Doctor Who

Welcome back readers! So, as you could probably tell by the title, I won't be doing a blog about my life or my writing this week. But, February kicks off competitions, so I will be doing more dance blogs then.

I'm dedicating this blog to my favorite television series: "Doctor Who". This is a science-fiction BBC original which has been running for over fifty years.

The show follows an alien known as the Doctor, a brilliant, quirky, but dark and mysterious Time Lord and his human companion traveling through time and space in his spaceship. It may sound like your average, cheesy, sci-fi TV show, but Doctor Who is really something special. It makes you create deep emotional bonds with the characters and events... which makes the show even harder to watch,

The Doctor is over 1,000 hears old and the way he escapes death is by regenerating. When he regenerates, the actor changes, which means saying goodbye to what is possibly your favorite Doctor and never seeing them again. It's absolutely heart-breaking seeing your favorite Doctor regenerate. And, usually, when the Doctor changes, so does his companion(s). The companion travels with the Doctor on his adventures. This show is heart-breaking because of all the good-byes you have to say.

There have been 12 Doctors so far plus the War Doctor. I have only watched the War Doctor and Doctors 9-12 in the new Doctor Who series which began in 2005 and is still running. The original series started in 1963 and ended in 1989.

The Doctor and his companion(s) go on adventures in his ship the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) to different planets in different times. They meet different aliens and outrun death. The show constantly keeps you on your toes guessing what the Doctor will do next. There's a new adventure around every turn. The characters are hilarious and the plot lines and writing are genius. The show doesn't disappoint.

Thanks for reading! If you want to watch Doctor Who, both the original and new series are on Netflix. The new series is being taken off on February 1st, but may be put back on (fingers crossed; I'll let you know). Have a great week!

****I want to thank my friends Kimia, Marissa, Kayla, Hannah, Eva, and Karena for introducing me to this AMAZING show. Click here to read Kimia's, Kayla's, Hannah's, Eva's, and Karena's "FANTASTIC" blogs.

My Story: Chapter Two & Three

Welcome back to my blog! Last week, I posted Chapter One of my Wattpad-original story: "The Sky is Crying." So, this week I am going to post the second and third chapters because the second one is REALLY short. So, here you go!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Two

Aubrey walked home solemnly, running ideas for her story over and over in her head. She had so many, but none of them seemed good enough to win the heart of her employer. 

She was about to turn the corner, when she noticed someone riding a motorcycle. They sped past her and knocked her over, as if they didn't know she was there. Aubrey shook her head in disbelief; she couldn't believe people could be so rude. 

When they reached the end of the street, they turned around and took off their helmet to reveal a young man with brown hair and a handsome face.

"Sorry love. Didn't see you there," he said in an accent. British, she decided. He proceeded to place his helmet back on his head and went back the way he came. 

Aubrey got off, shook herself off, and continued on her way.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Three

"How was your day, sweetie? Did you get any more work on your story done?" Aubrey nodded her head in response. She was used to these kinds of questions. They were the same ones every day. Her mom wasn't a very creative person. She had no one to talk to, being a single mother. So, during dinner, Aubrey was asked the same two questions which were followed by a "brief" summary of her mom's day. She had learned just to nod; her mom asked the questions simply to be polite.

"Good," her mom said absentmindedly. "Better than mine anyway. I went to get groceries and while I was in the checkout line, realized I didn't have my credit card on me and no change. So I had to call the bank and asked them for my credit card number..." and, as per usual, Aubrey tuned out around there. 

"You know what mom," she interrupted. "I think I'm just going to finish the rest of my dinner in my room. Is that okay?"

"What? Oh, yeah of course. You... You go ahead sweetie."

"Great. Thanks." Aubrey walked to her room and closed the door behind her. She put on some music, grabbed her typewriter from her desk, and sat down on her bed. She just sat there with absolutely no idea what to write about. After a while she just gave up. She threw her typewriter under the bed and lay down. She closed her eyes and nodded off to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aubrey woke up six hours later when it was 1 o'clock in the morning and tried to go back to sleep. About half an hour later, she decided to go outside and think. She put on a warm jacket and, as quietly as she could, went outside. 

She sat down in the grass in her front yard, lay down and looked at the stars, looking for her favorite constellation: Perseus. Perseus was the famous Greek mythological hero who she greatly looked up to and admired. Not only did she love Greek mythology, but that story in particular. He killed Medusa using his cunning skills, rescued the princess, turned the evil King to stone, and lived happily ever after, which wasn't common in mythology. And being the nerd she was, she knew what quadrant it was in (NQ1), the number of main stars it had (19), and the brightest star (a Per). With that in her head, she soon dozed off with her head in the soft grass. 

She woke up to the sound of a motorcycle. Aubrey sat up groggily and looked around, the light of the sun shining brightly in her eyes. In front of her was the handsome brown haired boy who had bumped into her just the day before. He squinted at her, as if he was confused at her waking up. Then, he shook his head and smiled, but his helmet on, and drove off without a word.

Aubrey got up and started to run after him. Yelling, "Hey! Hey! What were you doing?" The brown haired boy stopped his motorcycle, the way he had when they first met. He smiled again. 

"Hello," he said,

"Hi," Aubrey said impatiently. "What were you doing in front of my lawn? And who are you anyway?"

"Um... Well, my name is Jake and I was worried about you. You were fast asleep on your lawn and when I tried to wake you, you wouldn't."

"And how did you know I was on my lawn?"

"I was coming home from my nightly rides and saw you."

"Well, thanks for being so concerned," she said awkwardly. "Bye, then," and she started to walk away. 

"OI!" Jake called from behind her. "Did you know you're a beautiful sleeper? The way you furrow your eyebrows in your sleep is really cute. And you sorta curl up into a ball and cross your arms."

Aubrey nodded uncertainly. "Oh. Wow. That's...wow." She shook her head and continued to walk away. She heard Jake start his motorcycle back up and started riding in her direction. He rode around a parked in her path.

"You wanna go out with me?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's it so far, but I will definitely keep you updated. Thanks for reading!

My Story

Welcome back to my blog! I hope you had a great holiday season full of family, friends, and fun!

I am currently in the process of writing an original story called "The Sky is Crying" on a website called Wattpad, in which anyone and everyone have the opportunity to write a story, a poem, and novel, or even random thoughts and publish them onto the website, giving thousands of people the opportunity to have their piece of literature read. In this blog, I will be sharing the first chapter of my story, a romance novel. Please enjoy!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter One

And so the young girl proclaimed her love for him, thus ending the complicated relationsh- The paper was crumpled and thrown away. Aubrey didn't know how a real relationship worked. The longest one she had been in was a week in third grade. But now, she had to complete a romance novel. Aubrey was 17 years old and, young though she was, had been hired by a publishing company. They asked her to write a book about young love. If it was not up to standards, she would be fired. 

This was the first time she regretted her choice of a typewriter. She had always written with a typewriter for several reasons. One, she always felt comfortable in what she wrote, and never had the problem of starting all over because of a mistake. Two, she loved reading about the 1870's, when typewriters first became common, and she loved what the authors wrote on the typewriters, so using one made her feel closer to that period of time, made her feel like she could really make a difference with her writing. 

But with a typewriter, especially a model as old as the one she was using, you could not backspace. You had to start all over. Sitting next to her were dozens of crumpled papers, all with failed ideas. She put her head in her hands and and tugged at the temples of her glasses, the way she did when she was stressed out. 

The problem wasn't that she didn't know anything about love. She had seen plenty of romance movies and read more, but it was hard to write about something you had never experienced before, especially a realistic fiction book. Fantasy was easy; you could do anything you wanted. You could make up characters and places and creatures, but with realistic fiction, you had less freedom. The way things were in the world was the way they had to appear in stories. 

She was sitting against a lonely park bench, far away from all the commotion when she spotted a couple on a bench across from her. They seemed like the perfect couple: she was a beautiful blonde and he was a handsome, young man. They seemed deeply in love, holding hands and kissing every so often. They were so passionate and, for the first time, Aubrey wished she had someone too. 

The thought made her shake her head and slowly, tearing her eyes away from the couple, she got up and walked away. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you want to read the rest, go to my story to read the other two chapters. I will be posting more of my story both on Wattpad and my blog, so stick around!

A Rat Pack Christmas

Happy December everyone! I hope your holidays have been fabulous so far, I know mine have.

This weekend, my sister and her team participated in a Christmas show at the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks called a Rat Pack Christmas. The show payed tribute to Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, and Ava Gardner.

The creator of this show's daughter dances with my sister, and they thought it was a good idea to maybe throw the dance team in a couple of dances. Something you should know is that the daughter's grandfather on one said was Buddy Hackett and on the other side, the grandparents are Aurora and Ron Miller.

One more reason they chose my sister's class is because they look younger, so they would look cute for the songs they danced to: "Candyman" and "Everyone's a Kid at Christmas Time." Her class had been rehearsing for a week and a half at every opportunity. With and without the cast, with everyone, without everyone, different studios, it didn't matter.

Finally, after all the studio practicing, it was time to practice on the stage. They drove to the Civic Center at 3:30 and rehearsed on the big stage with the on-stage orchestra, piano, and singers until the show began at 8:00. They broke for dinner and an occasional snack, but that was it.

The show was about to begin, and they put on their costume (which was a black leotard with an attached tie, fish-net leggings, black shorts, and a top hat) and makeup.

The show was hilarious, the singing was great, but more importantly, the dancing was awesome. It was a great experience.

The show ended at 11:00 and I didn't get home until almost midnight, so we were all tired. But we had a fun time.

There will be another show this week in Santa Barbara which, unfortunately, I will not be attending because I have to be at school, but I wish them good luck, and know they'll do great.

BAT MITZVAH TIME!

Welcome back readers! So, this week was very exciting for me because it was the week of my BAT MITZVAH! HEY-YO!

For those of you who don't know what a Bat Mitzvah is, it's a Jewish Rite-of-Passage in which a 12/13 year old (for girls it's Bat Mitzvah; for boys it's Bar Mitzvah) reads from the Torah ("[in Judaism] in the law of God as revealed to Moses and recorded in the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures") and celebrate them coming of age, or becoming an adult. It's a HUGE celebration, where friends and family come and commemorate the event.

The week started on Thursday with my sister's ballroom competition (I will talk more about this another time). We got home after the competition at 10:00 and I still had to finish writing my speech for my Bat Mitzvah and studying (also, for your Bat Mitzvah, you read in Hebrew). I had an English, History, Math, and Science test the next day and I was absolutely stressed out. So, my mom and I came to the conclusion that I would take the first two tests and go home after that.
I went to school the next day and took my English quiz.

What my class and I didn't know was that our History test was not going to be the Weekly Notebook quiz, but a Pop Unit Test. My teacher explained how to take the test, and then passed it out. But, by the time he did pass out the test, my mom had sent a summons for me to go home. So, I never got to take my test. Fortunately, nobody else had time to finish them, so at least I won't be taking it all alone.

Our plan didn't quite work out as we had hoped, and I have to take three tests instead of two, but that's okay. At least it's not four.

I got home, and my grandfather, grandmother, aunt and uncle were at my house to finish making decorations for the party. I, on the other hand, was putting the final touches on my speech, studying, and resting.

That night, there was a Friday-night service at the Temple, and it's a tradition for the B'nai Mitzvah (both boy and girl) of that weekend to participate. So, we had to go to that service which, unfortunately for us, was about 2 times longer than the average. But, there were two bright sides. One, I met Dr. Mayim Bialik from one of my favorite TV shows The Big Bang Theory (she plays Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler). Also, my friend was there and we hung out. So, that happened, and I did well.

Saturday brought my Bat Mitzvah. I woke up early, and people came to do me and my sister's hair. I then did my makeup and got ready. We drove to the temple and spent about an hour taking pictures with a professional photographer. It was not my favorite thing in the world to be honest.

It was time for the Bat Mitzvah to start. I said my prayers, and got the honor of becoming a Bat Mitzvah. I read my speech and, along with making other people cry, I made myself cry. My dad had a beautiful speech as well (which also made me cry) and my mom spoke wonderfully too. The Rabbi and the Cantor congratulated me as well as complimenting me on my job well done, the final prayer was sung, and it was time to party!

Various guests of my party took my friends to the location of the party. I don't know about other people, but the five friends who came with me and I had a great time in the car.

When we arrived, we went straight to the ballroom, and it was beautiful. The color scheme was a teal blue (my favorite) and the theme of it was books. The tables were labeled Harry Potter, Rick Riordan (i.e. Percy Jackson, Jackson, Heroes of Olympus, The Kane Chronicles), Franklin, Junie B. Jones, The Maze Runner, and John Green (i.e. The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns, An Abundance of Katherines, etc.). All of my friends arrived, and the party began! We had a blast! It was one of the best times I've ever had in my life. I'm so happy with the way it turned out. We danced, ate, sang, played games, took amazing pictures, and more! Overall experience: AMAZING! Exhausting, but amazing.

Thank you so much for reading my blog! I will be back next week! Have an awesome week!



    

Music

Hello again! This week, I'm going to talk about one of the best advantages of being a dancer.

There are the obvious advantages, which include fitness and stamina. But there are a few more: balance, awareness of your body, coordination, and my favorite, musicality. Being a dancer, you learn to appreciate music more, the rhythm it has, the work the artist put into it, and how to relate to the music. You learn to really know the music.

For example, if you play me a song from a ballet such as Swan Lake or The Nutcracker, I could most likely tell you what song it is and what's happening at that moment in the ballet.

Also, as a dancer, you get exposed to different genres of music: hip-hop (R&B, alternate, etc.), classical, jazzy, musical, contemporary, modern, and more. But I don't choose to listen to those types of music outside of dance. I listen more to like top 40's music. Just because I listen to one type of music in my free time DEFINITELY doesn't mean that I don't like what I listen to in dance.

When I listen to music in the car or at home, I often find myself choreographing to the music, and coming up with a story to go along with both the song and dance, as do a lot of other people in my dance studio. We make up dances all the time, both silly and serious. 

So, music plays a very important role in both a dancer's life and learning. Music plays a big role in our lives, and without music, what would life be?

"Thank you for the music, the songs I'm singing

Thanks for all the joy they're bringing

Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty

What would life be?

Without a song or a dance what are we?

So I say thank you for the music

For giving it to me"

-ABBA

Halloween Movies

Hello! Happy Post-Halloween!I hope you had a frightfully fun Halloween!

Along with dressing up and going to a parade on my block, I spent the 13 days prior watching some of my favorite Halloween movies on ABC Family’s “13 Nights of Halloween. I wanted to share some of my  top 10 favorite movies with you!

Here they are (in no particular order):

1) The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) - The movie is about the how the holidays        were created and where they come from. This includes Christmas Town, Halloween Town, Easter Town, etc. Halloween is over, and the citizens of Halloween Town are celebrating another successful holiday. The king of this town, Jack Skellington, is being praised for another fine year, but then slips away, and it is revealed that Jack is bored of the same old holiday; it’s just become to easy. He’s anxious to find something new and exciting to do. While exploring, he comes across Christmas Town, and decides this year, he’s going to run Christmas, and he’s going to do it his way.

2) ParaNorman (2012) – Norman is a misunderstood boy who can see ghosts. When he learns of a curse that was put on his town centuries ago, he also learns that he the only one who can break the curse.

 

3) Hocus Pocus (1993) – After three centuries, three witch sisters come back from the dead, out for revenge and to suck the life out of all the children, and the only people who can stop them are two teenagers and a little girl.

4) Corpse Bride (2005) – When a self-conscious groom wanders into the forest practicing his vows, he accidentally proposes to a dead woman, who then rises from the grave assuming that they are really married.

5) Coraline (2009) – A young, sarcastic girl discovers another world where she finds things exactly the way she wants them. With perfect parents who would do everything and anything for her, and an amazing room, what could go wrong?

6) The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) (I know it’s a television show; leave me alone) – Regular people find themselves in supernatural situations and occurrences.

7) The Addams Family (1991) – An eccentric family is fooled by con artists who try to get the family’s money by portraying their long lost uncle.

8) Addams Family Values (1993) – With a new addition to the Addams Family brings love for Uncle Fester, who is a mysterious woman with a dark past.

9) Edward Scissorhands (1990) – A young man with a gentle heart and scissors for hands enters society and tries to cope with the rules of life

And last, but not least…

10) Mickey’s House of Villains (2001) – This is a childhood favorite of mine. In the House of Mouse, they play old Mickey Mouse shorts from the 1930’ s-2000, and ends with a trick from the Disney villains.

I have A LOT more favorite Halloween movies, but these were just some of my favorites. Obviously, I’m not into the horror genre, but you can still enjoy Halloween!

Well, that’s about it! Thanks for reading!