Final Ballet Class of the Year. Going to miss dancing, but looking forward to sleeping in.
Posted by Candice on December 7, 2009 at 11:18 pm
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!
Subscribe to the comments for this post11 Days and Counting!
Posted by Tom on December 6, 2009 at 11:35 pm
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
Posted by Candice on December 5, 2009 at 9:06 pm
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.
Christmas Comes To Cook Road (kinda)
Posted by Tom on December 5, 2009 at 1:00 am
Since Candice and I won’t be heading home to Newfoundland until the middle of the month, we decided that we should try to bring as much Christmas fun and feelings into our little apartment as possible.
We picked up a small(ish) Christmas tree last weekend and then Candice found some decorations a tree skirt! We set the tree up last night:
If you look closely you can see the first present under the tree:
There are a couple other pictures on my Flickr page, and I’m sure I’ll be adding a few more over the next week or so.
December 3: Ow my environment
Posted by Candice on December 3, 2009 at 8:42 pm
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.
United
Posted by Tom on December 3, 2009 at 12:11 am
I thought I’d talk for a second about some of the work I’ve been doing at York over the past few weeks.
York has developed a reputation of being a somewhat “dangerous” school. Every couple of weeks you’ll see a bunch of these posted around:
which are basically security bulletins, saying that something bad happened to someone on campus during the previous night. More often than not the victims of these events are women.
So a campaign called United Against Violence Against Women started recently, aiming to make our campus (and all other university and college campuses) safe for everyone. In the campaign we talk about the tragedy that occurred in 1989 in Montreal, when 14 women were killed at their school, simply because they were women in fields that were male dominated. Ridiculous, right? Add this to the ridiculousness of women not feeling safe enough to walk around their own campus at night, and we’ve got a big problem.
In an effort to educate people, we spent today talking to students about the events that happened in 1989 and how students can help make their campus a little safer. We also got petitions signed and collected personal statements from students to deliver to the president of the university, to make sure that he and the rest of the admin know that there is a problem that needs to be addressed.
We closed off the day with a short rally/vigil, where a couple of speakers spoke about the importance of all students helping their fellow students make the campus a better place.
As a male, sometimes it’s difficult/awkward to get involved with campaigns like this… I’m never sure where my place is. Is it weird to have some guy trying to talk to students about violence against women? Should it just be women as the face of the campaign?
What I need to remember is that this is a fight for all students. Someone mentioned tonight “An injury to one student is an injury to all students”, and she’s got a point. I know that when I see one of those info bulletins as I stumble to my morning class, I shake my head every time, feeling for the victim and feeling a little angry at whoever made that person into a victim.
This school has plenty of issues, no doubt, but this is one that students can actually take a stand on and do something about it. For once, this isn’t the school administration injuring students, it’s students injuring students. And that just feels ridiculous to me.
…and with that out of the way, I’m sure Candice’s post tomorrow will be much more cheerful. We’re putting up our Christmas tree tomorrow, so I’m sure there will be pictures to post soon!
The Countdown in On!
Posted by Candice on December 2, 2009 at 12:11 am
As Tom mentioned in his last post leading up to Christmas we are going to be putting up a post everyday to share some of the things we’re doing to get in the holiday spirit! This first post is a little lame as it is just introducing the fun that is going to happen over the next few days. And we’ve got fun planned. Last Saturday we bought an environment killing artificial Christmas tree, I’ve planned about 100 gluten free, vegan, low sugar Christmas cookies to bake, and we’ve started marking the TV guide for all the Christmas specials. Yes, that’s right. We’re the coolest people you know.
We’ve also got some plans to explore holidays in the city. Actually this started with a big Christmas tree lighting that happened downtown last weekend and that’s going to be the topic of my next post . . .
Countdown
Posted by Tom on November 30, 2009 at 11:31 am
So it’s the end of November, and while most people are looking forward to Christmas (not that we aren’t, we bought a Christmas tree the other day!), Candice and I find ourselves back in the situation of not knowing what’s going to happen next year.
Since we’ll both be finishing our respective degrees this year (fingers crossed) we both need to find something to do next year. It comes down to a couple of basic questions:
“Do you want to go to school next year? Y or N”
“If yes, which school would you like to attend? Do you think you have a chance of getting in?”
I’ve got a couple of schools on my “which school would you like to attend” list, none of which are directly related to my Math degree: two programs in Toronto (Urban Planning at Ryerson and Environmental Studies at York) and one in St. John’s (Post-Secondary Studies at MUN). All of these programs take my studies in a different direction and look at topics that I’ve developed a huge interest in over the past year or two. They all (basically) look at people, as opposed to my math undergrad which looks at numbers (zzzzzz). I’m tired of studying things in school that have no relation to what I’m working on in “real life”, so it’s time to change that.
Of course, I could reply “N” to the first question and attempt to find a job. I’ve been doing a lot of work with the student movement lately, and it could be fun/interesting/enlightening to work at it full-time for a little while. I even think it would be worth taking a year “break”, work at a job that’s meaningful and then dive back into school with a new, positive outlook (and perhaps some money from working). However, these “meaningful” jobs (especially full-time ones) are few and far between, so there’s that I wouldn’t be able to find something fantastic and would end up working in a call center for a year (no offense to people who enjoy working in call centers, but it isn’t on my list of places I’d like to work). It would require that I find a job for next year now (or very soon). I’m not a fan of making these large decisions this far in advance.
Anyway…. I’ll be sure to let everyone know when a decision gets made (*hint* I’ll probably end up in school). On the short(er) term, we’ll be home for Christmas in about 17 days (!!) and to celebrate Candice and I will be doing a TomandCandice.com advent calendar of sorts, where we’re promising to do a post per day until Christmas (… or maybe just until we get home. We’ll play it by ear).
Talk to you tomorrow!
PS:
Candice (sleepy), Tom (haircut)
Happy November, it was 18 degrees today!
Posted by Candice on November 9, 2009 at 10:41 pm
I’m feeling quite relieved tonight after a slight freak out this afternoon that went something like this:
“Why am I still in school? I hate school. I love school. I know too much. I don’t know enough. I have too many exciting ideas. I don’t have any ideas. I need a snack.”
However, by the end of the hours I had set aside for working on my MRP I had finally figured out what I wanted to argue. I mean, I have known my topic for a while and have done a lot of research, but this afternoon I finally saw how it can all fit together. It took a lot of mental endurance. I must have been clenching and holding my breath a lot because by supper time I felt like I had used a lot of physical energy!
This may seem quite boring to you, but it has given me the little motivational boost that it will take to get a draft in before Christmas. It really is the most exciting thing going on in my life right now.
Tom and I did have a little excitement over the weekend though when his parents (en route to Cuba) stopped in for supper! We showed them around our apartment and the York campus before they had to take off again for an early morning flight. It was great that they could see and contribute to our space. I feel that anytime we can have friends, family, and love in our apartment it makes it a little better for us even after they leave. I’m sure Tom was happy too.
Right now we are debating whether or not we should go to the Christmas parade in Toronto. Pro - it is a Christmas parade; Con - it’s next weekend (again, it was 18 degrees here today and it’s November, a little early don’t you think?)
Happy Halloween!
Posted by Candice on October 31, 2009 at 8:56 pm
This could be a poetic post about fall and Halloween; however, it’s not. It does contain a big announcement though.
Tom and I had a fabulous fall day.
We were full of Halloween nostalgia and there were leaves blowing around everywhere.
Tom tried on a hundred pairs of pants.
We invented a new city game that is the sequel to the ever popular “bluetooth or crazy?” called “costume, couture, or clothes?”
We discovered a gorgeous street that is beautiful, quiet, close to the subway, across the street from a park, and full of young couples with dogs. We want to move there. Today.
In the same neighbourhood we had a maple latte and a gluten free orange chocolate loaf at the Linux Caffe.
I played in the leaves.
We got home late, made “Thai food”, and watched a few episodes of our new favourite show “How I Met Your Mother.”
We’ve decided to bring back the freeze frame high five.
And now time for the big announcement . . .
WE’VE BOOKED OUR TICKETS HOME FOR CHRISTMAS. I arrive in Deer Lake on the 16th of December and Tom gets in on the 17th. Sadly, we’re not home as long this year as we were last year (though it’s nice not to be on strike) but we’re still really looking forward to it. And perhaps, for Katelyn, we’ll put a countdown on! Just 6 1/2 weeks from today . . .