happier news

My parents, sister and I went to Southmall to buy my sister a phone. She decided she wanted a phone after all, just not the one she gave me that mom gave her when her 3310 disappeared mysteriously (she lost her phone long before I did, and she's been anti-phone ever since). I think she decided to buy a phone because she thinks the new Nokia 7200 looks, as the tv ad says, "ah, it's luhv-leh." So we went to hunt it down but couldn't find it, probably because there's a newer model, the 7220, and they're trying to sell that instead.

I'm thinking, whoa, all this hullabaloo for a phone? And then I patted myself on the back for how much I've matured.

I'm really trying to keep a close watch on where my money goes since I plan to stop freelancing. In fact, I will no longer accept writing assignments from today on (I finally got to submit that article that put me in hell, sigh). Today though, I bought a book on Dance as a Ritual (it looks like somebody's thesis got published, cool...) worth P248 and I had to tell myself after to stop going to Books for Less to check out Dance books.

But besides all that, I'm pretty good. This week, I felt more in shape than ever, and I'm dancing a lot better than the weeks before vacation. I have my turns back, and my form is really nice. I'm also able to hold any aches and pains at bay thanks to conditioning with the theraband (though I have to remember to do those exercises, hay). It's good then that if I were to quit everything for the dance, at least the dance loves me back.

And I started teaching workshop classes at our (family) studio last week. Besides the children's ballet classes that I teach on the weekends, I have two compound classes: Modern and Improv/Creative Movement on Wednesdays and Character and Acting class on Fridays. I'm really getting into it - planning the syllabus and the class, picking out music (thank you liebie!!!), actual teaching. If the plans for my new job in June fall through, I do believe I'm going to apply to lecture elsewhere, something I've been trying to get out of for the longest time. I think I'd rather teach dance studies or similar courses than writing articles about, well, other stuff.

And, to round out the full dance experience, I'm choreographing a piece for the PBT school workshop at the end of summer. There's four of us doing a piece each, set on the company members, not on the students. I started trying out a few steps on Mitzi and Erica and it looks promising. I hope.

I've never been this much immersed in dance - dancing, writing, teaching, choreographing - since college. It's strange. But a welcome strange.

When I left Dance for an entirely different life, I didn't think I was ever going to return and was content in my corporate job and my rock n' roll lifestyle. Now, I feel like the universe had actively taken this prodigal child and plunked me where I really belong.

(Hey, maybe I can go to Germany on a choreography program or something? Though, out of all the things I do well with regards to Dance, choreography would be my weakest point. Eeee, what am I planning, stop planning, stop it, stop it, stop it!!!)