the lactose intolerant appreciate the lactose indulgent ; o o 2 ]

Ear Milk.

Thank you my good buddy, Kieran Windorf for sharing this with me.

Check it out and let me know what you guys think of it! I'm going to sift through it for the first time while writing this. Let's see how it goes.

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I have a lot to do.

I have too much to do, actually.

And I'ven't enough resolve to sit down and, at the very least, make a list.

Be it from the day, or even from the past week or so, things in life haven't really gotten in the way as much as they've turned things "topsy-turvy."

Let's start small, shall we?

I've got school work to hammer out. It's simple: get it done, and it won't be much of any obstacle, right? Right. Okay. I'll convince myself to do that once I'm done writing this.

Next is the fact that I have to write. It's a little cold in my room, and I've got to make sure I'm not completely exhausted after this work - not like it's anything really that bad, anyway. I have to write for NaNoWriMo, and for those who are as enamored with writing as I, they will recognize the noun as a rather colossal event. I think I've mentioned it before in a past entry - maybe not - but the point is to basically write a book in a month. About fifty- or sixty-thousand words within the span of November, thirty days. It's challenging a bit, but what's writing without a challenge, right?

I've been stumbling about trying to center myself as of recent. I also saw that one of the faculty members at my old school has been enduring some pretty substantial trials. She's very much the backbone of that school, and to hear her struggle is even worse not being able to see her every day and offer her whatever encouragement there is to offer. Thankfully, the issue's been remedied, and if you'd be so kind as to just send out good vibes to Mrs. Mahan and her family, it'd be greatly appreciated. =]

Centering myself coincides with that because I look to others for strength, more often than not. And a classmate of mine [ who's practically a stranger D; ] reminded the entirety of persons who are capable of viewing what he said that people don't believe in their selves anymore. And that kind of ticks off the box from last entry wherein I spoke of my instructor reminding us that it's not about her - it's about us.

I recently started envisioning colors with closed eyes to see if it makes the connections to what I need when I'm preparing myself for anything emotionally taxing in a performance. It's kind of a... "testing the waters" approach, since I don't really know what works all the time. "Triggers", things that obviously instigate some sort of reaction, haven't really clicked for me yet. But in a sequence of colors, I found symbolism of what I need [ or what I think I need ] before I approach anything. Maybe it'll help you too, maybe it won't.

You won't know until you try.

Blue. A deep blue to calm or a light blue to soothe. It flushes out everything else and leaves nothing but the black of your covering eyelids and the blue that you're imagining. Hold it until there's nothing else.

Green. It's like the color of grass. Whether the blue is gone or stays, green highlights the surroundings. It produces the area you're in and initially produces a feeling for the outdoors, but whatever you need, you can create - it's as simple as that.

Red. It's what I need the most, and probably why it's in the midst of the five colors. To me, its connotation is coupled with passion and drive. I need to draw more from myself to get through whatever the roadblock is. Writing, acting, singing, conversing, etc. It'll produce an initial emotional instability for me because I'll try to let open all of the floodgates, but then close the ones I need the most and focus on them. If I waste what I need, what's the point?

Yellow. Yellow's like electricity. I think of it as raw energy. It gets me bouncing on my toes. It gets me where I need to be and at the level I need to be. Energy's always good, and I like to think that I can make my own, so using those already-opened floodgates, I can redirect energy, emotion and focuses into whatever I intend to. It's like a good pep-talk before a good game, or the rebound of success after eons of failure lined back-to-back-to-back. It takes a bit longer to prep than I've been giving myself time for, but it serves its purpose.

Purple. Purple's a color of sexuality. Everyone has a sexuality, and so it can apply to anyone. I use it for character. Just because any actor can fit a role doesn't mean they fit the character. And I need to start doing more research on how to approach things - everyone says using the character's personality and choices and behaving like them will help relate to the character. However, I find that impersonating anything that isn't one of my own, personal muses / characters is pretty ineffective. I'll use an approach like anyone else: find someone or something I can relate to and plug it in. Simple enough, right?

Now the painting's of a red house by a river or lake with the bright sun shining high in the cloudless sky with a purple car. Or something like that. Point is, if you need to find colors or do it for yourself in order for it to help you out, by all means. I'm not patenting this because I'm sure other people have found it helpful too.

If anything else, it's a good meditation tactic, I guess. To each their own.

Next, there's the uproar of the destruction done by Hurricane Sandy. I'm sure you've all heard of the news on Sandy, but for those who were out of the hurricane's demolition range, it was pretty bad, overall. I haven't done my research, but from my traversing up and down the state and communications with friends littered about it gave me some sort of idea.

Not to mention the plethora of images that are circulating the interwebs.

What's weird is that everyone's complaining about it.

I was at my father's house for the brunt of it. It's not exactly a fortress of steel, and there have been minimal renovations and upgrades done on it, so I'm amazed it was untouched for the most part. The area around it all wasn't too tip-top, but it definitely hadn't been the worst. The same thing went for my mother's home: the worst was the backyard, which had a few branches from our apple tree littered about and more dead leaves than blades of grass. Both households lost power. That rendered my father's household idle and forced to interact for the majority of it.

We played cards by a candle in a pot on a crate and cracked jokes at each other.

Families know how to make the best of a worst condition.

I went to my mother's for the day I was coming back down to school, and since the household has fewer members, things weren't much of any different. My mother and my younger brother and our dog were present and excited to see me well and in one piece.

I was pleased to see them as well.

Just down the street, one of my brother's friend's family's tree [ so many possessive nouns - basically, the tree ] had been uprooted by the ferocious winds and collapsed onto one of their vehicles.

It probably sounds really bad to say, but all we do is complain.

I've only seen a handful of status updates saying how things are going that are positive and upbeat after surviving such a gruesome natural disaster. I may not know everyone who was effected by it, but I'm sure they'd rather their lives than losing their phone for a week, not getting paid for a week, or even lighting in their houses when there are people whose homes were probably emaciated by water damage or something.

It may be extreme, but I like to think this as a humbling experience.

We rely on everything that we can't control, and it's really bad. Technology is an invention of man, surely, but it's gotten to the point where we let it control and construct our lives. Not that it's a bad thing entirely, because we've done great things with technology, but intelligently utilizing what we have for progression is probably an innate characteristic that not too many people wish to exercise.

It's so much easier to face someone through a text, to evade a conversation by deleting a message or humiliate a stranger by belaying an image.

Sandy was a force to be reckoned with, and it's not like we never get hurricanes on Planet Earth.

It takes more than one person to pull the weight of an entire race. If we took care of things - namely our planet and its resources, probably - the way we're supposed to, I'm sure we'd be able to endure things better. Natural disasters bring out the best in even the worst people: humility, understanding, sympathy and compassion. Not everyone, but certainly more than none.

I'm sorry to all of those who may have been afflicted by the storm even greater and best wishes go out to all of those who are struggling to thrive presently - even those not effected by the storm in the slightest.

Via Tumblr.

It's something we'll need to work on, and me just saying it over and over and never exercising it isn't going to change much of anything.

I feel like this is a pretty hefty pro-active entry, but I also feel like I'm making a lot of sense. Agree or disagree, we're way past the point where we can kind of just sit down and mull it over for a bit longer.

The little things count. Start small and work bigger.

Don't end it.

Continue it.

<3 ~ Monty.
=]