mary is excited!

Mary is very excited... no she doesn't get to go to NYC anymore and go mountainbiking next week, and go see shows ... but with patience that will happen soon.

Ok, no more 3rd person :-)

I was majorly stressing about not having enough money for my travelling, and not being able to enjoy my tripping around the states. I had some free accomodation with friends, but it still costs money to travel etc, and I've come out of camp worse off than I thought I would moneywise.

THEN ... a job opportunity came up ...
on sunday I leave camp, there's one day left at the moment, and I'll be leaving at 730am the next morning. Anyway, I'm leaving to go to Boston where I'll meet my new boss. I'm working for the next 3-4 weeks selling posters at universities. Now I know it doesn't sound too exciting but picture this:
A poster store set up at the main american colleges, hanging out on campus all day. Getting paid to sell people stuff they actually want. And what do i get in return ...?
Well we get paired up for work, staying 1-5 days at each uni depending on the size of it. And for working each day selling posters we get:
a car or van
fuel card
free hotel accomodation for the 2 of us
(basically we just pay for our food and shopping)
and we get $400 a week plus commission! Most people make $550-800 a week.

So... now I can see a few states and universities, and afford to enjoy the other 4 weeks of my travels.
God is awesome! I was stressing out big time, couldn't sleep, etc, then I prayed about it the other night because I couldn't handle it ... the next evening this job came up, and the guy hired me without even meeting me! God doesn't waste any time thats for sure. I applied yesterday, talked to him on the phone today (friday), and we start driving for our first destination on sunday nite when I get to boston. Not sure where to yet ... apparently its either Vermont, Conneticut, New Hampshire or West Massechusets. That's for the first 5 days, then who knows! :-)

a few pictures

ok so since im such a slacker at writing, I thought I'd leave you with a few pictures for now until I get around to writing stuff. It's just too busy sometimes to sit down and write a lot ... sorry! I'll catch up on the last few weeks though, I promise!

What can I say ... so many people, so many things happening all at once. The latest party places are also a fitness test ... "the falls" is a waterfall about 40 mins walk away, mostly downhill, which means it's over an hour walk back when you've been drinking and you're walking uphill. It took us over an hour and a half to get back one nite ... because we stopped partway and lay in the middle of the private road we were walking on. It's great fun trying not to fall asleep at 430am walking home ;-)

Had a good nite that nite, it was last week I think, everything blurs together here and its hard to know what day it is. All I can say is it lived up to frenchwoods tradition. Those of you who know this camp, or know my stories from last time I was here can figure that out, haha. Making some good friends, mostly I hang out with the theatre crowd (all us stage managers, assistant directors, directors, etc), or I have a couple of groups of mates who I tend to go out with to parties etc. A few of you will laugh at the fact that I appear to have met pretty much every south african here, hehe, yes I know you're shaking your head at me. Hey its camp, what can I say.

So far my social life consists of hanging out in the theatre office ( alot more fun than you'd think, we're all fun), going "round the lake" which is a little hangout across the lake where we're allowed to go drinking, or "the falls" which is a much longer walk but we can do bonfires by the waterfall, or "the cc" our local country club for us legal ones over 21 (we're few and far between).

Camp itself is a busy time. I spend my day checking up on classes that my staff are teaching, check in on rehearsals, chase up on my stage managers and their work, and try to co-ordinate things with our lighting, sound, stagecraft, props and costume depts. It can be a hectic day or a cruisy one with busy times, just depends on the day. But there's definitely never a dull moment.
Next session I'm hoping to hang out in circus for tumbling classes, but I'll have to see if I have time. It can be tough fitting other activities in during the day. But for the sake of my sanity I'll be doing at some stage this summer: tumbling (back handsprings training), rock climbing, mountainbiking, maybe some boxing, and some hip hop classes. There's a point where no matter how busy you are you need to take time out.

I went shopping 4 days ago at woodbury common. I'll tell you about that another time though, it was manic! 250 factory outlets ... we're talking aeropostale, gucci, ralph lauren, etc .... hehe, yeah!!

By the way ... feeling unloved right now, not a single piece of mail :-( Send me something :-)
Mary Sandford - Theatre Staff
Frenchwoods Festival of the Arts
PO Box 609
Hancock
New York 13783
USA

My birthday

Ok so I'm gonna have to rewind the last two weeks. Things have been hectic here, and on top of that we've had lightning and thunder storms that took out power, phones and internet a couple of times. So now it's catch up time :-) I'll date them as if I was writing them back then though :-)

Ok so .... I'm at camp. Good old frenchwoods, no one can understand what this place is like unless you've been here :-) This session (they're 3 week sessions each) we're doing 9 full productions. My birthday was spent doing auditions with about 250 kids, then a casting meeting, then damage control for upset kids who didn't make it in their preferred show. So I didn't get to actually celebrate my birthday on the day itself.

Two days later however ... Myself and Rachel (another awesome kiwi)both celebrated. her birthday was that nite. About 50 of us went to the CC ... a place you'll hear mentioned regularly. It's the country club where we go for drinks. Walking distance ... but a challenge to walk down the driveway at times. Anyway, we all went up there for drinks, made friends with more of the staff (there's a lot of us, I'm still meeting people), and I managed to not buy a single drink myself all nite. I will defintely say I wasn't in the best condition at the end of it though. But I was around mates so it's all good. We stumbled back to camp about 2am, and when I say stumbled, I mean it. 6 of us in various combinations of people throughout the walk, holding each other up as we walked down a dark driveway without a flashlight. Falling in a ditch with 3 other people attached to you is an experience not to be missed, haha. Only one major bruise ;-)

It was a good nite though, was good to get out and just relax and chill out with people. The drinking age here is 21, so a limited number of us can go there. There are plenty of other places though ... you'll hear about them later :-) There's always a party on somewhere every nite. You just get your share of exercise getting to them! and back...!

Oh I forgot to mention, if we're not back at camp by 2am we can't come back til 7am. It's a mission sneaking in past our 2 ex-israeli army security guys who are sniper trained. Yep, real security... to protect us from ourselves I think, haha.

I haven't really taken pictures yet, that nite my camera battery died on me. But one day I'll add photos I promise :-) That's the birthday nite over and out. A good one, and well worth celebrating :-)

RIP GHDs

Yesterday morning my ghd's blew up. For those who understand the world of hair straighteners you'll understand how devastating that is! :-( I'm gonna see what it costs to get them repaired, but we'll see if anything can be done.

Had a day out shopping at walmart yesterday. I'll tell you all about the adventures later. Right now I think I'm gonna go escape to have a drink with some fellow staff. Big day tomorrow when 335 kids arrive and I run auditions for 9 shows, eeek!

Ciao for now!

Oh and for those who don't know my address:
Mary Sandford - Theatre Staff
Frenchwoods Festival of the Arts
PO Box 609
Hancock
New York 13783
USA

Feel free to send letters, care packages of real chocolate (they dont have cadbury here!), minties, other lollies, any treats, hehe. Ok so im not good at hinting, but yeah feel free to send stuff. Even letters to show me you still love me ;-) hehe.

Oh and yes my birthday is the 9th .... but my birthday cards can arrive late :-P

NYC!!

hey everyone, well just a brief entry before I go to bed, im exhausted.

I arrived in NYC on friday after an 18 hour journey, slept half of it though so all good :-) Then stayed up all nite talking to random people at my hostel... paid for a bed i never used, lol. Then off to camp on saturday. No kids yet but its been pretty busy. I'm production managing the theatre dept and have a crew of 50 people ... about 15 of them I deal with directly all the time, the others I check up on every now and then :-) Spent today sorting out scripts etc. So many people from all over the world here! Lots of people from the UK, and aussie, some of us from NZ, South Africa, and a bunch of people from russia working in the kitchen making and serving us food :-) Think we have about 200 people, and another 150 coming in 3 weeks. The guys are seriously outnumbered though, which im sure they love, about 3 to 1 I think.

I get my own laptop for the summer which is kinda cool, and I've been told to feel free to put my msn messenger etc on there... so anyone on my msn, aim or yahoo may see me online occasionally :-)

I'll post some pics sometime, nothing too exciting yet cos I didn't go into the city in NY ... been there twice so I wasn't urgently trying to rush there this time, I'll see the city when I finish camp.
I've been sick since friday ... got a headache, then sore throat, then lost my voice, and now I have a stupid head cold with it! So anyone feel free to pray for that to get better. My voice is coming back but very slowly. I must seem pretty shy and quiet here .... little do they know! haha.

Balletomania

On Thursday night I did my first ever Ballet class!! Yes you read right, and yes I'm crazy ... I think I need to be ay? Les mills has this new class called Balletomania ... it's basically a ballet class without the bar. I spent an hour doing stuff which my body wasn't designed for ... my feet don't turn out that far, and standing up on my toes isn't a daily exercise for me :-) Part of the class involved doing gallops and leaps across the room, and various other moves.

I think I'll definitely give it another go.

Have to admit though ... it was fun :-) I can really feel my legs and my butt today though!!