Merry Christmas/ Happy New Year/ It has been a really long time since I've made a post...

Hey everyone, it has been a very long time since I've posted anything here, so I suppose I'll try and sum up what has been going on with me over the past few months.

Once classes started things had been going really well, but then I realized that Musical Theatre isn't what I really want to do with the rest of my life. I realized that I really want to have a family, which is something that is next to impossible with a career in performance. I would also be constantly searching for my next job and I would rather have something more stable. I love Musical Theatre, but I would rather keep it as a fun hobby that I have as opposed to trying to make a career out of it.

So next semester I am taking classes in the Computer Animation/Interactive Arts and Media department to try that out and see how I like it.

Other than that whole depressing realization my first semester went really well. I became really good friends with the girls who live across the hall and a few other people who live in my building. We went to a couple of parties and clubs together. I also became good friends with the people in my Acting class.

I also got another piercing and a tattoo. I got my tragus pierced and I got a tattoo that says "Amore" in white ink on my wrist. The tattoo was kind of a spur of the moment kind of thing. Kayla was getting one, the four of us went with her and I ended up getting one too.

When the semester ended I came home for the holidays. I got back on December 11th and I'll be going back sometime around January 26th. My Christmas was great. I got to join back up with the music group that sings at 10:30 mass on Sundays, and we did Christmas Eve mass which was a lot of fun. On Christmas Day we basically adopted Zack. He came over Christmas morning and he also came over to my Grandma's house in the afternoon.

On New Years Eve Zack had a few people over, we hung out and played pool. Then my parents came over later in the night and we played Apples to Apples.

On January 7th I'm heading out to Seattle to visit Eric and John for a week. I'm really excited about that. I've never been there before and my friend Chase from high school also lives out there.

Well that pretty much sums up what has been going on with me. Maybe I'll make another post before summertime...no promises though.

WOOHOO!

I got my belly button pierced!!! Yay!

Chicago!

On Monday I moved into my apartment in downtown Chicago. It is so amazing here, I love it! So far I've gone to a few "Weeks of Welcome" events which naturally are really boring. Last night I met up with some of my mom's cousin's who live in the area and we went out to dinner. I'm really glad this happened because I've been feeling homesick lately...

My roommates are great, we all get along really well, and my apartment is awesome! Definately not your typical college dorm. We have 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room and a kitchen. Grocery shopping is kind of inconveniant though because we have to walk a few blocks to get to the store.

My classes start on Tuesday, I'm really excited about that because I'll finally be doing what I came here to do. I am taking Writing and Rhetoric, Chemistry, Italian, Musical Theater History and Musical Theater Dance.

Well untill next time!

Summer Recap

Well since I move to Chicago a week from today I decided to do a racap of my summer.

After I graduated I started working full time for my Dad at Mechanical Products, I was hired to wipe off labels on circuit breakers and restamp them. I was told that I would be done by the end of june, but since I kept getting pulled to do other things I ended up working all the way up untill August 15th. Which is a good thing because I made a lot of money.

In the beginning of July I went Up North to Northport with my whole maternal side of the family for a week. This is something we do every year, it is almost always the highlight of my summer. Well since we were staying in a huge house we had some extra room so my Grandma decided to invite my friends Zack and Nick to come up and stay with us for a few days which was a ton of fun.

After Up North I went back to work (woo fun!) and one day Zack, Nick, Camille and I decided to go to Cedar Point for a day which was also a lot of fun.

A few days after Cedar Point my Dad decided to hire Nick and Zack to destroy bad circut breakers for them. So Zack, Nick and I ended up pretty much spending every consious moment we had together, because we would wake up in the morning go to work and then hang out untill we passed out at night. It's gotten to the point where we don't even need to verbally communicate to have conversations...it's kind of sad.

My weekends have consisted of going to races with Zack and Nick. I've gotten to know some of Zack's team mates and they all seem pretty cool. My favorite races I've been to this summer are the Pancake Stage Race where Zack won the Crit and took 3rd overall, and Ada where I got to ride in the lead car.

Within the last week I've gone to two "Going Away Parties" one was at Thea's house where we played Catch Phrase (big fun) and watched "A Bit of Fry and Laurie (even bigger fun). The other was at Meghan's house, we had a bonfire and took some fun pictures.

This upcoming week I have to pack (ick) not too excited about that, but I am very excited about moving to Chicago. This Friday we are celebrating my Mom's, my Grandpa's and my birthday with my Mom's side of the family, and then on saturday we are going to Litchfield to

celebrate my mom's, my dad's my uncle's and my birthday with my Dad's side of the family. Then on Monday the 25th I move =D

This summer has definately been one to remember I had a ton of fun and in the words of ABBA...

"I can still recall our last summer

I still see it all

walks along the seine

laughing in the rain

our last summer

memories that remain."

Orientation/Retistration

Orientation was a long, painful, stressful, and fun day. I woke up at 4 in the morning to drive to Chicago with my parents. When we got there I met one of my roommates Caitlin, she is really nice and I look foreward to getting to know her better. After an hour long speech of things I've already heard at least 5 times, they split the Musical Theater Majors into four different groups. Since my last name is Baker I was in the first group. They took us to the Theater Center where our Advisor talked about our major and the classes that we should be taking. Immediately following that I went with a some other people to the Dance Placement Test where we did some stretching excercises with some moving across the floor stuff, and we learned some original broadway coreography from Seussical the Musical. After the Dance portion I moved onto the Acting Placement which consisted of an interview of all of my past theater experience. Finally I was able to eat lunch, Caitlin and I were two of the last people to eat lunch and right in the middle of our meal we were pulled out to take the Music Theory placement test. After about 40 Minutes I completed the test and it was graded, I got a high enough score to take the next portion of the test which was Sight Singing (YIKES!) not my strongest point. Apparently I'm a lot better at it then I thought because the instructor was really impressed and I ended up placing out of all of my first year Music Theory, Sight Singing, Dance and Acting classes. Not too shabby. Then I went up to the Lab to schedule all of my classes. Unfortunately since I was one of the only people to take and complete all 3 placement tests I was one of the last to register so most of the classes were filled up. The classes I am taking are Musical Theater The Beginnings to 1945, Musical Theater Dance, Italian Language and Culture, Writing and Rhetoric, and Chemistry. I am pretty happy with my schedule, I wish I could of gotten into an Acting and Music class though.

Overall Orientation was a lot of fun and it only got me more excited to start learning more about my passion.


I move in 3 weeks from today =D

College & Stuff

Ok so as you can see, it's been a really long time since I've actually posted anything here, a lot of that has to do with there being no one who actually read it and that I didn't have anything to write about. Well with me starting school in about a month I now have a few things to write about.

On monday July 28th I will be going to Chicago for Registration and Orientation. I'm really excited because I'm going to sign up for classes and I will also be able to meet one of my roommates who is also a Musical Theater Major. At orientation I will have to sing 16 measures of 2 contrasting songs, I have it narrowed down to 3. "Raunchy" from 110 In the Shade, "I Know the Truth" from Aida, and "Se Tu M'ami, Se Sospiri" which is an Italian Arietta. So far popular request is "Se Tu M'ami" and "Raunchy", but I'm still not 100% positive.

Then on August 25th I will be moving into my dorm in downtown Chicago. I will be living in a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom appartment with 3 other girls. I've been talking to them a lot over the past few weeks and it looks like we're all going to get along great!

Well that's all I have to say for now.

Untill next time,
~Elisa

Wow...

I was in my 5th Hour talking to Cat when an announcement came on... "Attention students and faculty we are on lockdown and should take appropriate action for Code 1" I didn't think too much of it untill Mr. Ward jumped out of his seat screamed "Everyone get in the corner NOW!" and ran to the door and locked it....at this point I'm thinking 'OK what in the heck is going on' so as we were all huddled in the corner Mr. Ward said "There is a shooter in the building...everyone needs to be quiet and stay on the ground"....at this point I texted my sister to make sure she was OK...when I didn't get an answer I started to freak out a little, but then I remembered that she had left her phone at home....

The next thing I did was I texted my friend Zack to let him know what was going on...

All I could think about was 'Could this really be the end?'

So after about 30 minutes or so they told us that they had cleared the building but not the area, so we were able to go to our 6th hour but we couldn't leave the building...

After another 30 minutes they caught the guy and everything was clear....


It turns out someone got shot near the school, and the shooter ran towards the school area. They thought that the shooter may have gone into the school so they put us on hardcore lockdown, once they cleared the school they searched the area and eventually caught the guy...

.....It was the longest most nerve racking hour of my life

AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

So, I finally heard back from Columbia College and guess what!?!?!?! I got in!!!!!! not that I was worried but it does feel good to finally know for sure.

Now I can start applying for scholarships and stuff...

I'm so excited...you have no idea lol

BLACK FRIDAY

11:30 PM Nov. 22nd I picked up Cat and began what quite possibly could of been the longest day of my life... We stayed up all night watching random stuff on TV so we could head out at 3:30 AM and go shopping. Kohls opened at 4 so we figured we'd get in line around 3:45....and as you can see the line was already backed up around the building and almost to Old Country Buffet. When the doors finally opened some little turds decided that it was ok to wait in their cars then jump in the front of the line when the doors opened.....this pissed me off. The rush inside Kohls was CRAZY! people running everywhere taking stuff...yeah.....so Cat got a pair of shoes and I got stuff for my Mom and Sister all within about 7 minutes.....then....we got in the checkout line....holy crap....the line was really long extending almost past the shoe department. Once we finally got checked out I looked at my watch...4:15 AM....yeah pretty amazing I know lol.

Well then we hit another issue...since we'd gotten through Kohls so quickly...nothing else was opened...CRAP....so we went over to the Best Buy line where our friend Nick had been waiting since about midnight ...(now that's crazy...even for us)... So we talked to him for a bit then we headed over to the other place we wanted to go....Target....which didn't open untill 6 AM.

So Cat and I drove over to the Target parking lot around 4:30 where the line had already been forming. We cranked up the heat and started singing random songs (moastly broadway) about 100 songs later it was 5:40 AM and we decided to get in line...which at this time was already almost backed up to the movie theater. Luckly Target was a little more organized, they weren't letting anyone in unless they were in the line. Once we got in Target it was just as crazy as Kohls if not worse...we headed straight back to electronics where Cat bought a didgital camera, after that we just kind of walked around the store a bit, I got House, Will & Grace, and Nip/Tuck for about $15 each.

After Target we headed out into the mall to see what else we could find. We stopped at a photo booth and got our pictures taken (something we've been wanting to do since about 6th grade) Then we went to Toys R' Us so Cat could buy something for her little brother and sister, but the line to checkout was weaving all the way around the store so we decided to leave and move on to MC's where I bought stuff for my dad and Cat bought a shirt. Then we went to Bath & Body Works for about 4 seconds and headed over to Best Buy to find Nick. at 8AM we finally left and went to the B z B for breakfast....which I don't remember too well because I wasn't relly consious.

Once I dropped Cat and Nick off at home I layed down and went to sleep for about an hour....then I had to go to Jonesville to see my Great Grandma...fantastic...the only good thing about that was I got to ride with my Uncle Brian in his Semi Truck...that was a lot of fun.

When I FINALLY got home around 3:30PM (it felt like midnight) I went to sleep and woke up 18 hours later.

Black Friday was a ton of fun and I'll probably go again next year...maybe...if I ever recover from this year...

TURKEY DAY!

Today my Mom's side of the family went over to my Aunt Kim's house to celebrate Thanksgiving. It was a ton of fun, all 13 of us playing random trivia games...that was interesting to say the least...Then my youngest cousin started telling racial jokes...yeah....my favorite was "What do you call a line of black people in front of your house?..... A spicet fence!" ...... *chirpchirp* ..... "Drake... don't you mean ...Mexicans" .....yeah big fun.

My thanksgiving was a ton of fun and I hope yours was too!