Traveling over the Holidays in a Rough Economy

The Holidays are always a big rush. If you're like me and have family across the U.S. you spend most of the Holiday season getting around to see everyone. With the grandparents in Ohio and Aunts and Uncles and Cousins in Seattle getting from place to place proves challenging while trying to find a little time at home and getting homework done..ugh! We always spend most of the Holidays making our way to see family which usually involved a couple plane rides and a few hours in the car(s). This year has been alittle more stressful because of the hard economic times. It makes most sense to me since we were traveling East to Ohio that we fly that direction, apparently this is not the best way to go so we flew from Spokane, WA to Seattle Wa to Denver CO to Chicago IL to Cleveland OH, that was probably the worst ever! On the way back we flew from Cleveland OH to Minneapolis, Saint Paul to Seattle, WA to Spokane, WA, at least on the way back it was more of a direct route. I do understand that with the rough economy less planes means less direct flights, but it was still a very long day. While in the Seattle Airport (Seatac) I was able to catch up on most of the my homework because Google is giving Seatac free Wifi until January 15th as a Christmas Present which kind of made the trip more worth while, I guess that some hearts are still generous even when things get rough.

Thanksgiving in Ohio

Myself, Mom and Dad Most of us together...

Cousin Carol and Mom

Thanksgiving is a time to count your blessings. For my life, everything whether good or bad has made into another successful year and even though it isn't New Year's and I haven't made any resolutions I am still thankful to have another Thanksgiving with my family that I only get to see 2 to 3 times a year. This year we had a little bit smaller than normal, only 13 people this time, but it was still very nice. This year I am thankful for my grandparents that are still kicking, even though their house can be chaos and they fight like cats and dogs I still love them and appreciate the time with them. I am thankful that I am not in control of everything that sometimes I need to remember that and that everything has a purpose. I am thankful for having a family that supports me and loves me unconditionally. I am thankful for the little things like toilet paper and clean water and the opportunity for fulfill me dreams whether great or small. I hope that this inspires others to count your own blessings and it might surprise you how truly blessed we are.

Relationships

I have talked a little about my boyfriend, but because he is such a big part of my life I should say a little bit more about him. We have been together for six months on wednesday, which is very is very exciting, the best thing that I can say is that we have fun and he makes me laugh, I think that these things are so important because they keep you happy in your friendship which keeps the relationship stable, if you love someone without liking them, how can you ever expect to keep things together. We met while I was still in high school and he was in college, I am best with his brother and his girlfriend who was my roommate, so when my previous relationship ended last year,they decided that they would putus together..Finally! for him and ugh! for me. This sounds awful, but true I wasn't very thrilled, but one date was all it took This first date was exciting and he was charming and we got along so well, I was so excited and we managed to make it to date two and from then on out, it was a done deal. It's a funny thing now, but it has really helped me to understand that relationships are so much more complicated than anything that I had ever thought before, even though I understood fighting and compromising, I now understand what it's like to have someone know you, who really tries to make you happy and someone that you can't help but love, it's a great new thing. Even if it doesn't work out, it's still been great.

Vacation? in Ohio

My momma is from the great state of Ohio, as my grandpa says. Over Thanksgiving we almost always make our way to my mom's home town to see my grandparents and get together with family. My friends always say how lucky I am and how they love to fly and love to travel and I am so lucky that I get to go on vacation during Thanksgiving. Too let everyone else experience my vacation I kept a diary of yesterday.

2:30 a.m. get to grandma's, it was a late night flight
9:30 a.m. get up and get showered, still very sleepy
11:00 a.m. getting lunch ready after a being told by Uncle Jerry that my last relationship didn't work out because I'm to bossy.
12:00a.m. lunch is ready and everyone makes a b-line for the kitchen.
1:30 p.m. grandma spent the last hour and a half talking about what an idiot my uncle Jerry is and what a pain in the ass his wife is.
2:00 p.m. mom and I start to get late supper ready my cousins and their spouses and kids are coming at four.
3:30 p.m. I am busily telling mom that we made entirely too much food, while she persists that we will not have enough.
4:15 p.m. family rushes through the door and I get swarmed by kids, they are just so cute.
7:30 p.m. dinner is over and now we all catch-up over the last five months since we've seen each other, my cousin Michelle works with her husband as partners in a printing business company, my cousin Matt works for CAT and helps run the family farm.
9:30 p.m. so great to see family but now they've gone home
10:30 p.m. call my boyfriend and chat for a while until I fall asleep.

I love my family and we all get along, but sometimes it's a chore to go on vacation.

Artist's Offerings; a Critique

As I have mentioned in this blog, the a constant in my life has been dance, ballet mainly. I truly love it ans for those who have never experienced dance I recomend it with all my heart. This is a critique of a dance performace last weekend hosted by the University of Idaho and performed by dancers in the U of I's dance program. If you're ever in town come check it out!

Last Friday’s performance of Artists’ Offerings had a lot to offer. I saw many pieces that were moving either emotional or charismatically, had charm and elegance and there were some that I thought could have been presented a lot better. For my critique I am going to discuss the performance from a member of the audience’s perspective and as a performer/ dancer in general.
Starting with Loved and Cared For choreographer, Mary Heller, this piece was really well fashioned and had a lot of meaning to the choreographer with was nicely executed in the dancers facial features and body language. The piece was able to communicate two people who work together through love and when the end comes fall apart together in love. The music was especially moving and when “What’ll I do” began to fill the auditorium I started to tear up. The choreographer’s note was appropriate and I thought the piece was polished and complete.
Vegas and Me, choreographer Gregory Halloran this piece was different and could have been very tasteless but it was not. The music especially had many members of the audience talking, but once the theme of the piece set in, so did the audience’s laughter. The dancers really communicated to the audience and I was enjoyable to watch. It was a little edgy and could have been interpreted in several ways, but with the slide show in the back ground the message was clear. This piece was also especially emotional at the end and had a nice finish.
I also really want to discuss Digital Stasis, choreographer Christopher K. Morgan. This piece has special interest to me because Mr. Morgan was a guest lecturer in class and also did a performance for the class. I honestly preferred his class performance because it was original and interesting. Digital Stasis fell into a category of predictable, ordinary and average. Because, the University of Idaho’s dance program is more geared toward modern dance, this is expected by the audience, someone like me who has been coming to these performances for many years and I want something fun and spicy and honestly less modern. This is particularly my reasoning for why I feel that this piece although the performance was executed nicely by the dancers and the choreography was good, I did not like the costume, music or lighting, which didn’t help my opinions. A good contrast of this piece was Kodou, choreographer, Mia Seshiki. I really enjoyed this piece, the lighting was fun and enticing, the dancing was very good, the costumes were bright and colorful and I liked the choreography; it was easy to watch and got the loudest applause. I do have a critique of this piece but it does not apply to the performance, but to the audience. Most of the dancers had solos and difficult technique to perform and the audience did not notice of applaud for any of the solos. I found that ridiculous that the audience is so uneducated about dance and the level of difficulty for the dancers that they were not received correctly on stage and most of the audience was filled with dancers themselves.
A couple pieces that I also thought had especially interesting choreography was The Thing Among Us, choreographer Morgen Bihl this piece had great use of color and music and it was really interesting and fun to watch. I also especially liked Pain Within, choreographer Elena Hicks, this piece had great costumes and was easy to watch, the lighting is awkward in the beginning and makes it a little difficult to see, but the dancers seemed very agile and the piece was something that made me want to dance and be a part of.
I love to dance and nothing has been a bigger constant in my life then dance. I t has been the one thing that has just made everything right in my world, however small that may be and I could not possibly trade all the experience and friends that I have made through it. My biggest critique every year is the same, I want more variation. I want more ballet and more jazz and more hip hop, I know that we have excellent teachers and choreographers on campus, why waste all their talents, showcase them. I know that this is of course my preference and not everyone feels the same way, but I feel that the audience would get more involved and there would be a lot more dancers interested in Dance Theatre if there was something more to perform in. I honestly believe that every dance style has its value and I do enjoy watching and performing in modern pieces, however I want to see more than only modern and one ballet piece, one is just not enough for me.
I think that, that itself is the hardest part of choreography because you want your dancers to enjoy it, you want the audience to understand and love it and you want to feel proud of the work you’ve done, all the pieces that I have mentioned accomplished this task in my mind.

Search and Research of my own

An assigment of this class(English 305) we were asked to write a Research paper, since that has been a big part of the last couple of weeks, I want to share it here.

As a product of the 20th century and living in the 21st century, I have found literature to be easily accessible but more importantly educational and often inspirational. In elementary school, like most children, I learned to read and write which was an accomplishment. As I grew, I began to pick favorite authors, like O’Henry; I also began to like and dislike different styles and themes. I also found that I enjoyed both fiction and nonfiction and began to understand why each has a particular meaning and purpose.
Such is the case of our reading of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I found much meaning. Through the course and many weeks of discussion and thought, we have talked about the author’s message, why we should read the novel, themes that made the novel talk to us individually and what or why we thought that this novel has something important to say. We also learned about our likes and dislikes. One of the greatest things about Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is that it is based on true events though the characters are fictive. Why that is so great is because the novel has raw elements of truth, which allows the reader to identify with the novel. I particularly enjoy novels like this one because I feel that the closer we get to the bare bones of fact and life, the more human the novel becomes. This raw element of truth and life is the topic for my research: the construction and destruction of the World Trade Center.
The details about architectural design, business, politics, and destruction of the Trade Center present additional meaning to Americans today. And these very elements inspired our author to write a novel that speaks volumes of life, death, tragedy and perseverance.
Throughout the centuries man has constructed and built great and glorious monuments. For example, the Ancient pyramids, built by the Egyptians created tombs to bury the ancient kings. The Pyramids are the only members of the Seven Wonders of the World still left standing. Other examples are: the great Roman Coliseum of the ancient world, the Vatican in the modern world and in Paris, the Eiffel Tower. These structures are linked to the history and tradition of the people. For example, the Eiffel Tower was so prized by the people of France that when the German army marched on Paris during WWII, the Parisians broke the elevator in the Eiffel Tower forcing Hitler to walk her 710 steps, and two levels to look over Paris.
Other examples of great buildings are the beautiful cathedrals constructed between the 14th and 15th centuries, like Notre Dame with a stained glass window the size of a modern day oil tanker. The Palace of Versailles built by Louis XIV, so extravagant and gorgeous that it has been a model for architecture since its birth. Even in America when architects began to plan and draw the White House, they wanted to construct a building that would be unprecedented and represent the virility of a nation.
At the turn of the 20th Century in New York City two great buildings were under construction. One was being designed by the architects Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, the second under the creative eye of William Van Allen. The first was the Empire State Building and the latter was the Chrysler Building, both the epitome of modern architecture. The Chrysler Building completed in 1930 under Van Allen stood 77 stories tall. In 1931 the Empire State Building was completed standing 102 stories tall, the tallest building in the world at that time. The Empire State Building is complete with an observation deck and has been a popular tourist site from its beginning. The Empire State Building has also been featured in great films such as An Affair to Remember, or the modern remake Sleepless in Seattle. Unfortunately, it is still the tallest building in New York City – only because of great tragedy.
In 1973 the Empire State Building was surpassed in height by the construction of the World Trade Center, which included two skyscrapers and five smaller buildings of commerce. Architect Minoru Yamaski began its construction in 1970 and the project was not completed until 1977. The two skyscrapers, known as the Twin Towers reached 110 stories and each World Trade Center tower contained 104 passenger elevators, 21,800 windows, and weighed about 500,000 tons. Over 50,000 people worked in the World Trade Center complex. When interviewed about his design Yamaski said,
"There are a few very influential architects who sincerely believe that all buildings must be 'strong'. The word 'strong' in this context seems to connote 'powerful'— that is, each building should be a monument to the virility of our society. These architects look with derision upon attempts to build a friendly, more gentle kind of building. The basis for their belief is that our culture is derived primarily from Europe, and that most of the important traditional examples of European architecture are monumental…This is incongruous today. Although it is inevitable for architects who admire these great monumental buildings of Europe to strive for the quality most evident in them — grandeur, the elements of mysticism and power, basic to cathedrals and palaces, are also incongruous today, because the buildings we build for our times are for a totally different purpose."
The Trade Center as described by Yamaski, was a place of international business and did have political meaning. It was the home of AT&T Corporation, Arab Chamber of Commerce, Bank of America, Bank of Taiwan, Boeing Aviation Technical Services, Cedel Bank International, Channel 4 NBC News, Channel 5 Fox Networking Company, Charles Schwab and Co., Chilean Government Trade Bureau (ProChile), CNN (Turner Broadcasting, Cable Network News), Delta Airlines and Windows on the World. These are just a few of the hundreds of business and commerce companies that made daily international transactions within the confines of the World Trade Center. In the same interview with the architect Minoru Yamaski, he was asked about what he saw the design of the World Trade Center to communicate. His answer was world peace.
“I feel this way about it. World trade means world peace and consequently the World Trade Center buildings in New York ... had a bigger purpose than just to provide room for tenants. The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace ... beyond the compelling need to make this a monument to world peace, the World Trade Center should, because of its importance, become a representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and through cooperation, his ability to find greatness.”
The morning of September 11, 2001, was like any other fall day. Two days earlier my family and I had just celebrated by sister’s birthday and her recovery from open heart surgery earlier that year in January. The air was starting to get crisp and everyone was preparing for fall to come, when everything came to a panicky halt. My mom came rushing into our rooms to wake us up for school and told my sister and me that the World Trade Towers had just been attacked. We had watched some of the news, but it was still very early Pacific Standard Time. When I had made it to school and started classes the news was complete and everywhere. Terrorists had hijacked two planes and flown them into the Trade Towers, trapping many inside. Thousands died that morning. Some jumped to their deaths below rather than burn or be crushed. It was as if the entire world had stopped; there was no local news on that day only the events of the morning. After the Towers collapsed, the NYC fire department began to search through the rubble looking for missing persons. Thousands made a Mecca to New York City to pay homage to those who lost their lives and loved ones. Shirts that said “I love (heart) NYC” were printed and sold by the millions.
Our nation had seen this kind of brutish warfare before on December 7, 1941, or as then President Roosevelt said, “A date that will live in infamy…” Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was attacked by Japanese fighter planes bringing the United States into World War II. Each attack has been the act of brutal maliciousness, but unfortunately each has also been the calm before the storm.
In the next months to come and over the course of the next couple years research began to find out the who’s, what’s and why’s of the attacks. War was declared on terrorism and the hunt for Al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden was on the move. There was some speculation that members of Al-Qaida were on a jihad to purge out the infidels or that the terrorists on the planes were insane engineers who studied in America to be able to make the attacks. But what got the most attention were the tributes made to those who lost their lives. Their memorials can be seen on marble statues, encrypted on their headstones, and heard in songs like “Have You Forgotten” or “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue”. In 2005, construction of the National September 11th Memorial began. It was designed to honor those who survived the attacks. A non-profit organization, “The Memorial Mission”, was dedicated to:
“Remember and honor the thousands of innocent men, women, and children murdered by terrorists in the horrific attacks of February 26, 1993 and September 11, 2001.
Respect this place made sacred through tragic loss.
Recognize the endurance of those who survived the courage of those who risked their lives to save others, and the compassion of all who supported us in our darkest hours.
May the lives remembered, the deeds recognized, and the spirit reawakened be eternal beacons, which reaffirm respect for life, strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance and intolerance.”
Unfortunately like most things, construction came to a halt, when the money ran out. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the costs of building the September 11 Memorial are skyrocketing and must be capped at $500 million. “There’s just not an unlimited amount of money that we can spend on a memorial,” In March 2006, Bloomberg said. “Any figure higher than $500 million to build the memorial to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks would be ‘inappropriate’, even if the design has to be changed,” In March 2009, construction proceeded with the expectation of finishing within the next year. While all of these different tributes made their way to the press, so did Foer’s novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Known for his writing of Everything is Illuminated, a novel depicting the holocaust, Foer’s new novel gave new insight into 9/11 which is captured in the plot.
Oskar Schell, an extremely clever nine year old has lost his father in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Oskar a tambourine playing, inventor, and pacifist now turned detective, begins on an adventure to try to find a way to reconnect with the father that he lost. Heavy laden with the secret that he keeps, Oskar also faces a challenge with his mom and her new friend Ron. With humanist truths and humor interspersed, Foer is able to create an interesting novel that is perhaps not too far from the truth of that terrible day.
After reading several reviews of Foer, some praising his abilities and others who appeared to have personal problems and were so disastrous in their appraisal of Foer totally discredit their own critique; I have made my own conclusions. While the novel’s topic was not the attacks of 9/11, Foer was able to use them in a way that his audience could understand. Foer is able to use Oskar and his secret phone messages left by his father, Thomas, before his death, to help his audience connect with the novel. Whether or not the book is critically acclaimed or thrown in the garbage, it is easy to appreciate the non-fictive aspects of Foer’s novel and the truth that there have been many Oskar Schells as a result of 9/11. I believe this reality makes the book worth the read.
It has been over eight years since November 11. A new Trade Tower has been erected, not quite the grandeur of the previous but perhaps that is safer. When we think about 9/11, most of us have a kind of passion and pride. We have learned that we are able to move forward through whatever personal turmoil to face a new beginning. I like that the best. In an interview of Foer by Robert Birnbaum, Birnbaum said “If books could talk”… Foer responded, “Thank God they can’t ....” I disagree, I think that books do all the talking, the audience merely listens. Books like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close give 9/11 a more intense and new meaning to Americans today.

Music is a big part of my life. My mom put my sister and I in private piano lessons at the age of three, I was also in elementary, junior high Jazz and high school band and high school choir. I play three instruments and sing, but music has also been important to me because of my dance background. As well as being in piano lessons at three my mom also put me in ballet. I have studied ballet and other forms of dance including, jazz, hip hop and some modern. Music plays a big role in dance because it gives the dancer a lot of feeling and room for expression. Music is also important to the choreographer composing the dance. I usually get on itunes or you tube once or twice every couple weeks to watch and listen to what's new and what I can use for my own choreography now.

Check out: Janet Jackson music and choreography, Rhianna music, and America's Best Dance Crew to see some of my inspiration.

Grease Lightning this Year

This last weekend was Halloween, which has been porclaimed the best of holidays and also the worst ever. I love Halloween there are so many fun things to do: carve pumpkins, trick or treat, dress up in costumes, etc. I am from a small town, which most know that means that everyone knows everyone else. For Halloween every year most of us get together and have a party; dancing, candy, all the costumes...we really know how to have a good time.