Down to business (and busyness)

I had another crazy busy weekend. Saturday consisted of dress rehearsals all day for dancing then the monthly meeting with my girlfriends from school and Sunday was taken up with the group dance eisteddfod.

We ended up getting placed for 3 out of our 5 dances... not as good as last year, but you take what you can get! We got 3rd in our funk jazz, 3rd in our contemporary dance and 4th in our ballet (even though we couldn't hear the music on stage and therefore didn't know when to start dancing!) We didn't get anything for our broadway jazz or our tap which is unusual because our studio is known for our tap, and we always get 1st! Even the senior tap only got a lowly 4th place.

Anyway, today I had my violin lesson (my teacher says I'm coming along nicely!) then worked in the sick bay at PAC all day, punctuated by an intermittent spot as my usual self working in the learning support in the junior school. All this before going to ballet and then to bible study.

One of my friends from church (she's also in my ballet class; we're the "oldies"!) has her birthday tomorrow so we threw her a surprise birthday party at bible study tonight. The two of us always go to Stir Crazy noodle bar after Ballet (leotard, stockings and all, which our teacher finds hilarious!) since we have an hour to kill before bible study; so suffice it to say I worked hard at keeping the secret and ran like crazy after I managed to get ahead of her in traffic and arrive first to deposit the cake in the room and still manage to look cool, calm and collected when she arrived like 2 minutes later.

After the actual bible study we usually break up into guys and girls and us girls usually promise to make our chat session "really quick this time" but we always end up with the boys prowling around outside the door (we always kick them out into the corridor so we get the room with the nice carpet! Oh, and since they usually finish first they end up doing the cleaning up! We are so strategic!) In our girls group, we go around in a circle and say what's going on in our lives. But first we usually talk as girls do, and get distracted. I told everyone "I have a story I want to tell really quickly" and Tracey, one of the student ministers who runs the bible study dissolved into a fit of laughter followed quickly by everyone else. When I asked why she finally managed to get out "You and 'quick' don't go together very well!" Apparently I have a reputation of telling long-winded stories! Who knew! So I made my story really quick and then because I talked so fast, everyone missed the punch line, which lead to more laughter (me included this time!). Anyway, eventually I started talkign about how I was going, and I said I did really well with the aeroplane trips to NZ and everyone said how good that was and I said I felt much better once I educated myself about how aeroplanes worked and they started laughing again! One of them managed to get out "I can just imagine you researching it!" and I said "But I did! I Googled it!" which lead to more laughter because apparently, that's just what this Alicia would do. Tracey then told me I was "adorable"...?!

At least I'm living up to expectations.

There is a category in itself that describes what this Alicia would like and what she would do. At work, there are Alicia clothes; eg "that's an Alicia top" (usually it's something pretty); "that mannequin is an Alicia outfit" etc etc.
There are Alicia phrases (something that only I could say), and even Alicia expressions (apparently I'm not aware when I do 'the face'. There's lots of faces... disapproving faces, "I'm bored of this topic" faces, etc etc... and I'm completely clueless that I'm actually exhibiting them! I only know because my friends tell me "you're doing 'the face'!"

It seems I've been stereotyped! Or maybe I'm just an open book. Either way, what's the point in covering your feelings? If I'm annoyed at someone, usually I tell them why (and that's got me into a bit of trouble lately with one of my friends). I think the reason why I have the reputation for telling elaborate stories at bible study is because I spend a lot of time thinking about how I feel and why I feel that way and so I have a lot to explain and a lot to say in general! I'm very introverted in that respect, yet amongst my friends I have a reputation for talking without thinking, which might seem at odds with my introversion! At our monthly meeting this weekend I was particularly quiet and after a while my friends were like "Okay, you've obviously got something to say, what is it?" (I must've had 'the face' on!) And I said that I wasn't ready to express it because I hadn't nutted in out in my head yet and they replied that I shouldn't worry about that because when it comes to me, they've got an "Alicia filter" that comprehends what I'm really trying to say beneath all the chatter that comes out of my mouth! I think it was meant to be reassuring, but I'm not totally sure if it is.... :)