Dear Dr. McMains, I recently read your book Glamour Addiction. It took me all of a few paragraphs for my eyebrows to go up, and all of five pages to grab a pencil, defacing the margins with comments like “YAASSS” and “yes this!” Allow me to explain. We have similar back-stories, Dr. McMains. I started [...]
Tag: ballroom dance
Syracuse Ballroom Showcase: Things I Learned
Hello internet--it's been a busy few weeks. I am currently sitting at home in a haze, still riding the high of the show last night. What show, you say? The Syracuse Ballroom Showcase, of course. The path to producing this show has been a long and interesting one, and I thought I would take today [...]
Syracuse Ballroom Showcase
Hi Internet! So by now you all know that I'm a dancer. And a choreographer. And a do-er of things. And in just two weeks one of my largest projects ever is coming to fruition. It is.... the SYRACUSE BALLROOM SHOWCASE! This is going to be a super cool event--the first of it's kind in [...]
On Goals, and Achieving Them
Hey internet--it's been a while. There are lots of things in my life I ought to talk about right now, but I'm going to restrict myself to just a few. I'm sitting on some pretty exciting news, and while in many ways it is still developing, I don't think I can keep my mouth shut [...]
On My Lonesome
Hello internet! Happy Wednesday. So on the heels of my decision I've begun to plan the next 8 months of my life in earnest. And that means I now get to pick apart all the things I'm worried about and need to make, one by one, like quills out of skin. Today's Problem: I don't [...]
SU Ballroom 2016-2017
Hi everyone! I hope you are all having lovely summers. While we are still in the middle of July, I am a habitual plan-aheader. I've been doing a lot of thinking about the shape of this upcoming academic year, and what I want to accomplish with all of you. Here is a fact: This will [...]
Partners in Life and Dance
Happy Tuesday, internet! So a month ago my West Coast Swing friend and All-Star dancer extraordinaire Maria Ford published two blog posts about the interplay of social dancing and romantic relationships. This one, about the pros and cons of beginning dance lessons when already in a committed relationship, and this one, about advice for the [...]
On Endings
Although the weather stubbornly refuses to warm up here in Central NY, so ends another academic year teaching Ballroom at SU. Already the campus is turning into a ghost town--though it will pick back up in a few weeks once summer classes begin. Graduation is this weekend, and the cycle starts anew. This year has [...]
A New Crazy Idea
Six years ago, I told a little white lie. I wanted to make a movie trailer for a book I had written. Just a few problems: I hadn't told anyone save my parents and three trusted confidants that I had written the book in the first place. I needed a cast of dozens, but I didn't [...]
MIT Open 2016
Hello internet! I hope the place from where you are reading this is as blue-skied and sunny as the place from where I am writing this. (Is the above grammatically correct? It seems suspicious to me.) Last weekend I had another one of my weekend ballroom adventures! The SU Ballroom club and I piled into [...]
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