birthdays

[fuzzygruf]

After working until 8pm on Friday on 9pm on Sunday (and working late most of last week) on the "top priority" project, my boss wanted to know yesterday why there was no work done on the other projects. Bitch.

I missed getting a birthday card out to Roy for his birthday on Monday. (On Monday he did receive the LS pin that I had sent him. Good timing.) I managed to take a break yesterday and look for a card for my sister's birthday, which is tomorrow. I'm sure it'll be late. Grrrr. But I did manage to find the perfect card for my father's birthday, which is in a couple weeks. It's an old photo of a boy throwing a baseball to his dad. That's something we did when I was young. Of course, one time he threw a wild pitch that bounced and hit me in the chest. A day or so later at Little League practice, I was standing in my shortstop position and just started to cry. I had no idea why. They had me sit out of the rest of practice. A trip to the doctor showed that I had a broken rib. Yeah, the perfect birthday card!

FCD was ok. Andy was in good form, even if the students weren't. Some students are actually very good, but some are hideous. And then there are some angels that seem to get worse and worse. That's so unfair to the students. One bad student is known as the "deer in the headlights." Whenever Andy calls "Zoom," this guy just freezes, like a deer in the headlights. It's one call that you have to execute by yourself. (Most other calls have someone doing something with you.) Andy called "Zoom," then said "where is my deer in the headlights?" It wasn't this guy's "turn," and Andy called "Zoom" once more. Seeing him in my square this time, Andy, blurted out, "Oh there he is!" Too funny. Andy ended the night with his rendition of "After the Lovin'": "Gonna call you a cab, after the lovin..."

Comments

Weak square dancers and Andy

[ricksf.livejournal.com]

Having angeled a whole bunch of square dance classes with Andy as a teacher, there's no surprise in noting that each class will have its share of weak students. Andy's an excellent teacher but some just don't seem to 'hear' him. This class is quite typical. The sad part is that weak dancers seem to attract other weak dancers to the same square and they hit critical mass and are unable to complete more than a few calls without crashing. It's a topic we've talked about at the Board level many times and will do so again at the next meeting. My own recommendation is that we make sure that the weak student always has a strong angel and, ideally, corner. It helps a lot.

Andy added a fair number of new songs to his calling list a few months ago. He seems to really like them and its clear that the class does too. Reminds me that I'll have to try and pass on the tradition of howling whenever he calls Blue Moon.

Re: Weak square dancers and Andy

[fuzzygruf.livejournal.com]

All classes, regardless of teacher, will have their share of bad dancers. Some people get it, some people don't. What's really sad is when bad angels make it even more difficult for the students. I think that poor students can learn something from a square that has four students paired with four good angels. But have four students, two good angels, and two fallen angels, and most students in the square will suffer.