Work Text
This is where my story begins.A young athletic light brown haired teen girl, picks up a blue leather A5 sized book. On the front of the book is a bee engraved in gold and below it reads "Busy as a 🐝(bee)".She reads out loud ""Busy as a bee..". "What is that supposed to mean?" She quietly says to herself. She frowns and shrugs her shoulders and removes the blue rubber band which holds the book together and opens it. She sits down and starts.
10/08/2015. 11.y.o
Hi... I'm not exactly sure how to start but my mom gave me this book. I was supposed to use it for school but I guess I don't need it anymore. So I'm repurposing it. I've heard writing down thoughts is very good for mental health or so... I'm just gonna try it. I feel weird writing this so...I'm just gonna call you Lilac for now... because that's how I want to call my daughter in the future. Maybe she will read this diary one day to learn about my life and that struggling is okay because I, her mom, struggled too. But before we start I'll talk a little about my early life. I grew in Köpenick (ˈ[køːpənɪk]) Berlin, Germany. It's a part of Treptow Köpenick, the biggest district of Berlin. It's one of my favorite places in the entire world. It's quiet and you could be whoever you wanted to be. There wasn't a better place to grow up in than in that little part of Berlin. My life was still not perfect there but it was good. I'm the youngest of four children. We all couldn't be more different. I have two older brothers. Henry, he is seven years older than me and a pretty control freak. He likes to do EVERYTHING when it comes to electronics or candies or whatever we're probably gonna fight about. In any case it can be very annoying. If I'm thinking about it he is a pretty annoying person especially if I'm going up the stairs and he pokes my butt that's his way of teasing me. Or when he randomly starts physical fights (just for fun of course) it's super exhausting but with his 18 years he doesn't have the brain power yet to understand that physical fights with an eleven year old is unfair? Luckily if I say stop he usually stops. Usually. Sometimes he doesn't and I get almost panic attacks because he is on the blanket which I'm laying under, when he starts those acts. I'm claustrophobic and If I can't move my legs I'm starting to panic. Nevertheless Henry is my favorite brother because he is athletic like me. He plays American football a sport he picked up when he was in sophomore year in highschool in South Dakota. He was an exchange student there. I don't really remember it since I was still very little. I also like him more because he isn't weird like William. William is four years older than me, so he is 15. He is kind of... different?. He has Asberger autism. I only know that he plays video games all day and that he is really picky about his clothing. And oh that his room stinks. But mom says that's because of puberty. Also when he's excited he jumps up and down and makes weird sounds. We don't really like each other the only thing I like about him is that he is really good in history and he likes to tell weird stories about it. Henry doesn't like him too but Doja does. Doja is my older sister she's two years older than me. Her actual name is Violet but NO ONE calls her like that. Everyone calls her Vicky or Doja but Doja is only reserved for me (or the family but mostly me😊). She is really good in math and wants to be a math teacher when she is grown up. I don't really understand but whatever. I'm not really good at math. I have something called A "math weakness" but I think it's called "dyscalculia" or something. Anyway it means I have difficulties to calculate and it takes longer for me. Mom also says I have problems with coordination when I do sports and stuff. There is other stuff about it but I don't really remember anything about it anymore. Doja is reaaaallly good in drawing like reaaaallly good she draws all the time. She especially likes to draw fashion stuff and YouTubers. She's also a little troubled because when she was in 7th grade she hated her school and skipped it really often. Mom was really mad when she found out...and was even mad at me even when I didn't know about that...but yea mom gets angry easily so you don't want to make her angry. Doja and I get along really well and we love to play barbie or monster high together but sometimes she is really mean and prefers to stay in her room instead of playing with me. Now about me my name is Octavia and I'm eleven. I play Oboe, Basketball, rhythmic gymnastics, and I did German wheel and Diving, and I tried acrobatics but I didn't really like it. I'm really athletic and I always need to do sports so since I'm six I do almost everyday sports. On Mondays I have Basketball, on Thuesdays I have Oboe lessons, on Wednesdays I have Basketball and on Friday I have rhythmic gymnastics, actually I was supposed to have Basketball there but because of rhythmic gymnastics I don't go. I'm really good at basketball since I'm in the State team which means it's a basketball team that is formed out of the best basketball player from my state. And I'm in the girls team of my age (U12). Most of the State team consists of my teammates from my club. My club is really good. It's the best or one of my best from my state and city (Berlin is a city AND a state btw). My goal is to make it in the national team and I'm really close. Unfortunately I had to change clubs so often because I'm small for a basketball player. I always have to be as double as good as others, at least that's what mom says. Even with my size I'm good at defense and everybody knows especially my coach. Okay enough of Basketball. Now we come to Obeo... I'm not really good at it but it's quite okay. I hate concerts sooo much. I have stage frightness, I can't even talk in front of my class, especially not playing an instrument where you have to blow into it in front of people. It's hell!. I used to be an extrovert but my English teacher Mrs.Weinreich that witch bullied me because I was so afraid of doing a presentation that she was really mean and told me how stupid I was etc. No one likes to do presentations, especially in English, a foreign language. Now everytime they take attendance I start to sweat and my heart starts beating fast, but then I have to find out every time that she only checked the attendance anyway. I hate that feeling. It's awful.
When I'm older I want to be a cop. I want to be a cop because of my favorite show Castle it's a show about a Writer (named Richard Castle) and a detective named Katherine/Kate Beckett and together they solve crimes. A few month ago I discovered a show called Grey's Anatomy and I LOVE it. I liked doctor shows before but that's a really good one. I even heard that there comes out a new spin off show soon. I don't really know what a spin off is but as far as I know it's a show that is somehow connect to the original one in anyway, at least that's how I understood it. Anyway the spin off is called "Station 19" it's a firefighter show. I guess the way those two shows are connected is that victims of the fires are delivered to the Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital (the hospital where Grey's Anatomy takes place in). I saw on Instagram that they need a girl that speaks English and German well for Station 19!. I really want to audition for it but I don't think mom lets me do that. I have to ask her. Hold on.
~
Update: she said YES!!! (After me begging for a while). She at first said "Absolutely not. We're not flying to America for that when they won't even choose you, it's too expensive and you have school". But when I told her that the auditions are in Germany and the US, she said "they won't choose you"(me) I can try to audition just for fun. Then she said yes. Woohoo!.
I totally forgot to talk about my Parents!!!. Mom is 45 and was born in Hannover, a city south of the North German plain. But she grew up in Garbsen, a small town just outside of Hannover. Grandma died of Cancer before my birth. She met Henry but I'm not sure if she met William too. In any case she didn't meet Doja or me. I don't know much about grandma only that she died of cancer, that she loved children and she taught Religion at Middle and High school. Moms dad passed away one year ago. I remember it well because I had my first nationwide competition, when I told her I placed first she told me "Great. Your grandfather died" and I replied with "Opapa? (My dad's dad) Or Opa boat?". Well it was Opa boat. My moms dad. I liked Opa boat, he was nice. Quiet, but nice. We called him Opa boat because he used to have a boat that he liked a lot.
Mom has a brother called Victor, he's 48 and a lawyer that married a Spanish woman and got a child that they named Mateo. Now about Dad. Dad is not home often, he is always working. He is a beekeeper and he is quite famous where we live. He was on tv several times and in some famous German tv shows. His bees were also often featured in Blockbusters. It's crazy to think about that actually since they're just bees and he's just a beekeeper. I don't actually really know dad. I know that he LOVES his work and that when we don't behave he gets really aggressive. I don't like that especially when he threw a knife at me. It was so sudden and it scared me. Mom isn't really happy about the way he raises us (if he's at home) but she says that's the way he was raised. Generally I don't want to end like my parents, they always fight and scream at each other and dad when he laughs he tends to slap our laps and that just hurts, I know he doesn't mean it bad. I REALLY don't want to end like my mom. She's always sad and doesn't tell us that she loves us or even hugs us. I don't know why she doesn't do it, in any case I don't really like her, because of her I had to switch basketball teams four times because she would always start fights with my coaches. Anyway my hands hurts so much from writing so we will see each other next time. Bye:)
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02/09/2015 11.y.o
Hi Lilac, I'm so nervous. I'm on my way to the audition which is surprisingly in Hannover!. So I contacted the agency that looks for actresses and they gave me a script that I needed to learn and then I had to send them a self tape of me saying the dialogue and then I had to send it to them and I actually got a call back!. They invited me to an in person audition. As far as I understood, all the girls that come to this audition are auditioning for the exact same character...so my character. I don't expect to get the roll but I'm just happy to go there. I love traveling even if it's just inside Germany. I actually have never been to Hannover since my relatives either live outside of Hannover or in Bavaria or a completely different state. So far we're two hours in and it's 10 a.m and my audition is at 12 p.m the navigation device says we arrive in about 50 minutes. And the weather does not look too good. It's currently raining:( I hope it stops when we arrive. I don't want to arrive there as a complete mess. I'll update you later. ~ Update: I'm sitting in the hallway next to the auditioning room. I'm sooo scared and nervous at the same time. I'm writing this to distract myself. So before I got here, we arrived and luckily the rain stopped. It just sizzled so that was all right. We then went to a bakery. It was super cute. It reminded me of the little village store in Füssen ([Fūccen]). Füssen is a little town near the Neuschwanstein Castle. The Castle that was the inspiration for the Disney Castle. It is a weird fact that I like to tell people. I guess it is a quiet known fact but maybe if one day someone reads this diary they won't know that fact. Who knows. About that bakery...It was so cute. When you entered it, to your right was a little dining area. Above it there were cute fairy lights and pictures. Those pictures were so old they were even in black and white. It was pictured a family of four, a man that was quite dirty and he wore an apron next to him was a woman with short curly hair that had her hand on the shoulders of a girl. She looks a bit younger than me, maybe eight or nine. She has her long blonde hair braided into braids that are hanging over her shoulders. She doesn't smile, infact no one's smiles, except of the little boy to the left that sits on the ground. He laughs and holds up his little wooden horse toy. He wears a white shirt and pants with suspenders that are already super dirty. The owner told me the bakery is a family company and over 100 years old. It even survived the two World Wars!. I got a strawberry cake, my favorite, and hot chocolate and mom got a cheesecake and some coffee. We sat down for a bit and enjoyed our meal and went through my script. I think I'm well prepared but I'm still sooo nervous. If it's like the performance I had last year I don't want to do it. Last year I voluntarily did an Oboe performance (which I never do!) and afterwards parents laughed at me and made fun of me because I got so red. I played well and was just literally red because I was a bit nervous but it's not nice to laugh at someone because of that... I felt horrible afterwards. Anyway I'm audition number 13, my lucky number and my basketball Trikot number. They just called number 11 so wish me luck. ~ Update of the update: The audition was okay I guess it was completely different than what I expected. The room was huge and frontal to me where 4 people. Two men and two women, were sitting at a white desk and on the walls were pictures of roses. It seems like you can rent the rooms they used for the auditions. I gave the nice lady that smiled at me when I came in, my folder. Before I could audition I needed head shots which are basically pictures from different angles of my face and acting jobs I've done before. I wrote down that I played sleeping beauty in a play. That was in pre-school but it's still the truth. Then some Christmas Musicals from my church that are always really fun. I play the same angel every year, I never had a speaking part but a singing and dancing part. And ofc our Christmas Musical my class did this year for the retired teacher of our school. I didn't really impress them with my acting resume...but they went through scenes with me and they changed them a bit. It was a very emotional scene when the character that they called "Trixie Lorenz" (a weird name in my opinion but oh well) is in the hospital and cries and is a little depressed. It was so weird to act. I don't really know what people like about acting or auditioning. I think it's uncomfortable to not know if you got the job or not. Because they actually don't tell you if you got the job or not at the audition. If I think about it it makes sense since they're other people that still audition. But it's also a waste of time to listen to the others, but on the other hand it would be their waste of time too when they travel to an audition...my point is I'm not gonna do that again. It was scary, and I hate scary things. —————————————
Octavia was getting ready for her weekly basketball practice at the gymnasium. Her mind was still preoccupied with her rhythmic gymnastics state competition where she placed 1st last weekend. It was her first state champion title with her partner Elisa. Octavia laced up her white basketball shoes with red details, determined to give her best on the court, even if today she is not as motivated as usual to go to practice. She was the only girl in her old team, now her new team is full of girls that talk without breaks, which is emotionally draining for her. She is a reserved person and doesn't talk much but on the court she is a force, almost like a completely different person. If you would compare these two you wouldn't think they're the same person. She is a very good player and she knew that. She might be small for a basketball player but she was exceptionally good in defense, she defens the tallest people even if she is one of the smallest on court. As she practiced layups and free throws with her teammates, the practice session seemed to fly by. After Basketball practice, Octavia's mom, who has been waiting in the hallway, for her daughter with an unusual gleam in her eye. Octavia, a little sweaty but freshly dressed, in a gray sweater and jeans, greeted her mom. "I have a message for you" she smiles. "A message for me?" Octavia frowns interested. "What is it?- do we get a new chicken?" She excitedly asks. "No" shuggles her mom. "It's from the audition you did earlier this month. They want you to come back for a screen test next Monday at 10 AM, at the studio in Los Angeles!". Octavia's eyes widened with surprise, she couldn't believe her ears. She had participated more for fun than any expectations to even get invited to an actual audition. "Here" Octavia takes her moms phone and reads the email out loud:
Dear Octavia Kohler,
We were pleasantly surprised by your audition earlier this month. Your performance stood out, and we believe you have potential to portray the character of Trixie Lorenz in the best way possible. For that we would like to invite you to a screen test, which will take place next Monday at 10 AM at our studio.
Please let us know if you can make it, we will send you additional information regarding that topic soon.
Best regards,
Jamie Castro, American Broadcasting Company
Octavia hugs her mom she wasn't sure where this acting journey would lead but for now she was thrilled to take this opportunity and see where it would lead.
30/09/2015 11.y.o
Today was literally the best day ever. Can you imagine I got a call back! Which means I'm in the next round of the auditioning process! I was at basketball practice and when I finished and went to mom she told me I get to do a screen test! I'm not exactly sure what that is but I'm super excited! Also it's going to be my first time in the US! So I'm even more excited!!!. Luckily the production company pays for our travel otherwise it would be waaayyy too expensive to fly from Germany to the US. I'm going to meet the other girls that also auditioned for the part and we will see which one of us is the best. As far as I know my character has a few episodes act and that's why they do a screen test. Usually they don't do that with guest actors since it would be way too extravagant for an acting part that you only need like a day or two to shoot. But in my case I would get to shoot 3 episodes, if I get the part. I'm nervous like...really nervous. I'm not really nervous to act but rather sit in a plane for 12h. I HATE flying just the thought of it makes my hair stand up. It's not just the fear of crashing or anything like that. It's the feeling of being trapped up in the sky with no control, and not to talk about turbulences!!! they give me the feeling that we lose a wing and we would crash down in some suburban area or something. Turbulences feel like a roller coaster you can't get off, it's just terrifying. But yea I'm going to fly to Los Angeles in first class and ABC pays for everything! I didn't know that film companies do that I always thought you have to get there yourself and pay for everything. In LA I'm going to meet the new cast which is super cool!. I'm going to meet celebrities ahhhhh Gosh I'm soooooo excited!!!
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It's Saturday afternoon and Octavia carefully selects her wardrobe for the screen test, a white blanc t-shirt and and sweater that says "Don't grow up it's a trap" and Tinkerbell is pictured, and her favorite shirt which is teal with Octavia's favorite quote "I'm not crazy, I just have special effects" she loves that little sentence she thinks that describes her really well, funny but a little crazy. She folds the rest of her clothes carefully and puts them in her black backpack. She puts her little Nokia phone and some snacks in the front pocket, and some of her favorite books and her diary in the big pocket of her backpack.
04/10/2015. 11 y.o
Dear Lilac (woa this is actually my first time using that name for you hehehe) okay uhmmm...I don't even know where to start... okay so today is the day. The day I will fly to america. I'm a little anxious. The thought of flying still makes me nervous. I tried to prepare myself as good as I can for this but I don't think it actually helps at all...but I do have some comforting snacks in my carry-on bag so that's great. The strangest part is that we're flying first class. It's going to be so much fun, I'm going to have a TV and get some extra cool products from the flight company and get to eat the food (well probably not since mom would need to pay for that but don't judge me I can dream okay?). The flight is going to be sooo long ugh 12h and 5 minutes if you want to be exact. Luckily I have something to distract myself. My books, snacks, and the on board TV. Right now I'm sitting at the airport, surrounded by bustling travelers and the distant hum of engines (which are actually pretty loud). I'm nervous and excited. But I'm ready, Lilac. Ready for the adventure, ready to face my fears, and ready to see where this journey takes me. With a deep breath and a sense of determination, Octavia. See you soon bye:)
Octavia closes her diary, takes a few deep breath, clinches her hand as she prepares to board her first class flight to Los Angeles. As she settles into her window seat, that reclines into a fully flat bed with just a touch of a button, promising a restful journey ahead. That she knows she will enjoy. As Octavia settles in she couldn't help but feel a little of gratitude for this unexpected luxury. She looks around with a mix of awe and wonder. The luxurious cabin enveloped her in comfort and elegance. Next to her seat is a soft pillow and a wine red blanket she crabs and swings over her legs. She turns on the TV and skips through the programs and is in awe when she discovered her favorite show Castle is on the list of the program. She crabs the noise canceling headphones and puts them on and lastly she pulls out her diary.
04/10/2015. 11 y.o
Hi Lilac, Okay, remember how I told you I was super scared of flying? Well guess what? It's not that bad!. Okay so, like my Seat is the COMFIEST chair ever. It's so big it can turn into a bed, I'm not kidding!. There were even fresh flowers on my little table, which made me feel like a princess. The tv in front of me is HUGE, and is has all the movies and tv show (Including Castle!). I even got noise canceling headphones. They're so cool you could almost not hear the outside noises. I never put on those kinds of headphones before but they made me feel like I was in my own world. And the food! It was like I was at a fancy restaurant but in the sky. The flight attendants are super nice too. They even know my name! I feel like a princess up here. And guess what? As we took off, I Iooked out of the window, and it was, like, the coolest view ever! The fear I had about flying kinda disappeared. I can't believe all this is happening Lilac. I'm on my way to Los Angeles for a screen test my friends are going to be sooo jealous. It's like a dream come true. I'm a bit nervous but mostly, I'm just really, really, REALLY happy. I'll will write to you again soon and tell you all about it.
Xoxo Octavia