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On 01/05/2011 09:17 AM, Stephen wrote:
> Do your best. :-D
Thanks for the tip.
OK, that sounded wrong. I'm just a bag of nerves right now...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On 01/05/2011 9:41 AM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> On 01/05/2011 09:17 AM, Stephen wrote:
>
>> Do your best. :-D
>
> Thanks for the tip.
>
> OK, that sounded wrong. I'm just a bag of nerves right now...
>
I know what you mean. You'll do well.
--
Regards
Stephen
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> I realise this has little signifigance to anyone except me, but...
> Tomorrow I will be taking part in my first ever dance competition.
>
> I don't mind telling you, I've only had a month to prepair for this, I'm
> not really ready, and I have no idea what to expect. I seriously doubt
> that my girlfriend and I will score highly. (She doesn't even *want* to
> do this contest in the first place, and certainly doesn't want to
> actually win. But I do...)
>
> Hopefully I won't make a complete idiot of myself. So long as we don't
> finish last, I'll be relatively happy. I'll let you know how it goes...
>
Whatever you do to prepare yourself, almost nobody is EVER ready for the
first competition.
Just go for it, once you get on the floor, try to forget that you are in
a competition and lets dance!
Alain
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On 30/04/2011 11:04 AM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Tomorrow I will be taking part in my first ever dance competition.
>
> I don't mind telling you, I've only had a month to prepair for this, I'm
> not really ready, and I have no idea what to expect.
Well, perhaps predictably, it was NOTHING LIKE what I was expecting. In
fact, I'm left with the feeling that the whole thing was a totally
pointless waste of my time. I very much doubt that I'll ever do that again.
Going in, I was excited and my partner was reluctant. Coming out, I have
no desire to ever repeat this experience. It's something I would rather
forget than celebrate.
So how did we do?
You know what? I DON'T KNOW.
Yes, you read that correctly. I spent an entire day at a dance
competition, and as I stand here now, I still don't actually know what
events I competed in, or what results I got. WTF, people. Given that I
don't know how well I did, there's no real sense of achievement (or
failure).
As best as I can tell, this is a 2-day event which this year is being
shoehorned into 1 day, presumably so the organisers can cheap out on
hiring the hall for two days. The result is that everything is a hecktic
rush. They just steamroller through event after event after event. Even
the organisers don't seem to be completely sure what's happening. They
actually *missed out* the final round of one of the events by mistake,
and had to insert it back in later. (By which time some of the
contestants had gone home, some of them had changed out of their
costumes, etc.) It was a shambles.
I was expecting there to be a contest, and some results. But with the
organisers steamrollering through an endless succession of events, it
makes each one seem tiny and insignificant. And with no idea of what's
happening, where you're supposed to be, or what that dance you just did
actually counts towards, nor even what the eventual outcome was, it's
very hard to care about how well you did. It all seems so hollow and
pointless.
We arrived before they said our event would start. We stood around for
many hours, and then we were called to dance, and for 90 seconds you're
supposed to be flat-out dancing your arse off. Then you go stand around
for another hour, and they unexpectedly called us to dance again.
Another 90 seconds where you're suddenly supposed to be in full flow.
Then we waited about an hour, and got called out and given a trophy,
we're not sure why. 2 hours later, we get called to dance again,
alongside some guys from our class who we know can dance rings around
us. 3 hours after that, they call our names, and some guy shakes our
hands and said "well done". We don't know why.
My best guess on what happened:
- In event #32, we danced through round one, and get into round two,
where we came last. Everybody who made it to round two got an identical
blank trophy, except the top 3. So we were bottom of the finalists, but
better than all the people who didn't get to the final [and hence didn't
get a trophy].
- Event #130 [yes, the numbers go up that high] was the qualifier for
the national finals at Blackpool in November. You enter to be in your
region's qualifier round, and everybody who entered dances around a bit.
The 10 best couples qualify and get to dance in Blackpool. This year, 6
couples entered [one of which was us]. Ergo, every single couple that
entered will have qualified, regardless of talent or abject lack of it.
My classmate's elated cries of "well done!" ring a little hollow when we
actually qualified "by default", as such.
So there you have it. Unless we change our minds, it looks like we're
going to dance in Blackpool, in the world-famous Empress Ballroom. Which
is literally the only reason I'm bothering at this point; so that in
years to come, I can say "I danced at Blackpool once". I don't expect us
to score highly, and I almost don't care. My only hope is that Blackpool
will be organised better than the shambolic chaos I witnessed today.
Epic failure.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On 5/1/2011 12:49, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I don't expect us to score highly, and I almost don't care.
That's not a bad thing. Go to enjoy, not to win.
> Epic failure.
Sounds like you learned a lesson, tho. If you ever need to organize
something like this yourself, you'll know what not to do. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Coding without comments is like
driving without turn signals."
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On 01/05/2011 8:49 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> My best guess on what happened:
Life's not fair but this time it was not fair to your advantage. :-D
Go for the Blackpool gig and tell your grandchildren about it. ;-)
--
Regards
Stephen
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"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] dev null> wrote in message
news:4dbdb940$1@news.povray.org...
> So there you have it. Unless we change our minds, it looks like we're
> going to dance in Blackpool, in the world-famous Empress Ballroom. Which
> is literally the only reason I'm bothering at this point; so that in years
> to come, I can say "I danced at Blackpool once". I don't expect us to
> score highly, and I almost don't care. My only hope is that Blackpool will
> be organised better than the shambolic chaos I witnessed today.
>
> Epic failure.
>
<sarcasm>Yeah, but the organizers had a blast! That's what's important,
right? </sarcasm>
But seriously, it sucks when you put so much effort into something that
turns out to be run so poorly. Been there.
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On 02/05/2011 10:10, Stephen wrote:
> Life's not fair but this time it was not fair to your advantage. :-D
If I actually wanted to go, I'd be excited at this point. After what
happened with the regional qualifier, I'm not sure I even *want* to go
to this.
> Go for the Blackpool gig and tell your grandchildren about it. ;-)
Yeah, that's about all that can be said really.
Apparently my girlfriend's first grandchild will be arriving the month
before this, so... o_O
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On 01/05/2011 22:02, Darren New wrote:
> On 5/1/2011 12:49, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> I don't expect us to score highly, and I almost don't care.
>
> That's not a bad thing. Go to enjoy, not to win.
Well, we certainly didn't enjoy this. An entire day of being in limbo,
being almost trampled by the massed hordes, and having no idea what's
happening. Talk about stress...
> Sounds like you learned a lesson, tho. If you ever need to organize
> something like this yourself, you'll know what not to do. :-)
I still can't believe that there were 3 people who's only purpose for
being there all day was to know what the running order is, and they
somehow didn't know what the running order was.
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On 02/05/2011 18:48, UncleHoot wrote:
> But seriously, it sucks when you put so much effort into something that
> turns out to be run so poorly. Been there.
It really sucks. :-( To think I was actually looking forward to this
thing... Never again.
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