les miserables - the highlight of the weekend :)

This past weekend marked the first in a while where I did hardly anything at all except lie in my bed and completely relax. Friday night was a chilly and rainy night and so a few of the girls from my house and I decided to get together in the downstairs common room and watch movies. We made some popcorn and watched A Cinderella Story and then Pride and Prejudice. I must admit I fell asleep for parts of both movies, but it was still a fun night in with the girls. The only time I got up, got dressed and left the house over the weekend was to go see Les Miserables with the girls on Saturday night. It was a fun-filled evening that was also really relaxing at the same time. We started off by meeting at outside of a vintage book store. A couple of us arrived with some time to spare before the other arrived, so we decided to look inside the store. It was so great to be in a little corner store that was packed floor to ceiling with all sorts of books, many being very old. I ended up venturing around until I found the photography section. I am very interested in the topic of photography but must admit that I don't know that much about the technicalities and techniques required. I was able to locate two very useful books, one is about creative techniques in landscape photography and the other is a complete guide to digital photography. I was even more thrilled when I found that got a discount at the store for being a student! Both of the books together only ended up costing me around £11.50. :) When we met up with the other girls, we all decided to go to a local chinese restaurant which was actually quite good! I had my first-ever Bubble Tea with Mango and Strawberry juices. The tapioca balls were quite interesting and got annoying after a while because I felt as though I had a million of them in my drink.. but I thought it tasted really good overall. Ali and I decided to split a chicken and noodles dish along with some vegetables. It was a good idea because I don't believe I could have eaten a whole dish by myself - the portions were huge! After dinner was over, we hurried to the theater to make the 7:30 curtain time for Les Mis. I thought the show was great minus some really poor stage combat skills. The voices of the cast were really strong though and I was swept away especially during the timeless songs Dreamed a Dream, Castle on a Cloud, On My Own and Bring Him Home to name a few. After the cast bowed at the end of the show, one of the men brought our attention to the fact that three of their leading characters were performing for their last time with the company and would be moving onto other endeavors such as joining the touring company of Les Mis and another is joining the Phantom of the Opera. This show was wonderful and I am so glad that I was able to go see it - if you have never seen it.. you should definitely check it out when you get the chance!

The rest of the weekend was really low-key and I ended up just taking a lot of time for me as well as to clean up and organize my room. The next few weekends and weeks are going to be quite packed with activites and travel.. so I figured I would just hang out and rest up in preparation. The school week has started off well and today, our choreography class is going to the National Portrait Gallery. Over the next few weeks, we have to develop some kind of artistic self-portait. I am hoping to get some inspiration from the Gallery today because as of now I have absolutely no clue what I am going to do for it.

That's all for now.. more to come. cheers! :) mk

gelato, jenga, brighton, salsa dancing.

This past weekend was probably one of the best yet! On Friday night, I didn't really do much of anything. I made myself some dinner down in the kitchen and then a few of us began talking about wanting some kind of dessert. We finally chose to walk together down the street to the gelato shop on Portobello Road. I got the chocolate and the cookies and cream flavors. I must admit that it was some of the best gelato I have had (minus the genuine streetside gelato shops in Italy, of course.. there is no comaprison to those.) We ended up walking downstairs in the shop and we found a table to sit around - then someone went and found that they had a shelf with a few games. We decided to play Jenga. Oh man. It started out as an innocent game where we were all just kind of goofing around - but with time the game got really serious! Haha :) It was so much fun - we were all really intense with our choice of which piece to remove from the tower. At one point, I was so in the zone and concentrated that any kind of noise distracted me.. which of course was the point where my friends took the given opportunity to distract me and ask me random questions so that I would make the whole tower fall over. They did not succeed, though! :) I am happy to say that I was not the person to make the tower fall over for any of the rounds we played!!

Shifting to Saturday, I had a lazy morning and then around 10:30, a few of us met to make our way to the train station. We booked 2-way tickets to Brighton beach for the day. I was really excited cause this was the first trip that I have taken outside of London itself. We arrived and the first thing I realized was that it was QUITE a windy day by the beach. I gave up on trying to keep my hair looking nice almost immediately. We found our way out to the pier where we walked to join our friends for lunch. I ate fish and chips for the first time! It was really good but it was also really greasy. Coming from America, this shouldn't be too much different than basically all food that is cooked.. especially in the south. However, since being in England, I have not really eaten any fried food at all and therefore it was a bigger shock to my system than I expected. I ended up having to dig through all of the fried parts to try and find the actual food inside, haha! After lunch, we walked around the beach and even ventured out onto the pebble beach. It was really windy, though, so we didn't stay out there too long. We walked back away from the beach and found some little shops. They were all quite unique little shops and I ended up buying a couple of artsy pairs of earrings. We walked around some more and I found a few more shops that intrigued me. It was a fun and relaxed afternoon! One special shop we found was a cupcake bakery called the Angel Food Bakery. They make these gourmet cupcakes that are simply divine. :)) I ended up choosing the Red Velvet Cupcake that had red sparkley sprinkles on top. The best part of the whole day was that I was able to take a lot of pictures with my new camera. I am still playing with all the different settings my camera has on it, but I am having a lot of fun doing it!

Saturday night, the girls and I went out together and a few of us went out dancing afterwards. We went to a couple of different places and just danced around, being completely silly :) I left a bit early because I was getting really tired, though, and I ended up crashing pretty hard when I got back to my bed. Sunday was a day of relaxation and I had a chance to do some homework while cleaning up my room a bit. In the late afternoon, I went to church at Hillsong for the 6pm service. It was a great service, filled with such uplifting and powerful music. I must say that the term "saving the best for last" really came into play this weekend, though. After the church service, a few of us all met up to go salsa dancing. Oh. My. Gosh. It was SO much fun! I had such a great time getting to learn the steps and then throwing myself into dancing with guys who knew a lot more about salsa than I did. I want to go more often so that I can get better at it! This form of dance is different than anything I have ever studied before, and I am intrigued by it. I am not used to having to follow someone else's lead in a dance that isn't necessarily choreographed steps. After letting go a bit and letting myself relax into the movement, I found that the steps came musch easier.

That's all for now. School is going well and I am loving every minute of my classes, even though the commute wears me out. More to come later. cheers :) mk

touring buckingham palace and the second full week of classes

Last Sunday, Ali and I decided to head over to Buckingham palace to visit for the tours of the state rooms, which is a limited time tourist attraction, so we decided to take part in it. At first, I thought it would be realy "showy" and that I would not feel as though I were really seeing the palace, only a few display rooms that were never actually used. This was not the case, however. We entered from the side area of the palace and we were offered headphones for a free audio tour of the palace, which was actually quite nice to have. It was way better than having groups of people going through with a tour guide who would be screaming at the top of his/her lungs to be able to have everyone in the group hear what was being said. I really appreciated being able to go through the palace at my own pace and being able to guide myself with the little audio headset. I was able to see all sorts of rooms in the palace, most mainly used for entertaining guests that come at any given time as well as dinners, gatherings, meetings, conferences, etc. For each room in the palace, there was a big load of history given on the audio tour, which was neat.. but none of which I actually remember. The most amazing thing I was able to observe while at the palace was the overwhelming array of gifts that the royal family has received from various countries throughout the world. I found it quite amazing that the queen finds some kind of place to display every single gift that is given to her, whether it is small or big or even very oddly shaped. Every gift has a special place in the palace. I was quite disappointed when I found out that we were not allowed to take any pictures inside at all... but I certainly made up for it when we got outside into the back gardens. Here are a couple of pictures that I took and thought were especially nice.


I really enjoyed getting to ee Buckingham palace. It was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I then went back to the house and changed to get ready for church at Hillsong. This is a church I have found and really like. They hold services at the Dominion Theater and hold 4 services per week with around 2,000 people attending each one. It is a contemporary service with lots of music and enthusiasm. :) The best part about attending is that I have met a lot of people that are local to the area which is what I have been wanting to do. I love the girls I am living with and go to school with.. but I have also been wanting to get to know some local people, too!

This past week was the second full week of classes at Laban, and I loved them so much. I am learning so much just by being in this environment. I am learning a lot about myself as well as the type of dancer I am and want to be. The most important thing I am learning, though, is what I want to accomplish as a teacher of dance. I am learning so much about different philosophies of teaching as well as working in classes to try and figure out what it is within myself that I have to offer to my students. :)) more to come. cheers. mk

a week's worth of updates

I am finding that this blog is not easy to keep up with on a daily basis, even though it would be nice to be able to write out all of my thoughts every day. School is so wonderful but is also proving to be taking every bit of energy that I have throughout the day. Last week was the first week of actually getting to take classes, even though our schedules aren't set in stone until this week. We are allowed to take up to 17 classes throughout the week, and I have chosen 16. I will be quite busy, but that isn't anything different from my normal schedule. I am so excited, though, to be in this new place where everyone is so passionate about the art of dance. All of my teachers are completely in love with their subject matter and their commitment is quite inspirational to me as a student. I haven't ever been to a place before where my entire curriculum revolves around dance and I am excited to embrace it for all it has to offer me.

The classes I am taking are as follows: Contemporary (modern) technique, Ballet technique, Jazz Technique, Teaching Studies, Dance in Education, Teaching Dance Technique, Choreological Studies, Choreological Practice and Anatomy for Dancers. I am in love with every one of my classes and I am finding myself craving more time at the end of every class instead of watching the clock to see when I will be able to move on with my day. It's such a wonderful feeling to be in love with going to school.. I can't say I have felt this passionate about the art of learning in a long time. Usually, school is completely overtaken by my personal anxieties and I am not able to enjoy it. Here, things are different. I look forward to doing extra and non-required readings. Going to class is a pleasure, not a chore. I’m a fan of this kind of schooling lifestyle! I also will be looking for a part-time job soon for a couple nights a week and the weekends... so hopefully I will be able to start bringing in some money instead of just spending all the time.

This is the beginning of my second week of classes, and schedules are finally starting to settle down. Yesterday (Monday), I had a dance fitness class, which was really quite intense as we had to do an initial fitness test. To warm up, we had to run laps around the studio space, which was not easy on a Monday morning at 8:45am. I got through it, though, and then we learned the sequence that we would be doing for our test. It is a dance fitness test that is the product of a lot of research on the physical requirements of dancing both in a common technique class as well as that of performance. While learning the simple sequence of movements, I thought I would get through it with no problems at all. There were 5 stages of the test to be completed, all with very similar movements in each of the stages. The only difference was that with each stage, there was a slight change in the sequence that intensified the challenge (such as adding jumps instead of just plies or adding a few extra steps at the end). By the end of the 20 minute test, I was literally pouring sweat off of me. We are going to test the same 20 minutes of material again at the end of the first term to see how we have progressed, which will be neat. Next, I had Teaching Dance Technique, where we are learning the art of teaching the technique of dance. We talked about what we define technique as and what it means to have a personal teaching philisophy. I am excited because by the end of this class, we will all have our own individual ideas and opinions about teaching that we will be able to articulate into a written philosophy of teaching. My third class of the day was Dance in Education, where we looked at some different definitions of dance that we were asked to find from various sources throughout the week. My favorite definition of dance that I was able to find on a Theatre Company's website reads as follows: "Dance transforms images, ideas and feelings into sequences of movement that are personally and socially significant." I love the overall sense that this quote gives. It doesn't seem to be too profound with its simple terms but also completes an idea without cutting it short. My last class of the day was ballet with Julia. I am finding that the more I relax into her class, the better my results tend to be. She is really big on using less effort to execute movements and making ballet more about efficiency instead of "hard work."

In the next entry, I am going to back up a bit and talk about my weekend, seeing as I began this entry last Friday and then picked it up again after the weekend. cheers! :) mk

first week at laban!

So, it has been several days since I last updated my blog, but I have been so busy with school starting and my three hour roundtrip commute every day that once I get back to my room, I have usually just been passing out and going to sleep! Anyways, things here are going really well. I am enjoying every minute of every day and I am getting to know more people which makes it a bit easier to be away from home. This whole past week was nothing but orientation sessions at school. Most of them were completely boring and were just hour and a half lectures about each and every class that we have to choose from in the program. This is a great idea in theory... but when you have to sit through multiples of these sessions in a dance studio where everyone has to sit on the floor, it gets old really fast. Oh well.. it’s over. We had to sign up for our classes on Friday.. at least our preliminary choices. We are able to change them around as necessary (which I won’t be doing cause most all of the classes I signed up for are required for me to graduate on time at MC!). I’m so excited to be dancing again, though. This past week we had some intro classes and I was thrilled to be able to experience a release-based class on Thursday for the first time ever. It was hands down the best modern experience I have ever had. I don’t know if it has something to do with the new place or the fact that I am at a conservatory where I don’t have other general education classes to worry over, but I felt so free when I was moving in the class. I was able to throw away all other concerns and problems and just dance. I haven’t been able to have such an uplifting class or had the ability to dance from such an inner place in a long time. It was a wonderful experience. Even though the week was really stressful and I definitely still have to adapt to the 6:30am wake-up time, I must say that this week has been one of the happiest of my life. I am so thankful to have this opportunity and I believe that I will come out a completely changed person at the end of my time here.

Blah blah blah.. enough deep stuff.. I am just so excited to be here! The commute to and from school every day sucks, though. I have to wake up at 6:30am to leave by 7:15 to be in the studio ready to go by 8:30. Yikes. I have been easing the long journey each day by listening to my ipod, which is fun.. but I also tend to get really sick of music, really fast. I also can’t put it on complete shuffle because every few songs always happens to be like… High School Musical, Ballet music or Disney Princess music. Oh the joys of teaching dance. I have gotten the opportunity to meet many new people though, within my one year program at my school, which is pretty awesome. There are people from literally all parts of the world, such as Japan, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Brazil and Spain.. just to name a few! I love being able to take class with all of these different people because each of them have such different backgrounds and even though many of them did not grow up in a private studio setting as I did growing up, they all have such a variety of experiences to offer the program. There are people who are professional Flamenco or Tango teachers as well as many who have already achieved dance undergraduate degrees from different places. Much to my surprise, actually, those of us from America are the youngest ones in the whole program. There is one lady in the program who was a professional ballet dancer in another country and now has decided to attend Laban. Also, my ballet teacher happens to be from America, which is really exciting! She is one of the most down to earth people I have ever seen, ever. She is such a beautiful dancer and was trained at the School of American Ballet in New York. She has such a driving force about her that it makes you automatically want to try ten times harder in her class. She isn’t about teaching “poses” in ballet, she says she focuses on the stuff in-between the poses because that’s the actual dancing. She also is a firm believer in not trying to become something or someone other than yourself in any ballet class, but to just be yourself. I absolutely love her ideas and her over-all air about her. She so much reminds me of my favorite former ballet teacher, Jenn, who tragically lost her life to head and throat cancer. Jenn had the same passion for making ballet personal and about showing who you are through the movement as this new teacher, Julia. I can’t wait to be able to train with her throughout this whole year. I feel as though I will be able to improve greatly just by having her around to push me to my limit and beyond.

Overall, I am so excited about mainly.. everything here.. except for the fact that it’s like 5 pounds to do laundry here (for one load, that is). That translates into like.. $7/8 which is CRAZY for one load of laundry!! Oh well, I’ll get over it haha. I miss everyone back home so much but Skype has been able to keep me somewhat sane, which is nice. I have pretty much been able to settle in here, but I don’t believe it has truly hit me yet just how long I’m going to be here. I think I am still mildly in vacation mode, especially spending-wise. Everything is really expensive in the part of town I am staying in, which makes it hard to spread money out over time. As time progresses, though, I hope I will be able to find different ways to save and stretch my money! I believe that is all for now! Cheers for now! mk

New Renovations! (plus some other things)

I must say that it is fun to play around with this blog site and that it is actually quite fun to do once you sort of get the hang of it. Today was another great day, filled with fun activities, lots of walking, and even a bit of shopping thrown in the mix as well. I do believe that it will not be hard at all for me to get used to living in an environment such as this one. We began our day with a lecture from a man who works with the political system in Britain. He talked to us for a while about the UK government and some of the differences and similarities between it and the US government. He did inform us, like we were told yesterday, that Obama is very much in favor with the Brits right now, which sadly is more than can be said for many people back home. He led on to tell us different issues that are not even issues really in the UK but are big subjects of conflict in the US, such as abortion, socialized medicine, and the death penalty. It was interesting to hear that these issues were of no great importance as a topic of conversation in the UK government since they are such areas of great debate in America.

After this, we had lunch and were given a talk about Academic preparation. We were told a bit about what to expect as we prepare to go to our universities tomorrow and begin the process to start classes. There was a lot of information sort of thrown all at us at once, and I found it a bit challenging to keep up, but I think I will get the hang of it with time. The weirdest thing I found, though, is that in the UK, professors al have their own determined style of the format of the essays they will require. I found it quite interesting to see that there was no set standard, even within departments. That.. will definitely take some getting used to.

After sandwiches, crisps (the better and improved version of chips in America) and some fruit, we had a while to ourselves before we had to meet back for our individual group meetings, separated by the schools we will be attending. When we met with one of the group leaders, we were also greeted by one of the leaders of the Laban program, which was really quite exciting! It was so wonderful to be able to meet someone from this school and to ask her any questions we had at all. We found out the classes that were available to take and found out more about the school itself, which is nice because I no longer feel as though I am entering into the great unknown. I did, however, find out that our commute every morning (on a good morning, too) is going to be about an HOUR and TEN minutes. That right there.. hurts to think about. We will have to be at classes by 8:45am.. which means leaving somewhere around 7:15 every morning to ensure a few extra minutes to get settled before class begins. The nice advantage, though, is that there is a chance that our registration could make it so that we only have morning classes and we could end up only going to school some days for half the day. I would say, therefore, that it's an even trade-off. It will be hard to get used to at first but I think I won't have a problem once it becomes routine and I start o have homework and such that I can do while on the trains.

After our group meetings, I went with Emily and Sara to Argo's, which is a store where you look up the items you need in a catalog and punch in the numbers to a computer system to check i it's in stock.. and if it is and you want to buy it, the workers will send it up to the front of the store on a conveyor belt for you to pick up. What a brilliant idea! The storefront itself can be really quite small while the vast majority of all the sold wares are held in a huge store-room in the back of the building. I bought a hairdryer and a straightener here seeing as using ones from America (that I didn't even bother to bring) can easily blow a fuse when used in the UK outlets.

Tonight was the best part of the day, however, I must say. We went to The Playhouse Theatre to see La Cage Aux Folles, which was a very outspoken musical. It had many male dancers that played the roles of chorus dancers at a cross-dressing theatre production. It was very "out there" but was also quite entertaining, swarmed with tons and tons of humor everywhere. I couldn't keep from laughing nearly the entire time I was in my seat. All of the actors were superb and the male dancers were some of the best I have ever seen, with the absolute best legs I have ever seen on anyone, men and women alike. I thoroughly enjoyed this show and would highly recommend it to anyone mature enough to handle the content. :)

When I got back to my room and unpacked a bit and was thinking about going to bed, I got a very important facebook comment from miss Lea herself. She was distressed because every time I called her, she had been in class and was not able to answer and didn't know what could be done about it. I immediately picked up my cell phone and dialed her number at seeing this comment and when she answered the phone, I had a near panic attack of excitement! It was so great to be able to sit by my open window in my room and talk to my very best friend in the whole world. Hearing how wonderful school is going for her and being able to tell her how much I am loving every minute of my time here in London was very theraputic for me. I am so thankful for her friendship in my life, and I know now more than ever that God has placed her in my life for a very important reason. I don't know what I ever did to deserve a best friend like her.. but I am thankful for her every single day.

Now that it's 1:30 in the morning here.. I better get some sleep.

Cheers :)

oh.. this place is amazing.

I am in complete love with this town and I have hardly been here any time at all! I must admit that my travel experience here was not the best and that I had several times of complete panic in the Heathrow airport. It was difficult cause my travel instructions told me to take the "Airbus" which is a busline that would take me directly to where I needed to go. However, I got to the info desk and the lady just tells me simply that it doesn't exist anymore. Oh.. I freaked out. I made my way over to a pay phone an tied to get out my information for my calling card that my mom gave me but then realized that there was no international number to use.. only an 800 number to use within the states. At this point, I suppose I looked rather distressed as my face was starting to feel flushed and hot, so this lady stopped and asked me if I was alright. At that point, I basically melted down and started crying. Here I am in a completely new country, exhausted from a sleepless night of travel, and carrying way too much luggage.. and I have no way of getting to my accomodations. It was also about 7:00am England time which I wasn't used to so the office of my program wasn't open yet. I finally was able to get someone to help me and I was able to find a cab, which was crazy expensive at 40 pounds (almost like $75) for the journey to my new home, but by that point, I just wanted to get to where I was going, without having to navigate or worry about all my luggage staying with me.
Once I got to the house, I was informed that my room was on the very top of the building since I had been given a single room and that there was no elevator (or lift as they call it over here). I proceeded to carry my three suitcases and my duffel bag up what seemed like a million and a half stairs before reaching the fourth floor of the building and crashing onto my unmade bed for the next several hours.
We were escorted later in the evening to this local restaurant where we were all served a traditional English dinner. I am not sure exactly what it was called, but it was like an English version of a chicken pot pie or something. I wasn't the biggest fan of the sauce that was used in it.. but overall it was alright. For dessert, we had a spongecake with raisins in it and a custard on top.. it was amazing. I was glad because it wasn't too incredibly sweet but it was enough of a sweet taste for me to be satisfied after dinner. We then made our way back to the house to cras for the night.

Today, we had lots of orientation meetings at the house throughout the day, beginning with a meeting about the basic differences between America and the UK. We had a short break before having another meeting where we were given a talk by this woman who was dressed in a black suit that was completely covered in pearly buttons and other "flare-like" buttons. She was called a pearly queen and is someone who goes around and makes money for all sorts of charities. It was neat to get to hear about her and her work, but it also seemed like she took more pride in all of the pictures she had with celebrities to show us than the actual work she did. After we met with her, we recessed for lunch and then we came back to have a personal safety meeting with a former London police officer. He was quite amusing and enjoyed getting us all involved by doing little acting parts and asking us questions about safety.
After all the talks were over, I came back up to room to change and to freshen up a bit, and then two of the other dancers, Sara and Emily, and I went to eat dinner. We were originally looking for this well-known place that serves fish'n'chips but it ended up being closed so we went to this highly recommended pizza place. I got the American pizza which comes with pepperoni on it. One word.. amazing. It was seriously so fabulous and I enjoyed it so much. Even more than the pizza, though, were the other items I ordered there, which included the Bruschetta and the Gelato. The Bruschetta was this piece of wam, baked bread which had fresh pesto, onions and tomatoes on top. It was nothing short of fabulous. Then, after pizza, I got a chocolate gelato which was equally as good. I ended up having to share that, though as I was getting rather full from all the other food!

That's it for now - more later! Cheers :) mk

Four days until departure

Ahh! I am leaving in four days and I am nowhere near ready for that plane to take off! I am in the process of doing laundry and getting my packing list together. However, as far as actually packing items up.. I have gotten nothing accomplished. I'm planning on heading over to Meredith for one last time today to say bye to all my friends from MDT. After tomorrow morning, I will be staying at home basically 24/7 to pack, pack, pack! All I can say is that I hate this part of going on trips, especially ones as long as mine. But.. such is life.. and somehow (hopefully) it will all come together. Better get off the computer now.. more later! :) mk

One month left!

It is so hard for me to believe that I will be leaving the country in exactly one month and one day. How crazy is it to be leaving behind everything I know in the Triangle and move across the ocean for ten months of my life?? Ohhh goodness! I am sure it will be great once I can get into the country, move into my room, and register for classes.. but all this preparatory paperwork is getting old! It surely will be sad to move away and leave everyone and everything behind.. but I know that this experience will be nothing like I have ever done before. More to come later! :) mk