Annual obligatory rollerskating post part 2
So, I'm back from Sydney.
Animania continued to be great fun through the second day. Finally managed to track down Clara and Tini (yay!) and I could stay long enough to see the cosplay comp and such that day. It sounds like most of the best costumes were on day one, but there was still some memorable stuff there - like the Shinji who brought his own cello and played us the opening bars from "Death and Rebirth" (and even got to tell the MC, absolutely deadpan, 'that everyone should just go die' XD Perfectly in character!). The karaoke competition was seriously impressive too - some of the finalists were terrific!
Then I got home and came down with a cold that left me stuck in the hotel for the next two days. If anyone who's been reading this journal for over a year just got deja-vu, that's because the same damn thing happened right before the comp last year. I don't know what to conclude except that I really don't travel well. ^^;;
I was still feeling a little sick during my first event, but I didn't perform too badly considering. *Just* missed out on second place, which was a little disappointing. The three Queensland judges put the Queensland girl ahead of me, which was generally voted to be more than a little suss. Actually, from all the complaints we heard from other skaters there seemed to be a *lot* of events where that happened this year.
Look, it's not paranoia when they really are out to get you.
At least I can say that, sick or otherwise, I gave it a hundred percent in that event; which is to say I practically collapsed afterwards and spent over the next hour lying down in the sick room and being told to drink large quantities of water and powerade. Apparently this worked, because I felt a whole lot better afterwards. (Thank god sugar has yet to be classified as a performance enhancing drug.)
There were six in my second event and I was pretty sure I wasn't in the running for the medals, so I decided to just go out there and try to enjoy myself for a change. Possibly I was still on a sugar high at this stage, but this was definitely the right way to play it, because I had a really fun routine to work with this year (it was a jive, using this song) and I wound up having the most fun I'd ever had at a competition with that performance. Didn't get a medal, but I'm still pretty happy with it all.
I had one final day free after that, so I met up with Clara and Tini again on Friday and finally got to do some touristy stuff. We wound up going around the Chinese gardens in Sydney, the best part of which was that they have all these gorgeous traditional Chinese costumes and headdresses you can rent out and wear around the gardens. I still didn't have a camera, but they took tonnes of photos which I'll have to get off them at some point.
I finally got to see X-Men 3 on the plane on the way back, about which I'll say only this: it wasn't nearly as bad as everyone has been telling me, but I don't have any particular desire to ever watch it again.
Animania continued to be great fun through the second day. Finally managed to track down Clara and Tini (yay!) and I could stay long enough to see the cosplay comp and such that day. It sounds like most of the best costumes were on day one, but there was still some memorable stuff there - like the Shinji who brought his own cello and played us the opening bars from "Death and Rebirth" (and even got to tell the MC, absolutely deadpan, 'that everyone should just go die' XD Perfectly in character!). The karaoke competition was seriously impressive too - some of the finalists were terrific!
Then I got home and came down with a cold that left me stuck in the hotel for the next two days. If anyone who's been reading this journal for over a year just got deja-vu, that's because the same damn thing happened right before the comp last year. I don't know what to conclude except that I really don't travel well. ^^;;
I was still feeling a little sick during my first event, but I didn't perform too badly considering. *Just* missed out on second place, which was a little disappointing. The three Queensland judges put the Queensland girl ahead of me, which was generally voted to be more than a little suss. Actually, from all the complaints we heard from other skaters there seemed to be a *lot* of events where that happened this year.
Look, it's not paranoia when they really are out to get you.
At least I can say that, sick or otherwise, I gave it a hundred percent in that event; which is to say I practically collapsed afterwards and spent over the next hour lying down in the sick room and being told to drink large quantities of water and powerade. Apparently this worked, because I felt a whole lot better afterwards. (Thank god sugar has yet to be classified as a performance enhancing drug.)
There were six in my second event and I was pretty sure I wasn't in the running for the medals, so I decided to just go out there and try to enjoy myself for a change. Possibly I was still on a sugar high at this stage, but this was definitely the right way to play it, because I had a really fun routine to work with this year (it was a jive, using this song) and I wound up having the most fun I'd ever had at a competition with that performance. Didn't get a medal, but I'm still pretty happy with it all.
I had one final day free after that, so I met up with Clara and Tini again on Friday and finally got to do some touristy stuff. We wound up going around the Chinese gardens in Sydney, the best part of which was that they have all these gorgeous traditional Chinese costumes and headdresses you can rent out and wear around the gardens. I still didn't have a camera, but they took tonnes of photos which I'll have to get off them at some point.
I finally got to see X-Men 3 on the plane on the way back, about which I'll say only this: it wasn't nearly as bad as everyone has been telling me, but I don't have any particular desire to ever watch it again.