BYU Dancesport 2008

All semester I have been getting ready for Dancesport. This meant paying about $80 dollars a month for lessons ($160 some months), and dancing about 20 hours a week. Yes, it would seem my whole life was centered around this one event. I went to some local competitions in the area to get competition practice and such, and my partner and I never got called back in any of our events. This weekend was different. Because we hadn't had much luck before, I went to this competition without any expectations to do well. I was, however, pleasantly surprised and this weekend ended up turning out to be awesome. I competed in eight events and this is how I did:

BYU class 285 Rumba: Danced 2 out of 6 rounds (my worst event)
BYU class 383 Paso Doble: Danced 3 our of 5 rounds (I was competing one level above mine)
BYU class 484 Foxtrot: Danced 2 out of 5 rounds (I was competing up a level and we were one vote away from advancing to the next round)
BYU class 380 American Waltz: I got third place, dancing 6 rounds
Novice Latin (Samba/Rumba): Danced 3 out of 6 rounds. My partner and I decided to do this event three weeks ago. We had three lessons to learn routines and practice while others have been practicing all semester. Let's just say I was super surprised!
Novice Standard (Waltz/Quickstep): Matt and I made it to the semifinals (top 12), so we danced 4 out of 5 rounds.
Pre-championship Standard (Waltz, Tango, Quickstep): We made one callback which was way unexpected considering how we did at previous competitions.
Pre-championship Smooth (American Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot): We made it to quarterfinals (top 24).

So overall, it was a pretty successful weekend. I'm excited to start working toward the next Dancesport competition in March. Yay!

Halloween Awesomeness

Okay, I realize Thanksgiving is the holiday to be celebrating this time of year (and believe me, I am--no classes for five days!!), but I haven't been able to put up Halloween pictures up yet.  My costume didn't end up being too bad, considering I decided what to dress up as while I was walking home from campus Halloween day. Yep, pretty last minute. I borrowed a friend's clothes so they'd be extra baggy. The back of my shirt had a picture of a bull and said "Bull Shirt." If you read it really fast....yeah, it was funny. I went to the dollar store to find some "bling-bling" and I found some fantastic tatoos. A treasure! You can't see any of them in the pictures, but believe me, it was amazing. To top it all off, my roommate had a Miami Ink hat. For those of you who don't know, Miami Ink is a television show about a tatoo business....perfect. All in all, I must say my costume ended up being a success.

Zuppa Toscana Soup like Olive Garden's

My work supervisor got this recipe somehow and gave it to me.  I haven't tried it yet-being a poor, busy college student I don't have the ingredients or time to make it-but she says it tastes pretty close to the real thing.  Hopefully I'll be able to make it sometime soon.  Maybe when I'm home for Thanksgiving...

1 lb. spicy Italian sausage crumbled

1/2 lb. chopped bacon

1 qt. water

2 14.5 cans chicken broth

2 lg. russet potatoes cubed or thinly sliced

2 crushed garlic cloves or 2T minced

1/2 c. chopped onion

2 c. chopped kale or swiss chard

1 c. heavy whipping cream

salt and pepper to taste

In a skillet brown sausage, drain and set aside.   Brown bacon, drain and set aside.  Combine water, broth, potatoes, garlic and onion in soup pot and bring to a boil.  Simmer till potatoes are tender.  Add sausage and bacon, simmer 10 minutes.  Add kale and cream, salt and pepper to pot.  Heat thru or keep on a low simmer till served.

Thunderball Competition

Okay, so my first competition...let's just say it was pretty close to a disaster. I wore shoes that were too small so instead of thinking about performing and all that important stuff, all I could think about was how much each step hurt. So yeah, my dancing wasn't all that great. My poor partner. I uploaded videos anyway (even though it's embarrassing) so you can see how much we improve at our next competition. I won't be wearing the death shoes next time.

Video 1: Smooth Waltz
Video 2: Smooth Tango
Video 3: Smooth Foxtrot
Video 4: Standard Waltz (with an ugly leg extension)
Video 5: Standard Tango (we got this routine two days ago so you can definitely tell that we don't know it)
Video 6: Standard Quickstep (there was a miscommunication about where to start the routine so the beginning is really shaky. It doesn't work too well when you both are trying to do different steps)

And so it begins...

'Tis the time for ballroom competitions!  This is the time of year when I realize why I put so much time into dancing instead of just "because I like it."  Saturday is my first competition at Timpview High School...the first of about four competitions.  I will be competing in Novice and Prechampionship American Smooth, and Novice and Prechampionship Standard.  I'm excited!

Other good news:  I'm for sure going to be competing in Novice Latin for BYU Dancesport.  I found a partner and I had my first lesson today.  This is very late notice so we only are getting half-routines because we only have three weeks to get it all done.  Most people have been working on theirs all semester.  Oops!  But, it'll still be fun.

Conforming

Blogging.  Yes, I do believe it's about time.  You know, following the cool crowd, displaying my thoughts for all to read.  Of course, I always thought that's what Facebook was for, but why not get addicted and waste my time on yet another Internet interest?  If I'm going to get distracted in life, why not make it complete?

I guess it has some advantages.  I mean, what better way to let people know about every single thing that's going on in my life (And, by "every single thing" I mean everything I decide is worthy of deserving a post)?  Of course, such worthy things may not happen as often as I assume, so I may be forced to post random interests just to occupy my time.  But then, if that weren't the case it wouldn't really be a good description of my life, now, would it?