A surprise? I love surprises!

Well, here I am in gorgeous St. Louis staying with a host family (who happens to be the aunt/uncle of a kid I went to high school with, random!) with Giovanna. It's been a pretty awesome tour thus far. A little too much driving for my taste (can you say 30+ hours in 4 days? sick sick sick), but it's been fun.
One really, really good thing that's happened so far:
I checked my grades backstage while we were rehearsing...and....
I got an A in chem 354= o chem lab!!!!!!
The Bulldog gave me an A!!!!

And....I didn't get a C in o chem!!!
I got a B-, which at this point is just fine by me.

Fall 2009, however, it's Dean's List time ;)

P.S. A month is a very long time. :(

I heart macs

Guess where I am right now!

The Mac store in the Beverly Center in downtown LA!

I want to buy one of these lovely laptops someday.

Now that I've said that, I don't feel so bad using their display computers for this post.

Hope you all are having lovely weekends. On Monday I leave for the east coast for a month, so I probably won't see any of you until the end of May...:( 

Will try to post updates while on tour. 

Loves!

FYI

So that quote on my header is supposed to read, "Life isn't about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself."
I made it on wordle.net and unfortunately, I don't think that message gets quite across...
I'd fix it, but I'm leaving for California in less than 24 hours (!!!!) and have to take my last final, get my hair redyed, deep clean my apartment, pack for California, and pack for my month long ballroom tour of the east coast. Whew...

But.
I've got a very, very good post coming up.
Be excited. :)

....How....did....I....let...this...happpen??

Dear Readers,

If I get a C+ (don't tell my dad) in o chem and then retake it and get an A, will the admissions committee for grad school see my C+ or just my A?

This is a purely hypothetical situation, not relating at all to the current status of my life.
Although it'd be really nice if someone knew the answer to that question.

Sincerely,

Katya

let me vaguely explain

This is why I sometimes hate dance:

You put so much of yourself into what you do. It's an art, right? And you use it as an outlet to express yourself, so when you get rejected, it SUCKS. And it really, really hurts (ex: post about sytycd auditions/dance year of '08 that I ended up deleting because it was so bitter and sad and...meh).
And it's all so subjective and political. If you don't know the right people, forget about it. If you don't have the right look, if you're not skinny enough, if you're not considered "righteous" enough, etc, too bad. It seems like this goes for alllll the companies here.

Dance is such a freaking rollercoaster! GAhhhhhhhhh. I can't even remember all of the times that I've ended up crying at stupid competitions. Sometimes they're happy tears, like nationals '08 when we made the amateur latin semi. Sometimes they're not, like at the California Open in '06 (?) when we were the only ones not to make the next cut. I sat there watching everyone else dance the quarter (yeah, way pathetic) with tears streaming down my face. So stupid! It's just a competition. But when you spend so much time and money and energy on it, it becomes a lot more.

Too much too much too much.
It's all one giant game of chess.

EDIT: Thanks for all of the uber nice comments guys! I love you all. However, this post wasn't actually written about me. For once, I'm actually liking where I stand with dance right now. This was for my little sister, whom I love very, very dearly and who is an absolutely beautiful dancer who seems to have hit a string of bad luck. Bec, I'm so so so sorry.

Isn't she stunning?

it's a song on rockband

Sometimes, I really hate my college's dance program. Like today.
More details when I can think straight...?

indefinite cloud of future potentialities

I like coming into the lab when it's early in the morning or right around dusk.
No one's here. It's just you and your mortar and pestle listening to the hum of the fume hood and the crackle of CO2 as your reaction mixture bubbles. Your purple nitrile gloved hands keep grinding as your mixture goes from soup to chalky to brownie to whipped cream (highly scientific terms I came up with myself). The light from the setting sun streams through the west facing windows, glancing off the lake, mountains, and black rooftop below, while the blinking lights of the instruments bring your attention back to the room. The odor of ammonia hangs faintly in the air, and all I'm thinking is how cool is this? I can observe nature while learning about the building blocks that make it all possible.

And that's why I love chemistry.

wake me up after finals, mmk?

Me and Kellie (bad English intended) are barricading ourselves in our room until we leave for California with our friends. A pulley will be rigged up to our window so you can give us supplies. We refuse to participate in the real world for the time being. Instead, we will eat my Easter candy and let our muscles atrophy/entropy while watching "Arrested Development" and "Scrubs" on DVD.

Forget about German (that's for Kellie), o chem, physics, o chem lab, finals in general, having to take off for a month, not having any plans for FHE, not knowing if I'll be back in time to present my nonexistent plans for FHE, physics homework makeup, shopping for tour stuff, etc etc etc.

We choose to shirk such activities and follow Brian from the Beach Boys (whose last name I seem to have forgotten...Wilson? That kind of sounds right to me)'s example and stay in our room! Probably not as long as him though. We do have a fun trip planned.

maps

"It's funny, you work so hard, you do everything you can to get away from a place, and when you finally get your chance to leave, you find a reason to stay."

-"Gattaca"

Preeeetty much sums it up.

Viva Espana!

Huzzah for the ballroom dance company concert 2009!
Performances tonight at 7:30 and tomorrow at 2:00 and 7:30.
Come see the 19 time winners of the British Open Formation Team Championships and the US National Formation Champions consecutively since 1982 tear up the floor at the Marriott Center!
For tickets, contact the Marriott Center box office (thanks to all who bought from me! I won a $50 gift certificate to DanceWorks from the ticket selling drawing! :))

{pisces}

I can't decide...stay up and attempt futilely (is that even a word?) to write French paper or try to drag myself out of bed at 5AM to finish...? take personal finance or American Christianity...? dye hair brown before tour or after...? have boxed thai food or boxed tuna helper for dinner tomorrow...? drop out of school or switch majors....?(just kidding Mom)

I feel like my little sister Abby on the Bug's Life 3D ride at California Adventures:
GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!

You know what, I just want to play and eat cupcakes and joke about having an anti-dinner group all day. And I want to sit barefoot on the grass and listen to people (okay, one specific person) play guitar. And I do not want to go to rehearsal in the morning and I do not want to read o chem and I do not want to study classification tests and I do not want to do physics homework and I do not CARE.

apathy just might kill me this semester.
the great thing is, it won't even phase me....

I often blog to avoid doing something productive

{such has been more and more the case as the semester draws to a close}
This one's for you Alyssa:

3D glasses minus lenses are definitely this season's must have accessory. :)

I'm telling ya, these lyrics have been running through my head nonstop for a week now:

I don't get many things right the first time
In fact, I am told that a lot
Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls
Brought me here

And where was I before the day
That I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it everyday
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

What if I'd been born fifty years before you
In a house on a street where you lived?
Maybe I'd be outside as you passed on your bike
Would I know?

And in a white sea of eyes
I see one pair that I recognize
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you

Next door there's an old man who lived to his nineties
And one day passed away in his sleep
And his wife; she stayed for a couple of days
And passed away

I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong
That I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

*edit: This is why I love these lyrics so much: they're so simple and so beautiful. I love that he doesn't finish his sentences: "I am the luckiest"=...the luckiest...guy? "I know we belong"=...we belong...together? He's so taken by this girl that these thoughts are not altogether complete, and it's perfect that way. I'm also loving "I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you..." Something about that phrasing makes me want to melt. So gooooooood. Anyway, yay for Ben Folds. :)

I found it!

my camera cord, that is, so here's the camping post! :)

We set out on Friday, got to our camp site, set up, had delish tin foil dinners, chatted around the campfire, went to bed (froze while sleeping, unless you were a guy and then you slept outside and were fine...). The next morning we got up, had amazing hearty mountain man breakfasts, and drove up to the trailhead...or so we thought....

Packed in the car (how many of us were there? 11?) on the way to the trailhead...we had no idea what adventures would await us...dun dun dun...

We drive up to the trailhead only to find out that the road's impassable due to snow. Thinking we're only a mile or so away (and going directly against what an Asian guy in a car told us), we hop out to walk the rest of the away. Nearly four and a half miles later we get to the trail head. There is still tons of snow on the ground. A bad sign? Maybe...but we keep going anyway.


We should've listened to the sign!!!
We keep going, only to totally lose the trail due to the fact that it's still covered in snow. We start following some random footprints (that probably led to some guy dead in the wilderness, because they sure weren't going anywhere, haha). At three we break for lunch while a few of the guys go exploring to see if we can't find the right trail and manage to get back to our camp site. No luck, we're hiking toward a cliff. At that point we decide the smartest thing to do would be to turn around and go back. Eight hours, sixteen miles, and a whole lot of sunburns later we get back.
It was awesome. :)


The next day after going to church in jeans (haha, so awkward!) we went and climbed on boulders. It was way fun!


Making our way through the teeny crack in the rocks

This pretty much sums it up:

If you couldn't catch that, we were trying to open pudding snackpacks and couldn't because our hands were so frozen and swollen and unusable. Hahaha, it seriously took us forever to finally eat that delicious chocolate goodness.

I heart camping! Yay for good friends and gorgeous nature! :)

ch-ch-changes

Man, I am on such a blogging roll lately.

I've been thinking it might be time for a hair change...

how about...brown?

Like Rory in the 7th season of "Gilmore Girls" brown?
Or maybe I should just cut it and touch up my roots. Thoughts? Hmm...I'm sensing a potential poll coming out of this...

From End to End

You know what I love? Summer concerts! You know what I love even more? Summer concerts with friends! These cute boys from Relient K are coming the first week of June...anyone up for a show? Tickets are a downright steal. I promise I won't bring chemistry flashcards this time...:)

you've got to be kidding me

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

You know how I was just really excited about no more o chem in my life?
Well.

Today I got some very unfortunate news from my friend Sara in my lab class. Turns out I have to take ANOTHER SEMESTER OF O CHEM!!!!!!!
"Chem 455- Synthesis and Qualitative Organic Analysis"
Sounds like fun, huh?

This is the best part: my dad's teaching that class.
hahahaha.
He can experience my incompetence firsthand!

After looking at the class schedule, however, it appears there's a conflict between that and my ballroom technique class, so I probably won't take it for another year...but my dad will still be teaching it then, and I will probably still be incompetent.

Life is just so funny.

All these things just ran through my head:

I'm to the point where I want to start drawing pictures of my o chem book meeting its demise in horribly creative ways, just like precal during junior year of high school. But...
less than 2 more weeks and I am organically free FOREVER!!!

I can't seem to find my camera cord, but as soon as I do I'm posting a camping post. :)

"The Luckiest" by Ben Folds just might be my absolute new favorite song.

I have yet to do any physics homework for this week. Ooops...

Sum total: I am done with this semester. See you in September, brain.