Highlights of the Week!

-- Hannah --
I had an AWESOME week full of socializing, classes, socializing, homework, food, and uhh, socializing! Haha dorm life is crazy and I'm making the most fantastic friends, especially in the performing arts! Hands down the best bonding experience so far was COPA midnight fountain hopping!! Fountain hopping is a Chapman tradition, sort of a right of passage, where students go to campus at night and swim in the fountains. So on Wednesday night Sierra and I, entirely disregarding quiet hours, ran around the entire floor in our swimsuits knocking on doors and spreading the word that all the theatre/music/dance kids should go fountain hopping! The response was amazing - and way more than we expected - EVERYONE came! It was incredible!! 

We went to three different fountains, then back to the first because it was the warmest and stayed for ages. It was so fun and carefree! At one point one of my friends, Chase, baptized me in the name of the stage, the screen, and the performing arts and I knew I was with the right group of people. 

This week I also had my first audition at Dodge for a student film which was a great experience. It was a really good first audition and, even though I'm pretty sure I didn't get the role, I had a fun time and learned a lot. I was also in a short film for someone else in Dodge! Yay! It was a lower level film, one about action and telling the story visually, so there weren't any lines, but it felt great to be back in front of a camera - and this time I was actually the focus of the shot!

One of the other highlights has been solidifying an awesome smaller group of friends within COPA. There're about eight of us that hang out a lot and I feel so lucky to be forming such amazing friendships! 

Friday was the best day of the week for so many reasons! One of which was: Lucy came to visit! 

-- Luce --
I've had a very busy week settling into having long days at school! My classes have all really ramped up and I am already learning so much! 

In my Voice class we are starting to learn some very relaxing yoga - it's so fun! It really helps with controlling breathing and becoming centered at the start of the day!

My Movement class has become really intense because my teacher just got back from Edinburgh and London where she directing a show!! After the calming yoga we go straight into a full-blown workout and I am starting to realize how unfit I truly am haha.

Acting class has also been amazing over the week because we've been doing exercises that form great bonds within my class and I'm discovering a lot about my classmates!

On Thursday night some girls from my class invited me over to their place for a girl's night and it was so lovely! We all talked for hours, ordered Chinese food, and watched Now You See Me which was actually a pretty good movie! I left theirs around 12:30 and got home to bed as quickly as I could so that I could be ready to go see Han the next day! Even though it'd only been 4 days since I'd seen her, I still missed her so much!! Ahhh being separated is so hard...

-- Han and Luce --
Luce got to Chapman around 10:30 and Han gave the Chapman guided tour and shouted lunch and Jamba Juice, yum! After that, the two of us and a bunch of Han's classmates went to Disney together for Dapper Day!! 

Dapper Day was so magical!! We all went looking our best and it was so lovely to see everyone else in the park dressed up too. We also ran into three of Lucy's classmates right as we were entering the park! How's that for some Disney magic?! Feeling oh so dapper, we went on a couple rides, met Tianna, then had to duck out back to Chapman for an audition at Dodge that we were both doing! 

The audition was for three student films, one comedy, one sci-fi, and one coming of age story. It was great that Lucy was allowed to audition too! We're so much stronger when we're together and it felt like a great precedent of helping each other out to set as we start a long career together in this industry. We both learned SO MUCH, there really is nothing quite like an audition to prepare you for the next one, so the more experience we can get, the better we'll be for sure!

After the audition, Han treated Luce to a buffet dinner in the cafeteria, then we decided to head back into Disney for another hour and a half of Dapper Day! We took in the ambiance of Main Street at night, went on Star Tours, then, with only five minutes till the park closed, ran across to frontier land to finish the night off on Splash Mountain! We JUST made it and Luce ended up getting SOAKED, too funny! 

Then it was time to drop Han back and say goodbye. It was a perfect little top up visit, though, and we're probably going to see each other next weekend - and we feel no shame! Thank God we ended up at schools only 45 minutes from each other, though, because this whole "getting some independence from each other" plan hasn't been quite what we were expecting...

-- Hannah --
Friday was a HUGE day and my weekend certainly didn't stop there! This was rush weekend for sororities and I loved the whole experience, it was unbelievable! I missed the start of it, which was on Friday, for Disney and auditions (shhh) but I threw myself right in on Saturday and Sunday. I went into it knowing that I probably wouldn't pledge, just because of the huge financial commitment, but rush alone was such a unique experience! On Saturday I went to five parties for different houses and learned all about them and their philanthropy. I met so many incredible women; everyone seemed really kind and genuine - in a lot of ways they broke the stereotype I was expecting. The parties were so different from anything I've ever been a part of before: all the PNMs (potential new members) got lined up in alphabetical order then walked into the room and the sorority sisters were singing and had a whole routine worked out, there were speeches, then it was time to girl flirt like I've never girl flirted before! After the six hour day, one house stood out above the others for me, Delta Gamma, and I felt such a connection with the girls there. When I narrowed down my preferences last night, DG was at the top of my list and I got lucky enough to get invited back today! There were only two parties to go to and I met more really lovely DGs and Kappas (from Kappa Kappa Gamma, the other sorority I was invited back to). When it came down to it, though, I had to say goodbye to all the beautiful girls I'd met and hope that they'll still want to hang out with me even if I'm not affiliated! Haha I'm so glad I did it, though, it was definitely one of those surreal American college experiences that I'll remember for a long time to come.

Sierra and I got all dressy for rush!



The last highlight of my week was last night, after rush finished, when Sierra, Katie, and I organized a surprise picnic for Grace, Chase, and Matthew who'd been in a show that day. We smuggled desserts out of the caf, scoped out the perfect viewing spot, brought pillows and blankets, downloaded the actual soundtrack they play in the park and set up to watch the Disneyland fireworks!! It was so much fun and they loved the surprise! Katie managed to sync up the music PERFECTLY and we all put on a little extra weight thanks to our yummy goodies.

It's been a wonderful week full of so many precious memories and I'm feeling so confident that what's already incredible will only get better and better!

-- Luce --
On Saturday I was booked for background work on the pilot of the show "Faking It" that could potentially be on MTV! It was so amazing to be back on set - I had missed working so much over the past two weeks. There was a great vibe on this set and I recognized a lot of people that I'd worked with in the past which was great! One problem was that the show was set at a high school in the fall, so I had boots, jeans, a T-shirt, and a flannel shirt on but it was 95 degrees outside!!!!!!!!! I thought I was going to pass out from heat stroke a couple of times! Oh my gosh it was so hot... But there were a lot of times that I could retreat to the air-conditioned indoors so thank god for that! I had also forgotten how amazing the food is on set, so I stuffed my face at lunch - yum! After 9 hours of filming the extras were wrapped and we all got on a school bus (which brought on some serious deja-vu!) that took us back to basecamp to sign out. I went home, made dinner, and got an early night in preparation for today...

Today I had my first ever photoshoot! It was an interesting experience because everything was completely new to me..! The photographer I worked with was really nice and he was relatively new as well so there wasn't too much pressure. The location was great too - we were shooting in Griffith Park at the Old Zoo which was beautiful and very artsy! I think it went pretty well considering that it was my first ever modelling job and I had no idea what I was doing, and it definitely gave me a new appreciation for all of the people who go on America's Next Top Model and shows like that because it wasn't easy!

Tonight was wonderful too because I decided to go to church with MeMe and it was so so amazing. She goes to Mosaic church and it was beautiful! There was really great live music as we went in and the singing just elevated my spirits and made me so happy that MeMe had invited me to go with her! Then the sermon was all about healing and it just resonated so much with me - I had tears running down my face and I don't even consider myself to be a religious person! It was such a cathartic experience. There was a great message and I left feeling inspired and ready to face the week ahead.