The least you must do is 540. 360 will make you fall on your face.
I was a bad girl today and didn't go to my team meeting. I was tired and didn't feel like getting up early only to spend two hours discussing stuff with the girls, especially since I cannot really contribute to the financial planning stuff. So I texted Elena to let her know I wouldn't come in the morning. Simple as that.
I went to Dresden to meet Veronika at 10:30 and then we went to Berlitz (language school) together. We didn't do any French test like we expected, we merely talked to the leader of the Dresden branch. She told us that they don't have many people who'd be interested in French, especially not on an intermediate/advanced level. Veronika and I would probably have to learn in a 2-person group. The whole course to reach the next language level - 42 lessons (45 minutes each), with 2 people - would cost about €1000/person. That's a LOT. The German-French organization will pay €300. If we decided to take only 30 lessons, it would still be about €750. I don't think I want to pay this money, I don't know if I want to pay the course at all, because I suspect I won't have enough time.
I found out that the Technical University in Dresden also has some language school and they have French courses, too. I should find out what's taking place and how much it costs.
Well, maybe I'll just buy a self-learner book. :/ I know my mother will advise me to talk to my French classmates in French, maybe to even have conversation sessions with them... But that's not very realistic. The French are such a closed group, I haven't really had much contact with any of them. I'm more integrated into the East-Europe section of our class; I talk to the Russians and the Slovakian, plus the Germans. I should get over my inner anti-French thing.
I went skating after that. I took a bus to the rink. Two interesting things about the bus-ride. 1) From the bus, I saw a shop called Kalinka. It sells Russian specialties. I'll have to check it out, see if they have some interesting Russian food. 2) Most people got off the bus before me, I was almost the only passenger and I sat in the front. One stop before my stop the bus driver started talking to me.
Bus driver: Where are you getting out?
Me: Magdeburger Straße.
Bus driver: That's the next one.
Me: I know.
Bus driver: So you're going to the ice arena?
Me: Yeah. That stop is closer than this one, right? (We were at the last stop before the one where I wanted to go to - it wasn't far from the rink anymore.)
Bus driver: Oh yeah, this is still far.
Me: Okay.
Bus driver: So you're going to practice?
Me: Ummm... yes.
Bus driver: Ice skating? Are you good?
Me: Well, not that good...
Bus driver: You're certainly better than me, haha.
Me: *gets up and gets out of the bus* Bye.
Bus driver: Hey, you're pretty!
O_O It was kinda odd. He was glancing over his shoulder while he was talking to me. Dude, you're driving a fucking bus, you should be looking at the STREET, not checking out girls in the bus!!!
Anyway, skating.
It was a bit crowded. I decided that I hate little boys - those who can barely stand up on their skates, but insist on chasing their friends and going in unpredictable directions. The only little skaterboys I don't hate are figure skaters, because those know where they're going. Unfortunately, the rink was full of little annoying boys.
The skatergirl I saw on October 3rd was there again, but she didn't do much this time, just a few spins.
There was a girl about my age (or a little younger/older) who had obviously skated competitively in the past, but she was out of practice a little it seemed to me. She did a few nice spins, though, and some footwork, which was fun to watch.
Then in the second half of the session three tiny girls arrived. Two of them were sisters because they had matching red velvet outfits - one had a dress and the other had an overall with a little skirt-ruffle on the butt. The third one - the chubby one - had a horrid pink tie-dye dress that made my eyes hurt a little. They were cute. They talked to the adult girl-skater and tried a few things.
Interestingly enough, though, these girls could only do a few basic things (crossovers, simple and wobbly and short spins, simple spirals with some difficulty) - I had to think back to seeing kids of their age in Moscow; those were already working on their doubles. (If my estimation of the kids' ages is correct.)
You know what makes skating so different from other sports? It makes one feel beautiful. (Well, sometimes.) Even I like to put on clothes that make me look as good as possible when I go skating - and I'm far from being a figure skater. Look at those little girls wearing sparkly dresses even for practice. Skaters wear velvet and rhinestones and make-up where other athletes wear spandex and take off make-up before practicing. What a glamorous sport!!! XD
Talking about skating... My brother watched Johnny Weir's King of Chess and Rondo Capriccioso programs yesterday on the train. He actually finished watching the whole videos! He still says all skaters are queer, but I guess he didn't dare to diss too much face to face with Johnny's 3A. We had a discussion before that - while waiting for a train.
Me: *does a little waltz-jump*
Bro: Is that all you can do? I can do a 360. (I felt so tempted to laugh at him and tell him that his wannabe-impressive 360 is called a single in this sport and gets you just like half a point and that usually the minimum male skaters do is a 1080.)
Me: Yeah sure. Besides you can't do a 360 jump like this (entering forward) - you can't land forward.
Bro: Of course I can.
Me: No you can't. It's just not possible. You can just do this half rotation or you have to do an axel, which is one and a half rotations.
Bro: That's bullshit. Of course it's possible.
Me: Noooo! You'd just fall on your face. The toepick would get in the way.
Bro: My skates don't have toe-picks.
Me: That doesn't count! But still, you can't do that.
And so on.
I described Caroline Zhang's bone-breaking spin positions to him, I have to show him later. He pretended not to be interested, but I know he'll be impressed if he sees a tiny girl doing that kind of stuff!!!
After skating, I went home and had a yummy pasta-meal my brother made. He's a much better cook than I am. He's the intuitive type of cook, too, like he'll put in whatever comes to his mind and the outcome will be good. I can only do this thing with like... milkshakes and yogurt drinks, if I did it with meals, the results would be disastrous.
Then I sat down and worked on my biotech & genetic engineering presentation for a few hours. It's finished now, yay! It was quite interesting, too. Tomorrow I'll work on the marketing project.
Now I'll go shower and then read/art journal/write a letter. Although, actually, I should type up the fic I (almost) finished a few days ago.
I went to Dresden to meet Veronika at 10:30 and then we went to Berlitz (language school) together. We didn't do any French test like we expected, we merely talked to the leader of the Dresden branch. She told us that they don't have many people who'd be interested in French, especially not on an intermediate/advanced level. Veronika and I would probably have to learn in a 2-person group. The whole course to reach the next language level - 42 lessons (45 minutes each), with 2 people - would cost about €1000/person. That's a LOT. The German-French organization will pay €300. If we decided to take only 30 lessons, it would still be about €750. I don't think I want to pay this money, I don't know if I want to pay the course at all, because I suspect I won't have enough time.
I found out that the Technical University in Dresden also has some language school and they have French courses, too. I should find out what's taking place and how much it costs.
Well, maybe I'll just buy a self-learner book. :/ I know my mother will advise me to talk to my French classmates in French, maybe to even have conversation sessions with them... But that's not very realistic. The French are such a closed group, I haven't really had much contact with any of them. I'm more integrated into the East-Europe section of our class; I talk to the Russians and the Slovakian, plus the Germans. I should get over my inner anti-French thing.
I went skating after that. I took a bus to the rink. Two interesting things about the bus-ride. 1) From the bus, I saw a shop called Kalinka. It sells Russian specialties. I'll have to check it out, see if they have some interesting Russian food. 2) Most people got off the bus before me, I was almost the only passenger and I sat in the front. One stop before my stop the bus driver started talking to me.
Bus driver: Where are you getting out?
Me: Magdeburger Straße.
Bus driver: That's the next one.
Me: I know.
Bus driver: So you're going to the ice arena?
Me: Yeah. That stop is closer than this one, right? (We were at the last stop before the one where I wanted to go to - it wasn't far from the rink anymore.)
Bus driver: Oh yeah, this is still far.
Me: Okay.
Bus driver: So you're going to practice?
Me: Ummm... yes.
Bus driver: Ice skating? Are you good?
Me: Well, not that good...
Bus driver: You're certainly better than me, haha.
Me: *gets up and gets out of the bus* Bye.
Bus driver: Hey, you're pretty!
O_O It was kinda odd. He was glancing over his shoulder while he was talking to me. Dude, you're driving a fucking bus, you should be looking at the STREET, not checking out girls in the bus!!!
Anyway, skating.
It was a bit crowded. I decided that I hate little boys - those who can barely stand up on their skates, but insist on chasing their friends and going in unpredictable directions. The only little skaterboys I don't hate are figure skaters, because those know where they're going. Unfortunately, the rink was full of little annoying boys.
The skatergirl I saw on October 3rd was there again, but she didn't do much this time, just a few spins.
There was a girl about my age (or a little younger/older) who had obviously skated competitively in the past, but she was out of practice a little it seemed to me. She did a few nice spins, though, and some footwork, which was fun to watch.
Then in the second half of the session three tiny girls arrived. Two of them were sisters because they had matching red velvet outfits - one had a dress and the other had an overall with a little skirt-ruffle on the butt. The third one - the chubby one - had a horrid pink tie-dye dress that made my eyes hurt a little. They were cute. They talked to the adult girl-skater and tried a few things.
Interestingly enough, though, these girls could only do a few basic things (crossovers, simple and wobbly and short spins, simple spirals with some difficulty) - I had to think back to seeing kids of their age in Moscow; those were already working on their doubles. (If my estimation of the kids' ages is correct.)
You know what makes skating so different from other sports? It makes one feel beautiful. (Well, sometimes.) Even I like to put on clothes that make me look as good as possible when I go skating - and I'm far from being a figure skater. Look at those little girls wearing sparkly dresses even for practice. Skaters wear velvet and rhinestones and make-up where other athletes wear spandex and take off make-up before practicing. What a glamorous sport!!! XD
Talking about skating... My brother watched Johnny Weir's King of Chess and Rondo Capriccioso programs yesterday on the train. He actually finished watching the whole videos! He still says all skaters are queer, but I guess he didn't dare to diss too much face to face with Johnny's 3A. We had a discussion before that - while waiting for a train.
Me: *does a little waltz-jump*
Bro: Is that all you can do? I can do a 360. (I felt so tempted to laugh at him and tell him that his wannabe-impressive 360 is called a single in this sport and gets you just like half a point and that usually the minimum male skaters do is a 1080.)
Me: Yeah sure. Besides you can't do a 360 jump like this (entering forward) - you can't land forward.
Bro: Of course I can.
Me: No you can't. It's just not possible. You can just do this half rotation or you have to do an axel, which is one and a half rotations.
Bro: That's bullshit. Of course it's possible.
Me: Noooo! You'd just fall on your face. The toepick would get in the way.
Bro: My skates don't have toe-picks.
Me: That doesn't count! But still, you can't do that.
And so on.
I described Caroline Zhang's bone-breaking spin positions to him, I have to show him later. He pretended not to be interested, but I know he'll be impressed if he sees a tiny girl doing that kind of stuff!!!
After skating, I went home and had a yummy pasta-meal my brother made. He's a much better cook than I am. He's the intuitive type of cook, too, like he'll put in whatever comes to his mind and the outcome will be good. I can only do this thing with like... milkshakes and yogurt drinks, if I did it with meals, the results would be disastrous.
Then I sat down and worked on my biotech & genetic engineering presentation for a few hours. It's finished now, yay! It was quite interesting, too. Tomorrow I'll work on the marketing project.
Now I'll go shower and then read/art journal/write a letter. Although, actually, I should type up the fic I (almost) finished a few days ago.