The 5 words meme (part 1 of answers)
Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you or just five words that I want to see your associations with/thoughts about. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.
Part 1 - Dance
I spent a long time wishing I could dance, but not knowing where or how to learn, as I was a boy™, and dance™ was for girls™. Plus, at the time, I lived in Florida, and aside from the one swing class I took at the local YMCA, there wasn't really any sort of dance outside of ballet, which as aforementioned, would not do (I really just didn't know any better. I wish I did). DDR changed all that. When I was on vacation in SF from Florida, I was lucky enough to arrive just as the first two DDR machines arrived in the states: one in SF, one in LA.
I spent two weeks playing DDR all day long. I was going to compete in a DDR competition, but had to leave before it happened. However, all that DDR taught me how to move to music, at least a little. I adapted my DDR skillz to the local all ages club and school dances, which worked well enough, but it would usually take me the first two hours of a 5 hour event to work up the nerve to actually dance. I would do some limited break dancing too, as this was the sort of scene where people would form big circles and then people would take turns showing off whatever skills they had in the middle.
So when I arrived in California, I came with a preexisting love of dance. However, I never actually got much of any dancing in for several years. For one thing, there weren't any all ages clubs around here (the gilman doesn't count... you don't dance there). So when I started up full time at Berkeley, I saw fliers for dance classes that I wanted to go take, but I always had schedule conflicts. When I finally made it to a class in my second year, it was a tango class, with morgan and yuli teaching. For those who don't know them (and sorry, I don't know how to spell yuli's name), they are two of the most amazing ballroom dancers in the bay area. Watching them do international tango made my jaw drop, and I decided then and there, that I was going to learn how to do that. I don't remember what they taught. In fact, I remember very little of what was taught at those "social" classes at berkeley due to the fact that they were teaching competition ballroom (and not even beginner competition ballroom) rather than social dancing. However, it did get me hooked. Around this time, tribe.net was just getting popular as it filled with the refugees from friendster. Through tribe, I discovered the vibrant waltz scene, and started going to FNW, Gaskells, PEERS, and other events.
I loved the social dance scene, though I was a bit slow to start, as I would dance the international dance styles I was learning at Berkeley and thoroughly confusing the poor follows I danced with. On Wednesday evenings, the Berkeley class had an hour of social dancing after the lessons, playing an assortment of modern ballroom music. The number of different dances was overwhelming. I used to count a small victory every time I learned a new one, hoping to some day master the whole list. We would also go hang out at cafe strada, a cafe across the street from campus. I met a lot of people that I'm only just starting to get to know now back then when I was still a very shy nobody would was happy just to be in the presence of all those wonderful dancers.
I showed up to my first gaskells in the suit I'd had since 8th grade and a pair of combat boots, which were the closest things to dress shoes I owned at the time. I could only dance the waltz, and that itself was quite difficult to keep up with what with brassworks' preferred speed of insane. I remember polka being especially difficult to learn too. No one ever taught me how to get around my partner in classes teaching polka. I slowly learned by dancing with people who would backlead me into doing it just right. Zwiefacher was my favorite gaskells dance because it was the test bar that would prove to myself that I was really a good dancer once I could master it. Also, pivots are awesome, waltz is awesome... how could the two combined be any less than fantastic?
I joined the UC Ballroom team the next year, eager to learn more dance. They wouldn't let me join halfway through the year when I first found out about them after seeing them recruiting on sproul. I really enjoyed the dancing, but I didn't really care about the competition part. I placed fairly well in competitions because my partner had done ballet for 12 years and was just a great dancer. I kept up my social dance habit, trying to drag other ballroom people out to events like gaskells and the friday night waltz new year's. I even went to dickens, hearing that I'd get to dance all day there. By that time, my sword fighting teacher had made me some victorian clothes, so I even fit in perfectly with the cast of faire. They didn't even kick me out when faire closed down. At this point, I still didn't have any friends in the dance scene, but I recognized most of the faces from the other dance events. It would be a long while still before I came to be part of this great and wonderful community.
When I started dancing at the starry plough, I was already a good dancer, and irish was just a new challenge to pick up. I had been to the plough on wednesday nights for the poetry slams, and had heard rumors of dancers invading au coquelet on monday nights. When I finally figured out where it was happening, I made my way down to the plough to try it out. It was amazingly fun, and I had a whole new slew of dances to learn. After dancing there for a few months, Ammy took notice of me and basically said "you're a boy, and you dance quite well... come to this party on saturday". She promised dancing, so obviously I couldn't resist. This was back in the days when Dave's hot tub worked, so I got recruited by 3 fezziwig daughters wearing bikinis in the hot tub.
And just like that, I was part of the greater dance community.
So thanks Ammy, you really changed my life.
Part II: Hair
I've always had nice hair, and I usually don't know what to do with it. When I was a kid, I'd just shave my head every summer because it was hot and because it would freak out my mom when my dad and I came home with matching buzz cuts or flat tops (hey, it was the early 90s). I've gone to a lot of different schools, and many of them have had dress codes. That means that a lot of them have strict rules against boys having long hair. My goal around middle school was to have "anime hair", but I couldn't find a barber around who could figure out what that meant, so I usually just kept getting bad haircuts. My hair also grew insanely fast. If I shaved my head during the summer, my hair would be down past my nose by the end of the school year.
Once I started high school, I didn't have to follow the hair code anymore and I started growing it out. Girls seemed to really like this (one girl would like to walk around with her hand in my hair, playing with it). I moved to california, still growing it, and decided that I needed a haircut to deal with split ends. I asked for 2 inches off the bottom. What I got was more like 8 inches off, and the most terrible dutch boy/prince valliant haircut imaginable. At that point I just said screw it, and got a mohawk. I mean, hair grows back anyhow, right?
It's insanely hard to get an 8 inch mohawk to stand up without some sort of scaffolding. I only managed it once. However, when my hair was down, you couldn't tell because it was so thick.
As my hair grew back out, I really didn't want to risk another horrid haircut, so I just let it keep growing. When it was down past my shoulders, I finally risked it and had it trimmed so that it'd be more even. But since then, I haven't had a haircut. It's been 5 years or so now, and I need one. I think it'd be nice to go back to having "short" long hair again.
The following parts will have to wait for later:
Education
Friends
Religion
graceful
sarcastic
pensive
mysterious
bouncy
Part 1 - Dance
I spent a long time wishing I could dance, but not knowing where or how to learn, as I was a boy™, and dance™ was for girls™. Plus, at the time, I lived in Florida, and aside from the one swing class I took at the local YMCA, there wasn't really any sort of dance outside of ballet, which as aforementioned, would not do (I really just didn't know any better. I wish I did). DDR changed all that. When I was on vacation in SF from Florida, I was lucky enough to arrive just as the first two DDR machines arrived in the states: one in SF, one in LA.
I spent two weeks playing DDR all day long. I was going to compete in a DDR competition, but had to leave before it happened. However, all that DDR taught me how to move to music, at least a little. I adapted my DDR skillz to the local all ages club and school dances, which worked well enough, but it would usually take me the first two hours of a 5 hour event to work up the nerve to actually dance. I would do some limited break dancing too, as this was the sort of scene where people would form big circles and then people would take turns showing off whatever skills they had in the middle.
So when I arrived in California, I came with a preexisting love of dance. However, I never actually got much of any dancing in for several years. For one thing, there weren't any all ages clubs around here (the gilman doesn't count... you don't dance there). So when I started up full time at Berkeley, I saw fliers for dance classes that I wanted to go take, but I always had schedule conflicts. When I finally made it to a class in my second year, it was a tango class, with morgan and yuli teaching. For those who don't know them (and sorry, I don't know how to spell yuli's name), they are two of the most amazing ballroom dancers in the bay area. Watching them do international tango made my jaw drop, and I decided then and there, that I was going to learn how to do that. I don't remember what they taught. In fact, I remember very little of what was taught at those "social" classes at berkeley due to the fact that they were teaching competition ballroom (and not even beginner competition ballroom) rather than social dancing. However, it did get me hooked. Around this time, tribe.net was just getting popular as it filled with the refugees from friendster. Through tribe, I discovered the vibrant waltz scene, and started going to FNW, Gaskells, PEERS, and other events.
I loved the social dance scene, though I was a bit slow to start, as I would dance the international dance styles I was learning at Berkeley and thoroughly confusing the poor follows I danced with. On Wednesday evenings, the Berkeley class had an hour of social dancing after the lessons, playing an assortment of modern ballroom music. The number of different dances was overwhelming. I used to count a small victory every time I learned a new one, hoping to some day master the whole list. We would also go hang out at cafe strada, a cafe across the street from campus. I met a lot of people that I'm only just starting to get to know now back then when I was still a very shy nobody would was happy just to be in the presence of all those wonderful dancers.
I showed up to my first gaskells in the suit I'd had since 8th grade and a pair of combat boots, which were the closest things to dress shoes I owned at the time. I could only dance the waltz, and that itself was quite difficult to keep up with what with brassworks' preferred speed of insane. I remember polka being especially difficult to learn too. No one ever taught me how to get around my partner in classes teaching polka. I slowly learned by dancing with people who would backlead me into doing it just right. Zwiefacher was my favorite gaskells dance because it was the test bar that would prove to myself that I was really a good dancer once I could master it. Also, pivots are awesome, waltz is awesome... how could the two combined be any less than fantastic?
I joined the UC Ballroom team the next year, eager to learn more dance. They wouldn't let me join halfway through the year when I first found out about them after seeing them recruiting on sproul. I really enjoyed the dancing, but I didn't really care about the competition part. I placed fairly well in competitions because my partner had done ballet for 12 years and was just a great dancer. I kept up my social dance habit, trying to drag other ballroom people out to events like gaskells and the friday night waltz new year's. I even went to dickens, hearing that I'd get to dance all day there. By that time, my sword fighting teacher had made me some victorian clothes, so I even fit in perfectly with the cast of faire. They didn't even kick me out when faire closed down. At this point, I still didn't have any friends in the dance scene, but I recognized most of the faces from the other dance events. It would be a long while still before I came to be part of this great and wonderful community.
When I started dancing at the starry plough, I was already a good dancer, and irish was just a new challenge to pick up. I had been to the plough on wednesday nights for the poetry slams, and had heard rumors of dancers invading au coquelet on monday nights. When I finally figured out where it was happening, I made my way down to the plough to try it out. It was amazingly fun, and I had a whole new slew of dances to learn. After dancing there for a few months, Ammy took notice of me and basically said "you're a boy, and you dance quite well... come to this party on saturday". She promised dancing, so obviously I couldn't resist. This was back in the days when Dave's hot tub worked, so I got recruited by 3 fezziwig daughters wearing bikinis in the hot tub.
And just like that, I was part of the greater dance community.
So thanks Ammy, you really changed my life.
Part II: Hair
I've always had nice hair, and I usually don't know what to do with it. When I was a kid, I'd just shave my head every summer because it was hot and because it would freak out my mom when my dad and I came home with matching buzz cuts or flat tops (hey, it was the early 90s). I've gone to a lot of different schools, and many of them have had dress codes. That means that a lot of them have strict rules against boys having long hair. My goal around middle school was to have "anime hair", but I couldn't find a barber around who could figure out what that meant, so I usually just kept getting bad haircuts. My hair also grew insanely fast. If I shaved my head during the summer, my hair would be down past my nose by the end of the school year.
Once I started high school, I didn't have to follow the hair code anymore and I started growing it out. Girls seemed to really like this (one girl would like to walk around with her hand in my hair, playing with it). I moved to california, still growing it, and decided that I needed a haircut to deal with split ends. I asked for 2 inches off the bottom. What I got was more like 8 inches off, and the most terrible dutch boy/prince valliant haircut imaginable. At that point I just said screw it, and got a mohawk. I mean, hair grows back anyhow, right?
It's insanely hard to get an 8 inch mohawk to stand up without some sort of scaffolding. I only managed it once. However, when my hair was down, you couldn't tell because it was so thick.
As my hair grew back out, I really didn't want to risk another horrid haircut, so I just let it keep growing. When it was down past my shoulders, I finally risked it and had it trimmed so that it'd be more even. But since then, I haven't had a haircut. It's been 5 years or so now, and I need one. I think it'd be nice to go back to having "short" long hair again.
The following parts will have to wait for later:
Education
Friends
Religion
graceful
sarcastic
pensive
mysterious
bouncy