Balletversary

Hey! Guess what I just realized? Today marks one full year since I started taking ballet class! Aw! It's my balletversary!
Here is what I wrote in my private journal after my first class:

OMFG I am SO EXHAUSTED. Ballet was brutal, stone cold brutal. If you have never done it you should, if only to understand how hard it is to make it look effortless. How long you struggle just to get through it before you can even contemplate making it look beautiful. The instructor was great, though, and stayed after class to teach me a few things I should be doing to strengthen my thighs and take pressure off those sensitive knee joints...
Anyway, so I am in some kind of desperate need of getting in shape (about halfway through my legs started to shake, and didn't stop for the next 45 minutes) but we knew that already. It has been ten years, after all. Ten years, several inches of butt, a tummy poodge, and rheumatoid arthritis.
Anyway, I am going to go collapse now. 

There are still struggles, I am not gonna lie. But, I have really come a long way in this past year. I hurt but I always freaking hurt. I hurt when I am lying motionless in bed. When I'm walking to the mailbox. When I am sitting at my desk. If I am going to hurt regardless then I should at least hurt while doing something I enjoy, right? And that goes for you guys, too.
Happy balletversary, me.

You and me and LEVEL THREE!

Last night I took my first level III class! Woo! There were a couple of things I tanked on, but it was SO nice to do some different stuff. Everyone was complimentary in such a way that I figure they were pegging my absence on nerves, rather than my stupid work schedule. But no! I would have been there months ago if I had had the chance! But, I had to earn money! To pay for class! It just works out that way, sometimes.
Before class I got to observe the children's level II class, I have never actually seen a kid's class at this studio before. There were only three girls, which seems amazing because our adult level II classes are running 12-14 right now. At the end of class my teacher talked to the girls about pointework, and getting themselves ready for it. HEY! I am in level three! And I already have a theraband! Let's get to the talking, woman!

I actually only decided to go to class about ten minutes before I had to leave. I had a bit of a tummy woggle all day and felt terribly dizzy most of the evening. I accomplished precisely nothing all day (finishing off the first season of Downton Abbey does not count as an accomplishment, more's the pity) But, I couldn't miss my first level III class! So I went, and managed to not fall over (my balances at the barre were even pretty good, I would say) but the trip home was dreadful and I thought I was going to lose it when I got home. I had Indian for lunch, though, and I would be darned if I was going to throw it up. I wouldn't have been able to eat Indian again for at least a year, and that is not acceptable.

In light of the robbery on my last train ride I have started leaving everything of value that I usually carry at home while on my way to class. I don't even bring my license or ipod, just my dance clothes and a bus pass. It makes for a boring trip, but I would rather be safe than sorry. Now, if someone steals my dance bag and makes off with my perfectly broken in Grishko slippers I will probably be pretty incensed.