English Week

Due to time constraints (I fly to Guatemala in 17 hours!), I'm not posting a great deal about English Week. The quick rundown of highlights (and lowlights):

- Doing 3/4 of a backflip in the meadow during the Scottish Highland Games on Monday afternoon. (AKA, a backflipflop.) Many factors were involved, including mismatched shoulder heights, a potato, and a pair of pantyhose. We won't get into the details. A few days later, kind folks remarked that the scrapes all around my left eye gave me a "rakish" look. I went to Dr. Shawn, Mom and Graham's chiropractor, when I got back. He managed to adjust my neck, but was stymied by my mid-back, and told me to come in again before I left for a free session where he'd try again. I went back today, where he poked and prodded and proclaimed that my neck was composed of rebar, but managed to yank on it in such a way that my mid-back finally sorted itself out.

- Learning a really cool Scottish hard shoe step dance, that resulted in my calves being better defined than I think they've ever been (it's about 4 1/2 minutes of being up on one's toes, with stepping and hopping and "deedle-deedles" throughout).

- Going into Mendocino and taking over a sidestreet to dance in town for part of an afternoon. We had learned a 3-person reel in the border morris class, and had been practicing it with three sets in a small hall, but when Dave and Jonathan and I danced it in town we took up about half a block - it was excellent.

- Lots of lovely evening dances, and fun after-parties. I think I managed about 6-7 hours of sleep a night (I had a 7 am chore to wake up for), which was just enough to get me through. No time for naps, though - too many fun things to do!

- And, possibly the coolest moment - Jonathan and I made up a two person rapper dance skit and performed it at the back porch gathering on Friday afternoon. We were very proud of ourselves. Video below:



Now I'm all inspired to dance more, and to come back to Portland and dance with Iron Mountain Sword again, so Jonathan and I can work up the double front flip. :P

But for now, another adventure calls... back to packing!