Christmas Break

You know, I go into every break feeling like I have a whole world of opportunities awaiting me. I don't know exactly why I continue to delude myself. For example, this is me the day before break.
Ahh! I have two weeks off! Two blissful weeks of adventure! And endless productivity! Ah yes! And then, then I have the audacity-and we aren't talking about a music editing program-to make an actual, physical, tangible list of those great things I'm going to do.
Finish all my homework before the second week of break
Work out-get that stomach back in shape
Get up by eight each morning
Write at least three articles per day
Save the world
Tame a dinosaur
Their might have been some slight exaggeration there, but only very slight. Why? Why did I think I'd actually get up and do things? Silly me.
However, I hate blogs that are total downers. And isn't it awkward when people bash on themselves? I always feel so...intrusive. There we are, me sitting there, and the other person going on, ranting and raving about all those things which make them imperfect. I'm sitting there, eating my popcorn, taking a sip of Sprite (a real obnoxious sip too, letting you know that it's almost gone and I'm at the bottom of the cup. sluuuuurp), and finally I just feel like saying, "I'm real sorry to be here when you are obviously having a deep moment of reflection with yourself. I'll just go.". Except, of course, that would be considered rude, and probably socially inappropriate (especially the sprite part) so instead I feel obligated to say something lame like "No! Come on you're [great, talented, beautiful, skinny, nice, slightly obsessive, take your pick]." Just once, I'd like to be that jerk that says, "You're right. You know, I never really realized it until you said something but you, my friend, are a terrible person, and I don't think I can stand to be around you any longer!"
Does that make me an awful person?
Probably.
I also kinda feel bad for not doing that dialogue bit correctly. What would Mrs. Gessel say? And for saying kinda.
All grammatical and syntax issues aside, I really have digressed rather far from what I was trying to say.
What I was TRYING to say was precisely thus: I shouldn't bash on myself. I did accomplish some things this break. For example:

• Had a "stuffy" party with my cousin Elora
• Watched Season 9 of Smallville with my brothers...basically in the middle of the night...
  
• Convinced my brother to go buy Season 10 of Smallville the next day
• Written MORE than 3 articles TOTAL
• Done crunches about 5 times this break (5 days people, not 5 individual crunches)
• Hung out with my brothers, playing Qwirkle and Carcassonne
• Been dominated by my brother who does NOT dance at....Just Dance

Which leads me to believe that while goals are important, and so is using our time wisely, there is one thing which really is more important; family.

Plus, now I have one more thing to add to my list of things accomplished. I successfully used a semicolon.

Why?

Why do I never post? Why?
The better question may possibly be, why do I bother with a blog? I hardly update frequently and when I do update I'm sure there is a maximum of say...two...people who end up reading.
However, that isn't the point.
The point is, I have perfectly logical reasons for not posting more. It's like this: I have plenty to write besides this blog. Having a writing job (yay for earning money!) pretty much means that in spare writing time I feel obligated to do that. Add in school assignments, and all the novels and short stories that are trying so hard to burst out of my brain (or fingers), and that equals hardly writing on this blog.
However, since this blog is about dance in relation to my life I thought I'd add the newest update.
On the way home from school yesterday I was in a car crash. I was lucky that I didn't get hurt worse than I did, but got whiplash which will prevent me from dancing for the next while.
Last night while I was lying in bed trying to sleep I thought "why me?" and "this isn't fair". But when I think about it more, I am just glad to know that I was really blessed.
There were four people in my truck when we got hit, and luckily nobody got badly injured. My family knows the family of the boy who crashed into me, which made it a really sad experience.
I remember getting out of the car feeling so angry. My neck was screaming in pain and I couldn't believe what had just happened. My anger lessened immediately when I realized how badly damaged the other car was. I felt so guilty later when the guy came up to me with tears running down his face and told me how sorry he was.
You know what? It's called a car accident for a reason. No one was happy it happened, and we were all incredibly lucky. And I learned that I shouldn't be angry. People make mistakes. I hope that as I use this time to recover from my back and neck injuries, I can also spend time and look around and see how blessed I am.
I have felt such an outpouring of love and concern just in the past day since the accident. It's now been 26 hours and 10 minutes. And I hope that through the rest of these hours and days I will continue to count my blessings and look for the joy in life.

School.

So. So. It has been some time. Yes it has been. And it will probably be some time again, but I really don't care. Because I am doing my best. So hello. Thanks for reading.
I am just posting to say...SCHOOL STARTED. There will assuredly be more on that later. And a tiny bit right now, but not much, because I want to drive my favorite younger brother to soccer. Bam. There's just nothing you can do about it.
School is great though. Just...great. Here are my classes.
A1-Ballroom team. I enjoy this class thoroughly, especially because I am currently choreographing for it! LOVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE my dance. :) You had all better come see the performance.
A2-chamber choir. Love this class too, but it is going to make me very busy this year.
A3- AP English
A4- AP gov (seriously. Too much homework.)
B1- Photo. Sadly I need this class to graduate. Silly CTE credit. Good thing AnDIE is in that class with me. :)
B2- A Cappella choir
B3- AP psych. My brother helped me make the most epic binder and book cover for this class. I do love me some psych. If only we got to study Shawn.
B4- seminary
So that's the schedule of the schoolio.

foot continued.

aaaaaaaaand my computer was just really dumb. So let me just continue where we left off, shall we?
So there is probably my favorite picture of my foot on this planet. I'm pretty sure it is the cutest thing EVER! I took this at my second appointment after the surgery, right before they took the stitches out. It is probably one of the finest things you've ever seen. Tres belle, non?
More updates soon once I get my more recent pictures off my camera and onto the compy. Till then!

The Foot

So my foot is doing much better! Yesterday I tried for the first time to wear a normal shoe. Yeah. Not quite ready for that one yet, but I have been walking barefoot quite a bit and you have no idea how wonderful THAT feels! It's truly a blessing, I've missed my foot.
I also am feeling quite lucky that my foot is doing so good, because I start work in just like two weeks! On August 29th I'm getting back to teaching dance, which I'm ecstatic for, and then I get to start teaching at the Scera on the 12 of September. I am truly very excited for how well everything has worked out!
For more good working news read the next sentence: I got a job as a writer!!!! All my dreams are sort of coming true this year people. It's going to be a good one.
But back to the foot. I know you want to witness it's incredible journey. So here we go.

This is my foot the day of the surgery. It is sooooo round and puffy. It was hard to change with that, so I wore basketball shorts for about a week afterward.

Happy News!

So I have been to the doctor and guess what? My foot is healing VERY well! I am very excited! It has been four weeks since the surgery, but Dr. Giggles says that it looks like it has been healing six weeks. As in, it's healing quickly. Which means...
ONLY THREE MORE WEEKS OR SO TILL I CAN DANCE!
I am so excited. My soul (and heart, and feet, and...) has missed dancing. I am so so very excited.
It should be a really good year for dance. :)
I am teaching at the School of Ballet Arts, where I have dancing since I've been six. It's still a little up in the air about what exactly I'm teaching but for sure Jazz and then doing some ballet classes as well. I also may be teaching a Beginning Ballet class at the Scera Center for the Arts, in my Community, which makes me extremely excited. Hopefully everything works out well with that.
Of course I'm also taking classes at SBA, doing Ballroom Team at MVHS and who knows? I am going to dance at every opportunity I can. Having dance taken out of my life for this little while makes me realize even more how much I love it and I can't wait to dance again! It's such a blessing to have a functional body and to have the opportunity to dance the way I do. I feel very lucky and as soon as my feet are recovered, my life is very likely going to become one big routine all over again. I cannot wait. :)

Finally, my soul is dancin a little because I finally have everything ready for Girl's Camp tomorrow. It's been a hassle, I'm one of the three sixth year campers in my ward so there have been a lot of things that I have prepared but now it is all done and I am so so excited to go have a wonderful time up in the mountains with the girls in my ward. Be looking for pictures coming soon!

Doctor Giggles

Well this is going to be another shorty (surprise, surprise) because I am off to the doctor in just a couple minutes. I am going to get my foot x-rayed, and then we will determine whether I can walk without the boot from now on. I am of the opinion that I can. :) Hopefully all will go well, especially since I'm driving myself there for the first time ever. Oh how grown up I am! Haha, wish me luck!
Anyways, I really hope that I am truly on the right track to recovery. I think I am, I feel sooooo much better and have been able to walk around a considerable amount. So far, everything looks promising. The sooner I can get back to dancing, the better. I miss it sooo much. I am going a little insane-o.
Honestly.
I've been doing ballet in my kitchen, one foot bare, the other in a boot. Let me tell you, it's a pretty beautiful sight. I was also doing a little hoe-down type dance yesterday which my father found amusing.
But now it is time for me to depart. Hopefully everything is great!
p.s. I won't be updating until after girl's camp, which I leave for tomorrow, so that's the story and you are just going to have to live in suspense till then.

Fwustwated. :(

So. Once upon a time it was the day before I was going to get surgery. And I thought to myself: Self. I should make a post. Because that's the kind of thing you do on a blog.
So I wrote out a post. And it told me "BAD REQUEST". Bad request? BAD request? What? Honestly? I was so so sad that I was losing my opportunity to share my beautiful sad news. So I was frustrated. And so. This is a post.
It's been two weeks and two days since I got surgery and I am FINALLY starting to walk ok again. I even did some stairs today. :) I also left the house for the first time on Thursday (aside from doctor's appointments). So I am definitely making progress. It's going to be awhile till I get back to those toe shoes though.
And guess what? I'm planning on posting that old post out of spite. Know why? Because I can.

All Done!

Today is Friday (not intended to remind you of any stupid songs)...last performance was Monday. Haven't blogged about it until now. What does that tell you? Haha. Well Monday's performances were smashing. I had so much fun, and I felt SOOO supported. I had twenty seven people come to watch me, between the two shows. It's always more fun to dance when you have friends and family watching and supporting you. :) The highlight of Monday's performances were dancing as Hippolyta, the Huntress in the last scene. That part is seriously so fun, it's basically all leaps. There is one part in the middle though where I had to do about fifteen (give or take a few depending on the music) fouette turns, which, for those of you who don't know, are hard. So, because I didn't fall flat on my face in the process I decided to give myself twenty bonus points, pass go, collect $250 and consider my performance an overall success. Without the money part.
However, all was not well in dragonland. Here is why. I just watched a little recording my family took of me. Holy. Cow. STRAIGHTEN YOUR LEG GIRL!!! One of my legs stays just the tiniest bit bent just about the entire performance. Now that is upsetting and distressing. All I can do with that is say I will do better next year. It will be next year's goal.
And now some pictures. :) Just a few.
This is from last Friday night's performance. It was my little solo during Jar of Hearts, tres dramatic.

So this here is a video. And for some reason my blog format is freaking out, but that's always fun right? The reason for this video (which is mega short) is to show you my lovely Hippolyta costume/leap. We only have two pictures of me wearing my costume and I look freaky in both of them. Once I get the pictures off of my actual camera we may have more options (but I doubt it). So here it is. The ultimate best part of this experience was those shorts. Man. They were attractive shorts. Not really, they just made me laugh. During the evening performance of this part we had a fog machine which added to the zest of this experience.
This is a picture of being a butterfly after Saturday Evening performance. Am I making a creepy face? Yes. Yes I am. I'm allowed to do that after a dance performance, k? I decided my face muscles just rebel after I force them to smile for so long and then they just go however they want. That's my theory anyway. With me are my bestest bestest friends. Aren't they pretty???

And here is an itty bitty video from the very last of the first scene where I did Fairy Soloist. Not that anything I do in this video is particularly inspiring. It was a cool part though. And I gotted to wear a sparkly crown that got stuck in my hair every. single. time. Dancing is a joy. :) Maybe more pictures and words later, but right now I want to write different words about different things, so you can't keep me here any longer! Bwa hahahaha!

Three Performances Down, Two to Go

So this was the big weekend! After many many dress rehearsals and various alternating moments of frustration and hyperness (Extreme hyperdom? hyperocity? what's the correct word here?) I finally got to perform. I don't know why, but performing dance brings me a sort of happiness and fulfillment that nothing else does. It's not that it makes me happier than other things, like my family or the gospel or a good book. It's just a different kind of happy, and it brings me this huge satisfaction when I know I've performed to the best of my abilities. So I'll give a quick recap of how the shows went and then I will update again to let you know how Monday's shows go (those are the BIG ones. Wish me luck!)
Friday night:
Friday was the SBA performance-meaning all the little girl classes demonstrated that night as well. My two bestest friends and another lovely friend from Ballroom team came, and so did my whole family. That was way exciting because all three of my brothers were there! I'm so glad Andrew is home from his mission! He just got back on Wednesday. Anyway, it was wonderful having all that support. :) The first dance I was in was probably the messiest. I only learned the end of it the afternoon of, so it was a little sporadic, but that's ok. The next two dances were the dances Mallory choreographed for her contemporary class. Jar of Hearts was first, and that one was more lyrical, and then Battlefield, which was definitely more hard hitting. I think both of them went really well! :) They were my two favorite dances to perform and I was way excited to finally do them, because we've been working on them all year. In Jar of Hearts we actually have a jar with paper hearts in it which we threw/dumped all over the stage during the course of the dance. Because of this the stage had to be swept up afterwards. For some reason they assigned little boys to sweep up the hearts so it kind of took forever. An added bonus was that the three of us in those dances got to "break the rules" about wearing a classical ballet bun, and instead got to have it half down, so it was all pretty. :) The other dances I was in that night was a pointe dance to "Please Bring Honor To Us All" (the song from the beginning of Mulan), a Jazz dance to J'ai Ho! which people seemed to really enjoy, and a ballet dance to a Lion King song. All of these dances were within the first thirteen dances in the whole show. After that I just sat backstage while all the little girls danced.
Saturday:
For Monday I will probably break down the performances into matinee and evening because I have a bigger part but I will just leave it as one for Saturday. We still did two shows, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. Both went great, and admittedly much better than expected. It's been hectic, but all our preparation has paid off. I had a lot of fun doing my makeup for these shows because my first part is as Fairy Soloist and so I used all sorts of glitter and pink eye stuff. I will take a picture of it tomorrow and post it so you can see, as well as pictures of costumes. It'll be fun. Anyway, the Fairy Solo part was my favorite part I got to perform on Saturday. I also am featured in the next part, which is Titania's Bower. There are four girls who get to do a different part in the middle, and I am one of them which is really fun. Saturday I got to be a Butterfly in the third scene, which is a very fun part as well. The shows went fantastic and I can't wait to perform tomorrow!!! Updates and pictures soon! :)

Traffic

My life is filled with craziness. My brother is getting home from his mission this Wednesday (HOORAY!!!) and because of this we have been doing a lot of cleaning at my house. So I spent about four hours this morning cleaning (still not done, but I figured that was enough for one day), and then I was planning on going to do a traffic study. Not just for fun, though. I'm weird but not THAT weird. For my AP Environmental Science class we have to go watch a specific lane on state street and count how many cars and how many passengers are in that lane for a half an hour. Not only that, but we have to count each kind of specific vehicle. It is something I would like to call a stupid project. ANYWAY, we are doing this little project in groups, and I had the paper for our group. The only problem was that I couldn't find said paper. So I looked for it for like an hour, including digging through all the bags of trash that accumulated during my cleaning today. That was certainly fun. Then I went and did a traffic study. Hoo.rah. That's all I am going to tell you about right now. I bet you were fascinated.

TV and (of course) Dance

Ok. We are going to address two things here. I bet you can guess what they are! They are (drumroll...) TV! and DANCE! It's shocking, I know. We'll start with TV first and then I will give you the lowdown on the latest dance drama of my legs. It'll be a real joy.
1. TV-I have two things to talk about here:
a. (because I am already numbering using 1 and 2, I had to move on to a, and b. I knew MLA outlines would someday become useful.) American Idol. As y'all know, the American Idol finale was just yesterday. I was annoyed that Lauren was there, because she's bugged me all season. I grew to surprisingly really enjoy Scotty McCreery however, surprising because I do NOT like country music, especially the twangy variety. But I liked him. Go figure. Anyways, I was beyond scandalized when Lauren was just mauling Scotty. It was honestly disturbing. I thought to myself, "Now young man! You can do much better than that!" I was so annoyed that I decided to research. Yes, of my own free will (and volition). Happily, the research confirmed what I hoped: they aren't dating. Lauren apparently said Scotty, "Might be her boyfriend. Ask him." in typical Lauren, wannabe fashion. Scotty said they weren't. To several reporters. Flat out said he didn't want anything more than friendship. So I was relieved that the poor boy isn't stuck with Lauren, because he sure doesn't deserve that.
b. Food Network. Ever since we got cable so that my little bro could watch more sports I have found that I really enjoy watching cooking shows. I tape a few, and then other times just watch whatever is on. It's my favorite channel, and it makes me want to cook more. Plus, then my family can all walk around talking about arugula, reductions, and different plating options. It doesn't get much better than that folks.
2. DANCE and the DRAMA
No really. There's news. It isn't juicy though, sorry. This isn't gossipy drama, this is nitty gritty pain type drama. As in today I had to lie down in the middle of dance class and get my leg taped, because, lucky me, I have shin splints. What a fun occasion. It's stressing me out a little, due to my dance concert being a week from tomorrow, so I sort of need to be able to dance well. Prayers would be muchly appreciated. With that, and as much rest as possible in the midst of all the rehearsals, hopefully I'll be able to perform well and have fun.

A Power Plant and Some Dancing :)

So. Basically today I did the most epic thing you could ever imagine. I got to go to the IPP power plant in Delta! I went with my AP Environmental Science class, it was our field trip. I felt gipped. Geography got to go Yellowstone, but AP just goes to Delta. What fun. We left at like 8:00 in the morning. It was not necessarily the most comfortable drive because it is a long way and we were just riding on a school bus, but I had a lot of fun talking with my friends. Somehow we got on the topic of crazy people (not crazy like me, crazy like need to be in an institution). Well, we'd been talking about this and then we arrived at the Power Plant and noticed there were fences topped with barbed wire all around it, and there were super intense gates. In between the gates there was an intenso building that was pretty much a guard booth. So, naturally my friends and I decided that the power plant was secretly a mental institution. As you can imagine, that made the rest of the visit there more enjoyable. Now, you are just going to have to try and form pictures in your head of this lovely place, because I didn't take actual pictures. Some people did. Yeah...I didn't exactly think to bring my camera. Anyway, we were there for ages and then we drove through Eureka (it really doesn't get much more exciting than this, folks) and then we got back to the school. It basically won the exciting field trip of the year award.
After the field trip I went to my high school ballroom auditions. I am not too worried about them, because I was on the team this year, so the coach already knows the way I dance, but I still hope I do well. Today we just learned the routine, and tomorrow we're doing the actual try out.
Then I had ballet company. That was probably actually one of the best parts of the day because I got to learn my solo part, which I'd been stressing about. If you read this before the concert and you live close you should email me and I'll give you info. ;) Well that's all I have time for now! Thank you for reading, I truly appreciate it. You should have a cookie. :)

Welcome!

Hello dear people. :)
I am glad you are here and looking at my blog. I am pretty excited about it. Once I was going to blog awhile ago but it just didn't work out. Maybe with this blog I will do a little better. We'll see. ;) So. I'm assuming if you are reading this that you already know me. Otherwise, why are you bothering to read this random blog? I'm sure not reading your blog if I don't know you. But just in case you forgot about who I am, or you are some crazy person reading this just for kicks and giggles, then I suppose I'll tell you a bit: Basically I love dancing. Ballet has been sort of my life since I was teeny tiny, itty bitty, and in the past couple years I have started doing ballroom too. Newsflash: Ballet is harder than ballroom. My other passion in life, which I really wish I spent more time on, is writing. I write a lot, but most of what I write doesn't end up being saved--they are just little random tidbits which end up in stray notebooks or files I never look at. Singing is another thing I really enjoy. It used to just be something that I liked to do randomly at home, but I took voice lessons for about a year, and that along with hard work in the school choir has made it so that I can actually be pretty confident with my singing. I think it's a fun way to express myself, and having ouchy bunion-y feet doesn't limit my voice. But I will write about the bunions later. My feet deserve a post all their own. :) As far as other random "about me" info...well you don't get any. You will just have to keep reading this fascinating blog if you want to find out anything else.
What to expect from this blog: A whoooole lot of randomness. There, you've been warned, so you can't be afraid if you run into something that makes pretty much zero sense. Well, you can be afraid, but you can't say I didn't give you a heads up. I also will probably put some of my little writing projects up here-no big stories, just the small stuff. I'm sure bacon will be involved in this blog. So if you don't like reading about bacon, you might as well bow out now.
More soon! Ta-ta!