While I started off this vacation with a lot of ambition, I eventually scaled back to something more reasonable. More reasonable being: Get back into doing ballet regularly Start attending my Middle Eastern dance class with Najmat Clean and reorganize apartment Fix padding in shamadan Organize computers Complete dissertation proposal’s intro and lit review sections [...]

Happy belated New Year! The intensity of this past semester has aided in me wanting to veg out and catch up on life. After a semester filled with short travel, it has been nice to stay at home and do the stay-cation thing, rather than go somewhere else. Because the semester had been so hectic, [...]

Now that finals are more or less over for me, I’ve been trying to resume a steady dedicated to ballet. Reawakening those muscles and trying to get back to one’s previous strength and flexibility is a bit of challenge in any dance form if one hasn’t been so good about attending classes or practicing. What [...]

And it was unbelievably difficult. Not enough to deter me from going back in the shoes but difficult. I’ve been to the class before in slippers. It isn’t bad in slippers, a lot of releve, walking, balances. Nothing super crazy. Today I did the class in the pointe shoes and my teacher was right: being [...]

In celebration of the 2-year anniversary of The Studio: A Dance Center for Adults, they are offering free classes this weekend. This is where I go to ballet, and I thoroughly recommend them. Everyone is very nice and supportive, the education is good, and the studio is kept in pretty immaculate condition. If you were [...]

By the time I started thinking about vacation, most places were cost prohibitive; travel can be quite costly. My boyfriend and I decided to do a short weekend trip to New York City, which is by no means a bad choice. While in New York, I decided to look for pointe shoes. I went to [...]

July was busy, as will be August. Point by point update: Summer school. I’m in the last week of one of my classes and second to the last week of another. It is, needless to say, a crunch time. I’m glad that I took the classes, but I’m also glad they’re almost over. It will [...]

Middle Eastern dance workshops are not easy, mind you, but there is a sense of familiarity with them. I know how to shimmy, hip drop, and so on. I’ve been to enough that I know how my body handles them. Ballet workshops were completely foreign to me. However, I figure why not try one out? [...]

I talked yesterday with my ballet instructor about getting people to sign up to workshops and commit. With my brief foray into helping workshop and class organization, it is scary and difficult work (and I don’t even have money on the line for what I’ve helped organize). It seems like we’re met with the some [...]

I attended a pointe class on Saturday . Even though I don’t think I’m at a place where I’m ready for pointe, I wanted to see what goes into the training. I’m still amazed how I started ballet with the pure interest of improving my Middle Eastern dance and now have some small term goals [...]