The Opposite Hemisphere

Lucie feat. Aysia

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post about the major changes in my life, but there was something that I forgot. I didn’t write about it in that post because it needed an entire one for itself. Way back in December, I found out that one of my closest friends, Lucie, was moving. The fact that she was moving was the worst part, it was the fact that she was moving across the world. At the time, Lucie was going either to Switzerland or Germany, now, we all know that she’s moving to Germany. This post isn’t going to be about me crying about my friend, it’s going to be a little tribute to our relationship. Let’s get started…

I can’t really remember how or when Lucie and I met, it was sort of all of the sudden, we were friends. Lucie used to ski race on the same team as my brother, so I’d see her at races sometimes. But when we really became friends was when we were in the same dance class in sixth grade. Even though that was only almost four years ago, it seems like an eternity. Lucie is one of those people that once you meet them, you feel like you’ve known them forever. Lucie and I bonded immediately after that. However, after that year, we weren’t in the same dance class. She quit skiing and really focused on dance. Now we are in the same class for jazz and tap.

Like most of the girls that I dance with, Lucie is more of a sister than a friend. Unlike everyone else, Our relationship has stayed pretty consistent. We never really fight, but when do, “Lucie Logic” is almost never right, she agrees. Lucie is one of the most open people ever. She says it’s partially because she’s European, partially because she’s a dancer, but mostly because that’s who Lucie is. I don’t have another friend who will loudly comment how great my butt looks  in a quiet room.

Lucie is also one of the kindest, most truthful, and least self-centered people that I have ever met. Whenever I feel like crying, she is my shoulder (so poetic). I can talk to her about anything and she will give her loud, and honest, opinion. Lucie is one of those people who will ALWAYS put her friends before herself. I can’t count the number of times Lucie has asked if she needs to beat someone up for me.

I don’t really know what the future holds, but we do have some fun stuff coming up. In April, Lucie and I are going to dance at Disneyland, then going to Santa Monica together. Then, after she moves to Germany, I’m taking a detour from my trip to Norway to visit her for a week. I’m just excited to eat all of the food she cooks.

I love this girl so much. She is truly one of the greatest people that I’ve ever met. No one will ever comprehend how much I will miss her. I honestly don’t know what I’ll do without you, Lu. Germany is so lucky to have such an outstanding dancer/cook/professional Netflix binge-watcher. I know that you will have an amazing adventure in Europe that will take you all over the world. I just hope that somehow, your journey will find it’s way back to this small town in Utah. 

~Rachael

The Grey’s Anatomy Post

For all of my best friends who know me too well, this post was going to happen at some point. I have and obsession, more like an addiction. Everyone knows that the first step to curing an addiction is to admit that you have a problem. So here we go… I, Rachael Guthery, have a major, life-threatening addiction to Grey’s Anatomy. I can’t help my self! This show is too good. I have a few people to

Christina Yang creds to popkey.com

blame for my addiction (Lucie, Claire B, Claire O, and Josie… you know what you’ve done), mainly Netflix. I have access to eleven seasons of pure joy, right at my finger tips. Satan, himself, created this website and made it into an app that ruins my life. I’m so wrapped up in this show that I call the characters “my friends”, but I’m not crazy, I promise.

Let’s start from the beginning. Just to let everyone know, there will be MAJOR SPOILERS!!!!! Don’t say I didn’t warn you. In the first episode, I wasn’t really hooked. Season one is only nine episodes long, but they are so packed with action and drama that, to quote Jane Austen, “I was in the middle before I knew I had begun.” It’s was crazy! Before I knew what was going on, it was the season two finale, someone died, and another person quit. The seasons have flown by with so many crazy events. The deaths of many main characters, crumbling relationships, a shooting, a hurricane-ish storm, a sink hole, a plane crash, a train crash, several ambulance crashes (so many crashing vehicles), a loose lion, a bomb, and lots and lots of surgeries. I am so used to seeing blood and organs, that I could probably do a simple surgery now.

I started watching Grey’s Anatomy several months ago, and I’m only on season ten. So many characters have come and gone, even some of my favorites. The hard part of watching this show is that when your favorite character dies (they will most likely die at some point). It’s the weirdest feeling; some of the characters that die have been on the show for a while and you are so submersed in the show that you feel sad for the loss.

Now, because there are a lot of deaths in this show, that also means that there are a ton of new characters. Like one of my best friends, Claire, said in her blog post about this, “Even though you’ll hate them at first, they will soon find a way into your heart.” This is so true. I can’t even count the number of times that I have despised a character, but after a short season they are my favorite (April Kepner, Mark Sloan :( , Owen Hunt, Arizona Robbins, to name a few)

All in all, this is an amazing show that has withstood the test of time. It is definitely my favorite show and there probably will never be a show like it. I highly recommend that if you don’t watch it now, there are eleven seasons on Netflix that you can binge. I can honestly say that watching somewhat realistic surgeries from the comfort of my home has really fueled my desire to go into a medical field whether I become a nurse, pediatric doctor, military medic, or even a surgeon. I really hope you enjoyed this post. “I guess we can’t really complain about karma. It’s not unfair. It’s not unexpected. It just evens the score.” -George O’Malley, Grey’s Anatomy. 

Until next time…

~Rachael

WDFKP

I know that most of you are wondering what that acronym stands for, no it’s not some sort of slang. It actually stands for the Will Dance For Kids Project. This is a competition put on by the Utah Food Bank, where all of the proceeds go to feeding impoverished families. Park City Dance has gone to this competition for as long as I can remember. This is one of my favorite competitions, because I love the venue. This competition is at Taylorsville High School in Salt Lake.

Practicing my solo in the dressing room.

This year, I competed four dances: jazz, tap, ballet, and my solo. My solo was contemporary and was choreographed by Michelle Player, who also choreographed my jazz dance. I performed my solo Friday night and the rest of my dances throughout nine hours on Saturday. For all of you non-dancers, there are four main ranks for dances: bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. At certain competitions, there are eight ranks: bronze, hi-bronze, silver, hi-silver, gold, hi-gold, platinum, and ultimate platinum. WDFKP is not one of those. For my solo, I got a gold, but I was a point and a half from getting platinum.

The first dance that we did on Saturday was tap. Our tap dance is to “Happy” by C2C. In the dance, we are all depressed until my friend, Savannah, possesses us and makes us happy. We competed in the advanced teen tap category. We were the only ones in our category, so we won by default with a gold. However, the top 30% of the entire teen advanced category was recognized. since there were over twenty dances in teen advanced, there were seven dances in the top 30%, “Happy” got number five. The funny thing was that no one, except for responsible Faith, was at awards because we had to get ready for our jazz dance right afterwards... and no one knew that awards were happening.

From left: Ali, Lucie, Mikelle, me, and Taylor right before tap.
Photo creds to Mikelle

The next dance we had was “Seven Nation Army,” our jazz dance. It was to a bluesy cover by Haley Reinhart and Post Modern Jukebox. This is one of my favorite dances that I have ever done because of the choreography. The dance is army themed (of course) and super sassy. It was choreographed by Michelle Player, the same lady that did my solo. Michelle has been my teacher for a while now and she is practically my mom. The dance did pretty good, but it could have been better. 

The last dance that we did that night was a ballet piece called “Waltz of the Hours”. It was repertoire from the ballet Coppelia. The dance was rather difficult because it was on pointe. There was also a ton of girls in this dance because a ton of girls are needed. That made it difficult to clean and revise because every girl had issues with different sections. The dance was kind of a disaster. One of the girls lost a part of her costume, so she had to buy a tank top of the same color and strategically pin it to look like the others. We were all stressed out after the tank top incident, so when we got on stage, most of us forgot changes that we made in class that week. We were all very surprised when the dance got gold at awards.

Over all, it was a pretty successful weekend. I always have a ton of fun at competitions. The next big dance-related event that is happening is in April. Part of the studio gets to dance in a parade at Disneyland! I’ll keep you guys updated on rehearsals and when the big day comes. The quote for this week is from C.S. Lewis “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” See ya later.

~Rachael

Changes

Courtesy of www.shwayder.com

“There is nothing permanent except change,” said Heraclitus. My life is constantly changing, but recently, my life has been turned upside down. First of all, in an earlier post I talked about Shwayder Camp. To refresh your memories, I’ve gone to camp for the past five years and this summer will be my last year. Last year it was announced that there would be some major changes being made to the architecture of camp. They’re tearing down the cabins and many of the buildings. This seems like a small problem, except for the fact that many of those buildings have been there since 1948. Also, we sign our names in the cabins at the end of every session, so there are signatures from thousands of people including our former camp director when he was a counselor-in-training. Now, Shwayder will be wiped clean of all of the memories that have made my home so special. 

Secondly, my dance life is going to change drastically. For eighteen years, Park City Dance Academy has been a small-town dance studio that has been gradually growing and improving. The past couple of years have been really big for us because several of our best dancers have gone to compete at YAGP. The Youth American Grand Prix is one of the most prestigious ballet competitions in the world. From there, PCD has caught the attention of Ballet West. Ballet West is a major ballet company, based in Utah. In February, our directors, Sandy and Trish, announced that Park

Courtesy of balletwest.org

City Dance is now one of three satellite programs of Ballet West Academy. I’m stressed because now our ballet program will become more strict. I love ballet, but that is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. You can only go so far as a ballet dancer, but with jazz, tap, and even hip-hop, a dancer could get many different jobs.

There was a meeting that was held with the reps from Ballet West Academy and they said that Nutcracker could be ending after 2016. I’ve grown up with Park City’s Nutcracker and I know that our entire studio would hate to see it go. I’ve talked about Nutcracker in an earlier post, but I didn’t explain how big of a tradition it was. When I was a younger dancer, I always looked up to the Queens: Snow Queen, Waltz Queen, and Angel Queen, that is. Those were the roles given to the most advanced dancers, the best of the best. It was every little girls’ dream at Park City Dance to dance one of those roles. And now, since Nutcracker could be ending, I, along with the other girls in my group, and the extremely talented dancers in the groups below us, will probably never get the chance to dance our dream roles, and that is one of the most heartbreaking changes of all.

Thank you guys for checking in on my blog! I’m really sorry that I haven’t posted in a while. My life is pretty interesting right now, so I promise there will be more posts in the future. I’ll leave you all with a quote from my man, Gary Kubiak, “Life is fair, keep working.” Until next time…

~Rachael

To The Leader of Awkward People

Dear Grace Helbig,

Hey, girl! First things first, you are so amazing, talented, and one of my heroes. It really peeves me when people say that YouTubers are talentless. Obviously, those people haven’t met you. You are one of the most  successful YouTubers and you are an icon to all of the awkward yet kind of confident girls, like me. It’s crazy that ten years ago, you decided to start posting videos to YouTube, and now you have almost three million subscribers, a TV show, a podcast, a hilarious movie, two books, and another movie on the way.

Queen Helbig courtesy of usatoday.com

You also proved that women can be powerful, independent, and can fend for themselves in a field of hundreds of other very successful people. In 2013, you quit your network and started to make your own content again. Luckily, you had a big enough following that your new channel, ItsGrace, flourished. Around the same time, you began to film Camp Takota with the other two-thirds of the Holy Trinity, Mamrie Hart and Hannah Hart.

I started watching your videos in 2011, when your channel was still DailyGrace. You content was hilarious and I was addicted almost immediately. Over the years, I started to watch other YouTubers like Jenna Marbles, Tyler Oakley, Mamrie, and Hannah, but I still watched your videos. These past several years have been very difficult for me and I know that it’s really cliché and annoying for YouTube fans to say this, but your videos truly made me smile when didn’t feel like being happy. I’ve been able to relate to your awkwardness and being able to see your successes has made me believe in myself even more.

When my English teacher asked us all who our ideal readers were, my mind went completely blank. I know that it doesn’t seem like my blog has a theme, but it does. My blog is about me and my life, so my ideal reader needs to be someone that has great impacted my life and has help shape me as a person. Many of my friends may think that that person is some famous dancer, but that person is actually you, Grace Helbig. I know that I’m not as funny as you (and I don’t have your very punctual upload schedule), but I’m trying my best. What we do have in common though is that our content is very personal. We both talk about things that mean a lot to us, and we do it to entertain others. Many people say that the internet is frying kids’ brains and turning them into terrible people, but not you. I know that it is a very small possibility that you will hear about this blog and an even smaller chance that you will read it, but this is my chance to say that you have influenced me for the better. Thank you for everything.

~Rachael

Tuscan Milk: One Gallon 128 Fluid Ounces

Have you ever discovered something that is so absurd, yet so hilarious that the more that you look, the more you are doubled over in pain from laughing? I’ve had that experience many times, but the most recent one was when my dad showed me the reviews for milk on Amazon. This wasn’t just any milk, it was Tuscan Whole Milk: one gallon 128 fluid ounces. What these people did was genius. All of the comments were either dumb complaints, poems, or stories. My family and sat around the table for about an hour, laughing our heads off. A while back, The New York Times wrote an article about crazy commenters, and since then, more ridiculous reviews have been posted. Now, I know that I’m a little late on the Tuscan Milk bandwagon, but it’s never too late to sit and laugh for a while.

Picture courtesy of amazon.com

Some of my favorites are…

“This was by far the freshest milk I have ever tasted. It still had that ‘new milk smell’. I poured some in strategic spots in my house and car, so I can enjoy the smell for weeks to come.”

“This milk worked well when I first got it, but within a few days it wouldn't hold a charge. I called their customer service department and, I don't know if it's in Bangalore or Ireland, but I couldn't understand a word that they said and they began to scream at me.

Finally, though, they sent me another one - but that wouldn't hold a charge, either. I'm beginning to wonder if this is truly meant to be a portable product. I still haven't been able to retrieve my email and the video is murky.

It's a bit heavy, too, to wear on your belt. The good news is that it keeps your hip cool during this sultry summer weather - for a while.”

“I bought this milk a few days ago; it arrived today, and when I opened it, it was a literal explosion of rainbows and kittens. No cows could have made this milk. No, I suspect unicorns.”

“My wife gave birth to our first born in a bathtub filled with Tuscan Whole Milk, she felt no pain at any stage. He is now 5 years old and completing his PhD in quantum bio-mechanics.”

"Doesn't taste a darn thing like a Toucan. I thought "whoa, tropical bird flavor". Boy was I wrong. Returning this immediately.”

If these reviews were able to cheer me up after a crappy day, then someone in this world is doing something right. I know that this post is fairly short, but it has been a long first semester of high school. It’s my pleasure to announce that by the end of Friday, we will be half-way done with the year! My challenge this week is to find a new obsession to laugh at; one that you can tell about to your friends, until they are so sick of it that they want to punch you in the face. My quote today comes from one of the most majestic human beings. Sadly, this truly amazing man just passed away. “I re-invented my image so many times that I’m in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman.” -David Bowie

~Rachael

Joy

I wanted to try something a little bit different. Today, I will be writing about a movie. Over the break, I was able to see the movie Joy. Joy starred my personal queen, Jennifer Lawrence. In this movie she played (to much sarcastic surprise) a strong-willed, independent woman, trying to make her way in the world. I can’t think any other movies where she played a character like this… Winters Bone, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, The Poker House, all of the X-Men movies (after 2011), all of The Hunger Games movies, the list goes on and on.

Picture courtesy of wikipedia.org

Joy is about a woman, named Joy (of course), who lives in a large house with her crazy mom, freshly divorced (for the second time) father, her loving grandma, Columbian ex-husband, conniving step-sister, and her two young children. One day, Joy was laid-off from her job. Unable to provide for her mess of a family, Joy and her daughter design a mop; after Joy had cut her hands mopping up broken glass. This new “miracle mop” was self-wringing, with a detachable/washable head. Joy pitch the idea to her dad’s crazy-rich, new girlfriend, whose lawyer did a patent search (there was a man in China with a similar idea, but he allowed it). Joy was able to hire a cheap manufacturer to build the molds that Joy had drawn up. 

After having trouble selling her new product, Joy got help from a friend of her ex-husband to make an infomercial for her mop. She got the deal, however, when the infomercial aired live, the seller was unable to work the mop. Zero mops were sold. Joy went back to the producer of the commercial, and demanded that she would be the one to sell the product. He agree, but Joy’s first appearance on TV was a disaster, until her best friend phoned in and got Joy talking about the product. The “average housewife” on TV was able to hit record breaking sales. 

However, there was a problem with the manufacturer. They were asking for a lot of money, now that the Miracle Mop was a big success. Joy flew to California to confront the company. They claimed that the molds where their other employer’s idea, a man who Joy had never talked to. Joy had to file for bankruptcy, but not before she flew to Texas to find this mystery employer. This man (supposedly) worked for the guy in China. The man in China had no clue about the molds. Joy sued the mystery employer for fraud, and won the money. Joy and her family moved to a bigger house, and she was able to invent more products that would change the world.

This movie is now one of my favorites. The message of independence and empowerment is so strong. Even though Joy was full of many strong actors, they all did an amazing job and their performances complimented each other really well. Over the weekend, Jennifer Lawrence won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical, for this film. She also reached out to reporters and the public, demanding for equal pay for women. I feel that it is important for children all over to have an idol who is as strong as her, one who doesn’t just portrays strong women.

Thank you for reading this post! Equality of all kinds is something that means so much to me, so seeing a movie like this made me really happy. My challenge for you is the actually the Golden Rule. What people need to understand is, no matter how bad it sounds, people are constantly judging you and it’s not going to stop any time soon. What you need to do is be a good person. Give everyone else something good to judge. “We got here from hard work, patience, and humility. Don't think the world owes you anything because the world owes you nothing.” - Joy Mangano, played by Jennifer Lawrence. Until next time…

~Rachael