Nashville Starz

WHOA!!! This past week and weekend has been a whirlwind! Nashville Starz competition was a great success!! I had one student competing and he did so very well!! I was very pleased with his placement! The whole studio actually did very well. Friday went down without any major bumps. Saturday, however, was crazy as one of our instructors ended up in the ER and Sunday was a blast! I am SOOO excited about the next couple of months. I am going to start working as a rep. for Dore` Designs. I have been interested in joining a designer for some time, and am going to start here soon. Since I won't be on the competition floor as pro/pro for a while, it's also going to be an awesome way to keep myself in the ballroom/competition circuit while I am searching for a new partner. The next couple of months is going to be sooo very busy. My schedule is really picking up and I'll be starting with Dore soon. Trying to find a time to head back home to Texas to see the fam will be a challenge.

The value and importance of a true friend

In the past couple of months I have sat back and realized the value, worth and hard work of a true friend. All my life I have always been surrounded by my very closest of friends until I moved. Those friends were a lot easier to make since we were all in school together. I seem to have been so wrapped up in my own world of working that I haven't really bothered to cultivate many friendships. I have realized just how hard it is to make and find those special people. People already have their groups they hang with and who really wants to add another?? Then you think you find someone and it's not what you thought and that process goes on and on..... That part is really hard for me since I tend to trust everyone immediately. I tend to get hurt often and that only makes me want to shut myself off from everyone.

Found some great quotes I wanted to share...

"Sometimes in life, you find a special friend. Someone who changes your life just by being a part of it. Someone who makes you laugh until you can't stop. Someone who makes you believe that there really is good in the world. Someone who convinces you that there really is an unlocked door just waiting for you to open it. This is forever friendship. When you're down and the world seems dark and empty, your forever friend lifts you up in spirit and makes that dark and empty world suddenly seem bright and full. Your forever friend gets you through the hard times, the sad times and the confused times. If you turn and walk away, your forever friend follows. If you lose your way, your forever friend guides you and cheers you on. Your forever friend holds your hand and tells you that everything is going to be okay. And if you find such a friend, you feel happy and complete because you need not worry. You have a forever friend, and forever has no end." ---Unknown

"Friends are the most important part of your life. Treasure the tears, treasure the laughter, but most importantly, treasure the memories."---Dave Brenner

"Sometimes life is hard to bear when a friend is just not there." ---William Franc

"A best friend is a sister destiny forgot to give you." ---Unknown

"Friends are always friends no matter how far you have to travel back in time. If you have memories together, there is always a piece of your friendship inside your heart." ---Kellie O'Connor

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. ~Aristotle

A friend can tell you things you don't want to tell yourself. ~Frances Ward Weller

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pride and Prejudice

So I was watching one of my most favorite movies the other night, Pride and Prejudice. Being in the analytical and contemplative state of mind that I have been in for the past month, I started to realize myself (younger and current) in one of the characters...Elizabeth...and also realize who I am starting to become...Jane.

I was the spitting character image of Elizabeth growing up and still very much am to this day.I am, however, starting to see chracteristics of Jane come into my life.

So quickly I have stated things about each of these characters personalities that I realize are also my own:

Elizabeth is lively, quick-witted, sharp-tongued, bold and intelligent. Elizabeth is concerned with propriety, good-manners, and virtue. Jane Austen portrays Elizabeth Bennet as "strong and intelligent, yet bewitching in a completely feminine way". "Elizabeth's possession of these attributes: strength of character and moral integrity, great intelligence, and an attractive personality, make her an admirable person." Yet Elizabeth has faults. She has pride in her abilities to perceive the truth of situations and of people's characters. However, her perceptive abilities fail her frequently because she is influenced by vanity and judges people rashly. By the end of the novel she overcomes her prejudice through her dealings with Darcy. Somewhere in my life I feel like I overcame my prejudice as well...not the pride though HA! Because of this change, I have realized that there are now things about Jane's character that I have now. Jane is good-tempered (I haven't mastered that one), sweet, amiable, humble(not this one either... at times) and selfless. She refuses to judge anyone badly, always making excuses for people when Elizabeth brings their faults to her attention (this is where my biggest flip/change has occured ..or is a working progress anyway). Her tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt leads her to be hurt by insincere friends such as Caroline Bingley.

I think that once I get hurt by my tendency to give the benefit of the doubt...I quickly return to my Elizabeth characteristics again. I am not sure how I like my progression toward having Jane's character...transformations that have or are taking place now I think I'm ok with...but I rather like my out-spokenness and my bold, charasmatic personality. yup..no more Jane for me!

trying to find the calm after the storm

It is interesting to see how my mood swings affect my emotions...now that I blog, I can really see the HUGE difference. So I am trying to find the calm after the storm. My mood is back to normal, so now I can think a little more clearly...God really had such a sense of humor in the makings of a woman. And I think the joke is on the men...or the nightmare might I say. Anyhow, I realize that some things are just out of my control. When I am not the cause of things that happen, I (most of the time)have no control over the outcome or changing the outcome. That is something that is hard for me to accept. I am...yes this is in writing.. a control freak, so releasing situations that I cannot change is hard. I think I actually subconsciously try to make the situation somehow linked to me so that I feel like I can change the matter...and that only makes me a crazy mess which is doesn't help things!! It is crazy how much power the mind has on us. So (deep breath) I have to sit back and let things work themselves out because there really isn't anything that I can do....and that is my constant reminder. In the mean time I have killed the crazy woman so that my fun, bubbly, and silly self can come back, and I can continue to be the best friend that I can be.

showcase pics

Got some pics from showcase from TM!!
Grandad (louie), TM, Me, and Frank
(below) Britt..who doesn't look thrilled..me, and Frank

so confused

Sometimes it is so hard to describe what is going on inside. I wish I could just pull it all out of me and lay it a paper to analyze...like when Dumbledorf pulls memories out of his head.

I'm so bad with words...that is why I dance. Dancing for me is a way that I can outwardly express an inward emotion. I remember a coaching I had with David Hamilton where he had me describe the feeling I had when he danced each particular way. I couldn't do it...I had no words to describe it. HAHa and I remember telling him " I don't know..I can't find a word...I'm not good with words, David, that's why I dance." BUT I could react and respond to his dancing with my own dancing and it matched in tone. And THAT is the beauty of dancing...THAT is what it is all about...taking the energy given, creating and moving with it, and then giving it back.His point in this lesson was to show that you must be able to "move" your partner by the energy you give, and that a great partnership would possess that quality. For the first time in my dancing career, I was able to experience that. That is huge for me. I am a pretty stubborn person and a very emotional one. The combination of these two attributes means that I won't "move" for just anything. I am very sensitive to the energy I feel from people, and to "move" me on the dance floor, I must feel a genuine energy. I have danced with people before that just go through the steps....analyzing each movement and dancing far too much from their brain instead of their heart. It is SO hard to produce a product that moves the audience if it doesn't move you. That is what the arts are about right? Moving people, touching their hearts and souls, speaking to them on a deeper level? Communicating those things is what makes us artists. People, talking about all people in general, love the arts because it bypasses the brain and touches them in their soul and takes them to a new place...whether it be the artist or the person viewing the art. That is why I love what I do...because I touch and change the soul of a person... their core...the basis of a human. So on the competitive end it's about how many judges you can move. Don't get me wrong; technicality is a part of it as well (and we all know it can get political) , but a couple can be very technically correct and BORING!! There are several top couples right now that I would describe this way. The only one that isn't are the current title holders of the American smooth. They do the most simplistic things but they MOVE people. I want to be that ...I want to be the most moving. (big sigh) And now I'm back at square one, but I'm gonna for for it, and I'll win....and it may take me years to find another partner that I can know I can accomplish that with, but it'll happen.

Maybe I'm not too bad with words....so after all that...those are the feelings I have inside about dancing...and right now I feel like that has been ripped out. And as a cherry on top the two friends here I had hoped to become great friends with suddenly don't seem to feel the same...