Pretty Much A Rockstar

I once read a valuable piece of advice... Or maybe I was told it once... Or possibly a large number of times until I was ready to listen. That advice: the best way to get over grief, or emotional turmoil that comes with either a death or a breakup is to keep busy. This advice has an added bonus of never being bored and as such has led me (good or bad) to where I am now - a promo producer by day, but by afternoon, night and weekends I'm a tutor, a youth group coordinator, a singer, a softball player, a cheerleader, a mentor, a church council member, on a magazine editorial team, a pole dancer and when I have spare time an unpaid extra/model. Evidently I like to keep busy

I wasn't always so busy though. A few years ago after a breakup when I dramatically professed that I could never be happy again, and that I was destined to work at Coles forever and would die an old lonely cat lady... I decided in my wisdom, or my friends persistent advice, to do something to keep busy.

Until that point I had spent years at church just singing as I watched my talented friends sing and play guitar every week. I decided then that I wanted to learn to play guitar, so I did what every budding guitarist does and went to Aldi and bought myself an acoustic guitar complete with case and amp inputs.
A week later I got back together with the guy I had broken up with (not a smart move in retrospect) and my guitar sat in the corner of my room for another year until my brother decided he wanted to learn to play so I lent it to him. He actually got really good and after about another a year he bought his own and asked me if I wanted mine back. I left it with him for a bit longer so he could teach other young people guitar at the youth group, but when this creative challenge came up I decided it was time to pick the guitar up again, and my best friend/housemate was only too happy to be my teacher (after harassing me for the last few years to pick the guitar up and learn more than the 5 chords and 1 strumming pattern I knew back to front.)

So after my first cheer leading practice (see earlier blog) I was feeling less than adequate about my dancing abilities and needed a distraction. I took my guitar out and sat down for my first lesson with my best friend in the backyard. The conversation went as follows:

"I want to be able to play a whole song by the end of the next 10 weeks."
"Sure, we can do that, what song do you want to learn? Taylor Swift,? she's easy to play."
"No I want to learn Vienna by Billy Joel."
(We look up the chords on our phones)
"You'll have to learn to bar chords but otherwise it's not too terrible.""Too easy. Done.""It's not actually that easy... you realise it took me 6 months to learn one bar chord.""It's cool, I've got this, I'm hardcore."
"Mmmm oooo-kay..."

Ten minutes later after my friend who has been playing for years realised that even she didn't know some of the complex chords in the song we had switched back to Taylor Swift's Mean.

At first I was just playing single chords at their appropriate times, eventually working my way up to strumming and singing. By the end of the night I had forgotten how upset I had been about my lack of dancing ability and was reveling in the fact I'd played my first song on guitar. There was even one bar chord in the song that I had sounding semi decent by the time I went to bed that night. It was the perfect self esteem builder I needed that I was not in fact hopeless at everything I tried.

I was a little ambitious thinking I had time to become a master guitarist in the 10 weeks, or 10 months as it almost ended up being. Given the number of other commitments that had now filled my life it was probably another few months before I picked up the guitar again, learning the chords to Adele's Someone Like You.

I haven't yet been able to commit any songs to memory, but at this stage my chord knowledge has increased, and slowly but surely I am on the way to actually being able to say I can play guitar. In the meantime the guitar is sitting out of the case in easy reach and sight in my bedroom to remind me to actually pick it up and start playing.

Guitar School

4/10 for Commitment levels

8/10 for fun times 

The Sounds of Silence

I'm quite a loud person, always have been, even at school when I was feeling shy or awkward in social situations I was loud and constantly being told to be quiet. I don't think I am one of those people who needs to fill every quiet moment with my own voice, however prolonged silence does make me uncomfortable.

Recently I attended Myers-Briggs personality testing which confirmed for me what I was pretty sure I knew already which was that I was an extrovert. Basically that means, among other things that I get my energy from people around me and not just from myself. I'll happily sit for hours watching TV not talking to anyone or sleep for that matter, but I don't often spend time in silence, preferring to throw my iPhone on shuffle whenever I'm at a loose end. As I was writing this very blog I was listening to Lily Allen's album on repeat until I realised the irony of what I was writing about and switched it off. Call it "method" writing, or something like that.

I have read many times that if you spend time in solitude and silence it's really good for your brain and can help your creativity and can spawn ideas and even come up with amazing things because your mind is free. I also heard in a talk from Sr. Hilda from the Abbey on the weekend before I started this challenge that it would be really good for my spiritual growth too, because when you sit still and listen you are more open to the flow of prayer and you're not blocked by loud noises, music and any other distractions.

With that in mind I decided to go seven days without music in the car. Seems simple enough…The way I see it is it's a win-win situation… I either improve my spirituality and/or my creativity and have deep revelations about myself spiritually and emotionally, that is if this succeeds... alternatively I go crazy and become more insane than I already am.

I won't lie, it was Monday morning and I got in my car and was listening to Sami Lucas and Yumi Stein's breakfast show on Mix 106.5 the whole 15 minute drive to work. It wasn't until I got there that I realised. Fortunately this was the only time I failed all week, so despite the slow start I was ready to get into it by the afternoon. After 5 minutes on my 30 minute drive to tutor I was so bored. I remembered all the things I had read and thought I should kick start by thinking about my life and relationships. Thinking was overrated though so instead I sung a song about what I was feeling about past relationships. I have no idea what it said now, and I kind of wish I had somehow recorded it, because I'm pretty sure it had a sweet chorus and bridge and everything. After tutoring I reprised the song for the ten minute drive home, but by the time I left to go to the city for my pole class I had lost the words. So what did I do instead, I sung a song about Marilyn Monroe, who I had been making a promo for at work that day. It was enough to last me the 40 minute drive, so evidently I had become knowledgeable on the topic. On the way home I made some phone calls (hands free in a legal car mount). Not because I had given up, though it was a very good time waster, but because I'd missed some calls while I was in my class.

The second day was thankfully just a few short trips, home to work, then work to first student tutoring, then to the second students house, then to the supermarket and then back home again. The longest of these was half an hour, and I think I was too tired to notice I was in silence, so it wasn't too much of a struggle.

Day 3 I was home sick, so though thankful I didn't have to drive anywhere in silence, I wasn't so thankful for the horrible stomach cramps I was having.
The fourth day, Thursday, was always going to be the hardest. This was my cheer leading day, which meant as soon as work finished I had a two hour drive in peak hour to get to Wollongong University. For some unknown reason I had Carly Rae Jepson's Call me maybe stuck in my head, and after singing that through a few times I annoyed myself with it. My brain then went somewhere else entirely, and as I sat on Australia Avenue I started thinking about ways to charge batteries if you were stuck on a dessert island. This eventually made me sleepy and I was uncontrollably yawning. I then started to ponder whether or not it is possible to yawn too much. Thankfully, at the right time another car with its window open drove past and it was literally music to my ears, that was short lived though and I still had an hour and a half to go and wasn't moving anywhere. I decided to start "writing" this blog by dictating to Siri, with interesting results… when I told her to write "Extravert" I actually ended up calling myself an "extra bed." I discovered that if I spoke in my best rendition of an American accent then she could actually translate my sentences pretty accurately. Singing she couldn't handle though, with "Starships were meant to fly… hands up and touch the sky" translating to: " Starships lamented hands up and touch this Lampstein as well." Eventually the traffic started moving so I gave up on Siri and for the next hour and a half between silences would burst into whatever song or hymn I could think of.

On the way home I must have been over singing because I actually found myself deep in thought, thinking about past relationships and decisions I've made in my life. Evidently there was something I needed to reflect on because I missed the turn off down Heathcote road when I realised I was in Engadine and so added an extra half hour to my silence by the end of it. Oops.
The fifth day was another one with not too many long trips. I went from home to work, then from work to a local youth camp picking up Dominos pizza for dinner on my way. When I drove home later that night I had a passenger which made it easy, and when I drove out to pick my housemates up from the Albion at Parramatta at 1:30, I was too busy focusing on staying awake to notice there was no music.

Day 6 Saturday was pretty uneventful, driving back to the youth camp, then ducking out to tutor and go to the shops nearby during the day before returning home late that night.

Sunday was our last performance day for cheerleading so after driving back to the youth camp to put on breakfast, I headed back to Wollongong. Fortunately Sunday traffic is a lot kinder than Thursday afternoon so I was there in an hour and a half. I spent the whole trip agonising over whether I remembered the moves or not, so although long, I didn't think too much about outside stimuli. The trip back always seems to go quicker, and after being around people all weekend, and about to head back for the dinner part of the youth weekend I was happy for some time out. After packing up everything at the end of the night, I dropped my brother home and had the last official ten minutes of my challenge in complete silence.

While I didn't die or internally combust from lack of radio and music, what I did notice was I was missing out on one of my daily sources of news. I felt a little disconnected from the world, and wasn't sure how I should feel about that. I liked for a short time not knowing what was going on because it brought with it a certain element of peace and tranquility, but I know too much to know it is selfish to ignore everything in the world because you only want to focus on yourself.In saying that though, I do have an appreciation for the quiet times. I don't switch the radio off in the car often, but I am more inclined to spend a little longer in silence before getting the iPhone out. I still listen to music in the shower most days, but I am making a conscious effort to put some quiet time into my life just to break up the craziness a little. I'm not about to go on a 5 day silent retreat or give up sound, but I think I've come a long way in acknowledging the benefits of self reflection.

Next week I will be spending a whole day in silence on World Mental Health Day to raise money and awareness for those suffering mental health issues in silence. While I can still use my ears, I can't use my voice, so it will be a whole new level of challenge keeping quiet, but is worth it.

Silent time: 7/10

Bring it on!

You know those little girl fantasies you never knew you had until suddenly you're given the opportunity? This was one that surprised even me!
I was on the star now website when I saw the following ad:

It was at that moment that I had flashbacks to watching all the bring it on movies and had a sudden desire to be a cheerleader, despite the fact that I had absolutely zero dance experience. To be completely honest though, I have sat in NRL games often and watched the cheerleaders and thought "that's not that hard, I could do that..." Well if this experience has taught me anything (and it's taught me a lot) it was that I was very wrong!

So I applied to the listing and started corresponding with the coach. By this point I was wanting to back out something chronic! I had a series of emails and messages back and forth with the coach where I basically tried to convince her in any way (without actually saying the words) to not take me on so that I could legitimately get out of what I was sure was going to be too hard, and perhaps too out of my comfort zone and not have to say I quit. I had every reason under the sun... I had never danced before, maybe she would prefer girls from the local area,  there were a few games I couldn't make due to prior commitments etc. Alas though the big guy upstairs was watching over me and had other ideas. There's a quote somewhere that says God won't give us more than we can handle, and though it is not scriptural or necessarily true,  clearly this was something I was going to have to stick with. So I went to SUPRÉ and bought the skirt and shirt I needed by the first training (much to my horror at the tightness of the short red skirt) and psyched myself up for my first training.

I left two hours and fifteen minutes to get to training, and it was lucky I did because I got incredibly lost at the University of Wollongong, which as a side note is really nice, and made it just in time for the practice.
When I arrived I met a few of the girls, and when the coach arrived she sat everyone down for a talk. It was the commitment talk... She ran through the expectations of the team, for training and for games and gave everyone the option to leave then if they didn't feel they could make the commitment.
I'll admit, at that moment I was so scared of what was to come... I didn't know if I'd make it through the first training session let alone the whole season, but I'd driven a long way to be there and decided as scared as I was, I wasn't going to leave.

The first training session was very difficult... I'd missed the first training session the week before, so not only was I a week behind in choreography, I was 20 years behind in dance ability compared to some of the girls on the team. It gave me some comfort knowing that I wasn't the only one who hadn't danced before, but by the end of the training, I was not confident that I'd ever be able to do it. Knowing how uncoordinated I am, but not wanting to look like a total and complete failure, I told the coach and captain that I just needed to practice and I'd be fine by the next training, but every part of me knew that was a lie. The only thing I liked about the training was that I knew the song... Taylor Swift's Trouble, minus all the goat inserts!

I drove home that night feeling worse about myself than I had remembered feeling in a long time. I don't like failing at anything, and for some reason went into this venture feeling like it was something that might be hard and a lot of effort but that I'd be able to do it. When I got home I debriefed with my bestie, telling her it was hard but i'd be fine. Then she asked me to show her what I learnt. I showed her the one little bit of floor work that I remembered and then it got too much. I showed her the video I had taken and she (a dancer of 22 years) said even she thought it was hard for a beginner. You can imagine my further distress then, as I started a rant about how I was terrible and a failure and all those things (it was late at night by that time) so as the awesome friend she is, she offered to learn the dance herself and teach it to me. So for the next week she went over bit by bit with me in the backyard, not letting me go to bed until I could do one section perfectly three times in a row without a mistake. At 11:30 on the night before the second training I was rolling around the ground in the backyard repeating the choreography over and over, as the dew was setting in, yelling at my housemate  that I wanted to go to bed. Knowing how disappointed I would be if I went to bed without nailing it she persisted and didn't give up until I eventually got it.

The next night I went to the training pretty confident that I knew the dance inside out. We started going through it and I instantly knew the choreography had changed in a few parts from the week before and had a quick one of those "I don't like change" freak outs before accepting that I had to adapt and learn it.
I left after that practice feeling slightly better. I got on well with all the girls so that was an added bonus as well, and talking to some of them made me realise I wasn't the only one who felt a little uncoordinated. It was now two days till game day.

Saturday morning I woke up and was ready to go, I had gotten my hair straightened the day before so I could avoid the 2 hour ordeal that is doing my hair, and had my uniform all nicely laid out on my bed. After practicing several more times in the backyard I jumped in the car and was on my way.
 
When I arrived the nerves set in... A soccer field had never seemed so big to me, and the grand stand, though not too grand seemed to tower over me. I found the girls and we started practicing over and over again. After sweating it out for a bit we got ready, and into our skirts which I felt a little like a squashed sausage in.

The anxious face mirrors exactly how I was feeling

It came to 5pm and we went out onto the field for our first performance for the under 20's game. The grandstand looked half empty and I was more than okay with that. As I walked out onto the field I suddenly realised that I didn't need to be worried... No matter how bad I was or how embarrassed, I was in Wollongong and nobody there knew me. The music started and off we went! Before I knew it we were throwing our Pom Poms to the ground and the song was over. I knew I had been slightly off for a few bits but I didn't care. I was so pumped to have done it and It had been so long since I was in a performance that I had forgotten how much I loved it. 

Between the games we had to sell raffle tickets to raise money for the club... Well not me... I was one of the ones who had to stay inside and keep going over the dance... :-S but a few of the girls did, and I was surprised to hear when they returned about all the negative comments people in the crowd had given them. People had made remarks about the length of their skirts, and made comments about their promiscuity, life choices and just gave them generally dirty looks.

I was so shocked by this. These people didn't know these girls, or anything about them and made horrible assumptions. Usually I'm the ultra sensitive kind of person who would take offence to people judging me or making rude comments, but in this case I just laughed. I felt like going up to them and actually telling them about my life and why I had chosen to join this team and then seeing what they had to say.

We performed the second time at the 7pm A Grade main game to a crowd double the size, and I think this time I managed to get every move. At the end of the dance and after we had done the guard of honour, I was surprised when the captain/choreographer commented on how well I did and how well I had listened and fixed what I did wrong compared to the first time. This was the exact confidence booster I needed.

Watch the masterpiece below... You'll find me second from the left (in the middle row) once the group breaks out of the line just before the first chorus. 

So every Thursday night, and every second or third Saturday since, I have driven to Wollongong to be a cheerleader. The drives themselves (though scary when wet) have been a great chance for me to "practice" my singing, (something else I want to improve at) and give me a "quiet" down time where I can think and ponder life.

Since the first dance I have performed routines to Oye Baby by Pitbull and Set it Off by Timomatic.
The most recent was this one which I managed to get filmed. We only had one training session for this one which I missed because I was held up in Sydney, so I learnt it all in a day. Because of that I made 2 really noticeable mistakes (missed a kick, came in late) but otherwise it has been my favourite so far AND we got a standing ovation! :-) (though we think that could have been because one of the girls skirt got caught up partway through the dance.)

I was quietly impressed with myself this day at how far I had come, from the girl who was stressing in the backyard about the first dance to a girl who could pick up and perform a dance (almost right) in a day.

Watch Below or Via YouTube.
Pom Poms - Jonas brothers

I'm the one back right.

Here are the last two dances of the season:

Oye Baby - Pitbull

Va Va Voom - Nicki Minaj

The things that have occurred to me and I have learnt through this endeavor are varied, and this task has challenged me in more ways than any of my ten week project ventures to date. Even though I risk sounding fluffy or insincere... Here are my top 5 realisations:

1. Cheer leading doesn't have to be like Bring It On.
While some weeks we did some cool lifts and spins, and some cartwheels and handstands, there was no rival squad, no fight over a sacred baton or no girls trying to rip each others face off. We are a group of girls ranging from seventeen to thirty who all just want to learn and perform and have fun!

2. It is never ever too late to learn a new skill.
While I won't be touring with the Sydney Ballet, or dancing on Broadway anytime soon, I have been able to learn and I think get better at a skill I have never had and always wanted to be able to do.

3. I can be my own worst enemy when it comes to self talk and motivation.
I spent the whole first few weeks hating on myself for not being able to do something I had never done before. When I got over myself and went with it, I got there.

4. Always go with your gut.
When I saw the ad something inside me sparked and I wanted to join. The location and the time commitment had to be figured out later, and even though I tried to talk myself, and the coach out of it after applying, my gut instinct had brought me there so I stayed there and learnt so much along the way.

5. I love performing.
I may not have been very good, and the audience may not have been thousands, but the buzz of being on a "stage" was something I hadn't done (Except for acting in the Easter passion play) since I played a munchkin and flying monkey in my high school production of the Wiz.
It's something I am keen to keep pursuing, and although the Wollongong thing could get complicated and I may not continue next season, I do want to take drama classes, and maybe even join a musical or theatre society.
 

 
 

Cheerleading - 10/10