Reflecting on the past.....looking to the future

Reflecting

Looking back on my career, I feel really blessed because it was a good career. Plus I was one of the lucky ones whose career spanned nearly 2 decades.

I am not going to credit it all to luck. I was lucky my mum took me to any dance class going, so by the time I went to dance college, I had learnt 8 disciplines of dance already, which became the foundation of me becoming versatile as a dancer. That was the luck part, the amount of hard work I put in is the other side of the lucky coin .

I also credit my long career to my constant drive to improve myself as a dancer by constantly going to professional dance classes once I left college, no matter where I was in the world.

The dancer I was when I left Stella Mann in 1989 was not the same dancer who performed the Trumpet Solo in Fosse. If I had been the same dancer there was no way I would have been given the opportunity to perform that solo.

Why I Retired

I retired because I was 37 years old, married and if I didn't stop I would never have kids. At this point I had achieved a lot, worked a lot and even had the opportunity to perform a dance solo in a Musical. A solo in a musical is so rare, as in once in a life time rare.
It was time for a new chapter in life.

Was I sad to leave dance behind? YES!! It had been part of my life since I was 3 years old. But I have to say I was also excited about how my life and work was going to change.

Moving On

OK, I'll be honest and say finding a new career for a new challenge in life wasn't ease, but the process was fun, especially when you put the questions to friends who come up with incredible ideas than a lot of laughter is involved!

In the end I stayed with my roots, which is being artistic, technical and creative. It was also my guilty pleasure of playing Play Station, Xbox and Nintendo that steered me in the right direction. I realized I loved computers, so I took a free government IT course which gave me an overview of jobs in IT and also awareness that you could train and get industry specific qualifications in IT jobs.

I was dreaming of becoming a game developer, but my favourite game who's developing company I would have loved to have worked for are all the way in Japan.

I chose the next best thing.... Web Design! Here I am today creating my first Website to qualify myself to take my mock exam for my 2nd Web Design exam.

Surprise, yes, I created this Website, it's my first so go easy. I hope you've enjoyed it and got something out of it.

One final thing, 8 years on, my life has changed in a way I never saw coming. I'm now a mum of 2 beautiful girls. I have gone back to dance classes for fun and I'm really happy, especially since I'm still dancing at pro level. I have even started teaching dance again too.
Life is different and good again, but the same in that I'm back to not having enough time in the day to do everything HA!

Sam Modeste