Be here. Now. For the rest of your life, be at peace. With who you are.

We numb our minds, close our hearts, and cover our eyes.  We avoid looking at the truth that is out there.  We try to invent ourselves as the center of all the world, all of the worlds, but what are we, really?  We are just dust particles that have collectively come together for a period of time.  We have invested our time into ensuring that those dust particles mean something too.  But what have we shown for it?  We focus on the material, on the world that is in visible existence - in essence, we live for the other dust particles.

What is it we need to do?  To become active in the world.  To be strong and courageous - not to look at what is, or even what has been.  It’s time this world focused on what is to come, what has yet to be.  To be there to encourage growth in the best way possible.  People aren’t as stupid as they seem, at least not all of them.  It’s time we realize that others all offer a valid viewpoint, no matter how stupid we think it, no matter how much something else matters to us as individuals.  To learn, to understand, to attain the knowledge of others and to share it collectively as friends.  As both friends, loving or hating, and to mean something.

We must mean something.  We must all have a place. But why?  Surely, some of us have a place to not just live off what is.  Maybe it’s to be a representative model to those  who are to enact change, to use as models for why that change need to be made.  So what of the change?  Doesn’t that then solve the problem?   But only that problem.  The “problems” of this world are so complex and contain so many issues, for all of us.  So what of it?

The meaning of all of this is that if nothing else, we need to voice these issues, are opinions on them, and get people to think about them.  That is what matters.  While we don’t always agree, the voicing of that separate opinion from ours encourages us to remember that there are others out there, with valid points of view, who believe something strongly.  Not all of us are fired up about the same things, and that’s ok.  While you may like football, and I think football is pointless, it does not mean that I need to take away your ability to have football games, or to make them such a big deal.  The objective, is to cooperatively reach our joint goals.  While I use a non-aerosol propellant for my appearance, you can encourage more efficient lighting at games or to add advertisements to remind people about recognized health objectives.

To me, as a person and a human being, I do not want to blithely stand around and watch my fellow humans drink their brains into a coma with soda or to wile away their time only watching tv when they are not doing something else.  We all have our ways to both relax, and to feel, and to become alive.  We also have our own opinions, options, choices and past decisions and decision making processes to contend with.

Every life, every person, has their own journey.  It is time that we recognize that we are all together in this life.  Every time we bring someone up to tear them down for what they did, we are weakening our own resolve as humans.  Because we are all in this together.  We need to correct one another, but in different ways and on different subjects.  We can’t all be perfect, and we can’t all be terrible.  There is a happy medium to our own lives and those of others.  What we just need to do is to see that.  To recognize that we are together.  To recognize that we are human, that we make mistakes, both in our own logic and actions and in the same for others.  It is time we take action - not to go out and protest maybe.  But at least, in our minds.  To stand up for what we believe in is the right thing to do.  Now it’s time, as we get older, to discover what it is that we want to believe in.  We were all at a point of indecision once.  It just takes time for us to develop, since we are all a different person.  With a different perspective and a different belief and a different background.  If you believe in something, stand up for it.  Be proud of what it is you believe in.  And take charge, of your life, and let the world know that you think something is wrong out there.  Also let the world know that something is right!  See the positive.  Everything has an up and a down.  It’s the task of the human race to stop focusing on the down and to life our faces up.  The harder we struggle, the faster and the quicker we will drown.  The trick is to relax.  To lift your face to the life around you, above you, and to just let yourself come up for air.

We live in a world of now.  It’s time we lived in a world of here.  Right now.  Not to be in now, but to breathe in the air that is here now.  And then to remember that that air can and will slip away, and that to fight for it, you have to relax and see the truth in the matter.  To see that what is required is not a fight, but an acceptance, and a will to survive.  Then tell others how you think they can survive.  Only together will we win.

Confused in Understanding

All that we have in this world is what we have started from.  That’s why the past matters so much, and that’s why how we’ve come to be has been an amazing, and sometimes perilous, journey.  What moves, motivates, and takes us on, is something so deep inside us as to be unknown.  And we are afraid of the unknown, because we cannot understand through measurement, qualification, and and level of knowledge to make what is unknown, known.  The way we as a whole world exist, for we as humans, through the internet and other amazing creations, have managed to now link the entire world as a unit.  Making a great game for those advertising products, making those products, and shipping those products.  A game to provide the cheapest and most attainable profit, to have a better life-without tackling unknowns.  The past has formed an old culture, one that we have become tired with, for there was an ability to live with the unknown without qualifying it.  And this has granted us now with a world engineered to be understood.  So why do we understand this world now, any more than we have in the past?  We think we do, and apparently that’s what matters.  It is these things that change us through the years, what we think.

Linking ourselves, coping with that which is not understood, it has been achieved.  Though we don't realize it for the levels of electronic complexity that now coat our communication.

It is in music that we should find solace.  No matter our taste preferences, it is this most natural and true of art forms unique to the human race, that need not be lost.  Music, from classical to rap to pop and every genre in between, has it's place in linking us as humans.  Sadly, to me, however, we seem to have lost touch with it to an extent thanks to radio stations trying to constantly play music.  Short songs, that keep our attention for as long as it can be held.  Still containing beats, but simplistic in their complexity.  We now understand what the human brain of today likes to hear, no matter the background.  We have lost some of our musical diversity to science.

But too there are artists that stay true to the art of music.  These artists must be heard.  Somehow, there needs to be a collaborative effort beyond what pandora and 8tracks offer.  These online music stations attempt to play music that we like.  Why not play what it is that we don't like?  Why not offer a counter.  To discover what it is we think we don't like.  Say a rapper listens to only rap music.  Why not offer them the musical diversity of the folk tradition?  What if they learned of the complexities that are in this altogether different art form?  To show them how to make their music unique in a completely new way.  I have witnessed people into the hardest rock bands like the soft sweet celtic melody or the country music lover to switch to pop music because they want to add diversity to their listening.

As humans, we have begun to electronically limit ourselves.  If it's not on the internet we don't know about it.  If no one posts the video, or makes a gif, or takes the time to type up a report or article or piece on something, how do we know it even happens anymore?  Updating a joke, if no one blogs about it, did it really happen?  If no one posts on facebook about something, did she really find her true love?  What if we could learn to handle this electronic, interweb, multimedia addiction?  Where is the natural world in our lives anymore?  It is time that we took a walk in a park and experienced the world on our own, without everyone.

We have an amazing world at our fingertips.  We have the ability to connect to millions in seconds.  But can we connect one on one?  Can we handle a group of friends, or can we meet new people on the metro, without being pegged as weird or abnormal?  To be able to socialize with those around us with no care for the current societal standards is now deviance.  Because it is no longer that we want to take the time for anyone.  And it stems from this world we're a part of, online.  Plugged in.  Can any of us manage to successfully unplug?  Few can, but those who can might be those with the strongest character traits.  Those who can appreciate the world, those are the ones that will hopefully never go extinct.  We need these people in our lives, to bring balance to the chaos that is social media and our high-speed world.

Find someone who can take it slow, and enjoy the time with them.  Or slow down the time yourself.  Be the change.  Be yourself, calmly, alone, in a setting that is tranquil.  Learn to love it.  Lose the stress of this high-speed world.  Meditate.  This is what we need to relearn, or start to learn, in this society.  Love everyone, starting with ourselves, and to love ourselves, we have to be able to trust ourselves to be both alone, and on our own, and in silence, without giving in to the addiction of our media driven world.

Next time a song comes on that you're not familiar with on a different radio station.  Listen.  For as long as you can.  Or something you almost never listen to on your music playlist, or an artist that you aren't comfortable with on pandora radio.  Just absorb it.  Maybe just the once.  But say you have done it.  And try, without stressing about it, to relax into the moment of listening.  Find a new favorite artist.  Live and learn and love the music that flows through all of our veins.  Detox from this high speed world.  And learn, that we do matter, and that we includes the us, the you and the I, and that we can make this world a better place, together.  Be confused in your understanding of the world.  Let something confuse you.  It is the best experience you can have.  Because you will automatically learn to understand that something, and you will be a better person because you didn't have to google what another thinks.  Cope, live, believe in ourselves, and listen.  Listen to the music in our lives.  All of it.  Not just the radio station we are used to, but tune in to a new channel.  And expand ourselves in doing so.  Unplug from what is set for our stereotype.  Share a file from your life to someone else's, and let them do so for you.  You will learn much from listening to someone else's life.  Love, and learn about their love of you.  Be confused, but learn to understand too.

Passion. It's what makes us better people...

Passion.  It's what drives us forward.  It's part of what keeps us going, when we find something we believe in.  What is it that we feel is important to believe in though?  There are so many people today that are passionate about things that I wonder about.

For example, let's look at the person who plays video games.  I'm not saying I disapprove of gaming - however, it's addictive.  Addictive substances aren't necessarily bad things - however, when they are a detriment to society and to our individual lives, I believe these are useless endeavors.  As a gamer experiences detriments to their body and mind, the same is experienced by society as gaming does not promote people to work, it does not encourage any useful habits.  The communication through games, such as WoW, has connected people, and even lovers.  However what is the comparison in numbers of people who do receive successful communication skills through these RP games, to those who recede into themselves and become burdens on society?

How can we consciously say in any way that playing video games serves any real purpose, other than to keep a large number of kids off the streets where they might otherwise be involved in direct violence?  Something for thought.

So the person who is addicted to and maybe talks about nothing but video games, may be passionate about them.  But what defines passion?  If living and breathing a subject doesn't define being passionate, what else could it mean?

A relative of mine is passionate about cars, and has gone days without much to eat so as to save money for his car projects.  I hopefully will never have to starve to be a dancer...  But I am willing to do so without hesitation, and I know it.  The same goes for my major - when I endeavor to be in my career, I will go through much physical and mental stressors and pain and endure them to be a better person.

But there is more to passion than sacrificing just parts of one's well-being to continue their passion.  It involves commitment.  This commitment to our passions, to me, is what defines that very passion.  The strength of mind to not only sacrifice, to commit to that passion is the strength in having a passion.  We as humans often go through life and watch people who divorce their spouses, who cheat in relationships.  It's about that commitment and their individual maturity.  Let me go back to video games.  To me, the difficulty here is about this very subject.  It is impossible to have to commit to something that is addictive.    Likewise, no one says they have a passion for smoking pot - yet this person may very well show the signs of "passion" towards this activity.  The same goes towards tobacco products, though in my generation cigarettes are going out of style for joints.  One hapless trend for another.  Ultimately, one is still inhaling a chemical that is altering their bodily (in this case mostly those within the brain) to alter their state of mind.  This has nothing to do with a passion.  And from what I have seen, has a reducing effect on the mind of people with regard to enduring commitment to things that really matter.

Passion is many things.  It is commitment, to the endeavor that is being pursued.  It is the joy and feeling of fulfillment gained from encouraging and pursuing one's passion.  And largest of all - it is love.  Love is a passion, and most passions are a love.  The balance in life is between reality, and the things we love and are passionate about.  Trying to mix together what is both life and passion is when happiness can occur.  Pursue your passion, find your love, and love everything you do with all that you've got - that is what will make us better people.  Not sitting on our ass wasting our time to what is actually an addiction.

Ballroom Junkie... I am an addict...

Haha...  I love this blog.  It's official...

Not being that guy, FTW. Should listen to music though...

Don't be subject to jealousy, make sure everyone understands your joy of dancing...

Ballroom dancers really should only date people who understand...

This is why my girlfriend is picking up ballroom dancing, and anyone who I have been interested in has been a dancer in some capacity.  It's so true...  From personal experience, I know the issues of jealous none dancers...

My first mobile entry

So this is what it feels like to own and use a personal mobile device! To be able to see the world in a new light, perhaps, always connected and always on the go. This is how the future is meant to be, right? To see clearly what the world is doing at all times, through a little piece of technology. I guess, in a way, I can't be proud though, can I? I have merely become just like the rest of my generation, forever tethered to a little piece of electronic wizardry that I may never understand the inner workings of. But who is to blame, me, my generation, our forefathers, the corporations we now owe money to... It is a mystery, where this technology will lead us, whether through the tough times or into them. Whatever happens, I will happily die with my pretty iPhone. :)

What is this thing we call love?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_U6mWu1XQA

What is love?  What is this emotion we have, this one that makes us do crazy things for the people around us.  In watching Flashpoint, a TV series about a "strategic response unit" (negotiators and SWAT), one views how people will do crazy things, to the point of suicide or homicide.  People will try to tear each other apart over love.  We are such a strange people, obsessed with things that we attach emotions to.  Why do we do the things that we do?  Why do we love one another?  No one ever has an answer.

I once heard that finding a soulmate relates to years ago when the gods created a two-faced human - which scared the gods so much they split them into two creatures, forever searching for one another.

What's interesting about this idea is it kind of doesn't fly with how we treat one another anymore.  Life now is about having sex, having a good time, pleasuring oneself and others, so that we may have a perception of belonging and life.  When it's not really any of these physical things we need to make us stronger.  Sure, on Maslow's hierarchy of needs is sex, after food and shelter.  These first are things our body needs to survive, and the sex, sure it's part of it.  But what is it we really need to keep us going?  Companionship?  Not a lover, but a companion, right?

There are truths, such as knowing it's a companion we need in life beyond a lover, someone who is our friend and more than just a pretty face to look at.  It is these inner truths, these beliefs implanted in our very soul (including the frowning upon incest and things alike) that we need to listen to more.  They might tell us that war is wrong, and so is having more than 5 billion on the planet is too.  We have over-rated the world's weight limit, not only from the fat Americans (over 25% national average - an unbelievable high), but in the populations of third-world countries in Africa, and the up-and-coming worlds of India and China.  There are too many people on a planet that like the human body and a bank account - once destroyed or hurt in some way, it takes so much longer for the damage to recover.  We don't as a collective soul believe in our longevity though.  We are so focused on living our own little lives, living them and "making our way," that we don't understand the ramifications of our actions anymore.  We aren't connected, despite being linked-in and hooked-up.  We are in touch with everyone thanks to the internet, and many of us, are out of touch with what really matters.  Nature.  The natural world is suffering at our hands, and we don't care anymore because we are so distanced from it that we have lost ourselves.  We our losing contact with the world, as we become more involved in it.  These are the problems that our generation, and the next and the one after that, will continue to face.  Trying to balance the question of whether or not a technologically advanced society can function in a world where remaining natural and involved in the land is necessary.  So I pose a question, a question of love.  Do you love yourself?  Do you love your significant other?  Do you or do you plan to love your offspring?  So how can you with any self-concious continue to live your life not paying attention to what it is you eat, where it comes from, how much trash you throw away and where it goes, and so much more, and love all of these people?  You are hurting them, yourself, your children's future, all because you are selfish for not taking the time out of your life to find out the answer to where the next fuel source should come from.  For not saving the money to invest in solar panels.  For taking two trips to the grocery store instead of one.  I drove 23k+ miles last year.  Every trip I took was planned to allow the most efficient use of my car and fuel.  This year, I plan to cut that down, not by going less distance, but by using mass transit where possible.  I plan on making more people in my community, more of my friends far and wide, aware of the issues of food sources, and how planning parenthood to a minimum, how adopting, and how so much more can make a difference in this world.  We have to many people on this planet.  We have so much else in our country that is wrong.  I say it's time we do something about it, by electing congressmen who don't promise false senses of security with jobs, non-healthcare reform - jobs will come from the field of green energy, from investing in education, from planning our lives to better others lives.  There is so much this world has to offer, and so much we have to learn.  We really need to learn, about the truth of the matter, and what it really means to love ourselves, our friends, our family's, and most of all, our planet.  I hope that at least a few people read this, and realize there is something they can do, to discover the answer to "what is love?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyWafhzs6zw

24.  It ran for an impressive 8 seasons and has at least one full length television movie made, with a full length film being speculate upon.  This grand tv series which I just started watching a little of on netflix, is about Jack Bauer, a government agent working for the Counter Terrorism Unit in Los Angeles.  Each season follows 24 hours in the life of Bauer as he races against a clock of life or death to preserve peace, whether from bio or chem threats, assassination attempts on the President or other important figure.  In the first episode he is fighting to save not only David Palmer, a presidential candidate with the best poll ratings to win.  At the same time, Bauer's wife and daughter have been kidnapped to be used as hostages to motivate Bauer to do dirty deeds for the assassins.

Each episode covers one hour in the 24 hours, jumping from Bauer to other agents to the kidnapped to the presidential candidate and his family.  Loosing a tiny bit of reality in the way it jumps to other people, yet it only takes a character the ten minutes to drive twenty miles when the scenes switch back to him.  However, despite the downfalls of trying to make each episode exciting and suspenseful enough in their own right along with leaving the viewer hanging waiting for the next episode, the show does a good job.  Not only is it suspenseful and creative, with a very leading and addicting feel to it, but it also is so twisted around that no one knows who is safe or a secure friend.  One has to remember that it is a tv show, and not believe that in real life this is how things will happen.  At the same time, it's realism gives it more quality, more depth.  The acting of Keifer Sutherland is good along with the rest of the cast.  Keifer's intensity over his wife and daughter yet with his ability to think clear-headidly about saving other's lives makes him quite the hero.

The use of screen splitting, where showing multiple scenes at once is used, is very, very good.  It allows us to see that these events, happening in real time, are occurring at the same time.  In addition, the use of a clock on the screen helps the viewer see that indeed, things are happening in real time.  The amusement of a person who is not watching a commercial filled evening, such as myself, is that an hour happens in 45 minutes, for the commercial breaks are evident due to the placement of the black "clock" screens.  It's funny to see in two seconds it jump the five minutes.

Overall I have been enjoying this tv series, and definitely find myself wanting to see the next episode.  Every time.

Beautiful things are everywhere

It's true.  Beautiful things ARE everywhere.  Whether people, places, an object or an idea or a vista.  The trick is to open one's eyes and see what is beautiful when it is right in front of one's self.  If I sit in the cafeteria of my community college and I look around me, do I see silly ignorant teens and young twenty somethings?  Do I see people wasting time trying not to have a life?  Do I hear them discussing stupid ideas, such as the latest and greatest video game coming out, or who's who and where's what?  Yes.  But I also hear others, who are talking about their plans for the future, their family, whether they have kids or siblings, or others who they care about and are talking about because they care, and are concerned.  I see those who are texting loved ones, though hopefully not while in class.  I see so many people, and they are connecting in some way with someone.  This, is just one of the little facets of beauty I see in a day.

We are blessed as human beings (and I say that in the non-religious way because you don't have to believe in Jesus to believe we are blessed) to have a beautiful world, with natural phenomena that can touch us emotionally in the deepest ways.  We need to remember this everyday of our lives, and not take the little moments for granted.  Even though we do.  This world is full of people living way to short, way to inefficiently, and way to laboriously engrossed in the lesser parts of life.  Working IS important.  However, despite it making the majority of our time alive and awake, it is not what society should consider a burden.  Live beautifully, and do what you want to do and love to do it.

Here's what I find beautiful in life, as anyone who's read this blog has come to know me - I think ballroom is beautiful.  This little routine is so simple, yet so beautiful.  Just like life should be.  Simple, elegant, and all about man and woman.  As my one latin instructor discussed in class yesterday - men are to be about giving.  In ballroom, this means that we are giving energy out, with power, like we should be with our money.  Powerful, and giving.  Women, are to be receiving this power, and to return their femininity.  To turn around that power and to give it back as grace.  This is a woman.  Now, this isn't to be a feminist statement, for women have power to.  But they aren't in ballroom supposed to give it in the same way as men.  Women and men are different.  And every woman is different.  Every person has a beautiful side to them, and some may have more beauty on the surface while another has more inside.  We must find our own beauty and show it to the world in the way we are meant to.  I have found how I wish to express myself to the world, through ballroom.  Music is how I express me to myself.  Ballroom is a way to show inner strength and solidarity.

Here we go - power and effeminate, simple and elegant, graceful and... Beautiful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOiByplrkX4

iPhone 4s

I recently got the chance to hold and somewhat use the iPhone 4s thanks to a friend.  I am very intrigued by Siri.  I believe that the iPhone is slowly advancing an idea about connectivity, and our ability to perform.  The problems with the ideas behind Apple lies not in their products, but in the users.  If people were able to focus, move on past their little insufficiencies, the world that Steve Jobs envisioned where a technology company provides clean, simple, easy to use and effective gadgets for aiding life, both in work and in play would come to fruition.  However, we are left with people not quite sure of the potential that their lives offer, because they are wrapped up in so many trivial and menial pieces of life.  If everything were perfect, as in a non ever-expanding population that will deplete the world of it's resources and beauty unless we successfully implement living n other planets or somehow manage to start farming off-world, Steve Jobs would indeed have created the perfect concept of devices for aiding us in our everyday life.  It is nearly impossible to have a perfect world however - because people aren't perfect.  I guess we all have to accept that, no matter how much we hate to.

This is the video for the new iPhone 4s.  Some people I know think that I'm just following the "bandwagon" of the tech world.  A world where we go all goo-goo over a pretty new device and buy it right up just because we can.  Is the the case?  Or is it that I see a better world through owning an Apple product?  Maybe I envision myself being able to live better, more productively and efficiently through a device like this?  Whatever you believe, whether you feel that Apple is continuing to create some of the best widgets and gadgets out there, or that they are merely a bunch of cult-like, mindless people following a trend because things are "shiny" or because we just can...  Apple has been grossing some of the biggest numbers in the tech industry on all of their devices.  Bandwagon?  I'm inclined to think it's more about success...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf0EgDHG8FQ

Legend of dancing? I'm in... Now to find some funding.

This is a performance happening next year.  I'm extremely intrigued to go to it - and it excites me that I might go.  I will have to check my competition schedule though, because the time of year this happens is the same time of year practicing and competing is most intense for ballroom dancing.

http://www.dancelegends.com/

Here's a post

Because I haven't made one in a little while...  I found this quite amusing.  This is a Shakespeare insult kit...

On media use

It's amazing just how much time we spend utilizing various different media channels.  For my electronic media class, we were given an assignment that required us to journal our media usage.  Here are the graphs from my project.

I surprised myself with these statistics, though I also feel that somehow I didn't get all of my radio hours clocked due to being in the tractor a lot on the particular week I was graphing.  This was the week we harvested our corn with the silage chopper.

It was an intriguing assingment.  It made me think and wonder - how do other people, who may or may not be less active or less busy.  And, how many people break up there work day on the internet, spending time on facebook, or some other social media sites?  I am not sure yet whether to be worried or optimistic about the answers to these questions.  I'm currently doing research for another presentation in this class, focusing on the effects of social media on society.  I already have read a lot about how video games affect the youth of today - violence, sexuality exploitation, changing social norms.  And in my media class we are discussing how it's all about the advertising or selling dollar.  It's all about making the consumer think they have wanted the product, as my econ class is telling me.  The movie Middle Men did a good job of demonstrating how a multi-billion dollar industry can revolutionize and take over a technology, and how it's turned around the world in different ways.  If you take the fact that it was adult entertainment out of the equation, it really was impressive the way a few people revolutionized an industry, and have now set the standard for selling non-pornographic material.  Amazon, Ebay, very nearly every dot com website out there - has everything they now owe to that industry.  Not only do companies benefit, but consumers have benefited not only from anonymity, but also the ease of ordering.  And who can forget that Fedex and UPS have benefitted too!  It's sadly all about the physical materials, the books and the toys, the nooks and the traveling joys!  We can venture around the world and purchase what we need thanks to the credit card.  We can also complete transactions back home while we explore new lands, mobilize armies with the push of the button - it's all very big, in so many ways.  And it touches us all in so many ways.  The thing to think about is not how it will positively or negatively impact our world, though.  I think these are important things to consider and talk about and discuss, however - what we have to do is to use these new ways of living to our advantage, and to make the world a better place.  We have to come to these resolutions and move past wondering if we are doing the right thing by using the internet.  We already have it embedded in our everyday life.  Now we have to use it for good, to transmit knowledge that will help us live more economically and environmentally soundly.  Today there is a need to pay attention to all the different happenings in the world, to be up on the news, to advocate people to express their intelligent opinions and ideas that they have.  Only now, with our super-connectivity can we truly begin to have a global world where people can convene and come together sharing the best of the best.  "when an elderly scientist says that something is possible, it most likely is.  When that scientist says something is impossible, he probably is wrong."  This paraphrasing comes from the first chapter of "Physics of the Impossible," a book that presents in a scientific fashion the science behind star trek and other science fiction movies and television shows.  I feel that this statement covers what I have just stated so well.  While we have many people telling us what is possible, with the internet we now have the chance to make the impossible, possible.

Something anyone can tell about me is that I'm a big fan of dancing - specifically, ballroom dance.  Ballroom dance has numerous attributes going for it that makes if my favorite dances to do either socially or competitively - socially, because there is so many different genres of music that can be played and still be danced to in some fashion.  Surprising, some of the styles that match to the music.  Many modern pop songs are latin (usually cha cha cha or samba) dances, and for this reason those dances are some of my favorite to do.  However, due to the flexibility of the West Coast swing, it too can be danced to these songs and has become my favorite social dance to go "out on the town" doing.  As I have gained freedom and mobility through owning a car, a new world has been opened up for me in the past two years with my dancing.  Now able to experience the freedom of driving around and dancing wherever and whenever I can (time permitting), I have gained much understanding of myself and life through dancing.  There are some things about dancing that teach you how to be a better person.  To lead a woman, or anyone for that matter - but only after they have been consented to being led.  Many politicians could do wisely from learning to gain the trust of the people before they attempt to lead them.

In recent years, happily for me and many of my fellow collegiate competitors, ballroom dancing has been popularized through the use of the media.  Television shows such as American Idol, where the object is to find someone unknown and see that they have actual talent through auditions.  Shows for dancing, such as So You Think You Can Dance which is built upon the same premise.  Fun fact, my cousin is very close to a top ten finalist on said show.  Another show now on the scene for a long-running 13 seasons - Dancing with the Stars (or among those who know and love the show as I do and will throughout this post, DWTS).  It is a show in which stars volunteer to be dancers competing against one another with trained and experienced professionals whose median age is below 30.  These professionals have been champion dancers, having won competitions all over in ballroom dancing.  Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_with_the_Stars_(U.S._TV_series)

for more information.  To watch the latest showing, go to http://abc.go.com/shows/dancing-with-the-stars and watch the latest episode.  These competitions have happily brought ballroom into the public eye as the amazing show and art that it is.

My personal commentary on this show is this - not only has it achieved great success for those running and sponsoring the show, it has taken advantage of the modern reality tv show to a different level.  Since DWTS came out, at least one other show that I know of based on the same idea - Skating with the Stars (doing ice skating) has come out.  This particular show sounds slightly more dangerous than DWTS, however a few have pulled muscles and various bodily tissues through the course of 13 seasons.  However, injury isn't the focus of the show.  Demonstrating character, being an actor, being an athlete - as with all ballroom dancing, that's what this show is about.  Doing the best that you can, and rising from the bottom out of all odds.  It is a bit sad, however, that one couple gets eliminated right away.  It would be fairer if they had a performance, gained a baseline both with the audience and the judges, and went from there.  This way, everyone would have an equal chance to improve.

From a spectator stand-point, it is a very easy show to watch.  Sadly, like all shows today there are commercial breaks every few minutes, however this does allow the cast to set up and prepare before each show, making even live performances seem perfectly done despite the few mistakes and bungles that the stars often make.  I feel that more people should watch this show, not because I want the advertising dollars to be important, rather this show is, if one has to watch tv, better than others.  The television has taken over the lives of many today, and yet few programs that play not only too the modern media's viewership, and to old-fashioned sensibilities of respect, non-violence, and athletic ability as well.  These few attributes are what makes watching Dancing With The Stars at least somewhat worthwhile.

And for those of you

Who are asking what on Earth the reason to have high-waisted, form fitting pants is - they're comfortable, and for competition they help make your legs seem longer.  Also they define the technique of the dancer better by fitting well and looking good.  Now, I'm not saying I want this fashion to be in everyday style - it would loose its panache.  However, please don't think we are wearing these pants because we are gay - few ballroom dancers are gay.  Well.  relatively speaking...

http://marisawright.hubpages.com/hub/Mens-Dancewear-Ballroom

This link helps understand these things a little better.