PLEASE let me pay you $142 for not wearing my seat belt!! Anyway, that was the beginning of the day. Now, I don't want you to think this is a spoiled brat, complainer, downer post... I actually have a good message. So I come home to face the hotmail... with 24 new messages, Great. I won't go into that because, well, I'm already a little bored of myself. But it was a work-filled day. Just ask mom. I did not leave my computer's side all day.. Okay, 3:00 rolls around and I decide to check the mail... Here it comes... a Brachen letter!! Yay! :) My roommates are all used to me going to the mailbox and screaming while running back up the stairs because I have a missionary letter. :) :) :) Moral of the story... it turned my day right around. :) Now I can go face whatever adventures Newport Beach will bring me tonight with a big fat smile on my face. :D
So, Packer people, what is it that Brightens your day???
- Oh, Brachen is doing fabulous, by the way ;)

Cleveland and the new babe!

I just got back from spending two weeks in Cleveland with Steph and her family and the new baby. He's the cutest thing I've ever seen, I can't even stand it :)

One day we got to go out to this family farm and play for a while, it was actually a really fun place. Here's my funny little video...

Paparazzi, Celebrities, and Hollywood...

I drove up to LA about 2 weeks ago I think it was, to do some exploring and I came across a funny situation. I just love the GPS because I can just put in it "Landmarks" or "museums" or "theatres" and it will give me a list of all these places in LA, it's great! So the first one I wanted to see was the Hollywood sign on the mountain. I'd seen it from the freeway but only for a second, I wanted to see how close I could get. So I'm driving up the street called "Beachwood" which is the street that has the best straight shot view of the sign and I start to see to my left a bunch of lights flashing and I mean, it's LA, I figured it was the police right? I slow down and as I get closer, I realize that the lights flashing aren't colored red and blue and that they're actually camera flashes. I see all these guys running around and people flocking to the side of the road and I realize that it's those paparazzi guys... I'm the only car driving on the road so I'm like sweet, front row view of whoever this is. I drive by very slowly and see the girl in the middle of it all. She's very very skinny and pale, her red hair is up on top of her head and she's got black sunglasses on and bodyguards shielding her way through the crowd. Lindsay Lohan... Poor girl... Anyway, it was kind of a cool moment to be like, yep, I'm really in LA...

I just love this view when you're driving into the city on the 101.

I took this picture just a couple seconds before I saw Miss Lohan... You can kind of see the sign on the mountain straight ahead. I can't figure out how to zoom on it... I'm so not a photographer.

Never thought I would say this...

Here goes....
I have to thank Miss Nikki Wardle... I know! Can you believe I'm saying it?? I can't. But I found myself being very grateful for the way she taught me how to execute a dance with a group of girls. Let me explain... I was asked a few weeks ago in church if I would be interested in helping the Spanish speaking ward in our stake with different stage productions and performances that they put on. Of course I jumped at the opportunity and said I would absolutely love that. So they called me up on Tuesday and asked if I could come in and help a group of girls with a dance that they are preparing. (I'm still not sure what exactly it's for) So I show up to the church and these poor girls are so confused and lost. They're all young women in the ward and they're trying to put a dance together and they just could not work it out without some kind of authoritative figure that knew anything about dancing. The young women leader didn't speak much english but she basically told me she was so glad that I was there to help and then introduced me to the girls and sat down to watch me. haha. So here I am, trying to communicate with these girls to even see what I was dealing with and it was clear that they didn't want to trust me. (I certainly didn't blame them) They tried to do the dance for me so I could see what I was working with and it was quite disastrous. I'm knocking my brain trying to think of how to approach this and I basically had to say, "Look, I'm fairly good at this, if you'll trust me enough to listen to me, I think I could really help you out, now show me the very beginning..."
After a minute of watching and really listening to the music, it started to make sense to me and I was able to map it out. I helped them clean every count of the music and I found myself literally thanking my lucky stars for the knowledge I had from cleaning so many dances with Nikki Wardle. I've never been put in that position of authority in front of a bunch of girls only a few years younger than me, and I actually succeeded! By the end of the night, I think they started to respect me and my methods because it was finally making sense to them and they were able to be confident about it. That's when dancing becomes fun. It's all a big frustration until you finally get it and then you're able to be creative and it becomes something much more than organized movement. I was very grateful for that opportunity...

Silly Girls in Hollywood

So, Last weekend, my roommates and I drove to LA to see Hollywood. The video doesn't really show any part of the city, I was kind of just testing it out. Its kinda funny I guess, so here ya go...

Richard G. Scott fireside

Last night, we had the amazing opportunity to hear from Elder Richard G. Scott at our Costa Mesa, California institute. He's an amazing man, let me tell you, and what a great sense of humor he has! The institute counsel president was standing to introduce Elder Scott and started to read off all of his accomplishments when Elder Scott stood up, walked to the pulpit and says, "Forget all of that boring stuff, just tell them I love the youth and get on with it." Haha... He also told a story of a little boy in a catholic, I belive it was, church class who was called in to speak with the priest. The priest asked the boy, "Where is god?" the boy just sits there with no response. The priest asks him again, "Where is God?" to which the boy replied by running right out of the room. A friend of the young boy's stopped him and asked what the matter was. The boy replies, "God is lost and I have to go find him!" Hahaha.... Basically one of the main impressions I got from Elder Scott was, what is all this to worry about? Someone asked him, "How do you stay calm under the stresses of daily life and the economic downfall?" To which he replies, "I believe in Christ, What is there to worry about?" I loved that.. I don't think those were his exact words so don't quote me on it but it was to that general idea. We had the opportunity of shaking his hand afterward and let me tell you, that was a truly amazing moment for me to look into the eyes of an apostle of God. Very great experience.
As always,
-Hailey :)

Tyler Hilton Concert

A couple weeks ago, my roommate Tanni and my friend Dave from BYU went to a Tyler Hilton concert in San Juan Capistrano which is about 20 minutes south of Newport. It was in a cool little venue where you just sit and eat with all your friends and listen to live music, it's really cool. It felt a little like Chris' up the canyon but not so rough. haha. We had so much fun. Tyler Hilton is great, he's kind of bluesy and really chill. He was releasing a new album that day so we all got free CDs, it was very fun. I took a small video with my phone until I got yelled at, maybe I'm breaking copyright rules by posting this, so nobody go taking it and trying to sell it! Haha.

Talk to you guys later, Enjoy :)

-Hailey

Hello Friends and Family!

Hi Everyone!
Thanks for coming to my fun blog! I'm having all these cool experiences out here and not enough time, or cell phone minutes, to tell everybody about them. So I'm going to be updating once a week on either Sunday or Monday night. So keep checking back to see what fun things I get to do out here. If anybody else has a blog other than facebook or dropshots, let me know! Love you guys!
-Hailey