Dance life

In honor of my 100th blog, let’s take a look back.

Today I went back to high school – back to the halls, the stairs, the seats, the posters, the teachers, the crushes <3, and the drama.  Back to the follies, my high school talent show.

It was a whole different world.

I couldn’t believe how talented some of the kids I saw were, and it got me thinking about how much it’ll change for them like it did for me.  Follies was an amazing opportunity to show your talents, and my friends and I choreographed dances for ourselves from sec 3 to sec 5. It became the most important part of the year – practice every week, everyday even.  Then there were the school plays.  All the fun we had and all the time we spent was unforgettable.  Watching the show tonight I remembered so vividly being a part of it and it made me miss all the school shows and plays I won’t get to be a part of again.  

Meeting my old teachers we talked about school and my future.  I miss the times when I didn’t have to think about my future, I miss the talent show, I miss my adorably funny economics teacher and curling coach, but I don’t miss high school.  It’s fun to watch a show filled with happy and talented people, but I’m happy that I’ve grown up still do what I love: dance.  I may not have the follies, but I’ll always have Cameron School of Dance.

Today, my close friend Tanya Perks is having an operation.  While she’s lying in bed still groggy from the medication I want to remind her, and let everyone else know, what an amazing person she is.

Tanya is a great dancer (who’d been on the Junior Funk team longer than anyone else) and an even better friend.  I’ve never met someone so open and sharing. Tanya is dedicated and devoted to her friends and dance, and her compassionate personality is a source of happiness and comfort to the entire dance team. 

Tanya is getting an operation today to remove her bunions.  I guess all of Tanya’s dance and tight point shoe work didn’t help her feet.  Today, at the age of nineteen,  Tanya has painful bunions on both feet.  When she began experiencing severe discomfort she stopped wearing her pointe shoes in ballet.  Even though she had been off pointe the entire year at dance, for some reason Tanya wanted to wear her pointe shoes at the big end of the year shoe.  A mix of determination and denial took over Tanya, and let’s just say that she was in a lot of pain at the end of the dance.  Even though she knew it would hurt her, she wanted to be strong and push past the pain to dance with all she had. 

Tanya is inspirational.  She’s is always there for everyone, when they’re down or when they just need a laugh or a place to hang out on the weekend.   

I’m glad Tanya is finally doing something for herself and fixing her problem.  I wish her the best of luck on her road to recovery and I know myself and all her other friend will be there by her side everyday.  She won’t be dancing for several weeks, but I know she’ll be the life of the team as per usual when she’s back at dance and feeling better.    

After I finished writing my last lovely blog to you all I had to run back to the hotel in the rain.  The intense pouring rain, the rain where the rain drops are big and heavy, the kind of rain that comes down so hard and fast you forget where you’re going cause everything is just one blur of wetness in front of you.  Running in the rain was fun the first time, the second time it was not so much fun, I was alone and I was holding my way too big and way too heavy laptop and I got lost and took the long way around.  Finally I get back to my hotel room and dry off where I met dad and Connie (who also had to run back in the rain).  We all sat down together, turned on the TV, and were about to watch So You Think You Can Dance…but the satellite wasn’t working because of the bad weather…so I missed my favorite show, the one I’d been looking forward to watching all day.  I gave up, read my book, and went to bed. 

Yesterday (the next day) we woke up and it must have been a combination of rain, cold, home sickness, and the overall depression that a place so hot and beautiful could get so cold and gloomy, because things weren’t working out well.  Connie was feeling sick all day, from the moment she woke up until she went to sleep, so that puts a damper on everyone’s mood.  We had fun intentions though, we were going to go on a bike tour at 10:30, but no one was standing by the bikes.  We checked at 10, then 10:22, then 10:30, then repeatedly through out the rest of the day, but no one was ever there, so that plan wasn’t successful.  Instead we just sat by the pool (where I read).  It was cold and I was getting grumpy, and the uncomfortable chairs were driving me crazy, so I forced us all (even poor sick Connie) to migrate to the beach.  I lay my towel on the sand and finally got comfortable and read my book (the 6^th book I’ve read so far). That’s when dad started playing beach volleyball with a bunch of other Italians. Even though I wasn’t playing it was a lot of fun watching them and hearing them playfully tease each other in Italian (I have no idea what they were saying but they seemed to be laughing and enjoying themselves).  We went back to the room for warmth and to get ready for supper after dad finished his third game. 

I had a strange craving for pizza and fettuccini alfredo all day.  I had pizza for lunch and all I wanted to end this slightly sad day on a high was my fettuccini alfredo.  We decide to go to the Italian restaurant (which was overly air conditioned) but they had no alfredo sauce. How pathetic. A few nights earlier I had had pasta and alfredo sauce at the buffet, so dad offered to go bring me back a bowl of alfredo sauce to put on the plain pasta I ordered.  There was no alfredo sauce that day. Double pathetic. So I had my pasta with four cheese sauce which was very strong (but it managed to satisfy my desire for cheesy sauced pasta). I went to bed very early last night hoping that today would be better. 

Today we woke up and I had a lovely breakfast of pancakes J. Things were really looking good for today. Over breakfast we planned out our itinerary so we could try things we haven’t done on our last day while still having lots of time to relax on the beach.  We went to the bikes at 10ish to go on the bike tour and yay people were there. At 10:25 it starts to rain, and the bike tour is cancelled.  Oh well, it’s just a few droplets in warm weather, so we stayed by the pool.  Then it started raining harder, I had to join Connie under the umbrella and I still wasn’t dry.  I was covered in blankets trying to stay warm and dry and the rain was coming down so much it took us five minutes to muster up the courage to make a run for our room (we were the last people by the pool by then). Back I shower and decide to dry my hair, myself, my clothes and my shoes with the hairdryer.  Sadly the most heat I felt all day was when my dad blew the hair dryer in my face when my eyes were closed and said, “Imagine the warm beach.” After that we watched TV…lots of TV (too much for a tropical vacation) and we constantly checked out the window to see if the rain had stopped. When it did we went to the beach and managed to get in a good 18 minutes of sun and I’d say less than half an hour kayaking.  Dad and kayak don’t exactly mix well, and I had a great time laughing at him when he and the kayak flipped over as he tried to get inside.  Well it started raining and here we are, back in the room listening to the thunder and lighting as the power flickers on and off.  The power outage isn’t the problem, it’s the flooded streets.  Looking outside our room the ground is a pool.  The paths and the grass are indistinguishable; they’re all just one big brown wet murky muddy mess. The resort is flooded…what are we going to do for supper?

Well it turns out that the power outage really was the problem, because when the rain started to slow and the roads were drained and almost dry we were able to easily walk to the Mexican restaurant. But when we got to the restaurant it was pitch black. We had to read the menus outside (under the moon light…how poetic) then we sat eating nachos in the dark.  The lights came on (and we happened to be taking a picture at that exact moment so we caught our excited reactions – it’s not a very good picture though) but soon they faded out again.  We ordered in the dark, ate with light, waited for desert in the dark, ate desert with light, then left in the dark.  It was an interesting meal after an interesting day.  That night we planned to get back to our itinerary and watch a kid’s movie then go to the show…well neither of those events went on at the resort, instead all the dancers and entertainers were in the lobby dancing with the old men and women at the resort.  It was fun to watch, but kind of depressing at the same time because I was just sitting down watching, no one but an old drunk man who looked like a turtle asked me to dance.  Oh well.  That night I slept well, and we woke up bright and early to the warm sun on our last day.  Of course the day we leave is the day the rain stops and the sun rises to a beautiful blue sky.  We managed to get a few hours of tanning in before we had to wait half an hour for our bus that never came. We paid extra for a ride to the airport and then flew home to see all our friends and family YAY! Despite everything that went wrong, it was still a fun trip, and I’m glad I went.

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Ola! I’m starting to miss you all more and more, but I’m having a great time here just relaxing and trying not to worry about anything back home.

A few nights ago Connie and I went to another one of the shows they put on each night.  This time it had some sort of theme going, I thought it was west side story because it used the same music, but then it turned out to be more of a rich people vs. street gang type thing.  Rich girl falls in love with random guy from other group and her bf fights for her.  It was very cheesy, and the dancers did a lot more awkward acting than was necessary in my opinion.  At one point the two groups were fighting and they were throwing tires at each other (random prop eh?) and it went on for a good minute…no dancing just throwing tires (it seems like they forgot the point of what they were doing) until one guy got hit in the stomach with the tire.  Haha. The whole time there was this one girl (she was really tall but that’s a completely useless fact) who did nothing but stand in the background as an extra.  She tried to dance (in the back of course) but she didn’t seem happy about it.  It was just funny, the music, the acting, the not so much dancing, the lip singing (where they just stop mid word), basically the whole thing, but I enjoyed it for all of those reasons.

The next day (yesterday) was our typical day in the Dominican. Wake up, eat breakfast, sit by the beach, sit by the pool, read, drink lemonade, eat pizza for lunch, swim, sit by the pool some more, finish my book, go back to the hotel and get ready for supper, take a nap, go to supper, then go to the coffee place after diner.  This is our daily routine, but yesterday while we were in the coffee shop it was raining.  Dad wanted to get a drink in the lobby before we went back to the hotel to watch American Idol and maybe avoid walking home in the rain.  As we were sitting, Dad and Connie sharing a cigar, it started to pour.  Thunder, lighting, the whole bit, as we were sitting in the hut of a lobby.  The rain started whipping us in the face since we were sitting close to the edge, but there was no where to move to.  Rain started pouring in the unfinished roof of the lobby flooding it (the poor guy with a mop didn’t know what to do). The ground was wet the seats were soaked everyone was huddled close together trying to avoid the rain while taking pictures of it to prove to their friends back home that it was really that bad. 

It was 8:00, so we decided to make a run for it back at our hotel, it didn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon.  The water went up to our ankles on the ground outside, it was pouring from the roof of the buffet as we try to dog the downpour.  It reminded me of the rides at waterparks where the water is pouring straight above you and you try to steer your tube the other way but you go right into it, head on, soaking yourself.  Well we were soaked, screaming and laughing as we ran splashing in the dark back to our hotel.  We get back, dry off, and watch American Idol (go Kris).  Then we go to sleep and start our whole routine over again today.   The only exceptions today are that we played beach volleyball and went to the restaurant Wasabi where I ate Japanese food for the first real time.

So to pick up where I left off, I left the internet café and the nightly show was starting so Connie and I joined the audience. I was really excited because I saw the dancers rehearsing and they seemed really good.  The show starts and some cheesy lip singer (yes, I know, it’s lip sync but I think that sounds gay) came on.  The dancers followed soon after, and I was slightly disappointed with the final product.  They were off timing a lot of the time and one of the dancers just looked really awkward.  She was putting so much into her moves she looked like she was flailing around the stage as a joke.  The others were doing okay, but dancing in almost every act really took a toll on them and they looked tired and bored…their faces seemed dead at points. Their costumes (for the girls) were really short and skimpy and I couldn’t believe that they would actually show their entire butts (just a thong) on stage.  It made me happy that none of them were stick skinny like most dancers I see (on TV and in my dance school).  The lifts were really impressive too, and they seemed so effortless for them; lift after lift the men were strong and the women looked great.

I enjoyed watching the practice more than the show itself because it seemed less artificial.  They were wearing their regular clothes, their hair was down, they were marking the moves they seemed really happy and relaxed just dancing for themselves, not an audience. The awkward girl wasn’t dancing so intensely, she actually looked good, and I got to see their true personalities. One of the dancers was kick-boxing during practice and one couple was flirting by the side.  In the show they all blend together. But in the show and during practice I was just happy to be watching dancing because it reminded me of my school and all my friends.

Today (the next day) we got up and went to those Dominican shops.  I felt bad ignoring most of them, but they were way too aggressive constantly saying they prices were the lowest then offering more than twice what we wanted to pay.  I did manage to get most of my souvenirs though, yay! Other than that experience the day has been really relaxing, I just read and took a nap by the pool.  Having nothing to do is kinda stressing me out, but by going online at 4:30 in the afternoon I feel like a loser since no one is online to talk to me.  I am trying really hard to get a tan guys, I really am, but I just can’t compete with those old people whose skin is brown and shiny like a roasting chicken’s. I miss you!

I’m on vacation…and yes I am burnt, sorry mom. 

So I got off the plane and couldn’t believe I was actually at an airport. People were singing and dancing in exotic clothes in what looked to me like big huts…nothing close to an airport.  We got on our bus and I was welcomed to our resort by the song bongolayas congolayas that I used to sing in grade four (I thought we invented that song).  We explored our resort when we got here (we had some time before supper) and it’s a complete maze! I’m almost positive the big map showing where everything is put the ‘you are here’ marker in the wrong place just to confuse everyone.  We manage to get where we need to g by taking the long way around. 

Everything is cold, and it’s raining right now.  Yay…(sarcasm).  We lay on the beach for hours after breakfast, but it was windy and cloudy.  I’m on almost done my second book, I’m sure I’ll be reading a book a day if the weather stays this gloomy.  I had pizza for lunch, that was yummy, then we went to the pool (which was too cold to swim in) and guess what…read some more. That’s when it started raining and we went back to the room where Connie and dad were playing volleyball in our hotel (and she broke a light haha)…I was reading.  We went out to our hotel meeting, but I got distracted along the way when I saw people dancing.  They were rehearsing for the show tonight, and I’m really excited to see it.  We didn’t go to the show last night…we went back to our hotel and watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  Dad and Connie fell asleep half way through the movie.  After the movie ended I was reading my book when I heard the music and all the cheering from the show around the corner.  I wished I could be part of the action, but I stayed in and fell asleep to the sound of my dad’s snoring. 

Back to what I was originally saying, about today, after watching the rehearsal I met up wit Dad and Connie and we went to the pool/bar.  We were swimming and talking and playing volleyball and monkey in the middle until we were all pruney and it started to rain.  We went back to our hotel room and we all put after sun on our burns and got ready for supper at the Italian restaurant.  Supper was good, then we went to the casino and watched a lady lose and gain thousands of dollars in a matter of minutes at the roulette table, and a man win 125$ at the slots, all while we bet and lost little over 20$. Then I tried to steal internet to write this, but I was unsuccessful, so I’m not sitting in a very expensive internet café sharing my experience with you all. 

Enjoy, I miss you!

*originally written for lexiyoga.com

Yoga has a certain appeal to it.  Everyone hopes to be more relaxed, more flexible, and feel better about themselves and their lives, and yoga can help us to fulfill all these desires and more.  I was attracted to yoga for all these reasons, but as a young and blooming dancer I was really just in it for the fun.  Without really understanding what I was getting into I signed up for a local beginner yoga class.

Unknowingly I approached yoga the same way I approach dance.  As a dancer I constantly push myself in each class, and I can watch my progress and success by looking at my reflection in the wall length mirror at my studio.  I try to do my best, but I’m constantly comparing myself to the other dancers reflected in the mirror around me.  My instinctive competitive nature and my stubborn determinism made for one overly motivated yogini. 

I was so enthusiastic about yoga I bought myself a pocket sized ‘Yoga for Dummies’ book so I could learn between classes.  While I was flipping through the pages I saw someone leaning down touching the ground with their nose on their knees. I was blown away.  Seeing the human body bend that way seemed unnatural, but I was more surprised to discover that it was a move we did everyday in the ‘Sun Salutation’.  Most of my class couldn’t even touch the ground, so our noses were no where near our knees.  Even I, one of the most flexible ones in class, only managed to get my nose a foot away from my knees.  After seeing the picture and discovering what move 3/10 really looked like I had made up my mind: I was going to touch my nose to my knees by the end of my yoga classes.  Every class during the ‘Sun Salutation’ I concentrated all my energy on reaching my goal.  At first I was upset when I couldn’t reach lower, I constantly felt bad about myself, as if something was wrong with me preventing me from achieving my goals.  At some point, I felt myself getting closer and from then on my mentality changed.  I started feeling optimistic about my goals, and I didn’t feel like they were a dark cloud looming over me.  Each time I performed the ‘Sun Salutation’ I felt better and better, about myself and my body.  I remember feeling happy, oddly and overwhelmingly happy, when I touched the ground because I felt like today could have been the day.  Then I stopped caring about my goal and I just embraced the feeling I got every time I did the stretch, that’s when my nose finally touched me knees.  I was really proud of myself, and I showed my friends and family, but in class I didn’t care anymore, whether my nose and knees touched or not it didn’t matter.  I was just really happy and content while I was doing yoga. 

When I first started my yoga classes I looked around at the others in my class and I compared myself.  I pushed myself to be more flexible than everyone else, and I made a point of doing all the moves at their most difficult variations just to prove to myself that I was able to.  I didn’t understand the real nature of yoga.  I was too caught up in my own juvenile world to let go and forget about impressing anyone, even myself.  But through my oblivion I realized why yoga is so special.  My mind and body felt more connected than ever, and I truly believe that when I no longer had negative energy my body responded accordingly and I was able to fulfill my goals. It’s about attitude, and that applies to all aspects of our life.

Flowers are a strange gift to get because you receive them in their peak of beauty and then you basically watch them die.  If you look at it this way, it seems like some sick sad metaphor for a bad relationship, so when I wasn’t getting any flowers, I didn’t seem to mind because I thought it would be depressing anyways.  Last weekend I got flowers, and I can’t explain why, but they make me so happy.  I feel like I earned these flowers and I merit their beauty.

My school’s dance show sells flowers, but I rarely get one.  I was always okay with being flowerless because I never felt like I earned on, but this year I worked hard and I finally feel like I deserve the flowers I got.  Both my parents bought me flowers and they’re sitting in their vase drinking water and starring at me now. It’s making me so happy.  In dance receiving flowers isn’t just a simple gift, it’s a symbol of accomplishment.

All I’m saying is I love my flowers and I would never believe that such impermanent beauty could evoke these feelings.  I wish you could feel this odd sense of happiness I feel. 

I’ve spent the entire night trying to write an essay on poetry, as a source of inspiration I dusted off my ipod, charged it up after half a year of being dead and unused and started listening to all my old songs.  Wow. It’s so weird to listen to my obscure mixture of emo and aqua songs.  Anyways, we all know the feeling of listening to our old favorite songs.  This Coheed and Cambria song reminds me of old times singing and dancing in the basement.  It’s sad experiencing something that used to be so important, it’s concrete evidence of how much I’ve changed and it always makes me sad…which is a reason I never listened to my ipod. 

On the weekend my boyfriend was in the mood to watch Rocky Horror for some strange reason.  I have an aversion to Rocky Horror in the same way I have an aversion to my ipod.  I used to be obsessed with it, and I would watch it multiple times a week.  I thought it was fun, and I liked that a movie this random even existed.  I guess I killed it though because now whenever someone mentions the movie’s name I try to casually dismiss it.  Well as my friend and I were preoccupied my boyfriend slipped in the movie and it started playing.  Despite my hesitance I really enjoyed it.  Of course we only watched the singing and dancing scenes (because no one likes to watch Rocky Horror from start to finish it’s too mind numbing). 

As I was watching the Time Warp scene I remembered how much I loved the movie.  I love the costumes, the hilarious fat girl on the floor at the end of the scene, and the super long pause in the middle of the word ‘anticipation’. 

It’s a weird time of the year right now I guess.  I’m looking back and forward at the same time.  I’m listening to old music and watching old movies but I’m thinking about this upcoming summer and dance events.  I have a little over a week before I’m free from school and I won’t have to choose between homework and writing my blog…I always choose blog anyways… 

You know it’s spring when you have to dance around the squished worms lining the street.  Every few inches lay a flattened worm, defenselessly murdered by one wrong step.  I find myself zigzagging around the bodies out of respect. Why shmush that which is already shmushed?  I also find myself hopelessly searching for that one worm that survived the rampage.  Looking for that survivor worm feels like looking for those alive in the water after the Titanic sunk.  Is anybody out there? …Poor worms.  I remember almost missing the bus to school last spring because I was picking up that lucky worm off the pavement and putting him on the grass, but I felt good all day about saving that worm.  I’ll save who I can this spring, but if there are no survivors, I will continue to dance around their remains.