Mucho!

I don't even know where to begin this blog post.  It's been too long and so much has happened (including the formatting of Google Blogger :/) and I have a few people on me about writing a blog.  So here it is.  Let's start with about four weeks ago, right before Easter... :)

My mom, dad, and I on Easter Sunday

Okay, so nothing really happened right before Easter except I started another class called Concepts of Physical Fitness, which is a required one credit course.  Pretty much it's a class that promotes fitness and wellness after college.  So far in that class, we've walked a mile, did an Insanity workout (which is similar to P90X, if you know what that is), and learned about stress, nutrition, and sleep. :)  Also, we got to see Coach Boone (the coach that inspired the movie Remember the Titans) speak because he came to Carthage.  My favorite thing that he said was this:  "If day breaks and you don't plan to make a difference, take your butt back to bed."  That's a good quote to live by if you ask me!  Anyway, then I went home for a short Easter break!  I got to see my family and go to church and just be home, which is always great!

Once, I got back to school, things didn't slow down at all (hence, me not writing a blog in a month).  I'm still working on my thesis.  I now have 13 and a half pages out of 15 written and the final draft is due in exactly two weeks.  I have a practice presentation this week and then my final presentation is in 11 days.  I can't believe it!  I've been working on this thing all semester and it's almost over!!!  I'm going to be so relieved when I'm done with it.  It really is going well though I think.  I'm becoming more and more prepared as the days press on.  I had a project in my education class that involved making a unit plan (5 days worth of lesson plans) and I knew that I was in the right profession because they were soo fun to make.  I really liked being creative with the assignments, projects, etc. and it makes me excited to be a teacher.  However, we did have students who are student teaching right now come into class and they told both good and bad stories from the schools they're at.  Student teaching is definitely going to be an adventure.  I can't wait until this blog turns into a blog where I tell you all about my crazy student teaching experiences.

Also, I've had a lot of meetings and tutoring sessions lately.  I found out that all of my credits from Peru transferred back to Carthage which is REALLY good news and means that I will graduate on time!  Also, I decided to stay at Carthage this summer to work which is both good and bad.  I'm soo excited for the summer because I will be making money and a lot of my friends will be here, too, but also, I know I will miss being home.  Anyway, I also had a meeting for everyone that plans to student teach in the spring of 2013, which was crazy.  We got our student teaching applications and it all became a little more real that this time next year I will be in a classroom teaching students Spanish!!!  Also, speaking of teaching Spanish, I went to observe at a middle school here in Kenosha and who would guess that the teacher I would observe was Peruvian!!!!!!!  I was SOOOO excited!!!  I couldn't hold my excitement in that day!  It definitely was a highlight of the semester to meet my first Peruvian in the United States!  Anyway, she of course asked about my experience in Peru and the food. :)  And it was my pleasure to share that I love her country!!! :)

For fun lately, I've been hanging out with friends and watching movies.  The "recent" movies I've seen are How to Train your Dragon, Hercules, and I went to see Titanic again in the theaters!!!  First of all, How to Train your Dragon is such a cute movie, so you should see it!  Hercules is just your classic kid's movie!  And Titanic, well..it's a classic, too!  I was probably a little to excited to see that in theaters, but when it first came out (in 1997), I saw it in theaters.  I specifically remember it because it was exciting to be 7 years old and going to see a PG-13 movie in theaters.  It was a part of history and it was supposed to be a great movie, so my family went together to the theaters to see it.  It was so cool to see it in the theaters again also because the big screen and sound just makes it that much more remarkable!!

Tim and I at the International Dinner

Also, for fun I went to an International dinner held here at Carthage.  It's a dinner that consists of different international foods and entertainment.  It was my first year going and it was really cool, plus all of the proceeds went to a cause called The Girl Effect, it's a really good cause and if you want to learn more about it, click here.  Also, I went to Georgia for a family wedding.  Yep, that's right, Georgia!  That's the first time that I've been to Georgia, so I can mark that state off of my list.  Also, it was really nice weather so I was happy to get that for at least a weekend.  However, the drive down and back was long, obviously.

On the River Walk in Savannah, GA

Okay, a few last things on my fun things I've done list are celebrate a few of my friend's 21st birthdays, I went to my first real sushi restaurant (which was good!), and last night I went and saw The Drowsy Chaperone, which is the musical that was put on here at Carthage this semester!  It was soo good!!  All of the actors did a fantastic job!!!!  Also, Iluzion (the hip hop dance team) started having rehearsals again because we are going to perform at a local middle school in a few weeks.  Obviously, I've been busy, but don't worry because as you can see I've been having lots of fun, too!!! :)

Anyway, I'm really sorry that it took me sooo long to write another blog and I'm sorry that it's long, but I hope it was worth your while to read it!  Hopefully, I will talk to you in less than four weeks!!  Happy Spring!!! :)

ACDFA

So, I got back to Carthage last week after Spring break, but I only had two days of classes last week!!  What did I do for the rest of the week, you ask?  I went to the American College Dance Festival Association (ACDFA) in Madison, Wisconsin, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison!  I was so excited to go not only because I was going to be dancing for four days straight, but also because I had never been to Madison and I was going with my friends!!!  We got there on Wednesday and registered and pretty much had the night to ourselves, but starting on Thursday morning, we were all dancing our hearts out.  I started my Thursday with a Pilates class then went to an awesome hip hop class!  Because I was nervous for the weekend, starting out with hip hop (something that I am pretty comfortable with) was a good idea.  I learned a routine to the song Good Feeling by Flo Rida, which I love so I'm going to put it here so you can listen to it. :)

I also took a jazz class, which really challenged me and a pretty relaxed modern class.  The modern class had live music (a piano and drums), which was a new and cool new experience for me. :)  There was also a series of concerts that all the schools participated in so we saw two shows on this day.  It was amazing to see choreography from other colleges and it really got my choreographic mind thinking as well.  We went out to eat that night and then we watched this Spring's dance show. :)

Out to eat at the Nitty Gritty :)

On Friday morning, I started the day with taking a warm-up class.  The class taught us how to warm up before rehearsals and performances.  The one thing that amazed me about that class was the very first thing we did, which was rub our feet.  The instructor had us rub one foot and then stand up and walk.  The difference in feeling between our rubbed foot and the non-rubbed foot was amazing.  Dancers know to stretch/warm-up our muscles, but I definitely take my feet for granted and didn't realize that they needed warmed-up too.  I then had a rehearsal because our performance was scheduled for the next day. After that, I took a modern partnering class with my friend Amanda and it was AWESOME!!  Probably one of my favorites of the weekend.  We learned a short routine and we lift each other a lot in it. :)  We were both excited about it because we've never choreographed for partners so it was nice to learn some lifts.  We then took a class titled "What is your personality type and how does that fit into dance?"  I learned that I'm a type C personality and that 70% of dancers are type Cs.  Our instructor then told us how to teach dance for the different personality types, so not only did it help with dancing, but it will help me learn how to teach in my future Spanish class. :)  Again, this night, we went out to eat and then watched past dance shows from Carthage. :)

On Saturday, I actually didn't get the chance to take any classes :(, but don't worry, I still got to dance!  I started the morning with a tech rehearsal on the stage.  It was actually kind of hectic because we had to set lighting cues, but we were limited in time, but we got it done and then headed to a coffee shop to relax and eat breakfast.  We then had our performance and in my opinion we did really well, it felt good doing it anyway.  The judges seemed to really like all the little gestures we did along with the music. :)

Before performing

Another really exciting thing is that I met up with a girl who I met in Peru!  She attends UW-M so I texted her when I was there and she came to see the performance!  It was great seeing her and catching up with her shortly.

Katie (Girl I met in Peru) and I 

We then all went to a Mediterranean restaurant and ate gelato and the best thing about this was that Carthage paid! :)  Yum!!!  We then went back to the theatre for the final concert, which was a concert put on by the faculty.  It was really cool to see some of the instructors that we had had in class actually dance on stage.  On the way back to the hotel, my friends, Seles and Amanda, and I took a ton of photos just playing/dancing around on the UW-M campus!

Fun at UW-M!

Unfortunately, we didn't make it into the Gala concert, however, I did see several of the dances that did and they were well deserving!  On Sunday, I took my last three classes:  ballet, contemporary master class (one of the adjudicators instructed this class), and an Afro-Latin fusion class.  My feet were killing me by the end of the day and I was happy/sad to head back to Carthage.  Overall it was an amazing time and I hope that we go next year, although it's possible that I won't be able to due to student teaching.  Other than ACDFA, I ended the weekend back at Carthage and working on my thesis.  :)  I now have 10 of 15 pages of my thesis and the due date and presentation date are coming up fast.  I hope you all have a great day!!  Happy Easter!

Carthage at ACDFA!!!