Happy Merry!

Best wishes for whatever you may be celebrating, may have celebrated recently, or will be celebrating soon: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, the Winter Solstice, or the ritual consumption of the host of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I wish you and yours a safe holiday season. RAmen!

For myself, this is a time to look back at the year coming to a close. It was just over a year ago that I started attending the ballet school I now consider "home". I think I've learned more in the last 12 months than I did in the previous 20. Last year I was taking Beginner I. In March I started taking Beginner II, though I later learned that that class might be better called Beginner 2.75. In September I bought the semester package and ramped-up the number of classes I'd been taking. By November I was taking 6-8 hours of classes a week, including two Advanced Beginner classes. Wow.

Then came bronchitis. No classes at all for two weeks. Half of one class the third week, and just barely making it through one class last week. I am so glad I don't depend on dancing (or other physically demanding activity) for my livelihood. My muscles aren't happy with my inactivity either: my calf muscles have been in knots since Sunday evening and my quads aren't much happier.

I'm considering attempting the Advanced Beginner class tomorrow evening. I'd prefer a less technically challenging class, but those don't take place until the weekend. AB barre isn't much harder, physically, than Beginner II. Being on the semester plan removes the expense from the equation, so even if I bail during center I've still gotten the benefit of barre.