Dance is Science

I am Biochemistry/Molecular Biology major with a minor in Dance. Actually, scratch that, I am a Biochemistry/Molecular Biology major who had to remove her dance minor because there was not enough space for the dance department to offer more classes so I could work around my lab schedule.

People say that we need more scientists.

People say that dance does not give as much as lab work.

However, I can say firsthand that Dance made me a better scientist.

Dance is a science.

When most people think of science, they think of beakers and lab coats and nerds sitting in a creepy old lab. They think of facts and figures and complex words that they had to memorize when they were younger. Science to most people in modern society is an entity filled with smart thoughts and details. What they do not realize is that science is not several concrete pieces.

Science is a process.

The beakers and lab coats and nerds are the people working on experiments that last for months and years on end. The day to day life of a scientist is filled with small tweaks and improvements in their experimental design to make the best of what they have.

The facts and figures and complex words that most people have to memorize in high school are not blips of inspiration. Each sentence in a scientific text was worth years of tweaks in experimental design. What many people do not realize is that people spend their entire life trying to prove that, yes, the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

Dance is just like science.

Dance is a process.

Each rehearsal is like an experiment. The dancer is given a set of instructions, and they are expected to utilize these instructions to create a beautiful performance. No piece is perfect after the first rehearsal. In fact most performances are based on weeks to months of rehearsals focused on creating the best product with what the choreographer has.

Scientists also try to create the best product that they can with what they have. For most them, that means that they must be the best student they can be. In my Biochemistry/Molecular Biology major, I spend my days trying to become the most informed and adept person in the classroom. I study for hours each day, and I try my hardest to understand the techniques I learn in lab.

But I fail.

And I fail often.

Many students that face failure give up. They believe that failing is a sign that they are not meant to do the work they have been given. However, if a person were to give up everything they failed at, they would never be able to achieve their full potential.

Until I became more immersed in my dance courses, I found myself giving up far too quickly. I accepted that my lab work could fail because I was just in a teaching lab. I shrugged my shoulders at a C on a lab report. Failure was a part of life, and I would figure out what to do with my life after I got out of college.

Dance showed me that falling down is the only way to learn how to get up again. Dancers fall down in rehearsal several times, and if they stay on the ground, they will only be trampled. When a dancer makes a mistake, they have to adjust their movements and they have to seek a new pathway. Dance calls for alternate processes and improved technique.

Even though I could not complete my minor, I had the wonderful experience of learning technique from several wonderful choreographers. Each rehearsal presented with new challenges, and because I was inexperienced in many of the techniques I was exposed to, I often failed to express the ideas that they wanted me to convey.

I failed.

I failed because I cared more about the end product than I did about the process. Even though I knew that the only way to get an answer was by completing a process, I only focused on the end, and I failed because of it. When I learned that the only way to be successful was to understand the "how" instead of the "what," I became a better dancer.

And by understanding what made me a better dancer, I became a better scientist.

Because I had started to focus on the "how," I started to ask questions in class that brought a more complete understanding to my studies. My lab work started to relate more to my lectures, and I felt more well-rounded.

While my creative soul was expanding in the theater, my mind was expanding in the classroom.

Dance taught me how to fall down, and it taught me how to grow.

Without dance, I would be just another robotic premed without inspiration. I would not have thought about the experiments and processes that lead to the simple facts drawn out in my textbooks. I would have memorized facts, took exams, and kept moving forward. My mind would have stayed in its box, simply accepting what was in front of me without seeking for a higher understanding.

Thanks to my dance training, I have learned more about myself and the world around me.

I wish people would see dance as a science like biology, chemistry, and physics. While it might not answer the questions that people ask about medicine or gravity, dance can answer the little questions that we ask inside our hearts that no one else would ever know. The only way we can answer those questions is to dance.

So thank you to the Department of Theater and Dance at Belmont University for saving this scientist.

I believe in something greater in myself, and I owe a lot of that to dance.

I hope that more people at Belmont will get to experience the beauty of dance some day.

Confessions of a Former Crush Addict

Seven code names.

Several strange sonnets.

Countless conversations centered over texts.

Hundreds of hours spent listening to sad songs and “relating”

All for nothing.

The first thing you are asked in middle school when you go to a sleepover is, “Who do you like?” To fit in, you find a cute boy in the yearbook, and suddenly you have a topic of conversation with people. For some reason we believe that it is necessary to have a crush in order to be whole.

For some of us, our crush becomes our identity.

It is embarrassing for me to admit just how invested I got in my crushes. My stories were perfectly crafted, and everyone who wanted to hear a good story heard about the cute boy I was talking to. Instead of talking about the things I did that day, I talked about the boy.

After all, that story was more important than my passions.

That story was more important than my success.

That story was what would get me in to the in-crowd.

And yet, I found myself included in absolutely nothing. This confused me. Why did people like to listen to my stories, send me texts, and ask me about this crush, but no one wanted to hang out with me on their own time? Why was it that I could feel so included by this story, but at the end of the day be completely alone? 

It was not that they did not want to hang out with me.

They did not know me.

I went through my old journals, and nearly every page was dedicated to my former crushes. Even when I was talking about something I loved, they always showed up. I knew that I was not being my true self, but I could not let go of the story.

Because I chose to make my heart completely dedicated to these crushes, I lost my chance to let people see the real me. The only side of me these people saw was my quirky “hopeless romantic” side. They never saw the scientist whose eyes sparkled when she spoke about the journal articles she read late at night. They never saw the dancer who strapped on her tap shoes during practice hours. They never saw the Catholic who could actually sit in silence in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

I believed that my crush defined who I was.

Being without a crush for the past year or so now has shown me that there is far more to life than the boy. My story is not defined by any character in it but me. I am the one who controls the chapters, and I am the one that can make her dreams come true. By choosing to let my story illustrate my true self, I have started to find myself in the rubble again.

I am beautiful.

I am fun.

I am intelligent.

Most importantly, I am accepted by people for who I am, not who I like. My friendships are not based on the silly stories that I tell, but rather the memories I share with my new friends. Sure, there are times when we tell stories, and there are times when I talk about my past, but my relationships are based on the people in the room, not the people that we are attracted to.

Emotional Chastity is not an easy virtue to achieve. 

I would be lying if I said it has been easy for me to stay the course. However, I am grateful that God has granted me peace in this transition period.

I do not have anything wrong with these former crushes anymore. In fact, I am grateful that God brought them in to my life, because I learned that I have far more love in my heart than I ever knew before. So…thank you to the boys who let me love them, even if it was never meant to be.

But most importantly, I am thankful that God gave me family and friends who loved me.

Love only multiplies.

It was the love of my family that reminded me of who I always was.

It was the love of my friends that reminded me of who I have become.

These beautiful relationships with my family and friends have made it possible for my love that was so small and directed to multiply to a spacious and beautiful place. It is your acceptance that has made it possible for me to learn to love again.

Keep Moving Forward

On January 4th, 2015, my favorite Disney Movie, The Fox and the Hound was removed from Netflix.  While most people would simply be disappointed, my heart literally broke at the news.

It was not because I was upset that I could not easily access the film anymore.

It was because I could not dwell in the past anymore.

The Fox and the Hound is a charming film about how two unlikely friends come together, discover the reality of their world, and ultimately move on to living their own lives. For me, this film represents the many friends that have come and gone in my life. I projected myself in to a fictional world that could never leave me. Whenever I felt myself missing these people, I would rush to my room, grab any form of junk food I could (preferably cheesecake), and watch The Fox and the Hound alone in the dark.

Without the movie, I could not hide anymore.

I thought that I would have to face the loneliness and empty feelings head on. Because I could not pretend to be engrossed in the little Disney film, I knew that I would have to acknowledge everything I imagined instead. No longer could I hide from my past. No longer could I be the girl with her cheesecake and her feelings.

I had to be the basket-case with no friends.

At least that's what I thought.

And I know that I am not alone in this fear.


The Root of Our Problems Comes from Dwelling

I think that many people share a similar sentiment. We humans like to dwell in the past, to look backwards, as if sitting in that past scenario will change something. It is easier to be where we know everything.

Even if it hurts, we would rather accept the reality of then as opposed to reality of the now. After all, no one expects anything more of us, and very little effort goes in to sitting in our past. I know that it was easy to slip back in to my pity party with my Netflix and my cheesecake.

The most deleterious result of our laziness is an inability to forgive ourselves. We believe that there is something wrong with us, so fundamentally wrong that maybe just maybe the problem we are facing will never end. And so we do what we are wired to do...

“If you give your body a choice, it will always take the easy way out. Your body lies. It tells you it cannot when it can.”  ~Matthew Kelly

We go back to dwelling on the past. For me, it wasn't just watching The Fox and the Hound. It was telling the same stories over and over. It was apologizing for things that I had already been forgiven for. It was for constantly trying to make up for my failures that may have happened years ago. Nothing seemed to be enough for me.

Whatever it is that we do to dwell in our own failings...it is not helping us.

It is only forcing us to tell the same story.

Over and over and over again.


You Lose Yourself in the Dwelling Place.

Just because we were hurt by someone or hurt someone does not mean that there is any reason to dwell on that past reality. The fact of the matter is, the longer we sit in the past, the longer we have to deal with the past. We can't change it.

Sitting in the past can change us.

It can twist us and turn us and make us feel incompetent. It can make us feel like we are the worst person for the job and the most awful friend someone ever had. The past, and everything that comes with it, can only hold us back.

There is no point in dreaming when we believe that we are unable to change. In fact, our dreams are stuck in the distance, where we once held them, all because we are unable to move towards them. And in the midst of our dwelling, we become ordinary people with extraordinary potential....a potential that may never be met.

"Someone, at some point, came up with this very bad idea that an ordinary individual couldn't make a difference in the world. I think that's just a horrible thing." --John Skoll

But that's just it!

You can impact the world.

You can do something.

Put on a New Pair of Glasses.

If we want to be happier, then we need to stop dwelling in the past reality. We have to turn off the sad movies, pick ourselves up, and look around at the beautiful world that God put in front of us. If we sit in the dark, we will become dark. 

"What we're finding is it's not necessarily the reality that shapes us, but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality. And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time."  ~Shawn Achor

Shawn Achor's quote directly applied to what happened to me last night. I was driving my car when two songs that reminded me of some...not so happy... memories came on back to back. However, because I knew that I was driving back to school for my final semester, my mind had taken on a new mentality.

This was the home stretch. 

Last semester. 

Best semester.

I have no clue what is going to happen this semester. All I knew was that the girl that left campus at the end of December was ready to take on graduate school, and that I had found myself in the friends I had forgotten along the way. I knew that there was so much in store for the beautiful woman God created, and I knew that there was no way that I could let that go to waste.

I had to stop telling the same stories.

Tell A New Story

For the first time in a long while, I realized that you can't keep telling the same old story over and over again. You can't keep recycling that same old tale that seems to interest everyone. Just because it worked before does not mean that it is going to work later. People will lose interest, and what's worse, you have recycle all of the old emotions that you would rather get rid of.

I kept on repeating myself to an empty audience because I thought it made me interesting.

I watched the same movie over and over again because I thought it would make things better.

But when I decided to choose hope over nostalgia and fear, I found myself getting excited for everything that would come next. I found myself smiling brighter and looking at the world more clearly.

I started writing the next book in the series of my life.

As a point of reference: Mary Poppins is yet again my favorite Disney movie.

Thank you Dear Readers for letting me share this story with you.