First week of winter break in photos

Holiday tunes for you!

Happy Holidays! 

I made a lovely Holiday Christmas playlist for the season, with some old and new songs. Enjoy it here by clicking the caption below the picture:

Christmas songs for kids from One to Ninety-two, guaranteed to bring that Holiday Cheer within you.

Track List:

Season's Greetings

It's been a while since I've posted anything on this. Funny how I was so determined to keep this updated every week, but alas, I'm terrible at keeping promises/commitments. Something I'm going to try and work on this upcoming year.


Significant events that happened since I've last posted:

• My SKC co-workers are actually really awesome and I'm glad I was apart of such a fun camp. It was a long week each week, but overall I enjoyed it. I also learned how to make friendship bracelets so that was cool.
• Fall Quarter of UCI started out rough, but slowly got better.
• I joined the Whovians Club and Her Campus writing club (again) and it was probably one of the best decisions I made this quarter.
• I sort of like Linguistics and I absolutely hate Bio Sci- Life Sciences.
• I really love my Etude Family and still can't believe I'm apart of the ensemble.
• I'm staying an extra year of school (I'm not graduating on time because of the year I took off) and I'm still kind of training myself to accept that it's okay.
• Because I'm graduating in 2015 and not 2014, I am planning on picking up a minor in Literary Journalism. I realized that I really enjoy writing and I want to get better at writing. Hopefully that can turn into a major, if I work hard enough in my time at UCI. I'm also thinking about business/management as well... 
• My ankle is slowly but surely recovering. 
• oh and I'M 21 (and invincible)

Anyways, I'm home for the holidays! I drove home from Irvine for the first time by myself. That was kind of a big accomplishment for me since I absolutely loathe driving, so I was really happy about that.

I'll have more to write about when I'm not marathon watching Grey's Anatomy. In the mean time, Enjoy the Her Campus articles I wrote this quarter:

Her Campus Author: Lexi Viernes

Happy Holidays! 

week 5

hi.

Week 2 update

Hello!
Just a quick little update before I head to sleep.
A few things:
I had another great week with Steve and Kate's Camp! My staff and I had an awesome little BBQ where we played on the huge inflatable obstacle course and ty-dyed our work shirts... I had loads of fun bonding with my staff-- They're a really great group of people.

SO happy to hear about DOMA being shut down -- I fully believe that everyone should have the freedom to love and marry whomever they choose no matter what sexual orientation they are. This incredible step towards marriage equality has affected so many people that are very dear to my heart, and I know that a lot of us are spreading our love and pride as we celebrate this week. Love is Love, and I support Love-- all sorts of it. So glad that we're taking a huge step in the right direction. Cheers to Change and Marriage Equality in California :) Let's keep walking in this direction, America!

I got to help out at my old Dance Studio's (Shely Pack Dancers) recital this weekend. I had the handy dandy job of pulling the curtains for the show ;) Got to watch some of my old petite-ers perform and they have improved so much... not sure if I can call them my little petite-ers anymore! also got to watch my brother and the senior company perform some numbers. There were a couple songs that I used to dance to, so it was a bit of a flashback for me.

I also saw This is The End with my older brother last night, and I thought it was hilarious! It's funny because they definitely give audiences what they want to see-- Celebrities playing themselves and facing something stupid ridiculous like the Apocalypse. It's definitely one of those raunchy, vulgar, Pineapple Express kind of comedies- which I'm very indifferent about. I don't love em, but I don't hate em either. It's a movie that I probably wouldn't voluntarily watch on my own, so theres that. But I really love James Franco, Jay Burachel and Seth Rogen in it! They were so so SO funny.
Here's the trailer:

Shoutout to Michael Cera for playing "himself" aka probably the most diverse role you will ever see Michael Cera play in films.

Wish I went to pride today, but alas, several issues arose... Oh Life. Thanks for always throwing curveballs at my face! 

Alrighty, I'm out. Good night! 

Start of Summer!

Hi internet & Happy Saturday!

It's been a whirlwind in the past two weeks which explains my absence from writing a post. I've been dealing with finals (which went fairly well by the way), apartment stuff, transportation stuff, summer job stuff, and a bunch of other stuff. Yes, I'm aware that I used stuff three times in the past sentence. So, let's recap:

My last week of UCI spring quarter was a string of events: finals, studying, graduation parties, and too much coffee for my own good. My finals ended up turning out really well! all the studying was worth it in the end. I'm just really glad I don't have to read another 75 page article for womens studies again or learn about synapses in the brain....

Finals Week also meant Graduation week for a lot of the seniors! It was really sad having to say goodbye to some of my senior pals. We had a couple nice graduation parties to send them off on their way. 

 Literally right after my last final, I had to pack up everything and head back home to the bay area because I had a full weekend ahead of me! I had to get my CPR and First Aid Certification on Saturday before my staff orientation for my summer job which was on Sunday. Which by the way, I am very proud to state that I am now First Aid and CPR Certified! It's a good feeling being able to say that you are officially certified to help save lives :) 

And now that brings me to the start of the week: My first summer job as a camp counselor! It was a hectic first day for me, but it definitely smoothed out over the week. I get to huddle up with 3rd graders-- which seem to be the biggest grade on the field to me. A little overwhelming at first but again, with time it started to get easier and easier and I'm definitely learning a lot from the kids and my co-workers! I am also in the dance studio every day, which is definitely the time of the day that I look forward to the most. Being a dancer, a studio is a second home. It's my place where I can unwind from the stress and craziness for about 2 hours and just enjoy dancing. I love seeing the variety of kids come in and seeing how they move to different music. I've been playing some obvious Top 40 hits (One Direction, Carly Rae Jepsen, Justin Bieber) but after a while when it gets old I would play some oldies like Michael Jackson or the Beatles. I love that even old classics like Billie Jean or I want to hold your hand are still songs that kids are familiar with. Parenting: you're doing it right. ;) 

Fast Forwarding to today: it's officially my first day of nothing since the week before finals! I didn't do too much today-- just went to the mall, and watched a couple episodes of Doctor Who with my little brother. It just felt nice to breathe and not do anything since the past two weeks have been a bit hectic for me. It feels absolutely amazing to have completed a week of my summer job and I can't wait to see what's in store for the rest of the summer!! 

With that, I'm leaving you with my current summer jam:
You're lying if you're not feeling an itch to move your body to this song

I posted two new articles with HerCampus!

I also forgot to mention in my last post that I have 2 new articles up with the online collegiate magazine that I'm currently writing for called HerCampus!

One article is simply an event page for the Spring Awakening musical that is being performed at my college:

Photo Credits to wwww.SpringAwakening.com

Click to read about it here!!!

Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blahhhh Blah Blah Blah Blah

P.S I'm referencing the song "Totally F*cked" from the musical, I'm not just saying 'blah' repeatedly.

My second article is a stress relief tips page for fellow college girls! Really simple and fun stuff to write about. 

Photo Credits to http://www.featurepics.com/online/Crossing-Stress-Writing-Relax-Blackboard-1361895.aspx

Click to read about it here!!!

Stress Relief Tips

Change is gonna come :)

Happy Friday! (Hey look, It's actually a post on Friday too)

I've got some really exciting news!!! I don't know if I can contain it all into one itsy bitsy little blog post-- so bear with me if it's a bit long...

To get it out of the way:

1) On Monday, I auditioned for an ensemble at my school called Etude Ensemble, which is run by the legendary Donald Mckayle. Etude is an ensemble of about 18 dancers who perform old and new repertory of Donald Mckayle. Ever since joining UC Irvine, I've always wanted to be apart of this ensemble, so auditioning for this was very important to me. And though I may have been running off of little to no sleep, it turned out to be a great audition!!! :D

I can happily say I am now apart of the Donald Mckayle Etude Ensemble at UC Irvine for the 2013-2014 year! Words can't describe how incredibly happy I am to have received the news Tuesday morning. Again, this quarter has definitely been one of the roughest life transitions I've gone through, so it was a blessing to hear news like this. It's inspired me to keep working hard and pushing myself to be the best that I can be-- and I'm so thankful every day that I am fortunate enough to be in such a great university that offers opportunities like this.

2) I just have been hired as a new camp counselor for Steve and Kate's camp! Yay, I have a summer job! I've always wanted to go to a summer camp when I was little, so I guess I'm living those childhood dreams! yippee

And now for some other highlights/lowlights of my week:


1) I trekked out to LA with a friend of mine to watch a small show called PopRocks on Tuesday the 28th! It was put on by Andy Mientus, Michael Arden, and Lady J and it was night full of seriously fun singing. I also met some really cool people. It was just a great night out and I loved every minute of it! Though I wish there were a couple of musical theatre covers thrown in there, the pop songs they covered were like candy for my ears :D

[Photo Credits to Amelia Lourdes]

2) Last weekend, I was supposed to go home to possibly train for a summer camp job as well as present a scholarship check to one of the new Beach Blanket Babylon Scholarship winners. However, unforeseen plans with school came up and I ended up not being able to go... Which I was pretty sad about because I had a good friend of mine in the competition and also knew of the other two dancers.

But, staying in Irvine worked out anyways because it was actually one of my dearest UCI friends 21st birthday so of course, I was able to celebrate his birthday with good company. Had loads of fun, and to put it bluntly: I have some really awesome friends.

3) I got to do a photo shoot over the weekend with one of my best friends here at UCI. She's always liked taking photos as a fun little hobby, so I'm really glad that she's starting to do more with it because she definitely has an eye for the camera.

Here's some snapshots :D

If you like her photography and want some photographs done for any occasion for a cheap price, please contact her at her Facebook Page ---> Lauren Woo Photography

As for the downsides of this week, I cracked the internal screen of my Droid Razr Maxx which was heartbreaking because it was definitely one of my favorite phones to this date-- What happened to the Gorilla Glass being unbreakable?! So I'm currently back to my old phone from last year, which I just reactivated. Thought it's obviously much slower and not as high tech as my Razr Maxx, it will have to do for the time being. It's funny going back and looking at all my old conversations and pictures from a year ago.

Another downside is that a lot of the seniors this year will be graduating! :( It makes me incredibly sad because I feel like I didn't get a chance to spend a whole lot of time with them this quarter... It's been extremely busy for them this quarter, and I really do hope our paths will cross again. In fact, I'm sure they will, because the Dance/Theatre community is really small (something I've realized over my year off).

And with that, I'm signing off! Nighty :)

Happy Birthday JP!!!!

Just wanted to put this up... It's my younger brothers 17th Birthday! He's quite possibly one of the most intelligent, kind and talented 17 year olds I know, and I'm extremely proud to have him as a little brother. Every Day he, along with the rest of my family, are such an inspiration to me and I'm so thankful to have such an amazing family. I love JP to pieces and even though he may be remotely taller than me, he will always be my baby brother. Have a good one, JP!

Here's a snapshot of probably one of the greatest home videos of all time ... but you'll probably never see it (unless granted permission by him, which I expect is highly unlikely)

On that note, I would also like to make a shout-out to Liam Mower who's birthday is also today... let's just say the fact that we haven't met yet is troubling because I'm pretty sure since the age of 15 we're destined to be best friends//dance partners//something like that. So, with that said:

My First Article with Her Campus!!!!!!!!! (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

MY FIRST ARTICLE YIPPEEEEE

Click!!!!^^^^^ 

Sorry for the abuse of the exclamation points, but my first article with the online campus magazine that I recently joined called Her Campus is officially up and I'm oozing with excitement! 

It's a bit ironic because my first week I was given the topic of "Health/Fitness" and lets just say I'm a yoga-doing, dance-class-taking, walking-across-campus-over-and-over-again kind of workout girl.... So of course, I wrote about how you can stay physically active, without actually going to the gym. I am clearly very lazy when I'm not in dance haha. Anyways, please check it out, it would be super awesome! 

It is my first article, so be nice ;) Also if anyone has suggestions for what I should write about next (note: it doesnt have to be about health/fitness) please let me know! I'm open to ideas!! 

One more thing....

I realized that I've been terrible at posting on Fridays, so I'm deciding to take off the commitment of posting a blog every Friday.  I feel like everything fun happens on the weekend anyways and it's more exciting to write about the fun things that happen on the weekend rather than the boring stuff that happens during the weekdays... am I right?  SO with that said, expect a post from me on Mondays now instead of Fridays.

Oh wait, scratch that. Expect a random post from me any day of the week... it's a bit more spontaneous, which in reality, is a bit more... me.

Macaroons, Dance Concerts, and the Importance of Live Art

Happy Friday!

It's been a great week so far, both academically and physically. I've been having some really great dance classes, I got two midterms back that I did extremely well on, and I did an interview for a summer job that also went well.

Oh, I also had my first macaroon ever so that was an experience. In fact as I type this up right now, I'm chowing down on a hazlenut flavoured one and drinking a cup of tea. I'm feeling fancy fancy freeeee (although I probably shouldn't be eating a dessert since my stomach isn't feeling too great. we'll call this sacrifice)

Anyways, I think the main thing I want to blog about is the importance of live performances. In my last post, I talked about how I was home to watch my younger brother perform with his highschool, School of the arts. School of the Arts in San Francisco is a very Ballet and Modern based school, so their dance concert was mainly works of contemporary ballet, modern, and the occasional jazz pieces.  These kids are all in their teens-- from 15 years old to 18, and all of them have got such talent. My brother kicked some serious butt (of course I'm being biased, but let's be real here... he's an awesome dancer) and it was just so cool to see him dancing in something completely different from Billy...

Except I do have to make note of one of the pieces that kind of reminded me of a continuation of Billy's "Shadow Dance" right before "Grandma's Song".  This piece used interesting lighting to create shadows onstage, and of course my brother whos obviously a seasoned expert on shadow dancing, had an awesome little duet with another dancer where he used his hands to create shadows that fit with her shadow. It was pretty cool and probably would have been the result of Billy's shadow dance if he didn't see Grandma sifting through his private stuff.

There were loads of other talent on the stage as well, and I have to make note of these two dancers... both tall and both are red heads... These guys were featured quite a lot and boy can they move! holy man, I was shaking my head in awe. The two of them had a duet, and it was so epic and ginger. Not sure why there's the idea that gingers are "soulless" and "unfortunate" because honestly, after Ed Sheeran, Rupert Grint, Karen Gillan, Prince Harry (The list go on), and now those two kids..... I Beg to differ. Gingers ROCK.

So despite it being a great show, I think watching this show and watching my younger brother perform was kind of the inspiration behind my working hard in classes this week. Not to say I haven't been working hard in class, because I definitely do, but this week I had a different motivation behind me. After watching a live performance of dance, I was motivated to really work hard in classes so I can perform again. And I think it's really important, especially for artists, to constantly be exposed to live art. I'm really fortunate that the university I go to offers live performances weekly, whether it's a dance concert thesis, a live improv comedy club, or a jazz music night. Not only do you get a sense of inspiration and motivation while watching talented performers, you gain an even bigger appreciation and respect for the art. Don't you agree?

With that said, this weekend is going to be full of live performances: I'm seeing my friends dance in a student choreographed dance thesis, I'll be working on a dance-chemistry collaboration video, and then on monday I'll be attending a musical theatre night show in LA (with andy mientus and michael arden! I've only recently found out who they are, but my golly can they sing!) I'm so excited for these events and I love surrounding myself with such talented people who may have a different focus in the arts, but all have the same passion and drive. :D It makes me just want to embrace all of them in a lovely hug.

That's all for now! Lovely weekend to all and to all. xo

There's no place like home

Happy Saturday at 1:30am!

I am currently writing to you from my very own bed at my home in Half Moon Bay after a spontaneous trip from Irvine to surprise my brother for his first dance concert with SF School of the Arts.

It's been an incredibly stressful week-- I had another midterm that I didn't do as well as I hoped on (Yay BioSci!), a large rough draft of a bibliographical essay on Jerome Robbins, and another Dance History Quiz (which for some reason I had this strange false confidence while taking it... I guess writing "Martha Graham" and "Isadora Duncan" for every answer seemed about right in my mind at the time).   The first part of the week went by at an excruciating pace and I'm praising the fact that I won't have to worry about any exams till June. This was definitely a week I was wishing I was back on tour, especially after seeing my tour family the past weekend. I'm still struggling on adjusting back to student life, and I think it's taking me slightly longer than I thought.

Which again, is why I'm so so happy to be home. After the stress of midterms and papers, there's honestly nowhere I would rather be than here. I love being home.

Home to me is both tangible and intangible. It's tangible in the sense of it being a physical place you're referring to, aka your home that you grew up in. But over the course of years of living away from my physical, I realized that home can be more than just a physical house, but it can be a feeling.  Home is being surrounded by people who really love and care about you. And being back at the Viernes house, I'm getting both the tangible and intangible aspects of "home"-- it's overwhelming in the best way. I'm not saying that I'm not surrounded by people I love and care about at school (vice versa) because I am, and I couldn't be more thankful to have such lovely people in my life... It's just hard when everything you were once familiar with feels foreign again. I would go into greater detail, but given that it's almost 2 am, I might have to stop right about now

Midterms shmidterms and a mini Gatsby ramble

Happy Friday!

I'm lying. It's actually Thursday night, but no worries, by the time you read this, it will already be Friday.

It's been an exhausting week, and midterms have literally taken up every ounce of my time this week. After having a small taste of tour life all over again in San Diego with my Billy family, I had to return to the life of a college student.

And not just a college student... a college student in the midst of midterms, which is even worse.

I have one more midterm and a rough draft of a dance history essay to do still, but those aren't untill next week. So I obviously have time to blog, and watch The Great Gatsby at midnight tonight and get all the hours of sleep I lost over the week.

I'm doing a terrible job of trying to keep this blog up to date, but let me tell you I am making an effort!! I have drafts of different posts I started, I just haven't finished them yet. SEE PROOF:

 But I'll try to finish and post some of those during the week, or whenever this university mayhem is over.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Ah, 2 am. I am certainly not glad to see you again.
It's not Thursday anymore so I can officially say Happy Friday!

I just got back from seeing The Great Gatsby, and I thought it was pretty good! I'm not the greatest movie critic since I pretty much love all movies, but I figured i'll ramble a little on the movie:

I thought everyone did great performances of their characters. Leo was top notch, loved Carey for Daisy, and thought the people who played Tom Buchanan and Jordan Baker were incredible too (wish I got to see more of Jordan and Nicks relationship though...)! I want to give Tobey Maguire credit too because I think his performance was great as well....

but I honestly can't shake the Spiderman out of him. When he's narrating, I half expect him to start swinging from the rooftops in his Spidey Suit.

Also, please don't tell me I wasn't the only one who pictured Leo in Titanic scenes throughout this film.

The soundtrack is A++ . I'm all for the merging of different time periods in music, so I thought it sounded really cool. However, I'm still kind of iffy on actually seeing girls in flapper dresses dancing to Kanye West. I remember watching the trailer and not really knowing what to think about the mix of modern music in a scene thats supposed to be set in a 1920s time period...  I thought it added a really cool modern vibe to the scene, it's just... strange. It's kind of like how I feel on the Bates Motel show on A&E, (which is a modernized spinoff of Norman Bates in his early adolescent life), and it's set in contemporary time... It kind of throws you off when crazy Norman pull out his iPhone to type a text to his mother. Little modernized things like that just kind of take you out of the time period for a moment, and I guess it's slightly distracting. But, nevertheless, the soundtrack is awesome.

I can't NOT talk about the visual imagery in this film so here it goes:This movie SCREAMS Baz Luhrman. Even if you don't know who the man is, if you've seen Moulin Rouge, you would totally recognize the cinematography. Everything was so beautiful, and it was so visually stimulating, its like one big shiny DIAMOND. The lavish mansions and parties that Gatsby threw totally blew my imagination of what his parties were like out of the water. I found myself shaking my head in awe at the sights because his parties were even more elaborate and magnificent than I imagined. Hell, I want to go to a Gatsby party... There were moments in the way a scene was filmed that I could trace back as a similarity to Moulin Rouge, but of course, it IS Baz, so obviously there would be familiar moments. I feel like it would be really cool to watch in 3D, but I'm not really a fan of 3D movies.

 Anyways, I really want to re-read the book again and re-watch the film so I can analyze/recognize some differences and similarities between the film and the book. It's one of my favorite things to do with a book-turned-film. I almost always prefer the book to the movie, but I thought Baz did a unique take. I wouldn't say it was one of my favorites, and I'm not gonna lie, there was a couple moments in the film where I tuned out for a few seconds (I think it's because I was tired, not because the movie was boring) but for the most part, I liked what Baz did with it.

What did you think, Old Sport? (Let's not even begin to count how many times Old Sport gets said in the film. I can already see ideas popping up for possible movie games in the future...)

With that, I'm heading to sleep. Night, Old Sport!

Pre-Post Blog Post

Happy... Saturday!

I'm already failing at keeping up with my goal of getting a post out every Friday. It's Saturday morning, and I want to say I was productive last night, but in all honesty I was at Target picking up things I probably didn't need but tricked my mind into thinking I needed, drinking Irvine's quality boba tea, and trying to make a dance resume look like a regular resume for a summer job I'm applying for. Resume Help would be lovely.

I DID start a post though that was to be queued for Friday-- but hey I didn't finish that either! I'll try and get that done so I can post it as a belated Friday post... or it might just sit in my "Saved Drafts" folder for a while.

Anyways, I'm off to San Diego to visit and watch my lovely cast from Billy Elliot. It's a nice day, I'm sure it'll be a nice weekend, and I'm happy to spend some time with them again. I'll probably blog about it.

May the 4th be with you!


WAIT, quick little story about National Star Wars Day:

When I was in middle school, my friend Sam and I were absolutely obsessed with Star Wars that we wanted to create a day to appreciate and express our nerd love for it. We picked May 31st as our "national Star Wars Day." Not sure why, but I'm thinking it's because it was after my brothers birthday and we were planning on doing a Star Wars marathon or something of the sort on that day. So for a while we celebrated May 31st as national Star Wars Day until we were told that there was an actual National Star Wars Day (May 4th). I remember being really bummed out because we both thought we were super duper original with our idea for national Star Wars day, but when we heard the pun "May the 4th be with you," we laughed at the brilliance of the pun and accepted it then thought "why we didn't think of that?". Let's face it, it's a terribly good pun. :D

Anyways, with that said, Happy National Star Wars Day! and in case you missed it, you can always celebrate it on the 31st!

Pilot Blog

Happy Friday!

So I've recently decided to start up a blog again... Maybe it's because I'm back in school again and feel the need to start writing more, or maybe it's just because I want a place to record some thoughts of mine and get some feedback... who knows, but this blog was created spontaneously with both of those intentions.
I'm guessing the majority of people who are reading this know me, but in the off chance that someone just somehow stumbled upon this blog, I will give a brief description of myself...

My name's Lexi, my last name is Friday in Spanish, and I tentatively (tentatively being the key word here) plan on posting something every Friday hence the title "Ramblings from a Friday.
Anyways, I am currently 20 years old and am a student at the University of California, Irvine, graduating class of (hopefully) 2014. I am a dance major with a psych minor, though that is probably going to change. I was previously an actor in the National Touring Company of Billy Elliot, where I performed as a Ballet Girl in the ensemble for a little over a year. It was an incredible journey, and I was able to perform with my younger brother, JP(who played the role of Billy) for about four months.

Like the title says, this blog is simply ramblings that come across my mind that I feel like sharing with family, friends, and just people on the internet. I am a huge fan of pop culture, so you'll definitely see a lot of ramblings dedicated to television shows, bands, concerts, shows, trends, celebrities and other random sorts. I'm not new to the blogging community, in fact I used to keep one back in high school where I recorded mainly my concert experiences, so this is simply another online journal for me. I also recently joined an online collegiate magazine called Her Campus and will be writing for them as the quarter continues on. I'm really excited about it because I've always had an interest in writing, so it'll be a cool little hobby to have on the side. I'll definitely post a link to my first article... which I'm not entirely sure what I'll write about yet! :D


On another note, I'm not sure what to ramble about since currently my brain feels like mush from all the reading I've done this week....

Actually, can we talk about how GOOD it felt to take lyrical contemporary dance class today? It's been years (literally) since I've taken a lyrical class and it just felt so good to "live" it in class. It's interesting how little things like taking a really great class (even though it exhausted you to the point where you're currently icing multiple parts of your body as a result) can really make you feel so refreshed and alive. Amazing.

And on another, slightly more negative, note:

Dear girl on bicycle who almost ran me over,
There is a reason why you have a ringer on your bicycle-- Please kindly use it to warn those in front of you that you are biking behind them, that way you can avoid a collision. And if you do happen to accidentally collide with the person in front of you even if you are perfectly capable of using that ringer, a proper apology is always courtesy. For all I know, your ringer may have not been working... in that case, maybe think about getting that fixed or just give a little heads up to the people in front of you that you're coming through.

From,
Girl who almost got run over by Girl on Bicycle