Blog #1 About Me

     My name is Alexis Shanok.  I am a member of the Cheshire Academy community and a varsity player for the field hockey and softball team in this community, and hope to continue with one of these two sports into college. I have one younger sister named Jordan who is also a softball player except outside of the Cheshire Academy community. Other than that, my mother, sister, and I all participate in karate and have all achieved the rank of black belt.  I am also an honor roll student who hopes to one day be involved in the medical industry. I also play the guitar as well as sing. One thing I enjoy doing is traveling. Over this past summer I took a trip to Costa Rica for three weeks and was fortunate enough to see many of the different regions and climate zones.  As an actress, I have never participated in any large productions unless you count the Norton Elementary School production of Jack and the Beanstalk in which I was the bean seller, and had my own solo and all that.

 I hope to broaden my skills through this course and prepare myself for the winter musical at the Academy.  As a thinker I tend to group myself as a STEM centered thinker; I like to base my knowledge on facts, which is one of the reasons that I find the portion of acting that is showing emotion so challenging. Memorizing lines is an exact science because you can be told exactly what to say and when to say it (your cues), however showing emotion in a scripted manner is very challenging to me because it is entirely the interpretation of the performer, and depending on how the emotion is portrayed, an actor could evoke many different emotions from their audience.

Some more interesting things about me are that I compete for the Karate that I do and I have won first and third place at a worldwide championship for my age division. I also plan on playing college level athletics. Over this past summer I was very fortunate enough to spend three weeks in Costa Rica with many friends, both old and new. In my free time I enjoy reading, playing guitar, listening to music, and practicing my sports.  My favorite quote is “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work” by Tim Notke. My favorite color is maroon, and my favorite food is sushi. Taylor Swift, Jennifer Lawrence, and Emma Watson are all tied for my favorite celebrity at the moment. My favorite book is The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder. A few songs I am currently listening to constantly are New Americana by Halsey and To the Hills by Laurel.  I am actually ambidextrous, a skill which I acquired the summer after third grade when I broke my right wrist and had to learn to compensate by writing with my left hand.

I am very excited for this upcoming semester in Ms. Guarino’s acting class, and hope it is a fantastic year!