Field of Daize’s

So many things keep hapening, but so hard to keep track of them all.

Who am I? What am I doing? These are my the usual questions that I have in my mind constantly, the ones that drive me to some sort of senility. Funnily enough, it is not any easier when they said to me by others. I would have thought that it would take some of the onus off the energy invested into thinking, but alas, not the case.

So I ponder harder than ever.

On an aside… some interesting things that should be mentioned. I won the Friday night Dress up party… again! What can I say.. I’m a ninja. Not without merit, either, since I put in a hell of an effort for this one. The theme was “Dead or Alive”. I came as Pinnochio! The puppet who wanted to be a real life boy? Get it? I was rather proud of it. Photos should be up in the next couple of days.

Today was an interesting day. I went to a small town whose name completely escapes me. But the idea is that it is a little Dutch town. More of a tourist curiosity, but it was nice to see the thatched roofs and fake windmills. A very picturesque place. Why was I there.. you ask? Why would I drive the better part of three hours out of LA to get to this place. Ah…. wait child… answers are coming.

I got the most curious request by my boss last Friday. She said “hmm, would you like to take photos of my band? We are going to “. Like the crazy person that I’ve become, I say “Ok”. And thus it was settled, without much argument from my part. It actually turned out to be a great day, though WAY longer than it was intended to be. The band is a four piece group, all girls, and all rather gorgeous. Yes, terribly good day

Couple of random messages (in no particular order)

Sally : Sorry for not writing email.. will do
KT : You are the greatest person. You really are. Your friendship means so much to me.
Cherrie : You are so sweet.. mwaa
Jimmy : Rock on, my dude.
Mick : you… just do your thing. When are you coming to LA?

Just random thoughts.

Oh, and if you want to see selected pictures of the wanky photo shoot that I did, click on http://daize.puzzling.org/pics/Headshots

Again, so long without posting. I really should make more of a habit of this.

So, we are now in a time period in the studio called International Dance Festival. It has little to do with dancing, but it is international, and it has a lot to do with seeing how much activity we can generate in the studio. So, towards this means, we hold 6 weekly dress up parties.

Theme parties are allways cool, and since I do little else but studio stuff, I’ve really thrown myself full weight into them. The overall theme this year is Opposites. The first one was Heroes and Villians (at which I dressed up as Jaffar from Aladdin), and the second one was Rags to Riches. I’ve just come back from it, and I’m happy to say I’ve won the teacher’s costume parties BOTH time. What can I say….. I’m a sucker for compliments! But I did put a fair bit of effort into this one. I got a beat up suit, and a pair of beat up shoes from an Op Shop, and went to work. I glued insane amounts of newspaper to the suit, and cut the toe out of the shoes. Then, I made a paper mache hat, and made a little bow tie out of a chip packet.

I was going for the “even bums like to dress up to dance” theme, which I think went down rather well.

On a more bizarre note, a friend of mine asked me to drive him to a foto shoot. He wanted head shots for an acting gig he was applying to (side note : Everyone in LA seems to be in the movie business, or trying to get into the movie business. It is unnerving). So I took him there, and just sat around. Mind you, I’ve been growing my beard for the theme party that night, so I was looking rather more ferral than usual.

Cutting to the chase… I was just sitting around, and one fo the girls asks me “Why don’t you get some shots done as well”. I told her that I didn’t really plan on acting, but she did bring up a good point; for dancing, you do need headshots on a fairly regular basis, specially if you want to do exhibitions. I asked how much, and they said not to worry about it. So I got some make up done, and then got some photos taken! Apparently, I get the shots in about a week. Maybe it is a scam, but it was a lot of fun being made up, and asked to do silly poses. I could get accostomed to that….

On other news, I’m glad to see that Mick is still alive. I’m thinking good things your way, my dear friend.

So much to catch up on. I don’t know why I don’t update this page more often, I really should. In fact, I really need to. This thing allways keeps me grounded. Yet, for some reason, I find it hard to bring myself to collect my thoughts and update everyone. Maybe I feel like life is more hectic right now. The nature of my current job will do that. However, I feel that it is somethign other than that, somethingI can’t quite put my finger on.

Thus, I’ll just update these pages with some of the more pertinent events of past days.

First and foremost, it must be heralded in some electronic form that I am now an offcial “dancer”. In fact, make that Dancer, since that particular does not carry enough weight on its own with a lower case “d”. What has sparked this new found status? No other than having done my first performance! That is right, every month, the studio has something called “Guest open house”, which is a small soiree where performances are put on. It is sometimes a student thing, but this particular one happened to be called a “Professional Show”. Ie, only the TEACHERS got to participate. Professionals, afterall. And since I am now part of this staff body (of sorts, at any rate), I got to do my very own routine! It was a swing routine with a lovely co-worker named Dana.

Ok… have to go and dance salsa… people are waiting. I hope to update this later.

Truly, I’m blessed with good friends here. Even though I have only been here for a short time, it already seems as though I am starting to belong to something greater than I. Not only in my own family, but also in my general frienships. Granted, they do not yet extend beyond the confines of the studio, but I am sure that is bound to change.

But I write to hark on about the “little” things in life, and the way that they can uplift your day. Yesterday I got two (perhaps three, but I’ll get to that in a second) birthday presents. Both were food, and both were yummy beyond belief. But more than that, it is great to know that a) people here are nice enough to acknowlege my bday b) they know me well enough to actually get me stuff that matches my personality/likes.

Perhaps I am once more over-romantacising things.. but I am just not that accostumed to getting presents. I know I have gotten them in the past, but I never get over the novelty of them. Probably because I never really expect them. I like to give them, though seldom do, and thus seldom recieve them.

I don’t know.. I can just say that I’m in cheerie moods.

My parents gave me a 20gig MP3 device….. SWEEEEEEEEEET! Curiously enough..it is EXACTLY what I needed right now. Sweetness.

On other news, I think I might be giving my first class this week! A group class, at Foundation level, no doubt. In a way I’m pooping my pants, but I assure you it is excitment, rather than nerves. I really, really, REALLY like teaching. Yes, strange but true.. I am getting more of a kick out of it that I could have fathomed.

The kindness from others will never sieze to amaze me. On Friday, Victoria (one of the Aurthur Murray crowd) gave me the coolest presents ever. Well, it makes more sense if you kinda where at the conversation we had the day before (where under my hobbies, I listed “long walks on the beach”). So… it turns out, she bought me a Toltec book (cos I’m a spic ho), a little cartooning kit (cos I’m the comic king of the universe), and a pedometer (to count the steps on those walks on the beach)!

As a curious aside, I “walked”2.4 miles while at work today. I consequently burned off close to 200 calories. Interesting stuff!

I also got the sweetest (literally… a box of choccies) present from one of the students. Man… I’m never going to get over how groovy people are.

On the subjects of presents though, the official “awesome person of the week” award goes to none other than the evil Sal, who made her presence felt through the mail. Two packages… .one with a Zoolander DVD, and another with a stuffed Epstein-Barr virus! I cannot overemphasise just how cool it is to get a virus through the mail. And the kissing one, none the less! Much joy.. much joy indeed.

Things are going well around here. My parents are over from France, and the usual wonderful chaotic behaviours are in the air. It is nice to have them around for my birthday…. it turns out that we haven’t done THAT in the last 7 years. Life is good.

Since my current lifestyle is that of a dance instructor, let me outline exactly what this involves:

Wake up : Late, somewhere before midday. Work hours are like manna from heaven for me; one to ten everyday! This offcourse means that my lifestyle of staying up late is not only endorsed, but encouraged. Very show bizzy.

Ride to work : Usually with Kim, though often with whoever I can coax into getting me to work on time.

1:00pm : Get into work. Drink some perculated coffee, with artificial creamer. Not as bad as it sounds. By that time of the ‘morning’, I would drink sweat out of a shoe if it contained caffeine.

1:00pm - 4:15pm : This is the time when there is nothing really programed for me to do. At first, I would look over the manuals a lot, or just sit around seeing what I could do. Now I’m being more aggressive, and using the time to try and get the dancing part of the job done. Normally I’ll study some of the video tapes, then warm up, and then ask one of the other instructors to teach me some of the syllabus.

4:15pm - 5:00 : This is the “dinner” break. That means we run off for a while and get something to eat, which by this time is probably my one and only meal for the day. I often end up getting “Hooters”, which is…. well…. more male than my normal self!

5:00pm - 10:00pm : This is the best part of the day. It goes so fast, because so much is happening. This is the time that is when most of the students are around, and when most of the classes happen. It is the time when I can really do what I enjoy; talk to people. The evenings are interlaced between assisting in group classes and practise sessions, as well as our own teacher training (both administrative and practicle). I have the great fortune of working with wonderful dancers, who are rather more patient with me than I could dream of, and who break things down really well.

It is curious getting trained to teach. For starters, you have to know BOTH parts very well, which is kinda cool. It also means that not only do you have to learn the moves, but you have to be able to break them down and make them make sense. They say around here that teaching is learning twice, and I believe every word. The limited teaching I’ve done so far has confirmed this, as you learn so much more about the dancing when you are trying to teach it to someone else.

10:00 till late : Go home, veg out, and sleep in. Often (quite often), nights are reserved for partying. I’ve gotten to know the wonders of Karaoke bars.

On that note, I should expand on “Sardos”, the Karaoke place we go to. It is much like any smallish bar you’re likely to find anywhere, with drunken people getting up to do the microphone. This is ok by me, and largely that would suffice. But I have to relay the wonders that is Tuesday night at Sardos: PORN NIGHT!

That is right… some of the porn industry stars congregate in this bar on Tuesdays. The result is boobies flying everywhere. Ron Jeremy frequents the place, I’m told, as well as a slew of strange characters. Jimmy might be interested to find out that I heard the LEAD SINGER OF SURVIVOR sing Karaoke! He is a big geeky guy, but has the voice of an angel. Absolutely wonderful lungs.

Anyways, thought I might say a day in the life of MoS. It is a strange lifestyle, that I’m adopting like a tight fitting glove. I just want the Immigration things to finalise, so that I can finally rest, and get on with life.

As the skanky whore Penelope Cruz would say (in a distorted hispanic accent) : A life half lived is not a life.

LA is a weird city. I saw a hobo outside the house the other day. He was completely looney…. kicking bottle caps and shouting profanities. Yet he seemed to have an iPod. Things are weird here.

I’m very sorry to say that I haven’t had net access since I got here. I can imagine people take my lack of net-precense to mean that I don’t care. That… as usual.. is ot the case. I’ll get around to it… this weekend. For now, I’m at the studio.. and it is kinda hard to get into anything deeper than a short entry.

Between trying to dance, and finding a decent cup of coffee (not succesful on that front yet), life is quite hectic.

That, offcourse, is not nearly the whole story. The whole story is just not to be published on these pages. This diary is a strange thing. It has been many things for me these past two (three?) years, and it’s purpose is by no means fluid. The truth, quite evidently, is that I am more and more hesitant to post anything too personal in here. Why? Well, because it is my freakin’ diary, and I can do whatsoever I please with it.

My lifei is by no means simple at the moment. But for the time being, it shall be played out in real life, not as a drama out in the open. I’m not that type of person, and never have been. For those of you who care, however, I am going through a sketchy patch. Perhaps this is an understament. All I will say is that there are so many people right now that I would like to be able to call up, for some confort.

Don’t worry… I shan’t be locking myself up and playing Peral Jam while I whine. Rather, know that if you are reading this, then you are quite likely to be in my thoughts, and that your silent existance at least keeps me hopefull that things can only get better.

My life is being played out in real life. I cannot stress that enough.

My God, so long since I last wrote. So very, very long.

The immediate question that arises is: Why? Why have I left it this long to update my diary? Why have I discarded this, as I have discarded many other projects?

Interestingly enough, my Dad - ever the pragmatist - figures that when I’m not writting in these pages, I’m not so depressed. That is partly true, I suppose. An optimist could posit that perhaps my life is too busy happening for me to chronicle the goings on. Indeed, I wish this was the case.

Alas, something else is afoot, something more sinister and more rabid : a complete and utter lack of inspiration. That is right… the person that I thought I was, the one that could prattle on about everything and nothing, has momentarily taken a rest. The truth is that I’ve wanted to write on these pages for a while, but my brain just hasn’t been able to come up with the words. Many a time I rushed home to post, only to realise that the words sounded ethrealy unlike my own. Sentences - my foes and never my forte - where even more convoluted and nonsensical than normal.

What can I say? I returned from the USA, full of inspiration and new found vigour on life. I learned that there are 24 hours in the day, and that with a little imagination, you can utilise each and every hour with enthusiasm. I came back envigorated with knowledge that I might just be able to accomplish anything that I might want to do. In short, a new lease on life.

I then graduated. Yes, went through the ceremony, and became armed with a piece of paper that certifies that I can at least read books. Where did I take these skills of mine? Well, to a menial job, offcourse! And really, that cafe is where you can find the start of my writing deficit. It is incredible just how much that cafe sucked the life out of me. For many reasons, I realise that paid-by-the-hour hospitality work can only be a means to an end. If it becomes a life (as I experienced these last five months or so), then it is indeed a sad life. Working in a place where the biggest mental operations required involved change from fifty dollars not only stopped my brain dead on its tracks, but actually made me a lot dumber.

It is true… if you don’t excersize your brain, it rots to nothing. I have not felt a creative drop of inspiration since I started in this place. Partly, I must admit, is my inability to motivate myself to do something. But it is more than that. Coming into a place where I am clearly the bottom of the pecking order has been trying. Egos and politics play their own part as well, and since I detest confrontations, I just bear the brunt of everyone’s malaise. When different personalities are having a bad day, they find that I’m the easiest target to center on. I am thus turned - in their eyes - from a fairly confident and capable person to an absent-minded, lazy, moody and generally moronic drone. Sure, philosophers might say that it is my slice of humble pie, one that was due, and that I should rise out of such torments like a pheonix.

Not so simple. To be told that I’m incompetent is only humbling once or twice. When you are constantly reminded, it serves to make a self-fullfiling prophesy. There is a fine line between criticism and just plain emotional hacking… and if you tell someone that they are dumb long enough, well, that person just starts to believe it.

So I’m leaving it all behind. Am I running away from this job? Am I running away from emotional problems? Probably. But it is more than that; I actually like where I’m going. I look forward to it, in fact. Not just because it is new, or different, but because it is a life that I can see myself liking at this point in my life.

I shall miss many people more than I can describe. Utmost on that list is my little sister, who shall never really realise how much she actually figures into my life and thoughts. Like most people, she probably doesn’t realise that even though I see her only scantly, without her there I would go totally bonkers.

Aaargh… since I haven’t written these reflective thoughts in so long.. they are disjointed and all over the place. I hope to get back into the habit of writing in this.. if nothing else, it is grounding.

I’ve missed you, Field of Daize.

My stay here in LA has only been for a few days, but in that time, boy have I been dancing! Every night since Saturday has been at LEAST five hours dancing every day. As a consequence, it seems to be the only thing that I can think of. This, you will realise, is not neccesarily a bad thing at all. In fact, I find my enthusiasm is turning into a craving to dance insesantly all day long.

I’m not sure why.

Could be that I’ve lost three kilos while I’ve been here!

Then again, I’m sure there is more to it than that.
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I have moved on from wence I was, dear reader, to the sunny shores of Los Angeles. What I’ve found here may surprise some, may make some of you laugh, some of you cry, and some of you thinking of me far more poncy than I already am. You see, my uncle has lead me to an epiphany, found in the graceful arms of ballroom dancing.
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Well, still here in the place where I was born. I don´t knwo if I can claim that I grew up here. Does eight years count? It is all very strange, and rather wonderful.
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Well, my trip out here to Huatulco seems to be coming to a close and I can´t think of a better way of spending four days. I am kinda worried about the trip back though… and to let you (dear reader) know why, let me outline just exactly how we got here.
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I would be writting more in the way of entries, but the connection to this diary has been bad as of late. A pity, because I have so much to write about! But that is the way it goes, I suppose.
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Well, it certainly has been a while since I´ve been lucky/unlucky to be infront of a computer. There is so much that I´ve wanted to write, and I wonder now if I´ll be able to remember everything. So a warning, that this may be a long winded entry, full of loads of whiny observations, and general zaniness that is my trip.
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Well, Mexico is going absolutely wonderful. Yet I feel like quite the nerd, because I feel like I want a laptop with me all the time, so I can record the wonderous sights around me. Truly, the Geek is strong in this one.
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After a rather exhausting day… I’m flying in about 4 hours.

Starting to get excited!

Why haven’t I written a new entry in ages, you wonder? Or perhaps you haven’t noticed that this page has not been updated. Either way… I can only offer the excuse that I have been terribly busy working. Standing around not doing anything for six hour stretches really takes it out of a man. And with the barrage of things that I have to do at the moment, it seems as though everything is going too fast, and I can’t find ten minutes to answer emails, let alone write an entry in this diary.
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Bloody bollocks. I did an online intelligence test today. I’m really mad at the results, but I am even more mad at having had experience in these damned things. Here is a whingy summary.
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A funny thing happened at work today. I saw a girl I haven’t seen since first year French. She looked amazingly stunning. I remember she was always cute, but she has certainly moved into the HAWT stage. She gave me a business card.
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I’m having a fantastic hair day. There aren’t all that many times that I can say something good about my apperances, but let this be one of the few entries in which I do.
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