Monday, November 26, 2012

I'm Practically Un-lovable

I'm totally not ashamed to say that I'm 18 years old and I've only ever been in one real relationship.  I mean, I did the middle school thing where being someone's girlfriend means that you occasionally toss a note to him in the hallway and you hold hands under the table of lunch.  Actually, I was pretty damn good at being a middle school girlfriend.  But when it comes to being in a mature relationship.  Well.  I'm terrible.

First, I do want to say one thing for myself.  For whatever reason people think I know what I'm doing in life and they ask me for advice.  I always tell them what I think, while at the same time telling them that my own life/relationships are in a constant state of disaster so they shouldn't listen to anything I have to say.  But whenever people listen to me, it usually works out well for them.  So while I can't manage myself for shit, I do pretty well with other peoples issues.

So wanna know about my only real boyfriend?  So I kind of knew him before I got to high school but we first really got to know each other my freshman year when we were both in the musical and both in Show Choir.  Like I said, I was a freshman, he was a junior.  He asked me out in October.  I said yes.  I was 14 and I think he was 17.  We were only together from October to somewhere around February.  During the beginning of our relationship we saw each other all the time because we had musical rehearsals all the time.  We had our first kiss in the wings of the stage.  I also got him to dance with me in our town's Halloween parade.  And we always accidentally seemed to wear the same colors on the same day.  We were pretty adorable.  But.  After the musical ended we didn't see each other nearly as much.  And everything pretty much fizzled out.  He tried a whole lot harder than I did.  He invited me to his house and out to do stuff...I never did.  See, I suck as a girlfriend?  We only ever went on one date.  He finally just said that we didn't do enough together to make it worth it.  Which was totally true.  I was feeling the same way.  There was no drama, no hurt feelings.  He actually had really awesome timing because the night he broke up with me there was a massive snow storm and school was canceled the rest of the week.  We're still friends and we talk all the time.  He's actually dating one of my best friends now, and he has been for like two years, and they're pretty much the cutest thing in the world and I really want them to get married.  Here's a picture of all of us on opening night of the musical (it seems like forever ago!).


I'm in the red dress, she's in the green dress, he's in the bow tie.  The guy in the cowboy hat was her boyfriend at the time.  Now he's with one of our other best friends and I hope they get married too.  I'm still alone.


And here's a picture of us more recently.  This was taken last spring when the came home to watch me in my role as Mrs. Meers in the musical.  I'm the Asian in the crooked wig, it happens.

So I know I said earlier that he was my only real boyfriend, and I maintain that.  However the history of my love life does not start and end with him.  Ohhhh, there's more.

Shall we discuss my almost-boyfriend?  If I had not done so much to sabotage any chance of him sticking around I'm 100% positive that he would have asked me out.  He told me he loved me and we were never even dating (that's kind of where I freaked out a little and blew up any potential of a relationship).  So anyway, I met this guy in a program that united a handful of kids from different schools in my county.  So I met him the summer before my sophomore year.  We had about a dozen meetings with this program and that was all we ever saw of each other.  He lived about 40 minutes away from me.  Towards the end of my sophomore year we started to talk.  All through the summer before junior year we texted each other.  By the way, at this point I was 16 and he was 17 but we were in the same grade.  By the time summer was over I had gone on three dates with him (two to the movies and once to watch his band play).  I kissed him once...well, actually...he kissed me once and it was disgusting so I kind of didn't let it happen again.  But really, it was bad.  It was just a few days after our first and only kiss that he told me he loved me.  And I ran for the hills.  I actually un-invited him to my homecoming dance.  I just flat out said that I didn't want him to come.  Seriously, I'm the worst potential girlfriend ever, don't date me!

So for a final run down, I'm 18 years old.  I've had one boyfriend.  I've kissed four boys (yes, I only talked about two of them because the first and second guys that I kissed were rather insignificant).  I've never slept with anybody but I've had three people ask if I would.  Pretty much anytime a guy shows interest in me I enjoy it for like a month and then I just turn it into one big mess.  This is your final warning; do not date me.







Friday, November 23, 2012

Quiero Bailar

Soy ensenando un baile por un groupo de competicion.
I am teaching a dancer for a competition group.
And I know some Spanish, Olay!

The song I'm using is the Glee Kate Hudson mash-up of Americano and Dance Again.  I'm loving it.  And the girls think it's cool that I can translate the Spanish in Americano for them.

It's jazz piece.  All of my Jazz 3 (the highest level) class is in it and some of my Jazz 2 dancers.  I really didn't want to put the Jazz two girls in it, but I didn't have a choice in the matter.  Oh well, I'm making it work. 

The piece is really coming along!  The girls are working really hard and I think it looks great.  So far what I've done is I started them dancing in unison as a group and then I split them into different lines based on their class levels.  Then I kind of dedicated the Dance Again portion of the song to the 2's and the Americano portion to the 3's.  So far it's working.

My biggest frustration is the lack of effort.  And I know I should complain because they are working really hard for me, but I still need a whole lot more from them if they're going to do well in competitions.  I try to get them to ask intelligent questions but also to figure things out for themselves, but so far that hasn't happened.  Then again, they are between 9 and 12 years old sooo...

When I say lack of effort I guess I really mean their reliance on me.  For example, if the choreo is to do an axle turn with the right arm in the air, I'll have a student say that every time the do it their left arm goes in the air.  What am I supposed to say to that?  They expect me to have an answer and somethings just take practice...if your right arm is supposed to be up but you put the left one up instead just keep practicing.  There's nothing I can do for that!  I also always have one or two of the Jazz 2 girls telling me that the music is too fast.  The music is the music and I can't change that, and I'm not going to give them wimpy choreography because a) it's an advanced level piece and b) it takes strong choreo to win.  So there.  One more frustration is when I introduce a new move or something and they just look at me like I'm crazy.  Uhh, hello, please practice what's going on.  They don't try it and then they can't get it in the dance and they tell me they can't do it and that the music is too fast...it's a viscous cycle.  I know what they're capable of and I'm not getting it from the so far.

But these things take time.  I'll whip 'em into shape by the time the first competition rolls around.


Legally Legal!

Hi, nice to meet you, my name is Mary Kate and I'm an adult. 

What?!?

Oh yeah, I turned 18 two weeks ago.  Whoop whoop.  I kinda forgot about it for a little bit there, it wasn't all that exciting, but now it's late and I'm the only one awake at my house so I figured I would share about the day.

So my birthday is November 12th and so is my brother's.  Because we're twins.  That morning I got up and went to morning practice (I'm a swimmer now...I still can't even handle that) at 7 am.  Before I left I made sure to wake Liam up to tell him happy birthday, I don't think he really appreciated that.  Then later in the afternoon I had a choreography session for a school event.  We did the whole cake and presents thing but other than that I just kind of laid around refusing to apply to college.  Because who wants to do that on their birthday?

As for the gifts.  Birthday's aren't really a big deal in my family, but I got a few nice things.  Liam got me a pink snuggie, which I am sooo loving!  My mom got me tickets to see the So You Think You Can Dance tour...eeek!!  I got a bra with butterflies on it and some orange underwear.  Oh yeah, my dad got new tires for the truck which just happened to be a few days before our birthday, so he said they counted.  Hahaha.

I have yet to do anything cool that I couldn't do until I was 18.  The only thing I really wanted to do was go skydiving, but after my dad got the bill for my MRI he said we'd have to wait until the spring.  It's okay, I'm sure it'll be worth it!

And one more thing.  My brother stole all the candles!!  I was smiling so my mom could take a picture and he just up and blew them all out.  All but one, actually.  So I used my one wish to wish that none of his seventeen wishes came true.  Ha!

Thursday, November 22, 2012

I'm Still Kickin'....Flutter Kickin'

So I've been on the swim team for a few weeks now and I haven't drowned yet.  I guess that's a plus!  We have our first meet (actually it's a scrimmage) next weekend, which is kind of exciting, kind of scary, and I've really been enjoying myself so far.  Here's a run down of what's been going down...

My coaches like me!  They say I have a lot of potential.  One of the coaches was the coach of the community swim team I was on when I was a kid.  I didn't think he remembered me, but he does.  He was making fun of me the other day, saying I never should have quit swimming to dance (we're talking like fourth grade here...it's been a while since I've swam) because dancing is terrible and it broke me.  Which is true I guess, but I still don't care.  Anyway I've had a lot of great compliments so far.  The whole team tells me I swim like a dancer, which means that my strokes are pretty.  I don't know if that will help me in a race but it's nice to hear none-the-less.  One of the team managers asked me yesterday if there was any stroke I couldn't do...so I guess that means I look good doing all four?  Also, both of my coaches said that I have a great wave ahead of me when I'm swimming butterfly...I'm not really sure what that means but they say it's a good thing.  I hate butterfly.

I can't do flip turns at all.  I'm not even supposed to be doing them because of my feet, but I tried for the first time the other day and I failed miserably.  I'll keep at it though, because I want to be able to do them at the meet. Also, every time I dive in my goggles fill up with water.  I need to figure out a way to fix that.

Speaking of the meet!  I picked my events the other day!  Actually, I made the coach do it because I still have no idea which stroke and what distance I'm good at.  My coach told my I'm good at every stroke.  So I asked her which one I'm best at and she said freestyle, back and breast.  Thanks for narrowing that one down, ahah.  I didn't know which distance either.  Finally she told me I should do the 100 back and 100 breast.  So that's what I'm doing.  We'll see how it goes....yikes!

Bye Bye YouTube...For Now

So I delete my YouTube channel.  Mostly due to a moment of extreme frustration.  Here's what happened:

I created the channel years ago, before Google accounts became a thing.  And then when I made this blog I tried to make it with a Google account, but that messed up my YouTube account.  So I made this blog on a regular email account.  Then my family changed our internet provider which deactivated our email accounts, so we all made gmail accounts...which then became attached to entire Google profiles.  So now the count is up to one email for YouTube, one email for blogger and one gmail/Google account.

Next step.  To try to connect all three.  Apparently it is impossible to link a YouTube account made without a connection to Google to a new Google account.  Same goes for blogger.  THEN I made an AOL account for a project in my economics class just a few days ago.  My AOL account not only provided a new email (which I use just for internet things and not for emails to actual people) which attached itself to a new Google profile.  Care to count that up again?  Four email addresses and two Google profiles.  So what was happening was whenever I was signed into YouTube on my acrobaticallyapt account, I couldn't sign into blogger or check my email because it would sign me into YouTube from the Google accounts that my other emails were attached to.  AHHH.

Are you still with me?  So anyhow.  I decided to delete my acrobaticallyapt YouTube account and everything but my gmail and AOL accounts.  I now have blogger hooked up with AOL and my email and new YouTube account hooked up to gmail.  Each has a Google account of it's own and if I can find a way to connect both emails to the same Google account you can betcha I'll be doing that.  It's still a little frustrating because if I'm on blogger I can't access my YouTube or email and vice-versa.   

As for the videos, I haven't decided yet if I'll be re-uploading them.  My channel didn't have a lot of subscribers or views or comments so I don't think anyone will miss me.  And I haven't decided yet if I'm going to make new videos to put up on the new account.  There won't be any dance videos in the near future because..uh..I have two broken feet.  But whatever happens, I'll keep ya posted.

By the way, the new YouTube account is named misssmarykate.
You can find it here:  misssmarykate
Don't get your hopes up though...there's nothing to watch yet.

****UPDATE*****
About 20 minutes after I posted this originally and said there would be no videos soon...I added some videos.  Sometimes I accidentally lie #sorrynotsorry  

Happy Thanksgiving

I have whole bunches of updates coming soon, pinky promise, but I wanted to take a quick sec. to mention all the little things that I have to be thankful for...

1.  I'm thankful that everyone I love is happy and healthy
2.  I'm thankful that my town has mostly recovered from the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy
3.  I'm thankful that I have a group of friends who I can count on and enjoy myself with
4.  I'm thankful that my last x-ray showed that my fractures are FINALLY beginning to heal
5.  I'm thankful that my dance teacher has been so great to let me watch classes whenever I want
6.  I'm thankful that my experience on the swim team thus far has been fantastic
7.  I'm thankful that having two broken feet led me to discover that I love swimming
8.  I'm thankful that in less than a year I get to start a new adventure in my life
9.  I'm thankful that I passed AP Calculus this marking period

I was planning on writing ten thankful statements, but then the 10th one was aligned weird because it was an extra digit from the rest of the numbers.  And that bothered me.  So I just wrote nine.  I hope everyone's Thanksgiving has been fantastic and that you have so many things to remain thankful for until next year!

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Crocs are da bomb

I am fully aware that Crocs are only acceptable footwear if you are A) under the age of three, or B) a nurse.  I am neither.  But I have recently rediscovered Crocs and I fully support my new stance that Crocs are the most under-appreciated footwear of all time.

When I say "rediscovered" I really mean "my gram gave me a pair of Crocs once and I stashed them on a shelf in the garage for three years until I broke both of my feet and needed driving shoes so I pulled them out and realized that even though they are ugly they are seriously comfortable".

Because of the lack of movement available in space boots, it's against the law to drive in them.  Even if it's on your right foot, you can still get fined if you're caught driving with it on.  So I have to take off my space boots and put on real shoes (which are pretty much always going to be Crocs from now on, because they're awesome) and drive, put my space boots on, do my thing, get back in the car switch to shoes (Crocs) drive, put my space boots on.  Do you understand how this goes?  Lemme tell ya what.  It's annoying.

But anyway.  I like the Crocs.  They're like memory foam for your feet.  Hell yeah.  Also mine happen to be in the neutral and non-conspicuous shade of periwinkle.  Did ya catch that sarcasm?  But whatevs.  Whatever works I guess. 

Can't Wait to Prove You Wrong, Mama

So the other day my mom and I went to a Lia Sophia party (not really relevant, I just like to set the mood).  It was at her friend's house and her friend has a daughter my age, but aside from that the party guests were all adults.  I knew that going in though, they were my mom's friends that I've known since before I can remember, so it was all good.  None of that group (meaning mom's friends) really sees each other an awful lot anymore though, because they all have older kids to keep up with.  So...yes, finally getting to the point...my space boots were kind of a talking point.

One of the first questions people ask me whenever they hear the space boots story is "Will you ever be able to dance again?".  I always say yes, after I'm done in the boots, but honestly I don't know.  I was so shocked when I learned they were broken that I really didn't ask many questions.  I'll see her on Thursday though, so I'll ask then.

At the party though, I heard my mom telling one of her friends that she didn't think I'd be able to dance again.  Ever.  EXCUSE ME?!?  Sorry mom, but you're horribly incorrect.  I may not go back as soon as I'd hoped, I may not go back with full doctoral encouragement, but I WILL go back.  So there.

*** The term space boots was coined by my friend Kirsten.  She thinks they look like space boots and calls them that so I feel like less of a loser.  All the time.  Sometimes she even substitutes "Space Boots" for my actual name.  She's the best.***

Saturday, November 3, 2012

A Dance Thing!

I have a dance thing to tell you!  I went to a production tonight.  It was the fall dance showing at the boarding school in my town.  It's a free show and my next-door neighbor is the director of dance at the school so I always try to go see the performance.  It's a really different kind of experience from the recitals that a standard dance studio would put on.  First of all, since it's a high school, there are no baby classes.  It's great not having to watch the little babies fumble around onstage.  As cute as they are, they're really not dancing.  I feel qualified to say that as I have been teaching that age group for years.  But anyhow.  The dances are much different as well.  It's not a class of girls who go on, dance for three minutes and pose.  Sometimes it's a group of three and sometimes it's all fifty-some of the students.  They also have student choreographed pieces as well as pieces done by guest artists.  It's very cool.  I've always wished I could dance there.  I love my neighbor and I love her program.  It was a great show!

Friday, November 2, 2012

I Totally Forgot to Tell You Something!

Hey guess what.  I convinced my mom that I needed an "I broke both of my feet" present.  I also convinced her that the present I needed was a bedazzler.  So she got me one!!  She's the best.  Care to see the result?






There ya be.  I even picstitched it for ya.  I added some sparkle to the toesies and some bows on the back.  And yes.  I can put my foot behind my head.  Even in a boot.  Because I am a boss.  Deal with it.

Sorry to Disappoint

Hey Mary Kate, remember when you created that blog and you called it "Defined by the Dance" because you were obsessed with dancing and you danced all the time and you never thought you'd stop and you wrote blog posts relating everything in your life to dance?

Yeah.  I remember.

It kinda isn't happening anymore.  How can I be defined by the dance when I'm not allowed to dance?  I hate this.  I know I'm generally peppy but let's take a moment to be depressing.  I broke both of my feet and I'm not allowed to dance.  Fuck.

Okay done.

So basically.  I'm going to have trouble relating all of my posts to dance anymore.  Because I don't get a whole lot of dance in my life at this point.  I am still teaching at a dance studio, so I suppose I can incorporate that, but it's only one day a week.  It's no substitute for actually being a dancer.  But at this point it's all I got.

So while I still consider myself a dancer and it's still my favorite thing in the world, I guess the tone of this blog is going to have to momentarily sway from the original intention.  Until I can dance again I'll just occasionally describe my life and whatever mess I'm currently in the middle of.  Sound good?

So now, for today's anecdote:

I forgot my AP Chem materials in my locker today, so my teacher said I could go get them.  It was during class so not many people were in the hallway.  I passed two girls who were sitting outside of a classroom, probably making up a quiz or something, I didn't know the girls so I just kept walking.  Then I heard one girl say "What the heck happened to her feet".  I don't think I was supposed to hear her, and I just kept walking.  Then the other girl, again...a complete stranger, very matter-of-fact-ly explained to her friend that I had broken both of my anklesYes, she said ankles.  Because obviously it's possible to walk on two broken ankles.  Dear lord.  This world needs more common sense.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Three Days Later...

Ah it's warm again!  Thank goodness.  Here's what happened...

About an hour after I finished my last post (Monday, Oct. 29) the power went out.  And stayed out until this afternoon (Thursday, Nov. 1).  It was dark all of the time and chilly all of the time and super duper boring.  But it definitely could have been worse.  Here is what helped my family out...

Number 1:  THE GENERATOR.  My dad had our generator ready to go as soon as it started raining.  When the power officially went out he got 'er going and only used 'er to power one thing.  The refrigerator.  Seriously.  You want to have access to a fridge during this.  Hypothetically, the generator could power the whole house, but ours (and I think most generators) runs on gasoline and it would talk a whole bunch of fuel to keep the whole house going.  We have an extra freezer and we condensed as much as we could into the fridge/freezer combo guy in our kitchen.  Whatever didn't fit we defrosted and ate, and whatever we thought we wouldn't eat we threw out.  If we had needed it, the generator would have powered our sump pumps, as well, to keep our basement from flooding.  The rain was so violent though that it just kind of hit the ground and rushed away.  It didn't really sink into the ground so we didn't even need our sump pumps.  It obviously wasn't ideal but it put us in a much better situation than people without a generator.  Also, by the third day with no power we were going so stir crazy that my dad ended up plugging in a laptop and somehow rigging up the internet (don't ask me what he did...seriously...I have no idea how any of that works) so we could watch us some hulu.  Good call daddy.

Number 2:  Because the generator runs on gas, we needed to have a steady supply.  My town actually ran out of gas for a day (because I live in hillbilly country and everyone was was preparing to fuel up their generator...seriously...it was so noisy outside because everyone had a generator humming on their back porch) but luckily my daddy planned ahead.  We had gas in all of the cars, which we weren't using because it was hurricane-ing, and we had some extra fuel tanks filled up.

Number 3:  Another benefit to living out in the sticks is that my house gets it's water from a water tower.  Yes, those mythical things that always get vandalized in order to defend someone's honor by the end of a country song.  So as long as that sucker had water in it, we had water pressure and therefore could wash our hands and flush the toilet and take a shower and, uh, drink.  Just in case we also had several gallons of bottled water as well as some 30 gallon tanks that my dad had filled with hose water.  We were lucky though and the water tower held out for us.

Number 4:  My family is just fortunate enough that we have a lot of gas powered things.  We have a gas stove so we were able to cook, and in the even that the stove would have malfunctioned we also have a gas grill.  The best thing ever though is that we have a propane water heater.  Which means that we could shower and wash our hands with hot water!  Some of our neighbors weren't so lucky.  Any one without a gas stove or water heater suffered a lot more than we did.  It's a close knit community though, so no one was left cold and hungry...everyone who was able to help offered their services.

While all of that was going on, here's what we actually did.  Mostly we sat around and fought with each other.  Ha.  I'm only sort of kidding.  My mom and I did go out shopping once the whether cleared up, just to get out of the house. My friend and I spent a few hours at the library enjoying warmth and wifi because it got power back before our houses did.  That same friend and I eventually sought out refuge at the house of our other friend, who was fortunate enough not to lose power.  We stayed with her Wednesday night.

At this point I think most of the town has their power back.  It was a cold few days but we all made it through.  My high school has been closed all week but I do have to go back tomorrow.  Although I question the point of a one day week...what exactly are we going to accomplish?

Thanks for the memories, Hurricane Sandy.