The Aftermath of MinnesOta

Well, it truely was an interesting weekend.

FRIDAY
It started off with getting out of school, and packing. My friends Chase and Tyler came over after school while they were waiting for Austin and Michael to get done retaking a test after school. They stole my magazine and read articles, and watched TV, but it was fun!:)
Then, my mom came home, and it was sprinkling, and we left for Minnesota. We took a longer route there, that was straighter, because I was going to drive, and she wanted me to drive a straighter route there. She drove for about an hour and half before we stopped at a gas station/Subway and switched. I drove for three hours, into Minnestoa, before we got onto the crazy highway and swtiched again. The scariest thing that happened, was getting stuck inbetween two semis. I was passing one, and the other one was SLOWLY passing the other one. Needless to say, I was freaked. They're literally one of my biggest fears. We got to the hotel (and it was still raining. And we checked in and went up to our room. I'm a loved child, so I got the bed to myself, and my mom and sister shared, because I was competiting the next day, and they weren't. Me and Christine then went down to the pool where some of the girls from dance were. We all hung around there for a while, until we had to eat and go practice.
My mom and one of the other girl's dad went to the Mall of America (which was literally just down the street from the hotel) and got me Panda Express. I was SUPER excited. And then we went to practice. The room we practiced in, was just like a dance room, mirrors, barres, and all. Except with carpet. Here is where issues came. We had been practicing, when me and Jenna decided to practice our duet. I had changed some parts in it, and I wanted to do the beginning full out (turns+carpet=disaster). I got to my turn and my pinky toe got caught on the carpet, and my foot kept going. It cracked sideways, and then went under my foot. It hurt. Really, really hurt. I feel over, and I shook it off. We got done and I sat down. My foot had started to go numb, and I thought nothing of it, because I have really bad circulation to my feet, so I thought it was just the same.
I later talked to Jenna, and asked her if she thought I might've broken it, because she broke her big toe when we were in middle school. We figured that that's probably what happened, and I got really nervous. I mean think about it: you break your toe, the night before a huge dance competition. This couldn't be good. I went back to the hotel room, using minimal pressure on my foot. I then talked to my mom about it, and we decided to wrap it with the tape I was going to use for my toenail I bent backwards.

Dance in MinnesOta

Okay, so this blog didn't post again! :(

So, now I have to start from scratch again...(I wasn't smart enough to write it in a word doc, and the copy and paste it...)

SO, (there I go again) we have a dance compeition in MinnesOta (that's for Jenna, since her mom's side of her family's from there) on April 24th! We're all SUPER excited, and our goal this year is to get golds, since last year we got all high silvers. This is the most prosegous dance compeition we go to all year. The dance competition is held in downtown St. Paul, and there are AMAZING dance studios around there. Like these people spend from 4-9 at the dance studio every day after school, and probably their entire weekend at the studio. These guys are ridiculous (in a good way!) They amaze us. These are a like the compeitions that people you see from So You Think You Can Dance go to. They are absolutely phenominal.

The dance competition is called American Dance Awards (ADA). It's a national dacne compeition, and they have winners (in all division) get accepted to go and comepte in their national competition each year. Obviously, we're not THAT good, but we just think of it as a great experince. We don't do it to really compete against these other studios (because that's just not quite possible). But we do what we can. We do our best, and go out there and have fun!

Last year, we went, it was on Sunday (this year it's on Saturday). Of course, with my luck, I had work Friday, and a driving test for driver's ed on Saturday from 6-8 am, so I could be done early ebough for us to leave and have plenty of time to rest before the compeition on Sunday. OF COURSE the compeition got moved, and I had to take work off (woo...NOT!) and then switch time with two boys. It was quite annoying. BUT I'M STILL EXCITED!

The reason I had to take Friday off, was because OF COURSE we're practicing at the hotel Friday night. Luckily, we have a half day, so I don't have to miss any school to be there in time (because it is a 4 hour drive there!) But I realized I'm behind a lot of hours for driver's ed, so I have to drive on the interstate, to get all my hours in....

ahhhh. This will be an interesting weekend....

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaance:)

So, (have you noticed that I start every blog like that?) we had a dance compeition on Sunday in Iowa City at the Marriot. This is the local dance compeition "Statewide" that we always take almost our whole studio to. Donna, the owner, took over 100 students by herself. Not to mention, my three dance instructors, Joise, Kyanne, and Rachel took almost every dance they teach (if not every one). Every single one of my dances went (including my duet with Jenna).
In the morning, I woke up at 6:00, to leave at 7:00, so my sister could be there at 7:30. Her first dance was at 9:30, and my first one was at 9:45. Since I was the first one to roll out of bed, I just decided to do all my make up and get dressed, so I could just chill when we got there. But, mine and Jenna's duet had a conflict, because we were supposed to compete with that at the same time were supposed to compete with our tap dance in the other room. So, Jenna and I got there early and danced at 8:30. It was the best we've ever performed it. Our song is "Mad World" and we're supposed to be tormented by each other. We do two completely different styles, and wear two different costumes, do our hair differently, and wear different shoes. I do ballet, and she does a more modern-type style. At our last compeition, in Davenport, when we performed, the judges were confused by why we were wearing two different shoes. We did completely different things throughout the whole dance, and the one thing they commented on was our different shoes. We weren;t sure whether or not we should keep everything completely different, but that was the reason behind the whole dance, so we kept it different, and if they didn't get it at this one, we'd think about changing it for our last compeition...We haven't gotten back the comments yet, so I don't know if we're changing it for the last one or not.

Our next dance we did was modern. This was our least-beast dance (? I don't know how to quite word it right). We haven't had everyone there to really work on it and clean it as well as we could, so we took a risk and did it. In this one part of the dance, I actually fell, and my friend fell on my ankle, and now it's a wonderful shade of blue. It hurt really bad, but all the people watching said that it looked intentional, so we don't think it was as bad as it could've been.
After modern, we had a while to rest, and then we had jazz. This as with troupe. We were all really nervous going into it, because we had STIFF compeition, but we were all pumped to go out there and blow wake up the judges. Our jazz dance is the most physically demanding dance I've ever done, and at 10:30 in the morning, that dance will take a lot out of you. After we performed, we walked off feeling like we left everything we had on the stage. We had nailed almost everything in that dance, and everyone felt completely happy with their performance.
Then, after jazz, we had lyrical, which is by far, our best dance. Our goal is to move everyone, and make our mothers cry. As terrible as it sounds, it's the point of the dance. It's about growing up, and how we don't have childhood anymore. Sarah, our only senoir, almost always cries at the end with her solo. It's so sad, and great that we got a diamond (which is like a platinum...a first FIRST place) for it at our last competition, so we felt very solid about it.

Then we had a quick change and did our pointe dance. It's to the song "Ramalama Bang Bang." And if you know that song, you can picture how tight this dance is. We wear black and white lacey, tool and ribbion tutus, with lace gloves and black tights. We try to be as creepy as we can, and apparently it worked! Jenna's TA class watched it, and said they were kinda freaked out.

Then we had tap, which went really well, for those of us who aren't very good at tap *cough cough* myself *cough* And we hadn't done that dance in two weeks!

Then we had five and a half hours of nothing before we did our production number. So I currled up in the corner of the dressing room that I had taken over with all my crap, and took an hour nap. It was wonderful!:)

A lot of the girls went to the mall, between the break, so there wasn't a lot of us around. But we all met up again in the dressing room at 5:00, so we could warm up. We practiced our dance outside, on the bricks, because there was no room anywhere else to practice! That was probably the weirdest thing we did all day.

Then we went and performed our production, and did the best we've ever done on it! It was really successful, and Kyanne (who cleaned it) was really proud of us. For half of us, we had ballet a little bit after it, and this was the one I had been dreading all day. I was so nervous for it, because my dance teacher had me do 12 flags (turns with your leg out) and a double in these little foot paws (they cover half your foot, and aren't really good for doing a lot of turns in them) I was actually really upset she wouldn't let me do the dance in my ballet shoes, but I had no choice. I couldn't think of anything else during the performance, but when it came time for me to do the flags, I nailed them. But, I actually did too many turns. I did 13 flags and a triple (I didn't find that our until after the performance, when Rachel said she counted how many I did). I literally fell over off stage because I was SOOOOO happy! Everyone said they were worried for me to, and knew that I nailed them, because everyone cheered afterwards. I WAS SO HAPPY!

And here's the awards we got:
Duet (with me and Jenna): High Gold

Modern: Gold
Jazz: High Gold
Lyrical: Gold (we're still confused about why this one didn't do really well...)
Pointe: High Gold
Tap: High Gold
Production Lyrical: High Gold
Ballet: High Gold

But, sadly, no Platinums. Last year, we got all Platinums...they basically handed them out like they were free water. But this compeition was three times as big as it was last time, and the competition was phenominal. The judges were tough, and actually gave out Platinums to the deserving dances. There actually weren't that many Platinums handed out, so we felt really good about our performances!

:)

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

No, I'm not talking about the winter with Christmas right around the corner! I'm talking about how wonderfully beautiful it is outside! This is seriously the best time of year. (Well, everyone knows summer is the best, but this is definitely a close second) school's almost over, you can go outside and the sun warms you up. You can go for a jog or even a walk and just see how beautiful the neighborhood is. It's in the 70's and 80's, with just a touch of humidity. You don't feel gross and sticky like you do in the summer when it's 95 degrees and humid as can be. You can open your windows in your house and listen to the night as you're falling asleep. It's just absolutely wonderful!
I love this time of year, because dance and show choir are coming to an end (as sad as it is, they start up in just a few months...again!) Dance recital is always the last day of school, with dress rehearsal the second to last day. We get to go over to Wash after school and dance around their awesomely huge stage for practice. It's always nice and toasty in there, unlike our auditorium. It's just a fun and relaxing time! I can drive around with the windows rolled down, and listen to some AC/DC or oldies rock that I love (they really are the soundtrack of my summer!) Looking up into the trees with sunlight coming through...It's just a wonderful feeling. Have you ever heard those songs that just make you think of summer? They just have those end of the school-year/summer sound? You know what I'm talking about! It's those songs I listen to ALL the time now. I just close my eyes and think of how relaxing my day is, where the only thing I worry about is: work, chores, making plans, dance, show choir, and sleeping in late...maybe even getting a tan...we'll see how well that last idea goes. You go to baseball games, as good or as bad as they are, we all just love the atmosphere of them.

The country is the best place to be during the summer. It's absolutely beautiful. Everything is green and warm. You can see everything for miles around and the noises of the out doors. There's little creatures hiding and eating and enjoying the weather just as much as you are. It's the most wonderful thing in the entire world! It's what we all dream of after the first foot and a half of snow has fallen, and we think, "Man, I really wish tomorrow's a snow day, but then again, that'll just cut into my summer..." We can all wake up at 12:30 and grab some lunch and head over to a friend's house in our sweats. No one cares how cute they look, because we're all just happy and comfy. But seriously, is there any summer clothes that aren't comfy?

Seriously, it really is the most wonderful time of the year!

So This Kid Is Bascially...AMAZING!

So, I've been hearing about this kid everywhere. His name is Shawndell Young. He's from one of the local middle schools, McKinely Middle School. He's in their show choir "Classic Edition." The first time I heard about him was at our show choir invatiational. I was hosting another middle school, Taft, and McKinely performed right before them. My job at the time, was to sit backstage and make sure they were under control while they waited. My dad's job during the day was to sit backstage and help out with whatever the show choirs needed help with. He looks at me as I walk in and says, "Did you get to see them?" I said no, I hadn't, because I was helping my group out with their warm-up. Then he says, "Did you hear their ballad?" No, I hadn't. Why? "They sang a Michael Jackson song, and the boy who sang the solo was...phenomenal." Really? That's cool, how good was he? "Well, let's just say that Storm is going to have to do some serious recruting to get him to go to Kennedy." First, Strom is Mr. Zigeler, the varsity show choir director at my school. Second, that is a bold statement from my dad, because Mr. Zigeler takes what he'll get from our school, and won't whine about it. Our school is chalk full of talent, and he hates not taking kids into Happiness. So, I highly doubted that. But saying my dad is show choir OBSSESSED is a bit of an understatement, so I had to take his word for it.
Then, a couple weeks ago, my sister told me this kid was going to be on the Oprha and Ellen DeGeneres shows. Okay, I thought, he must be what it really is about. Seriously, you have to be amazing to catch the eye of Oprah and Ellen. Then a week or two later, Christine found a video of this kid. Honestly. In my opinion. He's BEYOND amazing. He would give Michael Jackon a run for his money. NO exaggeration whatsoever.
And here it is for you.

My Friend Chase:)

So I'm sitting here in study hall, in the IMC, not knowing what to blog about, and I turn to my friend Chase (a different one then the last time I blogged) and asked him what I should blog about. He dramatically drew his hand across his chest and said, "Your's truely." This Chase is one of my sophomore friends from show choir. We've had study hall and choir together all year and we usually go to the IMC together during study hall, so I can blog, and he can do...whatever it is that he does.

So this Chase is a complete goof-ball...kind of like the other Chase. He's a really good singer and got a solo for our show choir ballad, and is basically amazing. He actually started the term "Chase Face" which we use a lot in practices. He also gives the best hugs on the face of the earth.
On one of our show choir trips, we got into a a music arguement. We were fighting over the fact of who had a better, and more varied taste in music. Of course, I won. In all categories, except for longest song. In which Chase beat me by 20 seconds.

"You should write about the sheer awesomeness that oozes from every fiber of my being."
-Chase Prouty

We Are the World 25 For Haiti

This was so good, despite all the controversy that goes with the signers, I felt like I should share this. My sister downloaded the song the other day, and I liked it a lot, but I didn't know who was all it, so I watched the music video, and it's very moving.

:)

Women Pay All...Part Two

(So this post didn't post, so that's why it's late...I have no idea how it happened, but it did...)

WPA went really good! We had a ton of fun. Getting ready was a lot of fun, because we had six girls there, plus Katie who did my hair (thank you!) We sat at the kitchen table and did our make-up in a big mirror. I did Miranda's hair with curlers (and we yelled at each other the whole time, and burned my fingers and her neck) but it was fun!

Our group consited of Jenna (who's house it was at) and her boyfriend Nic, Miranda and her friend Evert, Amanda and her boyfriend Aaron, Me and Robert, and Michael and his girlfriend Kara (she goes to Xavier).

Then mom's started showing up. Amanda's w

as the first to show up, and then Miranda's and her sister Isabel, and lastly my mom and my sister, Christine. The boys had not yet arrived, so we took pictures of the girls in the basement with all the mom's taking pictures. The funniest part was that Jenna's older brothers and their friends were hanging out watching tv where we were taking pictures. Then Nic and Michael showed up and they took pictures with their girlfriends. Next Aaron showed up and got pictures with HIS girlfriend. Me and Miranda, are the rejects, obviously. Our dates both showed up late, of course, mine showed up the latest. He's freaking track star (had track practice) and had to drive from the Wash district to Riobins...it took him a while. Then they forced us out into the cold and the wind to take pictures...how terrible. So, all the cute pictures of us, we all look freezing cold!

Everyone was complaining about how cold they were since Robert showed up late (that loser...not really, no one cared). So we went to Perkins, where everyone vegged out. I GOT QUESIDILLAS! I was so happy! Robert got enough food to feed a third world country, and was stil hungry...oh yeah, and he ate beforehand. That loser. Everyone was happy then, so we went to the dance.

It was a lot of fun. Miranda's date ended up...(hate is a strong word...) hating her, because she wouldn't dance with him...hahaha! But other than that it was fun. It wasn't hot, and the ceiling didn't sweat (like it does at homecoming), so it was good overall!

Here's some pictures!

The group.

Nic, Jenna, Evert, Miranda, Robert, Me, Aaron, Amanda, Michael, and Kara.

Then there's me and Robert!