Stephens Girl

Mint Tea, Mint Mug

2012-03-02T17:47:00.003-06:00

Whenever life gets crazy and my life fills up with too much running around, I replace relaxing naps with tea. Specifically peppermint and chamomile.

Last year, like every other college freshman, I resorted to gross amounts of coffee, but after realizing that it's really just the 'hot liquid' part I relied on I started buying tea instead. I'm probably healthier for it, but the real reason it's so great is because now I smell really good all the time.

Do you have a daily treat?

love, rudi

Art Everywhere!!!

2012-02-26T23:44:00.000-06:00

Hey guys!

This has been an extremely art-filled and energetic weekend, for myself and for a lot of my friends.

My graphic design buddies went to St. Louis on Saturday for this giant design portfolio convention where a lot of them were able to showcase their work and get their names out in the world. I'm hoping they got lots of good feedback, and hopefully even more good connections.

I was personally busy getting involved with an art form that's pretty new to me- fashion and modeling! A few weeks ago a friend asked me to participate in the Project Prom Fashion Show, and after two days of tech rehearsal we strutted around the runway in some super fancy prom dresses! I'll elaborate on all this when I get some pictures.

The really cool thing that happened this weekend was the Warehouse Theatre's success with their first attempt at a 24-Hour Play Festival. It's as scary as it sounds: they have 24 hours to write, direct, produce, and perform a series of plays, and let me tell you, they nailed it!! I was so impressed by the humor, depth, and level of production my friends were able to capture in such a short time period, and I really hope this festival becomes a tradition here on campus.

My friend Danielle Wineman (a fellow blogger, by the way) put together this video that sums everything up. She did a pretty great job whipping it up in 24 hours, too!

love, rudi

Tid Bits of Advice

2012-02-20T19:40:00.003-06:00

Most of my friends, and I assume readers, are creative types, so I want to share this with you all. I love Ira Glass, the creator and host of This American Life on NPR. If you haven't listened to it before, it is a program that I highly, highly recommend- it's like meditation and yoga for your mind. It's just the best.

Anyway, Ira Glass created this amazing new concept of a radio show and has done really amazing, great things with it, so I am more than willing to take any advice he has. And it just so happens that the moment I watched this video was a moment when I really needed to hear what he had to say.

I hope you like it, too :)

love, rudi

No Good Day.

2012-02-15T00:14:00.003-06:00

One of those days, ladies and gentlemen. One of those days...

where you just want to cry and curl up, you're losing your kitties, the weather is too much to handle, an all you want to do is put on your favorite crazy patterned jammies, block out the world with your Dora hat, and munch on some candy.

Of course, looking through all of the pictures you have of your baby sister throwing baby fits is sure to cheer you up, even a little bit.

Even if just a little bit.

love, rudi

Snow

2012-02-13T09:12:00.004-06:00

We finally got hit with winter!

And please note: while snow would normally make me sad, t

he only reason I'm slightly glad about it is because

my first class got canceled this morning! And I really wanted that to happen!

Sometimes good things are disguised by bad things.

love, rudi

SUSHI FRIDAY!!

2012-02-10T22:34:00.003-06:00

Just a quick word:

Every Friday I somehow forget about the genius that is Sushi Friday until, like, 6:30 every Friday evening right before the cafeteria closes, and then I FREAK OUT because I remember that

IT'S SUSHI FRIDAY!!!

AND IT'S ALWAYS DELICIOUS!

ALWAYS!

love, rudi

Choosing My Choose

2012-02-10T17:44:00.000-06:00

I took myself out on a little date night last night. I had several things to do- homework to finish up, cleaning, reading, sketching- but yesterday was important. Yesterday was my four year anniversary dating my boyfriend Truchi.

As excited as I was about taking myself shopping, I felt like I couldn't really share my special occasion with many people, and I contemplated for a while about posting it on the blog. I feel like talking about being in a steady, long term relationship and having a boyfriend with adults, teachers, or professionals lessens their approval of me. I feel like it, even subtly, cheapens me in their eyes.

It's this same reason that I try to avoid talking about my real future plans with mentors and other established adults. If I told a potential employer that I'm really looking forward to designing from a farm house between taking care of my chickens and adorable future babies, would I lose the integrity of being a capable, powerful Stephens Woman? Would they still consider me a valuable potential employee? Or would they snub me off and consider me non-commited and unprofessional housewife? Trying to be a female professional almost requires you to swear "I want to work for the largest company I can," or "I'll do anything for this job," and generally promise your life away. Letting on that you're not in it for the rat race, admitting that you don't want to treat your career like a giant competition against "the other guy", that, no, you don't want your work life to swallow up your personal life is sort of career suicide.

I'm by no means a feminist. I'm so neutral on most topics that I barely feel comfortable even assigning myself to a political party, but in this case I want to blame my shame for being in a relationship on sexism. Throughout the past men have easily been able to desire both a career and a family life and social life without much controversy, but how often have we seemed baffled by "Super Moms" who somehow seem to manage both a family and a job? There are TV shows, books, and movies about how hard it is for a woman to "juggle" her life.

I hate that. Of course I know that in reality it's very challenging to have a multi-faceted life, but I want to know why it seems so much more simple for men. I don't think women should have to choose between fulfilling their potential in their career fields and being a mother (or, more accurately to the stereotype, a "good" mother).

Screw that noise. Let me tell you what I want. I want to be a really good graphic designer, inspired and original and hardworking, just like I am now. I want to stare out of the window of my home office and watch my adorable pink-cheeked critter playing some adorable run-around-with-the-goose game in the yard, and take a break from the designs I was working on to run around outside with her. Then I want my funny husband to come in from milking the goats and give me a big messy hug. I want to be a big contributor to big and interesting projects, and I want them to be interesting because I made them that way. I want to meet with my impressive, interesting team of coworkers twice a week to talk about our next project, which I want to kick in the butt because I know I can. Then I want to have dinner with my mom at some great little Italian place where we chat about how dumb people can be, and how funny people can be, and how proud we are of each other. That's what I want.

My Mamaw Jan used to say, "You've got to choose your choose." That's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to choose my choose.

love, rudi

The Game of Self Expression

2012-02-05T14:48:00.000-06:00

I've been avoiding you.

Blogging has been a battle in my brain lately. It's a puzzle to decipher what to write about- what's considered too much information, what's too little, what parts of my life I should advertise and what parts I should keep private. I'm in a peculiar position for a blogger because I see most of my readers every day, which makes having this online diary especially awkward.

Blogging is also hugely about documenting the fun stuff you do and talking about it. The thing is, though, that I don't go to many events or parties, I'm not usually found hanging out with friends. 95% of my day is spent by myself. It's class, work, my internship, homework, and the ever-so-precious alone time that I depend on so heavily to keep myself together. College is such a temporary isolated type of living, I always feel sort of slopped together in a whirlwind of deadlines and running from place to place. It's a sordid mixture of being very, very busy and then suddenly having nothing to do, which makes for boring blog conversation.

That said, I spend a lot of time thinking about art, projects, and more than anything at all, The Future. Those things are so personal and specific, and not exactly good table conversation. It's a puzzle, then, deciding what to share and what to not share. I'm supposed to be recording my life, but my life is just a cocktail of homework and errands. In the meantime I hide inside my own head, stirring soups of inspiration and daydreams.

But how do I explain those things to you?

love, rudi

Birthday Party TIme!!

2012-01-27T17:39:00.001-06:00

Party Party Parties!!

This past weekend me and the gang had a big birthday party for each other- three of us have birthdays in December and January, so we decide to have a big party for all of us!

We had super big plans for our party- we were going to make a giant fort in Megan and Kasey's apartment, dress up in fancy costumes with lots of "jewels", and play lots of games.

We ended up having to hang up scarves on the walls due to the apartment's lack of high furniture to tie sheets to. Courtney and I did wear our matching prom gowns that we bought at the Theatre Department's costume sale a few months ago, Morgan made an amazing homemade veggie pot pie, and my mommy had ordered fancy spancy cupcakes from Bijoux Cupcakes in town!

Let's talk about those cupcakes. Holy my macaronies, they were sublime! They were s'mores cupcakes (for our fort party!) filled with melty chocolate and marshmallow cream, and topped with graham crackers and a chunk of Hershey's and a big roasted marshmallow. We tried eating them without looking completely disgusting, but it was soon clear that they couldn't be properly enjoyed that way.

They were so good. They made me make crazy faces of glee.

love, rudi

My Birthday!!

2012-01-19T17:00:00.001-06:00

YES!

Not much else to say about that. Except

MICAH

the BAKER

at STAMPER COMMONS CAFETERIA

made an amazing cake today.

And it happened to have a giant R on top!

For my reader that asked about the food at Stamper, not only do I have a *killer* post coming up talking all about it, but just know- these people care. And they listen. More on that later :)

MICAH MADE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CAKE I HAVE EVER SEEN!

Also, in other *GREAT* birthday news, Joel was here this weekend. Some of you may think he is my boyfriend- and you are wrong. He's even better than a boyfriend- he's a friend's boyfriend. That means me and Courtney (The BFF) get most of the benefits of a boyfriend without any of the downsides.

Not that my boyfriend has any downsides. He's like, perfect.

But you get my point.

We love seeing Joel, and since he goes to school out of town, it's a wondrous and rare treat to see him! Also (and we love reminding him these days) we hadn't seen him since Halloween so it was a triple treat!

There are other photos from this awesome, frozen-yogurt-getting day, but that's a whole other post (coming soon!) that includes an entire story about dogs with strange and vibrant personalities.

So far my day has been an absolute treasure! And now I'm going to keep enjoying it while eating this giant gingerbread R and watching Modern Family.

Best show ever, by the way.

love, rudi

I'm Back!

2012-01-15T19:33:00.000-06:00

Hello my lovely readers!!

My lack of posting for this first week back at school should be a strong enough message on its own: I'm going to be one busy Minnie this semester! And I'm super excited about it!!

Last semester my classes were all about design- I had two lab classes (project-based classes) for graphic design, and was always hiding in the design studios late into the night. This semester, though, I'm going to be running around like a mad woman thanks to my new internship!

I didn't want to let you all in on this until everything was set in stone, but Friday was my first day helping Axiom, a marketing/advertising company in town, re-brand and re-organize their company. (AWESOME, RIGHT?!?!)

I'm a little excited about it.

Just a little.

Anyway- I promise to start having fun again soon, so you can have fun reading about my fun. Also- good news, my camera isn't broken like I thought it was! I let the battery charge for a solid two days, and it woke right up! I guess it was just tired. We all needed a Christmas break :)

love, rudi

More Festivities!

2011-12-21T23:27:00.002-06:00

Every year my family makes a point to drive up to Lexington and see the Southern Lights. The Horse Park sets up this giant light show all around their grounds, and at the end they have Santa, a horse museum, train sets, kettle corn, and an exotic petting zoo!

This is the "Three French Hens" segment of the Twelve Days of Christmas! So clever!

And the "Four Calling Birds"...

None of my photos came out from the petting zoo- I didn't want to use my flash and startle the zebras or mini-cows. They were super precious, though, I promise you that. Imagine a place where, for a dollar, you can feed a two foot tall kangaroo an ice cream cone filled with oats and pet their furry little ears at the same time. The true beauty of Christmas, folks.

And today, Sadie and I took up another holiday tradition. Ever since I was a little girl, I would make up a special Christmas list of family members who I wanted to buy presents for. There was always a special "Rudi's List Time" segment of Christmas, and due to my young age and nickle-and-dime piggy bank budget, the gifts were always silly and from dollar stores. I remember one year in particular giving an aunt fake eyelashes, and an uncle an ugly figurine.

When Sadie was born we decided to keep the tradition alive, and I'm pleased to say that she's done a great job of keeping the gifts spontanious and hilarious. I can't tell you who was lucky enough to be on the list this year, or what silly things Sadie decided they "needed" for Christmas because I don't want to spoil any surprises, but I will do my best to show off her finds after we open presents.

And another tradition? Sadie's got to pay for it all herself- she's gotta learn responsibility somehow!

Do you all have any unique Christmas traditions? We're always on the lookout for new ideas!

love, rudi

Christmas Time!

2011-12-21T18:58:00.003-06:00

Every day since coming home for Christmas break has been filled with some sort of Christmas activity. I've been baking cookies, wrapping presents, buying presents, decorating, making ornaments for the tree-- you name it! This year feels especially full of holiday spirit, but that might be because I've been given more responsibility for helping out this year. My mom just started working at the hospital with Labor & Delivery again (I'm so proud of her!) so I've been handed the hot-chocolate, present wrapping torch. Needless to say, this year's presents aren't going to be nearly as attractive as last year's.

This is Sadie's special little tree- she gets to decorate it all by herself!

Hope you all are having a great time prepping for the holidays, too!!!

love, rudi

Open House with President Lynch

2011-12-16T15:08:00.002-06:00

Last week the historic President's home was opened up for display!

For those of you who aren't familiar with the situation, the President's home has been on campus since the beginning, but had recently fallen to ruin and extreme disrepair. The roof was caving in, the walls were rotten-- all sorts of bad stuff. President Dianne Lynch initiated the Home Again campaign to save the building, to preserve the integrity and history of the school and recreate the space to the beauty it once had.

After lots of fundraising and hard work, significant changes have finally been made, and the house is almost completely livable again!

Dianne (who, with her family, live in a small portion of the upstairs) decorated the house up in holiday cheer and invited campus to come have a look-see! The house was beautiful, the snacks delicious, and the experience heartwarming. It stirred up a lot of school pride to see that Stephen's is working hard to bring back the hospitable traditions that go along with the President's home. I hope the house is finished soon, so I can be a part of them before I graduate next year.

Also, the old-lady nerdy part of me appreciated how much the reconstruction focused on being historic and keeping the old charm of the building. I die for a good hard wood floor or an adorable nook-and-cranny.

Plus, a big kudos to Dianne Lynch for owning Florence and the Machine in vinyl.

Super hipster points, P-Lynch. Super.

love, rudi

Midnight Breakfast!

2011-12-13T11:35:00.001-06:00

Stephens has this *awesome* tradition when finals week comes around.

Oh, yeah, by the way, it's finals week. That's why I'm fighting to keep my eyes open while typing this.

Anyway, the tradition is called Midnight Breakfast. It's not only the gift of a midnight snack of bacon and fluffy pancakes, but the gift of having that snack served to you by your teachers, admissions counselors, and even President Dianne Lynch herself!

Oh, and also? We have a DJ, and everyone dances until their footy pajamas are threadbare.

credit: Ericka Burse

credit: Halea Boulter

Yvonne, one of my teachers and the Director of Leadership and Diversity, with a group of students.

credit: Mariah Overstreet

credit: Meghan Copler

Recognize these faces? That's Rachel, Rikki, Andrew, and Jamie from the admissions department!

credit: Stephens Dining

And of course- lovely Margaret who edits our papers, Corrie from the library, and President Dianne Lynch! Serving bacon like a pro, despite being a vegetarian.

credit: Stephens Dining

Last night was a total hit! The cafeteria was full of people dancing and enjoying themselves, laughing and temporarily forgetting the terrors of finals week. I love that Stephens shows so much support during these terrible times, from Midnight Breakfast to the library staying open extra late and serving coffee and sprinkled donuts (!!!).

So thanks, Stephens. We sure appreciate it.

love, rudi

Coffe, Carolyn, Pie.

2011-12-11T16:02:00.000-06:00

Meet Carolyn.

The first time I had a legitimate conversation with Carolyn, she told me that my blog was the reason she came to Stephens.

That blew my mind!!!!

Besides my mom and friend George from home (miss you, George!), I didn't think anyone read my blog regularly, but now I have proof that at least one smiling girl benefited from me documenting my usually boring and somewhat goofy life. And now that girl has become a part of it.

So I had to play paparazzi with her a little, and give her her very own blog post. Dedicated just to her.

Carolyn. This one's for you.

Two nights ago Courtney (that blondie you see everywhere) and I took Carolyn out for coffee and pie at our favorite diner, the Broadway Diner downtown. Unfortunately, because we were there an hour before the diner opened, we were forced to get lost on Mizzou's campus and cat call at boys.

But eventually eleven arrived, and we un-lost ourselves with watering mouths to the diner. Not only does it have the most amazing coffee in town, but they also happen to have the cheapest. The same formula works with their pie. I highly recommend the banana cream pie, and the chocolate peanut butter. Or any of their cobblers...or their cheeseburgers or biscuits and gravy...

You get the picture.

Thanks for the fun night, girls.

love, rudi

Design Holiday Open House

2011-12-11T15:29:00.001-06:00

Friday was a special day for the design, art, and fashion departments here on campus. We had a holiday party where students displayed their work and delicious little meatballs and yummy punch were served. It was a healthy little party, and it was great to see how we've all been working so hard.

Two of my pieces were displayed. In the main room, the Davis Art Gallery, we hung my inspiration chandellier. I made it for my final project in my Principles of Design class. My original project looked quite different, but I got a big dose of drama when I realized that my plan wasn't working two days before it was due. Special thanks goes out to my Momma, who not only talked me down from a panicky ledge, but also gave me the idea to use a hula hoop instead of a paper mache spiral (long story). After making a few last minute edits (barely in time, by the way) I finally hung the piece up, and minutes later the crowd arrived.

( The Regina Spektor poster at the top is mine)

It was really satisfying to see everyone's great pieces and to see mine nestled in with them.

Just when I thought I was getting tired of working every day, I got another burst of energy that's gotten me excited all over again.

love, rudi

Kitty Cat Kitty!

2011-12-03T11:12:00.001-06:00

This is Penny, our new kitty! She's got a little kitty cast on because she just got declawed this week.

I told you in my last post how my mom surprised me with my boyfriend and this sweet little girl when she picked me up for Thanksgiving Break. My first day home was Penny's first day with our family, too, and she blended right in! Our previous kitty friends have always been shy or nervous being in a new place with new smells and people for the first couple of days, but the minute she was out of her little cat-to-go box she was snuggling and loving all over.

It's been a while since my family has had a good cat around. When our first cat Ollie died a few years ago, we tried finding another cat that could be half as amazing as him (he was seriously the most amazing pet in the world) but nothing really worked out. Last year we got Mac Gatsby and Deek Estella, but after tearing mom's curtains to shreds they ran away together, like a little cat rascal gang.

Then last summer I fell in love with a teeny tiny girl while volunteering at the animal shelter. You might remember my posts about Bing Bing Fing. She was just a week old (sad things happened to momma cat) so I bottle fed her and kept her by my side 24 hours a day. Eventually her littleness got the best of her, and she just slipped away.

But it seems that we've finally struck gold! There's nothing like going home to a loving pet. They're the bets cuddlers, and don't wake you up by licking your face like my little sister does.

love, rudi

Thanksgiving Break!

2011-12-01T13:24:00.001-06:00

As finals are starting gear up, it's been a great coping mechanism to reflect on what a great relaxing week I had during Thanksgiving break.

I rode with a friend to Louisville, Kentucky, where my mom was supposed to meet me and take me further south to my hometown. But who showed up to pick me up? My mom, and my baby sister, and my boyfriend who surprised me by hiding in the trunk, and a new kitty!!

It was just like Christmas! It was the perfect start to what ended up being a really great week. I'll have a picture of our new kitty up later. For some ridiculous reason, I shirked my nerdy responsibilities and didn't totally geek out by taking 1,000,000,000 pictures of an adorable new cat. That's so unlike me...

I spent a lot of time playing around and snuggling with Sadie, who's gotten even cuter by the way, and snuggling with Penny the cat, and doing the usual lounging-about-home activities. And, for those of you who have seen my poor computer's cracked screen, got my computer repaired!! It's so nice to type and browse the web without looking past big scary broken glass pieces.

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, was especially quirky and full of fun. My boyfriend's family had invited my family to celebrate with them this year, which was super scary because our families have barely met each other before. It was one of those situations that could have ended up like a sitcom with turkey flying through the air, slap-stick arguments, and at least one giant trip up involving spilling something or ruining something else, but it didn't! We all had a great time and enjoyed delicious food, and everything went off without a hitch! I can't tell you how anxious I was- that whole "meeting the parents" thing was easy, but parents meeting parents? It was a big step.

It probably helped that I baked a bunch of carrot cake cupcakes, brought a Derby pie, and some of my dad's homemade apple wine to dinner.

Below is me playing around with some coloring books, and below that is my boyfriend and his fancy beard. Unfortunately that beautiful beard has been trimmed way down since that picture was taken last week. Also, thanks to his brother Mario who flew in, he has a mohawk now. He's such a trendsetter!

So that just about sums up my Thanksgiving holiday!

Oh, wait. One more thing.

...I bought some dishes. Sort of a lot of dishes. See, I have this quirk where I'm sort of a middle aged woman, and I have a fascination for dishes and quilts and linens. This past summer I spent a good portion of my savings on Fiestaware (there's an outlet on the way to Pittsburg!) and once again I spent some of my hard-earned and earnestly saved money on beautiful yet currently useless dishes.

It's like I'm making my own dowry or something. Judge all you like, but my dinner parties are going to be way fancier than yours.

love, rudi

Diversity Week

2011-11-12T15:16:00.001-06:00

This has been quite a week to talk about!! Stephens just finished up Diversity Week, and I got to attend a good majority of the events.

Diversity is a subject that's be slowly becoming a bigger and bigger point of discussion on campus over the past year or so, and I think the Diversity Week and it's events gave us all a big relaxing deep breath. It's like everybody secretly wanted to say something about diversity on campus the whole time, and now we finally had a conversation about it. I think a lot of people benefited from the events, it was very cathartic.

Karith Foster and Adam Lehman were the big guests of the week. Karith is a Stephens Alum who now does stand up and all sorts of other entertaining things in NYC and LA. She and Adam are touring with their new program "Stereotypes 101", a half stand-up half heart-breaking-discussion about, well, stereotyping. Karith and Adam shared stories from their own lives about race and sexuality, and after that event students started talking, too. That's one thing I love about Stephens-- ripple effects work here.

(This picture was taken from Karith's website)

If you guys were in attendance at any of their events, or are interested more in Stereotypes 101, or just want to jump on the Diversity wagon, check these guys out on Facebook! They were extremely inspiring, and a complete joy to have on campus.

Did any of you attend any of the Diversity Week events? What did you find to be inspiring?

love, rudi

Inspiration from & Kathleen

2011-11-09T12:41:00.002-06:00

I'm going to do something a little non-traditional with this post, and simply share another blogger's post with you. Jeremy & Kathleen is one of my favorite blogs of all time, and I always go there for inspiration, whether in design or for advice like the post below.

I found this particular post to be really helpful and it spoke tons to me, so I thought I'd share it with all of you. More and more as I get older I find myself facing bigger and more "important" problems, and it was really helpful to take a step back and define how I deal with problems into three simple categories. Kathleen explains it all perfectly, which is why I wanted to share her post with you.

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Sometimes I don't even know that I'm scared until I feel the fight-or-flight-or-freeze sensation bubbling up from the pit of my stomach. The idea is that when animals or prehistoric humans were confronted with a threat the stress response was fight-or-flight-or-freeze. So no, I'm not being attacked by a lion or trying to protect my baby from a dingo but I am going through tremendous amounts of growth that push me out of my comfort zone. And with that I'm feeling the need to fight, flight or freeze.

FIGHT: I get aggressive and shitty. I buzz with unkind energy - directed at both myself and others.

FLIGHT: I start fantasizing about living in a cabin in the middle of the woods. Jeremy's out back chopping wood and I'm in an apron cuddling a little baby with ruddy cheeks and a white onesie.

FREEZE: Freeze only lasts for a few seconds at a time before fight-or-flight kicks in. Freeze is that moment where I find myself in a blank stare and wondering to myself "what am I doing?"

Obviously, flight is my favorite stress response method - because it pretends to be productive. And sometimes it is. But lately, when I feel the need to fight-or-flight-or-freeze I recognize that it's a symptom to let me know that I'm growing - that I'm stretching - and that if I can hold the position and stay the course for just a little bit longer I will be a better person for it.

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I hope you all got as much from this post as much as I did! Do you all agree with Kathleen's perspective? Or do you have other methods of dealing with things?

love, rudi

Halloween

2011-11-03T17:04:00.003-05:00

I got the extremely disappointing news on Friday that I didn't get accepted into Creative Ink, that really awesome . I really pouted about it for a while- things this year have been going really well for me and I've been on a great "I win" streak, so it was sort of like having a glass of cold water tossed in my face. It's so necessary to have a humbling experience like that when you're winning too much, though. It keeps you working hard!

So in order to celebrate my humbling experience, me and the girls (and Joel, that redheaded guy you keep seeing around) dressed up for Halloween on Saturday night and went dancing! Dancing with my friends is the best hobby I've picked up here at Stephens, because not only is it way fun and a great way to meet non-Stephens people, but it's a months worth of workouts!

(This is us all pretending to be Courtney, the blonde on the left. She always makes this face in photos!)

And here's creepy Joel.

But after advising day on Wednesday and looking at my future schedule, I'm feeling less sad about the whole thing. It looks like (and I hope I'm not jinxing myself) I'll graduate Spring 2013! That's a full year early, which is so exciting! I love college, but I'm already so excited for all of the post-college adventures I'll be having. I can never stay in one place too long, it seems.

And what's more- there's a possibility that I'll be studying abroad!! But I really don't want to jinx that possibility, so more on that later!

I hope all of your Halloween's were as fun as mine!

love, rudi

And the Winner Is...

2011-10-26T00:16:00.000-05:00

Hey girls!

Two big things happening this week:

One

The Reveal of my new blog layout!! I've been wanting to redesign for a long time to something simpler and cleaner, and that allowed bigger pictures in the posts, and now the new look is finally here! I'm hoping to add more and more to the blog as time goes by, so keep reading. :)

Two

Tomorrow I have an interiew that I'm really nervous and excited about. Creative Ink is the "student-run integrated marketing communications firm" at Stephens, and they're only accepting two or three new applicants this year. I want to be a part of it so bad. They do advertising work for real clients, so it's crazy great for your portfolio as a designer/marketing student, but I'm mostly excited about being a part of the team. That sounds so Disney, but it's true! It's a group of 12 passionate and driven creatives pulled together to collaborate and work on big projects in inspired ways- I don't know about you, but that's pretty much my dream job scenario anyway.

So I'm nervous. Which is really weird for me- I don't usually get nervous about presentations, performances, or interviews. I'm sure that it's because I've been thinking about it a lot, and that I want the position so badly. Interviews aren't my strong suit out of the public-speaking world, either. I'm usually excited about whatever I'm being interviewed about, and my personality really gets strong when I'm excited. That may sound like a good thing, but I have a lot of personality. People expect you to be nervous or shy during interviews, and when I burst in all energetic and fearless like some golden retriever it's a little off-putting.

Anyway. Despite my butterflies, I'm fairly certain that as long as I play this song in the background while I walk in slow motion to my interview, I'll win.

Wish me luck :)

love, rudi

The Nah-tour Voy-a-geuhs

2011-10-17T16:37:00.000-05:00

No one had class this past Friday, so we decided to go camping! It was so much fun!!! We had a giant tent, we had a fire, we had camp food and bagels toasted over that roasty fire, we had great music and great talks, we had EVERYTHING!

Plus we had a photoshoot, just to prove to the world that we actually had the guts to go out in nature : )

Around the campfire we decided that our new tribe needed a name and a call to Yawlp into the night, so we decided on "Nah-tour Voy-a-geuhs" (loosely based on The Rural Juror, for you fellow 30 Rock fans) and, well, a noise that doesn't really have very convenient spelling options.

Anyway, the unity we developed as The Nah-tour Voy-a-geuhs really came in handy when we had to come together to defeat our first enemy in the wilderness: The alleged Honey Badger that made a crazy noise behind our tent and kept walking around our campsite, scaring the crap out of us. Based on the fast that it sniffed our tent purring, logic may or may not prove that we had nothing to worry about, but never-the-less we've narrowed the true Honey

Badger identity to these things based on the noises we found on the internet:

A scary night fox. A beaver. Or a camel.

Pretty sure it's the camel.

love, rudi

Citizen Jane and the Circus

2011-10-05T21:10:00.000-05:00

All work and no play, girls! I've had a very busy yet very entertaining two weeks. Mid terms are slowly peeking their ugly little heads into my schedule, and for two of my classes that meant two portfolio presentations in one week. At least...I really hope those portfolio presentations were considered as midterms.

I spent all weekend doing two things: prepping my designs for my portfolios, and taking photos for the Citizen Jane Film Festival! For those of you who don't know much about it, Citizen Jane is hosted here at Stephens and is based around female film makers. I got to see two *amazing* documentaries myself, and I was certainly glad I forced myself to get out of the studios to take advantage of the festival. There was so much art everywhere!

Some of the neatest photos I got were from the Citizen Jane Circus held in our administrative building Lela Rainey Wood Hall. It was magical, walking into a ballroom full of free popcorn and cotton candy, dancers juggling scarves, girls in glittery costumes hosting an arm wrestling competition, a costume-filled photo booth, and this super fancy aerialist!

Of course, the main point of Citizen Jane was to expose talented female film makers, but for their side of the story you'll just have to attend yourself next year and hear it from their work. No photography allowed :)

love, rudi

Family Weekend at Stephens

2011-09-25T21:08:00.000-05:00

I have a lot of pictures for you! Sarah, my lovely roommate last year, drove in from Kansas City and we spent the entire weekend together having a grand old time!

We visited the vintage costume gallery on campus, which is CIRCUS themed right now! They have the grooviest stuff in there! If any of you are around Columbia, you have GOT to check out this gallery. The themes change (I think every semester?) so stop by while you can!

After visiting the costume gallery Sarah and I headed to Stephens Lake Park, where there was supposedly a Puppy Fair going on. It was way too cute to pass up!! We spent literally two hours just standing around petting everyone's dogs and snuggling with the cats at the adoption tent.

My friend Kathleen brought her dog ChouChou to the Puppy Fest!

My friend Emily brought her dog Parker as well, who totally gussied up to the camera.

It was all I could do not to shove this cat in my bag and take her home.

The rest of the weekend I spent time with my good friend Courtney and her momma, who came in for family weekend! Her sister Ashley and Ashley's boyfriend also drove in for a while, and we all got breakfast at Ernie's this morning. By the way, Ernie's has the best cinnamon toast in town, which I ate with garden vegetarian sausage.

I wish more weekends were like this, a combination of good food and good friends leisurely enjoying each other's company. There's something so functional about it. I know many of you readers are fellow students who had family come to visit, and I hope all of your weekends were happy ones, too.

love, rudi

Kappa Plant-a-thon

2011-09-22T21:06:00.000-05:00

Last week I adopted a little baby plant! Kappa Delta, one of two sororities at Stephens, had a booth set up during lunch one day where you could pot your own baby pansy. I couldn't resist!

Thank you, Kappa Deltas!! My little plant is so very happy and growing on my window sill. What happiness.

love, rudi

Doing Your Homework

2011-09-21T21:05:00.000-05:00

The mobile in the basement of the library.

There’s some weak part of me that wants to avoid researching other designers and their work, and concepts. Every time I see a new idea I find myself saying, “Well, there’s one less that I can use.” I’ve been going on like this for the past few hours, mixing my evening between sketching and trying to pull together concepts for some assignments with forcing myself to be explorative. It’s like exposing my mind to these works deletes that part of me that now must accept the fact that now, whatever I do come up with, has to strive to be pushed yet another step further.

But if I didn’t force myself to take all this in, to digest as much art and design and other people’s good ideas, I’d be taking the easy way out. But after spending an entire evening on pinterest.com (wow, by the way) I’ve taken myself one step further- seeing all the art out there makes me braver. Check out what I’ve marked in just an hour or so of searching- there is so much good art out there. And that fact- that it’s everywhere and it’s amazing and there’s always some awesome thing that you’ll never have even thought of- reminds me that whatever I do will be created, and it will exist. And that’s saying that every time I have some project or feeling, all I have to do is throw it out there and then there it will be. Forever. For anyone who finds it, it’ll be another reminder (in a world filled with them) that every piece of art is a beautiful byproduct of everything. I’m finding bravery in being anonymous.

But still, it's always a pit of disappointment when you see something brilliant that you didn't make. I've been doing a pretty good job of keeping my chin up anyway. I hope you can do the same.

By the way, and I meant to tell you all in some big awesome post before life got in the way, I was elected Sophomore Class President Monday, and I've been riding on a I'm-Really-Proud-of-Myself cloud all week. I was never elected ANYTHING in high school despite my desire to be, and it's just one of those zero-to-hero stories that seem to come up so frequently around here. Dreams come true at Stephens. I promise you that.

love, rudi

Girly Girls

2011-09-13T20:43:00.000-05:00

Hey ya'll! I had the best and quickest weekend. Sarah Reeter, my beloved ex-roommate from last year, was in and out of Columbia a bit and we had the nicest mini-visits. On Friday she, Courtney (the blonde one), and I spent a good hour or so in Stamper Commons munching on dinner and chatting, and finally ended up walking downtown and window shopping.

If I mentioned it once, I mentioned it a thousand times to them, but I have a new goal. I have a lot of clothes (a lot) but half of them either don't fit me very well or don't fit my ever-evolving style. I've been working on my collection since the 7th grade or so, and I think I'm finally ready to start dressing like a grown up. It's been on my mind a bunch lately. Do you all have any store suggestions?The only website I know to check out is Modcloth, and even their stuff is too similar to my previous flowery, cutesy style.
Anyway, I talked to the girls about it a whole bunch, and we ended up playing dress up.

Then on Saturday Courtney and I got our nails done. It was my first time!! About a week ago we were talking and I realized that I am a sophomore in college, I'm not exactly a tomboy, and I've never had my nails done. It seemed insane, so I made us appointments that day. I spent all week getting excited about it, and it completely livd up to the hype. I feel like a princess every time I look at my hands.

Courtney did this crazy thing where she got some sort of crackle-effect nail super duper polish, and she ended up with some awesome looking Spider Man nails that have secretly made her feel like a rebel all week. She's been wearing her leather jackets a lot...don't tell her I noticed.

On Sunday Courtney and I wanted to take our new mentiz (we're mentoring together! More on that once we have our first mentor/mentiz date) to the Roots and Blues Festival, but we didn't realize it closed on Sunday. It was so disappointing expecting a big sloppy pulled pork sandwich and getting chicken and rice instead, even if Jingo's does have the best Crab Rangoon I've ever had.

And to answer that question on your mind, Yes. I did get my homework done.

love, rudi

Breakthrough

2011-09-08T20:27:00.000-05:00

The thing I love best about design and marketing so far is the amount of immediate freedom I have in it. I don't have to wait around for someone else to decide if I can be involved or not like I would in theatre. I don't have to already know a bunch of rules and regulations if I want to create something like I would with set design or follow another person's idea of what the art should be, and find out a way to fit everything that's going on in my head into their vision.
I'm not losing the collaboration, either- that will develop later once I've discovered who I am and what I can do as an artist, which is what I really wanted to learn in college anyway. Stephens has always provided itself to me as a safe place to take risks, but I'm finally at a place where I'm able to really take advantage of that. There's no more waiting, and it's all up to me.

And another thing? I can't tell you how liberating it is to not be constantly wondering if I'm good enough, if my personality is up to scratch, if what I do matters, or if I'll ever get a job like I used to, and like 98% of my theatre friends still deal with. It's not a bad thing to be selfish and concentrate to developing myself anymore, in fact it's encouraged.

These are a few of the sketches from our very first assignment.

That sort of happened to me yesterday during my Typography class. Earlier in the day, during Principles of Design, I spoke with my teacher Kate about several of my designs. We talked about my gravitation towards texture and depth in design, and whole bunch of other jargon-heavy concepts that were appearing in my art. Later, during Typography, I had to quickly sketch a few concepts for a poster, and it took Kate all of five seconds to decide which concept I should run with. "It's you! You have to develop this idea because when I saw it, I knew it was you doing that. That's you're thing."
Maybe that doesn't mean anything to a lot of you, but basically I had a breakthrough yesterday. a mini milestone. Kate, my audience, recognized something I did as my work, she noticed and identified my style. That means I have a style! Or, at least, the beginning of one. One of the biggest goals of my year is to pinpoint and discover my style as an artist, to settle in to my particular aesthetic, and yesterday it happened. It was minor, but so important.

This is the poster I did yesterday, the poster that's "my thing". This is my G.

I got really excited. I've felt so great ever since, and I'm so happy to have that inkling of confirmation that I'm on a good path, one that fits me that I can really settle into and do exceptional work in. It's so priceless, it's such the ideal "college dsicovery" thing.

Have any of you had moments like this? I want to know your experiences! Leave me a comment,
I want to know I'm not alone on this one.

As always,
love, rudi

P.S. I'm going to start playing around with the way I do things around here. Any input, positive or negative, is completely appreciated!

New York Part 2

2011-08-25T20:24:00.000-05:00

Hey ya'll! I was just looking through my old posts and discovered that I never posted the rest of my New York City photos! So, without further delay, here they are!

These are the home-made fruit tarts I had for breakfast every morning. We found a little bakery right down the road from the train station, and made a point to sample as many of their treats as we could.

This picture is from my visit to MTV in Times Square, where Ed Coco works as the Senior Set Designer (by the way, coolest job ever)

I visited Ogilvy & Mather, a top advertising agency, and got some really
awesome insight into the advertising world.Heather Hay, the Stephens alum who met with me there, gave me this book to read and see if I like it- "it" being the advertising world in general.
The verdict? I finished the book in a week. I love advertising. And that's just one of the many discoveries I made during my trip.

I have a few more photos of silly touristy stuff that everyone's seen- well, except for the picture I snapped of a man doing yoga in a park with a lizard on his head. I'd share it if you could actually see the lizard, but alas.
It's harder than it looks to be a sneaky-peaky spy photographer.

Can I just say "Thank You Stephens!" again for sending me out there?

Hope you all enjoy!

love, rudi

Oh Mighty One

2011-08-23T20:11:00.000-05:00

Intimidation.

It has several new nicknames, folks: iMac. Typography Class. InDesign. New Self Service Scanner in Cafeteria.

But mostly iMac.

Except don't tell my teachers, because I want them to think I'm fearless and awesome.

It's very refreshing to be intimidated, though. Does that make me sound awful and arrogant? It's just that in high school everything was so easy, and studying theatre is a lot about practicing and discovering things you already knew. But now, for the first time in a long time, I have to really work on learning computer programs and a whole new career vocabulary. Apparently calling an HTML manual a "chunky script" isn't quite going to cut it.

I feel like some sort of cage fighter, because I can already see my opponents for the semester, I know their names and how they can beat me, and I am so ready to put up my dukes and get to business.

love, rudi

Goodbye, Old. Hello, New!

2011-08-23T20:02:00.000-05:00

Last week Mom, Sadie, and I drove off and away from our pretty little house in Kentucky and headed out to the Wild West! Which, by the way, between Columbia, Missouri and Kentucky is just a big Indiana cornfield.

It was really rough leaving home, because like I said in my last post, I'm really apprehensive about the coming year. It was even more heartbreaking to leave home when everything was so green and plush, and our garden was just starting to ripen up the watermelons.

My stepdad Ben woke up early to send us off.

But now I'm here at Stephens!! And I've already got tons of material for more posts- I can tell this year is going to be packed with creativity. And, an added bonus for all you guys, I'm not only in a photography class this semester, but my work study has me taking a lot of pictures, which means I should have plenty for eye candy for you!!

I know I'M excited! SO, the first chance I get to take a big deep breath and pull together another post, it'll be Stephens Stephens everywhere!! Keep a lookout for your own face!

love, rudi

Ah!! Road Trip!

2011-08-18T19:59:00.000-05:00

HOW IS SUMMER ALREADY OVER?!

My disbelief is falling out my ears. I started folding shirts yesterday, and suddenly we're leaving for Missouri in the morning, a lovely 9 hour trip from KY.

So packing has helped put me in the back-to-school mindset, and my reaction to the packing has compelled me to share this piece of advice:

Downsizing is good. If my dream of moving to New York is to ever come true, I am going to have to spend the next two years of my life getting rid of all my stuff. It's the worst feeling ever to slowly realize you're drowning in t-shirts, miss-matched socks, and shoes you like but never wear.

I feel like this.

I know I am not actually like this. But this is absolutely how I feel.

But guess what?! Since it's still 2011 I'm going to say last semester's goal can still apply:

I want to be organized. So bad. Clutterless, Coordinated, Tidy. I may make myself a poster for my room with that phrase, just to keep my mind on the goal.

See? Look at that- I'm already being proactive. Well... I'm already talking about being proactive. You know how it goes.

Wish me luck moving in, ya'll!! And Freshmen,
Good luck, and be brave. You can't have a new best friend until you introduce yourself to her. Also, please introduce yourself to me! I love new friends, and I love helping out. Giving advice makes upperclassmen feel good, so don't be shy!!

love, rudi

End of Summer Blues

2011-08-16T21:52:00.000-05:00

Sadie, Mom, and Ben earlier this summer on a little fishing trip. It was what Sadie wanted for her birthday.

I'm not going to sugar coat anything: until about an hour ago I was completely dreading going back to school at the end of this week.

I've been reading all of my friend's thoughts on Facebook- everyone's reaching out to each other with "I can't wait to see you!"s. It will be amazing to see my girls after a few excruciating months without them, but I'm not feeling ready to cope with the less ideal parts of college after spending all summer in the comforts of home and laziness. When I think of college I find myself remembering late nights every night under a mountain of work and how cold those treks to class and dinner are during the school year. Being with my family after a year away has made me appreciate and miss them even more, and I'm just positively dreading not being able to see Truchi until November.

Truchi and I, the evening of our last visit for the summer.

I'm also nervous about my coming year. I'm sort of going through freshman year twice because I'll be in all new environment- new major, new teachers, new people. Last year I was so full of leftover angst and frustration from high school that I attacked my first year of college with fireworks of energy and eagerness but now I'm just feeling drained. I hope I can pull the same enthusiasm into this year and less magnetism for negativity and bad luck. I'm proud to have made a good impression on my teachers and classmates last year, but now I have to wonder if I can do it again. Thinking about all this makes me hiccup with worry.

But like I said, about an hour ago I had an epiphany. I was thinking about how freshman year was all about standing out at auditions, going to rehearsals or crew until ten at night, building up and repairing a reputation from scratch, and simply learning how to survive sanely in the giant college juggling act. But this year I don't have to worry about any of that stuff, not really. Those things were about 85% of my daily life, and I realized that means I now have 85% of my life to fill with...well, whatever I want.

That little schedule shift in my head made my whole body loosen and relax instantly. Finally things I imagined myself doing in college seem reachable, like working on my organization, which is hard to do when you barely have time to grab some lunch. Now who knows- I may have time to go to lectures, all those campus events I missed out on last year, and I'll actually be able to commit to a few clubs here and there! It sounds so simple and insignificant but I've always wanted to hold a leadership role in a school organization, and maybe this year I'll finally get that chance. In high school that was never an option because elections were just disguised popularity contests, but college is different, right?

Anyway, the point is I decided to stop being scared and to think outside my worried restraints, and now I'm feeling much more positively about the year.

Mom and Sadie baking in their pajamas and aprons.

But I'll still miss my mommy.

love, rudi

New York City: Part 1

2011-07-20T19:51:00.000-05:00

For those unfortunate few who haven't been inducted into the "I know everything about Rudi's life" club,
you should know that I love my school and my school has a pretty good way of telling me that it loves me too.

What I mean is Stephens sent me to New York City for one week. It was President Lynch's idea, and she set up a week's worth of interviews and lunches with Stephens alum who have had experiences that I hope to one day have. Dare I state the obvious and say this trip was amazing, and a huge inspiration for me? More on that later.

First thing's first in the city: Visit your friends!

My good friend Dylan (read her Stephens blog about life in our theater here) is interning at Pineda Conservatory of the Performing Arts in New Jersey, so she was just a train ride away! We met in Greenwich Village for lunch and some catching up, and found a restaurant that not only sells the "Esty Sald", which we pretended was named after Stephens dance goddess (I mean teacher) Carol Esty, but also sells FaFa's Chicken! My baby sister has called me FaFa since she was teeny tiny, so it was such a symbolic welcomingon NYC's part to name my very first meal there after me!

I had tea with Mara McEwin, who cofounded her own theater company Treehouse Shakers with her friend Emily Bunning. Isn't that neat?! I got to pick her brain about how she accomplished this amazing feat, from the funding to the bravery to start from scratch,
in New York nonetheless. It completely blew my mind that it's even possible for for people to say, "Well, let's start a theatre company. And let's make it really successful and live out our dream." and then actually achievethat particular goal.
I definitely learned a lesson about bravery during our tea date.

Oh, and I bet you wish this picture was in focus! So do I.

Part II coming right up!

love, rudi

Connecticut, Land of the Fun

2011-07-20T19:45:00.000-05:00

Boy. My head is so overwhelmed, I've got to catch you all up on what's been going on in my life this month!

For the 4th of July week I went to Connecticut with my boyfriend and his mother to visit their extended family, all of whom I had either met between 0-2 times, and all of whom are funny, Italian,
and perfectly fit the description of what I expect funny Italian North-Easterners to be.
We did a lot of beaching and visiting, but mostly we spent a lot of time eating. Actually, I think I spent most of my time eating during my entire vacation up north. At least, that's what I have the most pictures of!

It was such a blast going to barbecues and hanging around with Chris' family. They're such a fun crew!

Coming up next: My amazing Stephens trip to New York!

love, rudi

I mish you's guys...

2011-07-08T20:00:00.000-05:00

I was just looking through some old blog posts, and was looking at all my pretty friends and how pretty Stephens is...

I miss Stephens! I miss you guys!! I miss! I miss! I miss everything about Columbia, and not being with my beautiful, funny friends makes me so sad.

Look at my sad face:

Also I'm wearing a silly hat because I'm at a birthday party. And it's fun, it's just that you're not here...

love, rudi

Bon Voyage!

2011-06-30T19:37:00.000-05:00

Hello All!

This week I've been preparing for something I've been looking forward to for a very, very long time.
This past spring I popped into Stephens President Dianne Lynch's office
(and let me just tell you now I am that woman's number one fan)
and emerged thirty minutes later with quite a surprise:

She offered me a trip to New York City, and told me about how I could apply to Stephen's Magic Moments program to pay for it!

Long story short, I did that and succeeded, and now I'm packing up to leave!

The first week of my trip will be in Connecticut on vacation with my boyfriend to visit his family,
but the second week will be Broadway, cupcakeries, wonderful restaurants, Central Park, the Yankees, and a bunch of lunch dates with Stephens alum!!

I can't wait to see what adventures I get into, and I can't wait to share them with you, either!

love, rudi

All photos from one of my favorite blogs, the rockstar diaries.

Summer Time in Kentucky

2011-06-18T19:33:00.000-05:00

Hello All! It's been a while since I've given you any updates. I've been laying pretty low in my hometown in Kentucky, but it seems that very soon I'll be rejoining the land of the living and lively. So I must fill in a few gaps!

For the three weeks or so of being home I applied for lots and lots of summer jobs. Things weren't looking so well, and looked even worse when I watched the employer's faces fall when the found out I would be leaving in just three months after being hired, and the job search never yielded results. I did, however, get so frustrated with not having a cash flow and not having anything to do that I decided to start up a shop on Etsy.com. So now I have projects and (hopefully) more savings by the end of summer! The shop isn't up yet, but it's in the works!

I've also been taking lots of little trips here and there. A few weeks ago mom, Sadie, and I drove up to Columbus, Ohio for a family reunion and a Zoo trip.We went on to Pittsburgh to visit friends and do a little shopping. I've been frequenting Tennessee a lot, too, where my boyfriend Chris lives.

But my latest and most adorable adventure started earlier this week while I was volunteering at the local animal shelter. A lady dropped off this tiny little critter, and because of her young age and need for frequent care, she was going to be put down immediately. But I saved her!! She's been growing so much and she cries less and less, and she sleeps on my tummy like a perfect little angel cat. Her name is Bing Bing Fing, after an exchange student we knew.

And I love Bing Bing Fing, even though petting her makes my eyes swell until I can't open them anymore. Yeah- I'm allergic to cats. That's probably the worst curse the gods could send a girl.

Oh, and last but not least! I began my online math course through Stephens last week- Personal and Family Finance. It's tough to do an online course in the summer! I've been slipped back into vacation mode so thoroughly that it's so difficult to motivate myself sometimes. I'm getting back in the swing of things, though!

I hope all of you are having a great summer, either working, playing or still trying to catch up on sleep like I am. See you all soon! We're at about two months and counting until school starts again!

love, rudi

Christmas Time!!

2010-12-25T16:33:00.000-06:00

I have indulged, I'm afraid, in the reckless abandon of my blog. It's been wonderful to sit in my living room sniggering to myself, "You know, I should really be blogging right now, or doing some work for school..." and making no effort to even begin the tasks.

I have been taking a few photos here and there, by the way. Enjoy this little sneak peak of my Christmas!

These photos are excerpts from my beautiful mother's Christmas decorations. This is the mantle of our fireplace.

Last Sunday my parents went to a party, and so my boyfriend and I babysat my little sister for a few hours. We spent the entire time sitting in the cushy leather couches of one of my favorite coffeehouses in Lexington, playing board games and enjoying each other's company to outrageously sappy degrees. Sadie slept for most of the evening, which explains why she looks so groggy and sad in this photo.

Plus Truchi shaved his beard. I am upset about this.

And I've got great news! For the first time since I've lived in this town (about 8 years or so), we had a snowy Christmas!!! My little sister was THRILLED!

I'm off for yet another cup of tea. Happy Holidays, everyone. My best wishes to all of you.

love, rudi

P.S. For all of you who are holding your breath for my pre-mentioned "Special Post", I have bad news. It just didn't happen. I was planning on making a video interview with my fellow freshman friend Allison Frisch, who stage managed Meet Me in St. Louis, but finals attacked both of us with their schedule-wrecking claws and we spent our time together rehearsing monologues.

At least I aced that final, eh? Also, this confession, as well as this post, were a direct result of George nagging me. Thank you George. You made me feel bad for abandoning my blog. I totally love you George.

Snow!

2010-12-12T11:03:00.000-06:00

It snowed!!!!!!!!!

We had our first snow of the season last night!!

It's so super cold outside it's painful, but it's also really, really pretty. I feel bad complaining too much- I just have no tolerance for cold. I hate it more than I hate having my shoelaces tied together. And that is a strong hate.

Here's the view from my dorm window!

Also, for a community service project the girls in one of my classes went to a women's shelter in town. We played in the snow with kids!

And made cookies!

and tambourines out of bowls and dried peas!

Also, some of you may remember that I promised a special post,
and it's still gonna happen! Scheduling is just so crazy difficult. I'll let you all know when it arrives!

Wish me luck for this week! We begin finals, and it's gonna be a doozy!

love, rudi

The End!

2010-12-12T07:29:00.000-06:00

Classes are finally over!
Please do not confuse my excitement with absolute joy. I am partially devastated that some of my classes are over. With only one or two exceptions that receive only partial affection, I really, really love my classes this semester. My acting class has been a wonderful experience, as it was one of the smaller, more intimate classes. I'll have a lot of contact with most of my theater teachers after this semester, but there are even more of my teachers that I won't have the opportunity to hang out with as much. And honestly, I've been lucky to have a quirky bunch of teachers I really enjoy.

But I AM excited! I'm not homesick, really, but I am looking so forward to going home and being with my family. Thanksgiving break was such a tease! It's time for naps with my baby sister, chats with my stepdad, hugs and talks with mommy, and adventures with my boyfriend. It was always true, but now it's more true: You never really know what you've got 'til it's gone.

I have a slew of photos for you! My good friend Alex came to the rescue with a card reader, so I can now share my adventures!

This is the delicious coffee and butterscotch pie Hannah and I indulged in last weekend. Super. Super. Super Good.

Last night some girls were riding a scooter in the hall! It was SO FUN!

I have to say, as bittersweet as leaving Stephens is, I'm so excited for the break. More so than I ever was in high school!

So, so excited.

love, rudi

Adventurous Advent!

2010-12-05T13:51:00.000-06:00

I'd just like to mention how amazing advent calendars are.

Thank you, Mommy, for being wonderful and getting me my own advent calendar for my dorm. It really feels like Christmas- plus it reminds me that I need to go Christmas shopping!!

Don't you all love Christmas traditions?

love, rudi

"Meet Me" on the Weekend!

2010-12-05T12:06:00.000-06:00

Bad news, guys!

For some reason my card reader doesn't really work anymore, so I can't share with you the photos from my fun-filled Friday night.
Hopefully I can get it to work soon, otherwise my blog will be pretty bare- and I have pie-themed pictures I want to share!

Friday was opening night for Meet Me in St. Louis and I really enjoyed myself! My high school theater was very low-key, as was the college's program nearby, so it was something of a shock to see how nicely a school theater could pull together a musical without being flawed. Besides the cast doing an immaculate job, the show itself is just too cute to handle. If you haven't seen it you definitely should!

I'm going to attempt snagging some photos of the set for you all, just because, once again, the set is completely awesome.
I want to say it's awful, as in "Full of Awe", but unfortunately English doesn't work that way.

It's very strange, and I'm mostly blaming the fact that Christmas Break is right around the corner, but I am so impatient these days. I find myself tip-tapping my toes before it's time to go to bed so I can rush over to the next day, and so on and so on.
Like I said, I'm blaming the hours and hours of delicious sleep waiting for me once I'm back in Kentucky.

Plus I'm super excited to get into shenanigans with these fellas:

That's my stepdad Ben on the left, me in the middle, and Truchi (the BoyFran) on the right.
What a FunBunch.

Also! Please don't think I've forgotten that special post I promised. It'll be up this week!

Hope you all have had a great, great weekend! Mine was pretty great.

love, rudi

Thanksgiving Break, and Afterwards

2010-12-03T06:48:00.000-06:00

AH!

I'll give you the simple, detail-less version of my week.

Last week was Fall/Thanksgiving Break, which was awesome.

I have only two photos- I seriously need to start documenting my life better.

My sister Sadie at Thanksgiving! I think she's getting so pretty! It was just magical hanging out with my three year old. She's the funniest kid I know, too.

And I saw my boyfriend Truchi!!

If you remember this post you'll recall how Truchi and I split for a while,
and that split actually only ended up lasting about a month or so. Needless to say it's been a rough time as far as our relationship goes, as we live about 11 hours apart now, and it was so great to finally see him after all these months.

But now that I'm back in school, I'm really feeling the negative effects of having such a wonderful break.
As one of my good pals said, I've had a bite of the dessert, and now I have to trudge through the meat and potatoes of finals week to take another bite. This has been the longest week I've had since starting school. There's just so many loose ends to tie up and final papers to tweak, not to mention I've begun rehearsals for a student directing scene, which we perform in about two weeks.

But I have a treat for you guys! I'm changing my ways a little on the blog this weekend, so be sure to stop by for a fun post!

I hope your week was wonderful- either that, or your weekend is!!

love, rudi

Thanksgiving!

2010-11-22T14:02:00.000-06:00

2010-11-16T18:42:00.000-06:00

Hey girls!

I have a quick little announcement:

The Time Has Come!

Every year the student body is asked to put in nominations and votes towards the
Stephens' Distinguished Teacher Award

You can fill out a ballot at the PRSSA table in the Pit today through Thursday from 11 AM to 2 PM to nominate a teacher. You will receive leadership points for submitting nominations (which I though was pretty rad).

The person you nominate should be one that you believe

1) Is awesome
2) Has done a really great job creating an effective learning environment for their students
3) Encouraged intellectual growth in you and your classmates
4) Does their job unbelievably well
5) Is super special in the eyes of you and your classmates
6) Deserves a little eye candy for their office in the form of a fancy Distinguished Teacher Award
7) Is awesome

I know you have someone in mind! Give that wonderful teacher a gift almost as valuable as the gifts they give you-
they certainly deserve it!

This is probably what my ultimate teacher would look like:

And he would bake and be very witty and make me laugh all the time. Plus he would have a mustache sometimes, and a beard other times and smoke a pipe in class and tell ridiculous stories about him in ridiculous situations that end in hilarity and nonsense, but end up resulting in poetically worded and poignant life lessons.

I think I just described my dream man instead...

...he turned out awesome.

Anyway, the point is:

Go nominate that favorite teacher of yours
so you can be their favorite student.

love, rudi

2010-11-14T13:59:00.000-06:00

Hey guys!

I've got a few little tidbits to share with you.

My favorite news of the day: Remember my last post, when I talked about those awesome girls who totally rocked my world the other night? I hung out with them again today! We shoved ourselves into a booth at Kaldi's, a [really] great coffeehouse downtown, and played the let's-say-we'll-do-homework-but-get-nothing-done-because-we-talk-too-much game for a couple of hours.
I'm starting to seriously love this place! I hate that I experienced such a sour taste of it before, but now I'm becoming quite the optimist.

So, point two.
This morning my pretty friend Hannah and I
(here's Hannah)

went to Stephens Lake Park and participated in "A Walk in their Shoes", a fundraiser for The Hunger Project set up by my mentor Erin Hansen, Rhea Amos, and Gillian West for one of their classes.

It was pretty neat. We went on a mini-walk around the trail doing little activities designed to help us empathize with people in third world countries. We walked barefoot, I walked one section blindfolded, and we carried heavy buckets of water around. It was cold, it was fun, it was for a good cause, and my friend Lia won a raffle.

Sound like a good day to you? It sounded like a good day to me, too.

love, rudi

2010-11-13T12:10:00.000-06:00

So I've got really great news.

I can't really recall if I mentioned this in full to you all, but I've had piles of heavy metaphorical boxes overflowing with gritty problems crushing down on my brain since I've arrived here. After speaking with many special people in my world, I've come to discover that things get crazy for everyone the first year of college, for better or for worse, and no matter how sane you were previously you will reach the craziest depth of your psyche within the first semester.

Well I've reached that scary dark corner of my mind, and now I'm enjoying the steady climb back up to the lighter part of life.

I've been having fun!

I told you all that tech week (for you non-theater folk, 'tech week' = 'pure chaos, everyone's tired') began for our show Collected Stories. We have our final performance tonight! I'm so proud of everyone!

I didn't tell you that on the last night of tech, before opening night, I went along with the costume/design gang to a midnight tryst at Ihop! And it was Pokemon/My Little Pony themed (Yaaay costume department!)!

This is Ryan, the design director at Stephens. Note his "Little Pony

I had a blast! For that two hours I felt myself really slip back into the old Rudi- I forgot I was ever in a bad mood in my life, and just had fun sharing stories, harassing the waiter, and laughing until my cheeks burned. Plus I had Pumpkin pancakes. I love pumpkin pancakes.

And then last night, after a long day of classes and running backstage at the show, I wearily collapsed here in front of my computer, fully expecting to blog a little and then go to bed early. Instead I was surprised by a crew of really, really amazing girls that I regretfully don't get to see as often as I'd like to. They invited themselves over, plopped on my floor, and didn't leave until two in the morning after a night of gentle heart-to-hearts, cheerfully denting my supply of sea salt caramels, and making me see hope in what I had determined as a hopeless situation. In my life I don't think I've been so openly, sincerely supported and loved by genuine friends.

This past week I've done a lot of personal healing, figuring myself out and becoming comfortable in my own head again, but last night I began getting comfortable with others. I've been very worried, not about making friends but creating friendships- real friendships that are healthy and trustworthy, where I can be silly or solemn. I was beginning to think that those types of friendships don't exist. Now I know they do, and even if these particular girls who visited me aren't those true, diehard friends I'm searching for, I know that I am capable of having a friendship like theirs.

The beauty of everything is how random it all was, it's convinced me that I should never keep my chin down for too long.

Here's Audra, one of those great girls, in the headband I ( really randomly) decided to make her while we all gabbed on my floor.

If you ladies are reading this, consider yourself heavily, heartily thanked.

love, rudi

Collected Stories

2010-11-10T05:55:00.000-06:00

Hey everybody!

I can't remember if I told you, but for the past few weeks I've been assistant stage managing a show in the Warehouse Theater called Collected Stories.

We open tonight! Everyone should come! The show starts at 7:30 and we run through Saturday night. If you're a Stephens girl, tickets are $6, and if you're not one of those lucky few they cost $8.

I'm super proud of this show! No promises on pictures of the set until after the show- you'll just have to come and see it yourself!

Here's the set of our last show, All My Sons, just to feed your theater hungry eyes!

Gorgeous, ain't she? One of our apprentices, Brandon P.T. Davis, did the set design and Emily Swanson designed the lights. I think they both did a marvelous job!

I hope you all get a chance to come see Collected Stories! I'm very proud of the cast and crew- I can honestly say I'm a big fan of the show.

See you there!

love, rudi

2010-11-09T08:07:00.000-06:00

God it's such a beautiful day today.

I'm wearing one of my favorite vintage sundresses with a sweater, and I like the way my hair looks.
The breeze is cool and the sun is warm, and hot tea is on the menu.
My classes were severely thought provoking and left me with a head full of poetry and a notebook full of knowledge, and I'm in the mood for taking pictures of the trees.
I can literally hear children laughing from my open window, and my room is clean.

I'm starting to think of myself as nothing but a common hippie, guys. It's a glorious feeling.

Check out the trees around campus these days.

love, rudi

2010-11-07T19:00:00.000-06:00

Here's a little snippet of something that's got almost nothing to do with college.

I found that my last post stirred up the most reaction from you readers than any of my other posts have. The reason for that, I have deduced, is because of the almost raw honesty with which I spoke to you.

And what a great thing! Being honest is always a good quality, and it's a great feeling to know that someone is connecting with you without holding back- when they connect with you with trust.

It is this sort of honesty that I've been thinking about a lot lately. I find myself describing people I really like as "true" people, without any masks or false faces to hide the real person underneath. Whenever I study actors and watch plays or movies I search for honesty in emotion- if I can spot them being dishonest for even a minute

Halloween

2010-11-04T03:14:00.000-05:00

Some of you more dedicated readers may have noticed that I haven't been around lately,

and there's a reason for that.

On Friday I had this big awesome post prepared with pictures and a full description of my life, but my mom called me with the terrible news that my great grandma was, well, dying. I threw some sweaters, way too many socks, and (For some reason) lots and lots of peanut butter crackers, cereal, and tea bags into a suitcase, hopped into the car, and started driving.

My grandma died the morning after I saw her, but I'm just very thankful I was able to see her at all.

As you all can imagine I've not really able to cheerily document all the fun stuff going on in my life, and I don't think you all want to see pictures of my not-smiling family, so instead I'll just talk about how things aren't always cheery.

I've been wanting to mention this for a while, because it's important to me personally that you, whether you're a prospective student, a parent, or a fellow Stephens woman- know that college life is kind of nothing like I thought it would be. During my last year or two of high school I remained sane by always telling myself "College will be better," but in many ways it's not. I've found myself dealing with many issues I somehow managed to avoid during high school- 'boy' problems (At a women's school- how ironic!), dealing with loads of homework, dealing with catty girls, being a catty girl, and having, for one of the few times in my life, trouble being self-confident.

But don't panic! For all of you new-to-collegers you should know that I seem to be a semi-rare case. Whenever I look around me I see smiling, laughing girls chatting merrily with their friends, loving life and enjoying college to its fullest. And of course, often I am also one of those girls, but it's been the biggest surprise that I'm not always like that. I have bad days- I have really bad days- but they're always laced with great moments.

Maybe that's what I'm trying to say to all of you. Even though college may not be what you expect, and even if you have terrible experiences and you're stressed out and don't hardly recognize yourself anymore and your grandma dies- even if all that crazy stuff happens- you'll still survive.

I, away from my parent's house and away from my hometown, have somehow grown this freakish backbone of steel that allows me to breeze through my problems and tribulations in life with a certain amount of grace. I may not be completely comfortable with the events going on around me (forgive me for being so vague) with friends or classmates or my family, but I've reached a point where I'm always comfortable with myself. The world can be haywire, but I live quite comfortably in my own head- and that's a state of mind that I've been working towards my entire teenagedom.

All this drama has maybe resulted in me "finding myself" a little. And that's what college is supposed to do, right?

And since there's absolutely no picture that will match the content of this post, I'll relieve you all of the tragedy my life has become with this:

I hope you all had a better Halloween Weekend than I did.

love, rudi

All My Sons!

2010-10-21T18:35:00.000-05:00

Guess what I've been doing?!

Not Sleeping!!

Yaaaaaaaay Theater!

I have four pieces of really cool news.

1) I've discovered that I really, really like tuna salad sandwiches. With lettuce. I saw a girlfriend of mine eating one a week or two ago and it looked so delicious, even though for my entire life I just knew I hated tuna fish. I had to try one.

So I did. And I loved it. And today I felt the need to check online to see if I'm at risk of mercury poisoning because I eat it for every meal. It's totally a random little slice of my life, but I really want you all to know how Stamper, our cafeteria, has totally changed my life.

Also this is what we had for dessert today:

Caramel Apple Milktinis. We call them milktinis because they're like milkshakes, but way fancier.

Cause look: they're in fancy cups!

The amount of delicious in those things is incomprehensible. Inexplicable. In-my-tummy-able.

Ohhh Stamper. I love thee so.

2) I went online the other day to apply to be an ordained priest (just cause I can), and I ended up signing up to be a soldier's pen pal instead. I'm totally excited! I don't have any family or friends that are overseas right now (although one of my good friends is going soon) and I'm nervous and excited to see what kinds of conversations arise. I got my soldier's info today- his name is Todd. It might be totally fun, it might be really sad and scary. Either way it's something new. Wish me luck.

3) I somehow acquired the role of assistant stage manager for the Warehouse Theater's production of Collected Stories! I admit I'm a bit intimidated, even though I know the job isn't the most difficult one in the world. I've just never done it before, but I've always wanted to. These days I've been asking myself a lot of questions about what I want to do, and where in the theater world I think I belong. It's so surprising that I find myself gravitating to the technical side of things, the building, directing, arranging side, when I've always thought I was just an actress. I'm interested to see where this experience leads me!

4) And four! Tomorrow (Friday) is opening night for All My Sons and it's gonna be GREEEAAAAATTTT!!!!!

I'm saying that from a technical view, anyway. I've helped build the set, and though I've heard from more than five sources that the show itself is top notch, I can personally vouch that it's gonna look awesome.

Wanna little sneak peak? I snuck my camera in to shop today just for you guys!

This, for those of you who are unfortunate not to know her, is the lovely and talented Heather Hillhouse, the technical director here at Stephens. I'm currently trying to convince her to fill out the proper paperwork to become a Captain of a ship, so when I get married she can perform the ceremony, and then she can drive us away into the Caribbean on her gigantic wooden, piratical boat.

And with that lovely image I leave you.

Au Revoir, my loves. Au Revoir!

love, rudi

Fall Break

2010-10-17T11:37:00.000-05:00

I'm so ashamed to never have enough photos for you all! My camera is such a breakable thing that I'm always nervous it's going to fall crashing to the ground, so I hardly ever take it with me on adventures.

This is something I'm going to seriously begin improving on, because for one, fall is gorgeous, and two, I've been so artistically stumped these days that I need to start taking photos again, not just to document what's going on for the blog, but for me.

But let me switch gears and clue you all in on what's been going on this past week. So much seems to have happened! I might just list everything off, and you can elaborate on the details in your head. Use your imagination!

On Monday we had Open Mic night, which I completely love attending. There's a lot of singing and guitars, but the usual jive was mixed up a bit by a really great rap song about cannibalism, and also a particularly blush worthy storytelling session by my pals Olivia and Kathleen.

Also last week was mid terms, and somehow I managed, despite having a huge list of stuff to do glaring at me for two weeks straight, getting everything done with relatively low stress- and also somehow getting them done well. I think I might be a miracle worker.

I spent Thursday night watching as my friend Alex create a dance to this song. It was breathtaking, I can't even tell you. I really wish I could have seen it performed at Citizen Jane.

And then he taught me a dance to this song, and I was literally breathless. Ohhh Asthma is so much fun!

This weekend has been particularly painful. Despite it being fall break, I spent most of Friday in the shop working on the set for All My Sons (which you ALL need to go see when it opens this week!) and then Saturday we had auditions for Meet me in St. Louis! It was obnoxiously hard for me to capture the dance- especially since I've never danced before. I guess that's why I'm not here for musicial theater! Needless to say I didn't get a callback, so I was free today (Sunday) to lazily clean my room, listen to Pandora for six hours straight, and put this huge post online!

Which, totally thanks for reading this whole thing. It really was particularly gigantic.

Have a beautiful week.

love, rudi

2010-10-12T02:33:00.000-05:00

This is a short little post,

because I only want to share a little snippet of my life with you all.

Right now, at 8:30 in the morning, I'm leisurely typing away at my clean little laptop, putting some last minute touches on an essay, sitting in the window of a warm little coffee shop. My hair looks good today, my clothes are fitting right, and I smile as I realize that I am not about to be late for something, the last little drops of my splendidly perfect vanilla latte drain into my mouth.

This is what I wanted college to be like. And here I am!

love, rudi

2010-10-10T16:48:00.000-05:00

I miss home a little bit today.

You know why?

Because of this little guy.

Oh what I wouldn't give to cuddle a kitty.

I'm finding out that college life is kind of like reality TV. When things are good, life is gorgeous and the world is full of endless happiness, and when things are bad, all I want to do is frown and sleep. I know this is probably making me come across as completely crazy, but I'm trying to figure out the cause of this phenomenon. It's really gross, how unstable I seem these days, like an event has to make me happy, and that my mood during the day can be completely switched over one or two things.

However, I've been told by several people that this is pretty normal, especially when beginning college, and that it sort of happens for no reason. It makes pretty good sense- because no matter how mature you are in high school, things are bound to get a little weird when you have to adjust to not living at home anymore. It's even crazier when everyone's going through their own versions of re-adjustment. I think everyone's praying for equilibrium these days.

In better news, I fixed my flat tire, and discovered a really good coffeehouse that happens to also serve Greek food. Those happen to be two of my favorite things.

Talk at ya'll later,

love, rudi

2010-10-06T19:09:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the days go by so slow, but this week has zipped by in a timely and very pleasurable manner- I'm so ready for the weekend to be here again! But more than the weekend, I'm craving a nap.

Ohhhh buddy, am I so craving a nap.

But let me tell you about my way fun Monday! (I know, it's strange but those two words 'fun' and 'Monday can coexist!)

Unfortunately I don't have any photos, but I went to a Trampled by Turtles concert Monday night and had the time of my life! It's been a long, long time since I've heard bluegrass music so well played, and I'm not even sure if I've ever seen or heard such an amazing fiddle player. Even if you're not into bluegrass music (which is way different from country, by the way) it's impossible to deny that these guys have mad skills. I danced my feet to death, and I spent the entire two hours smiling ear to ear.

Isn't middle-of-the-week fun often so much more satisfying than weekend fun?

Yes, it totally is, which is why you should go see Five Women Wearing the Same Dress at the Warehouse Theater this week- it's really funny!

Or go this weekend, either way. I was just trying to make a smooth transition.

And speaking of theater!

(another good if not forced transition, no?)

Look at what I did to myself during shop yesterday.

Sanding is oh-so-much fun. I was completely covered with dust from sanding some columns. At least everyone else got to laugh. I just contracted a bad case of white lung.

But despite making a huge mess out of myself, I love shop so much. The set we're making for All My Sons should turn out pretty awesome, and I had a really great time tonight laughing and joking around with everyone. We had night shop, so we were working until ten or so, but the never ending rounds of giggles made staying up late and working hard completely worth it.

And did I mention shop is a really great workout? I think I might actually acquire that famous 'bikini body' I keep hearing about by the time spring rolls around.

That's assuming, of course, Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners aren't as delicious as they usually are. We'll talk about that later...

love, rudi

2010-10-03T14:40:00.000-05:00

Barbecue! Pork Sandwiches! Hot Sauce! Jamaican music! Mandolins and Guitars! Cute boys in cute sweaters!

I was super impressed with my experience at the Roots 'N Blues festival this weekend, and all I did was get a pulled pork sandwich and walk around for an hour or so.

I chose to be sold a delicious sandwich from Lonnie's Ribs.

And as you can see, it was delicious.

Plus it was a gorgeous day!! Cold enough for a scarf, warm enough for shorts and tights.

Ahh Autumn!

And a big thanks to my friend Mariah. She took a million great photos of me and I only got one of her.

And just to chime in a little 'deep' content, I've noticed something surprising about myself. Back at home in Kentucky, I often felt completely alienated and different from everyone around me. I knew that I simply didn't belong in that particular culture with the particular people there.

But now that I'm away from the South I find myself identifying with it more- I get excited when I hear bluegrass music and sometimes my southern accent peeks through in conversation (my friends tell me it's "enduring"). It's interesting to discover all these little things about myself- it happens more and more every day.

And last night we struck the set (for you non-theater people that means tearing everything apart really fast) and it was exhilarating. Can I just reiterate how much I love doing technical theater so far? I'll probably have a whole other post about that later.

But Roots 'N Blues was yesterday! And the Warehouse Theater picnic/field day was today! So let's talk about that!

I would probably say the coolest part (despite the hotdogs and hamburgers and frisbee and laying in the sun and having super-fun-hangout-times-with-Stephens-girls) about it was the Giant Ultimate Hopscotch Obstacle Course we made. Here's the spinny star:

Followed by a hula hoop island, in turn followed by a rescue airplane that requires you to tap dance...

which is in turn followed by a LAVA LAKE and a battle with a dragon (it was Trogdor, for those of you in the know)

and my friend Allison Frisch brought her baby Taffy. Isn't this a great little family photo?

It was so much fun! And also, it was really great that I somehow found time to do all my homework, take a mini-nap, play look-at-the-internet AND do two loads of laundry.

Well...almost all my homework. Have a good week, guys- I gotta go finish a little something that may or may not be due tomorrow...

love, rudi

Sketchy business show!

2010-10-01T06:38:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone!

So something exciting happened on Wednesday night at 11 PM to midnight in the Arena classroom...

do you know what it was?

Sketchy Business is what!

We'd been preparing the show all month (it was youtube themed) and we were very pleased with the way things turned out.

I have a few photos thanks to a friend in the audience, and while they may not be the most flattering for all (sorry guys!) you can definitely tell that it was a funny show.

This skit was a spin off of chris crocker's video

And remember when Christian Bale went haywire?

And this skit was just funny- a mimed music video to Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream".

But of course all that really matters is the audience's giggles- and luckily we were able to extract plenty of those.

And The Lovely Lady Lynch came to our show!

I had a great night doing sketchy- and for any of you who are considering being a part of it this month, come to our meeting in the Arena classroom Monday night at 11 PM.

I'm off to stagecraft to build a footstool!!

love, rudi

2010-09-28T15:43:00.000-05:00

My family came to visit me!

I can't tell you how wonderful it was to spend time with my baby sister a and my mommy. I didn't realize I missed them until they were here.

It's a little strange, but until very recently I didn't think it would ever upset me to not have someone around who already knew me very well, I'm pretty comfortable with the idea of meeting all new people and making friends all the time. But having my mom around made me wish I came here with a best friend or something- she understood all my jokes.

But enough pouting! I had a great weekend with my mom and Sadie, tie dying T-shirts

(These are my friends Audra and Julia)

finding my twin Chelsea, who happens to live just two floors below me,

and going shopping. We also found an amazing barbecue place called Bandanas-

(That's my mom!)

I really hope I get to go again sometime soon...anyone up for it? Gimme a call.

Mom, Sadie, and I also saw the play at the Macklanburg Theater on Saturday, Our Leading Lady by Charles Busch, and it was way cool. I'm not a professional theater critic or anything, but I must say I thoroughly enjoyed myself that evening.

Plus the set looked awesome. I may be a little biased, though.

But you should go see it if you can! It runs for one more weekend. Support the theater, support my friends in it, and make me happy by checking it out!

Oh, and a big whopping thank you to my mom for reminding me to take my camera with me wherever I went. As you can tell I was a little more trigger happy with the snapshots this past weekend!

Also:

The comment option is fixed!

Did I mention that already? You are all now officially once again able to comment-so leave me some lovin'! Tell me what you like, what you don't like, what you'd like to see, and what's awesome in your life.

I look forward to hearing from you!

love, rudi

2010-09-23T19:39:00.000-05:00

I know what you're thinking, and I have a witty retort.

Yes, it's true that these photos are only funny for the people in them (and those people's parents),

and I must say that I am forcing you to suffer through my funny face macbook pictures because both myself AND my parents read this blog. Haha!

The content of this post is actually going to be drastically different that what the photos portray. I realize maybe I've sent you some false advertising, because while my photos are silly, what's really on my mind is not.

During class today I slaughtered a relatively simple phrase, one that normally, in my high school classes (assuming that the content ever reached this deep of a level), I would have no trouble expressing. I stuttered and stopped in mid-sentence, and completely thrashed together words that didn't go together to form coherent thoughts. It wasn't a particularly complex idea, and yet for some unlabeled reason I couldn't for the life of me relate what was in my head to the girls looking expectantly at me, waiting to hear what it was I had to say.

I find myself more and more often struggling with simple, basic things like this, and then in turn circling around in my head to try and find to root of these problems.

I never find a conclusion, but rather several tiny possibilities. Am I intimidated? I once had a tall, somewhat foreboding middle aged man tell me that he saw me as a person who never got intimidated- yet here I sit defying his sage insight, in the middle of a room filled with well dressed, optimistic looking girls quivering and stuttering to emit forth a simple spoken paragraph.

My lack of bravery during class really surprises me. I'm usually a more outspoken and personally honest person- if I feel I should say something I simply do. But recently I bite my tongue, and I'm not entirely sure why. In a way I feel like I'm interrupting everyone else's education. My roommate told me it's because I'm not a very confrontational person. That seems like a good answer, but I think I still have some self speculation to occupy my time with.

Luckily I've found a remedy to all my problems.

It's starts with 'Choc' and ends with 'late milk'.

On a lighter note, aren't the trees outside the theater gorgeous? I look forward to seeing them every day.

Hope you all have had a relatively pleasant week.

love, rudi

First Impression

2010-09-19T14:42:00.000-05:00

I have a big day today everyone!

Yesterday I had my first theater audition! It was scary! It was exciting!

And look!!

I got called back!!

I was so nervous because I've only done one or two serious auditions before, and naturally I was panicking because this was my first time introducing myself to the director, who is also a theater teacher here. Not to mention it was my first college audition in general. I just knew I was going to completely bomb it- forget my lines or get tongue tied or pull some ridiculous Three Stooges-like prat fall upon introducing myself.

But apparently things went smoothly! I went to my callbacks today, had tons of fun reading scenes, and finally took a big, satisfied deep breath to congratulate myself on simply surviving.

Now I need to survive writing two more pages for my six page essay! Yaaay college!!

love, rudi

2010-09-18T10:00:00.000-05:00

Hey guys! I missed you!!

Want to know what I've been doing lately?

Homework! Class!! More homework!!!

I've just recovered from my first big homework blip- you know, when every teacher assigns a test, project, and/or paper and they're all due within the same two-day proximity. WOWZA it was hard but I made it through!

But last weekend was so much fun! My friends and I dressed up to go dancing (again- that seems to be a weekend ritual) at Stephens' Warehouse Theater 90s dance!

I'm the one in the bandana top next to Brittany Spears baby spice, and Shania Twain.

How often do you get to say that sentence?

But let me tell you all what the most fun part of my life has been these days.

Scene Shop.

That's right- scene shop as in building sets and drilling in screws and sawing wood in half and playing with a big scary rigging system! I signed up for the first play's crew expecting to paint a backdrop or something, and ended up having the time of my life in the shop with the power tools, sewing 40 foot long curtains and climbing 50 feet in the air to the grid. I'm so excited to have suddenly-immediatly, even- discovered a new love in theater! Who would have I thought I'd be a techie?

The only downside to crew is the ungodly amount of time it seems to seep up, and the fact that I am physically exhausted and a giggly sort of lightheaded from running around all the time. I'm not used to working out, nor am I used to not taking two naps a day!

Speaking of naps...I think now would be a pretty good time for me to take advantage of some free time in a sleepy kind of way...

Hope you all have an awesome weekend planned!

love, rudi

P.S. In blog related news, I was recently informed that you can't submit comments on here! My blog is broken! Rest assured that I've sent an email to get this little kink fixed up. So you can send me lovin's!

And I LOVE lovin's!

2010-09-06T05:30:00.000-05:00

I have never experienced such a long weekend in my life!

Of course it's the same time period as any other three day weekend, but somehow time has gone by so slowly- which is awesome, because I've been having a blast. Seriously. "Having a blast" is even how my Sims 3 Rudi is described.

Oh yeah. Sims 3. When I installed it on my computer yesterday I knew that it would be the undoing of any social life I have thus far been lucky enough to create here.

I'll let ya'll know what happens.

Yesterday was really amazing, though. To be honest with you all I've been a bit of a wreck this weekend- my boyfriend of 2 1/2 years and I broke up on Thursday, and so of course things have been totally, tragically off balance since then- but yesterday everything sort of came to this peaceful conclusion. The weather was perfectly crispy and cool, and besides sleeping in (heaven!) and getting a lot done as far as cleaning and leftover homework goes, I had a great day with my friends.

We walked around downtown a bit and went to Sparky's, a really neat off-the-wall ice cream parlor (their lavender honey ice cream is probably the best treat on earth, by the way). We nibbled on our goodies and walked down to a little park, where all of us lounged on rocks by this little stream and stared up at the sky.

It was one of those perfect moments- a combination of everything being just absolutely beautiful and loving the people around you- it's just one more thing adding onto my list of why Stephens is the best place on earth.

Here are some photos of my friends!

Also on Friday night we got all dolled up and went dancing! Way fun times!

Also I'm so super excited about today, because my friend John Lampe is coming back to campus (or home, as most of us refer to Stephens) from his hometown. It's weird having most of your friends together except for one or two.

Off to breakfast! I am so excited about a bowl of cheerios and a cup of hot tea I can't even tell you all.

So excited.

love, rudi

Sketchy Couches

2010-09-04T06:46:00.000-05:00

Hey! Remember when I mentioned a move-in video a few posts ago? It's all finished! Go check it out here.

As you can probably tell due to my pathetic lack of posts this week, I've been a little busy, and my week has been such a jumble bumble of wonderful little moments and unexplainably hilarious jokes that it would be complete nonsense to attempt describing everything.

But such is college.

I'll begin with an advertisement!

(sort of)

-I joined Sketchy Business! It's a comedy sketch club thingy co-presidented by my friend Alex Molnar:

and her friend Ally Poole (whom I do not yet have a picture of...) and so far the club is just way fun. If any of you are not theater majors but want your life to be awesome, and/or try your hand at writing, director, or making people buckle over with laughter (aka acting). I recommend stopping by a meeting or a show.

We're having a creative writing workshop on Monday at 11 PM in the Arena Classroom- stop by! I'll be there, and then you and I can be great friends and have many adventures!

And speaking of adventures!

Have I mentioned anything about my friend Dylan's couch?

It's....well.....it's not that it's completely nasty. Or, well, maybe that came out wrong. It stinks and all, but it's got this...like...well.....

How do I put this?

It's a couch. It's orange and brown plaid. My friend Dylan bought it at the Salvation Army, and we ended up being forced to throw out the mattress in the pull-out bed part because the smell of dog was so intoxicating.

Here's the proud father himself:

We have since added a oh-so-groovy blue armchair to our menagerie. It doesn't smell.

Also yesterday I had a photo shoot with my across-the-hall neighbor Mariah (who I'm pretty sure is going to turn out being that best friend from college everyone gets) for a freshman representative spot she's hoping to get.

My photo-taking skills are much to be lacking, and my photo editing skills could use even more work, but they turned out pretty awesome anyway.

I credit the costume.

It's time for homework! Would it be far too nerdy of me if I admitted I'm looking forward to writing an essay? It's about food!

love, rudi

First Week of School!

2010-08-28T14:46:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone!

As promised, I'm here with a report on my first week of college!

AH! Read that again! First Week of College!!

I've mentioned this to several people in real life (I know- it's shocking- there's a life outside the internet!), but I think it kind of sums up why being in college is such a foreign idea to me: Doesn't everyone still sort of consider themselves as kids? Or at least as younger teenagers? I've never been an adult, all of my memories happened when I was a teenager or a child. So it's weird to think that I'm old enough to be a college student, basically an independent adult in charge of my everything- money, time, responsibility or lack thereof.

It's a little trippy.

But let's get back on track!

As a general summary, it would be about accurate to describe my first week of college as one of the best I've experienced. Ever.

Let me blurt out a vague list why:

* I've met a whole slew of new friends, all of whom I genuinely like to be around. That's a relatively rare thing, isn't it? It's easy to make friends with people, but as far as having the luck of truly being interested in them? It's sort of in that "We're lucky to have one real, true friend in our entire life" philosophy bubble. I guess I'm just really, really, really fortunate to be suddenly surrounded by a hundred people I consider friends. I didn't feel like I had many friends when I was in high school, but now I feel like I know and love everybody. It's a beautiful feeling.

* My classes! This sounds completely made-up, but I actually enjoy the learning part of college- everything is on such a different level that my high school classes ever were. I'm so interested in everything everyone else has to say- I feel like such an academic! I'll probably have some sort of "I Take It Back" post when mid-terms and/or finals come along, but for now let's just sit in the eye of the storm and enjoy it, shall we?

*The city of Columbia is so wonderful- it's not the biggest city in the world but it's so much more interesting than my tiny little ex-town in Kentucky. Yesterday a few friends and I walked downtown to search for an appropriate flamenco skirt (which is another point in itself- Stephens has a flamenco dance class) and the downtown is so quaint and adorable, not to mention the thrift stores are to die for.

So shopping with my girly girls was fun enough, but being such the boy I am, I have to say I was most thrilled (and thrilled the next day over again thanks to my neighbor Mariah's oh-so-handy empty fridge) to find the most delicious Shredded Beef Torta at El Rancho's, the Mexican restaurant down the street from my dorm room. Oh. My. Goodness. Ohmygoodness. Is it okay that I only want to eat food if it contains shredded beef, avocado sauce and tons and tons of Mayo from now on? Cereal should be made in Torta flavors.

And I'm only mostly joking.

Here's me in heaven.

I know this post wasn't the most informative of posts, but so much happened that I can't possibly remember everything amazing to tell you. I can tell you, however, that at this exact moment I'm sitting in one of our male apprentices rooms (yes, we do have boys!) typing this up as the rest of them are sitting around singing barber shop songs very, very well. It's very much like walking onto a Disney movie set where Hilary Duff is sent to a music camp and a Jonas brother falls in love with her, but has to defeat twenty levels of music-themed obstacles in order to be accepted to the Julliard-esque school of his dreams- therefore finally becoming worthy of Hilary.

My point is these boys are amazingly talented- and that's just neat.

Anyway- I'm off to watch King Lear!

love, rudi

Orientation

2010-08-24T06:22:00.000-05:00

What a fun weekend we've been having!

In a nearly summer campish way, my fellow freshman and I have been running around campus since we first arrived performing various tasks assigned to us by the infamous (and often missing) blue orientation books given to us when we first moved in.

And please don't think I used the word 'running' in a vague or figurative way- I personally have been spending a good deal of time briskly walking from one end of campus to the other in an attempt to pull my new life together (it's getting there), and a good chunk of the freshman class spent around 2 hours literally sprinting from one building to another during the Scavenger Hunt.

Here's my group in Mrs. Lynch's office, one of the destinations, after a good hour and a half of mostly sweating.

Despite my deep hatred of exercise and the fact that my team lost in an embarrassing manner, we all had an enjoyable workout, and I can now tell you were almost any building on campus is, and how to get there quickest, and how to get there slowest.

After a decent sized nap and a freezing cold shower, I was pleasantly informed by my roommate that my new group of friends had decided to go to Casino Night in costume! I love dressing up, and I was completely thrilled that, unlike my high school years where I was usually the one begging my friends to change from pajama pants to something more fun, it wasn't my idea to get all dolled up for no reason. I love Stephens girls!

And look how adorable my friends ended up looking!

Here's me and Cheyenne from down the hall:

My friends Taylor and Mariah:

Casino Night was a blast, even though I completely lost at every game I played. I'm more than a little humiliated that I failed so terribly at Go Fish.

But I did meet Raven Simone, a girl with the most amazing nails I have ever seen. My embarrassment at the card table was worth seeing this girl's more-than-radical manicure. They're simply mesmerizing...

So the overall verdict for Freshman Orientation?

Nothing but fun, although tiring, completely worth the extra effort.

Now on to classes! I'll let you all know how my first day of school goes!!

love, rudi

Moving In

2010-08-21T01:32:00.000-05:00

Hola ya'll!

Wow. I mean, wow. Yesterday, and I literally mean yesterday, I still somehow didn't quite believe that I would be going to college. I know it sounds like such a typical thing to say, but I just can't believe I'm here. I spent the last four years dreaming about college, and even though I didn't know about Stephens or anything about any college for that matter, everything I daydreamed about that "some day" place where I would flourish and become this amazing person I dreamed of being, with nice clothes and interesting pieces of art, surrounded by amazing people who I genuinely liked and who were interesting, and who were interested in me. So far I'm convinced that my dream college is real.

So let me start with the beginning. This past week has been hectic, with last minute last get-togethers and sorting the stuff I love from stuff I like, and filing last minute paperwork here and there. I can't even begin to tell you how tired my entire body is- but it's such a great tired! I was talking to a new friend (new friends! YAY!) about how my face hurts from smiling so much. My face muscles will be getting much stronger, I predict.

So here's my room just before packing. I'd like to say it's not usually this messy, but unfortunately.......

well, I'm a teenager. Let's just leave it at that, shall we?

Isn't that just gross?

But what an amazing result all of the packed then unpacked stuff delivered!! I'll post a few photos of my room when all our boxes are unpacked.

Let me explain something I find very important for not-Stephens people to understand. I was completely dreading moving in. I mean, I was seriously groaning about just the thought of carrying all of my heavy boxes and oddly shaped furniture pieces up a lot of stairs to the fourth floor of my dorm hall (the elevator is small because the building is a bit older).

But moving in was a breeze!! I barely had time to park my car before volunteers, faculty, and staff members were unpacking my car, and by the time I made it from the parking lot to my dorm room all of my things were already upstairs!! President Lynch was out there in her shiny red clogs helping girls and their parents tote up their suitcases and crates up the stairs! Not to mention there was a mini camera crew hanging around filming the girls move in. I'll post the video here when it's all done- maybe you'll see yourself!

And let me just brag about President Lynch for a minute. I was lucky enough to have lunch with her the day before everyone moved in, and I must say she is such a remarkable woman. I'll probably do a lot of posts about her because she makes herself such a part of Stephens life (or so it seems so far). Walking over to the cafeteria with her we were stopped several times by smiling people wanting to say thank you to her for this or that or just wanting to say hi. I was so impressed with how she seemed more like the most popular girl at school than the president of the college. People seem genuinely glad to see her. Stephens is so unique when it comes to Dianne- you should read her blog if you get the chance.What a keeper!

And speaking of keepers- Xander Kennedy, my admissions counsellor, juggled for me and my family while we were waiting to eat lunch. We were only joking when we said he was there to entertain us- but I guess that just proves that Stephens people take that little extra step.

Plus his shirt is really nice. There's something to be said for that.

After moving in (and several Wal-Mart trips) it was time for my poor mommy to start on her 9 hour car trip home. I was very proud of her considerably small amount of tears- she had been dreading that moment for months.

Can I even attempt to explain how I felt when my mom drove away? I was sad, of course, to see her, my little sister, and my good friend Mel drive off, never to be seen again (aka Thanksgiving break). But it was like this big breath of cool, jittery air entered my body and this glittery realization sunk in- "Omigod. I'm alone. I'm in college. Omigod." I felt so old! I was finally independent and away (far away) from home, on my own, for a while. I was never a particularly independent teenager in high school- I was more likely to sit at home with a book than go around town getting into adventures-so this step was kind of a big one for me.

So what did I do with my new adult, responsible, grown-up status? After a few "Here Are The Rules" meetings, I got some cotton candy and played in a giant bouncy castle. Of course.

Kirstin Raciot gave me a huge swirly glob of cotton candy on a stick (and can the world please agree that cotton candy tastes better on a stick rather than in a bag?) and I ended up having to share the giant thing with my roommate. I think even she had to result, although regrettably so, to the trash can to fully relieve us of the giantess of this treat.

But I'll tell you what- cotton candy might just be the best thing in the world. Either that or the little fruit cookies in the cafeteria. I'll have to snag a photo of those for you sometime.

Here's a few of my new pals in the bouncy castle. On the left is my roommate Olivia (whom I really like! Good matchmaking Stephens!)

This thing was so cool! They strapped you in this scary metal cage ball and pushed you down a little aisle to push over giant bowling pins. I met my new friend Brooke Woriledge, a fellow freshman and adorable dresser, while standing on the outskirts of the line for this thing. Neither of us were considering letting ourselves be trapped inside this thing, but Brooke finally manned up and plopped on a helmet. I held her purse.

That was day one! I'm looking forward to day two!

love, rudi

Nine Days!!

2010-08-11T17:19:00.000-05:00

So maybe some of you good people read this title and wondered,

"Oh, hm, something exciting must be happening for this young lass in nine days."

Well you would be right you pondering, blog-reading citizens of the United States of Looking-at-the-Stephens-Website. Something totally exciting is happening for this young lass in nine days:

I'm moving into my dorm at Stephens!!!!

This event is kind of going to be the beginning of my life, since I'm officially moving out of my mommy's well kept house and into what will more than likely be a room resembling a clothes vs. general garbage war-zone (I'm just kidding, of course...I hope.)

I'm guessing, based on the type of people who are more than likely to read this blog, you fall in to one of these three categories:

1) The Experienced College Student, who has already gone through the exciting and terrifying experience of flying out from the nest, and can now gently scoff at their soon-to-be freshmen pals for being so silly and afraid of living on their own. "Aren't they just so naive?" Says one sophisticated college sophomore to another. "Oh, indeed. Do you even remember when we were that young?" And of course neither of them do.

2) The Panicked Parent, who is currently sifting through my blog posts in an attempt to reassure themselves that their beautiful baby girl will be just fine while away from the comforting boundaries of home. Either that, or they're looking for incriminating evidence that will allow them to gleefully announce at the dinner table, "I'm sorry daughter, but you must stay in this house for at least one more year." I'm pretty sure my own mother is in the last group.

I feel so sorry for my mommy. All she'll have when I leave is this little kitty to keep her company when I leave off for college. Well, and her husband and her friends and my baby sister. It's just that they aren't in this picture.

3) Fresh Faced Youth attempting to catch an inside look of what the first year of college is really like. Well, my beloved youth with fresh faces, I do hope with all my heart that I can help you out in that particular category. Which is why I'm going to tell you the truth right now:

I'm not scared a bit. I'm way too excited for classes and meeting friends, I'm too excited about meeting new friends and getting into adventures to be sad about leaving my old town. Of course I'll miss my mommy and my sister and house, and I already cried about how much I'll miss my boyfriend (I know, I'm such a girl!), but I know I'll only be sad for a little while.

But besides all the typical going-to-college positives- I'll be doing theater again!! I haven't been involved in my high school theater since the beginning of my junior year of high school, and I am so excited about jumping back into what I love most. I'll be able to properly show you later on in the year how much fun theater is. You'll have to guess until then.

love, rudi