and she's back

Sorry you haven't been able to follow me much recently, I kind of went MIA in blogland.

Updates: As you probably imagined, I survived at the very end of last semester, and I've just about finished this one up as well. In most cases I have one to three labs left, and after that, I'm done with most all of my labs for my time at Schenectady (except banquet) and geared up to graduate in December. Be expecting a party.

Plans for the summer include taking summer classes (bleck), Beverage Management (how to run a bar) and Food & Beverage Control (continuation of math for food service). Also working to try to save the monies for multiple things like a car, LF, and a possible trip out west. Trying my best by not going to big dance events (sadface) like SONH & Frankie 95, although as far as being in other cities go, I plan on making a few trips out to Rochacha. :)

Oh, and I got a job! Previous to the current job, I was going through lots of job drama trying to figure out which of 3 different jobs was best, but I finally decided on part time sweets baker @ Bountiful Bread in A-town. It sucks waking up at 3am to be at work at 4, but I deal. Plus it's freaking sweet job (no pun intended) - my department is in charge of all of the cookies, cupcakes, muffins, scones, brownies, danish etc.. I'm sometimes jealous of the bread bakers who come in at 8am, but whatevs, I get to have glamorous moments up to my elbows in batter multiple times a day. Who wins there?! Ok.. maybe them, but I get to say I'm a sweets baker, so THERE.

Anyway.

Added to work and school that mainly eat up my life, Chris and I have just about wrapped up another semester teaching the kiddies at RPI how to dance and shit. Again, the kids are great, and although we've had dwindling numbers recently due to finals and school activities, it makes me so happy to see them improving and I hope we'll get a big showing at our annual end of semester party.

This weekend I'm looking forward to taking a break from school/work and going to Stompo, one of my favorite events of the year, with my fourth year attending. Can't wait for all the solo jazz goodness I've come to adore.


Love and muffins.

-Ellie

Maybe I can actually make a difference.

Last Wednesday was my last week of teaching at RPI for the semester. Usually by that point in time, we'd probably have 5-10 students left in lindy 1 and lucky if we still had a lindy 2 class going.

At the start of the semester I tried to be optimistic and even threw in a different set up, starting with them off with some easy solo jazz steps (thanks Jesse and Mike!), which I continued to do throughout the semester.

Now, I don't credit myself to being the best teacher ever, but I can definitely see when people are struggling. A month or two in is when I started to see the frustrated faces of the kids trying to get their swing outs, that's when I knew it was time to switch gears and say to hell with swing outs for a couple weeks. That's when I broke out my super fun and silly classes, guaranteed to get some laughs and make people feel like it's ok to be a little less serious. For me that means mess around, mini dip, and some easy styling. I don't know whether these classes are more for me or the students, but it makes me so excited to see them having fun.

When I was teaching the girls their first swivel, I was talking about how I think of it as the opposite of a "model walk". So for the hell of it, we did model walks up and down the floor. The boys even got a kick out of it while they were having their pow wow in the corner. I love having them do ridiculous things. Hahaha, I should never have this much power. ;)

To my surprise, come October into November will still had a good 30-40 kids for lindy 1. So for the last week we threw a party for them after class. During this time we had elections for all of the club officers, and they gave their speeches telling everyone why to vote for them. It made me ecstatic to see people who had just joined that semester so enthusiastic and telling everyone that swing club was their favorite club.

Afterwards we all hung out, ate pizza and danced. I can't even begin to say how proud I am of every single one of them, they've all come such a long way and are SO excited about it. It makes me proud to teach them. :) We even had a special performance by the lindy 2 class, who are getting so good! I love teaching those guys.


I had a lot of people come up and thank me before they left, and when I asked them if I'd see them next semester, I think the general response was, "Psssh, of course!"


:)