The three tools that humans need for success are education, belief, and determination. I have been fortunate to be provided with all of these things in my life. My parents instilled a strong work ethic and determination to pursue passions early in my life. Eventually this determination led me to the performing and circus arts, where I found a whole world full of people happy to share their expertise with me and teach me truly amazing skills and attitudes.

     The performers I met provided several component; never failing to believe in me and encourage me to push myself to more challenges and more potential for incredibleness, while teaching me the skills necessary to do so.  I have been extremely fortunate to benefit from the example of exemplary human beings set forth by this collection of people and the constant inspiration I have received from them.

     When I began writing this essay, I expected to pontificate about my family, friends and teachers. This assorted gathering of circus performers is not who I expected to be talking about, but once I started writing I realized how influential these people have been. 

     I would not be the same person, either as a performer or as an individual without the presence of people like Geoff Marsh, Cate Flaherty, Dextre Tripp, London Broil, Zack Rose, and Cameron Tomele. These are the people that have inspired me to pursue performing arts, as well as helping me develop many circus arts abilities and influencing me with their positive attitudes and optimistic world views. 

Who are the influential people in your life? How have they contributed to your

development as a person?

When I was fourteen years old Barack Obama ran for president. At that point in my life that man was one of the most influential people in my life. He gave me an interest in politics; I volunteered for his campaign and made up my mind to be a politician.

     Even though I later decided that politics weren’t  for me, he instilled a commitment to change and hope for this world. Those attitudes are still prevailing in me, even though I have since taken to theater and other performance arts 

     Large parts of this move onto stages can be attributed either to a community college professor named Joseph Reorda, or to the countless jugglers and other circus performers that I have met through my employment in Renaissance festivals and juggling events.

     All of the performers in my life have always been more than willing to encourage and inspire my abilities, while simultaneously pushing me to better myself, both as a performer and a human being. Mr. Reorda has had a similar effect. He has had a huge part in shaping me into the actress and person that I am today. At one point, I had very little interest in being on stage, indeed, I was terrified. 

     I have listed a few of the most concretely influential people of my life, however many are excluded; my family, my friends, the countless people who have encouraged me, and made me believe in myself when I wasn’t too sure. These are the people that have truly helped create me, sometimes in small ways sometimes in large ways.  

Question: The University of Colorado Boulder’s Flagship 2030 strategic plan promotes exceptional teaching,research, scholarship, creative works, and service distinguishing us as a premier university. We strive to foster a diverse and inclusive community for all that engages each member inopportunities for academic excellence, leadership, and a deeper understanding of the world in which we live. Given the statement above, how do you think you could enrich our diverse and inclusivecommunity, and what are your hopes for your college experience?

I have never met a boring human being. Everyone has a story to tell, just by virtue of being alive. The often zigzagging and meandering path of a life is always a subject that is worth listening to. My particular story has definitely taken its share of sudden turns and slow wanders, which although sometimes shocking or confusing, nonetheless add diversity to my life and make me what I am today.

   At various points in my life I have been determined to be an engineer, a politician, a circus performer, a small business owner, a lawyer, and an actress, among other seriously pondered or briefly considered aspirations. Even if I no longer have a driving desire to decorate houses or run for Congress, all of the dreams that I have had contribute to me and have left behind traces of knowledge or interest. I have experienced many different places and ideas in the world, both good and bad, and  consider myself fortunate to have done so. 

    I was raised by hippies in Southern Colorado, home schooled amidst their adventures had while trying to save the world, taken along on all of their plans.  The older I got, the more I started adding plans and having adventures of my own. Over the years they have led me to live in a tent for months while working at Renaissance festivals, being a political volunteer, raising chickens on the family farm, being a senatorial intern, traveling, being on stage, juggling with amazing people, doing amazing things I didn’t even know were possible, to name a few.

     I am a collection of a diverse ideas, experiences, desires, and abilities and I will take that diversity with me wherever I go. I would like to take it to CU-Boulder, because while I know that I will be unique, I believe that I won’t be alone. The community of this college boasts a wide range of people, with just as many divergent interests and abilities as myself. Through my association with them, I hope to learn about the many things that this world has to offer, about myself, and about the myriad of different paths that have been, or could be walked. 

    I hope to enhance my skill and knowledge in all realms, both the ones that exist in classrooms and with teachers and the experiences that take place outside, in and around campus life. The University of Colorado offers learning opportunities of many different varieties, enough varieties to satisfy and expand my interests and education. 

     In the coming years, I hope to be able grow and learn alongside other committed, open minded individuals engaged in the pursuit of happiness. I bring all of my experiences and diversities to this community with the hopes of being a worthwhile member of it, working to cultivate a healthy, happy, and productive world. 

The University of Colorado Boulder’s Flagship 2030 strategic plan promotes exceptional teaching,research, scholarship, creative works, and service distinguishing us as a premier university. We strive to foster a diverse and inclusive community for all that engages each member inopportunities for academic excellence, leadership, and a deeper understanding of the world in which we live. Given the statement above, how do you think you could enrich our diverse and inclusivecommunity, and what are your hopes for your college experience?

The very very start of my very rough draft for the CU application essay:

I have never met a boring human being. Everyone has a story to tell, and it’s a story worth listening to. There are so many different choices to make in every part of our lives, every day. Perhaps other people are so interesting to us because they represent what we could have been, had we made different choices, for both good and bad. This interest is what causes us to come together in communities and groups, not only to reflect upon our possible selves, but also to see what all of our different perspectives can accomplish when unified together. 

    My particular story

notinmybrain:

live earnestly, willfully, passionately.

love selfishly, desperately, endlessly.

learn decidedly, purposely, curiously.

one of these needs definition. love selfishly?! isn’t love supposed to be selfless?

i mean selfishly in the sense that it’s yours. you aren’t loving to get love in return….

Community college theater departments.  These are not words used to inspire people, to induce the kind of anticipation that exists before the opening night of a highly acclaimed show. Groans are more likely to ensue from the phrase “student production”.

     The performing arts division of a community college is usually comprised of a few good people trying as best they can. Not all theater departments are created equal however, not with each other and not even from semester to semester for that matter. They vary in accordance with the quality of the teacher,the level of funding and the quality of the current students enrolled. 

     So when I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to be in a play during the next few months, it would have to be the community college’s summer production, I was less than thrilled. Not even the community college I’m enrolled in, mind you. A completely different one, lacking even the familiarity of the past two semester’s involvement with theater.

     Given the decided informality of my usual theater classes, I had no idea what to expect when walking into the ‘audition’ for a different teacher, different school. It was an audition in the same sense that there are ‘applications’ to community colleges, words implying that there is a certain chance you won’t be accepted, that there is a degree of competition for the position. Well, the competition is stiff. So stiff in fact, that its a cadaver. Generally when dealing with the community college system, if you can fog up a mirror held under your nose, you will be accepted into whatever you are trying for.

   The title of this blog does have some bearing on something, despite all indications to the contrary from the last four paragraphs or so. Back on subject.

“You should talk to the director, you don’t have to be a student. It’s Shakespeare.” This was basically all the information that my brother had given me, aside from a time and place of the audition. When he said Shakespeare, I thought, well Shakespeare. I had no idea. 

    The director had a vision, as they always do. Lets bring Shakespeare to the texting blogging generation. You have to give her credit, its a good idea, an admirable goal. 

     My generation could be fairly called a collection of uncultured whores. I say this with the greatest love and respect. I don’t consider myself above them…at least not far above them. I could use just as much Shakespeare, the rest of them. Along with Hemingway, Twain, Tennessee Williams, Capote, classical theater and philosophy, to name just a few culturing influences that might do us good.

     Uncultured whores. Its a harsh term, but I hope conveys a sense of the possibility for redemption. I don’t think of my peers as beyond hope. All it takes is the desire for bettering and access to education. Perhaps even less than that, maybe all any of us really need is a willingness to stop refreshing a Facebook page, or stop staring into the ‘Jersey Shore’ and go outside and have a poke around our own heads. After all its not completely empty and vapid in there. 

     Generation, what is it now? Y? Generation Y certainly inspires questions. How did we end up with this current…lack. Lack of hope, drive, determination, vitality? The Internet. The Democrats. The Republicans. Television. The wandering away from God. Whoever you ask will give you a different explanation, it could be all of the above or none of the above. 

     We like to think of the current generation’s impotence as something new, a sudden divergence from a normally educated, lively and thoughtful string of generations. How accurate is that, really though? Maybe each generation is born with a few more problems weighing it down, a little less education, a few less exceptionally free minded thinkers. Perhaps it is not one sudden cause that can be blamed, but rather the slow deterioration of a system in general, causing the loss of hope and creation of apathy. 

     A little less life in each generation until we are finally evolved into  the perfect model of Fahrenheit 451. Like Fahrenheit 451 however, we are not totally without hope for a better future. Eventually the bombs will fall on the cities, and change will come. We can only hope that it takes place in a metaphorical, rather than literal sense. And who knows, maybe if we’re lucky we can start changing since now, and do away with the drama of an explosion.

I stray very far from Shakespeare and student productions. Again.