Things I Love Thursday

It's been awhile since I've done this. Here's what I've been loving lately...

1. Idiosyncratic Christmas songs. I can't stand sickly sugar covers of "Last Christmas." Rather, I prefer Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan doing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," Sufjan Stevens doing "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," Lady Gaga singing "White Christmas" as only she can. I scour iTunes for them. The idiosyncratic versions of carols get me in the spirit more than traditional ones.

2. Italian Wedding soup from Oregano's. I had it last night. It's served in a bowl bigger than my head with a sliver of cheesy garlic bread. So good!

3. The PBS adaptation of Macbeth with Patrick Stewart. Wow wow wow. It's amazing! It's streaming on Netflix. WATCH IT.

4. The Three Witches in Macbeth. I'm kind of obsessed with them, especially the ones in the PBS version. They give me the creeps in the best way.

5. Cake vodka! Three Olives makes it, along with many other flavors. But this vodka is so smooth that you could drink it straight if you wanted to. I prefer to mix it with hot cocoa for warm boozy bliss.

6. "Heartwarming" lattes and snickerdoodles from Liberty Market. "Heartwarming" denotes adding a shot of 100 proof peppermint schnapps! So delicious, so warm and fuzzy. And their snickerdoodles are the only ones I've found that are as good as my Mama's homemade ones.

7. This blog entry about how to talk to a dance major. I get these questions ALL. THE. TIME.

8. Pancakes from The Good Egg. Food there is pretty hit or miss, but their pancakes are stacks of fluffy deliciousness.

9. White Oleander, by Janet Fitch. I'm re-reading it for the millionth time. It never gets old...it's so nasty and beautiful. And it makes my fingers itch to write.

10. Natalie Goldberg's writing exercises in Old Friend From Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir. She is such a remarkable teacher and gives such great prompts. I've generated a lot of great writing because of her.

Things I Love Thursday

I've seen people do this on other blogs, and I decided to copy them. :)
Here are ten things I've been loving lately...

1) THE WEATHER. Holy wow, the weather this week has been unbelievable! My favorite times of year are the "mish-mash" seasons, meaning the days in between the major seasons. Arizona does mish-mash incredibly well. The between-summer-and-falls and between-winter-and-springs are absolutely perfect.

2) Whip It. I have roller derby on the brain. I'm trying out for the Arizona Derby Dames next Sunday, and it's practically all I've thought about this week. Whip It has definitely been my inspirational movie that gets me all pumped up and ready to kick ass.

3) Skateland Chandler. It is vastly superior to Skateland Mesa, that's for sure. I love going there to practice for derby tryouts, even with all the screaming children. The staff is really nice and the skates they rent out are decent (they also rent speed skates which is perfect, since that'll be the type of skate I'll be using for derby if I get on the team). I highly recommend it if you're in the area and ever feel like skating.

4) Ben Kingsley as Feste in Twelfth Night. I watched the Trevor Munn adaptation of the aforementioned play today, and enjoyed it. While everyone was brilliant (especially Imelda Staunton; girl has got some Shakespeare CHOPS), Ben Kingsley's Feste really stood out to me. He had that perfect mix of enigmatic and sharply witty. Lovelovelove.

5) All the homoerotic tension in Twelfth Night. It's so brilliant because there's all this sexual chemistry between Orsino and Cesario, but Cesario is actually the lady Viola in disguise! So it's homoerotic-but-then-again-not. Then Olivia falls in love with Cesario and there's all this chemistry between them, only Cesario is a lady! So it's actually quite homoerotic. Shakespeare, you are truly a genius!

6) Parks and Recreation. I seriously can not get enough of this show right now. I wasn't into it at first because the first season is a little too awkward for my tastes, but I stuck with it and the show really finds its legs in the second season and is just brilliant and hysterically funny!

7) Driving with my windows down. Since the weather has been stellar, this has been fantastic. Tonight I did it while sipping a hot cocoa in one hand. It was perfect.

8) My Transition Project class. I love seeing how everyone's projects are developing as well as giving and receiving feedback! The class flies by and we've been having some really great discussions. It's exciting and terrifying and I love every second.

9) Bridesmaids. I finally saw it and really enjoyed it! It wasn't what I expected, but I totally loved it nonetheless. I wanted to smack Helen in the face. And I'm so, so, so happy that Melissa McCarthy is getting so much recognition! She is a comedic genius and deserves every bit of fame she's acquired from Bridesmaids and Mike and Molly.

10) Breakfast at McDonald's. I'm really not a big fan of McDonald's food. I go there often to grab a drink since they're only a dollar, but tend to steer clear of the food. Except for breakfast. Their tasty, tasty breakfast. I live for Egg McMuffins as well as their Hotcakes!! Om nom nom. I can't figure out why it's so tasty...it just is.

Thus Far...

The first two days of school have come and gone, and I somehow made it through. It was so weird starting on a Thursday...but I guess it was nice to only have two days of class before the weekend! I miraculously woke up at around 7 AM each day, and had time to eat breakfast and take my time getting ready for the day. Eating a good breakfast with a cup of coffee, as well as snacking between classes, helped significantly in getting through the day. Particularly on my 9:45 AM - 5 PM days. But it wasn't just food that got me through; I think I'm starting to feel somewhat "normal" again (knock on wood). By that, I mean it wasn't like pulling teeth to get through the day. I did have moments in class where I was struggling, but that's to be expected. And trudging around campus in the heat wasn't easy either. But I was actually able to do it all, which was a huge relief. Next week will be the true test of how the rest of the semester is going to go, however. We'll see if I can get through an entire week of classes. I think I can, as long as I keep taking care of myself.

I'm excited about my classes! I'm taking Modern, Ballet, Transition Projects (our senior capstone class), 3rd Year Creative Practices (which focuses on community dance; I'm taking it to make up for the semester I missed), and a Shakespeare class. It feels so great to be dancing with all my favorite ASU students and teachers again. And I'm especially excited about the Shakespeare class! My teacher rules. Which is so great...a class can be ruined so easily by a boring teacher. But our teacher is really funny and, more importantly, passionate and enthusiastic about the material which makes his lectures fun to listen to. And I love that his favorite Shakespeare play is Cymbeline. Such an out-of-the-ordinary choice. We'll be reading that later this semester. We have a ton of reading to do each week, but hopefully I can handle it.

I'm nervous about my capstone class, mostly because adjudications for the senior project concert are in NOVEMBER. That's in like five seconds. Meaning I have to get my project together enough to be adjudicated by then...Gahh. Luckily, I've been researching and brainstorming all summer on the idea I'm thinking of pursuing: a piece about the Red Scare and Cold War tentatively called Duck & Cover. I've always been obsessed with that era, and especially with Soviet propaganda, so I think it'll be a meaty subject to choreograph about. I just hope I can get everything together in time for adjudications.

I'm really enjoying living alone so far. My apartment is cozy and the complex is really nice. Living alone is by nature a little lonely, but in a good way. It's so nice to come home to my own space and not have to deal with being around people. It's peaceful and very liberating. Plus my amazing kitty is always around to keep me company! I'm still getting settled in and STILL have cleaning to do at Jonathan's (starting school kind of had me sidetracked), but hopefully I'll be all done by the time Kaylene comes to visit next week. :)

That's about it for now. I'm leaving you with a snippet from an anti-Communist propaganda film that I discovered on YouTube while doing research for Duck & Cover...hopefully it'll teach you how to sniff out those evil Commies!

Okay, then.

Wellllll I went ahead and botched my audition today. Nerves, completely blanking, my mind somewhere else. I've never been so humiliated at an audition. But I got through it and learned from it. I guess. It's not like I really had a chance of getting cast in anything there to begin with, but still...making a complete idiot of yourself is NOT fun.

More details later. Maybe. I kind of just want to curl up in a ball.

Annnnd good night.

P.S. Finding out last night that my ex-boyfriend is in town for the weekend didn't really do wonders for my concentration. But that's a whole other story. Now if you'll excuse me, I believe I was going to go curl up in a ball.

Go, Girl, Seek Happy Nights to Happy Days.

I'm so grateful to have grown up with Shakespeare. I've been reading, performing and seeing Shakespeare plays since I was a little girl, and have loved his work for as long as I can remember. Even when I have no idea what a line means, it's so beautiful that I don't even care that I don't understand it. They're words that you go swimming in, wrap around you like a warm blanket, drink down ravenously while simultaneously savoring each drop. Frank McCourt wrote the most perfect simile in Angela's Ashes, saying that "[he] loved the Shakespeare," and that reading it aloud was like having jewels in his mouth. I completely agree. I remember when we read it out loud in my freshman english class in high school, and I got to read the balcony scene with one of my friends for the whole class. So much fun! Definitely one of my favorite high school memories.

There is something so timeless and versatile about his work. You can keep putting on productions year after year and it never gets old, because there is so much you can do with it. I loved the Shakespeare shows at the U of A--the dystopian industrial Victorian Romeo & Juliet, the stripped down Titus Andronicus with RIVERS of blood and stage directions projected on a screen. Infinite possibilities!

I would so love to be a part of a Shakespeare play again. Even just preparing for Southwest Shakespeare auditions has been great. I doubt I'll get cast in anything, but at least the preparation process felt wonderful. They have a great season coming up, too, and I can't wait to see them all. Also, I'm taking a Shakespeare english class this fall. I'm nervous and excited! Those classes are tough, but I love it. HOLY HELL I JUST LOVE SHAKESPEARE! I can understand how people are intimidated by it, but I honestly don't understand how people have such hate and disdain for it. Impossible!

"Away from light steals home my heavy son
And private in his chamber pens himself,
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out,
and makes himself an artificial night."
--Romeo & Juliet (Act I, Scene 1)