_intermezzo_

Day 2: Philadelphia & Washington DC

2006-07-12T03:50:23Z

In Philadelphia, on some streets, there are parking spaces in a middle lane. Strangest thing.

Arrived in DC today after meandering through however many states.. I really have no idea, I woke up and we were in Maryland.

I should never make fun of silly looking tourists at the Inner Harbour ever again.. because my family is probably worse. My father is a dork as it is, but with a camera around his neck, a big backpack and his nose in a map, it's pretty bad. My sister refuses to stop wearing her red fleece vest.. and its honestly 30-something degrees and ridiculously humid.

Went to Georgetown today.. it's really the equivalent of Vancouver's Robson St. with all of its brand name shops. There was a really upscale supermarket which was really cool.. but I was not about to spend five dollars on chocolate covered gummy bears, as tasty as they were.

Completely randomly today, I bumped into Casey, a guy I danced with two years ago. So excited to see him, he's a sweetheart. He's been performing in DC for two or three weeks and he's going home tomorrow, so I guess I've just missed being able to watch him.

Time to sleep as someone's going to wake me at like six. worst.

_intermezzo_ @ 2006-04-17T21:39:00

2006-04-18T04:50:22Z

I can't wait til I get to mark tests and things with answers like this.

_intermezzo_ @ 2006-03-21T22:09:00

2006-03-22T06:33:01Z

Why must a car full of boys find it necessary to leer at a girl sitting in her own car? It's happened to me twice this week while waiting for lights to change; its rather ridiculous. What exactly are they trying to accomplish? Do they think their yelling and frantic gesturing is going to make me feel attracted to them? Is this their idea of a fun Tuesday night out? I have no clue. Reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld talking about guys honking their horns at women on the sidewalk... I know these guys are rather harmless but I shouldn't have to feel anxious or intimidated or uncomfortable just because a car of idiots pulls up beside me. What can I do but ignore them and deny them a reaction at all? Boys = silly.

Sometimes I'm just inane.

2006-02-13T07:34:01Z

Hugest craving for sunshine and tanning at the beach. Seeing that it's February and 11:30 at night, I guess I'll settle for some more tea and letting myself go to sleep. I look forward to writing two more pages of essay at 4 in the morning.

On another random note, I love Judy Garland.
"Last week I was walkin' down the street, met a boy and said,
Hey, maybe I was meant for you
But he only tipped his hat and shook his head
Kept on walkin' down the avenue, oh"

_intermezzo_ @ 2006-02-10T19:45:00

2006-02-11T04:00:59Z

So it was a nice sunny day today, maybe twelve degrees... what possesses girls to wear bikinis and short shorts in February? People are silly.

Semi-pretty photos

2006-02-02T04:47:30Z

So this random photography student came in to my Intermediate ballet class with all her fancy equipment and took billions of pictures. Wow, so bad. I hate action shots. I dislike how I have to cringe at most of them. That's why I'm only sharing a few: http://community.webshots.com/user/intermezzoness For some where she took five or six shots in quick succession, it's pretty cool to scroll through, it's like watching a movie.

_intermezzo_ @ 2006-01-27T14:44:00

2006-01-27T22:50:33Z

Obviously the best part was waking up at 4:30 in the morning. Especially after getting home at around 11 (from salsa dancing, seriously best time ever.) Hid my car on a side street by the Broadmead Thrifty's and headed off to the 7am ferry with Dana, Rebecca and Alyssa. Becca sang us the song she made up to the tune of the 'We're Off to See the Wizard'. We had a good girly time and giggled about things all the way to the terminal. The ferry ride was fun, complete with a questionable looking ferry breakfast.. those scrambled eggs just look awful, but if you hide everything in ketchup, its okay. Lots of nervous waiting around in the studio in Richmond was done, while the younger girls (Tashina, Alison and Maria) had their class at 9:30. I finally had mine at 11:45, by myself (by myself meaning.. with 22 other girls not from my own studio.) Amusingly, I was the only one in navy blue while everyone was in black. Biggest studio I've ever seen. Even with a piano, a row of seated teachers and 23 or so girls leaping and running around, it never felt crowded. I've discovered that I don't like being in the front line when I'm with a new teacher. I got slightly panicky and every time I did something wrong, I felt disappointed in myself, which generally made things worse. Not good. I should be able to deal with these kinds of nerves, but I'm generally so comfortable with my dancing, its utterly foreign for me to be scared or panicky. If I get things wrong in classes at home, I have a good laugh about it and move on. The class in itself wasn't bad; I got good corrections, got to watch others and there weren't any child prodigies (thank god). After the class was finished, being both far too emotional and tired, just cried semi-hysterically for a while until I pulled myself together enough to call Adam. After that, I was vaguely calm enough to wait out the rest of the two hours for Alyssa & Becca to finish their class. Had awesome gelato at the ferry terminal (blood orange = best) and got slightly seasick on the ferry. We were all too exhausted to withstand the slight swaying of the boat, it was rather pathetic. Found my car, went home and thus ends my adventures.

My foot decided to twist yesterday while I was wearing heeled character shoes in dance class. Pretty sure its mildly sprained. Stupid foot.

Ramblings

2006-01-19T05:16:42Z

Update regularly, who does that.

Nothing particularly exciting at the moment, just the usual school stuff interspersed with lots of dancing (yay!). I'm off to a mock ballet exam on Sunday in Richmond. I'm quite excited for the dancer-road-trip-aspect of it, but not so much the getting up at 4:30 in the morning to catch the first ferry. A little nervous about being a room full of pre-pubescent, long-legged, thin-as-a-rail girls, but I'll make up for it by emoting my heart out. I hope my poor toenail will hold up; its a lovely shade of blackish purple. It's time for the second half of my dinner.

Crazy busyness

2005-06-08T05:36:29Z

I haven't updated for a while as this month has been insane. I like not being bored, but I'm exhausting myself completely. So much dancing with the exam coming up.. death. Today I've taken three grade six exam classes plus helped with a grade 4 class. Rather tired as I'm sick too. Ick.

Random thoughts:
- Lots of preparing for the grad banquet at the moment
- Got interviewed by the New VI with Tanya about dry grad stuff, but it ended up being edited to a sentence by Tanya and us walking towards the school, plus lots of footage on Esquimalt(?)'s ceremony & banquet.
- I can't believe exams are coming up soon.. this is ridiculous. I swear there's like a month left.

June 1: Grad ceremony! I still can't comprehend that I'm actually graduating this year. It seems that not so long ago I was helping out at last year's ceremony. My grandpa took a billion pictures in the backyard of me in my gown. Reminds me of all my baby pictures-- ten pictures of me in the same outfit in slightly varying poses. Maybe I'll post a couple of the good ones later. The speeches in the beginning weren't awfully terrible, but everybody's walking across took a ridiculously long time. Plus I was in the front row so that was gross, had to look somewhat interested all the time.

June 4: Westcoast Ballet Year-End: Totally exhausting day. It began with rehearsals at 10:45am.. ick. Then I taught three of Dana's classes: gr 1 ballet, gr 2 modern and junior jazz. The kids were absolutely adorable. Then off to spacing rehearsals @ UVic and then getting ready for the performance. There were some amusing mistakes.. like for one of my classical ballet pieces, this random jazz music came blaring on..

Some things I'll always remember:
- the Finding Nemo piece that my sister was in... I taught two of the classes that were in it (the gr 1s being one of them). There was one little girl that was the 'shark'.. sooooo ridiculously adorable. I wanted to steal her.

- the gr5/int. modern piece that was a dedication to Alex's mom. Her mom died suddenly this year, and it has hit everyone really hard. I don't think the video will be able to capture the atmosphere, but it was so deeply touching and emotional. Everyone was crying.. including the girls on stage. Alex somehow kept her composure until she came off the stage, I don't know how she did it. She's only my sister's age, eleven.

_intermezzo_ @ 2005-05-09T20:44:00

2005-05-10T03:44:56Z

In history, we all wrote essays on different historical figures, and then Mr. Kidd told us to get into groups and do a talk show. Really, he didn't give us any more criteria as he "didn't want to stifle our creativity." Teachers are just being lazy when they say that. My group ended up doing a dating game hosted by Erwin Rommel and I, as Evita, got to be the 'Bachelorette' with General Patton, Howard Hughes, Richard Nixon and Charles de Gaulle all vying for my affections. It was all very silly, and of course I chose the craziest of them, Howard Hughes. Our soundtrack was definitely the best.. we had a theme song for each person. Mine was Don't Cry for Me Argentina of course, Patton's was 'Bang Bang' from Kill Bill, de Gaulle's was the French anthem, Nixon had 'Hello Dolly' and Howard Hughes had... Dr. Evil singing the meow mix song (yeah, I didn't really get it either.) Fun times.

Dana was super sick today, so we made her go home after her second class. I taught the grade three ballet today. That was tons of fun, except that my sister's in the class and she was making many snide remarks. Stupid girl. Their year-end dance is music from 'Finding Nemo'.. pretty awesome. Tashina was 'helping' me with the class as well, but I think I would've done better by myself. It was strange that I'd remember certain bits of exercises, as I did my grade three exam about six years ago. Near the end of class, one of the girls asked me whether I was going to be a ballet teacher someday. When I said probably not, she said, "Well you seem like you should be some kind of teacher." She definitely got a hug. =) Yay.

Like a shoebox of photographs with sepia tone loving

2005-04-12T04:00:14Z

It's been a rather exhausting week. I absolutely despise going to Nanaimo. The performing is fun, but it seems like an awful waste of time to drive two hours one way just to perform a three-minute number. So anyway, got third on my ballet solo which sounds good until I tell you the number of people in my category (three including me) and a first for the humongous pirate number. Pirates was ridiculously fun.. I like being a pirate. Except maybe for the beard made of vaseline + coffee grounds. It was rather disgusting. If anyone cares to watch me at UVic for GVPAF or Danceworks, I'm performing on Mon. April 18th at 9am for my solo and 7pm for Pirates & Tues. May 17 at 2pm for Pirates and 630pm for my solo. Yay. And then year-end.. June 2nd. I think thats all the performing for now. I really hope Pirates doesn't get into the Nanaimo Gala. Death.

I wonder how they calculate it.. as it isn't totally random.

2005-04-01T07:52:08Z

_intermezzo_ @ 2005-03-28T13:59:00

2005-03-28T22:19:29Z

Panic. Lots of panic. I can't believe I have to perform in Nanaimo next week. I'm scared and really really not ready. I remember performing a piece of my own choreography for the grade 10 dinner dance, and I completely blanked out on stage. I made up at least half of the dance on the spot. Dana has been telling me that I am the only solo that she wasn't worried about-- but I'm plenty worried. I actually don't have a costume yet. I'm supposed to borrow one from Dana.. but that hasn't occurred yet. I haven't had class for a week and a half and am dreadfully out of dancing shape already. I just know I'll be so ridiculously sore all next week and I'm dreading it.

I never really liked My Immortal but we're using it for the year end piece for lyrical and of course everything that I dance to, I end up liking.

Well I think I'm losing my mind this time, this time I'm losing my mind that's right

2005-03-18T05:13:42Z

I swear I'm losing my mind. Lately, I've been losing pretty much everything. I can't find either of my winter coats. A stack of cds that I brought downstairs to my dance studio have vanished. And in it was the Pushing Up Daisies cd too.. Agh. The weirdest thing is that I remember distinctly when I last held all of these items. It's driving me nuts. Where is the void in which everything keeps going? I am so confused.

_intermezzo_ @ 2005-03-12T14:36:00

2005-03-12T22:46:24Z

The grad fashion show was excellent on Thursday night, despite all of my worrying. I had a fun time performing a rumba routine with my group-- everyone even remembered to smile and not count out loud =) I fully intend to join the ballroom dancing club at Uvic. I fell completely in love with my dress from Shades of White.. it was turquoise and strapless with a starburst-ish design. I'll try to get pictures of it from somebody since I neglected to remember a camera. It was oddly lopsided in terms of fitting.. definitely ended up getting safety pinned to avoid any 'wardrobe malfunctions.' I went to sheer_obsidian 's hairdresser and she was awesome. My hair was ridiculously complicated so I'm not even going to try to describe it. I shall definitely be going back to her for grad. I still have some sparkles in my hair, they won't go away.

Other news, I got my official letter of acceptance from UVic and they also offered me a $2000 entrance scholarship! Yay!

The Upper Island Festival is creeping up soon. I'm getting more than slightly nervous. Especially about my first solo. And I need to scrounge up a costume. Eek. April 5th isn't that far away.. and with spring break, not very many more rehearsals.

Some happy news..

2005-03-04T23:02:46Z

I got my provincial marks back and did much better than expected.. I am quite satisfied with my 96% on the english provincial. Yay! And I didn't even fail my math provincial-- 86%! Which makes my final mark a fairly respectable 82. My SMS scores are just above the 1700 minimum for scholarships.. So maybe a scholarship for me! Rumor has it that the SMS scores were a little screwed up, so maybe mine will go up. =) Talking to people who get multiple 99%ish exams is deeply intimidating. I am in awe of their presence.

I self-reported my marks yesterday to UVic and I got an email today from UVIC: "Congratulations! Your application has been approved for admission to the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Victoria for Winter Session, 2005-2006 ( September 2005 )."

Very cool. Now I just have to wait for the offical letter of acceptance. *bounces up and down* I really need to gain more patience.

I still can't believe I'm graduating this year, it's both scary and surreal. There's no way I'm that old.

_intermezzo_ @ 2005-02-28T21:23:00

2005-03-01T05:25:47Z

I watched "A Cinderella Story" with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet on Saturday night with my mommy. It was absolutely amazing.. I'm still giddy. It was set in 1957 and the costumes were gorgeous fifties-style dresses (slightly poofy, mid-calf length and pretty colors.) Here's Nancy (aka. Cinderella)

Yeah, I don't know how to center anything. I'm absolutely pathetic but that's okay.

Having a live jazz band was so awesome. It's definitely much better than recordings. Plus the music makes you want to get up and dance. I really want to learn how to ballroom dance now.

The story starts off with Nancy in front of the television with her faithful dog. Her father arrives with a new wife and two daughters in tow. The stepmother and the two sisters are typically mean and nasty-- but they do get to wear pretty dresses all the time. Well, everyone knows the story-- father dies; stepmother & stepsisters take over, they get invitations to the ball, they don't want Cinderella to go. The three go off to dance class to brush up on their skills before the big winter dance and there we meet "Bob" (Prince Charming of course) and he's a snazzy dancer. He leaves behind one of his white dancing shoes-- and Nancy picks it up obviously.

The parts I loved the best were when all of the servants were dancing-- later the servants would change into animals in the 'mystical garden' when the fairy godmother appears. (This sounds like I'm on drugs..) It's pretty cool how they used the costuming of the servants so that you could recognize each of them later on. One of the butlers had a really distinctive coat tail and you could see it later on when he was a penguin. The maids had different feather dusters which represented what they would be later... a peacock, a swan, etc.

The fairy godmother pops out of the family television set with a small explosion-- I admit it, I definitely jumped. She later turns the television cabinet thing into a car with the help of the animals-- they put it together on the stage. Nancy drives away to the winter dance in it. We figured it was probably pedal-powered or something as there was no engine at all. I want it.

I'm far too ridiculously excited. Adam would tell me to take deep breaths by now. I swear I'm not hyperventilating.

Anyways, it was fun to see half my dance studio at the same performance-- I kept running into people I knew.

- Got the new Pushing Up Daisies CD today! It's definitely excellent-- get yours for $8 (hooray for shameless promotion)

- Figured out how to do Lj-cuts.. go me!

You must have seen her dancing in the sand..

2005-02-11T01:47:53Z

Sometimes I wonder why I bother going to dance classes all the time. I spend more time at the studio than with my own friends or even my family. I never have enough time to do all my homework. I find being able to eat dinner at home slightly odd. Honestly, I'm not going to be employed as a professional dancer (not that I'm interested in such a career) because I am not even nearly good enough nor do I have the 'ideal' body type. So why the billions of hours I spend at the studio all the way out in the friendly neighborhood of Esquimalt? Classes are expensive, shoes & costumes are pricey, muscles are constantly sore, knees are dead-- yet I can't give any of it up. I couldn't imagine not having ballet in my life. If I wasn't a dancer, who would I be? Silly as it sounds, I wouldn't really be quite sure. Dancing is a passion that perpetuates and influences every aspect of my life. I have a studio to practice in in the garage, post on dance forums, watch live performances, choreograph in my head to nearly every song I hear, read books about dancers and the history of ballet, obsessively watch movies like Center Stage... I must be a hopeless dance addict. Oh well. It's time to rush off to class..

Math is Death.

2005-01-29T07:20:20Z

I am absolutely going to fail the math exam. Quite pathetic really. I managed to get to dance rehersal tonight-- it's really odd that I haven't gone to the studio since Monday. I'm already getting out of shape. =P

Anyhow, the dance version of the Pirates of the Caribbean is pretty interesting. The storyline has been flung out the window, stomped upon and is now a little confusing. Basically, there are two sisters whom two different groups of pirates are after-- for whatever reason. The two groups fight over the possession of the girls and have a sword fight.. yay! Skeletons come out of nowhere and all the pirates run away. Eventually, the two sisters win of course.. which makes perfect sense, since they're up against about 16 pirates and 12 or so skeletons. I'm a pirate, and thus I have to be very menacing.. arrrr. Not very convincing I know.

Yay first entry.. can't handle such excitement.

2005-01-16T06:02:29Z

I thought it was time that I got myself one of these.. so now I shall proceed to babble..

After coercing a goodly number of people to buy their grad lock-in tickets, the event was on and I was definitely relieved. I think we ended up selling about 130ish tickets. I don't know why people have to buy their tickets at the last possible moment, it makes me angry. So, last night (really this morning I guess) we swam, danced, karaoked, skated and played soccer until five in the morning. Everything went smoothly and I didn't have to worry about a thing. Movie of the night was Shrek 2 by popular vote-- hasn't everyone seen it a billion times already?

Arrived at Oak Bay Rec in McCallion's car with Arthur and Vanessa... was hoping to get a ride with Madame Chatton, but that didn't work out.. (the two double-decker buses were slightly full, so a bunch of us volunteered to get there first via teachers' vehicles) Skating was fun even though I absolutely suck. One of these days I must learn how to stop properly instead of fearfully grabbing the walls. I definitely envy the hockey players and the figure skaters.. stupid people make it look so easy. I waited around for the turf to be opened up and eventually we had a tournament going with four teams of sevenish people. Soccer is something that you can have fun with even when you're not very good. A lot of Red Bull being drunk at this point =) Eventually, we headed off to soak in the hot tub. Getting tired, me & Vanessa headed off to the bus to return to Mount Doug. Sat near Andrew and Makenzie and played silly car games, like the alphabet game where we named countries for each letter of the alphabet. It was ridiculously amusing. It's cold outside at five thirty in the morning. I was wearing flip flops. I guess it wasn't exactly the wisest choice, but I hate putting socks on after being in a pool. Then... went home and slept until 3:30 in the afternoon-- soooo disoriented I am.