the 'holiday'

finally! after all that waiting, my 5-day break had started. about time. one more day and i think i would have exploded. still, i had loads to do. after all, stuff had been piling up for 4 months. on the first morning, i made a list. it covered one A4 sheet. some of it was easy, some less so. turns out my sister should be moving in in December, so i had to make space for her. this meant clearing out the closet and some drawers, as well as just getting rid of stuff. i think i threw out about 60 kgs of clothes (40 kgs went to charity), among other things. i also bought lots of stuff: clothes (to make up for what i was throwing up ;) - no, not really), new shelves for my sister and lots of Xmas tree decorations. as we're having Xmas at mine this year, i had to get equipped! i loved that part. as for relaxing, i slept in every morning, went to some parties and had a massage. the latter was amazing.

dropping like flies

i hadn't been feeling well for a couple of days. luckily, i only had one lesson, after which i thought i'd be able to head home after a couple of hours work. but when i got into the office, it was deserted. the receptionist, i knew, was taking care of her daughter, who had just come out of her 3rd surgery. but where was everyone else? V. had apparently broken a tooth and the local anaesthetic had not gone over well, so she was out for the day. my line manager's wife was quite ill and so he had apparently decided to stay home. S. was apparently at the hospital, getting herself checked out for something that could be serious and Y. had been taken out at by an accident involving her bicycle and a pedestrian the beginning of the week. which left C, who was leaving at 11.30, and the boss. typical.

information site

here's an interesting site to get numbers on various issues... although it's unclear to me how real these numbers are...

http://en.globometer.com/index.php

... but getting there

the dance from the other day must have had an impact. or it's finally starting to sink in, cos last night, i aced the dancing class. we finished with the waltz and i was lucky to dance with a guy who's really good and i felt like i was in Vienna! we were really good, covering the whole dance floor several times. after a while, he said he needed to start turning left instead of right - did i know how to? i said no but he went with it anyway and we managed (although i have no idea what i was doing, but i was at least able to follow). anyway, it was amazing.

dancing is hard

one minute, we're told to stop thinking and leave the men to do the leading. the next, we're told off for doing the wrong steps. well, it's kind of hard to do both. 

but that's manageable. what's really hard is when some of those who do have experience, e.g. the guy who's been doing it for 20 years and who's there 'to help out', keep giving other instructions to follow. smaller steps, wider shoulders, quicker pace, arms up, arms strong, arms down... i think i've already told that guy about 4 times that it's only, what, lesson 8 for me, so maybe we could keep to one instruction at the time but he doesn't seem to get it. 

then today, there was a 'dance' where we could practise without it being a lesson. again, i had to point out several times that i'd never done dancing lessons, ever, before, which seemed to surprise them all. either this means they all think it really unusual or that i'm managing surprisingly well for a newbie. i should be so lucky.