Breaking the boundaries of my fear

 I left a few tears along the grueling sunflower-lined 13.1 miles I ran on Saturday.

First, I was tired and cold. I knew something was wrong when I hopped on the bus and realized I was the only person who was without a jacket. I was in a tank top and my short shorts. (I expected it to be really hot!)

But it wasn't hot; I could see my breath once I was at the race start. They were serving coffee, and even thought I don't drink coffee, I just got a cup so I could hold it. It helped warm me up.

I was talking to a lady before before it started. She had run 12 marathons and this was her 12th 1/2 marathon. She said, "Not to scare you, but this is one of the harder halves I done."

Eek!

I was about to burst into tears, but as most of you know, I just can't cry in public. I just can't. Nope. My body does not allow it. So instead I just kept shivering.

I suddenly realized that I did not want to run this race. I didn't want to do it.
It was like a rollercoaster ride where as soon as you sit down, you realize that you don't want to ride the ride. But this I wasn't strapped in a cart that was going to take me on this journey whether I liked it or not.

I was 13 miles away from home, and I needed all my will power to get down.

Then the race began! The first four were all uphill. Grueling, knee-scraping uphill. But at least I was fresh, right?

I don't want to recount every one of the 13 laborious miles, but I would like to say that it was pretty long and boring. There were moments when I felt so great, and so powerful. But most of it was enduring and trying to push through.

It was strange to be at say, mile 6 and think: "Man, I just did a 10k. Now I need to do it again."

My nose was doing the same thing as my legs. I seriously considered asking one of the random people on the side of the road for a tissue.

My knee wasn't hurting like it had a few weeks ago (and subsequently caused me to cut back on training.) I hurt everywhere, but that was more just exhaustion.

When I came out of the canyon, I saw my dear sisters there cheering me on. Then they joined me and pepp-talked me through the last 2 miles. I'm so glad they were there!

There was chaffing (ya, it's awful) and nasty. There were, what should we call them? We'll call them "adverse  bathroom side effects," (And by the looks of the portopotties, I wasn't the only one...) and emotions that would put a pregnant woman to shame! All of these I did not quite expect! But it's all part of the experience, right?

Today I have been so stiff. I do feel accomplished, even if I am hobbling around like a lame pony. 

Yesterday I also saw Mary Poppins. That was magical. I didn't know what to expect, but I was well pleased. 

It was also the last time I'm going to see my cousin Katelyn before she goes to BYU HAWAII! Yes, she's super lucky. Next time we'll meet is Christmas time!

Kristen is going to BYU I and so I'll see her a bit more often... but not much.

My sister is going to Weber, but I hardly ever get to see her either. Ugh. Why must life separate me from my most beloved cousins? We have all picked different Universities, but we stay close.

-Meg

Staying home

My family is on vacation. I am not. I had high hopes of joining them at the end of the week, but the powers at be thought otherwise. I will be lucky if I get a few hours up at the cabin.

My summer has been quiet and pretty empty, until now. Now about fifty different commitments are vying for my attention and time.

It's hard to remember how fun the musical is supposed to be when your sweltering under the hot stage lights, crammed next to other sweating people. The air conditioning is off, and we still aren't even in full costume, and so we have yet to realize how hot it's really going to get. And we do the scene over and over and over because we can't get it right.

I need to practice my Gibson Girl hair some more. I'm stubborn. I will settle for nothing less than a brilliant pompadour. People wore their hair like that every day--and some people still do--so I should be able to get it right. This should not be out of reach. I hate skimping on something so iconic as hair. I don't want a lousy low bun without any body. No sirree.

Then there's work too, but that hasn't been too bad. It's good to be back in the office. I had to stay home for the musical anyway, so work isn't too much of a burden. It's flexible anyway.

So yes, pity me in my misery. No, don't really. I just needed to vent.

Anyway, have a nice day. Especially if you're riding horses. Have a brilliant day.

-Meg

100

This is post 100.

I cannot believe I've actually written this many posts.

I'm proud of myself.

I'm also proud of these boys:

Elder Hoye is going to Ventura, Cali. He will be speaking Spanish. He leaves Wednesday.

This is Elder Webb. He's going to Albuquerque, New Mexico. (I'm going to have to learn to spell that.) He left last Wednesday. {this means he could have crossed paths with Elder Hill, who left yesterday to Fiji-land}

I cannot even tell you how much these three Elders have influenced my life. And the great part is, they'll continue to do so, even when they are out in the big wide world, teaching people about the gospel of Christ. I'm so proud of them.

On another note:

The Lion King musical is one of those musicals where I walk out of the theatre so entranced and awed that real life ceases to be seem relatively important. Reality is too boring and dull. The colors aren't sharp enough, the music isn't soulful enough.

Take me to Africa! I want to run with the lions and sing and dance to African music! I want to go so bad! (Is it any wonder that Heart of Darkness is one of my favorite books of all time?)

Needless to say, The Lion King was one of the highlights of my life. I love magic like that. I cry sometimes, when I see shows of this magnitude. They are over too fast; their beauty is so fleeting.

That's why I use all my creative power to be imaginative and child-like. Because who wants to ever really grow up. Not me. I want to be so creative that the ordinary becomes golden. I'm always imaging this or that, and let me tell you-- it's worth it. I'm so tired of being practical and stoic. I want to be an emotional, passionate person my entire life.

-Megan

The Question Is...

Flashback from the summer -Pirates of Penzance. If you're looking for me, I'm the maiden on the very far left of the picture.

Click here and you will laugh very hard.

Then again, maybe I only think it's funny because I was there. But still.

-Meg

19!

I've begun my last year as a teenager. Wow! I can hardly fathom that I've made it this far. Heck, I remember when I went to kindergarden and I thought I was SO grown-up.

The highlights of my teenage years (I stole this idea from Laura btw- check out her blog here.)

13- I was in 7th grade, trying to figure out the big scary new Jr. High. It really was new- it was West Point Jr. High's maiden voyage. I got contacts. I was in Brigadoon (with the above-mentioned Laura).

14-8th grade. Didn't do the musical, but I did mock trial! I didn't do much this year- not sure why.

15-9th grade. Had my first crush, and first lead in the musical (those stories are very connected). I did NAL, and found my inner nerdom. Pretty much a crazy busy year, but very worth it. I dyed my hair for the first time.

16- Sophomore. I got lost in Cleafield High. I did the musical ( I was a wine glass and a bar maid). Had more crushes, met more people, and started driving. Dates slowly started happening, and I had fun, even though I got super nervous. I started hanging out with guys instead of girls. I thought I wanted to go into medicine.

17-Junior. Slowly got over the nerves for dating. I helped start a new school, Syracuse High. I was the editor of the yearbook, even though I had no experience. I did choir and the musical, and more AP classes. Took an online Spanish Course (?). I realized that the best thing I could do with my life is write and edit. I learned how to kiss.

18-Senior. This year was fun. I got to know all the teachers, got away with tons of stuff, ruled SHS as the first graduating class. We didn't have seniors the year before, so it was exciting to be the top dogs. Twice. Kept singing in madrigals. Did an internship with the Standard Examiner and still did yearbook. Really got obsessed with grammar. Concluded I was born to do something with the language arts. Ended a relationship with a guy I'd dated for a while. He was cool, but it was over.

19- Freshman. At the bottom of the totem pole at the University of Utah studying Linguistics instead of English as planned. Dated a really cute guy for a while, got dumped, and survived relatively happy. Met people from all over the world.

I can't wait to see what else is in store for me.

-ME

Shuffle

So I had my iTunes on shuffle the other day. I was jamming to “Life in Technicolor” by Coldplay one moment and then suddenly I was listening to “Endangered Love” from the VeggieTales 10th anniversary soundtrack. I had a fleeting notion to quickly change the song, because my roommate was in the there and it is a little weird that I was listening to a children’s show soundtrack.

Then I realized--

I don’t care!

VeggieTales makes me happy, and the songs are pretty funny. My sisters and I spent endless hours watching the videos and singing along with the music. We even had Jonah: a VeggieTales movie memorized. No joke, we could recite it word for word.

Ana and I do listen to a pretty varied music selection so I shouldn’t have been surprised when she didn’t poke her head in from the bathroom and exclaim: “What are you listening to?” Nope.

She just kept doing her thing. I love that strange music doesn’t faze us.
After all, you get everything when you listen to musicals, and we’re musical kind of people.


Examples:

Rap-- “In the Heights”

Opera--“Phantom of the Opera”

Pop--“Wicked”

Big Band-- "Hairspray"

The term "musical" is pretty open. There isn't just one type of music in musical theatre.


We recently discovered iTunes Home share. Amazing. We’re practically family so we didn’t feel guilty about exchanging our eclectic selections over the wireless network. Now I can jam to all sorts of random music and so can she. Because besides musicals, I'm into all sorts of other stuff like folk, classical piano, choral, random alternative from obscure bands, and even a sprinkling of techno. And of course--VeggieTales.

Why listen to top 40 when there is so much out there?

-M

Spread Thin

I am, (already?) coming to the end of another school year. Junior year was crazy, especially in a brand new school. I though I knew what being 'busy' was until this year-- boy, have I learned a lot!

...

In the fall, it wasn't so bad at first. I got used to classes, went crusading to convince the guys that asking a girl to homecoming is not a proposal of marriage, and worked on my online Spanish class. I kept myself mildly entertained with creative writing, choir, and yearbook. Math wasn't too bad yet, and I was treading water in AP American and Honors Physics. I taught piano and still practiced an hour each day. I also worked at a wedding reception and event center on the weekends.

...

But as winter approached, it only got wilder. We had our first few deadlines in yearbook, and after much anxiety, hair pulling, and tears, the staff got the pages error free and sent off to the plant. I auditioned for productions, an after school class, somehow reasoning that as long as it wasn't a class in the school day, I'd have time for it. I still did choir, creative writing, and I still did online Spanish and worked on the weekends.

...

Then there was the slight 'Winter Break' vacation, what I like to call the calm before the storm. Come January second, the musical rehearsals began: every single day from five to seven in the evening. Math suddenly became so foreign I couldn't tell if my teacher was speaking Greek or Yiddish. I still had to keep up with physics and AP American, not to mention my online Spanish (and the deadline was all to quickly approaching). I had to prepare for solo/ensemble festival because I was doing a vocal and a piano solo, which required more practicing time then I could afford. We had two yearbook deadlines- back to back and only a month apart. Two of our staff members dropped at the semester and I had to pick up the extra slack. Work was especially busy with Christmas Parties. The choir performed at a few Christmas gigs as well. I had my own parties to go to, and I had to pencil them in six weeks in advance.

...

Once the musical was performed in March and my online class hastily finished, I thought I would have plenty of time to spare. Unfortunately, not so. The final touches for the yearbook were due, and there seemed to never be enough time, even though I was taking two yearbook classes. Math was harder than ever, and my highest test score was about a sixty percent. The AP American test was just around the corner and I had to make up for all the lost time from the musical. Work got busier in the spring (people love getting married in the spring) and I added two more piano students.

...

After I took my AP American test, I had to go back and make up all the work I had put off until after the test. I was behind and I was worried I would never catch up. But I could only do one thing at a time, which was why I felt horrible. Although I was in many things, I couldn't devote myself to them 100% because I was spread so thin.

...

And even when everything was finally winding down, the worst happened: I lost momentum. I was out of gasoline and I wasn't going to drive another mile. I've never been so tired in all my life! The whole year caught up to me. Why did I do so much, and why did I try to keep decent grades? I don't even know anymore... but I can't wait until next year. What's on the agenda? To name a few: yearbook, piano, productions, an internship with the paper, all the extra required classes I didn't take earlier, and a job.

Maniac Facts

I don't know what it is about musicals, but I'm suffering from an addiction to them.

Who in their right mind pretends to be an obsessive teenager, wear fifty year old dresses that smell like mothballs, wear curlers every night, plaster on gallons of make up, sing in a nasally voice, abstain from milk, and spend 14 hour days at school on cheese-its and easy cheese?

Well, I did, along with forty other cast members.

I hope all of my readers got to see it, but I'll be posting some photographs from it on the blog. What an experience!

I'm just going to use people's stage names to address them instead of their WP Names.

Did you know...

Many of the cast donated their own props. For instance, the slippers and hat I wore in "How Lovely to Be a Woman," are my own. Conrad's purse in the last scene is my mom's and his scarf is Mrs. Cazier. Most schools have a prop and costume bank of stuff they've been able to build up over the years, but we don't because this is the first year our school is open.

All of my dresses are my grandma's formals from high school.

Albert named his rabbit after Rosie.

The counter and the bar are the same thing, just with different covering. Her name is Tiffany.

There is a 'phantom of the auditorium' that saved Rosie from the house. Actually, when the house was being flown down (way too fast) it almost hit her square on the head. Someone yelled a warning and grabbed her out of the way, but no one admitted to being the savior. It only nicked her in the head instead of killing her.

The window grid took longer to build than almost anyother set piece and took around fifty people to help keep it straight while we lifted it up.



We are so grateful to have a pit! Suprisingly, the whole time we were practicing with it off, no one fell in. However, just a week after the play was over, someone fell in during a concert for another junior high. What are the odds?