Affirmation wordage

. Totally, not relevant to what I'll talk about, but I just came across this. Find it really saddeningly. My condolences go out to all the families who lost a loved one.

Tragedy at Virginia Tech

Death toll rises to 31 in worst shooting incident in U.S. history. »More

. So let's see, how about I had an entry up, but now it's gone. I guess I start from scratch. Sunday was a long day, went and watched Karl's female solo compete, and she did well. Actually went to church that day. Haven't been to NCKPC in a long time, I saw a lot of pplz I haven't seen in forever. Finally had the chance to congratuale Peter in person about his marriage. Saw Cindy finally, since she's been back from China, and mind you, she's been back for a while. Congratualated Alex on his new job. The triplets have gotten so much bigger now. wowzaa! Saw the group going on missions this year, it's huge! I'm honestly excited and happy to see that so many ppl are going. There's a few going that surprised me, I'm glad you're going Chris and Andrew. Man, just so many hi's and stuff, not much time to catch up w/ everyone sadly. Scarffed down my lunch and then took Sam and headed back to see the Encore competition in progress. Karl and my groups were competing, so we had to see those. When I got there, it was during the mid-day awards ceremony. Watched a few more of our studio's pieces, then left to drop off Sam, and went home to give Jackie her camera & grab something to eat. Left again to BTI to watch my 2nd "super group" perform. Titled super b/c it's larger than a large group (~17 ppl) but not time length wise like a production (~6:00 min). Well, watched a few more and was anxious about the awards ceremony.

Before I begin, let me break down how judging works. So there's like 4+ judges, and they give a cumulative score. Each piece is judged, and if scored high enough, receives a platinum. Some competitions also offer hi gold, and then gold, where gold doesn't really mean much (or that's how it appears). Then there's 2 err... divisions, intermediate & advanced. Intermediate can mean younger kids, or generally indicates the hours of rehearsal times per week, like 1 or 2 days. Advanced means, the dancers are better and also they commit more hours of rehearsal per week, 3 (days) or more. Each division has the same breakdown: there's the age group, so it can be junior or senior, or 13-14, 15-16, & 17-18. There's also something called amateurs, professional, and recreation, but just for brevity sake, everything we compete in is, no surprise, in competitive division. There's the particular err... category you compete in, i.e. [advanced] [13-14] [Hip hop] [small group]. And it is possible to just be the only entry for that category. And even at that point, you may not necessarily receive 1st place, it's all based on the score. Then there's the size, even though that puts all dance styles against each other. So all small groups, and those can be jazz, tap, ballet, lyrical, hip hop, modern, clog, etc. There's solo, duo, trio, small group, large group, super group, and then production. Again, the only difference w/ production is the extended time, all other groups usually have about 2 to 3 minutes. This is called the overall rankings. Whew, now that that's explained and out the way, you'll be able to better understand the awards me and karl got and what they mean.

Karl's advanced senior large group hip hop ("Fergie") only got a 3rd place (out of 3), you can ask Karl about his feelings on that. My advanced 13-14 hip hop small group ("Ice Candy") got 1st place (out of 3). You may think that may sound good, but if you know me, you know that I'm a very critical person. It's depressing for me, b/c it didn't receive platinum, which I basically interpret as the judges didn't really find my dance itself all that great. But eh, I blame myself because I didn't output material out to them (my small group) fast enough, and give them apple time to practice, and offer more critiquing. My 13-14* hip hop super group also got 1st place (they were the only entry for that category) and 3rd overall. Again, you could say that's good, especially the 3rd overall part, but still, it didn't get platinum, meaning, the judges didn't think much of the dance itself. I blame myself even more for this one because I didn't teach it quickly enough, and didn't sufficiently address every issue. You can say I sorta rushed this one. But as much as I am hard on myself, and you can only understand literally what I mean, but I take it so much harder than with what my mediocre writing skills can describe, I reason to myself that these judges have never really seen my or Karl's type of choreo before. On top of that, they don't know the music, all the complexities and details, the word play, the musicality, etc. I guess I can't really blame them. But all I can do is make my dances as clean and as clear as possible, convey precisely what I want to them. Ugh, well there's one competition left to go, Showstoppers out in Myrtle Beach, SC. That's in like 4 weeks. I hope I can improve exponentially from now until that point, and blow spectators and judges alike away. Like I saw on "Taquita & Kaui"** today, Kaui says, speak in words of affirmation, not "if" but "when", lol~

* The age group is actually the average age of the group, so the youngest and the oldest ages all added together divided by the number of dancers. i.e. 11, 12, 13, 13, 14, 14: 77/6=13-ish or 13-14
** So there's this new show on MTV that I saw at Ricky's place today. Taquita and Kaui are rejects from Making the Band 3, met on the show, became best friends, then had to split, but are now back together, trying to "make it" in Las Vegas. Taquita has a big grill, and Kaui, is thick, and her ass is huge, wowzaa, lol.

. Today, arrived late for BUS 201. PRT380 was a waste of time, but he let us out early. Though, I feel we didn't have to come to class at all. Anyway, I picked up my paycheck from BR, which turned out bigger than I thought. Used some cash to pay back everyone I owe money to, and also deposit some more money into Sam's board bucks. Deposited the rest into my account, but more on that actually later. Picked up a shift for the C-store, 5-close. Met Scott and then Donnie. Mondays are sorta busy, but the annoying thing is ppl coming in like within 5 minutes of closing time, post-poning closing duties indefinitely. Argh, that was so irritating. I let Donnie go @ like 12:20am, but I guess he doesn't really know how to work quickly or get closing stuff done, so I had to stay back and do all the things I missed or looked over because of the traffic in the store and all those ppl ruining things right before closing time >_<* meaning, I didn't get to leave until 1am, and now it's almost 3am.... Anyway, got a disciplinary form for reading during a shift, stupid... So about my account, yeah I've overdrafted a lot, it all started over Spring Break with spending too much in New York. Then there was like another $300 deposited b/c the stupid bank doesn't do transactions properly, and now I checked my account, there's no record of my credit balance (???) and my account says $0.00, when I was at the bank, and asked for my balance, it had said $1.00. So, I'm madd confused, where did the credit I owe go, and what about overdraft deposits, and the money I deposited today. Man, this can mean a lot of trouble.... So now that I'm frustrated and everything, I figure I won't be sleeping comfortably tonight, especially w/ my mind weighed down w/ so many stressful factors. I start work at The Umstead: Hotel & Spa, well more like paperwork and orientation, it'll be from 10am-4pm. But stupid PRT 359 before that at 8:30a, and then a class after that at 4:30p and then an On Call shift at BR for 7:00p-11:00p. On top of all this, I have to cut the song "Push It", get "Strut", cut that and choreograph to it, and then find another song for older recreation hip hop, cut and choreograph that piece too, to teach this all on Wednesday. I also have a pending TOX 201 article to do, as well as the a paper due for BUS 201 and another paper for PRT 380. I'm also extremely low on gas, and promised to meet up w/ Sheldon, Sally, Cindy, Nanu, Sophia, and a few others at some point to catch up and hang out. I haven't talked even other ppl too, like Cliff, in a whilez. I said I'd go to the Kamikazi Showcase, but it's looking more like I won't be able to make it, and then I also have to get w/ Karl to choreo for Carolina's fashion show, and also practice for the Taste of NC State show, both of which is on Friday. Man.... this week is sucky, and the weather for sunday and yesterday don't make it any better either. Eh, When I, no, I am gonna make it through this week.... barely. oy~

- j2