freshie no longer

long time no blog! it has been six whole months, and i have been feeling pretty guilty. i'll try to blog more regularly once school ends...

... and that is in just six days! just six more days, which will be stuffed with more projects and exams than we have had for the entire semester. plus a ton of yearbook signing. eeks!

on the bright side, i'll be out of school three days earlier than ella! teehee. one day for senior graduation, one day for my lunch and gym exams (which are nonexistent, as you can probably imagine), and one day for make-up exams.

so, last weekend was memorial day weekend and future shock DC danced at world of dance in brooklyn! here is our performance from saturday. i am to the far left for the first piece. :)



WOD 2011 was definitely one of my favorite shows. all the acts were awesome! on the RhythmAddictsTV youtube channel, you can watch videos of other groups that performed.

i got a red, retro-looking, t-shirt that says "5, 6, 7, 8." i guess it is sort of an inside joke for dancers... maybe? my family got dinner at an african festival near the venue, like last year.

sunday was our NYC tourist day. we took a ferry to liberty island and ellis island. it was packed on the liberty island ferry, but on the ellis island ferry, not so much. for some reason, tourists seem much more interested in a green 151-foot-tall statue than an immigration museum... strange people...

we also saw the off-broadway show, jump! the show was set in the home a family of martial arts experts. the cast was mainly professional korean gymnasts, so the stunts were awesome.

my favorite character was the son-in-law. not only did he have awesome abs... every time he took off his glasses, he would spasm strangely and become a crazy martial arts ninja!

finding myself while doing my homework

i thought that this was noteworthy enough for its own blog post...

while researching for a history paragraph on montgomery county homelessness, i came across the fannie mae website, where they posted a few pictures from the help the homeless walkathon. i'm not sure if i told you, but my dance group, future shock, performs at the walkathon every year! so, when they wrote, "Please enjoy these videos of the 2009 Walkathon and Mini-Walks," i thought that i might see my dance group in one of the videos. i clicked the walkathon link, and it took me to this youtube link!



then, suddenly... BAM! at 0:23 seconds (my lucky number), there i am, dancing!

it is not the most flattering or attractive picture; i had hand warmers stuffed up my gloves plus a bright, blue mouth. my mouth color is quite cryptic because i only recall drinking hot chocolate... hmm...

i'm just amazed that, out of the thousands of people there, my picture showed up in this slideshow! i'm famous! well, not really. this video has only gotten 352 views. my mom thinks it was because i was sporting my beautiful, new help the homeless shirt :)

how did i get from researching homelessness, to blogging about this youtube video?
is it possible to finish writing a homework paragraph after being sucked into the wonderful world of youtube?

pink up the town

i recently realized that i haven't been blogging very often... is it because i have been too lazy to blog? or because there haven't been any noteworthy events in my life? it is probably a combination of both. but, no need to worry... my life is really starting to get interesting.

i really love cherry blossoms. so, luckily for me, it has been a weekend completely devoted to cherry blossoms!

saturday
on saturday, i performed at the national cherry blossom festival, in the national building museum, for the family day! this was my second year performing at the festival.

it is always really fun because of all the activities around. it is hard to get bored there (but then again, i'm pretty easily amused). me and ella's ultimate favorite thing to do was make tissue paper flowers. we must have more than 10 lying around the house! the thing is, they don't look like cherry blossom flowers. they look more like carnations. i'm completely fine with that, though, because i have always loved carnations.

so, in between the time we were making tissue paper flowers, we performed! it's funny to perform on their stage, because there are no wings. so, when you are not dancing, you are kneeling on the edge of the stage. but, that was actually really fun. in the picture below, we are all crowded together on the side... do you see me kneeling closest to the audience?

anyway, here are some more photos from the performance!

thank you to kevin pajarillaga (my fellow dancer) for the above pictures!

thank you to john park (ella's friend, sophie,'s dad) for the above picture!

also, this next picture isn't of future shock, it is of culture shock (the adult group). i just had to show you it because of its awesomeness. yeah culture shock!!

thank you to kevin pajarillaga, again, for the above picture!

sundayon sunday, we went into dc to see the cherry blossoms. it really makes total sense to see them right after the cherry blossom performance!

in this picture, i am actually wearing the shirt that ella got from the cherry blossom festival! not only am i wearing ella's shirt, i am also wearing her scarf! i mean, i couldn't wear the shirt without the scarf (or the scarf without the shirt)! :)

here is a picture of me and ella. there were 3 pictures of me and ella with the cherry blossoms... the one that i liked least, ella liked the most. the one that ella liked least, i liked the most. we had to compromise. here is the middle choice picture (for both of us).

here we are in the archway to the pinkness! a very uncomfortable pose... a little bit awkward too... but that's ok right? i think that its coolness makes up for it.

anyways, happy cherry blossom seeing!

i wish we all could be california girls

thursday: today, i woke up at 3:45 am. this is because my mom, my sister, and me are going to san diego for my dance show! i'm missing thursday, friday, and monday of school. partly i'm happy, but i'm so stressed out. on the day i come back, i'm taking a science test, history test, spanish test, and geometry test. that's a test in each class, which i think is a new record! sigh.
today, we are staying with my cousins, allie and adam, and my aunt rosie and uncle michael in redondo beach! i'm so happy, i haven't seen them since summer.

you may think la salsa is a dance...
but, actually, it is where we went for lunch with uncle michael. there are a whole bunch of restaurants called things like "del taco" or "la salsa." creative names, i know. the fact that it's in a different language makes up for that. there was a salsa bar, and usually with salsa bars, i just get one salsa. but, above the salsas it said "mix the salsa to make your own!" it was hard to decide since i liked a bunch of them. at first, i got a chipotle sauce. that's when i realized that it said medium spicy, so to make it less spicy, i added some mild salsa. i ended up with a chipotle, avocado, and mango mix. i learned a lesson today: 3 good things added together can equal a catastrophe. after trying it, i threw it out and got them separately instead.

cold stone creamery, watch out! there's something called yogurtland... it.is.amazing! you get a huge bowl and fill it up with heavenly frozen yogurt! vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, ny cheesecake, mango, double oreo, green tea, blueberry tart, vanilla wafer.... and then you can get vanilla and chocolate combined, strawberry and ny cheesecake combined... i could go on and on, but i won't. first, of course, i had to taste almost everything in the store. but, it wasn't too embarrassing since the one worker was in the back. i just took some tasting cups and tried them one by one. after some contemplation, i finally decided on strawberry and ny cheesecake (not the combined version). that's when it got even more overwhelming since there are a whole bunch of toppings to choose from! but, with the strawberry and ny cheesecake froyo, i couldn't resist the real strawberries and real chunks of cheesecake. how awesome is that? and all for $2!

it's almost like exercise...
they have wii fit, and we were playing on that for a while. by the way, i would just like to tell you that ella's wii fit age is 28, and mine is 13! ella's age is 20 years off, mine is a few months off. pretty good right? my mom would like me to tell you that "ella didn't understand the balance activity and if she retook it, she would have done better..." cough cough. me and ella like the hula hooping game. well, more like the hula hooping movement. if you are trying to imagine what i look like hula hooping on a wii fit, let me tell you... it looks very stupid. standing in front of a tv doing circular hip movements is just not normal. but, it is surprising, hula hooping for 160 seconds can be more exhausting than you think. i was out of breath and sweating after trying to beat ella's record breaking score. i didn't beat it. i'm so out of shape.

warm enough to wade...
it's october, and we went to the beach! me and ella even went into the water. it was freezing cold! the waves were humongous, and i took the pleasure of pretending to run away from the waves screaming to make ella run in horror. she even fell for it 7 times. before we left for the beach, i decided that i wanted to carry the boogie board all the way to the beach, and in the end... i only boogie boarded once until i wiped out, and sand got everywhere. my ears, my nose, my hair. it took forever to get the sand out of my hair!

inner peace, outer screams...
after that i did wii fit for a while more. that whole time, allie and ella were behind me styling adam's hair in front of the mac camera. it's difficult doing tree poses with a whole bunch of screaming, but i did it. the wii told me to take a 10-15 minute break, which is when i run over to mom saying "it told me to take a break" then run straight back to keep going. strangely, i got 4/4 stars on the strength exercises, but i got 1/4 stars on the balancing ones. they called me a bodybuilder... hehe.

friday: great, i'm sick. i think it was either the ice cold beach water, or the wii fit overload. i can't be positive. but of course, i was just fine when it was time to drive to legoland in san diego! the ginormous lego sculptures are crazy!

stories from the land of brick...

this was in the parking lot! since this was the first lego-built thing that we saw, we were really impressed. but... we all agree that they are a tad creepy.

AHH! i was debating myself on whether or not to smile for this picture. i decided that it would look more realistic to put on my "oh my god" face.



there was this driving school ride where you can drive around and "follow the rules of the road." it probably doesn't sound that fun right? but actually, it was really fun. you get into these cute, small cars. it's better than the other driving rides in hershey park and disneyland since they aren't loud and smelly, the pedal and wheel are easy to use, and you can drive around without being guided by something on the ground. actually, i had a dilemma when i was driving around. there are stop signs, but the roads are so small that you can see whether or not there are cars coming. do you stop? or just go... i stopped anyway, just to be a good driver.

outside of the ride, there is this life size lego car! since it's legoland, you would assume that everything is made of lego. but, from far away, the car still looked real!

say cheese! this is me and ella posing for a photoshoot with a movie star (from a lego movie, that is).


there was also this boat school ride called skipper school where you can drive a boat around. my only complaint about this one is that it goes super slow. honestly, these rides would be so much more appealing if their names didn't include "school."

we also went on this completely tame dinosaur roller coaster. my mom was telling me how annoyed she was that the people behind her kept screaming into her ear during the tiny drops. i mean, they weren't even drops, more like bumps! there was another roller coaster that was called "test track." at first, me and ella weren't really into going on, but my mom convinced us to go on. you know how on roller coasters, there's that slow incline before the big drop? when we were going up, i was seriously hyperventilating. but it was so awesome. it was jerky like a real test track, and we ended up going on it 3 times (since there wasn't any line).


we went on this ride where you have to pull the rope to get up, then when you let go, you fall back down. it's not like you are pulling your whole weight, but it was still hard. falling to the bottom was a disappointment too. it was more like exercising than a ride. :(


this dragon and the big car are probably my favorite. seeing them in person is even more impressive. they use these tiny legos that are like 1cm x 1cm. do you see ella standing right next to the giganto horn? i have no idea what she was thinking. it was like she was waiting to have her ear blasted out. we left before it made any sound anyway.


this slide was amazingly fun. we went on it 2 times. the only thing was that it makes you completely staticy!


ok, this is totally random right now, but i just had to show you. when we went to the bathroom, i saw the most hilarious bathroom sign ever!


here i am, battling evil. you're welcome.

my favorite part of legoland was definitely the miniland. it was so cute, and very cool. they said that it was built with 360,000 lego bricks and it weighs 718 pounds! i took a whole bunch of pictures, but i'll just show you some.

here is washington dc. check out that bus on the bridge. the buses, cars, and boats actually move. it is pretty cool.

i thought that the "states bank" engraved into the building was cool. i like the limo, too (hehe)

this is the inauguration!! that looked like it took a lot of work, with all of the people. if you look closely, you can see obama! he is wearing a red tie, and his hand is on the bible!

it was pretty cool how there were moving carousels and buttons you could press to make noise... and this fountain was actually like a real fountain! i'm just a little disturbed... when i looked at the people up close, one guy lost his head! but, i mainly wanted to post this picture to comment on those monstrous pennies.

time square! i was born in new york, so my mom took a picture of me in front of this. but, we weren't exactly sure what the spiders on the buildings were supposed to be. i guess it's the halloween theme!

the lego store is awesome. there are boxes of legos of all different shapes and sizes. we stayed there for 30 minutes only for me to buy 93 cents worth of legos. i'm easily overwhelmed as you have seen (yogurtland, now this!) we stayed at legoland from 10 am-5 pm, which was the whole time it was open. for dinner, we went to the all holy in-and-out burger! i have been looking forward to going there since i left california last time. but i couldn't enjoy it with my sore throat. i'm sad now. now we are in the hotel, but i only have "0 days, 23 hours, 15 mins, 57 seconds" left of internet time. well, i'm not counting on spending 24 hours online between tonight and tomorrow, but i'm tired... so, talk to you later! from...


saturday: today we went to the san diego wild animal park! this was only my 2nd time going, but i love that place. the animals can run around this 12 acre span of land. it is so amazing. on the african safari, where you go on a tour around the animals, they said that they keep the baby cheetahs in the same area as the other animals... i thought that was sort of dumb, but my mom says that they probably keep them more far apart. the camera ran out of battery in the middle of the tour, but i still got some pictures.


this is one of the baby cheetahs that i was talking about before. i think he is super cute! all of the cheetahs there were babies... i don't know where the adult ones were.


here's a white rhino. the tour guide said that his head alone can weigh as much as 1 ton... wow. i weigh 3.25% of that (yes, i used a calculator). no wonder they just sit around all day.


two ostriches! i thought this was a cool picture. they're drinking water together... or they could be having a tete-a-tete. :)


giraffe! i have always liked giraffes. during the whole tour, the guide was saying that animals see brown and green as the same color, so the giraffe wasn't easy prey. but, it's so big. how could you miss it?

there was this cool new "exhilarating" zip line ride over the land with the animals. i was really excited by that... but then i figured out it was $70. yeah, that was out of the picture.
i liked the gorillas. you know, they actually do beat their chests! it was hilarious. the tiny monkeys were really cute doing the monkey bars. i had to tell ella that they were better at monkey bars than she is. i guess i just like primates. :) we left early in the afternoon so we could go to the hotel and rest before the culture shock san diego 10th anniversary choreographer's showcase. it was really cool. actually, the best part was the last half. and that's when ella fell asleep! it's weird where she falls asleep: she fell asleep in the front row of a dance show once, with bursting music (where the dancers could literally sweat on her), but she stayed awake during my munchkin appearance during a wizard of oz off broadway show.

sunday: today, my cousins allie and adam, my uncle michael, and my aunt rosie came to san diego for my dance show. but, before the show i was really busy with techs and rehearsals. i'm part of a dance company called culture shock dc, with two youth groups: future shock dc is for ages 12-17 and mini shock dc is for ages 7-11. i'm in future shock, but i used to be in mini shock. so, since mini shock needed more people to perform with them, i got to perform with both mini shock and future shock! which basically meant twice as much rehearsing. luckily, most of the mini shock rehearsals were when future shock was taking a break.

busy b...
first, i had a future shock tech on the stage. after that, while future shock watched other groups' tech rehearsals, i had the tiniest bit of time to eat a bagel. i came back to the theatre in time for more future shock rehearsal. then, when future shock left for their lunch, and mini shock came, i went with mini shock for rehearsal. after the rehearsal, we went to the stage for our tech rehearsal. during the tech, future shock came to watch our tech...... phew.

a cool park in the middle of nowhere...
then, i had one period where there wasn't anything i had to do with either mini shock or future shock, so i got to go to a mosaic park in escondido with my mom, sister, cousins, aunt, and uncle! it was so pretty. there was a cool (yet super easy) maze to the middle of the park where there were a bunch of sculptures. around the sides, there were...shiny snakes? big colorful worms? i'm not sure.









after we went to the park, i went to a future shock cast meeting before the show.

gotta wait for the dvd...
since future shock performed in act 1, they got to watch act 2. but, since mini shock performed in act 2, they got to watch act 1. which meant... i didn't get to watch any of the show! but, down the hallway from the dressing rooms, there was a room with a screen that had the show live. so, in our free time we got to watch the show.
there were bowls of candy in each dressing room, so the plus of performing with both groups was more candy! there were nerds, tootsie rolls, and lollipops in the future shock room, and there were whoppers and sugar sticks in the mini shock room. ok, i'll be honest. i stuffed some (or a lot of) candy into my backpack pockets.

the moment you've all been waiting for...
the show was so much fun! i would post a video on here, but it's prohibited, according to the directors to preserve "artistic integrity". not that they would ever see my blog or anything... anyway, the future shock theme was "futuristic." it makes sense, right? future shock? futuristic? hmm... i probably didn't have to point that out. it was sort of hard to tell what our theme was. the songs sounded pretty techno-ish, and our costumes had silver, but i guess it's pretty hard to guess. i thought this one dance was really cool, where there are different groups doing different dances to the same song, and they are coming on and off, and some are doing it at the same time. there was a contemporary part, an african part, a wacking part, a popping part, and a housing part.
the mini shock performance didn't have a theme. our costumes were lime and true blue. i could only dance in the 3 dances i knew from last year. it was awesome dancing with mini shock again. i totally miss it.

mmm... buffet...
my parents say that it's not worth it to bring me to buffets, since i don't eat that much. but i am in love with souplantation! we go there every time we come to california. as you can see, all of my favorite places to eat are in california. souplantation, in-and-out burger, yogurtland... and out of all three of those, there can't even be one in maryland! sigh. i always look forward to the unlimited soft serve and the yummy strawberry lemonade. at the souplantation in san diego, they even have warm fudge brownies to go with the soft serve... mmm.... i can almost smell it! then, we all drove back to redondo beach. i was super tired, and i fell asleep in the car.

monday: we flew back to maryland today. we had to leave for the airport at 11:20 am... yogurtland opened at 11:00 am... could we make it? of course! it's yogurtland for crying out loud! i figured out that i like pumpkin pie froyo, and i like blueberry tart froyo, but they don't taste good together. it's like la salsa all over again! anyway, ella was really excited that there were those personal tv's on the airplane. that's always her first choice of entertainment!

i walked into a door

last sunday, i walked into a door. it wasn't actually as stupid as it sounds. my mom and my sister, ella, came to pick me up from dance rehearsal, and when we were walking out... BANG. luckily, nobody but my mom and ella saw me, but i still had a big red bump on my forehead.

surf and turf

hey!

i am writing this exactly one week since my last blog! wow, i'm not blogging once a year anymore! *cheers in the background*!! summer's almost over *boos in the background*, but it has been an awesome summer! though there are still 2 and quarter more books that they are forcing me to read...

at the very beginning of the summer, i went on a road trip to ottawa, canada with my dance group! and, since i live in maryland, it took over 12 hours. now, whenever traveling takes less than 12 hours, it feels completely short to me. the hotel room had 2 queen beds and one pull out bed. sounds pretty spacey right? but no... we had to squish 7 people onto the beds. but on the plus side, we got a standing ovation at our performance! not bad, eh?

the first camp i went to was a gymnastics camp with my little sister, ella. we did some balancing poses for the parent show on the last day. ella was so good that they should’ve recruited her to a chinese acrobatic act! really should’ve.

the second camp was an outdoor rock climbing camp, on real mountains, which was awesome! it was an hour drive from my house, but there were buses that picked us up. so the whole time, we would sing bus songs! lalala! before the last day, we stayed over night to go camping... and i got over 10 spider bites. man, they take forever to go away.

then, i did an art camp with ella. we made so many things in one week. but, considering how much of a perfectionist i am... i'm surprised that i finished most of the projects! last year, when i went to the camp, i was still working on the first thing on the second to last day. things i made: color wheel (i had to draw long arcs by hand), paper mache penguin (a really fat penguin in the shape of a ball), fake fossils with leaf and shell imprints and a clay tile that i decorated to look like the beach... since it's summer!

i also did a music camp that i love. it was my 3rd year there. i was in the advanced orchestra, which was actually sort of sad because they sounded worse than the regular orchestra. a really cool part about the camp was the "spirit days." one day was crazy hair day, and so i decided to go full out. i bet you're wondering how i got my hair to be like that. i actually put a bottle in it. yes, it hurt... a lot. i came into orchestra rehearsal a few minutes late, walking behind everyone. right then, the conductor called my name for attendance. everyone turned around and were totally surprised (since mostly no one else did anything at all for spirit day. lame, i know). for lunch, we sit outside in front of a giant window where people walk by. and since the camp was at a music school, there were a bunch of tours. and every time the people would walk by, everyone would gawk at me and point.

i am part of the dance company culture shock dc... and the youth programs are mini shock (for ages 8-11) and future shock (for ages 12-17). for the auditions, they taught us a dance. the music was incredible... (by lloyd). and after we knew the dance, they would play the song over and over again until it was our turn to audition. and, i danced it full out every single time they played the music. i was sore. everywhere. but i made it in! :)

california:

we went to california to visit my uncle michael, aunt rosie, and cousins allie and adam. they live close to the beach, so we went to the beach a lot. it was surprising that one day, my dad actually agreed to let me and ella bury him in the sand. ella found out how hard it is to cover his feet with sand.

my cousin allie and i did a surf camp together in the mornings for one week. i thought i would be an epic fail, but i wasn’t that bad! from the parking lot, there was a super long hike to the beach where we were surfing (the word super is dedicated to uncle michael, allie, and adam). my scariest surfing near death experience: i let the surf board sit on the water, and when a wave came, the board shoots upward vertical to the water. i look up, and the spikes of the surfboard are coming straight at my face!! eeks!! luckily, i have super fast reflexes (not really) and shielded myself... safe!

we went to disneyland, where the churros are delicioso! we got there 15 minutes after opening a.k.a 8:15 am, and left after the fireworks at 9:30. wow, over 12 hours at the happiest place on earth! we went on a lot of rides. as you can see, to the right, we love the classic rides, like dumbo! my cousin allison and my sister ella are sitting in the front dumbo, and me and my cousin adam are sitting in the back dumbo. i also went on a bunch of new rides that i wasn't brave enough to go on before like: haunted mansion, indiana jones, and pirates of the caribbean. i ended up liking all of them! my aunt rosie is awesome to go on rides with, because she can tell you the scary parts before they happen!

i saw lots of family on my mom's mom and dad's side. got to meet, no, not elvis presley's daughter, but my 2 and a half year old second cousin! lisa marie! after i introduced the game of ring around the rosie to her... she was a bit obsessed. after every time we did it she would pop up from the ground and say "i want more!" and we had to do it again, and again, and again. and whenever we tried to play a different game, she would just hold our hands.

while my mom's side of the family was visiting my grandma's house in california, we all decided to take a walk to caltech which was very close. at first we were all walking together, but there were so many fountains... which my cousins, my sister and i liked walking and playing in. we got distracted, and eventually we didn't see them anymore. while we were walking, i saw a really ironic sign, and took a picture of it. "absoulutely NO STAPLES OR TAPE use push pins only." but they taped that sign on. i thought it was hilarious.

we went to the park, and there was this one thing that kept us amused for a long time. it's more fun than it seems! first, one pair would rock side to side, while the other would rock front and back. then we would switch. then we would rotate who got each seat. that was probably the thing we spent the most time on at the park. you should try it sometime.

we also went to adventure plex in california. they had an outdoor climbing wall. you could just climb up, or you could climb up on one color. each color was a different difficulty. and so i was doing fine (as you can see in the picture to the right) until the guy out there asked me to try the hardest trail. it was so hard, there was barely anything to hold on to! and the fact that i'm short doesn't help much either. i stood there just trying to get up just a little bit. there wasn't anyone belaying us, it was a thing that let you down every time that you let go. so i would go up a little bit, then fall. go up a little bit, then fall. over and over again. i kept trying, and he was so nice, he added handholds to make it easier. and eventually he belayed me so i wouldn't have to go down every single time. i made it!!!! (after an hour of trying, but lets not think about that part).

if you read my "curled by cousins" blog 2 years ago, you would know that my first cousin once removed, kevin, who's now in london, could curl ella when she weighed 35 pounds. now, she is 50 pounds and he can still curl her!

school starts in less than 2 weeks *tear*, need to finish the work they gave us... it's bad to be behind on homework before school even starts. i better get to it.

check back later, i'll try to add some pics of me surfing!

beatriz atsavapranee

dancing like it's 2009

hey trizzle readers!

wow. my last blog was on november 16, 2008. its been a while! i guess i am just feeling particularly inspired to blog today. the last day of school was on june 16th! "what time is it? summer time!" that's what we always say at my cousins' house. usually, what happens is, someone asks what time it is, and someone randomly says, "summer time!" but i guess now, it is actually true.

THE SHORT:
january-february: all-county orchestra (i am going to write a separate blog about the whole process of it). mr herman and the pack of elephants in our orchestra. i think he needs some more encouraging analogies.
april: trip to niagara falls during spring break. my sister loved the jacuzzi in the hotel room.
may: east coast dance competition (ECDC). my sister managed to stay awake the whole time this time.
june: trip to new york with my family to do a dance performance (world of dance, but really they just mean the hip hop world of dance), last day of school (yippee!), end of the year party after school on the last day

THE LONG:

niagara falls: over spring break, pull out the passports... my family took a road trip to canada! the hotel we chose was a really cool one, since it had a view of the falls. were were already really excited to stay there, but we were even more excited... when they told us our hotel room was getting updated for free!! it was suite! jacuzzi (with jets), the view, tv, it can't get any better than that. at night, the falls would change colors, it was like a giant nightlight! maple sugar candy is good, eh?

ECDC: in may, culture shock dc hosted the east coast dance competition 2009 at the warner theater. people come from all over to dance or compete at ecdc. this was mini shock dc's second year dancing at ecdc. this year we dressed up as dolls which came to life and of course, danced. i was cast as olive oyl. before that i'd never heard of olive oyl. talk about generation gap. olive oyl is from the cartoon popeye! the sailor man! we spent forever trying to find the right red sweater. right shape, right shade, right size. my mom sewed a white fringe onto the collar so that i looked exactly like olive oyl. she wants me to use the costume for halloween this year. not going to happen. no one would get it. other dolls included dora the explorer, diego, GI joe, GI jane, raggedy ann, cabbage patch dolls, my scene dolls, barbies and popeye.

new york: on june 13 and 14 we went to the big apple. mom calls it going back to my beginning. it was a music filled weekend. we stayed at the buckingham hotel in midtown, where, according to my dad, is where the queen of england stays when she's in town. ha ha. we walked to the world of dance at the roseland ballroom... and i performed with my dance group, mini shock DC! we learned all new dances for this performance... live! from new york! here is the youtube video of our number: . we opened for the beat freaks, boogie bots, ring masters, and iconic! they are all from mtv's americas best dance crew. yay! to add to our musical trip, we saw the musical "in the heights" (from a great height... since our seats were pretty high up).

last day of school: before the last day of school, middle school life is very traumatizing. exams. i was really freaked out by my first day of exams, where i had my two (most stressful) high school exams: my algebra exam, and my spanish exam. it turns out that they were both super easy, and that i was worrying for nothing. good thing i didn't study too much. :)
at my school, the last day of school has no purpose at all. i always wonder why there is an extra day at the end of each school year where we do nothing. very boring. after the dismissal bell rang, it was so loud!! everywhere, people were screaming things like "freedom" or just randomly screaming. i think my hearing was slightly damaged. and emptying out the entire contents of my locker? into my backpack?? not easy to do.
after school, i went to an end of the school party that two of my friends were having. they live across from each other, so it was pretty convenient. i went on the bus home with them, which was more like a circus than a bus. it was amazing how lenient the bus driver was about the "rules"... people were climbing over seats, doing flips, putting their legs out of the windows, running down the aisles... but i just stayed sitting in my seat, looking around me awkwardly. honestly, i've never been one to break the rules. at the party, we had water fights with water balloons and water guns. we ran around having a blast....... for about 2 minutes. that was when we realized we ran out of balloons. there were 10 water balloons. after that, we put a watermelon on the ground, and smashed it open with a baseball bat!! i had always wanted to do that; it is even more fun than it looks on TV. then we ate the pieces of watermelon. i decided to be bold and take one of the most ginormous pieces. i had to bury my face into it in order to get every single piece. by the time i was finished, my face was covered in watermelon, and i was walking around very very slowly.

remember december

hi everyone,
at the very beginning of december i went to sportrock with my girl scout troop and we stayed over night. we learned how to belay, put our harness on, and do safety knots. we learned all this by midnight, and then only after that were we allowed to climb. they only turned the lights out at 2:30 am so i stayed up really late. at one point i was belaying a 14 yr old girl and i didn't have an anchor to hold me down to the floor. so when she was coming down the wall, i flew off the ground and my belaying backup was holding my ankle, trying to pull me down. it was so freaky. i thought it would work because one of the people who worked at sportrock did an example like that, but apparently he's much heavier than i am.

about a week into december, i had my first debate. our team was jessica, david and me. for the debate, we met a lot to practice speaking and to get data organized. we went to the debate and we debated four topics, four different teams. for one topic, there should be childcare facilities for all high school students on site. since we were the proposition side, we made our definition, childcare for high school mothers' children. the other team stated that teenage pregnancy is bad, then david stood up and asked him "why is teenage pregnancy bad?" he couldn't think of an answer to that. he didn't say anything for a really long time and the other two girls on his team were writing notes really quickly to him. he couldn't read their writing so he just said "uh, okay?" in the end, we won 7th place team out of about 30 teams.

the next weekend, our girl scout troop and i went to "just cakes" to decorate cookies and cakes. we rolled dough and made it into gingerbread cookies. we decorated them with frosting. we were given cakes to put the frosting on and we decorated them with different colors and shapes of frosting caps. on my cake, i made a green border around the bottom of the cake, a border around the top and a christmas tree in the middle. the bakery smelled like butter and sugar, the things that make food taste so good.

that weekend, i also danced in a hip hop version of the play, a christmas carol. there were 3 shows. we had to stay at the performances for 2 hrs before they even started, basically to just get our make-up and costumes ready, but most of the time we were just sitting around, not allowed to talk. the 2nd and 3rd plays were much better than the first. for one of the dances in the first play, they couldn't find the music, so we had to skip that dance. there was one really big dressing room with a lot of people in it. people were running in and out of the dressing room to get backstage. on the bright side, there was a speaker in the room that connected to the microphones on stage so we could hear the songs and the lines of the actors. it was really fun to dress up as beggars, '80s people, and in christmas colors. we danced the same routines we performed at the walk for the homeless event and the miss teen dc pageant. we also added a few christmas dances into the play.

on tuesday, i performed in our school orchestra/band concert. my friend simone and i played with the 7th/8th grade orchestra. we played "the entrance of the queen of sheba"and "themes from the nutcracker." a few weeks back, i tried out for 6th grade county honors orchestra. we had to play a prepared piece which was really simple, play a few scales, and sight read a piece our orchestra teacher chose. i was excited when i found out that a couple of my friends and i all made honors orchestra. i'm hoping we'll play more complicated pieces than the pieces we play in school orchestra.

very recently, my mom and i made cookies for all my teachers, except for my PE teacher. he said he takes a walk at 5 am everyday so i figured he wouldn't want cookies. we made chocolate chip cookies, shortbread cookies and fudge. the chocolate chip cookies and the shortbread turned out really well. the fudge not so much. we only had enough good pieces to give one per teacher. there were 9 teachers. you'd think we'd know how to make fudge perfectly because i did a science fair project on how lava is like fudge last year. we made a lot of fudge then. we got little christmas tins with snowmen on them (because they're non-denominational) to put our cookies in. i gave gift cards to a few of my teachers, plus my PE teacher.

my next post will probably be from california! land of fun + sun!!

beatriz

guitars and ping pong

hi all,

today i had a dance class. it's so fun! but, all the other kids are like, in kindergarten, 1st grade or 2nd. so, you hear jasmine, the teacher saying, "please, stand up!" or "don't talk." so, it gets a little irritating because all the kids are talking and fooling around.
after the class we went to the Guitar Center and the walls were filled with guitars! it was crazy. i was playing this cute blue Fender electric guitar. but, it was full size. the sales man brought a 3/4 size one that was the same but it was this awesome red color. it was such a good price, too. i have an acoustic guitar, but electric guitars, you can change the sounds and stuff. they even have little microphones under each string. the chords are a bit easier to play on the electric because the strings are a little closer together. so, i am getting the red electric guitar and amplifier for an early Christmas present.
we also went to the Palisades pool for a few hours. my sister, ella, always wants me to play in the smaller pool with her. so, i usually do for a little, then we usually go to the bigger pool and sometimes even the well. it's cute how, when we play ping pong there, ella always plays with my mom and she's not half bad. she's actually pretty good, but sometimes she gets all "pumped up" and hits it really high or into a closet near the tables. lol. she just started playing (she's 6) and she's good.

beatriz atsavapranee