General Life Update #4

HOLIDAY!!!!! CELEBRATE!!!!

Excuse me folks.  Just a little happy to not be at work and recuperate from....well everything.  

It's usually around this time of year post the end of financial year insanity, competition and exam pressures that I take a break from work.

Saturday was my exams.  I did.  I did great in fact.  Scraped into honours category for my silver Latin and Ballroom exams.

Since last exams I've moved up a grade and still managed to keep myself in the honours rank.  Not too shabby if I do say so myself.  (Above pic was taken by the head of my studio just before I commenced my first exam dance - The Waltz).

The most surprising part of the whole thing was the examiner commenting that I had a natural flair for Latin.  And why was this surprising?

Well firstly I used to hate Latin.  More to the point I hated the way I danced my latin.  When I came to my current studio I wanted to start with ballroom.  But my coach made me do latin first.  And when my first comp came I had barely practiced, was struggling and two dress sizes heavier.  I resented the fuck out of my coach and was barely tolerable by pretty much everyone around me.

But something magical happened on the day of my first comp.  I won.  I disproved my own beliefs about myself.  I began to see things differently.  I started to believe that maybe what I thought was impossible could actually be done

So to go from that starting point to achieving an honours grade and being told that I had a natural talent for the style is as surprising to me as it is to anyone....even my coaches.

So where does that leave me?

Well I'm taking time off dancing.  Not too much.  We have a comp in September after all.  But to be fair I'm taking time off a lot of things.  I am tired.  I am burned out and I want a little time to be selfish.  And how am I filling that time?

Sleeping, rewatching the first season of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., editing and uploading videos, catching up with my flatmates (which sounds weird because we live together...but rarely get a chance to talk) and just enjoying myself.

Speaking of S.H.I.E.L.D. I finished rewatching it this morning.  It's amazing the little things I'm picking up from watching it post finale and seeing Captain America 2.  What started as a fairly formulaic show turned into so much more (SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ONWARDS).  The best parts were the relationships between the characters.

Coulson is clearly the father figure but watching him come undone after the collapse of the agency was heartbreaking.  My other favourite scene is in episode 20 where as we watch Simmons find the body of Koenig, Coulson is coming to a realisation that his team has had someone spying and manipulating them from within the whole time.  This comes to a climax as Simmons lets out a terrified scream.

The dynamic between May and Skye which started out as advsersarial and by the end the two women becoming something more like sisters.

FitzSimmons.  Those two stole every scene they were in.  They were almost inseparable, even in the most dire of situations.  And Fitz saying he didn't have the courage to tell Simmons that he was in love with her but he could show her how he felt...I have no words to describe how I was feeling during the above scene.

Ward was an interesting character.  At the start of the season I imagine my feelings toward him were pretty much the same as everyone elses.  "Oh great I bet he's got a story that results in him being the tough guy who just can't let anyone in."

And I was right.  To a degree.  And then you get to the end of episode 17 where you realise that Ward has been trolling us the entire season.  So in about five seconds he went from being vanilla good guy to the most interesting character on the show.  And it doesn't hurt that Brett Dalton knows how to rock stubble and hair gel.  Seriously would bang.  Add in the drama of the love story between him and Skye and I'm hooked.

Definitely looking forward to season 2.  September 24 can't come soon enough.

What else?  Well given that the above rambling about a tv show made this a pretty long blog entry I don't have much else to say other than lying around in my pyjamas is pretty awesome.  I have other tv shows I'm watching but I'll leave that for my next blog post.

As always much love
Lauren