I’m losing one of my best friends tomorrow morning. Morgan who’s one of the staff in the dance department got sick with walking pneumonia and is being forced by the camp to go home because they don’t want to be held liable for what could happen to her. She’s got some sort of heart condition that really makes things worse when she’s sick.

It’s really sad that she’s leaving and going back to Georgia. Even Cracker and I talked about how sad we’re both going to be when she leaves. Because it was usually me and him and the rest of G-Unit that hung out with her. Tammy’s heart is broken too. She didn’t even go out last night with us when we watched a movie because she was so sad she was leaving she stayed at home and cried.

Morgan’s one of those down-to-earth type of people where everything you say she takes to heart. Anything and everything is funny around her and I could just go on and on about nothingness and it wouldn’t matter to her! I look back and I think how it was a good experience, considering my just recent experiences with Tre and how I struggled to have even a normal conversation with her. It just finally got rid of that silly notion in my head that I was socially incapable or something. But I’m ok now! Whew!

So now it’s G-Unit minus one. We’re gonna miss you Morgan!!!*

*And I SOO wanted to take over her Yoga class ^_^ (…just kidding)

Late wake up tomorrow morning, which is a good thing because I sure as heck need it. I think I’m starting to like this waking up at 7:30 in the morning though. I actually get lots of stuff done if I manage to get at least 6 hours of sleep.

I called Jenny late tonight, when I actually should have been doing homework instead. Bad, Howie. My final project for my internship is due on my advisor’s desk by Aug. 2nd. I hate deadlines, especially when I have little to no time to get it finished. This is going to be half-assed if anything–which is a shame considering how much I’ve really accomplished here both professionally and artistically.

But back to Jenny. She drives me up the wall. We had to push back my going to Vegas until the first few weeks of October. Arrgh. I don’t know why, but it still makes me disappointed sometimes. I really want to see her, but at the same time I keep thinking that maybe she’s changed now that she’s actually in college proper…actually living away from parents and all that that implies. I know it’s changed me to a certain extent–far more than I wish it did. The more I think about it, the more I hate what college does to people, especially to a lot of my friends from high school. Suddenly the debauchery or fraternities and sororities take over and then before you know they’re selling their books for beer money…not that I’m not guilty of doing so…

…just kidding

…really!

So yeah, it’s off to Vegas. Isn’t that hard to believe? After all these years? Here we are? Strange.

It was my day off today and I decided to take a trip into Manhattan. I haven’t had a chance to go into the city because I’ve been so freaking busy here. Anyways, me and G-Unit hit up Chinatown and Little Italy to look for some novelties *cough*illegal DVD’s*cough*. It was early in the morning and they were everywhere. Then this unmarked black police car pulls up and the little Chinese women start scrambling and screaming “Watch your back, watch your back”.

We later went to Ground Zero where the WTC buildings used to be.

It’s crazy how that place is still a mess after all these years.

Then it was off to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch, then Serendipity for dessert…or whatever, and shopping at Time Square later on.

Death by sundae.

Pimps.

G-Unit at Time Square.

Candance, Morgan, and Tammy.

I was about to explode from all the food by the end of the day. I spent the entire day shopping and all I got was a pair of new ballet shoes from Capezio. Is that freaking gay?? But at least now my dance director won’t be on my back about getting ballet shoes.

Later in the day before I left, me and G-Unit came up on these performers who were breakdancing at Union Square for this huge crowd.

They seemed pretty good, and apparently someone important was in the crowd because he looked all business-like and whatever and he was handing the head breaker his business card. Anyways, I was in the mood for a good break, so I approached them and I asked if they wanted to battle. I was sorta taken by surprised when they started mocking me and Cracker saying we didn’t know how to break. But we went up anyway in front of that huge crowd, and they shut up reeeal fast when we started busting out mills and broncos. Needless to say…”They got served!”

When I got back, I heard Particle was playing here, but I didn’t want to go because I was exhausted. And besides I’m not paying 8 bucks for a band I’ve never even heard of. Back to the grind tomorrow. We’re having a staff party, though. So that’ll be nice. On top of things, we’re having a memorial for Sherie Weinstein. And the day after will be late wake up for everyone. And that’s very nice indeed.

I was late on my way to breakfast this morning. I was running up the hill and I noticed an ambulance parked right outside one of the staff members bunks. And then I thought in my head…Ok, who busted out the peanuts? You see, we’ve got hyper-allergic students here and you even eat peanuts around them and an allergic reactions starts.

But it wasn’t peanuts. Something was definitely wrong here. Some of the head counselors, including one of my bosses, had tears in their eyes and looked panicky. I looked back at the bunk and they were hauling a dead body out to the ambulance. Now it’s a peculiar thing…watching a scene like that. You see it on TV–on the news or something. But when you see it in person it draws this sickness in your stomach and this strange cloud looms over you. And you realize…something very bad has happened.

I went on with the day as usual without speaking a word of it to my students for fear of upsetting them. So much for that idea though. Ron, the director of the place, called for a campus-wide meeting at the pavilion at noon. He made the announcement there. Her name was Sheri. She was only 24. One of her friends came to get her for breakfast, and upon opening the door, she collapsed and fell dead. I never saw Ron with tears in his eyes before…and apparently neither did the children. Sheri was the director of many of the younger children’s theater performances. So immediately the younger kids started to bawl. I felt horrible. I thought about all the young kids in my dance class, the ones whom I knew had her for a show. Throughout the day, a good majority of them came crying to me. It’s so discouraging to see these wonderful, talented young children so distraught and so afraid. I couldn’t help but cry myself.

The day went on as usual though. Life goes on. I showed up for Ron’s audition technique class, and to my surprise he still taught the class. We continued with the plays later this evening.

Little Tyler was in Honk! and she was as great as ever. (kneeling, far right)

Thinking of Tyler, of all these children…makes me think of my little sisters.

Today I miss my family.

My dance class performed today. Ah, but there’s a story to all this. At 11 this morning we performed once in the pavillion. I was going nuts because one of my key breakdancers, Allie, was missing. It didn’t really affect the dance as a whole but it stifled the effect I was going for. But who cares about me?

The parents came up to me later in the afternoon. Allie’s dad came up to me and told me about how she had a concert the exact same time as the dance performance. She was told by the director that she could run over as soon as she was finished playing. A side note: The multi-talented Allie is a prodigy with the violin. Not to mention a magician. And to breakdance on top of all that? Simply amazing. Anyways, as soon as her concert with the symphony was over, she dropped her violin and darted across campus in the middle of rainstorm. She gets there and everyone has already left. Her parents finally catch up to her and she’s in tears. Her father (in his lovely English accent which I envy so) goes on to tell me how Allie hits him because she’s so mad. Her parents beg me to put on another show for her, so I do this: I run around the entire campus looking for as many of my dancers as I could find. Lisa, the head of the dance department, speak with the music director of Cinderella which was playing at the Playhouse and asked him if he could hold the audience at the end of the show so we could perform our piece for them. He gladly obliged (considering he was the same director who told Allie she could make it to begin with). I grabbed my laptop and burned a new CD with our music. The Cinderella cast took their bows, and my dancers went on stage to perform once again…this time with Allie. Once again, the crowd loved it. Allie got the spotlight afterwards and had a solo bow. I was so proud of her.

It turns out that another parent in the audience missed her child perform in the dance concert because she was at another camp visiting another one of her children. She came to me thanking me that I had put this together. And Allie’s parents were more than overjoyed to see their daughter get her wish.

A happy ending to the story. Mostly. Allie was staying for only one session at FWF and she had to leave today. I wished she could have stayed for longer because she was so talented. She’s not the only one I was sad to see leave. Kenny who lived in my bunk left as well. I probably felt worse for his leaving. He was like a little brother to me in an inexplicable way. As pretentious as he was, it was fun to see him gain confidence and popularity among the kids here. He learned how to dance so well in my class and he never ceased to amaze with his magic performances.

What with tomorrow bringing an entirely new bunch of kids, I wonder if I’ll be able to connect with them as I did this previous group.

Here’s to all my kids from the first session:

Daniella

Delia. Can you believe she’s 15?

Kenny and Elan, two of my favorite hip hoppers!

Pez…One of my best six steppers.

She may be small, but Tyler’s got some killer moves and a one of kind attitude.

Daniel and Kenny.

Onward to a new session!

Now here’s a peculiar sight. My good friend Katie J. has helped me get into Talent Group, launch my acting career, and hooked me up with an internship here at French Woods. We’ve known each other for over 5 years now and we never really hung out except for once when we went to see a play in Pittsburgh.

And here we are tonight drinking Jack and Coke at the bar together in NY.

Me and Kate again…and Aidan somehow seems to “magically” pop into all of my photos. Props to Aidan, master magician (and champion of South Africa).

Kate came to visit and drop off her little sister Julie today. It’s strange…someone you barely know comes to visit. That person’s made such an impact on my life. And yet I barely know her. There we were talking face to face again and it’s still a mystery how we became acquainted in the first place.

Yeah that’s who you feel like don’t you?

I say it a thousand times. I wish I were a kid here. They have so much freakin fun. Today began the start of a bajillion shows and visiting weekend. And tonight we kicked it off with the circus show. Needless to say, the performance was brilliant.

We had people on the trapeze, ropes, unicycles, jugglers, you name it. And Adam would have loved this: they had a fire staff performance too.

Sheesh. Sometimes I keep forgetting that a world outside of FWF exists.

Jenny emailed me last night about how my coming to Vegas was getting more and more questionable. I talked about it. And that maybe we could split it or something. In her email she mentioned how money would just magically appear so we could pay for this all.

So earlier today I get a piece of mail from financial aid. As most know, I’m coming here for an internship. And it SUCKS how I have to PAY to work here. But with scholarships and all, it had been covered. One of the grants I applied for, however, didn’t decide their recipients until late in the summer. I opened the letter and it said I was receiving a $600 grant to come here.

…so guess who’s going to Vegas? Yeah, baby

Here I come, Jenny!

What a lousy day. It was really cold and humid and sticky. It rained half the time. And it just made an already bad day more miserable.

I spoke with Jenny and I guess things aren’t looking so good for me going to Vegas to see her. You wake up every morning knowing you have something to look forward to. But now that I know it’s not going to happen, it’s made my days a lot more dreary. And it really really hurts because I thought for sure this thing was going to happen. And that it was going to be a good experience for me, finally. But like always, things never work out for me and I just get my feelings hurt. It’s so very frustrating. I just want to do things right for once, but it’s so freaking hard.

Everyone’s wondering what the heck’s been wrong with me today, but how the heck can I explain? They don’t know anything about me except what they see here at French Woods. The constant looming fact that NOTHING is going to last me is driving me nuts. I’m losing everything in the next few months and I seriously don’t know how to handle it. I know who I am. What my strengths are…my talents. Coming here has made me realize all that. But the people I share all ‘that’ with are slowly slipping through my fingers and I’m going frantic trying to find something to hold on to. I thought it was going to be Jenny. But…argh…I just want to give up sometimes. Today would be a good day to run away.

I think there are still Philippine islands still for sale on Ebay. There are thousands of them after all. There’s a good place to run to.

…

…I feel like crying.

It’s ridiculous how time flies here. Sometimes I don’t even know what day of the week it is. I’ve just been so busy that by the time I actually get a moment to myself, I don’t want to write anything. So what’s been happening as of late?

The choreography for my advanced hip hop class is just about finished. When I get some time I’ll try to capture a video clip of the dance to post on here in the files section. Peanut has pretty much given me entire control of the class now. I just needed to figure out how to structure things and I’ve got it down pat. I love how attentive my students are…they’re so eager to learn.

If you haven’t noticed already, I’ve been downplaying the courses I teach in the computer department. They’ve been going fine as well, and the students in that class learn so freakin fast. But practically EVERY SINGLE project of theirs involves someone getting killed. It’s appalling to see how violent these kids are at such a young age. But as long as they keep it in their Flash projects, right? Riiiight…

I FINALLY got a chance to talk to Jenny on the phone the other day. I found out the number to the payphone here and all she does is call up the number so I don’t have to spend a fortune on calling cards. It was so great to talk to her again and finally hear her voice. Sometimes you take things for granted like talking to someone special on the phone until late night. Then you come to a place like this, and you miss it so much more.

Today was also my day off. I didn’t think I was gonna get a chance to go anywhere because all the vehicles were taken. Pissed me off SO BAD. Tammy, the South African girl, came out of the blue today and asked me if I wanted to go to the mall with her. So I did and Marcus drove us, so I had a chance to get out after all. Thing is…Tammy was really coming on to me all day. Which I didn’t really expect at all. She asked for a massage during the ride back home and that sort of threw me off, and she cuddled with me afterward. No way in hell I’m going to get into anything serious this summer though. Especially with someone who’s not even from this country. And ESPECIALLY not when I’ve just recently been heartbroken by Tre. And ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY when I know there’s someone else out there worth waiting for.