sharkcrow

Had a shocker at pole last night. Was really tired, struggling with the inverted sequence, and was pretty much over it and ready to go home. But then the teacher had a bright idea... "Hey, do you guys want to try a 4 star move?"

Of course I did. And I kind of did it.

I started in the left leg hang...

 into the pike (which was the new move)..

and was SUPPOSED to get back into a crucifix.

I suspect I was supposed to grab onto something with my hands... but i didn't, and fell straight onto my head (thankfully wasn't too far from the ground, but it still hurt like hell), and then promptly went tumbling (you know, to protect the back *rolls eyes at self*) and nearly slam into the pole and girl next to me.

I kind of wish someone had taken video of it... it would have won me something on funniest home video's for sure.

So... I had decided to take next year off. Do a massage course, prepare for a full on year doing my Dip Ed.

But, the more I've thought about it (and the more weekends I've spent doing the massage course) the more I've been thinking I'm just wasting another year. THEN when I found out the massage course was going to take longer than expected, I decided to re-look at my uni options.

So I've applied for post grad. I'll do it part time, in the first year of it I'll just have to negotiate a half day off during the week, maybe one full day. If my company won't do that, then it's probably time to find a new job anyway. The second year will be cutting back even more, but I'll worry about that if/when it happens.

So far I've only applied to one uni, may apply to another one as well, but not looking likely. Cut off is Friday, and I've got a massive essay to write in that time, so I think I'll just leave it at the one and see where it takes me. I feel kinda sick!!!!

Yup, using the massage tables as desks. Weird.

31102009134.jpg

This Judy Blume quiz.

This chart comparing all the different vamps. Brilliant for keeping straight who to stake and who to behead!

These awesome Twin Peaks portraits. They're inspiring me to learn to embroider!

The fact that I NAILED the inverted combo Tuesday night. Yup, no modified pansy-ass version for me at grad, I'm going to be doing the whole thing (well, I may skip the inverted v...)

First, move is the dreaded inverted v. I can usually only do it when I'm not too tired.

Next, we manouver our legs so the back of our knee holds us up, with the hip and shoulder anchoring us into place. This is the left leg hang.

Then you have to heave yourself up, and swing your right leg to the front of the pole, then attempt to straighten both legs. Wow, you're in the starfish!

You don't have to hold that for too long, next swing your right leg behind the pole and bend your left leg so it's holding on again. Let go of your right hand and you're nearly done with the leg pain... scorpio is done!

Nearly there! Next bit is kind of scary, because you're falling while only really holding on with your feet, which aren't very secure yet. Whoopsy daisy, into the crucifix. I remember when the crucifix was the hardest move in a routine... now it's the easy one you use to get out of the hard moves!

Last little bit - grab on with both hands and push away from the pole, body roll twice (or do the caterpillar!) before collapsing to the floor. Inverted sequence complete!

Now, not loving the stress of writing an essay on 2 novels I have not yet read. Blergh.

Being one of those people completely unable to read on the bus / train / in the car / anywhere other than sitting somewhere non-moving, I'm a big fan of audiobooks. I have a 2 hour commute every day, so I manage to get through a fair few.

This week I've knocked over a few short ones that have been sitting in my playlist for a while, What Happened to Cass McBride by Gail Giles and A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris.

First up, What Happened to Cass McBride.
Author: Gail Giles
Grade: A
I have no idea why I bought this one - I hadn't read about it on any other blogs, I've never heard of the author, and the cover art doesn't particularly grab me. I guess Audible had a really good write up or something. Anyway, I adored this novel.

Told from 3 points of view, Cass the beautiful, popular queen bee; Kyle Kirby, brother of David who has recently committed suicide; and Ben, the officer investigating the case. From an audio perspective, thank god they've used 3 different narrators - it's easy to keep track of who's point of view you're in (which is important, because the linear structure is all messed up, lots of flashbacks.)

Kyle has kidnapped Cass and buried her alive - this is no spoiler, he admits to this pretty much on page 1. What keeps you listening is the why of it, and whether Ben is able to find Cass before she dies. Giles has also done some very tricky characterisation - there were times when I felt for Kyle and although I personally wouldn't kidnap and bury someone alive, I could see where he was coming from. With Cass, although I knew I should be sympathetic, even in her darkest moment you could see her manipulative personality shining through. The ending has left me wanting more, I need to spend more time searching online for some discussions. It's not a happy read, very bleak, but very thought provoking. The audio was just over 3 hours, so I was able to knock it over in one day (with some sneaky listening at work while I witnessed 160 frikin documents).

Next was the latest release from Charlaine Harris, A Touch of Dead. This one is just a compilation of previously released short stories about Sookie. I enjoyed them, but honestly, one or two of them read like bad fan fic. It was good to finally read (listen) to the story where she first finds out about her cousin's relationship with the Queen and subsequent death, because back when I read whichever book follows that short story, I thought I must have missed an entire novel along the way somewhere. The rest are just extras that don't really add anything too much, there was no Eric in any of them which was a bit of a fail in my eyes, and the one where Sookie and Amelia play investigators for an insurance company? Yea, not my favourite. I give this one a C+.

Finally, I've just started in on People of the Book. Not much to say, because I've only heard about 30 mins of it so far. What did get me straight away was it was read by an Aussie! It's always really strange to hear an Aussie accent on recorded books, and it always takes me a minute or two to actually comprehend it. So, you can read an excerpt here.

Also recently read Gene of Isis by Traci Harding (follow link for excerpt). This was another one I didn't realise was written by an Aussie until I got into it and wondered why they'd made the protagonist Australian (it doesn't happen very often!) A bit DaVinci Code with a dash of Indiana Jones, I stayed up until some ungodly hour reading this, I just couldn't put it down. This one also jumps between a couple of different points of view, that of Mia, a current day Ancient Languages expert; Ashlee, a clairvoyant from the 19th century; and Lillet, a 13th century priestess. This is the first book in a trilogy, but it stands alone just fine. I have the next 2 novels waiting to be read in my summer break. Grade: A.

Also listened to the mammoth The Forest House, by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I downloaded this one because I loved Mists of Avalon when I read it for uni last year, and figured this one would probably be my kind of book too. 16 hours later (yup, 16 hours... that's a hell of a long time to listen to a story!!) I liked, and I didn't. I'm not a huge fan of the audio narrator, which made it a little difficult to listen to, but I did enjoy the story well enough.

In between all of that I've been reading about 20th century Europe, and struggling through some novels for American Literature (I'm actually yet to finish one - I'm really not enjoying them!), and doing a swedish massage course, which requires a fair bit of reading and 15 hours of logged massage. *sigh* I really can't wait for the end of semester, I'm taking the summer off to cross stitch, read stuff I want to read, and watch trashy tv!

If you had to be trapped in a TV show for a month, which show would you choose?

This one is really hard for me to answer... I'd love to be in NCIS to flirt and mess with DiNozzo and hang out with Abby, but I think Ziva would be incredibly intimidating. Being in Buffy would be awesome, but chances are I'd end up dead. Any of the Stargates would be fun, but again, the chances of being killed / stuck in a faraway galaxy are way too high for me to spend an entire month there. Ditto with Battlestar.Charmed could be kind of cool, but only if I was a witch too.

I suspect the only show I could happily reside on for an entire month would be Veronica Mars. I'd help Veronica find out what the deal was with that weird college fraternity and how they're involved with the Kane family, and take advantage of all her PI access to stalk ex-boyfriends. It'd be sweet.

Caffeine. Sunshine. Lunch break. Bliss out.

20102009130

I must be sending some terrible vibes out into the universe at the moment. I had ANOTHER horrible caller today... this one trying to get me to sign up to a print rental agreement.

He was babbling, and got shitty when I wouldn't put him through to the CEO (I'm sorry, but since when does a CEO look after equipment rental contracts??), but when he realised I was actually the person he needed to speak to, started the hard sell on me.

I tried to be polite.

I told him we already are on a contract.

I told him that we are happy with what we have.

I told him we didn't use it all that often, so thank you, but we're not interested in anything new.

He kept babbling, he'd kept me for about 5 minutes at this point, so I interrupted him and said "Thank you for your call, but we're not interested, I'm going to hang up now."

He called back 20 seconds later and started his schpiel. I answered with "I spoke to you about 30 seconds ago"

To which he replied "And you hung up on me. That's so rude" and then hung up on me. *sigh* frikin morons. At least I was polite about hanging up on him. Gah!

I'm missing the Vox hood! So I'm back... going to flit flat between the two. I miss having somewhere to be more open and have the safety of 'neighbourhood only' posting.

So, my grand re-entrance is babble about pole dancing :) Because that's my obsession at the moment.
*************************

It's amazing how after a while, you almost enjoy the pain that comes with pole dancing. I'm finally starting to hold my leanouts for longer, I can generally grin and bear it during a bent leg layback, and I wear my bruises with pride.

See my lovely drawing above? That's the starfish. It's the move my teacher decided I needed to nail this week. It's about halfway through a sequence that starts with an inverted v, goes into a left leg hang, then into the starfish (before continuing onto a scorpian, crucifix, catipillar). My hands had gotten a bit sweaty because the class before us had refused to open the windows, plus I'm still not entirely comfortable with the left leg hang. So, I get into the starfish and I start to slide... scraping the backs of both thighs on the way down.

THE PAIN!!!! After that I sooked out.

Need to practice during the week though, teacher has given us a new combo that looks really pretty and I want to nail. Inverted V - left leg hang - butterfly - crucifix.

I've not been around much lately. I've been reading (and very much enjoying) everyone's posts, but I'm just a bit over vox. I find blogger so much easier to use (and I like that anyone can comment, not only voxers) and have been posting over there a bit (no personal stuff... just keeping track of what I've been reading to waste time at work) and I'm going to merge the 2 blogs... that one is going to get a bit more personal. No personal-ish posts up there as yet, but I'm sure they'll start tricking in once my blogging mojo comes back. Everything's just a bit blergh at the moment, too much uni work and not enough brain cells.

I may still be back here from time to time when I need to vent, and I'll still be keeping the account so I can comment on neighbour's postings (I still have an RSS subscription to my entire neighbourhood! yay for netvibes!) so, I'm not deserting you all, I'm just moving over to the other side of the tracks. I'd love it if you dropped in and said hi occassionally, I'll be just right here.