No bucket list?

     Got word this week that the parkour gym in Baltimore is closing. While I am rather saddened by this, I'm choosing to focus on the fact that I got to study parkour for a year and a half, and that there are opportunities to continue doing so, if I choose to take them up. Having decided on that point of view, however, I started thinking about all the things I've gotten to do in life. You frequently hear about bucket lists - things that people want to see and do before they die - and google is full of "best ideas to add to  your bucket list" pages. I get stuck, though, on the concept of having a list of things you want to do - or think you want to do - or think you should want to do - just lying around waiting for you to pay attention to it.

     I don't have a bucket list (surprise, considering the title of this post). Don't get me wrong, there are probably things I want to do before I die, but instead of making a list based on things I want now, which, let's face it, is apt to change as life progresses, I prefer to live life in such a way that when opportunity or interest hits me, I can go and do it. My father has a story he's fond of telling about a person who would"someday" go on that bucket list trip to Europe. Things kept never being quite right, and they died having never gone on a simple trip. Don't wait for "someday," he says, make it happen.

Business is open!

     Hey all, hopefully this will be settling down here now that the business is officially open. If you haven't seen it, the website is here, and the store itself is on Etsy. Stop by and see what's been sucking my time away!

     In other news (yes, there is other news even with a new business),  I've decided to start my own dance group out here, as the ones I'd found aren't quite as demanding or graceful as I'd hoped. I made a deal with my old teacher out in Colorado, and we're going to try a distance learning thing via Skype/ video recordings. I've also switched to a Russian server in WoW in order to keep in practice, and boy does that help! It takes me about six times as long to do quests than it does in the English version, but my vocab and even grammar is getting one heck of a boost!

Quest log: I'm sorry, you want me to do WHAT now?

     In light of these and other changes, I've also decided to drop the online Masters classes I'd signed up for, until I know what my income levels will be. I'm debating a couple alternatives to keep me busy, such as kickboxing through the gym where I'll be dancing, and any number of language classes at the local community college, but that decision has to wait til I see how the business will do. If it takes off, then great! If it is a gradual takeoff, then I'll go sign up with a temp agency to keep me busy (and paid) until it's a means of support.

     So while things aren't super settled in yet, I have a couple plans, and feel like I'm on the right track. Thanks for your patience, and I'll be putting things up here occasionally, as life gets less hectic (ha!). Cheers!

FTP 49 - Don't give up yet

    This has been an absolutely horrendous week. Everything has gone wrong, from food being spoiled to kicking myself with a hardshoe, from the trailer I ordered being lost by the shipper to having my computer mysteriously eat three hours worth of work on my final paper... Almost every single area of my life has had something go seriously wrong with it in the last seven days.

     And then, out of nowhere, my aunt and uncle- who have been like parents to me out here- call me up and tell me that a relative is selling their trailer, nearly the exact same one I ordered but with a floor and sides already built, would I be interested in buying it? Heck yes I would. A little later, I finally suck it up and get back to work on my annihilated final paper, only to find out that I'm typing better and more easily than I thought I would, and having to look up fewer words. My gentleman called and said he got a job lead from his chiropractor, and gave me his email address to get in touch.

     No, it doesn't change the fact that this past week has been absolutely horrible. But... things do get better. And if you choose to look at it from a different point of view, there are also a lot of things that could have gone wrong, but didn't. The old cliché that it's always darkest before the dawn isn't factually true (I stayed up one night to check), but it's a good adage to live by. 

FTP 45 - Winning or not

     As we come up to St Pat's Day, the Irish dance community typically goes insane. There is so much to do, between booking shows, shuttling people around, getting routines down, learning new steps, making sure everyone knows what they need to do, etc etc. Not only that, but pretty much immediately after it's over, it's time to start preparing for feisanna (competitions) and class shows, so all semblance of calm goes out the window. Being a pretty snarky person, especially when I feel I've been unjustly snarked at to start with, I always try my hardest to remember this lesson in these days.

     And, of course, any other time of the year when other people are under a lot of stress and mistakenly choose to take it out on the undeserving. Sometimes, it's really just best to shush and walk away. Not always, but sometimes. The trick is knowing when...

A Way with Words

     When I was 16, I got my first job at the Virginia Renaissance Faire, working in the kitchens. It didn't take me long to figure out that I didn't like food service work (that's a different story), so the next year I worked as a Reveler- ie, unpaid local 'color.' We, the Revelers, were supposed to play the peasantry of the faire. Most of it wasn't bad: we got to interact with the locals, wash clothes in the river (and make as much mess and fuss as we wanted), and had a lot of time that was unsupervised with the injunction to go interact with people. Without a doubt, though, my favorite activity was the Maypole Dance.

     Twice a day, we got to go unwind the ribbons from the Maypole and teach patrons how to do maypole dances. I would occasionally be required to play the music on a recorder, if the musicians were late, but for the most part, I got to dance, weave ribbons, figure out the logistics of weaving and unweaving ribbons and bodies, and encourage people to join in. When it comes to dance, my antisocial tendencies vanish, so I had an absolute ball (pun intended).

FTP 15 - Reactions to Murphy

     This week has been exceptionally crummy. Murphy was personally overseeing pretty much every aspect of it, from the database at work going down... again... to being both hungry and unenthused about food, to having bank issues, to getting incorrect store hours for a desperately needed transaction, to finally getting paperwork from the doctor for my visa application, only to have it be entirely not what I asked for. I have been in a funk for a good number of days, and was just slowly starting to get out of it on Thursday, a day I have Irish dance class, which is usually guaranteed to put me in a good mood. So I head out, feeling optimistic...

...I get to class, and it's 80+ degrees inside (no a/c in the building)...

...and the teacher has decided we need to do drills today...

Recovery week

     St. Patrick's Day is finally behind us, and now it's time to work on recovery. The last two nights have been spent with both ankles and both knees in wraps and braces, and I've slept over 9 hours each night. Fortunately I have semi-decent memory, because when I woke up today, I realized that, not only had I not prepared a post for today, but I also have a meeting with my advisor on campus in an hour and a half.

     With that in mind, here's a thank you that was sent to all of us from a preschool class that we went and danced for. I'd like to say that next week's post will be more comprehensive, but I'd be lying, since it will be spring break, and I will have a guest over. Here's hoping your week is a little less crazy than mine has been!

It's that time of the year again...

     And if you have any connections to an Irish dancer, you know exactly what I'm talking about. For most of the year, we are forgotten, shoved aside, and largely ignored by most of society, unless it's a big gig like Riverdance or Lord of the Dance. We have our own shows, our own competitions, and quietly get by doing that which we love best in relative anonymity.

Riverdance

     But then here comes March 17th, a day that mostly carries connotations of green beer and shamrocks for the majority of the public, and is a source of both joy and slight dread for us dancers. St. Patrick's Day is the one time of year that the rest of the world goes, "Oh right! Irish dancing! That exists!" and subsequently demands that we do a show, parade, or performance at every possible opportunity. We dance indoors, outdoors, on existing dance floors and concrete pads, with generous room to move around or else cramped between tables as harried servers try to edge around out flying feet. This year is a little more sorted out, but last year we had a couple places that booked our group to perform, and then when we showed up they said, "what, you need a stage to dance on?" Sigh.

One of those days

     Did you ever have one of those days that just seemed to utterly lack energy? It's not that you don't get things done, or that you're not interested in life, but just... it's too much work. Today was one of those, and coming on the heels of a rough week, I didn't really get much of anything done. Rather than fall into a funk about it though, I decided it was time to go find my energy, no matter where it went.

     First step on recovering energy: music. No matter what your favorite kind of music is, listening to something with a decently paced beat and with a positive message will always improve your mood. If it's got the right type of rhythm to dance to, so much the better. Boogie while you vacuum, headbang while folding laundry, or jive while dusting- whatever you end up doing will not only get you moving (a proven method to being in a better mood), but will also accomplish one of those annoying chores that looked boring. Now it's out of the way, and life is looking better.

Who studies Russian?!

     Recently, a couple classmates and I were bemoaning our obviously insane idea to study Russian, and one of my friends came up with this opinion:

     I won't deny it, I laughed for a good long time after hearing that, but the next day I got to thinking... is it really true? Keep in mind I've studied my share of languages, whether on my own or through schooling,

How to make a stubborn person give up.

Yes, it's a long title. I have faith that you can deal with it. Moving on...

     One of my less annoying habits is that I'm pretty stubborn. I try to stay with things no matter what, sometimes even when it's neither logical nor wise to do so. However, there is one sure-fire way to make me give up on anything, and this past week has gotten me pretty close to just crawling back into bed and hibernating til Thursday. Why Thursday? Thursday is dance class, for one, which always puts me in a better mood, and, more importantly, Thursday is when I go back to the dentist to get a permanent crown put on and my last cavity filled. Remember this, it is important.

     Now, back to the giving up bit. A lot of people, if asked, would probably say the best way to make someone give up is to constantly harass and harangue them, make sure that everything goes wrong, and they can achieve nothing, right? Well, they'd be wrong. The only thing that will do for stubborn people (and admit it, if you're not a stubborn person, you at least know one, so this can be applied in everyone's life), is make them angry. The more you thwart a stubborner, the more determined they will be to find you and prove that they can overcome anything. Think about it: who triumphs in the end? The stubborn ones who don't back

Pickup Lines and Responses 1

     So for some reason, there have been a bunch of bad pickup lines and responses to them floating around in the back of my head for a while. Having nothing better to do, I decided to sit down and start getting them out. I don't know how frequent they will be, but here you go:

Fifty!

No no, fifty posts, not I'm fifty years old! Time flies, but thankfully not that fast.

     So I'd hoped that the fiftieth post for the blog would be a little more razzmatazz, as it were, but circumstances have come to pass to prevent that from happening. This past week was quite horrendously busy, and I was not able to get any drawing or writing done. Yesterday was my first day on the Concession Runner job, and it turned out to be a whopping 14-hour day. Suffice to day, I was not a happy camper. Getting up before the sun, driving to work in the dark, then watching the sun go down and the moon come up while you are STILL at work is no-one's idea of a good time. At least, no-one sane.

     I'm not saying it was all bad either, no no. I met some great people, enough to overshadow the awful people I met, and learned what I need to do better for the next time, so that hopefully I don't spend

Attitude

Would you believe it? Some people just think the world should be handed to them on a silver platter!

     So I was sitting around the house tonight, in that special state of bored where you have plenty to do, but don't really feel like doing any of it. I could keep working on my sewing project... or my weaving project... or keep knitting that scarf that I promised to my mom a couple years ago... or cook or clean or watch a movie or tv show or study for school, or any of a million things that I could do, but none of them really sparked my interest.

     One thing, however, that has always been an interest of mine is being part of something bigger than

Sloths etc.

     Let us consider, for a moment, the sloth. The motivation to do so will be revealed later, but for now: the sloth. A graceful creature that lives primarily in trees, with a top ground speed of 6.5 feet per minute (per wikipedia). Now imagine, for the purpose of this exercise, that some poor sloth had to have a limb amputated. Doesn't really matter which one, but luck handed this guy the short end of the stick, and now he's minus a limb. At 6.5 feet per minute, he can't exactly hop, or whatever an upside-down hop while hanging from a branch would be, because he can't move fast enough to grab the branch again before gravity presents its bill. This guy is in for some serious non-gracefulness while trying to move about in a world that is now hostile to general perambulation.

On storytelling, dancing, and beds

Someone once asked me, having been subjected to probably far too many Lyssa stories, "Do you really have that many adventures in your life?!" I laughed and replied, "Probably not, but if you look at life that way, it's a lot more interesting, and you laugh a lot more!" To this day, I still believe that, which is why I'm writing these down- hopefully I can bring a chuckle to someone who needs it on a blah day. That and I'm sure many of you can relate to these stories.

That being said, on to the storytelling!

As a place to begin, I find it interesting that boring, ordinary days can be so wildly different from each other. Yesterday, after a late night performance on Friday, I wanted to do absolutely nothing, so that's what I did. My Saturday was spent sitting in front of the computer, emailing people, checking out new things, refreshing old

Working and descriptions

True to form, I have been too productive, and my temp job is over early. The deadline for completing everything was the end of the month, and I got it done with a week and a half to spare. Now, to some people, this is silly. They would argue that I have shot myself in the foot- after all, I could have moved more slowly, taken my time, and made bank for another week and a half. To me, though, this attitude is ridiculous. I was stuck in a windowless office, pulling staples out of papers and feeding them into a scanner for 8 hours a day, and when I ran out of papers, I got to pull more boxes of papers out of the warehouse, and sort them by year, vendor, and then date. Why would I want to prolong this? For money? I'll take my happiness, thank you.

So here I am now, out of a job 10 days early. I'm not terribly worried about this though, for two reasons. One is that, due to living off student loans, I have become very frugal, and have made enough in the 5 weeks that I did work to support myself for the entire summer. Not extravagantly, mind you, but enough to pay all my bills

Things I have learned today:

1. If you want me to go insane, put me in a menial office job with no mental stimulation or sunlight. I'll last 3 days then start losing it.
   
2. I am mildly dyslexic with numbers, and this comes out more strongly when I'm going insane.
   
3. Just because I'm good or efficient at something, doesn't mean I want to do it. Usually, I get efficient at it so it can be over with faster.
   
4. If you want something done prettily, don't ask me to do it. I'll do it the fastest way to get the most effective job done, but it won't be pretty. You want pretty, you pay me a lot more, give me sunlight, and let me move around a lot. Machine conditions result in machine work, and that includes using scissors