Tuesday 31 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

OK, so I now have a trippy new computer. I’m still using my existing nVidia GeForce 260 GTX, but now the ageing AMD Athlon64 2X 4200+ has been replaced by a shiny new Intel Core i7 2600K which my dear little sister gave me for Christmas. I love that girl.

There’s something satisfying about opening Task Manager and seeing eight cores. Of course, that’s just the Hyper-Threading talking; the chip actually has four cores, not eight. But hey. And the thing is clocked at over 3GHz. (Although I gather that an automatic system turns down the clock speed if you attempt to actually use all four cores. I mean, you wouldn’t want to achieve the advertised speed, would you?)

Not only that, but the PC is housed in a brand new Antec 1100 case. I’m a bit disappointed with the dust filtration this thing offers; the product blurb makes a really big deal of the dust filters, but they actually cover about 10% of the gaping holes in the case. So this thing is still going to fill with dust in no time at all. But I am very pleased with how much easier it is to work inside the spacious case. And the fact that my gigantic graphics card now fits inside.

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Tuesday 31 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

So on Friday we spent forever doing the Foxtrot. Yawn. Oh, and then the Pasodoble. Yawn. Still, I did get to dance with the lovely Helen all night.

Saturday there was a school dance. This didn’t seem to be very well publicised. And yet, it was fairly packed out, so maybe I’m just inattentive. Helen brought cookies. (She also complained that she baked 70 of them by mistake, and she’s already eaten 10 and people need to eat them so she doesn’t eat any more…) Nicole arrived looking nice, in a top she apparently bought half an hour earlier. And a great time was had by all. (Although I have to say, despite Helen’s comments to the contrary, my R&R performance was pitiful. And Nicole made sure I knew it.)

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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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