A) Me and my partner Sami.

B) My side of my room before packing

C) The lounge of my hallway with a tree outside the window that swayed a ton

D) The view of the cafeteria from the end of my hallway

E) One of the other hallways on my floor

F) The RAs’ room

G) A poster of almost all of the students in the dorms at the University of San Francisco

H) The weekly schedules

I) This is what you see when you exit the elevator.

J) One of the entrances into the dorms

K) A path to where the ‘Meet the Artist’ seminars were

L) Step 1 on our way to get to the bus stop

M) Step 2 on our way to get to the bus stop

N) Step 3 on our way to get to the bus stop

O) Step 4 on our way to get to the bus stop

P) Step 5 on our way to get to the bus stop

Q) Clayton Street

R) Westward bus stop

S) Eastward bus stop

T) A blurry picture of the shuttle I was on

U) Saeunn, the girl from Iceland/Sweden/Hungary with a pillow under her shirt.

V) My plane in Minneapolis

I had my last breakfast with all of my friends, which was sad, and then I had to leave the dorms to catch my shuttle.  I had packed my bag earlier in the morning when most of my friends were asleep (for an hour), and I ended up having more bags than I could handle.  My eight-person shuttle left and I got to the airport at about ten.  Here, I was somehow able to check myself into the airport, get my ticket, and go through security by frantically calling my mom, and acting incredibly confused to airport workers.  Luckily, I only had to re-distribute five pounds into other bags in order to not get an excess weight fee again.  I did, however, have to pay for an extra bag (which is actually cheaper than a heavier bag).

Once I was finally at my gate, I saw a girl who had an SFB lanyard with her, and after I started talking to her, it turned out she was the level eight girl from Iceland/Swedan/Hungary.  She was on my flight to Minnesota and then she would be off to Ampsterdam.  We talked till the plane came, and even then she had a relatively close seat to mine.  I was able to get a few hours of sleep on the plane, which was rather nice… even though the pilot kept on being sucky and attempted to go for a landing, but then went back up and repeated.

At the Minnesota airport, I had a half hour to find and guide my new Icelandic friend to her gate, and then find mine.  Luckily the airport is pretty small and I even had half a sandwich while I was there.  The plane ride to Iowa was short and I finally got home.  Yay.

First, I had ballet class with Mr. Lyons.  It was so-so.  I got a few compliments on my better placement and a few corrections, too.  The class was very similar to yesterday’s, which was nice so I could focus on corrections that I had gotten over the past five weeks.

Afterwards, I had my last Forsythe class.  We worked on the combination that we learned a few classes ago.  After that, we tried to exagerate our movements in it.  Then, we went over the spacing and patterns of the movements of the choreography.  This morphed into just walking around the room and making connections with other people, and later into improvising using the steps, ideas, and technique found in the choreography.

My very last class was batterie/variations with Mr. Maynard.  We worked on the usual steps and combinations for the batterie portion of it, then we did duets of the Tchaikovsky variation we worked on most recently.  Since we had time left, we ended with more batterie combinations that we had skipped today.

Once we got back to the dorms, we mostly hung out and lazed for the better part of the night.  We had another sleepover (minus the sleepover), too.  This is more fun and exciting that it really sounds, but I’m super tired and it was two days ago anyway.

That’s a super-blurry picture of Allie and I… yay!

First off, we had pilates.  It was similar to the rest of the classes, but I was actually sweating by the end.  It still makes body parts other than my core hurt, so I really don’t know what’s up with that.

Technique class was next.  It was an oddly good one, too.  Throughout barre, I felt content and pleasantly surprised.  Centre went well, too, and my spot has started to become a bit more natural.  I received a few compliments throughout class, which added to it.  I love how we do adagio here.

Our third class was batterie.  We simply worked on a bunch of different exercises with each focusing on a different aspect of our dancing.  I enjoyed how we got to work on one step at a time so I could spend my time working on each move.

The last class of the day was partnering.  My partner and my pas went fairly well, despite a few short-comings.

After class, I first lazed around and then later went to Haight Street with my friend Jordan.  My best friend from Milwaukee Ballet Summer Program visited her brother who is currently at SFB, and so I got to see her for the first time in two years.  At long last, Our group had a big sleepover.

Today started out with an early technique class with Mr. Lyons.  It was also the first day that parents and friends were allowed to observe.  Class went fairly well.  I got a correction on my usage of my upper body; he wanted less movement since if we were to do that specific exercise quicker, I wouldn’t have time for it.  Aother correction I got during class is to keep my body further forward and above my hips.  I like how we get corrections in his classes.

After technique class, we had Forsythe class.  Today we worked on keeping one position and then moving around it and displacing it.  We also worked with inverting and ‘re-creating’ certain ballet movements and postions.  Our last exercise for today’s class involved attempting to do ballet behind ourselves.  This included keeping our arms in classical ballet positions behind our backs.

Our last class today was batterie/variations with Mr. Maynard.  We did the variation from Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux (I think).  I’m pretty sure that I liked it.  For the most part, it’s fun.  The most difficult portion of the variation is the very end which has three double tours and a pirrouette.  I’m actually getting to the point where I’m not really sad/angry/annoyed that there are so many tours in variations.  I’m getting much more comfortable with them.  I have no idea how mine look, but I’m happy that I feel better about them.

After classes finished, we had a ‘Meet the Artist’ seminar with Sarah Van Patten and Ruben Martin.  They seemed fairly interesting.  Most noteworthy was how Van Patten danced with the Royal Danish Ballet for a few years… and later at age 17 became a soloist with San Francisco Ballet.  They showed a few videos that were okay.  They included portions of Giselle and Fancy Free among others.

I am currently learning how to solve a Rubik’s Cube.  Go me!

First, I had ballet with the same teacher I had from last week.  Needless to say, there weren’t many corrections given.  I did get a ‘very good’ and an ‘excellent’ for a posse (referring to the movement, not the position).  That was kind of nice.  Centre went fairly well, too.  We did step over turns (or whatever you prefer to call them) and I guess that he actually wants us to travel on the pique as well as the tombe, which I find is really awkward and hard.  I’ve never heard of them done like that; as I’m used to just traveling on the tombe and then stepping under myself.  So that was weird.  We also did a grande allegro, but much like most of them here, it didn’t really feel all that climactic or fun.  I miss that.  In general, I didn’t have a very great class, but I perservered and it went okay at the very least.

After a break, I had batterie/variations with my teacher that is French.  We did exerpts of the variation from ‘Sylphide,’ but he didn’t specify if it was ‘Le’ or ‘La,’ so I don’t know much about it.  From what we did do, I liked it for the most part.  It didn’t feel too hard, but it was a good-feeling work-out.  There’s one double tour in it, and even without a releve preparation, I’m getting pretty much all the way around.  Yay.

Lastly, I had pas de deux.  Today, we just ran through the La Bayadere pas one couple at a time.  My run-through went pretty well, I think.  It was really helpful that I’ve already done it since I didn’t have a hard time picking up the choreography this time and now I know oodles of tips and tricks.

I have mixed feelings about coming home.  I really want to stay longer since I’m just now getting used to being here, but I miss pretty much everything at home… except driving and Old Navy.

So, no updates.

Once we got back to the dorms, we ate at the cafeteria which was completely void of real food, and we were forced to enjoy left-over breakfast food such as un-flavored (muffin-flavored) muffins, healthy cereals, bananas, and granola bars.  There was a minor food fight involved at our table.

To finish the night, my group found complete movies on YouTube.  We watched all of Hercules and Aladdin in one sitting without getting bored or interrupting it too much.

A) James (Allie’s brother) on the merry-go-round.

B) Becca on the merry-go-round.

C) Kathryn on the merry-go-round.

D) Kathryn on the merry-go-round… still.

E) Katie on the merry-go-round.

F) Nathaniel on the merry-go-round.

G) The merry-go-round.

H) Jordan and Colby sitting before we left.

As you can see, I’m not very good at documenting these types of things.

I had class with the same teacher I had for the rest of the week.  I stood at a centre barre in an attempt to get more corrections.  I was given one about my arm in second: it should be further out to the side.  The class was similar to the rest of the week.  It went well, I guess.  I was turning fairly consistantly, and I felt on my leg.

After we class, we lounged about for a long while before celebrating one of my friend’s birthdays.  We were going to go to the Cheesecake Factory, but the wait for a table of twelve was two hours, so we settled for California Pizza Kitchen.  It was tasty.  After dinner, we went to Starbucks for dessert, and then to the dorms for a giant fourteen-person sleepover.  Fun.

Jamie and Henry in Macy’s while we were deciding where to eat after we found out the Cheesecake Factory upstairs was booked for a while.

Katie smiling

I had batterie a bit later.  We selected variations that we had learned ‘out of a hat’ and ran through them as solos, duets, and trios.  I did the Bluebird variation and later the second Jewel variation that we learned.  Both went fairly well.  A photographer watched part of class and took a few pictures.  Some were during the variations and some were staged.

Finally, partnering class came around.  We ran through the pas de deux twice with two couples in each run.  Both of my bouts felt pretty good and we even got a ‘very good’ after one of them.  The lifts aren’t there yet, but we’re working hard on them.

One more class, and then the weekend!