This week's classes

On Tuesday, I went to my first ever ballet class.  I had worked through half of a ballet dvd before which was just as well as the teacher assumed some prior knowledge. I worked through the first part of the class feeling pretty smug. It was by the bar (with our backs to the mirror) so I couldn't see what any of us looked like.  I kept up reasonably well until we did one exercise very quickly. My toes are very short and I'm not very coordinated but anyway, it was fine.  Then we did some dancing which I struggled with and after that the real killer was practising leaping.  It threw me straight back to rubbish dance lessons in secondary school crossed with a comment likening me to a hippo one time.  I felt quite upset after the lesson - dumpy and ashamed instead of energised and graceful.  I had a little cry at home and read some knitting patterns to cheer me up which did help.  I was pretty bemused by my negative reaction and gave myself a stern talking to about it being my first lesson, it's good for me, I'll improve etc etc.  So I'll try again next week and see how that feels.

Japanese this week, and last week, was great.  I was thinking of giving up altogether as we'd had some very slow, dull, frustrating lessons, but we're learning new things every week now.  I need to do some homework as some of the vocabulary I'd learned before xmas has slipped out of my brain.  I don't think it will take long to revise it. I'm feeling much more positive about the lessons now, whereas I had been dreading them.  I cleared up a situation with another student too which was difficult but now I can relax a bit more when I'm there.

I've submitted a pattern for consideration for Let's Knit's June issue so I'm hoping it will have a positive reaction.  It was using DyeForYarn Merino/Silk sock yarn and I'm using the leftovers to make my mum a phone cosy.  The pattern is here.