Mile High Blues Extravaganza!

This weekend was absolutely wonderful! To preface, I have had this planned since the end of January. I am allowed three absences in my classes. I planned on using two for this trip, but since I got the flu, I could only afford one. It was like a fake spring vacation (since we at BYU don't get one, we get out early in April). It was just for fun, but it was also hard work. The workshops were extremely educational, and I learned a lot about lead-follow technique. I've found that since doing blues, I am so much better at following and maintaining my connection in ballroom. About 25 of us from the Salt Lake City and Provo areas of Utah went over. Everything was meticulously organized. We had vans and switched off driving, and no one got lost. It all went perfectly smoothly. We had schedules written up with the car piles, stops, who needed to be where and when.

Thursday, we left around 2. It's an 8 hour drive, and it was me, Laura, Scott and Josh. We were totally prepared with road-trip-worthy snacks, an excellent music selection, and conversations all about dancing. We got to Kat's house around midnight. Kat's parents were amazing, and let us all stay at their gorgeous mansion about an hour from Denver. They are a lovely Mormon family, and had a big old golden retriever. They even made us french toast and eggs for breakfast and sloppy joe's for dinner. Mmmmm :3

So the next day we had some time before registration, so a van of us went adventuring. We saw the sculpture garden, ate at a hippy-organic place called the Rainbow Cafe at CSU (had a dish just like the Big Fresh Special mmmm) and went shopping in downtown Fort Collins. We tried on old fashioned clothes at an antique store, perused the White Balcony, looked around a thrift store, and ran around a puppet-and-games kids store (I bought a mini art kit complete with a mannequin). We finished off by trying on dresses at Cira and getting the boys' opinions. I loved this one flowy black Monroe-style dress, and I would have bought it but it was $100.

Friday night was the first dance - everyone is in casual clothes. It was really fun having a live band, but they tended to do longer, faster songs, which wore me out quick. We all had a marvelous time. The finals for the social dance competition were held. A few of us left around 2 because we were tired.

Saturday - we got up early to go to the workshops. Next year I'm definitely auditioning for the advanced level. We had lessons with Dexter about how to dance with anyone, tips on social conduct etc. Chris and Campbell (so much loooove, saw them when they came to Boston) did a lesson on "Flomentum." They talked about how to match the momentum of your partner and how to control it, and flowing from one figure to another (lots of fun spins and turns, and elastic connections). They are my favorite by far. Another reason why I love Chris and Campbell: Campbell went to Stanford, and Chris studied Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech. Nerdy dancers are the best. Here's a clip of their beautiful dancing.

Then Scott organized a group private with Joe and Nell, and we worked on drag blues. It's a different connection that's more based on copying your partner rather than following, and it looks like you're dragging each other around, resulting in a very grounded effect. I consider Scott an excellent dancer, and I felt really proud that he was complimenting me on my dancing. I used to be really intimidated by him. I haven't danced with him since September. Kat is a gorgeous blues dancer and I love watching and learning from her. Mike, Laura and Josh were also in the group, members of the Provo Blues Ambassadors. Then we ordered lunch from Noodles & Co, rested for a bit, went to dinner, and then got ready for the next dance.

We all gussied up in our very best. It was amazing because we had met so many fabulous dancers earlier at the workshops, and I had fantastic dances, every single one. The two guys that posted on my wall were a couple of my favorite leads at the dance. Erik goes to the Air Force Academy, apparently there's a sweet blues scene there. He was super fun to dance with, we played off the music really well. There were a lot of people from Boston, which made me happy. I miss the Blues Union group from the summer. I didn't get to dance with everyone I wanted to though... I couldn't make it through to the end of the Late Night dance. I left at 3.
And then Sunday we got up, most people went to church, and those who wanted to went to more workshops and dances, but about six of us took a nap and then drove home through the sun and snow.

It was a truly inspiring weekend, and now I'm back in Provo with a body aching to dance.

Awesome Week: Part III

Friday

My dad recently informed me that my beloved car Shelly is being shipped on Monday! I love my car, and have been wanting her with me in Utah since I started school at BYU. She is a green-blue 1998 Ford Escort. She's pretty old school, with her manual windows and cassette player. She still has a couple of dents from when my dear blind Gramma refused to give her up. But I love her ever so much. She's my freedom. And now with her in Utah, I can visit my Grammie anytime I want, or go get groceries for dinner super quick, or drive up into the mountains with some friends for some peace and quiet. I'm so flippin excited!! :D

My lovely Shelly (taken a few years ago)

In other dance-related news, Sam and I practiced Thriller for two hours today. We have it down solid. It's so fun to learn new choreography and master it. Later in the night, I went on a group date with Justin from my ballroom team and his roommates. We went to the Haunted Forest in American Fork. I'm really not one to like getting scared, but I had a great time! I did discover, however, that I simply cannot handle chainsaws or Freddy Krueger. I think I clawed Justin up a bit...oops. While we were waiting in line to enter the Mansion section of the hauntedness, they played the Thriller music video, so I got to show off some of my skills :) Also, Ghostbusters. 'Nuff said.

The Ghostbusters Mobile. There were three guys fully dressed as Ghostbusters, but I didn't get a chance to take pictures of them :'(

Saturday

After going to bed at 2 AM after a wonderful night of creepiness and hot chocolate, I woke up at 6 AM the next morning to stand (or sleep) in line for BYU's annual Lost and Found Sale. It's pretty amazing how many people are honest enough to turn things into the lost & found here. But it's also amazing some of the stuff people never pick up. So the Lost and Found sale has some awesome stuff for dirt cheap. This year, I got about 14 things for $20. I got some black dance warmup pants, a latin skirt, a shirt that I'll use for a painting smock, two necklaces, a pair of earrings, a bracelet, a pair of Skullcandy earbuds with great bass quality, a headset I'll use for Skype, a pair of fingerless gloves, a hat, a nice black umbrella, and some other fancy cheap stuff. I didn't participate in the auction, but they had iPods, iTouches, a Dell projector, digital cameras and more. And all the money goes back to the students.

Later in the evening, I went to the Haunted Forest again on a different date, this time with a group from the Tour Team. Oh my. Those kids are ca-ray-zee. You'd never tell from how focused and motivated they are in school. It was actually kindof interesting - my date was my silver latin TA last fall, and one of the girls was my teacher for the same class. Seeing them all be ridiculous was quite enlightening and refreshing. By the end of the night when we were at Coldstone, the boys were just slapping each other around and generally being ridiculous. I love dancers. They have the best personalities. :)

Awesome Week: Part II

Wednesday

Today I tackled on of the things on my BIG To Do List: decide on a major. Well okay, I actually didn't get as far as actually declaring it, but I narrowed it down to three. It's going to be Micro/Molecular Biology, Environmental Science (w/ Micro/Molec emphasis), or Genetics. And the nice thing is they have very similar required Chem and Bio classes, and some even have interships abroad! I can travel for my major! :D We'll see how this plays out. I do know I'm officially a Ballroom Minor, so at least I have that covered.

Work was actually really enjoyable today too! I finished all the data entry, and then did some manual setting changes on a virus-eaten laptop, and then played with a couple of disastrous Macs. And my boss and I decided to take a break and bought the domains for me and each of my sisters. We're kinda weird. To top it off, he gave me an early birthday present: a freakin' Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch graphics tablet. I kinda freaked out a little bit. It's been on my wishlist for six years, and I've been trying to save up money for one. Gleeeee! To my father if he reads this: I promise I won't let it distract me from my studies. It just sits under my desk, pleading for me to finish my homework quickly.

Thursday

One of my friends gave me a pleasant surprise this morning. He whisked me away at 7 am to Kneaders for breakfast. They have THE BEST bread I've ever had. I had a breakfast sammich on a croissant and we shared a humongous cinnamon roll. Pretty much the perfect way to start the day.

Then after working hard and braining good all day, I went to Blue Tango, where we are learning the Thriller dance! We're having an hour rehearsal every Thursday until the week of Halloween, where we will perform it. We're using a really good tutorial on YouTube. I'm also watching the original music video over and over to get down the awesome Michael Jackson-esque styling and moves. It's been one of my life goals to learn the Thriller dance, so it's a dream come true! I'm totally going to be a zombie flapper for our Halloween Blues night.

Spotlight! Mike Tompkins singing Dynamite and Fireflies. He sings all the acapella parts himself, and then fuses them together. Super fine.

BYU Homecoming!

After a couple weeks of exams and pain, we had Homecoming week at BYU.

This is my third year at BYU, and this is the most involved I've been with campus events. Homecoming here always starts with an opening ceremony on Tuesday with tons of presentations and a keynote speaker. Homecoming is always themed after an important person in BYU history, and this year it was Harvey Fletcher, the father of stereophonic sound. So homecoming was very science-themed. Apparently, BYU has one of the biggest Homecoming celebrations in the country. I believe it; there is always something going on homecoming week! Free cookouts during lunchtime at the Student Center, alumni reunions, True Blue Football (everyone gets covered in blue foam), Light the Y (people go up to the big white Y on the mountain and screw in lightbulbs that light up at night), the BYU Spectacular (basically a huge variety show of all the choral, dance, and acting groups), and all sorts of fancy dances.

Practicing our routine before the parade started - Jordan and I are in the middle back

This year, I got to be in the parade on Saturday morning. The BYU Ballroom Dance Company always does a lindy routine down the entire route, and since I got on team this year I got to participate! Our Tour team went to Blackpool, England this year (and won again, of course) so they got to show off and be awesome while we shook our tail feathers. Iting. But we had such a blast. It was a two-minute Lindy Hop routine with charleston, lifts, jumps and dips. The video link is from last year, but we did the same routine. Which we repeated over and over again for three miles. But we were laughing so hard trying to run and catch up with the truck, and high-fiving the little kids on the sidelines. We were so pumped with adrenaline by the end that we were just bouncing off the walls at the social. People were still dancing to the party music and goofing around. I love being on the ballroom team :) I love the people, the energy, the chance to perform and share my love of dance.

((brief side note: after the parade, I ran and beasted by MMBio exam. Booyah))

I then went to my first homecoming dance :3 We went as a double date, and got in free because we helped with the BYU Swing Kids charleston demonstration. So much dancing, my legs were dead the next day. It was super fun though! It was Dancing Through the Ages themed, so it started with 20s music and dance, and then went through every decade until the present with hip hop. People were dressed from all the different decades too. I had an amazing time. It was definitely a good day.

And the football team finally won another game. Thank goodness.

Cat Rescuers!

It's not every day that you get to save someone's life. Today I rescued an abandoned kitten.

Today was pretty great: went to all my classes, ballroom team is going splendidly, did freakishly well on my calculus II exam the previous night. After work, I hung out with my friend David. We went to the Rock Canyon Park at the foot of Squaw in Provo to run around and dance. While we were talking about being a cat or a dog person, this little cat comes running up to us. We played with her for a little while and then walked on. When we came back, she was still where we left her. On further notice, her pink bedazzled collar was lying in the dirt a few feet away. I guess only a few hours earlier, someone had dumped her off and taken her collar off to face the elements. We were so afraid she would get run over by a car or eaten by a cougar, we took her with us. She was the sweetest little thing! She was perfectly tame, remarkably calm, friendly and sweet. We fed her a few cheesy crackers and some clean water and took her for a ride to the police station to figure out what to do next. Turns out, the nearest animal shelter is in Spanish Fork, and is only open during daylight. So we took her to David's friend's house, where she can be safe until one of us finds a home for her.

We named her Kaylee, after the Firefly character. I wanted to keep her so badly. I miss having a pet.

Back at BYU

Well, it's only a few weeks into the semester, and a lot has happened, both good and bad. Due to the more recent events, I've been really upset and I realized I'm not nearly as happy as I was at the beginning of last school year. I'm on a mission to get that Me back. It was that Me that attracted friends and made other people happy, and that made me happy. I was funny, silly, always found with a smile and something to talk about. Always ready for some new adventure, whether that was late-night park games or splashing in puddles with equally ridiculous friends. Now I want to find the balance of happy-friendly-fun Me and productive-scholarly Me. I know it's possible. I'm also trying to be better spiritually. I haven't been doing some of the basic things I know I should, like praying and reading my scriptures, not with real intent.

Maybe I'll be blessed with that artistic inspiration I've been missing for so long.

*So as not to seem so bleak, one of the awesome bits of news is that I got onto the 10 o'clock BYU Ballroom Team! It's an entry-level team, so we compete with each other to move up to the higher teams. BYU has five teams within the Ballroom Company, so there is plenty of room for improvement.

"Don't You Know You're Beautiful" by Seabird

AAAH so much sushi.

Okay okay. I kinda went crazy.

Here we have four different types of yumminess. The nigiri around the plate are prosciutto, tofu, and sweet potato. In the middle there are sweet potato and tuna sushi. I shared with the family. The tuna was everyone's favorite.

Dad came home last night! It's so nice to have him back ^_^ He's always going to Saudi every few weeks for work. Here's the blog he sometimes updates about his adventures.

Tonight was a standard ballroom group lesson for waltz. It was great! I haven't done any standard ballroom in like, two months. And I got to wear my new fancy standard shoes. Hee.

All considered though, I'm kinda bummed. It's pretty lonely out here. There aren't many people who are interested in dating socially, and most of my friends from high school are still in school, so they can't play. I've been keeping myself busy, of course; ballroom three hours a night, blues on Thursdays, driving my sisters around to ballet, and making sushi. I still haven't found a job, so I feel a little useless. But soon, friends will be done with finals and come back to Suds, and I will find a way to make some money! And being home is pretty wonderful. I missed the trees and greenery, hanging out and rockin to rad car jamz with my sisters, talking to my dad, and having breakfast every morning with my mom.

Determination!

As one of my friends told me, "If you give up, I'll never dance with you again."

Dance-related threats work on me, I guess.

PS. I really want a Toothless figurine. Maybe I'll make one...

Summer 2010: Week 1

Tuesday, April 27th:

Mokay. So this morning, I awoke to my phone buzzing from several txts from my sisters telling me to wake up and get my butt over to the high school, so I went and gave them their presents (Lise got a BYU sweatshirt like mine, Sasha got the first book in the Wheel of Time series called The Eye of the World), talked to my old science and calc teachers (below are the doodles I drew on Dr. Pegram's board), and then drove my sisters home (with much car jamz). Then I took them to dinner at Sweet Tomatoes (DELICIOUS italian thin crust pizza with crazy awesome tomato sauce), then to ballet. While they were at ballet, I went and hung out with my ballroom teachers. Everyone was super excited to see me, and I talked to Ray for a while. He knows some awesome lindy and blues places, so I'll be going this week. ^_^Then drove my sisters home, screaming lyrics all the way, making people look at us weird. Came home. Kinda worried about finding a job. The end of day 1 home.

Wednesday, April 28th:
Today I was going to do a lot of stuff (like laundry, visit more teachers, talk to students about college, etc) but no. I was lazy. SO I ended up visiting my awesome friend Steph after I dropped my dad off at the bus station on his way to Saudi :'( . We made tortilla soup. It turned out SO GOOD. I don't even know how, we didn't follow the recipe. We just threw stuff in we thought would taste good, like black beans and corn and peppers and chicken. It was so so fun. After that, I drove over to my sisters' ballet studio in Newton. My old ballet teacher was there and she was so excited to see me! Ms. Busch was so nice, and she let me come in and watch the class. My sisters have gotten so incredibly good. I'm really amazed. I do miss ballet a lot, but not quite enough to go through the pain again ;) Turf Toe once is good enough for me. So then I went to dinner at Lam's with my mom (really good Vietnamese food). I got tofu vegetable red curry with summer rolls and coconut juice. It was so amazing. The guy next to us had a ridiculous accent and was really loud about how awesome he was. He and his date(?) even started singing some hokey song at one point. It was all we could do not to laugh out loud. I could barely contain myself. After our lovely dinner (and me being interrogated on various points of my life), I drove off to ballroom for the group lessons. Everyone was so happy to see me, but I can't believe how out of shape I've gotten after only a few weeks! I'm going to be there so much this summer. It's gonna rock. BYU ballroom team, here I come.

Thursday, April 29th
Today was pretty dang sweet. I took apart my mom's MacBook (because the hard drive died) and went Blues dancing. It was pretty cool because there's basically a clone of every blues dancer I know in Provo. But now my toe is acting up again. Joy.

Friday April 30th:
Ordered the harddrive for the Macbook. I plan on taking apart our other two MUCH older computers for kicks. I went to ballet (took the Tahoe, man that thing is a monster) with my mom and sisters. I helped weed and water the ballet garden, which was quite nice given the uncharacteristic warm sunny weather. Then when my sisters got out of ballet, we went to dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant called Karoun with my relatives from Alaska. I also discovered, while I was chatting with some of the ballet people, that Mr. Anderson has a huge thing for ravens! I think I might make something raveny for him, like a tribal raven painting or something.

Saturday, May 1:
LOBSTER DINNERRRR that I have been dying to have for YEARS. We had lobster and mussels and clams and oysters on the half shell. I've never had them on the half shell, so it was a pretty fun experience. And I've heard that they are an aphrodisiac? I'll have to test that out one day in the distant future :P Must be the zinc.

Lobsterrrrr. He's looking at you.

Lise...you're doing it wrong.

Sunday, May 2nd:
Drove my sisters to Snow White rehearsal. Then Mom, Lise, Sasha, and the Alaskans went to theCoach Grill for dinner. Whoa-expensive, but really tasty.

Left to right: Granny, Grumps, Lise, Me, Sasha, Mom, Roz

in front of the picture we were talking about all night

Monday, May 3rd:

Basically lazed around the house all day. Cleaned up a bit, did laundry. Alaska people left on a plane today.

The hdd I ordered Friday for my mom's broken MacBook came around 4 pm. I didn't have the proper screwdriver for extracting the old hard drive from its protective little metal home. So my friend David ran over with a Torx driver. Installed it beautifully. Then we went on a Best Buy adventure to find the Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The hunt for the snow leopard was a success. After a bit of confusion formatting the new hdd, it's now installing smoothly and happily. I'm actually really glad about this because now I can just put all my music on the mac for my sisters to use! The hdd I bought off NewEgg is 320 Gb, so it has more than enough room for what my mom/sisters need it for. Happiness!!

Until next week ~ Me.

In Which Marina Exemplifies ADD

Another week of stress-induced mayhem!

I took the physics test last week, and miraculously got a 78% overall! Huzzah! Since the class as a whole didn't do very well, he's offering a makeup test to get half our points back, and I'm definitely taking advantage of that opportunity. Today I took a Book of Mormon exam, and tomorrow I have a calculus exam and a quiz.

Last night was really wonderful! I went to Dance Lab, which was basically a huge dance in the ballroom specifically for Social Dance students. It was amazing! I've learned Foxtrot and Cha-Cha, and a little bit of swing and waltz in my class so far. My favorite by far is Cha-Cha. The whole attitude and social interaction (aka flirting) of the dance is so exciting. 

Halloween is tomorrow! I'm wearing my costume from two years ago, Jemima from the musical CATS. I'm going to wear it aaaall day. I'm really excited! I'll definitely post pictures.

 And as of now, I have three days left of my childhood before I officially become an adult. Aaah! It's a weird thought...

Randomness time!

First spotlight: Last.fm

This is an amazing site where you can make an account, and then favorite lots of artists, composers, groups, and songs you like. You can listen to full tracks up to three times. Your library of favorites becomes your own "radio station" and you can listen to all of your favorites on random as much as you want! I absolutely love it. I like to leave it on when I'm doing homework, and I've found a few new groups that I really like. For example: 

Your Vegas. This group, to me, sounds like the grandchild of Coldplay, and the child of Keane. The smooth height of the singer's voice reminds me a lot of Keane, and the calm, catchy beats in their songs are similar to Coldplay.  A few of my favorite songs are "In My Head", "Up Until the Lights Go Out", and "Troubled Times".

Another group I've discovered is Phantom Planet. I just like 'em. :3

While we're on the same note (haw haw), if you haven't seen Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, you should do so right away. Click the the link that says "watch it right now". Give yourself about 45 minutes to watch it. It's an amazing little comedic-tragedy musical that was written during the writers' strike. They wanted to make something professionally made, while still being very low budget. The songs are very catchy and funny! *sings* "With my freeze ray I will stop! the world..."

In the world of literature: 

John Green, a young adult writer, is still on his tour for his most recent novel Paper Towns. I read his other two books, An Abundance of Katherines and Looking for Alaska. I absolutely love his writing style. He expects a lot from his readers (who are generally Nerdfighters), in that he expects them to think critically and analytically about the symbolism and messages he is trying to convey. Basically, he likes his audience to be active readers. Paper Towns was #5 in the New York Times Bestselling list, and is #6 this week, in a large part due to the huge population of Nerdfighters who watch him and his brother, Hank, on their YouTube vlog Brotherhood 2.0. I'm looking forward to when I can escape campus to Borders and buy a copy! (I think I'll get one with happy Margo on it...)

DeviantArt spot!

Visit the amazing art gallery of Leonidafremov! His stunningly gorgeous work is done in oil paint in a style that he has created and practically perfected. He uses strong, bright colors in scenes that dazzle the eye and warm the heart. 

And that concludes my spazzy ramble!

Best wishes!

M Scribble