Sandstorm

"The wind whips up a sandstorm, leaving you fighting through the blindness. Force against force..."

that was the blurb mandy wrote for our piece for elemental. but somehow it seems to more aptly describe the post-elemental week i had. my room was in such a state as if it had just been through a sandstorm; and physically and mentally, i felt i had just survived one. i am tired; the acne outbreak and dark eyebags on my face are just too evident to miss. i feel like going on an escapade, shut myself away from work, emails, rehearsals, socials for a day or two, but the camb schedule just don't permit it! now that physio prac is on every week, it feels as if there can be no moment to lose- slack and risk being left behind, or buck up and catch up.

it was strange how elemental seemed ages ago when at this time last saturday i was still listening to sandstorm on repeat mode. i didn't have high expectations for brilliance performance of our piece; we were after all from the beginners contemporary class, a group consisting mainly of people who were on the stage to dance for the first time. friends who watched it said it was good. perhaps we were indeed, or they could just be too polite to say otherwise. last wednesday's class with mandy had an unusually large turnup. maybe we did impressed the crowd who watched the show. but to take into account all possible explanations ( as we learn in practicals), we could have done so badly that people think they could do better than us! haha.

i did feel sorry for myself for not being able to join other more 'pro' dance groups. but at the same time i felt relief not being put under the pressure to meet high expectations. camb has opened my eyes to a world of much higher standards than i have previously been aware of. a good dancer here generally refers to one who can do a myriad of dance forms- from ballet to tap to contemporary to streetdance to social to lindy hop to baroque to greek (i have not even heard of the last two prior to this...) , has participated in national competitions, has been with a dance troupe or trained at a performing arts school at some point in his/her life, and can choreograph. wow... i can never be one of them.

on the other hand, i see people who are not afraid to try, like some of my fellow sandstormers. i should too. i think being less self-conscious and more thick-skinned will do me good in exploring new things. perhaps it is what it takes to admit that others are better than you.