Month: October 2014

I love traveling— truly, I do. If it weren’t for the studio, Big Blue, our 2005 Chevy Suburban, would be my second home.

Thank God for the studio.

My classes resumed on Friday. It was so good to see Miss Bethanny and my sisters. Eleven days tends to feel more like 11 years when they aren’t around. I was also able to see Miss Sara, as she subbed for Miss Mimi in pointe. We ended up combining beginning and intermediate, which is always a blast, especially with all of the fabulous new students. Go girls!

I returned to FYB on Saturday morning, wherein, after company class, an information meeting ensued. Parents tossed around fundraising ideas for Christmas, which was so exciting. I can’t wait for the holiday season (It’s snowing….)!

After the meeting, we had an all-cast run-through of The Firebird. At this point, the opening number, most [if not all] of the variations are completed, Act I has closed, and we have moved on to Act II. It’s a lot to take in, but there is nothing that I would rather be doing than dancing among such an amazing crew.

Also on Saturday, we had an hour-long rehearsal for DDD (Dance, Dessert, and Dreams), which will take place on Sunday. We will be bringing last year’s modern piece, which has been altered to fit our current needs, to the show. It’s going to be great!

Yesterday, I was given plenty of time to grumble about my five different marley burns from partnering/modern/cardio and my bruises from pointe/modern. Battle scars, people. It’s all about the battle scars.

Today, in Training 3, Miss Mia began our Christmas dance! We will be bringing it to nursing homes, as well as three separate performances and the usual parental show. You know me– getting all of my Christmas songs mixed up…. I’ll get back to you on that bit of information.

The modern Christmas piece, begun just before I left, has been added on to, so I will have to catch up on Wednesday. We’ll be bringing “The Little Drummer Boy” by Pentatonics to the nursing homes as well.

I imagine that our intermediate pointe piece will start on Friday, but you never know! Life is an adventure like that. You gotta love it.

Some weeks, I have to wonder how I’m still going, not necessarily because it’s a bad week, but because it’s been long.

There are 168 hours in a week. I spend 25 of those hours on schoolwork and up to 16 of those hours at dance. Ideally, 84 of those hours are spent sleeping, which never happens, of course, but one can imagine. That leaves 43 hours for the garage door to croak, the electricity to fail, the wifi to crash, the hot water to stop running, the dishwasher to scream like a fire engine, the washing machine to magically quit in the middle of a load and enough phone calls to fix every last one.

Up until this week, I took a whole lot of things for granted, it seems.

But it also leaves time for writing, reading, and thanking God for the many blessings in my life.

Fall Break starts a week from today, when my family will be heading out for the annual East Coast tour.

Lovely dancers: I’m heading to the Jersey Shore.

We’ll also be hitting Pennsylvania and our “far-off vacationing spot.”

So, in the words of Nick Fury: “Until such time as the world ends, [I] will act as though it intends to spin on.” Make-up classes have added themselves to my Thursday routine. By the end of this week, I will have completed four out of five. Phew.

At this point, I would like to say a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to all of the new pointe girls out there, especially you, Adysen. You all have worked so hard for this, and I couldn’t be happier for you!

Also on Friday, Miss Mimi had us yelping for joy at the prospect of platter tutus for our Intermediate Pointe 1 recital piece— ah!

While we’re on the topic, Miss Mia recommended that the soloists of Firebird purchase a practice tutu for rehearsals. That was a dangerous request, apparently, since I would be happy to wear mine all day long. Pictures coming soon!

That brings us to our final tale, which is Saturday, of course. Miss Mimi taught our first company class on pointe, and I’m proud to say that things went relatively smoothly. After class, I went out to lunch with my mom and little brother (Chick-fil-a woot!), and after lunch, it was on to rehearsal.

Yesterday’s rehearsal consisted of the robins, Bluebird, White Swan, Prince of Darkness and myself. The robin piece is amazing– kudos to you girls! Both Bluebird’s and White Swan’s lovely variations are completed, and mine is to be finished next week. On pointe, it’s an even greater challenge, but challenges are good for us, yeah?

The partnering section looked infinitely better yesterday than it did last week. If I hadn’t so busy laughing, I would have been able to act sad, but I was laughing, so that didn’t work out. Miss Bethanny had been at the studio for six hours, with two more to go. And… yep. We were all laughing. She’s the best.

My parents forgot to pick me up–whoops, “thought rehearsal ended at five”–so I started mentally choreographing a dance to Greek Fire’s, “Top of the World” in the lobby.

Just kidding. They really did think rehearsal ended at five, and they know that I don’t mind staying late.

And that song is going to make an incredible dance one day.