Bellydancing Part Dos

I absolutely love bellydancing. I really really do.

My class is mostly older women, which is fine with me. To my enjoyment there are no hot blondes besides the instructor, and she's super nice and very good. Her descriptions of the moves are hilarious - there's the 'booger flick' and the 'car door shut' - which make it easy to think of exactly the kind of motion we're trying to perform.

So I am signing up for the next 6 week session. So far my only soreness has been from learning chest moves, and its only sore when I make the same movements the next day, rather than a constant ache. Leaving class I feel exhilarated and free and pumped, and its just a great feeling.

Overall on a scale of 1-5 (1 being low and 5 the highest) I'd give it a sweat factor of about 1 or 2 - depending on the moves you can work up a bit of a sweat but not dripping, a fun factor of 5, and body awareness of 4 - you do have to let go of your concerns about being silly/foolish and start to get a good feel for how your body is moving. I am so glad I made the leap to trying it!

Belly dancing

Oi this makes me an eensy bit nervous, but not much. I think I'll be ok. I am overly observant when it comes to crowds, so it will be hard not to compare myself to everyone else there.

But it is only a 16 person class, and aimed at adults. I am hoping I will at least be the youngest one there.

But with my luck some damn hot blonde 17 year olds will be enrolled and I'll feel awful >.<

Pee. Ess.

Comments are greatly appreciated.
I'd say they're like crack, but everyone knows I play World of Warcrack, and a girl can only handle one kind of crack at a time.

Cuteoverload submishes

I think I shall submeet des to CuteOverload and mebbe get posted.

It is the Mama Skewrl that frequents my feeder.

Bellydancing and the next door neighbors

I am taking a 6 week belly dancing class, starting next Thursday. Wild, I know. It should be a lot of fun. It's offered through the local high school, for adults, and was quite cheap. I have always wanted to learn to dance, and belly dancing seems quite interesting. It's also a supposedly-good muscle work out for women since it involves all those lovely hip and lower abdomen muscles.

In short I - she-of-no-balance-what-so-ever - will go make a fool out of myself with 15 other strangers.

There was a point when I would never do such a thing. I would cower away in embarrassment at the mere mention of doing something so silly and of putting myself squarely outside my comfort zone. There was a point at which a lack of self esteem and a fear of being "that stupid fat chick" would have stopped me dead in my tracks from trying something new.

Sadly, this isn't unusual for a lot of people, especially the fat ones. It doesn't matter how much fun it might be, or how good you might be at it, if it means using your body in public in front of other people, it stands a good chance of getting you mocked. We learn very fast what "everyone else" will let us do without being made of fun of. And it means losing out on a lot of stuff.

It means, if you let fear of embarrassment run your life, you won't have many stories to tell when you're old and gray. It means that, unlike my new neighbors, you'll sit and be boring, and knit. Meanwhile other people who weren't afraid are sharing wine and cookies with 20-something apartment neighbors and having a wonderful evening of story telling.

Luckily I stopped giving a shit what anyone else thought somewhere between high school and college. So I signed up when I saw the class. And hopefully it will lead to some fun stories to share over some delicious wine with interesting neighbors.

Promotions and the Super Lab Tech

So I am still awaiting my promotion from Lab Tech to Associate Scientist. It is supposedly coming, once HR gets off its ass and does the paperwork. The translation is that HR only likes to promote once a year at annual reviews, however my annual review was based on only 3 months of work (and was still awesome) and thusly it was not until I received the review (which was at 6 months, since it takes forever for these things to get processed) that I was told they wanted to promote me.

So I am still waiting, and continuing to poke at it with a stick at my monthly supervisor meetings. I've been asked repeatedly why I'm not an AS, or even an RS yet. Most people assume I am an RS (2 steps ahead of me) since everything I do is RS level. Yet at the hourly lab tech rate >.<

Of course, the downside to being an AS is I am no longer hourly and will have to put in some extra hours now and then as necessary. Although considering how much work I get done in 8 hours, I shouldn't really have to.

I've been there almost 9 months, but really only took 3 months to become the TurboTech that everybody comes to with questions. I guess I just fall into the position naturally.

I did get to do crystallizations all-by-my-lonesome-officially today, at least. I normally do them alone, side by side with my Supervisor, so really this was just "official." Pretty much the only thing I don't do is write the weekly reports/final reports to customers....which really wouldn't be that hard (and would teach me a lot more of the chemistry behind the work really, so hopefully eventually I will.

Movie Review: Iron Man

Short review: Go see it, it's fucking awesome.

No, seriously. Just go see it.

When I first saw the previews for Iron Man, I was on the fence. I've been burned enough times now to know that comic book movies do not default to 'awesome' at all times. I'm not familiar with Iron Man as a comic, to be honest. But my first thought was "Robert Downey Junior as an action hero? Yeah right!"

But the trailer music was awesome, and the special effects looked damn good, so I hopped into the theatre with my free popcorn to see it anyways.

And daaaayum. I was blown away.

For starters, the movie is well paced. Not too long, not too short. This is rare now-a-days I find. Secondly, the dialogue is some of the best I've heard. I have since read on IMDB that some of it is improvised, in which case, the actors are even more amazing in this movie. I was just plain impressed with RDJ. The dialogue is witty, snarky, and just like real conversation. Yet despite the fun and laughs, when the scenes turn serious or touching, the switch is handled well and doesn't turn cheesy.

I'll admit by the end I wanted to scream "kiss her already!" between Tony and Pepper, but the fact that they did not fall into the super-hero-romance-trap of too many movies was really a good thing. It leaves future story lines open and something to look forward to.

Lastly it turns out that this movie combines the special effects wizardy of the two top studios - Stan Winston Studios designed and made the Iron Man Suits, while Industrial Light and Magic did the virtual special effects. What could be better?! While I'm sure everyone knows ILM is Lucas's group, Stan Winston is the brains behind the dinos of Jurassic Park, the Terminator, and many other famous things I'm blanking on right now.

And another thing to note is that this movie really marks RDJ as a leading man. He does a great job, and I am pleased to see someone truly clean themselves up from drugs and make a complete return. I saw an interview with him in which he said he always wanted to be a super hero, and knew he could do it, and had to work to get the studio to let him carry the movie (who can blame their hesitation?). Well, he was right, he sure as hell can do it. (And god he looks good in this movie, I mean, daaayum. I'm a sucker for the shaggy dark hair and fancy cut goatee and dark eyes though. Excuse me, I need to wipe the drool off my keyboard.)

The date for Iron Man 2 is also set for 2010 already.



Rating: 9.5/10.0 - The supporting characters deserved a little more fleshing out, but with more movies to come (RDJ swears he'll do 15 movies if they'll let him) I'm sure we'll see more of them.

image credits:
top image: Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark.
lower image: Iron Man Mach III suit.
Both images from Collider.com

Gamer Chicks

One of the links over there ------------->
is for a blog called "Girls Don't Game." I actually know one of the authors - she is an old guildmate and online friend from WoW. The site is really entertaining and their posts are all well written. I recommend it, obviously.

It's always funny, as a girl, to see the look on a guys face when you start talking about awesome graphics or ganking someone. Its a brief flash of disbelief, which generally gives way to admiration. I find that with the guys in my lab, I usually know more about the games and play more than any of them do either (and granted I don't even play much, I usually watch Trysten play). It's really rather fun to start talking games.

There really isn't any point to this other than to reiterate my love of videogames. Currently I am most obsessed with Puzzle Quest (Thanks to Penny Arcade >.<) though I have Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorer of Time next in my queue. I also went back to WoW after a year clean. Although leveling a new character on a new server makes it seem like a new game and restores some of the wonder of it all, returning to my old 70 has been a lesson in disappointment. I also have HarvestMoon to finish, and Pokemon Diamond needs some work (though I did get my Dialga finally!). Guitar Hero is pretty well locked down, all three of them.

And that said, I need to get back to my games!

Obligatory First Post

So let's face it, trying to be anyone besides yourself is not only stupid, but doomed to failure. I've tried two or three different blog ideas, always searching for some kind of online persona that might attract reader and have a coherent theme, and every time it fails. Mostly because attempting to limit my writing to any one field is an exercise in futility. Every time I retire to my livejournal and call it a day. There is a trail of empty blog pages in my wake.

So this time, I won't limit myself, nor will I hide with some newly-made-up-persona. Rather, I think I'll stick with the name that has been mine for about 5 years now, and seems to work rather well - Midnyght Childe.

And if that means that this particular blog covers a wide spectrum of topics ranging from science news to life in a science lab to fat rights to feminism to screaming about human stupidity, well them so be it.