New beginnings

Life is bloody good at the moment. Sure, there are still silly little irritations like my car playing up, and the itch is still hanging around like a bad smell, but on all other fronts things are looking up.
First and foremost I finally have a new dance partner, Leah. She's a 19 year old welsh girl currently studying Maths at Royal Holloway. She lives in Egham and has loads of time free most afternoons/evenings/weekends to dance, which is perfect. She's also got absolutely great technique. After just one week of dancing together we already have 4 of our 5 routines choreographed - we now just need to work out a Jive. We're planning on competing in just over 2 weeks time at the student national championships in the ex-student category, which should be a gentle introduction to competitions. I've got a great feeling about it all, and my dance obsession has cranked up another whole notch!
Secondly my love life has finally perked up a bit. Been on about 4 dates now and things are looking good, but no more on that for fear of jinxing it!
Lastly, and most intruigingly, I've just started going to see an Accupunturist. I didn't really know quite what to expect but had a vague idea he might be able to help with the itching. Actually its like a whole counselling/emotional workout as well as relieving vast amounts of pent-up frustration and tension that I seem to have been storing up inside me. I'm feeling so much better about life, and the visualisations and ideas that he is giving me, along with classic needle-based therapy, is absolutely fascinating. The most surprising aspect of it all is realising just how tense a person I have been for such a long time. You know the feeling you get of release after you have really let go and cried for a while? I've got that right now and its wonderful. Long may it last, and with a bit of luck it'll lead to improvement in some more physical symptoms.
Only 6 more weeks of teaching to go now until I give up for good. I'm really quite excited now. I don't know how committed I'm going to be feeling toward teaching in these last few weeks but I would like to go out with a bang rather than a whimper!
Haven't seen Dad & Carole for ages, and haven't seen my gorgeous nephew for far too long too. Life is suddenly so busy with an extra 12 or so hours of dancing a week (duh, surprise). Hope to remedy both of those very soon.
Here's to what is promising to be a very exciting 2007.

Partner-hunting

January was a fairly mixed month overall. I've been pleasantly busy with work and various social things - various celebrations of two engagements in my circle of ex-oxford dancer friends. Healthwise its been fairly good. Itching is annoying but still seemingly as liable to improve as get worse. Actually I've noticed a very strong correlation between itching and lack-of-sleep/stress. Even just a normal part-time week at work with one or two extra late nights and/or early mornings can make it noticably worse, so I'm taking even more extra care of myself.

Irritations this month include my stupid bloody car. I had the engine revamped at cost of nearly £400 to myself and now it sounds like the catalytic converter and other bits are buggered too - more money! The garage who are doing it are annoying me and taking ages to sort anything out. That's car garages for you though I think, so just lumping that one.

On the dance-partner side things were fairly quiet. I had a great tryout with an American girl who was moving over here to study, and I was all set to take it further, but one day after the tryout she heard her father had suffered a heart-attack and had to fly home to Boston. So unless I want to move to Boston, thats another option out. I've literally just sat down and emailed about 20 more girls so fingers crossed *something* will come of that.

Only about 8 weeks of school left now until Easter when I'm giving it up. Still a little hazy as to what I'll be doing at that point, but that will hopefully get clearer when I've finally found a dance partner. That's the number one priority at the moment (besides spending money fixing my car), so watch this space.