Hey everyone. I just got off stage from doing my first night of the Vagina Monologues. It's intermission right now. The only thing left for me tonight is the curtain call, which I'm not looking forward to. We're supposed to dance on stage in front of everyone else. I'm sure I've mentioned on here before how much I don't enjoy dancing. Actually it's more of a "I feel really really really awkward when I dance" type of feeling.

So yeah, we have to dance on stage. After we start dancing, we have to go out into the audience and dance as we go up the aisles. Really not looking forward to it. That's ok though. It's good for me. I need the experience. It'll be me and my friend Marcy dancing uncomfortably. We'll have fun.

The monologue I read was entitled "They beat the girl out of my boy...or they tried." It was about transwomen, which is fitting. I have a big long line at the end that takes up an entire notecard typed. It involves getting emotional about the negativity towards transpeople. Specifically it talks about the non-acceptance and the physical violence. It's a tough line to read.

Earlier one of the girls in my group said that some janitors last night were making comments about me. They said something to the effect of "That girl used to be a guy. I thought the Vagina Monologues were a female thing." and such. The girls that heard them say that stood up for me and told them to eat shit basically. That's great.

She told me today about it. She said she didn't want to upset me. I told her that it doesn't upset me. It makes me proud to know that I have friends, even friends I just made, that will stand up for me. Those janitor guys can go fuck themselves as far as I'm concerned. The nice thing is that during that last card of the monologue I read, I used it as motivation. It helped me get angry and upset. I don't normally let that stuff get to me. And even now it doesn't matter, but it helped. So, that's a good thing.

Anyway, I'm going to go relax a little before the big finale. I'll talk to you all later.

Luv,

Jess

Lately I've been feeling very....female. I think that's wonderful. It's all due to the Vagina Monologues. I'm participating in them this year. I'm reading "They beat the girl out of my boy...or they tried". I think it's going to be great. The experience of rehearsing and getting to know the other women in the performance has been very special for me. That's mainly due to the atmosphere of the group.

I can't really describe it any better than to say that I actually feel like I belong. The talk about vaginas a year ago just made me feel sidelined. Even though I was accepted, I didn't feel accepted. Hmmm, I guess the best way to put it is that I just couldn't relate to what was being said about a genital organ that I didn't yet have. Now things are different. I can relate, at least to some of it. I'll never relate to the menstruation issues, but I don't think that matters. Really I just feel like I'm a part of the female population now. How neat is that?

In other news, the first episode of the mini-series is done. It took me a lot of time and effort to get it done. Hopefully in the future it wont take nearly so long. It shouldn't since the template is laid down now, but I'm sure something can still go wrong to make things difficult. It ended up being about 6 minutes long. I am quite proud of it though. I haven't rendered it into a web version yet. So maybe Sunday I can take care of that. I showed the episode to my bosses at the help desk and they loved it. I also showed a professor I have, and she liked it too. That was important because I'll be submitting this to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for a possible internship this summer. My professor got that internship when she was in school. Wish me luck on that.

A week ago was my birthday. I'm a whole 24 years old now. I feel old being on a college campus. I'm six years older than the freshman. There are people who started years later than me in college that are graduating earlier. My time will come though. Chris took me to this restaurant called Tokyos for dinner. It was a "surprise". I knew he was planning something. I just didn't know exactly what. He invited a bunch of my friends and we all had dinner together. This was one of the japanese places that makes the food right in front of you. I was entranced by it. The food was so good. It didn't seem like much while I was eating, but after I finished, it hit me. I felt so full the rest of the night. I had planned on going to the gay bar too, but ended up falling asleep early from the food. What a good birthday. Thank you Chris.

Last night was Spiritual Night take 3. It's been a pretty regular thing lately. We have one every two or three weeks. Definitely a necessity for me. I really need the relax time. However, last night went late and I have early class and work. I'm pretty exhausted today. I have to drive the three and a half hours home tonight too. I hope I make it safe and sound. If I have to, I'll stop and nap for a bit. Right now a nap seems like a good idea. Too bad I'm at work for another four hours. Poo. Hopefully it'll go fast.

So anyway, last night we did a meditation that lasted 45 minutes. It was a Chakra alignment meditation. For those of you that don't know, Chakras are energy centers of the body. There are seven: the base of the spine, the lower abdomen, the solarplexes, the heart, the neck/throat, the brow, and the crown. Each deal with different parts of the body and parts of the spirit. The alignment meditation brings all seven back into alignment (how profound). It also purges the bad vibes and energies that were causing the disalignment. It's very relaxing, but it was difficult since it was so long. As a group we weren't used to that kind of length. Still, great experience.

Hmm, aside from that, school is still hard. I've managed to finish the sixth season of Buffy. And I'm still always short on sleep. I hope this weekend is better for me. I think I'm going to get back to work now though. Have a wonderful day everyone.

Luv,

Jess

Good Luck on your presentation. :)

<%image(20050224-Jess.jpg|382|499|It's Jess!!!)%>

Luv,

Jess

The production department has been great recently. We've started the mini-series that I've been planning since Winter break. I'm so happy to see it get going. I directed the first episode. It took five hours to get the whole first episode shot. We learned a nice lesson in production scheduling and planning. I will be working with the new director for episode two to make sure the volunteer cast is not overworked.

The two females in the cast were upset that they aren't getting paid for this at all. They don't realize that I only get a 10 hour pay limit, and the mini-series is just one part of my job. I was pretty much volunteering the bulk of my time Saturday as well. I think they'll discover that it's worth it. We're going to start advertising the show this weekend. I think people will like it. I will perhaps put the five minute episode online, or at least link it here so it can be viewed. That should be neat.

Episode two is currently in pre-production, and episode one is in post-production. What's really got me happy is the fact that there are several people in the department that are so energetic and excited to be working on this series. My script people are so creative and have been e-mailing me with stuff a lot. People seem to want to volunteer to work the shoot even though it takes a long time. I think I started something with this that will hopefully last much longer than my tenure here.

This isn't helping my schedule this semester at all though. As much as I love the series, the student senate stuff, and my volunteer work, I am stretching myself way too thin. I'm hoping I just get into a rhythm of things in the next few weeks that allows me to get everything done. WHY AM I SO DARN ACTIVE AND RESPONSIBLE?? I sometimes wish I wasn't so I could feel ok about dropping something to make room for the rest.

Anyway, I got interviewed by the school paper again the other night. That'll be published on Thursday. I have the Student Leadership Awards tomorrow. My parents are coming up and will be sleeping over in my apartment. I'm kind of excited about that since they never get to see the impact I have here on campus. I'll let you know how that goes. I gotta get back to studying though. Stay tuned for more updates. Bye.

Luv,

Jess

Today's update is about the whole New York Times thing. I'm sure after last week's little teaser, you're all interested in knowing what happened. Well...here goes.

A week ago Saturday I got an e-mail. The subject line was simply "ny times trying to reach jessica anderson". I didn't know what to make of it. So I read it. It was forwarded to me from the faculty advisor of the LGBT group on campus. At first I was skeptical of it's legitimacy (oooo, big words), but I realized the e-mail originally came from an @nytimes.com e-mail address. That's pretty legit.

Needless to say I was pretty ecstatic. I called my dad who said "but it's not money". That bothered me, but didn't really surprise me. He's still trying to find a job. Money is an issue. After talking to him, I told several friends. There was a lot of "Holy $h%t"'s exchanged between all of us. I replied to the e-mail and said I'd be more than willing to help.

On Monday at about 4:50 pm I got a call. The interview lasted about thirty minutes over the phone. It seemed to go really well. At the end, the interviewer said "Thank you. I really feel like I understand this a lot better now." That made me happy. She informed me that the article would be out in the next week or so. She had one thing she was looking to get more information about. I called her back the next day with the information she was looking for.

So, right now, I'm just waiting for the article to be published. I've been watching every day. If you see it let me know. It should be about the Transgender movement towards gender neutral bathrooms. When it does come out, I'm buying out the nearest newsstand of their stock.

On a quick sidenote, the reason they contacted me was due to the speech I gave to the University system Board of Regents last semester. There were several articles published in the state papers about it which quoted me extensively. The Times saw those and that spurned them contacting me. So that's pretty cool. Another quick note, this past Friday the Board of Regents officially passed the resolution adding Gender Identity and Expression to the University Non-Discrimination clause. SUCCESS!!!

So that's the update for today. Tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of: Jessica's Life!!!!

Luv,

Jess