Driven

I went to San Francisco today for a class. Got to see some S.I. kids and Funksters for the last time: Isaiah, Crystal, Masato, Jesyca, Tin, Jacqueline.

I was feeling pretty emotional, even if it wasn’t obvious. Then I found out that Tin went to class today just to say bye to me, and so did Isaiah. So that’s just like—I dunno—this makes me feel even more affected, touched, whatever.

Okay, with all attempts at trying to sound masculine and tough aside, I will say that today meant a lot and I will indeed miss the fuck out of all who I met this summer.

I’ll be back for classes in December.



I’m really excited for the school year, and I’m as equally nervous, mainly because auditions are going to come up fast and I question whether or not I’m ready. Frankly, I know I’m not, and whether or not I can kill it at auditions is dependent on luck. I’ve already accepted that I still need a year to train before I can get into a team.

After class, the executive artistic director of Funkanometry, Emerson, was giving some hugs to people as they left. Honestly, he scares me a little, and I was a little surprised when he prompted me to give him a hug too. (Of course it wasn’t like a full out warm hug.) He then said, “You’re going to Irvine, right?” That surprised me even more because I didn’t think he knew me as anyone except the guy who really butchered his piece (Obsessed) at the Summer Intensive showcase, and I was sure he still didn’t know my name.

I said yeah, and then he asked me what teams I was trying out for. I told him, “Everything,” to which he told me quite bluntly, “You still need a lot of practice.” I felt like it was 50% advice, and 50% a sneaky way of telling me that I sucked.

Still, it was a little motivating. When I come back in December, I’ll prove myself (hopefully), and if not, I’ll at least show some tremendous improvement.

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“A Return to Normalcy”
Written June 13th, 2009 (Excerpted)
Later that night, after a Mike Song dance class, I had one last Pho run with my Kevin, Alfonso, and non-black John...After dinner, I drove us all back to UCI. As I was dropping off Alfonso, he gave me a corny but unusually empowering speech. Take a picture of this moment, here I am a noob, but compare, by the end of the summer, I’ll be a dope dancer. It went something like that. I’m really excited for this summer.
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K, so I’m not a dope dancer yet. Give me the fall, at least.

Alfonso actually texted me about a week ago about the Mainstacks audition video, and he told me that I “improved exponentially.” That was actually validating. Getting casted into Fire was validating until I de-validated it, but I haven’t found a way to do the same to Alfonso’s comment. It really meant a lot, especially since Alfonso knew me when I first started choreo.

People in the dance community are just all around amazing in general, and I can’t wait to be reunited in SoCal.