The Sleeping Beauty

music by P.I. Tchaikovsky / produced by Adam Sklute / performed by Ballet West

The Romgi and I were able to go to the Saturday evening performance of The Sleeping Beauty. As a whole, it was amazing. Let me first tell you some things I disliked and then I’ll rave about how absolutely phenomenal it was.

I was not a fan of the costumes. Don’t get me wrong, I like tutus, but they can be overdone. And here they were. Every major character was in a nearly-identical tutu, covered with sparkles. The five fairies were in distinct colors, but then a lot of other characters, including Aurora, had neutral-colored costumes and it didn’t seem like there was enough emphasis on her as The Main Character.

The evil fairy, Carabosse, uses impressive magic to disappear from stage with a flash of light and a puff of smoke. Unfortunately, the flash of light was blinding. It was so bright that it hurt my eyes and I couldn’t focus on the other dancers afterward. The fun effect was ruined by the violence it did to the audience.

My biggest complaint, and the Romgi agrees with me, was that the producer wanted to “re-conceive” and “re-envision” the ballet to make it relevant for modern audiences. This seemed to mean “Give them something to laugh about.” Personally, I didn’t go to the ballet to be amused. The cutesy slapstick attitude of the fairy tale characters in Act III felt inappropriate.

That being said…

What a breathtaking evening! I enjoyed the performance so much. The dancers were superb – they astounded me with their grace, their strength, their talent. It was beautiful. And it was inspiring. I felt that this was an example of the tremendous heights to which humanity can rise. This really was a profound experience for me.

Also, the sweet old lady behind me remarked that I must be a ballerina because I look just like one. Oh, flattery.

I'll take a separate picture of the amazing GOLD SHOES I wore.

Check back later

Posted: February 18, 2011 | Author: Mika | Filed under: All's Well That Ends Well | Leave a comment

I’m trying to finish up an essay for a contest on campus. More kid pictures later today!

Le week-end

Posted: February 7, 2011 | Author: Mika | Filed under: All's Well That Ends Well | 7 Comments

I took French in high school. Did you? Well, I took one year of Spanish as a freshman, but didn’t care for it. I think it was my classmates, actually. For me to do an advanced track from third grade on and start Honors classes in high school, then suddenly be plopped into a room of teenagers who were vulgar and disrespectful and not interested in learning – it was an experience. So I ended up taking Drama the next year. And then I found out that most colleges prefer you to have at least two years of a single foreign language – there was no going back to Spanish, for me, which meant French during my junior and senior years.

Actual high school I attended.

This is all very irrelevant. I just thought of it because every Monday our teacher would ask us what we did during “le week-end.” (She did ask the whole question in French, but guys, it’s been a few years since then. I’m not going to strain my mental muscles just to remember how to say “What did you do this weekend?” in French.) Hence the post title.

End of irrelevant story. I hope.

My weekend was busy. Quite busy. We went to three birthday parties – that meant FOUR desserts: carrot cake, Polish honey cake AND chocolate cupcakes, and kitchen-sink brownies. Have you ever heard of Polish honey cake? If you’re Deborah, then yes, because you made it deliciously. This is the best that Google Images has to offer:

In real life it's a gazillion times more mouth-watering. And it tastes DIVINE.

I am now kind of obsessed with this cake. “No real oven” notwithstanding, I’m going to hound Deborah until I get that recipe and then I’m going to bake it. I will also take pictures and write a blog about it to appease Katie, who requested more posts about how I manage without an oven. Don’t worry, Katie. You’ll find out soon.

One thing I really enjoyed about this weekend, aside from the desserts, was spending time engaging in meaningful conversation. I met a lot of new people and all of them were interesting. (Or perhaps I was more favorably inclined toward humanity in general because I was eating cake.) I’m trying to figure out in what direction I want to go in life – I know I love sociology, I plan to attend law school when my adorable kids are bigger and more adorable, and I want to save the world. Right? The question is how to save the world. It’s tricky, because I absolutely believe that the one thing that could help everyone in every situation is the gospel, and by comparison, nothing I do will have much of an impact. But, still – I want to try. Over the next few years I’ll be putting a lot of thought into what I see as the most important issue to address. My goal is to work for a non-profit organization. I’ll keep you updated as to where my interests take me.

Oh, also: my first midterm was on Saturday. It went so well! That is, I feel like it went well. I won’t get my grade for a few weeks but I was confident in my understanding of the material and with how I demonstrated that on my essays.

I lose my keys a lot. A LOT. The Romgi is probably well past sick of borrowing his keys (after I also misplaced our set of spare keys). I think the problem – aside from the obvious “not putting them in the same place every time”- is my lack of a decent keychain. This has weighed heavily on my mind lately, so I ended up buying this keychain when I was feeding jr around 2am this morning. Usually, jr is good about sleeping through the night in her swing, but we got a hand-me-down swing and I have no idea how old it was and it’s broken now. Not out of batteries; just broken. It will swing on its own but if there’s any weight in it – even jr’s tiny amount of weight – it stops moving. Don’t worry, we’re getting a new one. My sleep will be uninterrupted soon (I hope!). And that’s good for you because it means more blog posts! Isn’t that why you’re here?

In conclusion, le week-end, c’était grand. (Dad, is that right?!)

Also, here’s a picture of me at a jr-ish age.