hey everyone!
life has been so very crazy, lately. oh my.
i am finally feeling like things are a weeeee bit settled down, but i am feeling very overwhelmed lately with all that’s going on.
first, we will get the kind of boring stuff out of the way….
this year, for the first time, but certainly a trend that may continue in years to come, there are two things that i really look forward to in the spring. one is the bellydancing performances that come in the spring. we do a show called "night of all nations" that’s a ton of fun, and we also do the community college spring dance recital, appropriately named "strange bedfellows" because it’s the dance showcase that combines all the different forms of dance into one show. one of the other things i enjoy a lot is the reno jazz festival, where i have been a site coordinator for the last seven years or so. great fun. where my stress came from this year, is that the jazz festival happened to be the same weekend as strange bedfellows. because the dance show coordinates all those people and different dance classes, the week before is packed with tech rehearsals the entire week, so i had those m-w-thurs then friday was our opening night (6pm call and 7:30 curtain..home about 11pm)after working at the jazz festival from 6:30am-5:30pm, and doing that AGAIN Saturday, then dancing a matinee on sunday…..
the way that i got involved with the jazz festival in the first place is because i work for the department on campus that administers it. as part of that, this year, we decided to finally enter the digital age and record all the judges feedback comments on small, handheld digital recorders. so, sunday, before and after my matinee and SERIOUSLY exhausted, i had to come into work and by tuesday noon, parse and upload the files to be ready for the different directors to download. of course, we had tested exhaustively, but there’s always that little shred of doubt when the unknown of other people trying it comes into play of "will it work?" well, after prearing for a year, endless hours of writing, and figuring and negotiating and facilitating and false-starting….after living through the week after, and some of the tech support calls saving users from themselves, i can say IT WORKS!!!! i don’t know of any other jazz festival’s that do this, so we have broken new ground, on the campus if not in the country. this makes me proud, despite the exhaustion. it was nice to see if all come to fruition.
now, on to more fun things =)
before the jazz festival by about a week, was the night of all nations performance. it was my unauguration doing double duty as a bellydancer AND as a fire performer.
for anyone who might be interested, here’s a link to the bellydance we did that night:
Night of All Nations Bellydance Performance
and here’s the one of my first public fire performance:
Night of All Nations Fire Performance
the quality isn’t great, but you can get the idea and it’s kind of fun!
in other news, i saw my brother yesterday, he has his official diagnosis of "cancer" now. his lymph node on the left side of his neck is noticibly larger and painful to the touch. he is in good spirits, but i fear for him. i think we are going to attempt a standing sunday dinner engagement with him and see how that goes. i don’t want to take care of him, but i can offer him what small amount of family i can, at this point. i fear what this will do to him, knowing how aggressive cancer is in the lymph system, but i will keep good thoughts for him.
me and the girl? meh. this last weekend was our one year anniversary and due to another misunderstanding, we ended up not celebrating. i need to reevaluate if i am getting what i need from this relationship. right now i guess i am thinking that it’s better than nothing, but not ideal. there’s a lot of drama.
she recently spent some time in the hospital, and that’s probably all i will say about that.
just wanted to let everyone know i am alive….and in my SPARE TIME i am learning new fire belly routines =)
will update again soon, as i can….
peace.
