Coming into Union Pines High School as a freshman, I thought I was prepared for life. I thought I knew everything, and that I could take on the world without a hitch. Boy, was I wrong.

I began scheduling my freshman year classes and didn't put down theatre I as one of my electives—something I extremely regret now. Instead, I put it down as an alternate and decided to take Spanish I for a second time. I spent my freshman year continuing to be oblivious to just how much life would start to beat me up in the next three years. I was in band, a manager of the wrestling team, an advice giver to most of my friends—the list goes on.

Come springtime, I was super excited to see our school's spring musical, "The Drowsy Chaperone." I went on opening night and was in love. I proceeded to go every night after that and found myself singing the songs and saying lines under my breath. At that moment, I decided that I would be taking theatre the next year, no matter what.

As time came to register for my sophomore year classes, I knew exactly which one I was going to sign up for. Right after signing up for my band classes, I picked theatre I as one of my electives. I chose it before I chose any of my actual core classes. I was bent and determined on getting in that class.

Sure enough, the next school year rolled around and there on my schedule sat Theatre I with J. Osborne. I was ecstatic. I told my mom and all my friends that had taken theatre the previous year that I was finally going to be in theatre.

I walked into my class for the first time and immediately fell in love with the people and the atmosphere. I was welcomed with a warm smile by Mrs. Osborne, or as I've grown to call her, Mrs. O.

The days passed quickly, and as my love for theatre grew, Mrs. O began to, not only give me theatrical knowledge, but amazing worldly knowledge as well. So, as it came time to write my very first article for Odyssey, I decided to write down the most important lessons I learned from her. Without further ado, I give you seven things that I learned from Mrs. Judy Osborne herself.

1. Don't be afraid to try new things.

During my junior year—my second year of high school theatre—it was announced to my Theatre II class that we would be doing a One Act Play called "Murder in the Knife Room." It is a comedy written by Johnathan Rand and I loved every aspect of it. It was extremely hilarious and called for lots of extreme characterizations, some of which included Respected General, Pompous Millionaire and Brainless Model. The only problem, however, was that I was not yet comfortable with extreme acting. Auditions rolled around and my directors, Mia Todarello and Kirsten Steingraber, told us that they wanted to see "over-the-top acting." Mrs.Osborne looked at us and told us to just go out on a limb and do anything we felt like doing. So, taking that advice, I auditioned for the part of Decrepit Invalid, a 109-year-old. I did this really weird old lady voice, shook my hands and hunched over with my hand on my back. Mia and Kirsten loved it, and I was cast for the part. I was really worried about actually performing the part onstage because it was something I'd never done before and I didn't know how people would react to it. I kept asking Mia, Kirsten and Mrs. O if I could change it, but they pretty much told me to just suck it up and do it. Opening night came and I was the most nervous I had ever been for a performance, band performances included. The show went amazing. It had a few hiccups, but what show doesn't? The response to the show was overwhelmingly positive, and many of my friends, family and some people I didn't even know came up to me and told me I was their favorite part of the show! I was so happy. Who knew coming out of my comfort zone would produce one of my favorite characters and shows of all time?! Oh, that's right, Mrs. O did.

2. There is no such thing as "I can't."

Last year in September, I officially became a "brace face." I'd never had braces before and I wasn't too happy about it. I thought they looked stupid on me, and that they were virtually pointless. I didn't realize how angry they would make me, however, until our Play Production class started rehearsing for our One Act for NCTC, "Peter/Wendy." I was given a line that gave me nightmares for weeks. It read, "Then Peter's star wakes up and in the blink of it, which is much brighter than in our stars, you can make out masses of trees and you think you see wild beasts stealing a drink, but what you really see are the shadows of them." Try saying that out loud for a second. Go ahead, try it. Now imagine having just gotten braces. I sounded like a snake. I would always get tongue-tied toward the second half of the line and it would make me frustrated to the point where I just wanted to cry. Mrs. O always, always said something to me about that line. I knew as soon as I said it what she would say. "Open your mouth, Carissa." I was so frustrated one day that I just kept saying "I can't" over and over again. She looked at me and said, "Yes, you can. Just slow down, take a breath and open your mouth." I did as she said, and sure enough, it came out. It was still a little serpent-like, but at least you could somewhat tell what I was saying. Ever since then, whenever someone tells me they can't do something, or if they do that they'll mess it up, I just remind them not to speak it into existence and to just try, great words of advice passed on to me by Mrs. Osborne.

3. Practice never makes perfect. It only makes better.

The time came for the annual Shakespeare Competition, and we had been rehearsing for weeks. Every day in class, Mrs. O would give us around 20-30 minutes to rehearse our monologues. When you're in theatre, you sometimes get to a point where you get bored with what you're doing. You think you've got whatever you're doing down-pat and you can just goof off instead of rehearsing. Well, we got to that point with our monologues and Mrs. Osborne wasn't having it. She brought us back together one day after our "rehearsal" time and told us you should never be fully satisfied with your work. You should always strive to make it better, no matter how flawless you think your performance will be. She couldn't have been more right. After this "come to Jesus meeting," I found more and more flaws and places in my monologue that I could fix. After the competition, I was still not satisfied with my performance, but that was her point. You should always be striving to make your products better.

4. Be careful with paint.

Okay, time to lighten the mood. If you've had Mrs. Osborne for a teacher—specifically for Theatre III or IV—you'll know that she is very, very adamant about taking the utmost caution when you paint in the theatre. For example, some of her rules include, but aren't limited to: always painting using a drop-cloth (no matter how small the prop or scenery), wash your brushes, make sure you hammer the lid shut, and the two rules that I will be focusing on: One, check your feet before you walk off of the drop-cloth and two, don't get paint on the curtains. My junior year—second year in theatre—we were painting scenery for "Seussical" and let me tell you, bright colored paint and teenagers don't mix, but somehow Mrs. O found it in herself to trust us with painting everything. The end of class came and all of a sudden I heard a chorus of "Oh my God!"'s come from my fellow classmates. I looked up from putting my stuff in my bag to see that someone had effectively tracked black paint from the drop-cloth onto the stage (not a biggie...there's paint all over the stage) and then onto our purple carpet. I quickly snapped my head to Mrs. Osborne who was looking at the carpet like someone had just killed her goldfish. "Check your shoes everyone and dab the paint, don't rub it." We all checked the bottom of our shoes, and the culprit turned up. I'm not going to point any fingers, but you know who you are. Several of us, myself included, rushed to the girl's dressing room to get wet paper towels. We got it up, but not before we were all sick with worry that the paint wouldn't come up. It did. Rule two: be careful around the curtains. Also in my second year, while painting for "Seussical", I was put in charge of the signs for the towns. One was bright orange, another yellow and green, and—my favorite—hot pink. We ran out of room on stage to store the drying props, so we set up a table on one of the far walls of the auditorium. These walls, for those of you that have never been in the Union Pines Theatre, are covered in dark blue curtains. I think we can all see where this is going. I, being my dumb self, wasn't paying attention to what I was doing and ended up brushing the curtain with the very wet, very bright pink sign. My heart dropped into my stomach. I quickly looked to the person that was helping me move the signs and saw all of the color drain out of their face. "Oh my..." "Shush!" I interrupted, repeating the words "Dab, don't rub" over and over again in my head. I was going to try to keep this from the All-Seeing Eye of the Great and Powerful Oz, as we so lovingly call her. Much to my dismay, other people heard the commotion and could probably feel the vibrations in the ground of how fast my heart was beating. This lead to, yet another, chorus of "Oh my God!"'s and "Carissa got paint on the curtain!" I cringed and turned to look at Mrs.O, who had, once again, the dead goldfish look on her face. This time, though, it was directed straight at me. I have never been so disappointed in myself ever before or ever since. Moral of the story guys, be careful with paint, and by some chance if something goes astray, remember, dab, don't rub.

5. Don't let people walk all over you.

For those of you who don't know Mrs. Osborne, let me tell you, this woman doesn't take crap from anyone. If you give her grief about anything, she'll give it back to you in a way that makes you feel stupid. Stupid for thinking it, stupid for opening your mouth in the first place, stupid for thinking that you could put down the Great and Powerful Oz. She is one of the strongest, most independent women I've ever met in my life. I remember one day my senior year, there was going to be some kind of event held in the theatre. It was supposed to start at 1:30 p.m. and they told us that they were gonna come in at noon to start setting up. We were in the middle of rehearsing our Shakespeare monologues for the English Speaking Union's annual Shakespeare Competition (the competition I mentioned earlier), which is a huge deal for the Theatre kids at Union Pines. One of my friends was onstage, performing their monologue for us to receive feedback and a whole group of UP students came in being extremely loud and disrespectful. They were there to set up for the event, a whole hour and a half early. Mrs. Osborne very effectively took care of the situation and told the teacher to come back later. I admire her and her strength, because Theatre often gets over-looked and walked on, and she doesn't let that happen. You should always stand up for yourself, what you believe in and your passions.

6. If it doesn't work, try something different.

When we were rehearsing "Peter/Wendy" for NCTC, I found myself in the dilemma of trying to act like a Lost Boy. Being so in love with Peter Pan as I am, I only knew how to portray one roll: a Lost Girl. I had no clue how little boys acted! It had been a full 13 years since my brother was little, and even then, he didn't act like a "normal" little boy. Everyone else had something that they would do to signify that they were a Lost Boy, for example, chasing a bug, running around and throwing a ball. And me? I had nothing. I messed around with different things such as storming around like I was having a temper tantrum, trying to balance and hop around on one foot, different things like that. I kept asking Mrs. Osborne if she had any clue what I could do and she told me to just mess around with different things until I found something that clicked. Finally, after weeks of having no clue how to act like a Lost Boy, I finally found something that I could act very convincingly: sleepy—something I am on a normal basis. I walked around the stage rubbing sleep from my eyes and yawning. When we all clumped up at one point, I kept "nodding off." The best thing was, it didn't feel the slightest bit forced like the rest of the things I had tried. I took that lesson and applied it the next semester when I student-directed a Theatre II class. It helped both them and me so much. If something doesn't work, don't give up. Strive and struggle until you find something that does.

7. Stay modest, stay humble.

Those of you that know Mrs. Osborne will agree with me when I say she is one of the most modest and humble people you'll ever meet. She's one of the best teachers and best directors I've ever seen, but if you tell her that, she'll just smile and shake her head at you. She is also a big advocate for modesty. If anyone is ever getting "too big for their britches," as I like to say, she'll kindly remind them that being humble is a golden trait and that they should practice it more often. I remember specifically when she overheard someone say that they were "too good" for something that she snapped her head to that person and they immediately blushed and stopped talking. I feel like if I were Mrs. O, it would be really hard for me to be modest and humble, because she is one of the most incredible people I've ever met.

Moral of the story is, Mrs. Judy Osborne gave me some of the best life lessons I've ever had and gave me them in some of the hardest times of my life, which helped me tremendously to get through them. She is kind, but scary when she's mad. She is a great teacher, but also a great friend. I know that if I ever need anything, like a letter of recommendation for a job, I can turn to her because she'll write one for me in a heartbeat. If you ever get the chance to take her classes or have a conversation with her, I highly recommend it. Your life will be better because of it. I know mine is.

And remember, you can never hide anything from the Great and Powerful Oz.