February 19

My sister made me this shrug.







She also made this one:

As a matter of fact I wore it last night. I wore that exact outfit. My cousin, V, just got out of the military last weekend. She's been enlisted since we graduated in 2000. Her birthday was yesterday, 2 1/2 weeks before mine. Every year, my mom asks me if I am going to cry because it is not my birthday. She always reminds me that when we were turning 5, I cried because she turned 5 before me. Mom gave me my birthday party a week early. She says she didn't have the heart to tell me that it wasn't my birthday, yet.

So we went to a belly dance show to celebrate V's 24th birthday. I heard about the show from my belly dance teacher. The dancers were really good. Going to the show made me more motivated to go to my class on Monday nights.

Every class, my friend and I complain about how dumb the class is. The teacher is trying to teach us dance moves that we either a) already know how to do, or b) don't know and it will take more than an hour to teach.

Fortunately, my 'ghetto-booty-shaking dancing' experience allows me to catch on pretty quickly. However, most of the girls do not have a similar background, so she spends the whole class period trying to teach them the technicalities of the move.

Maybe in the next class: intermediate belly dancing, I will learn how to do cool (new) stuff like use finger cymbals!