I was NAMED honorary WOMAN of distinction 2007 for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, and I have recently become involved with Save the CHILDREN's Make Time for Change.

If you will forever remember me as the girl from 'America's GOT TALENT,' that's COOL, 'cause I am. If you wanna LOOK into me and what I've done recently, that's cool, too.

Some TYPES of environmental restoration PROJECTS are well-known; restored wetlands, for INSTANCE, or coal MINE reclamation projects. Recently though, larger dam removal projects have started, a NUMBER of them in Washington state.

You KNOW, it's recently COME into focus for me why I want to be an ACTOR: It's because of the CONNECTION I feel to people.

I heard Smokey Robinson was SINGING one of my songs on the radio the other day. Being in the PRESENCE of Mavis Staples, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott - STEVIE Wonder JOINED me on stage recently. That blows me AWAY.

I've written a very LONG PIECE of music recently, the 'Veil of the Temple,' which lasts about seven hours. It's REALLY a kind of vigil. It TAKES place during the night, waiting for the resurrection of CHRIST.

I STARTED playing chess in the Eighties, but it is only recently that people have begun to appreciate the importance of physical exercise for chess players. You really NEED to be in good condition to be able to SIT for four to six hours and still maintain your concentration.

At SCHOOL PEOPLE found it QUITE FUNNY that I did ballroom, but I recently went to my school reunion and all they wanted to TALK about was ballroom and 'Strictly.'

As SOMEONE who's been doing a lot of CLASSICAL THEATER recently, I loved the IDEA of getting to run around in Steven Alan, and not be in a corset and a wig, and not have a dialect, and get to be in a 90-minute play with no intermission, and get to do real comedy.

I was asked recently about the fact I show my BODY more in 'Homecoming QUEENS' than I have in other THINGS and whether that was difficult to do. I never thought twice about it.

I ACTUALLY ENDED up GOING through a vocal change. It started about two years ago, and it's only been recently that I FOUND my balance again. Vocally, I couldn't figure out what was going on. My lows were getting lower, and my highs were getting higher; everything felt weird.

Whenever I want to laugh, I READ a WONDERFUL book, 'Children's LETTERS to GOD.' You can open it anywhere. One I read recently said, 'Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.'

Despite Arizona's remarkable GROWTH in recent years, we have MET the current federal HEALTH standards for ozone pollution and the ENVIRONMENTAL Protection Agency recently approved our dust control PLAN.