The slightly longer weekend…

I had a belly dancing workshop on Saturday. It was well worth going to. Each belly dancing teacher has a different style and way of teaching and often a different name for a familiar move, so it makes it all the more interesting. In the morning we went over some Egyptian belly dancing moves and in the afternoon we learned a choreography incorporating those moves. The dance was fun and short enough that we were able to practise it several times. This was much better than a workshop I went to in Wellington in which the choreography was so long and complex that most of us gave up trying to follow halfway through and we didn’t finish it in time to practise the whole thing. (I didn’t go back to that particular teacher’s workshops or lessons. I didn’t much like her style in any case.)

I’ve since made a list of belly dancing moves learned from elsewhere (ie outside of normal classes) and hope to use them in my own choreography at some stage. I nearly bought another DVD by the same teacher as a DVD I currently own, but decided against it as I saw examples of the choreography on Youtube and didn’t think much of it. Instead I did order a DVD of dancing by Serena Ramzy who I just love to watch.

Sunday disappeared quickly. I helped my daughter with her photography assignment, dropping a tomato into a large glass vase several times or flicking the hose around so she could take photos of water droplets at fast shutter speed. She then went off and sought help for more photos from friends.

And then Monday morning loomed which I dreaded for the suspicion that the car probably wouldn’t start. After the workshop on Saturday my car was rather sluggish in starting and I thought, oh no. However, I got home (luckily as I’d forgotten to take my cellphone with me, idiot). As suspected, the car didn’t want to start so I rang the AA then work to say I’d be late. I had intended to get the AA to start the car then take the car to a garage in town so I could catch a bus to work. But the AA man put paid to that idea. “You won’t get that far” he said. The alternator had gone so the battery wasn’t charging, so I toddled off down to the local garage and walked back home. I missed daughter so couldn’t get a lift to work. That left me totally without transport. The only bus that goes from this village to town about once a day is at a totally inconvenient time. I wasn’t too pleased at having to take an unplanned day off work.

You’d think I’d take advantage of the day off and do something useful. The weather wasn’t particularly good so nothing doing outside. But no. I couldn’t think of anything I needed or wanted to do, so I ended up playing Sims 2 for nearly the whole day. Quite wasted. What I should have done was to embark on some more genealogical research or something, but once I started playing Sims I couldn’t stop. Oh dear. And then there was the feeling that I couldn’t start anything that required a long stretch of time and concentration (such as genealogy) because the garage might ring up at any time for me to collect the car. Well, come 4.40pm I hadn’t heard a thing and rang up. The car was ready and they hadn’t thought to let me know and they closed at 5pm. So I shot down there on foot arriving at 4.55pm. $250 or more poorer but the car is now behaving itself. Phew.

Back at work today and while the weather this morning was the pits, it’s quite lovely this afternoon. Oh well. Only three more days until the next weekend.

Read Full Post »

What ho!

I’ve been reading a fair bit of P.G. Wodehouse’s excellent Jeeves and Wooster series lately.  I happened upon a book recently and thought I’d love to re-read some and read others I’ve never read.  I visited the public library and started with the earliest I could find and have read three in the series.  I’m onto the fourth.  As well, I borrowed a couple of DVDs of the TV series.  I do miss Hugh Laurie in his pre-“House” days.

The current book “Joy in the morning” has had me chuckling all morning:

I stared at the man.”

‘Stap my vitals, Stilton,’ I cried, in uncontrollable astonishment. ‘Why the fancy dress?’

He, too, had a question to ask.

‘What the hell are you doing here, you bloodstained Wooster?’

I held up a hand. This was no time for side issues.

‘Why are you got up like a policeman?’

‘I am a policeman.’

‘A policeman?’

‘Yes.’

‘When you say “policeman”,’ I queried, groping, ‘do you mean “policeman”?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re a policeman?’

‘Yes, blast you. Are you deaf? I’m a policeman.’

I grasped it now. He was a policeman…

Other such gems are found throughout and I find myself starting to speak all Woosterish!

Today is amazingly sunny after the cold of Friday and Saturday.  I thought, sadly, that I’d have to haul the heater out. 😦  After watching a bit of “Jeeves and Wooster” last night H and I suddenly thought we’d like soft-boiled eggs for breakfast, following Wooster’s example, as we haven’t had them for years!  With a bit of garlic-buttered toast, it was yum!  Then a bit of reading of the Guardian Weekly in the sunshine and I was quite content.  It’s amazing how truly awful the local newspapers are when it comes to international news.  I was lent the GW by a friend who also laments the state of international news reporting in this country.  So, I’ll give this copy back and get another from her.  Jolly D!

Ah, I love the 20s era – the fashion, the art nouveau and art deco and the amusing language of the upper classes.  It makes such a change from the dreary day-to-day today of bad grammar, mumbling, and mispronunciation, not to mention the god-awful buildings that pass for architecture here and ghastly so-called sculptures that appear in the concrete space in the middle of the town.  Ugh.

Right, I’m off.  Tally ho!

Read Full Post »

Grr

I was happily walking along in the sun to my car after work and I got accosted by a bible basher giving out bits of paper with a bible verse on it.  This pisses me off in so many ways.  If I wanted to read a bible verse I’d look in a bible.  Don’t ruin my day by shoving your beliefs in my face!  How many frickin’ trees do Christians destroy giving out their bloody propaganda (I’m particularly thinking of the door-knocking “Watchtower” dispensers).  Just piss off and do something useful!  Help save the bloody planet or an endangered species or something instead of preaching your bloody viewpoints which are totally nonsensical to me.

I will now have a G&T and put on some soothing music to ease my irritation.

Read Full Post »

Chaotic mind-fullness

You ever had days where your head is so full of stuff you just can’t figure it all out?  My mind is full of creative urges, things that need doing, projects and work and desires…  Sigh.  It’s all too much.  So what do I do?  I sit and blob over a G & T.

I haven’t played Sims 2 for a while.  I’ve actually been watching mindless TV like Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model, etc etc.  These urges comes in cycles I guess.

The belly dancing performance went well except I feel I could’ve done better.  The costume held up although one bra strap is a bit loose – I’m going to have to unpick it and adjust it if it’s not going to be a pain every time I wear it.  The 2IC at work came up to me the next morning and said she’d seen me dancing and said it was beautiful and that she couldn’t move like that, etc.  That was nice of her.  Normally she doesn’t  smile let alone talk to me.

The next event is in July and we’re being encouraged to choreograph our own dances.  I have three possible tunes picked out and I started playing them after a meeting tonight and moving around figuring out what might be suitable and daughter comes home.  That puts an end to any belly dancing practice – I just can’t do it with her around, silly as it may seem, as she’s done belly dancing as well (and performed at the last “Hafla”).

I like the sunny days at present but I don’t get much of a chance to spend any time in it.  All too soon it’ll disappear and the days will get shorter and I’ll start complaining about the cold and wet.  Not that I haven’t this summer anyway. 

I’ve had weird dreams lately – one was particularly vivid – the type that you think about all day and can make no sense of.

I’ve restarted the Spanish classes.  The last exercise was a challenge as I missed the relevant class last year concerning two irregular verbs.  It’s weird – I get all enthusiastic just after the class and then go to work and do the usual routine and never get round to doing Spanish.  The same happens with belly dancing.  The routine of everyday life and going to work and back kicks in and I never get round to doing anything else.

As for work, the boss is having “interviews” with each member of staff to find out exactly what everyone is doing and what could be done better.  My one hour slot lasted 35 minutes and she told me she was very happy with me, that I was like a godsend, that I’m normal and get on with my work.  Nice feedback.  Interesting comment about the “normal”.  I gather others are hard to deal with not to mention set in their ways.  The woman following me had one and a half hours in there and there were raised voices heard – oh dear.  One of the not-so-normal who don’t get on with it?

My mind is too much of a jumble to write a coherent post, so apologies for it being all over the place.

Read Full Post »