December 15, 1999 ~ I've run out of room on this page! So I've begun the second ramblings page! Click here to visit it.

December 10, 1999 ~ I am having a really boring day. Where did the visitors to my page go? Come baaaaaaaaaaaaack! I miss you! No one signs the guestbook anymore or the MB.... I feel all lonely! :*( I think I'll have dancing stuff to talk about by next week never fear!! I'm determined to dance in next week's class! And I hope I don't get yelled at for not coming this past Monday.....I keep getting in trouble for not going to things! First I didn't sing at church, then I keep skipping show choir practices, and dance classes. I'm a slacker! **eg**

December 4, 1999 ~ I have to cantor at church tonight! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I don't know any of the songs, I'm really tired, and I don't wanna! Wahhhhhh! I have to call up a friend to go to the mall this afternoon! Now if only my dad would come home so I could get some money! I tried curling my hair last night. Everyone thinks it looks funny! I used the sponge rollers for my head and then the large spikes for my ponytail. The large spikes don't work good on the ponytail! **laughing** It looks so straight compared to these tight ringlets I have on my head! It's very funny! If you want to see a general picture click here. I think if I had a tiara on it'd look perfect! As it is, it's kinda bare! Do you want to know about our dance teachers? Of COURSE you do! **eg** They say we're not trying (then again I wasn't dancing that night) and that they won't teach us until we do! They got mad because we didn't know the step when they'd never even taught it to us! How does that make sense? How?????????????????? You can't yell at someone for forgetting something that you never told them about!!!!!!!!! And they wonder why we're bored all the time. Dance CLASS is about learning new steps and practicing them! We're bored with these 2 year old steps! OF COURSE WE WON'T SEEM VERY EXCITED!!!!! WOULD YOU? This is why I wish the other school was open for classes. I'd switch in a heartbeat and in time for the Cincinnati Feis so I can compete! (I know, the whole 6 month no competing thing that's why I wanted to switch now!) **scream** I wish Mary was our teacher this year. I mean nothing against the women this year but they aren't very good. How they ever got TCRGs I dunno! Well Angela is a good dancer just not teacher. They can't keep us in order and they REFUSE to teach us! Mary is a tough cookie but she made us good! Any of you willing to let me move in so I can go to dance class with you? **g** Please? I won't get in your way I promise! LOL Wish me luck singing tonight! I haven't been singing well this week! (A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER WHEN CIARA WAS BORED AND HAD NOTHING ELSE TO DO, SHE ADDED MORE! READ ON.....) This is the couple of hours later addition! I'm not singing at church tonight. My aunt and her boyfriend are here and my brother and I used that as an excuse to get out of church! I feel bad because the dude at church won't know where his cantor is and he'll probably not be happy....well screw him I don't feel like singing!:) I bought a crystal flute today! Those are nice but hard to play! You thought tin whistles were hard HA! Try this baby out! It's cool though I've always wanted one. I hope I can learn how to play it for this one choir song where our director wants a flute intro. I'm the only flute player in the show choir. **sigh** And Kelly HAD to volunteer me! Hmpfh! I have mass homework to do. Maybe I'll do it today. Hey did I tell you Teagan made me read the first Harry Potter book? I was doubtful but now there's no doubt that those are the best books ever known to man!!!!!!!! Did I mention I got a crystal flute? LOL My brother got an electric guitar silly kid. Gotta go shopping now!

November 29, 1999 ~ I should be back to dance by next week I think! I'm waiting out. I could dance this week but after a few minutes I'd be falling and hurting myself again. We want me to get better not worse!! I don't want to go to dance tonight! Everyone is so ahead of me and I feel like I'll never catch up! This is like school! NOOOOOOOOO!! If you've been paying attention on this page, you know school is not easy for me right now. I'm buckling down though! Trying to get better. I will get better!! Yeah and look who's talking, I should be setting up a chemistry lab right now and what am I doing? Rambling! **sigh** See I can never stay focused. But back to dance which is the most fun thing ever! Anxious to get my school dress! Those are spiffified! Not taking pictures at class tonight. I'm going late too. Why get there early and on time when you're not dancing? They stretch and warm up the first 45 minutes anyway. BORING to watch!! Stupid to do too. Except some that are fun! The clicks are bad though. We do clicks in a line. 1-2-up in the back click down, 1-2-up click down. It's a pain! I'm on time but I mean my clicks........they're ugly!!!!!!!!!!! **lol** I'm trying to work on flexibility! Not easy but I'm getting there! I need to turn my feet out more! Even if people can't dance at all, if they turn their feet out it looks prettier than people who don't (namely, me!) I'm trying and I WILL get this! 6:18pm. Better go do my homework now. Darn.\ Cool Whip is yummy! I love just getting a spoon and eating it! Yum yum! Forget the pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, give me the Cool Whip and I won't say a word until I'm finished! Yum yum yum yum. My friend at school today (Heather F. Hi Heather!) said she's scared of me now. These sophomores (stupid sophomores, wish I could squash them like a bug!) were making fun of me because of something I said. So I turned around and said "shut up arse!" although I didn't use the exact terminology and I was being really annoying. When I get riled up boy do I get going! Heather was like "god I never want to get on your bad side! If I were a guy I'd be scared to break up with you! I'd be hiding afraid for my life!!!!" I'm not REALLY homicidal! Honest! My friend Sis said "Yeah I'm glad I don't date you!" That sent us into giggle fits because I laughed and said "I'm GLAD that you don't date me!" Oh my lunch today was fun.....I always hear what she says wrong and we laugh so hard at my interpretations! Today she said "dumper" and I thought she said "dumb bird"!!!!!!!!!! I am totally not on this planet as we speak! I'm off in Space somewhere floating around with the asteroids. Hello Mr. Asteroid where ya going? With the other rocks flying around? Cool! I still love my rock by the way! (Another goofy lunch joke!) Beef stew is good. My favorite food. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Hey check out my new motto! "Irish Dance: love it, live it, be it!" I like it, and if you don't like it, phooey on you! I like it :o)

November 27, 1999 ~ Had some cheese coneys (chili dogs) today. Boy are those onions coming back to haunt me! Guess what! You know how I have the banner on the front page about getting an @irishdancers.com or @stepdancer.com email? I FOUND AN IRISHDANCING EMAIL I MISSED!! You can also get @slipjig.com Cool huh? Just thought I'd share that lovely observation with you all!

November 26, 1999 ~ Someone get me out of this computer chair! I swear, the past couple of days I've spent a total of almost 24 hours sitting here in front of this computer! No wonder my eyes are so bad! Guess I didn't tell you that I saw the Pokemon movie last Saturday! It's so cute! Pikachu! I was talking about it all week. I think my friends hate me now. Especially Katie. She works in a toy store and she's sick of people calling and asking about Pokemon. Pokemon is good for you Kate, really! Rikki understands, she likes Pokemon too!! Guess what everybody? I'm high tech now! My dad bought my brother and I 17" monitors for our computers for Christmas! He let us have them early so we can get more use out of them. This thing is huge!!! All my old pages look funny on this big display now. It's sad. Want to know something terrible? My phoneline for connecting to the Internet is crossed with like two other lines so now everytime those idiots dial to call someone I get disconnected!!!!!! How crummy is that? Talk about unfair! The fun thing is, I get to pick up the phone and listen to their funny conversations! Don't get mad at me, I hang the phone back up after they're finished! **laughing** There were these dudes talking about football and crud today. WHO CARES?!!!! I emailed my Internet provider tonight so I hope they can shed some light on this situation. I'm sick of being cut off by this old granny who keeps going "I don't know what's wrong with my phone. . . ." It's annoying! Don't know when the madness will end! I just finished bidding and winning my fourth Claddagh ring off of Ebay! And no they're not all for me! Two of them are for friends (well one is for my mom actually!) It's a really pretty silver one with a pink stone. It's great! And then I got two with a Paua shell heart. And my first is silver with a Malachite heart. The Malachite and one of the Pauas are mine. Wear them all over the place! Now I just have to get 4 or 5 more to cover all my other fingers!:) Well maybe more than that! I have a really cool Yin-Yang poison ring (that's too big and needs to be sized!) for my left thumb. It's going to be funny driving around with all those rings on! I already have enough trouble with three on my left hand. It hurts! Oh the toils we girls have to go through. . . . Speaking of! I'm going crazy not being able to dance!! I went to class Monday and realized just how ahead of me everyone is! Will I ever catch up?! I can't even practice the simple parts of the hornpipe step! And they all know it to music! I feel so stupid. I took a lot of pictures of people dancing! I threw Teagan off a lot...haha that was funny when she kept yelling at me for not taking pictures of her clicks!! You're too slow T!!! LOL In the middle of class Mary (my old teacher) came running behind the partition (big wall on wheels separating the studio into two separate rooms) and saw me with the camera and said, "Oh thank God! I saw all these flashes over here and I was wondering what the heck was going on!" I was just taking pictures! I told her I'd sprained my ankle again and she laughed and said, "Grace and beauty." She's a goofball! She also said after class that the McGing Irish Dancers are getting a professional website! (IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!!!!) I hope it looks really good! She says there are going to be 15 pages. Wonder what all they're going to put there! Wow didn't know rambling could make ya so thirsty. I'm outta here to go get some Barq's Root Beer! You gotta love that stuff!!! Bubble bubble fizz up your nose! Yum!

November 19, 1999 ~ Yesterday was fun! A bunch of people from my school (including me) went up to Dayton, Ohio to participate in a Model United Nations. Ali and I were representing Samoa. Small country but we got a resolution put in with the UK! Didn't get voted on but that's ok, we still put it in! Stupid people kept calling for breaks even though no one needed them. And the votes were unfair. The resolution at the end passed when it was really stupid and shouldn't have! Can't explain why, it just didn't make sense. Next year as seniors I think we'll get more into it! Wonder what country we'll have next year. Maybe Ireland! That'd be fun! I have to say though, this thing got me more into political science than I ever was before!! Maybe I'll become an international diplomat someday. Heyyyyy what a concept!

November 17, 1999 ~ Two days after the Backstreet Boys concert and I'm still exhausted and still can't talk! **LOL** My friend and I screamed so loud and so much that we've had sore throats since Monday night! Boy was it fun though! Brian got a haircut! And it was so cute! Anyone like Star Wars? Their dancer people came out to the Darth Vader Theme! Cool huh? The Boys themselves came "flying" over our heads on surfboards!!!! Very spiffy huh? I took THREE ROLLS of film! I just hope half of them come out! Got me a lovely t-shirt, keychain, and the all necessary logo wallet! LMAO I had to! Hey my dad gave me $120 I was going to spend as much of it as I could! (I was buying shirts for my two cousins who couldn't come to the concert! **g** He'd never give me all that money just for ME! Heavens no!) Been listening to Millennium non-stop since Monday night! I wonder when this will wear off? I don't have to go to school tomorrow hooray! I'm doing a Model United Nations tomorrow in Dayton, Ohio. My friend Ali and I are representing the country of Samoa (which isn't even in the real UN! Go figure!!) This is our first time and we have no idea what to expect. Guess we'll just be kinda lost for the first couple of hours! This thing is going to be loooooong! 9am-4:30pm! But you can't argue with XTRA Credit in History and an excused from classes day!!!!!! Did I mention that Brian Littrell is a sweetie? hehehe!! I had signs on my bookbag at school the next day! One said "I Love Brian Littrell" and the other said "I Love B-Rok". My friend who went to the concert too made the B-Rok sign for me! Shanks sis! ;) She didn't do "I love Nick" for hers though! :( What a party pooper! Anyway I had people going "You love Brok?" or "Brian?" ALLLLL day! Some people I purposely pointed the signs out to like Stephen in choir. They all think I'm messed now. I am so it's no surprise!

November 13, 1999 ~ This is just an excuse to brag about Eowyn! She went to the NJ State Feis today and she got 2nd in reel, 3rd in slip jig, and honorable mention in light jig and treble jig! Way to go Mabby!

November 12, 1999 ~ The picture that is now at the top of this page is one of my Paint Shop Pro masterpieces!! :o) It's a heavily edited picture of me sitting at my computer. The normal picture looks a lot more. . .normal! I thought making the picture kinda surreal and dreamlike would be kinda neat and there you've got the end result! Anyone notice a little red tinge to my hair in the pic? That's because my mom dyed my hair today!! It's a really pretty, subtle red that is a lot better than my previous brown. I'm not that horrible copper red that makes me sick whenever I see it. It looks kinda spiffy (I think anyway) and my mom seems to like it a lot! Can't wait to go to school and dance class to see what all my friends think! (Ok my brother is trying to get me to smell his stinky socks right now. . . 15 is a very immature age for boys!) Hobble is walking around (with a funny limp! I crack up every time I see myself in a mirror) but it still hurts! Won't be able to dance for a while which sucks! :( I'm off school today! I love teacher inservices. Oh yeah remember how I sprained my ankle because the light by those stairs was broken and not on? IT'S FIXED!!!! And all 'cause my mom called and complained. Gotta love her attitude sometimes!

November 10, 1999 ~ Question: why does Hotmail date my email for a day later than it really is? I got all my email today dated November 11! I think it just wants it to be tomorrow already. I'm confused.... In case I haven't been chatting with you on AOL or ICQ, just thought I'd mention my new name of "Hobble" (I was dubbed so by my algebra teacher when he used me as an example in class. Hip-checking a cripple into a desk isn't nice! He didn't actually DO it but he acted it out. We all got a good laugh...right **g**) ANYWAY, I was walking down some dark stairs outside Thursday night with my show choir and the said DARK stairs were very hard to see. Silly me thought I was at the bottom when I still had a couple stairs to go. Stepped right out into space and went flying....weird how things go in slow-mo when you're experiencing something like that! The pain isn't slow though! That comes up quick!! Been on crutches since that night. I'm going crazy too because that happened right when I made my little resolution to practice my dances every night so I could get a lot better. Now my left ankle and leg are going to be weaker than ever! But hey, I gotta look on the bright side: all my friends carry my 50lb bookbag from class to class for me!!! I love friends :o) I forgot to go to dance class Monday even though I was on crutches! See, I promised my pushy friend Teagan that I'd come anyway but I was off school that day and I wasn't thinking in terms of my usual schedule. So there I was in the middle of writing a story on Word and I looked at the clock. 7:30. Oops! I was late already! So I just said to heck with it and kept typing! I got to watch the second half of Leprechauns though!! I missed the first half but Teagan's prodding on the phone the night before convinced me to watch it, if only to search for Irish dancing. The treble reel they did Monday night was spiffy but why did everyone have red hair? REAL Irish people have DARK hair! Red came from invaders from other countries...did you know that? Well now ya do! I liked the Leprechauns the best. They sure knew how to party, dancing and stuff the night before a war. What a laugh! I also loved the name of the main female character. Princess Jessica. Has a beautiful ring to it, does it not? Then again I'm kinda partial aren't I? I DON'T CARE!!!!!! **lol** She and that dude Mickey (Mouse) were a little too touchy though. That thing with the dead tree was funny. Their accents got really funny when they were trying to pretend not to be in love anymore. It was cute! Hey did I tell you about my new Irish dance practice music? It's called Music for the Feis by Jimmy Early. I'm not exactly sure what he does on the tape but there's some spiffy music! (I got this through the Ceili Company by the way! It was my present from a friend for getting my driver's license. He lives in Scotland too! Hullo Cu Chulainn!) The listing of the songs on the back of the tape is NOT right however! Everything is listed out of order. It was interesting the first time I listened to it! I was thinking, "this doesn't sound like a hornpipe...." Very confuzzled the whole time! The funniest thing is that the copyright is 1979! You should see the cover of this thing! The people have very poofy hair in their Irish dance costumes. Very amusing. The dresses are pretty ugly too btw.....haha It's such a great tape though! Did I say that already? I gotta start working on that newsletter again! I can never keep track of it **sighs** Hey did you know they named a telescope after me? It's called the Hobble Space Telescope! This is Hobble, signing out.

November 2, 1999 ~ Dance is really fun now. It's hard though. Doing these really advanced steps for hornpipe is cool but difficult fr me because all the other girls (well, most) get it right away. They're just used to it, I guess. I have to practice a lot to get these hard steps. I think I'm doing well considering that this is brand new for me. Teagan gave me some of her trick-or-treat candy. Ain't she sweet? (No.) ;) 3-hand reels were interesting to say the least! Jessica H (henceforth known as Sheridan - she wanted me to find her an Irish name. I did for for me and Teagan, guess it's my job now! **s** By the way Jess, that means "wild one". I wonder if you actually live up to that name......LOL) and her group were the examples for 3-hand. Ours wasn't but I won't say why we did so badly. . . . Angela (our teacher) got mad because some people weren't getting it. Poopaleedoo. Hey Teagan and I took some pictures on my camera at dance. You'll see them up sooner or later!! If you guys haven't seen the movie Quo Vadis you HAVE TO!! The guy who plays Emperor Nero makes him out to be so crazy! It'll keep you laughing for so long! (Especially when he commits suicide! That's one of the comical high points!) The funniest is when Rome is burning and he starts singing a song. It's goofy to begin with but at the end he yells really loud and then gets this funny grin. That image is going to linger in my mind for a long time. . . . My newsletter is going to come out soon! Just thought you all would like to know:) If you haven't gotten on the mailing list yet, go back to Oscail an Doras (the main page) and go to the IDFATW Newsletter homepage and sign up! You won't regret it. We have the spiffiest HTML newsletters around! My fingers are frozen. Driving through sleet coming home from school today wasn't nice! I almost drove straight into a curb. Isn't that good for the engine?? Of course it is! **laughing** Beware everyone, Ciara is on the roads! Oh no no no this is NOT fair! I just discovered that you're REQUIRED by Angelfire now to have either the HTML crap on your page or in a pop-up. There's no "neither" option anymore. How rude!!!!!!!! I need a job so I can pay for webhosting and not have pop-ups!! Wouldn't that be cool for me to have my own domain? Oh yeah!

October 27, 1999 ~ It's only been two days since my last ramble but I have so much to talk about since Monday's dance class! Ok my week at school has been crummy and I won't even go into THAT, but dance was awesome! I am learning the hardest dance of my life (a hornpipe) and a really pretty slip jig. Teagan and I like it because it has a step in it like in Countess Cathleen (Women of Ireland) in Riverdance. You should have seen us! We did the one arm on hip, one down like Jean Butler did. Everyone gave us funny looks! It was great. Anyway back to the hornpipe. I have been practicing that EVERYWHERE every single chance I get! I did the beginning step (we brush our front foot out and land on it then hit our back toe on the floor) in show choir last night and my friend thought I had fallen!!! LMAO She was like "Good job Jess" and I said "What? I didn't fall that was part of my dance" and she said "Oh yeah okay." Very sarcastic too. We always do stuff like that in show choir (a smaller version of the big choir people can elect for school. It's a class. Show choir is extracurricular and you have to try out. The main choir you don't.) And Jessica this is a DANCE thing not choir, no one cares about that you ninny! I'm ok now.... And a big Oscail an Doras hello to JESSICA H (the other Jessica besides me in my dance class!) I promised I'd mention her on here. Now I have to give her an Irish name in class. Something to check out! (Oh crud I was going to write something else but I forget....... Darn it!) Congrats to EOWYN who's getting a SCHOOL DRESS this year! You go girl!! I REMEMBER NOW!!!!! You guys know the big notice on my front page about my driver's license. Well when I got to dance Monday everyone knew about it because of that! **laughs** My old TEACHER heard about it from someone! Isn't that funny? The wonders of the internet!

October 25, 1999 ~ Tonight is dance night and I have half an hour until I leave. Might as well update you about the last class. I've decided that Laura (see ramblings below) isn't so bad. She was pretty cute and funny last Monday!! So I like her now. Amanda is another story. At least Laura is a pretty spiffy dancer and sorta deserves where she's at! Oh and I promised Teagan (another girl in my class, check out my Buckles page for an explanation) that I would mention her in my next rambling. She's so annoying how she bugs me all the time to update my webpage! Like I don't have a life besides that on my computer. (I still love you Teagan buddy.) I've been practicing our new hornpipe which isn't much and it's kinda hard without being able to do it to music and all. I want to know if it's a fast or slow. I hope it's slow!! Those are so pretty. I've been working on building up my ankle and calf strength. I hope it helps!!! I don't think wearing these stretch pants is helping my circulation at all...My mom thinks that they're too tight!!! **LOL** Parents are funny aren't they? I wish I could wear these to dance class! Then no one could see how red my legs get when I'm really hot. I feel sorry for the people in my dance class who don't bring water because I can't be the communal water hole! (Ever since beginner year I've brought a big cooler jug and people always snatched water off me if they didn't have any but now I take a tiny little bottle left over from some bottled water I had a while ago. So Ciara is no longer the watering hole! **f** Sarah is!! hehehe) Have I told any of you how great it is to have my driver's license? I'm leaving that big notice on the front page for a long time!:) I love seeing that just because I'm still so excited! Driving to and from school is fun! I get to drive to dance tonight on the highway! **scary music** Agh it isn't that bad. I just have to wear my glasses because I can't see otherwise! Bad huh? I need contacts so badly. Glasses slip and fall and have a really bad glare with headlights. We don't want me swerving off the road do we? I didn't think so! I was going to say something else...I hate math class? Oh no that has nothing to do with this page! Silly me. I still do though. Stupid age problems. Algebra is bad! Oh dear me it's 6:37pm and I have to leave at 7. I'd better go get my dance gear on. Slainte peoples! (And hullo there Kelly Jolley if you get a chance to come on a read this! **g**)

October 3, 1999 ~ Let me tell you about two girls in my dance class (I'll name them Laura and Amanda.) Laura was in my class beginner year (two years ago) and Amanda began about six months after we did. Laura was alright but she always acted like she was the best when she wasn't and Amanda cracked me up because she never even seemed to try! Both of these girls have that stupid habit of holding onto their T-shirt when they dance instead of just having the fist by their leg. Why am I griping about these two girls? Because they are learning the show dances (my school puts on big shows at the big Arts Center downtown every year) like dances to "Gypsy" and are getting school and solo dresses while I am not, which I don't think is fair at all. Why do I resent them so much? Well I just stated most of it but I have others! These girls don't have to try half as hard as I do. Why not? Well for one thing, it's a LOT harder for a flat-footed dancer to get onto their tippy toes and stay there (I include that snippet of info because I am flat-flooted and it's hell for me to be dancing but I do it anyway!) And it's a lot harder to execute a lot of the moves because of the foot situation (like toe-stands and others.) Aside from that, I don't see how it's fair for them to be dancing in such an advanced class while I'm stuck learning a three-hand reel (which is fun I'll give you that but I'd much rather be doing what they're doing!) Heck I sound like a little brat right now don't I? My main problem is this: I have really good timing because I'm also a musician and I can remember all my steps it's just that I can't do them as well as others because of my feet and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it! And I don't see how these little idiots can be doing those dances while I can't. It makes me feel like just giving up because my teacher will never let me up with them. It's hard to keep going when you've been trying so hard only to see others who haven't done half the work as yourself up way higher than you are. By the time I get moved up IF I do I won't even have time to get a school dress because I'll be moving about five or six states away for college and I just don't understand it! Why am I not good enough to be up with those other girls? I did miserably at my last (and second) feis this summer only because I sprained my ankle right before my first dance but, unlike what Amanda and Laura would have done, I danced anyway on a sprained ankle and even got a ribbon for my jig! I am dedicated to my dancing and I don't care what anyone else says, I'm going to get up into that class somehow! I just don't get how my teachers think...it's not a very fair system at my school!