Friday Night and the Lights are Low

The last two weeks of my life have been utterly consumed by ballroom dance. Last weekend we had “dance bootcamp”. This consisted of being trapped in a hall away from Stellenbosch with no form of escape due to the sketchiness of the neighbourhood, while being yelled at to “Stop and do 20 cha chas!” I exaggerate only slightly…

Then this weekend was intervarsity…yes, they have intervarsity for dance. Now, let’s not start up the argument of whether or not dancing is a sport. They have intervarsity for wine tasting too, so they’re obviously not that picky here…

“hmmm this Pinotage has a hint of black current”
“No it doesn’t! That’s red current! You fail!*”
“Ok, but this Chenin Blanc definitely has a hint of gasoline with just a touch of burnt rubber”
“Full points!”

But I digress… Intervarsity went very well. Stellenbosch came second overall and we won the spirit cup, which we’ve won every year since we bought it (except last year, but the University of Cape Town stole it, the jerks!). I personally wasn’t incredibly involved in this impressive second place, but my dance partner and I did better than I thought we would. This is not saying much as I thought we’d be kicked out after Round 1, but we made it to quarter finals, which, as my English co-worker so kindly pointed out, makes us mildly better than average :-)

I can’t believe that for all the clubs I joined and didn’t get involved in for the four years of my university career, it took traveling to the other side of the world for me to actually get involved. But I guess that IS what it takes. You have be all alone in a country, miles from home without your safe group of friends in order to *shock and horror* move out of your social circle.

The only problem with getting involved in a club on the other side of the world is that you eventually have to return to your original hemisphere. That’s kind of the stage I’m at now. Since intervarsity is over, everyone’s planning for next year’s intervarsity. They’re all picking partners for formation (where you all dance together as a group), but (although I would love to try it) I won’t be here (it doesn’t help that practice is on trivia night either) (ok, that’s enough parentheses for one sentence). I mean I would even consider joining the committee next year if I was going to be here. And joining the committee would involve commiting myself to doing regular voluntary work; that’s how much I enjoy being part of the dance society. But alas, that is life…