“Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.” -Samuel Beckett
For a long time, I didn’t have a favorite quotation. Sometime during senior year of high school I had to have one for the yearbook or senior scrapbook or something that would be in print for a long time. I was really into dance at the time, and one of the quotes I connected with was this “dance first, think later, it’s the natural order,” which was promptly posted to my Facebook profile. I still connect with this quotation because of my love for dance – one of my greatest passions.
I was a ballet dropout at age three. I don’t remember why, but my mom tells me I thought it was boring. She’s probably right. I got back to dancing during middle school, taking one or two hip-hop classes a week for an hour at the studio in my hometown. When tryouts for the high school dance team were coming up, I really committed to the sport. I enrolled in several classes and learned the basics of technique, hip-hop, pom motions and kick lines, and I ended up making the JV team for Maple Motion (our high school mascot is a maple leaf). I danced on Varsity after my first year, and the dance team essentially shaped me to be who I am today. I’m passionate about dance, I love being part of a team, and that was my outlet to goof off and be crazy sometimes. It was also the most disciplined sport, and the most physically and mentally/emotionally challenging team I’ve been a part of. My coach taught me personal accountability and that I could rise to challenges along with a laundry list of amazing lessons I learned on the team. My teammates and I formed tight bonds around our growth as individuals and dancers side by side during those years – like the surfer girls from Outside Magazine article “Life’s Swell” by Susan Orlean, (which was adapted for the movie Blue Crush (2002)). Dance was a lot like a craft that was constantly tested against the competition as individuals and as a team – it was my whole life during that time. I danced my first and half of my second year at Miami, but quit because of various reasons I’ve blocked out now. It’s something that went missing from my life for a little while, and my body completely rejected my brain for cutting it out. My heart drew me back in to dance again in preparation for the Cincinnati Bengal’s Cheerleaders auditions this spring. I signed up for pre-audition clinics and registered for the May 8 preliminary audition. I’ve finally found myself again, and I’ll attribute it mostly to dance.
The other reason I connect with the quotation is for its sense of impulsivity and at the same time, a commitment to DOING the thing you’re most passionate about. (Think later as in ‘life is short,’ and ‘do what you love and do it often’ kind of attitude about dance).
“Some nights,” by Fun.
This song is all about questioning who you are and what you stand for, and that’s precisely what’s inside the video and the intended message for my manifesto, or suggested way of life from my perspective at this time.
While I compiled my manifesto, I carefully placed each video clip into the project with every intention of aligning meanings between my life, the song’s message, my body language or movements and the quotations used to fully encompass my suggestion to living the life path I’ve been on for years. Some are purely coincidental, but I’ll leave that up to the imagination to figure out.
All video was taken by the author, or by Lesley Kay Debbs, my wonderful dance teacher and friend from Juliana’s Academy of Dance. All editing was done by the author in iMovie.
Coming to you from Big Sky, Montana … “Live Like You Mean It Lodge,” to be specific. It’s hard for me to believe I took family trips for granted when I was younger, and now all I want is to have more of them – and although financially, it’s great, it’s more about being able to relax and spend time with the people (and dogs) I love, which doesn’t happen as often as I would like.
When I was abroad, I liked listening to this song because it made me think of home, and it’ll always remind me of that time in my life. Being more than a five-hour drive away made me appreciate home even more.
Now for the fun stuff – pictures galore!
I’m going to do my best not to go crazy because I’m not at SXSW this weekend … and stalk the news coverage coming out of Austin these next few days.
“There is a lesson in almost everything that you do, and getting the lesson is how you move forward. It is how you enrich your spirit.” – Oprah
One of the many things I like about being a journalist is that I learn something new every day. I suppose it’s cliche to say I learned a lot in the last two weeks because I’m a student, and that’s the day-to-day agenda, but these last two weeks were special.
Some highlights …
Last week, I worked on a follow-up story on General Motor’s Truck Assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio, which closed two days before Christmas 2008, leaving more than 2,000 people unemployed and the city of Moraine out of about 35 percent of the city’s tax revenues.
I made the trip Friday and interviewed the director of economic development and took photos of the abandoned plant. The story opened my eyes even more to the reality of what happened to our country in 2008 and how many Americans still struggle today to find work. In former GM Moraine Assembly employees’ case, it’s hard to find work that pays as well as GM did when the plant closed. The story was for a capstone class that is in partnership with WVXU, an NPR affiliate station in Cincinnati. I’ll have the link posted shortly.
I covered Startup Weekend at Miami University – which you know if you follow my blog already. What a wonderful experience to be a part of. I feel a little guilty because I may have learned the most out of anyone there (being the eyes and ears of an event like this as a journalist was invaluable). Plus, I just might have found another passion of mine: startup weekends.
Entrepreneur and Miami alum Nick Seguin is on the Board for Startup Weekend.
Covering the event made me realize how hard it is to be a student journalist, and how badly I want to be able to commit my time to a full-time position in the journalism world. Phone tag in between classes gets old, and keeping up with a certain beat makes it a whole lot easier to have relationships with sources and develop a deeper understanding of the key players. More importantly, I learned that these are the people I want to surround myself with – the entrepreneurs, mentors, students and administrators who are go-getters – they want to make an impact in the world, and they’re just out their DOING it. The drive, energy, passion and determination that was Startup Weekend is hard to explain – it’s just incredible. I can’t wait to take part in the next one I attend.
The sketch comedy group, Harvard Sailing Team, visited Miami Wednesday night to perform in the Farmer School of Business. I’m not allowed to post photos, so you’ll have to trust me that I was there. I do have some form of proof – they signed a wine cork for me – which made my day.
Spring Break is next week, and I’m headed to Big Sky, Montana with my family and a friend of my brother, Hank’s to snowboard, hot tub, relax, eat Food Network-like meals and catch up with the people (and dogs) I love the most. A much needed break to rejuvenate and power through the rest of the semester.
Benton Hall at Miami University had an electricity about it this weekend – partly because the lights stayed on longer than bars were open Friday and Saturday nights. I watched meals get devoured in half the time it took to get them on the table, teams butt heads and resolve issues, discover their idea already existed and adapt, and looks from tired, bloodshot eyes one minute, start to sparkle with a jolt of adrenaline the next.
Walking around Saturday evening, it was hard to find a clean white board. NomNom, the winning team, had what looked to be Pac-man sketches surrounding their ‘Revenue Models.’ NomNom came up with a smartphone application to donate groceries to local food banks.
Who has cartoons in their revenue models? First place team NomNom.
YourTurn, an online music service that connects artists and fans, had more than 13 oversized post-it notes surrounding their work area.
YourTurn works past 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning.
“I would’ve been so salty if we hadn’t pitched. We’ve been working since 8 a.m. and (a few hours ago) it just became an extreme reality … I had the perma-grin – I couldn’t stop smiling,” sophomore Chris Ambrose said.
(About five minutes later)
“The perma-grin’s back, dude. Shit!” Ambrose said to his teammates.
On the other side of the room, Pwason had mapped out their presentation on how to produce fair trade private school uniforms out of Dominica. That was a lot more than what they had earlier in the day Saturday.
“We were worried. We thought we were going to fail,” senior Nicollette Staton said.
Junior Aaron Flora and Senior Nicollette Staton discuss Pwason, named after the Dominican word for "fish."
In another room, mentor Al Babbington was advising two students working on GreenIV, a service that would recycle used IV bags. “Why not challenge ourselves?” sophomore Greg Brown, said, adding that science and medicine was outside his comfort zone.
Conversations started to drift to homework, group meetings or projects that were pushed aside until after final presentations. Sentiments were similar across the teams: it wasn’t happening. Sleep was another discussion.
“I don’t think we’re sleeping tonight,” sophomore Jean-Michel Kourie Frias said.
“Not when you have a bad ass idea,” sophomore Chris Ambrose replied. Ambrose and Frias were on the YourTurn team.
As a developer for the Stugl team, junior Nguyen Nguyen didn’t go to sleep until 4 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Stugl was an online local textbook retailer that helped students save money.
“When I’m coding and I have a problem I feel really bad and when I get it I’m really happy. I keep continuing doing it and if I walk away, I forget everything,” Nguyen said.
The developers for Stugl are all smiles despite their 4 a.m. bedtime the night before.
Things were looking more relaxed by Sunday morning. Miami alum Jonathan Poma, one of the mentors, was surprised.
“It’s unusually not busy. (Normally) between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. people are losing their shit going crazy,” he said. Poma is a strategist at DYNAMIT and operator at pomajp graphics.
Poma and VenturePax founder Danny Stull told me digital tools seemed to be scarcely used during the weekend, which was also unusual.
“Overall it’s been awesome,” Stull said, regardless of the digital deficiency. “I’m pumped to see what they’ve done and the amount of work that’s gone into it has been fantastic.”
#startupMU’s most memorable player
When I sat down with Manager of Entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation Nick Seguin (also on the board of Startup Weekend) Saturday afternoon, he said ‘you know who I think is getting the most out of this weekend?’ and he started telling me about this student who was on a team by himself who had shown initiative. Then, as if it was a movie, Hanqing (Han for short) Hu – the student Seguin was telling me about – sat down next to me, beads of sweat visibly sliding down his face. I asked Hu what he had been up to. The short answer was market research for his company, “Some Company Name.” Hu told Seguin and I in more modest terms that he had just returned from chasing down campus tour groups, knocking on doors of residence halls, interviewing a manager at the local Kroger and knocking on President David Hodge’s front door to ask for interviews.
“I cant even express how happy I am to hear that,” Seguin told Hu, then looked back to me. “If only just one person in a weekend realizes that … it’s a mindset thing, I want people to get it. It’s not about sitting here in your Burberry shirt and having an assumption about bars uptown,” he said, making fun of his alma mater’s stereotype. “It’s about going out and de-risking … It’s awesome even if it’s just one person and if you think like that from now on, I’m happy.”
InfoVote member senior Stephanie Woeste and Hu were talking Saturday night in the lobby.
“I was scared,” Hu told Woeste. “I’ve never talked to people (like this). After awhile you just get used to it. They don’t fight us off.”
Then Hu stopped for a second and told Woeste, “I think girls are afraid to talk to me because I haven’t showered in 48 hours.”
Hanqing Hu and Stephanie Woeste discuss their work Saturday evening.
Hu told me he had time to shower before his final presentation Sunday, which had the audience roaring with laughter and Professor Mark Lacker laughing so hard he cried.
Hu is headed back to China in two weeks after being at Miami for six years. He said he started as a botany student and just finished his graduate program thesis in computer science.
Professor Jim Friedman and Hanqing Hu before the final presentation Sunday.
#startupMU in context
The idea to host a Startup Weekend at Miami began in May 2010 with Lacker reaching out to Seguin, who agreed to facilitate the event. Twenty-one months later, the first student-only Startup Weekend acted as a trial run.
“There was a team here who was aggressive and hungry and ready to run an experiment,” Seguin said, referring to the Startup Weekend Miami team lead by Lacker.
By Sunday, Entrepreneurship Director Brett Smith felt, “Startup Weekend exceeded our expectations on every measure,” standing next to Lacker.
“What they’re doing at Stanford with the graduate people is what we’re doing with the undergraduates here,” referring to the Lean LaunchPad process used at Stanford University. “We’re going to launch businesses,” Lacker said.
Students were awarded one credit hour for participating, and teams have the opportunity to continue in a two-credit follow course with Lacker to launch their businesses before the end of the semester.
President Hodge was in the audience for pitches Friday and returned Sunday to watch presentations. During his annual address last fall, Hodge addressed the importance of being an entrepreneurial university. I asked Hodge what he thought about students working for more than 15 hours a day.
“It’s not something you want to do all the time, but there’s just such a thrill that comes from taking on a big project like that and committing yourself for 54 hours as much as you can to stay awake and keep working and keep pushing. I recall sometimes when I did that in college and graduate school … there’s nothing like it. It’s fantastic, and it helps to be in a group working collaboratively and supporting each other, which is huge if you can do it.”
And as for Hu knocking on his front door on Saturday …
“That’s the spirit of the whole thing,” Hodge said. “These are self selected people (who) come into a community of people committed to these same ideas willing to work outrageous number of hours in good spirit to help each other succeed at their ideas. That’s a pretty special thing.”
This week, a group of girls in my sorority got together to make limoncello – an Italian after dinner drink. My mom and her friends were the inspiration – they started making limoncello a few years ago to give as holiday gifts to friends and family. The recipe comes from my mom’s Italian friend. Limoncello is a digestivo, or digestive, for after a large meal. (Essentially, limoncello is simple syrup, lemon and rocket fuel that burns through the food in your stomach).
The first night, we peeled the lemons and soaked them in glass jars with Everclear (grain alcohol). In 15 days, we’ll make simple syrup, combine the soaking lemon and Everclear mixture, and bottle the finished limoncello. A shot-sized portion of limoncello is intended to be sipped after a hearty, Italian meal.
I was a ballet dropout at age three. I don’t remember why, but my mom tells me I thought it was boring. She’s probably right. I got back to dancing during middle school, taking one or two hip-hop classes a week for an hour at the studio in my hometown. When tryouts for the high school dance team were coming up, I really committed to the sport. I enrolled in several classes and learned the basics of technique, hip-hop, pom motions and kick lines, and I ended up making the JV team for Maple Motion (our high school mascot is a maple leaf). I danced on Varsity after my first year, and the dance team essentially shaped me to be who I am today. I’m passionate about dance, I love being part of a team, and that was my outlet to goof off and be crazy sometimes. It was also the most disciplined sport, and the most physically and mentally/emotionally challenging team I’ve been a part of. My coach taught me personal accountability and that I could rise to challenges along with a laundry list of amazing lessons I learned on the team. My teammates and I formed tight bonds around our growth as individuals and dancers side by side during those years – like the surfer girls from Outside Magazine article “Life’s Swell” by Susan Orlean, (which was adapted for the movie Blue Crush (2002)). Dance was a lot like a craft that was constantly tested against the competition as individuals and as a team – it was my whole life during that time. I danced my first and half of my second year at Miami, but quit because of various reasons I’ve blocked out now. It’s something that went missing from my life for a little while, and my body completely rejected my brain for cutting it out. My heart drew me back in to dance again in preparation for the Cincinnati Bengal’s Cheerleaders auditions this spring. I signed up for pre-audition clinics and registered for the May 8 preliminary audition. I’ve finally found myself again, and I’ll attribute it mostly to dance.
The sketch comedy group, 
