What I like most...

Someone posted the question, what do you like most about being a belly dancer? I thought about it for some time and here's what I came up with...

Belly dance is the only place, the only group, I have found that has such a supportive female environment. Of course there are always a few bad apples, but once those rot, all we are left with is a wonderful, all-inclusive sport. Belly dancers can be of any size, shape, color, religion, and age. Any woman can become an incredible belly dancer despite (and because of) all of these things. Belly dancers band together in a world where the normal family/friend systems are falling apart. I love belly dance with my passion and soul. I can not think of any group that I would rather belong to. Belly dance is female empowerment!

Have you ever had a pony?

You know when you're a little girl and you beg and beg and beg for a pony every year for Xmas? I did... of course, secretly I hoped that it would be not only the run of the mill pony, but a unicorn! Hey, a girl can dream, right?!!

So, when I was 8 years old, (I think)... I got TWO PONIES!! Boy did I get what I asked for, they were fun and beautiful AND a lot of work!

So, I was thinking... have you ever had a pony? Or have you ever gotten something you wished for for a really, really long time? And what was it? I would love to hear your stories!!

xoxo
~Blume
PS. Artwork by Bradley Hill... isn't it beautiful?!

So, I've really been enjoying the fall and can feel it getting closer to winter each day. And then I thought, what a great topic! My favorite things in the fall are...

leaves changing color...
pumpkins and anything made with pumpkin!
orange!
And my favorite fall belly dance event, Hips of Fury!

What are your favorite fall things? And how about your favorite fall belly dance events?

Five Animals

So, I got this survey in my email, basically a chain mail type thing. I normally ignore them, or take a look and toss them. I’m definitely not into the whole “send this to 50 people and you will get your wish” thing. But this email came from a good friend, so I gave it a try.

It was a questionnaire of sorts, but only had four questions. It was a type of Buddhist philosophy sort of thing. The funny thing is that I went through the whole test, and although I may not have liked some of the answers, I found them all to be true deep down. Intersting…

Here are my answers and what they mean…

First it asked me to put five animals in the order I think they should go in…

Horse, Pig, Sheep, Cow, Tiger

I chose: Tiger, cow, sheep, horse, pig… here’s what each stands for as far as importance in my life (or at least that’s the way they explained it).

Tiger = Pride
Cow = Career
Sheep = Love
Horse = Family
Pig = Money

Interesting again… although, I would never like to admit it (and maybe some of you feel the same way), but I make many decisions based on pride. Whether or not what I am doing will make me look good or bad as a person. Which is prideful, I think. My career is definitely important to me, even though it is not a conventional path. Love, love, love, and more love are of huge importance. It’s funny that family is fourth, I love my family very much and would do anything for them. But the way I took it is that I have been back and forth as to whether or not to ever have a family of my own. And it is no surprise that money is last… I have never been money driven.

What order would you have put them in?

Our Pirates Booty's Made it to the Netherlands!!

We're making our way around the world!!

We (Hiplash) have a new fusion belly dance choreography called "Pirate's Booty". When we were thinking about our music selection, our first thought was music from Pirates of the Caribbean. With that on our minds, we had a lot of difficulty coming up with a piece of music that would not only go with the Pirate’s movie music, but also had to be dance-able. Trish (aka Pixie Spice), the newest member in our troupe, brought in a piece of music that was perfect!! The song is a remix done by Carty of “Jolly Roger” by Adam and the Ants. The song is awesome! And Adam Ant is the original pirate! Perfect!!

Pixie asks Carty’s permission for our use of the music. It was cool with him and we used it to dance at Faizeh’s hafla (www.faizeh.com) and The Hip Drop showcase (www.myspace.com/thehipdropshowcase). Both opportunities were incredible and I had so much fun being a pirate if only for a night!

So, here’s the cool part… Pixie let Carty know about our fabulous performance, and he was sweet enough to write about it in his blog! Arrrrr!! Here’s the link, check it out, it’s awesome!!

http://cartrouble.nl/news/cnn/190707-1.html

I made the Dean's List!!

I made the Dean’s List! Yay!!

So, for the fourth semester in a row, I made the Dean’s list at CSUN. And I am so excited!! All of the sleepless nights, hours on Saturdays doing homework when I wanted to be out playing are really paying off. And that is the part that feels so good!

I can’t wait for graduation, only one semester away! School is such hard work but really worth the rewards. I can’t believe I took it for granted as a younger person. I just love it now. I can’t imagine not having gone back to finish my degree. And I am so fortunate to have a wonderful person (Bradley) in my life that is willing to help make this happen for me. I could not be luckier!

And… to top it off, it’s summer vacation right now and I am having so much fun dancing with Hiplash and having some time to myself, it’s great! I’ll be all refreshed for next semester. Yay!!