Monday, April 28, 2014

To The Intended




In honor of my weekend of watching countless sad and romantic movies, I fell into my old hopeless-romantic ways. (This is a once in a blue moon post, so live it up)

I got thinking a lot about the future and my Intended. Once I get into that mode, it's a little difficult to come out of it. Today, for the first time, I had the desire to have munchkins of my own some day. I was sitting next to Taione and his adorable nieces, and watching him care for them during the two-hour stake conference made me so excited for some reason. And then just barely I found this little article on Buzzfeed. This is the best description of myself I think I've ever read, so enjoy:

"Date a girl who dances.
Date a girl devoted to doing the unnatural every day, who stands on her toes and speaks without words. Date a girl whose eyes get glassy when assaulted by new music because she can’t help choreographing, casting, living and dying in her mind.
Find a girl who dances. You’ll know that she does because she will seem to move endlessly. She will sway to the sounds of the city, fidget every few minutes, crack her knuckles and her neck, roll each wrist and cross the other leg just so she feels even. She will forget herself and where she is, the length of her skirt and the strangeness of what she’s about to do when something falls from her lovely, articulate hands to the floor. She will not bend at the knees because she does not have to, folding instead at the waist to execute the kill. That’s the dancer. When she straightens, she will laugh at herself, and her collarbone will beg you waltz with her.
She’s the girl with vast and unvocalized dreams strewn across the heavens and a bloodline dating back to French royalty, but whose natural inclination is to collapse to the earth, flop to the floor. There’s more room to stretch there, you see. Sit with her. She might giggle, ramble on a bit about nervous energy. Such proximity to a pedestrian has reawakened an awareness of her abnormality; she had nearly forgotten, again, that not everyone needs a tutu to feel alive. She will try very hard to stay very still so as not to give herself away. Don’t mention it. Ask her what she thinks about when she dances.
Let her move.
Tell her what you really think of the Nutcracker. See if she cries when she doesn’t make the cut, and learn to anticipate what she needs before and after that audition. Remember what needs massaging, and when. Understand that it is a rare treat indeed for her to really be at rest, to have a day off from running to and from rehearsals, and to take a break from being beautiful. Relish in whatever she decides to do that day, whether it be sleeping in or saving the world, marathoning a show she always misses or mulling over the feasibility of moving to Mars. Wonder aloud which she was truly born to perform: The white swan, or the black swan. Listen to her reasons why. Indulge her identity, which dances, too. She creates and discovers herself, decides and destroys herself, rehearsing both what she is and what she wants to be. She will perform herself passionately and full-out, shifting entirely with the slightest costume change. Try to keep up. She may speak oddly, percussively, orchestrally, a tango of tangled words. Assume she means to. Her intensity stems from a trained commitment. Technically, she was never trained to talk. She was trained to listen. Let her speak when she finds her voice. Do not ask her to make sense.
It’s easy to date a girl who dances. Give her ibuprofen in bulk for her birthday, sweatshirts and leg warmers for Christmas, cut-off tees and new soft shoes for anniversaries. Give her the gift of touch, the closeness in your eyelashes on her face and the silent applause in an embrace. Give her Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Yann Tiersen, original scores to your kisses. Make her feel the way she feels backstage, in the wings. Let her know that you, too, have noticed all the different configurations your bodies make to lock into one another. Understand that she’s not asking you to be a dancer when she asks you to dance.
Look at her. Stare.
Because she’s unreal. The human equivalent of a black cat, with that same mesmerizing and vaguely alarming quality in the way she slinks toward you. You’re crossing paths with the supernatural, love. You’ve every right to be suspicious. She is at once a string of omens, not just misfortune to many but good luck to plenty. She is bizarre, comfortable, and just maybe the next step in evolution. You may not know what to do with her, even years after the fact. All you know for certain is that her purring is the midsummer night, her happiness, hypnotic. Sharing her company suggests that you are either mental, or extraordinarily lucky.
Because when a dancer falls in love with you, she falls in love with the music you make. She will fall into step with you when you walk together because she knows what corps means, what a greater and grander cause costs. She will assume your motions and mannerisms are as deliberate and meaningful as her own. She will soundlessly observe and absorb you, assigning sensational motivation to your every stir. Your imperfections are artistic, and rewarded. She will recognize you by your cantor, your carriage, and most of all your asymmetry. She fancies the idea of completing each other because your smile pulls to the right, and her smile pulls to the left. It’s all in her head, of course, but what does it matter. She always did like dramatic lighting. She values your very presence in a way you’ve never known. Your cadence compels her. Your pas de deux delights her because it cannot be replicated. She will respect your insanity. It moves her.
Date a girl who dances because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who adores everything you do, every little thing about you. It won’t just be your face or your words or what you two have in common, and it certainly won’t be because you’re convenient. This is a woman who rehearses for weeks on end for maybe one minute onstage — do you think she does anything because it is easy? You want a girl who bites off more than she can chew because she is the most flexible, most sensitive, most ambitious, most big-hearted of the bunch. She will hold ridiculous ideals and outrageous expectations, and she is hardest on herself. She finds solace in rehearsal, because scratching the sublime is only a matter of time. You deserve a girl who knows that a good show requires thick skin and endless practice, a girl who isn’t daunted by any of it. You want a girl who stretches. That is the girl who is unafraid of instability, who understands it and commands it everyday. She’s the one who drills straight through valleys and mountains, persevering through highs and lows because she knows the deeper the plié, the higher the leap. You deserve a girl who doesn’t break easy, a girl who’s prepared for a bit of pain for the sake of of beauty.
She’ll be abysmal with budgeting, you ought to know, but she’ll be pretty resourceful when it comes to diplomacy and improvisation. And she’ll be terrible at scheduling and double-booking because the stage skews her sense of time. She’ll embody the ebb and flow of that tide between well-established vanity and soul-crushing insecurity, of course, but she’ll look glamorous and shy and tough and femme between layered sweats and stage make-up. And yes, darling, she’ll want everything — but she wants you.
You deserve a girl who gives you goosebumps when she says goodnight, who finds the minute and mundane phenomenal, who reveres balance as the desirable eye of a storm. If you can only give her half of your heart, you’re better off alone. If you want to race through a world more stunning than you’ve ever dared to see it, date a girl who dances."
Here is the link, so as not to plagiarize.
Here's to romance in sappy movies and wanting someone to want to date me :) perhaps someday he'll show up.

Until then
xoxo,
Lize

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

And I'm freeEEEEEEEEEEEE. Free Fallin', fallin'.




These days I think in song lyrics. They just come to my mind all the time. Hence the title of this post.

I'M DONE WITH SCHOOL!!!!!! So many times today that I wanted to chant, "Summer, summer, summer, summer...." and then the moment I finished my last final, I jumped up and started singing, "WHAT TIME IS IT?? SUMMER TIME!!!!!" {Don't worry, it was a dance final, so I was in a dance studio, and it wasn't that embarrassing.}

You guys. I have SO many big plans for this summer. So many things to accomplish. Lots of swimming and getting tan, choreographing a musical, studying abroad in ITALY. 

To celebrate the summer approaching, here is the solo I performed for my jazz teacher today as my last final. I choreographed it {which I'm scared to admit}, and I hate watching myself dance, but I kind of actually like how it turned out. I kept forgetting what came next though, so that's why there are some slower spots :/ also, I'm sad the beginning got cut off in the recording; it was my fave part. Anyway, here it is!! 



What are your plans for this summer?


Saturday, April 19, 2014

Spring Cleaning







There is at least one time of the year that I am in the mood to DEEP CLEAN.

Obviously spring time! Believe it or not, in I love going through my entire room {school work, clothing drawers, shelves, everything} and getting rid of things. It is so refreshing to get rid of the clutter and rearrange things. It's hard for me, however, because A) I hoard like you wouldn't believe. I have the most random little pieces of junk that have or had sentimental value at one point in my life, and I never get rid of stuff! Even if I haven't worn articles of clothing for years I keep them because my mom made it for me for Easter one year, or I can imagine myself rocking an outfit that includes that article of clothing. But that never actually happens, so it ends up sitting in my closet. Forever. and B) When I'm cleaning out one area and find something that I should put in a different place, I immediately start cleaning the other place to make room for that object. So I clean in circles, basically.

Today was the day! I woke up with the no-more-mister-nice-guy determination, so I went on a jog {which was cut short by my almost passing out slash almost throwing up slash knots in my stomach. Something is seriously wrong with me...} and then got down to business with the cleaning.

Every time I started to fall back into my hoarding ways, I would say to myself, Have you used this or thought about this in the last six months? And if not, are you planning on using it in the next six? That sure made it easy to put my foot down.

I'm not nearly close to being done, but my room feels more spacious already. So wish me luck!

P.s. Happy Easter!
P.P.s. What is your favorite part of spring cleaning? Or why do you not like it?

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Hotdogs, Mac&Cheese, and that's gonna leave a mark


Hotdogs gross me out, but I love eating them, so riddle me that.

I get my road rage from my dad.

I am officially a member of BYU's Contemporary Dance Theatre company!



duh, duh, duh. I'm a dancer. Everyone knows that. Even if you've never met me before, you know that... But today I reached an interesting point of self discovery. I was in a vacant studio in the vacant RB {it's seriously like a ghost town there as soon as finals week hits, so if you were looking for a great, quiet place to study, you're welcome :) }
Anyway, I have to choreograph a minute-long solo for my jazz final, and after searching for hours and days, I found the perfect song. It reminds me of Benjamin, in that he introduced me to James Vincent McMorrow, but it also reminded me of a situation. Not really a situation, more of just a thought slash emotion that I felt could be expressed through the song. Then I started to move. There were many elements that I wanted to put in it that ended up getting tossed out. But I realized two things: A) I'm not too shabby at coming up with my very own things and B)I'm not as good as I think I am.
In my mind I think I look so great, but I looked back at videos from last summer, and I think I was better then than I am now. Bummer. Also, I fell so hard out of a few tricks, the bruises formed almost instantly. #storyofmylife

I don't really have a point to that story, so sorry if I wasted your time. Here is a dance done to the song I'm doing my solo to. It's called "Wicked Game" ( I may or may not have posted this video before. Very likely.) Their dance is obviously AMAZING. WAY better than mine will be. But that's ok because I'm learning :)

Cheers.



p.s. First sunkissed skin of the season: check. Bring on the tan.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

"YOU STUBBORN PEOPLE"




Theatre Ballet and Alexandre Munz, our guest teacher/choreographer from France!


The end is on my porch and inches away from ringing my doorbell.

Right now I'm trying to write a five page paper on my philosophy of dance. My question to my professor is the following:

Why the need for five pages when I concisely state my philosophy in one sentence?
Dance is good.


In other news,
Birthdays are a huge deal to me. I LOVE celebrating birthdays. I get so happy for people on their birthday because I want them to have the best day ever on their day. It just seems right. It is my BIGGEST pet peeve, however, when people don't like celebrating their birthday. Birthdays are more than just opening presents and blowing out the candles. No matter how old you are, you should be celebrating your own day! You're alive and loved! You can laugh and cry and smile and sleep and breathe and be a human being, so birthdays should be a reminder of all the gifts you have been blessed with every day of every year. A moment of gratitude, as well as maybe a little feeling of entitlement, but not in a bad way. You should feel entitled to be confident  and proud of yourself for living this long and share with the world that it is, in fact, your birthday today!
My birthday is in 50 days. Holler at your boi.


Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Extra Credit


I love when college professors offer extra credit. Because I feel like in college it is not so much of a "You didn't do any of your homework, so this is a free for all to give you at least a few points..." attempt as it is a "Welp. Life happens sometimes, and this is me being understanding of your situation and willing to give you a really cool assignment to make up some of the points." Ok cool extra credit assignments RARELY ever happen in college, but my religion professor is seriously bomb. I have never had such a good experience in a religion class so far. He makes me feel like I actually know my own religion while adding on new insights and perspectives that I've never even considered! (For those of you who don't know, BYU is pretty much famous for religion classes that make you feel like you don't know anything about our church/gospel...)

Beside the fact that he looks and kind of sounds like Ross from the show Friends, he is hysterical and so uplifting. His classes just make you feel good, even if they're about serious things. Not to mention that his last name is Sweat. As in perspiration. hahaha he's the greatest.

Anyway, I designed slash created this little diddy as extra credit for his class, and as a part of that extra credit, I have to share it on some form of social media. So here we go! I'm definitely proud of it. You can share it on your social medias if you would like :)



Counting down the minutes until the end of the semester. and My Birthday!!!

Saturday, April 5, 2014

House at the End of the Street (sort of)




There is a house
A semi-secret house
On the outskirts of Provo
I go out of my way to drive past it at least once every day because I am absolutely intrigued by it.
I'm actually in love with it.
After rehearsal this evening, I was exhausted and so incredibly ready for this weekend. I dawned my blue, cheapo sunglasses and made the trek to my trusty Sentra, Watson. I unlocked the door, threw my bags across to the passenger seat, and immediately rolled the windows down. 58 degrees has a bit of a nippy feel as the sun sets, but I thoroughly enjoyed the reminder that summer is right around the corner. A little Whitney Houston seemed to fit the mood...
Guys. Today, of all days, the gate was open. Countless times I have driven past the house/mansion and craned my neck to sneak a peek above their fence or something, but usually to no avail. As soon as I realized their gate was open, you best believe I was trying my hardest to catch a glimpse of the good life inside that gate. Alas, all I could see was a green lawn that had two dirt parallel lines inevitably made by car tires.
That place remains to be the biggest mystery. Not even an open gate can tell me anything I want to know about this semi-secret house. I want to stop there someday. Go inside the gate. Drive up to the house and maybe ask the unknown owner if he/she will give me a tour of the place.
Mostly it is a dream house. For me, and for Shannon too. We have talked soooo many times about marrying the heir of that household. But we've only ever seen the top of the barn-like structure, so...

So mysterious. So intriguing. So mine :)

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Mine.

Here are a few of my recent obsessions:

1. Rings. They are actually one of the first things I notice about someone's outfit (which is kind of a small detail to hone in on first thing, but I do...) I have always dreamed of being a ring person, but I always seem to run into a few problems. A) The rings are always too big for my bony fingers and B) I notice rings that I love on other people's hands, but I can never find any I really like in stores. So if you are a ring person like I want to be, help a sister out and tell me good places to find them!!! I'm looking for any type of ring, really, but maybe a few small and simple ones that I can wear as a wardrobe staple?

2. Socks. I care more about clean socks than I do about clean clothes. I have so many pairs of socks, and getting rid of socks to me is like a parent having a funeral for one of their children. I have socks for all seasons and occasions. Alpaca socks included :) For my birthday last year, my mom gave me a box entirely filled with fun pairs of socks, and I couldn't be happier.

3. Lipstick and stage makeup and makeup in general. I RARELY take the time to get all dolled up unless it is stage makeup for a performance. I LOVE stage makeup so so so much. It makes me feel like a model. Which makes me want to be a model. Sometimes I really sincerely wish I could be a runway model or a model in a magazine purely for makeup and costume purposes. I went with my coworker Julia into the Ulta in Orem, and can I just say MAGICAL? I could walk around and stroke the makeup products until I die and be completely happy. I don't even know the first thing about makeup application techniques, but I do know that I love makeup. Maybe I should try to put some effort into my face...?

Questions THAT I REALLY DO NEED ACTUAL HELP WITH FROM REAL LIFE PEOPLE:

1. I need to buy a camera to take with me to Italy, but I'm totally stumped. What is a good brand to look for? I'm kind of thinking along the lines of nice digital point-and-shoot with good zoom capabilities and great quality pictures. I would just use my phone, but I don't really want to be flashing an iPhone to all the pick-pockets and gypsies of Italy. That would be screaming, "KIDNAP ME! ROB ME! TAKE EVERYTHING I OWN AND BEAT ME IN AN ALLEY!" And I don't have the money to invest in a Digital SLR right now. So let me know of your recommendations!!

2. How do you make running/exercising fun? I've been wanting to get more into running specifically, but I get so bored! Maybe I just need some new music or something? I don't know. HELP.

Can't wait to hear your opinions and hopefully I do hear your opinions because they really do mean a lot to me, and every little comment brightens my day by 100%.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

And Yet...




Three more weeks of this semester, and I literally could not be more excited for the end. Two more years of this, really? Ouch.

I love education. I love learning. I love work. I love ballet. I love life IloveboysIloveclothesIlovemeanteachersandcattycoworkersIlovefailingIloveprocrastination I. . . . . L O V E. . . . .

Have I convinced you yet? No? Darn.

Well then let's be honest. The past two weeks have been so TOUGH. My body is in full rebellion mode, I'm falling behind in school, and FINALLY cute boys try to ask me on dates, but I can't because I have a show to perform in. And I'm constantly tired and stressed and running from one thing to the next. And I don't care enough about my appearance anymore. And I have bruises all over my whole body that came from nowhere. literally. Don't know where they came from. It kinda freaks me out. My mom asked me what I wanted her to say at my funeral, so you're all cordially invited to attend.

And yet....

(teaching mah ladies how to vogue today)

This week ended as a complete dream. I still haven't decided if it is real life or if my alarm clock is gonna go off soon. My dreams are actually aligning, and even though things are still shaky and scary, the future actually looks pretty great. Besides, what is your life if you don't have to make hard sacrifices at some point in your journey?
I'm pretty confident that I'm moving in the right direction. For the first time in a long time, I am truly happy with where I'm at in life. Which is totally invigorating and exciting!

Also, you know those cool kids that are too cool for school, and you want to talk to them, but they're just too cool? Definitely broke that barrier this weekend too, so there's that.

Here's to a brighter future!!!

P.S. Contemporary is my Patronus

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Jumping the Gun


I don't really have a theme in mind for today's post, so I'm just gonna start typing and see what comes.

First of all, a few items of business:
-I don't know where the bruises come from. I realize that I look like I'm a leopard or like I've been abused. Things just happen, ok? I'm fine and everything is fine and I haven't been abused.
-If someone has a girlfriend, should I feel weird that he texts me a lot?
-Every week is so overwhelmingly full of things to do that when weekends arrive, I don't accomplish anything because I need a break.... which causes the next week to be even crazier. A vicious cycle.


Next, the warmer the weather becomes, the more my mind races and longs for the freedom of summer. Summer is never completely free, but it brings to mind all the excitement fun plans. Kinda like this:



Summer also brings a whooooooole lot of yummy smells that make me happier than anything in the world. You're thinking, what? Smells? Yes indeed. I love remembering events that smell a certain way or just smells themselves. So here are my favorite summer smells:
-First and foremost BARBEQUES. My favorite kinds of food and the most delicious smells.
-Watermelon. Period.
-Tanning oil and grass and ice water with the combination of background music. (Aka the smell of Morgan and I all day, e'ery day in the summer)
-The smell of Morgan Jo (don't be weirded out, sis. I love it.)
-The warm, thick smell of the outdoors on a morning run.
-Hiking trails and dirt and sweat
-Summer rain
-Snow cones with cream
-The dish soap smell that belongs to washing my car in a swimsuit on a hot summer day
-The smell and feeling of bonfires and s'mores and starburst.
-night time grass while we're star-gazing.  (as distinct from mid-day and morning grass smells)
-chlorine (obvsies)
-night air mixed with greasy fries/fast food
-froyo places. Always the froyo places.
-sprinklers at night
-the AFHS auditorium. Evening rehearsals there for summer shows. And J's room.
-grass stained feet {a weird one, but I can promise it smells better than post-rehearsal pointe shoe feet :/ }
-Café Rio or Costa Vida because I eat most of my meals there in summer
-Friend's cars smells. (is that weird?)
-The smell of the air conditioning that differs in each friend's car.
-The smoky, post-fireworks show smell. Especially from Stadium of Fire.
-Pink Lemonade icecream in G&G Hyde's backyard on July 4th
-Root Beer Float smell
-The smell when you get into your car after it has been sitting in the sun for awhile and it's really hot? (Sometimes. Sometimes the heat is too overwhelming to enjoy the smell)
-That smell when it's pretty much dusk and you're eating something cold, but it's still warm outside, but the sidewalks are kinda cool and crickets or insects are chirping? It has a smell. I am not crazy, because I can tell you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I just had a thought. The smell that comes to mind when you think of different colors changes from winter to summer, doesn't it? In summer, green smells like grass, red like sunburns and aloe or plastic water slides or hotdogs. Green in winter is Christmas tree smelling, and red is cinnamon or spices. Summer is blue like the chlorine filled water, whereas winter is blue like snowstorms and cold air and frozen lips. (I don't actually know what frozen lips smell like....)
Who knew smells could have colors and images?

What are your favorite summertime smells?