Upadate while on a brief homework break

Haven't written a substanial update in a while so here ya go...
Last weekend I went to Maine and spent some time at Matt's house in Kennebunk... which is gorgeous. His cousin Tim and wife Melanie came over with their baby daughter Abby who was so cute!! Saturday we went to the Portland Seadogs game which was Cooper's present for graduation. We met up with Cooper Jon and Nick Heilner. It was a good time despite the cold and outcome of the game Connecticut creamated Portland 12-1. We went out to dinner at Sebago Brewing Company which my friend Erin Ludwig recommended. I was totally disappointed she could not meet up with us so hopefully I will get to see her whenever I go to Maine next. The food was really good and I highly recommend if you ever find yourself traveling to Portland. It was a great weekend. I can't wait to go to Matt's house again. :)
Job search has not really picked up any recently. Roadblock after roadblock seems to pop up. It is getting kind of impossible not to get discouraged. Stupid economy!!! I don't want to be broke anymore. The articles I write for the Cabinet don't really give me much money.. that money usually tends to go to going out with friends.. which I have to less of nowadays because I don't want to go totally broke. I am after all trying to rebuild my bank account from when I went to New York with Matt in April, Hopefully I will get more hours for subbing or a full time or part time job at one of the schools in July
.My class at the tech college started Tuesday night and I must say I am happy that I chose to study speech pathology. It helps me to semi pay back the regret I have for not choosing to originally major in Special Education at NEC because if I get a decent job in that field after I graduate then I will still get to work with students with disabilities something that a long with writing is a huge passion of mine. I love knowing I can make a difference in the life of child. I do not know how long it's going to take me to complete all of the requited classes but THANKFULLLY my general education requirements will all transfer over from NEC so I won't have to worry about taking lab science or college writing. :)


The Tony Awards are in less the 3 weeks... June 7th. I am incredibly excited that HAIR is nominated for 8 awards and will seriously cry if Gavin Creel and Will Swenson do not get Best Leading Actor/Best Supporting Actor in a musical because they were both AMAZING!!! I hope Billy Elliot does really well too.

Ultimately I have decided it would better for my mental sanity if I didn't go back to the Barn Playhouse to go see any plays this summer. I have driven myself and other people plenty crazy with worrying about stuff related to the Barn Playhouse and fearing people from my intern company will forget about me ( which obviously they have not forgotten about me) . Going to the Barn may or may not cause my depression to come back but weather or not that's a deciding factor it's time to move on. I do not necessarily need to go back to the Barn Playhouse to see a show in order to accept the changes that have gone on there since I left. Please read the below poem that basically gets down to the nitty gritty. I would much better off emotionally if I went to go see a play at other theatres such as Nancy' Barry's theatre in Meredith. I actually feel more happy when I go see shows in Meredith and hopefully plan to get a job there next summer if I do not find something that pays a substantial amount of money by January. I have also been doing networking with people that have done summer stock at other theatres in New England and have come up with a list of other places to apply to which include Mount Washington Valley Theatre in North Conway, Hackamatack Theatre in Berwick Maine, Maine State Music Theatre in Brunswick Maine *Will Porter worked there before he worked at NLBP let's see if he answers my email and Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit Maine just to name a few. Oh the joys and powers of networking. :)
Well not much else to say... until later ... much later farewell my loves.
Janine

American Idol Season 8 That's A Wrap

American Idol Season 8 Finale Recap

Summary of Last Night's Finale Performances

Battiling it out Kris Alllen and Adam Lambert.
Protocol last night was sing a favorite song of theirs from the season a pick by the producer Simon Fuller and an original song written
My ratings on the contestants choice stay the same as they originally were
Adam Mad World 4 Good performance not a huge fan of the song
Kris Ain't No Sunshine 8 This one of my favorite songs by him all season long. Clearly one of his best.
Producers Choice (Can't remember either of the song titles)
Adam 6
Kris 7
Original Song
Adam 5
Kris 7
I liked Kris's interpetation of the song better to be perfectly honest. Adam's performance was a lot easier on the ears because there wasn't any screaming.
Totals:
Kris 22
Adam 17
Who will win? It depends on how America voted. I sure hope it's Kris!I'll most likely post another entry sometime later tonight or tomorrow recapping the results show.

AND NOW for the results show summary.....
The final results show of American Idol Season 8!!
Lots of good performances!!! Fergie/Black Eyed Peas, Queen, Kiss, Davind Cook, Ketih Urban, Jason Mraz , Cyndi Lauper, Santana, Queen Latifiah. Overall amazing EXCEPT for Steve Martin. He played a song of his newly released banjo song cd and it was HORRID not to mention it was a duet with Megan Joy and Michael and they are two worst singers from this season in my opinion. They have tradition on American Idol where they salute the people who didn''t make it. Outstanding Male: Norman Gentile OMFG SOOOOOOOOO FUNNY!! "I am so happy to accept this award but I didn't come with anything prepared) *rips off clothes reveiling costume underneath "Hit IT BOYS!"Outstanding Female Tatianna Deltoro They seriously did that one just for the drama

Best Attitude Bikini Girl OMG Kara totally showed her who's boss with the singing. She looked so pissed!
and BEST OF ALL..........
KRIS WON!!
Until January when Season 9 starts!
Janine
and now back to your reguarly scheduled ranting...

"It's something unpredictable but in the end is right I hope you had the time of your life"

People pictured in the left hand side photo are me Cooper Bowman, Erin Ryan,Heather Jewett, Jon Waite and Matt Smith. The picture on the right hand side is me with Cooper

Yesterday was a fun day... but a long one. Matt Heather and I first went up to Henniker for the NEC graduation. The ceremony didn't seem quite as long as last years and it wasn't quite as hot in Lee Clement Area either.. of course the main difference there was that I wasn't in a cap and gown. They had some pretty good speakers though no one could seriously top Luong Ung the Cambodian Refugee who spoke at my graduation last year. The three speeches that stood out the most were the one from the class speaker for the Graduate program, a journalist for the Boston Globe whose words of wisdom related to my field and the main commencement speaker Delfeyo Marsailis a jazz saxophonist from New Orleans. I am so proud of my two best friends Cooper and Erin and I know they will do fantastic with whatever they do with their degrees. Congrats to the NEC Class of 09 and those who also received awards at yesterday's ceremony. I had to skip over some names because they were either said too fast and I didn't have enough time to write them down or I couldn't read my handwriting.

Collegium Awards for Highest GPA

Business Ben Glover,Education Margo Lucas,Liberal Arts and Sciences Casey McFarland,Knowledge Growth and Action Denise Bennett, Natural Sciences and Mathematics Danielle Gianacola and Veritas John Doucette

Outstanding Male and Female Students Gigi Griffin and Hiroto Tzu

Creative Arts Award Emma Laing

Pricscilla C Danforth Athletic Award Jodie Dresser

Staff Member of The Year Rene Hellert

Robert A Kilgore Faculty Award Mark Mitch

After the ceremony we stayed around and mingled with people for a bit and then we hit the road to go up to Meredith to go my friend James's house. It was a nice relaxing evening. We hung out played Rock Band and watched Cloverfield. I do not understand why Cloverfield got so much hype last year. I personally thought the plot made no sense and that it was quite boring. We relaxed a little this morning and then headed up to Laconia to go bowling. I had never been to that bowling alley before and it was a good change of pace from going to Leda Lanes in Nashua. The Lakes Region is very scenic and pretty. I want to get married on Lake Winnipasuakee.

Another week of job searching and volunteer work lies ahead. It will certainly fly by fast and then this weekend Matt and I are taking Cooper to a Portland Seadogs game for a graduation and I'm spending the weekend at Matt's new house in Kennebunk. I am so excited!

Time for bed. I am wiped!!

Janine

Down to the nailbiting finale next week!

So I missed most of tonight's American Idol result show because I went to the movies with friends and then went out for dessert afterwards. I caught the tail end and was happy that Danny went home. His performances this week and last were not at all up to par with the performances he has done of the course of the season

Summary Judges/Contestants Choice Week

Top 3 Adam,Danny KrisDanny went home Kris and Adam remain.
I honestly think Kris will win Adam has been in a league of his own the entire season and will end up with a record deal no matter if he wins or if Kris wins.
Rating Scale 1-10 Combined Scores of Judges pick and contestant pick performances
Adam Total: 19
Judges Choice One U2 10 /His Choice Cryin Aeronsmith 9
Comments: Some songs were a perfect fit for him and others weren't. Some genres worked for him and others did not. Out of the two songs he did last night I perferred One over Cryin.
Danny Total: 13
Judges Choice Dance Little Sister 9/ His Choice You Are So Beautiful 5
Danny has been a favorite of mine the whole season and he pretty much lost his favorite status last night and it carried over to Kris. Most of his performances have been consistent over the course of the season though there were some songs that I liked better than others (Jesus Take The Wheel,What Hurts The Most) His performance last week was absoulutley horrendous due to the fact that he tried to mimic Adam with the screaming and miserably failed. Of his performance this week I liked Dance Little Sister better because I found it to be the better of the uptempo numbers he has done. You Are So Beuatiful was SO SO boring I nearly fell asleep.
Kris Total 16
Judges/His Choice 8
The best he has done all season clearly. Totallly loved how he went acoustic with the second song. It showed even more of his versitility. I definitley plan on buying his records. Same thing with Alexis's Scott's and Allison's

Transtions.. never easy

Transitions are not very easy for me to make. Let me elaborate
Two summers ago I had an amazing internship at the New London Barn Playhouse in New London New Hampshire. It was the most amazing experience of my life. Once we all left to go our sperate ways to school and life away from the Barn it hit me really hard. I had a fullblown depression for several months which is fifty percent over and fifty percent still needs to gain closure.
The part that is healed is the part that is related to drifting apart from the people I worked with. That was rough on me for awhile. One of my coworkers and I were really close to each other by the end of the summer and since we left the Barn Playhouse we have fallen out of touch. The fact that he was the fist person I lost touch with was really hard on me due to the fact that we were like a brother and sister type pair by the end of the summer. The fact that I lost touch with him first made it easier for me to deal with accepting that i've lost touch with a majority of the other people in my intern company other than a very select few. If you read my livejournal you should know who I am talking about.
The second part of my depression is still very much in limbo. It's related to all the changes that have gone on at the Barn since my departure in terms of management. All of these changes are beyond my control and I wish I never had such an emotional connnection to them because it didnt make much sense to be so emotionally attached to them since I am no longer employed by them. I have been fighting with myself back and forth about going to see a play at NLBP this summer because I am worried there is a possibility my depression could come back. There a 95% unlikelyhood of that happening. Going to the Barn, I think will help me gain complete closure to all my anger about all the changes that have gone on at the Barn and i'll be able to have more of an acceptance everything. From then my connection with NLBP will cease because I really have no connections there anymore except for the 5 junior interns that were in the company I directed in Bravery Soup and even the make up of that group has changed because the age limit has been pushed down

More recently the transition I've had issues with making is that from college life to the real world. I graduated from college last year. I honestly can't believe it's been a year already. Post-college life is much different than college life. The thing that was hardest is that I don't get to see my friends as much as I used to and even when I go up to visit them it feels strange because I don't feel like I completely fit in there anymore..not with my group of friends ..I enjoy getting together with them every time I go up.. our little family unit. I must admit though it's grown a little fractured since I left. The atmosphere of NEC in general is where I don't really fit or feel I fit.
The job search as I'm sure you've been reading in my previous entires has been driving me up a total and complete wall. Hopefully the economy willl turn around soon . It is very frusturating because no body is hiring and whatever places are hiring are few and far between.
However I am planning on going back to school. I will be taking some classes at Nashua Tech starting in the summer. I will be starting classes in Medical Coding with Anatomy and Physiology then in September I will take Medical Terminology and a few other classes. The way things are looking it will take me til 2011 to get my certificate.

Later
Janine

Home stretch of American Idol

Amercian Idol Rock and Roll Week Summary of Tuesday Night Performances and Wednesday Night Result Show

Tuesday Night Performaces Ratings and Commentary

It's so hard to beleive that we're already in the homestretch of American Idol and down to the final four contestants. This week they did something interesting and paired Kris and Danny and Adam and Allison up for duets. Here are my standings for Rock and Roll Week. And since we're getting into the final weeks of AI I will review my favorite performances of the season
.Adam
Song: A Whole Lot of Love by Led Zepplin
Rating 9Comments: This was my favorite performance of his other than Tracks of My Tears in Motown Week. He was truly in his element this week and bounced back after being in the bottom three last week.
AllisonSong: Crybaby by Janis Joplin
Rating 8
Comment: Like Adam she was truly in her element this week. She always adds her own flair to whatever song she does.. she is pretty amazing for 17 years old. This was my favorite performace of hers besides Don't Wanna Miss A Thing by Aerosmith during Songs From The Cinema Week
Danny Song Dream On
Rating 6.5Comment: Because of the screaming at the end this song would have been a better choice for Adam. Not my favorite performance by him at all. He'll definitley go home this week. Favorite performance of his was a tie between Jesus Take The Wheel and September.
Kris
Song Come Together The Beatles
Rating 7.5
Comment: For Kris it is all about artistry... as Kara has pointed out week by week. He knows how to make song his own.
Duets
Adam and Allison: Slow Ride By Foghats They have excellent chemistry together on the stage. This performance was very fun to watch. I agree with the judges when they said that they would definitley record a duet on one of their records. It would be phenomnial
Kris and Danny: If the duet performances were calcuated into tonight's judging then it would have saved Danny's chances of staying in the compettion because his solo performance was not up to par. I thought they did a good job.

Results Show Recap

Pro Daughtry

Pro No Doubt

Pro Ford Commercial

Con Allison being sent home. It should have been Danny.

Con Group number was the absolute worst ever.

Neither pro nor con. Paula's performance. Chereography was good but you could definitley tell it was lipsynced

Favorite Performances Throughout the Season

Alexis Grace was a powerhouse along with Allison. I was sad to see her go so early in the compettion. Every song she did was a favorite of mine from her audition to when she got eliminated during country week.
Michael Sarver and Megan Joy Corkery did not have very many memorable performances for me. Nor did Lil Rounds all of her stuff started to sound the same after a while.
Anoop Desai He was easy to fall in love with as his strong points was ballads. He did not fare so well with up-tempo numbers such as Michael Jackson's Beat It.
Scott McIntyre Hands down my favorite performnace by him was Mandolin Rain.
Matt Girard Honestly I thought his performance of My Funny Valentine was one of his best. Last week's theme was definitley his strong suit and I think that Kris should have gone home He also did really good with Stayin Alive, Part Time Lover and Let's Get It On.
Danny September and Jesus Take The Wheel
Allison: Don't Wanna Miss A Thing,Someone To Watch Over Me,Crybaby
Kris Ain't No Sunshine
Adam Tracks of My Tears, A Whole Lot Of Love

My head hurts.... so much stress

My head hurts from all the constant stress and anxiety  I am under with looking for a job.  I  hear back from Rite Aide tomorrow at some point but I highly doubt  I will  get the job there  due to my lack of experience  at a cash register.  This job search has been non-stop for the past 6 months and it seems to turn up absolutely no leads what so ever. I am about ready to temporarily give up my search and wait till the end of the summer when all the college kids go back to school perhaps by then some retail or restaurant hostess jobs will open up.  Even the summer camps I've applied  have an insane number of applicants and  I don't think i'll be getting jobs either.  There is another secretarial position open at the tech school  and  I think  I may apply for that but  i am not sure if the people in  human resources still have my application on file or if  I  will have to fill it out again.

To keep myself  from going totally and completely insane  I have been doing some volunteer work.  Tomorrow  I start my volunteer job @ Plus Company working in their theatre department and writing grants.  I have also been volunteering at the Souhegan Valley Chamber of Commerce two or three days a week doing general office work.  I have met a lot of interesting people so far.

Another thing that adds to my stress is  the whole issue of going back to school.  I have no idea whatsoever  what I want to next as far as education is concerend.

My two options are

Taking classes  at Nashua Tech: I would be taking night classes to earn  a certificate in either Speech Pathology or Medical Coding.  I still can't decide which topic I would rather study or which area would get me a better job.   Speech Pathologists are in high demand right now so that's something to consider

Going to Graduate School at  UNH- Grad School= better job opportunities.  I want  to either study something in communications or education.  The issue with this is money because my  sister is going to college next year and my parents will have to pay for her undergrad  and my grad school if  I choose to go grad school in Sept 2010.  I suppose    I could always do some research on scholarships and loans.  The fact of having to pay even more loans back dreadens me.

American  Idol  Update

Matt got voted off.  This week's theme is  Rock and Roll. It's hard to predict who is going to go  home so soon but  I think that it could either be  Kris or Danny. 

Songs  I'd like to hear the contestants sing this week

Adam  Anything by Elvis

Allison- Anything by Aerosmith because she did really good with Don't Wanna Miss A Thing during  Songs From The Cinema Week

Danny-  Crazy Little Thing Called Love Queen

Kris  Hey Jude The Beatles

Are there  seriously  three more weeks left of American Idol? I'm so sad. My Tuesday/Wednesday nights will lose their color and charm.