I Almost went to BYU

                                I wanted that cute face in a commercial!

I bet many of you didn't know that I was up for a full scholarship at Brigham Young University.  I don't like to discuss the events that feel like a failure or that hurt me, but this is quite an interesting way my life could have turned.

I actually wanted to act when I was a cute kid.  I didn't know about the heartless nature of the biz when I was young and resented my parents a little bit for not putting me into commercials.  I think I asked my mother once and since Dad was in show business he was disgusted with the idea,  I let it drop.  My school life was caught up in Band, but that fell apart in the 11th grade and I found myself without an elective.  I was picked to play a very small part in the school play the semester before and I decided to throw myself into Drama.  It wasn't much of a program, but I sucked all the knowledge I could from the teacher.  I was able to letter 4 times in only 2 years.  I was apart of every show with my finger in every piece of the pie.  Not only did I act, but I directed, helped the teacher pick out costumes, did the sets, helped with the props and with the lighting design.  I met some of the nicest people in that program.  I didn't feel like such a freak in the theatre, maybe because every one else had their freak flag flying.

For my graduation present my parents actually paid for me to go to a summer acting workshop at BYU.  My grandfather worked at the University's labs, so I could stay with them and he would drive me to the school, that way my parents only had to pay for the classes and not room and board.

This did put me at a disadvantage with the rest of the peers who share every minute with each other.  There are always clicks, little groups that decide the dynamics of the interaction.  This was my first time away from my parents, which wasn't a problem.  I tend to be independent to a fault, which happened in this instance.  The other students had paid to live in the dorms and eat at a special cafeteria, so for breaks I found myself alone.  The food was inexpensive and I plunged into BYU living by myself.  I do wish I had a bed to go to, but I shopped in the bookstore where I found something to read.  I lay on the grass listening to my Walkman and reading until it was time to go back to class.  Others very rarely wanted to do a scene with me, so I tried to find monologues that I liked.  It was very nice to practice in the empty black box theatre making  sure I had my lines memorized, while I waited for everyone to return.

After a week I got into a rhythm with the school.  I found another outcast in the class and we became friends during the break times.  I did stay in the dorms one night when I knew I could not get a ride to school.  I told the teacher and he was able to get me a bed rather than have me missing for a day.  It was horrible!  I laid in that hard, too small bad wondering if anybody could really sleep on such a torture device.  The bed was bad, but it really was the bathrooms that chased me away.  You could not pay me to deal with communal showers, no sorry, not going to happen!  Then the dorm was on top of the hill from where the class was.  I could not believe the hike!  Reality of living at this school was setting in and I had yet to experience snow.  People do not make a difference in my choices, sure most of the other students going to BYU would share my religion, but I didn't think that was necessarily a good thing.  I did not have a base to my own beliefs yet and going to BYU didn't excite me.

So I had this thinking when my teacher asked to speak with me.  He was professor of the drama program at the school.  He asked to see me during the lunch break, which we only had 30 minutes for.  I told him I did not eat with the other students and he followed me to the public cafeteria.  He asked about my family and what I was planning on doing with my life.  I told him what I could, I was only 17 years old at this point and not sure of anything.  Finally he asked if I would like to come to BYU with a full drama scholarship.  He had checked into my grades and this meeting had been an interview.  I was completely caught of guard that someone could give me such a huge gift.  I was very flattered and thought that something good had finally come of all my hard work.  He said he still needed to work things out and not to tell anyone what he had offered.  I was so happy that I had been chosen for once.

I am sure you are wondering what happened. 

They gave it to someone else.  The night of the closing awards banquet the teacher came up to me and said that he had to give the scholarship to someone else.  He had found out that her mother was dying of cancer.  Trump!  A dying mother gets a scholarship over a lonely fat girl any day.  I couldn't even complain.  How terribly childish would that be?  I was finally being recognized by people who did not know my past. Who had a clean slate with me and in their eyes I had been successful.  I had earned the chance to be in this program and it had all been ripped away by a girl with a dying mother.  I did not feel resentment, more like a profound sadness.

My heart harden even more that day and when the plane took off to take me home to California I was more than happy to never see that school again. 

After that summer, my mother forced me to go to the community college.  I also got an agent and began going on auditions.