Hey everyone!! Happy Wednesday!

It’s been a while since I’ve last seen you! But that was entirely my fault. I went into hustle mode and I didn’t exactly have time to sit down and blog about it. But what’s done is done and here I am! Sorry I neglected you, my internet friends. I missed you and I definitely didn’t forget about you.

So in case you don’t know, I actually have interests outside of my Geek Girl persona. (SAY WHAAT?!) I know, right? Who does that? Well, actually, a lot of people do. And I say it’s time we start acknowledging that it’s NORMAL to be a well rounded person.

I’ve said it multiple times in this blog, but I’ll say it again. I love to dance. I started dancing when I was 12-years-old. My dad was a ballroom dance instructor and he put my sister and I in classes. We took the generic studio classes – ballet, jazz, tap, hip hop. At first I was trying to rebel against the dance life because most of my family did it and I wanted to be different. But in jr. high when I joined the dance team, I realized dance was a passion of mine.

I continued to dance all throughout high school and during my freshman year of college. But after that, I stopped. It was sad. Life got in the way and I couldn’t find time to take class anymore. Plus, the SoCal dance scene was absolute craziness. It was this whole world I’ve never seen and it was intimidating as fck. These hip hop dancers were incredible to watch and I just felt like I wasn’t good enough to train with them. I also felt insignificant because I never danced on a team before. I was just that lone, solo dancer that watched from afar… hoping and wishing someday that can be me…

Okay. I’m totally exaggerating. But my point is I then began to admire the dance community from a distance rather than be in it.

That all changed about 2 months ago when I applied to be a staff for Boogiezone.

Boogiezone is this wonderful dance community that bridges the industry and community together to train under one roof. Not only does it provide a healthy environment to learn in, it provides numerous opportunities to grow and challenge yourself.

I got an email that they were hiring staff for different locations and I decided, why the hell not. I was looking for an internship and this felt like the right one. To my surprise, I got an email from the brainchild himself, Elm, a day later asking for a phone interview. And it’s all history from there…

Erm.. well… 2 months of history. Whatever, don’t judge me.

This experience so far has been amazing. I can’t even find the words to describe how confident I feel again. This past weekend was our summer intensive, Boogiezone University. It was 3 days of hard fcking WORK! We had classes all day and as staff, it was our job to pump up the classes and make sure the choreographer’s and students’ experience was one they wouldn’t forget.

My primary job all weekend was to interview the choreographers. Now, I’m no stranger to interviewing. We do it every week for community class. But we had about 50 instructors altogether. I did about 85% of those interviews. I suck at math, but you can pretty much get the idea that I conducted a bunch of interviews back to back.

It was hard, but I felt like I finally mattered.

Does that make sense? Sit tight, I’m about to get all philosophical up in here.

For the past year, I was in a rut. I felt like a failure, I felt like I couldn’t make anyone happy or proud, I felt like I had nobody by my side and it was terrible. I felt like no matter what I did, it was and will always be wrong.

Now I know what you’re thinking. This mentality is whack. First of all… hell yeah it is! Second of all, I went through this rut because of the people I was surrounded by. You know that saying that if you surround yourself with positive people who believe in you, you will always do well? Well it was exactly the opposite. I surrounded myself with people who doubted me and never believed that I could accomplish anything. I knew I had to take a stand and make a change if I wanted to be happy again.

Now this is gonna get super corny but Boogiezone is the reason I’m back on my feet. There’s other factors too, but Boogiezone is a big factor. Just so you know, I entered this journey alone but I met so many wonderful people that I can consider dear friends of mine. I never would have imagined myself interviewing some of my favorite choreographers, let alone meeting them or taking their class. I am so incredibly grateful and blessed to have been able to do this. Seriously, thank you Elm for everything. Thank you for believing in me and thank you for allowing me to wreck havoc on your Youtube channel. Shit’s about to get real loud up in here.

I could go on and on about what Boogiezone means to me, but I’ll tie it back to one of my many “Awesome Advice” posts. If you’re unhappy, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Please. We only have so much time to live on this earth. We can’t be wasting days just feeling sorry for ourselves. If you’re in a shitty job, if you’re in a shitty relationship, if you have shitty friends, make that change and make the choice to be happy today. There will always be outside factors you can’t control, but YOU have the power to change everything. You have the power to change your attitude. You have the power to change your life.

So do it. I encourage you. You’ll be so much happier, I promise.

I titled this post “Finding Yourself All Over Again” because I felt like I lost myself when I was in that rut. My daily routine was all mechanic and I was just going through the motions. I lost my purpose. But I found it again and I couldn’t be happier.

And I’m just happy that people like Ellen Kim or Arnel Calvario noticed that. I really must be doing something good in my life!

So let’s all find our purpose again. Let’s find ourselves through this hot mess we call life.

-Ally