Saturday, March 13, 2010

Hit two birds with one stone

Um, first off I must confess that I'm more of a 'chuck half a million stones until you hit one stupid bird' sort of person. My aim is that bad.

*cough* moving on to what I actually meant by the title.

In my English class, I was assigned to write a personal narrative of whatever event in my life I liked. Guess what I chose. Ballroom competition! So I get to copy and paste that here! Woo! I love when your work pays off twice. I'll also be posting an edited version of it under the 'Writing' tab, seeing as I just started it today, and it's not fine-tuned yet.


***The music started and my partner and I swept into our dance routine, smiling to the hundreds of people watching. We moved around the dance floor, weaving in and out of the other couples, the girls in their elegant dresses and the boys with the couple numbers pinned to their shirts. We moved through the steps like clock work, until the music faded out. We turned to the audience and bowed and curtsied. I felt like flying I was so happy.
Of course the rest of my day had not been so perfect. Late in the afternoon, I started getting ready for the ballroom dance competition. I wove my hair into a low bun and applied my makeup. I was sprayed thoroughly with hair spray three times, so my hair crunched when I touched it. I ran to my mom's bathroom to get some jewelry, and on the way I kicked the door frame as hard as I possibly could. Yelping, I grabbed my foot and tried to ignore the searing pain. Hopping around, I hoped I hadn't done anything serious to it. Dancing with a broken foot would be like entering an arm-wrestling competition with a paralyzed bicep. The pain ebbed to a dull ache, however, and I continued gathering what I needed.
My mom and I rushed out the door, and soon we were racing along the route to the building the competition was held in. Half way there, we ran into some traffic from construction. Our progress slowed to a crawl, and I resisted the urge to bang my head against the window. I wouldn't have to be nervous about competing if I never got the chance. Finally we broke through and continued our race against time. We lost.
We arrived at the designated meeting spot for my team ten minutes late, and no one was there. They had already moved. My mom wasn't allowed back stage, so I purchased my ticket, and entered the fray of contestants heading to their events and dressing rooms. The competition itself was a huge event. It ran for three days, and had a ton of events. It was held in a huge events center, and the backstage halls and rooms were a chaotic mess. I ran up and down the halls, checking in dressing rooms as a I went. I searched hallway after hallway, a wave of panic rising in my mind. Then, finally, as the elevator doors opened to yet another hallway, I ran into someone sent to look for me. We both let out a huge sigh of relief and rushed to join the rest of our team. Several sets of stairs later, we were quite out of breath, but we were there. One of the other girls shoved a new dress at me, telling me that we had new costumes. I only had a few minutes before I had to be ready. I snatched the dress and dashed down the concrete steps. I sprinted through the halls until I found a dressing room. I waited for an empty stall, hoping that I would make it in time. A door opened and I scrambled into my costume. I shoved my things into my duffel bag, and raced back to my team. A fellow dancer sprayed my hair once again, and I was sure that I could be in a hurricane without my hair coming out. I dumped everything on the floor and ran through my quickstep routine with my partner a few times before we went to wait for our curtain call.
Our team name was called out, and we filed out onto the floor. I smiled and relaxed. I was here, and all I had to do was dance my routine. We took our seats on the sidelines, and waited for our couple numbers to be called out. Waltz, samba, tango, and cha-cha all went by, and my team mates all took their turns for their dances. Next it was quickstep. Our couple number was called out, and my partner helped me to my feet. We took our place on the floor. And the music started. It was all like a dream as we spun around the floor. The music faded, and I took my curtsy. All the stress of the day was completely worth that moment.***

so ya. That was my performance/competition. It. was. amazing. My team got 4th, which is a far cry from the tenth out of ten we got last time. Also something that didn't get mentioned is that I learned that I can run in 3 inch heels without dying. Yeah, me, the one who managed to reallllllly hurt, possibly break, her pinky toe earlier that day. Haha, the world is full of contradictions :P

Comments and Critiques are more than welcome. In fact, I'll give you a virtual cookie if you do ^_^


Um, another note. This week has been a tad hairy. So I haven't been commenting much, and tomorrow will probably be more of the same, but Sunday I shall hopefully, maybe get back into the blogosphere.

4 comments:

  1. Double fist pump! Yes!! I'm so glad your competition went well and fourth place?! Go you!!

    I am always doing something klutzy. I managed to break a toe running into a bookcase once. Not fun.

    My daughter was a dancer for years, until an accident that made it impossible to dance competitively, and well I remember the backstage furor and excitement. It was always a race to get her costumes changed and her back onstage in time!! But it was worth the joy of watching her dance.

    ♥Spot

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  2. *happy dance* I still can't believe we did so well!

    *high fives* Klutzes unite! Man, I could probably manage to break my toe on absolutely nothing.

    I'm sorry she can't dance any more! That's sucks!
    And I totally agree! The joy of it is well worth the insanity before hand.

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  3. Sounds like your performance/competition was a blast! I'm sorry I couldn't watch it... the ticket prices were too high for me. Shiny had very nice things to say about it. She says you were gorgeous.

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  4. It was! And really, I didn't want people spending that much on me, though it would have been fun to have you there.

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