Step Up, Invigorating or depressing?

My brain is still throbbing to the beat of the show. The whole time, from the first opening song to the closer, I felt the beat in my limbs. It seems like such a long time since I danced just for fun. The movie brought back many memories; my first hip hop class, trying to learn how to body roll and pop to the beat; Jazz class with Kelly, feeling uncomfortable at first with the huge motions, then just letting myself go; ballet class, the embarrassment at wearing tight little biker shorts that showed the tucked in shirt in small bumps around my hips. And most of all, Dance sport nights on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. Those late night run throughs motivated me so much, made dancing competitive and exhilarating.
I think back to before I left to Tahiti with my parents for three years. My fast from dancing seemed all but endless for the first few weeks. Then little by little, as the small things filled the gaping hole left in my life that used to be dancing, I forgot about my my "addiction" for this endeavor. When I came home, I was perfectly content to take a few ballroom classes and leave it at that. Or so I thought....
The first day of Try Outs at BYU came as a shock. I didn't know I would be dancing until half an hour before I walked into the room, jeans and tennis shoes my costume as I readied myself for the reprise. I hoped my talent and enthusiasm would not let me down as I asked someone to tryout with me. “Just do basics, and if you’ve got the technique, they’ll see it,” she said. "Basics", I thought, which ones are those?" But as the music started up, a Rumba, my tension fled my muscles, and I danced…What an awesome feeling it was to move to the music!
So here I am, a year and then some later, preparing to extricate myself once more from this world I that I was, am, irresistibly drawn towards for two more years. The prospective of returning as a member of the BYU Touring team comforts little. I’ve seen what they do, planned movement, “Choreography” they call it, and it doesn't appeal all the much to me. I want to be free to take class wherever I want to, hip hop, jazz. Too bad they consider going to another studio to train as grounds for getting kicked off the team...
Oh well, I’ll have to wait for what the future brings, as for now, I will have to be content with what I have. As for tomorrow, who knows?

Fortune cookie nonsense...

So I just took a peek at the proverbial "condition" of my fortune by way of a cookie with a paper inside....here's what it said: "Share your abundant humor with others." Hmmmmmm, go figure...
Abundant, eh? Well, I DO know of a funny joke about a guy walking into a....wait, no, it's a mushroom. So there's this mushroom, right, who walks into a bar. And he said Ouch! Oh wait, wrong joke, okay so he walks, well, it walks (I mean, well, however a mushroom is supposed to get anywhere, migrated, or whatever it is that fungus' do)................

And so on....so much for abundant humor!

New Job? New LIFE!

I got a job, I got a job, I got a job hey hey hey hey!
Which technically means that I also got a dollar, many in fact! I'll be working at One on One, in the call center there. Apparently we're not, as my SOS Staffing Agent assures me, a telemarketing agency. We're an "information booth" for those who are interested in the different Universities that have given us information.
But really, even if it were a telemarketing job, I wouldn't care. I am so sick of just waiting around all day long, checking off a list of house work to be done. I'm no house cleaner! So, starting next week, I will be a part time worker, from 8 am to 1 pm every day...

This may have some impact on my posting of new blogs....but I doubt it...

Music is my life....no really, that's all it is.

I spent the entire day watching music videos on MTVH and MTVJ, channel 472 and 475 on Comcast. It's sad, I know, but the four and the seven are now fading away speedily from overexcessive usage on my remote control.
I bet you're telling yourself that NO ONE could spend the whole day just watching Music videos over and over again, but let me differ: I CAN and DID. That's what happens when you have almost no life, that and a boring blog that nobody will look at...
At least one good thing came of this lack of physical activities: I am now most savvy in the preferred music genre of this our generation. "How?" you ask?
-Justin Timberlake's SEXY BACK was played sixteen times within a short period of time
-Fergie's LONDON BRIDGE was played twelve times
-The All American Rejects' MOVE ALONG, eleven times
-etc....get my point?

I also have obtained a new taste in music, PUNK! Never did I believe I would enjoy listening to the fast paced, head knocking, wailing beats of this genre. But Punk isn't the only one, here's a list of what I have found myself singing to more often than not:

Five for Fighting: The Riddle (not exactly punk, I know....)
Under the Influence of Giants
Sugar Colt: Memory
Outkast: Morris Brown
The Fray: Over My Head
Cartel: Honesty

and all the songs previously mentioned.

Great thing the Television! Otherwise, I'd be an ignorant tree-hugger! ha!

Chocolate cake at 1:30 am!

Note to self: Do NOT agree to stay up late with mom, just so she can finish writing up her blog!

Too late, I already did. I should have recognized the hints: two boxes of cake mix lying nonchalantly next to two tubs of milk chocolate frosting on the counter, Mom's computer screen lighting up her face as she greeted me when I got home from my night out with the Tour Team ( So You Think You Can Dance Finals, Travis should have won!)...it was all too obvious.
"Adam, you love me, don't you?" her look said, followed by her mouth letting slip "oh and could you make me a cake and stay up late with me?" So now I find myself, having already pulverised my "creative thinking cap" with a previous entry yesterday (that is to say, an hour ago) trying to find something interesting to write about to keep me busy while mom finger pecks her way into blogger bliss. I have to admit, I'm not that tired, not after that crazy display of America's lack of confidence in the TRUE winner of SYTYCD, Travis. I mean, yeah, I think Benji is a great dancer, I know him personally! But really, Travis was seriously better at everything, except maybe Swing, which is understandable, since Benji's Dad, Buddy Schwimmer (sp?) was the world's greatest swing/jitterbug/jive dancer!!!
Oh no! It is extremely evident how tired I am when I start to write like this....I give up! Momma, it's time for beddie bye!

'night!

p.s. the cake was good though!

The lush, corn filled fields of green in Iowa still giving my eyes red after-images from their brilliance, I couldn't help but sigh at the forlorn yellow of the dry and dusty expanse we drove through on the way home from the Airport in Salt Lake. "We really do live in a desert!" was the main idea in mind. When I mentioned this to my parents, they laughed, made a few DRY (pun intended) jokes about it, until Dad decided to get poetic: "Look at it this way: there's still something exotic and beautiful about it, like a rough woman lying naked on a rock...." His voice lists slightly, as if he gets carried away on the rhythm of his words. Sorry, but my idea of a rough woman is pretty much unshaven legs and pits, a moustache, and gold teeth. Definitely not an elegant picture, which pretty much sums up what I saw in the parched land of Utah. But I guess it really isn't all that bad; the mountains have their own grand beauty, every lone tree standing tall in a grassy field; a nobleness about it. My parents agreed enthusiastically, Mom going a little overboard, comparing the white capped mountains to a woman's bosom. Now after spending a week with a new nursing mother, I couldn't help but picture a snowy mountain top gushing with milk, and giggled uncontrollably in the back seat while my parents went on to discuss Mount Timpanogos and how it got its name-sake from an indian maiden...It always creates good times when your parents get creative!



Wednesday, August 09, 2006

I am in IOWAYYYYYYY! I am in IOWAYYYYYYYYYYY! Music Man, you got nothin' on me!The day started out early, a three o'clock a.m. alarm buzzing my brain into action. My dad's almost anal but worthwhile desire to always be on time being the cause of our early departure..."We have to be at the airport TWO hours early!"After a frantic search of my only i.d. (futile, we never did find it) we finally pulled out of the garage with two birth certificates in hand and a prayer that the security agents would just let us through, no questions asked. It was too much to ask! I ended up turning red in the face as the security man yelled to all the world "This kid ain't got no I.D.!!! Search him thoroughly! Who knows if he's a terrorist!" I guess my Brown Complexion, as my sister says, was the main culprit of this tactless accusation. I ended up getting through security faster than my Dad and Tina who went through the normal version. All I did was get a pleasant if abrupt burst of air in the face, a quick pat down, and front-of-the-line placement in front of everyone else. Pays to be brown!!!



Wed. Aug. 8, 2006

Is there something wrong with watering the roses out front with no shirt on? I can't help but feel a smug grin come onto my face when the neighbors glance over and see me with a book and the hose. Those cute girls driving down to seven peaks try to sneak a peak, you can tell they can't help but look...their cars always drift slightly to the left as their turned heads inevitably influence their steering. I never come in from watering without a smile on my face! ;)

My little sister and me. Always popcorn, always the pond, always us two. Always seems to get shorter and shorter every day, doesn't it....


Ode to Tina...
Today my sister was having a rough time. Being diagnosed with meningitis at two weeks and obtaining severe brain damage ever since, I guess she's always had a hard time. But today has been rough in contrast to her smiling, head-butting, dancing-to-the-music energy that she's been giving off lately. Today, she was in severe Status seizures for most of the morning. In order to ease her brain synapses into a calmer state, I attempted first thing after her morning dose of who knows how many meds to play her some soothing music on my guitar. Teddy Geiger's "For You I Will" spouted from my fingers, the music visibly penetrating the raging storm in her head. A steady beat, a steady strum amidst the chaos. I have witnessed Music Therapy first hand many times before, and this was no exception. A slight smile slide into place on her lips, her incessant twitching slowed until it was nonexistant. Her head started bobbing, slowly, faster, faster until she was wiggling and dancing with enthusiasm. I couldn't help but smile at that. But then.... WHAM, the saddening and heart wrenching thought occurs to me that I have but a couple of months to share my music with her before I'm gone for two years. My mission "takes" me away from her. And what's worse is that I made the decision myself. And regret does not fill my heart. I should be rent with guilt! "Come on Dad! Mom! The guitar is not that hard to learn!" The phrase still brings exasperation. Dad's feeble attempts to learn have been disheartening at the best. It's not his fault his once deft fingers just aren't what they used to be. Mom's singing voice is great, magnificent, but couldn't hold a candle to my playing in Tina's eyes. (At least, that's how I see it...)"Poor sis', what are you gonna do? When Mom and Dad can't think of what to do to excite your bones into motion, how are you going to cope?" But what am I saying, you're the toughest little trooper I know, and you definitely don't need me around to make you happy. Yeah, you don't need me....at least, that's what I've been telling myself. That's the only way I'll be able to cope. I think I need you more than you need me. Your smile brings MY smiles, your sorrows, MINE. Being away from Mom and Dad will be tough, but the toughest thing will be taking care of someone other than you. But then, that's how I'll find my motivation: for every soul I teach, I'll be trying to bring into their lives some of the love and light that you bring into my own. So thanks for your inspiration, Tina. Like your patriarchal blessing said, you will bless the lives of thousands!
p.s. Thank you God for the ease my fingers feel when holding a guitar!