Wednesday, February 11, 2004

It's hard sometimes to enjoy a cup of tea...

I got a nice new mug from work for a mentoring program I participate in. Really pretty mug. Then I went to use it.

There was apparently a crack down the side of the mug so it all tried to come out. It's hard to drink tea that's too hot & you can't really enjoy it if you're rushing it.

I wonder if California tea is different... (At this time tomorrow I'll be on a plane to Sacramento!!)

Thursday, February 05, 2004

Isolation.

It's really freakin' hard. I'm tryin' to fix my posture again. I learned how to Saturday. Problem is when I'm trying to elongate my spine, I tense up all my muscles in my butt & legs to do so. Makes sitting around at work quite a bit of work & a pain in the butt, almost literally. So yeah, this is what I do at work to keep myself entertained while I'm doing real work. Oh, and listen to WCS-able music.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming... ;-)

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

Same old thing.

Work, FIRST, dance, sleep, repeat daily until February 24th.

'course, in a way, it wasn't the same old thing, the FIRST kiddos rocked & had a blast at the Superbowl party & dance. It made a lot of people wish that night that they had started the dance as a teenager. :-)

I went dancing Monday 'cause there were reporters from The Boston Globe there to see what WCS was all about to write an article about it. It was cool that I carpooled with someone, but it sucked that he slept on the ride home. Oh, and there was a new guy at dance who's really cool. Hopefully we'll get him to come to more dances than that one since I likely won't be frequenting that dance.

Damn the snow last night. Made it so I didn't go dancing. I got to bed early, but I got up later than normal & got into work later than the rest of the week. Ah well, will just have to work late some night(s) this week.

I find out by tomorrow morning if I get to stay out in Cali for the week after Capital Swing for testing. I really hope that it happens.

Hmm, I guess it wasn't really the same old thing. I danced on a non-dancing night, I didn't dance on a dancing night, I might get to spend a lot of time in Cali soon...

Sunday, February 01, 2004

All she wants to do is dance...

Yet as much as I wanted to dance, I couldn't pull myself away from doing math with the FIRST kiddos Thursday night. They even told me to leave. I couldn't do it. I was mad at myself for a little while, but I got over it. It was a stupid thing to be mad over. BUT, to make up for my not dancing Thursday, I went out to Swing City on Friday. I had SO much fun. It was fun pretending that I knew how to do lindy. :-) I got some crap for not showing up to dance Thursday night, but I think I made up for it by crossing over into his true dance scene. Learned a lot from him. Definitely want to learn more lindy & give the dance some time of day - or night. ;-) All this even though I ended up on my butt at one point during the night involuntarily & a ton of bruises all over me.

I had no problem leaving FIRST early on Saturday for dance. Helped that the kids I was working with helped force me out. I learned so much from Robert Royston's workshop. He's amazing. I set up a private with him at NADC, I can't wait for it. On top of learning a ton of stuff, I had a lot of wicked awesome dances with people. Made me wake up this morning rather on the sore side of things.

And now, I get ready to go to FIRST. And then I bring a bunch of FIRST kiddos to the superbowl party at dance. Should be a blast. I just hope there are enough leaders for all the girls I'm bringing... :-P

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

A little bit of this, a little bit of that...

I've danced this song a few times with Bob & a few times with other people. I dunno, I think it's my song. I always have good dances to the song. Last night included. :-)

I didn't dance as much as usual last night. I was busy flirting with someone & wasn't overly inspired by a bunch of the music that was playing. A fun evening even though a particular someone didn't go.

I got home earlier than normal for dancing on a Tuesday night. I didn't leave much earlier than normal either. I'm quite glad that I went dancing even though my parents didn't want me to go due to the snow. It didn't come until a little while ago, so it's a darn good thing I went. I wouldn't be a happy camper right now if I had stayed home from dance when it didn't snow.

Even though I got home early-ish, I got out the door later than lately this morning. I was being stupid. Took me forever to make my lunch & dinner. Then just getting myself together to get out the door. Oy. And then on the drive in I made a wrong turn which ended up being a dead end street. Worked out well 'cause I ended up getting a close parking spot 'cause someone was leaving as I came in, so no complaints here.

Lately I've been on a non-junk food kick. So, I'll have one piece of chocolate a day. One Dove Promise. It's cool 'cause they've got these writings on the inside of the wrapper. A lot of them are rather silly & get repetitive, but lately I've gotten 2 I hadn't seen before & they're rather appropriate for me:

Make time for you.
Go easy on yourself.


It's quite difficult to do both these things, I've found. There are too many things that I want to do. I can't not dance. As fun as dancing is, I don't consider nights where I dance nights off. The one-way hour long ride is quite draining. On nights I don't dance, I'm at work until 9 or so playing with the FIRST kids. Then I like to try to do something more than pass out once I get home from that. I've been cleaning bits & pieces of my room. I'd like to actually get into a routine of doing pilates. It just seems kinda silly to do pilates on nights where I have spin class at work. Getting up earlier in the morning to do them before work isn't going to happen; I have a hard enough time just getting my butt out of bed & into work at a reasonable time.

Let's see, any other random things? Ah yes, I decided I'm going to NADC instead of FIRST nationals. That's all for now though. No complaints. :-)

Tuesday, January 27, 2004

Shut Up.

That's the song of the now that's stuck in my head. Now I wish that it would shut up. I don't even own the song myself to be playing it at work. I only hear it at dance. Why's it that I know a majority of the words? Aye.

Monday, January 26, 2004

Focus?

Specific to dance, when I've had a private or a practice, afterwards I try to focus on something to fix. I try my darndest to focus on just one thing, but when I'm focusing on that one thing, a whole lot of other things come into my head to work on at the same time. Kinda defeats the purpose of focusing on only one thing at a time to fix that. Even when I'm not dancing I'm trying to fix dancing related stuff. Like my posture. Not that it's horrible, but when I'm walking around work I'm thinking keep your head back or use your lats to pull your shoulders down or tuck your hips a bit to arch your back less or oh yeah, you're supposed to push off the back foot, not pull yourself forward with the front foot when you walk. Yikes. Way too much, but I don't feel I can do just one 'cause they're all connected; all together it's overwhelming. *sigh*

Oh, and sometime I want to visit the eye doctor so I can get my vision checked. I don't want to mess my vision up 'cause I'm sitting in front of a computer for 9 hours a day with my focus at arm's distance only...

Sunday, January 25, 2004

For sanity's sake...

Decided to take the weekend off from FIRST. Well, kinda. I didn't go to BAE to play with the kids. Instead I stayed home & uploaded a lot of pictures to the team's webpage. Oh, and I've been cleaning my room a bit. Maybe I'll get it to the point where I'm happy with it sooner than later. :-)

Saturday, January 24, 2004

Better things to do...

...than complain. So why the heck do I do it so much? It's quite a waste of time. I need to either shut up or do something about it. It might be time for a change in mindset about some things...

Friday, January 23, 2004

So much the fun...

Yay for someone coming back to the WCS community. TONS of fun dances & conversations last night. Yay. :) Too bad I've gotta wait until Tuesday to see him again. *pouts*

Thursday, January 22, 2004

It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you've got...

So... What have you got?

Roadkill.

So, on my way into work this morning, 2 dead squirrels in the road. It's been a while since I've noticed any roadkill in my travels. Either I was being more observant than normal or it was an abnormal day.

I don't think it's an abnormal day, I come into work, I stay at work for FIRST kiddos, I go to dance, I go home, I sleep. Yeah, this goes on until February 24th. That's more than a month. I'm not even 2 weeks into this whole FIRST thing & I'm tired of doing as much as I'm doing. I can't keep myself away though. We'll see if I become roadkill in the next month or not... :-P

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

Mathematically Speaking

From a strictly mathematical viewpoint it goes like this:

What makes 100%?

What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?

Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%?

We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%.

How about achieving 103%?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:

If:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

is represented as:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26,

then H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K

8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

and,

K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E

11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

but,

A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E

1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

and,

B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T

21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

and, look how far ass kissing will take you:

A-S-S--K-I-S-S-I-N-G

1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that:

While Hardwork and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, Bullshit and Ass Kissing will put you over the top!

Note: I did NOT check this math to see if it was correct, I got it from someone at work & it made me laugh. :-)

Why not?

Well, I got out of that rut that I was in for no good reason Tuesday day. FIRST mentoring was quite productive & dance was WICKED good. I had really cool dances & talked to a really cool person for a while. Yay.

Of course, today I'm all sorts of annoying people 'cause I'm in such a good mood, but hey, I can dig it. *innocent grin*

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Why?

I really can't figure it out right now. Why am I an engineer?

Yeah, so apparently, I've been too high on life lately & I'm making my crash right around now. People in the dance world are even noticing. Suck.

Monday, January 19, 2004

Heightened Sensitivity.

Well, nothing too important. It's actually the furthest thing from important that you can get, I think. So, as hungry as you might be, try not to eat hot soup really quickly. Especially when it takes forever to eat & retains its heat rather well. You won't so much be able to feel all of your tongue for the rest of the day. When you are able to, it hurts.

...and that's my story.

Sunday, January 18, 2004

Flush you.

Yet another weekend where productiveness when down the toilet. I really planned on doing more over the weekend. I want my room clean 'cause I hate it the way it is. I guess I did get a bunch done. Some banking, some laundry, some quality time... All was not lost. Now, before I slack more, I should do something more than nothing before I leave for dance in an hour. Hmm, I thought I had a bit longer than that, ah well...

Saturday, January 17, 2004

Too fast, yet too slow...

Days are lasting forever lately. Sometimes they go from 6:30a until 1:00a. The mornings after are quite difficult. I actually caught myself starting to nod off at work one day. After work's done, I stay at work & play with the FIRST kiddos. On dancing nights, I leave FIRST an hour early to dance for a few hours. On non dancing nights, I crash by 10:30p. I can't let FIRST keep me from dancing. I'm not the best person to be around if I don't get my dancing in.

My room's a wreck. I hate it like this. I don't give myself the time of day at home. There are times where I don't even sleep here. I need to put life on pause so I can get my life in order. Things will be cooler then.

As much as I'm complaining (I really wish I wasn't even doing that right now), I don't hate my life. I'm just getting into a new routine right now that goes non-stop all day. It works well for me sleeping 'cause I'll actually sleep a whole night on dancing nights. I've gotta work on staying up a bit later on non-dancing nights so I can actually get something done in my room & not wake up too much during the night. Once I make it out to Cali for my dance event, I think I'll be alright. There will only be a little bit of hell-FIRST left after that. Then it's just competitions & not nearly as much time commitment. Maybe then I'll have even changed my day schedule to be earlier than before the holiday. It'll give me more daylight time to do stuff...

Saturday, January 10, 2004

Such competition! (to be updated frequently)

And let me introduce the players...

Dance is the west coast swing that I do. Every Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday. Friday & Saturday depends on the week of the month & my dance friends. This player will likely beat Life, but shouldn't & should beat FIRST every time.

FIRST is the robotics competition that I've been doing for all too long. Now I'm on the mentoring side of things for my old team, 166. In a perfect world, this player won't get any points.

Life is anything that might happen with my non-dancing friends. I love all those friends, but I also can't deal with me when I don't dance. It's unknown how well this player will do in the competition.

Friday, January 09, 2004

S'all relative.

At the beginning of the week, I thought it was quite mean of BAE to make us have a full work week after having almost 2 weeks of shut down. Now, I can't believe it's Friday already. Crazy stuff I tell you...

Monday, January 05, 2004

The rough life I lead...

Birthday celebration was awesome, though I didn't get jammed at all.

Came back from the dance event with some hardware, a check & sore feet. It was an absolute blast. I got crazy mad compliments as well. So tired of saying thank you to everyone... I guess that goes along with winning. ;) So yeah, results:

OPEN Just Dance WCS: 1st place with Bob
Newcomer / Novice J&J Hustle: 2nd place with Robert the lindy hopper
Novice J&J WCS: 5th with Rajeev