Life in the fast lane!

Well, my lovely summer is about over. Since coming back from Philadelphia I've been to Yosemite National Park, which was just a leisurely trip to take a jaunt up a rock, and then Mommy and I spent a wonderful few days at South Carlsbad beach. We were able to watch a beautiful sunset and take several rather long walks in the sand :) Now it's back to crunch time, not only with school but another very exciting thing that's happened to me. It's not a job, yet, but I'm dancing with the company at San Diego Ballet. So I'm not being paid to dance but it's kinda like I am because I don't have pay tuition for classes :D So I have 3 performances in October before we even think about Nutcracker. I will also be going on tour with the company and doing the Nutcracker in Montana over Thanksgiving weekend!!! To say the least, I'm ECSTATIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is what I've been working for and it feels so good to finally do it!! Ok, changing gears, back to school. My 3rd quarter of school starts this Thursday, Sept 22, and I'm going to be a busy girl. This quarter I have herbology(really excited about this one!), upper body kinesiology, deep tissue massage, neuromuscular massage and chair massage. So if anyone wants a massage, most likely I'll need practice hours! So if any of you are curious here's an example of my average day:

6am ~ get up and get ready for the day
8am ~ leave the house
9:30am ~ company class
11am ~ rehearsal
1pm ~ leave rehearsal and head to school
1:30pm ~ start school with a clear head
5:30pm ~ leave school with my brains fried
6:30pm ~ get home for dinner and study school and any dances I need to
10pm ~ try and go to bed

That is going to be my average week day, my weekends on the other hand:

6am ~ get up and get ready for dance
8am ~ leave the house
9:30am ~ company class
11am ~ rehearsal
5pm ~ leave to head home
6pm ~ arrive home for dinner then crash in bed, most likely

So that's pretty much going to be my life for at least the next 6 months. So if you don't see me for some time or you don't hear from me, don't worry I shouldn't be dead ;) Just keep trying and eventually I'll get back to you!

Half Dome vs. Grand Canyon

Okydoky, Half Dome was so much easier than Grand Canyon. I'm going to abbreviate so bare with me. GC was longer and we were going uphill at the end. HD was shorter and we went up to begin with. HD was steeper and harder in the fact that it was a climb most of the way and not a hike. But all in all GC took a bigger toll on me then HD did. The hardest part of HD were the cables and that was the hardest place mentally. I was telling my uncle it's not that you couldn't die in the GC but when you're standing on this big rock with nothing but your hands gripping the cables and keeping your footing keeping you from a fall to your death, in that perspective it was harder than GC. But hey, I'm alive and so is the rest of the group that went, so we're all good!! Here are some highlights of the trip :)

5 sandwiches, cheez-its, M&M's, peanut M&M's, chip's ahoy, apple, vanilla wafers, fig newtons, pita chips, trail mix, assorted chocolate bars...that consisted of our lunch for the hike!  

We left camp at this time and started the hike at 5:51am

Vernal Falls on the Mist trail

Nevada Falls farther up

4.5 miles left!!

Half Dome!

The cables leading up to the dome. The cables are the line on the left

View of Yosemite Valley from on top. That's Me and Jeffery, my cousin, out on that rock

Our group. We did it!!!

Half Dome here I come!!!

Well, our family should be leaving within the next few hours for Yosemite National Park to hike/climb Half Dome. Yes I know everyone who reads this is now going to say 'be careful and don't fall off!' I have no intention of falling off but I can't say it won't happen. But I can say that if I do take a speedy trip down that it won't be because I did something stupid. And when I get to the bottom, after it's all said and done, I'll be sure to let y'all know which was harder, Half Dome or Grand Canyon. I can't wait, haven't had a vacation in quite some time and I really need to get away before dance and school start to take over my life, like they haven't already! Well here's a look at what's on my agenda for Thursday!

These are the cables going up the face of Half Dome

Looking at Half Dome from Yosemite Valley

Pics of today!

There is no secret so close as that between a rider and his horse
~ Robert Smith Surtees

Walked out into the garage tonight and this little guy was chillin' out on the carpet.  Daddy tried to get him out with a wooden dowel but that wasn't working so I grabbed the broom and jointly we got him/it outside and pinned down until Mommy got the trash can and he/it slithered inside and we relocated him/it to a different part of the property.
We think it's a gopher snake. It's not a rattler or else it would be in our freezer by now.
No I'm not kidding!

More pics!!

Probably the best Chinese food I've had!

All us roomies and our chaperone having way too much fun eating cake

This is normal...

...so is this!

Me and Sander :)

The Spirit of Philadelphia cruise ship we went on

Me and Ceil!!

Basically my first view of the Atlantic

Proof I was in it!!

Ocean City board walk

Me and one of my teachers

Me and Steph, the co-director

Me and my favorite teacher!!

Can you tell we're ready to go home?

The Rock School

So much fun happened at this bridge,
the best was the bus driver pushing other cars out because both the bus and another car wouldn't fit

The bus we rode most of the time :)

The pretties part of the campus to me. A path that led to the dining hall

So Cal!!

I'm home!!!! Been home for a week now and I'm happy to be. I do miss the scenery in Philly and the few friends I made there but it feels good to be home. So I left last Saturday and saying good bye to my chaperone was hard, at least I almost cried I don't know about her. The only downer was that the last shuttle to pick up students for the airport was at noon and my flight didn't leave until 5:20pm. So I was a little annoyed that I had to cool my heels in the airport for 5 hours but my friend stopped by the airport when i was dropped off and sat with me for a couple hours to pass the time until I went through security. Then I had a slight flight issue in which my flight from Philly to Denver was late so it was originally going to make me too late to catch my next flight. But I think we had a lead foot pilot because we left Philadelphia 40mins late and arrived in Denver 30mins early. Go figure!! So I was able to make my flight with plenty of time and was able to make a few calls while I was there. I eventually made it home at about 10pm but my body, still on eastern time, thought it was 1am and I was pretty tired. Both Daddy and Mommy came to get me from the airport so I didn't have to manage all my bags by myself. It took my body a few days to get adjusted back to California time but once it did I was fine. Here are some of my favorite pics from my whole trip!!

Philly skyline

Looking down Broad Street

Mommy and I splurged!!

My home for the next 6 weeks!

Haha!

Jim's on South Street...

...had the best cheese steaks EVER!!!!!!!

I love the town homes

Natural, nonpayed for green!

This was in a Walmart parking lot. Awesome!!

My room, after I made it mine

Rocky!!!!!

The famous LOVE statue in Love Park

My friends and I went out to dinner for Shannon's birthday

More pics to come!!! :)

I don't know what to call this part 2

So the performance at The Mann went well and now we're gearing up for our performance on Friday at the GAMP, a school. We're also doing a showcase, of sorts, on Thursday of some variations we've learned. I was put in a group to perform The Rock's version of Esmeralda, a playful gypsy that dances with a tambourine. After the showcase on Friday, I'm going on a cruise hosted by the Rock staff for the dancers and parents. We'll be on the Spirit of Philadelphia cruise ship for 3 glorious hours!! I can't wait, it sounds so fun! It's going to be pretty sad on Friday cause a lot of my friends that I've made are not staying for the last week, which kinda bums me out. Kind of off on a tangent here, the one thing I won't miss here is the food. I'm so sick of salad you have no idea! The food at Cabrini College is passable but at the Rock...I think they think that dancers can last 6.5hrs on salad, no carbs, and no sugar. True we're not supposed to eat a lot of sugar but the only that keeps us going is the jell-o and ice cream. I'm really starting to crave red meat and real Mexican food!

Me standing on the fountain at Lincoln Center, NY

I don't know what to call this

So right now it's Sunday and I'm doing absolutely nothing, and it's awesome!!!! But I'm also ordered by my teacher, Jose Chavez, to do nothing today to rest my hip. I overworked my right hip flexor like 2 weeks ago and it's just been getting worse, so I'm basically on time-out for the day. So let's see, what have I done that I haven't told you about, probably a lot! So I went to New York City last Sunday and it was amazing!! We went on the ferry to Staton Island, saw the Statue of Liberty, then we went to a small little seaport mall and did some shopping. After that we went to the Radio City Music Hall and saw Cirque du Soleil perform Zarkana, which was amazing!! After that was dinner at Planet Hollywood, then over to Lincoln Center. I was able to see a very good friend there, who is doing School of American Ballet's summer intensive, and it was great to see him! Let's see, then I had a performance at the Mann Center on Wednesday, which is an outdoor theater and it was so hot. I'm surprised no one passed out on stage it was that hot. To be continued...

Day ?

So I finally got internet, in an ever so slightly illegal way, so here's an update on what I've done and how I am. I checked into Cabrini College, got my key and card and met my roommate. She's nice, which is a God send, and we get a long well. I get up fro breakfast at about 8am, then come back to my room and shower, dress and all that jazz. Then the bus picks us up at 10am, for those people who start class late, like me. It's about 45 minutes to an hour drive from the dorms to the studio, but what's nice is that the Rock School has their own transportation so we don't need to ride public transportation. First class is from 11 - 12:30, then lunch from 12:30 - 2pm, then random classes from 2 - 5, then rehearsal from 5 - 6:30.  I've gone to Cherry Hill mall, which was awesome!! Well off to bed, post more later!!! :)

Day 1

So I woke up this morning at 3:30, but didn't actually get out of bed until 4:00. Got ready, finished packing and headed down to the airport with Mommy at about 5:30. Our flight felt at 8:15 so we figured getting down there at about 6:30 would be ok. Southwest, most of the time, has a tent set up out front where you can check in your luggage before you go in, which I think is a fabulous idea. So we check our luggage in and the max weight before they charge you is 50lbs. My big suitcase weighed 61lbs. Sorry Mommy!! So we got charged for that, but the rest were fine. Starbucks in hand we went and sat down to wait for our flight.

Our first flight went well, as well as a plane ride can go. We couldn't find a continuing flight due to distance, so we had to change planes in Phoenix. Mom and I were hungry so we inhaled a small pizza from Pizza Hut and then boarded our 2nd plane from Phoenix to Philadelphia. We ended up flying with the Arizona Rattlers football team, a semi-pro team. And I got to meet and sit in the same row as the quarterback!! So cool!!! 4hrs and 45mins is the LONGEST I've ever been in the air and that's plenty for me.

What Mommy does on the plane

What I do...apparently!