Day of Dance

Happy Dance Day! Or something like that. Today St. Luke's Hospital sponsored a "Day of Dance" for women's health and fitness. It's a national thing, and today was the first time St. Louis participated. Obviously, I couldn't miss it. I learned dance steps to a hip hop, zumba (Latin dance fitness thing), hula, and belly dance! Each session lasted 20 minutes. It was pretty crowded and the old people that tried it were completely adorable. I went by myself, but I had nice conversations with a few people about my "make art not war" shirt. One girl was an art student at Maryville and another lady was a counselor who was starting a class on how creative people are sort of on the outside of society (true, but no one talks about it). I actually talked to that counselor for probably 20 minutes straight, and then she had to meet someone for lunch.

I also got the name, address, and phone number of the hip hop dance teacher. I saw her at The Loop's dance festival last summer and looked up the dance studio online, but didn't pursue it too much. I tried contacting them but never got a hold of them, so that is sort of why I went with flamenco and belly dancing. This would be a "lyrical hip hop" class, though, which is basically jazz and hip hop combined!! If it works with my schedule, that will definitely my next venture. They have a pay as you go deal, too, like flamenco.

I've been slacking on the flamenco classes, however, because it's hard to get up early on Saturday to go. In April they are offering a Wednesday evening class, so that will be much easier! It's a beginner class for people with dance experience, which is perfect...Uh yes, in case you were wondering, that means I'll have taiko on Tuesday and Thursday, flamenco on Wednesday, belly dancing every so often on Saturday, and lyrical hip hop hopefully sometime in between that. I'm so excited!

There just aren't enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do sometimes. I would be considering tahitian again (basically hula on crack) now that I know of a dance studio that does it, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Although, don't be surprised if I get into that somewhere down the road. :) For now, I will satisfy my hula appetite by attending a luah on May 1, I hope. It's just an hour outside of St. Louis and $15 for a meal and a show! How fun is that?! If I can't go to Hawaii now, I can at least pretend.

I have no idea what life would be like without dance and music, and I never want to find out.

Brain leak

I can't think of anything specific that I want to write right now, but I feel like writing something. Sometimes it's fun to just mention a few random things I've been thinking about lately. Hold on to your hats, here we go:

• I love the fact that I see or talk to a couple of my friends on the same day (usually) every week. Life gets so busy that I need that weekly routine to make sure we stay connected. I certainly don't mean to lose touch with my good friends, but I think sometimes we get wrapped up in other things that we accidentally forget. Things seem to change nearly every week, so it's a great way for all of us to keep up-to-date. That's partially why I blog, too. (Special shout-out to Melissa! I need to call you.)

• I'm back on my Myers-Briggs psychology kick. I know, I was just there like 6 months ago, but something sparked my interest again. I'm thinking about how I seem to know a lot about other people, but they generally don't know much about me. Why is that? Well, I'll blame it on my INFJ-ness. Sometimes it's called the "Counselor," which seems to fit pretty well. It also helps explain my borderline hippie and psychic ways, as well as...well, all kinds of previously perplexing things. I'm fairly balanced between the T/F and J/P parts, but INFJ seems to be the most accurate combination for me. It's the rarest of the 16 types, too. Ha, shocking. It's fun to figure out everyone elses' combinations and how they interact, also--Introvert/Extravert, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, Judging/Perceiving?! This could hold my attention for hours on end, which seems to confirm my supposed "human system builder" tendency. Find out what you are (or maybe I'll guess)! These are the options and the breakdown in the population, if anyone's interested:
  

• Okay, so the BK Burger Shots commercial is really stupid, but I still find it somewhat appealing. It's probably because I am overly attracted to "adorable" mini versions of products and packaging, as well. Burger King commercials do occasionally get on my bad side, though, but not as much as Hardee's. Watching people slobber all over a thickburger will never be appetizing; however, I don't hate the current Hardee's commercial (guy plays dead with the marinara sauce because the mafia is coming for him), which indicates some improvement.

• I'm trying not to worry about my grandpa's heart issues. He's had some scares before, but he might not be okay this time. We have seen this coming for a while, though, and it's sad to see him the way he is now. I'm glad he's at St. Mary's Hospital and not DePaul. Hopefully, he will get to at least go home soon. (I went to a "theology at the bottleworks" thing again last week (Schlafly) and the topic was euthenasia. It brought back memories of my grandma's last day at DePaul that I guess I had buried. We probably could have sued.)

• I am so conflicted. Again. This time about work. Sent my resume today and I'm trying to convince myself not to think about it. I mean, maybe I won't even have to worry about it. The whole thing makes me recoil a little, anyway, as it should.

• Valentine's Day is actually Feb. 27 this year. Who knew?

• My sister is a nun in "Sound of Music," and I'm going to see it tomorrow. I am sure this is the first and last time I will ever see that.
  

• Susan turns 6 1/4 this weekend (leap year baby), which is a great excuse to go to the Chocolate Bar! Yum! I should continue this trend of planning every weekend around chocolate...
  

Still waters run deep

They're doing a "get to know you" game at work this week, so last week they compiled 3 or 4 interesting facts each about the new people (myself included). My coworkers have to figure out which facts go with which people. I guess I'm okay with this game, it's just that I usually don't volunteer information about myself. I'm realizing that very few people know all about me, and most people only know a few limited things. A few people have labeled me "secretly cool" after they got to know me a little. Thanks? I'm not exactly sure how I feel about that.

On the one hand, I am a private person and I like it that way. Like...I already know enough about me, anyway, let's talk about you. Most people happily oblige because they enjoy talking about themselves. I honestly love to listen to them most of the time, too, so it works out rather well. I also think, on some level, that talking about myself to people that didn't ask me to tell them is unnecessarily flaunting my...uh, "secret coolness?" Ha. I just don't feel like I'm out to prove anything to anyone but myself, usually. If someone chooses to see beyond my quiet exterior, great, but if not, it doesn't bother me too much. Why show all your cards at once when you think you've got a pretty good hand, right? Eh, I don't know. That's a possibility. Plus, exposing myself makes me more vulnerable to attack, I suppose.

On the other hand, I'm not actively trying to hide myself, either. I do want people to know me as well as I seem to know them. Maybe getting to know them just doesn't take as much effort. I mean, in a way, I have been studying people my whole life, so by now I'm pretty good at...well, seeing through them, basically. I honestly believe that phony people pick up on that somehow, because they tend to keep their distance from me. (Yes, you are all contributing to my human data experiments. Mwahahaaa.)

I don't know if this makes sense to anyone but me. I guess what I'm saying is, I don't expect that many people to know that much about me, but it's cool if they want to find out. I'm not going to force it in any way, shape, or form, though. I prefer to be somewhat of a diamond in the rough, anyway (come to think of it, I once got a silly "diamond in the rough" award on dance team). Sometimes I even surprise myself.

My future album cover

There's this "album cover" thing that's been going around on facebook, but I thought I would put it here. I just did what it said and everything ended up sort of relating to each other, in an eerie way. Plus, "Lone Wolf" is an awesome band name. I slapped the words on there in 5 minutes and of course it bothers me, but I really don't feel like designing this. The full quote/album title is actually "Remember that happiness is a way of travel-not a destination." I like that. Anyway, here are the rules: To Do This ::
==============

1) Go to "Wikipedia." Hit “Random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wi

ki/Special:Random

The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2) Go to "Random Quotations" or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3

The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3) Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days

Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4) Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

5) Post it to FB (in the Notes section) with this text in the "caption" and TAG the friends you want to join in. (or the people who might actually do it)

This weekend

I still don't have plans for tomorrow night. Hmm...Ice skating? Movie? Ooh! I should go see Laura's play! Hopefully I can convince someone to go with me. That's what facebook is for...

Well, in theory. See, I made this "chocolate wine trail" event forever ago and only one person signed up on time. I told people (not just on facebook) that tickets sell out fast and you have to buy them online, and still almost everyone that was interested did not attempt to buy a ticket until last week...after they were sold out. I'm bummed because now I'm tagging along with someone else's group of friends and driving by myself, on top of that. I've met them before and they are cool people, but I don't really hang out with them. Oh well, I guess. I'll still get chocolate and wine, and I'll buy a new bottle of wine. Oh wait! I just found out tonight that this person might know someone that wants to buy my ticket...Maybe my schedule just opened up for Saturday.

[Commercial break: There are taiko drums on Jay Leno! They're playing background beats for this Bollywood dance thing. Weird, but also cool. I smell a collaboration. Actually, even weirder, I read today that Bollywood dance classes in the U.S. are becoming the new craze. I don't think I'll be trying that, though, believe it or not.]

On the other hand, facebook events did come in handy for Sunday's Maryland Heights taiko performance. It helps that it's sort of a central location, too, and it's also our second-largest local (open) performance of the year. I invited a ton of people and at least 7 friends are coming, plus my family. Some of these people have either never seen a performance or haven't seen one since my very first show (one song) there 2 years ago. Yeah, it's been 2 years! I've learned a lot since then and I'm pretty excited about some of the parts that I get to play in the set. I don't even mind if people I know see it anymore, either, as long as I don't see them in the audience. It should be a good show!

Do-si-dos

This relates to a few posts ago and it reminds me that girl scout cookies are coming soon! I always thought I was more of a Thin Mints girl, though...

You Are Peanut Butter Sandwiches / Do-si-dos

You are easy going and naturally happy. You don't need a lot to make you smile. You genuinely care about people and are a great friend. You're always doing your best to make the world a better place. Even though there isn't an immature bone in your body, you still are like a big kid sometimes. Why make life complicated when the best parts are actually quite simple? You enjoy the small joys of life.

What Girl Scout Cookie Are You?

Ha, I guess I do tend to speak in bullet points:

You Communicate Clearly

You're the type of person who thinks before you talk. You speak in an ordered, insightful, and concise way. You speak authoritatively and with conviction. If you take the time to say something, you stand behind it. You only say what you need to. You believe that your words are strongest when they're not diluted. When you have a lot to say, you map out your words ahead of time. You prefer to speak in bullet points.

What Kind of Communicator Are You?

String dance challenge

Yay! :D