I started dancing West Coast Swing about a year ago. I've loved learning this dance, and meeting numerous people as a result. West Coast is what's known as a "connection dance," meaning the leader (aka the dude) communicates to his partner through their physical touch where he wants her to go. As he steers her across the floor, it's the lady's job to not only respond effectively to his subtle signals, but also to add style and flair of her own to the dance. When a truly talented couple gets together on the dance floor, the results can be both hilariously playful and jaw-droppingly impressive. You can tell within about ten seconds of dancing with someone whether the two of you have chemistry or not. When you don't mesh, it can result in the longest two minutes of your life. When the two of you click, sparks can definitely fly.

This clip was recorded at MADjam 2013, a local West Coast competition which attracts all the A-listers and champions of the West Coast Swing community. For those of you who aren't familiar with "Jack and Jill" competitions, it's a style of dance competition where men and women are randomly paired together, and then given a song also selected at random. Contestants are scored based on several categories, including technical accuracy, use of the space, chemistry, and an intangible category called "musicality," or the dancers' ability to respond to cues in the music such as pauses, speeding up, and other little clues from one another to give a playfulness to the dance. It is improv at its most artistic.

With the uprooting of my life which took place in the spring of last year when I moved away from Georgia to live here in the D.C. area, I lost touch with the amazingly friendly and tightly-knit community I belonged to down South. There is a huge West Coast community here in D.C. as well, and I've been able to attend several classes and social events. Shortly after I arrived in D.C., I was fortunate enough to take a series of classes with Lemery, the woman in the video. While I'm by no means up to the level of these two, I certainly aspire to it, and Lemery was incredibly helpful in advancing my skills. With my current class schedule and other extracurriculars being what they are though, I definitely haven't gotten as much practice as I'd like.

In any case, I highly recommend you take up social dancing of some kind. Not only will you meet many friendly and interesting people, you'll also develop the skills and confidence to handle yourself impressively at weddings and any other social event where dancing is done.

For more clips on West Coast, try these:
Playful
Slow and Smooth
Great Chemistry and Musicality

I sang in a chamber choir in high school. Before my senior year, I had always enjoyed singing, but never had the confidence to do it in front of anyone else. As I got more involved in the theatre department, some friends pushed me to also look into joining the school vocal ensemble. This turned out to be one of the best decisions of my high school life. Not only did I develop my singing skills and the confidence to use them, I also met some amazing people and traveled to incredible places with our tour group (we went to Spain and Portugal during spring break).

When I first noticed Pentatonix, I was downright floored by the beauty of their harmonies. Coupled with their catchy song choices and their knack for showmanship, it was an inevitable recipe for success.

The song below was originally performed by Imagine Dragons, and it's completely awesome in its own right. Seeing how these guys remade it though definitely did good things for my ear-feels.

Neil Gaiman sums it up better than I ever could have. Like I said on the home page, real writers and artists don't create because they like to, we do it because we have to.

If you haven't already, read Part One first.

Eli hurried after her into the parking lot, “Caroline, wait!” he said breathlessly, “What’s wrong?”

She wheeled around, staring dangerously at him, “You were with her again this afternoon.” She said with certainty.

“Who told you that?”

“What difference does that make?” She demanded. “We agreed. No more seeing ‘friends’ without letting each other know. Especially her.”

Eli stood on the front patio of the restaurant, staring confoundedly at Caroline’s retreating back as she stalked disgustedly away towards the parking lot. He had saved for two whole months to set aside enough money to pay for tonight’s dinner reservation. His planning had been meticulous to the point of obsession; everything had to be perfect. He had left nothing to chance, double-checked the reservation daily, had even paid extra to ensure the table was stocked with flowers. Alas, the waterfront table on the verandah would obviously not be seating any guests tonight. What had he done to set her off so badly? He wondered in silent amazement.

“Excuse me sir,” the maitre d’ tapped him tentatively on the shoulder. Eli turned to see him waiting with an apologetic look on his face; obviously he had witnessed the humiliating spectacle from the foyer. “I’m very sorry, sir, but if you don’t claim your reservation in the next five minutes, we’ll have to give up your table to another party, we’re over-booked tonight.”