December 17, 2005, 3:41 a.m.
December 16th
I feel very expansive and content as I sit here sipping my gingerbread latte, in the café near my gym that has free wireless. They put just the right amount of foam on it, it's a local coffee shop which I love supporting (down with Starbucks), and I just had an amazing yoga class, followed by a little soak in the gym jacuzzi and a 10-minute stint in the sauna. I LOVE my Ashtanga instructor, and good yoga always increases your sense of well-being and goodness with the world. So it's no wonder that I feel very lucky and blessed right now, and am almost not worried about my current non-plan plan to skip jazz tonight.
OK, it's later on -- practically 12 hours later, and it's now 3 in the morning. I just got back from tango, and to borrow a writing style from my sister's blog: My. Feet. *Hate*. Me. Ever since I've started my new and improved ballet foot posture, I've noticed that my feet are really tired for tango, to the point where I fall off my axis. I'm hoping that after a week or so of practicing every day, I'll not only be able to hold my passé, but the muscles will be built up to the point where I'll be able to go about my normal tango business as usual ... which usually makes my feet (or rather, part of them) numb. I soaked my poor feet tonight in Epsom salts, but I don't know if it helped a whole lot ... they are sore.
Tonight in dance news, I danced with a guy way out of my league - and to make matters worse, Israeli. He did ask me, I'd like to point out however., which was so surprising I almost fell over. But we'll get to falling over later. Anyway I could tell he was Israeli by his name (Moti) and the fact that he gave either blunt or cryptic responses to my inquiries like "Are you a teacher?" ("I have taught."); and "Where do you live?" ("I'm living here until Sunday"). Anyway the point is that it was both thrilling and terrifying to dance with him - he dances nuevo style, which is more open and dynamic, lots of turns and kicks and exciting but difficult stuff. I could barely keep up, but frankly it was a nice change from the teachers who don't think I can handle stuff like that. It's a blessing and a curse to have teachers know (or think they know) your level; it's fun to dance with them because they dance things they know you'll know, but they rarely challenge you the way Moti did. I need more people like that. How am I supposed to learn the more complicated stuff if no one does it with me? Anyway for the most part it was amazing, but at the same time I knew I was in over my head and this was exemplified by the fact that at one point, I did something wrong because I could feel myself slipping, sliding, pulling him with me, and then we were tangled up in my skirt and on the floor. Yes, we fell - on the dance floor, in the middle of the dance, but it wasn't the end of the world and frankly, I'm surprised it hadn't happened sooner. So despite this little mishap, I was clearly doing SOMETHING right, because I didn't get the dismissive "Thank you" after one dance. We danced a whole set (like 4 or 5 songs), and it was truly memorable. Oh yes, and Moti is a definite member of the Secret Tango Underground, a term my flatmate has coined which I now take up to refer to the Really Good People - you know, like the WIGS who I want to be. (see previous blog entry on WIGS, or Women In Glittering Shoes).
Honestly, I wish I had a coach. Now I understand how athletes do it; they have someone telling them what to do all the time. Yes, it's them who do the actual sports but equally important is the person in the background with the knowledge and wisdom to watch and advise. I need someone to take an interest in me, tell me exactly what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it, train me and drill me on what to practice, watch me and give me feedback specific to me (rather than group practice), and everything else a coach does - criticize, praise, push you to do better, and most importantly, care about you and your progress. Right now I get most of those things from different sources, and it can be confusing. It would be easier with a coach, but then again, who said this was going to be easy?
When I'm not obsessing about dance, I'm being very productive. Today I got my doctor's form signed by an old St. Thomas nurse practitioner friend of my mom and Cindy, and tomorrow I will be faxing off all of my pre-departure documents to the Rotary Foundation, at which point they can buy my ticket to Buenos Aires. That will mean that I will be halfway to getting all the docs together for my visa, which is exciting. I also took your advice, Mom, and went with Cindy to pick Kenda up at the airport, finally got to meet Amari in person (I realize this will mean nothing to most of you, but bear with me), and laughed practically the entire ride home.
Dance is hard. Life is good.
Language spot:
From EssayEdge:
"My father is also a chemical engineering professor in Sogang University, and I am a son who wants to follow his tail."
"In this journal, I could foresee the future and we need a long life time blue light source to step up." <-- just try reading that out loud: "long life time blue light source to step up." I mean really ... wtf??
"Nowadays energy problems, environmental pollutions and personal health problem are a hot potato."
Jon Stewart quotes!
"I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land."
"Why can't they have gay people in the army? Personally, I think they are just afraid of a thousand guys with M16s going, "Who'd you call a faggot?""
"I feel your scorn and I accept it."
"Yes! Finally captured Martha Stewart. You know, with all the massive and almost completely unpunished fraud perpetrated on the American public by such companies as Enron, Global Crossing, Tyco and Adelphia, we finally got the ringleader. Maybe now we can lower the nation's terror alert to periwinkle."
"I've been to Canada, and I've always gotten the impression that I could take the country over in about two days."
"Ahh, Earth Day, the only day of the year where being able to hacky-sack will get you laid."
And one from Chris Rock:
"You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named 'Bush', 'Dick', and 'Colon.' Need I say more?"
