My Week in 15 Ramblings: Ears, Feathers, & School-year Wrap-up.

1. Have you ever tried to dance with an ear infection? Let me tell you, internet, it is not fun. Easy things like double pirouettes suddenly become more difficult than stapling jello to a brick wall.

2. I missed class all week (gee thanks, double ear infection!), but finally felt okay enough to go to class yesterday morning. I had a blast-- everyone from [Awesome People] Dance Company was there (it felt like an [AP]DC reunion of sorts), and the incredible SBryant was teaching. I love love love SBryant's ballet classes; they're more awesome than Pop Rocks. I had an excellent class, too, which made me happy.

3. My former landlady was there (also a former [AP]DC dancer, we met dancing in a TV commercial last summer), and she told me later that I "dance with such joy." That made me glow a little bit. :-)

4. I went to dance at a party hosted by Perform Ance Art Lab Houston last night. Of course, by that time I felt craptacular and didn't do a whole bunch of dancing, but my costume was pretty nifty. Witness:

Diva-licious.

We were a rainbow, and we each picked a different color to represent. Naturally, I picked pink...and since about 90% of my wardrobe is pink, putting the costume together was fun. Oh, and check out the hair:
The feathers were inspired by the flamingoes from our production of Alice, who have pink boas and little pink feathers in their hair.

6. My pointe shoes died last week, so I've been wearing my "backup pair"-- my Gaynor Mindens. Reader, I hate them. Hate. Them. I want to take them out back and shoot them. Thankfully, I can get nice, new pointe shoes in another week or so. Mmm, new Grishko 2007s, I can't wait.

7. I taught my last week of classes for this school year. I'm amazed at the progress my kiddos have made-- particularly in ballet. My level IIIB's-- who are between 10 and 12 years old-- are at the point now where I can give them the same barre exercises that we do in company class or in open class at Houston Ballet. They started learning variations this year as well, and they're so enthusiastic-- they'll ask me before class "Miss Butterfly, can we do a variation today?" Their favorites are the Cupid from Don Quixote and the Bluebird from Sleeping Beauty.

8. My Level I pointe students have worked their way up to doing pas de bouree in the center, and that was so exciting to them. I had four students who began pointe work this year, and they are doing really well.

9. A couple of weeks ago, one of my ballet students asked me to help her with a dance piece she and a friend were doing at their school. In rehearsal, I was listening to her explain some of the choreography to her friend, and I realized that she sounded just like me.

10. This was my second year teaching jazz at the school. Since jazz was never my forte, this year I did everything I could to improve my jazz teaching. I normally don't plug conventions, but I got a lot of inspiration from the Tremaine convention last fall, and the Tremaine instructional DVD's helped me out a lot as well. Yay Tremaine!

11. It was costume week for Alice, and boy, was that fun. It was a week full of colorful fluffy tutus and rampant cuteness.

12. I have what I like to call "Tutu envy"-- as a conteporary ballet dancer, I don't get to wear tutus very often anymore (the exceptions are Nutcracker season and that one time I danced with my kids); so I take particular delight in dressing my kiddos up in frilly, tulley goodness.

13. Guess what happens two weeks from today? NO, GUESS.

14. Mama Butterfly is coming into town for the show. Squeeeeeeee.

15. Why I love my mom: Even though I'm a grown-up and I live half a continent away from her, she still comes to my dance recitals.