How to Find Your Calling

So here we are, in the design studio and it's 12:41 in the morning. Neither Crystal or I really have to be here right now- there's nothing due first thing in the morning, we're not panicking over a project like usual; we're just working happily.

So it seems that I've had a small revelation to share with you- especially if you're still in high school searching for colleges, or just a person searching for anything at all.

I've realized that the definition of 'passion' or 'doing what you love' really just boils down to doing something that's intuitive to you. For instance, I was just watching Project Runway and a designer mentioned how he needed to 'add luxe' to his pieces. I can't even imagine how he would do that, but I realized that I would absolutely know what to do to 'add luxe' to a poster or magazine layout. Maybe this post is just a nugget of advice for freshmen and any high schoolers reading. Whatever you do, just know that you don't need to be great at it (and you never need to become the best), you don't need to have ever done it before, but you do need to have a little intuition.

Just a tiny, tiny bit. 

love, rudi

PS. Huge thanks to Quinn for playing photographer tonight!

Tid Bits of Advice

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

The End!

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

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

Halloween

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

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

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

First Impression

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

First Week of School!

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

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

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