These Shining {Bear} Lives

Hi, friends!

I'm feeling much better! Thanks for asking! And Katie's getting better, too. I didn't MEAN to get her sick, but...........whoops.

But tonight was a good night! Katie went to see These Shining Lives. It's the first play of JSU's Drama Department's season, and Short Girl and Glasses Boy are both part of it, so of course Katie had to go support them.

Short Girl is the costume designer. Over the summer, she drew pictures of EVERY costume that the actors are going to wear! And then she colored them, and then she MADE THEM! Because not only is Short Girl a costume designer, but she's also a costume maker! (I think they're called stitchers or sewers or manual laborers or something.) And she didn't just come up with these ideas out of nowhere. She had to do research and talk to the director and then redraw some stuff and talk to the director again! But she finally came up with lots of really, really good costumes. And when she got back to college, she got to pick out the fabrics for them! (Katie's favorite is the polka dotted one, but I kind of like the orange plaid one the best!) Then she and some other people put the costumes together, and now BOOM they're done! Which is good, because the show opened last night! I think Short Girl is kind of amazing! She can design and draw AND sew! I can't do ANY of those things! I don't have thumbs! And she's put so much hard work into this show! I know Katie must be really, really proud of her, because I'M really, really proud of her. She's only a Junior (like Katie), and this is the second show that she's designed all by herself. She's, like, really talented, guys. Katie says that you should go see the show and see for yourself.

"Glasses Boy" is spelled "A-A-R-O-N" 

And then there's Glasses Boy. As you may recall, Glasses Boy is one of Katie's really good friends, and he's Tall Girl's boyfriend. He's also an actor. These Shining Lives is the first show he's been at at JSU, but he did a lot of acting when he was in high school. Glasses Boy plays THREE different characters in this show! One of them is really nice, but the other two are kind of mean. I don't like them much. I don't know how he remembers all those lines! I can't even remember his real name!! Glasses Boy is really good, though, because he can play ALL those characters and make you believe them! I think he was kind of nervous about being in his first play, but he's done so well! Katie is so proud of him that she made him a poster (also because she's nuts, but in a nice way). He's been working on this play since September, and sometimes he's out really late at rehearsal learning lines and wear to stand onstage and making sure his costume fits and stuff. Apparently, acting isn't as easy as it seems on TV. He's also made a lot of new friends, because, even though his characters aren't very nice, Glasses Boy is pretty cool, and everyone likes him. (Tbh, Katie was  a little worried that he wouldn't make friends and that he would be scared and lonely and never do theatre again, but she's overdramatic. He's fine.)

Apparently, the show was amazing, and Katie cried the whole time (but we really should have expected that!). But Glasses Boy acted amazing, and Short Girl's costumes were beautiful. Katie and I are lucky to have such amazing friends, and we're both really, really, really proud of them.

Look at them all!! From L to R, that's Roommate, Big Friend, The Baby, Tall Girl, Glasses Boy, Bearded Boy, and Curly Haired Boy! (And Katie in the front, of course!)

Ok, I told Katie not to type this part, but she has the thumbs and is doing the actual typing so it doesn't look like I can stop her, but you should check out the article she wrote for The Chanticleer about the play. Katie really likes theatre, guys, so she's really excited about this article:

Katie's These Shining Lives Article

And the Drama Department made a video about Short Girl that you can watch here!









You can still see These Shining Lives this weekend, and you should totally go!!

~Trash Bear (and Katie)~

Take Your Bear to Work Because He's Sick Day

Hi *cough*, friends, *sniffle*,

I've been a little sick recently. Tall Girl says it's the "Band Plague," and I blame her for it, because she's in the band. Band Plague is just an icky, sniffly sickness that happens every year. One person in band gets sick, and then they get someone else sick, and then their whole section gets sick, and the whole band gets sick, and then everyone's roommates get sick. Katie and Short Girl didn't get sick, BUT I DID!
I'm so sniffly that Katie told me I could come to work with her so she could take care of me. (Really, I don't think I'm that sick, but Katie
worries a lot, and I don't feel like doing anything, so I let her bring me to work.) She didn't even make me put on real clothes! I got to wear my new unicorn jammies!
But, as it turns out, there's not much to do in the Chanticleer office...and Katie wouldn't even play with me because she had to "work." So I found some other things to do...






I climbed a tree! (Katie wasn't very happy with me for that. She said I'm not very good at being sick, and I told her that I was feeling better, and she didn't believe me. Sometimes she's such a mom.....)













So then I climbed on some old newspapers! Bears like to climb things, you know! (They're much lower to the ground, and Katie was more okay with that, but she still said she wished I would take it easy...)











It's really, really, REALLY cold in the Chanticleer office, but, thankfully, Katie is always prepared, and she let me borrow her Inside Out blanket! I was so warm and happy! (And Katie was happy, too, because it meant that I had to sit still for once.)











But then I got hot, so I took a nap on some newspapers. I was starting to feel stuffy and generally sickish again, so I figured it was a good idea.








Not too much later, Katie woke me up!! She said it was "time for class" and that I had to come with her! Needless to say, I was not a happy bear. In fact, you could say I was a grumpy bear. And I know Grumpy Bear. He's a distant cousin, and he's not very nice. No one likes it when I act like Grumpy Bear.






But I didn't want to stay in the cold office by myself, so I went with Katie to class. It was her Internet Production class (the class she has to write my blog for!), so I didn't really understand anything that was being said, but I did get to sit in a spinny chair, so that by itself was worth waking up from my nap for. And I got to meet all of Katie's friends in that class. Two of the other editors--Mr. Assistant and Mr. Sports--are in that class, so we all walked down the hall together. And I got to meet Katie's teacher, Ms. Communication. She's very nice and fun...but also very loud. I was still a little sleepy when I came into her class, but I was really awake when I left!

Katie did some work (including working on this blog!), and then it was finally time to get dinner and go home. It was a long day of being bored and sick, and I've decided that I'm never going to be sick again, because it's no fun! So if any of you guys know how not to be sick, I could really use that advice. Thanks, friends!

~Trash Bear (and Katie)~

(Katie's note: Not long after this blog was published, I also got sick. Thanks a lot, Trash Bear!!)

First Day of Preschool!

Guess what, friends?

I went to school the other day! And not Katie's school, either! I went to the pre-school where Katie's Mom teaches. It's at JSU, too, between the music building and the scary purple building where kids used to live...and then it got closed...and now kids live there again.

I can't read, but preschool has fancy headphones so I can
LISTEN to stories!

Preschool is a school for little kids who are 3 or 4 or 5. I'm not 3 or 4 or 5, but I am pretty little. Most of the kids were my size! At preschool, you read stories and do arts and crafts and eat snacks and play games and go to the playground and see your friends! I even got to play in a cave!! Bears like caves, you know!

I drew Katie an awesome picture!

A bear in its natural habitat.

I made lots of new friends at preschool, too! (I make new friends everywhere I go, and I love it!) The day I went was a special day, because it was Teddy Bear Picnic Day! So there were other bears there, too: big bears and small bears and floppy bears and tall bears and brown bears and blue bears!

It was such a pretty day to have snacks with friends!

Katie's Mom told me that they had been studying bears ALL WEEK at preschool, and this was a special party! (The kids call her "Ms. Brenda," and that's weird to me, because her name is obviously "Katie's Mom." And they all called me "TB," because they couldn't remember "Trash Bear!" Silly kids!)We got to go outside and have snack time on a picnic blanket! It was so much fun! We ate chips and had juice boxes to drink. I learned that juice boxes are hard for bears to open (and even hard for some of the little kids!) But it was ok. Katie's Mom and the other teachers helped us open things. That's what teachers are for.

Here I am in Katie/Little E's locker! This is what you call
"coming full circle!"

I also learned lots of fun things about Katie's Mom's preschool. This is the SAME preschool that Katie went to when she was 4 years old. I'm not very good at math, but Katie told me that that was almost 17 years ago! I may not know how old I am, but I know I'm not THAT old! Katie's Mom let me sit in the locker that Katie had when she was in preschool, and that was pretty cool. Technically, it's not Katie's locker anymore; it belongs to my new friend Little E, but Little E was nice enough to let me take a picture. Katie's Mom got a little emotional about it when she took my picture; something about how her little girl was all grown up and stuff. (I can see where Katie gets all her emotions and picture taking from.)

I had so much fun at preschool with Katie's Mom and all my new friends. I think I want to go back to school someday. But maybe not EVERY day. You have to wake up really early to go to preschool, and, next to juice boxes and chips and friendship, sleeping is my favorite thing. Maybe if I can go to school only in the afternoon........

~Trash Bear (and Katie)~