I recently got back from my fifth trip to Ireland (the fourth year in a row I’ve spent part of my summer there). Like last year, I was primarily there to attend the Blas International Summer School of Music and Dance at the Irish World Academy, part of the University of Limerick. Last year was a great experience that really confirmed my interest in choreography. I knew immediately that I wanted to try and come back this year. I’d only…
It’s been a bit over a year since I returned to Irish dance, so I thought I’d talk a little bit about my relationship with it and how that’s changed. Irish dance is, at its core, a competitive art form. It’s a sport. It’s notorious for the pageantry that goes along with these competitions: the bedazzled dresses and curly wigs and far too much makeup. The trophies are large and usually tasteless, and the whole thing is completely bizarre to…
Yesterday I attended my second feis (Irish dance competition) since returning to dance as an adult. After the success of the first one, I was keen to do it again. It was fun! I discovered that I enjoyed performing, and that my anxiety went away as soon as I was actually on stage (even if it was bad beforehand) — and I did pretty well, too, so that was a big morale-booster. Despite impending finals, doing another competition a few…
Job hunting and querying are extremely alike, I’ve found. Cover letters are basically just queries for yourself; an interview is a full or partial request (depending whether it’s the first interview of several or the only one); and those offers of representation / employment seem hard to come by. Also, I’m rapidly losing my nerve with the whole thing, though unlike querying, this is not because I found a plot point that will alter my entire life and therefore need…
The last few days have been a weird mixture of productive successes and deeply frustrating setbacks. And it’s not even like some things have been going universally well and some things haven’t — it’s far more muddled up and mixed than that. Friday got off to a bad start. I cycled to a physio consultation, and when getting off my bike outside, my foot gave way beneath me, turning my ankle over with a worrying snapping sound and spraining it….
I don’t like talking about money, because frankly, it’s awkward. I don’t like trying to monetise my blog, because I feel it gives the wrong impression about why I do this whole social media thing, and it’s not because I think I could make a career from rambling about my gender crises and writing struggles. I’ve already talked about money too much this year what with the whole ‘YouTube de-monetised my account‘ thing, and it feels weird to bring it…
A year ago yesterday, I publicly came out as nonbinary. Now, a year on, I wanted to talk about what it’s been like to live visibly. I have not been unapologetic about my identity, and the extent to which I’ve been ‘out’ varies hugely by context. On the internet, I’m public about it: I list my pronouns in all my social media bios and I don’t shy away from mentioning that I’m nonbinary when it seems relevant. I also sometime…
Deciding to return to Irish dance was a risky proposition, for me. I had no idea how my body would react — whether it would make my chronic pain better or worse, cause injury or allow me to get stronger. But it was also risky on more than a physical level. When I started considering going back to Irish dance, I found myself suddenly full of wildly ambitious plans and dreams, such as I haven’t had for years. My health…
Well, as I mentioned in my last post, this weekend was my first feis (Irish dance competition, pronounced “fesh”, plural is “feiseanna”) in seven years. And to be honest, even that’s a little misleading, as it suggests I was experienced before that — but in fact I only ever did two proper feiseanna, plus a festival and our school’s class feis (a mini competition just between members of the same school). So, I was anxious. Very anxious. My body definitely…
Wow, sorry for abruptly disappearing from the blog for nearly three weeks. I was doing a lot better on the ‘regularly posting’ thing, and then… well, life happened. Firstly, I got the flu, which was miserable. Also, my immune system is completely useless, so it lasted way too long — I spent several days unable to get out of bed, but still had a horrible chesty cough a week and a half later. The fatigue it caused was also pretty…