added for comparison.

Michelle Kwan's stunning Scheherezade from the 2002 World Championships.



{side note: had she skated like this a month earlier, she would have won the 2002 Olympics :( }

Couldn't find Oxygen this weekend.

Which is quite a shame, considering Evan Lysacek had a phenomenal performance and is the first man from the United States to win the World title since 1996, when Todd Eldredge won (and when I first began skating. Crazy).

Even more reason, though, is the new phenom who is probably one of my favorite skaters I've ever seen. Her name is YuNa Kim and she is the first Korean woman to win gold and she is fantastic. I'm not a huge fan of parts of her choreography (I'd love to see more than just throwing her arms down as she curls her back), but she has a beautiful presence on the ice and quite frankly is skating in a whole different category than all the other women. Unless something insane happens, I can't see anyone beating her in Vancouver in less than a year at the Olympics (and you all know how much I love the Olympics!).

Here's her Long Program from this weekend. Truthfully, Scheherazade will always belong to Michelle Kwan (and interesting that she chose a similar dress...), but this was quite beautiful. Enjoy.

My body is broken...but I'm only 21!

This morning I awoke to The Office theme and as I curved my right arm around my body to turn it off and grab my glasses, I felt something pop. I tried standing...nope, not happening. My back is broken.

Perhaps not literally, especially considering I'm slowly, but surely getting slight range of motion into my body (I even managed to grope my way to the bathroom), but I need a new body. I've been seeing Ron almost every day. He cracks my back and sends me on my way, and while I have brief comfort, I twist my hips and my spine and the pain returns. As he says, I'm just doing too much.

And let's not forget my hip that keeps popping out.

Or my tendonitis in both of my achilles tendons.

Or my knee problems.

Yeah.

It's awesome.

So here I am, stuck in my bed, dying to get out, shower, and get to church, and it takes five minutes to try and hop down. I am an 89 year old woman.

here I lie, on my own in a separate sky

NOOOOOOOO.

Coldplay wants to take a break because they have to be acting all pretentious and crap.

UGHHHHH.

Just make music dangit.

I had a crazy dream.

I was 15 again. The dream began with our move to Provo, the summer before my sophomore year of high school. My first day in Utah, I drove to The Dance Club and spoke with the directors about trying out for a company and taking classes. It moved quickly to the fall, where I had enrolled in my regular classes as well as dancing on the ballroom team. In a quick blur, I was working hard academically as well as dancing my little tail off (oh and how much littler it was!). I had a 10-dance partner and when I wasn't dancing, I was performing in the musicals. Fast forward--I had tried out for and made the BYU Youth team beginning my Junior year of high school. I was on A Cappella and writing for the school paper. More dancing. More singing. I then competed at Miss Teen Utah. A Sean Hannity internship was thrown in and I was assertive with that boy I had pined after for so long. The girl going through her senior year of high school was so confident and happy. She had a good relationship with both parents, even if things were difficult between the two of them. She worked hard, was smart, loved writing as much as dancing, and had the occasional lesson with Yoshie. Most importantly, she never, ever, EVER dyed her hair blonde.

Toward the end of the dream, I was facing graduation with a future complete with a dance scholarship, a spot on the Back-Up team, and a myriad of possible majors to explore. Not only did I compete at the national pageant, but later I met a bunch of fun people on the team, one in particular that was cute and funny and sweet and positively dashing. The dream ended when auditioning for the Blackpool team, prepping my paperwork for my first Miss Utah local.

It was eerie, waking up from that dream. Even more eerie is how detailed it was and how much I remember it. I can still smell each smell from different parts of my supposed life. Most frustrating is that I know my life could have been so different IF ONLY.

if only if only if only if only.

I'm desperately sad. Why couldn't it have been real? I want to go back. I want to make this my past. Or is it present? Or future? I'm at a crossroads because I'm out of time. I missed all of it. I still believe that I would know the people that I know, I would probably still be friends with my friends. Who knows, if that really had been my past, I would have been on team with Cameron.

How pathetic is it that I'm trying to believe that if I pray hard enough, I'll be able to go back?

I don't want to live my entire life regretting all of those if only's.

okay, I guess I'll give it to you.

And evil takes a human form in Regina George*. Don't be fooled because she may seem like your typical selfish, back-stabbing slut faced ho-bag, but in reality, she's so much more than that.

*insert applicable name here*

My parents raised me right. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Play nice and play fair. Never speak about someone in a way that, if they found out, would make you feel somewhat ashamed. Always compliment those that beat you and win graciously. Even if you don't like someone, SUCK IT UP and be mature. I try and employ all of these adages as often as I can, but every once in a while, I want to lose my cool and slap somebody. Since I was not the popular, pretty girl in high school, I learned to keep composure when I saw some of those mean girls treat someone (sometimes me, sometimes a friend, sometimes a total stranger) poorly, a skill that has proven useful within my endeavors in dance/pageants/theater/etc. But I've decided that I've been introduced to one who is meant to test my resolve and patience.

You all know one. The girl that somehow manages to command that odd fear--you might have even feared her once yourself, until one day you saw the light and realized what she was all about, which is most likely very little. For a time I was oddly intimidated. I couldn't understand why, I just knew that there was one element that she had that I didn't and it drove me nuts. It took a good friend to slap me silly and then I woke up and BOOM! Suddenly it seemed so juvenile to have ever given her that much credit and at the end of the day, I stood tall, grateful that I hadn't succumbed to the ridiculous antics and immature behavior she was displaying.

The point of this is that I try my hardest to be kind and nice, not because it's a chore, but because I participate in some complicated activities where one false step is the death of you and where naysayers actively probe for character faults. So I put up with it. I'm not buddy-buddy with her. I don't pretend that we're "OMG BFF!!!!". But I'm cordial. Nice even. I converse in a way to boost her self-esteem because life is too short to be catty.

That said.

Dear Regina*,

If you're going to delete me as a facebook friend, don't forget to also delete my boyfriend, especially since I use his account more than he does.

Love,

The girl who is probably giving you the exact kind of attention that you want.

*OBVIOUSLY not her real name*




{anyone willing to place bets on how long it takes my dad to text me and tell me to take this down/edit it?}

train of thought.

It's the first day of spring, warm weather is testing out its reach, and that means we get days full of sunshine, thunder, snow, and fog. And, well, everything feels funny. It's all in this state of limbo...hasn't picked a side yet.
+My stomach doesn't feel so good right now. Probably the gummy bears and the Toblerone's doing.
+I hate the idea of financial institutions becoming government property (literally and otherwise).
+Ballet teacher was beaming when I mentioned interest and says to try out for the company.
+The ballroom partner shuffle has me really excited, but I feel slightly pedo when calling that incoming freshman about dancing Latin next year.
+The last 3 weeks of school are upon me and all I want to do is sit in the sunshine and the rain and the snow and the fog and read and read and read anything that doesn't include Stephenie Meyer.
+I'm nervous for Spring term, venturing into modern dance and Spanish, but excited to find home in a ballet class that actually presents challenging material.
+I'm eager to find truth in my Humanities classes again. While dance has filled a void left open for 8 long years, there is an intellectual emptiness that I've felt this semester in not learning about raw human emotion manifested in works of heart and soul.
+Something important is happening next weekend and I'm not going to be there. Had you asked me a year ago, I would have assumed I would be there in one capacity or another. Am I happy to not be involved? Can't quite say as of yet.
+I'm tired of limbo.

Concert tickets for sale.

On April 10 and 11 the BYU Ballroom Dance Company will be having their yearly concert. I'm excited because it's the first time I'll be performing with the team. You should be excited because this year's theme is Viva Espana, a Paso Doble theme. I caught a glimpse of the capes that they've pulled out for the closer. It's going to be awesome.

So.

Buy tickets from me.

I currently have 5 tickets to sell for the Saturday matinee which begins at 2 p.m. They are FABULOUS seats. I can always go get more if you would like. The seats won't be as wonderful (I slept outside the Marriott Center the night before to ensure the best possible seats), but the great thing about formation teams is the higher you're sitting, the clearer the formation. If you go to buy tickets, be sure to mention my name so that I can get credit.

E-mail me, leave a comment, call if you have my number. Let me know ASAP.

You won't regret it.

amen.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an institution does not call for boycotts. Such a step would simply generate the kind of controversy that the media loves and in the end would increase audiences for the series.

When I received an invitation through facebook to spam HBO with hate mail, the sentiment expressed above from this wonderful (and wonderfully candid) article was my first thought.

Last week in a religion class, we were discussing the importance we place upon things in our lives. Some may trivialize what we do, but that does not mean we cannot still make them sacred to us.

this is a carrot.

oh boy oh boy do I have a fun blog heading your way.

and by heading your way, I mean it's in my head, working out the kinks.

and by fun, I mean sarcastic and exasperated.

Let me preface it with, There are certain people I associate[d] with through an activity I participate[d] in quite a lot. So you tend to stay in touch with those individuals. And sometimes they continue to amaze you with their brazen comments and errrr, intriguing personality quirks.

Yup.

dangle dangle dangle.

Oh Hilly and Billy

{how wonderful is this?}

{it's okay.  I'd rather kiss Obama}

why go see Watchmen?

Reason number 1. They use Muse in the trailer. [I'm far too predictable]

Reason number 2.

SIR INVITES YOU IN.

why I love them!

Muse get classical on their next album.

[for those of you still keeping track, the emergency lights came on. And we're still listening to this real life murder mystery ghost story.]

I was missing high school today.

Don't ask me why. It's a March thing.

And then the power went out 2 minutes ago during my current class.

Professor AWESOME: Well, what else is there for us to do but tell ghost stories?

Excuse me while I am entertained.