For Your Consideration...

Ok. I know I make quite a few lists on this blog, but what can I say? Its the best way to cover a large amount of my thoughts at once! So here it is- Claire Hilton's....

"RECENT FINDINGS":

1. Surprise 1: That I actually miss work at the snack bar. And I've only been done for a day.

2. Surprise 2: That I got a 107 on a math quiz. 1-0-7!!!! 

3. Snack: Tropical Paradise Starbursts...mmm. Still thinking about them. 

3. Book(s): The Luxe series. 

4. Excitement: THE  UPRISING!

5. Frustration 1: Homework. 

6. Frustration 2: school pictures (or lack there of today). 

7. Practice: Act one's fall shows- Mulan and Twelfth Night

8. Broken Gadget: Ipod.

9. Awesome Gadget: My new MacBook.

10. Movie: Paper Heart ( I wanna see it so bad!!!)

11. Weather: Perfect. 

12. Overreaction: Swine Flu.

13. Fear: Swine Flu.

14. Funniest Illness Name Ever: Swine Flu.

15. Thing I MUST Do: Make a wall of awesome. 

16. Thing That Made My Day: The "Sorry I Suck at Life" Card. 

17. Question: What should I dress up as on video game character day?

18. TV Show(s): Glee. Project Runway. 

19. Current Pastime: Procrastinating thanks to blogspot

20. Advice: The darkest skies always have the brightest stars...

Just Get Up and Dance!

Today I started another adventure- I, Claire Hilton, have officially returned to dance. Crazy, I know. Lets just add another thing to the pile of what all's going on in my life at the moment. But really, this is a good thing to add. 2-3 classes a week (as of right now) is totally manageable. Hopefully I'll add tap and jazz when I find a good class to take. Anyway, I had my first day back today after a 2 1/2 year hiatus from ballet. I didn't realize how very much I had missed it until I put on my tights, leotard, and slippers this morning. And once I was in class, it just got even better. Its a small class, full of some of my old friends from the studio. Of course there was that whole awkward "Dang it! I totally forgot how to do this, and have no clue what the heck a 'rand de jamb' is...etc" that comes with jumping right back into something you haven't done in a long time. But the good thing was that my technique is still pretty solid. I mean, there wasn't anything presented that I couldn't do, or at least attempt to do correctly. It'll take a while for me to get back to where I was with dance, but I'll get there. For today, I was just happy to go and sorta "detox". Dance is all about emotion and story, and this week was full of both for Claire Hilton. So having a creative outlet to pour all the pent up mess into was such a help, not to mention challenging. As I'm sitting here typing this, I can already feel the muscles in my legs protesting to the stretching they received this morning. After all, its been 2 1/2 years since they've been pushed and controlled to do some classical dancing. But its the good kind of sore. The "alive" soreness you can only earn from a good ballet class. 

"Wake Me Up, When September Ends..."

Fall is here. Get Excited....you can feel it- in the air in the mornings, with the breeze, and since carmel apple cider suddenly sounds like it will hit the spot out of nowhere. And of course, football has gotten rolling. Currently, my dad is off watching the S.C. Gamecocks on T.V. Dear Lord, please let them win at least a few games this year...But anyway, I love the fall. The leaves, the chill, and even Halloween (and yes I do celebrate it, and will continue to dress up till I'm 90. Sue me.)  Its just so refreshing. Thus far, thats the only good thing about September. Yeah, this week hasn't gotten any better since my last post. In fact, its gotten a tad worse. The allergies decided to kick in, which makes breathing miserable. And since thats sorta essential to life, I've been having a bit of an issue. Also, I think everyone is feelin' the September blues. Everyone seems edgy, or angry, or whatever. And a chick like me doesn't function well with all the hostility. Just not my style. So, its really no fun when you are hardly able to live because of your breathing issues, and you have people yelling or griping at you. Sorry. I don't usually complain, but really? Lets be civilized to each oter, please. I'm trying, so you should too! But ah well, maybe its just one of those weeks. At least I have good things like small group, and dance on saturday to get me through. For as the Beatles say "I get by with a little help from my friends." And with my friends by my side, I will survive the last day of the school week tomorrow!!! Just watch me. 

Ch-Ch-Changes!

My, My- what an interesting past week its been. You know those times in your life when you feel like your moving so fast that you can't even stop and catch your breath? Yeah, I'm pretty much at one of those times right about now. It seems to me that everything is either starting, or ending, or switching up all of the sudden. Which, isn't necessarily a bad thing I suppose. It just is what it is. Here's what I'm talking about:

-Afternoon rehearsals are already in full swing for the Act One fall shows. I literally JUST got done with a show, and now BOOM! Here come two more! Which isn't bad, since I enjoy the wonderful thing that is theatre. Its just a tad bit overwhelming, what with school just starting and all that jazz.

-Windy Gap and Homecoming were switched this year. That means that in less than 20 days the festivities begin. Which leaves much to do about the rooms, and powderpuff etc...

-Another thing just starting at Elevation Church this week was 'The Uprising" (insert Maddison's loud voice here). Long story short, its the start of a student revolution in the city of Charlotte, and I'm in on it early! Theres going to be an event later this month that I'm super excited about, thats geared towards students. As always, we're gonna do it up right, and to God be the glory! Thats one change that I really am pumped about. I'll keep you updated with deets.

-I'm starting dance again. Crazy, I know. Because, lets face it- I don't have time for that. But I know that it would be really good for me to get back into the swing before college auditions come around....college. Weird-ness.

-I finally finished watching all 10 seasons of "Friends". I know thats stupid to write about, but even so. For two years now, I've been enjoying the "lives" of the 6 characters that I feel like I know, and now its over. The worst part was that I didn't even have any tropical starbursts (aka. heaven, making them the ultimate comfort food ever) to eat when it was over. I guess I'll just have to start re-watchin'! 

...anyway, thats just naming a few of the items that I've begun to juggle this past week. I can tell that this year is going to be a learning process; I guess thats a good thing. But for now, this naturally cheery optimist is feeling a tad down and out. But hopefully, that too will change soon. 

"I've Got the Power!"

Question: What do you get when you cross a power line or two, thus resulting in a school wide power outage at Charlotte Christian? Answer:  No School! Thats right. Due to a severe power surge, Charlotte Christian had to shut its doors to students on Monday. I mean you just CAN'T survive in this day and age without internet/smart boards/ air conditioning, now can you? So the administration had to call off our classes. And you would have thought that Christmas had come early the way everyone was cheering when they made the announcement. Only Mr. Fair was disappointed, reminding all of us that we would be making up this day sooner or later!" But no one cared. Everybody was to busy signing out and gearing up for an impromptu day off. And so I, along with all the pubic school kids, enjoyed the "final day of summer". Polly and I signed out, and then headed to our now-not-so-spontaneous spot, The Pancake House, to enjoy an amazing breakfast. Then we went to the mall to shop for homecoming dresses. We ran into half of the high school while there, too. My afternoon was spent with a group of friends at the movies seeing "500 Days of Summer." I thought it was a brilliant film. Bittersweet fun, i would say. Most of the group disagreed with me ( they thought it was to sad), but whatever. I recommend any movie buff go see it for the high acting caliber and cinematographic creativity.  But like I said, most of my friends didn't like it. So to cheer them up, we got ice cream. The rest of the day was a whirlwind of more shopping ( I got a dress by the way...), work at the pool, and a Friends marathon in the evening to cap off the day. Talk about a randomly fantastic day. But thats not even the best part. At school today, we found out that the power did end up coming back on....15 minutes after we had been dismissed. :) 

Its A Mall World After All

You know what's weird? Walking through a mall when its closed. On Sundays, South Park Mall closes at 6:00, but the department stores stay open until 7:00. Since Polly and I have been out of the country for two weeks, we thought it would be a good idea to go shopping to get some school clothes tonight. So, after I got off snack bar duty, we were off to the mall. Thats how I got to experience "after hours South Park". In trying to get from Belk to Macy's, we had to walk through a practically deserted mall. There were a few people here and there (walking from one big store to another like us), and a janitor mopping the tile beside the fountain, but aside from that, all was still. The lights were dimmed, or off depending on the portion of the hallway, and all the stores were vacant. There was no "mall music" filtering through the sound system, no attendants asking you to try their perfume, no crazy teenagers eating an Annie's pretzel. It was quiet. And it got me thinking. Without the people and the hubub, all that stuff in the store windows was just...stuff. Suddenly, without the glimmering lights, and the "oh you have to get it!"s from store attendants, that $400 purse didn't look so grand sitting by itself in a window. It just made me think about the extreme materialism that our world has fallen into today. People today seem to add an extra emphasis on whatever is "in", no matter what the price. Everyone is a victim of it- look at me. I am currently writing this post from my amazing brand spankin' new mac book. Hypocritical? Probably. I mean, don't get me wrong- pretty clothes and new computers are always fun...every once in a while. But when you just HAVE to have the newest thing all the time? Thats when theres a problem. And its not like that one thing will make you happy- a pair of lucky brand jeans can't solve your problems, as much as the store clerk would beg to disagree. Thats all I'm saying.  I didn't mean this post to be all deep or serious, but oh well. Just my ponderings. If you have a chance, you should walk through the mall at night some time. All this thinking of mine aside, it is pretty neat. Plus its a unique time to window shop- you don't even have the temptation to go in and buy stuff! 

There and Back Again

Adjusting back to "normal life" has been an adventure in itself this week. Yes, thats right- its been a week since I was over in blustery Scotland singing my heart out and eating chocolate eclairs. My, my, it seems like forever ago. What with school starting up the day I got back, heading back to work, and starting with our one act shows all this week, its been hectic to say the least. I went from vacation to AP homework in twenty four hours flat. And the whole jet lag thing has been just plain irritating. It messed up my eating patterns, and more annoyingly my sleep patterns. I think its been worse coming back than it was going over. I'm still not entirely back to normal yet. With all the homework that school has piled on I'm still not caught up on my sleep. Although, its still good to be home. Sure I miss a ton of stuff about our trip- like getting to see all my awesome cast mates 24/7, or bursting out in song randomly. But thats ok. Like I said, I've had plenty to preoccupy myself with this week. And as far as the first week of school goes, it was pretty ok. I can tell its gonna be a hard year class wise, but not impossible. And it was so nice to see everyone again. Thats always fun to me. And speaking of fun, the first season football game was last night. It was a blast. CCS owned, of course, and it was fabulous getting to hang out with everyone and cheer on the team. Talk about a great way to kick off the first weekend of the year...but on a not so great note- the swine flu has reared its head at our school. Week 1 and we already have a 6th grader out from it. Talk about a nightmare. The only funny thing about it was that as soon as it was diagnosed, all us Scotland kids got called to the nurse to get checked. They thought we were "carriers" or whatever since we had been overseas. Of course, none of us are infected. But the rest of the afternoon we were treated like we were contaminated. Its like "Welcome back, you sickies, you." Personally, I thought it was hilarious...So, thats my week at a glance. Next week the public school kids go to school. Back to the traffic filled, scrambling mornings of a school year. Hello Junior year, nice to meet you.