Yet Another Life Update

    Ciao, y'all. It's been a long time since I've last posted on here, and honestly I don't have much of an excuse other than... I'm lazy and tired. And fairly busy, but also not? Life's been weird lately, y'all.

    At the point of me writing this, a lot has changed. I last posted in May of this year, so it's been a solid few months. Currently I'm sitting in my living room, while my mom & sister are both asleep in their respective bedrooms, my brother is live streaming himself playing Roblox in the computer room/kitchen, and my dogs & boyfriend are all three asleep next to me. 

    I've grown a lot as a person this year, in some good ways and some bad ways. I've grown to be a lot more honest about what I'm feeling- and right now, it's really depressed- which has been helpful to me, but I can also be a bit of a downer to be around anymore. 

    I haven't seen any of my friends much due to the virus and just general insanity, and it's definitely taken a toll on a lot of my relationships. I've also lost a lot of 5+ year friendships/relationships in the past few months which has been a really hard pill to swallow. I'm trying to make piece with it, but it's a lot easier said than done.

    I've been writing a lot of poetry, it's been helping me clear my head and get things down on paper. I've also been drawing and painting a lot too, which has been helping as well. Dance for me has been a hard thing to really do due to some trauma (which is also related to the aforementioned lost friendships) but I'm trying- it's just been a struggle to find joy in the art form much anymore, even though I do love it. Covid's also made it hard for my lovely friend Sophia and I to find meeting places for our company which has really put a lot of things at a stand still as well. 

    My siblings and I did unfortunately have to drop out of our acting group as well, just due to safety worries/precautions and Covid scares. We're still enrolled in dance classes though and those are going well. We're going to do a recorded version of the Nutcracker which should be fun too. My brother is a piece of taffy as well as the Mouse King. My sister is the Candy Cane Ambassador (which we kinda made up for our version of the show, she's on par with like Sugar Plum, Mother Ginger, etc). I'm playing the part of Mother Ginger. Sophia is going to be like the Flower Fairy or something similar, and our friends Ava and Ella are playing Clara and the Nutcracker respectively. 

    I've had 2 legit jobs, I've worked at Sally Beauty and Torrid in the past few months. I quit at Torrid after a couple weeks because I was working 2 (3 if you count pet sitting) jobs at the same time and it was exhausting. I worked at Sally's from June to sometime late September, due to some personal issues and not enough hours/trouble at the store. So I am yet again on the job search- but it could certainly be worse, I suppose.

    I'm currently taking an art appreciation course for school, I'm back on track for Associate's of the Arts because I realized I am NOT cut out to be a theatre major, lol. It's boring but I only have like, 5 weeks left of this course so I can't complain too much. It's just a weird class.

    We've adopted 2 more kittens, Maui and Moana. Originally Maui was named Te Fiti until we realized that Te Fiti was not actually a girl... so then he became Maui. They're really sweet cats, Moana is my little baby. She likes to try to come lay on my laptop whenever I'm typing anything at all.

    I met my boyfriend in August, and we've been together for over 2 months now. He's an amazing guy and I'm really blessed to have met him. Other than Instagram, I've been refraining from posting too much about him just to maintain privacy and such but he's a huge part of my life and I love him lots. He even gets along with my family, which is no easy feat.

    We recently went on a trip (meaning my mom, brother, boyfriend and I) to Cincinnati/Newport. We went to the Newport Aquarium, did a few escape rooms, hung out, and just had a good time in general. It was nice to get away for a bit and do something fun.

    There's honestly not much else to say right now. Life is still pretty boring- reasonably so- because of the virus and everything, so this is about the most dumb life update I've ever done. But it's all good, y'know? Things could always be worse, so I'm just riding things out.

Ciao for now,
Hannah

Dreams: the Good, the Bad, and the... Weird?

Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash

Hey guys!

 I don't know if it's being cooped up at home that's causing it, or lack of being around people, or just my overactive mind- but I have been having intense dreams lately. Good ones, bad ones, funny ones, sad ones- and really, really weird ones.
 I've considered starting a dream journal just to recount the weirdness of them all. I only vaguely remember some, and some are vivid memories, but regardless, when I'm actually asleep, they're so intense that I wake up in a daze because it feels so real (even if it doesn't make any sense within the confines of the real world).

 Like, a few weeks ago, I had this weird dream about my Grandpa. I actually had to text my Grandma to check in one him because of the severity of the dream. I don't remember much about the actual dream itself, I just remember weird, psychedelic swirls, like a tie-dye shirt, and my Grandpa in the middle of it all one minute, and then he was gone the next. And it just kept happening, with various weird bits thrown in here and there.
 And then just a bit ago I had a migraine so I napped half of the day away, and kept having recurring odd, sorta romantic dreams about this guy who was kind of a bad boy, but we had to keep sneaking away even though we weren't doing anything bad, but it was taking place in, like, this really long  mansion-style house with tons of stairs and rails and weirdly-shaped rooms. And we'd end up in one room, and have like a date, our parents would find out and get mad, and then the dream would like... start over? Like a video game of sorts. It was bizarre (and for some reason the dude looked like Devon Bostick but I couldn't begin to explain why).

 Essentially, my dreams get progressively weirder and weirder each time I fall asleep. I have dreams that I'm trapped in a shopping mall and keep getting arrested for shop lifting even though I didn't shop lift. I have dreams about my family. I have dreams about my friends. I have dreams about Stranger Things (not even the characters, just the world they live in??). I have dreams about dance and about sleeping itself, which is really trippy.
 It's just so weird to be totally chill, and then fall asleep, and wake up feeling like I've been transported to a different world. Especially the dreams where it feels like I'm actually living it instead of watching it play out, if that makes any sense. It's all just very peculiar.
 There's not much of a point to this post except to ramble about my dreams; so comment down below what the weirdest dream you remember having is. Let me know I'm not alone in the weirdness, haha!

 -Hannah

Book Review: The Cabin by Natasha Preston

Photo by Olivier Guillard on Unsplash

Hello!

 I recently finished the The Cabin, a novel by author and 'Wattpad sensation' Natasha Preston. The first book I read by Mrs. Preston was The Cellar- which, though I never wrote a review for it, I quite enjoyed and was excited to delve into one of her other novels. This review may contain spoilers so if you have not read the book, and would like to, proceed with caution.

---

They think they're invincible.
They think they can do and say whatever they want.
They think there are no consequences.
They've left me no choice.
It's time for them to pay for their sins.
(taken from the back cover of the novel)

---

 I love books that are mysteries and thrillers, especially ones involving teens or young adults- I can't explain why, but they've just always intrigued me. Who's the killer? What were the motives? Why is someone so terrible, or so confused, or so disturbed, that they'd hurt someone, or commit a terrible act? It's perhaps a built of a guilty pleasure, but regardless, intriguing and exciting to read about.

 The Cabin starts out with the main character, Mackenzie, going to meet up with her friends (Aaron, Kyle, Megan, and Courtney) and her best friend's boyfriend (Josh) so they can go to- you guessed it- a cabin in the woods, to hang out all weekend and get drunk. Which is obviously the first red flag- it's never good to go to a cabin and get full out drunk, especially when it's a bunch of teenagers (however, this novel takes place in the United Kingdom- where the legal drinking age is 18- so *technically* legal within the confines of the novel).

 Drinking is also part of what led to a car-crash that happened pre-novel, resulting in the deaths of two of Mackenzie's other friends, Tilly & Gigi, which, in my opinion, would result in making some wiser choices, but I digress.

 There's a tag-along, Josh's older brother who is practically estranged- Blake. Blake and Mackenzie have a bit of a romantic sub-plot as the book continues.

 The book starts out somewhat slow, and then all of the sudden- there's two murders in their locked cabin. It picks up a little bit from there, although there's not a whole lot of action after this takes place; it shows the remaining teens picking up the pieces of their lives, dealing with guilt, grief, and all of the emotions that would come after something that tragic happening.
 As the novel continues, Mackenzie and Blake become closer, more drama ensues, the police are, y'know, the typical police- and blame is pinned on various suspects.
 I will say, I began to get slightly bored with the novel as I got closer to the end- which made me sad, because I love Natasha's writing- but then the very end suddenly picks up again and deeply surprised me. I think, if you enjoy some cheesy teenage drama paired with an interesting murder mystery plot, that you would like this book. Some of the writing is sub-par but overall, it's a pretty good book and a fun read to kill (pun not intended) some time.
 On a whole, I'd give the book about a solid 7/10, just due to some of the cheesiness, but I really don't have too many complaints about it on the whole.

 Have you read The Cabin? Do you plan on doing so? Leave your thoughts down below!

-Hannah

Life Here Lately...

Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

Hey y'all,

 It has been a seriously long time since I last posted- a little over 3 months, in fact. You would not believe the amount of times I've sat down to write a blog post, and then just had absolutely nothing come to me. I've shared writing on Instagram, and Facebook, and entered poetry contests, but for some reason the idea of writing a full blog post seemed so intimidating.
 Simultaneously everything and nothing has happened these past three months; it's honestly rather strange. My last post was February 10th, so I suppose I'll just try to go back and talk about what's been going on in chronological order.

 Hopping way back to January, I mentioned it briefly but never really talked about it- my siblings and I had the Musical Theatre Revue with our acting group. It was super stressful and the theater had a freaking ridiculous amount of stairs, but otherwise it was a lot of fun. My brother was apart of the stage crew for that show and my sister and I were on stage. We had a duet which turned out pretty rough (I Dreamed a Dream from Les Mis), but my sister did a great job on her solo (Home from Beetlejuice). All the group numbers went reallt

 Sometime in either January or February we also went back to Otherworld in Columbus, which was my brother's Christmas present, but it was a bit of a rough weekend trip due to various reasons, but we still had a pretty okay time regardless.

 Something I never posted about on here was that on February 8th, I got to go see my favorite band, The Lumineers, in concert. While it took forever for them to get on stage and I was not a fan of their two openers, the Lumineers themselves were mind-blowing. My Mom got me tickets for Christmas and I'm still so grateful. Lots of (happy) tears were shed that night. However, we were in Cleveland at night, with a concert that just got out, in the middle of Winter, and ended up having to walk back to our hotel...

 Which kick-started me feeling sick. I started feeling pretty gross and sniffly and stuff, but managed to pull through that week, looking forward to my birthday, and then the day of my birthday (and party arrived), and I was sick as a dog. I slept most of the day before, and then the day of my party, I helped set up for my party (invitations had all been sent out + non-refundable venue), and then spent the rest of the time alternating between sitting at a table with my head lying on it or throwing up in the bathroom... so shout-out to my bestie Sophia for chilling with me the whole time despite me being sick. She's a real one, y'all.
 I feel really bad because I barely talked to any of my friends at my party (the ones who showed up anyway, y'all are fantastic and I love you). I pretty much parked myself between Soph, my siblings, and my grandparents and spent my eighteenth birthday feeling like dirt. It was a very depressing way to spend the day, and as soon as we got home, I went to bed. I didn't get to eat any of the snacks we got or really enjoy my decorations or anything. I'm still super peeved, but it is what it is I suppose.

 Then I was pretty sick for the next week or two, and the Thursday after my party (about 5 days later) I thought I was going to die so my Mom took me to the ER (...I was supposed to be at dance class lol), and turns out I just had a God-awful case of bronchitis. They put me on meds and other than a lingering cough, I was good in about another week or two.
 February's a bit of a blur. January-February are almost always rough months for me, the past 2 or 3 years I've come down with really serious illnesses around/on my birthday that usually start at the end of January. I don''t know what the deal is, but it just happens every time without fail.

 At the end of February/beginning of March, we went to go see our friend Naomi in a show at the La Comedia dinner theatre, which is an awesome place. It was The King & I, which I'd never had much interest in before, but it was amazing! I had such a great time and Naomi did a lovely job.

 After this is where things start to get blurry- with the Covid-19 pandemic, everything is crazy. I pretty much am temporarily unemployed because no one needs a pet sitter because no one can actually travel right now. I've been going stir-crazy with not being able to go see my friends or at least take my siblings places or go to the movies with my family and stuff. Never did I ever think we'd be living through a world-wide pandemic. Just goes to show life never goes as planned.

 Unfortunately, we had to rehome our one pup, Buster, because he wasn't a good fit for our family. He is a great dog, just not great for our situation, but I do miss the little stinker. We've also lost a few of our other pets these past few months unfortunately, and it does hurt my heart a lot.
 The company I used to dance with, Fueled & Aflame, had a final concert so I went back to dance with them for that- it ended up being virtual which was a rough send-off for something that has had so many memories and time put into it and stuff. It was better than nothing, though. Shortly after, things started closing for us. Our acting group had to cancel our production of Godspell, which means (aside from like, Soph and I and maybe a few others) the seniors don't get a final bow, which is really quite sad.
 Dance class is on hold for in-person classes which is really depressing. I love my studio, and so it's been rough not being able to see everyone (especially being the 'new kid'). We've had classes over Zoom, but it's just not the same, plus I'm really struggling with picking up choreography, and I'm not sure exactly how recital will work this year, which makes me sad, because it was going to be my first recital with this studio.

 Overall, this pandemic has just been a hellish situation for everyone. I'm glad things are opening again, but I'm also concerned about a spike in cases. One day at a time, I suppose. I'm ready for things to be normal again but I know 'normal' is not really ever going to be on the horizon again. We live in such a digital age that I think this will change us forever.
 There are things to look forward to, though. I have two more college classes starting next month. I'm taking a humanities course and a history course. I declared (unofficially) my major as theatre but have switched to a general associate of art's because I honestly have no idea what the heck I want to do with my life.
 My siblings & I are taking our friend Syd to prom in July (delayed because of Covid), so that's going to be a blast. I've also been using this time for good, and Sophia and I are starting up our own dance company. Everything is lined up so now I'm using my anxious energy to expend on choreography and website building and such. I hope to find an official job soon and start planning for when I'm stable and able to move out. I also hope to start taking boxing lessons once things open back up. Good and bad, bad and good. Just doing my best to focus on the good.

 So this has been a brief- but not-so-brief- overview of what my life has been like lately. How are things in your neck of the woods? Let me know in the comments :)
 -Hannah

Finding My Voice

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality"
-Desmond Tutu-

Hello, my dear readers,

 In this post I'm going to be discussing something that I've struggled with for a long time: my own opinions. Now, you're probably thinking; 'opinions? How do you struggle with your own opinions?' and my response to you is this...

that's a loaded question, friend.

 You see, opinions were never hard for me to form- I knew what tv shows I thought were good, I knew what animals I liked, I knew my opinion on certain foods, all of those things were well, and good, and okay. However, I had no strong opinions on anything else- politics, events, people, anything that could be considered treading on people's toes- I just smiled and nodded and silently agreed/disagreed with whoever was talking, including people you should feel comfortable sharing opinions with, like my therapist, or my mom.

 As I've gotten older, especially once I turned fifteen-ish, I started to grow my own ideas and opinions. It was like culture shock to my entire being. Suddenly having an opinion on anything that wasn't what movie we should go see was terrifying. Even more terrifying was when I didn't agree with something a friend had said, or even worse, something my grandparents had said, or even worse, something my mom said.

 Some things I've always had strong opinions on; abortion, helping people out, animals in shelters, & obviously rude, bad, or downright evil things. But until probably a year, to a year-and-a-half ago, that was it. I did some volunteer work, basic things, and I had some semblance of caring about people- but I didn't truly have any idea of why I was doing what I was doing or if there was one thing I should focus on.

 Now as I've gotten older, I've developed strong opinions on lots of things. Sometimes they're not the most informed, sometimes they seem silly, sometimes they might border on conservative-in-a-bad-way, but I'm still growing as a person, and I'm still learning. I grew up around (majority) conservative, white, Christian, homeschooled families. And not that there's anything wrong with any of those things, but being around one group of people only doesn't really help you grow as a person.

 I'm not going to lie: most of my close friends are/were homeschooled, are Christian, and white, and conservative. But the thing is, we're a generation with internet access, and we can learn more about other people. I read articles all the time, written by & about people of color, and people with disabilities, people of other religions, and all different walks of life. Learning about other people is how you learn to be a better person. Once you see what your privilege is, once you learn about what other people have experienced, it helps you realize: wow, I need to work on this.

 It's the same way with politics, laws, history, and important world figures. I know who I'm voting for during this presidential election* and I know where I stand on health care, and still stand on abortion & gun issues, and where I stand on protecting the rights & lives of all people from all kinds of lives & beliefs.

 *Which is another opinion I've formed: that voting is good. Growing up, I believed what other people around me believed, until I got older and did my own research, and decided that if person after person decides one vote doesn't count, who's to say that one candidate won't win just because enough people didn't show up that day to vote for them?

 I still struggle sometimes, don't get me wrong- I hate confrontation. I talk a lot of talk but I find it troublesome to actually take action on some occasions, because I don't want to rock the boat. But you have to. If people dislike you because you've made your own opinions, then they never liked you anyway- they liked the version of you that made them happy & comfortable.

 But the thing is, now that I'm older, and I see that my generation is going to be the one that has to change things, I've decided that my voice matters. Every single voice (person) matters. The loud ones. The quiet ones. The non-verbal ones. The signed ones. The typed ones. If you have something to say, let it be your truth. Let it be known that you stand for what you care about.

 I've spent too long, staying quiet, silently being an ally to racism, sexism, and discrimination in any & all forms and not even realizing it that I now know that you have to speak up. I've found my voice- and if you're struggling- I'm here to help you find yours.

-Hannah

2019 Reading List

Hey y'all!

 Here's my finished 2019 reading list! I remember reading more than this so I'm probably missing a few, but obviously I didn't like them enough to remember to put them down, lol.

2019 Reading List

 Books in italics are currently being read. Books in bold are favorites. Books underlined aren't going to be finished.

The Cellar - Natasha Preston
Wildly Into the Dark: Typerwriter Poems and the Rattlings of a Curious Mind - Tyler Knott Gregson
Impulse - Ellen Hopkins

Dreamfall - Amy Plum

Fish Girl - David Wiesner and Donna Jo Napoli

Real Friends - Shannon Hale and Leuyen Pham

Eeny Meeny - MJ Arlidge

Pop Goes the Weasel - MJ Arlidge (may reread at later date)

 Somewhere Only We Know - Maurene Goo

The Missing Season - Gillian French

To All the Boys I've Loved Before - Jenny Han
P.S. I Still Love You - Jenny Han

Dear Evan Hansen - Val Emmich, Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul

 How many books did you read this year? Comment below!

-Hannah

New Year, New Insanity

Hey guys!

 I'm sorry I've been absent. I'd blame it on being busy (which is somewhat reasonable) but really I just didn't feel like writing any blog posts.

 Just in the past month and a half, I have...

1. Declared (unofficially because I'm still high school age) a major (Theatre!)
2. Started an Instagram account for my poetry,
3. Adopted a new dog,
4. Got tickets to go see my favorite band (for Christmas- thanks Mom!),
5. Started a writing group with a dear friend of mine,
6. Took an overnight trip to Columbus,
7. Got into making OOAK dolls,
8. Have grown my collection of My Little Ponies & Barbies,
9. Celebrated the new year ofc!,
10. Planned my birthday party- this month!!!,
11. Had tech week with a 3-show weekend,

 And that doesn't include all of the regular life stuff and smaller events that have happened. Things have been pretty wild around here. Not bad or anything, but hectic. I start a dog sitting job tomorrow (today, technically, when this is posted haha), and we start rehearsals for our next show on Thursday- Godspell- and I'm so excited.

 Dance has been going well, although I had to miss this past week because of one of our shows with acting, but I'm pretty stoked about the choreo we've been working on. Although for our jazz dance we'll be in character shoes which makes me anxious.

 Here soon we'll be taking an overnight trip to go see The Lumineers and I'm just so happy. They mean so much to me, and I can't wait to see them perform live.

 I'll update more soon when I can! Much love to all of you.

-Hannah