Awoke this morning and may laptop fortunately reminded me of an important meeting at 12:30pm in B124. I didn't make myself anything because the cleaner was up in the kitchen. Oh, the lights (and possibly shower door) were fixed today! One of the electricians reminded me of actor Richard Wilson.
Just to be sure on time and place, I checked on the original e-mail and I was off by about half-an-hour. It was 12pm on the spot. Already five minutes into the lunch hour I scantly flung on the coat, and hopped into some shoes whilst mumbling negative remarks to myself. Whilst running down the stairs, I had to squeeze past the cleaner and the vacuum cleaner, and hurried by Yannis and Georgia.
Arriving at B124, the former group that's in today was there which included Luko. Sat beside him, and he stated I was only the 2nd person of the other groups to turn up. I didn't completely dismiss this instance - I was only able to remind myself of this occasion (brought up about 2 weeks ago) because I scheduled it into Entourage. Besides that, turning up 11 minutes or so light didn't really put a hinderance on anything - the two people giving the presentation were having issues trying to log onto their laptop. Due to the hold up, Ron told us in about 40 minutes or so that we'd have a lunch break in which to come back by 2pm. (Whilst making it clear we should be working on designs and whatnot)
Five minutes into this instance, avast - the laptop was logged in and the presentation could go fourth. One of the two was the leading representer of the Faculty Office. She seemed kind enough, but her actual topic most certainly was not. Regulations.
Generally speaking the presentation covered just why we should stay on top of the work and what should ever happen if we fail a single unit. I didn't remember the details exactly - which will come back to haunt me later on in the year no doubt - but simply failing one unit has so much detrimental circumstances that dropping the course altogether would frankly be a more practical choice, in my opinion. How the woman brought this across wasn't bad, but there was some obvious dead-in-your-face glancing on her part (along with obnoxious pausing), complete with fucking irritating Mr. Mackey 'mmkay's abound. They tried ending the presentation on a light note but it didn't soften the burns already inflicted on student confidence.
Spent the lunch time talking away with Luko and heading around town to get some stuff - mainly a cut of beef from the butchers (who didn't have the right ones, so skipped it) and some ingredients from Waitrose. Before that, we headed into Robert Dyas because Luko needed a cheese-grater for cheap and I had the bright idea from memory that the shop sells 'em for a good price. Nope - instead, Luko tried Sainsburys. He found one for about £2-3 which is a good buy and I bought some various snacks there.
On the way back to the UCA, I wanted to head into Waitrose to find a chuck or brisket cut of beef. Found a whole 500g worth of brisket for £4.50 or so - not bad. Whilst queuing up in the baskets line (Hardly anyone uses trolleys, what the fuck? Elderly...) I forgot to get the obviously necessary vegetables. Hopped out and tried the new scaling system. Pop 'em on, pick what they are, and it'll print out a receipt to stick on. I had just the right amount of potatoes, onions and carrots. Queued back up to the long line yet again and bought Luko's Lockettes for him (still down with a cold, and he payed me in advance). We headed back and I parted ways.
I decided to head to the library with my Laptop to check how fast their internet speed is. Last time I checked on their computers it broke past the 50mb limit. Holy moly! Tried it with wireless on my MacBook (originally planned to test it in the quiet study zone but that felt awkward) and received a poultry 3mb/s. Suppose 'EduRoam' is separate in service to the network's ISP. Checked up on the Fresher's timetable for this week and spotted Dan's Street Dance lesson at 4:30. I told him I'd go, and since I missed his lesson last week, I felt I owe it to him more so to try it out. It was 4 'o clock seeing this, so I raced back and took off to the Sports Centre down in Farnham with little regard to what I'd be getting myself into. Oh boy, I wish I had known.
After getting to the centre and failing to spot the obvious entrance like a twat (I walked around the entire parameter of the building to find it) I headed in, and consulted the desk about the session with Dan. There were those gate-mechanism with rotating bars at torso-level, which I assumed you'd need to pay up or something. Upon hearing that there was another girl asked to "Follow that man in front of you" I barged in through and found it's just there to...uh. Not sure. What are they for, then?
Went on ahead down the corridor and found Becky along with her friend Ben, waiting outside the Activity Room. I hadn't expected Becky to here although I roughly overheard Sophie (a friend to her) planning to go which was indeed but unable to due to her lesson time. Dan arrived shortly, with that awesome feel-good grin, and took us upstairs to one of the other rooms instead. Uh, this one was clearly intended for dancing which put me in a tense mood. One side of the wall an entire pane of mirror - obviously to self-examine the dance routines - the one thing I really don't want to see myself doing.
There was another instructor there, and she wanted £2.50 which caught me completely out of the blue. It's possible that pricing wasn't decided yet before this point, but I went ahead with the assumption that Street Dance was free volunteer work (especially since Dan is a student and all). Didn't have enough change - just the ones that Luko had given me, and felt prompted to leave. Becky then offered me a pound more, and I payed up. I owe her the £1 back.
Whilst waiting, Dan warmed Becky, me and Ben up with some straight-forward dance steps. They didn't seem so difficult, and it gave me a touch of confidence. The 'lead' instructor then kicked us all off with some actual warm ups regarding physical activities. Including: leg stretches, push-ups, and hand-on-floor stretching which I couldn't at all do (and neither could Dan, thankfully). Whilst laying flat on the floor for some of them, I had my entire head facing behind me, upside down, to try and watch what the instructor was doing. I also kept sliding myself around on the floor to get myself into uselessly (but mutually nice) alignment with everyone. One of the pull ups, with the legs in the air, left me as meatless goo.
Now that was out of the way, we were onto the actual dance regimes. The girl instructor taught us a variety moves, some I caught onto okay and others I just completely fell flat on my ass with. There is no way Dan or her could see me and not drop an "uh oh". Her manoeuvres cause me to struggle a lot because of the multiple limbs that would need to be animated, even if that's what dancing is about. One leg out, twist foot whilst raising out left arm, then switch to other feet whilst raising arm in the air and tilting head, etc. It sounds easy in theory, and no doubt to various people who hadn't danced before, it would come naturally (as appeared to be the case with Becky) but my slow-learning hindrance really put a scar on my confidence and ego towards how I could perform. I sucked so much in pulling off the steps effectively that I was becoming inclined to just pack my stuff and go. Knowing this would just put an even worse appearance on myself, though, I stayed through.
Her dance regime, partly forgetting even now, consisted of this:
- Bend left leg down, right leg out-stretched. Right foot facing right. Right hand on the right leg knee, and pointing the left arm outwards to the left.
- Switch over leg positions, instead having right arm and hand pointing straight to the sky. Left arm limp.
- Keeling over somewhat, legs together. Hands near face (Think squirrel eating a nut)
- Normal stance, right leg ahead. Left leg behind. Hopping to switch leg positions over three times.
- Using right leg, shuffling it over to the right using heel and toes each time. (Need to be quick)
- Using the the upper body, twisting it over so it faces the 45 degrees. This is kind of awkward.
- Facing opposite direction. Boys do nothing, girls out-stretch arms, hands on top of one another and rotate their hips in circular fashion.
- Both boys and girls carry on as normal. This is difficult to explain. Bend one leg slightly, the other bent down slightly more. With arm on the side of the bent-most leg, it's bicep is left outstretched, with the forearm facing directly down. Other side arm is stretched directly downwards. Switch the position to effectively mirror it on the opposite side of the body, four time. (Left, right, left, right.)
- Cross one leg over the other, then turn and hop to the originally facing side.
- Left leg crosses pass the right leg (on the front? back?), right foot makes a small step on the spot. Left leg then crosses back past the right leg.
- During the last part of step 10, the right elbow then juts out, effectively like you are intending to elbow somebody.
Dan's dance regime, once it kicked in, I felt far more comfortable with. His involved slightly more erratic positions (TEA POT, MJ SPIN) but because it was all taking place in either top or lower body - not both - it helped a lot in picking it up. I still sucked ass, but at least I could fit into the choreography with everyone else. Dan also let us practice more, and didn't move us onto other steps as quickly as his counterpart had. If I recall:
- Body facing right. Both legs bent down, left leg bent more. Two arms out-stretched to the right, hands left flopping limp. Left foot twists to the front whilst the elbows flop down and up to neutral for the time the foot flips. (Like a mechanism, I guess)
- Body faces forward again, standing normally, except the palms of the hands are faced side by side of the head, with the elbows bending to the sides respectively.
- Hands to normal standing position (I think).
- Jut/twitch the hips and arms ever so subtlety, and raise the two arms up with the entire body facing to the left. Lean the body out slightly, with both arms stretching out in similarity to a pool-dive. Both legs bent down again, with the right leg outstretched.
- Flop both arms down, one just after the other with hands still in position. Both have to be kept as static as possible during the process.
- Hop body back around to the front. Like with the arms in Step 2, the palms are instead facing down, and the hands are positioned in front of the chest. Shoulders are stretched back.
- Using just the shoulders, twist the chest to face 45 degrees or so.
- ?????
- Using the position that Step 7 should make the legs, use left leg to push the body into a single spin on-the-spot, using the right leg as a centre point for the spin. Right foot's heel is lifted.
- Neutral standing, kick right leg out to the right and follow through with hopping the left leg over in result.
- Neutral standing still, then place right arm over the waist, and raise it up. Whilst doing so, spread the knees out (left knee to face left, right knee to face right) whilst keeping upper body still. Left arm lowers during this process, and the head tilts to the left in conjunction with it.
During step 10 I kept making a mistake of jumping too far to the right, ending up in front of Becky. (And preventing seeing herself for context in the mirror)
It possibly sounds as complicated as the last regime, but the fact it often focused on either the upper or lower body made it easier for me to manage. We finished up at this point, and went over to Sainsburys with Dan. Ben and I lamented over our first lesson, and Becky found Dan's choreography harder to follow, or simply do, which intrigued me as she did a much better job the dance floor than I ever could...or can. Dan asked how I felt, and I tried to be sincere about it. I did enjoy it, but...eh. I need to spend a whole night practicing these steps just to keep up with everyone else. Dan encouraged me by saying he was impressed with how far our group had come in comparison to when he was young (a boy?) but that's them - I was a pretty saw spot on the thumb. He was eager to hear some insight on the lessons, and is intent on improving the structure and method of teaching. How it is now seems cool, though.
We caught Georgia outside Sainsburys, having gone there with Yannis, Sophie and James. She was pissed, though, as she lost the trio inside and attempts to call them up failed. I headed home with her, and carried some of the shopping she had. Really wanted a drink after that lesson, by the way. It made me sweat, in a good way of course.
Back home, quickly rushed for some orange juice which tasted a little too strong for my dry mouth. Gulped some water quick, and shortly went to start on my Niku Jaga. Yes! I made it last week but discovering that flaw on the amount of stock to go in only made me see if I can make it better this time.
During the course of cooking, it sure was a bad night for me to do so. James and Sophie arrived back - they did a shop up (payed for by Yannis, I hear) so James could cook up a nice lasagne, teaching Sophie in the process. Rob also came up to cook a stir fry, and Georgia wanted to fry a steak. It was packed, but it didn't get in the way too much.
Eventually cooked up the Niku jaga (wasn't sure if half the stock had simmered off, though, and some potatoes weren't cooking fully in conjunction with the others) and it tasted...yes! It was the right flavour and everything, I pretty much hit the nail on the head. It was so good, I ate it all for myself! Intended some for everyone but hey, they already eaten and James, Sophie and Yannis were happening to have a lasagne.
Also forgot, SHIT, I was meant to book the recording room for me and China James tomorrow on Tuesday but forgot. I'll have to see if I can consult Ron on this matter tomorrow in lesson. (James was away on Monday anyway, and I was up over the weekend.)
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