Swinging between whether to blog or not. Been a long time since I last wrote, it seems. Some updates - missed a tutorial on Thurs as I've got to accompany my dad for his angiography KIV angioplasty/PTCA. And had a tutorial today (Sunday - yes. Sundays. Get a life, people. )

Was listening to some older songs which brought back strangely nostalgic memories, and an odd tingling sensation down the spine. It's somewhat like watching an old film flickering by, and thinking, "Hey, I think that's me!". Roxette's "She's Got The Look", Spice Girls and "Wannabe", and "There She Goes" by Sixpence None The Richer. Now listening to "Can't Cry Hard Enough" by Bellefire, it actually tipped me over to blog tonight.

Anyway. Pulled off a good wild mushroom soup today, had been in the slow cooker since last night. Got a bunch of fresh shitakes, white buttons, canned straw mushrooms and baby portabellos, stewed and steeped overnight in chicken and pork stock, sieved the shrooms out, pureed them and fried in chopped garlic and butter, then return to stock with half a teaspoon of dried saffron. T'was good. =D Missed out the parsley, unfortunately.

At least it beat my dad's odd concoction tonight. He put the white frilly fungus with a slab of pork in soup - AND double-boiled it with apples and pears. Yx made salted pork. =D It's awfully sinful - salt and fats, the surefire way to getting a lovely clogged artery. But oooh yum! Yum, yum, yum. Ok, Sunday treat's over. Back to being a good boy and avoiding all these yummies. Still, a guy's gotta eat.

Spent the weekend trying to study; at least I've just finished collating my endometriosis notes, and read a bit of the puerperium notes. Life's cold and hard.

Also watched a few CDs on Sat, my dad got hold of the lecture videos from the world ballroom dance congress held at Winter Gardens, Blackpool (those who watched Shall We Dance would know all about Blackppol ;) ) this year. It was brilliant! Technique clinic. Enjoyed the samba one particularly, I swear I'm swaying just a little bit more after Anderi Skufca and Katerina Verturini demonstrated honing techniques in the basic steps - Whisks, Voltas and Samba Walks. Michael Malitowski and Joanna Lewis did some extremely nice Paso Doble as well .. gosh. This is THE one dance I'd really love to learn, but no ... first, I don't have the figure for it (more on this later), nor the rage and fierceness. Protrayal of a Spanish bullfight, jostling with the "bull" or the red flag (the lady). Sigh.



Anyone noticed that professional dancesport people have the following features?
1) Awfully chiselled good looks (the guys) - straight out of a Calvin Klein catalog
2) Flawless faces and those eyes - gosh - THOSE EYES (the ladies) - a la J.Lo in Shall We Dance?
3) The ladies seem to be made up of 2 bodyparts only. Chest and legs. Chest 20%, those unbelievably stilty legs 80%. Or maybe it's the dresses. Which brings me to ...
4) The scarily revealing dresses. The ladies seem to want to (and are definitely able to, give those goddess-like figures they boast of!) show as much skin as they possibly could. Even the guys .. I'm talking about the Latin category here, not Standards .. they wear these tight-fitting long-sleeved things with a gigantic cleave in the front from the collar down to the belly button. Of all the Standard dresses ... Waltz ones are a definite winner in my eyes. Fairies, anyone?



http://dancesportinfo.net/

I'll never be able to pull any of these off, hah. Take the shirts, for example. Most probably be showing boob-cleavage instead of pec-cleavage.

Anyway, watched a new dance studio's open house together with parents this evening, we left after an hour, it was THAT bad. Erm ... that's what you call Paso Doble? I reckon the guy was jostling with a kitty instead of a raging bull. And was that the Rhumba?? Or some weird modern erotic mish-mash? It was REALLY bad. And they claim they teach erm .. lindy, west coast swing and east coast swing. Don't kid me here, I daresay no one in this tiny country can do even a decent WCS. And I don't know (and don't want to know at all, trust me) what they mean by lindy.

Yep, after a nice dinner with 2 contending soups (mushroom puree vs apple and pear soup), half an hour of trying to sway our hips for the samba, a nice hot shower and an hour of studying (now that's a first!), here I am, thinking of the week ahead. Just another long, long week.