i forget how much i love the hot weather until it returns. ah, bliss - to spend time outdoors on a warm evening. ...if only the mosquitoes weren't so bad this year...
my mom's in town. of course her visits are fun - i just feel like i need a vacation afterwards. i'm also in the middle of moving, which is stressful as well. on the plus side, it's giving me a good excuse to go through everything and weed out the stuff that i don't want or need. decluttering, yes. that's the name for it.
i haven't gotten to swing dance much so far - car troubles week before last, then my mom's visit. i feel like i've hit a plateau and i really don't know what i can or should work on to keep improving. i suppose i should just keep dancing, and i'll push through at some point.
i can't believe i'm taking summer school courses - i think i'm crazy. an hour and a half of class every day? i guess it'll keep me out of trouble or something.
it has been a while, i know. nice to see that people don't bug me anymore when this doesn't get updated. then again, they don't seem me online to bug me anymore. heh.
the last week and a half has seemed like an eternity, i think. on april 19th, the texas aggie swing cats (tasc) had their officer elections. i ran for president and won! i admit i wasn't all that surprised, i'd been telling people i was planning on running, and most of them seemed supportive.
on the 20th of april, tasc had a swing dance followed by a workshop on the 21st. both went wonderfully, and were lots of fun. (yes! there are pictures!) saturday night found us at the texas hall of fame for some lindy bombing - i even managed to teach the guys a little two step! according to michael and phil, dusty and i really tore up the floor with a fast balboa. that night's infamous quote courtesy dusty: "I can't believe we just lindied to a country band playing Metallica." the evening wouldn't have been complete without me locking my keys in the car. first time ever, but not the last as you'll see...
the next day, we did our usual trip to houston for more swing dancing. monday found me at tasc performance team tryouts. you have to understand that the only other time i've ever tried out for something like this was for the cheerleading team back in junior high. i didn't make it back then and never had a desire to do something like that again. what made me suddenly decide to do this? perhaps it was the visit to the retirement home with the team last month...watching the look on people's faces as they watched. i wanted to be a part of it! my strong suit in dancing, however, is my social dancing, so i was really nervous about the tryouts. thankfully, part of what we were being judged on was our social dancing. the routine was fun...even if it seemed to happen just a hair faster than my brain could think. in the middle of the routine, the guy is supposed to toss the girl in a frog jump. having just hurt my knee (again) at the aforementioned saturday night lindy bombing, i was happy to hear that the jump wasn't going to be taken into consideration. for that portion i was paired up with johnn. imagine my surprise when he basically just picked me up and put me down on the other side like i weighed nothing! i was so shocked - i hadn't even jumped or anything! hehe...it was like, "i can fly!"
after much nervous waiting, though, i found out the next day that i had made the team. i still get all giggly when i think about it. :) (hey, i'm a girl. i'm allowed to get that way!)
tuesday night i was up late working on a program for class the next day. wednesday night i was up late at my usual venue - lindy in the dark. thursday...well, it was uneventful. i was supposed to do a lot of stuff to get ready for the weekend, but i ended up falling into bed around midnight after dinner with a friend. friday michael and i headed down to houston for a workshop with paul and sharon.
talk about meeting the music in a whole new way. p&s are all about connection and musicality. i've been getting away from the stiffness in my arms when keeping my frame, but i suddenly found new muscles (talk about stiff the next day!) and a better connection with dance partners when i started using lat muscles and chest muscles. who knew dancing would be so difficult and intricate? the musicality section was one of my favorites, though. they gave a brief evolution of jazz music, talking about what instruments kept the beat in which period. then we got up and did some exercizes in "playing" with the music and your partner. i definitely have a long way to go in adding to the music with my dancing, but it's something that i have in the back of my mind - i don't feel the need to beat myself up when i dance 'cause i'm still just having fun.
so that should be enough detail to bore all'a'y'all non-swing dancing peoples...and enough to let you know that i'm hopelessly addicted to dancing.
i suppose i should add that friday afternoon i was inducted into phi kappa phi, an honors fraternity at texas a&m for the top 10% of graduate and undergraduate students. yay. study lots and i'll hopefully keep that 4.0 that i have at the moment. :)
anyway, yesterday i stumbled out of bed after another late-night drive home from houston. when i got to the car, i tossed my things on the driver's side, locked the door, closed it, and .....doh! hey, look - there are my keys on the front seat! thank goodness for nice neighbors - they let me call the apartment office and the office in turn let me back into my apartment. i found my spare key in record time and was only set back about 20 minutes in my day. not too bad, i guess.
last night i went home and just climbed into bed. amazing what twelve and a half hours of sleep will do for you - hopefully no one called aside from b-j. i was dead asleep from 6pm to 6:30am.
so yes, aside from being exhausted and fighting the last bit of a cold, life is going really well... :)