The Audition That Almost Killed Me

What's in a title? A lot of hidden meaning. Just like this one. This was one of the coolest things I have ever done, auditioning for The Disney Company, but I swear I almost died in the process. It was pretty intense. Oh, and it wasn't even just the audition itself. That was the easiest/best part. It was everything leading up to it. I have kept pretty up to date coverage for the whole thing in all of my other blogs, so I won't bore you with all of the details, but I will try to entertain you with my ride situation, as well as the actual auditions itself. Ready, GO.

So one of the tender mercies of the Lord last week was that I was able to get a ride with someone who was also auditioning, and she even had a seat for Courtney in her car. Happy day!! No problems, right? Everything was going smoothly. Well, it was until an hour an hour before we were supposed to leave. At four-fifteen ish on Thursday afternoon, I get a phone call from my ride, Lakesha. I had just gotten out of he shower, and was not even dressed yet, as I get her message asking me to call her back ASAP. "Okay, I thought. Maybe she wants to leave earlier. That kind of sucks, but whatever. We can deal with that." Such were the thoughts that were running through my head. So I give her a little ring back. Did she want to leave early you may ask? Um, no. She was calling to tell me that her car had broken down last night, and we had no way of getting there. Awesome. So. Awesome. I didn't even know what to think. I asked her if she was serious, (stuttered that part is more like it, actually) and indeed she was. More awesomeness my way. She told me I could take the 5:00 shuttle. At this point it is 4:15. And the awesomeness continues. So I fight back the tears that are inevitably coming, and tell her I will call her back. I begin the string of silent prayers that flow quite regularly over the next two hours, and pray for a way for everything to work out. I call my mom, because that is what you do when your life comes crashing down along with your dreams. She told me to calm down, and schedule a shuttle. I panicked slightly because Courtney was in a lab until 5:15... but I still called, and figured we could meet in Salt Lake. So I call the shuttle company and ask them if there is anyway that I can get a seat on the 5:00 shuttle. The voice on the other line informs me that there is no 5:00 shuttle. There is one at 4:30, but considering that I would need to be there right then, she would not even sell me a ticket. It was one of those times in life where you see all of your options rapidly dwindling before you, and try and try as you may, you can't seem to grasp at any of them. Not fun, I don't recommend it. So in a state of desperation I ask the voice when the next possible shuttle leaving Rexburg is. 2:00 AM. Yes. You read that right. That would mean that I would not even arrive in Sandy until 6 AM. Yeah, my audition started at 9:30. That was great. I found out that I had until 9 that night to book the shuttle, so that gave me a few hours to come with any other plan I could possible think of. The 2 AM thing would work- but I have done that before, and it equals no sleep. So I would have been completely shot for the audition. So that was plan Z. I just had to figure out plans A-Y.

Meanwhile, I am trying desperately to get a hold of Courtney, who is still completely unaware, and is rifling through rocks happily thinking that we would be leaving within the next hour. Indeed not. She calls me back, and I drop the news on her. She handles it much better than I did. I starred bawling as I explained everything to her, and she like the good person that she is tried to calm me down. Thanks pal! We decided what our next steps were going to be, and took action. I called Lakesha and told her about the shuttle and that we would be trying to figure something else out, thanks anyways. That was fun. Then I call my dad, and tearfully ask him to help me to pay for the shuttle if we have to resort to the wretched plan Z. He was great, and told me that he would help out no matter what. Thanks Dad! Then I called my mom, and told her the latest bit of news. She told my to bribe anyone with a car with $50 to drive me. All of my roommates were crazy busy the next day and could not. All of my guy friends either didn't have a car, were out of town, had class, or had work. It was awesome. I literally had no idea of what to do. Courtney called Mary to beg her to borrow her car for the weekend. We waited in anticipation for her to call us back. While all of this was happening, I was frantically checking my email to see if anyone else going to auditions had room in their car. However, since it was 5:00 the night before the audition, that was not too helpful. It looked like Mary was our only hope. I called my aunt Marney and told her my bleak situation. I begged her for a car if we had to take a shuttle, oh, and to pick us up at 6 AM at the local Village Inn. Being the amazing woman that she indeed is, she agreed, and allowed me to crash at her place if by some miracle Mary let me borrow her car. So that was good because if nothing else, we had a way to get to Orem from the 2 AM shuttle. It was awful sounding, but it pretty much seemed to fit with the rest of my week.

By this time I was pretty much a nervous wreck. My poor roommate Jennifer had witnessed the whole scene, wrenching sobs and all. Sorry Jenn!! I was sitting on the couch watching my phone waiting for someone to call with what I hoped would be great news. I was going crazy, so I decided to visit my dear friend, Sara. All I needed was for her to give me a hug, and tell me that everything was going to work out. She's really good at that. Gratefully she was home, and gave me a hug, and assured me that everything was going to be alright. Then I told her the news. She was perfectly sympathetic for me, and was just her wonderful self. I then proceeded to pour my soul out to her telling her that I knew that it would all work out. With everything else I had been thorough that week, I was so determined to go I would walk if I had to. So help me. So help me. And what to do you know? The phone rang.

It was Lakesha, and I was a little worried. But guess what?! SHE HAD A RIDE FOR US!!!! Her amazing friend let her borrow her car! And she had space for me and Courtney. I almost started crying right then and there. I was so grateful, I couldn't even think straight. It was one of the happiest and best feelings ever!! I had about a million phone calls to then make, so laughing, I ran out of Sara's apartment. I called Courtney and told her the great news. She was so happy. I then called everyone else that I had ever met and told them the happy news. It was great. All that was left to do was wait. And as I did so I just imagined all of the other things that could go wrong between then and 9:30 the next morning. I don't recommend this either. Let's just say that as I sat with my roommate Kinsey, she laughed at the maniacal look in my eye, and told me what a mess I was. (Emotionally that is...) But it was all okay, because Lakesha came, we got on the freeway, listened to Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours," about five hundred times, and arrived at my Aunt's house around 11:30. And we didn't even get stranded on the side of the road. That's a good thing. I may or may not have been worried about that one. So after my aunt's graciously opened her house and her kitchen to us, we had a nice little chat about the Disney Company, and each in turn marveled at the fact that they have 63,000 employees. my opinion on that is, "Hey, I'm bound to get lucky, right?" I hope so. Then it was time for bed. It was going to be a long day.

So the day of the audition came. And it went so smoothly. I was worried that all Hell would break loose the night before, but as I sat and ate breakfast with my Aunt and Uncle, and we were able to joke and laugh about everything, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. And I knew that everything was going to be okay. I wasn't nervous. I wanted to know what it was going to be like, but there were no real nerves. That was an amazing tender mercy from a loving Heavenly Father. I am so blessed. So Courtney, Lakesha and I piled in the car. This time we had a new song to jam to. Pink's "So What," I highly recommend it. That's all. We practiced our rock moves, and it was great. It got me pumped, and I felt like I was going to kill the audition. It was great. As soon as we found the studio I just tried to focus, and have a great time. And it worked. It was the funnest audition I have ever been to.

It started by seeing my old high school buddy, Alina, as well as half the students from BYU-Idaho. Then we went down and got our measurements and pictures taken. I tried desperately to charm and gain the approval/attention of everyone who wore a little Disney name tag. We'll have to see if it worked. Then we went and figured out our animations. We had to pretend to see our favorite Disney Character, ten we had to pretend to be hungry and get food. It was a lot of fun, and was not so intimidating seeing everyone else make a fool of themselves too. Then we learned the combination...of death. Just kidding. It was actually not that bad. It started out really easy and got progressively harder. It was fun though, and I just had really strong facial expressions the entire time to make up for my sucking. It's fine.

I waited until the called numbers 71-75, and tried to make friends with some very perky people. It was great. Number 73 was finally called, and I went into the room. I said a little silent prayer, and stuck my pose. I danced it out, and felt like I did a really good job. Even though my dancing was...interesting...for lack of a better word, my face was so happy and Disney like that it went well. I loved it, and feel so optimistic about the whole thing. I will find out in 2-3 weeks what happens and I'll be sure to let you know. I know that if it is supposed to happen it will, and if not I'll be happy hanging out in the Burg of Rex. It will be great.

And so this was indeed the audition that killed me. More like, the week before the audition that almost killed me. But hey, it made for some great blogging. And if you are still reading this insanely long post, you are probably waiting for the magic words that mean we are finished. Well I wouldn't want to you to be left waiting any longer, so- Thank you, and goodnight.