Friday, August 6, 2010

DANCE CAMP!!!!!!

Umm, yeah. So I'm trying to play catch-up, if you hadn't noticed. And three days after Vacation Bible School ended, the epicness that was dance camp, erm, excuse me, worship arts camp, began.
First day. Got up at five in the morning, rode with Grandma to Aunt Ruth's house. Aunt Ruth heads up the whole thing.
Okay, forget the play-by-play. In the words of the fabulous Inigo Montoya, "You killed my father, pre-" wait, wrong quote. Hang on, "Let me 'splain. No, would take too long. Let me sum up."
I listed two worries that I had going into dance camp several posts ago. The were A) running into people I used to know, and B) (hahaha B) looks like a funny little face.) my own lack of ability. A caused no problems at all, besides Joy, Aunt Ruth, and my two little cousins, I didn't know anyone from that famous patriarch of patriarchs, Adam. Can you tell I'm feeling ADD today?
But anyway, B. I had four classes. My dance skill level caused problems in one, a very, shall we say, vigorous? dance class. But, it only meant I had to work that much harder to get the dance, which I didn't really have a problem with. It was fun. The other dance class was really fun. Took me outside of my comfort zone, but it was fun. One of the two pieces we worked on over the week was a hip-hop dance, to the song Shackles, by Mary Mary. Ella. Does. Not. Hip hop. Me and Joy both almost decided not to do it, because we were scared. But we stuck with it, and we managed. We did something hard. Go us.
We had a Bible study, oddly enough lead by a friend of my mom's from growing up. It was marvelous. Slightly creepy, but marvelous. See, one of my reasons, okay, my only reason, for doing dance camp this year was the fact that I felt ill-equipped to be in the position I am at church, and hoped that it might, in some way, help. I'm young. I'm so young. And I had this mindset that that meant I couldn't do it. And I get there, and what is the Bible study focusing on all week, but young heroes (and heroines!) in the Bible who did amazing things. David. Samuel. Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel. Esther. It was incredible.
On the wall in the Bible classroom was a large sheet of butcher paper, which read "God, let us be..." . And every day, after we'd done the Bible study, the teacher handed out little squares of cardstock, on which we were to write one word. Faithful, passionate, and honest were most of mine. Can't remember the third to save me. How cool is God?
But the class I had the hardest time with was my first class of the day. The one I volunteered in. Drama. Now, see, I didn't know I was lacking in ability when it comes to drama. I've always been capable enough for whatever was needed of me. And I've done plenty of it, in my day. Had the lead part in my fair share of Christmas plays. My mom's a drama freak, of course some of it rubbed off on me.
But apparently not. Because, even though this class was geared toward sixth graders, my Juliet was lacking in emotion, my senile old lady made no sense, and I couldn't get loud enough to save my life. I was feeling pretty down on myself until the last day. I'm not usually the kind of person who needs afirmation, but this teacher had managed to take me down a few notches in the self-confidence arena. But then, the last day, I was given an improv character I could actually do something with (an overprotective mother in a screaming match with her seventeen-year-old daughter, who was headed down a bad road), and an opportunity to show off my valley girl accent. Both of which merited "Very good, Ella!" from the teacher. Lol.
The week, as a whole, was an absolute success. Met some people I'll never forget, learned a ton, got a crash course in worship, found some support for the whole thing at church, and met Joan Wilson. Ate lunch in a lunch room, became a pro at packing lunches, making pajamas look cute, and arching my back in ways probably not humanly possible. It was an awesome week. Can't wait 'til next year!!!

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