My Writing Workshop Experience

My time at this writing workshop at the Atlantic Center for the arts has been an absolutely amazing experience. I have grown as a professional, as a teacher, as a student, as an overall human being. I had no idea what to expect coming in. I got here and two of the ladies were talking about their children who were exactly my age. I felt like they were going to see me as a child. I was waiting for the "who brought their child to work day" comment. But that attitude certainly changed. The people in this workshop allowed me to open up and feel included. I felt comfortable sharing my thoughts and ideas and asking questions. I have learned so many things during this workshop. I feel like I have an entire group of people in my corner now. Teaching really is about networking. It's a community of lifelong learners. I didn't have any excitement for beginning my senior internship this fall until now. I feel so motivated and inspired to get into that classroom. I am still scared out of my living mind but I know the experience will only help me grow. Teaching really is a calling. I always knew that this is what I was meant to do. I want to make a difference in the world. I want to be a role model. I want to help students overcome challenges in the classroom and in their community. Every single student is special and they deserve a chance in education. They deserve the chance to show off their individuality to figure out what they were meant to be in this world. I feel so passionate for this profession.  I have felt so blessed and so honored and so inspired to spend these past 10 days around other teachers who had that same passion. It really makes me see that it's worth it. These teachers still have that drive to make a difference in the world of education and the world in general.  I don't think I can express enough gratitude for how I feel about getting this chance to attend this workshop. Alongside developing as a future teacher, being in this beautiful setting in New Smyrna Beach has also ignited a fire within me. At the beginning of 2015, I decided to make a change in my life. I decided that if I wanted to be a role model, I needed to overcome my own struggles. I have been embracing a new positive and optimistic outlook on life. During the two days of this workshop, when I got to stay on the grounds of ACA, my love and passion for dance and writing was rebirth. I'm sure there are obvious reasons for the spark in my writing, but the dance took me by surprise. Turns out there is an entire dance studio that went untouched during our entire workshop because only writers and artists have been here. On two separate occasions, I got to go into that dance studio all on my own and rediscover my passion. I got to express myself in a way that I didn't have to think. I felt free, confident, beautiful, strong, and empowered. It was like finding home again. And now that I found it, I don't want to lose it again. During my stay,  I also got the chance to watch the sunrise. I saw the birth of a new day, new opportunities, a new beginning, a fresh start, life. I grew up on the other coast of Florida where you can see the sunsets every day.  While sunsets are beautiful, it's kind of easy to see a sunset. If you just wait long enough, it will happen.  But a sunrise, you have to get out there and catch it. It happens so fast. And you have to wake up really early to see it. Think about it for moment. Would you rather just wait for things to happen in your life? Or go out there and catch the opportunities that are just waiting to be seen! Like a sunrise! The positivity, the love, the fire, the passion, the appreciation, the honor, the joy, the happiness, it's all burning inside of my soul! This has been one of the most wonderful experiences of my entire life. No blog post will ever be long enough to truly express my feelings. I can only hope that others will get a chance to experience something so powerful and moving in their lives. 

Just in case no one has told you yet today, you are beautiful! 

Love, Lex <3 

Dance like no one is watching

I am currently in the second week of a writing workshop that is being held at the Atlantic Center of the Arts in New Smyrna Beach. This is a workshop that offers residency and I decided to stay here for two of the days to save the three hour drive round trip. I'll talk about my entire experience here in another post once I have completed the workshop. But I want to talk about something amazing that I got to do last night. The Atlantic Center of the Arts has galleries and studios for all genres of arts. I am here for writing but my first love in the arts was dance. I took dance lessons for twelve years from the time I was about two years old. I miss dancing every single day. I miss the confidence I felt while dancing and the beauty that came with every step. So yesterday I discovered the dance studio! I found it during my lunch break and could not stop thinking about it all day. I made sure to get a good sum of work done first but last night at 9 PM I unlocked the doors to the dance studio and turned on the lights to a place that seemed like home. The happiness that filled me is honestly indescribable. I planned to only dance for an hour but I ended up being in that studio for over an hour and a half. I never wanted to leave. I felt like I owned the world. I felt beautiful and confident and just amazing. Dancing was my first love and it still is. Even though I danced for all of those years, I never once had an entire dance studio to myself. It was so freeing and liberating. I often will dance in my bedroom for cardio but nothing beats a real studio. All of those mirrors are important. If you aren't a dancer you may not understand why. To me, at least, the mirrors are important because you are forced to watch yourself. You are forced to look yourself in the face. It is something that people all too often do not do. It is important to face yourself and watch yourself fail and/or accomplish something. The thing in, you are going to do both in life. You WILL fail but you will also succeed. You need to go through both in order to truly become whole. You can practice a move over and over again and actually see your progression. More often than not, people don't get to see their progress or acknowledge it. Being in that studio for that short time allowed me to express myself, I let out so many feelings and emotions and frustrations and stress. Everything. I took pictures of myself in the studio and I feel like you can see these emotions in my body. I originally took these photos for my fitness Instagram account because I wanted to show my body off in a positive and active way. Since April 20th I have been following the Fit Girls Guide (www.fitgirlsguide.com) which is an e-book that offers a "girly-girl's guide" to a healthy lifestyle. It gives you exact meal plans and exercises to complete during the course of a 28-day challenge. In the first challenge I lost 9 pounds! The unique thing about this is that there is an entire community on Instagram where you can follow and connect with thousands of other women who are following the challenge. I certainly have not been following this guide exactly as it is listed, however, it is a guide and I have been using it as so. I got an overwhelming amount of likes on the picture I posted and I realized that I wanted to share it with even more people because the experience was too good not to share. I am after a healthy and happy lifestyle. I talked all about this in my original post on this blog (http://lextravaganza.blogspot.com/2015/01/one-step-at-time.html). I want to truly develop into a woman that is a role model. I want to be strong, confident, beautiful, healthy, and happy with myself and my life. I wasted too many years feeling depressed and sorry for myself. I only have one life and I need to live it for me. The way I felt in that studio last night is how I want to feel every day of my life. I am determined to make that happen. Nothing happens overnight but I have been working so much on my positivity and happiness over the year so far and though there may be some downs, I strive for as many ups as I can get. I can't wait until tonight....you better believe I will be back in that dance studio!

Just in case no one has told you yet today, you are beautiful!
Love, Lex <3

I'm gonna live forever!

People grow up wanting to be older. Children can never wait until the next birthday and the next and the next; especially those milestone birthdays: 10, 16, 18, 21. This September I will be 22 years old. I have passed all of the childhood "milestones." It is at this point where the milestone birthdays are all those decades you hit, including 30, 40, 50, 60, and so on. The difference is that no one wants to rush to those birthdays. When you are a kid the time just seems to drag on and on. The school year is endless and the long summer days last a lifetime. Once you are near adulthood, you notice how time really does fly. Just when you get used to writing 5/day/year on your papers, it turns into 6/day/year and so on. It never seems to slow down. While growing up, my grandpa always called me his "Little Monster Baby" and told me to never grow up. I tried to listen but the months turned into years, the number of candles on my cake kept increasing, and I kept getting a little bit taller. This is life. It's funny how people speak of childhood and how the way you spend the first 18 years of your life will determine the type of person you will be for the rest of your life. I never wanted to grow up. I wasn't one of those children trying to rush through life. I have been rushing through college but that is only because I just want to be finished with all the schooling. At this point in my life I am nearing the beginning of my career as an educator and I am finding that my youth is a positive thing in many aspects, however, it certainly is a struggle at times. When I am among a classroom full of high school students I find it hard to be the adult in the room when these students, in reality, aren't much younger than me. There are way too many times when I have been reprimanded by other teachers for "not being where I am supposed to be" because they thought I was a student, it didn't matter how professionally dressed I was. The problem with being young these days is that people don't always take you as seriously as they would if you were older. I know that I am not experienced as an educator but I am still intelligent and have ideas and thoughts to offer. Today I began a two week class that is a writing workshop retreat. I am surrounded by beautiful nature and I am only minutes away from the beach, but I am also surrounded by women who are all years of experienced teachers and most of them older than my own mother. It is imitating to be the only student among these women and I feel as if they are all looking at me as if I am a friend of their own children. I am trying to keep a positive attitude during all of this, though. I am excited for this workshop and have been looking forward to it for months. Times like this I like to wish I was older but then I realize that my youth is to envy. When I am older I will regret all the days I didn't live to the fullest as a young woman. I work too hard and often never made time for fun. At the start of this year I decided to change that. I realized that I am still so young and that I have so much life ahead of me. I realized that if time is flying by as fast as it is right now, I can only image how much faster it will be as I get older. It is important to make time for yourself and time to do fun things. I love being able to spend time with my friends and have new adventures. Being young is glorious and very, very short lived. When people say to live life to the fullest, you really should! You never know what can happen within not only a day, but within minutes. You whole world can be turned upside down, or even put to an end in merely seconds. Never let something like age define you or hold you back. Just life your life day by day and don't try to rush things. But also remember, that you are as young as you feel. You should continue to be adventurous and try new things even as you age, especially as you age. People sometimes start to slow down because they get busy with life and they care for their families more than themselves. I believe that you should always care for your loved ones but you must never forget to love and care for yourself. All too often if you ask someone to name all the things they love, naming themselves will never make the list or will be way towards the end. I wish for people to begin loving themselves more and accepting their age for what it is. Don't rush it and never be ashamed of it. All of those women who celebrate their "29th birthday for 20 years in a row" are so scared of growing older because society makes it seem like the fun is going to end but it never has to and really never should. My great-grandma just turned 80 years old and when I was little she always used to tell me that "Life is short, eat dessert first." This simple little quote really are words to live by.

Just in case no one has told you yet today, you are beautiful!
Love, Lex <3