Running around the comm center blindfolded

This was my fourth year being lead around the community center blindfolded. It gets better each time I do it.

Once people are able to realize how safe they are in the hands of their classmates, they can then move on to enjoy being without sight. Being blindfolded is the safest place you can be, both physically and mentally. When you can't see what's around you, you don't have to worry about other people looking at you and you don't have to worry about how you look (because a piece of cloth is covering half your face). It becomes a place where you can just run and let your mind wonder and not have to worry about keeping yourself safe because you know that your classmates are looking out for you. It's probably one of the only times that I have experienced a group of thirty teenagers forget their differences, forget about the dislikes they may have towards any specific person in the group, and be really kind and gentle with one another. In normal life, we tease eachother and we get into arguments and disagreements, but when we blindfold one another, all that gets tossed aside in order to take care of one another. It's a very intimate place to be. Some people get scared by intimacy which leads to unimportant chatting during this process. It's unfortunate that it's really hard for some people to get over this fear, becuase the experience is so much deeper when nobody talks. You begin to rely on your other senses to understand one another. When communcation can be understood without language, and without the ability to see, the whole world seems to quiet and become calm.

Futurism

An Italian poet and editor by the name of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti started the futurism movement with a manifesto he wrote after World War I. He introduced a love of speed, technology, and voilence into the art world, forming a new movement concerned with "technological triumph of man over nature."

Futurism was inspired by cubism, but expanded beyond that specific technique. Futurist painters used repetition of lines, colors, and flowing brush strokes to help show the movement within the painting. They also used a wide range of angles to incorperate the dimension of time within a picture.

Futurism embraced the new world of technology instead of fearing it. It celebrates change, originality, and innovation in culture and society. It glorifies war and favores fascism, since almost all Futurist painters were also fascists.

"Elasticity" by Umberto Boccioni

Something in AP Lit

"One of the paradoxes of human existance is that all experience-even painful experience-when trasmitted through the medium of art is, for the good reader, enjoyable. In real life, death and pain and suffering are not pleasurable, but in poetry they may be. In real life, getting soaked in a rainstorm is not pleasurable, but in poetry it can be. In real life, if we cry, usually we are unhappy; but if we cry in a movie, we are manifestly enjoying it. We do not ordinarily like to be terrified in real life, but we sometimes seek movies or books that will terrify us. We find some value in all intesne living. To be intensely alive is the opposite of being dead. To be dull, to be bored, to be imerceptive is in one sense to be dead. Poetry comes to us bringing life and therefore pleasure. Moreover, art focuses and so organizes experience as to give us better understanding of it. And to understand life is partly to be master of it." -Laurence Perrine, Structure, Sound, And Sense

In acting different characters we can experience a whirlwind of different emotions. We go through happiness, saddness, fear, anger, confusion, nervousness, and so on and so forth. Like Perrine says, in real life we don't enjoy being sad or angry. I don't look forward to feeling these emotions in real life, but in a play I do. I didn't always. I used to be scared of all my negative emotions, and in real life, I still am to a degree. But in a show, it's so so so so so different. This summer I did 42nd Street and at the end of the show there is the 42nd Street Ballet in which one of the Gangsters accidentally kills Billy Lawler's character (this is the show within the show). I was onstage during the gunshot and the thing genuinely scared the crap out of me. During the whole run of the show, I was still always shocked whenever I heard that gun go off. It was one of my favorite parts of the show. For the rest of the show, I had to be what I refer to as typically bubbly Becky/lots of dancing/musical theater acting. But for this one scene I was a hooker, which was different, and I got to experience a murder. I say it as if it was an honor to whitness this, and it kind of was because the cast that weren't onstage at this moment in the show didn't get to feel that initial shock after hearing the gunshot, they didn't get to be scared after realizing that somebody was dead. And it was fun. Being scared was fun. It really was. And I looked forward to that moment every night. But in real life, if I saw a murder on the streets, I would be going to therapy straight away.

My version of Child in a Red

Every day for a year she has danced through the streets of her town

In a little red dress and patent leather shoes

Clicking-clacking on the old cobble stones

She waves to the people she passes

They don't know her

And she doesn't know them

But still they watch her everyday

And wonder when she will grow too big to fit into that little red dress.

I completely fell in love with the poem, Child in a Red. When I rewrote it, I twisted it around so much that the story of the little girl intertwined with the story of my childhood and I became the little girl wearing the red dress. If any of you knew me when I was younger, this poem completely describes the way I acted. You should all read Zach Torres' version of this poem. It is the exact opposite of mine and when he showed it to me during class I was so intrigued by the differences in our interpretations. It's like when we talk about viewing art. We all see art differently because of what we are bringing to the table based on our own lives and past experiences. I was a little girl ten years ago. I had a dress that I wore all the time. It was my signiture dress. My Mom used to have to sneak it from me in order to wash it because I wore it every day, every season. That is what I'm bringing to the original version of the poem when I read it. Zach is bringing something different and it shows in what we each wrote.

A Tuesday's collection

My Mom forwarded this e-mail to me:

> Hi All,
>
> I've been enjoying this greatly and sharing it with my students: Last week
> Oprah Winfrey had an event in Chicago to launch her 24th season, and had a
> number of music artists perform. In advance of the event, with some level
> of secrecy, a choreographer taught a dance (to a Black Eyed Peas song) to
> around 20 dancers; using facebook and twitter, 800 volunteers came into
> dance studios in advance to learn the dance, and finally, taught to others
> on the day of the event. This was a surprise to Oprah! The scene is
> amazing--21,000 people dancing together... the opening alone is
> stunning--the entire crowd in stillness! with one lone woman near the
> stage dancing. She is shortly joined by 20 or so others, moving in
> counterpoint. Gradually, the rest of the audience joins in. There are
> many available videos, but the two below are my favorites"

http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090908-tows-flash-mob-dance

I just thought it was really cool how so many people were able to learn the same choreography and perform it at the same location at the same time. What a project.

And in AP Lit we're reading catch-22 and I found the following quote worthy of sharing:

"It takes brains not to make money...Any fool can make money these days and most of them do. But what about people with talent and brains? Name, for example, one poet who makes money."

Would you rather be smart and talented or make money? hmm...

Dancing Painters

Every time I paint or draw abstractly I continue to find myself so surprised with how calming it can be. Especially when music is added to the scene. With my obsession with dance and the experience I had painting today, I was reminded of the Olympics in China however many years ago and the opening ceremonies they had. There was one thing when they had a huge canvas displayed in the middle of the stadium and various dancers dressed in black unitards came up with some type of ink attatched to their hands and feet and they danced on the canvas and in the end what they created was so beautiful not only in the language of dance but also on the canvas itself.

In psychology we talk about how everything is interconnected, and we talk about that in STAC as well. It blows my mind how true it is. I took physics last year and I absolutely loved it (surprisingly) and I've been wondering how I can apply what I learn to my jumps and turns as a dancer - technically speaking.

One of my ballet teachers, Ali Pourfaffokh often explains that when we dance we have to draw on our canvas, also known as the stage. We make lines and circles and they have to be exactly so or else the picture can't be veiwed correctly.

I think the interconnectedness is cool.

Zach Lo Mein

Boil water. Throw lo mein noodles into boiling water.

Add a chinese food menu.

Take the strings off of Zach's bass guitar and add them to the pot.

A tablespoon of height.

A teaspoon of long hair.

Let cook for sixteen minutes. Serve hott

more favorite photos of my fellow STACies

Another person who talks with his hands. And I love what he's wearing.

When Megan gets excited things start to happen... like veins popping out of her neck!! gah

I like how the thumps up is centered in this picture and not her face.

"God bless my soul"

Kind of quirky here Mr.

Jess likes to pretend she's a tiger. And I love the one streak of really blonde hair in her bangs.

There is nothing distracting in the backround and this smile says "yeah i know how to be happy"

This looks like it could be on a first date when she realized "I like him and he likes me too! oh shucks, I'm going to start blushing. I better look down."

Zach, you have such a great smile here!

The official "let's creep out the new STACies" dude

This could either be the split second before a burst of laughter or a burst of tears...

I like how she's biting her lip in this one. It's different from the Hillary I usually see in school

What is she looking at? I wonder...

Did Molly really just ask Michelle that question? Great expression.

Plotting to say something whitty? The wheels in her head are churning...

Laughter is THE BEST medicine.

Straight on into the camera. And the colors of her hair, lips, Jacket, and skin look really well together

favorite photos of my fellow STACies (part 1)

I love the true emotion that shows in this one. Pictures of laughter always make me smile.

Her hair looks really great here. The flips have bounce to them.

Her new haircut and the funny face she is making makes her look like an animated cartoon character.

This is a really great, sincere smile.

When I get excited about something, I talk with my hands. I don't remember what I was excited about but it must have been something.

The casual smile here is really cute.

You can just tell that the wheels of her mind are churning.

I love the puffy cheeks. And her eyes are also sparkling.

This picture reminds me of Cassie hard at work during Children's Theater last year. The eyes are great the way they're so wide open.

I like how his eyebrows look raised. It gives a sort of life to his face.

You can tell he's searching for what to say next.

This looks like it could be the cover of a movie or book.

When I first looked at this picture it was shocking to the eyes because I didnt see a face.

Excited for a new year!

Senior year. Strangely enough, I'm not nervous. So many of my friends around me are overhwelmed and I completely understand why. But I'm really excited! Auditioning for college is going to be a really exciting start to this new adventure that I embark on next fall. I'm so used to the same teachers, the same classes, the same coaches, and although it's scary because it's something new, I cannot wait for it!

I had my first coaching today for this whole thing and it's so interesting to me how different the college audition process is from the professional world of auditioning. I have to practice tomorrow and the next day and the next day. I know there is a lot of competition out there, but I also know that when I decide to work hard on something, I work hard. And when something is so exciting to me that it makes me want to cry and laugh and run around my house in circles because I don't know what to do with all this great energy, I know it's something I'm passionate about and I know that I won't let myself fall short of my own potential. I LOVE to work hard when it comes to this type of stuff. It makes me feel worth-while. It's that feeling of a challenge and overcoming it that is so rewarding. Sometimes I look around my school and see myself surrounded by lazy people and I feel different. But then I think about the artists, dancers, singers, and actors I know who also love to work hard on things and I think that we're the happier people on earth. We get more out of life. It's as simple as that.