Dance class

It seems like I´ve gotten a regular working schedule: From Friday till Monday at 2-7pm. I like working 4 days straight and then having 3 days off, but I wish I had more morning shifts. It seems like the only smart thing to do before work is going to the gym, which I´ve been doing. Besides, I always work 15-30min overtime because of having to close the store. Oh well, I don´t wanna complain. I´m really glad I got the job and everything is still working out so well :) I´m looking forward to getting my first paycheck this week, too.

So, on Tuesday afternoon I walked to this tower restaurant, Orbit Lounge Bar, at Australia Square near Martins Place, with Denise and Cameron. We met Tim, Carla and Martin (Carla´s boyfriend who is visiting from Holland) there. Because the restaurant isn´t one of the cheapest ones we got just cafes, drinks and deserts. It has a spinning top on the 50th or so floor, overlooking Sydney. We sat there long enough to make a whole round and get a good look all around the city centre. It was a nice place, and the weather wasn´t too cold to walk back home, either.

Yesterday I met Antti Tiilikainen (from LUT) at Circular Quay for coffee. He had spent the past half a year studying in Auckland, New Zealand, and is visiting Australia on his way home. We went to the same Rocks Cafe I had been to with Carla last week. It was nice talking to someone from LUT, and in Finnish, again. We compared our experiences about studying, flatmates, traveling... He recommended going to Fiji with a friend so I think I´ll wait till I find someone having the time, money and interest in traveling there with me. In the meanwhile I´ll travel somewhere closer in Australia.

From the cafe I walked to the Warf to go to a jazz dance lesson at the Sydney Dance Company. I decided to go to a beginner level class because I hadn´t danced for a couple of years. It was over 100 people there! The class itself was fine, with a warm-up, a little bit of technic (pretty easy) and learning a new, rather fast paced coreography. But I didn´t like having all the people there :/ It was quite a lot of waiting in lines and watching others, and instead of having personal contact with people it was anonymous. Nothing compared to our nice little group at Sonja Tammela Dance School, everyone knowing each other, chatting... Of course, it might be different at higher levels, but I don´t think I´m going back there to find out. If I really wanna dance I´ll try to find a smaller dance school with smaller class rooms and more intime athmosphere. Here dance schools don´t seem to have fixed groups working on same coreographies and performing and competing, though. Instead they funtion more like gym group lessons, people just randomly attending any classes. Therefore they need to keep the coreographies rather short and start new ones every couple of weeks. I´d personally prefer having to sing up to be a member of a group, having all the same people and learning longer dance routines. But I guess this is a drawback of living in a big city; people are too busy to make the commitment. I actually missed the UTS gym while I was there. During these past months I´ve gotten to know the place; always say hi to the people working there and some other people, too. It´s always nice going there and seeing familiar faces around you :) So I´m actually looking forward to going there tomorrow before work.