Friday 27 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

No Debbie on Wednesday. She’s in Spain. So I guess that’ll be why she hasn’t answered my text yet. Instead we had Laura. And she worked us hard. In particular, we started the class with some pump basics. The good news is I think I’ve finally got the necessary coordination to do this well. The bad news is, after 20 seconds or so, my thighs were burning. And the next day I was having trouble walking. And today I’m crippled!

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Thursday 19 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

OK, so last night, we danced. I arrived a little late, and by the time I got in everybody was already dancing — to a surprisingly fast stroll. Clearly Debbie is in one of those moods again. Warming up with the Panic Routine with flick basics went surprisingly well; it felt more in control, and I wasn’t destroyed by the end of it. There’s hope yet! Then of course Debbie told the men to move around, 3 places, and general chaos ensued.

We danced many things. Tiger Feet slowed down. A combination involving the Umbrella and some Swivels. I got to do Double Trouble with Nicole and Helen. (Helen seemed mildly flattered. She also complained that she’s losing her dancing talent. I didn’t notice any such loss.) We finished with Baby Workout.

The big news, of course, is the exam results. It seems almost everyone I spoke to scored 92%. That includes me and Nicole. Honours, baby! I also love how the examiner wrote the exact same comments for both of us: “A very enthusiastic dancer. Strong lead.” He then crossed out the latter statement on Nicole’s report, since she’s not supposed to be leading (and wasn’t, in fact). But she does lead sometimes, and she is very good at it.

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Monday 16 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

It’s been a long time coming, but 8 years after I put my previous machine together, I finally have a new PC.

I thought the motherboard and RAM a few months ago. My dear sister got me the insanely expensive CPU for Christmas. And then I went out and bought the case, harddrive and a copy of Windows 7 (64-bit).

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Monday 16 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

Well, *I* was talking my first gold bar; Nicole was just doing silver.

Unusually, the exam was scheduled for 6pm. I arrived at 5, Nicole a little while later. Lots of kids around, at least initially. We did eventually get to do some practise though. I was quite surprised to see Nicole looking uncharacteristically agitated. She said she was so nervous she felt sick. Damn, and I thought she was so fearless…

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Monday 16 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

OK, so in Friday night we all went to see Si Cranston at Cogenhoe. When me and Nicole arrived, that made ten of us — so a goodly amount. Nicole seemed far more interested in chatting to everybody else than actually talking to me, sadly. As I had expected, the place was pretty crowded. The DJ didn’t play particularly good music, but we managed to get some dancing done. Of course, with an exam tomorrow, we really wanted to practise our routine. But it’s not very easy to practise big space-hogging moves like the Windmill when the floor is crowded. Nicole did a great job of smiling so hard it looked like she was about to bust our laughing.

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Friday 13 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

So, Wednesday night. An hour of dance practise in class, followed by a break, and then half an hour of dancing for Laura. The net conclusion? I am really unfit. I also can’t do our routine very well. (We do at least have a routine now.) Nicole is fine, but I keep getting everything wrong. And running out of energy. All that practise, and I don’t think I actually got it right even once. Fail!

Oh yeah, Si Cranston tonight. I totally forgot about that! If Nicole hadn’t mentioned it, I would have totally forgotten to actually go! Well, should give us some opportunity to practise anyway.

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Monday 09 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

OK, so on Friday I had the pleasure of spending the whole class dancing with the beautiful Helen. Unfortunately we spent most of the class doing the Foxtrot. Although it was quite nice trying to walk around the room with our tummies pressed together. (Kinky, I know…) We did get to do the Catherine Waltz at the end, which both of us enjoyed greatly. I am totally going to try to ask that girl out again. She’s so cute! (I did try to get her to stick around after class, but no luck there.)

On Saturday the school held a practise night. I didn’t even do much dancing, but every time I did, I was exhausted. I’m not sure whether it was because I’m trying to do flick steps throughout, or whether having a cold is limiting my capacity to breathe. Either way, Nicole didn’t seem impressed. At all. We also still don’t have a dance routine, although I think I’ve fixed that one now. And hey, we’ve still got Wednesday, right?

(Nicole wants me to do 20 minutes of dancing flat out every day. Personally, I’m just not sure it’s practical. I can’t really do that at work and be all dripping wet for the rest of the way. On the other hand, I take her point that I need to do something…)

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Thursday 05 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

Well, Nicole promised me it would be tough. But I spent most of last night’s class just standing around gasping for breath. In fairness, we were working quite hard. But Nicole didn’t seem amused at my frailness. The class seemed to be over awfully fast too. Man, I’m so weak.

Exams next weekend. It looks like we’re having a private lesson with Laura on Wednesday. I’m hopefully going to meet up with Nicole tonight to discuss things. Nicole is only doing her Silver exam, but I’m doing Gold Bar 1. Not sure if I can actually cope with that. Then again, I’ve thought that about every previous exam, so…

The interesting thing is Nicole. Debbie came over boasting about how she used to be a gymnast, and how our first lift is going to be something really crazy. I would have thought Nicole would love that, but by the looks of it… I think she might actually be scared. I’m quite surprised. (Then again, I can’t never quite tell when Nicole is serious, so… I guess we’ll find out tonight.)

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