Creation and Choreography

Here at Messiah, Spring semester of their first year, students are required to take a class called "Created and Called for Community," also known as CCC (or triple C or C-cubed... whatever floats your boat). The class is split up into three sections, of which I only remember the first - Creation. Mainly because everyone in CCC has to do a Creation Project. What is the Creation Project? You ask. I'll tell you.

Maybe someday.

Not in this paragraph either.





Nor in this one.








I think I've tortured you enough.







ENOUGH!

The creation project seeks to make students dig deep within to find the creativity that God gave them to do SOMETHING related to creation. That means one can write a poem or short story or short essay, or paint or draw a picture, design a computer graphic, put together a video, a song, a dance... yes, the options are limitless. It just has to do with creation.

But in this, I am stuck.

I knew right off the bat that I wanted to choreograph a dance. I LOVE dance, so it would make sense for me to use that art form.

The trouble came in choosing a song. Should I choose a worship song? Can I find a song on creation and dance to that? Ooh, I could find a Hebrew song about creation! Oh, most of them are about love...

See my dilemma? So right now I'm torn between using choreography I came up with to a song by Gad Elbaz, an Israeli artist, or choreography for a worship song. Or even ditching the choreography I already have been working on for both of those songs for another time, and choosing a new song altogether. Aaaarrrghhhh.

And so, my dear readers (all two or three of you), what should I do? This is the description for the project:

Students will interact with the assigned texts by producing a project that demonstrates their understanding of one of the themes within the creation unit, such as the creation of the earth, the role of arts and culture, humanity as created being, or the significance of creativity. The project’s form should reflect your interests and skills...

These are the songs I have considered or already have choreography in progress for. I'll include the other part-choreography ones just to see what you think.

• Mashmauyot by Gad Elbaz
• Here in Your Presence by New Life Worship
• Beloved by Tenth Avenue North
• We Delight by Caedmon's Call (Those who know I already completed the choreography for this years ago, I am in the process of revamping it.)
• Find your Wings by Mark Harris

And songs I've already choreographed that I could record a performance of:

• Blessed Be Your Name by Tree63
• Born Again by Newsboys
• Sing Your Praise to the Lord by Amy Grant

So, what do you guys think?

Donations and the Exhaustion Later

Yesterday was a pretty big step for me on several levels. First of all, I had my first college exam in Chemical Science. Second, I had my first lab practical for Anatomy and Physiology. But the most important (probably) is that I donated blood for the first time. This is pretty big since in the past I haven't done too well with things like... shots. Oops. But yesterday I did okay. I felt a little lightheaded for a minute or so, but the nurse put my feet up and gave me some Pepsi to sip. That helped a bunch. And I lay there for a while, even after they were done collecting, just to make sure I was stable enough to stand and not collapse in a heap on the floor. That didn't happen, so I was free to go, collect my XL T-shirt (yes, I now have a new sleep shirt >_> ), grab a doughnut hole, and be on my way.

Unfortunately, "being on my way" meant many things in the evening. I had an SI (supplemental instruction) for A&P to study for the exam that was this morning (it helped a lot) at 7:00. I lost track of time, so I only had a sandwich for dinner en route to SI. SI went until 8:00. The first class for Ballet I started at 7:30, but I dashed from SI to ballet, praying that the teacher was nice enough to be okay with it since it was for school (she was). And then did bar work and other dancing things until 9, when I hurriedly changed and ran off to my job in the kitchen. We were done within an hour.

It wasn't until I stepped into the room that I realized how exhausted I was. I had no energy to do anything but sit on the floor against the bed. I didn't even feel like climbing up into my own bed, for I'm on the top bunk. Then I realized I had not thought through the day very clearly. I should have taken it easy after giving a pint of blood, and eaten a "hearty meal" (so the pamphet says) that day. I had a sandwich, and I was running for three hours. Fantastic. Good job, Sarah.

Even though I realize I was not thinking clearly yesterday, I did enjoy dance. It's been at least seven, maybe eight years, since I last took ballet, and three of those years have been spent learning Hebraic dance. It's very different. But surprisingly, once I stretched out and relaxed into the atmosphere of ballet again, I felt great. There are definitely a lot of things that Israeli dance is much more slack on, but I have confidence that at the end of the year, I will be able to improve my Israeli dancing style, too, and be more graceful, fluid, and also improve my lines. :D

So! Despite my stupidity on my first day of dance, I'm rather excited about the upcoming year and dance. Oh, speaking of which, I need to share a neat story from the past few weeks.

A few days before I left for college, my friend Aaron from dance told me about a girl named Ashley who was going to Messiah, and that she loved to dance. With that tidbit of information (along with her last name, which I won't post here due to the nature of the internet), I set out for school hoping to run into this girl. I looked her up on Facebook, and the first girl to come up was in the network of the school I had gone to. Strange, I thought. That couldn't possibly be her, I would have remembered her. Then her name started to pop out. We were both honors students. Outdoors club. So on and so forth.

I finally sent a friend request. It was with joy several days later that I received a note from her. We met for lunch, and have been friends since. With that, we're hoping to host a dance workshop to teach people Israeli dance. It is my hopes to start a class through the dance ministry for it next year or beyond. But this is a good start. :)

Now to see what God would have me do with all of this. :) Shalom!

Yom Kippur

I'm so sorry! Both to myself, and to this blog and its readers (the few that are). This is not working as well as I hoped. Life is crazy (when is it not?), so when I have something good (soon...) I will share that.

On the other hand, last week I celebrated Yom Kippur. Yes, that's a Jewish holiday. Yes, Jesus died on the cross and rose again so we don't need a 'day of atonement' other than Resurrection Day. I chose to fast and celebrate/commemorate Yom Kippur for historical significance, and as a day for myself to sit down and spend all day with God.

So I fasted. Fasting is such an amazing thing. It's hard, but it's so good. The hard times were when I got hungry around noon, 3 PM, and 6 PM, but the good times were all the times in between. I spent a large amount of time in prayer, searching my heart, and reading the Bible. After 6 PM, I got to spend the rest of the evening with some really great people who were also celebrating and fasting. We had some amazing discussions, and the memories of those conversations I will treasure deeply. Not to mention that when you fast and the break the fast with someone, it builds the friendship. Nevertheless, it was a great day despite my hunger (which I didn't notice except for those three times).

More on Yom Kippur later, when I have some more information about it (due to lack of free time, it might very well be next Yom Kippur when I write more about it >_<)

Music Update: Ha! I bet you didn't even know there was a music update. Well, there is now. I've been working on learning three new pieces. One is called Bloom, it's a choral piece set for SSA, another is a composition of my own writing that I didn't really learn how to play because I have a program that plays it for me, and Cassabrie's Song.

Yes, the song I had in the last post. I've been learning how to play that, and also to sing to it, so I can make some kind of recording for a contest for it. Speaking of that... PLEASE tell me if you are going to buy and read Masters or Slayers or other books by Bryan Davis! It would be really great to get some points for that...

On to play music, and to dance! Blessings to you all!