Swinging Around

Well, I just got back from swing dancing in downtown Austin with some friends of mine, and it was pretty awesome. I think I have the obligation to share what I learned with my fabulous readers, whoever you are.
1. Swing Dancing is 10% skill and training and 90% improv and making it up as you go. What makes a good swing dancer is a person who has confidence in his or her made up moves, and a large arsenal of moves that he knows work well, most of which he could have made up. You can do almost anything in swing as long as you are able to keep your feet moving in the right rhythm, and even that is optional if you're good enough.
2. The creepier someone looks, the better they tend to be at dancing. On one end I saw a weird looking guy with his grey hair in a pony tail and suspenders going over his shoulder who could really tear it up on the dance floor. At the other end, the nice looking asian guys that seemed to appear in the masses near the beginning didn't look like they could even keep a rhythm. This rule wasn't always the case, but it held true at least 70% of the time I'd say.
3. Veronica Torres has a long lost twin. I danced with a girl named Carly who said she goes to UT who looked almost exactly like one of my friends from Rice but with darker and straighter hair. It was also funny that they both played flute in high school and can both dance really well.
4. It's great to be a girl who hasn't swing danced before, being a guy with hardly any experience sucks! A girl can be good, or at least seem good, if dancing with a guy who is really good at leading complicated moves. If a guy only knows 3 moves, he's basically stuck with those unless he's dancing with a good friend who has been swing dancing for 2 years and knows he don't have a clue and is willing to lead for him. This was the case when I was dancing with my friend Lianna, who between her and her friend Kendall taught me more than the beginner's lesson did, but when I was with other people towards the beginning I was hopeless.
5. Saying you go to Rice is a great conversation starter. Not many people know someone who goes to Rice, but everyone in Austin has heard of it. I talked to many people who were interested in how things were over there, and when I got started on the MOB, most people thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread.

On the road again!

Well, I finally decided that I need to get my license since it was on my summer goals list and it's now the middle of July. So I went out today to work on my mad driving skills and remembered how much standard cars annoy me. I think driving would be 10 times easier if there was no clutch or stick-shift, but since both of my parents drive standard cars I don't have much of a choice. At least I'll have mad skills of a driver when I'm finished. And I think I covered all of the hard things today, mainly parking, 1st and 2nd gear, and how to change gears and start and stop the car without stalling the engine. I improved drastically over the hour I was practicing, going from a 50% rate of stalling the car on every attempt to about 10%. It'll need to get better before I get on the road, but at least it's something. And I can't think of anything else I really need to learn that doesn't just come from practicing and gaining confidence.