Corbin Bleu’s Dancing With The Stars Blog: The Whirlwind Of Premiere Week!

Former “High School Musical” star-turned-“One Life To Live” star Corbin Bleu joins AccessHollywood.com as our behind-the-scenes celebrity blogger for this season’s “Dancing with the Stars.”

Here is Corbin’s first post…

The first week was insane. Once the announcement happens, it’s a whirlwind.

It starts off with a barrage of text messages on my phone and my phone blows up with phone calls and e-mails and text messages. I have so many wonderful friends who are calling me and texting me, congratulating me and at the same time, I’m like, ‘I have to get this interview done,’ and ‘I have to be at rehearsal,’ and ‘I want to be able to get back to everybody at the same time.’

Once it starts, its mayhem and then to top it off, you still have to try to do laundry and grocery shopping and not forget to eat and get as much sleep in as you can.

WATCH: Backstage With Corbin Bleu & Karina Smirnoff At The ‘DWTS’ Premiere

Working with [my pro partner] Karina [Smirnoff] is fantastic. I really wanted her as a partner. We met about four years ago for a Make-a-Wish Foundation event and since then, she has been trying to convince me to come on to the show and it just never was the right timing.

For me, it was still coming relatively close off of ‘High School Musical.’ … That’s the thing about the show, it’s a wonderful opportunity to promote and a wonderful opportunity to show people who you are. … I really wanted to be able to grow and just transform myself as an artist and as a person first. I wanted to be able to go off and do things like I did with Broadway and doing all these movies where I’m playing all these sort of crazy characters and being able to do the soap [‘One Life To Live’] — all these projects. I’m working as a producer and establishing my business.

WATCH: Will Corbin Bleu’s Dance Background Help Him In The Ballroom?

Now, I feel like I’m at a place where I’m ready to show myself in a new light.

Last week’s performance was fantastic. It was great to be able to have such a great score at the top. I think I put more pressure on myself now, though, just because I want to make sure that every week it gets better and better and better. I feel like we did such a great job with our contemporary, but I feel like one of the cool parts about the show and all the different types of dances is each dance is so different and I approach all the dances from an acting standpoint, so it’s all about characters and it’s all about the story line and so our jive [this week] is going to be so different from our contemporary.

Our contemporary was very intimate and more passionate in terms of a love relationship and very ethereal and then our jive [will have a theme]. … I said [to Karina], ‘Why don’t we do a ‘High School Musical’ tribute?’ … Like a swan song to our youth… I get a chance to show people where I came from and in turn, you get a chance to see the difference to where I am now.

— Corbin Bleu