Hellooooo everybody

I just got back from a wonderful Easter weekend at home in Pine Beach. It was a really great weekend...probably one of the best I've had in a long time. I got to see all of my best friends, and hang out all weekend with the family. Ben came along for the weekend too, and he got to meet all my friends and hang out with the ones he already knew, as well as enjoy the Jersey Shore and a McKenna-fam Easter basket.

Here's the bunny cake we made: (I also made some yummy brownies)


I actually had a full week of vacation mode :). I spent last Saturday until Wednesday in Vero Beach Florida at the Disney Resort. Chris had a baseball tournament nearby, which Mom & Dad were going to, so we made a vacation out of it! Doodle has a time share with Disney, so we were able to stay in a sweet villa in Vero Beach. The trip was totally relaxing and fun, and I got some good bonding time with Mom & Doodle. I went to one of Chris' baseball games. It was great to see him play! He did awesome, and I hadn't seen the South team play at all since I was in high school.

Vero Beach Pics:
Momma:

While I haven't been at work in over a week (vacation! oye), I really love our new office building (The Letterman building). There's much more space for everyone, the film studio is much nicer, and the interns have our own desks and space. It's great :). Also, the other day, I saw Paul Schaffer (of the Letterman band :)) just chilling in the lobby downstairs, so that was pretty cool. We also rearranged the film studio so it's a "newsroom" setup, so you will be able to see either the back of my head or me walking around pretty much every night :). I've been kind of in a slump at work, just because it's become so routine, and I am starting to get sick of doing "intern" things. But I just need to focus and finish the experience strong!

This week, I'll be up in Boston for the TGWW REVUE! I'm so excited to see the show and see all my friends. TGWW is also having a Voting Meeting for new Executive Board positions, so I will be going to that too.

I am making some progress in terms of accomplishing my goals for the time I'm in New York. I still haven't really accomplished any of the "big" ones, but we're getting there! This experience is more than halfway over :(.

Love and happiness to everybody! And enjoy this gorgeous sunny weather :).

-Katie

"Maybe it's not my weekend, but it's gonna be my year"

Sorry it's been super long since I updated this! No excuses really, I just kept forgetting to get around to it.

So since I last posted, a whole bunch has happened to me here in NYC!

A few weeks ago, I got free tickets from work to see Kathy Griffin (a famous stand-up comedian) at Madison Square Garden! I took my friend Sammie who goes to Northeastern and is here in NYC doing co-op as well. The show was lots of fun. Kathy Griffin is pretty intense and offensive, so some of her stuff wasn't interesting to me, but I had fun overall...and the tickets were free :). It was also great to see some people from work outside of the office. Here's Kathy at MSG:

At work, this Friday is our last day in the building we are currently in. Starting next week, Entertainment Tonight/The Insider's New York Office will be in the offices at The Ed Sullivan Theatre (where they film Letterman!) The new office will be smaller, but apparently it's nicer and of course it will be great to hopefully see Letterman and Letterman's guests coming in and out of the building! I'm excited. Last week and this week at work, my main job is focusing on helping with the move, as well as the usual show logging, picking up video tapes, and answering phones.
Current building:

New building:


I also saw "Memphis" on Broadway the same weekend I saw Kathy Griffin! It was a great, energetic show that I'm sure will win lots of Tony awards. We got front-row seats for $26!! I love student rush :).

I went home for the weekend a couple weeks ago...I always love being home, even if it's just for a short time. I might possibly be home for a day or two this weekend, but if not, I get to see my family in Vero Beach, Florida in 2.5 short weeks :)
Here's the Disney resort at Vero Beach:


My good friend Jen came and visited Ben and I two weeks ago! It was a lot of fun :). We went to "The Strand" bookstore, which is my dad's favorite place to visit in the city! I got a couple books about musical theatre from the $1 book section.

In other news, I am on a new track which will hopefully finally allow me to lose weight, be in shape, and be healthy and happy. Instead of doing stupid temporary diets which I have been on and off of since junior year of high school with no success, I am just planning on eating healthy and running consistently. Now, I am running 2 to 3 miles 3 days a week, but for some reason it isn't really working for me. I am going to try to run 4 or 5 days a week, go a little faster on the runs, and I am also planning on walking home (or to) most days (it's a 3 mile walk from our apartment to my building). I have also found a nice "track" around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park which is 1.58 miles, so if I run that 2 or 3 times, I'm good :). I'm frustrated of feeling lousy and unhealthy...I need a big change! If anyone has any sort of motivation/advice for me, send it on over! :)

I feel like the past two weeks I have been in a little "slump" here in New York. I am still loving work and being in the city, but it's setting in that I'm almost halfway through my time here, and I don't feel like I accomplished a lot. I blogged about how I made goals when I first got here...and even though I have accomplished a few of them (getting 6 hours of sleep at night, going to outside events/shoots at work whenever possible, keeping in better touch with friends from home, etc.), there are bigger, more important ones that I haven't done yet. I still consider my music-related goals the most important ones, because I really need to go for them while I'm here in the city. I have written a few songs since I've been here, and I'm proud of them, but I haven't recorded any yet or done anything with them. I really need to get my MacBook (hint, hint Mom!) because I can't record songs without it (this crappy old computer has so many issues, and also doesn't have the program I need to record songs with). I also haven't been to any auditions since HAIR, and that is mostly because I have work on days that most of the auditions are, but I definitely would like to try to go to more. Even though I've been sticking to my running schedule, I still haven't been losing weight, and though I do the runs, I need to put more work into them and push myself harder. Overall, I just really want to make the most of my experience in New York City, because before I know it I will have to go back to school, and I don't want these months to go by wasted. I only live once :).

Sorry to be a downer with that last paragraph, but I felt like I needed to rant...what better place than here?

Even though I'm in a temporary rut, I am still loving New York and I am completely optimistic that I can and will make the changes that I need to make in my life and I can and will do a lot of this while I'm here in New York City!

Up next for me....going to visit a friend in Connecticut this weekend! That should be fun. The weekend after that, we will be going up to Boston to visit, and also do some work with the Spring Revue, and go to the voting meeting for TGWW. (For those of you who don't know, TGWW is the student-run musical theatre group that I am heavily involved in at school.) At the voting meeting, I have decided to run to be the director of the mainstage musical in the fall. If I got voted in to director (the whole group votes), it would be a huge responsibility, but also a great learning experience. So pray for me about this :). The weekend after Boston, I will be in VERO BEACH, FLORIDA! We are staying at the Disney Resort in Vero Beach. Christopher has to go there for a baseball tournament, so the whole family is going (arriving at different times), and it will be exciting to see Mom, Dad, Chris, Doodle...anyone else? I'm pumped and so excited to be going to warm weather and family fun.

Love,
Katie

So I survived my first blizzard in NYC. It was pretty scary out there, but I made it to work. I was the only intern to show up to work on the day of the crazy storm, and my boss was super thrilled and thankful that I showed up. Here's a picture of the beginning of the storm (The building where I work is on the left in this picture):



This weekend, we had some friends from Boston come to visit us. It was a lot of fun! It was pretty crowded in the apartment, but we made it work :). On Saturday night, we went to see "In The Heights" on Broadway. It was a great show. I already saw it about two years ago, but it was fun to see again, and a lot of the cast was different this time. The show now stars Corbin Bleu from "High School Musical".

We also went to the MOMA (Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art). Here are some pictures:











We also did a bunch of NYC exploring this weekend. We went to Times Square, The Village, Central Park, and the Upper East Side (around our apartment).


We found a little diner-style restaurant by our apartment, "Midnight Express", and decided to eat there three times this weekend :). The food is cheap (for NYC that is) and it's open 24 hours!




Us there Day 2:


Day 3:


The weekend was super fun, even though I was exhausted after, and Ben and I had to spend a couple hours cleaning the apartment! Yikes!

Overall, I am loving New York City so far. It is making me even more eager to get out into the "real world", and it will be sad when I have to go back to classes in July...Boo! But I still need to keep living up every moment while I'm here to truly make the most of it. I am starting to get into the swing of things now. I feel really comfortable with my job at ET/The Insider, as well as with the people there. I am loving my apartment and my roommate. I love the general feel of the city and even the neighborhood I live in. I am starting to get better at cooking. I am doing a great job of keeping my apartment neat (Those of you who have seen my room at home on a typical day know how big of a deal that is!) I really love it and I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be here!

Love,
Katie

Superbowl Cookies, Empire State Building, and Some New Celeb Friends

Hey everybody! Hope you all are enjoying/enjoyed the Superbowl!
I don't really care that much about football, but I'm sure you all knew that! My favorite parts are watching the national anthem and the halftime show! (Carrie=awesome except for her last note! The Who=old? And not as exciting as a halftime show should be haha.)
Ben & I had people over to watch the game though! A couple friends from Northeastern who are also doing co-op in NYC, as well as some friends of friends that we are getting to know. It was fun! I made some great football cookies :).

Work has been pretty great lately! While most of my daily responsibilities include logging morning shows, running errands, and answering phones, every once in a while a great opportunity comes up! I recently got to attend press junkets (press junkets: events in which members of large media corporations gather to interview cast of new movies for release in television shows, online, print media, etc.) for the new Martin Scorcese movie "Shutter Island" starring Leo Dicaprio, and also for "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Lightning Thief", starring Pierce Brosan, Logan Lerman, Uma Thurman, etc. The first one was two Fridays ago, and the second was this past Friday. I got to meet all the stars of these movies, and even had a brief conversation with Scorcese and Logan Lerman, the star of "Percy".

Here's the cameras all set up and ready to go! They had me guard them while the crew ran downstairs real quick.

It was so amazing! The "Percy Jackson" junket was even more amazing because it took place on top of the Empire State building!! SO cool. They gave exclusive access to Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood to use the top of the building :).

Here's the view from the top of the Empire State building!

It was really great to be able to sit in on the interviews and see how the whole process works. I really like the job of the "directors" of the Entertainment Tonight segments--these are the people who write the questions and interview the actors and actresses for the clips that you see on TV! Possible career for me? We'll see :)

Here's David Batista, one of the Ent. Tonight directors who directed this shoot. In this shot he is interviewing Logan Lerman, the star of "Percy". I have a feeling that Logan is going to be "the next big thing". He's in talks to star as Spiderman in the new movies!

Here's Pierce Brosnan =):


In other news, I went home last weekend to visit. It was a great weekend and good to see my whole family and some of my friends. It was also great to get some mom-meals and be able to sleep in my own bed. We also went to see "Seussical" at High School North, which was really great. It was especially fun to see this show because they are doing "Seussical" at Northeastern this semester as well, even though I am obviously not there to be in it. Ben and I are going up to Boston to see the show in April, and we will also be going up to see the Spring Revue.

We are having some friends from Boston come visit us/stay in our apartment this weekend. I can't wait!!! We'll probably do some toursity things, and maybe see a show. I'll be sure to take some good pics!

Auditions & Boston Trip

Happy Monday everyone! Good thing I don't have work on Mondays :). 

On Thursday, I went to an open call audition for HAIR on Broadway. We woke up at about 615 and got to the audition at 8:40. The audition post said that the audition started at 10, and to come anytime between 10 and 6. But it turned out that there were over 1200 people there, so after waiting in line for 4 hours, we didn't even get to audition :(. It was a big bummer, and it would have been a great experience to have, but we did meet some cool people and have fun that day, so I guess it's okay! And now we know to get to auditions SUPER SUPER early! I've been looking at audition posts every day and can't wait to audition for more shows. 

This weekend, Ben and I visited our friends in Boston :) I had a ton of fun and it was so great to see everyone! We got to hang out with everybody we love and miss in Boston. Jen let us stay at her apartment with her...thanks Terky!