TIME IS FLYING

its already the 4th week of school.  

the past few weeks have been simultaneously uneventful and exhausting.  and hard too.  

the guy who lives downstairs LOVES to sing really, really loudly.  its almost out of control.  it must really be his passion or something.  too bad he isn't that good.  oh well, i can't judge.  i love to sing too and nobody wants to listen to that.

time is flying which is really nice.  i'm not in the mood to sit around and wait for things to happen.  however, that means my life is flying by and i'm not in the mood for that either.  i am a really moody person.  woof.

Obligatory i hate packing post

i'm moving up to school tomorrow for my senior year of college!  this.  my friends.  is amazing to think about.  yes, i am a little bit sad for this journey to be coming to an end but mostly i am so excited for what comes after.  whatever that is.  

but before all that can happen i have to pack.  then i have to move it all in to my new apartment.  then i have to unpack.  gag.  

Life

it has been a REALLY exhausting week.  

exhausting in both good and not so good ways.  

sunday-wednesday was spent with fun girls at a fun cottage doing fun things!  i bleached my hair and got super tan.  

thursday my mom and i went to toledo to visit her relatives.  while there my dad called to tell us that his dad, my only grandpa, had suffered a small-ish stroke.  we were told he would be in the hospital for awhile but that he was doing fine.  

today we drove to cleveland to visit him.  i've never been to visit anyone in the hospital before and i didn't know what to expect.  from what i had been told i imagined grandpa sitting up in bed in the hospital room looking like his normal self, but maybe slightly tired.  i wasn't expecting all of the hospital-ly wires that were attached to him or the oxygen mask.  i wasn't expecting him to look so frail.  it was really, really scary.  

i love my grandpa so much.  he's such a smart and kind man.  he loves building and working with his hands, i grew up watching him make bird houses out of gourds and fix whatever needed fixing.  he loves doing puzzles and reading books about history.  today i could tell that the stroke had really freaked him out as much as it had us.  probably more.  

i keep telling myself that he will be ok.  he will be ok.  he will be ok and i will see him again soon.

the hardest part is realizing that it isn't just me who is aging each day.  the people i love are aging too.  as much as i complain about getting older and how hard it is to grow up and be responsible and blah blah blah...i am blessed to be young and just beginning the rest of my life. 

Not much to say

maybe you have noticed that i don't always have a lot to say here on the blog.  a lot of times i want to write one sentence because that's all i have to say, but then i feel dumb making a one sentence long blog post.  

also, maybe you have noticed that i suck at technology and posting pictures and videos.  

check this out:

baileyb.tumblr.com

makes short updates possible and it is easy to upload videos!  the video from my previous post is on there and working so check that out.  i will still update this blog if i have important things to say, but that is getting way rare.  

ADF #2 a.k.a. Ohad Naharin is it

too much going on in my life and head for a blog update.  this is going to be the short version of what could be a really long and confusing ramble.  

who is ohad naharin?  if you know, then you KNOW that he is it.  for real, i'm in love with this man...especially his brain.  so good.

this past semester in pittsburgh i saw batsheva dance company perform naharin's "three."  it was extremely beautiful and intricate and complex and all of that cool stuff.  

thursday night i had the pleasure to see cedar lake contemporary ballet company perform "deca dance."  it was the single best live performance of any kind i have seen to date (well maybe just in the dance category).  

it was so incredibly complex and in your face and of course the choreography was just completely mind blowing.  i heard a lot of complaints about the pure weight of all that information in one performance being too overwhelming, but i like to think that naharin trusts that the audience is able to handle it.  throughout the performance i felt so many different emotions.  disgust, sadness, hilarity, confusion, intimacy, satisfaction.  how wonderful that i got to experience something so meaningful.

"Deca Dance is not a new work. It is more about reconstruction: I like to take pieces or sections of existing works and rework it, reorganize it and create the possibility to look at it from a new angle. It always teaches me something new about my work and composition. In Deca Dance I took sections from different works. It was like I was telling only either the beginning, middle or ending of many stories but when I organized it the result become as coherent as the original if not more." - Ohad Naharin Photo by Bruce Long i also got to take a class from ohad while he was here at adf.  like i said, i am in love.   "If you could hold one of Ohad Naharin's dances in your hand, it would feel smooth. Think of a polished stone. It looks like a piece of secret sculpture, but hurl it and it becomes a weapon." --Village Voice

ADIEU!  

AMERICAN DANCE FESTIVAL #1

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

i almost decided to put the blog on hold while in north carolina, but then i thought about all the people whose lives would become so so empty without it and i decided not to let that happen.  woo!  the three of you who read this!  

there isn't any internet where i'm staying so this is the first time i've been online since arriving a week ago.  

short update: i love it here.

long update: north carolina is beautiful, duke university is awesome, and the adf is heaps of fun piled on top of heaps of fun.  

preview weekend consisted of abbreviated classes with all of the faculty that started at 9am and finished at 9pm.  throw in about eleven or twelve auditions, crazy amounts of heat and humidity and you have my first experience of this place.  exhausting but good.  

i'm currently taking a modern class, an improv, a comp, dance notation, and pilates.  it's a full load!  tonight is the first performance of the adf performance series.  we get to see shen wei dance arts.  i know nothing about them yet (should probably google) but i'm sure i'll enjoy it.  

on to more interesting things:

this is the little house/converted garage i am living in all summer.  the woman who owns it talks just like paula dean and has a million projects going on all the time.  someday soon i'll have to take a larger picture of things.  meaning her yard.  whoa.

the inside!  its a tight squeeze but jean and i are making it work.  on sunday it became apparent that we would need to start keeping track of the centipedes living with us.  the count is now at eleven.  

this is my roommate jean!  one and a half (g)jeans!

this is our whole group (minus dwenda who is busy being an intern) on one of the huge dorm benches.  

five and a half more weeks of this?  i'm down.  

Last minute thoughts before i leave...TOMORROW!

i have always been a last minute packer.  this is how i found myself with heaps of laundry and empty suitcases today i guess.  however, it is finished now so i can't be reprimanded for procrastinating!  ha!

so in order to distract myself from packing for most of the day i decided to get myself hooked on a new tv series.  it worked.  i'm now a fan of lost!  well i'm hardly even into season one, so no spoilers please!  

what's on the island?  what's the deal with locke?  he so totally knows something the others don't!  he has so totally seen something the others haven't!  why am i so intrigued by the korean couple?  which characters will i grow to love?  and hate?  which characters that i grow to love will die?

WHY AM I FIVE SEASONS BEHIND EVERYONE ELSE???????

oh bother, but as i mentioned i am leaving for adf tomorrow.  whoa, this has not quite sunk in fully yet.