A new studio, and those teenage dancers…

Two days ago, I attended class for the first time in two weeks. After I hobbled back to my apartment, I lay prone on my bedroom rug because my legs had essentially dissolved into jelly. Astonishing how fast that muscle strength goes away…

So although I have bought a class card, I’m not sure I’ll be staying with this particular studio. I plan on finishing the class series, of course, but if the other teachers/classes are like this one, I won’t be buying another set.

The class itself was challenging, yes. My thighs will (screamingly) attest to this. The teacher was clearly knowledgeable. The piano accompaniment was good. The studio building itself was charming.

So what was wrong? Simply: It may have billed itself as an adult class, but it did not cater to adults.

1. No individual corrections at barre, except to the teen, pre-professional dancers.
2. No corrections of older adults (and there were women there who were probably in their 50s, 60s) at barre.
3. All corrections in center directed towards teen pre-professional dancers. During center, these were the dancers that the teacher watched; she gave only passing glances to the older women.

Now, I don’t want to be uncharitable towards teen dancers–they are lovely to watch, and often quite fun to have in an adult class. They tend to be less easily embarrassed than older adults, particularly beginners, so teachers feel more comfortable using their bodies to demonstrate a teaching point. In fact I would go so far as to say that I really enjoy having a big range of ages and body types in class; it’s just more interesting that way.

But it’s simply not worth the money or effort if the teacher ignores anybody who isn’t one of these dancers. Frankly, I and most of the other women in class have absolutely no ambition of performing or a professional career. It’s obviously not in the cards. But we’re in it to improve, and if a teacher pays you no attention at all, then what’s the point? Certainly, teachers have a tendency to focus on students “with potential” (i.e. the right body type), but honestly, adult students generally have no potential for performance. Perhaps teachers just do it out of habit, but as a paying customer, I find this irritating.

This shouldn’t be as much of an issue in beginning adult classes; the pre-teen and teen dancers don’t tend to drop in to these classes. It’s only when the levels begin to mix somewhat at the intermediate and advanced levels do you get this kind of in-class discrimination.

So I have 11 classes left to go…here’s hoping that the other teachers are better than this.

There is plenty to do

So, I’ve moved to a beautiful Northern California city; it’s gorgeous here. I have been dreaming of living in this place since I was about 14 or 15 years old, and it only took me a decade to get here. Secured a darling, if very old and slightly crusty apartment with a childhood friend, and am settling in.

Suffice it to say that I haven’t been to class for nearly two weeks now. Before the move there was a wedding, another trip, and a lot of academic work that needed finishing. Now I’m exhaling a bit–I woke up this morning at 7, puttered around the apartment for an hour, and then went back to bed for a luxurious nap between 8 and 10.

I must admit that I’m rather dreading returning to class and seeing how much has, well, gone away. But it will have to wait until all the furniture assembled, the clothes and things put away, and so on.

a change!

If you click back to the first post of this blog, you’ll see that I started wandering apricot when I started graduate school. It was to celebrate a fresh start. I did the same (several times, I think!) in college, when I abandoned and then restarted blogs for travel abroad, the thesis, so on and so forth.

Now I am getting started in earnest on the dissertation, albeit at the beginning of the process (prospectus, oral exams). I am also planning to move in a few months or so. I feel the need to change.

I am going to leave this blog intact. Actually, from now on, I am going to gear this blog towards dance: a record of my progress, as well as posts here and there about adult ballet and ballet generally. It’s surprising to me that I am getting thousands of hits from people looking for information about hyperextension, insteps, etc., and so I wouldn’t like to simply delete this blog. And I expect that dance is going to take up more and more of my non-academic hours this summer and in the coming year, so there should be plenty to discuss.

As for the new blog, it can be found at http://asitwas.tumblr.com , and it will be focused on the rest of my life. I chose tumblr because of its gorgeous designs, as well as its ease of use. It is substantially more limited than wordpress, and seems geared more towards a fast, short, twitter, brief post style. But I think this is perfect for me, because increasingly, I have less and less to say about my own life, and I think that it will be more easily summarized in a few sentences or photos from time to time. To wit: I am getting less verbose about my own life. This is good for everyone, I think.

The tumblr blog will also be more focused on my work than my own life. This may change, but I rather like the idea of using the tumblr blog as a journal of my studies, replete with photos.

It will also be easier to post comments, particularly for anonymous commentators.

So: come and see!

Protected: a bit of domesticity

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This weekend

So, one of my childhood friends was diagnosed with cancer this past week. I am reeling a little bit. I went to see her this Friday, and she looks so healthy: lovely hair, skin, fashionable and humorous as always. Next week she starts chemo.

There is really no good explanation for this. I won’t be seeing her for about half a year, probably, due to the treatment process. She was fairly upbeat, considering the situation, and very optimistic. Still, it hung over our heads like a cloud the entire evening. I felt like I was a little quieter than I should have been, but talking about everyday things didn’t seem particularly appropriate. What can I do for her? I wish I could do something.
Today I went to another friend’s priestly vows ceremony. It was a beautiful mass; I don’t think I’ve ever been in a Catholic church that filled with people. The music was pleasant, and the atmosphere in the chapel itself was contemplative. I felt very comfortable there, probably the most comfortable I’ve ever felt at a church service. It was peaceful. Moreover, it was consoling, considering the day before, and I was grateful to have attended.

He has chosen a challenging path and she has many challenges ahead. All I can think to do is to pray for them both.

Making a list, checking it twice

I have been out of commission blog-wise these past few weeks. My Chinese intensive got, well, intensive. Each day of class is equivalent to a week’s worth of material, so you can imagine the potential for panic.

Moreover, I am moving in about two weeks. Which means the usual mania of throwing things out, debating whether to keep useless keepsakes or not (first college tshirt, ratty and unwearable…and yet…should it go out?), and swearing once more never to accumulate quite so much STUFF. I would say that I’ve made a pretty hefty contribution to Goodwill in the past week.

Still, I am still worried about how to safely move tons of books and heavyish kitchen wares, without injuring my back (and Mr. P’s as well). Why must I have so many books?! Blargh.

I noticed also that my stack o’books is beginning to get unmanageably large. The stack o’ books does not consist of “fun” reading; they are books that I should read for my oral exams/prospectus bibliography. How do I manage this? I have been toying with the idea of an excel spreadsheet so I always know where each book is, and can easily alphabetize authors, etc. Or does anyone out there use Endnote to do the same thing?

Chaos, chaos, chaos. I’m a bit frazzled.

language interference

The language intensive has begun. So the befuddlement of my brain begins; I have always had a very odd hitch in my foreign language skills, which I think might be the consequences of my days as an ESL student. Those days themselves were pretty hilarious in retrospect; I arrived in the US speaking no English, and I got placed in the ESL classroom with a bunch of Spanish speaking kids. It was confusing, to say the least. My Mandarin was more or less dormant in jr high and high school, when I took 5 years of Francais.

Nowadays, when searching for the right words, I often think in combinations of languages. So I have a mix of Mandarin-French floating in my head when I’m trying to think in a foreign language creating such spoken jumbles as : “mes parents zai4 la Chine, et wo4 suis zhong1guo4 ren2.”

Mandarin and French are very polite to each other inside my head, stepping in for each other where one is found wanting. What little Spanish Mr. P has taught me occasionally makes an appearance, although the quarters of Latin from college never surface (perhaps because Latin is never really spoken? My prof, at least, wasn’t so interested in teaching us to speak Latin). I am still subconsciously traumatized by the ridiculous conjugational (sp?) madness of Latin.

I love Chinese grammar, which is delightfully straightforward: “I go store. Tomorrow I go store.” No worries about plurals, tense, articles…at least, not to the same degree as English. Prepositions are also pretty easy. My mother, who learned English as an adult, constantly bemoans the complexity of English grammar; I wonder how she’d fare with Latin.

The intensive is going well. I really like the professor and particularly like the TA, who has an astonishing energy level. And I dreaded drill in college, but it’s rather fun now. I feel old and fogeyish as (I think) only grad student in the room aside from the TA, but no matter. I love the excitement of beginning language study…it’s so fun. The giddiness of learning another language is quite pleasurable.

I hope that French will fade a bit so that Mandarin can take center stage in my cerebral cortex. My mother has already decided that she will only speak to me in Chinese, so that will probably help, although I can understand perhaps 30% of what she says. Calling and visiting home will be an immersion experience of sorts.

I am very scattered today.

Xian4zai4 wo3men xue2xi4!

p.s. it’s been awhile since I’ve taken any language courses, so suggestions on how to approach it are welcome…flashcards?

Protected: Looking Ahead

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Protected: A Wag of My (Middle) Finger

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Protected: After procrastination…

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