Right now, I'm in St. Paul, MN for the 2008 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. How FREAKING exciting is that?? If you can't tell, I'm pretty stoked :) I've been here two days and I love it already. Then again, I always love nationals, and I knew I was gonna love this one before I even left. But, having some pretty awesome practices help too. I'm done practicing for the day and I feel so accomplished...actually not accomplished enough since I'm supposed to be writing my Art paper, but I haven't started yet...ergh. Oh well. It will get done, though.
I think it's a little bit sad that I have a website that I'm supposed to update there, but instead I've been updating my xanga. hmmm... well, I better get moving on my paper. I will try to update more as the week goes on.
wow, I have not posted on my xanga in a LONG time. so long, in fact, that my password didn't work ( I guess I musta forgot it). But I have resurrected it because I wish to share some Christmas love. :)
A couple of weeks ago, I did a Christmas show at my rink. Now, usually, I don't get very excited about shows I do mainly cuz there isn't really anything to get excited about : I go, skate, and leave. BUT. this time was different. I was OUT OF MY MIND excited. why? because this show was gonna see something no one has ever seen before!! months earlier, I had this brilliant idea that the elite skaters should just do a big cool group number (actually, to tell the truth, I was joking cuz I just wanted to do a fun number rather than go through the hassle of finding and choreographing a new Christmas number... lol). That never really took hold, but then I came up with ANOTHER brilliant idea (i'm just genius) that me and my friend Braden Overett should do a number together. He thought it was a pretty cool idea too so we flippantly agreed to it, not thinking about it much since it was months away. Well, soon the deadline to have our music picked out was coming up, and I spent hours browsing music sites for an original Christmas song. I wanted something that people didn't hear that much around the holidays, and wasn't something too traditional. I finally decided upon Clay Aiken's version of "Mary, Did You Know?" I fell in love with the song the first time i heard it sung live by Jubilant Sykes (sp?) and Clay's version was amazing too.
I brought it to the rink to start choreographing, when Braden heard it and also fell in love with the song. He wanted to skate to it SO badly that he asked if we could just skate to it together. that way, HE would get to skate to it and he wouldn't be stealing it away from me. haha. So I agreed as long as he found a different piece for me to skate to for my solo. Well, my coach ended up finding something for me, and Braden and I started to get really excited for our duet. It's amazing how something can end up even greater than you thought it could when you thoroughly love every aspect of it. we loved the music, we loved working on the program, we loved working together, and we loved skating. It took us a week and a half to finish the program and 45 minutes to come up with an ending pose. but the overall result? and absolutely amazingly beautiful piece of art. (if I do say so myself)
We were so extremely excited to perform our number we couldn't contain ourselves. We would mention it every few minutes and get big goofy grins on our faces thinking about it. you might think that's a bit weird, but that just shows how much we loved that program. Well, the shows went off perfectly (we had two shows in one night). Friends came and the house was packed for the later show. Opening numbers, solos, finales all went off without a hitch. And our number? Definitely a hit. It was the best part of the show for us. We wanted the show to go faster so that we could get our solos over with but then we wanted time to stop when we performed our duet. strangest feeling. We were both extremely sad and disappointed when the night ended and we realized there were no more opportunities to skate our number again. good thing I recorded it huh? ;) yes, I recorded both shows on my little digicam and I came home and edited them together so that the best parts were all together. and I'm going to share it with you because I am just that darn proud of it and not afraid to say so. Here is my Christmas gift to all you xanga readers out there. Really, it's a present to myself cuz every time I watch it (and that's at least every day), it makes me smile. :) enjoy!
I'm not really sure what I want to write here. I don't want to right down the details of what happened to me, but I know I want to write something. ha. I am a very confused person right now.
I know!
I will right a list.a list of randomness. yay.
ok.
[1] the harder you try to understand what someone is saying, the more confused you'll get [2] traumatic things that come out of the blue will take a while to set in. there is a period of shock first. then when it finally sinks in, it hits you like an oncoming train and makes it much much worse [3] i don't understand alot of people [4]never take someone's perception of your feelings for granted. even when you think it's obvious. [5] silence is not always a good thing. especially if others think it is because you're holding something about them in [6] crying your heart out all night helps you lose weight [7] crying and not eating much for a day helps you lose weight [8] there are alot of tissues in one tissue box [9] crying, 5 hours of unrestful sleep, and not eating makes you exhausted and a little bit nauseous (sp?) [10]expect the unexpected. then nothing will hurt you.
and there it is. stay tuned. it might get updated.
Not only did I get to see my all time favorite musical, I paid $25 for front row seats, laughed hysterically over the antics of one Eric Stretch who was in the ensemble and did T-stops all around the stage (for those who don't know, it's a beginner's skating move), got a tour of backstage and met some of the cast, and saw it with two of my best friends. Only down side to it all was we couldn't find anyone to claim our last ticket. Sorry to everyone who wanted to see it, but I didn't call.
before every show, they do a lottery where you put your name in for a drawing to win two tickets for $25 each. me and joanna both put our names in with the hopes of at least one of us winning so that we could both see it. The drawing begins and we concentrate as hard as we could to "send good thoughts out into the universe" ken congemi/ The Secret style (we'd been doing this all day). First name comes up, no luck. Second name comes up... "be..be...trisha?" =O <--my face.OMG THAT'S ME!!he pulled my name out! creepy thing was Jo said sheKNEW he was gonna say my name second. she had that weird feeling of intuition. so we were already excited that we were getting the chance to go see it!! we waited around while the guy read off more names, and as Jo turned to me to say how excited she was I shushed her because she was ruining my concentration ( I was still sending those vibes out), and what happens? "Joanna Webber?"OH MY GOD!!! I KNEW IT!! it was the craziest thing in the world. she knew when my name was gonna come up and I knew when her name was gonna come up! we were shaking afterwards from all the excitement. We came and took a chance, and we won.TWICE. so we ended up withFOUR FRONT ROW TICKETS. we instantly called Nick to get in the car and get over there, and started calling everybody we knew who wanted to see it to see if they could make it. we tried for 2 hours, and no luck. everyone was busy or too far away. but, besides that small setback...
IT WAS AMAZING. I was already obsessed with the soundtrack, but once I saw it live, I fell in love with it all over again. it is by far my favorite musical. Megan Hilty and Eden Espinoza were absolutely incredible. The dancing, singing, and acting were flawless. the costumes were gorgeous. it was...it was... fantastic! (i'm running out of synonyms for amazing) I am definitely going again. there are tons of ppl that I'm supposed to go see it with. and if you never thought of going to see it, I highly recommend it. you may not think you're the "going to musicals" type, but I think this will go far in changing your mind.
My favorite scene wasDancing Through Life, but the most emotional one was when they sang this song:
