Oh hey!

This blog's not dead anymore.

In fact, i forgot i had this, and the tone of the first couple posts is a bit serious for my tastes, but hey, at least i'm focused.

Since i've written here i've traveled all over the world for slalom. Right after my hometown competition in Boston, I flew out to Belgium, and continued from there on to Paris, Barcelona, back to Belgium again, then to Hannover Germany, then Berlin, then Munich, from there to London, from London to Shanghai, from Shanghai to Chuncheon Korea, and from Chuncheon to Seoul.

Then I flew back home and had a big moment of "What the fuck? i can't believe this is my life."

Which was nice.

This year I've been out to Le Havre France, Paris, San Francisco, Houston (for family), to New Hampshire (again, for family), then to Warsaw, another competition in Belgium, and this weekend on to London again. Asia is as yet undecided. If I go, it will be only to Chuncheon, which is ok by me.

Oh, also, I moved to Belgium, and I live with my amazing boyfriend, who is also a skater, and is very tall and handsome, if I do say so myself.

Which I do.

So, where does that leave me? Well, so far, as yet unemployed outside of teaching skating, taking Dutch classes, in a graduate Master of Science in Leadership program in Brussels. Skating a bit less than I was last year but skating much, much better, and diversifying as I go. For example, I learned how to drop in and ride in a skatepark only in December, and I have practiced a bit on ramps and jumps here and there as I find myself in skateparks. 

Anyway, with slalom, there is still a lot of room for improvement but I've graduated from tenacious beginner to rising intermediate, to pretty durn good but not as awesome as I know I can be. Next year I think I will really start to shine.

On Monday I assisted at a sportcamp with another skater, with about 20 little kids, most of them skating for the first time. I had them "draw lemons" with their feet, and this worked out great and most of them pumped out lemons all over the place, and some of them even learned how to go backwards. They didn't much get the concept of stroking, though. I need to find a good way to teach that. And I would also like to teach falling, because it's important to not be afraid of falling. A couple of them were ready to try skating cones, so we did some beginning slalom, but not much.

They were ridiculously cute. And bonus, I taught the whole time (about 2 hours) in DUTCH!

Go me.

If I go to Korea again, I will have my birthday there for the second year in a row.

I've known for a couple years that my life was about to finally get really cool, but it's only now that everything is truly manifesting. With skating I have found something unique and wonderful. That would have been enough on its own, but it also enabled me to meet other unique, wonderful people.

Which is kind of a major part of life, so that's pretty cool. :-)