It's Kodi Here

Hello world, it's Kodi here looking back on this first year of my current decade in life. I started this blog at the age of 20 to record all of the insane changes in my life over the next ten years. If each year includes as much change as this year has had then I am certainly in for a whirlwind of madness. Thinking back to January of this year, I was living in New Orleans in the process of applying to drama school and could not feel more lost and confused about adulthood and life. My life could not be more different right now. Now I am at drama school in England and feel incredibly solid in my path. And every moment in between those two snapshots of this year has been insane and wonderful. I have had my first paid stage acting job, lived in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Surrey, traveled to incredibly stunning places in Asia, and completely uprooted my life.  I've made incredible friends and found a new family in my new home an ocean away and could not feel more lucky to be ...

Hello World! So the Digital Detox was a little project that I gave myself several weeks ago (after seeing Estee Lalonde do a video about it) to try and move away from my dependence on technology. I had hit the point where I was reaching for my phone or going online without any particular purpose, it was just to pass the time. So I took it upon myself to spend 48 hours without my laptop or my phone. I shut both down and put them into my desk drawer and launched on quite the adventure. Below I have listed the observations/lessons that I learned about myself from it. 1. Because I don't own a watch or a clock, my sense of time was completely skewed and something that I found myself worrying about quite a lot even though there was no reason for me to know the time. 2. It allowed my body to fully recuperate in the way that it needed to. When I began the detox I had a massive headache and was just generally feeling exhausted from the week's work. I went to bed incredibly early on...

Hello World! Yes, I am alive. I apologize for the length of time that has spanned since the last time that I wrote a real blog post. As you may or may not know between the last time that I wrote a post on here and now, I moved from the West Coast of the USA to the beautiful county of Surrey in the UK to study at an absolutely wonderful drama school. What I didn't fully comprehend when I made the move was just how hard I was going to have to work and just how hard moving an ocean away from your hometown is. Not to say that I am not enjoying myself or regretting the transition, on the contrary I am having the absolute best time of my life and I have never before felt more on the right path. But that doesn't change that moving to a new country can be a bit trying at times. I still feel like I'm just in the moving in stage but in reality I've been here for a whole of about 11 weeks now, which is quite a length of time. So, I thought I would push myself to get back into the ...

Hello World! It's Kodi here and I thought I would quickly share with you something that has brought of sunshine to my life recently: Tanya Burr's book Love, Tanya   I read the entire book cover to cover in under four hours and was left with intense feelings of positivity and confidence.  I wasn't totally sure what to expect when I purchased the book, but really enjoy Tanya's blog and Youtube videos so I figured it would be a worthwhile purchase. If you are looking for a new coffee or bedside table book this is definitely the one. From her best skincare tips to the ways that she stays happy and confident, there are so many great life lessons to learn from it.  My personal favorite part of the layout of her book is the fill-in pages. They really made me think and get excited about my life.  In each section of her book she has a section where she lists her top ten of something and then has a page for you to record your own thoughts on the subject.  W...

 Hello internet, it's Kodi here, and was recently sifting back through some old blog posts from various things and found this one. It made me smile looking back at my positive self from a year ago and certainly made me proud of all I have accomplished since then. Re-reading it picked me up from a slight negative dip in my positivity so I thought why not share it with whoever is out there? Without further ado here is a small window into my past self:     The show that I am currently working in opened a few weekends ago, and this is the longest running show that I have ever been in, which is a really interesting experience for me. We give a total of 17 performances (the most I have ever done before is 8). On top of the number of physical performances we are giving, I have never had more extensive hair and makeup for a show before, which is really taking a toll on my skin and hair. Basically, I am getting to first hand learn the downsides to successfully being in ...

 Hello world, it's Kodi here and today I wanted to share with you my efforts in trying to achieve a personal goal that I set when I got my Passion Planner . A few months later, when I started this blog it also became #3 on my ten year goal list . As I mentioned in my last post, I am a very empathetic and emotional person, and because of that I am very easily affected by the emotions of those around me. So, to create a happy and healthy environment to live in I created the goal of living in a positive sphere of people. By the time I am 30 I hope to have fixed all negative relationships in my life, or at least have a solid way of staying grounded and happy when with these people. On top of this being a personal goal for me, I believe that living a life with positive and inspiring people around you can really improve your happiness on a day to day basis. Ever since I was a kid I've had issues with negative relationships from bullying in school, to friends who are pessimists, to ...

Hello world, it's Kodi here and I just wanted to share a quick realization I had a few days ago about love. And this may just be because I am an incredibly empathetic and sensitive person so I am affected by others' emotions easily, but I believe this applies to the whole world. Love is infectious. I try to live my life with as open a heart and mind as possible which allows for a much more positive life-view. A few months ago I began nannying for a young family with a 1 year old. At first, I was thinking rather negatively about the job seeing as it would be quite exhausting spending 5 hours a day with a 1 year old. For those of you who don't have kids or haven't babysat before, 1 year olds take up literally every moment of your time, it's difficult for you to eat or use the restroom let alone take a breather for a few minutes. So, I went into this job with the mindset of saving up money for moving to England. But the more and more I spent time with them the more j...

Hello World! It's Kodi here to tell you that you should reach out to anyone and everyone that inspires you because you never know what could come of it.  During my most recent trip to London a very good friend and I were fortunate enough to get the last two tickets to see Ralph Fiennes in Man + Superman at the National Theatre. Being two enormous theater dorks we were absolutely thrilled to spend three hours of our evening watching outstanding actors perform Shaw. Naturally, we were blown away by the talent of the stars featured in the show, but it was Tim McMullan who really took my breath away. Even after I got home from my trip, I couldn't get his performance out of my head, so I decided to tell him. Naturally I never imagined that he would ever receive my letter let alone reply. Within a month of sending my letter thanking him for being such an inspiration and asking what his advice would be to an aspiring actor, I received a two page, handwritten, heartfelt reply. ...

Hello World! It's Kodi here and I thought it would be a good idea to tell you all a little bit about my skin and the problems that I am trying to fix with it. I will probably be putting up some product reviews in my quest to healthy glowing skin, and it may be nice to have a reference post to see what kind of skin I have. I have been struggling with quite a few different issues with my skin over the years and if I can find a solution, maybe it will help someone out there who is struggling through the same thing I am. So like any other teenager, I went through some bad acne in middle school and high school which calmed down quite a lot once I moved to college. Naturally there were a few hyper-pigmentation marks and acne scars, but it was nothing that I was to worried about.  As a kid, I learned that I had a pretty severe metal allergy which prevented me from wearing jewelry. Little did I know that the humidity in the air along with the mineralized water in the showers at college w...

Hello World! It's Kodi here and I thought that I would use this post to explain why butterflies are so important to me. The universe has been sending me butterflies constantly over the past few months and I'm still trying to work out why. Regardless of that, here is where it all started: It all started when I was traveling in the U.K. with my mom.  We were at Blenheim Palace in the cafe and I could feel a panic attack coming on. I immediately tried to stop it by getting outside and doing deep breathing but soon the tears came streaming down my face and I was only able to take very shallow breaths. My mom and I found an empty butterfly garden and figured that would be a good place to sit and pull myself together. As we quietly wandered around, my mom saw a sign that said something to the effect of "Do not put butterflies in high stress situations. They will die." She then looked at me and very matter of factly said "you are a butterfly".  From that...

Hello Internet! It's Kodi here to give you a little anecdote from recent events in my life. I recently had quite a whirlwind of a day which taught me a valuable lesson. I learned that having a good day versus having a bad day is entirely up to me. I only need to see the good that happened and focused on the joy that was in my life on that day. I truly believe that happiness is a state of mind and our reactions to events that happen in our lives is really the only thing that we have control over. So, a couple of days ago I was pulled over for the first time in my life and was given my first ticket. It was one of the most heart-racing experiences of my life. Overall it was a pretty funny experience and I am so incredibly glad to have had one of my best friends with me in the car (we were on the way to Disneyland).  She kept me sane and kept telling me how everything was going to be just fine and I hadn't done anything wrong.  The story of getting the ticket is pretty funny on ...

Hello World! It's Kodi here and if you've been following me on Twitter or Instagram then you will know that I have been out of the country for a week to learn about all of the exciting new changes coming in the next few years of my life. For those of you that are not as social media inclined, this is the update on the exciting and wonderful things happening at this moment in my life. If you have read my Where I'm At post then you will know that I have spent this year applying to and auditioning for drama schools in the U.K. And a few weeks ago I was in New York with my dad on my way to do my last few first round auditions in London and something very unexpected happened. I had been emailing with a woman in the admissions department of a school that I had auditioned for in January. Originally we were told that we would know the outcome of our audition within two weeks of the audition. At this point it had been about two months and I had heard nothing. So ...

Hello Humans! It's Kodi here and I recently came across a company called Tea Drops, and I think it is my new favorite thing. I came across the company while watching an episode of Tea & Sprinklers with Sierra Boggess and Mary Setrakian and immediately got very excited. I have always been a huge tea lover and was very excited to give Tea Drops a try. After finding their website, my excitement only grew after learning a bit more about the company and what they stand for. As you know my most recent goal that I have been working on is becoming a happy, healthy, and balanced human being and their tea has become a new staple in my daily routine. I feel 100% okay when it comes to the environment because all of the packaging is completely Eco-friendly. I have also been researching natural healing options more and more and found that Tea Drops has a couple of their own! I have yet to try them but am sure they will be just as delicious as the others. As of right now my current favori...

Hello Internet! It's Kodi here and today I thought I would write a post about my starting point for the ten-year adventure. Technically speaking, where I'm at right now is on my couch, with my dog, watching a DVD of Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty. But that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is to document my starting point so that when I look back ten years from now I will be able to recall exactly how I felt before this next decade of my life. I am currently half way through my sophomore year of college and am taking this semester off as a leave of absence in order to audition for drama schools abroad. So, in a way my adventure is already well underway as most of my auditions are already over. I am now sending in some DVD auditions and sitting here waiting to see where the universe will put me. I decided to make the choice to change directions as far as my training as an actor goes because of the time I spent this past summer doing a classical a...

Hello Everyone! It's Kodi here and today I wanted to share with you a tool that I have used that has improved my goal-setting skills immensely. It is called the Passion Planner and it was given to me by my stepmother a while ago, but I only recently sat down and did all of the goal-setting exercises and I have to say, it has made an enormous difference. It is partly the reason that this blog finally happened. It has helped me make tangible steps for the aspirations that I have to improve my life. I now have to do lists incorporated into my everyday life to achieve my goals for three months from now, one year from now, three years from now, and for my lifetime. On top of being a great tool to help you keep your goals organized, it's also just a great planner. It has so much more space to write than most other planners I have used. It also has a to-do list space already built in which is divided between personal and work tasks. Having the to-do lists right in the planner ens...

Hello World! It's Kodi here. As I mentioned in my last post, the main idea behind this blog is to set general goals for the next ten years of my life and then follow along to see which ones the universe deems right for my life. So, without further ado: In ten years time I see myself... 1. Supporting myself through doing a job that is energizing and inspiring to me. Hopefully acting onstage. 2. Having a happy, zen, cozy home in a town or city that invigorates me. Most likely near the ocean. 3. Keeping only positive and joyful relationships in my life. Friends that push and empower me to be the best version of myself. 4. Having a well-trained dog. Either a Pug, Husky, or Samoyed. 5. Being the happiest, healthiest, most balanced version of myself. 6. Having created something I am incredibly proud of, whether that is a production, theater company, this blog, or something else entirely. 7. Trained at an acting conservatory. Hopefully abroad somewhere. 8.Working for/with Disn...

Hello Internet! It's Kodi here and welcome to my blog. I am 20 years old and am passionate about Disney, Shakespeare, Pugs, and Butterflies (among other things). I am currently on a gap semester and am in a big turning point in my life. I have been toying with the idea of starting a blog or a YouTube channel to document this transition for a while now but only recently had the burst of inspiration that I needed to do it.  The inspiration came from a video that the YouTuber Alfie Deyes posted called 10 Years Time . In the video he asks where we think will will be in ten years time. In 10 years time I will be 30, which is rather a daunting thought if you ask me. I personally feel that the 20s is really the time that a person finds themselves and starts to become a real adult. But then again, what do I know? I haven't actually been through them yet. But, that's why this blog is here. I want to document what changes and adventures come along in my life over the next ten y...