Seize the Beat

The end of the world has passed; Concert is over.

The ballroom concert was the last of the big mid-semester crunch times. The first was finishing my honors thesis in January. Next was Dancesport, and then Concert. It was way stressful to keep up with classes while preparing to perform in front of thousands of people. In fact, I was in tears Friday morning after 3 hours of practice, only 4 hours of sleep, and almost a day with no food. But the stress didn't get to us. All our performances this year went so well! For the second time ever, I've managed to be on a team that actually impressed Brent. Our lines were great, nobody fell, and people actually said that our performance level was better than some of the tour team numbers! Shhh, don't tell. Admittedly, it's probably because we only have one number in the whole show, while they're dancing for nearly 2 hours straight.

Concert highlights:
- Mike's face when I found him in the audience afterward.
- The random lady that stopped me to feel the furry shoulder of my dress (our finale dressed were these bizarre black and white affairs with fur and feathers.
- Being introduced as "U.S. National Formation Dance Champions, the BYU Ballroom Dance Company!" even though I have nothing to do with that title.
- The Wendy's napkin that fell out of one of our girls' dresses ON STAGE. (To protect the innocent, I'm not giving names.)
- The CELL PHONE that fell out of one of the 10:00 team boys' tail suits. And opened on the floor. Honestly, now.
- The roses our partners gave us. Awww.
- Finally getting to dance in dresses that were actually flattering. Kristen said that from the audience all the girls looked tiny in them. I like being tiny. :)
- NOT having to gel my hair and glue rhinestones on my ears and down my part come Sunday.

(Note: The picture above is tour team, not us. I don't have any of us yet.)

Stars and Stripes

So a few days ago, I was talking on the phone with my mom about plans to go home for a month. (As of last September, I'm not legally able to go home for more than 3 months, and plane tickets are significantly more expensive if I stay for more than 1. Ah, immigration.) I can't wait to see my family, and I wish home wasn't so far away. My mom and I chatted, and as I hung up, I was thinking about family and cherry blossoms and golden week and Japanese food.

As I walked out the door, I stopped at the sound of the campus loudspeaker playing the national anthem. (Explanation: At the morning and evening flag ceremonies outside the BYU administration building, the national anthem is played over the campus loudspeaker and, according to tradition, everyone within earshot stands still and faces the flag. When the national anthem is over, everyone goes on with their lives.) So I stood there looking at the Eyring Science Center, which thoroughly blocked any view of the library, which in turn blocked my view of the flag. With my hand on my heart out of respect, I wondered what makes this or any other country my country. Why is America home?

I mean, it's easy to say what makes my family home. They are my legal and biological family, they will accept me no questions asked. They take care of me when I need help. And a bunch of my stuff is still at their house.

So what makes my country home? For a long time, I was an American citizen, but a Japanese resident. What, then, was legally home?

One can't really define a biological home, unless you define it as the place where most of your body originated. But that varies as cells are replenished. As of right now, I'm probably still part America and part Japan.

When I was a resident of Japan, both countries accepted me at the airports with the same questions: do you have any plants or animals in your luggage, do you have SARS, etc. Neither accepted me no questions asked, but neither was closer to that ideal than the other.Japan gave me all-but-free health care whenever I needed it. Their school systems were open to our family. And my parents pay into a government pension plan that works like social security when they retire. Japan and its socialism are all about helping us when we need it. In America, I'm poorly insured, not a resident of anywhere that I would want to go to a public university, and in this special bracket that gets all my money taken away in self-employment tax but doesn't get any back because I'm too young for earned-income credit, etc. America doesn't want to help me when I'm down.

And all my stuff is still spread between 2 countries.

Still, I'm American. I still hold my hand over my heart for "my country", and if I ever deny ownership (of it by me? of me by it?), people get angry. But what makes me American? What phenomenal cosmic power does citizenship hold? What does that purely legal construct even mean in terms of characterization of a human being?

Such have been the questions of a decade. So holla, all you third-culture kids! Make me feel at home.

Progress

Callbacks have been slim thus far (and, if I may say so, a little bit strangely placed) in Dancesport, but I'm having a good time. I just love dressing up and feeling pretty and feeling the wind in my hair as we dance. Wait... hair? No. Plasticized gel and hairspray helmet. Yes.

On the same positive note:

284 Waltz, March 2006 Dancesport Nationals versus Novice Standard, March 2008 Dancesport Nationals