He's Here!!!

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I am so excited I can't go to bed.  I have to tell everyone that my nephew is perfect! 

Apparently, babies are rated according to their health (color, weight, blood levels, etc) as soon as they're born and Cid Emerson Laukat recieved a 9.9 out of 10.  (ok. not quite perfect, but I think we can throw out the east german judge.)

I got the call while I was at school showing my piece for showcase.  The girls did great, and the dance was wonderful, but man, I couldn't wait to leave!  I rushed the 1/2mi up to my car (why did I park so far away?) and tried to drive very carefully - yet uber quickly - through the rain and rush-hour traffic to get to St. Mark's hospital. 

Once I got there, Malorie was having some alone time with her new son, so I had to join the rest of the family waiting outside in the hall.  We joked, we laughed, we smiled, and I heard all about the amazingly quick delivery (within 2 hours of Mal & Ryan walking in the door) and how I had a 7lb 3oz nephew as blond as Billy Idol.

Finally, we were able to go back in and see this brand-new family, and I got to hold Cid for the first time.  I looked at him and he was just so fascinating, and so perfect, and it was so awesome to really feel that he belongs to us....to our family....and that I'm related to him.  He yawned, and scrunched up his face, and opened his eyes, and he was beautiful.  I was crying before I even realized how big a feeling this really was.  Everyone tells you babies just do something to you, but I'd never felt particularly transformed by any of them until this little guy.  I'm just sure Heavenly Father knows what he's doing when children get sent to their families.  This one fits.  And he fits so well. 

Malorie seemed so peacefully happy, and Ryan was just beaming.  Neither of them stopped smiling the whole time I was there.  Cid couldn't be any luckier in his parentage (and I must say that he's got a pretty awesome aunt too).  I'm so happy for them!

There's really else nothing to say, but I can't stop talking about it!  I want to say it to everyone.  Thanks those of you who shared the joy with me, (especially via text).  :)

I am bold! (too bold?)

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First day of the last year of graduate school!!

Truth be told, I feel like it's going to be a fabulous year.  I have been blessed with so many awesome opportunities, and even though things are kind of crazy and everyone in the department is a little stressed, I feel like I'm going to be OK.  Someone up there must be watching out for me :)

I'm really excited about the classes I'm teaching.  I've been given the lower division and one of the upper division major pointe classes - which is really an honor as it's not usual for the graduate students to teach majors by themselves.  This year we are stretched for faculty because of all the people that have left since last year (drama!), so a lot of us grads are taking over courses.  I'm also the TA for "Essentials of Ballet Teaching".  Hands down the most difficult (and yet awesome!) class offered by the department, taught by the toughest professor: Regina Zharina.  (don't tell anyone, but I actually haven't officially passed the second semester of this course yet :-o ) I don't really know if I'll be doing much besides grading quizzes and handing out papers, but it's great to sit through the lectures again as a refresher.

I'm choreographing a piece this semester for the Ballet Student Showcase (Sept 30-Oct 2 you should come!!), and I've got a great cast.  They're working really hard.  We've already got 3:20 minutes done out of 4:54 (which is really good in choreographers terms btw).  It's set to a spicy salsa (el Preso by El Gran Combo) and is designed to be just fun, sexy, and crowd-pleasing.  The piece has to go through three "showings" to be selected (or not) for the actual production.  The first one is Friday - a mere 5 days after the start of the school year - so I began my rehearsals last week with a few dedicated upper-classmen, (Thanks ladies!) and finished off my cast with freshman and new students just this evening.

My final major work of my grad career will be produced as part of the Ballet Ensemble in February 17-19, but auditions and rehearsals begin in October.  Again, this is a huge opportunity for me as a graduate student, and I'm very excited and very greatful for it.  It will be much more serious.  I'm hoping to be able to call it the culmination of my life as an artist.  But we'll see.

Now we come to the hard part.

I am loving this school year, and I feel "highly favored" in the department, but I think it's making some of my fellow graduate students uncomfortable.  Some of them have teased me a little about how lucky I am, or how much it seems I'm being given the best opportunities...and I wonder how much of it is jest and how much is truth?  I don't want to place myself above any of the other grad students; who are all extremely talented, experienced and hard-working, but I have really gone after the things I've wanted from this department and I've gotten a lot of them.  I've been bold, I guess, stepping to the front and asking to be noticed.  And sometimes I have just been in the right place at the right time.

My personality is bold too.  I say what I think, and I tease people a lot.  Sometimes I can really walk all over the sensitive places in other people's lives simply by being who I am (as I did today with a good friend).  I often ask myself why that is "who I am" and whether that's a good thing.  Maybe people would like me better if I were a little more reserved?  But would I still be as successful in "going out and getting"?  The best thing would be to have the wisdom to recognize appropriate times to be bold, and the times to hold back.

That has been my life's struggle, and it's not over yet!

New Restaurant

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Ok.  I just thought this was funny.

Today I went to a restaurant that was apparently not really open yet.  There is a new Maglebys near BYU and their entire wait staff was on deck training, so they were letting whoever walk in off the street to give the servers experience before the craziness of a grand opening.  Having been a server myself, it was kind of cute to see all these 19 year-old cougars trying to "do everything right".  I had a lime in my cranberry juice without having to ask for it, I was given a soup spoon almost as soon as I'd sat down because I'd neglected to grab one from the buffet (it's a little creepy that they were watching that close), and I think I really made the busser's day when I let him take my plate.  Probably everyone working in the restaurant that day walked up and asked how things were, or if they could get us a refill on bread, or drinks, and if they could "get some of these (2) plates out of your way".  It was a tad smothering, and I felt a little like a piece of poop in the grass with a bunch of black and white-aproned flies buzzing around.  But as I said, it was pretty cute.

I did leave an above average tip after all that effort, but I felt a little like the guy who walks up to an annoying street musician and says "here! I'll give you a dollar to Shut Up!"

August air

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I feel so humbled at this moment. I began this blog last night in kind of a funk...I felt very alone in the universe and rather on the left side of the spectrum when it came to meaningful human contact. Today was completely opposite of that.



I felt uplifted in so many ways today. I had a really good chat with a friend in the making :), and many people I hadn't spoken to in too long texted or messaged just to check in and see how I was. These were well-timed reminders that things aren't as bad as they seem at 1am; that people really do care about me specifically. I took myself on an outing to a beautiful spot up provo canyon and just read by the river for a while. I forget how much I love the smell of August air! The light is just beautiful this time of year as well, and I had Rachmaninoff's 2nd piano concerto to keep me company.



Neither words, nor pictures can describe the awesomeness of utah mountains during golden hour; the smell, the rushing sound through the aspens, the way the air kind of washes around your skin like water.....mmmm. That and a jar of hot fudge, and I was sitting pretty.


Round all that off with a visit to my sister's and a rousing game of Valaria with her and my brother-in-law...


Practically perfect day. Thank you universe.

Quirky People

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As anyone who has lived in the world for any length of time will tell you, there are some pretty random people out there. I'd like to take that a step further and observe for the cyber world that there are some people out there, and they are all random.

Seriously, though, everyone has things about them that just drive you batty: the person who laughs so you can see the back of their throat, the person who breaks into song as a part of the conversation, the person somehow still laging behind the curve in one or the other point of personal hygene, the person who always has to tell a better story than the one you just told... I know these people, and I'm one of them, too. I'm the person who's always got to impress people with how funny I can be (though sometimes it's kind of a stretch). I'm also the person who says what they think--rather less than tactfully sometimes.

While I am so happy for the people out there who love me anyway (though those are few and far between :), this post is a shout-out to those people who politely ignore the stupid things I do and say for the sake of being polite. You I can get along with. Thank you. And I am more than happy to forgive you for smelling bad sometimes, or for sniffing in a way that paints a graphic picture of what's inside your sinuses (sinusi?), or even for belaboring a political point I don't agree with past the point of all sanity, in return for you courtesy.

Honestly, I believe it's these little forgivenesses we give each other that make it possible for people to be friends at all. Thinking back, some of my dearest and longest-term friends began as "that person" for me. Thank goodness for social politeness that made me look past that and find the awesome person I know now. Funny, they still have their annoying points to them...but I just love 'em anyway.