First of all, I need to clarify- when I say "we" or "the group of us" in this blog, I am referring to the lovely girls I spent all day with today: Jinny, Sneha, Ana, Jacqueline (Jack), Jessie, Corona, Shulin (my new friend!!), Kieryn, and Nina.
Second of all- HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD!!!!!!!!! I know this message is coming a bit too late, but you should both know (and I hope you already do know) that I am so grateful that God gave me you two as my parents. You are an adorable couple, and you have taught me so much. Thank you for never giving up on us or each other, and here's to 21 more years!!!! I love you!!!!!!!!!!!
Last night, Jinny and I heard that the SAG awards would be happening right across the street from USC at the Shrine Auditorium. So this morning, all of us except for Ana and Jack went over to the Shrine super early to scout out the area and ask if people would be allowed to stand outside to watch for celebrities later that day. Turns out, yes, there were places for us to watch across the street from the Shrine. We decided to continue with our original plans for the day, and to come back closer to the red carpet time.
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| The red carpet was all out and ready!! |
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| There was a HUGE collection of gorgeous gems and crystals!!! |
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| A ball of pure, flawless crystal |
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| I saw this and thought his eyes totally say "WHAZZ UUUPPP?!?!" hehehe |
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| The girls playing with bones From left to right: Jessie, Ana, Jinny, Sneha, Corona, and Jacqueline |
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| Kieryn's a black belt and Ana doesn't like it |
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| Shellphone. Get it? teehee |
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| This picture makes sense if you've read Lord of the Flies. Jinny has the conch!!!! ;) Left to right: Shulin, Kieryn, Jessie, Ana, Sneha, Corona, Jinny Jacqueline |
While we were there, we came up with our own little sorority- We are now the Pi Pi Pi sisters, or Tri Pi for short. It's pretty tight. ;)
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| Our hand signal. It's a long story and an inside joke why this is our hand signal. I don't actually like it myself, but have conformed because I admit, it's funny. Sorry for the no explanation, but trust me- you don't want to know |
We went back to USC at 1:30ish for lunch at Parkside, and then headed over to the Shrine to see what we could see around 2!
We got great spots- directly across from where cars would be dropping off celebrities and right in front.
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| Our view!!! Isn't it pretty?!? |
My pictures stink, and I didn't get too many of them. The best ones I got I posted to my USC Facebook album, but here's a list of (almost) everyone we saw that we could recognize in the moment:
-Most of the cast of Modern Family
-Most of the cast of Breaking Bad
-A few people from Arrested Development
-The Blonde girl and Raj from Big Bang Theory
-Oprah Winfrey
-Morgan Freeman
-Julia Roberts
-Kate Blanchett
-Amy Adams (I am still so excited about her!!!!)
-That really short guy named Peter... not sure who he is exactly
-Matthew McConaughey
-Matt Damon
-Jeremy Renner
-Jennifer Lawrence (She is GORGEOUS in real life!!! Also, still freaking that I saw her)
-Sandra Bullock
-Meryl Streep
-Carrie Fischer
-Mariah Carry
-Bradley Cooper
-Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts... oh my goodness... Have you heard already? Probably.
Julia Roberts is the reason that my friends and I are now plastered all over the Internet. That's right- you can now find my face, and the faces of many of my friends, on CNN, E!, Buzzfeed, Perez Hilton, Daily Mail, Tumblr, and I'm sure a few other websites.
When Julia came, she waved to all the fans, and then actually walked over to us. Like, walked in our direction. Directly at my friends and I.
She proceeded to shake our hands and say hello. The noise was insane.
Remember how I mentioned that we were right at the front? Well, everyone behind us wanted to be touched by Julia Roberts, so there was a huge movement forward from behind, and the barricade that held us didn't last too long. So we all fell forward, Jinny hit the ground, and we knocked both the trashcan and the barricade over. The security guys were quick to pull Julia back, and we were quick to pull the barricade back up, but the incident is now all over celebrity gossip news.
As proof, here's the CNN Video:
Now, the incident is both embarrassing, and really cool. It's really cool because when we got the barricade up, I did get to hold the hand of Julia Roberts. And she was totally cool about it, and she asked Jinny if she was ok. It's embarrassing because we almost spilled trash all over a very famous actress, and if you see my face during the video, it looks basically the same the whole time, and it's kind of stuck in a pretty stupid position.
I was partially star struck, but I was registering everything that was happening, honest. I also did reach to help pull the barricade up, but didn't get a good grip on it before it was up again, so it looks like through all this, I'm still reaching for Julia's hand. In addition to that, it looks like I'm the one that made my friends in front of me fall over. I can PROMISE you I was not. I got a huge shove from behind, and so did the people next to me. Group effort.
There's a gif of us on Tumblr. Holy cow.
It feels simultaneously embarrassing and totally awesome. We came back to the dorm room after we were certain that everyone was getting seated inside just so we could collect ourselves and register everything that happened.... wow.
We learned that we had missed Benedict Cumberbatch (which made Jinny and Sneha super sad) and Tom Hanks (which made me sad). Benedict had slipped inside pretty quickly, and Tom had arrived during the Julia Roberts incident. Oh well.
Another thing that hit me while we were back was that I realized how... odd seeing celebrities made me act and feel. Why is that? I feel almost... guilty. They're just people, after all, so why do I feel like I saw demigods or something along those lines? Isn't that idolatry? You hear all the time not to make idols of celebrities, because they are just people after all, but in their presence... it's a hard thing not to do, and I can't explain why. It's not like they're any more or less important than any other human being... they're just... of a higher rank, or something... I don't understand it. All I know is it was a really cool experience, and the most celebrities I've ever seen all at once ever!!!
So, the girls of Tri Pi went to get dinner, and then met back in Sneha and Kieryn's room to actually watch the SAG awards. It was then we realized there were a couple other celebrities that we saw, but didn't recognize at the time. I also learned the actual name of the actress who played Anita in West Side Story, because she won the Lifetime Achievement award. Good for her, wow!!!
SAG stands for the Screen Actor's Guild- a union for actors. As an actor, I've heard it can be pretty important to be a part of a union, and the entire awards ceremony was about the performances of the actors- even the "best movie" type category was for the best movie *cast*. As an aspiring actress... it was really inspiring. The actors will often share a bit about how hard they worked to get to where they are now... and it sounds exactly like what I heard the life of an actor would be like. The fact that it's possible to persevere and be able to make something great and beautiful like a movie or play despite the difficulty is encouraging. It gives me hope, and has also made me re-motivated to keep achieving my own dreams. If they could do it, why can't I? I don't have to be a Hollywood A-Lister to be happy, but I also know that, if I don't stop believing and keep working hard, it's not impossible either. And that is really, really cool. But even if I never do, you don't have to be an A-Lister in order to make something impactful- one of those stories that can really reach people and spread a message or show something about reality. And that's even cooler. I can't wait to be an actress.
The rest of the evening, we've all been hanging out and laughing and sharing stories and talking. These girls are starting to become like my girls back home, which makes me really happy. It's just so easy for the group of us to have a good time, and I have a good time when I'm with them!! :)
But I am exhausted- we stood for 3 hours straight after roaming a museum for 2 hours and it's nearly 2am now. Wow. What a day. What a city. Long Live Hollywood.
Fight on, friends.
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