Anna Karenina

Here is the promised first "movie critic of the week" post that I promised in my last post. While I was talking to some London natives, they were lamenting how all TV shows and movies release later in the UK than in the States because, duh, most popular shows and films are filmed and released by American companies. However, the new film adaptation of Anna Karenina is not one of those films. It is for all intents and purposes a British film...even though it's a Russian novel. This gets especially odd and confusing when everyone's accents in Imperial Russia are English accents...but we'll forgive and forget this little issue.

From IMDB.com

Anyways, as promised by the trailers and the movie poster (as seen above), the film Anna Karenina is a beautifully filmed and staged epic film to match the epic storyline. The sumptuous costumes and sets really set the mood for the film. Everything is so beautifully created and on top of that, director Joe Wright decided to set the entire film within a theatre. The pit, audience boxes, stage, backstage, and rafters of the theatre are all constantly transformed to create a new setting. For instance, the walkways above the stage are used to represent the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg. In another scene, the entire theatre was transformed into a horse racing stadium. The entire concept is both interesting and well done. For this reason, the film constantly entertains.

Admittedly, I have never read Leo Tolstoy's novel and therefore know very little about the specifics of the storyline. So in terms of the adaptation of the novel, I felt like it was cohesively put together and very comprehensive given that novel, I assume, is a very dense storyline. However, I do think that the plot did suffer from the creative ideas for the film. Properly conveying Leo Tolstoy's work didn't seem to be the main focus of the film, but rather how interestingly it could be portrayed. At one point while watching the film, I thought of a concept that a choreographer I worked with taught me. It's called "KISS", i.e. "keep it simple stupid". I personally feel like the adapting of the novel would have been benefited from this concept. But then we probably would have missed out on all the great film techniques used by Wright in directing the film. So I think how people receive the film will be based on their expectations for the film. If you love Joe Wright's work, you'll probably think its different from his past films but very interesting. If you're a huge Leo Tolstoy fan, you'll probably be disappointed.

Anyways, I can't wait for it to be released in the US so I can hear all of your opinions on the film. And overall, I would say the film is definitely enjoyable and worth paying the money to go see in theaters.

P.S. If there is anything you, as an audience to my blog, would like me to focus more on in these critics, please let me know!

P.P.S. I had my first celebrity siting yesterday! Tom Hiddleston from Midnight in Paris, which I reviewed in an earlier post, and The Avengers walked past me on his way to the bathroom in the Laban dance building while I was at a social for one year programme/post-graduate students. Seriously, I almost peed myself from excitement...

Beijing to DC to London in Nine Months...and some other places in between

Hello from the bustling city of London! I've been in the UK for a week now and have been requested by a close friend to restart my blogging. So, I will oblige my good friend as well as use this as a way to stem my boredom on empty days. For those that don't know (although let's be real, the only people that read this blog are friends but we'll pretend as if I have a huge international audience), I'm in the UK for a year studying at a conservatory in London that is for music and dance...I'm trying not to give too much personal information away but frankly, there's only one conservatory for music AND dance in the UK....so just google that now.

Before arriving, tons of people told me how I would have such a great time and how I would absolutely love the city, but most of those people also didn't have to set up a temporary, one-year home for themselves here. Therefore, since I've been in town, I have seen very little of the city, except for a few sites. What I have seen a lot of is their shopping centers (or rather "centres") where I have purchased various homegoods. This whole experience, thus far, basically reminds me of when I moved to DC to start my undergrad. The only difference is now I'm too old for the antics of the "freshers" on my floor and their tendency to make loud noises late at night. Still, don't be put off by my negative Nancy view, I expect I will have a great time in London. It just takes awhile to settle into a new city and make new friends. It doesn't really help that classes don't actually start till September 24th and I'm consequently left to fend for myself for over two weeks.

But in terms of my dance programme (I have to learn the proper British way of spelling words, after all my heathenish American English will not do!), I'm super excited for the year and I think my courses will be really good for me. It is difficult to see what everyone is doing back home and all the opportunities I'm missing, but I have to remember that by being here I'm better preparing myself to take on those same opportunities in a year...I just hope people don't forget me....

Along those lines, I will be sharing my goals for my dance career (*tingles*) in future posts on the blog. I've been told that if you write down, or in this case type up, your goals and ambitions; it helps to make them real in your mind and therefore more likely for you to actually achieve them. Two simple-ish goals that I've already slowly been tackling are: 1. creating a business card (DONE -- just waiting to print them until I get back to the US) and 2. creating a website. The website is a slightly larger undertaking, but I'm trying to use various sites to create some different ideas for what I want to visually represent me on the web. So, I'll keep you posted about that...

Okay, I've already written much more than I thought I would for this first post and I know it's a lot of text and no visuals, so sorry for that. But future posts will also be about my experiences in London, my dance programme, various opinion posts because I can't help myself, and also a "Movie Critic of the Week" post (nice rhyming eh?). The last idea is basically a tactic for me to consistently post each week and since I have Netflix, a great independent movie theater nearby, and endless amounts of boredom, I shall attempt to share old, new, and different movies with you. I'm gonna say for now, that the movie post will come out each Sunday night (this might change once I get my class schedule) However, I will post a special edition movie post (sounds so fancy) in a little bit because I just went and saw a movie today...and I want to...that is all.

Too Much Food...

Burrrr it's cold here. Alright, I will officially never complain about a DC winter again cause it's really cold here, but we wear so much clothing it hasn't been that bad. All I'm saying is, appreciate the heating system you have back in the States.

Anyways, since my last post, my brother and our friend Payton have both returned to Beijing and it's been great having other people my age around. My brother and I went and hung out with Payton the other day and had some huge laughs. My brother also told me that I am apparently boring and not very pretty either...thanks brother, I love you too. But no worries, I got my revenge when we played Nertz, I am after all the Nertz champion!!! At least I am when I'm not around my friends back in Katy, cause they can definitely hold their own.

Moving on. My mom, Ron, Alex, and I made a day trip to the countryside yesterday to visit the farming family that my mom lived with when she was sent to the countryside for re-education by the government during the Cultural Revolution. They live in a typical countryside home without any real heating system, but what they do use keeps you very warm so it was comfortable. They served us a HUGE meal (I've had a few too many big meals during this trip already and I know there's more to come) and by the end it didn't even look we'd touched any of the food. Typical Chinese hospitality, so nice!

Beginning of the meal

End of the meal -- did we actually eat anything??

Mom, Alex and I with the family

Other than this stuff, I've just been hanging out and attempting to get on Facebook...I haven't been very successful. Also, in two days, my mom and I will be traveling by train to the Sichuan Province to see friends and pandas :) Super excited! More later!

You have to jump around in a circle on one leg, otherwise you'll be cold.

Hello, hello from the large and heavily polluted country of China! It's been a long time and made even longer by the fact that I couldn't access my blog here in China until recently.  Through my own cleverness :) I figured out a way to bypass the blocks put up by the Chinese government to censor sites they deem inappropriate? or somehow dangerous to the government? Either way, I can now happily access some of my favorite sites: Hulu, Netflix, Universal Sports to watch the World Cup Ski Season, my blog to post for you lovely people, and Facebook (although this one is still giving me trouble). You really have no idea how bored you can become when so many sites are kept from your reach.

Thus, this begs the question, what have I been doing with my time without internet? Well, my mom and Ron have taken to waking up extremely early to go exercise at 天坛公园 (TianTan Park) in the south of Beijing. The whole process of getting there includes waking up early in order to get ready, eat breakfast, take an hour long subway ride, and still get there at a relatively early hour to practice various forms of Taiji. If all this weren't enough, it also happens to be very cold here in Beijing during the winter time, at least much colder than what I'm use to from DC weather, and even worse early in the morning.

Still, despite the extreme cold weather, I do have at least some working knowledge of how to keep myself warm. However, my mother doesn't seem to understand this, which led to a whole list of things that she required me to do, otherwise I would be cold.

1. You have to wear these windproof pants, otherwise you'll be cold.
2. You have to wear this long underwear, otherwise you'll be cold.
3. You're taking a shower? Well, you have to blow dry your hair, otherwise you'll be cold.
4. Those are your gloves? Well, you should probably wear mine, otherwise you'll be cold.
5. Also, you should probably wear my hat, otherwise you'll be cold.
6. You have to eat this breakfast I've laid out for you, otherwise you'll be cold.
7. You have to wear these extremely hideous, Chinese Communist shoes from Mao's era, otherwise you'll be cold.

Okay, she didn't really say that last one, but they're really ugly shoes and you get the idea. After all this preparation, we head out for the park. No lie, at 7AM, that park is bustling with activity. There are those, like my mom, who go to exercise, but there's also a good majority simply there to socialize by playing games and just walking around the park. By 8AM tour groups have also started coming through the park. If I go back, I promise to remember to take pictures to share!

Other than doing this, my mom and I have also taken on the task of feeding me all the delicious Chinese things I love to eat. I've only been here five days so far, but I've tackled quite a lot of the list. They include hot pot (hmm delicious and extremely well-suited to the winter weather), Song Shu fish (which is a fish that blooms open when its cooked, fried, and covered in this sweet and sour sauce), JianBing (which is a pancake type thing, but basically its classic street food), and various other dishes.

SongShu Fish

 I've also had other street food items that are specifically around Beijing during the winter time. I remembered them from when I was a child and they are just as good as I remember! For many people, chestnuts roasting over an open fire is something associated with an American Christmas and the Bing Crosby song, but my first taste of it was in China. Of course, when I was little I didn't realize it was a chestnut, but now I know, and roasted chestnuts are AWESOME! Little stalls around the city roast them for you and then you purchase them in brown paper bags, each one weighing one Chinese pound. So good!!

栗子 - Chestnuts

Another great street food is an old, traditional Beijing treat, candied crab apples. Crab apples are placed on skewers and then covered in a soft candy shell. More modern versions of the treat have added other fruits or covered them in nuts, but I prefer the traditional candied crab apples.

Well, that's pretty much what's happening in China for now. We're expecting my brother tomorrow if he manages to get on the plane. Gotta say I'll be very happy to see him because I'm getting a little bit too much quality time with my mom and Ron. More updates later!

There's No Place Like Home

So, it's just a day away from Thanksgiving YAY! and I'm back home in Katy to celebrate with my dad, my brother and our next door neighbors. During this time I'll also being seeing and catching up with friends since I won't be back in Katy for quite some time (I'm going to China for winter break).  As usual, before I made it back home, I was burdened with a thousand academic tasks to finish up...or rather it was just one 12 page paper that I apparently really didn't want to write. Funny thing is that the paper was me analyzing the film Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so it should have been both fun and interesting, but it wasn't. That is all.

Woo life is crazy right now! Which is why I haven't had to time to write, but now that things are starting to calm down, I can start sharing. For this post I'll tell you all about my internship as a dance assistant at a charter school in northeast DC. The school is an inner-city school filled with students that come from a less than great part of town. So, my job as an "arts" teacher is considered outreach.

On Monday mornings and all day Wednesday, I help assist the dance teacher at this school in teaching her K-8th grade dance classes. When I first began, I was totally overwhelmed by the students. Being the youngest child who has never babysat before, I was at a total loss at how to handle these little children. I have several friends who have experience working with kids and got some tips from them, but really the only way to get through a situation like this is trial and error, sink or swim. I'm happy to say that after almost three months, I finally feel capable of running a class on my own. I've learned that its never easy and even great teachers can't always have a great class, therefore its a constant challenge to both keep up my energy as a teacher as well as keep my students in line.

One of my favorite things about this internship is feeling so adult and like a leader, especially when I reprimand my students...its actually really hilarious, I wish there was a video I could see of me doing that haha. I also love that I get to know so many students and they know me and they seem happy to see me everyday we have class together. I definitely have my favorite students and its interesting because its not always the best students in the class that I like. I have a soft spot in my heart for the troublemakers because they get so much negative attention from the other teachers; I really try to reach out to them and I think a few have come to really respond to me. It isn't always perfect, but still I think its worth putting in the effort. Actually, this plays into one of my biggest qualms about the job. After all these weeks, I know many students by name, but unfortunately there are many that I don't know and its sad to say that they tend to be those in the middle of the pack. Not the best or the worst, but just good kids who get by. Its disappointing that all the teachers' attentions are solely focused on the best and worst kids and so many fly under our radar.

Despite everything though, I truly love this job. Its been a great experience and I've learned so much. However, I've also learned that as much as I enjoy teaching dance, I'm not suited to teaching young children long term. Given the nature of how young kids must be taught, I feel that elementary teachers need to have more of a passion for teaching than for the specific subject that they teach. My main love is dance and teaching is secondary and given the nature of our dance classes, I'm not able to share my passion with the kids in class. Instead, I have to focus the majority of my energy on disciplining. Therefore, if and when I do end up teaching long term in the future, it'll have to be to older students, at least high school if not college age and older.

Well, that's been just one part of my life this semester. Perhaps I'll keep up with the internship next semester, but we'll have to see how free my schedule ends up being. Lastly, before I end this post, I want to share with you a great article that I recently read. Also on the topic of education, this article details the state of sex education in schools today. Doesn't sound that interesting, but I promise it is! This article brings up a lot of interesting points and I definitely agree and wish that such a sex program had been offered to me in high school. I think what I did receive led me to have a very skewed perception of sex and since college, I've totally rethought the issue and I think I'm a smarter, more cognizant person on the subject now as a result. So enjoy the article Teaching Good Sex and let me know your thoughts!

Wow...Senior Year Is Kinda Busy...

Hello, hello my lovely readers...I hope you're still with me after my long hiatus from blogging. As the title says, senior year has been crazy busy! In a good way of course, but unfortunately this little extracurricular activity has had to feel the effects of that. However, I'm trying to be a good blogger and get back to it, especially since I've realized how much I actually enjoy doing this!

Anyways, I won't attempt to catch you up on everything in my life since the last post, 1. because that would be a crazy long post and 2. it's way too late already for me to be taking that on tonight. I will however say that I've experienced a lot this semester and I definitely think I've grown and come to understand myself better. Life is constantly changing and I'm constantly asking questions, not because I'm getting more confused (thank goodness), but because all my new discoveries prompt new questions. Often we ask friends for advice hoping that their experience can guide us, and it can be helpful, but in reality, you just have to take every situation that happens and make the best decision you can for yourself in that moment. There are no clear cut answers, which is difficult, but also good because then I know that I'm not the only one whose constantly in a state of confusion.

Well, there's my bit of foreshadowing for tales to come in the next few posts. Some things for me, and you as an audience, to look forward to in my life are...
1. Thanksgiving in Texas!
2. Auditioning my piece that I choreographed this semester to be a part of the Spring Dance Concert next semester
3. Completing my second to last semester of college...ahhhh
4. Going to China for winter break YAY!
5. And my last semester of college...

It's crazy how fast life is happening, so we've gotta try and keep in mind the wise words of one Ferris Bueller - "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

It's Been So Long!!

Hello, hello readers! So, obviously you can tell that it's been forever since my last post. Apologies for not being a good blogger for the last few months! But there is so much to catch up on that I'm not even sure I could get this blog up to date, but I'll just let you know some random stuff.

1. My favorite guy from the beginning on The Bachelorette won!!...if you can call it winning... Anyways, that was very exciting and what a great season! I'm officially a Bachelorette convert, I love it.

2. I had a great summer of dance at ADF. I loved my teachers and my classes, but I really fell in love with the Doug Varone dance company. I took a master class with one of his dancers and absolutely loved it, so great!

3. After ADF, I went to visit my mom and was crazy busy taking part in all the outdoor activities offered in the mountains of North Carolina. P.S. I absolutely love kayaking!

4. Back in Houston, weather is crazy with over thirty days of triple digit heat. It was ridiculous!

5. Back in DC, we just got through a hurricane...what??

6. I have a place to live for this year, YAY! It's definitely kind of far from campus and an uphill walk to get to campus, but it is very large, really nice and fully furnished and those are positives all around.

7. First day of senior year is tomorrow!! Simultaneously super excited and nervous for the end, yikes.

8. I got an internship as the dance assistant for the dance teacher at some DC charter schools. Very excited but it's definitely gonna test my ability to be disciplined with myself and be a good teacher.

That's most of what's happened the past few months, so now we can move on to the future! WHOOP!!!

P.S. sorry for all the exclamation points...