bruised

I am sitting here in my chair nursing my seriously bruised toenails. That is the fine thanks you get for practising in your pointe shoes for two hours. I sit here in contemplation of what this sacrifice (not simply physical) really is for. Well, yes, for my exam, but I really want to do more than simply perform in front of an examiner. I really want to perform in front of a real audience on a real stage.

I suppose it's the same with school exams. We make sacrifices (or not - cramming the night before IS a sacrifice =D) to do as well as we can but for those results to come to any avail, you'd have to use them in pursuing something much greater.

This fine line distinguishes my world of ballet and school. The furthest I will ever get to performing I think EVER will be at the CIS Awards Night. Quite frankly, that's nothing. If there was anything I could wish I for, it would be to be given the opportunity to perform somewhere sometime, which of course involves classes and time and to put it into one word, sacrifice. I'd have to put up with coming with.. bruised toenails and a sore brain, YES YOU DO ACTUALLY HAVE TO USE YOUR BRAIN A LOT IN BALLET and not having much energy to lift anything but a pen let alone put it to paper.

On the other hand, you'd have to look at it this way. A ballet class works like a tonic: it really makes you forget your pain, your distress and anything else that hurts. After all, when you dance, you really do become another person.

Sometimes I just think of the other life I could live. It would all have to start when I was just 4 and started ballet lessons. I would attend all the possible classes, end up going to a school for dancers, finish Solo Seal when I am 15. Not only that, every year, there would be the annual Classical Ballet Concert where each class put forward a piece of repertoire. There would be the Eisteddfords and finally the Premier State Ballet. I could work my butt off for that prize: a scholarship to the Austrailan/Royal/English National/New Zealand/Royal Winnipeg/Mariinsky/Bolshoi/Berlin/Paris Opera/Kirov/Birmingham/ABT Ballet School. I could maybe get a contract and be a corps de ballet dancer for my whole life BUT THAT WOULDN'T MATTER. I could still exist in that ballet world even if I was that person on the side who did 9 hours of training a day to stand on the side in one pose for a few minutes.

But I will never will. I won't even get CLOSE to that at all. Then there's the money problem. It's not that affordable to have the classes I have at the moment and that's only for 4 and a half hours a week. Then of course there's the relentess cost of uniform. 3 * leotards at least so that you don't wear the same one every day - up to $180, at least 2 * pointe shoes to last the year - up to $130 each pair including ribbons and toe pads, at least 2/3 * pairs demi-pointes, they get scuffed really easily - up to $110 including ribbons. If you would like to comply with the general 'other' uniform - pair of shorts $30, pair of warm up pants $30, pair of leg warmers $20, pair of feet warmers $20, crossover $30, warmup 'jumper' $30. Performances - bodystocking $40, new everything, certain type of tights, cost for costumes which can be up to $100. Exams - new everything, leotard, tights, shoes. Yes - money does make the world go around. Money would make things a lot easier. It hurts to know that to do what I love, it has to hurt another.

I'd think that watching the Act 3 Grand Pas de Deux in Swan Lake would make me feel a little better. I really do think it hurts just that little more.

parties = GORGE = fat

I have a serious love-hate relationship with parties. I love parties because well, hey, PARTY TIME. The fact that there is free food on offer, generally not the wholesome kind. For that very same reason, I hate them.

It's a strange thing conscience. It doesn't quite hit you after you've committed the greatest sin which today was eating:

- a slice of totally evil cake
- eating more than half the chocolate on offer
- eating a mini Crunchie
- drinking more than half a Sunkist
- drinking coconut milk
- watermelon slices even though i was REALLY full
- watching Anita's pigeon eat seeds and thinking YUM

When I walked back to the car, I thought I SHOULD NOT HAVE EATEN THAT AT ALL

So basically this proves my hypothesis to be quite true: Parties = gorge = fat
That's not to say Anita's party was not fun. It was. Despite the fact I only spent 1 and a half hours there, YOU ARE SO ORIGINAL AND UNIQUE AND FRANKLY YOU'RE QUITE COOL. =D

But anyway, my previous hypothesis brings me to yet another hypothesis presented by Eve on several occasions, shall we say, on a daily basis? "YOU'RE FAT"

You're totally right Eve

a sentimental note to piano/piano practice

i do not like you.

Response to Eve's: my dream of post-exam stress

We were in the science lab and getting our marks back. For some odd strange reason, we had Ms Knapman as our science teacher. No one was really freaking out and I was having a massive panic attack at the back and Eve and Anita kept giving me looks that indicated I was insane. Well, I am. But that's not the point.

So we were getting our marks back and I went up to the front to collect my paper and as I picked it up, Ms Knapman said in a really creepy scary voice, "You did very badly. Very badly. I am not surprised." I ran back to my table at the back and looked at the marks on the front. It said 42. i freaked out. I looked through the paper to see where I went wrong and saw that I didn't do half the paper, I had just not done it at all. For the multiple choice section, all my answers were wrong.

Everyone was smiling when they were getting their marks back and asking other people what they got. Ms Knapman then asked several people to tell the class what they thought about their marks. She asked me first and I said that I make mistakes too often. Her eyes narrowed and she shouted, "You certainly do make mistakes. Not only, you're STUPID."

I repeated, "Yes, I am stupid and my marks show that."

"Tell us what you got."

"42"

"See everyone? This is what you don't get in a science exam. Don't be STUPID."