Archive for the ‘Christmas countdown’ Category:
Friends don’t let friends get massages and then write term papers.
Given that I am done with ballet for 2009, I decided that yesterday I would attempt to iron out some of the damage I have done to my back and hips all semester with a massage. Another great thing about the dance department at York is that they have a massage therapist and physiotherapist working in the building so I didn’t have to venture very far to find someone who knows exactly what is necessary after 3 months of arabesques.
So, at 1:10 I scooted over to the building and on to the table. However, I should have known better than to schedule a massage so early in the day. I thought it would be okay since she could only fit me in for a 1/2 hour, but no, I still got massage-drunk.
Massage-drunk is why I rarely get a massage in Corner Brook - because I can’t drive home after. I’m so relaxed that I can’t think straight, the world is going way to fast for me, and all I can do is stare off into space. I managed to make it home yesterday and attempted to work on a final paper but had to give up once nothing I was writing made any sense and I was starting to drool on the keyboard. Even though I had hours of school work to do I ended up taking a nap.
However, as unproductive as my day was it certainly felt healthy to relax a little and with today’s “big snowstorm” I was perfectly refreshed and content to stay snuggled up in the apartment and get some serious work done!
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I guess it comes as a result of living in a big city, but since we’ve moved here I’ve picked up on a lot of very cool ideas, a lot of which have to do with communicating about local issues. For example, there’s a message board called Urban Toronto where people discuss rant about local events and changes, and there’s sites like blogTO or Torontoist, blogs which write about local happenings and aggregate local news. Of course there’s also a bunch of local free weekly newspapers and radio stations.
Sure, this helps contribute to the stereotypical Torontonian who doesn’t know about anything that goes on outside the city limits (okay, so maybe they know a couple things that happen in the “greater Toronto area”), but it also provides a sense of community and city pride. These outlets provide people with easy access to things they probably should know about (and commentary on it), everything from major city budget issues to plans for a popular city landmark to be torn down.
I’ve started thinking a lot lately about how these ideas can be applied to smaller centers - namely, Corner Brook and the surrounding area. There is ongoing work happening at SWGC to create a community radio station based out of the school cafeteria and the group organising it are putting a lot of effort into ensuring that it is a community radio station and not university based. It’s going to start out being based online, eventually branching onto terrestrial airwaves, and if it works (where working would mean that people want to listen and participate in it) I think that it could mean a renewed sense of civic pride for Corner Brook. People could tune in to hear commentary (both positive and negative) on local issues, and when people actually know what these issues are, they’ll create opinions and want to get involved.
I would absolutely love to be involved with this, and help bring this to Corner Brook and the area, and I would particularly like to help bring this issues and ideas to the “younger” generation. For a long time, decisions in the city and the surrounding communities have been made by an “older” generation, largely because the younger generation is disinterested. Using methods like the radio station, or a community oriented blog or whatever, maybe we can get the younger generation caring. I mean, they’re going to have to run the city someday, right?
Final Ballet Class of the Year. Going to miss dancing, but looking forward to sleeping in.
The daily posts don’t have to be Christmas themed do they?
Today was my last ballet class of the year. It’s been a good year and in some ways I feel like I’ve progressed a lot, but in others I feel like I am getting a little too old to be doing this! I’m starting to really understand some of the subtleties of ballet movement yet my body is having a hard time reflecting them all. I chaulk some of this up to getting older, some of it to being mentally and physically unprepared for class at 8:30 in the morning and some of it up to how I’m constantly undoing all the physical progress I make by slumping over at my school work and cooking for hours of the day. However, building on some of the things I learned last year, I’m also learning not to make excuses for my dancing. It’s quite freeing.
Anyway, that’s not what this post is about. This post is about one of the things that helps you get through ballet class before sane people are out of bed - the live musicians. My experience with the musicians here at York has been incredible. There are only a handful (maybe 3) piano players and so you get to know them throughout the year. They each have their own style but they all improvise and keep the class exciting by incorporating tunes of popular songs, classical repertoire, and their own creations.
I am amazed at how talented they must be to work in the ballet class environment and how much they really do contribute to the class. They are able to pick up tempos and time signatures just from the teacher’s brief demonstration of the exercise and they know how to phrase and structure the music to get the most out of the dancers. When things are looking “heavy” in a jump they might change from a waltz to a mazurka and suddenly everyone is able to hover! A whole new type of communication happens. They musican “says” a lot to the dancers without ever talking.
I know not all ballet class musicians are like this and that I am spoiled here! However, I’m enjoying it while I can and have learned so much about the music/dance connection in this past year and a half.
Oh, and to incorporate the holiday theme. Our musician this morning was in quite a good mood and finally indulged us in some Christmas songs during barre. Fondu to a jazzy rendition of Silver Bells made my extensions the best they had been all semester! He also played the last few bars of We Wish You a Merry Christmas for reverence (bow at the end of class) which made it seem like he was telling all of us dancers “I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” before we left the room!
11 Days and Counting!
The countdown keeps going! Exams will be done in 9 days, I’ll be completely finished school for the semester in 10 days and I’ll be home in 11!
What’s your favourite Christmas movie? Every year at Christmas my parents play the soundtrack from A Charlie Brown Christmas, so the music and sounds from that have turned that movie into one of my favourites. Have 25 minutes to kill? You can watch it right now! Just click here and enjoy 25 minutes of Linus attempting to explain to Charlie Brown just what Christmas is really “all about.”
C is for Christmas. And Cookies
While Tom was starting to get the tree set up on Thursday evening, I wanted to get the place smelling like Christmas so I started doing some Christmas baking. While we aren’t planning to do a whole lot of entertaining I figured having some on hand and ready to take home will save me a lot of stress while everyone else is enjoying their fabulous wheat-tastic desserts.
So I have plans to make a few different things but on Thursday I made:
1) Our current favourite cookies. Vegan Coconut Bars from Karina’s Kitchen.
Unlike the last time I made these I didn’t overcook them and they are awesome!
And a new recipe
2) Spiced Teff Cookie Bars from The Nourished Kitchen.
These taste like Christmas. Actually, they kind of taste like a gingerbread latte, except there is no coffee in them . . .
Baking without eggs or gluten can be a challenge. I’ve had a few failures (though luckily most things don’t taste too bad, they just have the completely wrong texture). It probably doesn’t help that I often “improvise,” something you probably shouldn’t do it baking, but luckily I understand the science of it pretty well so most things turn out alright. I’ve got a bunch of bananas in the freezer ready to make a banana bread some time this week as well as some gingerbread cookies as soon as I get a few Christmas cookie cutters. They don’t taste the same unless they are shaped like little men and Christmas trees.
December 3: Ow my environment
Tom was right. This post is more cheerful. It is actually a recounting of our first Toronto Christmas event.
So the Toronto Christmas parade is held in early November. For the past two years Tom and I have contemplated going but decided against it because it is hard to get in the holiday spirit when it is 11 degrees out and you are busy doing fall-like activities (you know, jumping in leaves, making pumpkin pies, wearing a lot of orange sweaters). In fact, I have a personal policy to ignore all things Christmas until November 25 (at which time I acknowledge that other people are doing holiday things) and to not engage in any holiday activities myself until December. This keeps it special.
Anyways, I broke my policy a little bit when I went to the Toronto tree-lighting event last weekend. The event took place outside city hall and Tom and I arrived just as the mayor “flipped the switch” and turned on a giant lit Christmas tree and a whole design of lights around the square. I really like how Toronto does try to instill a bit of city pride and inclusiveness through events like this. Just in the way the mayor talks and the way the festivities are presented it is a really positive environment for anyone looking for a little community spirit. Anyway after the lights went on about 1/2 of the people left and the actual party got started. There were brief performances by Steven Page; Matt Dusk; Keisha Chante; and some up and coming dance band that did a really bad job lip syncing and put on an unnecessarily fake performance. We were mostly there to see Steven Page (who was tons of fun and sang some old BNL songs. Does he have custody of them? How does that work?) but the other performances were fun too and everyone did one holiday song which helped set the mood.
When the musical performances ended some circus performers scaled city hall with a lit torch, zipped from the tower of one building to another and ran across the top of the building to light the fireworks beginning a crazy fireworks display. It was really incredible. The fireworks were all choreographed to music and created an absolutely awesome spectacle. Tom and my conversation went something like this.
Tom: Ow, my environment.
Candice: I was going to say 1/2 of the world’s children don’t have access to clean drinking water, but same sentiment.
It was a great holiday kick-off and you can check out the pictures on Tom’s flikr.