Wednesday- contemporary

Wednesday contemporary was definitely a packed class. Jen had us do our ab work, which I really was not in the mood for, and even though I'm in shape, my stomach muscles are not very strong and I absolutely hate ab work. But I am getting better at it, in the summer I could hardly last my energy would go and I would give up. But now my energy stays and I don't give up, because in the summer I would practice my abs every day. We worked on the choreography for my duet too. However our teacher Jen changed some of the choreography because she wasn't liking something anymore. Choreographers tend to do this all the time and it gets annoying. But the choreography looks better and flows more, so it's an advantage. But Jen added this turn where I kick my leg up and hold it and turn with it. i'm flexible but she has me doing it with my weak leg, my left leg, so that's something I need to improve on.

Tuesday- Mostly Nutcracker practice, Snow and Flower

On Tuesday I had an hour and a half of dance class, ballet. We had a really short barre of about 20 minutes on pointe and then went straight to practicing Nutcracker. We went throught the Snowflake dance, where I am Snow Queen, and then we started to learn the opening dance. We always learn the opening dance before the main dance for Snow. As a class we are really getting better on our own personal strengths, especially in this dance. My tors are so much better, they are a turn in the air, I used to be really bad at them, and I've noticed since I have to do a lot of them in this dance that they are really improving.
Then we worked for only 10 minutes on another dance in the Nutcracker called the Waltz of the Flowers, it's painfully slow. I'm the only one in the class who has done this dance many times and the others need to realize how incredibly slow it actually is, so that's a skill we all need to work on, musicality.
After ballet we worked on our jazz piece Fame, Sabrina only added abut 2 counts of eight of choreography to the piece since 3 girls were missing. I need to work on my hip placement and movement for that piece, but my breathing is getting better, since that allows your energy to stay intact.

Friday night competition

Friday night I had competition rehearsel for three hours. We worked on Schindler's list first, but this little girl Alyssa was sick and not there and Sabrina couldn't add on any new choreography since the piece is kind of centered around Alyssa. But we practiced it a few times. Then we worked on the Bollywood pieces upstairs in the bigger studio for about an hour and a half, we added on new choreography, and it's starting to look really good. And Lorissa and I worked on our duet, we're both starting to look good on the second turns into a double pirouette, since we could hardly do it before. But there are other things in the dance that we still need to work on.

Thursday ballet and lyrical

On Thursday night I was about 10 minutes late for ballet, but I don't think Miss Francesca really cared. Francesca gave me a couple of compliments during barre so I think she's starting to like me and that means that I'm improving on technique. I wore my pointe shoes the whole class this time and my feet felt good actually, they weren't in immense pain. And it really is good to wear poine shoes all class to get used to the feeling. And then after ballet, we had lyrical choreography, but two girls weren't there so Francesca didn't add any new choreography. So we just worked on the things in the dance that weren't looking good.

SOI meeting

This week at SOI, we discussed how we did at our last bake sale and our long term goals. We made about $30 at our first bakesale, and by far the tea surprisingly sold the best. So we want to sell more organic tea. So we think that we'll keep going with the bakesales. Jade also had an idea to do a food festival later on the year, maybe after midterms or during. But it sounds like a really good idea, people would pay $5 or so and bring food and have a good time. We also discussed whether we want to give some of our profits to local organic farmers, which I think is a good idea.

Greek club-short meeting for me

This week at Greek club was short for me because I had to leave early, but I was happy that I was able to make it. I don't think that I'll be able to make every week so a goal will be to catch up since the week before I wasn't able to make it either. But this week Lydia held up ancient Greek flashcards and we wrote the words down volonteered on how to pronounce them and she gave up the translation. I'm guessing that soon we'll have a game on memorizing them.

Wednesday night contemporary- more partner work

I had an hour and half of contemporary class as usual Wednesday, we had our usual warm ups. I think my balance is getting a lot better and improving. Also my jumps, we're been working on attitude jumps, and attitude jetee jumps, which is more difficult, where the front leg is straight and the back leg is bent. Lorissa and I were able to work more on our partner work in our competition piece, it's looking a lot better.

Tuesday night ballet and jazz- very tiring

This Tuesday as usual was an hour and a half of ballet, then jazz and ballet competition rehearsel. We had a really short barre so that we could practice Nutcracker for the rest of class. Nutcracker rehearsel was definitely intense, we only practiced Snow and we learned more, it's the same choreography every year but most of the girls in this class haven't done Snow yet. Also in previous Nutcrackers the Snow Queen doesn't really dance a whole lot, but Sabrina put me as Snow Queen into almost all of Snow! So I basically don't stop dancing. Also everyone learned their parts so that was very exciting. Then after ballet we had jazz choreography, we're all getting better as a class to fast choreography, Sabrina complimented us all on that, so that's definitely a new skill.

Friday- competition no Sabrina

On Friday I had competition rehearsel as usual for three hours right after school. But Sabrina wasn't there since she was teaching a class in Boston that day, and so Sarah and Jen the other teachers worked with us. But of course we didn't learn any new material. Sarah worked with the older girls downstairs for 40 minutes on Schindler's List. Then we went upstairs to work on the Bollywood pieces for at least an hour. We also worked on the ballet piece for a good half hour since that needed a lot of work. And then Lorissa and I worked on our duet, Jen decided that she wants both of us do these turs called fouette a la seconde, into a double pirouette, which neither of us can do yet or are good at, but we're going to practice a whole lot!!!

Thursday ballet and lyrical

On Thursday, I had ballet class as usual for an hour and a half. This class is really about technique, since on Tuesdays now we just really practice Nutcracker. So the new teacher Francesca has really been working us hard, making us stay on pointe the entire time. So it's a really good class to work on my technique and pointe work. But it's a hard class . But I do get frustrated. My new goal is to do a double pirouette on pointe. Then after ballet we had lyrical choreography, I'm really getting excited for this dance, and love it. It's to Michael Buble and is really hard of course, but I'll work on it.

Wednesday- work on partnering

Last Wednesday, in contemporary class for an hour and a half, we did our normal excersises plies, tondus and such. And we started to work on the dance that Lorissa and I have for competition. We started to work on the partner work, that Brittany and I had started in the summer. So for the first time Lorissa was learning it, and it's not easy, so it's a good thing that we started. It's difficult partnerwork, she has to support me. But she was learning fast and getting it fast.

Tuesday night ballet

Last Tuesday night, our teacher Sabrina wasn't there for personal reasons but another teacher Sarah taught us and gave us a full class. We had a short barre and went straight to practicing Snow for the Nutcracker. I wore my point shoes the entire time, which only one other person did. It was definitely tiring since Snow is a difficult scene. Then after ballet, we practiced Fame for a half hour, we didn't learn anything new obviously, but practiced again and again.

Habitat for Humanity

Our advisory decided to do a bakesale to make some profit for Habitat for Humanity. My advisory is kind of quiet so I kind of decided to take charge of the bakesale. I asked everyone who would bake and who would sell, I decided to bake lemon squares. So on Thursday we had the bakesale, mostly the freshmen sold to other advisories around the school, we decided to do it on an advisory day so we wouldn't have to compete with other clubs on break day. I think we did pretty well, mostly we sold the cookies, brownies, and my lemon squares for a dollar or .75 cents. The sellers came back with a profit for about $20 or so, it definitely helps for Habitat.

Long competition- Dance

Last night, the 9th, I went straight from school to competition practice, for three hours. We practiced the Schindler's list group dance for about an hour, learning a new part that the whole group has to do together. Then for another hour the older girls and I praticed the Bollywood group dance which is definitely one of my favorites and then Lorissa and I practiced our duet for a half hour, she's learning the dance fast and I think it's going to look really good. And then we practiced our Fame dance and ballet dance. However the temperature in the studio was like 75 degrees so of course we were all dying of exhaustion and sweating. But the competition team is looking really good this year.

3rd Greek club meeting

On Thursday it was the 3rd Greek club meeting for me, since unfortunately I had missed two Greek club meetings because of carpool trouble. So on Thursday after school, we had Greek club for an hour and a half, I was totally confused because I haven't really learned the alphabet yet, and the others learned to do the first declension, so I felt totally lost and disoriented. Mr. Arcenas wasn't there, however Lydia was really helpful for five minutes after class to teach me the first declension. So since I was behind I got Greek words out of a dictionary to give to the others to do the first declension, while Lydia worked with a new member on the alphabet.

Wednesday- contemporary, 4th class

On Wednesday contemporary, I wasn't really feeling myself, but I did go to class, and we did our usual excercises on the floor and across the floor. My goal for this year in that class is to do what is like an attitude jump which is where you jump across the floor with one leg straight out in front of you and the other leg is bent in back of you. We also worked on the choreography Jen is working on for Lorissa and I again. Brittany and I are just perfecting what we learned over the summer, and the others were trying to get the hang of it.

Ballet class, 2nd Nutcracker rehearsel, long night

Tuesday night was abnormally long and tiring. Ballet class was an hour and a half, we had barre for a short time worked in center for 15 minutes and went straight to Nutcracker rehearsel, for the rest of class. We wore our pointe shoes for barre and center, but Sabrina let us take our pointe shoes off for the rest of class. and we practiced the snow scene a lot, so I was really happy to take my pointe shoes off. I'm Snow Queen, which means that I have little solos inbetween the dance, Snow Queen is kind of like the leader in the snow land. And Sabrina complimented me for when I danced, so I was really happy. But I've been watching this dance for ten years so it wasn't really difficult for me to understand.
And then after ballet, the competition team practiced the Fame dance, and we wore our ballet shoes. However Sabrina added new choreography and it just so happens to be the fastest dance ever, so we were basically out of breath and about to faint. However in the real dance world like Sabrina was reminding us, choreographers and teachers don't give you a lot of breaks, you just have to learn how to cope with dancing for long periods of time, breathing, inhaling and exhaling while you dance. And choreographers don't really give you a lot of time to learn a dance.
And then after jazz, the competition team for a half hour practiced our ballet piece. And by that point we were all exhausted, and couldn't really give our best efforts.

2nd SOI meeting

So we had the second SOI meeting this Thursday, however there weren't that many students probably because of the school elections. But Mr. Steedman was there there to talk about the upcoming bakesale with us. Jade had us read an article together about why going organic is important and the health issues with it. Then we started to talk about the bakesale we had to reschedule the bakesale because of Group 4. So we're doing the bakesale on Wednesday during break. I offered to bring in organic tea since my mom works at an herb shop in Sandwich. So it's just a beginning but it's a good start!

Thursday and Friday dance, lots of new goals

On Thursday, we all had a real workout. The new teacher Francesca is strict and really focuses on technique. On Tuesdays we're going to work on Nutcracker with Sabrina, so on Thursdays it's a technique class. We had to wear our pointe shoes the entire time and most days I don't mind however I still have one week old pointe shoes and I hurt my toe, but all dancers have to go through that. But I'm finding still that my feet get stronger because of this. And then after ballet, we had lyrical choreography and Francesca added on to the dance. She's adding turns that I've never done before so I'm definitely having some difficulty. And it's now a goal to do a double pirouette on my left side and then into two forte turns in seconde.
On Friday, we had competition practice at the Barnstable studio. We started off by warming up and then went downstairs to work on the Schindler's list group dance, which is starting to look really good. Sabrina added on a part with me and this little girl Alyssa who kind of rolls onto my back. However Alyssa wasn't really understanding, and she rolled onto my head, giving me a headache for a few hours. But then she began to understand as we practiced a few times. Then we practiced the Bollywood dance which I love, it's very different and cool. And we learned new choreography for that. Then Sabrina had Lorissa and I practice our duet for the first time in front of her, and she really likes it.

Wednesday- 3rd contemporary class

This week we worked on the same exercises that we did last week. There's still a lot of girls who have never taken the class before or even danced before, so Jen is starting off pretty easy. But she still does routines for the more advanced girls. And also we worked more on the duet that Lorissa and I are doing so she can learn more, since I worked on it over the summer. It was a really nice class.