I'm a liar...so, what else is new

So I know I said I wasn't going to be changing my blog, just the name. I lied. Turns out Google likes me more than I thought so I will be changing to a new blog. The new URL is <qa-dftbalicia11.blogspot.com>

This will probably be the last post on this blog. So yea. *Ahem*

Call this my "change of address card." Hope ya'll like me enough to follow the new one.

Ta'.

In which Alicia makes a New Years Resolution

I realized something about myself yesterday.

I spent a big chunk of yesterday with one of my best friends, Rachel, and she and I just had a good old fashioned Girls Night Out. Rachel has always been my "therapist" friend. We turn to each other when we need to figure things out. And usually "figuring things out" includes either a lot of early morning walks in the park while we gab like speed-walking soccer moms, or a lot of late night drives on those unending, traffic-less country roads. There's a lot of talking, and a lot of listening, and even sometimes, some ink blots. We really do act like each others' therapists.

It was because of one of these conversations, late last night -- while watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail to boot -- that she helped me realize that I am so completely concerned with every one I care about being happy, that I tend to sacrifice my own happiness to ensure theirs. Which has kind of always been true I guess. In the past, when I have found out that one of my close friends likes the same guy I like, I step aside because I want them to be happy. I don't even think about it at the time, I think it's just a reflex. Even while sitting here I can think of at least 3 times that happened just in high school alone.

But here's the thing. It doesn't feel right to put myself first. I care so much about my friends and I would do anything for them -- well, for most of them at least. To think about what I really want before everyone else just seems selfish and wrong. But, at the same time I can't deny that I deserve to be happy at some point down the line.

Also, that quotation I want to get as a tattoo? ("It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.") I have to stop forgetting to live. I have to stop trying to make all of my friends happy, because that's just not realistic. It's just dwelling on dreams. Shit happens, and just because I wish it weren't that way, won't change the fact that it is that way, and it does happen.

So even though I am terrible at resolutions -- which is pretty much why this blog exists in the first place -- I am going to try to make this my resolution for 2012: I am going to start putting myself first. I don't care how selfish it may make me feel, I deserve to be happy too.

Technically-detail-ish stuff

So I know I just posted yesterday, but I just woke up, I'm a little happier, and a little cheerier. My outlook is better, and I now have the patience to talk about all the technical-detail-ish type stuff I should have mentioned yesterday.

So I know I said before that I was planning to switch to a new blog in 2012, but thanks to the fact that Google apparently hates me (Google owns Blogger) I can't get access to the other account I set up. So. New plan. I will in fact be keeping this blog but I will be changing the name as soon as I can come up with something quippy/fun/sarcastic/etc. I am still planning to potentially start vlogging, but since I was without my laptop for many moons that has been delayed.

Side note:
Microsoft can go die in a hole. Windows software makes me want to throw rocks... At people that annoy me. Which, if you think about it, is kind of like literally killing two birds with one stone! Ha!

So that's the plan as it stands right now. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before but you can all also follow me on Twitter if you wish. @DFTBAlicia11.
Though, if you're not a fan of cursing....maybe you shouldn't. I am friends on Facebook with both my parents as well as a few adults from my church, so I pretty much always monitor what I post there. So when I'm pissed about something I take to Twitter to vent. So every once in a while it can get a little tiny bit  on the vulgar side....

So yea, Happy New Year all. For real this time.

It was 20 years ago today....okay, well, actually it was only 1 year ago

'Tis the 1 year anniversary of this blog.

*happy dance*

I would have posted a couple more times in December, howevermy computer decided to be a complete asshole to me and stop turning on during finals week. I only just now got it fixed (thank you dad).

I should be making this post about all the hope I have for 2012, and how it's going to be the best year ever. I just don't have that kind of outlook right now. Quite frankly I just had a bit of a meltdown. Thank God for my mom and Gilmore Girls.

I have found that I really lean on my mom and dad even more these days. Even though I don't have to get a whole lot of clearance from my parents when I make plans, and they've always been really relaxed in comparison to my friends' parents when it comes to things like curfews and such. (Basically, as long as I come home with all my limbs still attached and I don't burn the house down, they're good.) They trust me. And it's not like I've ever given them a real reason not to trust me. I'm a good kid. But lately I'm dealing with a whole bunch of "scary" new experiences: College and such. They've been through all this before. They survived. They are the fountain of knowledge.

Apparently I'm into fragmented sentences tonight. Yea. Sorry.

As far as New Years resolutions go, I've never been a big fan. I'm not patient enough for them.

So here's to 2012.
Bright side: It seriously can't suck that bad.
Other side: For some reason I have a feeling that it'll try it's damnedest to do just that.

6939 days and counting...

Yes, that is correct. As of approximately 2:30 this morning, I have been alive for 6939 days.

Today is my 19th birthday!!!

In my opinion, there are 3 types of people in this world:


Those that don't really care about their birthdays.
Those that hate their birthdays.
Those that are like I am......

...If it were at all possible, I would celebrate my birthday with a giant parade. There would be huge, colorful floats, confetti, dinosaurs in tutus, and performances from Lady Gaga, The Backstreet Boys, The Spice Girls, The Beatles (I would bring John and George back to life), and Listener (my new obsession).

I have the best family in the world. I got this huge box in the mail today. And when I opened it, it was full of birthday presents and cards! I got 4 birthday cards from them, 2 from my sister alone. They got be $100 in giftcards to Panera, Starbucks, Subway, iTunes. And they got me a singing birthday teddy bear holding a stuffed cupcake. Basically they're the best. Ever.

So today should be a very fun day. Just after midnight, I was sitting in my room, watching some Gilmore Girls when Alessa, Kacie and Alison burst into my room yelling "Happy birthday!" and nearly giving me a heart attack. Then there was a 3am Dunkin Donuts run with Alessa and Matt. Now, it's just after 6am Chicago time and I have spent the last hour or so, in my suitemates' room discussing metal/hardcore/metalcore with Alessa. We may or may not actually go alseep yet, but so far the plan for "B-day-D-day" is:
Lunch at noon.
Craft Fair.
Dinner.
Zoo lights.
Ice skating in Millennium Park.
Christmas movie marathon/sleepovering.

I'm excited!!!

December 3rd, 2011... Get ready to be amazing! :)))

When in doubt, TAP it out!

I am a tapper. There are so many other kinds of dance I've studied in my life. Tap is so different though, because it becomes a part of you to the point where it defines you. It's like, not just another genre of dance. It is it's own separate entity.

That probably didn't make sense...sorry.

Okay, lemme try to explain it this way. There are ways that dancers define themselves. (ie. I am a contemporary dancer; I am a modern dancer; I am a ballet dancer; I am a hip-hop dancer; I am a tap dancer.) And it always seems like you can -- if you're really looking for it -- tell what a dancer's core training is. Their modern movements always have a tiny hint of the angularity and pulse of a hip-hop dancer, or the tiny hint of épaulement and emphasized turn out of a ballerina. But other than an impeccable sense of timing and rhythm (which most every dancer has anyways), you probably couldn't pick out a tapper from a crowd of dancers.

And that, I think, is why tap is so vastly different conceptually. Because it is so vastly different in practice, from all other styles of western dance. It is also, I think, why tap is so often undervalued.

Without tap I would die. I would seriously just stop existing.

When I was little I took tap in combo classes. Our classes were 45 minutes (I think...it was many moons ago) and we would have half an hour of ballet or jazz, then 15 minutes of tap, all in the same class. Back then, I was not a huge fan of tap. It was okay, but I just didn't really care. So when I was 8, I decided to just stop taking it. I didn't feel I needed it.

But then, I saw how much my sister enjoyed tap. And I loved watching the placement tap dances in our studio's recitals. And I began regretting quitting tap. It looked like so much fun. So, when I was 12 I started again, taking a super, super beginner-level tap class. I still had a decent amount of the tap vocabulary, and I remembered a decent percentage of the basic moves. Within a few weeks my teacher at the time -- Miss Rian -- asked if I thought I could handle moving up into one of her higher level (but still not placement) classes. I gave it a shot. And I LOVED it.

The next year I got accepted into the placement 1 tap class. And from there I kept moving up, and I really started to get addicted to tap. After I had been in the top placement level for at least a year, my teacher at that point -- Miss Amber -- started a tap company at our studio. The studio already had a pre-professional Repertory (Rep.) company, a hip-hop company called Ensemble, and a performing gymnastics company called Exhibition, so Tap Co. joined the ranks. I had been a part of each of these different companies at some point, but Tap Co. really stuck with me.

As much as I love all dance, I cannot live without dance in general, there are some days when I just don't feel like going to classes. But I have never felt that way about my tap classes and our company time. When I would have a crappy day and have a ballet or modern class to go to after school, I would often feel like, "ugh, I don't want to have to go to dance today. It's just such a hassle. I don't feel like moving. etc." But on days when I would have tap class and Tap Co., it was always more of "Geeze, this has been such a crappy day. I can't wait to get to tap."

I don't know if they're going to read this or not, but in case they do, this next part goes out to my former tap teachers.

Miss Rian,
Thank you so much for everything you taught me. You really helped to reignite my love for tap, and that means so much! <3

Miss Amber,
You made Tap Co. into a family at a time when everything else felt so disconnected. With all of the injuries and disappointments I had to face in the last couple of years, I felt like a lot of people had just plain given up on me. But you never did, and that was so important to me. I don't think I can ever thank you enough for that. <3
 

Two steps forward, one giant grande jete back...

I seriously envy those dancers who have never had and injury ever. They have no freaking clue how incredibly lucky they are.

I rolled my left ankle (read: bad ankle) in a rehearsal tonight. One second I was doing a triple coupe turn and the next I was lying on the floor. Now, it's not really bad or anything. Worst case scenario it's a first degree and I just need to ice it, rest it, and take it easy in my dance classes for the next couple days. The worst part about the whole thing was that it was at the end of the rehearsal and it was supposed to be the last run thru of the dance before we gave up the UC studio. So there were about a million people waiting to use the studio who saw me bite the ground.

Okay, so it wasn't a million. But it was like fifteen or so people, and that's still not the most ideal of situations.

I've said it a hundred times, but I'm just sick of this. Even after my multiple sprains, and a surgery, and months of PT, it's still a liability to me. It pisses me off.

I'll be fine. I am fine. I'm just pissed and in a mood to rant. Lo siento.