Step-by-step view of my Axel
What I look like standing up on the ice :-)
Oops, sorry for not updating in so long! This week has actually been pretty busy and - surprisingly enough - has gone pretty quickly. On Monday, Jenn and I went to see the new play based on Carol Shield's novel Unless, which we both really enjoyed. It was a very faithful adaptation! On Wednesday I went to give blood, which pretty much knocked me out for the rest of the night! I couldn't believe how weak it made me feel, that doesn't usually happen to me. Last night, I took Brenda to see tick...tick...BOOM!, which was also enjoyable, if not quite up to the standard of the New York production. I was most disappointed with the "Sunday" scene, which was so hysterical in New York.
Also, sometime in there, I've done lots of last-minute planning for my trip, finished teaching myself the Cyrillic alphabet, read some of my insurance text for the exam I have when I get back from Russia, and got pretty much entirely caught up on my email! Not too bad!!
Tomorrow I am meeting up with Karen and Gill for lunch and to see the new Toronto prodution of Bat Boy, and tonight Zorana and I are going to do some shopping, since I still need to pick up lots of little things (like film!) before I go away. The rest of this weekend will involve laundry and packing and more trip planning, as well as the Oscars.
And that is my pretty boring update, since I need to get ready for work now. Only 7 days until Russia!!
Oh, and my best wishes to Jenn, Eda, Peggy & Michelle for an awesome trip. They leave tomorrow for a week in Cuba!
It's my little brother's birthday today - and he's now 18 and officially an adult, not to mention taller and stronger than me, so I guess sooner or later I really will have to stop calling him my "little" brother.
Zorana and I went for Indian food for lunch today...it was really good, but I am still stuffed, 10 hours later! And I am going out for lunch again tomorrow, since one of the girls on my team is leaving for a new job, so we're taking her out to celebrate. I might also go see tick, tick, BOOM tomorrow night, if I can get everything sorted out. Apparently they only have 8 rush seats, but how many people are going to be rushing it? Hopefully only 7 others! :-) I just saw that Bat Boy has rush seats for matinees too, so I need to get more info on that before I pay full price for a ticket.
It has rained most of this week, so I haven't been back at the rink yet (well, at least not at lunch - on Sunday morning, which was *gorgeous*, I was there for nearly two hours), and next week is the last week for the outdoor rink already. :-( I can always go to the indoor one, but the hours there are limited, plus it's farther away and you have to pay. Not really the same thing.
It looks as though the trip to Hawaii is being postponed once again. Long story, but it's just not going to work out this summer. So I will probably end up going home for a week instead, which still leaves me with a little extra vacation time for the year. Did someone say New York? :-)
You know, I thought I had something important to say, but it seems that I really don't! Perhaps I better just call it a night. I can't wait for the weekend - this week has seemed like forever at work! I'll try to post with something more interesting soon.
Ta da! It is finally finished - my Scotland photo album! I thought I better do it before I go to Russia, when I will have to do another one. :-) There are a lot of pictures, but please at least glance through it, since it did take me *forever* to do. Whenever there are tons of pictures of castles, you can bet it was me going a little nuts - when it's graves or animals or flowers, it was probably Michelle or Susan. :-)
I had bought a whole salmon a few weeks ago because it was on sale, and I decided today I was going to cook it. But then I decided I didn't want to cook the whole thing, so I tried to fillet it. I have never filleted a salmon before. It is not as easy as it may appear. :-) I actually managed to get one half of the fish in decent shape, but the other half was a real mess! Good thing I was only cooking it for myself, and not serving it to anyone. :-) Still, I made a maple mustard glaze for it, and it's very tasty, so maybe I'll have to buy another one sometime and try it again.
The weather was kind of crazy this week so I didn't get to go skating at all, so I haven't been able to try the axel tips that people have given me. Hopefully Monday will be a bit better. Monday is also Valentine's Day, of course, but all that's going on is that we are having a "Resident's Appreciation Day" in my apartment building which consists of Starbucks coffee and cookies, and a breakfast at work consisting of bagels and juice, in the end, there's nothing for me!
I've been making a few more plans for Russia - I will probably go on this walking tour in St. Petersburg, and two other skating fans are going to be coming to the city just before I leave for Moscow, so we're all going to go visit one or two of the palaces outside the city together.
Tomorrow I am working on my sign for Jeff for World's - I'll try to update and let you know how it's going. :-) Have a good weekend!
Okay, further to my last entry, I was able to do some screen captures, and get an overall view of my jump. I've circled the landing on the last one, which is a quarter-turn short, which is why I'm falling so spectacularly. :-) I posted the videos on Figure Skating Universe, and have gotten tons of helpful pointers on how to get the jump higher, enabling the rotation to happen, so I will have to try again as soon as the rink re-freezes!
What I look like standing up on the ice :-)
Anyway! I spent a lot of the weekend reading through my travel books on Russia, and trying to narrow down the things I want to do. I am in St. Petersburg for 8 days, and Moscow for 8 days. In St. Petersburg, I plan on visiting the Hermitage (obviously!) at least once - probably twice, visiting several churches, going to the Peter & Paul Fortress, seeing the Dostoyevsky museum and doing a walking tour of Dostoyevsky sights, and then making a couple of day trips outside of the city to see the palaces at Peterhof, Pushkin and Pavlovsk. I'm hoping to catch at least one musical, as well as a performance at the Mariinsky ballet. In Moscow, I'll be at the rink every night, but during the day I'm planning to see the Kremlin, more churches, the Tretyakov gallery, the boyar museum, Tolstoy's house, and a performance at the Bolshoy. And this, for me, is actually a pretty laid-back schedule! :-)
Karen and Gill and I went to Indigo after our dinner on Friday night, which is where I was reading the guide book about St. Petersburg, and it was talking about these massive icicles they have that fall when the snow starts to thaw, and kill people! I made the mistake of telling my mother about it, so now she's certain I'm going to end up impaled somewhere along the Neva. :-)
I am in the process of re-reading my Russian history textbook, so that everything is fresh in my mind, and I can appreciate the significance of everything that I'll be seeing. Zorana and I were talking about travelling the other day (she is going on a cool trip too!), and I've come to the conclusion that we're very different travellers. :-) She likes to do the guided tours, whereas I tend to get annoyed by the other group members very quickly. I would much rather do the research myself before I go, instead of having to listen to a guide explain it to people who don't know the most basic things about what they're seeing. Does that sound horribly snobbish? Probably, but my point is that I just like to learn things myself. :-)
Okay, I'm going to get back to watching "Serendipity", which is about all that's on opposite the Superbowl. Have a good week everyone!
For your viewing pleasure - or at least some moderate form of entertainment value - I present my attempted Axel. It is truly, truly sad. I should have made video of some jumps that I can actually land. But, for what it's worth, here is the ugly side of my skating!
Also, as read in a St. Petersburg guide book earlier today: "St. Petersburg is a magical place to visit any time of the year. The only really ugly time is March." Perfect.
I am now the very happy owner of a Russian tourist visa! Hooray! I was so certain there was going to be some problem with getting it, but other than a little frustration at the consulate, it seems to have gone very smoothly. Now I only need to worry about registering it properly once I get there.
I also received my Hawaii vacation planner in the mail today, which is really cool. I really wanted to check out the Polynesian Cultural Centre, but it's $100 US each for the day! That's kind of crazy. So far all we really know for sure that we want to do is sit on the beach in Waikiki, and visit the Volcano National Park.
I was all excited to check out the special features on my new Smallville DVD, and half of them didn't work! :-( So I got in touch with Amazon, and they are going to send me a new one. More waiting!
And how unfair is it that I can't enter this contest? If there are any wonderful Americans out there who would like to enter on my behalf, you would have my eternal gratitude! You can have the free trip to Vancouver, I just want the Smallville tour. I'll get myself to Vancouver!
The new goggles that I bought for swimming turned out to be dysfunctional as well, so I had to go buy some new ones at Canadian Tire today. These are much better quality (and much more expensive, naturally), so they should work. I haven't been swimming in more than a week, I'm going through withdrawal! I did, however, go skating today, and had a hard fall on a lutz, so my wrist is a little sore at the moment.
I actually called in sick to work yesterday, since my lack of sleep is starting to drive me insane. Last night was slightly better, and I'm hopeful about tonight.
The Songs for a New World concert on Sunday was fantastic! I really love Thom Allison. And Karen and Gill brought me Galaxy chocolate bars from London! And Regan was there, and remembered me, though I haven't seen her in years. She is seriously the sweetest person on earth.
I'm sure there was more I meant to say, but I am going to call it a fairly early night tonight, since the State of the Union address has usurped all my TV shows, and I want to try to get as much sleep as possible.
More details of the Russia trip will be forthcoming shortly! Only 30 more days!