September 5, 2006

WOW! It’s September, back to school time, and I haven’t written anything in my website journal. Since my sister and I used A-Beka’s correspondence program through high school; we were never really assigned to do an essay about “How I spent my Summer Vacation”, nor will I probably ever have to do one of those in college either. If I were to do one for this past summer, it would probably go somewhat like this (a rough draft with very long run-ons):

May….finished finals at BGSU, packed for a month away from home, drove to Detroit to do the Champions tour there, drove that evening to Toronto, spent most of the week there to have a new long program choreographed by David Wilson, flew to Tokyo for the weekend to compete my old long program, and then perform a new show number (choreographed by Kurt Browning) that same evening as a part of the North American team (with Jeffrey Buttle, Emanuel Sandhu, and Joannie Rochette), competing against Team Europe and Team Japan; we ended up in second place; flew to Chicago on Monday to skate in the Superstars on Ice show Tuesday evening, shopped a little, and then did 6 more shows there; modeled for Leo’s Dancewear Catalog; drove to Wisconsin to visit family, had a great water balloon, hose, and water bucket fight, and attended one of my cousin’s weddings, didn’t skate there, packed again, and drove to Ohio only to pack up our belongings and move to the Detroit area the following day, unpacked our belongings on the weekend, and started a summer skating schedule the next day; skated in the Detroit Skating Club’s show the following weekend. (That all seems so long ago!)

June, July….skated, enjoyed the warm summer weather and sunshine, went swimming and water skiing, celebrated my 19 th birthday, went out to eat, did some rock climbing, danced some jazz and ballet (always ballet), went boating on some of the Detroit area lakes, watched the fireworks, biked a lot of trails, skated, drove to Toronto again to work with David Wilson, went to Ilia Kulik’s skating seminar at the Cricket Club, and worked with him privately on some of my jumps, drove back to Detroit (notice that now I live and train in the same city, I am driving to another city!), was monitored late in the evening during Skate Detroit competition by US Figure Skating, watched some of the competition there, enjoyed being able to go out more with my friends (now that I live in Michigan), skated some more (enjoying my new choreography, working on my triple-triple jumps, and trying to get my triple axel), flew to Boston for the week to train at the Skating Club of Boston, and spend some time there with friends, played a lot of tennis, saw a few movies, went to a water park near Boston, and was sick for almost a month with a cold/flu and hives from????????, but still skated, skated again in Toronto with David Wilson, and worked with Brian Orser there too, went car shopping, more car shopping, more skating, finally bought a car, read a little (but definitely not as much as during the school year), studied some more French and Russian, visited the library, talked to friends online, wrote some letters, visited a different church almost every weekend to find one closer to our new home than our church in Toledo, did some artwork, skated some more, and broke in another pair of new hinge skates for the fall season, (it took a while to figure out why we couldn’t get some of the pairs of skates mounted the way I liked them, but I didn’t want to have to struggle with that problem this season as I did last season after Skate Canada….anyone who has skated awhile understands how difficult it is to try to train in skates when their blades aren’t aligned the way they are supposed to).

August….let’s see, more skating and ballet, biked some more, shopped, played more tennis, swam, did a little ice dancing, watched some of Detroit’s Dream Cruise on Woodward Ave., went to a bonfire, roasted marshmallows, competed at DuPage for US Figure Skating monitoring (was pleased with my short program, and put out my long for the first time), and finally made a trip back to Bowling Green to purchase my ridiculously overpriced books for the fall semester, auditioned with my sister for acting and modeling again, and drove to Toronto to work with David Wilson and Kurt Browning (I have really learned a lot from David Wilson, and if you call working with Kurt Browning “work,” it has been as much a joy to work with him as it is to watch him skate).

Our fall skating schedules at Detroit Skating Club and at the Arctic Edge Ice Arena have started, and I am looking forward to this upcoming season, competing and performing new programs, traveling and visiting new places, meeting and making new friends, seeing old ones again, overcoming new challenges, and learning. I am also so thankful for all of the opportunities that I have been able to experience this summer, for friendships, and for supportive coaches, choreographers, and family. I hope you have all had a great summer, and thanks for visiting my website.

Alissa