Her Campus update- New Article, and Blogger Network!

Hellooooo internet.

Just a quick little post about my beautiful friend, Matlynn Henry, whom I've had the pleasure to spotlight for this weeks Campus Cutie. She was one of my closest dance friends growing up, and we ended up going to UC Irvine together! She's a lovely gal. She's a dancer, loves to nap, and enjoys watching Disney movies. Click the caption below her picture to read more about her!

Matlynn Henry '16

I was also very happy to see that both my Campus Cutie articles made it to Her Campus Top Chapter Articles! This has never happened to me before, so it's a really big deal for me. 

Konstantinos and Thanasis Kaplanis

Matlynn Henry!

While I'm on the subject of Her Campus, I am very pleased to state that after applying to the Her Campus Blogger Network, I got an email saying I have a spot in the Network! Nothing makes me happier, and it's quite exciting because I'll have an even bigger incentive to keep this blog updated. I'm going to try and put a focus to my blog, since right now it's just a compilation of pop culture and personal life. I've recently been writing a lot about music, so I might make a tag for it. Not sure yet what I'll do, but either way, I'm just really happy to get this blog on a roll!

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

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

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