Madjam 2012 Update #2
We still have no heat in our room rghghgh and it’s cold and raining today rghghgh pirate noises argh rghghgh it is fuh-reezing in here we have to wear coats oh well worse things in life some people never get to go to dance comps at all anywhere ever we live a pretty charmed life so I should stop complaining. And anyway it’s not snowing, I should think about that. Two years ago, or three years ago, or maybe four years ago Michael O’Connor and his mom Kim had to walk across the city in, like, four feet of snow, to get here to MadJam. No snow this year. So. By now most everybody’s made it to the hotel (it’s 3am Friday night/Sat morning as I write this) despite tornadoes in mid-west and south and some flight delays and cancellations.
Today was a loooong day of pro-ams. A very long day. Robert Cordoba MC, Judges: Brent, Kellese, Gary Jobst, Debbie Ramsey-Boz, Deborah Szekely, and Chief Judge Dawn Garrish. Long day. Fun cause comp-Fridays are always fun with people arriving from all over the country and the world. So it was fun hanging out in the lobby. But hard to stick it out in the ballroom where there were solid pro-ams all day starting 11am in the morning and continuing straight through till dinner which we speed-snorted off the plate using rolled dollar bills since we were famished and had only an hour till strictlys. Hustle divisions most of the day, many small heats in each division (one to four couples each.) Hustle has “pre” divisions so it goes “Pre-Novice,” “Novice,” “Pre-Intermediate,” “Intermediate,” “Pre-Advanced,” “Advanced,” and so on. Double the number of divisions, in other words. West Coast pro-ams followed in late afternoon and continued till dinner.
MORE THAN 40 PEOPLE HERE FROM FRANCE! Mostly from Montpellier, but also from Lyons, and north of France, too. So cool to have them here! The women are gorgeous and the men are all named Jerome. Really! All except Maxence, he’s not named Jerome. Maxence and ridiculously beautiful Virginie have a Classic routine in the works! CAN’T WAIT OMG it will be SO awesome omg omg! Not ready yet … they’re aiming for SwingDiego AUGHGHGH! As if there weren’t ALREADY enough reasons to go to SwingDiego AUGHGHGH! He says it’s medium tempo, and not emotional because “I dunt know hair goot enough yet to do emotional dence!” What a gentleman. A lesser man would take one look at Virginie and do an emotional dence right der on zee spot.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [several-hour break] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh, hello! I must have fallen asleep and what do you know! It’s now tomorrow morning!
Comp-morning, that is. In normal-people time it’s 1:30pm in the afternoon. We are still in our PJ’s, however, watching Bill Cameron on closed-circuit tv. They’ve just now begun wcs Newcomer – it’s been hustle jack and jills since 11 am (running an hour and a half late today but closed-circuit tv makes it easy to know when to head down to the ballroom.) Sunny today, bright blue sky, beautiful out!
Last night was Strictlys – fun! More about that in a few minutes. First I’d better take my morning shower and get ready to face the day before there’s no more today left to be faced. Tonight is routines – Classic, Showcase, Juniors, Rising Star .. can’t wait!