 Acting is a complicated career for so many reasons. Emotionally, physically, financially, strategically. This career takes so much away from you and it's pretty hard because for someone like me, I can't just go to my boss or like my manager because I don't have a manager and be like, hey, this is how I'm feeling. Should I be feeling like this? What can we do about it? I have to take it upon myself to do the research, to do the work in order to stop feeling like that. Today, I feel shitty and I don't usually outwardly express my discontent with where I am financially, where I am with my career, where I am in my career specifically with my age and how long I've been going at it. But since I have hormones rushing through my body today and I could just not concentrate at home because of these hormones, I was trying to be diligent and work hard and I just couldn't concentrate at home. So I decided I should go out and I should share my emotions because I think that'll hopefully make me feel better. And something else that's stressing me out today because I am currently taking a break from my day job and I'll get into more of money in a second. But something that is particularly getting me down today is that I'm getting less and less optimistic every day. It feels like about going to the Southwest Actors Conference because it's just expensive. And I haven't booked an acting job since March and that is partly my fault because I've stopped self-submitting to commercial work because there's only a certain level of commercials that I want to do now and I want to focus more strictly on theatrical work, TV, film. And that's really hard because I don't have a theatrical agent in LA. I have continued to do research and see how I'm going to do that, but it just takes time and I don't want to just get any agent that says yes to me. I want to get somebody that I know I'm going to work well with. I know they see my work ethic and see the work I've done on my YouTube channel, on myself, the acting classes I've taken, like the business mindset that I have. Like I want somebody who I want to work with and who wants to work with me because they understand my talent, not just because they're like, oh, we can use her look. Let's just take her. I want somebody that's interested in me as an artist, me as a person, me as a YouTuber and not having money come in right now is making going to the Southwest Actors Conference super hard because it's very expensive. If you guys don't know what that is, it's an Actors Conference happening in Arizona in September and I did a little fundraiser for it and I've, my goal is $1,500 and I've raised 500 so far. 300 of those were mine because I just felt so guilty asking somebody else like, hey, want to help me get there? Even though like my intentions are to see if it's worth it, but honestly, if I didn't have a YouTube channel, I would probably not go because I'd be like, okay, I don't have money for it. It's just something that's not possible, period. But because I do have a YouTube channel and somebody did comment like, oh, you should do a fundraiser. We can help you get there. The conference is September 23rd. So I do have some time to raise the money, but just like the amount of momentum it has had so far, not so great, but now I'm thinking about contacting different companies that might want to sponsor the videos at the conference to see if they could, you know, give a little chunk. If I did have my day job right now and I was booking all of these other smaller acting jobs, I could go to the conference, but I'm really trying not to put myself there anymore in that whole of accepting a bunch of background work, accepting a bunch of non-union, low-paying commercial work where it's a buyout. And instead of doing that, I'm practicing theatrical work. I'm practicing my memorizing. I'm doing a bunch of research. And a couple of weeks ago, I started doing an actor routine. And what I have really liked in the last few weeks is one, practicing memorizing every day, Monday through Friday is what I mean by every day. It just makes me feel like so much better, so much more prepared. Like I can get to the actual acting a lot faster because it takes me less time to memorize. I've also been listening to Audrey Helps Actors, a podcast whenever I'm driving, which I've been driving a lot when I'm at the gym, when I'm doing my makeup. Like anytime I have the ability to pay attention and do something, I've been listening, I've been going on castability to practice scenes and also being available to friends and other actors that aren't necessarily my friends on different Facebook groups and apps where I can be a reader and then that way I can be reading texts and be working with other actors. And if they want feedback, I give it to them. A couple of weeks ago in my actor routine vlog, if you guys didn't see it, I did mention if you wanted to be accountability buddies, we could use my vlogs on Saturdays to check in. So if you are one of those people, let me know what you did this week. If not, if you are a new person that wants to do that, here's my check-in. So this week I did my actor routine only three times. I think that's good, but I just chose personal things instead of committing to my actor routine because I felt it was important. So I did that, which is good for some people and some other people are gonna be like, girl, you didn't do enough, but that's my check-in for this week. I would give myself a B minus. And I'm trying not to beat myself up so much about everything that's going on because I am very grateful about so much in my life and it's my choice that I'm in this financial state. It's my choice that I'm following this career and I know that I'm very fortunate to be able to do all of this just today and a lot of days I just feel so shitty for not being able to do more or provide more for other people. I chose to take a break for my day job and I'm waiting for another opportunity to become my day job. And I'm proud of how I've been using this time of not having to go to a different job that doesn't allow me to concentrate on acting. And I'm proud of how I'm using my time. I'm trying not to feel too bad because I know all of this is my decision. I chose to take a break from my day job. I chose to take on responsibilities for personal things that may take time away from my acting. Like these are things that I chose because I know if I choose the career part and in the future I'm gonna regret not like seeing family as much or not helping this person or that person and just not doing things that are making me happy. Like right now we're fostering two little baby kittens and it makes us super happy and just it releases a lot of stress and I know I need that. I feel like I'm being super negative so let me say like four things I'm grateful for. By the way when I first sat down here a beautiful golden retriever came and shot like two and a half feet next to me and it smelled like poop for a couple minutes but the dog was really cute and the owner was super nice so that like made my day better weirdly like a dog shedding in my space. First thing I'm grateful for is the fact that that beautiful golden retriever shot next to me because it made me laugh a lot and it allowed me to have a conversation with its owner. The second thing I'm grateful for is my work ethic because who would choose acting as a career and pursue it for this long? I've been acting since I was 16 I believe. I first started acting in a class in high school and I thought this is what I wanna do without doing any research or anything I was like this is what I wanna do. Number three my fiance because he's the best and I don't wanna say too much because I will cry. Fourth my phone because it allows me to have this creative outlet it allows me to be creative period like I shoot myself tapes on here I shoot my YouTube videos on here and there's a bunch of other things I could think about and allow myself to mope about but really I do not have it bad. I have it good I'm just emotional today and I'm just going through it today for many cute dogs. I will literally be so happy later today like later today I'm gonna go skating and I'm gonna have dinner with my fiance before that like I know I'm gonna feel really good. It's just sometimes my emotions get me really, really low and then in a few hours or sometimes in a couple of days I just feel great and most of the time I do feel great I feel like I've always been such a positive person that appreciates all the little things like I crack myself up all the time and I say the stupidest jokes even if other people are like wow that was so lame. Thank you so much for watching especially if you're watching in this part of the video if you've seen my videos before like thank you so much because even though like I don't talk to every single one of you in person face to face oh my gosh I'm just gonna tag my dogs even though I don't talk to you guys face to face I like really appreciate the humans actually watch my videos and comment in my videos and care like I'm always so surprised when I meet somebody that watches my videos whether I know them or not when they tell me like oh yeah I watch your videos or this or that or they tell me something about something I said in my video I'm like wow you guys actually watch so thank you so much I will be my usual puppy happy self in the next vlog but also next time that I'm like sad and I want to say something like this I feel like I'm going to because being in this career is a struggle sometimes and just being a human is a struggle sometimes no matter how good you have it you're always going to feel bad about some aspect of your life and no matter how bad you have it hopefully you're also able to see all of the good that is in your life too. My point of making this video today was to share some of my feelings and my struggles because I know that 16 year old me would be so happy to see where I am today and the things that I have accomplished is just that every time you do accomplish something or you aim towards something you keep going for more you know there's always something else you want to do there's always something that you want to improve in yourself or in your life and today I just really feel like wow what am I doing in my career like I want to be in more films I want to be in TV shows like I need to figure out how to get an agent I need to be better at my craft I need to keep working hard like Audrey says I need to go make an amazing reel that shows my type and what shows I can be on right now because I know I can there's just so many steps and I have taken so many steps in the past and I wish that I knew more and did more in the past but yeah you can't change anything. Okay I'll see you guys next week.