My ballet girls gave me this sloth Beanie today. Is he not soooooo cute? :) Plus, now that I'm done with school for the year, I totally feel empathetic to him. So we're gonna just sit around the car for a while tomorrow, probably about 7 hours, I'd say. Just me and Slowpoke, doin' nothin 

Frankfurt Ballet

Frankfurt Ballet: In the Middle Somewhat Elevated 


I want to be in this company. How amazing would it be to dance with William Forsythe? Honestly, sign me up today. Sadly, all his dancers were at SAB or the Joffery School or someplace amazing like that, or from Spain, so I'm kinda out of the running. Maybe if I lose 20 pounds and start auditioning my head off.... Sure.

Drowning

Ever done something that you couldn't rectify? Something that you can't justify or reason out? Ever messed with metaphysical truths that you didn't understand?
If you haven't, don't.
I'm sorry. You know who you are. There's nothing else I can say, not much else I can do. No amount of tears or words or silence is going to fix this. I'm sorry.
Anybody got a closet I can hide in until I'm 27?

What is Paula Grahmann?

You know when life really sucks? Yeah, yuck. Times when things all pile on each other, the worse all making the worse worse. When one bad thing turns into another, and eventually it all turns into like the worst thing ever. Makes you appreciate those times when the worst thing going on was that you had to get up for an 8:30 class. I suppose it's those times when you're running on 2 hours of sleep, have 2 shows to do, and are playing catch with 2 people's hearts that make you appreciate normal boring life. Don't be petty and selfish, it will get you nowhere.

"All passions have a period in which they are merely fateful, in which they draw their victims down by weight of stupidity"

Even if your life can be modelled mathematically, that doesn't make it clean and understandable.

Experiment

You must excuse the random picture, I was messing with getting it on there. Got it now. Look for more pictures later, probably more of my amazingly cute nephews and less of me looking naked.

I'm not naked, just wearing a strapless dress 

More Than Just Dancing

I've now gone beyond just being a dancer. I have been teaching for a year, and am really loving it. I thought I would hate it, I always told myself I would never be a teacher, but I really enjoy being a part of these girls' lives. Plus, it's good money. Just recently, I took to choreography, and actually succeeded in making up a good dance. It helped a lot that I had amazing dancers to work with, and a lot of the credit goes to Jesus, but it feels good anyways. I've also been called in to run a couple of rehearsals, spacing on stage and stuff. I got to wear a fun headset at the theater the other day, that was wicked cool, and interact with the lighting guys. The directors are actually taking my advice on some stuff, as if I had any idea what was going on. The coolest thing with this show, though, is that I get to pull ropes. I get to actually do an official backstage job and lower a set piece onto the stage. The upstage center tree, yeah, that's mine. Hopefully I won't screw it up, or look too stupid doing it in my full makeup and costume. Mommy says it's a big step that I've matured to doing production type things on this show, and I must say I am enjoying it a whole lot.

Movies I've Seen Lately

The Bourne Identity: a good flick, worthy of watching, amusing plot, gotta love that girl from Run Lola Run and her swearing in German, not sure how they're gonna make a sequel though

Men In Black II: already seen it, but enjoyed it anyways

Troy: an epic battle movie, but tolerable blood and gore, Brad Pitt is very attractive, and though there was some sex it wasn't overboard (the girl wasn't even super skinny or anything, I appreciated that, finally a more normal sized love interest), Agamemnon dies which upset me cause that didn't actually happen (there's a whole play about him later, apparently that wasn't important)

10 Things I Hate About You: I can see why Mike thinks it's super funny, but I also can see why Kathleen thinks it's a waste of time, I was just thankful for something to entertain me, I liked when they threw in actual Shakespeare lines

Starship Troopers: horrible, people getting killed and maimed for no reason at the beginning, then really lame battles with these huge spider things, and the main characters get killed off one by one, overall very lame and I can't believe I sat through the whole thing (the things I do for you, Mike)

Flash Flood Warnings

Before the Rainbow

Darkness lay thick on the world
Unmoved by roaring engine or howling wind
The atmosphere thick with impending rain
Every breath wetter
Drops coagulate in midair and smatter
Between straining eyes adn invisible road
The heavens heave a heavy sigh
Regardless of mere mortals being
Buffeted about on the pavement below
Blinding luminescence rends the sky
Tearing the blackness
Outlining the world in stark contrast
As to hurt the eyes
Snaking bolts of light crawl across the sky
Eating the darkness before
Being swallowed again by blackness
Incessent light and dark confuse
Playing games with memory and vision
Red lights lead out of stormy nightmare

Sights and sounds of Tulip Time:

A girl, approximately 17 years old, walking down the street in full Dutch garb, complete with wooden shoes. Her boyfriend, dressed like any normal 17 year old boy, loyally holds her hand, looking only slightly uncomfortable with the situation. Now that's love.

A family steps out of their Lincoln Navigator dressed in their traditional Dutch outifts. One of the daughters is dressed like her little brother. The father parked very confidently considering the wooden shoes he was wearing.

Throught the air filters the sounds of a young woman explaining the meaning of a Dutch dance. The traditional music drifts lazily on the breeze, filling the town with classic melodies.

A young girl traipses around the sidewalk wearing her mother's wooden shoes, proclaiming "Look at these clonkers I've got on!!"

A college girl stands on the sidewalk, taking pictures of a bunch of tulips. The passers-by all give her dissapproving looks, as if willing her to pick one of the flowers. They would be delighted to pounce the $500 find on her for picking one of the forbidden plants during the sacred festival.

A pickup truck drives slowly down the street, avoiding a marching band of blond children, dragging behind it a 10-foot tall plastic cow.

A professor teaching a class interrupts his lecture to stare out at the crowd of adults walking by, all dressed in their Dutch clothing. After a moment of intense looking, the professor exlaims "I think that's my wife!" He soon realizes it is not in fact his wife, though he does explain that she often wears her wooden shoes around the house.

Things of note in the past couple of days:

~The semester is over, I am now officially a Junior (by years and by credits, I think, though I may be a senior by credits after May term). My exams went, there is really no saying in if they went well or not. I might pull A's in my slacker classes, at least.
~I lost a paycheck, which means I'm out like $70. That really hurts, especially when I have to feed myself for the next month.
~I got $130 from selling my textbooks back to the bookstore. That's pretty darn good. They didn't take back my anatomy book, and I'm contemplating selling it online. Or maybe I'll keep it, I might need to know joint classifications someday.
~I spent $100 on books for May term. 10 books. They expect me to read 10 books in a month. Uh huh, sure.
~My tv went kaput, and it was really really annoying. So Kathleen and I went out and bought a new tv. We now own something together. The jokes about us being married now have a new level of truth. If that were legal in MI, and if I swung that way..... j/k :-) Anyways, it's way bigger than my old one, it actually works, and it has a power button that isn't pushed in. Exciting times.

Life isn't super exciting, but I guess it's not half bad. I'm excited about May. Mike and I are going to get buff, I'm going to read lots of classic liturature, I've actually got the time to take some ballet classes, I've got a show that should be really good, and I just like the month of May in general. Yay for life continuing mostly as usual.