The Breakdown

I don't know if I should even write this entry, but I decided o be honest with myself about what's real. I decided not not feed the illusion of a perfect flawless success story and market my life as everyone else is in the habit of doing: only presenting the positive parts and omitting all the negative. After all, perception is reality right? (Esp with all this social networking) But, I decided that I'd rather be real than a cool kid.

 So, every once in a while, I will get so overwhelmed with my goals vs. where I am currently at in life and it deeply frustrates me to the point where I will have what I label as a "breakdown," which is basically a crying session, where I let myself vent everything that I'm feeling, selfish, honest, hurt thoughts about life. I got off work from the restaurant today after it was incredibly slow and I walked out the door with twenty-one dollars. Yep. Ugh. I'm 25! I'm better than this! I have a college education! I was Valedictorian! I had my own talk show, directed and produced many works!!! What have I become? why do I feel like such a loser? Ugh. The money/ time battle. Wasn't I supposed to be better at this? Wasn't I supposed to conquer the world and do great things? and here I waste my time earning just twenty one dollars for the day?! Do I really have what it takes? I can't afford to live like this forever! It's getting old budgeting so strictly and never being able to buy stuff! I'm trying and failing! AGGGHHHHH!!!!

Well, that's the essence of it. And then I ended up in a heap on the floor sobbing deeply, my tears dropping onto the carpet. When am I going to grow up? When is everything gonna work out? Maybe I should sell out like all my other actor friends and do the 9 to 5 until I'm so depressed I jump off a cliff? Okay, sorry trying not to keep this too morbid. And then I water the front yard and do my laundry and I feel this immense release and I feel so much more free. I allow myself to have "a day off" from the career, make room for my shortcomings. Then the next day I feel unusually motivated.

The cool thing is that I am looking at starting my own business through this company, Arbonne. When it goes well, I will have a flexible schedule and money to compensate my career and pay these nagging loans! I am praying with everything in me that this works out, so I can get my life and myself back! It's time for a big change anyway. I'm restless for an answer. I think God has heard my prayers and wailing after all... I start my first party in two days and I'm beyond stoked for a new opportunity!

Long hours

I worked a double today at my restaurant to pay for my acting career/ classes/ ect. I guess it's important to write about the not so glamourous moments of this journey. I am about to launch my youtube series on my channel, so more to follow once that is completed. I'm pretty sure you can just search "Christina Carabajal" and find my youtube channel and see the stuff posted there. Thanks peeps for checking it out!

Also, I am taking a leap and starting my own business on the side. It is part time now while I am building it and the hope is that it could be my sole income. What is it? Wouldn't you like to know? More details to follow! I am simply so proud of myself for continuing to try new things even after all this rejection, I am pushing forward with passion for my dreams. So ready to jump off that cliff!

Knowing your talents

So, I just got back from a last minute trip to Vegas for an audition. Literally less than a week before, one of my good friends told me she was going to go audition to be a dancer on a cruise ship. This has been something that has always fascinated me, so I thought, "What the heck.. why not? yolo, right?" So I quickly rearranged my work schedule and tried to get everything ready for the trip. I love it when scheduling works out! The joys of working at a restaurant.. flexibility! (Side note: I randomly found the cutest little lost kitten on a run in the brush the next day and had to find her a home fast, the poor thing, so it was a busy few days before the trip). Anyway, I flung all my clothes into a bag and drove to my theatre show with unpainted nails and made it to my friend's place around 11. We packed everything and were alseep by 1. Alarm goes off at 5.....5am. Road trip time! We are exhausted and running on adrenaline, but we do in fact make it to Vegas. Phew. We got to the studio in time to stretch and she reconnected with some dancers she knew from school.

Let me preface the next portion of the story by saying I have never been to a professional dance audition in my life. I had a general idea of how things would be run, I mean, it has to be structured a little similarly to an acting audition, right? I knew we were auditioning for a cruise ship. In my mind, that meant we would be doing a lot of show chior type things... musical theatre styled dances... no sweat. Well, as more and more girls began to arrive, it was obvious one of these things was not like the other... mostly becaise I was one of the only ones not in booty spandex and a bra... why did I not get the almost naked outfit memo?? Literally, girls butts and boobs were all over the place; way more skin than I bargained for. But, whatever! I'm an entertainer!!! I can rock this!!!And my D-cups are bigger than any of their wanna be A-cups anyway... Too much? Inappropriate? ... Sorry, just being honest.

We file into the dance room after checking in and providing our headshots. Still, doing okay, feeling pretty confident. Then it went south SO FAST! The instructor gave us a 24 count and went through all of the steps so fast... Thats like 20 different moves in 30 seconds.Then those around me all began to move so effortlessly and gracefully as if the moves were verbalized by the teacher and immediately absorbed through their skin through osmosis. What?? You've got to be kidding me! I was trying to get the counts down and running steps a few times, but everyone else in the room seemed to have a perfect memory. We did that three times before adding another 24 counts and another 24 after that.. All the girls were working on the finalizing touches and I was proud of myself for having the first 16 counts down pat. I was in waaay over my head and I was waay out of my element. I didn't have the dance background to know what all the steps were called and I wasn't trained with the muscle memory to learn dance combos in ten minutes. I also bumped into a few girls when I was a step behind; they were gracious enough to smile. I was at an audition with girls who have devoted their life to dance, who have been dancing upwards of 18 years, so I was obviously struggling. It was so embarassing!!!! I wanted to shout so loud, "This is my first dance audition of my life!! I'm really an actress!! That's why I am so terrible!" Then it occured to me that I will never see any of these girls again (outside of my friend who already loves me), so why make excuses. And besides, they don't care. They're probably so glad that I was awful, so they could think things like, "well, at least I'm not as bad as that girl" or "there's one less competitor." I know reading this might sound slightly dismal, but in the moment, it was so funny! Like sooooo funny! I was laughing so much on the inside as I wabbled about like a penguin among so many swans. "Well, I'm definitely an actress," I smiled to myself.

I decided instead of running out of the room and hiding, I would do what I do best and act through the combo. All the showgirl smiles and glances were there and I exuded the most incredible confidence for how much I was lacking in dance knowledge. I wasn't going to make excuses, I wasn't going to quit. I was going to give the best audition I could.... and then the kicker.... we auditioned in groups of three. Ugh! Really!! We couldn't do 5?!!! It was painful to watch the glimpses of myself in the mirror that I did see, but I powered through and did my strong finish smiling. Relief. It was over. This was a big challenge for me and I was so out of my comfort zone. It really stretched me a lot. More than any recent acting auditions I'd been to. And I wasn't surprised to be cut in the first round. Thank God, because the second round was all this leaping and c jumps that I literally just couldn't do haha.

I was stoked my friend got to do the callbacks! She's amazing and I had never seen her dance, so that was fun, but no more professional "dancer" auditions for me! I better stick to the scripts. It's what I love anyway. This was a random whim and great adventure.. all the more confirming where I really belong.

Remember....

I'm mentally preparing myself for class tomorrow. I'm on this new kick of making bold choices and being unappologetic... so they are coming tomorrow; I'm moving past the safe zone and I've already decided people are going to love it! That is confidence and that is what sells in LA! Wish me luck for a spot I'm doing tomorrow!!!!

Killian's Workshop and a Revelation

So, Killian has us work on a new commercial each week and this one was with a couple partners. Normally, at a commercial audition (like the one I had last week) when you have partners, you have at least two seconds to say hello/ banter before you walk in the room, but Killian requires complete silence before. This creates a tense environment to try to work and is not helpful for me personally because I am very much a verbal processor. I get what he is trying to do: prep us professionally, get us to think and be creative silently. I suppose it has helped me realize how much of my creative process is verbal collaboration with others. That is when I do my best work. I guess I need to start figuring out a better way to creatively process.. through writing in the lobby when I have my sides? or Imagining? I don't know! I also learned that it helps for me to write out a very very specfic timeline of when lines are said and facial expressions are changed and banter/ sighs/ pauses can occur and to do my own thing in the room. To be a force and LEAD my group and obviously be open to listening if anyone can bring anything else. But I guess I'm learning that the other actors in the room aren't that dependable. I want this. I have to book, irregardless if others are taking it seriously or not.... This is very important to me and I have to treat it that way despite the "looks" I get in the lobby. Commercials are a lot of focus and because it is so fast, every second is precious. Every second is gold, Every second should be part of a great performance. It's a lot to think about and yet make it seem all relaxed and flawless in the room.....

Anyway, it's been fun because I got to go out to eat at Thai Palms on Hollywood Blvd with my actor friend who is visiting from Seattle. We got a group together and the papaya salad almost burned my tongue off! It was AMAZING! Highly recommend it!

After my class with Killian, we met up again to catch the 11 pm UCB show. 4 comedians and I discovered that the key to stand up comedy is much like the key to improv or commercials or any acting- based arena: 100% confidence and 0% fear. Even if you feel like retreating in yourself you cannot show any type of wavering or doubt ever... and for whatever reason, this is what people like to see in a performance. I wonder if it's psychological.. like as humans we need to find someone secure in themselves so we ten can feel secure... anyway, that is what this city is after--- boldness and confidence...sprinkled in with a decent personality, nice smile and someone who is generally kind and responsible... but mostly bold and confident. This is my next goal of what I will try to be... bold and confident. I will walk in to class next week and possibly screw up really bad, but I will do it with pure confidence. At the end of Killian's class, he showed us a clip of Louis Armstrong scatting with Danny Kay and his point was their complete confidence and joy in performing-- that is what we should strive for. We have to want to be in the room more than anything else in this world. Because if you dont want it more than anyone else there, someone else will. "You must be a FORCE in this city" That's what stuck with me more than anything else that he said.

At the end of the day, I know I'm not perfect and that I don't have it all figured out, but gosh I love acting and I love learning and I love working creatively... and even if it doesn't show up on camera now, I will find a way to make it show up and keep pressing on, learning from my mistakes, because sheesh... I can imagine that I will make a lot of them... and that is the life and the journey that I would love and passionately live.

Killians workshop week 2

We'll, I survived week 2 of killians adult workshop! Woo hoo! It's interesting because he constantly brings attention to things I wouldn't normally pay attention to... The details of what will set you apart from other auditions and as you do it more and more, it becomes more second nature. He is also very specific in what he is asking which adds tension to the room because no one wants to be called stupid for missing a game-changing detail. Our second take as a class was much better and we are getting to the place where we take direction quickly, which is very helpful. I also got to socialize with people before class where we could get a feel for everyone's perspective. They were all as thrown off as I was which is sickeningly comforting.... That's so mean lol. I personally need to work on making bolder, gutsy choices. It's easy to stay in the safe zone and do something "right". But you have to go above that to book. I'm still figuring that out haha.

Oh, after the class I met my friend who just moved to la for a ucb show, this one was different because it was more like stand up comedy. Most of the cast was great, but there was this one guy who was terrible, who appeared to be drunk, but I couldn't tell if he was faking it or not. But we laughed and enjoyed young la life where you don't know what's happening most of the time. But hey, that's the adventure of it 😃.  Anyway, I spent hours last week practicing learning commercial lines quickly and working the one we did from the first week. We didn't have homework this week, but I'll probably refresh anyway.  I'm such a school girl! Maybe that will pay off??? Okay , I'm done rambling... Gonna go check that #cmail!!!!

Boot Camp week 1

I feel my life is often full of these hiatuses... (If that's what the plural of hiatus is??? ) from blogging and I've finally decided that I'm not going to feel bad about living my life as opposed to writing about it. Last week, I did another short with a director that I'm building a good relationship with. He really liked the 2nd project we did together where I played a literal man eater.... Like I are men... For dinner.  Anyway, it is a good reminder of how a career operates. People have and always will want to work with talented friends. This means I must be talented. And as I'm working on that, I must make friends that matter. This director is one of them. The projects are sag which brings a more professional crew and cast. This networking thing takes time and I'm not gonna be mad at myself because I'm in the beginning! I'm building connections and continually moving and reminding myself that everyone wishes they were further along in the process; I'm not alone. Phew, breath. I went to the introduction to my 4 weeks of boot camp in killians adult workshop. I like the way he is and how he runs things. He demands a certain standard of excellence and I feel challenged and insecure, but striving to get better. That's why I'm investing to be there. I may not be perfect by the end of the four weeks, however I will try my best, do the homework and soak in as much as I can. That's all I can ask of myself and I will trust that is enough. After all this class is 100 percent for me, not my classmates or even Killian. I will make a choice to be better. These are the thoughts in my mind as I'm running through Walmart trying to find a dry erase board for my homework. I'm excited to push myself and see what happens...  Hopefully this will be so intense that after I will feel prepared for any audition opportunity.

I think... I found my type

It was so crazzy! I went strait from filming one short film to working at the restaurant until midnight and then up at 5am for a different early shoot the next morning! Phew... When it rains, it pours! Ah!

 It's funny because for this short I am also playing a vixen as in the one before this... In one of the scripts, I hold a man at gunpoint at the end and in the other, I seduce men to syringe the blood out of men to eat them....

I always thought of myself as a nice girl next door, but casting sees me as a seductive vixen I suppose. It must be the deep voice and bedroom eyes, well. It is what it is and if this is my train, you better believe I will be riding it as far as possible haha.

Mid March Musings

I suppose that appologies are in order because I have basicaly dropped off the face of the earth and if I tell you there was no time to write or no revelations that have happened for the past month in a half, those would be lies. It's just that every time I sit down to write, I feel this overwhelming weight or uninspred... as if I have nothing of particular interest to say. The opposite is probably true, but I also haven't been the most confident in my career as of late.

Here's the thing, and I am sure I am not alone in thinking this... If I was given the opportunities to showcase my talent, I would succeed, if I could get into the right rooms, if I could meet the right people at the right time... if, if, if....It turns out that a career in acting this days is not an acting career at all, but more of a Marketing career. My first job is as self promoter for my brand and obviously, my brand is myself. I spend more time marketing than I do actually acting and it's a surprising revelation. I have adjusted to the industry and have my website and facebook fan page, my twitter that I created just to tweet about auditions and my career. Which, by the way, I think is stupid, but it's something you just have to do, so I do it... I have my youtube page and funny or die account and ect, ect... It's just funny to me.... and slightly annoying, but I've learned to be a marketer.

I am grateful to have an agent, however I wish I went out more often. But, the thing I'm discovering about LA is that every single actor in LA wants a better agent and every single actor also wants to go out more...

I've made some good connections. One with a SAG company that does short films and I'll be working on my second one in three days... That one is a five minute short. I have a friend from UCB that is a part of another production company that has a youtube channel for comedy sketches and I've done a couple projects with them.

I am currently in Ojai for a few days on location shooting a 15 minute short where I get to play a psychopath lead, so that is very thrilling. It is fun to work with people you like and respect as artists. I did a short with them about a year ago. And the idea of doing this on a much bigger scale for a longer period of time sounds more and more appealing. It is incredibe to me how fast the day is gone when youre filming. We wrap for the day and I think, "there's no way thats been 12 hours!" It's impressive. They say find a career that doesnt feel like work so that youll never work a day in your life.. which is why I keep chugging along and I'm grateful for the progress even if it is slow.

The good thing is that I'm developing my reel, which I desperately needed to do, so that excites me!

My UCB group broke apart because of scheduling conflicts. Hopefully, I can join another one soon. Improv really challenges me. I honestly don't like the harold. It's been really hard for me; I definitely prefer a script any day of the week, but I push myself to do it, I challenge my actor brain and my pride and force myself to keep developing those skills and the networking you get from that commuity is a huge incentive for me as well.

I'm continuing to do Killian's classes and they are a huge help for commercials. I feel like I'm constantly learning new things and getting little tools for my actor belt. I learned a great trick about grounding myself this past week and Jacob is a darling! He's always so helpful :) He takes time to teach which is a huge treat because a lot of casting workshops in this city somehow make me feel abused as if someone is just taking my money and doesn't care about me.... It's sad, but I continue to try and develop those relationships.

Guys, when I make it, it's going to be some kind of miracle and this amazing story of adventure and overcoming adversity, but oh, how sweet when the days come when I can say I am a working actor instead of actor/waitress, ugh! I can't wait!!!!

Valentine's Update

Happy Valentines Day reader! I dropped off for a month because I've been over-promoting myself with twitter. Ugh. all this self promotion its "supposed to magically work" but we have yet to see. I'm not really a fan, but my agent tells me to, so I do it. I added more pictures to my la casting and actors access sites, which I think will be a good investment. I got cast in two different short films coming up, one of them is SAG, so I get to be SAG-eligible now, which is wayy exciting and opens a whole new world. Some of my veteran actor friends say to avoid joining sag as long as possible, but honestly. I'm over non-union work. I want to start doing projects that actually matter and I'm ready to jump in the pond! It's time to put some umpf behind myself, it's time to take a risk and believe in me! I have dinner theatre tonight and life is the same old otherwise. Things are getting more and more speckled with acting and I'm excited for the future!!!

Beginnings with an agent!

I met with my agent to show him all of the new pictures I took with the photographer and he liked a LOT of them. It took him a good while to sort through the final choices. He picked 19 of the 130 I brought in and those were out of over 1000 pictures I took featuring 12 different looks. Definitely a process finding the right shots. Anyways, now I have to do touchups before I can put them online for submissions and touchups cost even more money!!! Ah!!!! everything is so expensive! And I'm only a waitress, there's no sugar daddy over here coughing up money to help me out :( jkjk. I am so grateful. I just happen to be brooding over ways to make more money/ reduce my spending. But, I am so HAPPY.

Having an agent is like having a personal tutor for a class. He gives me "homework" to do every time I leave, but this homework is like the funnest, most exciting homework ever!!! I know that its new and the new jitters may wear off over time, but right now I am celebrating. Getting an agent is one of my big goals for myself, something at one point, I thought would be impossible... and yet, here I am! Ah!!! It's real. Of course now, I actually have to book things. But I'm excited for auditions; I'm excited for a challenge; I'm excited to have someone on my team and I'm ever so stoked to be living this actress lifestyle. It is totally up my alley. It's a life that I could love and enjoy; it's a life of adventure and often never the same adventure twice... so I decided I don't care how much money it takes! I am worth it! Living passionately and vitally is worth it!!!! And so is being happy! The longer I live, the more I discover how truly rare happiness can be, so I am grateful and clinging to these early "starving actress" days! I was driving back from the agency and I started to tear up thinking of the possibilities. My hope and joy have been restored! Sheesh, I'm such an emotional being... but this is the one career where that actually works to my advantage! yay!

My next assignment after paying for touch-ups and putting them on the appropriate sites is to fine tune my resume and be SAG eligible. Another mountain. But, like my agent told me, "It's gonna be a battle, but we can do it!" I love that attitude and I'm so ready to get my boxing gloves on!

Manager Workshop

Wednesday, I went to a manager workshop with my actress friend. We did a scene together from the odd couple. It was a LOT of energy. Not sure if it was received well or not, but it was a blast. I have gotten to the point where I just love to perform and audition. They are always new, exciting and suspenseful. Adrenaline junkie much? There were five managers on a panel. I felt good about how our scene went and it definitely helped that we ran it in class Monday. The managers were SURPRISINGLY personal and fun and nice! It was so strange. They gave us great notes on fine tuning our resumes and took time to talk with us. They very much emphasized the "ethnically ambiguity" of my last name and how that would help me at this point in the industry. Being ethnic is trendy now. Only in America will a Caucasian patriot with generations of passion invested in America's great history struggle more than a foreigner. It's so sad and ironic, but true and if that offends you its because its true. Sorry, done with my soapbox. Well, that's the game, so I have little option, but to play it. Anyway, I felt my money was well invested. I got to say hi to a friend from dinner theatre and it always is fun to run into people you know at auditions and the like. It means you have done a little mileage I suppose. Meanwhile, my friend and I rehearsed our scene in the middle of a residential community in Beverly while casual onlookers were either scared or entertained. The night was beautiful and we even got to sit and chat while the fancy cars droned by on Robertson.

I went to an audition today for a phone company. In the script, I had a dad and it was so much fun to work. We did three takes in the room with some direction and the third read was so strong, dead on! I'm getting better at reading and hitting the beats for commercials. That was the high of my day. I'm beginning to feel the financial strain. I want to take all these classes, but I have bills to pay. I'm prioritizing and making a wish list. I'm also thinking of getting a third job. We'll see. The last time I had three jobs, I hated my life. I personally need some form of downtime or I'll go crazy!!! I meet with my agent Monday to go over new photos I took. I am very excited and I think I might pay a little extra to get more specific photos on LA Casting... once again weighing the finances. Life is good and I'm so grateful. I am following my dreams and doing what I love best!

This is the Year!

So much is happening!!!

I took pictures for my agent. I was able to do a 7 hr shoot of 12 looks for an unbeatable price and I'm stoked with how the photos turned out! I have specific casting looks which will help me out a lot I feel. I'm trying to sort out the top ten of each look, but even that is proving to be a project. I'm excited to bring them to my agent and go from there.

I took a break from improv group for Christmas and New Years. We resume this week with our improv group. I'm so excited for how it is growing. We are really learning each other which makes us stronger as a team.

Tonight I went to a class to work a scene with a friend of a friend. We are both doing a manager workshop in two days and so her acting teacher coached our scene this evening. So, I got to semi-audit the class for free! I loved it. After my little acting class break for a few months, I was able to look at it with fresh eyes and I was reminded of why I do what I do. Sometimes, just for the art of it, for the fun rehearsals, for the growth and stretching. It's all so fun and fascinating to me! We are doing a scene from the female version of the odd couple, which is a fun script. He helped direct us to the style of how it is written and to heighten the stakes and focus our energy and voice. It felt like a work out, but so rewarding. We are going too trim the scene a little so we can "bam" when we perform.. you know? Anyway, I was reminded of how much I do actually know about acting. I sometimes forget I studied it for years because I'm so "green" in the industry.

Well, I'm exercising my acting muscles. The next thing is to get those auditions rolling and book, book, book. I was speaking with a mentor figure today in the center where my partner and I practiced before class and she said something that struck me: "The entertainment business in LA is designed to break you, to tear you down, but even when you're all torn up, if you keep going, something's gotta give." She took a break for a couple years because of life. We never stop being artists. At least I probably never will. I will continue to do what makes me happy in class or theatre or elsewhere, even if I can't make a ton of money at it and I've decided that I'm okay with that. If something bigger does happen, it's all a bonus. That perspective has helped me persevere here. I made the decision that I want to be a great actress. People may not see it yet, but they will.