"Where's Your Head At" Video

Choreography: Robbie Anderson

Wrap it up Folks.

So after a full day of rehearsals Sunday, it was finally time for the show Sunday night. My family and girlfriend met me in Chapel Hill for dinner before the show. I was especially excited that they made the drive to come see my show as well as all my friends from UNC who came.  The show was awesome! Memorial Hall was almost completely full, which says a lot, and all of the performances went great. I was a little concerned about my dance looking bad, because everyone just looked tired during rehearsal and were forgetting to perform and smile. Anyways, from what I heard, everything went well. I know I promised to post a video, but the girl that videotaped my dance has not responded to my email yet. If I get a video sometime this week, I will post the video. If not, well most of you are now friends with me on Facebook after last week’s Facebook talk, and I am sure it will be uploaded soon. If you would like to see other dances I was in, checked my tagged videos on Facebook.

So today was very exciting for me. After a third hour-long phone interview, I received a job as a Cabin Counselor at Victory Junction Gang Camp. If you haven’t heard of Victory Junction, you’re missing out. This summer camp is for children with illnesses and medical conditions and is honestly one of the coolest places I have ever visited.  Sorry for the random news, but it has been an exciting day.

As the semester winds down, I got to thinking about my first year at Carolina. I honestly am really sad to leave in two weeks. Carolina is my new home and as much as I love being at home with family, it’s going be hard to leave all my friends I have met this year. I know we will all be back in August, but it’s kind of the same feeling as leaving high school to go college. (Except leaving high school to come to college was the best thing that has happened in my life). I hope next year will be even better than this year. I personally feel like I have grown as a person, student, and a teammate. Through crazy weekends, all nighters in The UL, football and basketball games, and every other aspect of college, Carolina has been amazing. I can’t wait for next year.

Where's Ya Head At

This Sunday is the Blank Canvas Dance Company Spring Showcase. The performance will be in Memorial Hall at 7:00 pm. Tickets are five dollars in advance or seven dollars at the door. You can get your tickets in advance any day this week in the pit. I have been a dancer in Blank Canvas both semesters here my first year at Carolina. The cool thing about Blank Canvas is that there are 300 dancers and 5 different levels for each style of dance. You audition for a level at the beginning of the year and get placed in a level for each style of dance. After being placed into your levels, “The List” is sent out to the listserv and you sign up for the dances you want within your level.  “The List” gives a brief description of the dance and what skills are required of the dancers. Every dance is led by a single student choreographer and meets once a week for forty-five minutes for rehearsal. I only signed up for two dances last semester because I was worried about getting adjusted to college with the heavy workload as well as my long practice schedule for cheerleading. After the amazing show last semester, I realized I wanted to be more involved this semester. I found a song I really wanted to choreograph to and applied to be a student choreographer for the Spring Semester. After being chosen, I was ready to begin rehearsals. This semester has gone by so fast and I can’t believe Sunday is the show. I had my last rehearsal for my dance tonight and was very proud of all the hard work my dancers have put into my dance.  The style of my dance is jazz and the level is five. The song is called “Where’s Ya Head At” and is the Klass Remix version.  You should listen to it.

Here is the YouTube link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDGY6aikr7Q

The goal of my dance is to give the audience a headache. I plan to post a video of my dance hopefully next week on my blog so stay tuned for that. Please come to show! I am also in four other dances this semester. I know the show will be entertaining and will be worth your money and Sunday evening.  If you can’t make it, I will post a video of my dance on here next week hopefully. I hope to see you Sunday!

Contemplation. Decisions. It's LIfe

As the semester starts to wind down, I am getting more and more concerned on what I am going to do with my major.  I am currently a Biology major with the Pre-Med track, but just not one-hundred percent sure if this is what I really want to do. It scares me that I am about to sign up for classes again and I truly don’t even know what I should or want to be taking. It occurred to me last week what I have always really wanted to do. Teaching and helping others has always been a passion of mine. I even told my parents in elementary school that I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up. Yes, I know this makes me look like a boring child since it wasn’t anything awesome like an astronaut, but I really just wanted to be a teacher. This dream continued in middle school where I also first became interested in the medical field. As I transitioned through my high school years, I lost my gut feeling about being a teacher and decided to enroll at Carolina as a Biology major hoping to one day advance to medical school. As I was thinking about this the other day, I realized I never really had strong reasons for why I all of a sudden dropped my dream as a future teacher. I thought to myself, is it the money? Is it the lifestyle? Even though I feel being well-off is important in order to support a future family, this shouldn’t affect my career decision. I am currently in contemplation over whether to major in education, or just receive my Master’s after I graduate. Luckily, I am setting up an appointment to talk to my advisor soon. I feel like my life decisions for my future career are over the place, but I hope one day soon I will just be able to decide. I feeling like being a teacher could open a lot of doors for further occupations. Even though I would be more well-off as a doctor, my gut feeling of being a teacher and making an impact on a child’s life is more important to me right now.

Also, is anyone going to the Spring Football Game Saturday afternoon? I am cheering at it and am already excited for the fall season. I hope everyone had a good weekend!

Guest Blogger: Kathryn Frye

Robbie asked me to be his guest blogger, I guess I should feel honored, but I feel like he was just trying to get out of writing it himself. My life is not nearly as exciting as Robbie’s; I’m not shipped around the country by the university to cheer, but last week for my spring break my best friend and our mothers went on a Caribbean cruise. I was disappointed because in previous years the senior class from my school rents out a house at the beach where the entire class stays together. However, this year we all went our own way on vacations. In the past my parents have designed vacations around sites that they deem to have either historical or educational value. I must have by this point walked every hill of each civil war battle field in the country and if there is a maritime museum within sixty miles of where we were staying it was a sure bet my family would hit it. For this trip my mom and I set out one ground rule for the start: nothing educational. We left from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and cruised to Grand Turk, San Juan, St. Martin, and Half Moon Key. At the stops we stayed away from anything that involved learning and instead opted for excursions such as snorkeling, zip lining, and parasailing. On the ship I enjoyed the luxuries of the boat and friendly crew. Ironically enough it was the same ship that my mother and I sailed on in the eastern Mediterranean this summer, where of course we did properly educational touring. I was incredibly surprised when the maître d' I met this summer remembered me and welcomed me back. I enjoyed being back on the elegant Neiuw Amsterdam, this time with my best friend who I was able to show around and have some great times with. One amenity I was not able to take advantage of over the summer was the casino, but now that I was 18 I got the chance to try my luck on the slot machines where I won a whole quarter. The trip was a lot of fun, the perfect break from the stresses of school and college decisions. I know that it is something my friend and I will always remember as a special time before we head off in separate directions next year. And most importantly we were successful; I did not learn a single thing the entire week!

Travel

I just got back from Albuquerque, New Mexico at 6 am this morning. After five days in New Mexico, I was not ready to come back. The women’s team pulled out two wins in the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament this past weekend. I will be traveling and cheering for them this weekend in Spokane, Washington for the Sweet Sixteen. We left Chapel Hill at 1:30 last Thursday afternoon. I boarded the plane with all the other cheerleaders, band members, and the Women’s basketball team. I was born in Maryville, Missouri, but only lived there until I was one years old. This was furthest out west I had visited until this weekend’s trip. I was really excited to fly all the way out to New Mexico for the tournament. I was especially excited for the warm weather, even though everyone has been bragging about the weather in Chapel Hill over the weekend. I went downtown the first night to experience St. Patrick’s Day in New Mexico. Never before have I felt like a minority in crowd like that night. The streets were crowded up and down with people. Unfortunately, most of the clubs were 21 and up which didn’t help most of us out. We finally found one all the way on the other side of downtown but it was about to close. One thing that really surprised me in New Mexico was how everything closed so early.  Every restaurant we tried to go to at 9pm was closed. I realized it was a Thursday night, but it was like this for the rest of the weekend as well. Old town Albuquerque didn’t consist of much, but it was neat to see a town that was so historic. I enjoyed sitting by the hot tub at night and lying out by the pool in the day. My stunt partner and I took some really neat stunt pictures in front of various places. If you are friends with me on Facebook, check them out. Even though there wasn’t much to do in Albuquerque, I enjoyed a relaxing trip. The women’s basketball team is awesome if you have never watched them play. Look for me on TV this weekend at the Sweet Sixteen in Spokane, Washington. I can’t wait for another awesome trip! Go HEELS!!

Did you know?

Most of time when we are in class we don’t get to talk about our hobbies and passions so I thought I would share two of my favorite hobbies. Ever since age three, I have been dancing on my feet more than I walk. I started out in an acrobatic dance class after I cried to my mom because I wanted to tumble like the Power Rangers.  After two years of acrobatics, I started to take tap and jazz classes. I eventually adopted all styles of competition dance throughout the years including tap, clogging, ballet, lyrical, jazz, modern, acrobatics, and hip hop. I started competing when I was nine years old and always competed every dance competition season until I came to college. My junior and senior year I took dance classes three full nights a week and taught one night as well. Dance has always been my artistic escape and is my passion.  I also was a male gymnast from fourth until eight grade. Even though I never competed with this, I gained much of my strength and tumbling skills from gymnastics. I competed with the gym’s All-star Cheerleading teams as well for four years winning two National Championships the last two years. This encouraged me to tryout of the cheerleading team at UNC. Even though most guys come in with no experience with cheering, tumbling, or stunting, they always are happy to take experienced male cheerleaders. Cheering at Carolina has been my favorite part of college. I am currently on the JV team with mostly freshman and sophomores working hard to gain all the stunt skills needed for varsity. I came to Carolina with all the tumbling requirements and have advanced my skills as well. I cheered at all the home football games and cheer for Women’s basketball. I hope to be on Varsity by basketball season next year, but it depends on how many new guys come to replace those currently on JV. I am really excited this weekend to travel to the Women’s NCAA Basketball tournament in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I have never been out west past Missouri, so this is exciting for me. If the women win both of their games this weekend I will travel to Washington the next weekend. Dance and cheerleading are my current hobbies at UNC and are my stress reliefs. Even though they both keep me busy, both of these hobbies make me happy and keep me working hard.