Random ramblings of an honourary Española...

Hehe, I just noticed that a Jive King wrote a comment on the post I made about being desperate to see the Jive Kings reunion show! How'd he find this blog? Probably googled "Jive Kings" and this came up on the google list. I've googled my own name before, and the results are usually stuff that has to do with plays I've been in and UPEI stuff.

Still trying to decide whether or not to take the Don Quixote course at UPEI this coming semester... And I started reading Don Quixote. The dude is crazy, but it's satire so he can get away with all the silly stuff he does. Like attack windmills because he thinks they're giants (I didn't get to that part yet, but I think everyone knows about it anyway...) and acting like a brave chivalrous knight to the harlots at the inn. What a wacko, but heh, it's funny!

I had my interview for the DR facilitator job for next year. If I get this, I'll go to the DR next year and to Spain the year after. If I don't get it, I want to return to Spain again this year. This time for at least 3 months. And I want to go to Seville in springtime because that way I can experience Holy Week,The April Fair, and theRomeria del Rocio. Those events are huge, and I want to experience them at least once in my life. Not as a tourist, but like the Spanish people do. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Or in my case, when in Sevilla, do as the Sevillanos do...

Sara-Sour and Maureen are going to head to Spain soon in their backpacking adventure. Girls, here are some tips - if you only have 3 days there, make the best of it. Don't go from city to city too much because you'll end up spending most of your time on a bus or train. If you go to Barcelona, don't expect to see the whole place in a day, you need at least a week for that city alone. If you can't spend too much time there, see Las Ramblas, and the Temple de la Sagrada Familia (beautiful church designed by the architect Gaudi). If you go to Madrid, go see the museums (like the Museo del Prado). If you go to Avila, climb up into the wall and walk along it. If you go to Salamanca, you'll love it so much that you won't want to leave! Check out the tuna groups (traditional musicians) in the Plaza Mayor at night and experience the nightlife (I'm talking, dancing to the sexy sounds of David Bisbal's music in the discos till 6:00am baby! Whooo, take yer shirt off!). In any city you visit, if you have a chance to see a bullfight or flamenco show, GO SEE IT! Totally worth it. Especially if El Juli is going to be fighting bulls. What a cutie! In any Spanish city, go to local bars during the afternoon and early evening for some tapas and beer (or wine, or sangria...). Spanish food worth tasting - tortilla (potato omelette), batido (milkshake), gazpacho (cold veggie soup), paella (seafood and rice), flan (custard dessert), jamon Iberico (Iberian ham), and anything that can be considered a tapa. Here's a tip on drinks - sangria is usually about the same price as a water bottle in some bars. So given the choice, get sangria! If you want more tips on enjoying beautiful España, just contact me!

Two more weeks and I'm off to Germany, Yay! And Joe said we can go visit the chocolate factory! Mmmm... chocolate...

Happy birthday Mr. Cranky!

Ryan turned 21 today. So now he's legal everywhere! When I went to the Wave to give him a birthday card, I also warned him that at 21, you're at your peak, but after that it's all downhill. Meanwhile he thinks it's all downhill after high school. Meh, my university years were my peak years so far, unless the coming years end up being even better. We shall see...

Turns out I won't have to work the weekend of the retreat after all, yay! The schedule people messed up and missed some schedule requests, but they fixed it and I have the whole weekend off! And I won't have to work on the night of the next Divine Cafe either, because I was able to switch shifts with Stephane.

I finished reading Winter Season yesterday, and I think it's a fabulous book. Anyone who is a dancer should read it, and even if you're not a dancer, it's worth a read. Though I do think you should have a little knowledge of some ballet terminology, since some is used in the book. If anyone of my friends want to read it, you can borrow it from me.

I bought Don Quixote yesterday and will be reading it for the rest of the summer since this book is so huge. I'm still thinking of taking the Don Quixote Spanish class at UPEI in the fall, but the only thing that is holding me back is the cost (even if I only audit it, it's still expensive) and the fact that it will take up room in my schedule that might end up making me give up precious dance classes and work hours. Plus, I want to start taking voice lessons again too so that will take up time. I thought about taking a class or two part-time in the coming year to ease my transition from "university" to "work world", but I also need to save up for travelling and doing things that will help me in what I want in the work world - the performing arts. I won't give up dance, I do want to take voice lessons, and I want to go to auditions and stuff.

There was a cutie in yoga class today. I've never seen him before so I guess he's either a newbie or someone from the advanced class who took this one class to make up for a missed one. I'm guessing he was from the advanced class though, since he was wearing yoga shorts. Anyway, physically, he's exactly the type I usually fall for - tall, dancer's body (solid with long arms and legs), dark wavy hair, nice eyes, cute smile. He smiled at me a couple of times and seems friendly. Don't know if I'll see him again, but either way, it was worth missing the Canadian Idol results show! ;)

Speaking of Canadian Idol, Emily Vinette got booted last time. From what I've read in the forum on the Canadian Idol site, Ashley Leitao got booted this week. Here is the lowdown on my opinion of last night's performances:

Casey Leblanc - definitely an improvement over last week, and a good effort, but it wasn't that great in my opinion.

Ashley Leitao - also an improvement, and better than Casey, but I agreed with the judges when they said she's like a casino singer.

Amber Fleury - kinda boring, but good technique. She's great at doing ballads, but she will need to be more versatile.

Daryl Brunt - the kid can't sing soul, he hasn't even gone through puberty yet!

Aaron Walpole - again, I hope he goes far in this competition. In every performance, he shows his talent, determination, and love for the performing arts.

Josh Palmer - never ceases to amaze me. His singing and personal style go perfect together. His voice still reminds me of Our Lady Peace, and this week his style reminded me of Remy Shand (especially the funky suit and the facial hair).

Rex Goudie - another good one. He is great at merging rock and soul and like Josh, is great at adding his own style into his performance. Love the white hat!

Melissa O'Neil - again, good singing but not the best of the night.

Suzi Rawn - great rockstar and performer, but she will need to be more versatile if she wants to survive this competition.

So far, my favorites are Josh and Rex. Though I'm not really a rock fan, these guys won me over with their personalities and personal style. They are true performers. Aaron Walpole is good too, and Suzi Rawn. The one who should leave the show next is Casey Leblanc. The others are average to good.

That's all for now...

I SPECIFICALLY said "I'm going to be out of town that weekend"

Well, the schedule people at work ticked me off once again. Just like last year, they scheduled me to work on the weekend of the SURGE retreat even though I sent in a schedule request saying that I was going to be out of town and could not work. Last year, I was lucky enough to find people who could switch shifts with me, but this year I'm even more ticked off because they did it again. I will ask my boss why this happened, and will try to find people to switch shifts, but one thing's for sure - I will NOT miss this retreat. I signed up and paid for it already, and will NOT miss any part of it just because the schedulers were negligent with my schedule request. And if they ignore my request for the time off for World Youth Day, I will quit. I am not missing out on two weeks in Germany that cost me $3000 just for 2 boring weeks of work while all my friends are gone. Forget it.

I picked up my Winter Season book today, and finished Harry Potter book 6 yesterday. I won't post details on it in case people who read this haven't finished it, and I don't want to spoil it for people.

My birthday was cool. Tasha, Steph, and Mark came and we chatted, ate lots of munchies and cake, and watched the premiere of "So you think you can dance?" It's a reality show like American/Canadian Idol but for dancers. So far, they picked a Britney Spears wannabe and rejected a Julliard grad with perfect technique (just because he wasn't "masculine enough"... meanwhile his technique was better than anyone else they showed on tv).

Anyway, that's all for now.

Feliz Cumpleaños to me!

The first performances of the top 10 on Canadian Idol were tonight. Here are my thoughts:

Aaron Walpole - He's definitely talented and passionate about music. I hope he goes far in the competition

Emily Vinette - A cross between Leann Rimes and a star-search wannabe. She should stick to singing at pageants, because that's probably the only type of singing she is capable of doing.

Daryl Brunt - I've said it before and I'll say it again - he's a puny little pipsqueak who sings like a girl. My prediction - once his voice cracks, his career is over. Well, unless he goes the Ferinelli route, but I highly doubt that any guy in his right mind would actually want to be a castrato at this time in history.

Melissa O'Neil - She's ok, but I expected better. She's not the best, but not the worst either.

Rex Goudie - He is cool and definitely rock star material. I think he will probably go far in CI. Though he might not be suited for songs that aren't rock-and-roll-ish. We'll see...

Suzi Rawn - She definitely knows how to rock. She's an Avril Lavigne who can actually sing. But like Rex, I don't know if she will last long in a non-rock competition.

Amber Fleury - I liked her top 32 performance better, I thought she was a little boring this week. But she's still talented, and a lot more mature than most of the other contestants. I hope she doesn't get voted out soon, because she brings qualities to CI that most of the others don't have.

Ashley Leitao - Decent technique, but boring personality. The show tries to make her out to be exotic and "ethnic", but she's not that interesting at all.

Josh Palmer - He reminds me of the lead singer of Our Lady Peace, especially when he does the falsetto thing. He definitely has personality and walks to the beat of his own drum, but his rendition of Halleluja didn't impress me much. Then again, after hearing Kevin Garvey sing it at the UPEI retreat a few years ago, I don't think anyone can compare (except Rufus Wainwright). Still, Josh is a cool guy and a good singer.

Casey Leblanc - I think she'll be the first to go. Her performance wasn't that good and I wasn't impressed at all.


Who the top 10 should have been (in no particular order):

Amber Fleury
Rex Goudie
Suzi Rawn
Josh Palmer
Aaron Walpole
Dianelys Hernandez
Vince Benenati
Diego Alvarez
Stephane Aubin
Amelie Wong (hehehe, I just had to put myself in my own top 10! But if I have to pick from the top 32, I would pick Julie Tellier or Jenn Beaupre)


In non-CI news, my birthday is tomorrow! I'm turning 23. Some of my friends are coming over tomorrow evening for pizza and cake. My mother is getting me a fancy cake and it's going to be yummy.

The Divine Cafe was awesome, and I learned so much from the bear pit session after. We also had two new faces in the group, and everyone enjoyed the talks and discussions.

Today, I went to Indigo and bought an awesome book - The Passion of the Christ by Erika Swanson Geiss. It was on sale for $9.99! It shows all sorts of paintings and art depicting the Passion, from the Last Supper to the Resurrection. The artists include Leonardo DaVinci, Michaelangelo, Raphael (no not the ninja turtles, cartoon-brain!), El Greco, Caravaggio, etc. Though I'm puzzled that the book does not include Dali (Salvador Dali's artwork is absolutely fabulous, including his representations of the Last Supper and Jesus crucified), I absolutely love it. I've got to show it to my friends. Actually, when I look at the artwork in the book, it reminds me of our performances of The Way of the Cross. There are still copies left at Indigo, so if anyone wants to buy one, you won't need to take out a student loan to buy it!

I also ordered a dance book - Winter Season: A Dancer's Journal by Toni Bentley. I remember when I was little, I read an article about Toni Bentley in Highlights magazine. I've looked up a few reviews on this book, and apparently it's supposed to show the perspective of a corp de ballet (lowest rank in a ballet company) dancer who doesn't make it to the top. Usually, people are only interested in the great ballerinas who became world-famous, but this book shows life at the bottom of the food chain of the New York City ballet. Toni Bentley was a corp dancer at the NYCB who ended up having to retire at 28 because of a hip injury. Most dancers end up being like her - the Margot Fonteyns and Rudolph Nureyevs are few and far between.

I got the new Harry Potter on the night it was released (right after the World Youth Day rally), and so far I've read a little more than half of it. I will probably finish it this week. The HP books are fabulous, I recommend them to anyone. This one is a real page-turner, just like the others. At the release party, the staff at Indigo were dressed as HP characters and were entertaining the kids. Lots of kids and even adults were wearing costumes too, it was cute. I bet Lenore has already finished the book, she's a huge fan too. Last time I saw her before she moved, we had a big long discussion about Book 5.

Well, so long for now. Happy birthday to me!

As much as I love opera, this is driving me nuts!

I absolutely love classical music. I grew up listening to it (my mother is very much into the arts) and when I was 10 years old, I wanted to be an opera singer (after I grew out of the princess and ballerina phases). Well, today I was listening to the Queen of the Night aria from Mozart's The Magic Flute, which is one of the most difficult pieces ever to sing in opera. You have to be a coloratura soprano with an insanely high range to even attempt it. Well, it's a fantastic piece of music but now I've got it stuck in my head indefinitely. Whenever I'm listening to it, I love it and long to be able to sing it myself, but whenever I'm not listening to it, I wanna bash my head into the computer keyboard in frustration over not being able to get it to shut up.

The jazz festival was good, and Ian's band rocked. He is still an amazing musician. Now he's moved back here and wants to teach. I also ran into Chris Budhan, who is home for the summer. He's studying business (with focus on the music business) in Manhattan. Rich Knox was there too, playing drums with Ian's band. They played at Fishbones, which is a nice little bar. I LOVE their martinis. I also saw a guy there who looked EXACTLY like Neal, except without the beard. I'm not exagerating either, I seriously thought it was Neal at first! Turns out Neal has several long-lost twins roaming around the Island, and that dude was just one of them, along with the one we saw at the grad ball.

There was a Gay Pride dance going on at Brennan's (the bar next door) on the same night I went to Fishbones, and Trish Daley (director of the Monologues) was in a funky costume selling 50/50 tickets. She told me about a cabaret next fall where people can write their own monologues. I'm kinda interested, but not sure about it, mainly because of the name of the cabaret (I'm not going to say it) and the fact that other people might write stuff that's more graphic than the VMonologues. I saw a drag queen dressed like a Vegas showgirl (feathers, platform heels, wig, mask, etc) and a few people I know. A man there gave me a beaded necklace like the ones at the carnival of the Festival of Lights and said "the beads, ya gotta have the beads!" This was one of the few times that I went to a bar with a wild party and didn't have to worry about guys hitting on me - I would assume the majority of the men in that crowd are not attracted to women, no matter how hot said women are.

I ended up not calling in sick the next day, so I missed the Jive Kings concert. I was extremely pissed off about that, but I got over it. Apparently, some of the original members weren't in the reunion show. Hopefully, they'll have another reunion show and all the original members can be there.

The World Youth Day youth rally will be tomorrow in Summerside. I thought I wouldn't have the car since mom had to take it to the garage today, so I figured I could ask to carpool with someone else. But when I sent the e-mail, Neal responded by calling me a friggin' hippie! Dude, you gotta chill out! Hehehe, Neal always cracks me up. But this didn't turn into another funny e-mail exchange like the one I had with Ryan, which all 7 people in our World Youth Day group received since we had pressed on "reply all" in our e-mails. Our friends ended up with like 12 new messages, most of which were me and Ryan fighting back and forth.

Anyway, turns out there's nothing wrong with the car this time, so I might end up driving to Summerside myself anyway. If anyone needs a ride from Charlottetown, contact me.

A half hour later, Der Holle Rache (Queen of the Night aria) is still stuck in my head. Somebody please shoot me.

I'm tempted to call in sick for work on Sunday...

Why? Because the Jive Kings reunion show is that day, and I couldn't find anyone who could switch shifts with me. The Jive Kings were my favorite band, and this is the first and possibly the only time they'll have a reunion show since they broke up. Back when they were at the peak of their fame, I went to every concert they had in town, and I have both their cds. I actually knew one of them in high school (Dan the trumpet player). I want to go to this show so bad... This would be the equivalent of Jason having a once in a lifetime chance of seeing Raspy Dave in concert. I've worked at my current job for a year and 2 months and only called in sick 3 times. Should I do it? Anyone got advice for a Jive Kings superfan desperate to see their one and only reunion show? Please please, pretty please?!

In other news, I went to the Festival of Lights for Canada Day and it was cool. The bands were good, though I'm not a big fan of most of them. I LOVED the flamenco show on Canada Day, it reminded me of Spain. El Viento Flamenco is the company, and they're from Halifax. At first I thought I'd be thinking "They're from frickin' Halifax, they just can't compare to Compañia Aida Gomez!" but I was impressed! The dancer was awesome, so were the singers and musicians. They even sang a flamenco song I know! "Como el Agua" by Camaron de la Isla (one of the greatest flamenco singers ever, apparently he was also known as the Mick Jagger of flamenco). Cadence was awesome, BAM were hilarious, and the fireworks rocked, even if the trees were blocking our view. I ran into a lot of people I know at the concerts, including a few old classmates who I haven't seen since high school. Ratface was a security guard there, he was also a security guard at the Canadian Idol auditions.

On Sunday, there was the Kalan Porter concert, and it was cool. The circus troupe was awesome and I took lots of pictures. Kalan Porter looks even younger and girlier in person than he does on tv. Some woman who was probably around 30 or so (but dressed like a teenybopper) was standing next to me, and yelling stuff like "I LOVE YOU!" and a few things that I found inappropriate for a family show, and I kept thinking "He's a puny little boy!" The rest of the crowd was mostly teen girls. I didn't wear sunscreen, and since I was outside in the afternoon all day, I ended up getting burnt, but in a weird way. Since my right side was closer to the sun, my right arm got burnt but not my left.

After the concert, there was the Divine Cafe, yay! Andrew did an AWESOME talk on suffering with dignity, and this weekend the topic is going to be "science and the Church".

Tomorrow night, I'm going to the jazz festival in town. There is a huge tent in the middle of Queen Street, and different bars in town are going to have different jazz bands playing. I want to go see Ian Toms' band. I knew Ian in high school, he was an awesome musician. There are a few other bands I'd love to see. I'm glad jazz is becoming bigger in Charlottetown, I love jazz music and I would love to become a jazz singer someday. All I need is a band or jazz combo to back me up, and some more songs for my (currently puny) repertoire... I gotta start taking voice lessons again in the fall... The Charlottetown Jazz Festival is the reason the Jive Kings are having a reunion. Gah, I wanna see them...