I'm not throwing away my shot.

I haven't written in awhile. It's been an interesting month. I FINALLY have some decent news! No, I didn't get a job. But I am double vaccinated which means I will be traveling to Florida with my family for my sister's birthday in April. We celebrated her 30th birthday last year when literally EVERYTHING was shut down, so she really deserves this. It's been a hard year and we all need to go somewhere to relax and "attempt" to forget about everything going on (while still being safe of course!). I am a little nervous to be traveling during a pandemic. Traveling makes me nervous on a regular basis so it will definitely be interesting. Speaking last year, I can't believe we're almost a year into this pandemic. It's crazy to think about, but at least my whole family has the vaccine now which gives us some kind of hope.

Job update: I did have an "interview" for an Ad Sales position at a TV network that I watch almost on a daily basis. I'm not going to say which one for confidential purposes but the experience was definitely not something I've experienced before. Instead of doing a "live" interview with someone from the company the traditional way, I had to send in videos of myself answering questions that they give on the spot and do not prepare people for. They give you 2 days to do it. I actually hated doing it. 100% DO NOT RECOMMEND unless that's your type of thing. We'll see what happens from here. I'm expecting the videos to vanish in thin air and for them to never contact me again but who knows?

In the mean time, I got a decent fix of theater this week! It almost felt like normal times again where Broadway was thriving and I would get excited about shows (I still do, but Broadway is closed so it's hard). I got tickets to TWO virtual theater events on the same day and I was kind of panicking because I couldn't really attend both of them at once. The first event was for a new musical called "The Circle of Becoming" that Idina Menzel is developing with a few others through a theater company. It was a Zoom presentation where they talked about the show for about an hour. Afterward, they had a live "Virtual Green Room" after party type of thing where people could submit questions, talk more about the show, and hear a bonus track from the musical. I really liked it! I've never actually attended anything like that before and the pandemic kind of made it a little more accessible. I also LOVE new and original musicals and hearing about the early stages of how they are created. The musical is basically about a mother and daughter who disagree on current issues such as climate change and other things. I hope I can see it live at some point if it makes it to any kind of theatre!

The second virtual theater event was New York Theatre Workshop's 2021 Gala which was a tribute to the 25th Anniversary of RENT. I had to watch it the next day because I missed the live stream and it wasn't available until then for "On Demand" streaming. The RENT Special was fundraiser mixed with a documentary which also included songs from the show. All I can say is - WOW. It's not easy to do many things in a pandemic but they really pulled through and made an INCREDIBLE tribute to RENT. I'm still not over it. I learned so much more about the development of RENT, Jonathan's legacy, and people's stories of how they were connected to the show. If I didn't already love RENT, it made me love it even more. How is that even possible? It gave me so much hope and enlightenment that maybe after all of this crap (and even right now) I can find a way to be part of this industry. This entire cast who was in their twenties at the time auditioned for this show where people believed in their talent and the stories they were telling and it became a worldwide success. That is why I have so much love and respect for RENT and theater in general. I hope to be an inspiration to others one day in the same way they were.