Advice on Performance

This Friday afternoon the university is hosting a festival type thing on the green that showcases various different clubs/activities we have to offer. Both the Juggling Club and the Ballroom Dance Team will be doing performances. Ballroom is easy enough to figure out what to do, but I am at a loss as to what to do for my Juggling Club performance. Anthony and Pete are the only two besides me who have shown interest in performing and they are both straight up jugglers - I am the only one in the club who really does the "crazy stuff."

So my question to you lovely people is what should I do? Hoop? Poi? Staff? I have not learned enough CJ to entertain a bunch of rowdy college kids. We have been trying to see if we could use fire, but we *still* have not received an answer which means fire eating is out. We only have a 10 minute time slot, so I think one, maybe two, toys should suffice. Which toy(s) should I use?

Nationals

My post about last weekend that I now finally have time to write up and post.
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This weekend was nuts. I volunteered to work at Nationals since I could not compete. Basically, Nationals is a huge ballroom competition for dancers of all levels and age groups from around the country. We had everyone from little kids in elementary school to people three to four times my age.

I got there bright and early Friday morning, around 8am. Ily - the volunteer coordinator - put me to work straight away. I went into a room and folded the certificate/awards papers and stuffed them into envelopes making sure as I worked that the right awards went into their corresponding envelopes. There were 260 of these, I believe. Granted, some were already done when I got there, but the majority of the envelops were done by me.

I left the room and went to hang out around where Maya was working and we chatted. I looked at some shoes, chatted some more...then Ily comes out of the ballroom, sees me, grabs me, and leads me into the ballroom to be a runner. A runner is the person that collects the scores from the judges and hands them in to be tallied when they use the paper and pencil method. Soon thereafter, the PDAs were up and running, so my job became obsolete. I hung around for a little while then decided I wanted to go get some breakfast in the break room.

I was literally IN the doorway of the ballroom when Ily walks in, sees me, grabs me, and takes me to the on-deck area. The PDAs for the judges were working, but the deck captain's PDA was not, so we had to check people in manually by looking at the program book which did not match the current competitor's list since they had been printed a while ago. So I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to line up the dancers in numerical order, make sure they were all accounted for, etc. Eventually the deck captain's PDA started working, but every now and then it would crash, so even when the PDA was working, we still had to use the paper/pencil method for check-in. I then spent the rest of the weekend co-deck captaining with Borbala.

This was NOT an easy job. The seniors were pretty easy to line up. They are old. They listen. The juniors, youths, and adults? Not so much. I spent the entire weekend (I worked close to 60 hours in those three days) yelling at people to get in line, checking them in, trying to track them down, etc. I was basically on my feet for 16+ hours each day. My knees were killing me by the end of the second day. My entire upper back was one giant muscle knot (10 times worse than it usually is, at the very least). My voice was practically shot from yelling all weekend.

And I would go back and do it again next year. Despite the insanity, and tons of work, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. CN8 will be broadcasting parts of the competition at some point and if you watch it, you might spot me dressed up in a suit. =) I got to talk to a bunch of my favorite junior/youth couples. They are *so* sweet. (If you watch Dancing with the Stars, Natasha and her partner did a guest performance. They also did a performance on America's Dance Challenge. She is really nice. I got to chat with her at Nationals and at the Arnold comp.) My favorite youth/adult Champ couple was also at Nationals and I got to talk with them all weekend. They train in Jersey, and the boy, Mechyslav, actually went to my high school. He apparently lives 10 minutes away from my parents' house! Small world, huh? His partner, Margaret, is really nice, too. She is so cute! I will probably be seeing them over the summer since I will be training at their dance studio while I am at home. =)

And the icing on the cake would be getting Maxim Chmerkovskiy's autograph (from Dancing with the Stars). It was really cute how he acted so surprised that someone would ask for his autograph. He is also a really nice guy. He is great with the kids he trains, he was nice and polite when he asked me about the scheduling for one of his competitors, and he is surprisingly approachable and easy to talk to. The girls on my ballroom team are rather jealous of me. Mwahaha.

All in all, it was a fun weekend. I have apparently proven myself to be a fully qualified deck captain. (Borbala was talking to the people in charge about me and said that next time I can do it on my own. Uh, no thanks!) And at the end of the comp when I was saying goodbye to Ily, he told me I was his hero of the weekend and wanted to know if I would work at the Independence Day Ball this summer. I told him I would think about it. =P

Happy New Year

Unfortunately the new year was at 1:48am today and I just could not stay up for it. But that is okay. I get to spend the rest of the week/weekend with my family and that is what counts. And before you all look at me and say I have gone bonkers, Persians follow the solar calendar. Our new year is traditionally on the day of the spring equinox, so nyah.

Happy new year to you all and enjoy the first day of spring.

Arnold Competition

I would just like to say that I got to shake Arnold Schwarzenegger's hand. And that he is indeed exactly the same in person as on TV and in the movies.

I would also like to say that Doug and I won first place in the Fun Dance - Anything Goes Polka competition. We almost collapsed on the dance floor because we were so exhausted from doing the uber-polka for two rounds and a ridiculously long final round. Our team may not win at International dances. We may not be the best at American dances, but by golly, we can polka!

And now I go to bed whimpering in pain. Goodnight.

Rewarding

I think one of the greatest and most rewarding experiences I have had in my life has been due to being part of the UD ballroom team. There are two gentlemen who are wheelchair bound who come to our activities and dance with us. I always admired their spirit and how they and their partners have overcome the disability to do something doctors would have said impossible. Granted, they will never be able to dance like a person with use of legs, but what they *can* accomplish is truly amazing and heart warming. I had the pleasure of dancing with one man on Wednesday night at Salsa night, and again tonight at our weekly social dance. It was difficult at first because everything has to be adjusted to accommodate a wheelchair (they have special wheelchairs for dancing), but I got the hang of it and we were able to dance several different dances together. That was definitely the highlight of the year so far.

If any of you know people in wheelchairs, please let them know that the University of Delaware is offering a wheelchair dance class. We are the only university in the entire United States who is doing so. It is a great opportunity and a lot of fun.