We were doing a lot of "cleaning" today and one/two of my friends were getting tonnes of corrections and bollockings when they weren't paying attention which made them stressed. (well get it right then!) But even though I had a great day and was rehearsing the whole time and hardly away from centre stage, when I was walking home their stress had rubbed off on me and I was completely pissed off. It was quite bizarre - but I recuperated with a nice mug of tea and some texts to my boyfriend kind of guy.

Boyfriend? - I went clubbing two weeks ago and there was a guy dancing kind of insanely and kind of contemporaryish (which was off putting) but one of the people I'd 'turned down' as it were - earlier, was trying to come on to me again (not to mention the scary guy who said in a perverted, gruff, gravelly voice "We shall dance, you shall dance better than me, but we shall dance") and I escaped into the welcome embrace of the scary dancer guy. Who turned out to be a fantastic dirty dancer and kisser - as well as a person who started lifting me and throwing me around (on the dancefloor).

Which I wouldn't have trusted him to do if I hadn't originally thought he was some kind of dance student! Anyway, he turned out to be a really great guy who is also a doctor. And is only twenty six and a young twenty six year old at that! I saw him last weekend and I'm seeing him again this weekend yey. Unfortunately I'm going to miss the second year theatre performance which I'm annoyed about but hey, what can you do?

tbc

The rehearsal was fun(ha ha) when we were teaching it and setting it to counts etc I can be far too much of a perfectionist and three of the four of us were stressed to the point where every little detail is the most important thing in the world. Luckily none of us took anything personally but the tension really couldn't get much higher. I like working with stress but sometimes you do start to wonder.

We even managed to piss the whole class of when everyone was supposed to be setting to counts and there's a big 123 223 323....rhythm to set it to but our duets are at the intro part of the music which is all melody and no discernible rhythm and the couple of times we reset the cd player so we could rehearse properly caused a little bit of controversy.

We also had our written feedback sheets today and lots of people were sitting in one of the studios talking about them. One girl said that Dave and Pete had said her turning was rubbish in the tutorial but they had given her a three for turning on the feedback sheet (she felt that was contradictory) Without thinking I said loudly that threes were crap (we were marked out of 5) only to be met by a huge chorus of "three's are good" "three means average" "threes are fine" blah blah blah. Foot, mouth, Sheep disease....

To stand up for myself, in my tutorial everything I'd been given a three for was discussed in the, this is negative what are you going to do about it way. For example, Pete:"Three for progress, does that surprise you?"

I was annoyed/upset with my contemporary mark, 68 since you asked. Flexibility let me down but I have made it to Yoga twice this week and I'm going to find a class for tomorrow. I'm finding it hard to adjust to the fact that I got a higher grade in ballet than contemporary when I'd had maybe 20 ballet lessons before coming to this school yet had been doing contemporary for three years. Just goes to show that Graham is not the technique for me! At all.

Also I have to work on being a performing monkey, I'm in danger of being too much a technician in ballet (instead of letting go, enjoying myself and projecting) and on my contemporary feedback I had the very pointed statement "Make it intelligent."

there is work to be done....

He also gave us "set" classes which meant we did exactly the same exercises every lesson for the week with the point being that it really made your muscles work and improve - but Sheena (regular ballet teacher and all round fantastic person) doesn't approve of that kind of class because it does nothing for your mind and the dancer can't do anything more than those few exercises. I have a good memory for exercises so I'm inclined towards Sheena's side of the argument.

I started to almost enjoy the Graham stuff again when the exercises were made more complicated, for example in the "openings" we had port de bras and leg extensions to contend with, while shifting our hips and heads so it was a lot more interesting to do and dance. But then we stopped doing these complicated versions because we were rehearsing for our assesment class.

Dave and Sheena seemed to have very different approaches to this - Dave gave us a class which we'd been made to memorise the week beforehand except for one tondu exercise he made up on the day (heel up, toes off, toes down, heel down, repeat, tondu, tondu, high retiré, replace. Other side, do it again then twice in second(e)! soo complicated lol)

Whereas Sheena gave us an unknown class which was simpler than our usual classes and a travelling exercise which we pretended that we hadn't been rehearsing for three weeks (sissone fermé avant, sissone fermé avant, sissone ouvert avant, pas de bourré dessous, (petit?) passé retiré (I'm just chucking the acute accents in randomly btw because I've learnt how to make the computer do them with a keyboard shortcut) developpé posé with third arabesque, fondu, pas de bourré dessous, changement). Sheena's class was more simple than usual except for the rond de jambe exercise which could hardly have been more complicated with fondus, sutinues, tempo changes, rond de jambes en l'air and grande rond de jambes en l'air!) not to mention ports de bras!!!

Anyway I survived but I haven't sweated like that in ballet for a long time. Except I really should do....hmm reflection on practice needed here methinks!

Contemporary went well I thought - I pushed myself hard but tried not to stress through it because I know I can do it and if I relaxed a bit I wouldn't block myself. I made a couple of silly mistakes in the middle when my body would either not get the exercise or couldn't work out exactly what the difference/change is between four bouncing demi plies into four little sautés. But I was well hidden by the crowd so I don't think it would have counted against me much.

We had the tutorial feedback session the same day as the assesment! Now that's great organisation! Everything we are working on can apparently be split into 20 different categories and we got a mark out of five for each one. Categories include things like, strength, flexiblity, arms, turning, centre, fluidity, musicality, attack (something they are very big on here), upper body, legs, feet, epaulément, progress, etc. I got threes for flexibility, turning, fludity! and feet - some of which improved in the centre. Pete was surprised that I was better in the centre than at the barre and so was I! apparently it all comes together! I got a 5 for arms which I'm very proud of because last year I thought I looked like an ape with my arms in seconde!

And also I appeared very musical (5) which I was surprised at because I don't think I am and if the rhythm is complicated it takes me a long time to find it! I also counted the whole way through every exercise which probably swung it my way. Anyway the whole thing was marked out of 100 (which mathematicians will have worked out already unlike me! lol) and 75 and above is a distinction. I scored 77 wahey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was second(e) highest in the class, beaten only by the new girl Emma (my best friend ahh!) but she's done ballet for two years and can do pointe work. And she only got one point higher than me! It was quite depressing that the class was on a monday because I have rubbish turn out on mondays - not really a good excuse for a future pro but hey, I've still got time on my side! And I did have really bad turn out on the day - I reckon I could have got an extra point for turn out by friday! The two irritating marks were 3 for fluidity - they say I can be clonkey! I am completely blaming the teaching for this.

In Contemporary we never ever work on fluidity, in fact in one exercise Dave said that he wanted the arm not to move in a circular position but be place, by place, by place. And in Emma's tutorial they discussed that exercise and said she wasn't fluid. Our theory is that Pete said it wasn't fluid and should be and Dave conveniently forgot that he had set it that way. Last year I was always being cast as the soft fluid dancer (in release technique!!) and the way we are made to be exageratedly muscular in every exercise is why fluidity doesn't come into anything here. Grr grr grr. Hippocritical teachers!

Dave didn't go over my contemporary grades mark by mark but just went over my bad points and he said that while I'm the most flexible male in the class in another institution I would be bottom of the pile. He said I have to be as flexible as the girls (maybe he's projecting his own ambitions onto me) and surprisingly that my pelvis was "up" but I now I have to make it go more and more. Fair enough but he didn't say anything positive - including that I was "above average" but he didn't think I would be in the distinction category. Well without being completely big headed, if I haven't got a distinction in contemporary then no one else in the class will have one!

They also gave me a three for progress and Pete asked, quite nicely, if that surprised me? It didn't because I haven't been pushing myself as hard as I did last year but there isn't anywhere I can push myself - none of the material in class is challenging at all. The only thing I can direct my energy towards will be flexibility (more on this later, I have good news). He also contradicted himself slightly by saying that I was one of the people who was always ready for class and ready to go at the beginning of each exercise, not fiddling with clothes or anything and that I was working hard. So working hard and not progressing eh?

Good news about flexibility.....I went to Yoga today!!! and loved it! The bizarre thing is I don't feel like I'm an unflexible person - my first dance teacher tends to surprise me by saying positive things about my flexibility. I think the big problem I have here is never feeling warm enough to stretch and then panicking (literally panicking). But I love the safety of a yoga class with a qualified person to trust so I'm going to go three nights a week. Watch me!

Anyway someones chatting to me on msn so I've finished this off before I lose it all through malpractice!!

Lewis xxx
(feeling fairly good about life x

The guy (who was wearing a red tshirt and big red wings and carrying a magic fairy wand lol oh yeh and red devil horns too) got into one of the cages beside the dj booth and lo and behold I just happened to be standing with one of my friends beneath it! Anyway, after ages of me trying to make eye contact he did start looking at me and then he was blatantly talking to his friend about me. So far so good. I did see him pull a kind of whiny I don't think so face at one point which was discouraging but maybe his friend had asked "why don't you go and talk to him (me)" as opposed to what I thought last night!

Anyway he got out of the booth but Wendy (friend) and I had decided to walk off already and I had eye contact with red wings but he sort of shook his head. I really overanalyse things some time. Anyway, we got on the dance floor and he had followed us. Lots of eye contact and smiling.....yey yey yey. Justin Trousersnake's "Can I leave wid u" song came on and guess which lines we mouthed to each other. How school disco!

He started dancing closer to me and then somehow we were back to back...

I'm sure I hit save not publish!!!!!

...anyway we were dancing together and then him and his friend (female) wandered off. I decided to be quite forward and I got a pen from the dj booth and wrote my number on the back of my Scottish Ballet ticket and the next time I walked past him I handed him it. Wendy said that was a bit sly, but hey.

The next time he walked past me he grabbed hold of my hand (then let go boohoo) but that was obviously a good time to go dancing again! I grabbed him from behind and before I knew it we were getting off with each other in the middle of a straight nightclub! Wahey!

Apparently we were being stared at by all and sundry but you know me well enough by now to know that doesn't bother me at all!!!!

Eventually I found out his name, age and that he's a law student at Abertay Uni.

When he asked me my age it took me a while to think about it and I'm sure I sounded like I was lying. It's also really odd to tell some one much taller than you that you are two years older than them. (I'm only just twenty so it doesn't really matter!!!!)

Anyway - I really really hope he calls me. And soon!!!! And that he's not playing any of those stupid - I won't call too soon in case I look desperate games - because I'm desperate and I really want him to call soon! lol!!

Then again if he never calls I just suck which is really bad. Arrgh!!

Dance related topics.....We had Pete Royston for ballet for most of the week which was fantastic. He's really strict and can explain things extremely well. The only thing that irritated me was how he told us to squeeze our lemons all the time! Why oh why? Is that the terminology they use at the Royal Ballet School (where Pete trained)? However, Dave wants us to start saying Gluteus Maximus so that we are more than able to do our anatomy tests next year (If I'm still here). But that won't help people remember the gluteus medius or minimus will it Dave???? No, I don't think so somehow.

For some reason on friday doing our stretching sequence in second hurt more than ever. I hate that exercise because I can not use it to stretch at all and all I do is grip like absolute hell onto my hip flexors in order to pull my pelvis up. The pain is excruciating and the benefits nil. DUMB DUMB DUMB.

We're spending a lot of time preparing for our assessment classes at the moment - it all seems a bit ridiculous though. All we will do are exercises which are far more simple than the things we do in everyday class, just to make us look good in the assesments. We do practically the same classes everyday of the week anyway (I'm not joking, on friday Dave just sat on a chair and said we'll just go straight through the floor work, 5678 and everyone knew what to do) so why don't they just teach us like normal and actually get a fair assesment of the standard - I won't look crap and I don't care if other people do, it's only because some of them still aren't putting any physical energy into their bodies.

I'm going to summise the blog again because I just don't have the energy to recreate - ah well, I'll call the original part of my aggression therapy.

Basically I had a phone call from my dad saying "yes we received your letter and we know how you feel about these things and we love you for who you are... we will have trouble with some of what you said and we are both planning on writing you letters. What are you up to now?"

If the 'things' that the idiots, I mean my parents, are going on about turn out to be about bringing a boyfriend (If I ever have one! grr.) home then they will have a hard time trying to get me "home" MANY INVERTED COMMAS.

I will not be shunned by STUPID, IDIOTIC, MORONIC, NEANDERTHAL, BACKWARDS, DUMB, ISSUE AVOIDING, CONSERVATIVE, VICTORIAN, UP THEIR OWN ASSES, IGNORANT, ARROGANT, SELF EFFACING, NARROW MINDED, INFACT NO MINDED, CROWD FOLLOWING, OLD FASHIONED - wait, how does that one work, homosexual (GAY, QUEER, FAGGOT, POOFTER, NANCY BOY, FRIEND OF DOROTHY (ha ha, love that one)) relations were normal in ANCIENT BLOODY GREECE, land of the great philosophers and inventors of theatre!)

BIGOTED HOMOPHOBES. a.k.a. my parents. a.k.a. every other bloody minded idiot on the planet.

Being gay is natural, normal and on the whole - a hell of a lot better than being straight!!! We dress better, We look better, We express feelings, We have bloody feelings, We have adventurous sex, We don't rely on watching footie down the local with a pint of lager (fosters probably ha ha - fairy liquid more like) in order to bond with human beings, We can talk to girls, We have communities, We don't have to insult each other to show we care - although when we do it takes the form of witty reparte (ok camp bitching) but it's not grunted swear words followed by a sulk.

We are not afraid of standing out from the crowd, We are proud of our individuality, We have personalities, We smash taboos, We don't get walked on, We actively fight for our politics, We make women's clothes look good (ok maybe going too far)

AND WE WON'T BE SIDELINED, SHUNNED OR SUPPRESSED BY ANYONE!!!!

STUPID PEOPLE DO YOU HEAR ME???

Excuse me while I go join Stonewall.

So i'm writing them a letter - maybe thats cowardly but I really don't have the ability to talk to my parents about anything to do with me. Especially not emotional stuff.

Here's the content of the letter...and just for reference - Jemma was a girl who I spent a year in a relationship with, we lived together and everything (shock horror!)

Dear Mum & Dad,

Lewis xxx

It looks quite short reading it back now. Ah well, pure and simple is generally a good plan. Let's just hope this doesn't all back fire on me!

And now for something completely different. (I watched my first Monty Python over half term - v.funny but personally, I wouldn't make a cult out of it).

I'm getting pretty annoyed with people whinging about how the people in class who aren't very good and aren't particularly motivated are bringing them down / their energy down. I do remember feeling like that at the very beginning of the term but I find that I can quite easily distance myself from everybody else in the class. You have to in order to really work with yourself. I can understand why having a really bad group in a drama class can be detrimental, because they have to work with and depend on each other so much. But in a dance class I take the advice of my first teacher and make it all about ME ME ME ME ME. Everyone else can go to hell.

There are even a couple of Joan of Arc's who are so disgusted at the people in the school that they are trying to form a Dance & Theatre society. The poster informs you that if you 'want to be inspired' then 'this could be the answer for you' come along at blah blah blah and '...bring your own ideas'. While on one hand the idea has some merit on the other - why don't they just get on with it? They could go and visit some art galleries (or whatever turns them on), do some choreography, have a lunchtime performance and congratulate themselves afterwards. They'd be so busy working that they wouldn't notice anybody else. It's the inner artist that counts darlings. I think Jesus had a parable about this actually, something along the lines of remove the log from your own eye before removing the speck of dust from someone else's. Be Martyr's if you must but please don't drag the rest of us down in your crusade.

Wow, honesty and bitchiness all in one day - must be the mini milk I had for lunch.

Dave had the flu today so Hamel gave us a sort of Northern Style release class. It was pants. Just thought I'd throw that in.

Times are changing - on tuesday for the first time in my entire life I could actually move forwards while sitting in second! I don't know why, I haven't been doing anything extra special to make that happen. It's got to be something to with the bounces and contractions and brushes blah blah blah. And I've had some soreness around there recently, not the unsupported style ache I used to have before I knew anything about centres and core stability, but a soreness, which upon reflection, must be the type of thing when after three years your back actually decides that maybe it does want to co-operate!

There's still a little bit of my spine that sticks out funnily, but it looks like it's concentrated around maybe two or three vertebrae and I'm sure I can work on it.

Maybe you remember that very 'contemporary' RIVAS exercise thing I wrote up here a while ago - anyway, I've more than achieved the parallel forwards pelvis tilt thing, I can get right over even without warming up! I discovered this tonight when Tom was saying that he was better than me at it. Ooh the competition. And the tilt in second is definately on the 45degree mark but I'll have to sort out that funny bit before I am truly happy. At least it has given me the encouragement to keep pushing myself in these kind of exercises. It's not so long ago (the start of term in fact) when I could not move forwards to save my life in either of these positions! So thank you Martha. Infact since coming back from half term (soo good) and we've started doing floorwork properly (listen to me with all my Graham terminology - ha ha not) I'm almost enjoying our daily sit, bounce, contract, plie, tendu, rise and finish (technique) class.

Thank Cecchetti for Ballet (no historical reason for that, I just like him). Ballet is really the thing I wake up for in the mornings (except I don't really wake up, I just press snooze until I have 25 minutes (if that) until I have to leave the flat - but don't worry, I still shower!). To be completely honest (as is the inherent nature of my personality lol) I've written a letter to Rambert School of Classical Ballet and Dance applying for next year...hmm. This came about because there is a new girl (very nice and friendly with an overactive imagination but for fantasy not dirty things like some of the other students (me cough cough)) and she told me about the Rambert School and that she was going to be applying around loads of schools at the end of the year and I thought, hey - why not. Plus to be honest, its been so long since I've seen any Contemporary Dance that I was really amazingly excited to watch (except a DVD of Nederlands Dans Theater, but they are really exceptional) that I would seriously prefer to be a Ballet Dancer. I love to dance RELEASE based contemporary but I don't get nearly the same amount of excitement from watching it.

P.S. - for people who know this blog, I've been feeling really stupid for ages about what I wrote about Scottish Ballet - I know that they are a contemporary company now (there's lots of interesting stuff on the internet, including lots of protesting in support of the BALLET dancers in the company - a heated article from Mr Peter Royston (principal of Scottish School of Contemporary Dance - ex choreographer etc for Scottish Ballet) nonetheless, exists somewhere! It was just the fact they had my favourite B word in the title that got me all over excited. Anyway, I think there is a Russian Ballet Company performing Nutcracker in Dundee sometime soon and I will be there!

I don't quite have the energy to go into detail (I had a very fat lazy half term and being back at school is making me very very tired) but we had a workshop with Scottish Ballet today. Sort of. It was actually the producer (and an exdancer) of Siobhan Davies Dance Company, she had spent a lot of time recently teaching White Man Sleeps to Scottish Ballet. We had a fun RELEASE technique class and then we learnt most of one of the male solo's from WMSleeps. Again, much more interesting to dance than watch but I'm going to put a lot of the blame into video recordings of dance/live performance. Absolutely worthless in trying to recreate any of the energy/wonder/spectacle (lol-I used that word as such a derogatory term in a some of my essays at Coventry-for people who are easily confused like me, I'm not using it in a derogatory way here!) of a live performance.

It's eleven o'clock and bedtime for me. I will rebuild my strength (but not at the cost of my new found flexibility lol) Yesterday I was in bed at half nine because I had been swimming and then cooking. And I still couldn't get out of bed in the morning. It's extremely irritating because I used to be a morning person and as soon as I actually get out of bed (and definately when I'm out of the shower) I'm wide awake and a friendly happy person. Something's going wrong somewhere.

Finally a funny story to finish this off - On Sunday I was waxing my legs (I'm not a fan of body hair at all) but I had only finished the calf and a bit beyond the knee of my right leg when I got distracted by cooking a meal for a friend (something I do quite a lot - I'll even spend a couple of hours preparing and cooking a meal just for myself!) and I decided to finish my self inflicted pain schedule for the day.

As these things have a habit of doing, I didn't feel like carrying on with the game on Monday or Tuesday for that matter. I really was going to do it on Wednesday - baring in mind (excuse the bad bad pun) that I had been walking around in a very uneven state for a few days by then. When Tom haphazardly invited me swimming - yey I said (thinking of Tom in little swimming trunks!! lol) but then the state of my legs dawned on me. Being the resourceful person that I am I find a blunt razor and a bar of shaving soap (a disposal Gillette BlueII plus and Gillette Venus for women (my flatmate's, not mine) shaving gel) I set to work.

However, the slight problem of limited time struck me as well, so now I have smooth but for very different reasons, lower legs and an odd change in texture just a bit above where the line where my swimming trunks come to - and I don't have small swimming trunks!!!

I hope you are laughing as much as I am feeling dumb!!!

Good night xxx

P.S. Title comes from a quote I read about Germaine Greer which says she finds the male body most erotic when it is young, muscular and free of hair! And she objects to women being seen as sex objects!!! (I forgive her, because we have very similar tastes!) x

And I might have found a real person to see more often. Kind of. Emma and I (a friend/faghag (is that one or two words?)) were supposed to have a girly night in watching queer as folk videos, using face packs, hair dye and making cakes. But we went to Asda during the day - which was a brand new experience for me, I'm proud that I retained my Asda virginity until I was nearly twenty though!! I'm twenty next week!! I think i'll be twenty on tuesday, it will be the fourteenth of october anyway!

I'm getting two tickets to see Fosse at the Edinburgh playhouse from mummy and daddy. I'm not sure who the special person I choose to go with will be, probably Tom but maybe Anna or Lynsay or stop trying to prove you have friends Lewis!!!

Anyway - Emma and I went mad at Asda and spent about £50 or so between us (Emma did buy two cameras though, one of which was a funky izone camera) so we decided that we had to have more people over, two of whom were Sean and a person I'd never met called Rich. Sean is someone who I'd had a one night stand with sometime in the first term at Uni.

The evening started well, I got involved in a complicated game of chess (complicated because I was drinking vodka) and Rich (mmm) was technically better than me but he was worse for wear than I was lol. Thanks to a lucky streak during the game I wiped out most of his good pieces in a short space of time and about half an hour of chasing his king and one remaining castle around (that and his three pawns lol) I finally got him into checkmate. But seeing as I had my queen, a knight, a castle, a bishop and some pawns - half an hour is a pretty long time! Probably didn't help that for some reason I had to execute all my strategic moves with my king!!!!! However, a strategy for me was only ever about 3 moves long because my brain was not processing information well and the pieces were all made of glass - clear and frosted - which did not provide good visual information.

After these pleasant ramblings I was planning on writing a (melancholy) serious blogg but I have been at a party tonight, smoked too many cigarettes (I only smoke socially - but I have a good social life at the moment, sad I know) consumed brandy and beer and have gorged down a half a 12" pepperoni pizza - for some reason I'm feeling a little worse for wear all of a sudden and the computer screen is not helping matters so I'm going to have to return to this blogg later - hopefully in the same kind of frame of mind because I have thoughts I need to purge.

Anyway - I'm going to have to lie down or throw up or something.

I'll be back soon I promise!
xxx

I had the pleasure of dining alone in wetherspoons (before it closed). The waiting staff found me quite amusing. ha.

Contemporary was fun, but I felt very strange not being in unitard. And softness was a problem too, but at least my feet are better behaved and I was more flexible. And I was nearly able to count!!!

If anyone is under 23, living in Dundee, single - good looking and gay please leave me a message! - am getting quite desperate, I hate moving to new places, it seems to take time to integrate with locals before you can start dating them!!!

Two blogs in one day....what am I coming to?

Am consoling myself on the fact that I'm going to Dance Xchange tonight for contemporary. Not modern, not technique, but release based contemporary dance!! Yippee!!! It was either that or jazz, yawn. It will be interesting to see whether I can get into it but heres hoping.

I'm also going to chance intermediate ballet tomorrow with a live pianist mmmm. It must be a whole pain/pleasure complex I've got going.

Freshers look funny - I've managed to get into all the Uni facilities, my access card still works (maybe they were hoping to get me back lol) and there's lots of brand new faces struggling with the computer system etc. How up yourself you can get after only a year! he he he.

Coventry actually feels colder than scotland bizarrely! I think its because its one of the most miserable cities (if you can call that) which exists! I (almost) start laughing when people tell me that Dundee is the backend of Scotland or whatever term they choose to express that feeling. Those people have never been to this product of a cement mixer vomiting over a landfill refuse site.

I've just spotted one of my disgusting housemates from last year. This was a person who would go away for the 4 week break at Easter leaving the kitchen full of their washing up, and then when I put the wasing up in their FOOD CUPBOARD.

They proceeded to leave it there for the next term. And that was just the tip of the iceberg!! Apologies for the cliche, but it's the name of a particularly appalling first year collaborative module here and a running joke that you fall into whenever you're around. Which if you're lucky, you won't ever be!

Am going off to dance (after drinking tea, travelling to Birmingham and waiting around somewhere - happy holiday!).

Until next time

One person who I had done market research with, who wasn't from SSCD, is good friends with Baptiste - the french dancer in the company. So it was quite easy to get talking to him - anyway there was supposed to be some 'famousish in the eighties' singer at Out that night and some of them (the dancers) were going. After much coaxing and persuasion (not) I was coerced into going too lol. It was a very fun/bizarre experience being in a (terrible) nightclub with proffessional dancers who were intent on ripping the piss out of contemporary dance and each others performances in the show! Tom, who has just finished an apprenticeship with SDT, had a particularly wacky sense of humour!

Ricardo was on really good form that night - I don't think he ever runs out of energy - and he decided to go around our little dancing circle picking everyone up with one of the lifts from the show. Soo fun.

At the end of the night - we did last all the way through the cancellation of the popstar, the over abundance of drag queens, and the terrible music me and Lucy (a 2nd year at SSCD) were invited to Tom's farewell party the next day. With the rule of having to wear something pink. After much deliberation on Sunday (starting with that always difficult task of getting out of bed at lunchtime and then going for Hot Chocolate and Shopping) I found the courage to phone (ok text) Baptiste to go to the party. I had managed to find the campest, pinkest t-shirt you can imagine (worse probably) but even that wasn't much to contend with the Pink Quiche. Secret French recipe apparently.

The party was fun - highlights include playing Charades (Tom's idea) with Free Willy and Free Willy 2 as films to guess. One of the dancers playing "My heart will go on" (I'll keep their identity a secret lol) thankfully no one singing it. A spontaneous group singing of the theme tune from 'Round the twist' "Have you ever, ever felt like this, how strange things happen, when you're going round the twist" etc. Baptiste showing everybody what he liked to do with burst balloons when he was a kid (Don't ask). James (another dancer)'s unhealthy obsession with trying to kick balloons into a lit candle. A strange fire ontop of the piano which someone moved into the centre of the room, where the only non dancey person in the room managed to put it out! You get the picture....

All these frivolities at the weekend had a very negative effect on my ballet technique this morning though. It's definately going to be an early night for me tonight!

Anyway - good luck to Scottish Dance Theatre as they embark on their tour tomorrow. It's Glasgow first then they're making their way to Greece! Catch them somewhere if you can. The programme is sufficiently varied and the dancers are just plain fantastic.

I made friends with some of the people in the foundation year at SSCD last night and went to a mini party at one of their houses. Then we went to a rubbish (sorry, not particularly entertaining) club and then for no apparent reason I stayed over at one of their houses with some other people. And that person just happens to live with Ricardo from Scottish Dance Theatre! mmmm!

The club was made more interesting when we were in the VIP lounge and someone (Emma!) bought a vibrator! I then proceeded to show them how sensitive your inner thigh can be! All good fun!

the point I want to make though, is that the foundation people, on the whole, are far more fun, exciting and interesting than the people in my year! They're also more mature!!! New friends aplenty!

I'm going out after the show tonight with quite a few people from my year - its someone's birthday. So there's always the possibility that everything will change and some personalities will shine through. Here's hoping.

I'm only writing this now because I'm bored so I'll stop before I bore all of you. I need to get on with my 'action packed' day now. (Going to a friends house, coming home and cooking for one of my friends, Going to see Scottish Dance Theatre, going clubbing...the list is endless lol).

see you's laters (as they say around here) x

The beginning section (which is what I saw in rehearsal - but the whole thing is 20mins long) has some DV8 Strange fish moments - the "party" scene, sans the insane loner. And is also a lot like the new piece by the two resident choreographers at the place/lcds - who I can't remember the name of - I remember that its a bit of a mouthful though so its just as well.

Anyway - go and see Scottish Dance Theatre this weekend and if you go on friday you can see me asking members of the audience questions about why they came to see the show. The Rep theatre (as opposed to Scottish Dance theatre) are conducting market research on dance audiences - they want to know who in their right minds would go and see a dance show. AND they're offering a £50 cash prize if you fill in a postcard and put your address on it! The show gets better and better.

I had a 'tutorial' yesterday - apparently I've got to stop thinking because it can get in the way of doing. Which would be fair enough if I wasn't trying hard and improving in technique classes - but I am. Supposedly you can be a great, sensitive dancer and be completely stupid too. Well not me! Sorry.

Scottish School of Contemporary dance aren't interested in producing intelligent dancers - quote! However, they are interested in making dancers who can dance which is what I've chosen to do - academia and me can be partners later in life. Ah well - at least I don't get homework.

Feeling like I've made the same point twice I'm going to leave this post short - shock, horror. Farewell.

P.S. College guy and me are getting on fine now. Mini soap opera of a weekend is over now!

xx

I had a very bizarre moment (well a few moments actually) while out on Friday Night (only pubbing, you know how far my budget stretches!). I seriously did not recognise myself in the mirror. I wasn't drunk, by that time I'd only had about 1 maybe 2 pints of "Tennents" and a pint of Cider. (Big butch manly drinks lol). I ended up having a staring competition with myself and my 'reflection' was winning! You know when you do the switching from eye to eye thing sometimes while having a staring competition with someone - well I was doing that but my 'reflection' wasn't. Which only increased my sense of detachment from the image. Then I got scared and ranaway back to my lil group of friends.

While in 'Charlie's Bar' - hmm, written down it looks ok, but I mentioned it because I don't like the name - we saw a young guy come in and sit down at the bar by himself. Maybe other people wouldn't have done but I found it quite unusual - I would have a very hard time going to a bar by myself (as in I would feel v.self concious - not the best attitude to have I know but not something that I feel inclined to 'work through'.) Anyway - one of the girls I was with decided to go and ask him to come and join us because after 15 minutes of staring we'd firmly established that he was alone.

I was quite up for the idea but I did not find him attractive at all - in gay bars that takes precedent over most other things when deciding to talk somebody in quite a scary cattle market type why. (I suppose its the same in st8 bars but gay cattle tend to have a much higher pedigree and success (and honesty about their intentions) rate. My housemates in Coventry considered themselves successful if they pulled once a term - for my gay friends success was measured in numbers per night lol! - just the way it is ;o)

Anyway - I can understand why the poor guy thought I liked him when my friends were asking him to come over. Apparently he asked where he could sit and she said next to me. Grr.

Anyway, this guy became quite attached and touchyfeely - luckily not in an itv censorship type way - with me and was trying desperately to pay for me to get into 'Out' - The gay nightclub. Despite the fact that I wanted to go because another guy who joined our 'party' was gorgeous and thinking about going, I managed to prevent myself from exploiting poor mister not really that bad but nothing to make me interested.

Just wanted to share that little bit of honesty in my life with you.

Actually that's misleading - I loathe lying. I had a very serious relationship with a girl when I was seventeen (a girl?? shock horror!) we were together for a year and lived with each other for nearly half of it! She was a complete pathological liar - the things she would say to people were completely unbelievable. But that's obviously the wrong adjective (or is it a verb? Adverb maybe - argh I'm getting annoyed at abandoning academia aged 16!) to use because her lies were extremely believable but I didn't want to use the cliche completely outrageous. Even if it would have made a lot more sense. - I'm sorry that I'm rambling but that's basically what this online thing is for - me to ramble away to my hearts content....

I'm shutting up now (about that anyway).

Ever since our very messy relationship I haven't been able to cope with people who lie - they make me so angry.

I forgot why I got onto that subject but to round it all off - the cute guy had recently split up with his boyfriend and we've all decided to out properly next friday.

Remembered another reason why I got onto the subject of lying - remember post about v.fit guy in my year? Well, somehow I manage to really hurt his feelings in a variety of ways every weekend - even though we never meet up at the weekends. This time was because I'd become annoyed with him saying v.frequently lets go out for dinner tonight/to a pub/out clubbing with these people/call me later/etc etc and me not making any other plans because I enjoy spending time with him a lot only to call him in the evening to be told a variety of things like - I'm tired/I'm ill/I'm doing my washing/I'm busy so I can't talk right now (after asking me to call at that time) - all of these stupid things after he'd been the one to initiate all the plans.

This was added to the fact that he'd said that he was tired one night but if he did decide to go out he'd text me.

That night I found out he was going to Paris with his girl friend (he has a boyfriend in Germany too - great guy. (sorry, that's too mean - to be honest he's my best friend in Dundee and I'm feeling bitter and low which is very unfair (to him) but i've started so I'll finish). The Paris story is significant because he'd invited me to go with him (he's doing some modelling) then said that I could go next time because things were really up in the air and he was still all tired/flustered/can't think of a better, longer term word with adjusting to a new country. But no mention of the fact that he was going with his girlfriend. Not exactly lying but not exactly telling the truth either.

Then, the morning after at College,(look this post is dance related!) I hear people teasing him about his hangover from going out the night before. Thanks for the txt hey.

Anyway - after a week and a half of incidents like these I told him I felt like he was lying to me - not in a nasty way - maybe there was dry humour (dressed up sarcasm) involved but not heavily and he got pissed off with me.

Am trying to find the point............and here it is :- After friday night drinking session (having been unsuccessful on the pulling front besides loads of v.positive eye contact with cute guy (in the looking at each other every 15sec sense) and all the unwelcome advances from the lonely guy) I decided to call College guy's answerphone and be honest about how he was making me feel.

Got a text message today telling me that he can't believe i'm calling him a liar (he's more an omit the truth type person miaow) so I called him and he started lecturing me on how when he was younger his v.strict Christian adoption family hardly let him have any freedom and he was constantly lying about where he was and why and how upset/angry/annoyed/pissed off/blah blah he was that I was calling him a liar when he'd worked hard to reform since then etc

His signal cut out and I didn't bother to call him back.

Am so annoyed with myself because at the rate I'm going I'm going to really damage the best friendship I've got up here (no offense to Anna and Aedin but you're not gay and not male and we're not as close yet) and I know I do still fancy College guy but not nearly like I used to. The more I get to know him the more I don't want to ever have a romantic relationship with him. Friends more than definately though. But somehow I always manage to screw things like this up - and I really want to talk to somebody about another unfortunate incident that happened that 'fateful' friday night involving some broken glass etc - hey I've lived on the isle of wight - its practically normal down there) but I can't and I have to face wearing a leotard tomorrow morning.

Which I've just remembered I haven't washed yet so its going to be a late night tonight!

On that eventful note I'm going to leave - the school is going to the Rep Theatre on wednesday which should hopefully make for an interesting dance related blog and the show is at the weekend which will definately be interesting.

till then (probably) xxx

It was a really good end to a hard week for me. On Thursday in (Modern) Technique I was really swearing at myself (internally) and at everything we were doing. In the Frog and Fish I was seriously considering alternative careers - involving desks, computers, money and spa treatments! I normally don't ever feel like that - on the rare occasions when I'm ill I really have to push myself hard through an exercise and I hate the whole thing but thats because I'm ill - not because I'm sick of doing it. But I know that getting through these feelings and finding my way of succeding is what is going to make me into an interesting performer/artist in the future.

We also had loads of fun spinning each other round after counterbalances today with Pete - v.refreshing. Then we watched some 2nd year choreography - short duets. Unfortunately (actually sickeningly) out of the 4 or 5 we saw only 1 or 2 of the choreographers actually understood that dancing/choreography is NOT about what we do in technique class. Three of the pieces had the same, badly executed jump in!!! Technique is necessary for performance but after doing it day in day out I really don't! want to see it performed for me. Do you ever see anybody do a tondu exercise en croix in a ballet??????????

One of the pieces I really liked - its kind of hard to explain though. It was a trio and played very well with moving in a small space and manipulating the connections between the dancers. Its playing in my head now but I know that I can't find any words to do it justice. Sorry!

Have a good weekend everybody!!!!!!!!!!!x

(ugh - how good moodly was that!) x