I know that it’s mid January but every new years I always reflect back on my past, write things out and try to learn from my mistakes so that I may move forward. What I know is that I was tested. I was encouraged. I was loved. And I had to take on an extreme amount of determination and not knowing what the future had in store for me to make it.
What do I have to show for it? Amazingly at the moment not a lot of money but a foot further into the direction of doing the things that I love to do and not feeling like I lost anything. I am making rent and other bills necessary to get by. I'm doing awesome.
A lot of people when they ask me, why did you move to New York City out of all the cities in the world to be in? Are you married? Etc. I answer them that I am an actress/singer and a girl with a big heart and big dreams to make a living doing what I love and they just look at me as if I am nuts. I’m okay with the looks, the stares, the thoughts that they think that I am just another dreamer who is lost and will never make it. I know that they don’t understand that undying need that is inside of me that aches to break free and express everything that I have inside. It’s okay. I look forward and not backwards except NOW at the beginning of the year when I start to plan and organize my dreams and my motions to move forward and create and manifest my desires.
Last year at this time was not some of my happier moments (due to finding out my X had cheated on me and he was leaving to go back to Florida) except for the fact that I was working for a temp agency that placed me at Columbia University in the financial aid office. 6 month assignment! However, it was slow and they didn’t need me there every single day but they allowed me to work anyhow covering the receptionist at lunch etc. Because I had worked with Frank Callo and his Spotlight On Production company he offered me free acting classes as part of an internship. So in January, we met twice a week at the Producers Club under the direction and guidance of Ricardo Cordero acting coach and producer extraordinaire (also a great friend of Frank’s and now mine). It was one of my best experiences here in NYC. He not only informed us on what the industry is looking for but how best to sell what we already have and own aka ourselves! It was totally inspiring. I embraced my talent. After having lost my job as an executive assistant the financial world was looking extremely depressing and sad and I didn’t want to be pencil pushing when what I really wanted to do was dance and sing. It just made so much more sense to do the things I love or figure out what to do, because either I was going to make it up here or not and I chose not to fail. I took his advice and upon my temporary contract being up with Columbia I decided to make a change. The office actually threw me a going away party and the executive assistant to the dean told me that she had been on Broadway a few times back in her day and if that’s what I truly wanted to do then I should just step up to the plate and bat. I was moved to tears. Gene (the X) was moving, I was losing this temporary gig, I was being told that I was talented and needed to be OUT AUDITIONING and NOT PENCIL PUSHING. All this change happening so very fast. I was being TOLD and ASKED by everyone “what do you have to lose?” Also, a realy good friend of mine Andrea Cleveland started a group called “The Power Players” and she was asking us what have we done to change our perspectives? What were we doing to embrace our talents and live our dream? She posted a video saying that she was planning on quitting her 9-5 this year and was going to embrace her talents and create this organization with more determination than before. It was like the world came together in a big slap in the face. So I decided that I needed to move somewhere cheaper and find something else that would support me and my dreams.
Jan-March: Gene and I had a friend that came to visit during November, Sal and he wanted to see all the sites of New York. I had suggested a walking tour but they thought it was too cold. I later on called the owner to see if he was hiring and he was. So he told me I needed to be a licensed tour guide and to call him when I had passed the exam and was ready. I started looking into it but never fully made the commitment. I then auditioned for a movie thru some mutual friends and met Alex Molina and he and I became very close very fast and very good friends. He wrote this fantastic movie called "Tucht" which goes into production this year. He also had wrote me this exquisite letter saying how he thought I was extremely talented and that it had come down to me and another actor before having to choose someone else.
March-May: I started to post about my website business and my intuitive readings. I branched out with my non-profit organization Thrill The World NYC and started networking with local schools. I started apartment hunting and saving every penny to find something. I embraced abundance and allowed it to carry me to where I needed to be at the right moment at the right time. It did. Right when I had decided to finally look a friend called and said his basement was available and I could move right in. God blessed me in so many ways with this apartment. I am safe. I am close to the transportation I knew before. And I got to stay close to the friends I had already made nearby. My friends helped me move into my new place and it’s been great ever since!
May-July: I was working on the theatre festival in utmost capacity being the Special Events/Lounge Director and then handling the website and marketing because that whole team fell apart. I was about to break from the stress but I was lucky enough to have Alex there for me and other friends. I then met Damon who became a very close friend and I was also cast in a play as part of the Fresh Fruit Theatre Festival. As the festival came to a close and so did the play the next steps were focusing on Thrill The World NYC.
July-Sept: I worked with various schools alongside my staff teaching “Thriller” and I started learning the scripts for the tours to begin working for the ghost tour company. I still branched out my web design skills and other talents.
Sept-Dec: October became extremely busy with all the tours that I learned and I also was able to become office manager for the man himself, the owner of the company GHOSTS OF NY. He gave me a few hours to work in his office and other tour guides who needed help with marketing asked me for my talents as well. Things just sort of took off!
So, as I look at what I have accomplished business wise I may still be technically unemployed (no steady work) but my talents and my drive and my passion to commit are keeping me sane and helping me pay the rent. I’ve also met a wonderful guy, Damon, who even though we have taken things extremely slow has made my life so much more. I am so grateful for him and his caring loving concern for me. His friends have given me a few nicknames which I think are really appropriate: A Mobile Rainbow and then just recently A Coloratura (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloratura).
Also, just in case I forgot to mention it, why I posted the “143” on the title….it stands for “I LOVE YOU” and for whatever reason right around Thanksgiving I started seeing 143 everywhere on every clock. I still see it every once in a while but I don’t find it scary anymore but welcoming. As if someone is saying to me they love me and support me. Could it be the Universe? God? My friends and brother who passed away recently? I’m not sure but I do know that I feel it every time I speak to my parents, my siblings, and my dear friends both close and far away.
SO MANY NICKNAMES BUT THE ONE I FEEL MOST CONNECTED IS:
The magical mythical Phoenix. (A phoenix is a mythical bird with a colorful plumage and a tail of gold and scarlet (or purple, blue, and green according to some legends[weasel words]). It has a 500 to 1000 year life-cycle, near the end of which it builds itself a nest of twigs that then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix or phoenix egg arises, reborn anew to live again. The new phoenix is destined to live as long as its old self. In some stories, the new phoenix embalms the ashes of its old self in an egg made of myrrh and deposits it in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis (literally "sun-city" in Greek). It is said that the bird's cry is that of a beautiful song. )
And as the PHOENIX, I have many plans moving forward into 2012. The most recent decision is to create my own cabaret show, title to be determined. I have the help of some awesome musical theatre writers whom I have met working with Planet Connections these past 4 years and who knows this might offset that karaoke musical I am going to write. I also am launching my own tour guide company very soon. Nothing to do with Ghosts but everything to do with who I am and where I will be very VERY soon. Details to come….
Check me out again in March, April, and MAY on these updates but feel free to contact me to just say hi!
Sincerely,
All the best!
Amada Anderson
(646) 246-5844
www.manada.biz
Resume/LinkedIn/Facebook
Actress/Singer/Dancer/Special Events/Tour Guide/
Website Design/Intuitive (Palm/Energy/Tarot Readings)
“Who is it that can tell me who I am?" - Shakespeare, King Lear
“Amada's Tarot reading for me was professional, insightful, and revealing. Though she had no prior knowledge of the question in my mind, her reading applied very directly and helped to clarify a tricky conundrum.
Once I revealed my question to her after the reading, she was refreshingly pleased at how well her reading applied - no phony pretense that she psychically knew everything all along. We had a great chat and she really listened and gave genuine advice.
Whether you're a believer or a skeptic or somewhere inbetween, she'll be sure to give you some solid advice and insight into any situation... and be spookily on the money even before you tell her what the situation even is!” October 1, 2011
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hired Amada as a Tarot Card Reader in 2011
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Top qualities: Personable, Good Value, Creative
Kim Jones,
hired Amada as a Business Consultant in 2011
