THE BEGINNING A little squirt here, a vein popping push there...out I came! One problem, I squeezed out 3 months early. Mom says that she could fit my body in the palm of her hand with my arms and legs dangling. The doctor told mom that if I didn't die, I'd have cerebral palsy, or I'd be blind. Mom didn't care, she stayed by my side. She firmly believed in the healing power of touch. She constantly had a hand on my lifeless body, trying to keep me in this world. A few months later, WAPOW! Out of the hospital (against mom's wishes), I was at home for the first time. She firmly believed that I was still sick. No one else did. Well, after turning blue, mom revived me and took me back to the hospital. Still, they thought it was just a mother overreacting, but she stood her ground firmly and made the doctor wait there with her. Minutes later I stopped breathing and mom revived me once again that day. To mom's relief, they kept me there a lot longer. She says that I died five times in my life, she brought me back each time. I really do owe my life to my mother! All five of them! Aside from my horrible eyesight, I came out just fine, thanks mom!

GROWING UP "M" I was actually a very shy kid! Don't get me wrong, I was very interactive, I had plenty of people to talk to, none visible to the human eye, but I didn't care. They were just as cool in my book as everyone else. My mom made sure that my brother and I were heavily involved in EVERYTHING! We did everything in the book that there is for a kid to do! We joined every group that kids could join! I was in co-ed little league, book club (although I cheated and only read the books with big pictures with even bigger print), art class, ballet, jazz, tap, roller skating, camp, cheerleading, fishing, basketball, raquetball, kickball, football with the neighbors until I started growing boobies, flute lessons, piano lessons, violin lessons, learned about the earth in a group I can't remember the name of, we spent every summer at the community swimming pool (you know, the one with the green water? - yellow in the baby pool). We mastered the 3 story platform! It was funny to look at all the people watching this scrawny little girl jump 3 stories down! I won't lie, it hurt every time, especially if I forgot to point my toes, but I had to do it, to prove to everyone that I could!). Mom got us season passes to Astroworld every single summer. She would drop us off at the front in the morning and gave us two dollars and two tacos and told us to make it last. We learned the value of money early in life. Then one day, she gave us THE talk (with my cousins Jesse & Tony included). You know the one, about how it's bad to talk to or go anywhere with a stranger. Simple, easy, right? No! Mom had to tell us this while we were all eating HUGE pickles! She then explains that if we were to go anywhere with a stranger, that they all had pee-pee's the size of our pickles and they would do bad things to us. Needless to say we chunked our pickles and ran while screaming bloody murder the second a stranger approached. I will never forget that talk! We all laugh about it now, but then, we were SOOOOO traumatized! She definately gets points for conveyed to kids that don't listen what to do when a stranger approaches! She never had to worry about strangers abducting us. We were like well trained dogs! Mom was very open minded with us. She didn't want us not knowing anything, although, I have never in my life heard the birds and the bee's story, the way it's supposed to be told. Instead I heard the "vagina's & penis'" story while looking at anatomically correct pictures. Any questions I had, she answered immediately and found pictures to accompany her answers. She definately didn't hold back! One year she got us a trampoline, I found out later that was more for her than it was for us. She said it would wear us out. When we had too much energy, she sent us out! Fun times! She was so pissed when she found out that we had drug the trampoline close to the house so that we could jump off of the roof! We got about 3 good jumps in each before she caught us! We learned that you have to hit the trampoline smack in the center, when we didn't, we got catapulted from the trampoline to the ground, very painful, but it didn't stop us! We used to play slip & slide trampoline, only one problem with that. The cover that is suppose to protect you from the springs were all tore up, so we took it out. Not good when you are sliding across the trampoline uncontrollably. My brother got racked several times! Me laughing the entire time, then crying when he recuperated because he would make it a point to beat the shit out of me for laughing at his pain. Well, I inherited a nervous laugh from my mother, so I would get the shit beat out of me while laughing uncontrollably. The nervous laughter didn't go over well with my dad. You see, dad didn't have much patience for kids. Mom pretty much got us in all of those things to get us out of the house and wind us down by the time we got home to dad. We were definately afraid of dad. We pretty much stayed in line because of that fear. Mom says if he wasn't there, we would have run all over her! She's right, all we had to do was give the puppy eyes and she was had! Dad would slap the puppy eyes right out of our heads! Unfortunately, my memory of my childhood is limited. Fortunately my mother was obsessed with taking pictures of us to document our lives and she did a damn good job of it! I've got about 15 books to help me remember my childhood. She helped me remember all of the road trips we used to take with her and grandpa. We have been to almost every major city in the United States (although I don't remember most of them), we've been to Canada, many many parts of Mexico (we have family in Acapulco and spent many a summer there), been to Spain, many stops in South America, I floated in the Dead River (although not really, the salty water was a hint too much for my 7 year old wookie, and the damn bathrooms with saltless water were a mile away!) Been to the Red River, went to that place where Indiana Jones finds the Holy Grail, been to England & Italy recently, Mom kept us well traveled! We were always going going going (I can attribute my workaholism to her). She kept our family together and filled us with a lot of love. And that was my childhood, sort of.

THE TRAUMATIC YEARS Oh these were fun! My teen years blew big chunks! It's that period in your life where you are not a cute kid anymore, your body is growing in ways you had no idea could, other parts of your body weren't growing at all when they should, it was just an ugly, insecure time in my life! I was still shy in my teens. I had grown a huge overbite (apparently from sucking my thumb), so I had to go through a process of a HUGE retainer! My teachers constantly tried to pin me with chewing gum all the time which was a big no no in school at the time. I hated attention on me that I didn't call for (still do!) I finally got gratification one day. I got called out for chewing gum AGAIN, fortunately, I had just finished a bag of chips that I was sneaking in my mouth, so I took out my HUGE retainer coated with chip particles and grossed out the teacher and all the kids that were staring at me. She sent me to wash it out and that was the last time I got called out for chewing gum that I couldn't chew if I had any. That retainer wouldn't allow it. I had to wear the damn thing for 2 years and sometimes it would emit the most horrible of horrible smells! Glad to graduate to braces! Although it didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked it to go. I inherited small teeth from my mother. They were too small for the braces, so they had to cut my gums THREE times! OUCH!!!!!! OUCH!!!!!!! OUCH!!!!!!! and then they thought that my lisp had to do with that piece of meat restricting my tongue from reaching the roof of my mouth so they cut that out too! OUCH!!!!! Those were some painful years! To add to the pain, one of my beauty marks on my chest started to grow, not a lot, but enough for me to feel it. I was thirteen. The doctor said he wanted to take it out "to be safe", that it might be cancerous. So there I was on the operating table, AWAKE and watching as the doctor's shaky hand came closer with the teeny-weeny knife! He cut a circle, popped out the meat like a piece of carved grapefruit. He pulled away to put it in a small jar, leaving me horrified, staring at this hole in my body that he created! Mom could see the terror in my eyes and made a joke to try and calm me down. Well, troll dolls were popular then, you know, the ones with jewels in the bellybuttons. She thought it would be "cool" to put a jewel there like the trolls! "Not funny mom!", then she nervously laughed. Well, the doctor came back, squeezed my skin together, sowed me up, and sent me home. One major problem. I DIDN"T HEAL!!!!!! Went to another doctor to find out why my skin was bubbling over the sutures and found out that I had a keloid, which is basically a scar that doesn't stop, so he injected a spurt of cortizone in each part of the scar (14 of them to be exact) OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!! That one hurt worse than the healing of the cut gums! It took me a very long time to heal physically and emotionally from that scar, my self confidence was already very low, the scar made it plummet. I had a tough time looking into peoples eyes. At this point in my life I had braces on very small teeth, a bubbling scar on my chest, that wasn't developing yet by the way, mountainous pimples that liked to place themselves between my eyes and on the tip of my nose, hairy legs that mom didn't want me to shave because she knew I would be shaving for the rest of my life and wanted to save me some time, oh and I had, i repeat, HAD a moustache and a unibrow. Damn, the ridicule I was recieving from all of this from kids that didn't understand what it felt like to be an ugly duckling, and I mean a lot of ridicule, was unbearable! I just wanted to find a hole that I could stick my head in and wait there for a couple of years. I was convinced that I was living in teenager hell. Poor mom was there for me through all of it, her shoulder was wet my entire traumatic teenage/hell years. Thanks again mom! Well, I finally came to terms with the scar (in my twenties) as a part of me and a part of my past. I will always remember that emotional pain associated with my scar and that time in my life, I sincerely believe that it has made me a stronger person! I don't take shit like I used to. I won't let it happen again! Unfortunately though, I have recently felt that horrible physical pain again. I slammed my finger in my car door and that hurt REALLY REALLY bad because it slammed on the part where my nail starts to grow (check out the pictures of my jacked up finger in the photo "me" section)! So anyhow, back to the scar, I still have it (of course) on my chest and mom still says that I should get a tattoo and turn it into a scorpion. Thanks mom, not funny! Okay, recap, so while all this pain was happening to me, breast development wasn't! I was a late starter for everything! Oh My God! What a traumatic time in life! Because of this, I have never made fun of anyone's appearance! To this day, I have and still defend anyone who I see suffering this emotional pain because some dipshit thought it would be funny to make fun of them, worst of all, in front of other people! I will always remember what this pain feels like. I still get a piece of it from time to time (especially since being on television) - people are just mean, i don't understand it, have they never been ridiculed in their lives? Have they never felt ugly? Do they have no feelings? Are they cold inside? Does this happen to them all the time and they just don't know any better? It kills me especially when I have done nothing to invoke this scrutiny, but what can you do? Well fortunately, my self confidence has sky rocketed since then, I hold my head up high now, my eye contact is a fierce one, and I'm a lot more vocal now than I was. I'm not that shy little girl that runs home crying filled with an emotional pain that I cannot describe anymore, and I gained wit somewhere along the line, which really helps, but I still won't attack back with a comment about that persons appearance, I usually use guilt (learned that one from mom, and it works too! Just bring it to their attention what they are doing, put them in your shoes, in a calm manner, let them know that it actually hurts and they usually stop). God I hate it! They always make fun of something that a person can not help! Something that has been inherited, not something that the person picked out for themselves! We DON'T get a choice of what kind of nose, chin, hair, legs, feet, butt, breasts, size of penis, color of skin we want. We get what we get! Some are more fortunate than others. Please keep that in mind and spread the word to all the dipshits out there. And that's all I remember of my traumatic formative years. On to High School.

I'M READY TO COME OUT NOW! High School is where I found my voice, but not until the later years. My brother and I went to the High School for the Health Professionals. He wanted to be a brain surgeon, I wanted to be a pediatrician. That is until they sent me to the hospital, as part of the curriculum, to actually see a pediatrician in action! Holy shit, I wanted to run out of there the second I smelled something funny. The first thing I saw, and I will never forget, is this little girl who was 4 months old. She had the body size of an overweight 2 year old. Her entire body was inflammed from some disease. She was not conscious and her body was shaking something awful! I was heartbroken, not only for the little girl just starting her life, but for her parents who had to see their first child go through this pain, not knowing if she would survive! I couldn't handle it! At that point I lost all taste in medicine. I didn't care about the class, my grades dropped, I wasn't involved in class discussions anymore. My senior year, we had to pick a profession we wanted to follow, well, since I didn't care anymore, I followed my brother's footsteps and followed around a transplant surgeon. One day, I got invited to watch a transplant, which meant not having to go back to school, so I took it. MISTAKE!!!!!!! I was the DJ for the crew, I had to change out the CD when it was done. In six hours, I heard all of Eric Claptons albums! They had me standing on a stool, looking down. It was a kidney/liver transplant to a 5 year old boy. Well, I was disgusted! Not because of the surgery (I got to see what a bad liver looks like up close, and I got to see what a newly cut up liver looks like as well) Oh, and the smell was atrocious, smelled like a goat market gone bad, really really bad! I was more disgusted with the behaviour of the doctors. Here was this 5 year old little boy, (at the mercy of these doctors), well, his disease affected the growth of his penis. It wasn't developed all the way. It was plain to see. Well, the doctors thought it would be funny to crack jokes about it...LOTS OF THEM!!!! So, I left. Got back to school the next day, my teacher found out that I did not stay through the whole procedure and told me that I was nothing like my brother, that I was a disappointment. bitch. Yet another reason to go the extra mile in something that I am actually interested in! Well, I found out what that was my junior year in High School. I had to take an arts class, I thought it would be easy to take theatre. I played make believe all the time when I was younger, this'll be a piece of cake...and it was! I loved performing, I loved hearing an applause afterwards. This quiet kid finally had a voice, it wasn't my own, but I didn't care, I was not in my brothers shadow anymore, I finally had my own spotlight, and I loved it! (My brother was the popular kid in school, I wasn't). My Senior year, my theatre class got to perform in front of the entire school. I was so excited, my debut! Well, my debut came to a screeching halt when we got to choose the play we did. The chosen play was an all black play. I raised my hand and said..."uh guys? I don't know if anyone noticed, but uh....so, who am I gonna play? (I was the only non black kid in the class) Everyone just kind of looked at me as I pleaded that I wanted to be in the play too! The teacher finally said, how do you feel about doing a monologue in between the set change. Well, I was disappointed that I couldn't be in the play with everyone else, and scared to do something alone, but everyone really wanted to do that play, so I agreed. And it all took off from there, that's when I invented Guadalupita Conchita, Frijole, Enchilada, Chihuahuah (her name keeps changing as the years go by). It was about a little girl (i had a long dress and I kneeled on some shoes) Well, this little girl got beaten a lot, and the other boys and girls made fun of her and how she looked and she told the stories (yeah, um, didn't get inspiration from my life at all). I made it into a comedy, which offset the seriousness of the play. Both went off wonderfully! The applause was enormous! And more importantly, everyone laughed at ALL of my jokes. I couldn't wait to do it again! That opportunity came soon! Cinco de Mayo came up and our school didn't have teams, we had clubs, and we celebrated holidays, big time. We had cheerleaders, but for the S.A.T's and P.S.A.T's -shrug- Well, I joined the traditional mexican dance team. I couldn't wait to learn. They spent an entire day trying to get me to move my hips and couldn't. They told me I couldn't be on it! I was so hurt. I told my sob story to my mom like I usually did, and she had consoling words like she usually did, accompanied with an idea. My aunt was in town on my dad's side. There was a picnic involved, and a scarf. My aunt wrapped the scarf around my hips, so that I could see them, she said. She would hold my ribs down while she told me to move my hips with the help of my legs......and... WAPOW!!!!!! Holy shit, I moved my hips! Like they weren't even a part of my body! (I can still do it!) Well, I ran to the dance troupe at school and showed them what I could do....they told me they already filled my spot and they didn't have room for me, maybe next year....HEARTBROKEN!!!!!! Well, that didn't stop me, since I learned how to move my hips, I began to learn how to bellydance! So Asian day was coming up! ha ha ha ha ha...I went to the Teacher in charge and asked her if I could bellydance for Asian Day...She said YES!!!!! I think she was more excited than I was! So I got my friend to play the guy who rubs the bellydance bottle and taught him how to bellydance so that he could have a dance off with me (always adding humor). We only had a week to do it and we pulled it off so well that the principle kept coming up to me, calling me by my first name (never happened to me before) asking me to show her how to move her hips!!!!! I couldn't believe it!!!!! My brother had already gone away to prep school for the Naval Academy, I was doing this all on my own, for the first time, for no one but myself! It was a very revelating thing for me. I was the shy kid, shouting out loud and clear, again! woooooo, I was on a high, I needed more! Cinco de Mayo rolled around again, and this time they ASKED me to join! Wooooooooooo! I was so excited! So I did, I had a great time, I danced my heart out! Wait.....back up a week and a half! There was no humor in this traditional mexican dance (which I can still do, by the way) I wanted to hear a huge laugh again! So, I approached the teacher that was in charge of the program and asked her if I could do a comedy skit. She said no way because I wouldn't be able to get something together in a week and a half! I argued with her that I got the bellydance routine together in a week! She then immediately said, okay, go for it! Holy shit, I couldn't believe that she said yes! I was on top of the world at this point, but not as high as I was going to get in a week and a half! I quickly formulated a skit that night that involved a grown up Guadalupita Conchita Frijole Enchilada Chihuahua, and I mean a stereotypical one. I grabbed a friend of mine that already had a Mexican accent and asked her to take part in it..she happily agreed! It was called "Guadalupita Conchita Frijole Enchilada Chihuahua's Beauty and Fashion (pronounced "Passion") Tips (pronounced "Tits" ) 101...oh, and Maria's gonna help too" [fortunately the teachers didn't catch that I said tits!] The skit was a hit!!!!!!! There had been other comedy acts up, and no one got their jokes, which made me nervous as hell because comedy is a hard thing to pull off! They laughed at ALL the jokes, again! We got a ginormous applause afterwards! We did a last second curtain call and we got an even bigger applause! Oh man, was I in stage heaven! Everybody knew my name for once in my life, I wasn't my brothers little sister anymore, I was NADIA! And more importantly, everyone always greeted me with a great big smile, there's nothing like that feeling of making someone smile everytime they see you, and there were a lot of people this affected! The principle LOVED me! To make matters even cooler, a great cap on my High School experience, we get miscellaneous awards at the end of our High School career, that our classmates vote for and holy shit, you'll never guess....I got FUNNIEST of the year!!!!!!!!!! That year totally made up for my freshman, sophomore, and part of my junior year! Needless to say, I went to college for Theatre....MISTAKE!!!!

THE COLLEGE YEARS The year was 1995, the body was finally growing into that of a woman's body, rather than the tomboy body that it had always been. The school was San Jac Junior College. Back up to 2nd grade....i skipped it, I don't know why, but I did. So here I am in college at 17, not turning 18 till October. The boys finally started noticing me! woooo-hooooo You see, I had felt ugly for a good chunk there, no matter how beautiful mom told me I was, I still felt ugly, got pictures to prove it, one of them is in the photo gallery (I had a boyfriend in High School that I dumped after a couple of weeks because of my own insecurities). One problem about the boys noticing me, I was always busy, I had a job at asshole world, while going to school, while going to rehearsals, while doing homework! No time to pee, much less add someone to my list of things to do that day! So my first audition was for the Foreigner. I practiced and practiced my audition piece, it was perfect, butI didn't get a role, I actually got understudy ... SUCK!!!!!! I had walked into favortism....only the kids who had been there awhile got the parts! So I got shafted, well, not so much, the girl who was playing betty, the old lady, bowed out, said she couldn't get the southern accent down and didn't want to play the role....Guess who stepped in! WOOOOOO-HOOOO, my first role in college and it's a big one! I was so excited! Unfortunately, the older cast was not and the people that did not get cast and had been there awhile were pissed! And I got treated that way! SUCK!!!!!! Ah Well, I wasn't going to quit...it was a comedy role!!!!! my favorite! and I took full advantage, I knew I had to really prove myself for being a freshman in a big time role that "should have gone to someone else", so I started taking risks with my role when no one else was , but the bastards caught on and started doing the same! lol....Well, the show was a hit!!!!! I got a lot of props, and I got noticed by the directors. The next show, I got a small part, but I was just thrilled to be in the play with all of the older people, just to piss them off! Well, that one went off well too! And I got noticed by the directors again! For the exception of a few, I got every main part there was to get!!!!!! My favorite role was from a play called UBU, it was a serious role about this woman who has grown up with this kid and ends up marrying him. Well, the guy ends up dying in her arms. He had these sureal characters that only he could see, that would haunt him, a marionnette that came alive to him....Oh, it was a great play, we even made it to competition for the first time with it! One problem, in the last scene, I'm the only one left on stage, cradling a marionnette as if it were my husband (who just died), with empty tears...okay, at this point, a screen is supposed to come down, and UBU - her husband's made up character that stalks him. is supposed to appear on the screen laughing, and that's when I disappear! Well, the director failed to mention to me before the show started, at our FIRST competition, that he had cut it out! Leaving me on stage, crying, waiting for this damn screen to come down. When I realized that it wasn't coming down, I trailled off the stage. Problem number two: The damn stage was a weird one, the curtains were connected together in a half circle, it was hard to find the hole to get out in the dark...it would have been a little easier if someone hadn't covered that hole, but they did, so the lights go up and i'm fumbling with the stupid curtain trying to find my passage way to the other side, the one that is NOT in view of the audience! Well, we did not win. The director cried and blamed it on himself. So did we. Although something good did come out of it....I got nominated to go to the Irene Ryan Competition, a handful of us went from our school. You had to choose a partner to do a scene with you, then do a monologue. total 5 minutes. Well, I found the perfect partner and the perfect scene, shitty monologue. No one from San Jac had ever made it past the first round. The first round was 166 couples, that gets dropped down to 64 couples, then it goes to 32 couples then it goes to 16 couples.....HOLY SHIT, WE MADE IT TO THE LAST ROUND!!!!! We were the first ones!!!!! woooooooo! Well, the super cool/gratifying part was, we got to do our scene/my monologue in front of all of our peers and friends and a whole lot of other people we didn't know that wished they were where we were! Funny, there was a group up a few couples before us that did our same scene!!!!! But they did it much different than we did, it didn't get as much laughter as we got. Truthfully, I think that's what killed our shot, I held for laughter and I KNOW we went over time which disqualifies us, I know this because this guy was talking to a bunch of us afterwards and gave us an example of a couple going over time and he looked at US! ha ha ha, we didn't care! It was too gratifying just performing in front of our peers and them coming up to us afterwards telling us what a great performance we did! They didn't have to say anything, you know? We were so proud! My mom almost jumped through the phone when I told her, she hated that she missed it (it was in Oklahoma). Well, my reputation at San Jac was soon going to change from "Take notes from Nadia" to "Don't pull a Nadia". I present.....the Elephant Man, the play that almost got me kicked out of school, fortunately for me, it was my last play ever (and i knew this already) and my last semester at San Jac! But nonetheless, It was a good scare. So I played Mrs. Kendall, the movie star who befriends the Elephant Man (serious role). Well, she gets really really close to him, and she asks him if there is anything he wants to just tell her. Well, he said he had never seen a womans naked body. She saw no harm and showed him.....only one thing, Mrs. Kendall saw no harm in exposing herself, but Nadia did! I wasn't exposing myself to the audience, just the Elephant Man. Still holding on to insecurities, I pulled the director aside and explained my insecurities and asked if I could maybe put bandaids on my nippies to make it easier for me....well, he replied with "You can put anything you want on them" MISTAKE!!!!!!!!! Well, it became my mission to crack my friend playing the Elephant Man (whole new crew of people, much better friends with all of them). So it was crawfish season, and I would write stuff on my belly like "I got yo crawfish, bitch" with an arrow pointing down! He was good, I could see him reading, and not one crack, although he had an advantage, the elephant man's face was mangled, so he had that face as if he was laughing already....but still I persisted to come up with more creative things to put on my belly and distract him from my breasticles! So we had an early cast party and I was talking with my best friend Nikki, and she suggested putting a full blown hairy chest...WOW, "What a Great Idea!", I said! So I did it for the final show, took me hours (we learned how to put crepe hair on our faces in theatre make-up class led by the director of this play-ironic)....So there I was as home, applying hair to my body, A LOT of it! Mom comes home, laughs her ass off! Grabs the camera, takes a bunch of pictures (all ripped up by the way! ha ha ha ha) and sends me on my way. She went to every one of my shows! So I get to school, director calls us in and tells us this long horror story of what happens to people who pull pranks on the last night, that's when I started getting nervous cause I couldn't take the shit off! It was GLUED to my body, only a long hot bath with massive scrubbing could get it all off! I was screwed, so I went with it, showing everyone before the show! Showtime! The scene comes up, he asks to see, I pull the shirt up while facing the audience, not revealing anything yet, walk over to him, start unbuttoning, still walking, he drops his cane, only not like he usually drops his cane, it was in my line of walking, so i had to slep over it which positioned my body outwards enough for part of the audience to see. I unveiled myself, serious moment KILLED by one of my friends who let out the biggest yelp followed by laughter which grew contagious among my other friends who saw....Holy shit, I was terrified! I ran to the bathroom immediately after I got off stage and started scraping the hair off! OUCH!!!! I was red all over, and bleeding! Finally, the end of the show comes and director immediately pulled me into the office. NERVOUS!!!!! He asked me what I had on my chest, I told him Kermit the Frog Bandaids, he didn't believe me and asked again, my answer didn't change! He didn't believe that Kermit the Frog bandaids would generate such a laugh that "ruined the whole play" he said (oh, did I mention his collegues were in the audience?) I told him that maybe they were laughing at my boobies...yeah, um, he didn't buy that one. He let me go, thought I was off the hook. He brought every person in that room into his office and interrogated him....no one said shit, fortunately, they were all my friends! One other problem, we were taping that night! SHIT!!!! CAUGHT ON TAPE! Well, one of my friends relieved my worry saying that the tape had mysteriously disappeared, he took it home and watched it, found that it showed nothing because of where it was sitting, and the taped mysteriously reappeared that night! WHEW! Well, I thought I was off the hook until he drug me into the office, across campus (the longest silent walk I've ever taken!) and asked about my hairy chest! SHIT, CAUGHT, SOMEONE BLABBED!!!! WHO? Well it turns out that at that early cast part, the other director's wife overheard me & nikki's conversation and told him! bitch. So, he started taking it out on everyone, finally I pulled him into his office across campus and told him to scold me and no one else, i did the deed, I'll pay the price, no one else! So, he agreed. Shit, I really thought he was going to take this to the DEAN, which would have gotten me suspended or expelled from JUNIOR college, damn, how do you explain that on your record? "umm, see , there was this play, and ummmm, my nipples...ummmm, hair........director pissed......I got expelled....so, am I accepted into your big college or not?" He said I couldn't be in anymore plays, I didn't want to add fuel to the fire by saying that this was already my last play and my last semester here. He also threatened to call all of the schools I was applying to and tell them what had happened....then I got pissed and reacted harshly. I calmed down and apologized, so did he, but he still hates me. I ended up taking a break from college for about 2 1/2 years. I got a massage license to survive because I knew my career choice wasn't going to pay for food, let alone rent. I did about five professional theatre shows, got an agent/new headshots, did a few commercials, industrials, educationals that didn't pay squat. I had quit massage and started working at a Claire's as an Assistant manager, then one day I get a call from my brother who had just graduated from the Naval Academy. He was going to Nuclear Power School in Charleston, South Carolina and said that since I wasn't really doing anything that I should live with him in Charleston, I said okay. Within a couple of days living in Charleston, I went on an audition and got the damn part! wooooo, I also went to work for a Claire's in Charleston. Well, the play finished, it was the first one my brother had seen, and the last one I ever did. Mom didn't get a chance to see it. I missed Texas so much, I had moved out of my brother's apartment and in with my coworker. During that time a Hurricane hit the East Coast and we had to evacuate to Atlanta, the whole city had to go! Jesus, it was just like that movie where the big Meteors hit New York (minus the huge wave) and the traffic is at a stop. A four hour trip took 16 hours, and NO BATHROOMS!!!! fortunately, the highway was divided by trees and bushes and I brought toilet paper! Everyone was shitting in the bushes! Kind of funny! Anyhow, I missed the hell out of Texas and a few months later, I packed up my car, drove 17 hours straight, and decided to go back to school. Finished all of my bullshit classes at San jac. That director I had pissed off stop teaching theatre, stopped directing, and started teaching English. I sincerely hope that his decision to leave theatre wasn't because of me, he was a great director.

THE COLLEGE YEARS - PART TWO I realized in South Carolina that I didn't want to pursue acting anymore, although I love performing, but I had to be realistic. It wasn't going pay for ANYTHING! I needed to go to school for something that I have more of a chance to make money to survive so that I could get off of my mothers payroll! One of my directors mentioned once that if you look at the credits of any movie, the cast only takes up a smidgen of space compared to the crew! Man, that was the best thing he ever taught me. So then I realized that I wanted a television production degree. I could definately make some money doing that! And, it's still in entertainment, it's even a more creative job than acting! So I went to a University of Houston Radio/Tv Welcome Day, Boy did that SUCK!!! I hated it! They didn't tell me anything I wanted to hear, they weren't really up to par with teaching tools for RTF, and you couldn't do shit until 2 years later (for me one) but still! How the hell am I supposed to learn everything I can if I can't get my hands on anything for a year? I'll lose the book information after the test is done, i don't learn like that, I suck at taking tests, that's why I had to go to JUNIOR college in the first place, so I said screw that place. Then a friend mentioned that i might like this other university near by, so I went to their Radio/Tv Seminar. LOVED IT! You got to touch shit the second you got it there, and the classes weren't huge, like 20 people max! woooooo, took it. Although one big problem, parents didn't have money to send me there. They could afford junior college, but not big college. They felt so bad, but i did what i had to do. I took out loans! (MISTAKE!!!!!!!!!!!) I had also been working for a spa prior to getting into the university. They worked with me and let me work on the weekends. Well, I did. Sucked! School was an hour away, I got to work every friday at 3pm, worked til about 10pm, then went back to work, zonked, at 8am (dad lived 45 minutes away, had to get up at 6:30am) I would work till about 7pm. Massage takes a lot out of your body (professional massage, not booty massage! Although booty massage aparently takes a lot out of you too, but that's not what I was doing). I was so pooped every weekend, I would go back home Saturday nights and just lay there, my body didn't want to move, but I made enough money to live off of while I went to college, and the loans took care of my tuition/books. I went to school for Radio/Television Production, they didn't have a film section, although I was very interested! But this was a great school, the second I got there, I got involved with the news. I auditioned and got weather girl. I had taken a lot of acting and acting for film classes, bullshitting into a camera was not a problem for me. Next, I got an Anchor position. Then I took a radio class, I had to do a radio shift, my first one was classic rock, then I volunteered for the rest of the shifts, college rock, indie rock, classic rock again....then I asked the guys if I could have my own show, and since I had put in my time, they gave it to me! It was called "Nadia's Latin Lounge of Love" aka "Salsa y Merengue con Queso, baby" It got very popular with the Cuban community at the local "holding place for people who did something really really wrong"! I got the snail mail letters to prove it....Holy shit, were those funny letters! I included a segment in the show that ripped off of "Learn to Espell with Angel" I grabbed my friend Eduardo and called it "The Word of the Day with Whore-Hay"! Oh man, the words were great, Eduardo would spell it in his old Mexican Man accent, and put it in a sentence that just was horrific! I mean, we got in trouble for a few of them! They got crass! Well, I won an award for most creative radio show! woooo-hooooo, I put a lot of work into that show! Thanks mom for all the Salsa Cd's you got me! I was also the Salsa/World Coordinator (I still don't know what I was supposed to do as the Salsa/World coordinator!) Okay, going back to News, mind you I only spent 2 full years at the university. Truthfully, I hated college, and I wanted to get out, but I wanted to get everything out of it that I could. So Broadcast Journalism class came, called BJ, too many jokes, all of them used already! Well, one of the prerequisites was to run master control, and I'd already heard of the horror stories from everyone else on how boring it was, so I asked the teacher if I could try my hand at directing.....I had been a reporter the semester before and got an award for my great journalism, (hated reporting and vowed never to be a journalist ...EVER!!! I'll go back to massage before I become a journalist) Well, he said if I thought I could handle it, that it was okay. So I did! Watched someone do it a few times and picked it up! Well, I got good at it, we almost had no errors on my shift (there were a couple of newscasts) and since I knew how to run everything, the prof, usually took off and watched from his office, after a couple of weeks, he just went home! I volunteered to do it another semester....You know, it really sucks when people don't want to be there, because then they suck at their jobs, which makes me look like I suck at my job, and that sucks! But there was a lot of that, I was constantly on the God mic, firing the crew! They thought it was funny, I was semi-serious! Well, the next task at hand was directing a live Sale-a-thon (the newscasts were live too, but they were only 30 minutes, the Sale-a-thon was 4 hours, straight!) Well, I got it, had a blast. I was also the talent for two of those sale-a-thon's, Eduardo was my co-host, Eduardo and I did everything creative together. We won an award for outstanding performance for the sale-a-thon, both years, we had a lot of fun, on the second sale-a-thon, i convinced this lady that owned a gown shop there to donate a gown that I could wear during the Sale-a-thon and promote her shop, SHE DID, it was gorgeous! Then my prof told me I had to auction it, I argued with her that I put in the hard sell to get it, but nonetheless, I tried to win it, I had the upper hand! The people answering the phones were 10 steps away from me, I kept going over there during breaks (in the damn dress) trying to see where the bid was at and bidding....I told the person to bump up the last bid 5 bucks so I could win it...THE BASTARD DIDN"T !!!!!!!!! I didn't win the gorgeous dress.....I didn't dry clean it when I was done with it either! The last gratifying thing I did at school was my final project. 5 fifteen minute episodes of whatever I wanted....Well, I grabbed my good buddy Eduardo and told him what I had been planning since I got to this school (a year and a half earlier) and found out that this course existed! I wanted to do a psychological thriller...full length! He agreed it would be cool, he didn't know what he was going to do, so he jumped on with me, thank everything holy! (I really trusted his camera eye more than anyone else! He was an amazing DP). Only one thing though, I hadn't written it yet. I had a deadline for the first episode in less than a week....so I drove to Houston and sat at a coffee shop with Radiohead in my ears (Kid A) for 6 hours....and WAPOW!!! Not only the first episode, but a draft of what the damn thing was going to be about. I called it Shattered, it just seemed to fit....We got high grades (i bitched when one of the episodes got a 92, she told me I was crazy, I told her I was a perfectionist and needed to know where I went wrong that I lost 8 points so that I could fix it!) Oh yeah, and since we had such little time to shoot, edit, write, MEMORIZE LINES! I played the main role, wrote the thing, directed, and edited, and hold the camera when Eduardo was in the shot. I had to quit work (i've never been so hungry in my life!) I lost a lot of sleep and weight that semester. I wanted to graduate and get the hell out of there, I was taking 19 hours of school, while directing the news, while directing a sale-a-thon & hosting a sale-a-thon, while directing the christmas live special, while writing, directing, editing, and acting as the main character of my movie. This damn movie almost killed me, but we got it done. I put my little sister in it when she was 2, and my mother was in it too. We ended up winning several school awards for it, and it got in two festivals outside of school. We raised the bar at our school with that movie, I was very proud, but when I see it now, I completely cringe! So many little mistakes that could have easily been fixed then. We had to learn as we went, they didn't teach us film there, and you can totally tell in the movie, it got a whole lot better by episode 3...Oh, and my computer was broken and no one knew how to fix it, so I had to work with it...it gave me hell! It wouldn't go to black, it wouldn't accept text without some kind of image behind it....Dumping it down to tape was a bitch...I couldn't hear if the music bed was too loud until It aired on the television, then I had to go and change it, which was an even bigger bitch, and turn it back in! We shot mostly late at night, it was the only time we could get anyone together , and I edited till the wee hours of the morning. Everyone in the movie was either a friend of mine or a friend of Eduardo's, or both! Two of our friends had a scene together, but we could never get them together! So, we had to do that trick, you know, the one where it looks like they were at the same place, but it was shot on different days? They finally met a couple of weeks after the movie was complete, at our viewing party at the local bar that we shot at...(fortunately, two of the characters worked there and they opened the door after hours so that we could shoot a few scenes there). There was a part where I scream "somebody help me" while outside the bar, so funny, this girl comes running up, she hadn't noticed the lights and the camera was in the distance at the time, but all she saw was me and a couple of guys crowding around me! When she got closer, she realized that we were doing a movie and laughed as she told us how she was going to whip a few of the guys asses! I was grateful, because if I had been in that situation, it was cool to know that there was someone ready to save me, without thinking! Well, I went back to short hair during the taping of this movie, I had kept it long for this purpose, which was torturous. It was a shock to everyone when they saw that episode before seeing me! Mom still thinks I need therapy after watching the movie the first time. My response each time is, "Mom, I made it up! I was listening to a lot of Radiohead then and that's just what came out". There was a scene where I put my little sister in, who was 2 at the time, I put duck tape on her mouth. I got a lot of "I can't believe you put duck tape on that little girl", well, actually, I put water on the tape and kept a corner of it dry. The first time I put it on her, she immediately peeled it off and casually walked over to play with her toy. So Eduardo and I got her back, and convinced her to keep it on. She couldn't speak yet, but she had this thing that if you told her she was bad, she would give you these huge brown puppy dog eyes and her eyes would well up (which is the look we wanted for the movie), So, with duck tape on, I had to tell my little sis that she had been bad over and over again, until she stopped looking at the camera! Well, we got it done, took the tape off, and smiled at her to let her know I was joking, and told her what a good girl she is. she laughed hysterically and put the tape back on her mouth! ha ha ha ha, it was so cute! Mom had a blast doing the movie too! I had to drive to Houston for a couple of the scenes, and we just had a blast! Mom had a tendency to look into the camera too, lots of takes the first time. It was kind of funny though, I purposely got overtly mad at her as each take went on, by the last take (i think we were in the twenties), she was so frustrated and angry that it bled through her lines! (which, in that scene, she was supposed to be frustrated and angry with me). I looked at her, laughed, and said "perfect momma", and then apologized profusely! Mom did such a great job! She was such a great sport! She loves that she was able to be a part of it and I'm glad she was too! She's the reason why I put this clip in here...she told me that I needed to put it in here, and then bugged the shit out of me until I did, ha ha ha ha.....god, I love my mother, I wouldn't have done any of this if it weren't for her! Thanks mom! I also put our famous local food mart store guy in the movie. His name was Habib, not really, but everyone, and I mean everyone knew him as habib and called him habib, so i threw a small scene that included him getting pissed off that we kept calling him habib and made him repeat his real name! No one knew what it was until this movie! His name is Roger, and he was a great sport too, and so was the pizza lady! (One of the very few comedic moments in the movie). We had such a great time and learned so much during the making of Shattered, but, Damn, I was so malnourished that semester, but it was a very gratifying one! I learned a lot about radio, television, and film at that school and I am very grateful that they gave me the opportunity to do everything that I could possibly do there! With all of that said, I almost didn't go to my graduation. I didn't care about walking, I was just excited to get the hell out of school and start my professional life! Well, when I told mom that I wasn't going to walk, she started crying, saying that she has been waiting a long time to see me walk. For awhile there, she didn't think I would ever go back to college and get a degree. So I walked! I graduated in Dec. 2002, with a B.F.A. in Radio/Television - emphasis in production - 3.45

THE AUSTIN MUSIC NETWORK AND ME A few months before graduating college, my roommate at the time said, hey, lets move to Austin, you'll love it! We visited a few months earlier and I knew that I didn't want to live in Houston ever again! So I said "screw it, let's go!" Got here in mid December and started looking for a job to keep as busy as I had been. I had the worst luck! No one was even nibbling at my resume, no one was hiring at all! I was starting to get nervous that I would get stuck in a job that had nothing to do with my degree and just piss my education (that I am still paying for) away! I didn't want that. I love doing production! So, it was January something and we had just gotten cable, no phone book yet. I was channel surfing and stumbled on AMN. I noticed that they had a lot of live videos, which led me to believe that they had a production department. I also saw someone come on the screen, I think it was Matt Torres, but I didn't think anything of it, I just thought how cool it would be to work for something so fun, live bands! Houston doesn't have a big live scene, I spent most of my extra time at dive bars and Karaoke bars in Pasadena! So this was very intriguing to me. I always have music in my ears. My life is a soundtrack of music, different stages, different music. So since I didn't have a phone book, I 411-ed it and it took me straight to the office rather than the request line. Fortunately for me, the general manager at the time, Woody Roberts, picked up the phone. I told him my story of watching AMN for the first time that day and graduating and he started asking questions about me. I answered everyone of them. He told me that they did not have any production positions open at the time, but if I would drop by and leave my resume the next day, and talk to him more. Woooo, my first nibble!. Well, I missed him the next day, but I dropped off my resume. A month had gone by and nothing! I was still constantly looking for a job and found a marketing job that was hiring (I suck at sales, I hate sales!) but it didn't matter at this point, so i went to the interview at SEVEN in the morning (unheard of with my late night schedule) but I woke up, went to the interview, HATED EVERY SECOND, I was supposed to go on a second interview the next morning, only this time at SIX in the morning! Well, I had already decided that I wasn't going to go and continue my search when all of the sudden, my phone rings...IT'S WOODY!!!!!! He said that a position is going to be open soon, that I need to come in for an interview and meet Gary Garza! WOOOOOO.....so I got there, met Woody, he was really cool, he showed me around the parking lot of threadgills! I talked with Matt, who was v.j. that day, for a long while, almost too long, started getting woozy! Then I met gary...He said that there are no production positions open but there will be a Master Control position open and if I would be interested....I said Hell Yes! (kind of nervous though since I skipped that part of the learning process in college). He said that the girl working on the weekend did not want to go on the air, and they wanted someone to go on the air and do Master Control. Of course, I told him I had no problem at all! I knew that if I could get on with AMN, I could move over to the production side when someone fell out! I started training for Master Control a couple of days later...No biggie....the thing that sucked is that my schedule got all jacked up. They wanted me to train under EVERYBODY! No one had the same shift. I went in one morning at 6am, the next at 9am, the next at 12pm, next at 6pm, and finally at midnight to 6am! That was a crazy week! I did this for about 10 days. Then they gave me her shift on the weekends from noon to 6pm. They didn't have a program schedule back then and since i didn't know the local music, I was screwed! So I watched a lot of AMN, took a lot of notes. Then I realized that it would be easier and less repetitive if I started taking requests. And that's where the whole request thing started. Only one problem, they didn't have a database of music, they had a huge binder that was missing pages, and the library was in another shed all the way across the parking lot! Well, my schedule soon changed. I started working 6pm to midnight on weekends, and I started getting more calls! I found out people were watching the show at certain bars and calling in from the bars! Oh, and I was also the fill in and let me tell you, everyone took advantage of that! They hadn't had a fill in for a long time. I didn't mind, I got more hours and it showed that they could depend on me. Well, Gary stepped up in management and he asked me if I wanted his shift from 6 to 9am, I said hell yes! more time! I just won't go to sleep, I'll go to sleep when I get home from work, that way I'll still have energy! So, I did that shift for awhile. Then Woody stepped down, and a new crew stepped in. Jen Garrison was at the helm now. She threw our shifts out the window (which was great for me! This way, we were all on a clean slate, I could get more hours and possibly a better shift) Well, she wanted to see how we all did on certain shifts. So we shifted around a lot. Then she asked for proposals of show ideas and what shifts we wanted. I was one of the few that turned one in! I proposed the late night weekend shift. (I knew no one wanted it and I didn't mind working on weekends, I've done it all of my working life) I also proposed a request show for the viewers to choose the music. Low and behold, I got both! wooo-hoooo...I was finally up to working hours, but I wasn't completely satisfied...I wanted to be on the production side too but they wouldn't let me. I don't think they thought I could do it. So I jumped off the 3 story platform and started showing up at their shoots, offering to help with whatever i could help with, rolling cables, packing cameras, holding cables. Still no go, so then I took it upon myself to do my own commercial. It was for bands to submit their videos (it got pulled because Jen started banning peoples videos and those artists argued that the commercial said that it would be played not that it would be considered for playing, so she banned the commercial too!) Well, the production crew was short one member and I was asked to join! woooooo Well, not so woooooo, they put me on a riser with a camera that was supposed to only have a wide shot. Well I moved the damn thing anyway, and it was noticed. They started inviting me to all of the shoots! Then that management crew stepped down when Louis Meyers came in. He changed up a bunch of the programming and invited outside producers to come in. He asked me what I thought should be changed about late night, I told him that there wasn't enough time for requests, that we needed to extend it. He agreed and made it go from one hour to three hours. I also told him that since it is all request, all the time, no one was requesting local music, and there was hardly any local music played during the day and that we needed to change all request to texas request...he agreed. Then the viewers started complaining that they understood about the local thing but at least dedicate one night to all request. So I conveyed that to him, and we agreed that Saturday Night would be the best for that. Man, you guys put me to work that night! I mean non stop! I stopped doing interviews on Saturdays because the response for requests was ridiculously enormous! E-mails wouldn't stop coming in! The phone wouldn't stop ringing! Even the bat phone was ringing! Whew! Well, in July, all of the money ran out, the city decided to stop funding AMN and mostly everyone was laid off. I had already expressed my interest in volunteering for the network, so I was technically not part of that crew, and boy were a few of them pissed at me! I've never been treated so bad in my life! Funny though, once I told that certain group that I was volunteering, their response was "I didn't know that". Never judge a book! So during this time of me not only volunteering V.J. hours, but also volunteering production hours for a couple of months, I was spent, in many many ways, I didn't have time to look for another job! Then the political bullshit came into play (just google "Austin Music Network" to get caught up, although, don't believe EVERYTHING!) and that's when I decided to leave. I immediately went on a road trip to the East coast to visit my family in Florida and Maryland. then I came home, and started working freelance. Completely missing AMN! I had such a great time working there! Then I got a gig in Los Angeles (read my first post in My Diary), I was also going to see if I liked it and possibly move there. Well, the gig did not pan out for several reasons, but I learned a great lesson, DON'T move to L.A., and not because of the gig. There's nothing like Austin, and I've spent a lot of time in a lot of cities in my life. Nothing has ever felt like home, like it did when I first got here! So while I was in L.A., I made a phone call asking if AMN was going to be around for awhile, the answer was "yes", then I asked if the political bullshit was behind AMN, the answer was "for the most part", and my final question was "is there still a place for me at AMN?", the answer was "we didn't want you to leave". I'm very proud and excited to be back on the Austin Music Network! I've missed it dearly. I've gotten a lot of e-mail from fans wondering where the hell I went. I have also run into a mass amount of people wondering the same thing. Well, I'm right here! Thank you for noticing! This website is for you. By the way, I'm continuing to do freelance videography (with my new xl-2) and editing while I get my production company off the ground (byNadia Productions). UPDATE - JULY 11, 2005 Well, I had to put the freelance stuff and my production company dreams aside for the meantime. As of June 1st, Louis Meyers (now ex-general manager) decided to leave AMN for a better career opportunity with the North American Folk Alliance as the exectutive director. This move left myself and Clay Fain running AMN. Clay was given the title of program director and I am the production manager, although we kind of laugh at those titles because we are doing so much more than that. There are a handful of people that are volunteering at AMN and we are completely appreciative! When we took over, we decided that we needed to bump AMN's look up a notch, and have been working around the clock trying to keep AMN "fresh" and "watchable", lol. Our main goal is to keep the damn thing alive!!!!! We recently got AMN to a national level, in that, anyone from around the world can now tune into us via the web. No restraints with the stream capacity anymore, we basically force people to watch the second they click AMN's website or myspace page, and the word is getting out fast! Thanks to everyone who had a hand in this! AMN means the world to us, we know what it can accomplish and we know how important it is to keep it alive for the music community of Austin. Hopefully the underdog will prevail, once we get those damn stars to line up, and AMN will live forever. UPDATE - Sept. 1, 2005 R.I.P. AMN. Damn the politics! Bastardos! I will truly miss you AMN, and now on to more adventures. I'm going to have to make another one of the bookmarks for the next chapter in my life, but where the hell am I going to put it? Well, this life story ends for now, for more long ass stories, visit my diary. Thank you for reading this far, I appreciate that you took the time to get to know me! Sincerely, nadia