No Heat

So today I planned on doing the laundry, since it's been about three weeks since I'd done any. However, the hot water in the building is down and no one knows when it will be up again. While I'm a cold water laundry person, I was warned that the hot water might back up and ruin my clothes. So, alas, no laundry for me. Whatever am I going to do with...all my free time?

Fascinating

I had a good weekend. A few things happened of note, I suppose.
On Thursday, a little red-haired girl at the busstop decided I would be a good conversationalist and talked to me about bugs and dogs. She was very serious, and, for someone who looks like she must be about 7 or 8 years old (though I'm a bad judge of age when they're that young, she could be 10 for all I know) she was very well spoken. I think her mother is a professor or something at the school. That would proably explain things.
This weekend was quite relaxing. Ben and I enjoyed our post-anniversary by christening his brand new XBOX360. Well, rather, he played a LOT, and I watched. Sometimes. Mostly, I dozed in the chair next to him or graded homework nearby. Still, it was nice and relaxing.
Last night, I had the first rehearsal for my dance at 11pm. It went well, I suppose. I might have imagined it, but I kept feeling like everyone was staring at me thinking, "My god, why did I sign up for her dance. We're going to look terrible..." But maybe that was just nerves. I'm not good at leading when I actually know that I'm in charge. Hmm, now that's a revelation.
Today I got a wonderful package in the mail. I ordered two 1GB flash drives the size of trident gum online, and lo and behold, they came in a box that was 8x5x10. For two pieces of trident gum. What's more amazing is that the packaging material, styrofoam, was in larger pieces than the actual flash drives, making me have to dig and thereby torture myself with that horribly styrofoam noise.
Still, 2GB! YAY!

:(

Days like today I just don't feel good about myself. In fact, days like today, I don't even like myself. Life is unfair. No one gives a crap how hard you work, you still get screwed over in the end.

Depressed

So I've got a few things that make me depressed.

1) It's raining and cold, that makes for a bad combination.
2) I have a huge blister on my toe from dance auditions on Saturday and it seems to get more painful with everyday.
3) The blister wasn't worth it - I still didn't get into the one dance I really wanted. Darnit.

On the upside:
1) I got a really good set of dancers in my dance (except one of them seems to have combined my existence with Alice W., which offends me to the core)
2) I made a new friend in the Afro/Caribbean dance class
3) I got a lot of sleep last night.

I'm not sure if it's all evened out. It might be even, but Depressed Reason 3 seems to tip the scale in its...favor?

Auditions and Food

Yesterday was Dancer's Symposium tryouts. I was most apprehensive because I'm choreographing and I hadn't actually ever practiced the dance that I had to show people. Needless to say, when I went on stage, it didn't go so well. O yes, and did I say I missed the choreographer meeting so I didn't know what to say when I went on stage? Well, I suppose as choreographing went, it wasn't too bad. It wasn't a good selection. Most of the girls who are really good weren't interested because it seemed too easy and the girls who did try out just aren't very good. So, I'm changing it. I think they'll all be mildly horrified when they find out that the nice slow song has turned into a moderately fast song and it's slightly more hip hop and a lot less lyrical. I think I'll teach them what I've got so far and if they screw up, well, I'll go back to the easy one. Most important is having girls who can do this.
As for auditioning itself, I think it went well. For once, my pirouettes were on the spot. I'm really hoping I get into this one lyrical jazz piece, but if not, at last I'll have a few others. And if I did far worse than I thought I did, well, at least I have my own to look cool in.
After dance, I ran home and cooked for Waz's housewarming potluck. From what I'd been hearing from Waz, it seemed like there weren't many people bringing food so I decided to bring two dishes, a dinner and a dessert. For dinner, a cod and mushroom casserole that many people enjoyed. For dessert, an almond tofu (not actually tofu, just looks like it) with fruit cocktail mix of deliciousness. That went over particularly well. Waz told me that at the end of the evening, there was only one bowl's worth of the dessert left. Similarly, according to my calculation, there was exactly one bowl's worth of fish casserole left over for my enjoyment.
Ironically, I didn't have to worry about people not having enough to eat, since most of the people Waz invited decided not to show up for some stupid reason or other. I'm most annoyed with them. I managed to bring Ben, and he lives 20 miles away. Ben, by the way, was afraid he would be torturously bored or antagonized and found that he was neither. Well, maybe he was a little bored. It wasn't a problem anyway, since we left around 9 so his dogs didn't have to be locked in the house with no where to pee for too long. I brought a bit of the almond dessert I had left over to his place and gave it to his parents. His mom seemed to like it.
So, to sum up my weeked, I danced relatively well and I know I could make a pretty good dessert chef. ^_^

Hamsters and Ballerinas

I came to a strange conclusion this morning after ballet. For the majority of the day, I'm like a hamster. I like to slump over and huddle in a little area and just eat and sleep. And if I'm out and about, I just kind of sit there and look. Well, maybe I'm not a hamster per se, just a lazy fat rodent, like a guinea pig...
However, it seems after ballet class, I seem much less guinea pig-like. I guess something about the stretching in the class just makes me stand straighter. I look so much thinner after dance, or it could just be something that bothers me when I'm not exercising, that I'm getting fatter because I'm getting lazy. Who knows, my brain is wonky apparently. You can thank Barthes for that.

By Dose is Clogged

Translation: My nose is clogged.
Ernesto seems to have caused me to get a bit of a head cold. Never fear, Sinus Decongestant is waiting for me upon my arrival home. Thank god.
Other than that, nothing of note has been happening lately. I had a nice Labor Day weekend with my benny-bean. He was very nice and drove me all the way to Ikea and suffered through the whole ordeal. To pay him back, I'm going to make a delicious spaghetti dinner for him. Hopefully I don't burn anything.
Right now, I wish I had a tissue...

First Week

Classes seem to be in full swing now. I actually find myself enjoying it so far. It possibly has something to do with the fact that I am only (only!) taking six classes this semester and most of them are fun, or at least, interesting. I think the only one I'm really not excited about is the Mechanical Systems one, but that's mostly because it's so early.
I had a most pleasing day yesterday. For studio, we had to make that occupancy poster. So I made mine. I might post it, but basically it's a big grey word (Occupancy) going diagonally across the page, and I altered a few letters and turned them into the phrase, "Occupancy - function of habitation." There was actually no hyphen, it's just implied. And then I made little red silhouettes sit on the words or around them.
I was quite worried in class when everyone hung up their posters and basically all of them were chock full of words or images. And then there was mine. Four words, four silhouettes. So I started to worry and then continued to worry as the studio progressed and went on for an hour where it seemed absolutely no one noticed my poster. Finally, my professor says he's been waiting and waiting and I guess he just didn't want to wait any longer, and he wants to know all about the Russian Constructivist poster. I felt like a bad student as I wondered what the heck that meant, and felt even dumber when I realized that he meant mine. And what's worse is when I started talking about it, he thought I was talking about the wrong poster because I didn't turn my head all the way to look at it. Yes, everyone, my eyeballs are quite flexible too. So I just muttered about the poster a little bit, basically saying that there's not much to say and then he says he really likes it. Then Stephanie chimes in and says she likes it too! Yay! So I guess I wasn't a complete idiot.
Then my day became especially pleasing at bookbinding. Passion-wise, I think I've found my calling. I love books. I love reading them, I love making them. I do think that I would willingly sit at a table for hours and work on a book until it was perfect. When the professor mentioned that one of his former students is in NY with her own firm specializing in letterpressing and bookbinding I got to thinking, maybe that's all I really want to do. Maybe when I'm all done with school and have worked for a few years, I'll just start a little business where I can make pretty books for gifts, cards and whatnot and even do custom binding and such for those who want fancier portfolios. It wold be like Kinko's except that the employees would actually have brains. Sounds like a credible business, maybe? I think it might work, though mom wouldn't approve because she would probably think that it wouldn't have much in the way of customers. Who knows?

The Rising Tide of Doom

Every year on the first day of classes, I always feel waves of dread as the teachers, who act as if they were going easy on us, assign one assignment after another.
Still, the day went well.
I started out the day by going to my Mechanical Systems class where the teacher talked about how he intends to go easy on us. Then he gave us our homework. We have to go to a fast food restaurant and stare at the vents, and hold our cheeks against the cracks between doors. As silly as it sounds, there is a point to it. I'm going with a couple of people today so we don't look like complete idiots.
Then, I sat around with some people for three hours since we don't have any studio space.
Studio consisted of an hour long lecture by Laura Lee and various higher ups in the department. Apparently our school is hosting the AIAS northeastern quad conference. I wonder what that's going to entail. Then we went to our new studio and stood around for what felt like another hour until our professors decided to show up. They all gave really long course descriptions, but fortunately, all of them sound good (in comparison to last year, anyway). I'm looking forward to whichever Professor I end up with.
I ended up the day with a ballet class at the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. The thing about dancing there is that most of the people there have been dancing there, with the same teachers, for years. Many are professional ballerinas. So, needless to say, with basically five years of spotty ballet lessons, I felt horribly ungraceful and fat. Still, I felt great walking out of class, so I'm going back for more torture on Thursday, hopefully with a classmate in tow.
Now I have to figure out how to define "Occupancy." I looked it up in the dictionary, but somehow I doubt that the teacher was going for the exact definition. I see a big word on my 11x17. A big diagonal "Occupancy" and probably a smaller "Habitation." We'll see where I go with that.

The Unfairness of it All

So, since the non-major jazz class in the school of drama stopped for good last semester, I worked with the class president (or whatever his official title is) to put together a good, technique based dance class together. Today, I found out that there will be a class (yay), but, like all the other classes I want to take, it's during studio (curses!) So, yes, I'm feeling very put out about that.
On the upside, I contacted my landlord the other day, who just happens to be a former ballet dancer for the PBT about dance classes. Today I talked to him on the phone about it and he is good friends with the head of the ballet department at Point Park, which I hear is very very good. So maybe I won't have a technique-less year. After trying to get back in shape this summer, having a year where all I do is forget how to keep my hips aligned is horrifying. Here's to Point Park.

The Unfairness of it All

So, since the non-major jazz class in the school of drama stopped for good last semester, I worked with the class president (or whatever his official title is) to put together a good, technique based dance class together. Today, I found out that there will be a class (yay), but, like all the other classes I want to take, it's during studio (curses!) So, yes, I'm feeling very put out about that.
On the upside, I contacted my landlord the other day, who just happens to be a former ballet dancer for the PBT about dance classes. Today I talked to him on the phone about it and he is good friends with the head of the ballet department at Point Park, which I hear is very very good. So maybe I won't have a technique-less year. After trying to get back in shape this summer, having a year where all I do is forget how to keep my hips aligned is horrifying. Here's to Point Park.

Cow?

Today we had a family outing. Yay! Where did we go as a family? Grocery shopping! Yay!
The main reason for shopping today was that we're going to be having a big barbecue tonight and there's a lot and lot of people coming over. So we went to Stew Leonards, a local supermarket where everything is extra fresh, and mom and dad stared at different cuts of steak for what must have been twenty minutes. While they were doing that, the oddest thing happened.
The thing about Stew Leonards is that it's a family friendly place, so it has little robotic things that come alive at a push of a button and do something cute, like lay an egg or sing a song. Occasionally, there's people in cow or duck costumes that walk around and play with kids. Never grownups, occasionally teens, but mostly kids. Which is why it was really odd when a cow came up to May and me while we were waiting for our parents. We were talking in a corner and all of a sudden, there's a cow...standing...right...there... My first response is, "O my god." It waves and then holds its hand in mid-air, and I wonder why, and then May gives the cow-person a mid-five, because it certainly wasn't high enough to be a high-five. Then the cow turns to me, so I respond with another uncertain mid-five. And just like that, cow-person turns around and walks into the back room.
Random. Very odd.
So we stood there for the rest of the time trying to figure out what the deal was with cow-person. At first I thought maybe it was someone I knew. Then we theorized cow-person was sent as an undercover cow-scout to figure out why we were just standing in the corner for twenty minutes. As if I would take that long if I wanted to shoplift...

Pirouettes

It's been bothering me to the point where I literally dreamed about it last night.
Last summer, I took dance classes in New York and all of a sudden, bam, I could do pirouettes. Singles, doubles, triples, I could nail them every time, ending exactly where I should end, staying up in a passe. I started off the school year nailing the turns just like that, every single time. Then, all of a sudden, I just...forgot how.
So, the last Tuesday I was in China, I took a ballet class. At the barre, of course, I sucked. All the other girls had great turnouts and great extensions and I was just rusty and overall unimpressive. Then, when we went across the floor doing pirouettes, all of a sudden, bam, yet again. Every single time, single, double or triple, abolutely on point, I could feel myself absolutely on center for both left and right pirouettes.
And now, I can't do them anymore. Again. I strongly suspect it has something to do with taking ballet classes (pulling up, elongating the spine, keeping the hips aligned, all that stuff we ignore in jazz) except that, o, of course, the selfish school of Drama won't open any classes for people who aren't drama majors. So, I'm left looking at ballet classes that are off campus and horrendously expensive. Except that the schools around CMU only seem to offer ballet on Tuesday which is when I have to teach statics recitation. Curses!

Treadmills

Back in Connecticut and enjoying it. I've done pretty much nothing but eat, sleep and play video games since I got home. Well, I also hung out with Marlen at the mall where I bought a very very pretty pair of shoes. I can't wait to wear them. When did I become so obsessed with those things?
Anyway, I just had to share this music video. Best treadmill workout ever!

Home Sweet Home

I'm back in Connecticut! Yay! Happy, happy, happy. I always forget, but it's so nice to be utterly surrounded by just trees and sunlight, where the only sound is my parents talking and the birds. No cars, no smog, just "the country."
So my plane ride was a little uncomfortable. This time around, the seats didn't have footrests and there were entirely too many babies on board for my comfort. I sat next to an adorable little old lady who I felt quite bad for because she started throwing up halfway into the flight. And the airline attendants didn't have anything for her tummy which made me feel double bad for her. Other than that, though, the flight was good. I watched a few good movies - "Something New" and "Take the Lead." "Something New" was much better than I had anticipated, and somehow the movie made toenail painting look incredible kinky. INCREDIBLY. It also made me slightly suspicious as to how many men actually go for that kind of thing. As for "Take the Lead," obviously I loved it because there was dance. I didn't realize until the end credits that the girl who does the menage-a-trois tango at the end is my former piano teacher's grand-daughter. Go, Jenna!
So yes, my entire family met me at the airport and I told them all about my trip. I pulled out the big sack of candy I bought for daddy and he was very pleased. I also told mom about how I took a ballet class in modern shoes and ended up getting huge blisters on my feet from all the turning I did (but I've suddenly regained the ability to do perfect turns, so it's worth it). Then today we went out and did grocery shopping and dad seemed to be mocking me and my new aversion to NorthEastern Chinese food by buying pickled cabbages. Bad daddy, no peanut candy for you.

Goodbye Jazz du Funk

Today was my last class ever at Jazz du Funk. It was happily an amazing end to the experience with my favorite teacher, Allen, teaching lyrical jazz. Yet again, I will state that Allen is an amazing teacher, and I'm also starting to think, after watching millions of reruns of "So You Think You Can Dance" that he's kind of Brian Friedman-esque in his choreography, only more modern. Great guy (that phrase is a gross understatement of how much I respect him).
Anyhoo, I ended up spending an extra half hour after class talking to the people that were Jazz du Funk regulars gossip and plan future classes. I found out from a lady named Debbie that there's more dance schools in Shanghai, and she's taking me to a ballet class on Tuesday (yay!). I should've started making friends sooner, stupid me.
Allen was also regaling us with tales of how he'd be dancing on the way to some elevator and end up smashing into something. Apparently he bumps into things very often. That started off another conversation about how everyone in the room always seems to walk into things when they're just walking. I'm glad they mentioned that because walking always seems like such an akward thing to me, too. I can't seem to avoid people or objects and just end up glancing off of them into something else, and it seems to be the case for the others. A girl (I don't know her name, but she's from Sweden - cool, no?) hypothesized that since dancers are constantly keeping their entire bodies controlled while dancing, it seems like such an odd thing to be relaxed when just walking, and being particularly limber, dancers end up just wobbling into everything. I decided that that makes sense. I do feel very akward walking, like I'm too fast, or too slow, off the beat that everyone else seems to be following, constantly trying to and failing to avoid bumping into other people. It's ironic that mom enrolled me in ballet so that I would be more graceful.

Countdown: 9 days

With only nine days left till I go back to the US, I thought I would list a few things I've come to realize during my stay in China.
I. Things I will not be missing about China
a) Not being able to drink tapwater - It's like being stranded in the ocean with water all around you when you're dying of thirst and not a speck of it is good for drinking. Except that in this case, I haven't even had the chance to step on said offending soon-to-be-sunk boat and am instead, surrounded by working faucets dispensing all rust-scented water I could ever hope to dream of when the water cooler is empty.
b) Traffic - I miss being able to cross the street in an orderly fashion, meaning when the little walking man lights up and the music blares, it's my turn. No, truck driver, not your turn. And don't you dare honk your horn and glare at me like it's my fault. For that matter, I find it incredibly annoying when people have no reason at all to honk at me because I'm out of the way, on the sidewalk, and Still, they have to honk. I keep having this urge to flick people off and yell obscenities except I don't know enough bad Chinese to hold my own in an argument.
c) Being identified and therefore villified for being a foreigner. It isn't so bad if you're American, white and male. They LOVE that here adn for all the worng reasons. However, if you look asian, don't speak very good Chinese (or at least have a detectable accent) then you are a possible victim, whether it be for making a shirt cost triple price or being marked by shady cab drivers as possible rape victims. I thought I was doing okay with being at least generally Chinese, but just three days ago, I was accused of being Japanese, Korean and some odd Chinese-Russian mix. Yeah, as if I would ever pass for Russian.
d) Dumplings - good lord, I don't think I could eat another one of those horrid things ever again. Supposedly hand made is always better, but in this case, it's much worse. The dumplings here are all the dough-like stuff on the outside, with just the teeniest smidgen of meat on the inside. It's like biting into a cabbage flavored mochi. I miss mommy's cooking...
II.Things I will miss about China:
a) Haggling - I love to haggle. LOVE. Especially when I can do it without being too rude. My crowning achievement was haggling two dresses from a total of 200RMB down to 70RMB. That's pretty good, I think. Particularly since the maid told me the shirt she was wearing this morning was 50RMB. I think I enjoy the bargaining aspect much more than the actual acquiring of things. It's so sad to go back to the US where a $70 pair of jeans will always be $70 and therefore forever out of my reach.
b) Air Conditioning - O, ozone depletion, how I delight in thee. You can bet almost none of the air conditioners in this country are environmentally friendly. And yet they make hot and humid weather so much more tolerable.
c) Bizarre Popsicles - here's a treat. What's chocolate on the outside, pudding in the middle and red beans in the center? The popsicle Shelly ate yesterday. The red bean was an unexpected surprise, but she claims it was still quite tasty. Mine was a delightful confection of vanilla and coffee which lasted almost all the way back to the office. O and let's not forget myh favorite, vanilla with raisins! Add a little rum and it's my favorite ice cream flavor. Add a little imagination and teenage boys would by dying to watch. Horrible, no?
III. Things I miss about the States:
a) STEAK - yah, I'm a carnivore. I tried the vegetarian thing once, but it didn't really work out. I'm getting tired of every single piece of meat int eh country being cut into little bite sized pieces or smothered in sauce so that it's no longer distinguishable meat so much as an added bi to ftexturre in an eggplant dish. I miss meat, as in a juicy steak seasoned with only salt and pepper and cooked on a charcoal grill. Yes, I know, my food fantasies are quite vivid. As Marlen once said, "I may be thin on the outside, but on the inside, I'm obese."

I'm sure more things will come to me as the week goes on. But for now, back to work and dreams of steak.

Big Brother

So, after last weekend's horrible all-nighter experience, it was really nice to just sit back and relax this weekend. I was lazing around Saturday morning when Gege (pronounced "Guh-guh", means big brother in Chinese) walked in and thumped me on the head saying, "Hey, long time no see." Yah...thanks for drinking all my milk the other day and not telling me...
Little aside: He's not actually my big brother. He's actually my cousin, but I call him big brother because he lived with my family for two years way back in my elementary school days.
Still, it's nice to see him after not seeing him for about two weeks despite the fact that we live next door to each other. Yesterday I was telling him how much I missed having American food like Pizza and Fries and STEAK, so he decided to take me out later for some good old American cuisine. We went to a mall near his office where there was not only Pizza Hut and Papa John's, there was also a Dairy Queen, a KFC and a McDonalds. American Food Paradise! So first we went to the video arcade and spent an hour playing car racing games and Taiko drums. Fun fun. And then we went to Papa Johns and got a teeny tiny pizza that was half pepperoni and half "Mexican." Then we realized it was getting late and we had to pick up my uncle from the airport, so Gege bothered the waitresses into 1)hurrying up our order, 2) changing the onion rings in our pre-arranged meal package deal into potato wedges and 3) changing things at the last minute from eating-in to to-go. I told him at one point they probably hate us now, and he said, "Well then they'll probably be extra eager to put everything in a bag and get us out the door." With the bill came a lotto-ticket-like thing where you can win whatever the prize is if your gamepiece has a certain flag or something. Gege won an apple pie which they refused to give saying that the earliest we could get it is tomorrow (or rather, today). Stupid rules.
But anyhoo, when we finally got all the food, we had 10 minutes to get to the airport, so Gege used his speed driving arcade skills and drove us to the airport in 7 all the while eating pizza with one hand. Pretty impressive. Then we just sat, ate pizza and complained about our smoothies until my uncle walked out of the airport.
So that was my fun evening with Gege. I think that for all that he picked on me when I was seven, it's still kind of cool to have a big brother that takes me out for arcade games and pizza.

Nausea

Nauseating things:
Today on the bus, I experienced serious motion sickness. The reason being that 1) I was reading a book, 2) The bus ride was particularly bouncy, and 3) a guy sitting next to me smelled like salt and vinegar potato chips in a bad bad way. My tummy is currently doing backflips and I am not liking the feeling at all.
Also, I just read that "Michael" of Project Runway is making things that look suspiciously like fashion designs out of Elle magazine. So now we have someone plagiarizing things on national television. What I can't figure out is why on earth someone would do that. Why would someone risk his integrity on national television. I suppose he doesn't remember how Vanessa flipped out on television in the first season and had her sales drop a LOT. Stupid people. If people are watching, you really want to be on your best behavior and not let all the dirty laundry hang out for everyone to see.

More Random Musings

It's odd that amongst all the yummy food available in Shanghai (Soup Dumplings, regular dumplings, korean barbecue, etc.) I still find myself craving pizza. Good pizza. Really really good pizza with only a little bit of cheese and a lot of sauce and a lot of crust. Mmmmm, Pizza Hut...
On another note, I am currently the only English speaker left in the office. Shelly is on vacation with her boyfriend, Scott. Kathleen has moved on to a new internship, a hopefully more productive internship, at a bank somewhere. That leaves little old me, studious and ever-hard working (boy would my professors be surprised to hear that) all alone and o so sad. No, not really. It's not so bad. I get a little peace and quiet, except that WangYue keeps bothering me. I think I might murder him soon. He keeps dragging me away from what I'm doing so I can translate stupid games he's downloaded. And when did this annoyance start? Well, it definitely gave me a big nudge when he woke me up when he decided to take my picture while I was sleeping on the couch. There's nothing more horrid than knowing that someone might be watching you while you sleep. It's stalkerish...
O, and somehow, even though I'm eating all this food, I seem to be looking thinner, or so people tell me. I guess it's because I don't really like any of the candy or pastries they have in this country, so I simply indulge in fruit instead. The apples, I have found, are incredibly yummy. I suppose when I get back to the US, I should just continue not eating cake and cookies, but oh boy are they yummy.