Dancing & Strange Dream

Last night we went out dancing for the first time. Needless to day, it is very different here, and we left feeling a bit broken. Not because of rough partners or anything, but because none of our dances were good. They were just kind of, not bad. Eh.

Maybe it's that pre-workshop funk. Makes sense that the instructors would get it, too.

I don't think Mike does, but I feel a lot of pressure to be really really good. I want to be at least as good as everyone in Melbourne to justify the immense amount of money that they have spent on getting me over here.

Also, it's kind of amazing -- Noni is the person who brought us over here, and she hasn't seen us in about 3 years. The organization who is footing the bill, Swing Patrol, brought us over on Noni's suggestion, never having met us or seen us dance before. So she's amazed that they have so much faith in her, and we're amazed that she has so much faith in us!

Basically, I must be fantastic.

No pressure.

But I did have my first nightmare about the workshop last night. Though, it's funny, everything was wrong in it except for me.

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Pretty much, Mike and I had planned out some fabulous classes. We go to a meeting before the workshop to discover that there are a bunch of different instructors there. That would be totally fine if the levels were tracked - but no, everything was still all levels.

Well, crap! Our classes scaffold, so you can't take the second class without the information gathered form the first. Mike, we need to discuss this NOW!

But we can't, the first class starts in 3 minutes and we still have to get to the room. Just follow my lead, I guess. Or we'll discuss a lot while the students are practicing something. I hate this stuff.

I go into the room, and there are about 8 people squished inside of a room that has the width and breadth of the inside of a sedan. Too bad to have such a small class, but my gosh! Good thing I don't have more because of the room!

But wait -- a wall opens and leads to a much larger room -- about the size of Scott's living room. It's a dorm room. Like with beds and a carpet in it. And to narrow full length mirrors hanging from the wall. Totally useless. You can't see anything but a sliver of the class.

Jeez.

So the first class is body movement. There is no way of playing music for class, though neo-swing comes over the loud speaker with a 4 minute break between songs. That's great. So I start teaching them a sequence of body movement stuff. Then Jonathan (Austin friend) comes in for some strange reason. I have no idea while he's there -- the only thing that I can think of is that he was hired as another instructor and the organizers were so terribly DISorganized that they had scheduled me in the same room to teach with both Jonathan AND Mike -- different subjects at the same time.

So Jonathan rushes in, and I guess he's frazzled because he's late for class and figures that I'm killing time until he gets there. Then he starts giving them instructions for partnered movement. The students, who are very obedient, good natured and talented, all partner up and start working on this new thing which has nothing whatsoever to do with our class.

I proceed to be VERY rude to Jonathan for about 30 seconds. Fortunately, the neo-swing is blasting, so the students are none the wiser. Then I catch myself, apologize, hug him, and kick him quickly out of room before I turn to the wreck that is class and try to figure out how to salvage it.

I wake up with a start. Terrible dream. But quite a relief that it wasn't zombies again. I was almost sure I would have a zombie dream because we had discussed them at length over that evening's dinner. I'll gripe out an imaginary Jonathan any day if it will save me from the un-dead.

Kind of funny, though, that I wasn't the one screwing everything up in the dream. I wonder if I feel powerless over my own destiny right now... Or maybe I have a deep seated prejudice against Ausie's ability to organize.

It's not true, by the way. Everyone here seems divinely organized and I feel very well taken care of. The largest mix up so far has been a leaky air mattress, which has already been switched out.

~~ Laura