Venice Beach is the Strangest Place…Ever

We spent this morning/afternoon at Venice Beach. The beach itself is really nice – the water is pretty blue and the sand is actually not that coarse. The boardwalk is really a strange place though. The stores all sell medicinal marijuana and all sorts of other drugs and openly advertise it in their store fronts. Maybe I’m just not used to this type of culture.

There are all sorts of street performers and kiosks on the other side of the boardwalk. There are also a ton of people trying to get you to buy their homemade CDs hoping to catch a record deal. The vendors are really forward with you. I guess anything for a dollar.

Got some nice sun time and fell asleep on the beach for a bit. We left around 3:30 so that we could head to IDA tonight for some classes.

IDA has the nicest facilities I’ve seen in LA so far. The studio’s only a couple years old but it’s clean, well air conditioned, in a nice neighbourhood (in the Hollywood Highlands area!), and the classes aren’t too crowded. I took a pretty good old school hip hop class from 7-8, a waacking class from 8-9, and a ‘performance styles’ class from 9-10. The hip hop class was so much fun. It’s really a different style that I’m not used to. Waacking was ridiculous. The class was really full but it was really fun to try something new. Megan was so fantastic that the teacher ended up asking her to perform with her group this Friday and when they open for Flo-Rida. Since we’re on a set schedule she can’t but it was still really amazing. Performance styles ended up being kind of a girly R&B hip hop but it was a really small class so there was a lot of room to move which was really nice.

One class at Edge tomorrow and then off to the America’s Got Talent taping and then to The Grove for dinner! It should be good.

Disneyland is…Magic

Spent the morning rehearsing for Jordan Setacci’s new music video. It’s so much fun and there’s so much good choreography. We’re really going to have a blast shooting it.

Took a quick hour break for lunch and showers before heading off to Disneyland! Once again, LA traffic never ceases to amaze. We were at Disneyland just before 3.

Surprisingly, the lineups weren’t that long for a Summer Sunday. We caught quite a few good rides and managed to catch their afternoon Celebrate parade, their evening fireworks, and Fantasmic. There’s something about Disney that makes you feel like a little kid, regardless of how old you are. I really need to go back for a full week and just explore the park again…it’s got such a fantastic feel to it.

We just got back to the hotel at 2AM…and I am exhausted. Heading out early tomorrow morning for Venice Beach for some sun, shopping, and food, and then classes at IDA in the evening! Should hopefully be relaxing…

Edge Smells Like Stinky Feet

We got up this morning at 10 to grab some food before we headed to Edge Performing Arts Centre. We wandered across the street to Ralph’s to grab an early lunch. We got fantastic California turkey club sandwiches – turkey, lettuce, bacon, avocado, mayo, and honey mustard sauce on a ciabatta bun. They were way bigger than they looked – I ate half and was full enough to tackle my next 2 classes of the tour – hip hop and jazz.

Edge is on the 4th floor of the Television Centre building. You literally take an elevator up to the 4th floor and you’re in the studio. It smells like feet. I was standing in the main area waiting for class to start….and I got an overpowering smell of feet. I looked behind me and a girl had just taken off her runners and socks. So gross. Then I went into the studio…air conditioning only works so far. The studio was like feet in a sauna.

Megan & I were planning on taking hip hop and contemporary jazz…only to find out they had been canceled. We ended up taking a really hard jazz class with Malaya at 1. The warmup alone was hard enough to follow! We were taught probably a 30-45 second routine within 5 minutes and had to know it from there. I just made up a bunch of feet and pretended to kick my leg when I thought I was supposed to.

After jazz we took salsa with Desi Jevon. I haven’t been to salsa for probably over a year now. I really miss it. It was a really good class, and since I already have the basics, I actually got through the class and did a fairly decent job. I need to stop leading though. I guess it’s an instinct when you’re not a ballroom dancer.

Tonight we went to LA Live to wander around and to get dinner at Boca Restaurant at the Conga Room. We got really lucky since originally we were told that they wouldn’t take reservations. How do you get a group of 15 into a restaurant on a Saturday night with no reservations? We got there and they told us they would get us a table in 15 minutes. We ended up getting a private room in the club. The club is a salsa club owned by several celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, will.i.am, and my personal favourite, Jimmy Smits. MIGUEL PRADO ALL THE WAY.

Since The Conga Room is a club, anyone under 21 wasn’t allowed to go in. It was too bad since they were giving free salsa lessons and we had just taken our salsa class this morning. We were in for a surprise when the owner told us that we were allowed to join in for the lessons. It was super nice in there and just a lot of fun.

Dinner was really expensive but it was pretty good. Megan and I ended up splitting an entree of rice, prawns, and vegetables so it wasn’t too bad. After we finished, we were hanging out in the room adjacent to ours. I guess they use it for private parties. It had a great view of the Staples Centre and downtown LA. A DJ came in and started playing music for us so we really had our own private party.

Afterwards we wandered in downtown LA. It’s really not that busy there. Apparently it’s not really considered a place to ‘hang out’ since it’s more of a business district, but LA Live was built to try to bring more people into downtown. It reminds me a little of old Vegas – tons of buildings with lots of walking space in between and lots of bright lights.

LA traffic never stops. Ever. We headed out from LA Live around 11PM…and traffic was still terrible. We ran to the grocery store after we got home to grab some breakfast food since we have music video rehearsals tomorrow at 10. We grabbed some snack and lunch food too, since once we’re done that, we’re heading straight out to Disneyland! Good times…

Welcome to LA!

It’s so good to be here! I arrived at LAX around 11:30…no one told me the airport was massive and terribly labeled. I got so lost trying to find baggage claim…since the signs are only on one side of the signs – the side of the signs you see when you go the right way. You have to go down, and down, and down, and turn…and then you find baggage claim. I found my bag and was off to find the Tom Bradley terminal to get picked up.

Pick up was supposed to be at 1:30, but 6 of the 9 of us getting picked up were running behind, so we didn’t end up calling the shuttle until 2. The tour director, Menina, was told it would take 5 minutes to get a shuttle once she called it. It took closer to 30 minutes. We finally battled rush hour LA traffic (5 lane highway…bumper to bumper…absolutely NO movement) and got to the hotel by 4:30. We quickly set off to unpack and to get ready for orientation.

The week is so packed. We’re going to LA Live, Venice Beach, a live taping of America’s Got Talent, and Disneyland, on top of all of our classes and music video rehearsals. The group here is so amazing. Everyone is so fantastic and everyone gets along really well.

After orientation, we ended up going grocery shopping across the street at a Ralph’s. We don’t have a kitchen but we do have a microwave…time to get inventive with our meals. We bought salads from Ralph’s for dinner before heading off to Debbie Reynolds’ studio for ‘contemporary hip hop’ (which just turned out to be…hip hop) with Rob Rich.

Surprisingly I didn’t get my butt kicked as hard as I thought I would. Fantastic class with a fantastic atmosphere. The studio is so different from anything I’ve ever seen before (it almost looks like an office with hallways and doors…but the doors lead to studios). It’s really a unique look.

I also learned that Hollywood isn’t as glamorous as I thought it would be. Apparently Hollywood’s pretty sketch…and North Hollywood is for the people who can’t afford Hollywood. Most dancers…including the really successful choreographers, live in North Hollywood. Therefore, most of the dance studios are in North Hollywood. It kind of feels like the Surrey of Vancouver.

This is ridiculously incoherent…I can’t even think anymore. We’re heading out for a couple classes at The Edge tomorrow and then out to LA Live for some sightseeing and dinner! Should be some fun.

So far…I love LA.

Packing Woes

I am terrible at packing. It doesn’t matter how long I’m going for – I always over pack like nobody else ever could. I’m always so paranoid that I might need something that I just pack it all. Last night was terrible.

I got off work really late last night…probably around 7PM. This really wouldn’t be such a big deal since it was my last day of work until August, but I hadn’t packed anything yet. It wasn’t too bad though, since I pretty much knew what I would need – dance clothes. Other than that, I just needed some outfits but most of the packing list was already sent to us. Easy, right?

Of course not.

Long story short, it took me until 1:30AM to finish packing. Of course, my mom came up around 11PM and took one look at my suitcase and took it all apart to help me repack. Apparently, you should roll your clothes since it saves more space. Also, large containers of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and body cream are really unnecessary.

With that all out of the way, she took apart all of the clothing in my luggage.

Apparently for 2 weeks, I didn’t need 3 pairs of sweatpants, 4 pairs of dance shorts, 6 pairs of regular shorts, 3 bathing suits, 19.5 pairs of socks, and the biggest slew of underwear imaginable.

…And apparently I also didn’t need 13 pairs of shoes.

But we got it all packed at 47.5 pounds! I just finished checking in all my luggage and scanned all my bags and did all that good stuff, so now it’s just the waiting game.

Speaking of which…it’s been a long time since I’ve flown to the States (maybe 8-10 years?). The last time I flew through the States was when I was going to Mexico last August, and I remember how shocked I was with their security precautions. It seems like for the international departures, there’s the US scanning, and then there’s the everybody else scanning. I think they’ve upped scanning even more this year than when I came through last year.

When they scan your carry on bags, it seems like everyone flying through/into the States is now on a 100% extra search list or something. You have to go through the extra pat downs or through their new scanner. Then they swab all of your stuff for drugs and explosives. They make you open your computers so they can swab those down. They scanned my bag/laptop twice for some reason…not entirely sure why, since all I have in there is paper, pens, my laptop, my DS, my camera, and my chargers.

I surprisingly enough made it all the way through this time with no hassles along the way. I think I’m paranoid of airports since I went to Quebec in Grade 11 and accidentally packed scissors in my carry on when I was coming home and then nearly missed my flight.

Anyways, I guess I’ll be in LA in 4.5 hours!!! I guess that makes this my last Vancouver post for the next 15 days :). Life is going be fantastic…expect frequent posts.

Micabella Review

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. When I went to the States about 3 months ago, I got suckered into trying some new make up by Micabella from a kiosk in one of the malls. At first glance, they seem to be an ordinary make up and skin care company – they sell your usual lip glosses, pressed powders, face washes, toners, and moisturizers. However, if you let the sales people suck you into their spiel, you get to see the magic of their products.

Foundation

Prior to finding Micabella products, I used a slew of different brands. For foundation, I initially started with liquid Covergirl. I could never get the stuff even, hard as I tried, and it felt cakey. Once I started dancing more competitively and would therefore be wearing full stage make up more often, I switched to MAC’s stick foundations. I never entirely understood how to put a little on my face and blend it – it seemed like whatever the stick wiped on my face would just stay in that one little spot and wouldn’t spread out. Needless to say, I ran through that foundation really quickly. The big problem with that was that MAC is quite expensive. I then moved to Aveda’s line. Overall, this was my favourite liquid foundation, but liquid foundation still takes a lot of time to properly apply.

The major problem I had with all of my foundations were they would only match my skin in the winter. I tan fairly easily, so once the sun starts coming out in the Spring, my foundation stops matching my skin. Good foundation is expensive, and I really couldn’t justify buying 3 or 4 different foundations to match my skin tone from Winter to Summer. Even if I did buy different tones of foundation, I found that all of these wrecked my skin – they were all major pore cloggers.

This is Micabella’s Mineral Foundation Powder, by far the best foundation I have ever used (and ever heard of on the market). It can be used as your concealer by using a concealer brush and your foundation by using a large brush, so there’s never a problem with matching your colours. The foundation is made of very few ingredients – the main one being mica. Most make up contains mica, which is a shimmering mineral. Crushed mica is usually used in mineral make up, since it helps mask the imperfections of the skin. The difference between Micabella make up and other mineral make up is the amount of mica they use in their product. Micabella’s make up is mostly made of mica, whereas other mineral make up usually mixes the mica with other powdered substances, which means they don’t cover your skin as well. They also contain iron oxides, which are supposed to help the foundation ‘change colours’ with your skin as you tan, so you only need one colour foundation year-round. It also has a bit of a natural sunscreen in it due to the ingredients – definitely not enough for the Summer, but maybe enough if you’re not going out a lot in the Winter.

I’m going to have to take their word for it when they say that the make up has a natural sunscreen – I’m not entirely sure how you would test this. Since I started using this make up back in April, I haven’t tanned much, so I’m not sure how the foundation will change tones with my skin – I should be able to figure that out by the time I’m in LA. I do know that the foundation works fantastically as a concealer and a foundation. You really only use a small amount of it each day (a quick dusting with a big brush is all you need). For concealer, it takes the redness and blotchiness out of your skin really well. It leaves you with a natural, matte finish. When I bought my foundation, they told me that it would last a year if I used it every day. I’ve used it for 3 months now and I don’t think I’ve even made a dent in the container. The foundation lasts on your face all day – I put mine on at about 6:30-7:00AM before I leave for work, sometimes go to dance straight after work, and take it off around 9:00-10:00PM. After 14 hours, I can still see the tan coloured make up coming off when I use my make up remover. And unlike liquid foundations, this stuff stays on your skin (and doesn’t get all over your clothes). You can wipe your face on a white shirt and the make up won’t transfer. You can wipe your face on a wet towel and the make up won’t transfer.

Price wise, I think I bought mine in the states for $65. If you go to the Bay downtown (the one by the Granville Skytrain station), they sell it at their make up counter there for $55. Compared to other foundations, I don’t think they’re that much more expensive. Of course, they are much pricier than some drug store brands, but it depends on the quality of make up you like to have. This stuff doesn’t clog your pores (even if you wear it all night) since it’s all natural. They have several different colours that I swear match all different types of skin tones. The nice thing is that since it’s all powder, if you really can’t find a colour to match, it’s easy enough to mix 2 powders together to get a nice blend. They also sell some nice blushes and bronzers in the same format.

Everything Else

Then there’s all the other make up I bought throughout the years. Lipsticks, eye shadows, eye liners, mascaras…you name it. Most make up should be disposed of within 6 months to a year of opening. I know I don’t always throw mine out, and most of the time that’s because I’ve barely used it and it seems like such a waste to throw out something practically new. Another problem is that I always wanted new colours of everything – I would end up with all of my products in several colours, most of the colours never being worn more than 3-4 times (unless it was a basic black). However, the biggest peeve I had was with my eye shadows. I would buy bright colours from all different brands. When I would go to use them, I would find that the colours wouldn’t look the same on my skin as they did in the palette and they just weren’t as vibrant. Major irritant.

This seems like a strange way to write a review – talk about one product in detail and then talk about everything else in one big summary. Although Micabella does sell some lip glosses and eye liners, the majority of their products (eye liners, eye shadows, lip stick, hair streakers, mascaras, and nail polishes) are all one product.

As an eye shadow, this product works as any other powder eye shadow would – use an eye shadow brush and brush it over your lids. The nice thing about the eye shadows is the colour that you see in the bottle is the colour that will show up on your skin. These shadows are only made of titanium dioxide, which is what gives make up its pigments. Since it is only made of titanium dioxide, these little jars are full of colour.

One problem with eye shadows and eye liners is getting them to match. With these eye shadows, if you use a wet brush, it creates a cream product instead of a powder product, which intensifies the colour. Since the wet colour is just an intensified version of the dry colour, the colours always match. Using a wet angled flat brush, this product can easily be applied as an eye liner.

This product can also be used to streak your hair or as a lip gloss, a mascara, or a nail polish, none of which I’ve tried yet. Using the product as a lip gloss, a mascara, or a nail polish all works the same way. Use a clear lip gloss, mascara, or nail polish and dip it into the eye shadow. I would highly recommend pouring some of the powder in a separate dish if you are going to do this to avoid contamination and ruining your product. Once the applicator is well coated, apply it to your lips, lashes, or nails. From what I’ve seen, this product looks good as any of these.

I find their eye shadows to be quite inexpensive. I bought mine in the States for $10 (they actually go for $15 but I got a deal with my foundation). On their website, they sell for $15. I’m not sure how much they sell for here, but I wouldn’t expect the price to be much different. Overall, I think the price is already decent for an eye shadow, but the fact that it can be used for so many different purposes allows you to save money on other products.

Micabella is a great make up company with some really innovative products. If you’re in need of new make up, I would definitely give them a try.

http://www.micabella.com

Sometimes life hates you…and it’s amusing

I love the summer. I love the long days, the warm nights, the brightness of the sun. I love the smell of summer…minus the smell of stewing garbage and manure. Summer can pretty much do no wrong in my eyes. So summer, why did you spite me on your first wonderfully warm and sunny day of the year?

A couple of days ago, I headed out from work to go downtown to take hip hop and jazz classes. It was the perfect combination – it wasn’t too hot and it wouldn’t be dark by the time I left class. Since I go from work, I tend to drive my car from work to a nearby Skytrain station and then hop the Skytrain downtown. I have to leave about an hour before my class starts to get down in time.

The morning before, I scoped out parking spots. The problem with Skytrain stations are that there are no parking areas nearby (unless they’re park and rides). I saw that although the houses don’t want you parking in front of them, public establishments usually have a 2 hour parking limit from 9-6. Since I don’t get there until around 4:30, I figured this would be the best way to go.

I was feeling pretty good about myself when I parked and got out of my car to head to the Skytrain, when an ominous sign stared down at me. Temporary no parking from 9-6 because of construction. I looked up and down the street. Maybe the crews were invisible? Either way, I couldn’t park there if I wanted my car to be there when I got back. Frustrated, I got back in my car to look for another spot.

By now, I was running short on time. I had to find a spot close to the station that wasn’t by a house or in a mall parking lot. Remembering that I’d seen a tiny church on the other side of the street, I wasted no time turning the car around (although around an intersection of two main streets, you waste a lot of time) and off I was to find the golden parking spot.

After I parked and checked for leering signs, I hopped out of my car and rushed to the station. I knew I would have to rush if I wanted to make it. Only one problem.

A week before this, I went to the same combination of classes and felt so sick within the first 30 minutes. I was dripping with sweat, my heart rate wouldn’t come down, my face was burning red, and I felt like I was going to faint. After talking to my mom, we chalked it up to me not drinking enough during the day and probably overheating due to dehydration. So what did I do before heading out to this class?

I drank close to 700mL of water in an hour and a half. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I even peed before I left work.

No matter, I needed to get downtown before class started. No time to pop into a washroom to relieve myself. It would only take me 15 minutes to get downtown and another 5 to walk to the studio. I’m a big girl. I can hold it.

Feeling pretty triumphant for being able to get to class on time, I rushed down the stairs and towards the trains. But there was a man in a green jacket standing in the middle of the entrance! What could he want?

Proof of payment.

Okay, fine. You’re just another obstacle trying to keep me from dance class. I’ll show you my U-Pass and then you’re going to have to let me go. You’re not stopping me.

Except he was. I opened my backpack to find my wallet. Where was it? I literally unpacked my entire backpack on the station floor. No wallet. Then I remembered I went shopping on Sunday and never put it back in my backpack.

No proof of payment means no Skytrain. No Skytrain means no dance class.

By now I was super angry with life. I stormed out of the station and back to my car a half a block away. In my stupor, I forgot one big problem.

That drive home was the longest in history EVER. Lesson learned – keeping hydrated is great. Drinking large amounts of liquids in short periods of time does not equate to keeping hydrated. It equates to great discomfort at the most inopportune times.