Samba!!!

So I just got back from my samba class. I absolutely LOVE it! I started a few weeks ago and was hooked instantly. I love Brazilian music and culture, so this was just something that seemed natural for me to fall into. I found the class through the Dances of Brasil meetup on Meetup.com. The class is taught by Iya Silva, who's really great.

The class is excellent, but it's also intense! I think today was the hardest. I didn't know how I was going to make it through the entire class after only doing the warmup. Although today felt like the hardest it was also the best. I knew it was going to be a great day when Iya played a song by Jorge Ben Jor. He's one of my favorites, so I was excited. Then we did a bunch of batucada, which got me even more pumped up. Batucada is the really percussion-intensive type of samba, and once the music hits it's pretty much impossible to stay still. (I've included a batucada song at the end of the post). The class makes me sore, tired, and out of breath, but it's one of my favorite things ever! :)

Samba Batucada - SAMBA

Back at It

So I knew it had been a while since I've written in my blog, but I didn't realize it's been almost a year! How irresponsible. ::shaking fist:: There has definitely been A LOT that has gone on since I've last posted, so I'll try to get caught up.

The most monumental thing that's happened is the loss of my mother. She passed on Novermber 10, 2008, and it's still something that's hard for me to believe that it's actually real. She fought cancer for four years but never wanted people to know. So for the most part, outside of immediate family, no one even really knew she was sick. She amazed me every step of the way when she was in the hospital with how optimistic she was and her unending fighting spirit. I'm continually amazed at how many people she touched and still continues to affect. I am so incredibly blessed to be her daughter.

Also since my last post I started in the Sports MBA program at UNC Charlotte. I moved to Charlotte at the end of June and started summer classes in July. Over the summer I took the two prereqs (Business Statistics and Financial Accounting) I needed before classes officially started int he fall. Over the summer I worked for the Charlotte 49ers men's basketball team, which I really enjoyed. The fall semester started out well but became turbulent once my mom got really sick. I missed about five weeks of school and am still trying to get caught up with everything.

I couldn't mention the events of the past 10 months without mentioning the presidential election!!! So, those who know me may know that I really enjoy politics, so I really enjoyed the election season. It was great once the primaries were over because that just became overkill. My candidate was Barack Obama, and I was lucky enough to see him three times in person. The first was in Ft. Lauderdale in May, second in Charlotte in September (when I was a volunteer), and the last was on the UNCC campus the night before the election. I also met Joe Biden, which was really exciting! I was thrilled on election night and overwhelmed on Inauguration Day.

So that's just a general overview. I can't include everything and didn't want to overwhelm this one post. I intend on getting back into the swing of things and try to post at least once a day. That's all for now!