C 'Est Si Bon...Simone Simone!

I am not a big concert person. My first concert ever was in college, and I think it was Avirl Lavigne. Don't laugh...she did a great job. It was a great bonding experience with my brother.

So concerts in the life of Simone:
Avirl Lavigne
Maroon 5
Switchfoot
Rolling Stones
Angels and Airwaves
Rihanna and Kanye West
Death Cab for Cutie


and Tuesday I will add U2 to that list! Yes, you heard that right!

September is coming and going before my eyes.

Let's see...I had bronchitis. I bought a road bike. My esthetics course is coming to an end but the most important part is to come, the exams! Yikes! Yet I still have so many hours left even though I've completed all the material.

On a very sad note my external drive took a plunge and is now retired to the grave. I happen to learn only by making mistakes, I had all my photos (from 2006 forward)of all my travels on there. For those of you who know me, I've been lots of places and my memories were all in my photos. I cried. I was upset, angry, and bitter at my life. Why me? Why now? It is the one thing I can always look back upon and smile. It has kinda been my silver lining in the clouds. But EVERYTHING happens for a reason, I don't believe in coincidence. I've recently had a really hard time letting go of the past, and realizing that there are so many more important things that traveling. It shouldn't be my priority. A funny thing to learn from a kaput drive, but only the Lord knows. Keep moving forward!

This month has been quite a trying one for me. Work has really been a struggle, I'm not talking about the work itself but the acuity of patients. We have had many unexpected deaths, I have seen WRTC (the harvesters of organs) more this month than my entire nursing career. Young men, the withdrawal of care, injuries with no hope for recovery, and attempted suicide. No one can truly understand what is feels like to be constantly surrounded by death unless you are there. I understand the meaning of lamenting now. Sounds of a grieving family for the death of their 19 year old son. Tragedy. A sister's sobs ringing throughout the unit with the realization that her loved one's outcome was very poor. For a few moments my heart clenched with sorrow/pain for these families. That decision to withdrawal care of such unexpected circumstances would be so hard. And the preparation for the fall flu season is frightening as well.

On a brighter note...2 days a dream of mine will be fulfilled. I have always wanted to go to a U2 concert. The day has finally arrived! I am so excited!

I have been listening to Pandora recently when I've been home studying. I listen to Kings of Leon station. A song I kinda like is called "No ones gonna love you" by Band of Horses.

I am okay. I am healthy. I have great friends. I have a wonderful family who has always been there for me in all my times of doubt and wavering. My mother is a great example to me of someone with unwavering faith and conviction. I'm not saying she is perfect, but she's has remained faithful, full of hope, and shares that hope with me. She knows how to be a good friend.

What is a friend? How would you define what a friend is?

I am welcoming October will open arms. It will be my favorite month this year besides January when I was on vacation. I am leaving this week for a trip of New England with my mom. I get to see my brother's family. I get to see a few of my absolutetly favorite people in the wide world. My annual roomie, or sista's from another mista, reunion. It feels like too much time has passed, oh how I miss them. And it's Halloween. Fall fall brings great tidings for me.

I run everyday, or almost at 5 days/week. I convinced my boosom buddy from home to run a 1/2 marathon with me. It is one of those things I put on my "things I want to do in my lifetime" list, well a marathon was but I probably won't do that. I think it really isn't all to healthy. I feel like I am always running, literally and otherwise. I have filled my time with so many activities that I hardly have time to enjoy them. I am like the little engine that could...'I think can, I think I can...you can do it.' Not that it is hard but I simply just don't want to run everyday. Well, I will run that 1/2 marathon in November.

I walk on eggshells every day I go to work. Which is a frightening aspect because you can't work effectively or efficiently. Let's just say I have 2 strikes, one more and I am out. I hope I can make it 5 months.

Every time I go out for a drive, I take a few deep breaths and remind myself how wonderful diversity really is. People really don't know how to drive around here, and if they know the rules, they don't abide by them. What's a blinker, do you really have to stop at a stop sign, and maybe it is okay to go from the farthest right lane and take a left hand turn at a red light. I'd have to say that the new minority is Caucasian, at least in my area.

I turned on the TV the other day, and I had sports to choose from, Tennis, Golf, Football. Watching a little of each I rested upon Tennis. I really don't care for football, never have and probably never will only for social purposes. But I surprised myself, I actually liked watching tennis. And I later saw how good looking a few of the male players were, who wouldn't want to watch them.

I bought a road bike. Now I just need to go out and use it. The only thing that frightens me is I don't know where to go. I guess I should just take it out for a spin. The weather is perfect for riding right now but soon will be too cold:
So this is a picture of my new bike but mine has white handles instead of black.




Today I go to Dermalogica. For all those that take care of their faces, you need me to give you tips unless you want to look double your age at 40. :)

Things noteworthy today...

I am not a blonde anymore. I decided it was time to let things grow natually for a while and possibly long. Ben told me when I went home to visit that I just needed to put on a pair of big glasses and I could be mistaken for a con artist. But Cindy rebuttled, and declared that she liked the blonde and the style.

I bought my first foundation ever. I went to Sephora and spent about an hour there purushing through the eisles. As I did so I once again felt passionate about learning more about make-up artistry. In my esthetics class we learned a little about make-up last week. So I decided that I should get myself matched for foundation. A wonderful young woman helped me. We had a great time chatting, and I got a bunch of free products and a little birthday surprise! I love that place. I could easily spend 4-500 bones there.

The radio was promoting a home drug tester, so that you could perform it on your kids. An instant drug test! Awesome! Okay seriously, is that what our society is coming to? A bunch of druggies, mediocure, driven by addiction. Not in my family!

A friend's post script on her email says this:

...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903
in Letters to a Young Poet

Beautiful statement. I too often try to figure out what is going to happen before it does, I want to know the ending and not actually live the moment. But by living, moving forward, taking steps, the path will be laid out before me in due time. I knew what was going to happen before it did, I might not have taken certain steps and not learned the lessons I have.

I held a going away party & birthday party for a co-worker, Hina & Kelly. I had all these great plans miniture golf, go-kart racing, canoeing on the Potomac, pool party, pizza and movie. Yeah, I overplanned a little, but I was leaving all my options open. What we ended up doing, a small group of us went out in the late morning (those that didn't party all night at Kelly's birthday party) canoeing. It was great fun! I wish we had more time, packed a lunch and canoed down the Potomac to where we could view the monuments. It was fun all the same! There aren't any pictures because my camera battery was dead and I didn't check it before we left.




Back at my place more co-workers showed up and we made pizza, chatted, watched part of a movie. We had a lot of fun.

A co-worker and I occasionally go out together to various stage events. I love having someone go to culteral events with me. We all know that I would do these things by myself, and have done but it refreshing to have a cohert by my side. This time we attended the Bolshoi Ballet. It was so good! Although I worked the night shift and didn't sleep all day, it was superb all the same.



Synopsis:

Le Corsaire - Synopsis

Le Corsaire - Prologue
The curtain opens for the audience to see a pirate ship sailing towards Turkey. On the ship, pirates can be seen, foremostly Conrad, Birbanto and Ali, Conrad's slave.


Le Corsaire - Act I: The Bazaar
The pirates arrive at a bazaar in Turkey, where Lankendem is selling girls, most notably the beautiful Medora and Gulnare. Conrad falls in love at the sight of Medora, who in turn favors him. However, Lankendem has plans to sell Medora and Gulnare to Seyd, who has just appeared on stage. Seyd buys both girls and is off. Jealous Conrad orders an attack on the village and the kidnapping of Lankendem. His slave is instructed to steal Medora back himself.


Le Corsaire - Act II: The Grotto
At Conrad's forest hideout, the pirates rendezvous. Birbanoto and underlings report the success of their raid, returning with spoils, including Lankendem and many slave girls, whom Medora entreats Conrad to release. Birbanto stages a mutiny, which is quickly dissolved by the pirate's leader. Birbanto, however, is not beaten yet. Conrad's first mate coerces captive Lankendem to trick Medora into giving her lover a drugged flower. When Conrad smells it, he falls into a deep slumber. Birbanto, watching secretivly behind a bush, rallies the pirates and they attempt to steal away with Medora. In the struggle, Medora cuts Birbanto's arm with his knife and Lankendem wisks her away. The mutiners are about to dispatch their former leader when Ali returns and awakens his master. Asked about his lover's dissapearence, Birbanto lies.



Le Corsaire - Act III

At pasha's palace, Seyd is being entertained by Gulnare when Medora returns and it is decreed that Medora will become the pasha's foremost wife.


That night, whilst Seyd sleeps, beautiful girls, including Gulnare and Medora, dance in a garden in his dreams.


Conrad et al. arrive at the palace in disguise, waking the govenor. Once inside, the maurauders attack the pasha and his guards. After the residents flee, Medora names Birbanto a traitor and Conrad kills him. Conrad, Ali, Medora and Gulnare all escape to the pirate ship.


Under way, the crusaders are struck by a terrible storm and the ship is abandoned.




Le Corsaire - Epilogue
The lovers, Conrad and Medora lie together upon a large rock and their love endures.


REVIEW:


'Le Corsaire' steals the breath away
Dance review
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
By Jane Vranish, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Damir YusupovBolshoi Ballet put on a lavish "Le Corsaire" at the Kennedy Center.WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Bolshoi means "big," and never was there a ballet better suited to the broad strokes of this Russian company than the swashbuckling tale of pirates and slave girls, "Le Corsaire." This ballet has it all -- a convoluted plot, beautiful classical dancing, spirited character dancing, five composers and a shipwreck.

Iconic ballet choreographer Marius Petipa was the original pirate, Conrad, in the first Russian production in 1858. He went on to toy with the ballet through five revivals at the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg.

Here in the United States, we best know the Konstantin Sergeyev adaptation, also derived from Petipa, through the American Ballet Theatre production. Now the Bolshoi has countered with a 2007 production by choreographer-of-the-moment Alexei Ratmansky and his assistant, Yuri Burlaka. (In a reality-based twist, Ratmansky recently became a resident artist, or choreographer, at ABT, and Burlaka now heads the Bolshoi.)

"Le Corsaire" might correctly be called a warhorse of a ballet, the old-fashioned kind that can easily dissolve into technical histrionics and melodrama. Not so at Kennedy Center. Ratmansky and the Bolshoi have lovingly re-created almost half of Petipa's vision and added some fresh-faced choreography to the rest.

One important note: This version doesn't swirl around the Corsaire or pirate, Conrad, but instead around Medora, the young Greek girl who falls in love with him. In fact, Conrad has but one star turn, that of the familiar pas de deux that is part and parcel of nearly every international standard ballet competition. Although he didn't have spectacular technique in his only solo, Ruslan Skvortsov made a dashing figure and led his band of men with verve and style.

As Medora, Ekaterina Shipulina had it all. A statuesque ballerina with an unending arabesque, she could have led her own crew of buccaneers under different circumstances. This was her showcase, from the exquisite opening solos with a veil, to the flamboyant pants role in the pirates' cave and a variety of classically sown variations in the Pasha's palace.

Boris Kaminsky's set designs, based on the original, conveyed the sumptuousness of a vaguely familiar Turkish locale, from a sun-drenched marketplace and almost Gothic wood-cut carvings in the caves to palatial splendor and the mesmerizing sea-tossed finale. Yelena Zaitseva's costumes went from the exotic flair of harem pants to soft extenuations of the classical tutu.

The company filled every nook and cranny with vivid characterizations and yet came in at three hours (possibly shortened for this tour). The marketplace scene remained my favorite, bustling with action that was supported by the fast tempo and spot-on playing of the Kennedy Center Orchestra.

The wondrous garden scene, "Sleeping Beauty's" garland waltz times a hundred, threatened to spill from the stage. This garden of earthly delights boasted dozens of women, some with garlands, others with bouquets in numerous arrangements. Solo after solo was beautifully nuanced and impeccably danced until it put the audience on overload.

Even though Ratmansky has gone, he left a company restored to its status in the upper echelon of international companies. And he remarkably reconfigured a ballet that had resorted to caricature into an evening of grand and sophisticated entertainment.

Former Post-Gazette critic Jane Vranish

Well, I am two months into my Esthetics program and now wondering if I have made the right decision. I have few hours to show from the time that I have been registered. I kinda feel like I am 18 again trying to figure out what to do with my life. For years I wanted to go into skin care therapy. More for fun than full time career change so I can take better care of my skin and help those that I love feel better in their own skin. Here I sit wondering...
Am I going for a total career change? Nah I just want to find something that I enjoy more and don't feel like I want to rip my hair out every day. I don't want to work weekends, and I really don't want to work holiday or at night.
Maybe I am getting restless with my job. I am not progressing in any way. I am not becoming better because of it. Do I need to work harder? My contract ends in March, then what?. Move, travel, get a masters esthetics, and study for the GRE, so I can finally apply for grad school. But the problem is money! I gotta be able to pay for all these things, which means I have to work.

Am I a lost soul? I just keeping moving forward hoping that I'll get some sort of direction and feel pulled on way or another.

I just filled out a questionarre asking my age, anual income, current savings and investment. It projected that if I save an average of $1500-1900 monthly then I'll be able to retire when I'm 61-62. Yeah I think I'll be working until I'm in the grave. Sad day, I always felt really bad for those nurses that are old and still have to work...even sadder is that I'll be one of them. Hmpfff.