Wednesday 10 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

So last week there weren’t many dancers for the Rock & Roll class. But this time, there were even fewer!

We started out with just me. But hey, I was early. A few minutes in, it was still just me. But then a couple turned up. (Oh, it’s that lady who’s arm I almost broke last week! I hope she’s forgotten all about that…) And after about ten minutes, it was still just the three of us. So Linda looks around, kind of at a loss over what to do with just three dancers.

In the end, Linda decided to do what she was going to do anyway. She taught us our first lift. Well, it’s not really a lift, exactly. It’s called the Bunny Hop. Basically the lady does a little jump into the air, and you twirl round with her so she lands in a different spot. That’s basically it. So you don’t actually “lift” anything, your partner jumps. There’s no real strength involved for either partner. About the worst thing that can happen is that you set her down wonky and she loses her balance. (Well, I guess you could trip over yourself or something, or maybe get stamped on…)

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Monday 08 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

Another week, another uneventful dance class. We spent some more time failing to do the turns in the Quickstep. [Mainly because as soon as you reach a corner, everybody starts trying to stumble through the turn, and you can an instant traffic jam of people wandering hither and thither, and you’d be mad to try it yourself.] And then we learned some new steps for the Foxtrot.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be one of those moves where they get every member of the class to dance it with one of the instructors, with the entire class watching you. So, no pressure or anything! And unfortunately, I was the first person to make a mistake. Other people were clumsy and inelligant, but only I screwed up so badly that we had to actually stop and start again. (One other person did so a little while after me, but only one.)

After last week, I wasn’t sure if Lois and Steven would even be here. Lois looked pretty cross when we left. And sure enough, there was no sign of them anywhere. But about five minutes in, Lois did in fact appear. Alone. Oh no, wait, here comes Steven too. And they’re both smiling. Ah, that’s good.

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Wednesday 03 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

Well, dancing last night was OK, but not fantastic.

I decided to wear my best jeans and a trendy shirt. I got out of the shower and combed my hair, but it’s too long at the moment so it’s a bit out of control. I decided to put a little gel on it to try to hold it down… BIG MISTAKE! The result looked ridiculous, but by this point I was running late so I didn’t have time to reverse my decision. The net result is me spending the evening looking like an idiot.

There were a few people not there this time. I’m not sure precisely how, but this resulted in me ending up having an actual, live partner to dance with. Unfortunately it was some Polish lady who doesn’t seem to know half the moves. I think really that’s what made my evening less than inspiring. Also the amount of time we spent practicing The Wrap, when I’m still not really sure what I’m supposed to be attempting to do.

Ah well, there will be other nights…

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Tuesday 02 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

I have a new car. I picked it up last night. (Which is what took up half my evening.) There’s something definitely unsettling about handing over £1,000 in cash. Almost as worrying as walking around with it in your pocket.

I’m mostly happy with my purchase. It does have a few flaws though.

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Tuesday 02 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

So last night I loaded up the game to see if I would be able to go back and collect more of the stuff I missed the first time around. I was expecting to have to restart from the beginning, but actually hitting continue just planted me back in the Collective Unconcious, standing next to the door to the Meat Circus.

I wandered over to the next door and entered Black Velvetopia. Oh, how neat! I actually get some new content. I see Edgar playing cards with the dogs. And that damned bull isn’t running around the place. Clearly the designers expected you to come back again later, and put some work in to that scenario. How nice.

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Monday 01 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

Well, I think I’ve finally cracked BWV 590. (Or possibly one movement from it; looking on YouTube, it seems to contain several parts, only one of which sounds anything like what I have on my sheet music.) Mr The Organist gave me the score and told me to go learn it. I think it was a good choice. It contains some beautiful harmonies. It’s complicated enough to be difficult to learn, but easy enough [and short enough] to be tractable.

This represents one of the very few times in my life when I’ve learned a score without knowing what the result is supposed to sound like first. From my research online, it appears that what I’m playing at least vaguely resembles how it’s supposed to sound.

A week or so ago, I took my first trip of the year to the village church to try it out. I didn’t stay for very long; sitting in an unheated stone building in the middle of January is not my idea of a fun time. I was there maybe 2 hours. The main reason for wanting to go was to play this piece together with the pedal part (which, obviously, I can’t play on my keyboard at home).

Not wishing to over-estimate my skill, I will say I was pleasently surprised to find that my feet manage to find the correct notes with little or no effort provided that the notes are sufficiently near the middle of the pedalboard. The pedal part for this piece is ludicrously easy (but pay attention; it gets harder half way through!) Given that working the pedals is something I’m rubbish at, I can now go away with the delusion that I’m making progress.

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Monday 01 Feb 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

When I turned up for Linda’s dance class last week, the girl at the till said she was “surprised at me” for not having bought tickets to the Valentine’s Dance yet. (“You’re usually the first one, aren’t you?”) As it happened, I was wearing my jeans so I didn’t have any cash on me beyond the fee for the night’s lesson that I’d already counted out. But when I returned on Friday, I did in fact by myself a ticket.

I might end up regreting it, but hey, what the hell else am I going to do on a Saturday night? Sit at home looking at pictures of girls on the Internet and wondering why I have no life? Gee, let me think…

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