A Hodgepodge

No, that's not a British food.

Here is what my brain/life is like at the moment.

Up until after 3:30am last night, as today I had two presentations and three reading assignments. And also, I'm just bad at sleeping. Woke up at just about 7:30am (side note, in Britain they would call this "half 7", which to me sound too much like "half way to seven" but whatever, they do what they want. Also I made the "pants" error for the first time today... so frustrating, since I had been doing so well...) because WE HAD A FIRE DRILL. At 7 SOMETHING AM ON A FRIDAY. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? By the time we were done and allowed back to our rooms it was almost time for me to wake up, so I just took an extra long shower and went to class. PS- it is really cold outside that early.

Class was ok. A little frustrating. I think I'm the only person in class who isn't offended by these guest lecturers we've had. I suppose they can be a little closed off to new ideas, but I think my experiences keep me from taking this personally. It's like some of the theatre and dance teachers I've been exposed to, maybe actors/dancers are just more used to being talked to in this way, but sometimes you go up to do something and it's not the way the teacher wants it, and all you get is a "No. Sit down." It's not a value judgement on you, it's not meant to make you feel badly, it's just not what was called for at the moment. And these professors frequently seem dismissive of people's comments, and people get offended, and they get a little bitter. But it's not a value judgement on us as students or us as human beings or anything. It's ok to be wrong. I really don't think these professors were out to judge us. But if they ask for the structure of the piece we just watched and we come back with how it made us feel about this one time in our childhood, well, that's not really a correct answer to the question... Oh well, it's true, a lot of parts of this course could have been framed better, we could have been better prepared for many things, and that would have helped prevent a lot of miscommunication. But what can you do?

Gave a presentation, got to flex my public health muscles and make people feel guilty for eating junk food. Didn't mention I wrote my presentation while eating a package (most of a package) of cookies. It was a nice moment.

Lunch break. I put an embargo out against discussing class while at lunch. The rule "FUN ONLY" had to be strictly adhered to. We were pretty good about sticking to it, only a few stumbles.

Which brings me to another side note. I've learned I'm an incurable optimist. This might (I don't know, maybe) surprise people. I did a goth thing when I was growing up, I know my worst flaw is that I can be moody, I am practical to a fault, I wear black and have black nails and lots of black bracelets, and heck, my last blog post was basically a whine-fest. But really, I'm a total optimist. I really believe everyone is out with good intentions. I believe no one means to offend people. I believe we can all just be happy and get along and if I say "fun only" then things will really be fun for everyone. When people say things like there is no real community, the world will never really change, all this (probably practical, but still) really pessimistic stuff, it actually effects me on a visceral level. It's just been funny to learn that about myself. Maybe my sister isn't the only Higbee girl who has cast herself in life as a Disney princess. I might be more Mulan to my sister's Belle, but still, Disney none the less...

So, back we went to class. First we planned the coup we are staging on Monday. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one floundering to finish my work. I think I'm rather a dork and I do homework quite a bit, and was worried that despite this I was having a bit of a tough time getting all my work in. Apparently I'm right in there with everyone else, if not even doing better than some. We're going to ask on Monday for more of our assignments ahead of time, a little more flexibility on when things are given for us, some considerations of that nature. We seem to not have time for washing clothes, cooking good meals, finding our future husbands, or devoting our full attention to each assignment, and we are afraid we are going towards the trend of doing superficial work.

Then we played in a field. Lots of running around. It was nice, and a lovely, albeit chilly, day.

Then back into the migraine factory--our classroom. We did presentations for each other on ourselves. It was really nice, lots of excitement for each others' work. It was a bummer we didn't have more time. Then we formed groups for one of our final projects, a performance piece, which will be an exercise in practice as research. My group is heading in the direction of some blend of photography and dance-- two things I love, and love even more together. I'm excited to see what happens.

At this point we have run over our class time, and so we break up for the weekend, and I drag my migraine and myself back to Heronbank. Though I wanted to crawl in a dark hole and die, and had only been in my room for all of maybe 15 minutes, I decided to haul myself off to dancing anyway. Of course, it's a good thing I did, since I had a wonderful time, double of course. I got to dance with lots of lovely people, it was jive night in technique class, and my double American spin turn is looking not too shabby. We learned a cute little routine, and I had fun.

Then I stayed for open practice, and I FOUND WEST COAST SWING DANCERS!!! All the phrases in caps I have ever used up until this point should pale in comparison to this caps phrase. I absolutely love wcs. It is my favorite dance EVER. EVER. It's not big here (gee, I wonder why) but there is a place somewhere near-ish to here where some people go on Tuesday nights. The coach of the team (and his I think girlfriend?) here goes sometimes, and so next Friday we're going to see about going the following Tuesday, he offered to have me tag along and give me a lift. I really hope this will be as fun as I hope it will be. I know the scene here won't be like the DC/VA scene, but gosh it would be amazing to get any wcs here...

Then I stayed even later for an impromptu practice of Team "Team President". I learned and we revamped his samba routine. I lectured at length about the unfortunate lack of funky of the British people, but none the less we were able to get a rather nice looking routine. It's got some funk to it. I don't know when we'll ever use it, haha, but it was really fun none the less.

Another uber-polite escort to my door, the writing of this blog, and now my day is over. Well, no, long bath first, then it will be over.

So, to tally, that 4 hours devoted to sleep, nearly 10 hours devoted to school, and nearly 4 hours devoted to dancing. Seems about right.


Shout out. Today it will be to British fashion's lax rules. I'm enjoying the outfits I put together here. Leg warmers are appropriate whenever I say they are appropriate, everyone likes my hats, who knew that so many things could be layered with so many things. Getting dressed in the morning is just more fun, even with the limited clothing selection. Something tells me this will continue on when I get home. Maybe my sweat pants-as-couture days are dwindling...