Anyway, still no real running going on – I’ve done a couple of 30 minute treadmill jaunts that haven’t been super exciting. I’m also still not studying to re-sit the Ceili Teaching portion of the TCRG exam, yet.

I have been reading a lot though – I’m 3 books ahead of schedule in my goal of reading 75 books this year. I’ve also done a lot of re-reading. I re-read The Great Gatsby since I’ll be seeing the movie soon, and I hadn’t read the book since high school. It’s always so interest ing to go back and read books I enjoyed in high school, because as an adult I have a whole new perspective. For example Catcher in the Rye was one of my favorite books in high school, and having gone back to read it again as an adult, I was disappointed. Holden Caulfield is kind of a whiney bitch. Gatsby was also a tough re-read. Everyone in that novel is terrible! Selfish, insufferable, assholes basically.

Anyway, on the plus side, I’ve recently read:

Unspoken
In The Shadow of Blackbirds
Prophecy
Born Wicked

I’ll have to put together actual reviews of each of these but they were all enjoyable.

I have now read the first two novels and the two short stories that go along with the series, and while I had reservations at first, the characters have grown on me and when I finished book two and discovered book three doesn’t come out until August (AUGUST!) I was actually, really sad. So, I’m re-reading them, because I’m not ready to part with Elisa and now that I’m re-reading it I’m enjoying her development and journey even more.

You meet Elisa on her sixteenth birthday as she is being prepared for her wedding day, to a man she’s never met. King Alejandro from a neighboring kingdom. Princess of Orovalle, Elisa is also chosen by God to bear a Godstone which is never entirely explained but, is a super fancy stone God placed in her navel through heavenly intervention, to show she is a chosen one. Also, it has magical and spiritual powers. I know, weird. Trust me, it gets better.  Also of note, because a lot of time is spent on this, Elisa is fat. She has really low self esteem and basically spends her time reading sacred literature, and eating pastries. Sounds like my kinda life.

So, Elisa marries this man, who turns out to be pretty handsome, and at least kind, and goes with him to Brisadulce, where he lives. Turns out, though, the King isn’t ready to share that he has married and wants her to keep it quiet. When it is discovered Elisa bears the Godstone, she is kidnapped and taken by rebels to a secret camp in the desert. The rebels believe she can help them appeal to the King for help, and also vanquish the enemy – the Inviernos.

While Elisa is in the desert, she falls in love with a boy named Humberto (who sounds kinda dreamy and rugged) who is part of the rebellion.  Elisa’s intelligence turns out to be a huge boon for the rebels and she not only is able to plan some really great strategic moves against the enemy she becomes actually respected by the group.

When Elisa goes to another town to bargin with a Conde who has been dealing with the enemy behind the King’s back, things go terribly wrong. Several of the rebels are killed, and Elisa is distraught as the enemy begins to attack the larger cities of the kingdom. With the help of Hector, the king’s guard, and her Godstone, Elisa is able to fight back the Inviernos, but not without terrible loss.

In the second book, Elisa must face even greater challenges while attempting to rule a kingdom post war. She goes on a great journey to discover a secret source of power for her Godstone, and along the way must discover what her true feelings are for herself, her kingdom, and her love life. Turns out, when you become queen, and actually want to do what is best for your kingdom, your personal life becomes a mess.

Book two ends on a cliffhanger which annoys me, just because I don’t want to wait until freaking August to find out what happens to Hector, and Elisa and all their friends. Rae Carson, I’m shaking my fist at you…but, I can’t stay mad at ya.

Cassandra Clare writes The Mortal Instruments Series,the first book of which is being released as a movie by Sony ON MY BIRTHDAY! Booyah – Sorry, I digress, and The Infernal Devices which serves as a kind of prequel to The Mortal Instruments. Taking place in Victorian London, the characters in this series are the ancestors of many of the characters in The Mortal Instruments series.

Clockwork Princess is the final book in the Infernal Devices series, and I have a lot of mixed feelings about the epilogue, but overall really loved this book. When I started the series, I was underwhelmed. It was clear Cassandra Clare had some interesting ideas going into this series, but I wasn’t as drawn to the Steam punk sort of theme, and where The Mortal Instruments felt very grounded in New York, I didn’t feel the same pull in this series. However, as the story and characters developed, I grew to really love them. I spent the entire epilogue crying, so there’s that.

I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone who wishes to read the series, or who has yet to finish the final installment, so I won’t go into any depth on the plot, but I will say, Cassandra Clare excels at creating something special in her world of Shadowhunters. Reading all of The Infernal Devices as well as all the current Mortal Instruments series it is clear that Clare has spent a huge amount of time and attention to detail in creating this world. The family history and lineage alone is incredible and very satisfying to see played out through the two series. There are also a handful of really great gems, literal and figurative that come into play in both series that tie everything together nicely. This kind of commitment to the Shadowhunter world and her characters is what makes Cassandra Clare so great, and what makes the two series, and hopefully, ultimately the third series in the works, The Dark Artifices, so incredible.

I mentioned before that two friends and I have started our own Irish Dance school, Blackthorn Irish Dance, well, yesterday, Erin and I were on Today in LA to teach one of the anchors to dance. Then, in the afternoon, I went to a local area preschool to hold a demo class which was a lot of fun!

When I got home, Erin, Kylie and I emailed back and forth determining ordering business cards and getting our website and a blog set up.  I then was able to put together an email to go out to the parents at the preschool offering them a first time special. We’ll be starting classes up again in April – so we’re all keeping our fingers crossed that in a few weeks time we’ll have a class full of tiny tots

Last night, when Travis got home from work, we ate dinner and gave the kittehs baths – they were less than pleased. However, it’s so much nicer to snuggle with them when they are soft and clean

Today, I’m keeping a low profile, and tomorrow I’ve got some work to do before heading out to a small St. Patrick’s Day gathering.

In other news, I’ve decided to join Team in Training again for their Fall 2013 season – I plan on really getting back into training and conquer the Nike Women’s Marathon this October.

Studying for and sitting the TCRG exam last September in Atlanta was easily one of the most difficult and stressful things I’ve done, maybe ever. The 5 part exam was expensive (not just the exam itself, but also the cost of travelling to Atlanta), but it also required a huge amount of studying and preparation. I spent months learning the music, and the ceilis and the choreography I needed. Even with all my hard work, I didn’t expect to pass the exam outright. As much as I studied, I never truly felt ready, I was always second guessing myself and had such a hard time keeping all the information in my brain.

So, when I got the email letting me know I was unsuccessful (yes, they send you an email simply saying if you were successful or unsuccessful) I wasn’t surprised. Disappointed, yes, but surprised, no.

A week later, I got the full results and was so thrilled to learn I would only need to retake one portion. I thought for sure I’d need to retake two. Thankfully, I passed the written portion, my biggest stressor. I will just need to retake the ceili teaching portion at some point in the near future.

I was eligible to retake the exam as early as this month, but the truth is, I don’t have the money to retake the exam right now. Not only that, but once I finished my final exam section I did a major brain dump and it feels like everything I spent so much time learning has completely left my brain. I haven’t really thought about the ceilis in ages. I have a lot on my plate at work, and two friends and I have started our own dance school, right now teaching adults. I’m hoping that just getting back into dance slowly, and by gaining more confidence in teaching I will have an easier time re-learning all those damn dances. I’ve also got some financial work to do on my credit card again before I will allow myself to spend the 319 Euro and whatever travel expenses are needed to retake the exam.

Fingers crossed, yeah?

I spent quite a bit of time feeling sad about the whole thing. Even though I wasn’t surprised, it was still really hard to feel like a bit of a failure. Not only that, but I had SO MANY people to tell who didn’t completely understand the scope of the exam in the first place, and dealing with the sympathy was kind of overwhelming too.

But, the good news is, starting a new school, and getting excited again about Irish dance mean I’ll have more Jig to add to my Jog here.

Last year, I decided I was going to read 100 book and I used Goodreads.com to track this goal. While I managed to miss the goal by about 25 books, this year I decided to scale back a bit, and attempt 75 (with a stretch goal of 100.) I know, this probably sounds silly. Who cares how many books you read in a year? Why even keep track? Well, truthfully, I love reading, and have always felt the more I read, the better my writing becomes. Reading provides me with an escape, which is especially helpful when I am feeling very stressed out.

Lately, it seems I’ve been nothing but stressed out.

Funny sort of side note story, several years ago, I was briefly a part of a reality tv show designed to help people become fit. The premise of the show was taking ordinary people and asking the question “if your life depended on it, could you save yourself and someone else?”  Without going into detail (trust me, that is a post for another time) I ended up dropping out of this program, but when meeting with the doctor who was leading the show/challenge, she said to me, “Catherine, it’s not the history of heart disease in your family that will kill you, it is your anxiety and your stress level.”

Flash forward to today, and I think I’m finally starting to understand what she meant.  Here’s the thing, there are two kinds of stress. The crisis mode stress, when something goes terribly wrong and there are fires to be put out and screaming babies to be held, and places and people to reorganize and supplies to be distributed. I am excellent in these situations. I can remain calm and collected while my Virgo mind is solution driven in its quest to make all right with the world. It’s why I typically do well in work environments and am able to meet deadlines efficiently. It’s also why I’m one of the first people at work, when we have a Code 99 (emergency in the facility) to grab a pen, clipboard and an Incident Report.

The other kind of stress is the slow build stress. The stress that starts with one tiny thing that falls out of places, creating a downward spiral that seemingly, quietly destroys everything and takes over your entire life.  The kind of stress that looks like back to back meetings, followed by last minute requests for in depth research you are not only, not actually qualified to do, but lack the proper resources to complete accurately, followed by an involved, multi-step event that needs to be organized, and reorganized, and the 10 plus participants who need unlimited hand holding to be prepared to pack a lunch for their children (seriously,) and then realizing you haven’t been home for a meal with your boyfriend in days, and you’re out of cat litter, and you need to do laundry but have no time to do so in the foreseeable future, and your boyfriend took the toothpaste with him on his business trip and so you chew a piece of gum hoping you don’t forget to pick up toothpaste on your way home from work (not that this has ever happend to me.) The stress that is every day things that build and build until you are waking up in a cold sweat with your heart racing at 1:30am. The stress that is one part job dissatisfaction, one part feeling trapped, one part depression sneaking back into your life, and another part sheer exhaustion. Turns out, I don’t do as well with that type of stress.

So, anyway, stress is going to kill me, and really does not make my depression and anxiety any better. Reading, writing, dancing, exercising, all those things do help. So, I keep reading, and writing and dancing and doing what I can to exercise when I am not so tired I want to fall down into bed immediately.

In the past few weeks I have read Silver Linings Playbook  and Where’d You Go, Bernadette.  Both of which deal with mental health and its impact on people and their families in two different ways.

Silver Lining Playbook is the story of Pat Peoples and his recovery at home after being released from a mental institution he calls “the bad place” where he spent almost four years. Pat believes in silver linings, and optimism, and is Bipolar. During his time at home, he meets a woman named Tiffany who struggles with depression (and probably some other social issues that aren’t exactly diagnosed in the novel,) and the two form a relationship. It’s a really interesting look at mental health because it is told from Pat’s point of view through a “memoir” he is writing to his ex-wife, Nikki in the hope that when their “apart time” ends he will be reunited with her and they will resume their life together. What Silver Linings Playbook does so well, is paint a sympathetic picture of Pat and his journey to self discovery and recovery. It’s not an easy path and he makes mistakes along the way, but it’s heartwarming to read and while definitely difficult at times, because you know, pretty early on, he is never going to get back together with Nikki, it does great work to de-stigmatize mental illness. You know Pat is “crazy,” but you root for him anyway, not because it’s a gimmick, but because he is a real human being, with real feelings and emotions, and he is working so hard to make things right.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette, on the other hand looks at how the mental health of Bernadette Fox impacts her daughter, Bee, and her husband, Elgin. It took me a moment to get used to the structure of the storytelling, but once I got invested, I was hooked. This story is told in a series of correspondence between various characters, and snippets of “real time” first person storytelling from Bee as she searches for answers about her mother’s disappearance. Bernadette is a once famous and now reclusive architect living in Seattle with her husband and Microsoft genius, Elgin, and daughter, Bee. She doesn’t get along with the other mothers at school, and her agoraphobia leads to her hiring an internet based Indian personal assistant named Manjula, who lives in Delhi. Yes, as in India.  The story begins with the family deciding to take a trip to Antartica to celebrate Bee’s perfect grades, and unravels as miscommunications and stubbornness, combined with Bernadette’s eccentricity create a perfect storm that drives Bernadette to disappear. I don’t want to spoil anything so I won’t say more, but this is an enjoyable look at a slightly odd family and how Bernadette’s mental health, and her family come crashing together. While some of the pieces to this puzzle are unbelievable, going on the ride is exciting and fun, so you can turn a blind eye to a number of those issues.

The correspondence between Bernadette, who keeps an airstream trailer in the backyard as office space, and Manjula, you get an interesting portrait of a woman who has become so reliant on the internet to handle her everyday life, she no longer really knows how to function without that crutch. While, throughout the story, several incidents become overblown with the help of another parent at Bee’s school, you can clearly see Bernadette is struggling to maintain normalcy. However, toward the end of the novel you begin to wonder, how much of Bernadette’s quirks are simply that, and how much are actual mental illness driven? It’s an interesting look, and was a fun read. 

I’d been getting the reminder emails from BlueHost yelling at me about the domain expiring, and the hosting plan expiring, and even though I was very close to simply letting this thing lapes into nothingness, I decided, I should give it another try. It’s a new year, and lots of new and exciting and stressful changes are already happening.  What better way to stay on top of all that than to continue to document it here?

Truthfully, I hardly have any time to read most of the blogs in my Google Reader feed anymore, but I am hopeful that I can find my voice again and continue to chronicle my journey into Irish dance teacherhood here.

I will be retaking one section of the dreaded TCRG exam sometime this year and I’ll continue to document that struggle, as well as how my friend Erin, her sister, Kylie, and I are starting our own dance school, and I’ll probably relocate all my YA Fiction writing to here as well. Just for good measure.

I flew out to Atlanta on a Wednesday afternoon – and arrived at the hotel close to 11pm.  Thankfully, my first portion, the written exam wasn’t until 4pm on Thursday. I got to sleep in, do a short workout, enjoy a quiet room service lunch and cram in some last minute studying before heading down for the written and music exams.  I decided not to bring my book or any study materials with me to avoid feeling any last second crushes of panic, and I think that helped.

They corralled us all into the ballroom (there were probably about 45 or so of us taking the written portion,) and began by going over the exam rules, and then reading through all the exam questions.  The moment we started reading through the 16 questions, I felt more relaxed.  The first 12 questions were each worth 5 points, and the remaining 4 were each worth 10 points.  After reading through the questions, there weren’t any the stuck out to me as being impossibly or so difficult I needed to save it for last, so I simply proceeded by answering the questions in order.

I ended up finishing the written portion about 35 minutes before time was up, so I spent a few minutes going back over my answers and correcting some of the things I noticed I had missed.  Then, when I realized I couldn’t do anymore, I turned in my papers and left the ballroom for a bit.  They let us keep the exam questions, and after the music portion (which I felt really confident about) I went back to my room, and read through the exam with the book. I realized there were quite a few little mistakes that I had made, but I don’t THINK anything too, too major, and hopefully I did well enough and earned enough partial credit on those answers that weren’t 100% correct to earn a passing 70%.

Friday morning I had my practical dancing portion, which, after the music portion was probably the section I was least worried about.  They tell you to prepare two steps in each of the 7 dances (reel, light jig, slip jig, single jig, treble jig and hornpipe) and you have to know all 4 (soon to be 8?) traditional set dances, and submit 9 contemporary set dances ( 4 jig time 4 hornpipe time and 1 additional of your choice).

They had six of us on one panel – with three examiners and one supernumerary who is training to become an examiner. Thankfully I knew one of the examiners from Los Angeles as she is a local teacher here who I’ve known since I started dancing, which made me feel a lot more relaxed. Having a familier face was so helpful!

We ended up only needing to dance reel and hornpipe – two steps each, one at a time down the line.  Although the last woman in my group hurt herself pretty badly on her very first step, so that was quite stressful.

Then, they told each of us our first set dances. I ended up having to dance Piper, Hurling Boys and The Hunt.  While my dancing certainly wasn’t competition level, I didn’t feel like I had any truly terrible missteps or anything that would cause me not to pass.

Once we’d all danced 3 of our contemporary set dances, they brought the 5 of us (the sixth woman left after she hurt herself) back in to do the traditional set dances. I totally lucked out with St. Patrick’s Day and Garden of Daisies.  Then, we were done!

I had to come back at 4:30pm for my practical solo and ceili teaching portion. I went back upstairs, took a quick shower, relaxed for a bit and took a nap, since I hadn’t slept well the night before.   A girl I know from San Diego who was retaking a couple parts of the exam had lunch with me and then quizzed me a bit on the book before I went down to take the teaching portion.  Just before I went down, I watched the second figure of Humors of Bandon on the DVD because I wasn’t feeling confident on it and then went downstairs and tried to remain calm while the first girl on my panel did her teaching portion.

Because it was a Friday night, and there were a few accidents on the roads, they had a tough time having enough dancers for the teaching portion.  When the girl ahead of me finished they took four kids out of the room (you really only need 4 to do the solo teaching portion) and figured as more came in they would send them in. Usually each teaching panel has a minimum of 8 dancers so you can teach the dances with 8 people in them – but by the time we got to my group teaching portion, we still only had 4.

The panel asked me to teach Siege of Carrick which I felt went pretty well – I had a few moments where I got flustered and made a few mistakes, but the panel would ask me a question and I was always able to fix it and teach the movement correctly.  I was able to lilt the music and identify that it is danced to the tune “Haste to the Wedding” so I feel that overall that went pretty well.  For the second ceili the had me teach….wait for it….the second figure of Humors of Bandon!  I was so shocked and happy. I did still have a few tiny missteps, but again was able to think through and correctly teach the movement.

I won’t know the final official results until sometime in December (torture) but all in all, I feel like I did the absolute best I could have done on those days, and regardless of the results am happy with how I did.  I’m feeling pretty confident about it overall, but of course, who knows. So, now I’m just keeping my fingers crossed until December!

Basically, even after 20 years of dancing, I am constantly baffled by how much I DON’T know.

Yesterday, I got my final confirmation email with the timetable for my exam next THIS month. So, you know, suddenly everything just became super duper real up in here.

The TCRG exam is a 5 part exam that I will take over the course of two days in Atlanta this month.

The first part, and the portion I am probably the most terrified for is a written exam on the 30 ceili dances (group dances) in the book, Ar Rinci Foirne. Many of these dances are still done in competition today, and I can attest to having learned and competed 9 of the 30 dances.  That’s barely 1/3 of the book – and sadly, almost all of the dances have extra pieces that aren’t competed. So, even those dances that I thought I knew pretty well, I’ve got more to learn.

The scary part about the written exam, however, isn’t just the task of memorizing 30 dances from a book that is not written with much of any consistency, and has wording in dances I know in my sleep that had me pulling my hair out.  The truly terrifying part, is that this exam features questions like this:

You are Gent #3 in the Three Tunes. Name the ladies in order you meet during the hook and chain, and which hand you give to each lady.

So, this question isn’t just Oh hai, so describe how to do this dance, it’s like “imagine you’re this one spot in this particular dance – now, in your head, figure out how all the other dances move around you in this movement.”

This is, one, not how dance is taught, and two, not how my brain works anyway. So. Yay.

There is also a music portion, in which you have to identify the name of 19 set dances, the time signature and the number of bars of music in the first and second portions of the tune. I’m less worried about this one because I can name almost all the tunes, and at the very least will get partial credit for being able to count the bars of music.

There’s also a practical dancing portion- and I am still missing a lot of choreography.

The final portion is the  two part practical teaching portion – where they stick you in a room with a panel of judges, and a bunch of dancers and ask you to teach solo dance steps and then ceilis.  With the ceili teaching, usually they’ll just give you a bunch of dancers and ask you to teach a portion of a ceili, probably not the first portion either so it’s another instance of mental gymnastics not only remembering all the movements to all 30 dances, but being able to pick one dance, and remember all the movements in order and correctly teach it to a bunch of children you’ve never met.

So, right now I’m moving into studying overdrive – I still don’t have most of the book actually memorized and have a terrible, terrible feeling I may never actually have it memorized – and I’m not just saying that. I am at a point where I do not feel like I will be absolutely ready for this (VERY EXPENSIVE) exam for which I am travelling across the country to take.

Hurray!

If you’re a praying person, please pray for me. Preferably to St. Jude who is the patron saint of lost causes. (Sorry, only a small smidgen of Irish Catholic guilt/humor)

After the whole process of seeing my primary care, being referred to Orthopedics, being mistakenly told I’d torn my meniscus, then being told they had no idea what was wrong and shipped off to Physical Therapy, I was not thrilled. The PT department said to keep doing massages, foam rolling and to do clams. But, the truth is, even when doing those things it wasn’t getting better.

After the San Diego Rock n’ Roll half, I took a lot of time off from running, mostly because it really hurt to run. I kept hoping if I gave it more time, did more of the thera-band exercises I found on Runner’s World’s website, if i just kept foam rolling and massaging and icing it would just not hurt and I would still have time to train for my second Nike Women’s Marathon.  You know, the one where I was planning to make the course my bitch?

Well, last Sunday, I went to the beach to attempt 14 miles (I knew I wouldn’t make it the full 14 miles but wanted to do as much as possible anyway) and made it just under one mile before the knee started feeling not good. So, I turned around and headed home, by a slightly different route so all the people I had just run past wouldn’t realize the crazy girl with her Camelbak had only gone a mile.

So, that morning I made a decision. I will not be running the Nike Women’s Marathon this year. I’m just not healed enough and I knew I definitely didn’t want to walk it, or walk a half. I realized it was actually time to figure out how to fix this.

Rewind to about five years ago or so, I was working out with a personal trainer named Pip. Well, she and I have stayed sort of in touch over the years, and on Monday she sent me a message saying she’d been thinking about me and wanted to touch base and see how I was doing.

Perfect timing, right? On Wednesday, I went to see her, and she immediately realized how completely out of balance I’ve become and is going to work with me to create a plan to fix it. It’s not going to be cheap, and it’s not going to happen overnight, but I think I just have to make it work.

In addition to that, I’m going to see a chiropractor on Monday just to get adjusted and hopefully help get everything set in place.

No NWM 12 for me, no running for a while actually, but I’ll be getting back in the pool and working with Pip probably twice a week. Add to that one to two days a week of dance because as of this coming Tuesday I am one month away from my TCRG exam in Atlanta. I am scared.

In other news, I turned 30 yesterday! Yay 30 and cupcakes and all you can eat Korean BBQ!

 The kittehs do NOT like the balloons. They are highly suspicious.