Dance Party For One

Lately my laptop has been over heating and shutting itself off. I finally bought a cooling pad, so let's hope that helps. Laptops are essential for college students. While I'm waiting for it to cool down so I can turn it back on, I've been grabbing my iPod and having little dance parties by myself. Those are the best ones sometimes. I tend to be more shy when dancing with other people; well, actually it really depends on the group of people I'm with. But usually I'm self conscious and I don't feel like I'm good at dancing. That's not the case when I'm alone. I go all out and just dance. There's no one around to think I look like dork so I just let loose. It's pretty fun. I have to be careful in the evenings though, because I'm always worried that my roommate is going to walk in and think, "What the heck?" I've had a few close calls. There's been a few times where I thought I heard the front door so I pause my music and she walks in and I'm just standing in the middle of the room. It probably looks a little strange. Hopefully I don't have that deer-in-the-headlights look on my face. Anyway, I came across this picture and thought it totally screams Wendi.

Just Dance!

The theme for my week has been dancing. On Tuesday, our ward had a Cotillion. We learned proper dance etiquette and different styles of dancing: swing, cha cha and a basic waltz. Rylee, Manju and I went with our friend (and RS president) Ally. It's good that we showed up because the girls were out numbered by the guys. Can you believe that? Usually there aren't enough guys. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. It was fun to see which guys had sweet moves and were capable of dancing. It also gave me a chance to get to know the guys in my ward better. The one I danced with most was Trevor. He's pretty cool. He was in the group I played football with a few weeks ago. We made great dance partners. I've already decided that I'm going to ask him out for a group date we're planing for when the weather is better. It's been freezing here.

The main reason for the Cotillion was because of the dance we our ward had tonight. The dance was pretty fun. It was combined with another ward. We were a little lacking in numbers, but it was still enjoyable. They really wanted us to mingle. They had us do a Cinderella dance, where all the girls put a shoe in the middle of the room and a guy picked one and the owner of the shoe would be his partner for a slow dance. We also did a snowball, where every 40 seconds or so we would switch partners. Then we did a group one where the guys lined up on one side and the girls on the other. We were randomly partnered and took turns dancing down the line. Everyone got to show off their moves. I hate stuff like this because I don't like to be the center of attention and I'm not confident in my dancing, but every once in a while it's fun [and necessary] to do things that get us out of our comfort zone. This was actually the second thing I did tonight that was outside of my comfy bubble.

Before the dance, I asked Matt out for a group date our apartment decided to do next Saturday. We're basically doing a couple's game night, except the only one with a boyfriend is Kristen [We only invited her so we could use the living room since they use it EVERY OTHER NIGHT. We've only used it two other times and she got mad when she got home and saw us with people over. She's the one roommate none of us are close with.] The rest of us just asked guys that we think are cute or friends that we know we'd have fun with. It's going to be competitive. Since it's a game night, we made invitations on note cards that looked like a real UNO card. I came up with this, being the creative little thing I am. THE FRONT: Matt, UNO what would be awesome? THE BACK: It looked like a wild and said, "If you would be my partner for a WILD game night. Saturday February 5th @ 8:30 pm. Please wear a green shirt." I'm really mad I didn't take a picture of it before giving it to him. I'm going to make another one for my scrapbook. We all picked a color for us and our partner to wear, I obviously picked green. We're planning on playing UNO (obviously) with the 7 rule-for intesity, having a JELLO eating contest (in the color of our team), and ending with Wackee Six. It should be a lot of fun. Anyway, I was freaking out a little before asking him. I was pacing around the apartment and asking my roommates what to say because I was the first one to ask. It took me forever to walk out the door and once I did there was no turning back...because Arianna locked the door. Smart girl! But it went well. I was freaking out for nothing (typical girl thing). I could finally breathe again. and then I danced the night away.

Arianna is the only roommate not participating in this group date because she has family events to attend. Replacing her is Ally. Ally and John will be red, Rylee and James will be yellow, Matt and I will be green, Kristen and Brandon will be blue and Manju and whoever she invites will be purple/black-for the guy in case he doesn't have purple. The flavors of Jello follow our colors so the flavors are: cherry, lemon, lime, blue raspberry and grape. Did I mention we're going to be having this contest using straws? Yeah...straws. So we're going to take turns being timed to slurp a whole box of Jello through a straw. Hopefully Matt really likes Jello because I've been kind of put off by it (and pudding) since getting my wisdom teeth out. Between the two of us hopefully we can get a good time. I've actually never been a huge Jello fan to begin with. I can only handle the texture so much before the good ol' gag reflex decides to speak up. Hopefully it stays dormant during the contest. Oh yeah, I failed to mention that none of the guys know about the Jello so it should be interesting. They think it's just a normal game night.

It's going to be a pretty intense night and very competitive because we're going to have awards too. I'll be sure to post pics.

Howdy Partner!

(This was taken after three hours of dancing. Don't we look cute? Arianna is the only one that's not wearing plaid and I'm the only one without a giant belt buckle.)

Last night me, Rylee and Arianna went country swing dancing. We were invited earlier in the week by our neighbor, David. I was hesitant, but I'm glad I went. When we first got there, the optional dance instruction was almost over. I thought I wasn't going to have fun because I had no idea what to do since we missed it. Plus, we came with only one guy and all the guys that weren't already paired up with a girl didn't look to excited to ask anyone to dance. However, once the dancing really started it was a lot of fun. David took a turn with each of us to help us get the basics down. He really knew what he was doing and having a good partner makes all the difference in dancing, especially if you don't know what you're doing. As long as they do, you'll look good because you just follow their lead. It took me a while to get used to the dips, lifts and jumps. It took a few songs before I was really comfortable and could trust that the guys wouldn't let me fall. I kept thinking, "Guys, I may look small, but I'm not as light as you may think I am." But they had no problems. At one point, David tried to get me to do a back flip, but I said NO WAY! I trusted him, but not that much. Plus it was my first time dancing so I didn't feel comfortable. Maybe if the ground had padding. The hardest part for me was the line dancing. They were more complicated than ones I have done in the past. There wasn't one that I was able to completely grasp. It was a fun night and we're planning on doing it again a little later in the semester because we don't want to spend a lot of money. The next time we go we're going to invite more guys (like from our FHE family) so we each have a partner. I danced a total of 12 songs with 8 different guys. It was a great way to spend my Saturday night.

If you would have asked me a few years ago to go country swing dancing I would have said no. I used to hate country, but I never really gave it a chance. Angie's favorite country man Keith Urban said, "I'm grateful when anybody can start to have his or her limited perception of the genre open up a little bit, ... There's a lot of great music in the country genre that doesn't get heard because people say, 'Well, I don't like country.' " That used to be me. I'm glad I gave country a chance, which allowed me to be willing to go dancing and make great memories.

Tonight Arianna and Rylee made salt clay sculptures. I didn't want to, but I joined them in making mustaches. Behold the beauty:

Yesterday was Alina's 13th birthday. Holy Cow! I can't believe how grown up she is. Where has the time gone?

Alina, I just want you to know how grateful I am that you are part of my family. I feel so blessed to be your big sister. When you were younger, you wanted to be just like me and do everything I was doing. You looked up to me so much it drove me crazy (now I'm flattered). Well chica, it goes both ways. You may be younger, but I look up to you too. What's not to love about you? You are AMAZING and I LOVE YOU! Enjoy your teenage years...they're gone before you know it.

"Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance." ~ Dave Barry

Today I was having Wii withdrawals, more specifically Just Dance 2. It is such a fun game (as well as good exercise) and I'm sad that I don't have a Wii in my apartment (we don't even have a t.v. so I guess it makes sense). I also don't know of any neighbors that have one; I really should look into that. Luckily, these days most anything can be found online. Without a Wii and a boob tube (a t.v. just in case you didn't know), I turned to the next best thing...YouTube! Yep, I was able to find my favorite songs from the game on YouTube and dance to them in my room. I couldn't go all out and do the jumps and foot stomps because I wanted to be respectful of the people below, but it was still enjoyable. I think this might turn into a study break ritual.