I decided today, as I was leaving my french final, that I want to be good at three things:
1) Circus
2) Teaching
3) French
Perhaps I can someday teach academic classes at a French-speaking circus (CDS) or circus school (ENC)? Or maybe teach a class, in French, about the history of the European circus? Or about the history of French or French-Canadian circus, but teach it in English?
Hm...
08 December 2007
Flood Aftermath
Earlier this week we had crazy amounts of rain even for Seattle. It poured and poured for almost three days. We broke all sorts of rainfall records, a giant chunk of I-5 closed and just reopened yesterday, and we were declared a state of emergency. Fortunately my neighborhood was pretty safe, but I know several people who had floods in their basements or damage to their cars.
Now, however, it's sharply cold and beautiful outside. The sun has been out, the sky is blue, and everything is starting to dry out in a good way.
Today I noticed that, thanks to the weirdly-timed, torrential rains, the grass all over town is so green it almost hurts the eyes. The little patches of grass at my apartment complex and at the university, as well as larger expanses at parks here and there, seems to jump right into your face. You can almost see the color vibrate.
This deep, deep green is even more pronounced in contrast to the yellow and brown leaves that litter the ground and hold on desperately to tree branches. One can't help but notice the contradiction between the dead and the fiercely alive.
Now, however, it's sharply cold and beautiful outside. The sun has been out, the sky is blue, and everything is starting to dry out in a good way.
Today I noticed that, thanks to the weirdly-timed, torrential rains, the grass all over town is so green it almost hurts the eyes. The little patches of grass at my apartment complex and at the university, as well as larger expanses at parks here and there, seems to jump right into your face. You can almost see the color vibrate.
This deep, deep green is even more pronounced in contrast to the yellow and brown leaves that litter the ground and hold on desperately to tree branches. One can't help but notice the contradiction between the dead and the fiercely alive.
29 November 2007
No, what's "random" is that we have French class in the Law Building.
Getting settled before French class this afternoon.
Classmate: What class is in here before us?
Me (looking at information about a custody case being erased from the board): I think it's a family law class.
Classmate: That's so random.
Classmate: What class is in here before us?
Me (looking at information about a custody case being erased from the board): I think it's a family law class.
Classmate: That's so random.
03 November 2007
OMG Running Adventures
Well, hellloooooo everyone. I've been totally slacking in the blogging department! But nothing has really been going on lately, so I didn't want to bore the pants off of anyone. It's not you it's me.
Today, however, I have a story. See, yesterday I had my first real full-on aerial lesson since I got hurt three months ago. It went well. I dunno. I could do stuff I didn't think I would be able to do, but I got really tired really fast and my grip strength is totally not what I'm used to anymore. It's unnerving to be way off the ground and upside down and to think, "Holy cow! My hands want to stop holding on RIGHT NOW!" Scary. I think I'll be okay, though. Everyone and their mother is like, "Don't worry! You'll get it back quickly!" and I'm like, "Heh! Yeah! Okay!" because no matter how quickly it comes back, it won't be quick enough for me.
Anyway, moving on. So I woke up this morning SO SORE (as was to be expected) and I thought, "Hey, maybe I should take a little run to get the kinks out," and I decided to take Chelsea with me. So we made it down to the lake where I always run and (here's where the OMG comes in) there was a race going on right on my usual running path! Okay, that's not really that big of a deal. It is a popular running/short race spot and it is a Saturday. But it quickly occurred to me that this wasn't your ordinary 5K walk/run. For example, there were about 100 runners or so and they seemed to be running in teams or pairs. One person in each team or pair was carrying--get this--a pineapple. A real one. I could smell them (the pineapples, not the runners). Also, many of the runners were wearing all manner of "Hawaiian" accoutrements. Grass skirts? Check. Coconut bras? Check. Flowered shirts? You bet. Weird.
Not only that, but they weren't running along the path like I was. They were for some of the route (I spent a great deal of time dodging these people and running in the opposite direction--against them, but I figured it's a public park, the race isn't that big, and I wasn't actually in anyone's WAY, so it was okay), but at certain places along the path, arrows would direct them to run straight for the water and then back for some reason, and THEN (this is the best part) there was this weird obstacle course (sponsored by REI, according to the one banner I saw along the entire race route) where the runners had to climb over a little barrier, then a larger barrier, then one or more of them had to run to one side of a really tall barrier that had tires at the top, while another member of the team had to attempt to THROW THE PINEAPPLE THROUGH ONE OF THE TIRES from the other side. I know, right?
So, of course, once the pineapple made it through one of the tires, it almost always landed--hard--on the ground, resulting in leaky, sticky pineapples that the runners had to pick up and run around the course with AGAIN. I don't know how many laps these people had to do. Maybe I should have asked one of the HIGH SCHOOL CHEERLEADERS in FULL REGALIA who served as route guides (pointing their pompoms in the right direction, no less). Confusing!
Anyway, I can't really do the experience justice, but I had to try. It was rather surreal. I wonder why I'm suddenly craving pineapple?
Today, however, I have a story. See, yesterday I had my first real full-on aerial lesson since I got hurt three months ago. It went well. I dunno. I could do stuff I didn't think I would be able to do, but I got really tired really fast and my grip strength is totally not what I'm used to anymore. It's unnerving to be way off the ground and upside down and to think, "Holy cow! My hands want to stop holding on RIGHT NOW!" Scary. I think I'll be okay, though. Everyone and their mother is like, "Don't worry! You'll get it back quickly!" and I'm like, "Heh! Yeah! Okay!" because no matter how quickly it comes back, it won't be quick enough for me.
Anyway, moving on. So I woke up this morning SO SORE (as was to be expected) and I thought, "Hey, maybe I should take a little run to get the kinks out," and I decided to take Chelsea with me. So we made it down to the lake where I always run and (here's where the OMG comes in) there was a race going on right on my usual running path! Okay, that's not really that big of a deal. It is a popular running/short race spot and it is a Saturday. But it quickly occurred to me that this wasn't your ordinary 5K walk/run. For example, there were about 100 runners or so and they seemed to be running in teams or pairs. One person in each team or pair was carrying--get this--a pineapple. A real one. I could smell them (the pineapples, not the runners). Also, many of the runners were wearing all manner of "Hawaiian" accoutrements. Grass skirts? Check. Coconut bras? Check. Flowered shirts? You bet. Weird.
Not only that, but they weren't running along the path like I was. They were for some of the route (I spent a great deal of time dodging these people and running in the opposite direction--against them, but I figured it's a public park, the race isn't that big, and I wasn't actually in anyone's WAY, so it was okay), but at certain places along the path, arrows would direct them to run straight for the water and then back for some reason, and THEN (this is the best part) there was this weird obstacle course (sponsored by REI, according to the one banner I saw along the entire race route) where the runners had to climb over a little barrier, then a larger barrier, then one or more of them had to run to one side of a really tall barrier that had tires at the top, while another member of the team had to attempt to THROW THE PINEAPPLE THROUGH ONE OF THE TIRES from the other side. I know, right?
So, of course, once the pineapple made it through one of the tires, it almost always landed--hard--on the ground, resulting in leaky, sticky pineapples that the runners had to pick up and run around the course with AGAIN. I don't know how many laps these people had to do. Maybe I should have asked one of the HIGH SCHOOL CHEERLEADERS in FULL REGALIA who served as route guides (pointing their pompoms in the right direction, no less). Confusing!
Anyway, I can't really do the experience justice, but I had to try. It was rather surreal. I wonder why I'm suddenly craving pineapple?
02 October 2007
Fattitude Adjustment
Okay, so the month of October may suck. I've put myself on a "let's get serious" plan that involves lots of running, abs, stretching, and not a lot of eating. And it's not that I mind the exercise, it's just that I normally do these things alongside my aerial training in order to make myself a better aerialist, but now, because I'm still recovering and because we don't have a rehearsal space this month, it feels like there's no point.
Obviously there is a point, though. The point is my pants feel weird because they are getting all tight around the thigh region. Barf. And I need to be as ready as I can when I am allowed to go back to aerial full throttle so that I'm not wasting weeks and weeks just trying to get my core strength back up. So, yes, technically the utility of this grand program makes sense, but emotionally...I dunno...I just want to whine all the time.
It's not like I haven't been exercising since I got home from camp. I've been running and doing abs and everything, just not very seriously. And as for eating...let's just say I've been pretty liberal about my calorie intake. Not good.
Anyway, I made up a plan and I started yesterday (October 1st) and it's going okay except for the fact that I didn't get to run today because there's some sort of monsoon or something happening outside. So that means I have to run tomorrow, which was supposed to be a day off from running. Whatever.
Something fun: this plan does involve me attending dance classes on Saturdays and/or Sundays. My aerial stuff will benefit from me getting back into dance, I think, so I need to get over the shyness and get through the door and get going with that. New experiences are so scary sometimes. I'll tell you how it goes after this weekend.
Other things that are going on: School started last Wednesday and I realized this is the 25th year of my life I've been in school. Nice. Also, the Women Studies newsletter went out today and they put a photo of me on the trapeze in it to illustrate something about how "the students' extracurricular activities sometimes inform their research." Or some such thing. I'm in French 103 now (woo!) and my teacher is kind of famous and she's AWESOME and I'm learning a lot. So that's good. Chelsea is all better from her car accident and subsequent surgery, but she's been acting really weird today, in that she is cowering in fear every five minutes (shaking, tail between her legs, hiding in weird places in the apartment). I'm gonna' go ahead and chalk that up to the aforementioned crazy-ass weather we're having and call it a day.
So I'll try to keep updates coming about how my fattitude adjustment is going. Hopefully that will keep me accountable. One thing that's kind of funny is how I can't actually keep track of whether I'm losing weight or not because my scale needs a new battery and the battery is weird and I don't know where to get one like it. Radio Shack? Perhaps. I haven't been too anxious to replace the battery anyway because I'm terrified to see how much weight I've actually gained since I hurt my hand. It's always hard for me to keep my weight down, but when I'm training (aerially), it's WAY EASIER than when I'm in the situation I'm in now. Frustrating.
Speaking of aerials (as I have been for this whole entry, really), I actually got to do a teeny bit of trapeze last Thursday. I had a lesson with Darty and my physical therapist had said it was okay to VERY CAREFULLY start doing some hanging again as long as I wasn't climbing ropes or doing tricks in the trapeze ropes. Still no word on when I'll be able to do those activities again. So most of the lesson was about stretching and core strengthening on the ground, but I did get to do a little bit of bar stuff and it was great. Now I can no longer say it's been two months since I've been on a trapeze. Hooray!
I am off to do some french homework. Thanks for reading!
Obviously there is a point, though. The point is my pants feel weird because they are getting all tight around the thigh region. Barf. And I need to be as ready as I can when I am allowed to go back to aerial full throttle so that I'm not wasting weeks and weeks just trying to get my core strength back up. So, yes, technically the utility of this grand program makes sense, but emotionally...I dunno...I just want to whine all the time.
It's not like I haven't been exercising since I got home from camp. I've been running and doing abs and everything, just not very seriously. And as for eating...let's just say I've been pretty liberal about my calorie intake. Not good.
Anyway, I made up a plan and I started yesterday (October 1st) and it's going okay except for the fact that I didn't get to run today because there's some sort of monsoon or something happening outside. So that means I have to run tomorrow, which was supposed to be a day off from running. Whatever.
Something fun: this plan does involve me attending dance classes on Saturdays and/or Sundays. My aerial stuff will benefit from me getting back into dance, I think, so I need to get over the shyness and get through the door and get going with that. New experiences are so scary sometimes. I'll tell you how it goes after this weekend.
Other things that are going on: School started last Wednesday and I realized this is the 25th year of my life I've been in school. Nice. Also, the Women Studies newsletter went out today and they put a photo of me on the trapeze in it to illustrate something about how "the students' extracurricular activities sometimes inform their research." Or some such thing. I'm in French 103 now (woo!) and my teacher is kind of famous and she's AWESOME and I'm learning a lot. So that's good. Chelsea is all better from her car accident and subsequent surgery, but she's been acting really weird today, in that she is cowering in fear every five minutes (shaking, tail between her legs, hiding in weird places in the apartment). I'm gonna' go ahead and chalk that up to the aforementioned crazy-ass weather we're having and call it a day.
So I'll try to keep updates coming about how my fattitude adjustment is going. Hopefully that will keep me accountable. One thing that's kind of funny is how I can't actually keep track of whether I'm losing weight or not because my scale needs a new battery and the battery is weird and I don't know where to get one like it. Radio Shack? Perhaps. I haven't been too anxious to replace the battery anyway because I'm terrified to see how much weight I've actually gained since I hurt my hand. It's always hard for me to keep my weight down, but when I'm training (aerially), it's WAY EASIER than when I'm in the situation I'm in now. Frustrating.
Speaking of aerials (as I have been for this whole entry, really), I actually got to do a teeny bit of trapeze last Thursday. I had a lesson with Darty and my physical therapist had said it was okay to VERY CAREFULLY start doing some hanging again as long as I wasn't climbing ropes or doing tricks in the trapeze ropes. Still no word on when I'll be able to do those activities again. So most of the lesson was about stretching and core strengthening on the ground, but I did get to do a little bit of bar stuff and it was great. Now I can no longer say it's been two months since I've been on a trapeze. Hooray!
I am off to do some french homework. Thanks for reading!
25 September 2007
Pretentious Fiction
I couldn't see the setting sun from the other side of the trees, but it was, indeed, setting as evidenced by the gradually shifting color of the sky, warming before cooling again and then fading to black. From where I sat, alone on a splintered wooden bench, I imagined I was feeling everything that could be felt. But it was a lie. I felt nothing. The longer I sat, the darker the world became, the more I wondered if it was real, this new idea...that trust is never absolute. How can it be when it is merely a human construct and humans are inherently fallible? Trust, it seems, was made to be broken. And these nebulous "feelings" we all talk about were apparently only made to be hurt.
05 September 2007
Camp: The Documentary
Okay, this is really weird, but lately I feel like I'm living the epilogue of a documentary. You know, like when you watch a film about an event or a group of people or whatever, and then you think it's over, but at the very end they show what happens afterward when the members of the group or participants in the event go back to their normal lives? Like that. So the documentary would have been about camp, and now the cameras would be following Chrissymine and me around now that we're home. Here we are shopping for a new microwave at Best Buy. Here we are taking the dog to the vet. Here's me at Physical Therapy. There would be snippets of footage designed to illustrate how utterly plain and normal life seems when camp is over and you're out of the bubble.
I sort of wish there was a documentary about camp. I'm so sick of some of my aerial acquaintances around here thinking I'm some yahoo who teaches little kids how to juggle or whatever. I had brunch with some people the other day and one of them, in her most condescending tone, asked if our "little end of the summer show" went well. End of the what? LITTLE? We do three completely different full-length productions each summer. Each show has costumes designed and made for it, sets, sound, and 60-80 kids in the cast. We rehearse each act for an hour a day. Some kids (the intensive kids) rehearse for three hours and then train for two more hours per day. We have auditions and workshops and tech rehearsals and evening rehearsals and a camp show and a parent show each session. Some of those kids are better at tissu and hoop than this particular person who was being condescending to me, so she might want to shut up. And that's just the circus program, by the way. While we're doing our thing there are 9 theater productions, a dance show, a magic show, countless music performances, and an art show all preparing and rehearsing at the same time. People have no idea what we do there. It's hella frustrating.
In other news, my hand is feeling much better, although I have not yet been cleared to hang on anything yet. I am sick of people asking me how my wrist is doing. It is not my wrist that is the problem, thank you very much. Does it matter? Well, yes because somehow I feel like, had I hurt my wrist, it wouldn't be as awful as having hurt my HAND in several places. Considering the aforementioned hanging from things that I do.
Did you know that Chrissymine was the victim of witchcraft or some such shit over the summer? Yeah, it happened at the hands of an Ex-Friend and her Bad Influence. Long story, but apparently it worked considering all the bad stuff that happened to her friends and loved ones while we were at camp. I wanna do some witchcraft on the girls who pulled that malarkey. My version of witchcraft involves punching people in the face. It's not very spiritual, I'll admit, but it is rather effective.
Speaking of bad stuff that happened to Chrissymine, her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer right before camp. Fortunately she had surgery over the summer and had the tumor removed (as well as a bunch of lymph nodes just in case), and now she's cancer free for all intents and purposes, but she has to have radiation every day for a while. She had some tests done that showed the chance of recurrence to be quite low, so that's awesome, but the whole process of getting to this sigh-of-relief point has been really difficult. So did Chrissymine need people to give her shit all summer long? No, I think she had enough on her plate. Did people give her shit anyway? Yes. Because the world is full of jackasses. Jackasses whom I would like to punch in the face.
Wanna' see a photo of my new tattoo? Here:
I got it done in Lake George on July 23rd. It's hard to tell, but it's on the inside of my left forearm. I am totally in love with it. It's meant to represent stars and waves. Stars because I love them and waves because I'm extremely fond of the ocean and have been since birth. One of my staff members designed it for me. So there you have it. My third tattoo, and the first one that's visible. My parents are going to kill me. They still don't know about the first two. Pickolas, do NOT tell them.
Anyway, that's what's going on with me. I'm climbing back into my Seattle life as best I can. Maybe I'll learn to like coffee this year. Who knows?
I sort of wish there was a documentary about camp. I'm so sick of some of my aerial acquaintances around here thinking I'm some yahoo who teaches little kids how to juggle or whatever. I had brunch with some people the other day and one of them, in her most condescending tone, asked if our "little end of the summer show" went well. End of the what? LITTLE? We do three completely different full-length productions each summer. Each show has costumes designed and made for it, sets, sound, and 60-80 kids in the cast. We rehearse each act for an hour a day. Some kids (the intensive kids) rehearse for three hours and then train for two more hours per day. We have auditions and workshops and tech rehearsals and evening rehearsals and a camp show and a parent show each session. Some of those kids are better at tissu and hoop than this particular person who was being condescending to me, so she might want to shut up. And that's just the circus program, by the way. While we're doing our thing there are 9 theater productions, a dance show, a magic show, countless music performances, and an art show all preparing and rehearsing at the same time. People have no idea what we do there. It's hella frustrating.
In other news, my hand is feeling much better, although I have not yet been cleared to hang on anything yet. I am sick of people asking me how my wrist is doing. It is not my wrist that is the problem, thank you very much. Does it matter? Well, yes because somehow I feel like, had I hurt my wrist, it wouldn't be as awful as having hurt my HAND in several places. Considering the aforementioned hanging from things that I do.
Did you know that Chrissymine was the victim of witchcraft or some such shit over the summer? Yeah, it happened at the hands of an Ex-Friend and her Bad Influence. Long story, but apparently it worked considering all the bad stuff that happened to her friends and loved ones while we were at camp. I wanna do some witchcraft on the girls who pulled that malarkey. My version of witchcraft involves punching people in the face. It's not very spiritual, I'll admit, but it is rather effective.
Speaking of bad stuff that happened to Chrissymine, her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer right before camp. Fortunately she had surgery over the summer and had the tumor removed (as well as a bunch of lymph nodes just in case), and now she's cancer free for all intents and purposes, but she has to have radiation every day for a while. She had some tests done that showed the chance of recurrence to be quite low, so that's awesome, but the whole process of getting to this sigh-of-relief point has been really difficult. So did Chrissymine need people to give her shit all summer long? No, I think she had enough on her plate. Did people give her shit anyway? Yes. Because the world is full of jackasses. Jackasses whom I would like to punch in the face.
Wanna' see a photo of my new tattoo? Here:
I got it done in Lake George on July 23rd. It's hard to tell, but it's on the inside of my left forearm. I am totally in love with it. It's meant to represent stars and waves. Stars because I love them and waves because I'm extremely fond of the ocean and have been since birth. One of my staff members designed it for me. So there you have it. My third tattoo, and the first one that's visible. My parents are going to kill me. They still don't know about the first two. Pickolas, do NOT tell them.
Anyway, that's what's going on with me. I'm climbing back into my Seattle life as best I can. Maybe I'll learn to like coffee this year. Who knows?
30 August 2007
Summer in a Nutshell
Once you've worked at Long Lake for long enough, you come to understand that not every year can be fantastic. This year, while not awful, was pretty rough. Aside from a lot of issues stemming from the fact that a couple of people I thought were my friends turned out to be really, really not what I thought they were, I also injured my right hand pretty seriously and my dog got hit by a car...among other things.
I hurt my hand while catching on the flying trapeze a couple of days before our second session Parents Weekend show went up. A kid flew at me crooked and I caught his wrist with my left hand and his head with my right. My thumb bent all the way back and, once I managed to sit upright in the trapeze again, I watched as my hand blew up to a really unnatural size. I got down the ladder (somehow), went to the nurse, had someone find Chrissymine for me, and was immediately whisked away to the doctor and then to urgent care for X-rays. Good news: it's not broken. Bad news: I tore a bunch of ligaments all around my thumb and I had to go to Albany to see a hand specialist who said (more good news) I DON'T need surgery, but also that (more bad news) I have to wear a splint for four weeks (I think I only have another week or so to go with that) and that I can't do any physical activity with that hand for six (so I guess I have another two or three weeks to go for that part). I couldn't do ANYTHING for the last four weeks of camp. I mean, I coached and choreographed and directed and ran my department and everything, and we put on our shows second and third session as expected (even though third session we were one person down, another unfortunate and unexpected thing that happened this summer), but I can't cut my own food, do my own hair, carry anything, write, in fact I shouldn't even be typing right now because it hurts. I have a splint I have to wear and everything. I'm totally worried I'm going to lose the strength I worked so hard to gain over the past year or more. The whole situation pretty much destroyed me and I'm still having a hard time even now, a month later. Thank goodness for Chrissymine. She's done everything she can (all while insisting I'm a "terrible patient") to help me out--she got me to ice my hand all the time for the first couple of weeks, she carried all of the heavy stuff when we were travelling home, she cuts my food for me and she even tries not to let the meat touch the other food on the plate (it's a thing). I honestly don't know what I would have done without her help and without her accompanying me to the many doctors appointments I've been on because if this.
As for Chelsea, she's okay. While we were at camp, she was staying with our friends in Seattle because of an airline snafu that was entirely my fault. They almost made it through the whole summer without Chelsea escaping (as she does), but one day about two weeks ago she bolted and ran right into the busy street by their house. She doesn't have any broken bones or internal injuries or anything like that (whew), but she did have to have surgery on her right forepaw because of a HUGE laceration (they say it was more like road rash in that there was a whole chunk of skin missing) that had to be cleaned and repaired. Anyway, now she has a bandage on her right front leg (just like mine on my right hand!) and she has to wear one of those stupid cone collar things to keep her from licking at the bandage. She seems pretty okay, but I'll be glad when the stitches are out and she can exercise again and things can get back to normal. She lost a lot of weight too, which she didn't need to do, so that's worrisome as well.
So aside from my injury and Chelsea's injury and "friends" of mine turning into raging bitches for no apparent reason, there was also the matter of a someone very close to me whose heart was broken repeatedly this summer by the actions and judgements of others. I can't really say anything else about that, but she's trying to put herself together as best she can and I'm trying to help even though I don't know how and I'm probably not doing it right. But I try.
The good things:
1) My staff was great. All of them were new, young, and super talented. I hope I can get at least one of them to come back, but with circus people, you never know.
2) All three of our shows went well.
3) The bears were out ALL THE TIME this summer. We got to see them tons. Some people might think this was a bad thing. I think bears are cool.
4) I went out to the bar a LOT this year. Way more than any other year, that's for sure. I didn't always have a great time, but many times it was good to just be able to be off camp with friends.
5) The kids still make my life worth living. They're the best.
So that's it. Summer at camp crammed in a nutshell. I've been home for less than 48 hours. I still have jet lag, but at least I'm unpacked. I miss camp people, but not as much as I usually do, and I'm anxious to catch up with my Seattle friends, but not that anxious. No offense. I kind of think I need a vacation.
I hurt my hand while catching on the flying trapeze a couple of days before our second session Parents Weekend show went up. A kid flew at me crooked and I caught his wrist with my left hand and his head with my right. My thumb bent all the way back and, once I managed to sit upright in the trapeze again, I watched as my hand blew up to a really unnatural size. I got down the ladder (somehow), went to the nurse, had someone find Chrissymine for me, and was immediately whisked away to the doctor and then to urgent care for X-rays. Good news: it's not broken. Bad news: I tore a bunch of ligaments all around my thumb and I had to go to Albany to see a hand specialist who said (more good news) I DON'T need surgery, but also that (more bad news) I have to wear a splint for four weeks (I think I only have another week or so to go with that) and that I can't do any physical activity with that hand for six (so I guess I have another two or three weeks to go for that part). I couldn't do ANYTHING for the last four weeks of camp. I mean, I coached and choreographed and directed and ran my department and everything, and we put on our shows second and third session as expected (even though third session we were one person down, another unfortunate and unexpected thing that happened this summer), but I can't cut my own food, do my own hair, carry anything, write, in fact I shouldn't even be typing right now because it hurts. I have a splint I have to wear and everything. I'm totally worried I'm going to lose the strength I worked so hard to gain over the past year or more. The whole situation pretty much destroyed me and I'm still having a hard time even now, a month later. Thank goodness for Chrissymine. She's done everything she can (all while insisting I'm a "terrible patient") to help me out--she got me to ice my hand all the time for the first couple of weeks, she carried all of the heavy stuff when we were travelling home, she cuts my food for me and she even tries not to let the meat touch the other food on the plate (it's a thing). I honestly don't know what I would have done without her help and without her accompanying me to the many doctors appointments I've been on because if this.
As for Chelsea, she's okay. While we were at camp, she was staying with our friends in Seattle because of an airline snafu that was entirely my fault. They almost made it through the whole summer without Chelsea escaping (as she does), but one day about two weeks ago she bolted and ran right into the busy street by their house. She doesn't have any broken bones or internal injuries or anything like that (whew), but she did have to have surgery on her right forepaw because of a HUGE laceration (they say it was more like road rash in that there was a whole chunk of skin missing) that had to be cleaned and repaired. Anyway, now she has a bandage on her right front leg (just like mine on my right hand!) and she has to wear one of those stupid cone collar things to keep her from licking at the bandage. She seems pretty okay, but I'll be glad when the stitches are out and she can exercise again and things can get back to normal. She lost a lot of weight too, which she didn't need to do, so that's worrisome as well.
So aside from my injury and Chelsea's injury and "friends" of mine turning into raging bitches for no apparent reason, there was also the matter of a someone very close to me whose heart was broken repeatedly this summer by the actions and judgements of others. I can't really say anything else about that, but she's trying to put herself together as best she can and I'm trying to help even though I don't know how and I'm probably not doing it right. But I try.
The good things:
1) My staff was great. All of them were new, young, and super talented. I hope I can get at least one of them to come back, but with circus people, you never know.
2) All three of our shows went well.
3) The bears were out ALL THE TIME this summer. We got to see them tons. Some people might think this was a bad thing. I think bears are cool.
4) I went out to the bar a LOT this year. Way more than any other year, that's for sure. I didn't always have a great time, but many times it was good to just be able to be off camp with friends.
5) The kids still make my life worth living. They're the best.
So that's it. Summer at camp crammed in a nutshell. I've been home for less than 48 hours. I still have jet lag, but at least I'm unpacked. I miss camp people, but not as much as I usually do, and I'm anxious to catch up with my Seattle friends, but not that anxious. No offense. I kind of think I need a vacation.
14 July 2007
Parents' Weekend, Part The First
Well hello again out there! It's the first parents' weekend of the summer and we had our camp show yesterday and our parents' show this morning and Circus Rocks! was a success, if I'm to believe the rave reviews coming in from parents and staff. And I do. The Powers That Be of camp are calling it their favorite circus show ever, which is great. I caught all five of my flying trapeze kids in a row, which is sweet, and the rest of my kids did a great job. My staff did amazing things with their acts, too. What's especially awesome about all of this is the fact that we did so well even though we got STUPID AMOUNTS OF RAIN this session. The circus here is outdoors, so our rehearsals get cancelled when it rains unless we can find space indoors, and even that doesn't help with aerial acts because there is no place to hang aerial equipment in any of the theaters here. The good news (besides the fact that the show went swimmingly in spite of the rain) is that now, more than ever, the kids are asking for a circus building. I've told them to tell their parents to tell the camp administration how much they would like for our circus to be indoors. We'll see how far that kind of pressure gets us.
So, Into the Woods is up right now and, after this, the kids go back to their bunks and then we let them out again for pizza and soda and music on the lawn. Then they get to stay up for hours if they want. But this year we're having a serious bear issue (there are four bears that come onto camp every night, somtimes in the evenings, sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, and they don't seem to want to stop visiting. I've seen them several times. One teenaged bear likes to hang out by our cabin, in fact. There are photos and overturned garbage cans to prove it. More about the bears later), so I don't know how this will change the traditional "Hell Night" activities. Anyway, then there are more shows tomorrow, then the kids who were just here for session one leave, then we have production meetings for session two shows, then Monday the new kids arrive. No, not those New Kids, the session two campers, of course. And we do it all again!
So, Into the Woods is up right now and, after this, the kids go back to their bunks and then we let them out again for pizza and soda and music on the lawn. Then they get to stay up for hours if they want. But this year we're having a serious bear issue (there are four bears that come onto camp every night, somtimes in the evenings, sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, and they don't seem to want to stop visiting. I've seen them several times. One teenaged bear likes to hang out by our cabin, in fact. There are photos and overturned garbage cans to prove it. More about the bears later), so I don't know how this will change the traditional "Hell Night" activities. Anyway, then there are more shows tomorrow, then the kids who were just here for session one leave, then we have production meetings for session two shows, then Monday the new kids arrive. No, not those New Kids, the session two campers, of course. And we do it all again!
29 June 2007
It's for the children, fer fuck's sake.
The kids arrived last Sunday and Session One 2007 is in full force. I'm so happy that the campers are finally here, and I'm sunburned and busy and circusing for 6-7 hours per day and it's great. What's really cool is that, along with a lot of my favorite first session regulars, a bunch of other kids I love who usually don't come until second session came early. Plus there are a bunch of newbies who are great too.
The show we're doing this session is called "Circus Rocks" and all of the acts are being done to different rock songs. We're also hoping to have our camp's tech staff do an airband gag at some point in the show (to cover some rigging, but also because it's funny and those guys are a bunch of hams anyway), and then during the finale we're going to have one of the camper rock bands play. I'm teaching web/rope, aerial hoop (we've been using too-small lyras for years, and I finally got camp to allow me to buy two new proper-sized aerial hoops this year and they arrived today! Yay!), double trapeze (for which I am also basing), ragdoll/adagio (for which I am also a catcher), and flying trapeze (for which I am also ALSO the catcher). It's funny basing a 65-pound 11 year old in doubles after basing an adult all year. Holy cow, these kids are light, but they are also constantly giggly and that makes them floppy. But they are so cute, you'd just want to vomit if you saw them. I'll post photos soon if I think of it.
Anyway, we're also doing juggling, hula hoops, rolling globe, triple trapeze, tissu, tumbling, mini tramp, and meteors in the show. It'll be good.
I've been here for two weeks and one day now, and it seems like I've been here for months already. Funny how that works.
I don't know what the heck is going on outside my cabin. Sounds like the tech boys are maybe having a water fight? They scream like little girls.
We've had all sorts of wildlife encounters already this summer. There are a couple of chipmunks who've built a nest (or whatever you call chipmunk habitats) near where we store our circus equipment, and we also have a lovely robin couple that have moved into the rafters in the same storage area. They apparently have babies, because we often see them flying back to their nest with food in their mouths. Cay-ute.
A couple of bears have been wandering around camp at night too. One was hanging out by my cabin the other night, but I didn't see it because I was inside. I heard it, though, and Chrissymine saw it when she came home to go to bed.
PLUS, there were some coyotes wandering across camp earlier this week too. That's a little unsettling. The bears won't bother you if you don't sneak up on them, but coyotes mean business from what I hear. Hopefully the bears will scare them away.
My first day off is Monday, which also happens to be Chrissymine's birthday. I'm trying to find a way to get us out of town for the day, but since we're lacking a car, it might be difficult. We'll see. Regardless, I'm so ready for my day off I could just about collapse. I'm sure the rest of my staff feel the same way.
Okay, I have to get ready to go on duty. One night each week, each of us is assigned to go sit outside the certain kids' bunks from 10pm to midnight so the bunk counselors can have some time off (except the nights they are on duty, of course) while the kids are still supervised. This year, for the first time, I get to be a head OD (OD stands for "on duty", not "overdose", of course) which means I get to sit in the warm office and make sure everyone knows where they are meant to be rather than having to sit in the cold and/or rain and trying to get kids to be quiet. Awesome. Unless something goes wrong and I'm supposed to handle it. Then it's not so awesome.
So that's all the news from here, pretty much. More later.
The show we're doing this session is called "Circus Rocks" and all of the acts are being done to different rock songs. We're also hoping to have our camp's tech staff do an airband gag at some point in the show (to cover some rigging, but also because it's funny and those guys are a bunch of hams anyway), and then during the finale we're going to have one of the camper rock bands play. I'm teaching web/rope, aerial hoop (we've been using too-small lyras for years, and I finally got camp to allow me to buy two new proper-sized aerial hoops this year and they arrived today! Yay!), double trapeze (for which I am also basing), ragdoll/adagio (for which I am also a catcher), and flying trapeze (for which I am also ALSO the catcher). It's funny basing a 65-pound 11 year old in doubles after basing an adult all year. Holy cow, these kids are light, but they are also constantly giggly and that makes them floppy. But they are so cute, you'd just want to vomit if you saw them. I'll post photos soon if I think of it.
Anyway, we're also doing juggling, hula hoops, rolling globe, triple trapeze, tissu, tumbling, mini tramp, and meteors in the show. It'll be good.
I've been here for two weeks and one day now, and it seems like I've been here for months already. Funny how that works.
I don't know what the heck is going on outside my cabin. Sounds like the tech boys are maybe having a water fight? They scream like little girls.
We've had all sorts of wildlife encounters already this summer. There are a couple of chipmunks who've built a nest (or whatever you call chipmunk habitats) near where we store our circus equipment, and we also have a lovely robin couple that have moved into the rafters in the same storage area. They apparently have babies, because we often see them flying back to their nest with food in their mouths. Cay-ute.
A couple of bears have been wandering around camp at night too. One was hanging out by my cabin the other night, but I didn't see it because I was inside. I heard it, though, and Chrissymine saw it when she came home to go to bed.
PLUS, there were some coyotes wandering across camp earlier this week too. That's a little unsettling. The bears won't bother you if you don't sneak up on them, but coyotes mean business from what I hear. Hopefully the bears will scare them away.
My first day off is Monday, which also happens to be Chrissymine's birthday. I'm trying to find a way to get us out of town for the day, but since we're lacking a car, it might be difficult. We'll see. Regardless, I'm so ready for my day off I could just about collapse. I'm sure the rest of my staff feel the same way.
Okay, I have to get ready to go on duty. One night each week, each of us is assigned to go sit outside the certain kids' bunks from 10pm to midnight so the bunk counselors can have some time off (except the nights they are on duty, of course) while the kids are still supervised. This year, for the first time, I get to be a head OD (OD stands for "on duty", not "overdose", of course) which means I get to sit in the warm office and make sure everyone knows where they are meant to be rather than having to sit in the cold and/or rain and trying to get kids to be quiet. Awesome. Unless something goes wrong and I'm supposed to handle it. Then it's not so awesome.
So that's all the news from here, pretty much. More later.
22 June 2007
People Are Complicated
Camp is fucking crazy sometimes. Remember the bubble speech I was talking about yesterday? Well the bubble is in full effect already. I'm pretty certain that folks in the outside world who have never worked in a situation like this really have no concept of what it's like to live with, eat with, hang out with, and spend time off with the same people you work with. Because of this constant togetherness, it's possible to become really close with people on several levels, and that's totally cool. But it sucks when you have a fight with someone on a personal level, and then you have to deal with them as coworkers as well. And you can't even get away from them when you aren't working. It's a little crazymaking, I think.
Sometimes friends hurt other friends' feelings. Sometimes hearts get sort of chipped or broken in the process. Sometimes friends you thought you knew make really bad decisions that then make you realize they may never have been sincere with you for even a moment in all the time you've known them. Sometimes you think you're being clear that you wish your friends wouldn't behave a certain way or pursue a certain someone or lead you on or lie by omission. Or you suggest they make up their minds about how they feel about...people or situations before the people involved get hurt. But then you realize maybe you weren't clear enough, or maybe you were and the people you thought cared about you don't care as much as you wished they would or assumed they did. And everything kind of goes pear-shaped and you're left with a stomachache or a headache or a heartache and you don't know what to do.
That's how camp is sometimes. That's all I'm saying.
Sometimes friends hurt other friends' feelings. Sometimes hearts get sort of chipped or broken in the process. Sometimes friends you thought you knew make really bad decisions that then make you realize they may never have been sincere with you for even a moment in all the time you've known them. Sometimes you think you're being clear that you wish your friends wouldn't behave a certain way or pursue a certain someone or lead you on or lie by omission. Or you suggest they make up their minds about how they feel about...people or situations before the people involved get hurt. But then you realize maybe you weren't clear enough, or maybe you were and the people you thought cared about you don't care as much as you wished they would or assumed they did. And everything kind of goes pear-shaped and you're left with a stomachache or a headache or a heartache and you don't know what to do.
That's how camp is sometimes. That's all I'm saying.
21 June 2007
The Bubble!
I'm getting better, you guys! I woke up this morning able to breathe and everything. And my voice isn't totally croaky anymore. Now it's more of a sexy rasp. At least that's what I like to think, anyway.
Yesterday was our first full day with all of the counselors. We had training and I got to meet my staff and teach them some rigging and stuff. It was good. I don't know yet about whether they are going to be stars or superstars, but my hopes are high.
This morning, Geoff (one of the camp directors) gave his famous "bubble speech" about how camp is a bubble unlike the real world. Time works differently here, romantic encounters progress at a different rate, we're not expected to cook or clean or do our own laundry (unless those are our camp jobs), and rumors fly through camp at Mach 5. Anyway, it's a great speech that we returners look forward to every year.
I had a meeting with the heads of camp today too. It went quite well.
Later I got to fly with my staff. It was great for giving me a much-needed attitude adjustment, but I have a lot to teach my staff. They have promise, but very little experience on the flying trapeze. We'll have to see what happens.
Tomorrow we're supposed to be setting up our stage. It's a huge job that requires about 50 volunteers from other departments and lots of heavy lifting. If we can get through tomorrow without my staff or anyone else's staff hating me and/or circus, it will be a job well done!
I feel kind of lonely and I miss home. I wish the kids were here.
Yesterday was our first full day with all of the counselors. We had training and I got to meet my staff and teach them some rigging and stuff. It was good. I don't know yet about whether they are going to be stars or superstars, but my hopes are high.
This morning, Geoff (one of the camp directors) gave his famous "bubble speech" about how camp is a bubble unlike the real world. Time works differently here, romantic encounters progress at a different rate, we're not expected to cook or clean or do our own laundry (unless those are our camp jobs), and rumors fly through camp at Mach 5. Anyway, it's a great speech that we returners look forward to every year.
I had a meeting with the heads of camp today too. It went quite well.
Later I got to fly with my staff. It was great for giving me a much-needed attitude adjustment, but I have a lot to teach my staff. They have promise, but very little experience on the flying trapeze. We'll have to see what happens.
Tomorrow we're supposed to be setting up our stage. It's a huge job that requires about 50 volunteers from other departments and lots of heavy lifting. If we can get through tomorrow without my staff or anyone else's staff hating me and/or circus, it will be a job well done!
I feel kind of lonely and I miss home. I wish the kids were here.
19 June 2007
Sooooo sick.
Holy jeez, you guys. I am hella sick right now. In fact, I've been sick since about our second or third day here. My throat feels like it's on fire, I can't breathe, my head feels funny...the nurse even came to my cabin to check on me this morning. She says it's probably a virus which is great (yay! I don't have strep!) but also shitty (boo! I can't just take antibiotics and get better!).
What really sucks is that the rest of the counselors arrive this afternoon. So I have to meet my brand new staff while I'm all croaky and sniffly. And it hurts to talk.
I did get to go do a lot of work on the circus lot yesterday, despite being ill. I solved a rigging problem and got the fly net almost usable and did some other little jobs that needed to be done. I hung a web and later a trapeze and played around on them for a bit (I was actually checking to make sure my rigging solution works--it does), so that was nice, considering I haven't been in the air for almost a week.
Chrissymine has been busy beautifying our cabin. She painted the walls and the trim, and yesterday we laid down peel-and-stick tile that actually looks really great and should be easier to clean than the gross, unfinished wooden floor underneath it.
Our friend LilAnna got here yesterday, too, so it's been nice to catch up with her. I love it when everyone starts showing up and we get to see our old friends again. That's why being sick sucks so much. I want to be out there all excited and hugging people and chatting, but I can't really do that when my whole body hurts and I can't breathe. I just hope I'm better by the time the kids get here on Sunday!
What really sucks is that the rest of the counselors arrive this afternoon. So I have to meet my brand new staff while I'm all croaky and sniffly. And it hurts to talk.
I did get to go do a lot of work on the circus lot yesterday, despite being ill. I solved a rigging problem and got the fly net almost usable and did some other little jobs that needed to be done. I hung a web and later a trapeze and played around on them for a bit (I was actually checking to make sure my rigging solution works--it does), so that was nice, considering I haven't been in the air for almost a week.
Chrissymine has been busy beautifying our cabin. She painted the walls and the trim, and yesterday we laid down peel-and-stick tile that actually looks really great and should be easier to clean than the gross, unfinished wooden floor underneath it.
Our friend LilAnna got here yesterday, too, so it's been nice to catch up with her. I love it when everyone starts showing up and we get to see our old friends again. That's why being sick sucks so much. I want to be out there all excited and hugging people and chatting, but I can't really do that when my whole body hurts and I can't breathe. I just hope I'm better by the time the kids get here on Sunday!
15 June 2007
At camp!
Wow. It's been ages, I know. The past month went by crazyfast. AerLift happened and was lovely. We made a lot of money for our charities and my performances went quite well. My parents even came out to see the shows and were they were rather impressed with me! Yay! My costumes looked great too (thanks to Chrissymine and Skorstad). Anyway, the whole thing was great.
Chrissymine graduated just last weekend! She now has her MFA in Costume Design and she's walking around all proud and relived, making people call her "Master" and stuff. It's funny. I'm SO PROUD of her I could just explode.
But then it was like time sped up or something. All of a sudden there we were, Chrissymine and me, on a redeye to camp, hurtling toward daylight. And now we're here on our first full day. The rest of the counselors don't get here until Tuesday and the kids don't arrive until a week from Sunday, but we have a lot of preparation to do before everything really kicks in, so it's good we're here early. I haven't actually been down to the circus lot yet even though I've been on camp for about 24 hours. It's always nervewracking, that first walk down there. Stuff breaks over the winter and the guy who sets up our fly rig sometimes forgets and leaves things undone, so I have to go down and survey the damage, if there is any. Hopefully everything will be fine.
Chelsea isn't with us this year, unfortunately. I made a huge error in judgement that ended with us choosing a Delta flight only to find out a few days ago that Delta sucks and wanted to charge us a total of around $1000 to take our dog to and from camp. I could have avoided this outcome if I had done all of my research two months ago when we bought the tickets, but I didn't and now we're here without her. Our friend/angel Skorstad has her in Seattle for the summer. What we did to deserve friends like that is beyond me, but she's a lifesaver.
So that's my update for now. Not terribly exciting, I know, but that's how it goes sometimes. Today is a big day for physical and emotional adjustment. I think I need one more night of sleep before I truly feel like myself again. I hope to be good about blogging this summer, but I said the same thing last year on my old blog, and I ended up writing maybe three times the whole summer! Maybe this year will be better because I know people will actually read it!
Down to the circus lot with me to see what I can see...
Chrissymine graduated just last weekend! She now has her MFA in Costume Design and she's walking around all proud and relived, making people call her "Master" and stuff. It's funny. I'm SO PROUD of her I could just explode.
But then it was like time sped up or something. All of a sudden there we were, Chrissymine and me, on a redeye to camp, hurtling toward daylight. And now we're here on our first full day. The rest of the counselors don't get here until Tuesday and the kids don't arrive until a week from Sunday, but we have a lot of preparation to do before everything really kicks in, so it's good we're here early. I haven't actually been down to the circus lot yet even though I've been on camp for about 24 hours. It's always nervewracking, that first walk down there. Stuff breaks over the winter and the guy who sets up our fly rig sometimes forgets and leaves things undone, so I have to go down and survey the damage, if there is any. Hopefully everything will be fine.
Chelsea isn't with us this year, unfortunately. I made a huge error in judgement that ended with us choosing a Delta flight only to find out a few days ago that Delta sucks and wanted to charge us a total of around $1000 to take our dog to and from camp. I could have avoided this outcome if I had done all of my research two months ago when we bought the tickets, but I didn't and now we're here without her. Our friend/angel Skorstad has her in Seattle for the summer. What we did to deserve friends like that is beyond me, but she's a lifesaver.
So that's my update for now. Not terribly exciting, I know, but that's how it goes sometimes. Today is a big day for physical and emotional adjustment. I think I need one more night of sleep before I truly feel like myself again. I hope to be good about blogging this summer, but I said the same thing last year on my old blog, and I ended up writing maybe three times the whole summer! Maybe this year will be better because I know people will actually read it!
Down to the circus lot with me to see what I can see...
09 May 2007
Read this blog
In its two most recent editions, The Stranger has featured selected entries from Jesus Christ's (Cool) Blog in its "New Column" spot. I just found out that this is an actual blog that's updated almost daily. It's hilariously inane and you should totally check it out. I mean it. It's god's will.
Jesus Christ's Cool Blog
Jesus Christ's Cool Blog
07 May 2007
A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
I can't believe what just happened. I lost my temper at my aerial class tonight and I'm pretty sure everyone thinks I'm a total bitch. One of my co-aerialists gave me attitude and, because I was already pretty frustrated with her for an entirely different reason, the claws came out and I snapped back. Twice.
And you know when that happens how something changes in the atmosphere? Everyone heard us because nothing else was going on. The music was off, Koala and I were setting up to run our routine, and everyone else was hanging out on the mats chilling, waiting for class to be over. Then this explosion happened and everything went silent and people had these looks on their faces all of a sudden like...I don't even know how to describe it. It was horrible. And the look on Darty's face...I could have died.
I try really hard not to be angry around my aerial friends and my aerial teacher. I want people to like me, as we all wish people would, and I don't want to come off as a raging bitch or as someone who always carries a chip on her shoulder or anything like that. So even when I am upset about something for real, I stuff it down because I would hate for these people to see me truly angry. That kind of anger is the biggest sign of weakness there is, and it usually comes with a loss of control. Sure, my aerial friends and I have all seen each other pouty, fired up, content, and frustrated from time to time, but they never saw true, white-hot anger from me until tonight when it took over.
It's like when a kid throws up in class. It doesn't matter what that kid does for a long time after that, he's just going to be known as the kid who threw up in class. So now I'm afraid I'm just going to be known as the bitch who snapped at another student in class. I apologized to the person I snapped at and we're okay. I don't think she ever really liked me in the first place, so it's not like I had a lot of ground to make up there. But even J-dog wouldn't speak to me on the way home (Koala drove both of us home), and she NEVER doesn't speak.
What if that's who I am? A bitch? That's even worse than the other things I think I might be: a drag to be around, a neurotic mess, a stresscase, the poutiest pouter in all of the land...why can't I just act like the person I want to be? I really do like people. I really am interested in them and in what they do and what they have to say. I really do like doing things that make other people feel special. I don't like being angry or resentful or regretful of my actions. I don't like being sad or snappy or bitchy. But I am, occasionally, all of these things, and I don't want to be them, I want to be Alyssa.
It's devastating to realize the following things:
1) That I may be a horrible person.
2) That everyone knew that before I did.
And you know when that happens how something changes in the atmosphere? Everyone heard us because nothing else was going on. The music was off, Koala and I were setting up to run our routine, and everyone else was hanging out on the mats chilling, waiting for class to be over. Then this explosion happened and everything went silent and people had these looks on their faces all of a sudden like...I don't even know how to describe it. It was horrible. And the look on Darty's face...I could have died.
I try really hard not to be angry around my aerial friends and my aerial teacher. I want people to like me, as we all wish people would, and I don't want to come off as a raging bitch or as someone who always carries a chip on her shoulder or anything like that. So even when I am upset about something for real, I stuff it down because I would hate for these people to see me truly angry. That kind of anger is the biggest sign of weakness there is, and it usually comes with a loss of control. Sure, my aerial friends and I have all seen each other pouty, fired up, content, and frustrated from time to time, but they never saw true, white-hot anger from me until tonight when it took over.
It's like when a kid throws up in class. It doesn't matter what that kid does for a long time after that, he's just going to be known as the kid who threw up in class. So now I'm afraid I'm just going to be known as the bitch who snapped at another student in class. I apologized to the person I snapped at and we're okay. I don't think she ever really liked me in the first place, so it's not like I had a lot of ground to make up there. But even J-dog wouldn't speak to me on the way home (Koala drove both of us home), and she NEVER doesn't speak.
What if that's who I am? A bitch? That's even worse than the other things I think I might be: a drag to be around, a neurotic mess, a stresscase, the poutiest pouter in all of the land...why can't I just act like the person I want to be? I really do like people. I really am interested in them and in what they do and what they have to say. I really do like doing things that make other people feel special. I don't like being angry or resentful or regretful of my actions. I don't like being sad or snappy or bitchy. But I am, occasionally, all of these things, and I don't want to be them, I want to be Alyssa.
It's devastating to realize the following things:
1) That I may be a horrible person.
2) That everyone knew that before I did.
22 April 2007
Good Enough
Last weekend was a busy weekend for me, circus-wise. First of all, I had my first bar gig! WHAT? Yes, it's true. It was a benefit and there were four of us who performed some ambient aerialism and it was fun and I can't wait to do it again.
Highlights (get it? HIGH-lights? Because we were up HIGH?):
1) I got to do single and double trapeze.
2) We did a rope "round robin" of sorts at one point where each of us got up and did one or two fast tricks and then got down and then the next person would go, and the next, etc. It was the most fun we had all night. And the whole night was pretty fun.
3) My teacher, Darty, came to hang out with us and she said really nice things about everyone.
4) Darty's boyfriend complimented the fact that, when I was up on the trapeze, I obviously really listened to the music and it made what I was doing look good. AND he said I should have been wearing a sexier outfit "because I deserve it."
5) I flirted with a boy. Which was fun/funny, but not in an "I'm gonna' rejoin that team," kind of way because...eew. I mean, doing a trick for a guy is WAY different than actually having to have SEX with him! Gross me out!
Anyway, the gig was fun.
Also last weekend, Elsie Smith (of Nimble Arts, Gemini Trapeze, and formerly of Cirque du Soleil, among other things) was here in Seattle to teach some workshops and lessons (I had a private lesson with her, and Koala and I did the doubles trapeze workshop).
Highlights (Bwahahaha!):
1) I got to base Elsie at one point during the doubles workshop.
2) She called me "strong" and "really strong" several times.
3) She had Koala and me demonstrate a lot during the second day of the workshop.
4) We got to chat about camp and the San Francisco school and we bonded because we know a lot of the same people.
5) She liked my solo trapeze routine, for the most part.
So about #5...Elsie and I got to work extensively on my solo during the private lesson I had with her last Saturday. She loved some of the tricks, thought I did all of the tricks well, and she liked my song (Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek"). She did, however, think I needed to slow everything down and make it more fluid, as if I was doing the movements underwater rather than in the air. Cool idea? Yes. Would it change a lot about my routine? Yes, because she encouraged me to let go of the cues I was using in the music so that I could hold everything longer. Which made my song, this song, "Hide and Seek", the song I specifically choreographed THIS routine for, with these particular cues and buttons and dynamics and whatever, it made THIS song unfamiliar to me. Which is rather unsettling, but I take direction really well, so my first instinct was, "What Elsie says goes," and I set about trying to revise my routine in light of her comments.
My second instinct was to change my song. I'm not going to get into what brought me to that conclusion. It just made sense. So 24 hours after my lesson with Elsie, I was all excited to change my song for this routine I've been working on since November (all the while using "Hide and Seek") and which I will be performing in less than a month if not sooner. I couldn't wait until my private lesson to show Darty my new song and to see if she thought it would work.
Okay, so my lesson just happened. I mean, I just got home from my lesson. Today. Just now. Aaaaaaaand...I'm not changing my song after all. Without making me feel stupid, Darty pointed out all of the reasons this was a bad idea, including but not limited to those I have hinted at above (this routine and this song were born and grew up together, the show is in a month, if I want to do something a little different--more flowy/dancy--that's fine, but first finish this routine the way it was originally conceived, etc.). We even decided to pretty much let me keep doing the routine the way I was doing it before Elsie saw it, using a lot of her suggestions, but not the one about messing with where things happen in the music. And it's weird because I'm okay with this. I mean, it's kind of comforting to have someone reach through my heady excitement over the possibility of using this other song that I LOVE (more about that in a second) and say things that I had misgivings about too, but that I couldn't see through the haze.
The song (the new one that I'm now not using) is called "Good Enough" and it's from the latest Evanescence cd, The Open Door. Say whatever you want about Evanescence, but this song is fucking gorgeous. I love it, and I thought it would go with my routine because the story that Elsie seemed to think I was telling with the other song ("Hide and Seek") is actually better served by this one. I explained all of this to Darty today before I got up and ran through it once with "Good Enough", and when I got down she said, "Okay, but what is this story you're trying to tell?" And I suddenly couldn't find the words to explain it well, although I tried to. Then I sort of got teary, then I did the routine to "Hide and Seek" and it felt like home, then Darty kicked my ass with conditioning until my arms felt like they would fall off, and THEN while I was walking home I found the words for the story I was trying to tell.
Basically, it's this: Once upon a time there was a girl who was completely consumed by something to the point where nothing else mattered. In my version of the story, the "something" is circus, but it can be translated to other people and other things too (being consumed by a new relationship, for example). Anyway, the girl is so consumed that everything else just falls away for a while and she doesn't care because all that matters is that she can be here, now, with the trapeze (or her new boyfriend/girlfriend/job/whatever). Gradually, though, she comes to realize that life hasn't stopped around her and that people don't necessarily think she's serious...like, they don't really respect her choice of all-consuming passions for whatever reason. So she tries desperately hard to prove that she's good enough at what she's doing, good enough that it makes sense for her to spend so much time and energy doing it, so people will understand and accept/appreciate/respect her for it rather than humoring her and rolling their eyes. She wants to be good enough that people can see she's not playing around, that this is for real.
So throughout the song the question is asked, "Am I good enough?" and I think that's what I'm asking too.
BUT I don't have to have a song say that while I'm doing a routine for it to be true. And it is, admittedly, a little bit pathetic and desperate to be all, "Please accept me? Please?!"
Anyway, long story shorter: I had a busy weekend last weekend, I had an enlightening and emotional lesson today, and I'm sticking with "Hide and Seek".
My heart is tired.
Highlights (get it? HIGH-lights? Because we were up HIGH?):
1) I got to do single and double trapeze.
2) We did a rope "round robin" of sorts at one point where each of us got up and did one or two fast tricks and then got down and then the next person would go, and the next, etc. It was the most fun we had all night. And the whole night was pretty fun.
3) My teacher, Darty, came to hang out with us and she said really nice things about everyone.
4) Darty's boyfriend complimented the fact that, when I was up on the trapeze, I obviously really listened to the music and it made what I was doing look good. AND he said I should have been wearing a sexier outfit "because I deserve it."
5) I flirted with a boy. Which was fun/funny, but not in an "I'm gonna' rejoin that team," kind of way because...eew. I mean, doing a trick for a guy is WAY different than actually having to have SEX with him! Gross me out!
Anyway, the gig was fun.
Also last weekend, Elsie Smith (of Nimble Arts, Gemini Trapeze, and formerly of Cirque du Soleil, among other things) was here in Seattle to teach some workshops and lessons (I had a private lesson with her, and Koala and I did the doubles trapeze workshop).
Highlights (Bwahahaha!):
1) I got to base Elsie at one point during the doubles workshop.
2) She called me "strong" and "really strong" several times.
3) She had Koala and me demonstrate a lot during the second day of the workshop.
4) We got to chat about camp and the San Francisco school and we bonded because we know a lot of the same people.
5) She liked my solo trapeze routine, for the most part.
So about #5...Elsie and I got to work extensively on my solo during the private lesson I had with her last Saturday. She loved some of the tricks, thought I did all of the tricks well, and she liked my song (Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek"). She did, however, think I needed to slow everything down and make it more fluid, as if I was doing the movements underwater rather than in the air. Cool idea? Yes. Would it change a lot about my routine? Yes, because she encouraged me to let go of the cues I was using in the music so that I could hold everything longer. Which made my song, this song, "Hide and Seek", the song I specifically choreographed THIS routine for, with these particular cues and buttons and dynamics and whatever, it made THIS song unfamiliar to me. Which is rather unsettling, but I take direction really well, so my first instinct was, "What Elsie says goes," and I set about trying to revise my routine in light of her comments.
My second instinct was to change my song. I'm not going to get into what brought me to that conclusion. It just made sense. So 24 hours after my lesson with Elsie, I was all excited to change my song for this routine I've been working on since November (all the while using "Hide and Seek") and which I will be performing in less than a month if not sooner. I couldn't wait until my private lesson to show Darty my new song and to see if she thought it would work.
Okay, so my lesson just happened. I mean, I just got home from my lesson. Today. Just now. Aaaaaaaand...I'm not changing my song after all. Without making me feel stupid, Darty pointed out all of the reasons this was a bad idea, including but not limited to those I have hinted at above (this routine and this song were born and grew up together, the show is in a month, if I want to do something a little different--more flowy/dancy--that's fine, but first finish this routine the way it was originally conceived, etc.). We even decided to pretty much let me keep doing the routine the way I was doing it before Elsie saw it, using a lot of her suggestions, but not the one about messing with where things happen in the music. And it's weird because I'm okay with this. I mean, it's kind of comforting to have someone reach through my heady excitement over the possibility of using this other song that I LOVE (more about that in a second) and say things that I had misgivings about too, but that I couldn't see through the haze.
The song (the new one that I'm now not using) is called "Good Enough" and it's from the latest Evanescence cd, The Open Door. Say whatever you want about Evanescence, but this song is fucking gorgeous. I love it, and I thought it would go with my routine because the story that Elsie seemed to think I was telling with the other song ("Hide and Seek") is actually better served by this one. I explained all of this to Darty today before I got up and ran through it once with "Good Enough", and when I got down she said, "Okay, but what is this story you're trying to tell?" And I suddenly couldn't find the words to explain it well, although I tried to. Then I sort of got teary, then I did the routine to "Hide and Seek" and it felt like home, then Darty kicked my ass with conditioning until my arms felt like they would fall off, and THEN while I was walking home I found the words for the story I was trying to tell.
Basically, it's this: Once upon a time there was a girl who was completely consumed by something to the point where nothing else mattered. In my version of the story, the "something" is circus, but it can be translated to other people and other things too (being consumed by a new relationship, for example). Anyway, the girl is so consumed that everything else just falls away for a while and she doesn't care because all that matters is that she can be here, now, with the trapeze (or her new boyfriend/girlfriend/job/whatever). Gradually, though, she comes to realize that life hasn't stopped around her and that people don't necessarily think she's serious...like, they don't really respect her choice of all-consuming passions for whatever reason. So she tries desperately hard to prove that she's good enough at what she's doing, good enough that it makes sense for her to spend so much time and energy doing it, so people will understand and accept/appreciate/respect her for it rather than humoring her and rolling their eyes. She wants to be good enough that people can see she's not playing around, that this is for real.
So throughout the song the question is asked, "Am I good enough?" and I think that's what I'm asking too.
BUT I don't have to have a song say that while I'm doing a routine for it to be true. And it is, admittedly, a little bit pathetic and desperate to be all, "Please accept me? Please?!"
Anyway, long story shorter: I had a busy weekend last weekend, I had an enlightening and emotional lesson today, and I'm sticking with "Hide and Seek".
My heart is tired.
07 April 2007
On a Lighter Note...
Dear Alanis Morissette,
We here at Pocket Circus have been crushing on you pretty much since we heard "You Oughta Know" for the first time in high school and thought it was "so raw." We have been known to belt your tunes loudly on car trips and in dorm rooms. We were a little bit perturbed that you wrote a whole song called "Ironic" that, ironically, did not include even one correct example of irony, and we worried for a while that you took yourself way too seriously. But through it all, we have always found your smile intoxicating and we would totally do you.
With this latest effort, you have singlehandedly restored our faith in humor and humanity. Your brilliance defies words.
Love,
Pocket Circus
And now...Alanis Morissette with "My Humps":
We here at Pocket Circus have been crushing on you pretty much since we heard "You Oughta Know" for the first time in high school and thought it was "so raw." We have been known to belt your tunes loudly on car trips and in dorm rooms. We were a little bit perturbed that you wrote a whole song called "Ironic" that, ironically, did not include even one correct example of irony, and we worried for a while that you took yourself way too seriously. But through it all, we have always found your smile intoxicating and we would totally do you.
With this latest effort, you have singlehandedly restored our faith in humor and humanity. Your brilliance defies words.
Love,
Pocket Circus
And now...Alanis Morissette with "My Humps":
Okay, Here's What Happened
On Monday, April 2nd, I arrived at my French class and some dude was talking about how some people had been shot in one of the Architecture buildings that morning. I was like, "WHAT?" but then class started and no one really knew what was going on.
As I left class, I turned my phone on and there was a message from Pickolas all, "Um...call me back NOW please because I was just watching CNN and two people were shot at YOUR SCHOOL and I'm kind of freaked out." So I called him back and he didn't know much more than I did and I thought it was weird that I was on campus and no one knew anything. So I went home to watch the news.
What happened is this: a 26 year-old researcher named Rebecca Griego was shot by her ex-boyfriend, who then shot himself. This took place at around 10am Monday morning in Gould Hall, which is home to the Urban Planning and Architecture Departments (Architecture also has another building on campus too, but this is the one with all of the workshops and stuff). Rebecca, a graduate of the University of Washington, worked on the fourth floor of Gould Hall doing real estate research. Nobody really knows how the guy got in there or what happened before he fired six shots (killing Rebecca and himself in the process), but there were around 200 other people in the building at the time, some of whom didn't even notice the gunshots because loud noises issue from the workshops there all day long, while others recognized the sounds and ran and hid in classrooms and offices, barricading themselves in until the police came and told them it was safe to evacuate. The building was closed for the rest of the day, but nothing else on campus was closed. Everyone just went about their days as usual, many of us not having any idea that anything happened until much later.
Rebecca's ex-boyfriend was kind of psycho, we've come to find out. He was 41 years old and he was not happy about their separation. He had begun threatening Rebecca and her sister (and their dogs) routinely over the past months and would write notes to them that said things like, "You won't be able to find me, but I know where you are. Keep looking over your shoulder." Rebecca, naturally, filed an order of protection with the Seattle Police Department in late March. Here's the fucked up part (as if the rest of this isn't completely fucked up): the order of protection was never officially filed because they couldn't FIND the ex-boyfriend in order to serve him the paperwork. That's because he gave a FAKE ADDRESS.
Rebecca's coworkers knew about this guy and how he was scary and was stalking her and how he was probably dangerous. So they did what they should have: they posted Rebecca's photo and the ex-boyfriend's photo all over Gould Hall with notes that made it clear that he was dangerous and, if at all possible, he needed to be kept away from her. That was about all they could do, really. And it obviously didn't work.
Now that the investigation is in full swing, police have discovered that the ex-boyfriend had documents like passports and identification cards in multiple different names. Oh, and the gun wasn't registered to him; he stole it.
The response at school has been...weird. I was very disappointed with the first response by the president of our school, Mark Emmert. He was out of the country when he heard about the shooting, and he wrote an email to the entire university community the next morning that said things like, (I'm paraphrasing here), "These kinds of tragedies happen all the time all around us, and in a university as big as ours, it was bound to happen here sooner or later." That sounds terrible, I know, and it wasn't that bad the way he put it, but it was close. He wrote another letter a few days later that was, thankfully, much more compassionate.
As far as the students are concerned, responses were mixed, and a little hesitant. I think everyone was sad (I mean, who wouldn't be?), but some were more outraged than others. The main issue for those of us who were outraged was that safety on our campus is severely lacking if this kind of thing can happen. This happens all the time in the world and we should at least feel safe in our classrooms and offices and among other students, teachers, and coworkers. Something in the system has to catch the bullshit that falls through the cracks and leads to things like this happening. Rebecca did everything she was supposed to do: she ended her relationship with the psycho, she cut off communication with him, he kept communicating so she tried to get an order of protection, she notified friends, family, and coworkers about what was going on and they all kept an eye out for him in order to help. But that wasn't enough and that's fucking awful. And scary as hell.
Wanna' know the craziest coincidence of all? It's SARVA week at the UW. SARVA stands for Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence Awareness. Every year, for a week, the UW has panel discussions, rallies, a Take Back the Night event, and activities that draw attention to the realities of relationship violence. So this year's SARVA efforts got kicked off in a most horrific way, but it did bring the message home, and there were many panel discussions and vigils added and dedicated to Rebecca's memory.
I think what happened is terrible, but more than that, it's unacceptable. I hope Rebecca's family and friends are doing okay and will forgive the world for not protecting their daughter/sister/friend. All we can do now is renew our efforts to protect the people we care about, and try to somehow turn this tragedy into something positive for our community.
As I left class, I turned my phone on and there was a message from Pickolas all, "Um...call me back NOW please because I was just watching CNN and two people were shot at YOUR SCHOOL and I'm kind of freaked out." So I called him back and he didn't know much more than I did and I thought it was weird that I was on campus and no one knew anything. So I went home to watch the news.
What happened is this: a 26 year-old researcher named Rebecca Griego was shot by her ex-boyfriend, who then shot himself. This took place at around 10am Monday morning in Gould Hall, which is home to the Urban Planning and Architecture Departments (Architecture also has another building on campus too, but this is the one with all of the workshops and stuff). Rebecca, a graduate of the University of Washington, worked on the fourth floor of Gould Hall doing real estate research. Nobody really knows how the guy got in there or what happened before he fired six shots (killing Rebecca and himself in the process), but there were around 200 other people in the building at the time, some of whom didn't even notice the gunshots because loud noises issue from the workshops there all day long, while others recognized the sounds and ran and hid in classrooms and offices, barricading themselves in until the police came and told them it was safe to evacuate. The building was closed for the rest of the day, but nothing else on campus was closed. Everyone just went about their days as usual, many of us not having any idea that anything happened until much later.
Rebecca's ex-boyfriend was kind of psycho, we've come to find out. He was 41 years old and he was not happy about their separation. He had begun threatening Rebecca and her sister (and their dogs) routinely over the past months and would write notes to them that said things like, "You won't be able to find me, but I know where you are. Keep looking over your shoulder." Rebecca, naturally, filed an order of protection with the Seattle Police Department in late March. Here's the fucked up part (as if the rest of this isn't completely fucked up): the order of protection was never officially filed because they couldn't FIND the ex-boyfriend in order to serve him the paperwork. That's because he gave a FAKE ADDRESS.
Rebecca's coworkers knew about this guy and how he was scary and was stalking her and how he was probably dangerous. So they did what they should have: they posted Rebecca's photo and the ex-boyfriend's photo all over Gould Hall with notes that made it clear that he was dangerous and, if at all possible, he needed to be kept away from her. That was about all they could do, really. And it obviously didn't work.
Now that the investigation is in full swing, police have discovered that the ex-boyfriend had documents like passports and identification cards in multiple different names. Oh, and the gun wasn't registered to him; he stole it.
The response at school has been...weird. I was very disappointed with the first response by the president of our school, Mark Emmert. He was out of the country when he heard about the shooting, and he wrote an email to the entire university community the next morning that said things like, (I'm paraphrasing here), "These kinds of tragedies happen all the time all around us, and in a university as big as ours, it was bound to happen here sooner or later." That sounds terrible, I know, and it wasn't that bad the way he put it, but it was close. He wrote another letter a few days later that was, thankfully, much more compassionate.
As far as the students are concerned, responses were mixed, and a little hesitant. I think everyone was sad (I mean, who wouldn't be?), but some were more outraged than others. The main issue for those of us who were outraged was that safety on our campus is severely lacking if this kind of thing can happen. This happens all the time in the world and we should at least feel safe in our classrooms and offices and among other students, teachers, and coworkers. Something in the system has to catch the bullshit that falls through the cracks and leads to things like this happening. Rebecca did everything she was supposed to do: she ended her relationship with the psycho, she cut off communication with him, he kept communicating so she tried to get an order of protection, she notified friends, family, and coworkers about what was going on and they all kept an eye out for him in order to help. But that wasn't enough and that's fucking awful. And scary as hell.
Wanna' know the craziest coincidence of all? It's SARVA week at the UW. SARVA stands for Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence Awareness. Every year, for a week, the UW has panel discussions, rallies, a Take Back the Night event, and activities that draw attention to the realities of relationship violence. So this year's SARVA efforts got kicked off in a most horrific way, but it did bring the message home, and there were many panel discussions and vigils added and dedicated to Rebecca's memory.
I think what happened is terrible, but more than that, it's unacceptable. I hope Rebecca's family and friends are doing okay and will forgive the world for not protecting their daughter/sister/friend. All we can do now is renew our efforts to protect the people we care about, and try to somehow turn this tragedy into something positive for our community.
03 April 2007
Pleeeeehhh...
I haven't been keeping up with blogging the way I'd like to of late. It's weird because I have so much I'd like to write about, but nothing that I really want to write about right now (right now meaning any time I have time to sit down and write). I'll throw something out soon, I promise. Maybe tomorrow I'll write about the murder/suicide that happened AT MY SCHOOL on Monday. I need to finish processing it first.
21 March 2007
Reason for living? Knut!
Maybe you've heard of Knut the polar bear cub? He was born in a Berlin zoo where his mother promptly rejected him. The zoo staff is now raising the cub, feeding him by hand, playing with him, etc. This is making some animal rights activists (who argue that making Knut dependent on humans is a horrible, horrible move on the zoo's part) very angry. Their main point is that if this were happening in the wild, Knut would be left for dead and that the people raising the cub are messing with a natural process, so they should shoot the bear and be done with it.
Interesting. My guess is that no one is going to let anyone shoot this bear. That knowledge allows me to step back a little and consider some points:
Go here to see Stephen Colbert pretending to hate bears even though Knut is the CUTEST THING EVER:
Interesting. My guess is that no one is going to let anyone shoot this bear. That knowledge allows me to step back a little and consider some points:
- I'm all for letting animals do their thing. I'm not a huge fan of any situation in which wild animals are held captive*, but I appreciate zoos that at least try to replicate natural environments and that do not let their human workers ever come into close contact with the animals. There are a lot of extraordinary beings in the world that many of us would never get to see if zoos did not exist. My hope is that zoo patrons gain some respect for other living things when they see these animals, respect they might not otherwise find if not confronted with living, breathing proof that humans aren't the only complex, intelligent, and/or beautiful beings on Earth.
- Anyway, with the above point in mind, once animals are put in the zoo, it's my belief that the people who run the zoo take over the responsibility for the well-being of those animals. Sure, if a polar bear neglects her cub in the wild, the cub might die. But what if another polar bear mom takes it under her wing? What if the polar bear mom in this case would never have behaved this way toward Knut had she not been stressed by something that was maybe going on in the zoo that day or that week? And P.S.: if the zookeepers didn't give these animals food everyday (thus "interfering with nature") then they would all die. Does that mean they should stop feeding the bears?
- Finally (and I'm borrowing from something Chrissymine said about this), translate this to humans for a second. There have been many instances (I'm not making this up) of "feral children" being found all over the world. One thing many of these kids have in common is that their parents completely neglected them. Another common thread is that, in the children's searches for warmth/food/protection, they found ANIMALS who, essentially, ended up raising the kids. It seems that the animals that usually do this are canids (dogs, wolves, etc.), but this shows us that, in nature, things have a way of working themselves out when the circumstances are right. In the case of Knut the polar bear, the circumstances are such that people are around to pick up the slack left by his mother. So, NATURALLY, the humans should do so.
*In fact, I get a sort of thrill when I hear about captive zoo or circus animals who go berserk and attack their handlers. Because seriously y'all, tigers weren't meant to jump through hoops. It's extremely unfortunate, however, that when these animals behave like this--you know, LIKE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO--they are often shot. People are bastards.
Go here to see Knut (get ready for a truckload of cute!):
http://www.ifilm.com/video/2834484
Go here to see Stephen Colbert pretending to hate bears even though Knut is the CUTEST THING EVER:
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/?ml_video=84023
(Sorry for the links. I can't get anything to embed today for some reason).
20 March 2007
14 March 2007
Toolshed
Sometimes I talk way too much. Words just come rushing out of my mouth like I'm afraid I might suddenly become forever mute and I have to get out these last few thoughts RIGHT NOW REALLY FAST. It probably has something to do with my intense fear of being misunderstood (the same fear that keeps me from calling people I don't know very well on the phone...you should see the meltdowns I have about calling to order pizza if you don't believe me). I feel like, once I have someone's attention and I want them to know something, I'll just go (zoom!) and hopehopehope they don't roll their eyes or start looking around because then that means they aren't listening anymore and/or they're bored. And/or they don't get what I'm trying to say, which is even worse.
Today was a talking-too-much day. First I (Tool of the Month that I am) practically made an APPOINTMENT to talk to Darty about some aerial class related stuff and almost immediately felt like an ass when we were finished and my lesson with Koala started. Because really, did I have to make her come to class 15 minutes early to go over stuff I could have casually brought up during the lesson? Or some other time? Then, on the ride home, I reiterated the entire discussion (and then some) to Koala like I was some sort of erupting Volcano of Minute Details or something. This after a couple of days ago when I went on and on with Britches about many of the same issues.
In the dark and quiet of my apartment, my own voice is echoing in my head and I feel silly. Okay, I'll shut up now.
Today was a talking-too-much day. First I (Tool of the Month that I am) practically made an APPOINTMENT to talk to Darty about some aerial class related stuff and almost immediately felt like an ass when we were finished and my lesson with Koala started. Because really, did I have to make her come to class 15 minutes early to go over stuff I could have casually brought up during the lesson? Or some other time? Then, on the ride home, I reiterated the entire discussion (and then some) to Koala like I was some sort of erupting Volcano of Minute Details or something. This after a couple of days ago when I went on and on with Britches about many of the same issues.
In the dark and quiet of my apartment, my own voice is echoing in my head and I feel silly. Okay, I'll shut up now.
04 March 2007
Ha!
Hey! I just solved a Rubik's Cube for the first time!
(As you can tell, I'm being extraordinarily productive with my grading...snerk).
(As you can tell, I'm being extraordinarily productive with my grading...snerk).
Things I've Been Thinking About #001
The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls (South Africa)
I love it! I hate it! I feel funny about it! On the one hand, it seems wildly self-congratulatory for Oprah to be doing this ("Aren't rich people awesome?! I am so awesome! Check out my name on that banner! And that building! And on the girls' uniforms! And on that other banner!"), but on the other hand I totally love her for doing this. But on the other other hand I feel bad for all of the girls who don't get the chance these girls will have, but on the other other other hand I think, "Why should I feel bad that the girls who aren't included will stay in their communities and not have Western values trained into them?" I mean, one of the first things the girls did when they moved into the school was learn which fork to use at dinner!! This is not a cultural value that is crucial to these girls' lives or to their educations! This is a Western cultural value that seems ridiculously out of place when, outside the school's walls, people don't eat more than one meal a week and have no clean water!!!
On the otherest hand there is? I totally want to be a teacher there.
Losing Track of People
A long time ago, when I first became involved in circus arts, I discovered something very, very cool about being part of a small, albeit spread out, community--you never really have to say goodbye! Paths cross in the most mysterious ways and when you least expect it. And even if you lose touch with someone you care about, you can still sort of keep tabs on them through other folks in the community who know them. Or through the internet, of course, but that wasn't really true when I first made this discovery about how small and connected the circus world is.
For example, I went to Club Med one year and met this Circus coach (we'll call her Hollroll) there. We kept in touch for a while after I left and she totally encouraged me to keep doing circus however I could, etc. Meanwhile, she got an audition with Cirque du Soleil and ended up performing in two of their shows before falling off the face of the earth, as far as I knew. Turns out, she's now an aerial teacher at a circus school in Australia where my darling friend Meemo is getting her circus degree. Crazy!
Anyway, I lost track of someone else now and no one can help me, not even the internet! A very important former trapeze teacher of mine, "Poppy," has come in and out of my life, like, five times or something crazy like that (and I'm sure I was certain I'd never see her again when we said goodbye the first two times). We haven't been in touch for several years now, but it was all good because I knew where she was all that time: touring with Cirque Eloize. I just discovered last night that she has left the show, though, and I don't know where she is! And it's weird! Where are you, Poppy?
Five Pounds
I've lost some weight over the past year. 36 pounds so far. I still have five more to lose, though, to reach my goal and it's SO HARD. I have been at this "five pounds away" mark for a month or so now, so I'm apparently a maintenance rockstar. Too bad I'm maintaining a weight that's not my goal weight.
Note: I'm totally getting a new tattoo when I reach my goal weight.
'Nother note: Darty, Koala, TrainerLady, Pickolas, Chrissymine, and assorted others think I should cool it and not worry about the last five pounds. Maybe they're right? I dunno. I'm kind of obsessed with the numbers. And I still think I'm fat, so, you know, I'm gonna' keep on trucking for now.
Camp!
It's coming right up. And it's on my mind even more than usual because one of Chrissymine's staff members from camp is here for the month constructing costumes for a show Chrissymine designed. She needs a blog name. Hmm...Britches. There. Done. If she hates it she'll tell me and I'll change it. Anyway, we've been all about talking about camp lately and I'm totally ready to go.
Grading Papers
Because it's what I should be doing right now. Gotta' go!
I love it! I hate it! I feel funny about it! On the one hand, it seems wildly self-congratulatory for Oprah to be doing this ("Aren't rich people awesome?! I am so awesome! Check out my name on that banner! And that building! And on the girls' uniforms! And on that other banner!"), but on the other hand I totally love her for doing this. But on the other other hand I feel bad for all of the girls who don't get the chance these girls will have, but on the other other other hand I think, "Why should I feel bad that the girls who aren't included will stay in their communities and not have Western values trained into them?" I mean, one of the first things the girls did when they moved into the school was learn which fork to use at dinner!! This is not a cultural value that is crucial to these girls' lives or to their educations! This is a Western cultural value that seems ridiculously out of place when, outside the school's walls, people don't eat more than one meal a week and have no clean water!!!
On the otherest hand there is? I totally want to be a teacher there.
Losing Track of People
A long time ago, when I first became involved in circus arts, I discovered something very, very cool about being part of a small, albeit spread out, community--you never really have to say goodbye! Paths cross in the most mysterious ways and when you least expect it. And even if you lose touch with someone you care about, you can still sort of keep tabs on them through other folks in the community who know them. Or through the internet, of course, but that wasn't really true when I first made this discovery about how small and connected the circus world is.
For example, I went to Club Med one year and met this Circus coach (we'll call her Hollroll) there. We kept in touch for a while after I left and she totally encouraged me to keep doing circus however I could, etc. Meanwhile, she got an audition with Cirque du Soleil and ended up performing in two of their shows before falling off the face of the earth, as far as I knew. Turns out, she's now an aerial teacher at a circus school in Australia where my darling friend Meemo is getting her circus degree. Crazy!
Anyway, I lost track of someone else now and no one can help me, not even the internet! A very important former trapeze teacher of mine, "Poppy," has come in and out of my life, like, five times or something crazy like that (and I'm sure I was certain I'd never see her again when we said goodbye the first two times). We haven't been in touch for several years now, but it was all good because I knew where she was all that time: touring with Cirque Eloize. I just discovered last night that she has left the show, though, and I don't know where she is! And it's weird! Where are you, Poppy?
Five Pounds
I've lost some weight over the past year. 36 pounds so far. I still have five more to lose, though, to reach my goal and it's SO HARD. I have been at this "five pounds away" mark for a month or so now, so I'm apparently a maintenance rockstar. Too bad I'm maintaining a weight that's not my goal weight.
Note: I'm totally getting a new tattoo when I reach my goal weight.
'Nother note: Darty, Koala, TrainerLady, Pickolas, Chrissymine, and assorted others think I should cool it and not worry about the last five pounds. Maybe they're right? I dunno. I'm kind of obsessed with the numbers. And I still think I'm fat, so, you know, I'm gonna' keep on trucking for now.
Camp!
It's coming right up. And it's on my mind even more than usual because one of Chrissymine's staff members from camp is here for the month constructing costumes for a show Chrissymine designed. She needs a blog name. Hmm...Britches. There. Done. If she hates it she'll tell me and I'll change it. Anyway, we've been all about talking about camp lately and I'm totally ready to go.
Grading Papers
Because it's what I should be doing right now. Gotta' go!
22 February 2007
What What?
I had kind of a weird day. It was one of those days where I had to return graded papers to my students, so of course that meant I was up until 6am frantically finishing them after not having budgeted my time appropriately over the past several days. Lack of sleep had me fighting through my day all tired and foggy and nauseous and I accidentally went to pick up some equipment from Classroom Support Services that I'm actually not supposed to check out until next Tuesday (it's written in my planner! And I still went on the wrong day! The CSS people were like, "Um...we have on our records that you are coming to pick up the DVD player for that class on the 27th?" And I whip out my planner and am all, "Ooohhhhhhh yeahhhhhh. You're right. See you next week!" Whoops). Then I committed an academic faux pas later in the day that I don't want to go into right now. It's totally fine now, but I felt like a jackass at the time.
Anyway, here are some things that reached through my fog and made my day:
Anyway, here are some things that reached through my fog and made my day:
- The weather was gorgeous AND I saw my first cherry blossoms of the season.
- I caught myself getting cranky with a poster hanging in the student union building and totally cracked myself up. The poster was for some recycling program and said in big letters, "Get in the game!" and before I even realized I was looking at the poster or what it was about, I thought, "YOU get in the game," and then I realized what I was doing and started laughing. I have no problem with recycling! Or games! It was such a needlessly cranky thought that I couldn't help but be amused!
- I spent my (student-free, for today) office hours catching up with Television Without Pity and The Stranger, both of which had me laughing to the point of tears.
And, of course, there's this:
Just try not to laugh. I dare you.
17 February 2007
Out With You, Moody Dispair!
I have been inexplicably sad this week and I'm sick of it. There is just no reason for that kind of thing (unless it's some sort of retribution from the universe for that last entry I posted...sorry universe!). I was so deep in my blues yesterday that I cried for an hour! And nothing was really wrong! What a waste of energy!
Anyway, I picked up the latest copy of The Stranger (love!) and was elated to see my horoscope. Here's what it said:
Anyway, I picked up the latest copy of The Stranger (love!) and was elated to see my horoscope. Here's what it said:
PISCES: (Feb 19-March 20): I believe you're climbing up of the primordial ooze for the last time. You're done! Never again will you be fully immersed in the stinky depths of hell on earth! Never again will moody despair comprise more than 49 percent of your worldview. From now on, you will be smarter about how to avoid unnecessary pain and misery. You will also be a better escape artist. Now go buy yourself a graduation present.
How exciting is that? Now I just have to decide whether to buy:
- a pony.
- a new house with exposed beams where I can hang a trapeze.
- the world a Coke, OR
- some performance-related self-esteem.
Hooray for learning to avoid pain and misery! It's a brand new day!
13 February 2007
An Unholy Alliance?
I just finished watching an episode of Primetime about polygamy in Centennial Park, Arizona. Like the infamous FLDS enclave of Colorado City, Arizona, Centennial Park is a small community in the middle of nowhere where all of the families practice polygamy. Unlike Colorado City, however, Centennial Park isn't wrapped up in corruption and child abuse scandals. In fact, to illustrate the difference, the Primetime piece began with some footage taken in Colorado City. Or at least it was attempted footage, as almost all of the clips they showed were of angry sheriffs and residents hurling insults at the interviewers and literally slapping the cameras away.
In contrast, the Centennial Park residents welcomed the cameras and were all about showing the world that they are happy and well adjusted, that the children are not abused, and that the wives are not oppressed. Most of the families live in huge McMansions, funded with the help of low-interest loans from church leaders and voluntarily put together by members of the community. The kids go to technologically up-to-date schools, the families watch television, and even their weird Little-House-on-the-Prairie clothing isn't quite as prairie-ish as one might expect. The high school kids all go to dances and listen to hiphop, but none of them are (or at least admit to being) interested in premarital sex. The wives note that they are "placed" with husbands, but they are free to back out if they do not wish to marry the men they are placed with. They are also free to leave the community if they no longer feel it's the best thing for them.
Now, one can absolutely argue (as I often will) that oppressed women who have never experienced any other reality are not likely to reject their oppression. And it is a tenet of FLDS that women must live under the rule of their husbands, they can't wear pants, they're meant to stay at home and raise the children, etc., so one could definitely argue that they're not exactly the most empowered women you'll ever meet. But then again, just as it shouldn't necessarily be the business of wealthy American feminists to go over to Africa and tell tribal women they are doing something wrong in the way they live their lives just because they aren't like "us", maybe we should leave polygamists alone to do their thing too. One of the high school students made a really good point. She said something like, "In the rest of the country, men cheat on their wives and have illegitimate children so often that it's almost normal. Here, men have relationships with multiple women, but they stay with those women and take care of them and the children that those relationships produce. And that's against the law?"
That's not to say I totally approve of everything the FLDS church is about. Their views on race, for example, are appalling. Apparently there is a passage in the Book of Mormon that is interpreted (even still) as follows: "the blacks" are descendants of Cain. Their dark skin is a curse that has been laid upon them as punishment for Cain's murder of Abel. To this I say, "Whaaaa???" Because really, for all these people think they know about Jesus (that he was married...to multiple wives, for example), you'd think they would have realized by now that he was, most likely, black. And if Cain and Abel ever really did exist, they were probably black too. Both of them. It's about geography and melanin. I'm just saying.
But back to what I was getting at. Sure, cults are scary, and FLDS comes off as kind of cultish, and I absolutely think Colorado City should be evacuated and destroyed for all of it's child bride-raping and corruption. But in places like Centennial Park, where people are happy and children are well fed and not abused and women are choosing (or feel that they are choosing) to live this way, is it really anyone's place to stop them? I mean, freedom of religion, right?
Apparently the government does feel it's their place to stop them. Polygamists, if caught, can receive prison sentences for their transgressions. Many polygamists, as anyone who watches Big Love can tell you, get around this limitation by making only their first marriages legal, while having subsequent marriages blessed by the church without getting any legal or judicial bodies involved. Still, that loophole doesn't take away from the fact that plural marriage is very much illegal in this country. In fact, many FLDS followers argue that the one reason the LDS church renounced polygamy 100 years ago is because the rejection of that particular tenet was a requirement for Utah to gain statehood. Since then, the LDS church has become more and more vocal about their separation from FLDS and in their condemnation of polygamy.
Apparently the government does feel it's their place to stop them. Polygamists, if caught, can receive prison sentences for their transgressions. Many polygamists, as anyone who watches Big Love can tell you, get around this limitation by making only their first marriages legal, while having subsequent marriages blessed by the church without getting any legal or judicial bodies involved. Still, that loophole doesn't take away from the fact that plural marriage is very much illegal in this country. In fact, many FLDS followers argue that the one reason the LDS church renounced polygamy 100 years ago is because the rejection of that particular tenet was a requirement for Utah to gain statehood. Since then, the LDS church has become more and more vocal about their separation from FLDS and in their condemnation of polygamy.
Meanwhile, a group of women in Centennial Park have begun organizing as activists for the legalization of plural marriage. They argue that it's their choice and that it's unconstitutional for the government to be involved in a private matter like marriage anyway.
Let's take a moment to think about how familiar that sounds...
They even have marches in DC where they chant things like, "Freedom to Choose" and "Love Makes a Family."
Hmmm...
So here's my batshit crazy idea. What if the gay and lesbian community and the polygamist community joined forces just this once to fight for marriage legalization? I mean, why might the powers that be reject the legalization of polygamy anyway? Because "we" have to protect the "sanctity of marriage"? Because marriage should be between a man and a woman? Because of something to do with the transfer of property from one generation to the next? Because children should be raised by one male and one female? These are the same arguments they use against legalizing marriage for us (gay people), and we already know these reasons are bullshit.
Of course, in order for this to work, the FLDS community would have to get over whatever atrocious lies they believe the Bible or Book of Mormon tells them about homosexual depravity. But at the same time, gays and lesbians would have to get over their assumptions about the depravity and backwardness of polygamists. I have to say, I can't see many of my radical feminist lesbian sisters jumping up to share their rainbow flags with FLDS women and their "sisterwives" (a term that still gives me the willies).
Still, it just might be crazy enough to work, right?
I'm so weirded out by myself right now, I can't even come up with a list to go with this post! Instead, here's a visual to keep you up nights:
11 February 2007
YOU Shut Up
Comebacks That Just Don't Have the Same Power Anymore:
- I know you are but what am I?
- Then why don't you marry it?
- I don't shut up, I grow up (and when I look at you I throw up...etc.).
- You're a stupidhead.
- I'm telling.
Please feel free to add more in the comments section!
07 February 2007
Things I Think But Don't Say: Grocery Store Edition
Some of you may know that I have some food issues. I have had said issues for as long as I can remember. I want to think they started when my parents put me on the first of many diets when I was 8 years old, but it's possible the issues began in utero, considering how weird my mother is about eating anything that isn't lettuce.
Anyhoo, food makes my anxiety climb that little scale from 1-10 they tell you to use when you're in therapy. Eating in front of people is particularly awful, but the awfulness depends on my eating companion(s). If I'm eating with Chrissymine, I'll be at about a 3 (and it took at least a year of living with her to get down to that level). If it's Pickolas, maybe a 2. My parents? 10. People I barely know and/or strangers? 8. And when it comes to people I don't know super well but whom I have some sort of affinity for and/or want to impress (aerial friends, for example), you can go ahead and crank it to 11.
Food shopping is another issue for me. I would just rather not have to do it. I lived many years of my life thinking it was not okay to ever admit hunger, so grocery shopping now seems like a huge transgression--the ultimate admission not only that I'm hungry, but that I ate enough of what I bought last time to need more.
Don't get me wrong, the food shopping thing (unlike the eating in front of people thing) has gotten better as I've grown older. As long as I am in total control of when I go to the store, as long as I shop alone, and as long as I go to the same store every time, I can pretty much handle it. I even look forward to it occasionally. But it would be much easier if I could be invisible for that hour or so every week.
I'm pretty much a machine when I get into the store. That's how I get through it. I'm totally focused, I know exactly what I need and where to find everything, and I'm gonna' get in, get out, and go home as quickly as possible. This method of shopping can, however, cause problems when I happen to show up to shop at the same moment when everyone else in Seattle has decided they need to shop too. The aisles get clogged, children cry, people get annoyed because my need to get around them causes them to lose track of what they were talking to their friends about on their cellphones, etc. It's on these trips that I become an absolutely vicious bitch from hell. But no one would know it because I'm only this way in my head, thank goodness.
Silent Rants at the Grocery Store
Anyhoo, food makes my anxiety climb that little scale from 1-10 they tell you to use when you're in therapy. Eating in front of people is particularly awful, but the awfulness depends on my eating companion(s). If I'm eating with Chrissymine, I'll be at about a 3 (and it took at least a year of living with her to get down to that level). If it's Pickolas, maybe a 2. My parents? 10. People I barely know and/or strangers? 8. And when it comes to people I don't know super well but whom I have some sort of affinity for and/or want to impress (aerial friends, for example), you can go ahead and crank it to 11.
Food shopping is another issue for me. I would just rather not have to do it. I lived many years of my life thinking it was not okay to ever admit hunger, so grocery shopping now seems like a huge transgression--the ultimate admission not only that I'm hungry, but that I ate enough of what I bought last time to need more.
Don't get me wrong, the food shopping thing (unlike the eating in front of people thing) has gotten better as I've grown older. As long as I am in total control of when I go to the store, as long as I shop alone, and as long as I go to the same store every time, I can pretty much handle it. I even look forward to it occasionally. But it would be much easier if I could be invisible for that hour or so every week.
I'm pretty much a machine when I get into the store. That's how I get through it. I'm totally focused, I know exactly what I need and where to find everything, and I'm gonna' get in, get out, and go home as quickly as possible. This method of shopping can, however, cause problems when I happen to show up to shop at the same moment when everyone else in Seattle has decided they need to shop too. The aisles get clogged, children cry, people get annoyed because my need to get around them causes them to lose track of what they were talking to their friends about on their cellphones, etc. It's on these trips that I become an absolutely vicious bitch from hell. But no one would know it because I'm only this way in my head, thank goodness.
Silent Rants at the Grocery Store
- "Look, it's really super that you and your entire sorority came to do your food shopping together, but do you all have to walk around in a huge, impermeable, giggling mass so that everyone else has to wait ten minutes while you discuss, vote on, and then ultimately decide against purchasing that particular brand of cookie dough before we can all get around you? I know a grocery store is like a foreign country to most of you, seeing as how you don't eat, but take a photo or something and move ALONG."
- "Um, ma'am? Excuse me? Do you see your child? Yeah, he's real cute or whatever, but he's LICKING the organic broccoli. No, it's not adorable. Excuse me while I go vomit."
- "Look, cashier person, I used to be a supermarket checker, so I know how it is. You're supposed to make conversation with the customers, make them feel valued, yadda yadda. But could you please REFRAIN from making comments about my purchases? I don't need you to draw attention to the fact that I'm buying several frozen dinners. I know I am! Did you think it was a mistake that they found their way into my cart? I hate to cook! I'm a terrible person! Just ring them up and let me get the hell out of here!"
- "Sorry, cashier person, one more thing. If you unpack my cart any slower? I'm gonna' shove you out of the way so I can do it myself. It's not rocket science, it's basic motor skills. Get with the program."
- "Your turn, bagger. Most of the time you all are great, but did you happen to notice that you just packed my eggs in a bag with three one-liter bottles of water? Didja? Do you think that's a good idea? And while we're at it, do you think you could take my sandwich out of the bag with the Clorox and the Drano? Call me crazy, but that just makes me a little nervous."
- (And finally, the thought that is on repeat the entire time I'm in the store on many occasions): "Holy fuck. You've gotta' watch where you're going, aimlessly-wandering-while-talking-on-the-phone shopper. Contrary to what you may believe, I don't personally think it's everyone else's job to dodge you, and I swear upon all that is good and holy, even though it's not polite and not the Seattle thing to do, I will refuse to move one of these days, and my cart will slam into yours so hard, you won't even remember you had a phone."
03 February 2007
Grand Opening!
Welcome to my new home, bitches!
I started this blog about a week ago after unceremoniously leaving my former blog host, and I've kept it under wraps so far because I was feeling it out, making sure I had enough to say to warrant an attempt to get people to read it, moving my stuff in, doing some interior decorating...you know, the usual.
Now I'm all settled and I think I really like it here. So enjoy! Pull up a chair! Help yourselves to whatever's in the fridge! Hang out as long as you'd like!
Don't worry! I'm not usually this liberal with exclamation points!
While you're looking around, take a gander at this list!
What Did I Almost Call This Blog? (Dude, don't judge)
I started this blog about a week ago after unceremoniously leaving my former blog host, and I've kept it under wraps so far because I was feeling it out, making sure I had enough to say to warrant an attempt to get people to read it, moving my stuff in, doing some interior decorating...you know, the usual.
Now I'm all settled and I think I really like it here. So enjoy! Pull up a chair! Help yourselves to whatever's in the fridge! Hang out as long as you'd like!
Don't worry! I'm not usually this liberal with exclamation points!
While you're looking around, take a gander at this list!
What Did I Almost Call This Blog? (Dude, don't judge)
- Listapalooza
- Welcome to the Gunshow
- Tink's List-O-Rama
- ..........plink..........
- You are all out of control. Thank you.
- WHAM!
- Lists...it's what's for dinner.
- Lists...the other white meat.
...anyway...
I'm VERY happy with what I settled on, considering the above alternatives (ugh). The list thing, you should know, is a button I'll be pushing with every post, hence the references to them in many of the names I considered (okay, seriously? I'm not that much of a dork. I considered those names for, like, five seconds). The lists will be something to hang your hats on, if you will.
Yay new blog! I hope you like it a whole lot!
So What is This About a Circus? In Your Pocket?
I suppose I should explain.
I have been involved in circus arts in various ways for twelve years. It all began when my parents took my brother (Pickolas) and me to Club Med Eleuthra (I know, I know, it sounds like "urethra"...shut up) where I tried the flying trapeze for the first time. It was all over after that. Since then I have studied acrobatics, static aerials, and flying trapeze (among other things) at the San Francisco Circus Center, I trained and worked at Club Med Sandpiper for a little while after college, I am the director of circus arts at Long Lake Camp for the Arts in the summers (this summer will be my seventh in the circus department and my fourth as director), and I am also involved in aerials here in Seattle (I take lessons and classes from Darty, a local aerialist, circus founder, budding scientist, broke philanthropist, and altogether lovely person).
Aside from my own participation in aerial arts, I consider myself a student of The Circus in other ways as well. I will watch, read about, or listen to anything that has anything to do with circus, whether that means dragging my partner (Chrissymine) to Vegas to spend a stupid amount of money I don't have just to see Cirque du Soleil again, or pouring over human interest pieces from obscure newspapers that people send me, knowing how much I like that stuff (the latest was a piece about a woman in St. Louis who celebrated her 80th birthday by performing an aerial hoop routine for her friends and family--rock on, old lady!).
Anyway, since that summer when I was 16 and I first tried the flying trapeze, I've been thoroughly smitten with the circus. It's brought me more joy than anything else, anywhere, ever. I carry that joy around with me (in my pocket?) all the time. And I suppose I'm coming to the realization that "circusing" should be a bigger part of my life than perhaps I've allowed it to be.
Over the past year (since I got back into circus hardcore), I've been throwing around ideas about starting a circus school. At first I was playing it off as a joke, but...um...I really want to do it. I don't know when or where this would happen, but it doesn't really matter because there aren't enough circus schools in the U.S. anyway. This would all take money and some sort of business sense, not to mention a coaching staff...and...yeah, I don't have any of those things. So it's at the level of a pipe dream for now. But it's still exciting.
Ready for today's list?
Ideas for my circus school:
1) We would definitely have flying trapeze classes. If my school was mainly a flying trapeze school, in fact, I could do it here in Seattle without stepping on the toes of Darty or SANCA (the School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts) or anybody else. I can't believe there isn't a fly rig anywhere near here already, by the way. There's gotta' be a market for it, considering how Seattlites seem to be always looking for new and interesting (or dangerous) ways to be active.
2) There would be programs for kids and adults.
3) There would be special programs too, like "circus for weight loss" workshops for women (that was Chrissymine's idea), a kid's troupe, little camps for kids during school holidays, and free or cheap workshops for certain populations (special needs and/or at-risk kids, victims of domestic violence, etc.).
4) A lot of circus schools have tried and failed, but I would like, eventually, to start a multi-year professional development program that would offer students comprehensive training geared toward making them marketable to the big circuses, or to giving them the tools to start their own troupes.
5) How would I do all of this? By myself? No. My dream would fizzle without a terrific coaching staff. Even if it were just a flying trapeze school, I would be useless as a teacher once students got through the basics. Besides, I can't pull lines and work the board and catch at the same time! I'd have to figure out a way to recruit amazing people to be a part of this endeavor.
6) I want the school to be a fun place to hang out. I picture a large building with people up in the air and upsidedown on the floor and juggling stuff, and the parents of the troupers hanging out chatting while their kids rehearse, and first time flying trapeze students freaking out about being up so high while reminding their friends on the ground to take the lens cap off of the digital camera...the picture is a lot like other circus schools at which I've been a student, only somehow warmer.
Look, don't get me wrong. I get that this is wildly optimistic. I get that it's an almost-surely unattainable dream. But we all have to have dreams, right? Something has to keep me sane while I toil away for two and a half more years of graduate school.
Now to think of a name...Pocket Circus? Eh, that's a list for another time.
I have been involved in circus arts in various ways for twelve years. It all began when my parents took my brother (Pickolas) and me to Club Med Eleuthra (I know, I know, it sounds like "urethra"...shut up) where I tried the flying trapeze for the first time. It was all over after that. Since then I have studied acrobatics, static aerials, and flying trapeze (among other things) at the San Francisco Circus Center, I trained and worked at Club Med Sandpiper for a little while after college, I am the director of circus arts at Long Lake Camp for the Arts in the summers (this summer will be my seventh in the circus department and my fourth as director), and I am also involved in aerials here in Seattle (I take lessons and classes from Darty, a local aerialist, circus founder, budding scientist, broke philanthropist, and altogether lovely person).
Aside from my own participation in aerial arts, I consider myself a student of The Circus in other ways as well. I will watch, read about, or listen to anything that has anything to do with circus, whether that means dragging my partner (Chrissymine) to Vegas to spend a stupid amount of money I don't have just to see Cirque du Soleil again, or pouring over human interest pieces from obscure newspapers that people send me, knowing how much I like that stuff (the latest was a piece about a woman in St. Louis who celebrated her 80th birthday by performing an aerial hoop routine for her friends and family--rock on, old lady!).
Anyway, since that summer when I was 16 and I first tried the flying trapeze, I've been thoroughly smitten with the circus. It's brought me more joy than anything else, anywhere, ever. I carry that joy around with me (in my pocket?) all the time. And I suppose I'm coming to the realization that "circusing" should be a bigger part of my life than perhaps I've allowed it to be.
Over the past year (since I got back into circus hardcore), I've been throwing around ideas about starting a circus school. At first I was playing it off as a joke, but...um...I really want to do it. I don't know when or where this would happen, but it doesn't really matter because there aren't enough circus schools in the U.S. anyway. This would all take money and some sort of business sense, not to mention a coaching staff...and...yeah, I don't have any of those things. So it's at the level of a pipe dream for now. But it's still exciting.
Ready for today's list?
Ideas for my circus school:
1) We would definitely have flying trapeze classes. If my school was mainly a flying trapeze school, in fact, I could do it here in Seattle without stepping on the toes of Darty or SANCA (the School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts) or anybody else. I can't believe there isn't a fly rig anywhere near here already, by the way. There's gotta' be a market for it, considering how Seattlites seem to be always looking for new and interesting (or dangerous) ways to be active.
2) There would be programs for kids and adults.
3) There would be special programs too, like "circus for weight loss" workshops for women (that was Chrissymine's idea), a kid's troupe, little camps for kids during school holidays, and free or cheap workshops for certain populations (special needs and/or at-risk kids, victims of domestic violence, etc.).
4) A lot of circus schools have tried and failed, but I would like, eventually, to start a multi-year professional development program that would offer students comprehensive training geared toward making them marketable to the big circuses, or to giving them the tools to start their own troupes.
5) How would I do all of this? By myself? No. My dream would fizzle without a terrific coaching staff. Even if it were just a flying trapeze school, I would be useless as a teacher once students got through the basics. Besides, I can't pull lines and work the board and catch at the same time! I'd have to figure out a way to recruit amazing people to be a part of this endeavor.
6) I want the school to be a fun place to hang out. I picture a large building with people up in the air and upsidedown on the floor and juggling stuff, and the parents of the troupers hanging out chatting while their kids rehearse, and first time flying trapeze students freaking out about being up so high while reminding their friends on the ground to take the lens cap off of the digital camera...the picture is a lot like other circus schools at which I've been a student, only somehow warmer.
Look, don't get me wrong. I get that this is wildly optimistic. I get that it's an almost-surely unattainable dream. But we all have to have dreams, right? Something has to keep me sane while I toil away for two and a half more years of graduate school.
Now to think of a name...Pocket Circus? Eh, that's a list for another time.
01 February 2007
All Hopped Up on Caffeine and Bitterness
I got only 90 minutes of sleep last night. 90 MINUTES! Grading papers is hard! But allow me to back up for a moment...
I am a fifth year graduate student pursuing my PhD in Women Studies so I can go on to be a...professional feminist or something. I have plenty to say about being a graduate student (ask anyone who has said so much as, "How are you?" to me since September and they'll tell you how un-fond of school I am right now), but that's for later. First I want to talk about my job.
You see, I fund my grand academic marathon-of-punishment-that-has-no-end by serving as a TA within my department. This is a job I generally love and for which I get paid and have my tuition waived, so you know, it's pretty sweet.
Usually, for me, TAing (which is a term we all use as if it even makes sense as a verb when it totally doesn't...Teaching Assistant-ing? Yeah, not so much with the making of sense, but I have to move on or we'll never get anywhere with this, so bear with me and my linguistic idiosyncrasies), means attending whatever class the professor I'm hired to assist is teaching that quarter, grading papers, and sometimes teaching discussion sections once or twice a week. I looooove the teaching part. I don't so much love the grading part. Which means this quarter I have the kind of appointment I dread, in that I am only a grader, pretty much (I don't have any sections to teach this time around). I get the yucky part of the job without the fun part. Boo!
So my students turned in their first papers of the quarter about a week and a half ago, and I then began the task of: 1) Figuring out what the hell it was they were supposed to write; and 2) Actually grading the papers.
Just for some context, I had 55 papers to grade, and the page limit for this assignment was 6 pages.
Here's where the bitterness comes in. First of all, a few of my students managed to write six pages SINGLE SPACED. Who does that? That's ridiculous! Everyone knows at this level of education that single spaced papers are a bitch and a half to read and that assignments not specifying spacing are to be ASSUMED as requiring double spaced pages. (I feel like Napoleon Dynamite, all, "GOSH!").
Then there are the other annoyances I have to deal with. Behaviors that include: not using paragraphs (I know, right?), totally fucking around with MLA (which is just completely not okay in the presence of English degree-holding style-worshippers like yours truly), confusing the words "women" and "woman" (hold on, I'm still crying about this), and choosing not to make a discernible point at any moment in the paper.
Needless to say, it took a long time to wade through the mess. By yesterday, the day before the papers were due back in my students' eager little hands (okay, they're mostly 20 year-olds so that's kind of unfair, but I'm cranky so go with it), I still had a mountain of papers left to grade. At around noon this mountain began valiantly competing with an equally high mountain of panic, building somewhere on or about my sternum, around the very real possibility that I would never finish on time. I had to be a machine in order to get it all done.
Which brings us to today's list.
Yesterday, while simultaneously grading papers, I:
1) Consumed 2 liters of water (yay! I finally met my daily water goal for once!), one Diet Mountain Dew, and one Diet Cherry Coke.
2) Entertained my dog.
3) Hated life.
4) Iced my elbow.
5) Watched (well, listened to) ten minutes of an old episode of CSI: NY.
6) Hated life some more.
7) Mentioned something to Chrissymine about wanting to smack several of my students. Hard. In the face.
8) Kissed Chrissymine.
9) Rehearsed a hypothetical speech meant for my students about how rude and lazy it is for college students in a 300-level class to not PROOFREAD their MOTHERFUCKING PAPERS before I have to SLOG THROUGH THEIR RIDICULOUS MISSPELLINGS to try to figure out what the HELL they are TALKING ABOUT.
10) Took a bath. While grading. Seriously.
Now I'm in my office waiting out my office hours and trying to stay awake. The papers were successfully handed back in class this morning, and I've been here for forty minutes already without even one irate student coming by to issue death threats over his or her grade.
Things are looking up.
I am a fifth year graduate student pursuing my PhD in Women Studies so I can go on to be a...professional feminist or something. I have plenty to say about being a graduate student (ask anyone who has said so much as, "How are you?" to me since September and they'll tell you how un-fond of school I am right now), but that's for later. First I want to talk about my job.
You see, I fund my grand academic marathon-of-punishment-that-has-no-end by serving as a TA within my department. This is a job I generally love and for which I get paid and have my tuition waived, so you know, it's pretty sweet.
Usually, for me, TAing (which is a term we all use as if it even makes sense as a verb when it totally doesn't...Teaching Assistant-ing? Yeah, not so much with the making of sense, but I have to move on or we'll never get anywhere with this, so bear with me and my linguistic idiosyncrasies), means attending whatever class the professor I'm hired to assist is teaching that quarter, grading papers, and sometimes teaching discussion sections once or twice a week. I looooove the teaching part. I don't so much love the grading part. Which means this quarter I have the kind of appointment I dread, in that I am only a grader, pretty much (I don't have any sections to teach this time around). I get the yucky part of the job without the fun part. Boo!
So my students turned in their first papers of the quarter about a week and a half ago, and I then began the task of: 1) Figuring out what the hell it was they were supposed to write; and 2) Actually grading the papers.
Just for some context, I had 55 papers to grade, and the page limit for this assignment was 6 pages.
Here's where the bitterness comes in. First of all, a few of my students managed to write six pages SINGLE SPACED. Who does that? That's ridiculous! Everyone knows at this level of education that single spaced papers are a bitch and a half to read and that assignments not specifying spacing are to be ASSUMED as requiring double spaced pages. (I feel like Napoleon Dynamite, all, "GOSH!").
Then there are the other annoyances I have to deal with. Behaviors that include: not using paragraphs (I know, right?), totally fucking around with MLA (which is just completely not okay in the presence of English degree-holding style-worshippers like yours truly), confusing the words "women" and "woman" (hold on, I'm still crying about this), and choosing not to make a discernible point at any moment in the paper.
Needless to say, it took a long time to wade through the mess. By yesterday, the day before the papers were due back in my students' eager little hands (okay, they're mostly 20 year-olds so that's kind of unfair, but I'm cranky so go with it), I still had a mountain of papers left to grade. At around noon this mountain began valiantly competing with an equally high mountain of panic, building somewhere on or about my sternum, around the very real possibility that I would never finish on time. I had to be a machine in order to get it all done.
Which brings us to today's list.
Yesterday, while simultaneously grading papers, I:
1) Consumed 2 liters of water (yay! I finally met my daily water goal for once!), one Diet Mountain Dew, and one Diet Cherry Coke.
2) Entertained my dog.
3) Hated life.
4) Iced my elbow.
5) Watched (well, listened to) ten minutes of an old episode of CSI: NY.
6) Hated life some more.
7) Mentioned something to Chrissymine about wanting to smack several of my students. Hard. In the face.
8) Kissed Chrissymine.
9) Rehearsed a hypothetical speech meant for my students about how rude and lazy it is for college students in a 300-level class to not PROOFREAD their MOTHERFUCKING PAPERS before I have to SLOG THROUGH THEIR RIDICULOUS MISSPELLINGS to try to figure out what the HELL they are TALKING ABOUT.
10) Took a bath. While grading. Seriously.
Now I'm in my office waiting out my office hours and trying to stay awake. The papers were successfully handed back in class this morning, and I've been here for forty minutes already without even one irate student coming by to issue death threats over his or her grade.
Things are looking up.
28 January 2007
Lists and Lists
This isn't my first blog, just so you know. My first attempt was a miserable failure and my second attempt never went anywhere, although I am assured by friends and loved ones that, indeed, people did read it and enjoy it. I guess I didn't really enjoy it, though, because, for me, it didn't have a focus and it felt very, "Pay attention to meeeeeee! I'm totally interesting you guys!!!"
But it's a new day, bitches! I've missed doing this over the past three months and I have stuff to say and lists to make, so here I am and here you are and can I take your coat or get you something to drink? Did you have any trouble finding the place?
What am I going to write about? Stuff! No, but seriously, I have experienced some serious priority shifts of the tectonic plate-moving, Richter scale-triggering variety over the past year, and those shifts have accompanied all sorts of other changes as well. I'm still trying to digest all of it, and you're coming along for the ride.
Before I get into all of that, here are some things you probably don't know about me even if you know me:
1) I am very, very disdainful of, and cautious around, males. Of any species.
2) I'm 28 years old, I live in Seattle, and I've never tried pot or any other illicit drugs. (Isn't that the most pathetic thing you've ever heard?) I don't really know how to go about changing this situation.
3) I consider myself an atheist, but not a pure one because I have a deep spiritual connection with the moon and with oceans. Sometimes I can convince myself that fairies exist. This all makes the academic in me cringe.
4) I'm painfully shy, but I've learned to act pretty well to cover it.
5) I get really, really anxious about pretty much any new experience I encounter. But I get a kick out of getting to and through those experiences anyway.
6) I fucking LOVE heights.
7) I talk to my dog all the time. I think she understands me.
8) Sometimes I cry about stuff that has nothing to do with me and that I have no hope of changing.
9) I believe people can single-handedly change the world for the better, and I used to think I was going to be one of those people, but now I'm not so sure.
10) I spend a great deal of time obsessing about conversations that already happened and are long over.
Enjoy the show!
But it's a new day, bitches! I've missed doing this over the past three months and I have stuff to say and lists to make, so here I am and here you are and can I take your coat or get you something to drink? Did you have any trouble finding the place?
What am I going to write about? Stuff! No, but seriously, I have experienced some serious priority shifts of the tectonic plate-moving, Richter scale-triggering variety over the past year, and those shifts have accompanied all sorts of other changes as well. I'm still trying to digest all of it, and you're coming along for the ride.
Before I get into all of that, here are some things you probably don't know about me even if you know me:
1) I am very, very disdainful of, and cautious around, males. Of any species.
2) I'm 28 years old, I live in Seattle, and I've never tried pot or any other illicit drugs. (Isn't that the most pathetic thing you've ever heard?) I don't really know how to go about changing this situation.
3) I consider myself an atheist, but not a pure one because I have a deep spiritual connection with the moon and with oceans. Sometimes I can convince myself that fairies exist. This all makes the academic in me cringe.
4) I'm painfully shy, but I've learned to act pretty well to cover it.
5) I get really, really anxious about pretty much any new experience I encounter. But I get a kick out of getting to and through those experiences anyway.
6) I fucking LOVE heights.
7) I talk to my dog all the time. I think she understands me.
8) Sometimes I cry about stuff that has nothing to do with me and that I have no hope of changing.
9) I believe people can single-handedly change the world for the better, and I used to think I was going to be one of those people, but now I'm not so sure.
10) I spend a great deal of time obsessing about conversations that already happened and are long over.
Enjoy the show!
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