Post-Graduate Life

I spent last weekend at home relaxing and getting a few freelance stories done. I also got some running in as well in my new running shoes. It was nice to finally feel like I had some time to myself.

I got back to Philly late afternoon Monday and I had planned to go to ballet–but my left leg really started to ache again (out of nowhere) and I decided it was best to stay home, even though I really wanted to go. I kept having a nagging pain in it while I was working all day Tuesday, and knew I’d have to put off running for a little while longer.

Yesterday, I got a different brand of Kinesio Tape in the mail that I had ordered (KT and I occasionally don’t get along–plus I ordered tape that wasn’t precut so I could cut it to the length I wanted). My leg seems to be doing better today. My boyfriend and I were supposed to get some running in this morning–but neither of us really moved from bed (and I wasn’t sure what time the track opened at my college since everything is on reduced summer hours). But, I’ll be trekking to ballet tonight in the lovely thunderstorms they’re expecting after over a week off.

 

Liebster Award!

2013-05-17b

First of all, thank you so much to Alice in Danceland for nominating me for the Liebster Award that’s been going around the blogosphere again recently. I’ve been nominated before but didn’t have the time to take part at the time–but now I do! The rules are as follows:

Here are the rules for accepting the award:

  • Thank the person who nominated you and include a link back to their blog.
  • List 11 random facts about yourself.
  • Answer the 11 questions given to you.
  • Create 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate.
  • Choose 11 bloggers with 200 or less followers to nominate and include links to their blogs.
  • Go to each bloggers page and let them know you have nominated them.

11 Random Facts:

  1. I began dancing ballet a year ago.
  2. I also recently began running and fell in love with that as well.
  3. I’m obsessed with Hello Kitty and once tried to start a Hello Kitty blog.
  4. Before starting Adult Ballerina Project, I ran a blog called A TV and A Girl about my obsession with TV. My friends make fun of the blog title and started calling me Avatar Girl.
  5. The only reason people ever ended up looking at that blog was because I did a video tutorial on how to do Quinn’s braid from Glee. It got a surprising amount of hits on YouTube for how crappy the quality was.
  6. I don’t have cable and instead I watch almost everything on Netflix. I just finished Fringe, I’m trying to finish up Bones.
  7. When I do watch TV, I watch Scandal using my crappy TV antenna.
  8. I have super flat feet which has caused a lot of shin splints during both ballet and running.
  9. I’d be lost without my foam roller and compression socks.
  10. I’m working on doing more freelance writing now that I’ve graduated.
  11. I also love turtles.

 

11 Questions asked by AliceinDanceland:

  1. What is your favourite to-go stretch or exercise? Pigeon’s pose or downward facing dog. Pigeon’s Pose for my hips, downward facing dog for my shins.
  2. Favourite genre of music? alternative rock.
  3. If you could attend any professional academy or university in the world, which would it be? Hmmm…this is a weird question to answer since I just graduated. But probably Columbia for journalism grad school.
  4. If you could live in any other time period, what would it be? Can I chose the future? I’d want to see all the new technology that develops.
  5. What is your favourite social media site and why? Twitter. I love that I can tweet a lot more than Facebook updating.
  6. What is your favourite dessert? Fried ice cream. My mom made me an awesome fried ice cream cake for my graduation.
  7. What do you miss most about your childhood? Not having any responsibilities.
  8. What has been the biggest challenge in your life thus far? I think trying to find a full-time job will be a huge challenge I now have to overcome.
  9. What is one thing you want to improve about yourself? I want to both improve in running and ballet–and get better at updating ballet.
  10. How do you like your water? Plain? Infused with fruit juice? Seltzer? Plain!
  11. Any plans for the upcoming summer? Part-time internship with Campus Philly, freelancing, hopefully a job.

 

11 Questions for the Blogs I nominate:

  1. Why did you start blogging?
  2. If you were stuck on a desert island and could only bring 3 items, what would you bring?
  3. What is the significance of your blog title?
  4. What are your other hobbies?
  5. What are your summer plans?
  6. What is your favorite fruit or vegetable?
  7. Who is one celebrity you are dying to meet, alive or dead?
  8. If you could  change to any career, what would it be?
  9. What is your favorite animal, and why?
  10. If you had to give up a form of social media, which one would you give up?
  11. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?

 

11 Blogs I nominate:

  1. The Active Gamer
  2. Under the Purple Magnolia Tree
  3. LoveBallet89
  4. Ballet Shoes and Mickey Ears
  5. Live and Be Awesome
  6. The Spicy Mermaid
  7. Back to the Barre
  8. Some Assemble Required
  9. The 109th Bead
  10. Thanks and Kittens
  11. Diary of a Slow Runner

Say what–I’m graduating???

This is only been my second post this week because I’ve been busy finishing up my college career. I took my last final yesterday from the comfort of my own bed at nine in the morning (I got an A-) and then had my Honor’s College Graduation last night. I had a job interview this afternoon for a part-time job to go with my internship with Campus Philly over the summer (keep your fingers crossed for me!) so that I don’t go completely broke.

Tomorrow is my last TWO graduations. Since Temple University is so huge, we have one ceremony in the morning with everyone university wide who is graduating and then one in the afternoon for our college. Woohoo!

So another reason I’ve not posted very much this week is I’ve decided to take the week off ballet AND running. Saturday and Sunday I had a pretty severe case of shin splints (I rocked my KT Tape at the interview and had everyone asking me what was up with my leg) so I decided between everything else that was going on, I should probably take this week off. I also pulled/strained/did something wacky to my lower right back in yoga (either in the studio or at home…I’m so busy that I can’t remember) so I’ve been taking it super easy. I should be okay to go for a short run this weekend while I’m back at home and then back to ballet on Monday when I get back to Philly to start at Campus Philly.

So I apologize if I don’t get the ballerina profile that usually goes up on Friday but I promise that it’ll be up as soon as I can get to it!

A Lovely Night at Pennsylvania Ballet’s Carnival of the Animals

I am always grateful for every chance I get to go see a ballet company perform because I don’t usually have the money to do so–that’s why I’ve seen so very few ballets. This time, I got the chance to see it with my boyfriend because I won a Twitter contest with TheArtsInPhilly. They do contests all the time to all sorts of arts performances in Philadelphia, so they’re definitely worth the follow.

Artists of Pennsylvania Ballet Photos: Alexander Iziliaev

Artists of Pennsylvania Ballet
Photos: Alexander Iziliaev

The first performance of the evening was Ballo Della Regina. Jong Sung Park impressed me greatly with his work during this piece, with impressive changemants and series of pirouettes  Roy Kaiser, PA Ballet’s artistic director, notes that this ballet places unique demands on the principal ballerina and that they were fortunate to get to work with Merill Ashley in the piece, whom Balanchine created the ballet for. It’s was clear to me and the boyfriend that in Friday’s performance that Lilian Di Piazza struggled somewhat (stepping in last minute for Brooke Moore–but even so, the dance was really powerful. The piece also featured several other soloists and was all together enjoyable.

Four Temperaments is another Balanchine piece, one that I enjoyed slightly less than the rest of the evening’s works. The dancers were dressed as if they were attending a ballet class–the female dancers wore simple black leotards and pink tights while the male dancers wore white shirts and black tights. This allowed me to focus on their movements instead of their costumes.

The first theme was one of my favorites. Elizabeth Mateer gracefully executed movements–one of my favorites was when she wrapped her leg in attitude around Harrison Monanco and dipped the top part of her body down and spread her arms out and bent them as if she was a low flying bird. As their theme finished, Monanco dragged Mateer, who was in a straddle, off-stage.

I really wish I could have seen Jermel Johnson perform the Phlegmatic temperament opening night since I was very impressed with him in Midsummer’s Night Dream. Gabriella Yudenich was impressive as ever, however, in the Choleric temperament and the finale. Four male dancers carefully turned Yudenich while in arabesque, around and around, all while she remained perfectly positioned.

My favorite part of the evening was definitely Wheeldon’s Carnival of the Animals. It’s the story of a young boy, Oliver, who falls asleep in the Natural History museum and goes unnoticed. He dreams that all of his classmates, friends, and family have turned into animals. It made me laugh, and was definitely a reminder that ballet can be fun.

John Litgow was the perfect narrator for the piece and also wrote the comedic text he performed. Although their were some audio issues, Litgow did the best he could to project his voice so that it could be heard in the theater.

I won’t go into great detail about all the different animal segments–they were all wonderful and extremely comical. My favorite parts included the Turtle twins (Alyson Pray and Yudenich) who moved with ballet grace and the molasses-like speed of turtles, Johnson who swayed and moved on his arms like a real baboon (and to Jonathan Block as Oliver who copied his baboon-like piano’s teachers movements, Litgow as female elephant nurse (who is even lifted by the fellow rat dancers) and the ballerina fossils (in a production Oliver who spewed dust from their tutus with carefully executed brushes of the arms.

The most precious moment of the evening came during the baboon sequence. Oliver’s piano teacher keeps telling him to keep practicing and Oliver sighs each time he has to redo the exercise–the third time his teacher tells him to redo it a little girl in front of us also loudly sighed with a gigantic “awwww” that showed she was just as frustrated as Oliver was.

As always, a trip to the ballet always makes me want to practice it even more–and my boyfriend is also hoping he can find a way to take classes again this summer as well.

Beginner Ballerina Profile: Riette Hartzenberg

Today’s profile is of Riette Hartzenberg, who also takes classes at Susan Attfield’s ballet studio in South Africa.

When did you start doing ballet as an adult?

About 3 years ago.

Did you ever take lessons as a kid?

No.

Why did you decide to take ballet as an adult?

It was something I always wanted to do and finally got around to doing. I also read an article about the toning benefits of a good ballet session.

Riette Hartzenberg Where do you take classes?

At the Irene dance hub.

What is your favorite part about ballet?

Getting something right after lots and lots of practice. Furthermore it forces you to concentrate on nothing else for an hour. For an hour you are “forced” to spend some me-time with yourself. Plus it is really very toning. I made some good friends and we laugh a lot.

What is your least favorite part?

Pirouettes. I don’t handle turns very well.

What motivates you to keep dancing?

I really enjoy it.

What are your hobbies outside of ballet?

I go the gym a few times during the week, and enjoy doing arts and crafts.

What advice would you like to give to those who want to start ballet or have just started?

Go for it! Just enjoy it and give yourself time to grow into it. We all like to be perfect from the start, but you have to be between 5 and 15 to master it in a day.

Riette Hartzenberg 2nd from left

Riette Hartzenberg is 2nd from left

Find a school close to you and sign up today!