PA State Games: Aug 1995

Pennsylvania State Games 8/6/95

Key Players:
Drew & Liz
Mike and Mickey
Pete & Liz
Sergey
Mom Akinson

Awards
1st Am F/Sw Br (4 couples)
3rd AM F/Sw S  (4)
1st Am R/C Br (4)
1st Am R/C S (4)
1st Int R/C G (5)
1st Int Sa/J G (5)
1st Int R/C/Sa Pre-Champ (2) :)
1st Int F/T S (4)
1st Int Vw (4)
2nd Int W/Qs (2)
1st Int F/T (2)
2ns Int Vw (4)

This comp was really weird. We were dancing on tile in a cafeteria and the comp was really small. I think that there were only 15 couples and 5 were from CMU. The comp started at noon - again very weird and they had demo's before hand.

Some high school students put on a cute little demo - done mostly to the strictly ballroom soundtrack. It was kinda amuzing.... they did a mambo and everybody in the routine was off time.

Then on the spur of the moment, Liz and I decided to do our west coast routine. (Liz always carries her tape w/ her) so we walked through it once and then performed it. It was actually really helpful to do this b/c It was one big bundle of nerves, then it was over and we were able to relax the rest of the time. It was actually one of our best performances of WCS yet. But you know what.... I'm definately your son... I messed up royally on part of the routine.... and I had this huge grin on my face. It was kinda funny...

We started the day w/ Am smooth. Nothing much exciting there. Actually really boring, b/c we don't know any american stuff. American rhythm was okay... again we don't know anything. Makes it kinda hard. Didn't even really sweat.

During one of the breaks I danced a samba with Pam. Pam described it as a pudding samba.... b/c it felt like you were doing a samba in pudding... that then lead to the discussion that the music really sucked. It sounded like you were listening to lite fm - ballroom style. At one point (during a general dance) I had to walk off the floor... I'm sorry - I cannot dance a cha to "hello mutta, hello fatha" (you know the camp song).

We did fairly well at international... We were a little nervous during the latins.... but hey that is okay. The part that we are REALLY pleased with the the 1st pre-champ. Yes, we were only dancing against one other couple (actually a couple from the big space), but it was real competition. Liz said that she saw one of the judges look at us, look at them and shake her head b/c she couldn't decide. That is just SO COOL!

Our smooths felt pretty good. Although I was having a hard time judging distance - either that or the floor was just an awkward size.... Let's just say I used the ENTIRE dance floor.... we saw close up shots of the walls often. Esp in Vwaltz. And I quickstepped myself into a corner a couple of times too... In the Gold section though, I was totally out to win. I wasn't competitive enough to make me dance bad, but boy to I want to beat Sergey.( He was dancing w/ fei).... Although it is a little hard to win, when your partner is rooting for the other couple to win, grrrr.

It was also really strange, we got a certificate of participation - not even any ribbons. I thought that was kidna wrong.

The drive back was kinda funny. We tried to go to a steak restuarant the
Liz remembered (She had been in that area a couple of times before)...
but the place wasn't there - so we spent about an extra 30 minutes
trying to find a suitable substitute... you know, once we were all set
on having steak, we really couldn't settle for Wendy's :)... So we all
ate steak (and got a free salad and sundaw b/c the guy messed up.

As we exited towards the turnpike, Michael didn't follow us. We thought
that he was just dazing.... so we waited by the turnpike entrance for
about 30 minutes. He never came back so we went to the next rest area
and waited there for another 15. No show. Apparently, somewhere along
the way, he started following the wrong car. This car was heading
towards Mcdonalds and he and Mickey were going crazy - saying that we
had just eaten and why didn't we go to the bathroom there.... but then
 they noticed the license plate- "Oh, that's not Liz"  :) So they went
back their own way.

I was a complete vegetable the whole trip. Liz drove for about two hours
and Sergey drove the rest. I offered to drive for a little (I figured I
was good for maybe 45 minutes - music dependant), so that she could
snuggle with Sergey (this is me being friendly and considerate, dispite
myself)... But she could tell that I was really in no condition to  
drive.

Indianapolis Comp: 1995

You know.... there is just something in the indianapolis air that makes the Indy trip unique everytime.

Key people
Drew & Liz
Pat & Pam
Danny
Kim Innman

Other people who went
Michelle (from CUA)
Tom & Stephannie
Mike P and Angie
Laura & Will
Fei & Sergei

Awards / Places
3rd Int Latin Prechamp (4 dance)
3rd Am W/F Open
2nd Mambo open
2nd Am Rhythm PreChamp (5 dance)
4th Int W/Qs
4th Int T
1st Team Match

I found out Thurs night that I would be going to Indy the next day. Liz calls me sounding all cute and stuff and doesn't actually say it - she let's me do that... but we ended up going to Indy. It was so much fun. Definately worth the trip. So it ended up that Liz started driving. All of us had work to do... and get this - We actually worked in the car. Granted it was only about 30-45 minutes tops... but that was enough for me to get all my reading done. Pat & Pam had a very nice wrestling match in the backseat of the Van...

Then Pat drove the rest of the way. Liz and I moved to the back to go to sleep. And Wrestle alittle bit. Danny said that he couldn't believe that he had to ride the whole time with these 2 crazy couples. We slept a little and choreographed a Jive routine and added some stuff to our Cha. During the drive there... well things got interesting again. I spent most of the time sleeping on Liz... At one point during the trip... I looked up at her - and the next thing that I know we were kissing. That was REALLY cool. Completely out of the dark. But hey - I'm not going to complain.

There was a social that night. Liz and I being completly tired didn't really dance all out. We practiced our Jive routine a little (the one we made up in the car, and walked through once, when we filled up for gas) All of us (see above list) stayed at Kim's. She was the one that was organizing the comp. We met her last time and became good friends with her. Liz and I slept on the floor in Kim's bedroom... The floor is VERY uncomfortable. I think I lost a lot of the padding that I used to have that made the floor more bearable. Liz and I kissed a little more and then we went to bed. Well it turns out, that Liz ended up with a hicky (whoops :) )... I fairly good sized one two (oh well)... So she had to put on extra make-up to cover it up. That was amuzing... So now that EVERYBODY knew....Not that I'm complaining.

Funny Side note: Kim has a 3 yr old son (staying at Grandma's while we were there) and her house is very tailored for that fact. So for us to take a shower... well we pretty much had to gag the fish that was on the tub faucet so that we could get to the little switch that would turn on the shower. Then when the shower was done, and the little switch fell, the fish would all of a sudden upchuck water. Very Amuzing!!

Sat, we started with Int Latin. That is so wrong. You just can't move your hips that much the first thing in the morning. We did okay... not wonderful b/c it was first thing. And we really like Latin so of course we didn't do well in it. Pat and Pam who are total smooth dancers... of course walloped us in Latin. BTW our Jive routine is rather difficult at tempo. We discovered this on the floor. For our Am F and Am W all that we did was the only move that we know, which we learned one week earlier in the new Am comp class that the club offers.

Of course, you know with a two day comp... there just isn't enough time to schedule lunch. So when we had a brief moment we ran out to the car and had a small tailgate party with PB&J sandwiches and a handfull of chips. A hardy meal for all day dancing I'd say.

That evening we went to a workshop put on by Shirly Johnson (of Bill Sparks and Shirly Johnson fame)... she was one of the judges. She did an advanced bolero and mambo workshop. Now bolero, I know from nothing... But it was a really cool routine, and It happended to stick... And we happened to compete in it the next day... but I'll get there. I don't remember any of the mambo because I was so tired and ravenously hungry by this point in time.

All of us ate at some Pizza place. And we were all very well behaved group of people at this restuarant (yeah - right). It was rather amuzing. No one had eaten or drank much during the day. We order like 4 or 5 pitchers of (Diet Coke, Coke, Lemonade, Water, Beer, and maybe one or two others)... They were empty before the waitress made the second trip (ie she brought out 4 of them and was going back to get the last 1 or 2 and all the others were gone) Kinda amuzing. Then somehow the question came up asking how many people that you had kissed (good wet ones). So we all went around and told. Then Pam complained that if we had counted since school she'd be at zero. Then Liz said that she would be too.... And several people promptly dissagreed with her and pointed to her neck... Her response was, "Oh - I thought we were counting new people".... Kinda amuzing.

Gaged the fish again (ie took a shower), then went to sleep on the futon. Pat and Pam switch with us. So we got a semi comfy bed to sleep on. Everyone that night was complaining about " I can't believe we have to do this SHIT all over again". So again we woke up early and competed Am Rythm first. Hips and mornings are still a no no. We did okay. We got second in Mambo... which is really funny... Since I salsa dance I have a really hard time in mambo. Salsa breaks on the 3 and mambo on the 2... Liz was counting for me the entire time... and we really didn't do much more then basics. Then we did the 5 dance pre champ, am rhythm. This is Rumba,cha,bolero,mambo, swing. The rumba we did our team match american rumba routine, cha was our normal open routine, bolero was the stuff we learned at the workshop the day before, mambo was basics again, and swing was our jive routine (which is much easier to swing tempo). We ended up getting second in almost all of the dances.... Bolero?!! What's up with that. I don't even know the basic, I asked what the timing was minutes before we competed in it... I jsut don't understand..

Then Int smooths were kinda exciting (not)... For some reason they ran our heats first... Then they ran everyone elses. Well during this time, We were all exhausted and Pam, Pat, and I fell asleep in the chairs. Liz was drousy but fighting it. The next thing I know... they were calling us back for some of the dances. There was no warning or any indication that we were going to be dancing... It was literally wake up and get on the floor and dance. As we were walking out to the floor I said, loud enough for the front table to hear "thanks for the warning" I was kinda annoyed.

The funny thing was that we beat Pat & Pam in all of the smooth. We are totally a latin couple. So I think that we should switch. We should practice smooth and they should practice latin. maybe then we'd actually win the ones we care about more.

On the way back, I ended up sleeping almost the entire way because I was sniffiling/sneezing pretty bad and I needed to rest. That night when we got back, we totally crashed. But the really cool thing about this night was that Liz actually initiated some of the cuddling... that has never happened before. That was really cool!

I basically slept through most of Monday. I woke up, went to class, slept in class, came home, took a 4 hr nap, woke up, went to comp class, ate dinner, slept the rest of the night. So basically I missed Monday, which has totally thrown my entire schedule out of kilter.

Oh well....

I'll talk to ya later
Cheerio!
Drew

Delaware Comp: Sept 1995

Key Players:
CMU:
    Drew & Liz
Delaware:
    Kim & Kyle
    Meridith & Trey
    Kelly
    Carrie
    Pat

Awards:
4th Am W
3rd Am F
2nd Am Vw
3rd Int W
4th Int Qs
1st Int T
3rd Int F
1st Am C
4th Am Sw
1st Am Mambo
1st Int R
1st Int Sa
2nd Int C
2nd Int J
2nd Int Pre-champ Latin (C,R,Sa)

Fri:
Friday was such a hectic day. I woke up early to pick up Sam and Karen (people who were riding in my car on the way down)... B/c they were going to be coming right from campus and I didn't want to delay us. Then I went to try to pick up Liz's shoes, but they weren't ready. I went to Pat's to pick up some stuff... The I went to a meeting. In this meeting, I basically found out that the club is screwed next semester in terms of space. The music dept has taken over the drill deck and there is barely any place for us to dance now. This one is going to be a tricky one. Then I went to class (Biophyiscs).... This was fun. We had started a new topic-a topic on which I happened to do a research paper on in high school - a topic in which the professor also happens to be doing his research on. I got him talking on a tangent for 25 minutes. It was great... he didn't get to cover what he wanted to cover and so we didn't get any homework. Total bonus!!! Then I booked it home, packed and left.

The drive down was okay... Sam is fun to talk to in the car. BTW we were driving to Reading PA, to give a demo at the studio that Tom danced in over the summer. It would have been a fine drive, but there was an 8 car pile up accident, that kept us stopped on the freeway for about an hour. The studio was really cool... It had an ENORMOUS disco ball, really cool artwork, and a great floor. We did our demos, they weren't our best - but the audience still liked them. It was really funny, in the two-step, Liz totally lost her skirt in the last sequence of the routine. She covered it well though (she was wearing a leotard). Unfortunatly - Liz was sick all weekend. That sucked. She had a small fever and sniffles from hell.

We left for delaware that night, down this windy, twisty, dark back roads. It was SO GREAT to see my Delaware friends again. Wow did I have fun this weekend. I think that only about 20% of my time this weekend was spent without my arms around someone. It was SO awesome! So we got there around 12:30 or so... we spent a little bit of time trying to figure out where everyone was going to sleep. We ended up sleeping at Carrie's / Kim's which was totally cool. Kim stayed with her boyfriend/partner so as to free up a bed. That was nice, but it would have been really cool to have them both there. Anyways, we all ended up having a bed to sleep on. That was great! Carrie, Liz and I stayed up fairly late hanging out and talking.

Sat:
This was a no costume comp... so that basically ment that they ran everything together. We didn't even have time to change clothes. We danced very well. We placed in everything that we danced. Our waltz felt the smoothest that it ever has. Our tango, felt the most staccato and very tango. It was great! And there should be a lot of pictures of us as well. This comp was a high school, and pre-teen one as well... Those kids are to damn good. There was one couple....wow... they did this syncopation in Jive.. their feet just disappeared. There was this one high school guy that was a total stud. Liz was totally drooling over this guy. Although she never did work up the nerve to ask him to dance. Then we went out to dinner at Friendly's. That was fun... nothing notable- just fun.

That night there was a social for the people who remained around. This was great. They had all sorts of fun dances. Things like the reverse role tango, the silly samba (handshake hold only), the rightous rumba (how many times you could say oh god, or other religious things), the runchy rumba... It was a lot of fun. Afterwards, we helped clean up and then we went over to Kyle's apartment to watch a movie.

We watched Airplane, but everyone passed out before the plane even took off the ground. Liz was sleeping on me, but she said that I was too hot (esp w/ her fever)... so I moved to the floor so that she could lie down. The only floor space though was a narrow space between the couch and coffee table. It was rather uncomfortable....I'm such a nice guy. After the movie, we came back to Carrie's to crash.

Sun:
We woke for the workshops. Tehy were really well done. I can't really describe what we learned, but there was some very cool points made. But we were SO sore and tired sunday. We could barley move. We went to Bennigan's for Brunch. We ended up spending 3.5 hrs there just hanging out. It was great. We talked about all sorts of things, mostly related to dancing and our clubs and stuff... but it was so great.

Driving back was fun. Danny and I talked the entire time. It didn't even seem like a long trip at all. We drove through Amish country... that was kinda cool. At least at first. I was getting a little annoyed at all the buggy's and blind corners that I couldn't pass them on though.

Oh, I forgot to mention... one of the kids (an 8 yr old). Came up to us and said that we were really good dancers. The look in his eyes was a total "Wow- I got to talk to you, you are my idol" kinda look. It was cool.

Dude, I love the Delaware team. They are all so much fun.

Cheerio!
Drew

Maryland: Oct 1995

Awards:
1st Am Team
1st Int Team
5th WCS
6th R/V Int Q w/ Julia
5th Int W/Q
4th Int F/T
5th R/V Int Cha w/ Julia
6th Int Sa/J
2nd R/V Am Swing w/ Yoo Jin
6th Am Open Sw

Fri:
    In my car was Julia, Brian, and Tom A (Uggh...social reject). We left at around noon to get to DC in time for our private w/ Ron Bennent. The drive was okay. Julia and I talked the whole time. The private was AWESOME!!! We worked on Jive. Whoa - Jive overload. Our intro looks really sharp now, but the rest of our routine still looks crappy. It was a totally worthwhile lesson. Then we went to the social that Maryland was having.

We got there when they were teaching basic hustle and west coast. So we sat out and got settled and gathered our arriving team. Then when the instructor was showing them a step, she called from the center of the floor for me to get out there to help her demonstrate. I had no idea who she was or what she was even teaching... but I went out anyways. It was really funny. Appearently she knew of me from other comps and knew that I could lead whatever she was doing.

The social was fun. Danced around alot... practiced the new jive with Liz. It was really cool. There were 10 people staying at Liz's house that night. Which is actually less then we expected. Liz was planning on 14. But that was cool. We had Kim and Kyle from Delaware stay with us as well. Liz was a little pissed at one of the cars that stayed with us. They had basically arrived in DC around midnight, walked into Liz's house and crashed.. didn't tell mom that they were there or even who they were. This pissed Liz off alot.

We stayed out that night till about 1:30 or so. When we got back Liz and I stayed up with Mom while Liz did her toes and eyelashes and stuff. That night for whatever reason, Liz was wired.... so she read before going to bed, I completely passed out. This worked out really well... I was able to fall asleep with my arm around her while she read, and I didn't keep her awake, and then when she was ready to fall asleep - I already was... so I was able to hold her all night. That was really cool.

The comp was okay. But the way that they had it scheduled you really didn't get much of a break. At our level, we were dancing syllabus, intercolligiate, and open-to-all... these were run consecutively. And making it to finals for most of the rounds was death. We must have been dancing for a solid hr without breaks. Very difficult. You know there is something just wrong about cheering when you don't make call backs because it gives you time to breath.

Pat and Pam were both in a really pissy mood the morning of the comp. Both of them totally jumped down my throat when I talked to them. Just mentioning it for memory sake

Oh, one of the funny things that happened was during rookie/vet. I was dancing International style with Julia. We did fine an all... but we really didn't have all that much flight. When I got Liz for our heats... I think I must have covered the long side in 2 steps of waltz. It was a big readjustment. Kinda amuzing....

Here is something you'll like... you remember asshole announcer from DC comp? Well he was one of the judges. Not to worry though... he liked us. Actually it makes sense. I remember Kay saying that he really needed to see what a college comp was like and why normal rules don't apply to us.

Smooths went incredible well - other then being incredibly tired. And all of newcomers did really great. In everything. Latins on the other hand - didn't go so well... For whatever reason we didn't make call backs in R/C and this really upset Liz. So with Liz really upset, a become flustered and it took us almost 5 heats to regain ourselves. That kinda sucked.... and the effects of dancing a solid hour in latin is so much greater then the effects of a solid hour in smooth.

I danced with Kim for intercolligieates. The events were Waltz and Swing. For the swing, we were both exhausted from dancing so much. They played a really slow swing for the comp...so we decided to west coast to it - thinking that we would get eliminated that way. Wrong... we stood out and all the judges called us back. Foiled again.

The team matches were GREAT. We did Cha and Rumba as usual... but this was the most intense cha ever. This dance had to have been the all time biggest rush I've ever received while dancing in my life. The song that they played was Love Potion... jsut a great song in general. But not only is if a high energy song... but I know it VERY well.... our demo is even choerographed to it. Anyways... the song has a really long intro (if you want to hear it call my answering machine)... So whe n hte song started, the people in the club who recognized it and recognized it's relationship to us... gave a big holler. We stood poised for the entire intro.... you could totally feel the tension mount. It is like a 6 measure intro. Everyone else on the floor was already dancing. And Liz even said to me to go ahead and start. But we waited for the intro to end. The intro ends very abruptly and the high energy part kicks in almost immediately. We start right on cue, right at the beginning of the music. The entire CMU team yells. It is like an explosion.... you could just feel EVERY eye in the entire place turn to us. It was such an eye catcher.... just because we weren't moving and everyone else in the place was. And with the scream from CMU.... what a rush. Wow. WOW! what a feeling.

We ended up taking third in Cha team match -which is understandable given the competition, and first in Am Rumba team match -which is weird....The comp was a lot of fun. And I think that all of our newcomers really enjoyed themselves. Did I mention that we had 54 people go to this comp. It was great. We took up and entire side of the ballroom.

Let's see... Sat night we putzed around the ballroom for a while. We
went out for some drinks that night... because Pam really NEEDED a beer.
We tried going to a resturant/bar type place, b/c we had a lot of people
under 21 with us. But we couldn't find any at that time (1am) so we
dropped off the under people at a pizza place and we went next door to
the bar to hang for about 1/2 hour.  Then we were all really hungry (you
know we ALWAYS eat so well during a comp) - and we went to a incredible
bad diner for dinner.  We ended up leaving there by about 3 or 3:30...

Sun:
We went to the workshops. For the most part they were useless. VERY
beginner. Like Mambo basics and Waltz basics.  Except the Argentine Tango - that was AWESOME! IT was really funny. In the first workshop - "The discussion of the competition". The judge was saying that she really enjoyed judging this comp b/c so much of our personalities came through. After she said this, Tom (our socially challenged team mate) said "maybe that is why I did so bad, I have a miserable personality." Liz lost it. She covered her face with her hair and was bent over laughing for about 10 minutes. I think that it is really funny and sad too. He knows that about himself....and he hasn't changed it.....

The Argentine Tango was so great thouhg. It is so much fun. The guy (the
awesome one from the day before) taught like 5 moves., plus a lot of
technique too. It is such a great sensual dance... it would be perfect
for dance-a-thons. The frame for it is the girls arm totally around the
guys neck, pretty much on the guys left sholder blade... faces are
together - actually cheeks are in contact. IT is all very lazy, but with
very strong definate leads.

I ended up leaving DC around 5. The drive back was really painful, both
in terms of how tired I was (did you know I have a very loud bed, I
could hear it calling my name 3 hrs away :) ). The other reason why the
drive was painful was that Tom was in the car. See it wasn't bad on the
way down (I drove him down too)... b/c Julia and I talked the entire
time, mostly about non-ballroom stuff (yes - it is possible :) ) and Tom
really couldn't participate. But on the way back most of the talk was
about the competition - and so he could participate in that. And I don't
know how much you actually got to know Danny, but he is just full of
useless information.... Don't get me wrong - he is a lot of fun to be
around, but he can go on forever telling you things that you could care
less about. Well he and Tom fed off each other. Tom would ask a question
of make a comment, DAnny would answer or correct him and that would keep
Tom talking. It was all very annoying.

When I got home I totally crashed. I did good on Monday - except for my
classes... I couldn't stay awake at all... but outside class - no
problem.
Oh well... have to actually start thinking about school now... at least
for a month. Well..... I'll see what I can do about thinking about
dancing a little sooner then that. Like tomorrow :) :) :)

Anyways....

I've gotta run
Talk to ya soon!
Cheerio!
Drew

Catholic University Comp: November 1995

Key players
Liz, Mom
Kim, Kyle
Mickey, Danny

Awards:
None

Fri:
We left around noon... I had Danny, Mikey, Bryce, and Brian in my car. DAnny brought his CD player which was cool and we listened to George Carlin for the first couple of hours. I was so excited to get there... I couldn't wait to see Liz and all of my other friends from other schools. The social that night was a lot of fun. Practiced with liz lots, danced around lots. I a samba with Lisa. Lisa, you might rember from ohio comp... she is natalie's friend... we went to the nightclub together at OSU. Well she is one of the top couples right now in the collegiate circuit... that was fun. Samba even... one of the hardest to lead and follow... on a crowded dance floor. Then I danced with Natalie... who I haven't danced with since DC comp. She said "Damn, I feel good"... that is such a great thing to hear. We left the social and went right to bed.... b/c the comp was starting earlier then usual becasue there were over 300 competitors.

The competition had been moved from where it was last year to the gym. The area of the gym that we were on happened to have a rubberized floor. I thought it was going to be really tough to move on it. But the only thing that was excessively hard was heel drags in smooths. But boy could you get flight.... you could totally push off from the floor and not have to worry about slipping. You should have seen our vwaltz... a long side in 2.5 turns. We were cruising. The floor also made the tango very staccato.

The comp was really bad. There were too many competitors, very deep cuts, and poor judging. All of CMU and Delaware top dancers got totally screwed. The judges didn't move at all and clustered at one corner of the floor, once you danced by them you could of walked the rest of the way around and they wouldn't have been able to tell... Plus I didn't think too highly of the judges either. Liz and I barely made any callbacks. We didn't even make first cuts in R/C. It was just too easy to get missed. The cuts were like bring back 30 out of 70... IT was just insane. Out of everyone that I talked too... it didn't seem like anybody was having fun.

The fun part of the comp though was during team matches... tango to be specific. The power went out... This was such a great bonding experience. People started singing tango to let the people finish their routines. You know... dah dant da da da, da-da-da-da-da. Then Boston U broke out singing Cumbia (sp), Day-o, and Zombie Jamboree. Some people danced to the light of flashlights while others just made shadow puppets on the walls. While we were waiting for power to come back on we held our awards ceremony. Since there was no power... everyone had to stay quiet. When somebody one and they would cheer - they would get a resounding "SHHHH".
It was amuzing. We waited for about an hour and determined that we were not able to resume the comp. So we had to try to gather our stuff in the dark... that was fun. You had to try to remember where you through everything. I think we got all that I we had though.

Then when we went to load the car... we discovered that we were in a fairly good sized snow storm... It had already built up an inch or more. Of course that morning it was in the 60's so all of us were in our measly ballroom jackets. Wow was it cold. Since we had barely danced (no callbacks - we were all still in the mood to do something). And since we had had such a bad day... some of us were in the mood to drink. So we went to a resturant bar. This made me very uncomfortable... we had a 4 car caravan in the snow. Liz was driving/leading... I'm very confident of Liz's driving ability in the snow... but I was still very uncomfortable.

We ended up going to benigans. the people there were Liz and I, Kim and Kyle (Delaware friends), Pat and Anna (from Houston/Brown), Pam and Andy (new boyfriend), Anne (Andy's partner and all around fun person), Mickey, and Pete. Basically it was a major bitch session about the comp. A little discussion about cabarets. It was kinda funny... Liz had left her wallet at home and didn't have her ID. So I had to order a drink for her, and she had to be sneaky about drinking it. It was kinda amuzing.

Then we went back to Liz's.... Pam and Pat were staying at Anne's so we didn't get to see them much... That night we forced Kim and Kyle to stay up and talk with us for a little while on Mom's bed... then we all crashed pretty hard.

Sunday:
Sunday morning we had to wake up really early to attend an intercolligiate meeting. WE discussed what works and doesn't work in our various clubs. I presented my inter-collegiate social idea. And everybody loved it. They also suggested that we form an IC committee to just discuss problems and other issues. It was a really good meeting. Then at the end of it. Liz and I performed our Open Rumba routine, b/c since the comp was cut short  - we never got a chance to perform it. We've only practiced it for two weeks now. Then we forced Kim and Kyle to perform their new open paso routine, b/c they to didn't get a chance to perform it. We then took an advanced vwaltz class - that was just awesome. In the next wkshop - Adv Am Latin... we really didn't like the instructor - so Me and Liz and Kim and Kyle and Mickey. We had a really good bonding time.

After that we went to California Pizza for dinner... this place specializes in non-traditional pizza. It was a lot of fun. The five of us all ordered different pizza's and completely shared. Everyone got a piece of every pizza. It was so great. Passing pizza, trading pizza, taking a bite and passing it on. Very cool.. you were basically full before you even touched your own remaining pieces.

On leaving, I gave everyone a hug... including Kyle - which I think really surprized him. Kim said that he doesn't hug guys at all... But I don't think he really had a choice. I don't even think he knew what hit him.

The way back was FUN! I slept for the first half (Danny drove), but the second half.. .we laughed the entire way back. I couldn't even tell you what we talked about, but we were in tears for the entire two hours... Then after dropping everyone off - I Drove back toy parking garage where I let Mikey park her car in my spot. We ended up talking and laughing for another two hours in the garage. My cheeks and stomach were so sore Mon. It was a really good time. It is too bad that the comp sucked so much... otherwise it would have been a really great weekend.

Now I'm just completely swamped with work... which I really should get back to.

I'll talk to ya later.
Cheerio!
Drew

Florida Dancesport: Jan 1996

Awards:
3rd Am R/C
3rd Am Team
3rd Caberet (Charleston)

New Year's Day
The drive down was fairly easy. It took us about 20 hrs to get to Clearwater. listened to all kinds of music. Mike Kajane was in our car, so we ended up listening to African music for a couple of hours that was pretty neat. Hours after we arrived we had a workshop... Advanced American Rhythm w/ Dan Calloway. This was 4 hours of solid hip movement... It was such a awesome workshop... It had put me in a totally latin mood for several days. I was hitting lunches and moving my hips for several days afterwards. There was a social dance that night. That was fun...I had a great time socializing and meeting people. It was a lot of fun flirting. I have some new friends from UT, Las Vegas, and NYU.

2nd Day:
Liz was not feeling well that morning, so she slept in. I went to a Latin workshop and learned really cool latin technique. That evening we had a private lesson with delaware's coach. He has some really cool metaphors. He said that we dance like Drew and Liz and we shouldn't. We should dance like Hernando and Lolita. He also said the samba was like a jungle cat in the forest. You can see the strength, but it is not being used. It was really a cool lesson. There were not very many things for us to compete it that night...

3rd Day:
Liz was still not feeling well. She felt so bad that she went to the doctor. Appearently she is very skillful and managed to get her entire head infected. She had an ear,sinus, and throat infection. Isn't that impressive? I took another latin workshop while she was at the hospital - learned some cool samba and jive stuff. Since liz was feeling so bad we didn't compete at all that day. BTW, a day was typically 8:30-12:30 Workshops, 1:30-6:00 Comps, 7:00-midnight Comps. Everyday.....

The next day:
Liz slept in again. I went to an AMAZING workshop. This was taught be Richard Diaz, 3 time latin champ.... and I found out that he was trained as a Mech E! Instant Idol. He could explain things very anaylically - It was great! We competed in 1.5 latin events that evening, but that was all that Liz was up for.We also performed all of our Caberet's... wow were they fun! I had a balst in all of them. The Charelston made call backs.

Friday:
Friday was the US college Championships. Liz was feeling pretty good today. We competed in all Rhythm, Latin, and Standard. We did pretty good all things considered. We ended up getting 3rd in American team match. Not bad.... Everybody loved the dress... Absolutely everyone was commenting on it. Even Kay Teague said it was a BEAUTIFUL dress. You done good, Mom. All the dancing on Friday kinda did her in though and she felt miserable the next day.

A went to a standard workshop this morning b/c I wasn't in the mood for latin any more. We didn't compete much b/c she wasn't up to it... but we did do the Charelston finals. We got third. That was so cool. I'm really glad that that worked out.

Sunday, we both slept in. There was nothing for us to compete in in the afternood, and then we went to the social that night. Liz was still feeling crappy so she didn't get a chance to dance much at the social. These intercollegiate things don't treat her well. She missed the last day social in England too, b/c of her hip. I had a great time though.

We ended up bumming around monday and resting. We decided not to drive back b/c of the snow. We left late tues evening so that we would drive through Florida and other non snow areas at night and hit the bad stuff during the day. We planned it perfectly. The drive back was not bad at all. To kill time from hotel checkout until evening departure... we went to the beach and then we ate at Ninfas... Yes we found a ninfas (parrot and all) in Fl.

Liz slept the whole way back... and most of today too. She will probablly stay here until she is well enough to return to DC.

Sorry that this wasn't very descriptive of the trip. but not a whole lot of descriptive stuff happened. I had fun and I learned alot... I think it was oaky for liz too... she said that the trip was worthwile for her as well. I wasn't as social as I could have been b/c I was looking out for Liz a lot. But it was still a lot of fun.

Oh well... gotta run!
Cheerio!
Drew

Case Western University Comp: Feb 1996

Case Western Reserve 2/19/96

Awards:
1st R/V W w/ Sari
7th R/V F w/ Smita
2nd Intercollegiate W w/ Sandra (OSU)
4th R/V T w/ Marika
3rd R/V C w/ Annie
1st R/V R w/ Katherine
4th Int W/Q  syllabus
4th Int F/T  syllabus
4th Am C/R   syllabus
4th Int C/R  syllabus
5th Int S/J  syllabus
6th Int C/R/S/J Open 4-dance
2nd Am C/R/Sw/M Open 4-dance :) :) :) :)

This was such an AWESOME weekend! Everything went well

Fri:
     The ride down was kinda fun. The people in my car was Brain Surkan, Natasha, Sergey, and Fei. Brain is a potential president for next year. He is kinda funny... he will see something that amuzes him and laugh out loud really loud. I spent most of the trip trying to see what he was laughing so hard at. Then Fei is such an AWESOME person... Fei and I get along so well... we have the same contact styles... we are both active touchers and continually moving and all sorts of great stuff. I really enjoy Fei's company.

The social dance that night was fun... Liz and I got to practice a little bit. Nothing special though. Then we went to stay at Jessica's house (good friend of Pat and Pam). Her parents are such AWESOME hosts. They make this great cinnimon cake. The other really cool thing is that we have a coach now. Jim Page, our American instructor, travelled with us to this comp... he even stayed was us at Jessica's - that was SO cool. We all ended up watching the lion king the night before the comp. That was a little unusual - but it was very fun.

Sat:
    We danced so well... Everyone who beat us was supposed to, but there was nobody that we think that we ar ebetter then that beat us. Everything felt great. But the comp was set up so that you danced constantly... It was set up so that it went 1st round - callbacks - callbacks - callbacks - finals for all for dances. So you ended up dancing for a solid hour! Then if you throw in rookie/vets and intercollegiate. I think at one point in time I dance for a solid 2 hours. - That is competitive/showy dancing. And the comp went really slow - they were still on smooths at 3pm. This was 1/4 of the comp - and it was supposed toend at 8pm. yeah right - we got out of there at 1:15. But we danced really really well... It all felt great. At the end - the open stuff... I was so tired... I had hit my phyiscal limits about 3 hrs earlier. But I kept on dancing. I was so tired at the end that I couldn't even raise my other arm. It was fun though... we have so much crowd appeal. Everybody loves watching us dance... And the judges were very friendly this time, they would smile at you when you made eye contact. That is great!

Totally died Sat night.

Sun:
    We woke up and went to have a good breakfast. Then we went to the workshops taught by the smiling judges. It was great. Really fixed our frame. It was just to bad that my legs totally didn't want to work at all... every time that I would go up on my toes my legs would almost totally collapse on me. It was so tiring. It was a really good workshop though. Lots of personal attention. The drive back was okay. Stopped to have lunch at Max and Erma's... Came home and slept alittle bit. Then we watched a movie... and went to bed fairly early. I think I'm going to  go to bed soon now... I'm still exhausted.

So I'll talk to ya later.
Cheerio!
Drew