This is a thought on my brain, and it may come across as egotistical, but it’s not really. There is definitely an unfair persona that is placed on “experienced” actors. Whether it be a view by fellow actors or upcoming very ambitious newbies, not based on who you are, but based on who someone thinks you are based off of your work. I call this unfair personally because in that there is an expectation of who you are supposed to be established. One either admires you or you fail to meet their expectations. And generally this attitude is made before one really gets to know you. I’ve found this interesting and this used to confuse me a lot. When people meet me I feel there is an expectation for me to be quick witted & very upbeat & overly gregarious. And I do have some upbeat aspects of my personality, but on the other hand I am also a 30 year old woman. So though one often sees a very spritely nymph like persona on stage from me, I can’t possibly totally be this in real life all of the time and I think I fail & disappoint people at times because… I’m actually just acting. This is just a random thing I was thinking about today.
A Matter of Life and Death
As a staff member at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Camila de la Llata has inspired thousands of visitors through theatrical presentations that show what each of us can do to protect ocean animals.
Now, facing a deadly diagnosis of acute leukemia, Camila needs our help. Stepping forward to help Camila will also make a difference for many other people in similar situations.
Camila’s doctors have said that chemotherapy will not cure her or keep her leukemia in remission. Her best hope lies with an immediate bone-marrow transplant from a matching donor.
The challenge? Finding a match will be difficult, because she is of bi-racial (Mexican and European) ancestry. Today, just 3% of the 9 million people registered as potential donors are of Latino heritage. Because Camila has no siblings who can serve as doors, she must find help through the national transplant registry.
Her doctors worry that a match will not be found in time to save her life – unless more people register, and help spread the word.
Camila was enrolled for her senior year at California State University, Fullerton, when she was diagnosed. She is a theater education and directing major, an exhibition ballroom and Latin dancer, and a choreographer. She is a young Latina woman with a promising future – in urgent need of our help.
Please register NOW as a potential donor, and share her story with your friends and family. While finding a match through the registry is Camila’s best hope, expanding the pool of potential donors will make a difference for others from bi-racial backgrounds who face a leukemia diagnosis.
Just found out that a girl I once talk to and when horse back riding with once a week have leukemia…. even though I havn’t talk to her in like forever I fell very sad and empty…. It’s just so scary when it suddenly hits someone you know….
Camila rode horses all of the time, I wonder if this is someone who knows her : )
Looking for a bone marrow match for my best friend who I love soooo much! I know her match is out there. She is half Caucasian half Latina. Hispanics only make up 3% of bone marrow donors. If you are Hispanic, or of any ethnicity please register to be a bone marrow donor, help increase leukemia survival odds for everyone. It’s such a simple thing you can do, all it takes is swabbing your cheek and only 1 in 50 donors on average are asked to participate. You could save a life. Please learn about my incredible, beautiful, wonderful friend Camila through this link. She needs our help, please repost this too. Even if you just repost this, you can be a part of making a difference & saving lives. http://join.bethematch.org/CamilasCure
Hello all I’ve got a lot to say so stay tuned posting a vid later tonight!!
Hey you all, I generally don’t do this but I am asking you a HUGE favor. One of my best friends Camilla De La Llata just got diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia and is in need of a bone marrow transplant. She is of mixed race Hispanic and Caucasian so finding a match is difficult. Please, if you can register (especially if you are mixed race) you truly can save a life and it would mean soooo much to me if you could forward this message any place you can think of. Camilla is the most incredible and talented person—just recently a theater major at Cal State Fullerton, incredibly gifted. If you can help me get the word out there, I would be so grateful! Here is the link to register or donate. http://www.bethematchfoundation.org/site/TR?px=2062880&fr_id=1451&pg=personal
I’ve had such a set back : ( I’m so bummed. Will definitely be posting a video about it.
I finally just got a grip on myself today. Had a weird flash forward into my future. I cannot destroy myself. It’s only going to hurt me. Hopefully I can keep this attitude up. 
30 day challenge-4—talk about your closest friend(s).
Oh man, I’ll try to make this one short, but it’s a little too connected to some real important lessons I have learned recently so I cannot just not share. I seriously feel myself uncontrollably preparing for my 30’s.
Who are my closest friends? I suppose I can list off the people I have known the longest—the people I have had the most one on one time with—the people who have helped me understand myself better—the people who I find the most accepting of who I am, but that is kind of boring. I also don’t categorize the people who are in my life. I have people in my life, I present them my genuine self and if people appreciate it… I can’t really ask for any more then that. I don’t know if a “close” friend is more valuable than a really smart friend, or a wise friend, or someone in the theater who has talent that I admire and grow from. I no longer search for friends in terms of closeness and dependency. Actually, most of the friends that I am the “closest” with—were/are categorized as “close” because there was a dependency there of some kind and I have been let down or have let down these people because of it. It’s not like these people are no longer close friends with me, but this type of friendship clearly in a lot of cases has a predicted nature, IMHO.
To me, the act of seeking closeness is counter productive to living my life as a complete human being. I have grown to find that this way of being lacks evolution. This preoccupation makes so many extraordinary people, ordinary.
We have to focus on ourselves, be complete people, know who we are so we are able to give pieces of ourselves to others and so we don’t crumble the moment someone disapproves of us. You can surround yourself with as many friends as you can get your hands on and you will still be alone. You can get married and raise a family, you will still be alone. No one can escape from their “alone” self and I feel many people live in a fantasy that you can. Which is why I think a lot of people desperately feel they need something or someone else outside of themselves for things to feel “complete”, but it is the people who seek this dependency that crumble in the face of tragedy and they crumble because what they are really doing is seeking to abandon themselves and to pass on part of their own life responsibility to others—if you abandon yourself, you will probably eventually suffer for it and it will be your fault. For when life calls on you to figure things out, and calls on you to be there for yourself—a responsible adult, and when you need to get yourself though something—there won’t be anything there.
Stages of life happen—death and loss. Friends can help, but they can’t get you through these things for you. Only you can. So with people, personally my goal is not closeness and security. I guess, I like to look for people who are strong, dependent, and have a firm sense of who they are. This is what I admire. This generally doesn’t always result in close friendship, but at least where I am at, I find it much more valuable and better for my “alone” self at the end of the day, in the middle of a crisis, and in all of those moments where I have to get myself from point a to point b and it’s difficult—it’s better for me to focus on building my personal strength up not to build just more people to depend on, because if they fail, that means I fail. My life is far too valuable to me to just put it in another human being’s hands. There are too many people in this world waiting to be saved. There are too many people who spend their lives building walls of false security time and time again only for them to be completely destroyed the second their wall fails them or collapses.
I made a decision that this is not the type of person I want to be just out of merely being sick of hitting my head on the same brick wall time and time again. I am sharing this because the second I figured this out my life has been amazing and unpredictable, but most importantly I has felt in-control, in a world that is very scary and out-of-control. This didn’t just happen over night, but it was as easy as making the decision to start living differently and as you start making the decisions to patch yourself up in the correct way, you find in a few months you are truly living free from a life that is in fear of the next disaster or disappointment. The disasters will come… less frequently, but even when they arrive, you know you will handle it and move on.
They don’t teach this to you in school, but I think they really should. Also, many therapists are too fixated on finding your “inner child” and are too polite to shake you and say “grow up and take responsibility of your shit no matter how hard it is and no matter how much mommy and daddy didn’t love you enough”. Every excuse in the world will not save you from unhappiness. So, I use this as a platform to yes, express a cliche that I am my closest friend, but to also give knowledge that took me my whole life to learn—knowledge that I am still learning. Knowledge I see people twice my age not getting. Also, I should probably state that this was written with no one individual in mind since I have a lot of friends who have needed help in this department (I am included in this) and I have many friends who always somehow think I am talking about them. I’m not. I see so many different people dealing with this theme on a daily basis. I think everyone deals with it to a certain degree. This happened to be the key for me to be a much happier person. I feel those who have gained some wisdom along these lines have a responsibility to share it, help others, and turn our own struggles into something positive.
30 day challenge-3. Your favorite TV program.
I know it asks for one, but I can’t do that. It is a toss up between House and Grey’s Anatomy. I liked House best, but now Dr. Cuddy is off House so I am a little pissed off. I cannot get enough of medical dramas. What is funny is to watch the similarities between the two shows. They have pretty much very similar plots, and they have like 90% the same guest stars, a lot of guest stars that I have only seen on House and Grey’s… so they must be dealing with the same agency for actors or something. One kid played an autistic child so well that I just guessed they just found some autistic kid for the role, they when I saw him in Grey’s he was a completely normal kid actor… so if you like one, I suggest watching the other.
