Slammed

I leave for Haiti in a week. I didn't leave my house yesterday (That's a lie, I forced myself to take a break and walked to a coffee place down the street, grabbed a drink and came back. Just to see the sun and break up the monotony). I didn't leave my house because I have so much to get done before I head to my home away from home away from home.

Yesterday, I edited 60+ wedding photos, worked on next year's promo items and set them in templates to show what the products will look like, I worked on signage for Freebirds, made a letterhead for a feedOne newsletter, made an invite for The Farrums' birthday extravaganza, sent out invoices, etc. Today I worked on more 2014 Chi Alpha promo items, ordered the printing of said newsletters, made signage comps for a hospital playground that will be built this next year, worked on a brochure for my friend, scheduled a graduation photo shoot for this week and made connections with a lady who wants me to make her wedding invites. I also fit in some Haiti shopping and bought most of my necessities. Whew! I still have an exhaustive list of things to do, which I won't bore you with.

A snapshot of some of the stuff I did yesterday.

In the midst of it all, I made sure I made it to the Moth tonight. It was my little present to myself. There are a limited amount of Moth slams I am able to go to and I try to make sure I go to every one that I can during the summer. (For those of you not in the know, the Moth is an organization dedicated to the art of story telling. There is a theme for each slam, you have to tell a story pertaining to the theme, it has to be 5 minutes or less and it must be unscripted yet true. People submit their names at the start and then 10 names are chosen at random and then they tell their stories and get judged as to whether they will move on to a grandslam.) So tonight when I arrived I decided to submit my name. The theme was 'Scars'. I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to talk about and was nervous I would be called before I got it all figured out. It got down to the very last person, and I was called. (Well actually "Rachel Hamilton" was called but I knew what they meant.) I wasn't even sure if we would make it since traffic was so bad, and now I was going to actually share a story!

I was afraid in my nervousness that I would talk too quickly and the story would be too short. So I decided to make sure I had a lot of back story to fill in the gaps. Turned out I didn't have as much time as I thought and I had to rush the actual story part, and I still went over on my time and was docked points. But all in all I did an alright job for being my first story slam. It was also kind of strange because the stage light was so unbelievably bright that I couldn't see anyone at all so it kind of felt like I was talking to an empty pitch-black room with a laugh track. I feel like I am better prepared for another slam and can't wait to try it again. Its kind of surreal and I can't believe that I actually participated this time. I've listened to The Moth story slams via podcast for years now, and to now say that I was on the mainstage... its bananas!

This is the only photographic evidence I have for the night... it was so dark and they don't allow flash photography. So here you go. haha

PS I know I sound like a broken record, but stay tuned for my mystery guest blogger! I am very excited because my guest bloggers write about different topics and in a different style that I wouldn't normally. So its fun to see what creative things they come up with. I will give you a little hint... the next guest blog post will be a creative short story. :D