Posted on by Ruisi

Breaking in new pointe shoes!

I recently managed to get this pair of Mirella Academie pointe shoes from Bloch and was excited to break it in, so I spent about two hours today–in between some one-on-one meetings I held with members of the university accounting club I help lead–in my bedroom and makeshift dance studio practicing hopping from fifth position of the feet into relevé en pointe.

At this point I’m still waiting for my Harlequin practice dance mat to arrive, so I ended up using a piece of foam board that I had on hand to act as my temporary dance floor. (Plus, I totally wore socks over the pointe shoes to avoid getting them dirty. Can’t really advocate for that as a new fashion look, though.)

Posted on by Ruisi

Underwing

Even on the whitest of creatures
the shadows underwing are tinted
with the vibrancy of the sky above
      and the colors below their flight.
Even within the defined geometry of pillars and panes
the wings of that creature are curved
along the limitless lines of the sky above
and the webbing of all that below.
Posted on by Ruisi

Bonsai, Part 1!

On January 14th this year, I sowed four different types of tree seeds in my pursuit of growing bonsai from seed. I don’t really have a green thumb, but since we can’t have pets in our dorms, I thought that growing a tree that would in effect grow and age with me would be a nice pastime.

I used scarification, which involves removing part of the seed shell prior to soaking them, for two of the four types (Delonix regia and Pinus aristata), curious to see if it would help the seeds to germinate faster.

Well, as of today, January 25th, a few of the scarified seeds have sprouted! We have 4 little sprouts now, and if all goes well, the others will too. Considering that the original instructions said that the seeds take on average 3 to 5 weeks to germinate, I’m amazed by how quickly these four have grown.