Are They Line Dancing to Space Jam?, Or, Happy Two Months Pregnant!

While my friends and I have enjoyed a few nights at a bar country line dancing, my roommate, Cort, was really into what's best described as Country Swing, or as the new place we found calls it: TRUE COUNTRY.

Courtesy of truecountrydance.com...I mean that's totally me. Okay, so no, I can't do that but MAYBE someday I will.

By some magic* we found this place that does country swing, which Cort used to do with her undergraduate friends.  A couple Wednesdays ago we decided to check it out and found a line wrapped around the building!  It was 18+ night, which accounted for the line as well as a wrist-band-only guys rule.  After weaving in and grabbing our first round of drinks, we headed to the edge of the main dance floor, just behind the smaller one.  There were plenty of people out there...but line dancing! WHAT?

We soon found out that there was a change up pattern - 3-4 songs would be played for line dances, and 3-4 songs would be played for two-stepping or swing dancing.  We watched for the first few, but later on a few of us tried to get in on the line dancing and Cort and I two-stepped.  A bit later she got asked to dance by a strapping, cowboy-hat-wearing, young gentleman.

After stepping outside for some air, we came back in to find people line dancing to Space Jam**.  Then to MmmBop.  Then to more strange line dancing songs that I probably blocked out.  Suddenly, the music paused as all ladies were asked to get on the floor who could do one particular line dance, and all the gentlemen celebrating birthdays or being newly single got a front row seat.

Afterwards it was the boys turn, which the announcer was sure to emphasize was a "clothes optional" dance.

As a pretty average girl, I dig both the tux and the occasional uniform look.  But there is nothing I have found that quite does it for me like a plaid shirt, correctly fitted jeans, and a hat (and maybe a belt buckle, but nothing tacky).  So the crowd looked pretty good before they all started ripping their shirts off...then some of them got better.  And some got worse (put it BACK on!).  Either way, all of a sudden there were a group of about 40 guys, most of them topless, line dancing for the girls who were celebrating birthdays, bachelorettes, being newly single, and 8 weeks pregnant.

Why she was out at a bar 8 weeks pregnant? Not sure.  But if you get a crowd of half naked men dancing for you, then I guess I can't judge her life choices too harshly.  I'll be sure to note this for my future husband/baby daddy****.

Cross-Fit Is Less Awesome, And, This is Water

So among the copious amount of movies and other nothing I've been doing of late, I decided to try to do Cross-Fit exercises with a good friend.

12-20 minutes. That's all, just push through it, you're done, right?

Wrong.  Well, technically, yes, but not so simply.  Cross-Fit can be hard.  And painful.  And hard.  And sometimes I feel like the warm-up is enough.  But then I do do the rest of it, sometimes pausing before the nausea can occur, sometimes snapping out of my dizzy-driven thoughts to realize I'm on the next exercise.

Yet as much as it is just not enjoyable, I'm going to keep doing it.

Because lately, my days have felt pretty meaningless.  I've had staring contests with many-a-screen, and occasionally with a good old fashioned book.  I'm not sure how it became a third of the way through June.  And the occasional bit of fitness I punch in does remind me that I am still an existing thing beyond what I choose to take in.

But I watched this today, and no matter who you are - graduate student, unemployed, employed but burnt out or just feeling "stuck" in whatever worry you cannot fully comprehend or name, I think you should watch it too.

This Is Water

I hope it helps.  I think I'll try.

June Jubilation, Or, My New Addiction to Competitive Television

This past March I participated in my first ever March Madness bracket.  With some advice from my basketball playing cousin, I made my bracket and ended up winning*!

While I've learned that my favorite phrase to yell at televised sporting events is "get your s**t together", I've also learned that I love the systematic order and yet luck that comes with picking your winners - where math and destiny collide.

So I decided to apply this to the most heart-wrenching, riveting, televised competition of all.  The Bachelorette.

Is this novel? Not in the least.  Brackets have been around for at least the past couple seasons, which is pretty much when I started watching anyway.  By the second season I viewed I'd invented a drinking game, but it just hasn't been enough.  So it was time to up the ante.

My summer productivity in the print.

First I thought at least my sisters would get involved.  But after my first viewing party (which included two loud and opinionated men**) there will now be around 10 females participating in the bracket.  I have yet to come up with prizes, although making our own Shiva***, a couple bottles of wine, and bragging rights sound about right.

Let the games begin!
______________________________________________________________________

Things I'm looking for in a new apartment/house:

1.)  Allows dogs that are actually dogs (no 35lbs restriction).

2.)  Not beneath a master bedroom.  Because there's no nice way to offer your neighbors a can of WD-40.

3.)  Relatively cheap.

Everything else, I welcome the DIY.

Katy Perry I Let You Down, Or, How My Virgin Trip to Vegas Was Everything and Nothing I Expected

Back in the middle of February, I took my first ever trip to Vegas.  Although I probably could've made the trip with a few friends, I never set out for Atlantic City on the East Coast.  Even if I had, I'm not sure how it would've compared to the one and only Vegas.

After a four hour drive and just after the sun had set, we entered Vegas on a Friday evening.  It was simultaneously smaller and larger than I had imagined.  All the hotels and main attractions mentioned in any good film, book, or debauchery story seemed to fit so snuggly together, huddled around the main strip like they're huddling for warmth out in the Nevada desert; at the same time, walking any distance in heels seemed absolutely absurd, and yet I knew many girls did this every night.

Caesar's Palace

The shakey Bellagio

The Patriotic Venetian...confusing.

Each building one-uped the one before it as we drove in.  I love Ocean's Eleven, and it was strange to see Bellagio in person - again, somehow being both smaller and yet larger in real life than on the screen.

After a very confusing parking lot, slight panic over possibly not having the rooms we booked, and a slow pour in of all of our party members, we settled in.  The room had a kitchen, multiple televisions, including a projector that projected onto the blind that covered the wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling window in the main room.  One room had a jacuzzi bath, which was given to the birthday girl, the boys (whom I only vaguely knew one) got the main room, and the rest of us 7 girls piled into the other room later that night...but we'll get to that later.

We had gotten in later than expected, so after lighter dinners we began throwing back drinks, mostly tequila.  While we all got ready, we noticed an odd smell and it didn't take long to figure out the guys had brought weed...which is just what one thinks would be perfect for a non-smoking suite with no ventilation whatsoever. This lead to an awkward confrontation where the guys insisted it was fine, nothing would happen, and if it did they would pay.  They soon left to hit the tables, we finished dressing/pre-gaming/taking random pictures, and then proceeded to head out.

The first challenge: the elevator.  Most people, elevators take about 3 minutes.  But you're usually not trying to herd 9 very drunk cats into an elevator, intoxicated yourself.  And keep them from pressing all the buttons.  Or getting off on the wrong floor.  After a few downs, then ups, then downs again, we finally made it from the 2-something floor to the bottom.

We then ever so casuallly crossed the main floor, took an escalator down to the entrance to board a party bus.  Traveling sideways with lots of visual and auditory stimulation is trippy enough, but even more so thanks to alcohol.  The ride, mostly full of friends of friends of friends, took longer than I expected, and I wasn't horribly surprised to catch one of my friends very quietly losing her stomach into a borrowed stranger's cup.

My view down the partybus.

At the hotel, half of us parted to the bathroom while the rest of us tried to navigate the casino tables to the club within the new hotel.  We texted the others who's name to give to get in, but a few of them never made it, having gotten "X"ed out for getting sick into an ice bucket (I still think they should've been more grateful it wasn't the floor).  Inside we enoyed the perks of a table, including drinks, seats when not on the dance floor, and the occasional dance on higher ground.  Most of us got in between 2-3am and snuggled into spots wherever there was room.

The next morning most of us were not feeling our best, but after a round of showers and food we took to the streets to explore Vegas during the day.

Ah, freshish air!

The "Eiffel Tower" - got a pretty awesome souvenir and drink here

Indoor rainstorm in the Mile Mall

After some dinner, we decided to meet up with others to play!  We found our friends at a roulette table, giving a group of guys numbers to play on.  We shortly switched to roulette machines ourselves, some of us having decent luck!

My first cashout voucher and a machine!...okay so I lost $1.75, but I'll find a way to make ends meet.

Sooner than I would've liked, we returned to our rooms to get ready for our second night.  During which, the boys finally did get in trouble (which was a good thing as their room reaked at this point) and after a tense half hour where we weren't sure what was going to happen, they packed up their stuff and left.  With drama gone, we finished getting ready and got into a great large group vehicle, where our driver happily answered our Vegas and more psychology-related questions (all of our group are studying psychology).  He was such a good sport and seemed to enjoy us too, that a few of our group got his number to call him next time we were in Vegas.

I really wish this second night could've gone better for myself, as by the time we got all the way into the club both of my heels were bleeding from my shoes.  I ended up spending the night in a booth with guys I didn't know, watching Hulu off my phone when not listening to the great DJ or watching the parade of too-drunk-to-function be dragged out.  I was happy that everyone else got to dance and have a good time however, and in a couple hours a few people wanted to go back and I went with them.

While the three of us were standing in the taxi line, we made friends with this guy who was trying to get his mostly asleep buddy home.  He was actually from California, not far from where we go to school and was pretty cute.  We ended up sharing a cab, one of my roommates and I in the frontseat and the guy, his passed out friend, and our other friend in the back.  I was hoping he might try to swap information when we got out at our hotel, but too soon did the taxi take them away.  It wasn't until our walk in that my friend who had been in the backseat had asked about either my roommate or I, but since she couldn't hear which one of us he meant, she had just told him "she has a boyfriend" - true for my roommate but not for me!  Although both friends tried to tell me I'm better off with someone who directly asks for my number (okay, true), it was still a bit sad to know how close I just may have been.

The next day we would have to rise early, pack, and leave to make it back in time for a study group.  Although I could've spent a little more time gambling and less time in horrible shoes I brought on myself, Vegas still turned out to be everything and nothing like I thought.

The strip early at night.

Loss of a Trusty and Loyal Towel, Or, My First Bonfire on the Beach

So after, oh, 9 months living here I FINALLY made it to the beach with some of my friends!

Beach bummin it

Dan and I arrived around 2, but one of my roommates, the birthday girl, and another friend got there at 9 in the morning to reserve a spot.

The girls had already made a sandcastle, so we mostly chatted, waded and swam, and napped as Dan played guitar.  We also made some beach beverages and tried the supposedly "phenomenal cheese strips", according to the morning lady supervising parking, but they only turned out to be rectangle tortilla chips with unmelted shredded cheddar on top and enchilada sauce on the side.  I read a bit, but the afternoon seemed to pass by simultaneously quick and slow.

Others at the beach were having full on barbeques, playing baseball and football, or having Cinderella battles with kites:

Yes, two full grown men had a PRINCESS BATTLE (one of them yelled) 

After a few card games, others slowly started to arrive.  It took a little bit to get the fire going, as we initially forgot starter and the wind was sort of strong.  I took a walk on the beach to grab shots of the sunset and talk with a newer friend.  Unfortunately, while I was gone no one saw an ember land on my favorite 8 year old towel, burning a hole in its previously flawless composition (I was slightly distraught, but no one seemed to understand my plight. Rude.).

Seeing the sunset over the ocean still seems like such a vacation possibility - I'm more used to trying (and failing) to wake up early to see the sun rise over it.  When I first moved out here, I wanted to start the road trip with a sunrise over the ocean, and end it at Santa Monica Pier with the sunset.  Neither happened.  It was horribly cloudy both mornings we had the option to leave and we were so sick of driving by the time we got into Cali and we had to drive south 2hrs to my Uncle's, it just didn't seem we could bring ourselves to take another hour's detour.  

Both on the east coast and the west coast, my homes are between an hour or two away from the shores, but I wanted to see the very ends anyway.  I guess I thought I couldn't really say it was across the country until I saw the very ends of both, where the land met the ocean.  The end of something can only be defined as what it no longer is, and sometimes what replaces it. 

After the sun went down, we roasted marshmallows and others joined us.  We told stories and jokes, played with cameras and talked about what we loved about the birthday girl.  Maybe it's just nostalgia, but I love the way people look in firelight.  It reminds me of my family reunions as a kid and older, of sharing who we have been and who we are without any fallacies.  I know that's a golden perception, but one I'm willing to buy into.

Unfortunately the beach closed at 10pm, so sooner than I would've liked we had to pack up and go home.  I hope to make that trip more often this summer, starting out earlier hopefully.

I'm Not Supposed to Be Here

While there have been many wonderful moments I have experienced since I've moved here, I've really been afraid to write about the negative feelings.  Uncertainty, insecurity, loneliness, homesick, and the worst one, that I don't belong here.

A few of these relate to outside academic areas - specifically feelings of not having established as close of friendships as I have had at home, while also feeling that the friendships I have at home are slowly slipping away from me - most of them have dealt with feelings of inadequacy in my program.  I went from being so many things at my previous university - a smart, social leader who was happy in her small slice of the university that she got to impact - to being overwhelmed by all the things I should be here.  What's worse is that I feel as if my success at home has all my old loved ones expecting me to shine here, and I'm not as sure of that happening as I was a year ago.

While I know that feelings of burn-out aren't something to be ashamed of, especially when so many of my classmates are older and have had time off from school to have real work experience, the feelings of not cutting it in my classes and not having that work experience lead to an overwhelming sense of "not good enough".  And on top of that, I haven't felt I've had time to really figure out what I want to do with my life or even focus my research on, leaving the future wide open.  While that should be exhilarating, it's terrifying.  I'm flooded with feelings of "I'm not good enough", "I'm not ready" with being unsure if I ever will be, and ultimately that "I'm not supposed to be here".

It wasn't until I saw this video, that the words really fell into place for me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc.   It's a TedTalk by Amy Cuddy who originally did social research, particularly on how body language effects self-feelings and beliefs.  The specific part that I will be referring to is the last five minutes (from about min 16 on) where she shares her own experience of how faking it til you make it (behaving in ways in order to feel more powerful and competent) made her feel like a fraud, and that who she "really was" wasn't supposed to be here.  It took one stubborn mentor figure to force her to keep doing it, and much further down the road she realized she didn't fake it til she made it, but faked it til she became it.

I know, deep down in my brain I know, that I do have that support - that I have mentors and friends here that do believe in me, even when I can't believe or see these things in myself.  And I know I can fake it until I become it, that I can find what I'm really passionate about, and that I won't feel ashamed or incompetent in going after what I want.  

And that's what I'm focusing on this summer.

Bravo, Old Sport! Or, How All Other Movie Going Experiences Have BeenRuined for Me

Two nights ago, I was staying at my Uncle's place in order to better focus on finals, when all of a sudden we were whisked off by the wind to a movie (damn those cinematic gusts)!

The movie was The Great Gatsby, and the theater was called Cinepolis. I'm not sure if these exist outside of California, but they put even the nicer theaters I've gone to to shame. The tickets are twice as expensive, but you get a leather recline-by-button chair as well as a waiter to bring food and drinks.

And I mean food and drinks.

My Sapphire Cherry, which fit oh so perfectly with Gatsby.

I only had the one drink, but ate a flatbread personal pizza and shared sushi  with my uncle.  They also had full meals like steak, as well as cinnamon flavor and zebra popcorn (white and milk chocolate)...maybe next time.

The movie was fantastic on its own (I will gladly go see it again) but the experience was definitely worth the price! Now if they could only build one closer to me...