Friday Ketchup

Plus night was actually fun for a change. We had more than eight dancers and most were pretty strong. We danced to Steve Porter for the first couple tips which was fun. He uses the whole list, but doesn't call anything convoluted so we got to just dance rather than spend the evening breaking down and fixing things. Then Ron called and he had written some new cards that flowed really well and had a new signer, so that was fun. Then we danced to Deborah Carroll-Jones for awhile which is always fun. Her material was fast and complicated, but her flow is always so good that I was never left wondering where I was supposed to be. The last CD was Anne and we spent the last two tips breaking down. It is weird how easy it is to dance to her in person, but on tape she is really hard. I think it is because she is such a good caller that she calls to the level of the floor and the floor she was calling to when the CD was recorded was stronger than us. (The CD was labeled "Hard" too so I am sure that had something to do with it....) :-)

One thing that I can't figure out is that sometimes "follow your neighbor" is really easy. I know right who to trade with and I don't miss a beat. Other times I am left looking around in a panic and it feels like I need to turn completely around and look in a different square for the person I am supposed to trade with. I can't figure out what the difference is. Its a box-of-four call for crying out loud, how hard could it be? During the Steve Porter tips he called "follow your neighbor" all the time and it was easy. It worked just like it did in a workshop we took that finally fixed the call for me and I never had any problem. During the Anne tips the person I was supposed to trade with was always someplace unexpected. I was so frustrated by the fact that a call that was really easy an hour before was suddenly undoable that I didn't (and couldn't really) think to stop and figure out what was different.

Thursday I was off to Poulsbo to teach my classes. It was a long day. We had a critique right at the beginning of class and out of 8 students, only three showed up on time so I had to fail everyone else which is always fun. Four people's attendance is so bad that I had to do advising forms (it always irks me the way other peoples screwing up causes more work for me...) not only for attendance but for academics since they have missed so many deadlines that they can't even get higher that a C in the class now. And it is only week three out of 15. Yeesh. The afternoon class was better so that was good. Their computer skills are still really lacking but I don't teach those classes anymore so I am trying to let go of that and just do demos on the really bit holes. I know from teaching the computer classes that they don't retain much of what they are shown. I'm not so sure why it hard to get across to them that we can demo procedures till we are blue in the face, but it is up to them to actually learn the stuff.

Today Ron stayed home from work. We are both -still- sick and he felt like a day napping would be a good thing. Yesterday I felt like I was talking with a bucket over my head, but my energy is coming back so I keep hoping it is almost over.

So, anyway, that is my exciting life since my last post...

Tonight is Mainstream lessons, so I finally get to give bigsabu the hug I promised him....

Public Service Announcement

I thought I should post this -before- square dancing so no one thinks I am talking about them.

Cotton-poly blends need to be washed in warm water. The polyester grabs onto body oils so if you wash them in cold water, they are right there in your nice, supposedly clean shirt waiting to go rancid.Then, when you get warm doing something like, say, square dancing, you end up smelling like gym socks.

So remember, warm water for cotton-poly blends.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

End Public Service Announcement