Last night I learned that little grade school children who make other children cave to peer pressure can go fuck themselves.

Let me expound on that.
I danced starting in... kindergarten? I did ballet, and tap. Ballet wasn't my deal, but I was the little show stopper who they put in the middle of the line for recitals because I could stare straight ahead and smile while doing the routine (unlike my classmates who had to look to the side the entire time and watch our teachers in the wings doing it with us for help).
I tapped for a year or two and then started to notice Jazz. I begged my parents, and they let me take both.

Enjoy some of my favorite awesomely bad, embarrassing dance photos!

The studio I went to was just around the corner so it was convenient for my parents -- but the owner was crazy. She had a niece who was super involved and my age - so she was always the star of the show as time went by. The studio didn't compete - I'd only ever been in one competition, and they didn't have enough interest to do it again.

And by the 5th & 6th grade it was not cool to dance. I played soccer and was good enough for the regional team (which I guess, granted me some legitimacy) but by the 6th grade I'd had enough.
Looking back the teasing wasn't *that* bad - but you know how kids are.
And I also know it wasn't in my capacity to think after saying, 'Mom, I hate my studio and I want to quit. The kids at school say it's lame.' to follow up with, 'But I still like to dance. Is there another place I can try?'
My parents never gave me that option. They just let me quit.
I don't know if I should blame them in any way, or hold it against them...

Cut to last night.

Or really, last spring, the night we were all in the theater until very very late dancing and singing along to showtunes. I watched my friends dance around with actual skill, and was jealous - in that not hating sort of just sad disappointed in myself sort of way. I'd found bellydancing in Australia, and it was impossible to keep up during the school year.

So last night at my first Adult Jazz class I didn't have major flashbacks as much as a deep-seated satisfaction with a bittersweet taste to it. I loved it - the instructor said dance terms I couldn't have pulled out of my vocabulary but when he said them - I did it almost automatically. I was so happy - but couldn't help feeling like I'd wasted so much time. I could've danced in high school. Instead I did okay in choreographed dance numbers in musicals, and by college the skill was basically lost to alcohol and stress until I found bellydancing.

Now I take bellydancing on Sundays, Jazz on Tuesdays, and it feels right.

(Actually, nix that. It feels *mostly* right. I need to find a new bellydancing place... the place near me does American Tribal, and I do Cabaret style, dammit, and the instructor is constantly telling me to think less 'happy bollywood showgirl' and more 'sexysexy'... American tribal dancers are practically desperate about being 'sexysexy' all the time. Effing Americans. It's supposed to be a mixture of both! Smile-playful-hypnotic hips. Not bored runway model! Stop trying to tell me that the origins of bellydance are wrong. *You're wrong.*! ... but you make me practice abdominal technique that is relatively similar, so I will pay my $8 a class until I find another place I can go!)

So despite not having a job, I'm surprisingly okay. That job downtown I mentioned before didn't pan out, which had me seriously bummed on Friday, but life goes on.
It's either give up and quit life or mope for a few hours and move on.
I choose to optimistically think it means I'll find something that's better suited to me than that one was.
I heard back from Princeton about a job I put in for, and I'm slowly realizing that getting hired (Or even rejected) doesn't happen overnight, and I haven't even been looking for that long. People go months trying to find jobs even after they've been employed post-college.

I *do* still have those pocket aspects of my life, or personality, I guess that haven't been hit by this glass is half full nonsense (obviously), but I'm finding it's something that only I can change, and it's something that won't change until I'm happy with myself. I'm happier with myself, but it's going to probably be gradual process akin to setting up the gameboard for a round of Mousetrap. When everything else is in place, the stop sign will swing, the boot will kick in, the marble will roll, and eventually I'll finally catch that fucking mou---err...release my remaining self-imposed self-loathing. That's the one.

So to those I've inspired some at my seeming way of graduating and 'taking it well' with the job hunt, and hitting the gym...
I'm glad my bastardized form of perseverance has helped you keep moving too.
It's really the only way I know how...


And seriously 6th grade peer pressuring hate mongers, fuck yourselves.


Hooroo naive college student mindset, Hello trudging forward no matter what.