Helio is no Apolo

I ended up not writing much about Dancing With the Stars because is was not as exciting as I thought it would be. However. There are things that need to be said.

I am so disappointed in you, America! Mel is better than Helio. Maybe his freestyle was better, but not by much! Definitely not enough to make up for all the weak dances he had throughout the season. And his jive last night was not good!

Now for the judges. Mel’s last dance was fantastic—every step looked perfect. Helio? I saw him run into Julianne at least once. He has little/no control over his movements! There was no reason to give him a perfect score, other than to punch up the excitement. Oops? That backfired!

They won on Julianne’s momentum from the last season. You could see that even she was shocked when they said who won. America’s unwillingness to vote for women is another issue entirely. I guess the audience is female and they like to vote for boys they have crushes on when it comes to the end. Well. My suggestions for next season’s male contestants are Louie Anderson, Rush Limbaugh, Meatloaf, and the ghost of Chris Farley. Then maybe a woman will win. But probably not. Chris Farley’s ghost will take all in a blaze of ballroom glory. Because he was funny in life.

I am definitely buying Spice Girls tickets now. That may seem like a non-sequitur, but I promise it’s not.

Now I need to find a new show to watch while I’m on the treadmill.

Beggars Can’t Be Choosers (I Don’t Have Anything Nice To Say, but I’m Going To Say it Anyway)

I used to have an awesome yoga teacher. I loooooved his classes. I was never tempted to skip. In my new town I can’t go to yoga because of schedule conflicts. So I don’t know if the classes here are inferior, but I’m willing to bet that they are.
The next best alternative is Power Flow. What’s that, you ask? It’s “a blend of pilates and yoga moves,” or as I like to call it, “fifteen minutes of yoga and forty-five minutes of masochism.” j/k. It’s okay once you get used to it. But I do really miss yoga class. The Power Flow instructors talk like this: “Reaching to the floor, sweeping your arms up. Breathing in and out through your nose. Stepping out and to the left for Warrior Two. Lunging deeper.” Nothing but descriptive clauses. Don’t describe us! Instruct us! Gah.
And they don’t make it any easier with the music they play. A few weeks ago this came on and I thought I was being Punk’d:

Then tonight this came on:

What? There was also a Jack Johnson song about making banana pancakes and some rockin’ tunes by Incubus. I love that at the beginning of class we’re told “not to think of anything for the next hour.” And then they play the song from this clip (during “relaxation time,” no less):

Sorry, but I will never be able to hear that song again without having a laugh. Mr. Stokes!
And here’s a little anecdote for ya: The subject lines of my e-mails are shortened by Outlook. So today I got an e-mail from the department secretary. It said “Holiday Pa.” Holiday Party! Holiday Party! Something work-related, yet fun! I opened the e-mail. It was about Holiday Payroll.

I Like Literary Fiction and Planning

Sometimes you have a shit day in the middle of a shit week. But then someone comes around and gives you a little something to put the shit in perspective. Today that person was my boss, who e-mailed me to ask if I'd like to teach a fiction writing class next semester. Would I? Yes!

What will we read? How many stories will they write?

Planning is my favorite part of teaching. Yup, the part before I meet the actual students and start interacting with them.

Childhood Hero Alert

I went to see Tori Amos last week. It was awesome and I figured that once I got myself together that could be my next blog post. But I was wrong! Because last night I saw Lisa Ling and it was one of the best days I could have living in a new town with no friends. I was excited when I heard she was coming, but I did not expect myself to cry when she walked onto the stage.

Are you familiar with Lisa Ling? She started out as a reporter for Channel 1, a news network that we watched every day during high school (Anderson Cooper was also on Channel 1 at the time). I loved her. She was brave and adventurous and traveled the world (often to war zones) and she was not even twenty years old. If I had not been so lame I would have sent them an audition tape. I wanted to be like her.

Eventually she left Channel 1 and got a job on The View. I liked her on that show but I thought it was a huge waste of talent. During her speech last night she explained why she took that job: She was used to covering huge stories, and if she went to a network news program, she would have been fighting to cover insignificant stories she didn't care about. She said she still misses the open forum of The View, but she was very happy when she left to be the host of National Geographic Explorer. Now she also works for Oprah. She's done stories on Columbia's civil war, systematic rape in the Congo, Indian prisons where mothers are incarcerated with their children, and adoption in China. She showed a longer clip from the adoption piece and I cried again.

She's a fascinating person, mainly because she's found ways to have a significant, meaningful career in journalism without ever working for a major news network. The stories she does are so important (more important than OJ or the paternity of Anna Nicole's baby), but they would never get covered, especially at length, in the mainstream news. She encouraged the crowd to write to the networks and ask for more serious journalism, and to take time out from pop culture media. She mentioned that if Americans had a chance to know and care about what's going on elsewhere in the world, they would. I think she just needs to have her own network. There are not enough people watching Oprah or National Georgraphic.


I also freaked out because I just got my first camera phone so I was able to take crappy pictures for posterity.

And here are some news stories about her lecture:
http://media.www.bsudailynews.com/media/storage/paper849/news/2007/11/09/News/Lisa-Ling.Discusses.Global.Issues-3090729.shtml
http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007711090343