2012 in Review

Who's up for a recap of the past 12 months?

January

- Tony, Erik and Spencer visited us in Northfield. My calves hurt like a mofo for a week after they left, so there was probably a double-dutch tournament or a lot of jumpy dancing. 

- Ernesto and I flew to Miami for Debby and Yuziel's wedding, where Luis managed to set something on fire during the reception.
- Also in Miami, I learned that car eyelashes are a thing

fake eyelashes aren't just for guidettes

- The Current played "We Are Young" and I texted my brother that fun. is getting famous (there were several exclamation points). we r hipzturds. 

February

- Ernesto and I ate at a Chinese buffet and I opened a fortune cookie that had TWO FORTUNES.
- I took the GRE in Edina/Eden Prarie. After walking out of the Prometric center in tears, Ernesto bought me a sandwich at Subway and I ate my feelings.
- The amazing Hannah Jensen directed her cinema comps film, Last, where twentyish dancers performed her choreography in the Weitz Center. It was beautifuuuuul, watch it.

March

- I finished studio art comps and dayum it felt great. This was my studio by the end of the term:

je t'aime toujours, boliou

- I finished my Insomnia audiobook and was pretty disappointed that the Stephen King novel had nothing to do with the movie with Robin Williams.

- We spent spring break in El Paso.

- I joined Pinterest and have been wasting approx half of my life on it.

- March to the Reub happened, where I ate more than the appropriate amount of buffalo wings.

April

- Quality Bakery put up the freaking creepiest Easter bunny in their window shop on Division Street. I practically peed my pants every morning on the way to class. Bunnicula is real and it lives in Northfield.

Enjoy your upcoming nightmares. 

- Ernesto gave his comps talk, "DNA, I Hear You're Single.. Molecule Replication"
- We went to our first baseball game in Target Field with Natalia and Francisco, and watched the Red Sox demolish the Twins 11 to 2. Happy birthday to me!
- Ernesto and I tore the apartment apart looking for his Spanish passport.
- We celebrated his birthday in Chicago with Jenny and Tony (who somehow didn't know about the metal bean that everyone visits). We stayed at the (HAUNTED) Congress hotel and it was a good time.We went to a bunch of museums and whatnot, but my favorite part was seeing Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, this pretty cool experimental theatre place where the price of admission is whatever you get when you roll a die.

May
- We went to Madison and woke up to this beauty the morning after Mifflin:

Nothing like the smell of burnt couch in the morning

:(  

- The senior studio art majors had our final show, for which nobody could agree on a title, so it was called Untitled: For Reasons. It was dumb and I hated it UNTIL one of the juniors brought the following snack to the show opening:

Untitled (Four Raisins)

So good. Art in its truest form. 

- I had my final show with Whoa! Hip Hop Dance Co, which was emotional for obvious reasons. It was by far the best show we'd put on since I'd been at Carleton DESPITE being zombie themed, which is saying a lot. There were technical difficulties at the beginning of the show which delayed it about 20 minutes, which was great because my family was running 20 minutes late (shocker). 

I choreographed two dances for the show, but this one was by far my favorite. And it's not even a Justin Timberlake song!

June

- Ernesto and I graduated from Carleton College WOOOOOOOO it was great. 

- The day after graduation, we went to Mexico with my family and spent a week in Cabo with Tia Laura. Ernesto got a minor injury while diving after his sandals on the beach.

- Haley Johnson had her Rochester baby shower and I not-so-discreetly ate half a dozen cupcakes. 

July 

- I cried a lot on the road trip from Rochester to Dallas (where I saw a double rainbow for the first time!)

- Ernesto and I celebrated our 1-year anniversary with his parents and with Gustavito's family in Atlanta, where we ate Spanish food and danced a ton.

- We went to the Dali museum, which was crazy.

- I took his family to the art galleries on Lincoln Road that my family used to visit when we lived in Miami. 

- Luis changed our lives by introducing us to Breaking Bad on Netflix. 

August

- I kept finding different aspects of our Ikea furniture hilarious. Like.. look at these Poker Face Planks. They're adorable. Obviously I was a less-than- efficient furniture assembler. 

Poker Face Paulina hanging out with Poker Face Planks

- Ernesto and I lived the all-american summer camp experience that we'd never had during childhood at his med school retreat. 

- I taught a bunch of M1s the soulja boy dance and the lyrics to 'Call Me Maybe' for a contest that we later WON. You're welcome, future doctors.

- Ernesto officially started medical school.

- We caught up with Breaking Bad and started watching the latest episodes at Angelika Theatre.

September

- I officially started working at Onesimo Hernandez Elementary, and instantly fell in love with all 22 of the kids in my classroom. 

- Ernesto got an iPhone and WE DISCOVERED SONGPOP. 

- I heard this song for the first time and have had it stuck in my head ever since. 

- We went to a waterpark with Ernesto's family, and he lost his sandals. 

- It took me like 5 minutes to realize that the ticket booth guy at Angelika Theatres wasn't kidding when he said that Breaking Bad was over until July. 

- Dr. Mark Sloane died in the Season 9 premiere of Grey's Anatomy, and I had a minor meltdown.

October

- We went to the Texas State Fair and stumbled upon this..

Nicholas Cage: Rock Star Demigod

This alone would have been worth the trip. We also ate 4 different kinds of fried food.. it was a great night overall.

- I sent in a MN absentee ballot so that my vote would count for the prez election.

- We got to Ernesto's white coat ceremony 15 minutes late.

- On Halloween, Ernesto dressed up as Mona Lisa and I dressed up as zombie Dr. Sloane to get $2 burritos at Chipotle. 

November

- My classroom went on our first ever field trip, and I learned that a bus filled with 5-year-olds is the best kind of bus.

- Obama FTW! We celebrated. 

- The beautiful Kristen Vellinger came to Dallas for a conference, and we had her all to ourselves for a Thursday night! She introduced us to a place that has like 5 different kinds of pazookie. Friends let friends eat way too much dessert. 

Just like old times! Minus Jon and pajamas and overall Carleton-related misery.

- We spent Thanksgiving in Rochester, where we sang tons of karaoke and ate tons of food with my family and spent time with some of our dearest friends (e.g. Perkins ). 

December

- Ernesto took his last anatomy exam which is GREAT because now he won't spend as much time showing me gory pictures of people's faces that are 50 shades of terrifying.

- Jon Sands talked to me at a Google hangout and I about died. 

- Todd Anderson said he liked a poem I wrote and I about died a second time. 

- We spent the holidays in Ft. Myers and Luis showed me Grand Theft Auto for the first time.

2012, folks! 

It was a good show. 

2013 has gotten off to a pretty good start ever since I was introduced to Killer Karaoke. 

22B422 Pt. 6: swag swag swag

I've started to write this post like fifty billion times, but each time I start playing "Boyfriend" for inspiration/relevant background music, I end up spending an hour looping the song twenty times before realizing I'm late to class. Today might have very well ended up similarly, but the previous post is actually pretty relevant to this song, and I'm dying to write about Call Me Maybe but I can't do that until I explain Justin's 'swag' reference here SO HERE WE GO.

If I've spent any time around you in the past two weeks, chances are that I've told you about Justin Bieber's new single, "Boyfriend". Okay, I've been waiting for this song to come out for MONTHS ever since JustinBieber started tweeting about it, like even before I got a twitter. My curiosity was especially peaked after he released the single's cover art, which is a photo of Justin looking remarkably similar to the photo of John Mayer for the Battle Studies cover art.

 tl;dr: Justin Bieber and John Mayer are both dressing up like James Dean and I have NO complaints.

It has taken lit'rally every molecule of self-control in my body NOT to spend every second of my life laying on my couch and letting this song completely infiltrate each cell in my body. Also (according to Ernesto), I've been having bodyroll control issues whenever I so much as think about the song. Clearly, I'm in the Love-Love stage with this song, and rightly so. This leaves me at the crossroads to end all crossroads, because (as I've expressed multiple times to the public and to the Carleton hip hop community) this song in its entirety would be such good dance material. But it's also such good listening material, and if this song turns into a dance that I spend hours and hours choreographing and cleaning, I can essentially guarantee that I'll never listen to it on my own without wanting to puke.

BUT AUGH JUST LISTEN.  The first 50 seconds are actually on their knees, begging to be danced to. It's so so so so tempting. Even if I forgo this song for the spring show, I've got a pretty good idea for an ideal music video which would involve having me in the center of a V-formation with Justin Bieber on my left and Justin Timberlake on my right. At some point, we might do a segment knee-deep in a giant fondue pot. Or maybe dripping in fondue chocolate.  I'll probably save the rest of my feelings for another post.. most of my feeling/thoughts/proposed music video ideas are slightly R-rated, so it might just be a video of the various facial expressions I make when I listen to this song. We'll see.

This post hasn't been super intelligible, so let me just sum up for you why I can't stop daydreaming about this song.

1. The oddly enticing orca sounds throughout the song that appeal to the Free Willy lover in me.
2. The "Till the World Ends" reference that would tie in PERFECTLY to the Till World Ends remix dance I'm doing. Destiny? I think so.
3. The Buzz Lightyear reference is freaking ripe with potential for airplane arm moves. \ 0 /     _ 0 _     <- sort of like those
4. "swag, swag, swag" (Natalia and I had to listen to this part three different times before realizing that's what he was saying) (I said it was sexy and she looked at me awkweirdly)
4. "say hello to falsetto in three, two, swag"
5. "swaggie"
6. The overall obsession with swag-related things. Which even makes its way to the Call Me Maybe video that I can't stop watching!! Tomorrow's post fosho.
7. Is it weird that I imagine Artie from Glee singing this along with Justin? In any case, it's a PRO.
8. Timberlakian falsettos that gave me goosebumps in the best way possible. asdkjlksjflskdjf

I think it's clear that I have A Type and that type is Boys Named Justin Who Dance Well And Falsetto Their Way Into My Heart.

22B422 Pt. 5: Off-Limit Choreo Songs

The thing I've been most looking forward to in Spring Term is getting to spend 8+ hours a week in the dance studio again. Aaaaaaaaahhhh! 

Those of you who have choreographed before know that you develop a complicated relationship with your music that goes through various stages: 1. Love-Love (where you spend every waking second of your day wanting to listen to the song), 2. Love-Hate (where the initial appeal is starting to fade away) and 3. Hate-Hate (where the song provokes a visceral reaction similar to that of expired milk). Having gone through these stages with more once-beloved Justin Timberlake songs than I care to count, I recently decided to make a playlist of songs that are absolutely off-limits for any possible choreography. If I can't choreograph to them, I can't ever hate them!

OFF-LIMIT SONGS THAT I LOVE TOO MUCH TO TURN INTO DANCES.. 

"You Rock My World"  - Michael Jackson

 the first verse of "Stereo Hearts" - Gym Class Heroes w/ Adam Levine

"Gotta Get Thru This" - Daniel Bedingfield (remember him?!)

"Dirty Pop" - N*SYNC

"The Way I Are" - Timbaland (probably most danceable song I have ever heard in my life)

"Feel Good, Inc" - Gorillaz w/ De La Soul

"Somebody to Love" - Justin Bieber

"Captain Bhangre Da" - Ravi Bal (thaaaank you Zumba for showing me this song. I dare you to listen to it and not get addicted.)

"Lovestruck" - V-Factory

"Ayo Technology," - 50 Cent w/ Justin Timberlake and Timbaland

"Mas Que Nada," - Sergio Mendez w/ Black Eyed Peas

and last, but not least,
"LoveStoned," - Justin Timberlake. The single BEST JT song that has ever existed is still untainted! All is well.

Before I melt down and cry from the stress of finals/life..

haha oh wait, I already did that TODAY. On the way back from Econo Food carrying a ton of groceries. And then again in my apartment.The day I get to spend my life sitting at home eating blueberries and reading blogs and watching Justin Bieber's "Somebody to Love" music video will be the happiest day of my life.

Seriously, have you seen that video? I am currently watching it in the library and this kid just walked past my computer screen and gave me a LOOK. This next part is directed at you. All I want to do in life (this is not a joke. NOT a joke.) is spend every breath trying to recreate this video. There are approximately eleven dance sequences that give me major butterflies inside, including but limited to: 1) backpack dance sequence  2) impossible footwork by Usher 3) Beat Freaks dance sequence 4) the HSM-style All In This Together sequence at the end. And (approx) seven other sequences that make SYTYCD look like a hot mess. This video is the bomb.

Thoughts
1. Do you know how I'm officially a boring senior? Because I spent last Friday printing a 500 (500!!!!) page reading. On Head Start. It's actually sort of fascinating (I'm a nerd) but.. I mean it's 500 pages. It's a good thing Carleton's insane tuition covers all printing on campus. I had to tell this hurried-looking freshman she should probably use another printer because I was gonna be there a while. I was that person. Since this monster was too big for the butch heavy duty stapler (which maxes out at 60 pages), the librarian had to find me a binder clip. Call this mundane but I feel pretty freaking accomplished right about now. 500 pages! Also, there is no way I am doing grad school after this experience. You can only brag about this sort of thing once, not once a week for 5 years so...

2. More complaining about school: Is it just me, or is the author of the article on the left trying to kill all of its readers? It's 80 pages long and ALL OF IT is in yellow text with black background. It felt like one of those weird exercises where you stare at a thing and then stare at a blank wall and see Jesus or a happy face, only I kept seeing a purple wall of text about the environmental effects on IQ.

wth

3. Pros and Cons of my African-American lit class. Cons: Waste of approx ten hours per week. Pros: Get to watch the film adaptation of "Waiting to Exhale" starring Whitney Houston ("and IIIIIII"), the guy who plays Turk in Scrubs, and Adele from Grey's Anatomy. It's like the Ghosts of TV Shows Past are reminding me that I still haven't finished seasons 5- whatever.

I ain't thinking bout my grades, a'ite?

If things don't fall apart, here's how the rest of this day will go:

4:15 - Semaphore tech run-through, where Paulina will spend 2 hours admiring Carleton's modern dancers and 90 seconds personifying Robin Viele's broken soul to Party in the USA.

6:00 - Obs.Draw final, where Paulina will complete 1.75 of the required 20 hours for her bomb-diggety tone study of a window. Which isn't super-overwhelming or anything, mainly because they will be 1.75 hours of looping Destiny's Child's all-time greatest album, The Writing's on the Wall.

7:45 - DINNER, where Paulina will discreetly meet with her not-so-secret lover: all-you-can-eat-cereal. and bottomless pink lemonade.

8:30 - more Obs.Draw final accompanied by Jumpin'Jumpin'.

9:30 - Registration, where Paulina will decide her fate for winter term. The formula for maximum winter term happiness includes: ARTS 277 - (Paper Arts), ENGL 110 (Intro English lit), PE 200 (Modern Dance II), and PHIL 234 (Aesthetics). Note that it does NOT include:

Photography 1, because I'm into poser photography and instant gratification.
French 204, car j'en ai effing MARRE.
Piano, because apparently it isn't a scrunch class.. ha.

So the point of this post can be summed up with the following question:

What is the best strategy to survive the next two weeks at Carleton without throwing myself off the chapel roof?
a) Look all your finals in the eye with a wholesome, positive attitude and envision yourself squeezing out every ounce of potential into the tin bucket that will soon be full to the brim with SUCCESS.
b) Call your boys, cause tonight you're not gon' stay at home
c) Get your hair cut, and your car washed too, looking like a star in your Armani suit
d)Ladies: leave yo men at home, the club is full of ballaz and their pockets full grown.
e)Fellas: leave yo girl with her friends, cause it's 9th week and the club is
JUMPIN
JUMPIN
f) Bounce, baby bounce, b-bounce, b-bounce
g) You'd better dip that thaaaang, dip that thaaaaang.

Akon and Ebony are never in the same room at the same time (?!)

Linguistics sucks right now na na
cause the test wasn't curved right now na na
so I'm not in class right now na na

I wanna have lunch right now na na
I wanna have lunch right now na na
I wanna have lunch right now na na

but I'd rather loop this song and bounce on my bed until Akon gets here. right now na na

P.S. What it looks like to get your money's worth of education at a top liberal arts college:

The Purple Dance

actually, backstreet boys are better but.. you know. don't misunderstand

EVERYONE IN EBONY IS OBNOXIOUS