"To live would be an awfully big adventure."

To Strangers

2011-06-18T17:51:00.005-04:00

Lately, I have had more profound experiences with complete strangers than with the people I have known or loved for many years, or even my whole life. These few people I have "met" have somehow healed me, touched me, encouraged me, inspired me, or have revealed some truth to me about myself or my life that has either been too painful for me to face on my own accord, or that I have been too blinded by myself to see. I have either been cheered up or made to confront these truths that I have been avoiding so well for so long. I have literally been brought to tears by the honesty, kindness, or validity of the few words I have exchanged with these people. And I guess it makes it that much more magical and incredible that we shall remain strangers, though I will never forget those souls.

So thank you, to the man at Whole Foods San Rafael for beauty, to the man at Dancing Moon for healing, and to the man on the way out the door for inspiration and confidence.

I may never meet you, but you have moved me, and I am forever grateful.

Your friend.

LOVE, And Phillipa, Right Now.

2011-06-06T00:58:00.002-04:00

Hello, big, wide, scary Internet! It's been six months and I think that I've deprived you quite long enough of my literary genius! (Only joking... I really don't think anything nearly as epic as that of myself). However, I do think that I owe my ever loyal and loving band of eclectic and wonderful followers an update on my life and where I am "at" right now.

The past six months have been kind of crazy for me. I've learned a lot, grown a lot, absorbed a lot, experienced a lot, and changed a little... but in a big way. Life has a funny way of tossing you the hard (but good) stuff in huge bundles - not little paperback lessons you can stuff into a rucksack and cart around with you to refer back to when the going gets tough, but huge tomes that fall out of the sky and whack you back into reality out of your perfect little daydream. "Wake up, kid. Life needs to be addressed, and it wants your full attention." Guess that's how I can sum up my comings-and-goings lately.

The second semester of my sophomore year of college was certainly a hard one in many ways, but as I already stated, also a good one. A wise man (or woman) once said, "There are no bad experiences, only learning experiences," or something to that effect. I've been trying to convince myself that I just got hurled through those quotations marks and came out on the other side stronger and more informed. I wouldn't recognize myself or my life if I'd met the present me say, two or three years ago... But I also wouldn't change a thing about the journey I've embarked on to get here. As (excuse my French) shitty as things are in thick of it all, hindsight always brings me back to earth and kicks me in the butt saying "I told you so. Now take this ass-kicking and run with it, chica. You've got a whole lot more living to do."

Love has been a central theme in my life for the past six months. Being madly, deeply, and totally in love; fighting to hold onto all different kinds of love; questioning love(s); being hurt by people and things I thought loved me and that I still try to love back; finding new loves; rekindling old loves; and cherishing the unconditional, beautiful, and radiant love of those dear to me have filled every pore of my existence lately. And for all of this (the good, the bad, the hard, and the amazing), I am so grateful and privileged to be imbibed in. As Jennifer Hudson's character, Louis from Saint Louis, from the movie Sex and the City said, "Love is the thing, you know." And yeah, I get it now. Love IS the thing. It makes and breaks us (sorry for the cliché... But REALLY!). It holds us together when we fall apart, and it's the thing that we can never give or receive too much of. I know all this now. Or at least, in my short twenty years, I am slowly coming to grasp the concept. And I must admit, I love love.

Speaking of me right now, there's a little news to be relayed, which may not be news to some of you. I am having open-hip surgery on June 29th at Duke University at the hands of a very accomplished surgeon that deals exclusively with ailments of the hip. Yup. I'm scared shitless. And to top that all off, let me just say that I haven't danced in coming onto two months and it is KILLING me. After this surgery I will have to wait another four to six months before I even start thinking about taking barre again. Hopefully my arms will look great though - considering how proficient I should be at the end of this in the art of using crutches! Let me state it again: I am scared shitless. I actually haven't been this scared before. Ever. But I have to have this operation, and like the messes and lemons (and messy lemons) life throws all of us, I know that I will come out the other side a stronger, healthier, more informed, and more aware person and artist. I am going to have my leg literally sawed off at the bone, get my hip socket re-shaped, have the torn labrum (cartilage pad) reattached in my hip socket, and get pieced back together again. Sorry if that put you off your dinner. I'm just stating the facts in layman's terms.

So between now and then, I am busying myself with going to the gym everyday in an effort to stay in some kind of shape, spending some much-missed time with my family, and meeting up with a few good friends from my high school days. I have the odd adventure here and there in this little town of a city of Raleigh, but truth be told (and it's really not that much of a secret), I miss San Francisco and the Bay area so much already. In an ideal world, I wish I could pick up my family and bring them with me to California when I am out there during the school year. I really only get to see them once or twice a year, and it makes me kind of crazy. I have people on either side of the country that I love more than anything, so you see my dilemma. But it's absolutely amazing what some good time at "home" can do for your sanity. This will actually be the first summer in many, many years that I will spend my entire summer vacation at home instead of dancing at intensives or working with choreographers and doing the "adult thing" in my bicoastal home in NorCal.

My mother and I had brunch today with a wonderful and good friend - who encouraged me to pick up my blog again (if you are reading, "merci," "gracias," "gratias," and "thank you" for the inspiration and incredible conversation!). We talked at length about how much we both absolutely LOVE San Francisco and the Bay area, and how lucky we've both been to have spent the formative years of our lives there (I of course am still in the middle of this chapter)... It made me miss it that much more, and made me realize how fortunate I am to be able to call that wonderful place one of my dearest homes. To keep it short and sweet: I have found a lot of love there. A LOT of LOVE.

That's where I am right now.

More to come, very soon... And I promise it won't take me six months this time.

Wishing you all the LOVE in the world, XO

Finding Myself, January 6, 2011 (Day Twelve) & January 7, 2011 (Day Thirteen)

2011-01-10T19:08:00.001-05:00

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Friday, January 7, 2011

Windsor, England

I am actually writing this from “home” in Raleigh, NC back in the States, but that’s okay. I’m so sorry, first of all, for not posting this sooner! I’ve been struggling with this awful, awful cold I picked up in England combined with unrelenting jetlag. Not fun. But that’s no excuse! It seems a bit bad of me for being so diligent about this daily journal, then to be so blasé about it on the very last day. So anyway, here’s what I was up to on my last day in the UK…

We woke up early, and our lovely host at the Thorncliffe Guesthouse made us some tea and toast before we, for the last time, hit the narrow, winding roads of Isle of Man towards the airport. Our flight was a little delayed, but nice and short, so I can’t complain. We landed in Gatwick and picked up yet another rental car for the day. From there we drove to Windsor – home of Windsor castle, another of the Queen’s abodes. We wandered around the town and found a pastry store for lunch and tea. We also walked along the Thames waterfront in Windsor, where there was a veritable SWARM (I know the technical word for birds is “flock”, but…) of swans. I bought a small bag of feed from a nearby café and fed the little critters. All I can say is do not let swans or geese or any bird of that nature get too friendly with your fingers. It hurts. After much mooching around we made our way back to the pay-and-display parking lot and headed towards our hotel for the night, located not too far from Heathrow airport. We had our last dinner at a now seafood restaurant that used to be a pub / restaurant called The Crispin, where my parents actually used to work when they were younger. The next day was spent in travel – a very long and very tiring eight and a half hour plane ride back to the States. Customs, immigration, all that jazz. Home again. Or is it?

Monday, January 10, 2011

Raleigh, NC, U.S.A.

An Englishwoman in England

If there’s anything I’ve learned from this trip, it is that you can never fully understand or appreciate a place until you are actually immersed in it. I have also learned that as important as it is to know where you came from and to be versed in your culture to truly call it your own, it does not define you. As humans, we are so much more complex than a label associated with a location or city. I can say that I am from England, and whoever asked me will smile and say “how cool” that is. But I am so much more than that. I am proud to be British, that is no question, but I should not and refuse to be defined by it.

I will be the first to tell you that I have learned much, much more on this trip to my “home” country than I have ever known about it before. I think age has a huge part to play in that. The last time I was in the UK I was about to go into the sixth grade. So it’s been a while. I think it takes an older and more mature mind to appreciate and absorb what a place has to give. And I learned that the extent of that giving is so beautifully deep and rich with so much more than just enjoyment if you are willing to open yourself completely to the unknown.

I still don’t really know where “home” is for me, and I’m fine with that… But I do know what I will now tell people when they ask me where in England I am from (ask and you’ll get the answer). I do know that I loved the people, history, and culture there. We are severely lacking that kind of past here; to me it seems that all we’re focusing on is the immediate future, so we don’t hesitate to tear down what once was, to replace it with something shiny and new. It’s a shame.

Home is still as elusive to me as ever, and I still think that my home is not a place, per se, but a state of being, shaped by myself and the people I love who are around me. My geographical home has become even more divided. I now find myself torn between more locations that hold a place in my heart. So did I find myself? Yes and no.

I feel a bit more credible when I fall into conversation about England, and I now have very vivid and positive images of those moments, at least for now. I am better versed in the real culture of my country, and I have actually lived in and within those boundaries. Even if it only was for a short time, that was time spent and experiences lived. Every moment was one of learning and gratitude on my part. I am so lucky to have been able to take this trip with my family, and looking back I realize how vital to my health and sanity the whole thing really was. I am also so thankful for having had this time to get to know my family better. We’ve all always been close (another thing I am so insanely lucky to have), but this adventure allowed me to bond even more deeply with them.

The ‘no’ part of not finding myself comes pretty much from that place within me that is still unfamiliar with the term “hometown”. Blank. It’s so easy for most of the people I know to site their current location as their place of origin, or one that isn’t that far away. I have been all over the place (yet again, another factor of my life that I am so so so grateful for), so I don’t quite know how to define my hometown. I’m coming to terms with that. If you ask me where I’m from, make sure you’re ready to actually have a conversation, not a one-word response. Home is wherever I make it. Maybe that’s the problem with us collectively, and it’s a systemic one: We don’t actually take the time to really talk to each other, to learn about each others’ life stories, to ask how we are actually doing.

It’s strange being a tourist in your own country. But it’s also wonderful. It makes the experience a little bit more magical, like you’re discovering something for the first time. I am an Englishwoman, in England.

Finding Myself, January 4, 2011 (Day Ten) & January 5, 2011 (Day Eleven)

2011-01-05T17:23:00.003-05:00

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

9:53pm

Ramsey, Isle of Man

First of all, I must apologize for not writing yesterday. I seem to have come down with some nasty British virus, and I literally went to bed at around 8pm last night and didn’t wake up this morning till roughly 9. I’m feeling a bit better today, and trying to dose myself up on all sorts of remedial drugs.

Yesterday, we drove out to uncle George’s arboretum in the frigid, soggy, and windy Isle of Man weather. All I have to say is THANK YOU, Alli (the lady who owns the B&B we are staying in), for letting us borrow some wellies! Half the time we were wading trough puddles and bog up to our ankles! Uncle George’s arboretum is really quite a spectacular place. I’d never been before, and I was absolutely astounded by the sheer amount of land that he worked singlehandedly. The arboretum truly was uncle George’s life. He spent all of his time mowing, preening, cutting, trimming, and taking care of the land and the veritable plethora of species of plants he kept there. He had to stop working in his arboretum in the last two or three years of his life though, so it is a bit overgrown and untended right now. Unfortunately, no one has since taken up maintaining this gem. We don’t know what is going to happen to it. I just hope that it receives the same love and devotion uncle George put into it.

After we waded, thrashed, and trodded through the grounds, we drove a short way to a small town nearby, Lynwald, for some tea and lunch. We then drove into the town center to have a look at the old mill that was once in use there, before making our way to the town of Peel. The castle at Peel was actually the first landing site of Christians on the Isle of Man… And it was also incredibly, blisteringly, frigidly COLD. We walked around the outside of the castle (like pretty much everything on the island, it was closed for the winter), then drove to the capital city of Douglas as the sun started to set.

Douglas was also quite sleepy. We walked up and down the Promenade and looked for places to eat before discovering that just about everything was closed! We did manage to find a surprisingly good Italian restaurant down a side street though, so we ate there before driving back to our B&B in Ramsey for the night.

Today, we drove pretty much the whole length of the island and first visited Castletown, located right on the coast. We were hurled around by wind and splashed by sea spray before it started raining. So back in the car we went and continued along the coast, stopping at several other towns to snap some pictures and get some lunch. We eventually drove out to the Southernmost tip of the Isle of Man and looked across the Irish Sea to the Calf of Man, another, even smaller island, off the coast.

We came back to our B&B to get freshened up and relax for a bit before heading out for our last dinner here in the Isle of Man. We ate at a lovely pub / restaurant called the Harbour Bistro, right along the Ramsey harbour.

We’ve got an early-ish flight back to Gatwick tomorrow morning, so I’d better get going. Back to the mainland for our last day in the UK. This one’s for, you, uncle George. Thanks for bringing us here. I wish we could have spent our time with you. Sending you love, xo.

Phillipa

Finding Myself, January 3, 2011 (Day Nine)

2011-01-03T15:15:00.003-05:00

Monday, January 3, 2011

7:57pm

Ramsey, Isle of Man

Hello from the Isle of Man! We’re here on the last leg of our journey in the UK before heading back to the US of A on the 7^th. I can’t believe how quickly this trip has flown by… And how much I now realize I have been needing it. I kind of thought that this part of our adventure would be the hardest for my family, particularly for my mum. The whole reason for us coming out here to the Isle of Man was to visit my mother’s uncle George. But he passed away just a couple of weeks before we made it out to the UK. He was 94, so he lived a long and full life, though we all wanted to see him again, and we now all miss him dearly. He has his own arboretum out here on the island, so we are going to pay it a visit and stay here in honor of him.

We flew out to the island from the London Gatwick Airport this morning just before noon and landed not even two hours later in the tiny Ballasalla airport in the Isle of Man. We picked up our rental car (manual of course), and braved the teeny tiny itty-bitty streets of the island. After stopping for petrol, we eventually made it to our B&B, The Thorncliffe Guesthouses, located just one “block” from the seafront.

We settled in then went out for a walk to explore town. We spent a long time walking along and taking pictures of the beach. The tide was out, so we could walk along the sand and pebbles even under the wooden pier nearby, and the sun was setting, painting the sky a beautiful peachy, reddish glow. Even though it was freezing, the weather today was apparently a million times better than the island usually experiences; the waves weren’t violently crashing against the shore, and the wind was almost nonexistent, and the sun was actually somewhat visible! Ramsey is a huge holiday destination during the summer months, and supposedly has the mildest weather in all of the Isle of Man.

After we wandered around the deserted and desolate streets of off-season Ramsey, we found the only open pub / restaurant that was serving food today (it is not only not a tourist-peak time of year, but it was also a bank holiday today, so everything was closed). We had some drinks and a meal, then walked through the blistering cold back to our comfy bed and breakfast.

Not sure what the plan is for tomorrow. But I’ve actually got free WiFi here (a novelty in the UK, as I’ve discovered), so I will be keeping you posted.

Sweet dreams.

Phillipa

Finding Myself, January 2, 2011 (Day Eight)

2011-01-03T15:14:00.001-05:00

Sunday, January 2, 2011

10:22pm

Near London Gatwick Airport, England

Today we visited Stonehenge in Amesbury. I’ve been there once before, the last time I was in the UK with my family, but I don’t think I really appreciated it as much… Like most things from my childhood. After a stroll around the mysterious Stonehenge (by the way, ‘henge’ is the old English word for “hanging”), we drove about 45 minutes to Avebury, another henge site with even more stones.

The stones around Avebury are actually in a much larger formation, with the whole town being encompassed within the largest ring of stones. There are tentacle-like pathways going outwards away from the circle, with ancient burial mounds all around in the surrounding countryside. We walked a good way through one of these pathways, up a large hill spotted with free-roaming sheep, and towards the huge burial mound on the other side. We then took a very, very muddy walk along what used to be a river back towards the town. I have literally never had so much mud on my shoes before. Ever. But it was a lovely day – the sun actually came out for us for the first time since we’ve been here.

We grabbed lunch in the local pub / restaurant in town, then hit the road again and drove about two hours to where we are now. We’re over nighting in the ibis Gatwick hotel before we fly out to The Isle of Man tomorrow morning. Got to get some shut-eye. Don’t know if I’ll have Internet out there, so this may all hit you in one huge burst of posts.

Phillipa

Finding Myself, January 1, 2011 (Day Seven)

2011-01-01T17:08:00.003-05:00

Saturday, January 1, 2011

9:46pm

Amesbury, England

Happy New Year, all! I hope you’re having or have had a wonderful first day of this new decade, and that you’re well recovered from last night’s festivities.

Today we traveled from Southampton to Beaulieu, home of the British National Motor Museum, and the ‘World of Top Gear’ exhibition. My brother was certainly over the moon about this particular portion of our itinerary, and it proved to be really excellent! We also looked around the Motor Museum at the huge collection of vintage and modern cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles. After that, we walked around the grounds at Beaulieu and stopped by the Palace House also located on the grounds. Some parts of the House have been opened up by Lord Montagu, patron of the mansion, for public viewing. We then walked through the ruins of the old Abbey not too far from the Palace House – it was really quite beautiful, though most of the original structure is no longer standing.

We drove through the New Forest surrounding Beaulieu (and past the countless number of free-roaming ponies on the grounds) towards the small town of Lyndhurst. In fact, a couple of the ponies walked right over to my family and me, so I got to say hello to them up close. Lyndhurst is another one of those lovely quaint little places with lots of bustling teahouses and a beautiful old church on the High Street. We had tea and scones and cakes, and then gently perambulated up the road. The church that we stumbled across actually turned out to be quite a find! Inside its small yet gorgeous graveyard I found the grave of a Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves, who was actually the Alice in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”. I’ve decided that I am going to take a collection of photos of graves and graveyards.

We’re now spending the night in a small Travelodge hotel in Amesbury before we head out to Stonehenge tomorrow.

Goodnight, everyone. Happy New Year again, with all my love.

Phillipa

Finding Myself, December 31, 2010 (Day Six)

2011-01-01T16:45:00.005-05:00

Friday, December 31, 2010

9:55pm

Southampton, England

I must first apologize for these blogs being a bit late in posting – I haven’t had Internet access for the past few days… Which is nice for a change, actually. I think I’ve been needing to be disconnected from the world for a while.

Most of today was spent in traveling. We left our inn in Wye after a delicious English breakfast, and made our way to the Wye Downs, or the Devil’s Kneading Trough, for a quick photo stop. The story (or at least one of the many out there) goes that the Devil tripped over a church on his way to stop in the pilgrims on their pilgrimage through the English countryside, fell and landed on his knee, carving a large valley or bowl in the land. It’s quite a lovely spread of rolling green land covered in a thin veil of mist and fog. Again, really refreshing and calming.

From there we made our way towards the roads following the coastline and drove to Rye in East Sussex. On the way we passed many small towns and villages, all of them filled with their own histories and national relevancies. I love being in a country were there is beauty and antiquity everywhere.

When we arrived in Rye we parked the car and made our way up towards the center of town. The streets are all cobbled and uneven, and there are lovely old buildings around every corner. We actually ran into a very old school friend of my mum’s – from back when my mum was in primary school! Heather and her husband up till recently used to run a restaurant called The Flushing Inn in Rye, and as we passed by the old restaurant, we wondered how funny it would be if we ran into them. And alas! As we walked around the corner we literally bumped into them as they came out of their door. After the grown-ups caught up and said their dues, we continued along the wonky roads for some more sight seeing and picture-taking. At lunchtime we popped into a lovely old teahouse called Simon The Pieman for tea and sandwiches, and after that we looked in a few shops before heading towards the docks of Rye.

After a long drive through even more gorgeous, serene old towns and villages, we arrived at our hotel here in Southampton. Because it’s New Year’s Eve, the only booking we could find was at the Holiday Inn Express, so no cute little B&B tonight. We did, however, drive a little way to a pub called The Ship Inn for dinner and drinks. It was quite a different atmosphere from the pubs we’ve been to so far, and the locals are certainly very different themselves. Just goes to show the microcosms that make up the macrocosms. And it exists everywhere.

I can’t believe tomorrow marks the beginning of another year and another decade. Time is flying, but I am excited for this fresh start. So Happy New Year from England, everyone. Cheers xoxo

Phillipa

Finding Myself, December 30, 2010 (Day Five)

2011-01-01T16:45:00.001-05:00

Thursday, December 30, 2010

10:29pm

Wye, England

We left London early this morning and picked up a rental car to continue the next phase of our tour of England. We negotiated the traffic out of London and got on our way towards Chatham, where my brother was born. We passed by the hospital where Robert was born and then drove by our old house on Chesham Drive in Rainham. From there we continued on to Canterbury. The traffic was horrid, but we eventually found a parking space in a lot and made our way to the High Street for some lunch. We then went to look around Canterbury Cathedral, which like most historic sites, now comes with a price tag to walk around, so we just walked along the outside bits and the grounds where we could. Definitely got a fair amount of good pictures too. We then wandered around the winding, cobbled streets of Canterbury a little more (Oh! I should mention that this is the hometown of Orlando Bloom… Though I didn’t have any run-ins with him unfortunately…) before heading back to the car and getting back on the road. The countryside of England is really quite refreshing. It’s a welcome break from the city, and a reprieve from the claustrophobia and grayness of the urban settings I’ve become accustomed to. There is so much green around here, with rolling, cloud covered hills and cattle and sheep and horses in abundance. The towns and villages we drove by today are so quiet and peaceful. I could certainly use a little nirvana like this at least twice a month back home. As the light faded on us, we arrived in Wye, our resting stop for the night. I’m writing to you from The New Flying Horse Inn, an absolutely fabulous little place and an old haunt of my mum’s, which actually only has six rooms! My mum used to work in hop research every summer during her school years here in the UK. She commuted to Wye everyday from her house in Ashford to “get her hop on”, so the pubs around here are definitely old stomping grounds for her. After we freshened up in our rooms for a little bit, we headed out to The Tickled Trout, a pub / restaurant a short walk away from The New Flying Horse, for a pre-dinner drink (a ginger wine with lemonade for me). On the way back we passed a church with a beautiful graveyard outside. The dim lighting and mist made for quite a mysterious and magical scene. I realize that I actually really love graveyards, as odd as it sounds. They are so peaceful, and so filled with the histories and stories of so many lives and people. There’s something in that that I have yet to be able to put into words…We got dinner back here in The New Flying Horse – I got good old British fish-and-chips… YUM! Plus a Pim’s with lemonade to drink, all followed up with a really delicious Irish coffee for “dessert”. The atmosphere of this place is really lovely, and something that you can’t find in the States. And no matter how hard the US tries, there is no way to replicate a good British pub. The aura, vibe, company, atmosphere, décor, and energy of this place are one of a kind. Like I’ve said too many times before… I can get used to this.

Onward to Southampton tomorrow.

Phillipa

Finding Myself, December 29, 2010 (Day Four) Continued

2011-01-01T16:42:00.000-05:00

Hi readers, I feel as though I cheated a bit on my past entry, so here’s a more detailed synopsis of what I was up to yesterday, my final day in London…

From my Auntie Lucy’s, we took a bus to Saint Paul’s Cathedral. We didn’t go inside (A. it was crawling with tourists and B. you now have to pay to go in – unfortunately like most of the attractions in London now), but we took pictures of the gorgeous exterior and visited a nearby old-fashioned sweet shop. From there, we walked a short distance to the Millennium Bridge; that’s the one that gets destroyed in the beginning of ‘Harry Potter 6’, for all you HP fans out there. We didn’t walk on the bridge, but instead followed the pedestrian path along the River Thames. We passed London Bridge and eventually made our way to Tower Bridge. Again, we didn’t go inside since there were hordes of tourists all over the place and there was an entry fee, but we did get some wonderful, albeit foggy and hazy pictures in. We stopped off at the Starbucks and Saint Katherine’s Docks for a familiar pick-me-up before splitting up with Lucy to head towards Covent Garden to meet up with our good friends, Jane and Philip. We took a tube to Covent Garden, where we wandered around the market for a little bit. Back in the day, Covent Garden was predominantly a flower market, but is now instead filled with flashy merchandise stalls and street performance acts. Nevertheless, it is still a wonderful area, AND is home to the Royal Opera House and The Royal Ballet. We met up with Jane and Philip in a small pasta restaurant directly across the street from the Opera House for dinner. It was so lovely to see them again! Last time we saw them, they came to visit my family in North Carolina in the middle of one of our infamous ice storms. Following a delicious and conversation-filled meal, Philip took my dad and brother on a pub-crawl to some of Philip’s favorites, while Jane treated my mum and me to The Royal Ballet’s ‘Cinderella’. It was absolutely sensational. I could go into elaborate detail about the corp’s precision and the soloists’ and principals’ virtuosity, or tell you all about the wonderful sets and live music, but I won’t bore you with that stuff. I will let you know though, that it took me back to my roots (I first started my ballet training in the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus), and like the exhibition at the V & A, I was reminded again a little of why I love to dance. Everything about the production was just so. I wish one day to perform to sold out audiences like that all over the world. After the performance ended, us girls met up with the blokes again at a pub next door to Pasta Brown, where we had dinner. After more great conversation and company, we reluctantly parted ways with Jane and Philip and headed back to Lucy’s for our last late night in London.

Finding Myself, December 29, 2010 (Day Four)

2010-12-29T19:59:00.001-05:00

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

12:57am (So technically Thursday morning…)

London, England

Saint Paul's Cathedral.

Millennium Bridge.

Walk along the Thames.

London Bridge.

Tower Bridge.

Starbucks.

Covent Garden.

Jane & Philip!!!

The Royal Ballet's 'Cinderella' (BEAUTIFUL).

Pub.

Tube.

Leaving London tomorrow morning. Next destination: Wye.

Phillipa

Finding Myself, December 28, 2010 (Day Three)

2010-12-28T18:13:00.002-05:00

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

10:28pm

London, England

First on today’s agenda: Harrod’s in Knightsbridge. If you haven’t heard, Harrod’s is THE store in England. You can find absolutely anything and everything there that you could possibly expect of a high-end department store, and then SOME. The best part of Harrod’s, though, is what you wouldn’t expect. On the ground floor level of the metropolis-posed-as-a-store, you’ll find the Harrod’s Food Halls or the Food Emporium. Each room is dedicated to a different food “group”. There’s the meat room, the fruit and veg room, the sweets room, the chocolates room, the wine and spirits room, etc, etc. There you can find such rarities as bottles of wine and brandy from the 1900’s (for the small price of £120,000) and absolutely delicious-looking foods from all over. If you’re ever in London, you absolutely must stop by, even if it’s just to take a look and snap a few pictures. And if you go hungry, prepare to leave even hungrier.

After fighting the crowds at Harrod’s, we made our way to a little café called Patisserie Valerie, just a short walk down the street. This particular café holds a special place in my parents’ hearts. When they were in university, they used to get coffee and pastries there when their limited student budgets would allow it; and even today it was such a treat. The pastries in Europe really are infinitely better than those found in the US. No artificial cream here! Everything is made fresh and from scratch… And forget about going fat-free or butter-less. If you’re going to go all out, you’ve got to go all out. A vegetarian hot breakfast, cappuccino, and fresh-cream chocolate éclair (that was just what I ate) later, we left the crowded Patisserie and walked down some of the winding roads, past more gorgeous old buildings and houses towards the direction of my parents’ old halls of residence during their university years at Imperial College.

London is filled with a wonderful plethora of varied and historic museums, and pretty much all of them have free admission. After a quick walk through some of Imperial’s grounds, my brother, Robert, and my dad left us ladies to go to the Science Museum, whilst we went to the Victoria & Albert Museum. The museum, named after Queen Victoria I and her husband, Prince Albert, houses a huge collection of sculptures, art, artifacts, gowns, and other beautiful historic objects. Ironically, conveniently, and fantastically, the V & A has a special exhibition for Diaghilev & The Ballet Russes going on right now – just up my alley.

The exhibition was absolutely fabulous. There were costume designs, dance footage, programs, sketches, and utterly stunning costumes that were actually worn by the dancers on display, including a whole collection of things worn, used, and created for and by Nijinsky, one of the most famous male dancers of all time. What struck me most about the exhibition, besides its enormity and congruency, was how old the pieces on display (particularly the costumes) were, and how they were in such great condition. These costumes dated back from the early 1900’s through the 1920’s and are still breathtakingly beautiful. The amount of detail and hand-painted, stitched, stenciled, cut, and beaded work is really something to be marveled. The exhibition also made me realize yet again what a special career path and passion I have chosen. I think that it is safe to say that most of the people who were in the gallery are neither currently dancers, nor have they ever been dancers. But what’s beautiful for me to see is that so many people are still totally captivated by the art of dance, and realize that though it may not seem so, this art is really necessary and performs a function that our daily routines can’t. Dance is beauty. And lately I think beauty in life and in the world has been a bit lacking. Seeing people watch the footage of the dancers in the exhibition and marveling over the rehearsal process and behind-the-scenes creation of ballet reminded me a little bit of why I dance. I’m a part of something bigger, and something that people inherently realize that they need. I only wish for this view to expand – it’s not something I’ve really seen in the US.

We left the V & A Museum and met up with my dad and brother in front of the Natural History Museum, another stomping ground that my parents are all too familiar with. My dad used to work in the Museum, and actually once had a set of gold keys that gave him access to all parts of the gargantuan NHM during his studies in London. Unfortunately, the Museum was completely overrun with tourists, so we didn’t go in, but instead captured some gorgeous images of the castle-like outside of the museum in the setting sun.

We then made our way towards another part of Imperial College, where my parents attended university. It’s really interesting to see how different my college experience is turning out to be from my parents’. Of course times have changed, and things are happening on different continents, but the comparison still exists. It was also great learning about the university traditions that existed back when my parents were students at Imperial, and hearing all their anecdotes and memories about their school years.

Just across the street from Imperial’s Royal School of Music is Royal Albert Hall, site for concerts, performances, graduation ceremonies, etc. And just across the street from that is Hyde Park. Unfortunately the park was closed, as it was scarily dark by the time we got there, so we couldn’t walk all the way through it. We took the paths along the roads and crossed the Serpentine Bridge to the other side. A couple of bus stops later, we arrived in another part of town that my Auntie Lucy says “never sleeps”; it’s almost like another kind of Chinatown. There Lucy treated us to a spectacular Malaysian feast at one of her favorite restaurants. Hello, food baby.

It’s our last day in London tomorrow. We’re meeting up with some good friends of my parents’, Jane and Philip, whom we last saw years ago (when I was still in middle school) when they came to visit us in North Carolina. Jane is taking my mum and me to see the Royal Ballet’s ‘Cinderella’. I can’t wait!

More tomorrow, dear readers.

Phillipa

Finding Myself, December 27, 2010 (Day Two)

2010-12-27T19:17:00.002-05:00

Monday, December 27, 2010

11:20pm

London, England

Today was another full day of wandering, sightseeing, smelling, tasting, capturing (as best one can), and experiencing London. It was quite frigid here today, and by the time I had snapped lots of pictures in a row without having the chance to stuff my hands back in my pockets, my fingers resembled something more akin to frozen mini sausages than human appendages. But anyhow, I’m getting ahead of myself.

We all got up at around nine this morning and got ready for the day leisurely. After a good breakfast of tea, toast, and Weetabix (a British cereal that is quite hard to come by in the States), we headed back out to Central London via bus then tube. I feel so much more comfortable traveling by subway than I do by bus – I’m not sure why. It’s sort of the same back in San Francisco for me. Plus the tube is far more efficient, and we managed to avoid the heavy traffic jams and masses of shoppers along London’s more crowded streets. AND I just love the “Mind the Gap” warnings. So British of us.

We got off at Oxford Circle; first stop, Hamley’s. Hamley’s is one of the most famous toy stores in the world, stocking anything and everything from Lego and card games and Barbies and electronics to soft animals and flying things and puzzles and teddy bears. The latter is actually the whole impetus behind our visit to Hamley’s. My brother and my’s first teddy bears came from Hamley’s on Regent Street. I have absolutely no recollection of our first visit to the toy store so many years ago, though I must admit that I still adore my teddy – it has traveled everywhere with me and is definitely showing signs of being much used and loved. I almost bought myself a new Hamley’s teddy to commemorate the experience. But I exercised restraint. I guess now would be a good time to mention that things in the UK are much more expensive than in the US, as is the cost of living. Plus the British pound is worth more than the US dollar. A small teddy bear would have run me between fourteen and thirty quid today. Roughly between thirty to sixty dollars? Sorry, teddy. No can do.

After Hamley’s we made our way to Carnaby Street, a place my mum and aunt warned me would be a bit tacky, but which used to be THE place back in the 60’s at the height of the Hippie and Retro movements. However, Carnaby Street was anything but tacky. After wandering down the paved and cobbled streets and peering in the windows of the many stores and pubs, I have decided that Carnaby Street may actually have become one of my favorite spots in London. It’s this cool mix of old and new, fun and serious, polite and daring. I love it. I also love the new avant-garde sweatshirt I bought today at a little boutique called ‘super superficial’.

We walked out of Carnaby Street and made a quick stop at Picadilly Circus, the Times Square of London, if you will. Picadilly Circus is where all the off- and on-Broadway and theatre productions take place, and of course the traffic was mayhem. We then slowly and convolutedly marched in the direction of Trafalgar Square, bypassing many other historic landmarks and a few places that actually brought up some memories from my childhood. It’s weird how our minds choose to remember little very specific things and forget others.

We took lots of pictures in Trafalgar Square, and I am happy to say that the government has now banned the public from feeding the pigeons in the Square. That’s why there were far fewer of the little rascals flying around than I recall from years ago. Nevertheless, they are still as tame as ever and won’t get out of your way till you give them a little nudge with your boot.

From Trafalgar Square we walked past more sights that held deep meaning for my parents back in the day, including the Charing Cross station that my mum frequented in her school years to get from her home in Ashford into Central London. We passed by tons of gorgeous antique bookstores, and even stumbled across the Freed of London store, located across the street from the Sadlers Wells theatre. Freed, if you don’t know, is a brand of pointe shoe. There are many, many “makers”, or highly skilled pointe shoe makers, who fall under the Freed umbrella, and each has his own mark that he stamps on the bottom of the shoe. I used to wear Freed pointe shoes, and actually had a specific maker that I got my shoes from. It was cool today to see where it all started, and to stand at the doorstep of the original Freed location. I wish the store was open though…

We eventually wandered into Soho, or the Chinatown of London. It is significantly smaller than the Chinatown in San Francisco (but then again, everything is bigger in the US), and it feels much less touristy too, which was great. We found a good dim sum restaurant and got comfy in the warmth and bustle on the first floor. Another note: in the UK, what is called the first floor in the States is called the ground floor. So therefore, the first floor by UK standards means the second floor by US standards. Just an aside to ponder. We ordered absolutely TONS of food. And it was all delicious. Anyone who hasn’t had REAL Chinese food (and I mean real) should go find some. And get dim sum while you’re at it. It is an experience within itself.

From Soho we walked back through Trafalgar Square and through the archway leading up to Buckingham Palace. It is a long, straight road lined with gorgeous trees along Green Park on one side, and a plethora of historic, military, and royal buildings and landmarks on the other. My dad and I managed to situate ourselves right in the middle of the road leading up to the Palace, so I got some great pictures. The Queen was in too, so the Royal Standard was flying, and we managed to get up right to the gate. And of course, the "Buzbies" were there, as stern and unmoving as ever.

From Buckingham Palace we took yet another long and straight road through to the Duke of Wellington Arch. Along the way there were different landmarks that were erected in honor of the soldiers from the various countries who fought and gave their lives in the World Wars. The Arch itself was really beautiful – the carving is so intricate; in fact, that’s something I’ve noticed in all the architecture here. The craftsmanship, love, and detail put into the buildings, monuments, statues, and landmarks are really amazing. I feel as though all my pictures don’t do this place justice at all.

A bus ride later, and after taking a little break back at my Auntie Lucy’s house, we walked in the frigid night air to this restaurant Lucy wanted us to go to called The Waterfront, appropriately named, as it is situated right on the waterfront of the canal that runs through that part of London. I ordered a half pint of British cider (alcoholic and LEGAL for me here!!!), but I think we were all a little disappointed in the restaurant’s lack of real pub-ness. So as my mum’s highly detailed itinerary had originally described, and at my insistence, we then walked a few minutes to Gordon Ramsey’s pub / restaurant, The Warrington. IT. WAS. SENSATIONAL. And if you don’t know who Gordon Ramsey is, you should. Meeting the icon is one of my life goals.

The Warrington has a very cozy yet classy feel to it, and the décor is somewhat representative of a time past, though it isn’t out of date or old-feeling. It was really lovely and made me feel completely at ease. So this is why the pub is a cultural institution in the UK! I can get used to this. The more expensive and exclusive Warrington Restaurant is located upstairs, though it was clear that the pub is far more popular. A good English pub. An institution. And bloody delicious. I ordered a chocolate beer, from a local London brewery – something I wouldn’t get in the States, and we shared some of Gordon’s pub fare round the table. After a few drinks and soaking up of the pub vibes, we headed back to Lucy’s.

It’s just past midnight here now, so I should go and get some shuteye. I was feeling a bit jetlagged this morning. Another full day in London tomorrow, with snow expected too. That’ll be interesting. To everyone on the East Coast back in the States: I hope the crazy winter weather over there isn’t too horrible and that you can still get out and do what you need to do!

Sleep tight, all. See you in the morning.

Phillipa

Finding Myself, December 26, 2010 (Day One)

2010-12-27T17:46:00.002-05:00

Sunday, December 26, 2010

8:30pm

London, England

It’s strange being a tourist in your own country. I know far more about the States than I do about the UK, and it is the UK that I guess I call “home” for all intensive purposes. Is that wrong of me? I am so lost in this place, and yet I feel so incredibly comfortable among this bustling city’s diversity and mish mash of boroughs. Perhaps this trip will help me redefine that little word, home. I am going to live here one day. I want to name this little project ‘Finding Myself.’ The proposal: document each day I spend here in the UK, using a combination of both written and pictorial memoirs. Then to reflect and hopefully discover some previously hidden truths or facets of me that choose to surface themselves as these two weeks go by.

After a delayed departure from RDU yesterday thanks to a prolonged de-icing operation on our plane, we thought we were all set to get our frozen little butts to London. But as it must go, something else went wrong. Just after the flight attendants had served me my vegetarian, vegan, gluten and wheat free dinner (white rice with lima beans and broccoli), our captain came on the PA and announced that we were experiencing a “minor” mechanical difficulty and would have to turn around mid-Atlantic and head back to the States. We landed in New York’s JKF airport at around midnight, Eastern Time. After sitting at the gate for a couple of hours while the problem was amended, we got underway again. Flight AA 147, take two, to LHR.

I was restless the whole flight and barely slept. Somewhere over Ireland, breakfast was served (corn-meal-thickened yogurt, fruit, and a gluten and wheat free German chocolate cake flavored cookie). We landed in Heathrow a little under two hours later. Finally! After we got our bags we headed towards the trains just to learn that there had been a switch error in the Paddington / London line and that all trains had been suspended. We waited nearly another hour for the problem to be remedied, and eventually got on a train and ended up in London. Then it was just a short and crowded taxi ride to my Auntie Lucy’s house in Maida Vale, a borderline upscale part of town. I haven’t seen Lucy since I was about 3 years old. It’s been a while. After our hellos and hugs and a little settling in, we gabbed over tea, then headed out into the cold London late afternoon.

I haven’t been outside of the States since my family and I moved here, over nine years ago. It’s weird coming back to a place that has so much to do with your life, and is yet so disconnected from your current reality. This whole ordeal must be that much more interesting for my parents. This country was where they both grew up, met, and started their lives together. This was their stomping ground. And now they want to show it to my brother and me. This is how it was, this is what’s still the same, and this is what’s new. I am so amazed by cities that can grow and explode, yet still hold on that special something that reminds its residents of what was good back then. London is one of those cities.

London is so full of absolutely stunningly beautiful architecture and history. Almost every building has a story, and every road holds a memory. My parents are trying to remind my brother and me of those stories and memories. I can’t wait to learn more. A few things looked vaguely familiar; some things more than others. It would be a lie if I told you I knew where we were and were we went today. I quite frankly, had absolutely no idea. I can’t decide if that horrifies me or thrills me. I’ve known where I’ve been going for so long that this whole thing is kind of coming out of left field.

We took a double-decker 6 bus from Lucy’s house to Central London, riding along the absolutely packed Oxford Street, bustling with holiday shoppers fighting for their Boxing Day deals. The streets were lit so beautifully with Christmas lights of all colors, and the storefronts were equally impressive. We eventually got off the bus and marched with purpose through the crowds along a convoluted route towards the River Thames. We walked along Regent Street, saw Gordon Ramsey’s Claridges restaurant, past Hyde Park, near Buckingham Palace, along Prince Charles’ palace, by Parliament and Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, and a hundred other stunning and inspiring locations. Hopefully I’ll be able to see more tomorrow in the daylight.

We eventually arrived at the London Eye and took our “flight.” It’s amazing how being above the world puts it into perspective. The view was gorgeous. I felt like I was floating above an ocean of Christmas lights, and there were a few moments where I just wanted to cry. This is my city. I just don’t know her that well yet.

After we 360-ed the Eye, we disembarked and made our way back to Lucy’s house. Several crowded bus rides later, we arrived at her door and got dinner going. Home-cooked Chinese food complete with champagne, wine, and chocolates for dessert. Conversation and plans.

It’s late now though, and I haven’t slept in over 24 hours. More tomorrow, plus a loaded agenda. Thanks for coming on this adventure with me.

Phillipa

Finding Myself

2010-12-25T16:11:00.002-05:00

I'm off to the UK in a few hours, first stop London, then a million other places, and later on in the New Year, a trip to the Isle of Man.

Should be a good time for a little blogging, I hope. Time has been a little short lately, and life has thrown some completely unexpected hurdles my way in the past month.

Happy Christmas and much love to all.

Stay posted for some good stuff from England.

Still Here

2010-11-01T18:40:00.002-04:00

Life hasn't slowed down yet, but I hope you'll stay here with me.

I have so much I want to tell you, and so much I need to put out there for myself.

Just know that I always thinking about you, and that the thing is yet to come.

Here's to the here and now. No past, no future.

The moment.

Thanks for noticing.

September 23rd

2010-09-24T01:29:00.003-04:00

There are so many things that I want to say.

And so many things that remain trapped in the confines of me.

Because to say them would be an admission of the possibility of vulnerability.

And I'm not prepared to offer myself up that readily yet.

Or maybe ever.

So for now, just know that it's there.

It exists.

I exist.

You exist.

We don't appreciate each other nearly as much as we should.

So here's me, appreciating you.

Appreciating this.

Hello, Followers

2010-09-03T22:18:00.002-04:00

Hiya,

I promise I'm still here and still blogging! But this crazy little thing called "life" keeps interrupting my otherwise mundane existence. Things have been pretty hectic for me lately, with school, job, social time (if applicable), and independent living colliding in a giant mish-mash of "to-do's."

I will give you some good stuff to read in the near future, I promise. Hang in there and thanks for sticking with me despite my posting irregularity!

Much love to all, XO

My partial new understanding of life...

2010-07-15T00:00:00.002-04:00

It’s all about getting lost and the ensuing struggle to right oneself to a state of foundness.

It’s all about complication and the inadvertent and futile human ambition to make it simple.

It’s all about getting, being, delving into, and embracing life’s reckless messiness.

It’s all about finding definition in a blurry, fast-paced, and relentless stream of haze.

It’s all about the desire to make meaning out of something that we cannot prove, nor can we ever hope to actually comprehend.

It’s all about saying we did, but really didn’t.

It’s all about self-preservation with undertones of compassion and the occasional selfless act.

It’s all about earning, saving, and then blowing it all. It’s the universal unspoken and taboo knowledge that as much as we hang on to things, they always eventually slip or are spent away.

It’s all about wanting to know more.

Or do more.

Or feel more.

It’s all about going through every human and inhuman experience to define and figure out what it is to be human and what sets us apart from the rest of the universe.

It’s all about…

Being alive.

2010-07-15T00:00:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I feel like I’m just waiting for inspiration that never comes.

Market Street

2010-07-14T23:59:00.000-04:00

I want to know their stories. I want to know how they got to where they are now and why they are this way. I want to learn about their pasts, their presents, and any possible ambitions their marred selves may still carry for the future. I want to see the world, just briefly, from their points of view. Every single person I pass on the street is a mystery, some darker than others, and yet each equally colourful and alluring; though it’s the ones that are worse off that seem to entice me that much more. I crave perspective and live for the moments of realization that come with actually sitting down and examining or genuinely conversing with someone. I want to meet these people, as twisted and abandoned and fucked up as they may be. I’m trying to believe in the good that’s left in humanity, and I feel compelled to actually care; I want to understand. I am unabashedly and shamelessly fascinated with them; I want to know the human story, and I need to know their stories.

Coffee(less)

2010-05-28T13:06:00.003-04:00

As of a couple of days ago, I am no longer a coffee drinker.

Pause for gasps of horror.

I know. I'm still in shock. It's not even that I'm upset about all that caffeine-y goodness I can no longer really partake in (as much as caffeine is indeed a fantastic thing), it's mainly the fact that up to this date, coffee has been such a big part of my identity and who I am. I'm that girl that everybody gives Starbucks cards and coffee to on birthdays and secret-santas. Give me anything coffee-related and I'd be elated.

But no more...

And another thing - all those coffee dates you go out on: "Let's catch up and get some coffee!" or "Let's talk about it over coffee." or "Coffee's on me!" are no longer a part of my reality, it seems.

People, this is a BIG deal.

Drinking coffee has become a big social and communal event for my family, friends, and I. So it seems that I'm now going to be that girl drinking tea in a really suave coffee shop that serves AMAZING cappuccinos and espresso drinks. I'm not saying I'm not fond of tea...

But it' really just not the same.

This is going to take some adjusting...

Subject to Change

2010-05-27T19:15:00.004-04:00

A question I have been asking myself a lot lately:

What do I want?

And honestly, the thing that scares me most is that I don't really know. It's so easy to make grand plans and schemes of greatness when you are younger, and to envision yourself filling that seemingly distant, yet somehow attainable mold. But would you recognize yourself now if you saw the now-you even just a year ago, let alone a decade ago? I know I wouldn't. All (or at least most) of the ideas I had for my present, then-future, have been quite a bit altered by that two-headed monster of sorts, reality.

And then there's the dichotomy of head and heart - which do you listen to? How do you find balance and reconciliation between and within the two? It's something I'm just now starting to actually realize and dapple in... And I've got to admit - this void is pretty damn petrifying.

But it's all boiling down to this: In the end, there's just me. All I have is, and will be, all I create around and within me. And therefore, that's what I need to figure out. It's what we all need to figure out. Amidst the confusion and bustle of life, love, and whatevers, there's the one thing we need to get in touch with... And that's happiness. If there's a purpose to life, then it must be (excuse the cliché...) the pursuit of happiness; finding that 'whatever' that gives all the 'whatever' in life some joy and meaning. It's the unique niche that makes us human.

So what do I want right now? What exactly is going to make all this monologue actually resonate with me as I can only hope it resonates at least marginally with you? I guess it's going to take some time to manifest for yours truly. But I do know that I want to do what makes me happy, and what is ultimately best for me, so that a decade from this present moment, I will be able to look back and be alright with what has gotten to me to my future-present.

What do I want?

Full Circle

2010-05-04T03:16:00.001-04:00

It’s funny how when you reach the end, it looks a lot like the beginning, but then not. Things have happened that have changed you, people have stepped into your life that can never really step back out of it, and you are left with either the indiscernible rubble or organized chaos of a beautiful mess of consequences. We live and we die cyclically, and it’s safe to say that everything works that way – is there really ever a beginning and an end? The two are one and the same – eternally bound together by the head and tail ends of ever-repeating sequences of events. We see the same people over and over again in our lives, just in different settings, and we inevitably bump into that someone that somehow reminds us of that other someone. We can only be so much of somebody we are not, before we realize how much of a somebody we actually already were. In full circle, all we have are ourselves. At the beginning of it all, we were a portrait of self, and in the end, we are still that portrait, though we have changed, grown, transformed, morphed, and lived between any distinguishable beginnings and ends. Everything comes back round on itself, and life looks awfully familiar in retrospect. It’s the starts and finishes that define us, as much as the in-betweens morph and shape us. Everything is cyclical, and everything leads up to something. We end how we begin, and start where we leave off, only this time with experience and life trailing behind to hold us up. We have come full circle.

Exhaustion

2010-05-04T03:15:00.001-04:00

I can’t even spell.

I can’t concentrate on my train of thought.

It hurts to think.

It hurts to feel.

All I want to do is curl into a ball and sleep for three days.

I am the epitome of a body in complete rebellion.

I am emotionally exhausted.

I am done with all this.

I don’t want to be typing.

I don’t want to be thinking.

I don’t want to be feeling.

I am not feeling.

Sensations of comfort replaced by stress replaced by shock replaced by

NUMB.

I don’t know how to go about this.

I can’t decide if there is actually a way of going about it.

I want to just let things happen.

I want to be in control.

I am trying to let go.

I can’t name this as hard as I try.

Maybe I try too hard.

I am scattered.

I am battered.

I am shattered.

I am exhausted.

Inked

2010-04-25T20:34:00.003-04:00

Since getting a tattoo, I have had this weird obsession with other peoples’ tattoos. I want to know where they got them, what they are, and what they mean to the person. It’s another form of branding, labeling, and defining ourselves, I suppose. It’s a semi-addictive habit that “hurts so good.” It’s fulfilling a need to be understood, or to understand oneself by marking one’s body. It’s an expression of artistic license and flair, and also a reminder to self of value, worth, and experience. I have a craving to realize the humanity in everything, and to try and understand where people have come from, who they are, and where they want to go in life. Inking things on our bodies, I believe, originates from some desire to show ourselves to the world, but then keep that experience close to us, on our bodies, ingrained within our cells, and permanently on our skins. It’s something that isn’t easily taken away, when other things in life are. It’s a small indication of permanence in this ephemeral world, and a kind of ink that goes much deeper than what others can possibly see.

Transitions

2010-04-25T20:34:00.001-04:00

As in dance, it is the transitions between movements that make something truly beautiful. What sets real artists apart from the masses is held within their inextricable ability to melt things together. It’s that gooey in-between that makes us gasp in awe and sit in complete amazement as our worlds and our lives unfold on a stage before us, embodied by a human with a higher-than-human skill and gift. Anyone can behave robotically: hold a pose, move on a beat, do as told. Artists, on the other hand, fill in the gaps between the poses, move between the beats, and bend the rules of what they’re told. In life, we are each defined by the choices we make between the events or places or things we ultimately end up doing. We have options along our respective paths through life, and we decide whether we want to take the easy or hard way at each and every pit stop. Our personalities and characters are formed by the culmination of the decisions we make, the lessons we (hopefully) learn, and what we do with the consequences of our actions choices. We live then, in essence, transitionally.

Obsessions I

2010-04-25T20:33:00.002-04:00

· Dancing
· Performing
· Going to the gym
· Coffee
· Starbucks
· Organization
· Neatness
· Cleanliness
· Hot showers
· Good haircuts
· Chopping up/off bad haircuts
· Sushi
· Noodles
· Writing
· Green things
· Healthiness and vitality

Yin & Yang

2010-04-25T20:33:00.001-04:00

Do we really need bad in the world to recognize the good? It’s an argument I’ve heard on numerous occasions recently, and it’s been leading me to wonder if we do indeed “need” negativity to see the positivity and beauty in life. Is there something preventing us from looking past the whole good and evil archetype and just accepting that we can actually have one without the other? Why do we feel compelled to see everything as strictly black and white rather than seeing everything for what it simply is? Can life simply just be?

As far as we can trace, yin and yang have governed every aspect of humanity, be you a devout believer in it or not. It’s irrefutable – we formulate plotlines, songs, daily life, philosophy, everything – on this idea that with good comes evil, and therefore with evil must come good. We are basically contradicting ourselves, then, when we say that we must end all evil on earth, and that conflict is the root of all strife. Would world peace then be the cause of our demise? Would the poles be reversed and all life cease if we were just too happy? I don’t get it. How can we collectively hold these two beliefs in balance when they so ardently oppose each other – they are magnets of the same charge, oil and water, vinegar and balsamic.

Yin and yang are real. Good and evil does exist. But maybe they don’t have to appear side by side all the time. I think that it may actually be possible to have one without the other. Oh, and that whole world peace thing – if this beautiful phenomenon would indeed manifest and we would stop chucking bombs at each other just because someone who was pissed off told us to, I don’t think we would all combust into cinders. As powerful as we are, we are still human, and therefore somehow create drama and contradiction when there isn’t any to be had. We would survive if all else were perfect. We are tormented beings enough to create some sort of internal yin and yang for ourselves. That’s just simply what is.

More Favorite Words...

2010-04-11T23:44:00.005-04:00

· Epitome
· Catharsis
· Apostrophe
· Plethora
· Bandersnatch
· Intense
· Rebel
· Juxtaposed

The Greatest High

2010-04-11T23:43:00.000-04:00

The greatest high that I can fathom and the greatest feeling in the world that I can ever deign to experience is that of performing. Simply being on a stage or even in a smaller, more intimate performance setting is what I live for. I live for that adrenaline high that later leaves me helplessly low and in withdrawal the next day, and I cherish those few moments that I really live on stage. I can’t describe the incredible beauty that graces artist and audience in those precious minutes in the burning lights on stage. I will never do it justice, and I will never be able to find the words to tell an outsider how it really feels to do what it is that I do. It’s in those hours of preparation and the gallons of sweat and blood spilled that I have been defined as a performer, technician, and human. But it’s when it all comes together that the magic really happens. I come alive. I am living, loving, dancing; the greatest high.

Three Little Words

2010-04-02T18:05:00.002-04:00

“Those three little words are thrown around so much that after a while they begin to lose their touch.” – Smash Mouth

“Those three words are said too much, then not enough.” – Snow Patrol

We sing about it. We watch movies about it. There are countless references to it in real life and in pop culture. We smile when we give and receive it. We cry and die a little when it is denied or stripped away. And yet we really don’t have much of a grasp of what it truly is.

“Love is a many splendid thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love.” – Moulin Rouge

We experience it yet we cannot ever really describe it to someone who has not felt it. What is it? Why do we crave and thrive on it? Why can we not live without it? Can we live without it?

There is truth in the words of some of the songs and movies and slogans – we either throw love around far too casually, or we forget to address it as frequently as we ought to. We often fail to acknowledge love when it stares us directly in the face; but life is so short and so fragile that we really can’t afford to let these words and feelings go unspoken and unfelt. Time and reality strip from us the moments that should be filled with appreciation and togetherness – we really don’t spend enough time with the people we love, or at least telling them how much we love them. When we least expect to be robbed of the beauty in our lives, it is unceremoniously ripped from our grasp and replaced with a hollow pit and an empty cavern.

So what does it narrow down to? What is the solution to this “problem”? Perhaps we should practice saying what we mean to say when we mean to say it. Perhaps we should take a moment each day to acknowledge how truly lucky we are to be surrounded by the people we choose to surround ourselves with, and to be in the company of those from whom we seek love and acceptance. Maybe we are all a little spoiled, and maybe we do all need to address our fortunes far more passionately than we currently do. Love is a universal truth that I believe everyone experiences, even in the smallest form; cultivating that little bit of love makes it that much easier to open our mouths and say those three little words: I love you.

Green

2010-04-02T18:05:00.001-04:00

Post-it note

Circle sticker

Bucket

Plastic leaves

Umbrella

Ribbon

Paper

Line

Marker

Box

Confetti

Crown

Water bottle

Folder

Number 8

Death Glare

2010-03-25T22:00:00.003-04:00

She walks past the table of faces she knows all too well. This familiar territory feels musky with judgment and the twisted, fabricated opinions of the majority. To be different is a crime; to be independent is frowned upon; to seek a higher meaning and comprehension of life is blasphemy. In her reality, the concept of individuality has been burned and buried, along with any shred of self that may have survived the harsh doctrines of this plastic society. The eyeballs in the sockets of the faces at the table pan slowly as she passes by – behind and within them, nothing but empty shells and heartless, soulless, uncalled-for incrimination. With a single death glare, volumes are spoken about the senders and their intents towards the receiver. The darkest corners of their auras are revealed within a split second – recognition of the individuals not necessary. She averts her eyes and carries on, yet their malice pierces her stingingly in the back nonetheless. Their hatred burrows deep into her spine and sends molten electricity through her veins. Their spite is now visible, its effects the adverse symptoms of jealously and fear. She continues. Self is self, and she will never cease to be herself. Hatred is the vehicle of the insecure, and it will soon feel just as old and worn out as the outdated and overused setting. They will succumb to their own poison, and karma will do the cleanup. She walks. She doesn’t turn around, and she doesn’t look back. She knows these faces too well, and she knows this place too well. But of all the things she knows, she knows who she is and where she’s going. They do not belong in her future, so she silently thanks them for shaping her past. The corners of her lips upturn and her demeanor lightens. Every death glare received is sent out into the universe as an offering of humanity’s finest moments; this is what too many have become. She sees it as it is, and she affirms self. Everything will be fine.

It goes on.

Historical

2010-03-25T22:00:00.001-04:00

The term “historical” is really odd. I was thinking – absolutely everything any single person, or any group of people, or anything, for that matter, does, can be deemed “historical.” We are each making history everyday. From the most seemingly insignificant act or gesture, we are extending our personal stories, values, beliefs, attitudes, perspectives, and selves into the Universe. We shape each next moment in time and in life by the actions and decisions we practice and put into play in the second preceding the last; we are the artists of our own histories and destinies. Where we have each come from is the product of self-motivated measures; our futures are the babies of the lessons we have or haven’t learnt, and the places of which we dream of going. We are all historians, painting a picture of our pasts and hypothesizing where the crazy reality of life is going to hurl us next. The ultimate collection of history, then, can’t be found in any library, museum, encyclopedia, or body of scholarly research. The greatest collection of human history is in fact, a living, breathing, ever-changing, and never-stagnant compendium of the human experience as lived and determined by each individual on this planet. We are together, epically historical.

Some of my favourite words and/or phrases at the moment...

2010-03-25T21:59:00.000-04:00

· Spontaneous combustion
· Soixante
· Spontaneous
· Fabulous
· Quite
· Baubles
· Pebbles
· Croissants
· Fuerte
· Inked

People Watching VI - Bubbles

2010-03-25T21:58:00.000-04:00

Just about five or six years into his life, the boy in the red hoodie clings onto his new toy. Multifaceted and shimmering spheres of suds float on the currents of the gentle breeze, bursting nonchalantly as they graze the tops of the hedges circumambulating the property. His brother, perhaps a year or two older, chases a bubble as he drags his grey-haired grandfather along for the adventure. The rhythmical hum of the seemingly magical device, still churning out an endless stream of fragile baubles, juxtaposes the shrill cries of delight that periodically escape the small mouths of the brothers. The younger of the two is transfixed on the prismatic rainbows contained within each miniature globe; or perhaps his fixation goes deeper into his vivid childhood imagination. He has many years yet to cling onto his vital creativity, and an airborne river of bubbles to carry his visions in this moment. At five or six, he is genius.

Kill

2010-03-13T23:09:00.001-05:00

I find it strange that we knowingly kill ourselves. We know what’s good for us and what isn’t, and yet we constantly find new ways of doing what we know we shouldn’t do. Perhaps it’s all in the thrill of not knowing whether this would be the one time something awful would happen and we actually would die, or maybe it’s in that terrible lurch in our stomachs that feels so oddly simultaneously good and bad. We puff on that next cigarette, inject foreign substances into our veins, drive like we’re alone on the road, poison our systems with bizarre things we don’t actually need. What we want is too often mistaken for what we need. We kill others by first killing ourselves.

Notes on a best friend...

2010-03-13T23:08:00.002-05:00

We live distinctly opposite lives. She’s in the mountains. I’m just a few miles from a bustling metropolis. She doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life, but I have no doubt that she will change the world. I know exactly what I want to do with my life, but I’m afraid I won’t get there. East and West.

Not many people are lucky enough to have a best friend. Apparently I am spoiled like that. She flew over three thousand miles across the country to visit me for a few short days. I showed her around. We visited all the best spots in this beautiful city. We talked. We laughed. We loved and still love. Then I cried when she left.

But it’s the differences that deceive and the hidden samenesses that make our friendship what it is. Outside we couldn’t be more unlike. Inside, we are the same person.

So I decided to do a little experiment… I put my iPod on “Shuffle” and kept my ears open for song lyrics that stood out to me most.

2010-03-13T23:08:00.001-05:00

“You’ve got the dreamer’s disease.”

“No one likes to be let down.”

“The stars are shining like rebel diamonds cut out from the sun.”

“You give me feelings that I adore.”

“I’m just a dreamer, I dream my life away.”

“And I think to myself: what a wonderful world.”

“V is very, very extraordinary.”

“Questions of science, science and progress, do not speak as loud as my heart.”

“My love is tainted.”

“Shorty’s like a melody in my head.”

“I want your leather studded kiss in the sand.”

“Have you seen me cry tears like diamonds?”

"Going through it."

2010-03-13T23:04:00.000-05:00

A phrase I’ve heard flying around more and more frequently lately. Basically, the process of going through all the shit life throws your way; dealing with the traumas, dramas, and pains; going through the rough patches and hoping to come out the other side alive and as whole as humanly possible. “Going through it” perhaps then is the process of simply being human. Maybe “going through it” is still moving forward while the rest of the world seems to be moving backwards or every other direction that isn’t the right one. It’s a directional impetus to either “go” or “be” in the beautiful mess that is life. There are days when you don’t “go through it,” then there are those days that seem to last an eternity in which “going through it” is all you can really do. When life is at its hardest is when the “going” literally gets tough. But the moments that we “go through it” define who we are and what we’re capable of - they are an affirmation of human perseverance and persistence.

Untitled I

2010-02-26T21:22:00.001-05:00

I am.

I am an artist.

I am never satisfied.

I am always hungry for more.

I am in constant need of movement.

I am an athlete and a performing work of art.

I am the embodiment of an idea, a dream, an emotion.

I am always pushing myself to do more, be more, feel more.

I am a scientist, seeking, searching, experimenting.

I am not afraid to take risks and get bruised.

I am a body of steel and a heart of gold.

I am desirous of enlightenment.

I am finding myself.

I am an artist.

I am.

Focus

2010-02-26T21:21:00.001-05:00

Focus. A drop of rain on a window. The landscape whizzing by. A picture defined by what we choose, or what our minds choose, to focus on. Where is our focus? Loss of focus. Loss of viewer. Loss of frame. Loss of moment. Camera pans, eyes shift diagonally downward forty five degrees. An image forever captured in time. Lose focus in life, and life becomes blurry. Pan in and out of blurriness and sharpness. Foreground and background never really mattered. It’s all about what we focus on. Change the lens, change the day, change the circumstances. Keep the focus.

People Watching V - Chess

2010-02-21T22:01:00.001-05:00

Market Street.

Powell Street.

Intersection.

Just before.

Men.

Homed and homeless.

Clustered around chess tables.

Some real.

Some improvised.

Black.

White.

Yellow.

Mocha.

An ancient practice in a modern city.

Glory eternal yet ephemeral.

Brows furrowed in deep concentration.

Mouths agape in confusion and puzzlement.

Crooked or toothless smiles warm the chilly air.

Noise.

Checkmate.

People Watching IV

2010-02-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

Thick glasses that seem too opaque to be real obscure his squinty, tired eyes. His wrinkled white button-down shirt is splattered with the traces of salt water, sweat, and dissatisfaction.

His ill-fitting khaki pants hug his too-big belly, distended with the overconsumption of noodles, dim sum, and Ylang-Ylang. Dark wet patches at countertop height give away his profession and indicate how recently he assisted his last customer.

As he operates his dingy cash register, greedily eyeing the green that is passing between his less pigmented customers and himself, he grins widely and superficially. His toad-like visage enhanced, he morphs into some far more complex than a fish store owner slash operator.

Filling transparent plastic bags with water, life, and air, and sealing them with a twisty-tie and placing them within more plastic bags, he is a machine - well oiled and an accustomed hand at his unusual profession. Ethics and origins aside, he is only concerned with making the sale.

You buy it, your problem if you break it. No refunds, no exceptions. Something he’s carried with him across both hemispheres.

Birthdays

2010-02-15T21:22:00.001-05:00

Birthdays are really weird things if you sit down and think about it. We have collectively decided that we each deserve to revel in praise and gorge ourselves on carbs annually following the day we are born into human existence. We even celebrate (or at lease acknowledge) the birthdays of the people that we loathe. Quite frankly, it’s weird.

I feel as though we should really be celebrating the mothers that brought us all into the world on our birthdays. Our mothers are the ones who are responsible for us each having a day to celebrate, after all. Following our zero-th birthday, we forget the fact more and more each subsequent year. It’s rather backward, really. We are raised on a pedestal for a day for something we never actually “did.” It’s not like it took any effort on my part to be born. I had at least one person, my mother, who went through it and made it happen.

I just turned nineteen on February 10^th. So “Happy Welcome to Life Day” to me… And a million and one thanks to you, mum.

Portrait of Escape

2010-02-15T21:21:00.000-05:00

Escape: (verb) to break free from confinement or control.

As I see it: (verb) to remove myself from a situation or place of oppression, pain, and hindrance, to one of understanding, appreciation, and growth; to seek out and find happiness.

I am the one that got away. I am the one that got out. I am the one who continues to prove them wrong and defy the system. I am one of the few who decided against conformism and cookie-cutters. I am in good company with the people who actually shaped our culture, our world, as we now know it. A responsible rebel. I am one of those. I am that girl. It’s not and will never be about running away. It’s about running towards the future and leaving the past behind. Escape is daring to believe that there is something else and something better to seek, do, become. Escape is risking everything for a slim possibility, but a potentially brilliant one at that.

I will continue to escape the things that just aren’t enough, because escape is worth it. Maybe one day I will stop running and defying norms. Perhaps I will settle. But for now, escape is all I have, and escape has defined me. I have escaped, and I will escape again.

City

2010-02-07T22:09:00.001-05:00

My city is perfect.
It has always had those dodgy areas and alleys you just know never to venture down. It is home to thousands of homeless souls, lost to wandering, begging, and bleakly existing. In some corners it reeks of decay and waste. It is desperately dark when the sun drops below the horizon. The mildew-y houses are locked, dead bolted, gated, locked, and dead bolted again. Every person you pass on the street is a suspect. You go about your day with your head down; it doesn’t encourage conversation. Its streets are stained with grime and age. Its drains constantly emanate hot sulfurous steam. Its crowds are overwhelming. Its districts are sandwiched together. Its property literally costs you an arm and a leg. Its pace and bustle are relentless. Its scene is merciless.
My city is perfect.
It invites you to explore its treasures and lesser-known wonders. It calls to travelers, wanderers, lovers, dreamers, and seekers. It gleans with history and novelty. The sun grazes the juxtaposed yet coinciding trees and buildings. The beautiful old houses are fortified tastefully and magnificently. Every face you see is of a different race, culture, history, and background. You walk the streets like you own them; it almost forces an internal dialogue of the soul. Its streets have been treaded by a billion stories. Its brilliance lies below and above the surface. Its gatherings are immense and powerful. Its boroughs are varied and in abundance. Its homes are priceless. Its scene is infinite.
My city is perfect.

Home

2010-02-07T22:08:00.002-05:00

What is home? I’ve never really had a good sense of the word. In those annoying surveys you get given by all sources of information-haggling junkies, the box “hometown” remains blank for me. Is home where you are “from?” Is home where your family resides? Is home where your soul feels most at peace with the world? Can home be multiple places and states of being at once? I’ve never really known a home. But maybe, just maybe, I’ve got it a little more figured out lately.

My home is divided, but it is not two homes. Split between coasts and across vast expanses of distance and differences, I am in two places at once. I don’t love one more than the other, though I love them for differing reasons. Home is actually where my heart is (apologies for the cliché). But even though I’m split down the middle, I carry my whole heart with me to either home. I have two hearts that are the same.

Being away from my physical home, away from the proximity of the familiar, the loved, and the known, I have found a new appreciation for what I leave behind each time I get on a plane and jet towards my other, newer, shinier home. My first home is Zen yet chaotic, warm yet refreshing, old yet advanced, and invaded yet safe. It comes with a family, a roof, and a bed to sleep in. It comes with an overflowing abundance of unconditional love.

My second home is three thousand miles west, and a world away. Thinking about it makes my heart skip a beat. It buzzes. It never sleeps. It inspires. It drives. It promises. My second home makes me want to get out of bed each morning. It invites me to dance and dares me to make my next move. My new home is thrilling. In this home, I am in love with an idea, a possibility, and a city.

Home seems to be wherever I am. I make a destination a home simply by being there. I make a place home by adapting, adjusting, and fine-tuning. Home is convoluted. It’s not a one-worded entity. Home is whatever I make of it, and whatever I desire to embody. Home is a choice as much as it is a location. Home is… love.

People Watching III

2010-01-28T23:40:00.002-05:00

In a flurry of urgency, he plunges his hand into his regulation carry-on and produces a blank, lined legal pad and a black fine-point gel pen. Even as the plane parts reluctantly from the tarmac in a frenzy of jolts and jitters, his single-minded attention to his alternative canvas is impressive. His wizened hands clasping his thin pen, he scratches furiously at the pages of paper before him, pausing not even to take in the beauty that is unfolding itself before us somewhere between the thousands of miles separating Houston and San Francisco. His worn and weathered knitted sweater, seemingly the result of too many extra bits of wool collected over the years and later assembled haphazardly, is threadbare in places, yet so reminiscent of the character I believe him to be. Traveled. Well-versed. Independent. Yearning. His handwriting is illegible; I so want to rip those annoyingly loud pages from his dry and vein-y hands and spill their secrets to the rest of the cabin. It’s a script. He-said, she-said. His grey and white hair is glowing in the afternoon sunlight streaming through the tiny, grimy window; his thick glasses hide his tired eyes. He fidgets, and though he is tempted to break for peanuts and soda, he is resolute. The pages and the miles fly by, but the distances covered by his words are perhaps destined to travel forever. Immortality is granted to the soldiers of language, the shapers of words, and the sweater-wearing poets in the window seats of airplanes.

Impetus

2010-01-28T23:40:00.001-05:00

Impetus. An inkling towards change, a motivation for an action, a nudge in a very specific direction, a catalyst to get the chemicals working. By definition, “the force that makes something happen or happen more quickly.” With the collective billions of humans in existence, each going through his or her own selfish and solitary life, I have to wonder what gets all of us out of bed each day. Is there a common human thread that leads us to greet the sun each morning or allow its rays to gently graze the insides of our eyelids? Why do we rise each day just to know that one of these days, we won’t?

Impetus. What drives us to do what we do, make the right and wrong choices, and continue to live not knowing our fates. Mankind has the beautiful and terrible tendency to trust the forces of life – we are continually pushed and pulled by unseen influences everyday, which are often subconscious and self-manifested, though more frequently externally dictated.

Impetus. Three syllables that carry the power and implications to shape a generation; one ripple to start the tsunami. A meaning to live or a doctrine to live by; we are ruled by whims and moved by life.

Impetus.

NCUR 2010

2010-01-23T13:07:00.002-05:00

I've got some academically exciting news, followers! Last semester I had to write a pretty content-heavy research paper about feminism and Orientalism as it has morphed (or not) over time. I was then required to submit my abstract for this paper to the National College Undergraduate Research convention, which will be held in Montana in the Spring of 2010.

Good news! My abstract, "Female Objectivity: From Delacroix to Dior," was accepted into the conference from over 2,600 submissions, to be presented at the conference in April!

More updates as this happening unfolds...

2010

2010-01-12T00:24:00.003-05:00

All this talk about resolutions and how awfully or wonderfully 2009 treated people got me thinking about time, events, and their interconnectivity. Everything is about timing. Everything. But I really don't think that one can have a wholly "bad" year, or a wholly "good" one. Perhaps on the extremely rare occasion, this phenomenon could maybe possibly occur, but realistically and logically, take a second and think back on your past year...

365 days. 8,760 hours. 525,600 minutes. 31, 536, 000 seconds.

And an immeasurably infinite number of moments in between.

That's a lot of memories and a load of cognition.

So much can happen over the course of a year. So much can even happen within a few milliseconds of any given event. Blissful serenity or overflowing glee can turn into anguish or resent in the space of time it takes to blink.

A life can be extinguished instantly.

The opposite can also occur - from the gutters and pain of a lost cause or a tormented head and heart, new life can spring to an individual with the promise of new and inviting possibilities. Potential can be tapped in an instant, and prospects suddenly brighten.

I find it somewhat narrow, and frankly a little naïve, for an individual to suppose that "2009 was the worst year of my life!" How can each of those 31, 536, 000 seconds have been that awful? How could it have been an entirely traumatic, scarring, putrescent, rotten, ill-omened, dementing, depressing year? Within those millions of seconds, infinite moments, and eternal memories, there was something. Though it may not be evident in the heat of the moment, and though it may take time to come to comprehension's fruition, there is no such thing as a completely wasted year.

Those somethings, be they few and far between, fall into place and are what we call "experiences." Life happens. It's what always happens. And though we tell our friends that "life is treating me poorly today," life is, believe it or not, not a person. It's not coincidence either. It's reason. It throws at you what it chooses for ordained purposes. We learn from life. We learn from experience. We learn from all those little somethings, and even from the nothings.

The most tragic life experiences, the most destitute situations, the most horrid happenings... Things we wish had never happened. Choices we wish we had never made. Events we wish we had never witnessed. Bad, yes, but undeniably good also. To make the measure of time "better," we face the things we never want to face, the hardest things, now.

A whole year can never truly be all bad. Within and beyond the bad, there is learning. While we are alive, we, as humans, have collectively decided to learn and educate and progress. The worst remarks and sternest glances and most painful loses and difficult times teach us what it means to be human. They teach us what is real, what is taken for granted, and what we have to lose. The negative teaches us to see the positive.

There's no sense in bashing a year for bashing your life. Soak in what happened. Reflect. Admire. Mourn. Laugh. Cry. LEARN. Blame it on timing for cramming a whole string of shitty times into 365 days, but within those days, find the beautiful moments where life was "good." They're in there. I promise.

New Year's Resolution #1: Balance.

Perception

2010-01-12T00:05:00.002-05:00

It goes without saying that from the outside looking in, we are often mistaken, misconstrued, misunderstood, wrong. But what about from the inside looking out? Our perceptions of ourselves are often a far cry from how the rest of the world sees us. Recalling how we used to be in simpler times, hindsight and openly voiced opinions of old acquaintances combine to simultaneously befuddle and demystify. Things are so different when you change a few variables and seek a second opinion. Change your perspective. I suppose what I'm trying to answer is... Are we what other people say we are? Which has greater validity - what we think of ourselves, or what others think about us? In the end, the majority of us are not completely self-sufficient and therefore rely on some sort of external approval and acceptance to get by. Are we designed and destined to be judged externally? And is this external or outward appearance what we actually are, what defines us; since that is what the rest of humanity witnesses? Do we truly know ourselves best? Do we realistically know ourselves at all? It seems that sometimes the two coincide. But like icebergs, 'they' say that so much more of each individual lurks below the surface. True, and sometimes scary, but is that who we are? Am I as the public sees me? Or am I the many hidden facets daylight hardly ever sees? I suppose it's a choice; a decision to care or not to care about what people think; an assertion of values and beliefs. I don't think that there is any definitive answer to perception. I guess it's one of those unanswerable matters of how you perceive it.

Journey

2009-12-15T22:52:00.003-05:00

Journey: (n) the passage or progress from one stage to another. This is just the first step on my journey. I look behind me and see my past; the experiences that have gotten me where I am today, the events that have culminated in the present, the shit that has inevitably happened to teach me what is real and what is worth fighting for. Here in this moment, I am present. I am drunk in it. I am in love with the infinite little pieces that have fallen in place to create my world as I now know it, and I am in love with being exactly where I am supposed to be. I am finding beauty where it is often forgotten, and discovering facets of me I never knew existed. This is taking a chance on a new and different life, stepping bravely into the void of the unknown, getting out of the box, sprinting headfirst into vulnerability, and risking it all for a shimmer of possibility. My journey has only just begun, and the best part is, I don't yet know where it is taking me.

People Watching II

2009-11-15T21:43:00.005-05:00

I wonder if they knew they were neighbors.

I would never have known had I not followed them to their doorsteps. I would never have guessed that these two seemingly average men happened to live next door to each other in their million dollar houses. I would never suspect such a coincidence. Was it coincidence?

But maybe I should learn to expect the unexpected, be it cliché or not.

I couldn't get out pen and paper and jot this all down while following these two men at a safe distance on foot, so this edition of people watching is a little unorthodox. I like to think that this is also a good exercise for my memory. A little brain stimulation never hurt anybody.

He was tall and wore faded jeans with worn-out back pockets. He had a red and black backpack slung over his left shoulder, and he wore a cardinal red baseball hat on his too-small head. For his height, I felt as though he was taking uncomfortably small strides.

Maybe he was tired.

I was tired.

Something about this stranger was simultaneously frightening and thrilling to me. I'd walked down that street countless times, alone, at night, in almost total darkness, in much tighter jeans and far less sensible shoes. But this time, I felt the need to keep my distance from this ominous and haggard form.

He seemed sad.

His tiny backpack looked like it carried the weight of all the world's sorrows. I never saw his face.

I did see him walk up the driveway of one of the nicest houses on the street, however - the one with the huge windows and flowers hanging from the balcony and the quaint blue paint job.

Robbery? I thought.

Never judge a book by its cover I've been told.

Never judge a faceless man by his back.

Is that why they call it stabbing in the back?

I didn't see the elderly man walking 30 feet ahead of the tall pin-headed man until I saw the latter cross the threshold of his opulent abode. The wizened gentleman walked with a hunchback, and also remained faceless to me.

I want so badly to put faces to the mannerisms of these two fascinating characters. But then maybe their identities would ruin it all. Who knows. I'll never know.

The old man wore muted earth tones. A simple tan sweater above dark pants and those little "grandpa" shoes. He shuffled. He hunched. He looked like he was in pain. I imagine his facial expression to have been either one of two things: acceptance and contentment with a full-life lived, or hurt and longing for youth that too quickly slipped away.

He lives next door to the tall man. His house is slightly smaller, but nonetheless beautiful and warm. It gave off the aura of having been lived in and loved for a great number of years. The last image I have of this man was of him fiddling with his keys at his doorstep.

In our society, we collectively and generally place our measurement of wealth on material goods. What we have in goods is a representation of our personal value. We have price tags. We are labelled. We ignore the inside stuff; the stuff we are actually made of.

If I have to measure my life, I want to measure it in possibilities. And as commonplace and unimportant as watching two stranger-neighbors walk home seems, it was bizarrely magical to me at that moment. There's still a tingly magic lingering there. The impossibly normal became extraordinary for me; possibility became reality for five minutes, and still fills me with that warm fuzzy feeling.

I wonder if they knew they were neighbors.

Spattered Truths

2009-11-14T19:29:00.010-05:00

130 Palm blasts classical and baroque music from its million-dollar walls at a significantly audible volume, only to fall upon an earless audience, with the exception of the handful of lone figures that pass by the mansion on foot each day. The black Volvo station wagon patiently awaits its owner's next errand-run silently from the leaf-strewn curb.

The house next door looks like somewhere you'd film a cheap murder mystery movie.

The people living on the same hall as I enjoy deafening the presently un-deaf members of our living community with their tasteless, door-rattling, after-hours noise emitted from their iPods and their similarly loud selves. The crowd, who in large part, actually enjoys sleep, does not go wild.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone would actually commit a murder out of annoyance here.

In a search for tolerance and comprehension, it seems as though whether you live in a mansion or a dormitory hallway; a nirvana for the wizened or a prison for the young and restless, you come across the same kinds of people over and over and over again. We never change, do we?

Sometimes I wish my brain would create and install an external hard drive on its own. I have too many thoughts and not enough RAM.

Sometimes I think I will never find like-minded people.

Sometimes I am really, really afraid that I will never find like-minded people.

Sometimes I wonder why things happen the way they do, but I never question that they happen the way they are supposed to.

The grass is green.

Or so they say.

Thoughts that are spattered are the ones that reveal the most about our deeper selves.

Changing your environment for the short- or long-term is healthy sometimes. Oftentimes. Always.

Change is uncomfortable. Change is good.

Listening to songs on repeat is not a crime.

Finding sanity in solitude is bliss, and should never be shunned or deemed aloof by those who are incapable of accepting aloneness.

Love is complex and ugly.

Love is simple and beautiful.

I am afraid to get out.

I can't wait to get out.

And above all, I am here, and I am growing. I am changing, I am absorbing, and I am finding myself. I am doing it by myself, on my own terms.

Living as an imitation and forcing myself into a more "desirable" mold is physically, psychologically, and emotionally exhausting. Trust me, I've tried it.

I am done being something I am not.

From now on, I promise to only be myself.

This is my public declaration and celebration of who I am, what I am, and where I am going.

I will be strong.

There is something magical in the sound of my own footsteps on deserted, darkened streets.

There is something magical in coming into myself.

There is nothing better than a million light bulbs turning on blindingly in my head simultaneously.

And amidst so much confusion and noise, there is nothing better than documenting this neurological phenomena in the divine void of silence.

So now, silence.

Death

2009-09-12T17:11:00.005-04:00

Life is fragile, fickle, and irreplaceable. It has its highs and its lows; it doesn't warn us of the future; it can be ended in a nanosecond. Life is indeed precious and beautiful - most of us take this beautiful phenomenon for granted, and as cliché as this has become, it couldn't be more true. Death prematurely takes our loved ones and leaves no trace of sympathy. After the shock, all we can do is grieve. All we can do is cry. All we can do is hope to keep going. It must go on.

In life and death, we face intolerable unfairness. The innocent die young, the twisted bastards get away without a scratch. Life is simply extinguished as though a candle is blown out, and an aspect of your life unwillingly disappears. You want to pick up the phone and call her. You want to hug her.

You want it to be a lie.

But death is an incurable injury. There's no way to reverse time, to make it not real, to change a single event that may have altered the course of the future. There's no way to simply stop the tears and to feel fine. Life doesn't make provisions to turn back the clock, and life doesn't halt in our moments of suffering. Life continues. Life goes on. It must go on.

The constants of life and death, while spectrally juxtaposed, are one and the same in justice - oftentimes they are unjust. In grief, it is hard to comprehend the depth of "death." Accepting that you will never see your departed again, never hear her voice, and never hang out again - it's not something I think I'll ever fully grasp. What was there is now gone.

You can tell yourself it will be okay. You can tell yourself you'll get over it. After a while you begin to feel numb. But life keeps whizzing by.

I'll never understand why people are taken away from us with no prior notice. With so much beauty in the world, we are flawed by the unfairness of fate. Sometimes those who deserve to persevere and carry over their liveliness to the world are simply cleared from the drawing board. As the survivors, all we can do is live with their souls close to ours, with our hearts still open and accepting. We can cry for those who had to leave their physical bodies, and we can love them eternally. We have to persist and not live in fear.

With love and light, life goes on.

"In the pain there is healing." - Lifehouse.

Love you, Elena Shapiro AKA E-Shap.

November 14, 1988 - September 11, 2009.

Precipice

2009-08-22T20:07:00.003-04:00

Upon the precipice of new beginnings, new adventures, risks, and leaps, we hesitate and stutter. We cling to inhibitions as our lifelines and our safety nets. In looking forwards, we never fail to look backwards as well. As though we are caught between worlds, between dreams and reality, we fail to be caught in the mystic beauty of the unknown. Precipices tend to be epic, massive, larger than life, bigger than anything we have ever known or experienced. It is understandable that we would flinch at the idea of leaping into the void of free-falling and vastly empty unknowns. Yet, upon the cliffs and canyons of new, there is beauty, and there is something to be admired. There is more than just something. There is everything. There is opportunity. There is adventure. There is possibility. There is potential. There is promise. The precipice is only the beginning. To take the leap is to open oneself to an infinity of infinities, and a chance for more chances.

Starting Over

2009-08-10T19:18:00.003-04:00

The best thing about starting over is the fresh, and sometimes undeserved (and sometimes more than deserved) opportunity to reinvent yourself. Moving somewhere new, where the streets are filled with unfamiliar faces, yet void of lingering old memories, presents you with a clean slate and a little snippet of time where for a second, you can be completely anonymous. Absolutely nobody knows or recognizes you. For some, this sounds like the most petrifying position ever to be ordained to inhabit, but just imagine the possibilities the simple act of commencing anew opens up...

Starting over doesn't mean your previous life was a complete wreck, nor a course set for certain disaster. Starting over absolutely does not make you a failure. Starting over is courageous and bold. Starting over means that you are unafraid to pick up the perhaps painful and poisonous old pieces and throw them away. Starting over means that you want something else, something new, something exciting. Starting over is even a way of life for some - Gordon Ramsey has to scream at his kitchen staff to "start over" a million times each night at dinner service. How's that for short-term "starting overs?"

Reinvention is a beautiful thing. Old perceptions are thrown to the winds, new goals and appearances take their place. Things you would never dream of wearing in a previous life, you are suddenly free and able to pull off. With your newfound anonymity and clear path, fear turns into speculation and hope. Your identity that once was, now is no more. You can be exactly what and anybody you want to be. Simply, reinvention is a second chance at a first impression.

So starting over is sometimes scary and foreign. But that's what makes it so enticing. If we knew what was around the corner, would we really look? If we knew how we were going to die one day, would we still find the will to live? Starting over is something to be coveted. It's a wealth of possibility, wrapped up in two little words. It's a first kiss for an old lover. It breathes new life into a derelict soul. It's the chance to begin a new saga.

The Void

2009-08-09T22:55:00.003-04:00

Today I paid a visit to the movies to see that charming new flick, 'Julie & Julia.' In the movie (based on two true stories), Julie Powell, an aspiring writer stuck in a rut of identity crisis and cubicle desk job, embarks on a "deranged assignment" to write a blog documenting her year-long journey of self-discovery by "cooking her way" through Julia Child's innovative French-made-easy cookbook.

At one point, Julie doubts her own sanity as she writes her blogs. She brings up an important point that got me thinking about this, my own blog. She says something to the effect that she feels like her blogs are simply being thrown out into cyberspace, a "void," where she isn't quite sure who is actually reading them. I daresay that this is precisely how I feel sometimes. With a lack of comments, and a lack of confidence that these blogs are actually reaching anyone's hearts, let alone computer monitors, I too feel as though my words are being spewed out into the cavernous and infinitely mind-bogglingly intangible blackness of the internet. I mean, what is the internet? Seems like everything is done electronically now - transactions and communications are all carried out through an un-navigable web of lightning-fast digital exchanges. My poor pen and paper are directing their puppy-dog glances at me right now as I type this on my computer, to you, reading this on the internet.

Julie Powell stated exactly what has been running through my mind. Who is reading this? I know there are a few of you out there. I can't express enough how grateful I am that you take a few minutes out of your day to read my occasional rant, really.

Will my blog ever be as successful at Julie Powell's? Who knows. A girl can dream! But for now, I am more than happy to hack away at my keyboard, sending my little bits of binary code (or however it's done) into the massive wormhole of the internet, in the hopes that this does indeed reach you. If not even that, I suppose I can live with not knowing and just take comfort in the satisfaction and joy that all this is bringing me.

"Bon appétit!"

Concert

2009-08-07T16:46:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I had the incredible opportunity of seeing my favourite band, Coldplay, perform live in Raleigh, NC. Well, incredible doesn't even begin to cover it. I can't imagine how it must feel to stand on that stage and look out into a sea of hundreds of thousands of adoring fans and followers. The entire experience (aside from being a night of amazing music, a fantastic live performance, all spent in the company of good friends) made me realize just how many people actually populate the world!

Humans, by nature, are selfish and self-preserving. It's no crime, it's how we have survived and thrived over the centuries. As individuals, we go on about our days with single-minded determination, be it in the active enjoyment of life, work, or just relaxation. Most of us rarely try to envision the scope of human activity occurring simultaneously with our own. What is my brother doing right now? How is my friend from elementary school faring? What are young adults my age across the world doing at this very moment? These thoughts don't exactly jump into my mind as I do my thing. But imagine if this psyche of awareness could be collectively tapped and made known! I wonder if our alertness and sense of humanity would increase dramatically. I wonder what we could learn and gain from this massive populous. Without the "six degrees of separation," how many people would we actually get to meet in our short life spans?

Standing in that ocean of thousands yesterday, all gathered to celebrate the same miracle of music, made almost tangible by an incredible group of artists, my own insignificance was made acutely apparent. Of course, on an individual-to-individual basis, we all mean something dearly to somebody. But to be the object of devotion by so many complete strangers must be something else! Dancing on stage is as close as I can fathom the feeling. I find performance transcending, and as a performer, I feel almost out-of-body when I really get into the moment. I suppose the dance world has yet to experience as much limelight as recording artists get to live in, and I fear that we'll never quite catch up. But that's how it works, and that's okay. Dance tends to be more intimate, and our art isn't one that calls for cat-calls and whistling. We are the silent embodiment of beauty.

But before I got off on a tangent, I was saying how massive the collectivity of humanity can be, and obviously, is. Perhaps we are hardwired to seek company and to be around like-minded people. When this gets blown up to huge proportions, as seen clearly at concerts and marches and all other forms of public gathering, the sensation is, quite frankly, indescribable. I personally loathe crowds. But last night, I saw the beauty in congregation, if you will. I was strangely touched by the joint respect, awe, and love of those four people on that stage. I was moved by the sound of hundreds of thousands of pairs of lungs inhaling in preparation for Chris Martin's challenge to hold a single note for an absurd amount of time. I was star-struck, along with my fellow audience members, to be witnessing such a fabulous musical event first-hand. My hardened self teared up to the notes of my favourite song sung in unison by my favourite band and that huge mass of people. At that moment, I felt as if it was all for me. In my insignificant shell, I felt whole. In that huge collection of DNA, souls, and stories, I was still unique.

"Re-"

2009-07-13T23:14:00.004-04:00

The prefix "re-" brings to mind many connotations. When considered in terms of the eco-friendly crowd, "re-" is a blessing; a chance to make right what has been done wrong. "Re-" is a beacon of opportunity and a phenomenon worth practicing. Recycle, reuse, reduce! But when I think of "re-" in the context of life, I find my mind drifting to the dark realm of regret and do-overs. For some reason, my mind has allotted this bundle of "re-" into the negative column, and I have trained myself to shy away. Well, actually, sprint away. As a declared perfectionist and former pro in the area of self-loathing and regret, I think I'm afraid of "re-"s because having to face a "re-" means that I didn't do something right the first time.

They say change is good. Embrace change! Change is the way to progress! Change is the road to self-betterment! I do believe that change is necessary, and that change equals challenge, and challenge equals excitement, and excitement equals drive, and drive equals potential, and so on and so forth. Yes, I suppose that makes me a fan of the ominous yet omnipresent dark angel of change. However, in my midst of so much personal change, at this pivotal crossroads in my life, I seem to be embracing "re-" and putting my buddy change in the backseat for a nanosecond. I have just completed my second summer with the Alonzo King LINES Ballet summer intensive, and in the very near future, I will embark on the next chapter in my life as a college student in the Dominican University of California / LINES Ballet B.F.A. program. I cannot wait to get my new saga going, but naturally, I feel a certain pang of hesitation. I think that "re-" and change collide at times like these. I desperately, desperately (oh if only you knew how desperately) want to move on with my life, away from small-town "oppression" and plagues of setbacks and rejections. My enthusiasm for where I will soon find myself is bubbling over, and the more I think about it, the more eager I become. But then there's that little demon in the back of my mind that whispers slyly, "Some things never change; some things you'll never escape from." My optimistic shoulder tells me to push the little devil away, but my reasoning tells me to stop and think: Is this the right thing to do? What if you're not happy a couple of months in? As I type this and share my woes with the world (thanks, Internet), I find my response coming to me easily. Yes, I am certain that this is the right thing to do. Yes, I will be happy. And yes, I am SO ready for this change. I see that my recent "re-"s are actually influencing my revolutionary state of mind. My "re-"s, all of my looking-backs, are really moving me forward.

I ran into a minor tragedy this summer while I was at the LINES summer intensive when my camera's memory card was reformatted and wiped by accident, deleting the hundreds of photos and numerous videos I had taken over the course of the five-week program. Devastated as I was, my mother had words of wisdom to cheer me up and move me along. "Things always happen for a reason. Things always work out the way they are supposed to in the end. It's the universe's way of reminding you to look forward instead of always looking back." I quickly got over my losses and realized that as much as photos and videos are wonderful to be in possession of, the fact that I actually experienced everything I'd documented was worth so much more. In living, I could find beauty, and in experiencing, memory is embedded.

Having the opportunity to study at LINES during the summer for the second time in a row was really what inspired me to study the two-headed beast of "re-." Re-experiencing. Re-learning. Re-evaluating. Re-doing. Re-dancing. Re-seeing. Re-loving. "Re-" became my greatest personal psychological weapon for five weeks, and I plan on exploring the depths of "re-" from now on. Honestly, it was nice being able to re-visit a familiar place with familiar people and see what non-"re"s I could dig up. In comfortable environments, we are forced to challenge ourselves to find uncomfortable situations and ways of working in order to achieve change and improvement. I was able to dive straight into the meaning of being at LINES without needing to be broken down first. I knew what was expected of me, and what I expected of myself. "Re-" helped me navigate my way around the city, around people, and most importantly, within myself. "Re-" simultaneously gave me a second chance and glimpse of the future. I learned to surrender.

I am proud to say that I am now a fan of "re-change."

Secrecy

2009-05-26T15:23:00.002-04:00

We all have our own little secrets; sanity and self-preservation would be out of the question without them. Sometimes we lie, steal, cheat. Sometimes we hide traits or actions that are societally deemed "abnormal." Sometimes we do it out of spite, but sometimes, we do it out of love. We may decide that muffling, smothering, and partially extinguishing our vices is the best way to protect ourselves and the ones from whom we seek acceptance. Without secrets, what is there to discover? Conversation would become dull, flirtatious advances would seem futile, and privacy would morph into publicy. Truth be told, and as paradoxical as it sounds, secrecy is the glue of human sanctity. Our private thoughts and actions are our own little nirvanas - places to escape, revert, and hopefully, learn. We conceal our tabooed behaviors to preserve a little bit of something to be imagined by the outside world, and we don't do-and-tell because our private lives are our own to decipher. It's in these secrets that our depth of character is revealed. Perhaps we feel the need to tuck away our dirty little secrets in tin boxes in the back of our closets because as hard as it is already to come by acceptance, we feel that our vices may further hinder us. You can't help but wonder then, if we possess wit enough to make such a conclusion, why can't we be smart enough to change ourselves? It's simple, kids. Our secrets keep us going, and keep us believing that we are so independently unique because we know something that absolutely no one else does. Secrecy makes us feel powerful. However, it's our responsibility and test of true strength, to know when some secrets ought to be revealed, or allowed to be quietly evaporated into the world of knowledge.

Carolina Ballet - A Year in the Life of a Trainee - The Last One

2009-05-17T11:17:00.002-04:00

So I realize that I didn't exactly do a stellar job at keeping this blog up-to-date on a daily or weekly basis, but my aim has always been, and always will be, to provide my readers with something of substance; I hope that what I lacked in terms of quantity and frequency, I made up for in quality in these blogs.

As the 2008-2009 season draws rapidly to a close, I can officially say that this will be my final blog for the CB Talkback site. I will not be returning to Carolina Ballet next season, and will therefore be discontinuing these "Life As A Trainee" blogs. However, I hope that you will stay in touch with me and check in to see what I've been up to - I have my own blog at llipaarmes.blogspot.com>, and I'm also a Facebook user, so feel free to "friend" me - I would love to keep contact with everyone!

Next year I'll be moving out to the West coast - I auditioned for and was accepted into the Alonzo King LINES Ballet B.F.A. Program in conjunction with Dominican University of California on scholarship; in San Francisco / San Rafael, CA. I will also be attending the LINES Ballet Summer Pre-Professional Program again this summer before I make the big move in the fall. I am incredibly thrilled to start a new chapter in my life in an amazing new environment, broadening my knowledge and dance (and life) experiences. I am so excited to see what the future has in store for me!

I will certainly miss aspects of being a part of Carolina Ballet, and as my final "Trainee" monologue, I must tell you of the invaluable lessons and observations I have made here, particularly in this past season, that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

Being a Trainee has taught me patience - an attribute which I think I can safely say most of us can use a little work on, and one which I know for a fact I am somewhat lacking! I have also learned the vitality of individual initiative. I have always thought of myself as one that does what needs to be done without question, but this season has really pushed me to work for myself, not with external perspective as my prime factor of judgement, but with self-betterment, the long run, and inner perception as my motivations. I have witnessed motivation and discipline in both their finest and lowest moments, and have become accustomed to befalling victim, if you will, to the inherent, although not always fair, pecking order of life in a professional environment.

Among many, many other things, and with all that said, perhaps the most profound lesson I have pieced together recently was in me coming to the obvious, but so elusive and oftentimes almost impossible to conceive, realization that professional dancers, choreographers, directors, artists, are all simply human. To use my good school-learned math skills, I find occasion now to apply this to the Law of Syllogism.If a=b, and b=c, then a=c. If professional dancers are human, and humans are imperfect, then professional dancers are imperfect. There it is: I've said those choice taboo words that audience members may not ever really believe, but I know for a fact that this is true. Watching the higher-ranking dancers in the company has provided me with opportunities to dissect, and more importantly, learn from, their movement and dancing. If the world was "perfect," well, it would frankly be blatantly cookie-cutter and insanely boring. It's really a dancer's imperfections and individuality that make him or her so unique, that make us drawn to them, that inspire and awe us, that make us want more. To be dancer is to be human (Think of the song "Human" by the Killers, which incidentally happens to be one of my all-time favorite songs). So in the final days of this season, I have finally found myself at that point where I can fully understand the beauty of imperfection, and the truth that dancers aren't really at all as intimidatingly perfect as they are often made out to be. I find infinitelymore beauty and power in imperfection than in a robot dressed in a tutu.

I have had the incredible opportunity to be a part of a growing, diverse, and intimate professional ballet company before even leaving high school - something that I am so proud of, and whole-heartedly thankful for. I have seen numerous amazing Carolina Ballet performances, and have danced in a few. There is something nice about being in a company small enough to know everyone's names, in an environment where everyone (for the most part) gels and gets along famously - something I feel you don't come by often.

But it is definitely time for me to move on. This has been a year full of life lessons learned, and experiences documented. Yes, I will miss this, but there are also bigger and broader things out there waiting for me, and I can't wait to find my niche in the dance world. My perfect fit will most likely be comprised of a series of imperfect scenarios, of which I'm sure CB will slot into somewhere. I will definitely be back to visit the studios whenever I can, but in the meantime, please do keep in touch phillipaarmes.blogspot.com>, and keep and eye out for me :]

"The real beauty in life is that beauty can sometimes occur." - Dancer, Colum McCann

Carolina Ballet - A Year in the Life of a Trainee - Just An Ordinary Day

2009-05-17T11:16:00.002-04:00

Realizing that I got this blog started quite late on in the season, I seem to have bypassed a fundamental formality that I proposed at the initiation of these posts: A Day in the Life of a Trainee! So here's the basic run down of what a typical day looks like for me:

6:30 - 6:40am (usually towards the latter end!) -- Wake up for school

7:25am -- Tardy bell for school rings, classes start

8:55am -- First period ends (I only have one class per semester, and leave now)

9:00am -- Drive to the Carolina Ballet studios

9:30am -- Arrive at the studio and warm up

10:00am -- Class starts!

11:20am -- Class ends

After class is over, daily rehearsals commence. My personal rehearsal schedule varies greatly depending on casting, and the particularproduction(s) we are working on at the time. On some days I find myself with only an hour or two of rehearsal, whereas on others, I can have a full schedule from 11:30am to 6:30pm with an hour for lunch.

One thing that has remained constant in my career so far as a Trainee is the way in which casting works. Being on the first rung of the ranking ladder, Trainees and Apprentices are 9 times out of 10 cast as either "second cast" or "covers." I often find myself in the role as a "cover," which basically means I stand in the back of the studio and try to learn as many of the female corps roles in a given piece as possible. It is quite challenging being a "cover" - one has to be ready to jump in to any given spot in the ballet in the event of another dancer's absence. I have been in this situation innumerable times, even when we are performing on stage. Yes - I have been thrown into a new spot that I have never rehearsed before on stage during a performance.

Another skill I have honed from being a student dancing in the corps three years prior, and now as a Trainee, is the ability to learn choreography off of a DVD. The lovely people in the Production Office allow us dancers to request copies of old performances of pieces that we are bringing back to the repertoire, in order for us to "do our homework." High school never ends! Learning choreography off of a DVD presents its own challenges, as does learning choreography in the studio. In either situation, being a "cover" is usually a solo job for me, and is particularly difficult in instances where partnering is called for in the choreography. It isn't really possible to partner oneself!

It is also difficult being a "cover" because one has to dedicate the same amount of time and effort (and sometimes more) than the dancers actually cast in a ballet in learning and perfecting the choreography, but more often than not, one never has the opportunity to perform the piece on stage. A "cover" is required to attend all rehearsals in studio and on stage, but probably will never bask in the hot stage lights, sweat, tulle, and false eyelashes. The title "cover" alone suggests the implications of such a job - to be the shadow, the "just in case," the go-to-girl, the unnamed body. "Covering" is certainly not all as fun, or as easy as it seems.

Assuming that my schedule is a "full day," I would rehearse (usually meaning I would "cover") from 11:30am - 2:30pm, then have a lunch break from 2:30 - 3:30pm, then continue rehearsing till 6:30pm. This generic schedule varies greatly though.

I personally am a religious gym-goer. I absolutely LOVE going to the gym! So when my days are filled with breaks, or if my rehearsals end earlier on in the day, I make it a point to pound it out at the gym for a couple of hours or so. I aim for gym-ing everyday, but of course, my gym schedule is dependent on my rehearsal schedule at the studio.

After rehearsals are over, I usually go home (or to the gym). Then it's dinner and homework time. Yup! The joys of still being in high school! Some days after I've been at the studio all day I forget that I actually go to school and that I actually have homework to do. I usually jolt with a start at some ungodly hour and remember that I have Trigonometry to finish or an essay to write. This homework time can also include some brushing up on choreography time too. Remember those DVDs I told you about earlier? This is where those suckers come in. Doing this "homework" helps me remember choreography and ensures that the next day at the studio will be even more productive.

Carolina Ballet - A Year in the Life of a Trainee - An Inconvenient Truth...

2009-05-17T11:16:00.001-04:00

No, I'm not about to go off on a tangent concerning the Al Gore documentary, although I will take this time to credit Mr. Gore for the title, which I am now stealing, for this post.

Being a trainee in a professional ballet company while simultaneously juggling my senior year of high school has posed a few inconveniences to the former brought on by the truths of the latter...

This week, the majority of the Carolina Ballet company is touring western NC performing Swan Lake during the cARTwheels tour. I type this blog to you now from my abode in Raleigh because I was unable to get an approved, excused absence release from my school to miss a week of classes. The danger with my situation in school this year is that because I am taking the bare minimum of required credits to graduate, I must fulfill the attendance expectations of my courses to earn my high school diploma. I can't miss "x" number of days of school and still expect to graduate. This collection of policies, paired with a stringent school principal, mark one of the "inconveniences" I have come to recognize.

Also in the shadow of yet another bout of snow, I realized that if this week were to be a normal work week with class and rehearsals at the Raleigh CB studios, and Wake County Public Schools were to have a two hour delay, I would not be able to attend my class in school because I would be at the studio, and would therefore be counted absent - again threatening my graduation status.

In the Spring, I also have final exams and AP exams. Again - I will have to miss something somewhere in order to fill my obligations at this, that, or the other place.

It's all rather confusing and somewhat "inconvenient," but it's the truth. And the truth is, I wouldn't trade this opportunity to be a part of a professional company while still in high school for anything.

Seems that Mr. Gore's title is quite fitting after all. Not entirely "inconvenient," so to speak. Just a quick dose of "truth."

Carolina Ballet - A Year in the Life of a Trainee - An Ode to the Nutcracker

2009-05-17T11:14:00.001-04:00

With 18 shows of the Nutcracker behind us, I thought I would recount some of the behind-the-scenes truths and dramas that unfolded in the course of our glitzy marathon run of shows.

The following is a Nutty rendering of very real occurrences...

ACT I: The Party Scene. The infamous venue for countless amusing inside jokes amongst the "party parents," and the perfect setting for a magnitude of magical maladies. From my personal experiences as a "party mum" this year, everything ran quite smoothly for the most part. Of course with so many shows, the days and events tend to run into one another, caught up in a festive slurry of red and green! I can however attest that my fellow "party parents" and I found immense amusement and brief escape from the general pains and stresses of the Nutcracker in our "party kids." My "kids" in the Nutcracker were two little boys, and both casts that I got to work with were truly adorable! I see potential in one of my "sons" to become the new face of Abercrombie in a few years, and another could very well be the next "ladies man" in town - what great characters! And although I never performed children's roles in theNutcracker, seeing the excitement of these kids reminded me of how it was to be that age, immersed in the pre-performance hype, overflowing with energy and gusto.

The Party Scene also gives us "parents" the chance to (as we now call it) "ham it up." With exaggerated hand gestures and voluptuous skirts encompassing a large amount of floor space, we would carry on dressing room conversation while mimicking the good nature of old-time womanliness. Spurred on by the often wildly hilarious antics of the "party kids," we talked about where we were going during the next break between the shows, what other roles we were performing in that show, if there was lipstick on our teeth, and of course, in a state of utmost involvement, the terrible behavior of Fritz.

From the cheesy grins to the removal of props, from the corralling of children to the fear that one of the boys will fall off the stage and into a tuba, and from the malfunction of the toy soldier's box to the mad dash to take the final picture, Party Scene is essentially that. A party.

The Snow Scene also presents itself with its fair share of tribulations. In the two Chapel Hill shows, the soapy, chemical soup that magically billows out of mounted machines as snow decided to pool rather inconveniently and dangerously in the wings, and furthermore left a wax-like layer over the marley stage floor. Luckily, this problem was almost completely resolved in the Raleigh shows... however, there inherently must be a quota of snow accidentally swallowed each year! I can tell you from first-hand experience that our sudsy snow does not taste very good... and it doesn't fare very well when caught on false eyelashes either!

Act II opens with the revealing of the "Truffles," lined up precisely in their rows and columns as though the stage were itself a box of chocolates. The never-ceasing search for the perfect "truffle shuffle" is an annual marker of theNutcracker, as is the resulting adoring "ooohs" and "aaahs" spurred from the audience. I give credit to those Truffles for their pursuit of the perfect "shuffle." It can't be easy hiding your little feet when the costumes are fitted so many months in advance of the inevitable growth spurts!

The arrival of Clara and the Nutcracker (Nephew) in the Land of Sweets in their nutshell boat took a rather amusing turn in one of the Raleigh shows this year. A techie forgot to hook the boat to the line that drags it on and off stage, leaving the array of sweets standing akimbo in anticipation of guests that seemed to not be moving! In a moment of sheer brilliance, a Candy Cane jumped out from the masses and, complete with huge grin and character-appropriate runs, single-handedly pulled the boat carrying the two kids to center stage! (All whilst the rest of us dancers on stage tried to suppress our heaving laughter in reaction to the words flying out of the techies' mouths offstage!)

So what's it like doing 18 shows of the Nutcracker in our not-so-large company? Every production has its backstage anecdotes, and its onstage "moments." I've found that it's those little things that tend to get me through a long run of shows, like the Nutcracker. It may be draining to perform the same three pieces ("Party mum," "Snow," and "Flowers" for me) 18 times, but I cannot begin to describe the immense high and satisfaction I feel in the final bows of each show. NOTHING compares to the sight of an auditorium full of happy, inspired performance-goers, and NOTHING can buy that sensation of sheer bliss as my eyes pan over the standing ovation. I am reminded of the collective talents of every individual in the Nutcracker, and of my artform's beautiful ability to touch people and to inspire. It's in the humors, inside jokes, and anecdotes that I find relief, and it's in that momentary final bow and dropping of the curtain that I find the motivation and willpower to do it all again; to inspire both new faces and old friends.

Carolina Ballet - A Year in the Life of a Trainee - The Season So Far in a Nutshell (No Pun Intended)

2009-05-17T11:10:00.003-04:00

In light that time has certainly flown, and that we are nearing the end of 2008 (!!!), I'm opting for a synopsis of the season so far for my premiere blog. Also in light of the Nutcracker, I thought this would be an appropriate time for reflection - Nutcracker was, in fact, my first production with Carolina Ballet four years ago!

Oh, and if there's anything you would like me to explicate more or highlight in my blogs to come, please drop me a note - I'm here to give you the inside scoop!

Pointe shoes. Essential. Defining. Deceptive?

What do I retrospectively see as my first rite of passage into the professional world of dance? Easy: the finding and fitting of the pointe shoe. The summer before I joined Carolina Ballet, during a "long weekend" break from school, I flew up to New York City with the sole purpose (once again, no pun intended) of being fitted for Freed pointe shoes. Any outsider would never suspect the plethora of modifications and nit-picky adjustments that go into making a pointe shoe a pointe shoe. From the box shape to the shank strength, from the heel height to "wing block," every dancer has a preference. As a former non-Freed-wearer, my fitting began at square one. After stuffing my feet into countless pairs of those shimmery satin encasements, each pair crafted by a unique "maker," I settled on the ones I liked best. Now, again, an outsider would assume that those pretty shoes would be ready to go right off the shelf. But alas, my shoe rite of initiation had only just begun...

Trying pointe shoes on in a store and dancing in them are two entirely different ball parks. What feels and looks perfect in the calm of admiring a new shoe is often a prelude to the horrors awaiting the star-crossed satin beauties. I am still in the process of figuring out ways to make my shoes "work" for me - from sewing down extra fabric on either side of my foot to create a very fetching "Frankenstein" look, and glueing the tips to prolong the waning lives of my shoes. Plus every pair of shoes is different. You could have the same measurements and specifications designated for every pair of shoes you are given, but as an artist, I can appreciatethat the work of an artist (in this case, the maker), is never twice exactly the same. The plight of the pointe shoes is far from over!

Adjusting to professional company life was not as difficult as I had imagined it would be. I guess in having performed with Carolina Ballet on many previous occasions, I could be labelled as somewhat of a veteran. I've found though that this year is proving to be much less stressful work-load wise in balancing school and ballet. Here's what a typical day looked like for me last year:

6:30am - wake up for school

7:25am - 2:25pm - school

3:30pm - 6:30pm - Carolina Ballet rehearsals

6:45pm - 9:00pm - class at Raleigh School of Ballet / rehearsal at Raleigh Dance Theatre

10:00pm - dinner

10:30pm - 2:30/3:00am - homework

Better late than never, I suppose, I can actually say that I enjoy school this year! I only take first period in school now (7:25am - 8:55am), then make my way over to the studio to dance all day - which I LOVE. Furthermore, I'm not juggling classes and rehearsalsat RSB/RDT, nor four full school courses.

Of course I'm not saying that I've eliminated all stress from my life - We've had an incredibly busy season so far, and it's not poised to slow down! With Artistic Expressions, Don Quixote, and Messiah under our belt (and Nutcracker on-going), I've hardly had time to blog it all down (this is where I apologize for the delay)!

One thing I have noticed in my career so far as a trainee is that I seem to have a knack for animal roles... "What?" you ask? Did you see Don Q? The whimsical, witless, endearing knight's horse (specifically the front end)? That was me. And then Messiah? The girl sprinting madly around the stage to hold up one end of the Angel's wings? Yours truly!

Aside: a quick anecdote about Messiah and the wings. Don't be deceived by apparent ease of carrying a stick supporting a wing around the stage! I got more of a workout from all the running than I do at the gym (okay, minor exaggeration, but you get the idea). I did however, get a black eye from one of the sticks supporting the wing. I won't name any names, but a certain somebody accidentally managed to send the end of one of the pole straight into my eye socket! The result: a hopelessly ripped contact lens and a bruised eyelid. Yummy!

So anyway - we are smack in the middle of this year's Nutcracker run of shows. We opened the holiday classic in Chapel Hill last weekend with huge success to sold out audiences.This year I will be performing again as a "Party Parent," "Snow," and "Flower." I always find Nutcracker to be a great time to refine my performance qualities - the choreography is so imprinted in my memory now that I can really focus on the details of my dancing, which is really great.

I leave you now on this happy note. Shoes. School. Wings. Nutz. Ballet certainly has the air of a soap opera!

Keep checking back for more on my experience as a trainee - a big resolution of mine is to make my blogging more regular! And remember, if there's anything in particular you would like to hear about, just let me know :)

See you at Nutcracker and Happy Holidays!

Child of the World

2009-05-03T21:25:00.000-04:00

I have been all over the world, leading me to the conclusion that I do not have a "hometown," so to speak. I'm a child of the world - I draw from my global and life experiences, and define "home" truly as where the heart is. I have roots not to one specific location, but to places, faces, and happenings from all over. And I'm more than happy with that. I have discovered little bits and pieces of myself along the way - learned new things, adopted new interests. But some things have never changed. I believe in "full out with feeling" not just when push comes to shove, but 24/7. I believe in the immensity of presence and the beauty of being in the moment. I believe in individuality and imperfection. I believe in the power of art, be it in the form of dance, writing, music, performance, etc. I believe in the importance of ingenuity and improvement. I believe in worthy pursuits and viable passions. I believe in persistence and diligence. I believe in open ears, minds, hearts, and souls. I believe I wouldn't have it, or have done it, any other way.

The Pot of Gold

2009-05-02T23:41:00.000-04:00

I try to believe in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; but my pot of gold isn't simply just a precious metal. I believe that the rainbow is the journey; the struggle; the setbacks; the rejections; the blood, sweat, and tears. The pot of gold marks happiness, vindication, serenity, identity, freedom, forgiveness, open-mindedness, and the pursuit of worthy passions at the end. This end, however, is really only just the beginning.

Vitally Artful

2009-05-02T23:11:00.000-04:00

April 29th, 2009

The argument that art is superfluous amid the maelstrom of reality and everyday human existence ranks way up there in the realm of "wrong." You'd be hard-pressed to find any object, person, idea, that has not be shaped, at least in part, by an artistic mind, or by pure artistry au naturale. The little details of things we sometimes stop to notice, comprising a hum-drum component of our daily routines, take on artistic value when truly observed. These things, be they material or intangible, are art. Those in disbelief of the utter importance of art, I present you this. Suppose you are into hunting. That camouflage jacket you're wearing to conceal your predatory-bloodthirsty-human-self from your prey was coined and designed by someone. That someone had an eye for practicality and the effective use of light and colour. Thank an artist the next time you settle down to your venison. And while you're at it, consider the smoking gun you used to kill poor Bambi - before mass-production hit the market and before a mold was shaped, someone had to single-handedly (okay, double-handedly) bang that piece of metal into a weapon. As much as I hate that reference, yes, it took an artist to first bend steel. I challenge you to find beauty amongst the bungalows and skyscrapers, broken-down cars and shiny new toys, dirt and sparkles, sickness and health, pain and release, mediocrity and stellar-ness, of your average (or not) day. Chances are, you probably already have casual run-ins with some kind of art 365 days each year, whether you know it or not. Any situation (even solitary confinement in an aluminium box) presents beauty to us, if we are patient and open-minded enough to really see it (who or what hammered those four walls, floor and ceiling of your confines?). It's sad that such a large percentage of our masses doesn't appreciate the omnipresent, inherent art of the times. It's even sadder that there are countless people who poo-poo it as unnecessary and pretentious. It is pretentious to suppose that we can live without art. It is slander to state that art is poison. Why do we find ourselves breathless after witnessing or taking part in a great performance? Why is there such freedom in movement? Why do we stop in our tracks to take a moment to examine a beautiful piece of art or a coincidentally artistic crack in the sidewalk? It is because art is a universal language. It is only human to marvel at feats of beauty and imperfection, together meshing to fall under an umbrella some call "perfection." We are artists, and we are the carriers, purveyors, witnesses, masterminds, architects, vocalists, musicians, writers, painters, sculptors, dancers of ingenuity. Sometimes humanity just needs to be reminded.

Three Little Words and the H-Bomb

2009-05-02T23:10:00.001-04:00

April 14th, 2009

It's the short little four-lettered words that leave such a huge crater in the collapsible space between people, and that impart such massive implications. Most of us are taught from a young age not to say the s-word or the f-work, etc, etc. But what about the h-word and l-word? These are two deceptively powerful words that are often forgotten on the dreaded tabooed list. Hate and love. We throw them around with reckless abandon, saying them when we don't actually mean them, forgetting to say them at all. This is the stuff of emotional train wrecks. Why aren't we forewarned of the cataclysmic nature of these sly little bits of vocabulary? Why do our parents not encourage us to use these words in moderation, or not at all? Why is it so hard to correspond what we actually feel to the things that come out of our mouths? There aren't enough words in the English vocabulary to sum up the human psyche; we've put a collection of internal bubbles and broken shards into a couple of stunted, yet power-packed words. The dictionary should add a disclaimer to the definitions of "hate" and "love." Caution: use at own risk and with exacting selective moderation. There's too much hate in the world to just hurl more h-bombs around. And there's not enough real love in this day and age to drop that magical little three-word combo as casually as we do; but when real love is at hand, we usually fail to acknowledge it, and end up taking that something beautiful wordlessly. Thanks, John Mayer - I guess I'll say only what I need to say.

Relatively Speaking...

2009-05-02T23:09:00.002-04:00

April 4th, 2009

Einstein's relativity. Newton's law of motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every situation, there are infinite viewpoints from which to experience the phenomenon. Easily put: Everything is relative. As a race governed largely by materialism, we try our hardest to apply a monetary value to all possessions - literal and intangible. Relatively speaking, these values are based on individual priorities and emotions. A small and worthless trinket to one person could be, and probably is, priceless to another. In juxtaposition, the latest and greatest iPhone would seem incontrovertibly valueless to a technophobe or a starving child on the other side of the world. We place a value on our possessions to formulate a vocabulary by which to compare ourselves to each other. We see things the way in which we choose to see them. What good is a piece of electronic equipment to a person who has no roof over his or her head nor a socket to plug it in to? And how can we assume the value of a mismatched earring or a treasured safety pin or a dated photograph? It's all relative. As individuals, we decide what we value in our lives. We decide whether material value is more vital to our existence, or if living off of love and sentimentalism is truly enough. A beaming smile, a warm hug, a simple act of courtesy - these are things that can take a day from bad to bearable. It's amazing that something so small can completely change someone's a-day-in-the-life-of; it all depends on how and if you choose to see it.

Dissatisfaction

2009-05-02T23:08:00.001-04:00

March 24th, 2009

Dissatisfaction seems to be the most prevalent trait common among most human beings today. When it's cold, we want it hot. When it's sweltering, we want it frigid. In summer we'd rather park our cars miles away from the store front under a lone tree, simultaneously running the inherent risk of being crapped on by a bird needing to relieve itself, in order to find a measly speck of shade to keep the car 5º cooler. Juxtapose this to the human habit in winter of allowing our vehicles to bask in the direct solar UV radiation, and you've got yourself a prime example of the human psyche of dissatisfaction! We order hot coffee in the colder months, and iced coffee on the days we feel as though we are going to melt. Human nature is centered around an unstated need for comfort; a need for the middle ground. After all, society tends to favour this "norm." Maybe our looming disappointment with our own lives stems from this societal favouritisim, ready to pounce at any given moment of individual weakness, and sadly, we more often than not buy it. Bypassing the melodrama, comfort in one's own skin seems to be the way to reverse this theory of greener grass on the other side. Park your car in the shade. Pull up in the sun. But don't apply your thrifty tactics to the mirror.

"Over"

2009-05-02T23:07:00.000-04:00

March 17th, 2009

Some people call it "over-achievement" and "over-ambition." Why not try taking out the "over" and just saying it as it is? Stir in a little drive, love, passion, motivation, and persistence, and you've got a recipe for success. Yes, success. Not "over-success." Measure yourself by what YOU want and aspire for yourself. Leave all that pish-posh external judgment and shuttered jealousy aside, thank you very much.

Why Blog?

2009-05-02T23:06:00.000-04:00

March 11th, 2009

In this day and age, in this electronic time warp comprised of steel, aluminium, and numbers that don't really exist, we have compromised our individual freedoms and privacy for the sake of our newer, better, faster brainchildren.

I had a conversation (if you can call Facebook chat an actual conversation) with a friend yesterday regarding his blog. This said individual, who we shall call Mr. Blogger, ardently refused to give me the url to his blog site even after repeated assaults against his peer pressure shield (an amazing feat within itself; I like to think I'm pretty persuasive ;D). Being a writer myself, I respect Mr. Blogger's desire to remain anonymous and just a blip in the global sea of bloggers out there, but I finally thought of a witty plan to win over this url; I challenged Mr. Blogger to a competition in mini-essay composition. Folks, what you're reading is my entry. Mr. Blogger, being expedient and clearly wanting to get me off his tail-end about the damn blog, immediately proceeded to compose what I thought was a fairly insightful and to-the-point blog regarding his reservations about publicizing his electronic journals. My witty plan had worked, however. In order for me to read this challenge-worthy article, Mr. Blogger inadvertently led me directly to his site, where I leisurely scanned his response to my attacks alongside a few other short entries.

To put this simply, Mr. Blogger led me to reflect on the evolution of what we call "journals." Diaries. Letters. Messages. Blogs. I will be the first to admit that I have always kept a written record of what's happening in my life, AKA a diary. In elementary school, it started as an innocent venue to pour my heart out over a particular crush, or to say how my hamsters were doing. Over time, it morphed into a place of solace, where I delved a bit deeper to discuss the thoughts in my sometimes crazy-ass head, or to record random moments of sheer brilliance. Today, I am seldom without pen and paper... and apparently also my laptop. The diaries kept under lock-and-key of my pre-teen self have been replaced by snazzy spiral notebooks with inspirational motifs and a Macbook.

I can trace the evolution of the journal alongside the evolution of technology. "So easy a caveman can do it." Why yes, cavemen did keep journals of sorts: cave art. There's also the plain and simple ink on papyrus. And now here's a computerized portal in full view of the world. Mr. Blogger declared quite rightly that his blogs were personal and intended mostly for self-betterment. Well said. But then again, it seems that writers today feel a need to share their thoughts with the rest of the world, and hey, I'll dub myself somewhat of a philosopher if you can call all this philosophy! We write because we want to be heard. I think that secretly, everyone wants to be published; everyone wants their stories to be told. I write to soothe my soul, but also to maybe inspire a little something in others.

I Dance. I Write. I Draw and Paint Things.

2009-05-02T23:05:00.000-04:00

We live our lives by this notion that we're all out to "find ourselves." We fill our Facebook "About Me's" with the characteristics that we for that moment, believe dictate who we truly are. One tiny difference in the human genome instantly sets us back (or forward) from the rest. Our identities have become somewhat of a phenomenon. How does a flaw so microscopic and imperceptible completely change one individual's playing field of life? In our childhoods, we formulate grand plans and visions of our futures: CEO's, actresses, writers, movie stars, pop singers, astronauts, pilots, globe-trotters... the list and the implications are endless. As we get older and as our eyes are opened to the wonders, and sometimes the horrors, of reality, these visions change. They mutate. They become something else. Our identities, or what we thought would become our identities, are compromised. Truth be told, we have convoluted and violated this whole illusion of self-discovery and identity. It seems to me that our "identities" have become more and more governed by WHAT we do; straying ever further away from the simple beauty of childhood dreams of who we wanted to become and the achievements we would have made.

The Plight of the Weed

2009-05-02T23:04:00.000-04:00

March 9th, 2009

Today I saw a man spraying herbicide on the weeds between the cracks in the pavement. And though it sounds crazy, and perhaps a little too overtly tree-hugger-like, in witnessing a mere five seconds of this phenomenon, my 45-mile-per-hour car-borne self felt truly sad and sorry for those poor little unwanted buggers. The location of the weeds made them absolutely no threat to the pristine beauty of surrounding gardens; they were defenseless and unguarded. This brief encounter with the question of purpose and position sparked within me a fondness for vulnerability and a respect for the underdog. Let’s put ourselves in the weed’s position. The only niche it has ever known is to grow, to survive, to conquer as vast an area of the chasms and cracks between manmade walkways. That little bundle of chloroplasts is suited only for what it is intended: vegetative dominance. It seems that we are punishing the weed for completing its sole task, when we drill each other on a daily basis the importance of finishing what we start. Had the weed made a direct assault on the immaculate garden of an unaware herbologist-at-heart, well then we can deem the said weed “sneaky.” Every organism must find its niche. Vegetation was here first. Why are we punishing nature for its nature for being the only bit of pure innocence and genuineness in our superficial and artificial world? We are sucking the dingy, overgrown, and simple beauty out of our lives; we are becoming more and more synthetic, acerbic, and aseptic. You’ll be hard pressed to find a human living quietly and contently between the cracks in the pavement in a world ruled by sterility and plastic and steel. The beauty lies therein. The weed persists. We are spoiled and given treats and expect things to go our own way. But what about all that beauty we apparently can no longer stand? Ultimately, the weed is the warrior. It’s been here a hell of a lot longer than we have, and it’ll stick around long after we’re gone, herbicide and all.

Self-Acceptance

2009-05-02T23:03:00.001-04:00

March 7th, 2009

Self-acceptance is a really hard concept for me to wrap my head around. I find that I tend to experience bursts of self-confidence and exuberant competitiveness, an almost “bring it on world” state of mind; but then eventually give way to the relapse of masochistic, self-shattering introspections. It’s not that I don’t want to love myself, or that I take pleasure from my darker mindset; I have a tremendous amount of respect for those few people in the world who manage to balance complete self-acceptance with humility and compassion. What makes the art of learning to love ourselves so fine is the preconditioning and rigorous repetitive mantras that have been drilled to us since infancy; perhaps even before birth through our mothers, in the womb. It’s hard these days to truly accept oneself when all around there are billboards, commercials, advertisements, TV shows, movies, trashy magazines, even humans, telling us that we’re just not good enough. Dreams, fostered and watered since childhood, are bent and broken with the voicing of just a few choice words. You can’t. You will never. No. Society has an unwritten and unspoken doctrine that targets everyone that isn’t in flavor that month. And it’s nearly impossible to feel truly comfortable in one’s own skin and one’s own abilities when everyday is a battle against the mirror and the laws of nature. Even amidst a winning streak of good fortune and hopeful prospect for the future, it’s those rejections and negative comments that seem to seep back painfully into the frame of this blissfully perfect picture. We are all guilty of self-loathing, of making the hurtful things count for more than the constructive, positive ones. How do those infinitely bubbly, indefinitely optimistic, and genuinely self-satisfied ones do it? Perhaps they have learned that in a world so governed by appearance and conformity, the road to happiness can only be found within oneself. Perhaps they have decided that the entire concept of uniqueness being unique is a fallacy. We are all unique. We can’t all be supermodels. So what’s the use in stating the obvious? In our individuality, we should find solace. Stop dwelling on comparison, and start learning to love again. My journey to self-acceptance is far from over, and maybe only at the end of the road will I look back and finally see everything fall into place. Or maybe I’ll see better days stick around for a while and decide that it’s safe to feel confident again. I’m ready and eager to find out.

Society Favours the Norm

2009-05-02T23:01:00.000-04:00

January 28th, 2009

Medium. Regular. Normal. Un-extraordinary. Commonplace. Cookie-cutter. Average. Middle. Usual. Let’s face it – society always has and always will favour the norm. The latest craze of the day involves jumping on the technologically coherent bandwagon, buying everything in its latest and greatest form, and starving ourselves to the point where we disappear when viewed from sideways. These extremes are being inevitably adopted as the desirable norm, stemmed from our need to be accepted. Perhaps we can point fingers at natural selection for encouraging us to blend in with the masses and discouraging any fleck of anomaly separating us as unique beings from the crowds. This huge impulse to move towards “normalcy” became overtly obvious to me one day at the gym. All the machines are designed with the “average” man and woman in mind. Patterns of movement are designed with “normal” factors in mind. The average man operates this machine this way; the average woman has legs this long. If you aren’t capable of completing “x” circuits of this loop and doing “y” number of pushups, you are an anomaly. Something must be wrong with you. I respect that an established base line must be employed to keep things comparable and statistically sound, but I get the feeling that no matter the setting, no matter the context, no matter the situation, far too much adoration is showered on the “norm.” Normalcy is elevated to highly discouraging levels, and the people that stray away from the norm are punished for their individuality or unalterable conditions. Not everyone has the so-called luxury of being made up of skin and bone, not everyone hungers for blonde hair and blue eyes, not everyone wants or has the means to make himself or herself over to fit a mold. “One size fits most,” “One size fits all,” “The usual” – these are all terms essentially stemmed from habit. My “normal” routine, however, does not fit the doctrines of normalcy for the “average” human being. How can there be a “norm” if this holds true for every other human being in the world? Billions of unique “norms” do not make one societal norm. Everything regular about normalcy, then, is actually extraordinary. Normalcy is somewhat of a paradox and twisted fantasy.

Vulnerable

2009-05-02T22:59:00.001-04:00

January 27th, 2009

I have recently come to realize and recognize the vulnerability of humanity. The word “human” alone brings to mind a primordial aspect that highlights our characteristic flaw of having emotion. As humans, we collectively and individually scream, “hurt me.” It’s almost as if the act of being human automatically invites pain of all sorts. We are breakable, destroyable, scar-able, but not at all easily mend-able. Our amazing bodies have the ability to regenerate and to heal, but also the ability to be masochist. Cells attack cells within our own walls, our minds conflict with our hearts. Most of us do not ever fully recover from emotional or personal trauma – thanks to memory – hence we carry our scars on our bodies and in our hearts. Most of us are not quick to forgive; we hold onto mistakes like poison lingers in water, and we sabotage ourselves with regret. “What if?” predominates a large bulk of our conscious and subconscious thought trains. In our superficial society, we quite wrongly judge a book by its cover, and a human by his or her exterior. Not all of us carry our demarcations on our faces, shoulders, arms, legs. Some of us choose (or not) to be the introverted individuals that toy with fate and reality from within. We are not machines – we do not run on a set of instructions and artificial intelligence programming. We are not replaceable; we cannot be simultaneously unique and mass-produced. We are human. We bend. We break. We are dictated and governed by guidelines and by that crazy little thing called emotion. We break rules. We break records. We break hearts. We define ourselves by every word spoken and every step taken. We persist. As humans, we thrive. But in the end, the universal truth grips, and we all die. We are human. Our time is now – the short years we are allotted are all we get. We leave a legacy, documents on the pages of history. In our vulnerability, we find our own unique, individual, irreplaceable selves, and our strength.

Plane Thoughts

2009-05-02T22:58:00.001-04:00

January 16th, 2009

The great divide. A petty so-called curtain hanging limply from a sheath of plastic, bearing the single glowing word “Exit.” Yes, thanks, I would love to get out of this stuffy confinement now. The shabby, used and abused, pitiful, rather, navy blue mesh hangs between the great divide between them – first class, and us – the rest of us. Not so much of a veritable distinction, and not at all for function and practicality, the divide exists as more of a reminder to the rest of us that there are better-off, more pompous folks just a mesh millimeter away, ready to scoff on our shrewdness and scorn our parasitic existence. The more I look at it, the more laudably silly this divide seems. The frazzled divide we’ve dubbed “curtain” gave up a long time ago. It’s tired and un-mended state of existence should serve as testament enough to all those airline CEO’s that the gig is up. If you’re going to create a divide between them and us, at least do it with a tad bit more gusto. This “divide” is just laughable. I’m thinking that from my insightful observations, aided by the caffeine in my Diet Coke that someone in first class is no doubt sipping too from a fine glass, that back here, we may be the “them,” and they may be the “us.” Forget the divide. We’re all stuck on this plane together anyway.

Plane Thoughts

2009-05-02T22:55:00.000-04:00

January 16th, 2009

We are so insignificant in the broad scope of existence. But we are all merely human. The most minor occurrences in daily life claim center stage significance to us as unique and human individuals. Take a plane flight for instance. A pretty big phenomenon when you consider the fact that man has managed to make steel, a multitude of overweight bodies, petrol, luggage, cotton, polyester, and more – all this – airborne. But how many planes take off each day? How much pollution do we hack out into the ozone by our flights of fancy? See – not so phenomenal now. Pretty commonplace and selfish, actually. The boom of the human masses becomes blatantly evident to me gazing out of the plane cabin window. But so does the beauty of human enterprise and simultaneous coincidence of the creation of art. The twinkling runway lights of blues, yellows, oranges, and reds give way shortly after to the scattered bursts of human settlement. The dispersed, varying, and speckled plots of planned communities below just hours ago so prominent and life-sized are reduced to mere twinkling blotches on the Earth’s trampled face. Distances that would take months to humanly traverse are mechanically covered in a matter of hours. We are singularly linked and ironically brought closer through dispersing travel. We are ants. We are specks. We are fairy lights. We are human.

On Perfection

2009-05-02T22:53:00.000-04:00

January 11th, 2009

I have always had perfection drilled to me in every aspect of my life. I don’t remember ever being told not to seek greatness and that elusive, unattainable pinnacle of existence. I am discovering though that perfection in itself is a huge imperfection, a mar on a natural phenomenon and implicit state of being. The nonexistent “perfection” we all are deigned to reach for leaves absolutely no room for improvement or betterment – already a fundamentally flawed concept. What is the purpose of life, what is there to strive for, if the unattainable is actually one day attained by some super-being? And who even concocts this grandiose definition of “perfection”? I think that if one must put goals and the ultimatum in terms of perfection, that imperfection is what makes each of us uniquely perfect. The inadvertent and inherent selfish nature of the individual theoretically dictates that every individual’s perception of perfection is based upon one’s own characteristics. But “perfection” as it is so called, is really an idea invented by society as a whole. Conformity and the need to fit a mold have morphed self-confidence and personal character into a twisted ideal that we are encouraged to emulate. But who’s to say that our current image of perfection is not actually an image comprised solely of a plethora of flaws built on imperfection? Imperfection is perfection. Perfection is very much imperfect.

Technophobia

2009-05-02T22:50:00.000-04:00

October 25th, 2008

Technology frustrates me. That’s just the truth of it. It seems that everyday some newer, fancier, flashier gizmo is released that replaces our perfectly functional but apparently outdated mechanisms. Cell phones that once looked and weighed like bricks and served the sole end of contacting someone in an emergency get smaller everyday but supposedly more advanced… Look! TV, e-mail, music, calendar – everything on one tiny device that will set you back more than you earn in four months, but that cost only a couple of greenbacks to produce in say, China. I want to know why this technological maelstrom is so necessary! Whatever happened to good old pen-and-paper? Why is it that the “average” working adult requires his or whole entire life to be dictated by technology? Why do we need to transform our cell phones into objects with more ability and memory capacities than our human selves? And why must I be told every other day that my version of iTunes is out of date? I don’t know about you, but I feel that this whole supersession thing is merely a ploy by technology-producing giants to convince us that we are all outdated, good-for-nothing, and not quite “hip.” And of course being the generation upon which the brunt of the technology boom has befallen, we obediently give in. Having an original Motorola Razor is not cool anymore, although just last year it was all the rage among high-school-ers. Come on now – they’re so outdated that even my technologically challenged mother now has one! And the iPod? If you’ve got one of those midget-screen second-generation iPod Classics, you’re way old school. Get it together! The sad thing is, because advertising, celebrity flaunting, abundance of credit, and the values of modern-day society dictate that consumerism and materialism are attributes to be hailed and sought-after, our generation completely buys into the sneaky tech market. Whatever happened to good old print media – the newspaper – the novel? I get way more excited about receiving “snail mail” that about receiving a notification of a Wall Post on Facebook! Screw the false, advertising mania, junk mail. I’m talking about real letters and stories and love poems and anecdotes that people take time and care to address to one distant individual alone. The beautiful love letters once exchanged by young (and old) lovers have been replaced by brief and short-handed text messages. Perhaps I’m just a little bit of a hopeless romantic waiting for the perfect gentleman to sweep me off my feet, but I have other reasons to believe in the vital importance and honest admiration of the written word and print media. Reading a page off the Internet does not even come close to reading the words slowly and insightfully from the yellowing pages of an old book. Be it musty and torn or new and crisp, there’s something about turning the pages of a manuscript that cannot be replicated by reading pixels in intangible print form from a static computer screen. I also know that I’d rather wrestle with an envelope if it means receiving a personally addressed, hand-written note from a dear friend. The real written word is very sadly, a dying art. I would love to tell you that I lead a rustic life surrounded by only quill, ink, and parchment, but that would be blasphemy on my part. Although I do surround myself with paper, pens, and other various stationery, I am most always also in close proximity to my cell phone and iPod. Our hectic lives today require the use of communicational and recreational technologies (I couldn’t keep my sanity without my good old 80G). Nevertheless, technology really bugs me. I seem to be constantly battling it. Even in schools, students freeze and appear to go into a state of shock when presented with the task of making use of dictionaries and encyclopedias as sources rather than copying-and-pasting hits from a Google search. But alas, the ultimate reason for the students’ alarm is inadvertently the spawn of society’s dependence on technology, particularly computers. Every student is expected to own one for typing essays, submitting assignments, completing research, etc. No wonder kids today don’t know how to read or use books – deteriorating writing and rhetorical standards of today’s youth, anyone? I already mourn the day that written word technology will be completely obliterated by electronic technology. And as the technological tornado sweeps this generation further away from the old-school wholesome goodness of Shakespeare, Tolkien, and Dickens, it’s a pity we can’t click our heels together and go home. Dorothy got off easy. This is no fictional nightmare. We’ve got a lot to lose.