Dancing on ice

Whenever our absence extends longer than two weeks, it's usually because of two reasons. The first being the lazy attitudes that we get possessed by. The second, well we all know what that is, what university students have to go through fairly regularly. The era of melancholia, the learnt helplessness, hopelessness, sleepless in Seattle (well, London) and all that. If you haven't understood by now, its exams. I know that you know the extent of their damage but because this is a blog and you cant hear the tense music queueing in my mind when I mention the E word, I have to present it appropriately. You must have noticed that I didn't mention one reason to be that nothing exciting really happened that is worth talking about. I didn't mention it because that never happened. Seriously that never happens. I mean spending all those insane hours in the library you would think that our mind would turn to mush in the creativity department. But no, we actually managed to find prince William who almost always sat 2 tables away from us every single day. He was the early bird just like us doing his dissertation. He was a business student (I spied on his work ). Before Kate reads this and thinks that William is hiding something from her and his deep dark secret is that he is a business student at a university which isn't St Andrews, I just want to say that this guy has a very close resemblance to Prince William. He was tall, very formal-ish and um, had very prince William-ish hair. No relation to the royal family (or is it? ). You had to be there :)

But that's the thing of the past because we have finished exams for the year and the next big thing is the dissertation. All tomorrow's sorrows :)

As the title suggests (well not literally) I had my very first experience of ice skating. I was persuaded first but then everyone else needed pushing. apparently the visions of the past came rushing over. I just couldn't see the harm. . . until I actually got on the ice. No wait, it was before that, when I had to put these very disgusting shoes on and I had to stop myself from thinking about who wore them before me. OK GETTING BACK TO THE POINT. It was quite something. I never thought I would need to use my evolutionary "fight or flight" instincts in life but that definitely qualified for it. Maybe the worst part was when this little 8 year old said to me " do you want me to move so you can get past" and she whizzed through like an ice princess leaving me behind clinging to the edge. Kathleen was the better one out of us. She was at least able to skate on her on without holding the railings or the penguin. And me, well all I could hope was not to fall and the "let it be" blaring out of the audio speakers definitely gave me courage, the courage to let go for 30 seconds and trusting kathleen with my dear life to lead to the opposite end. Then we made a 3 person chain with kathleen, amanda and I.

If I think about it now as a third person, it seems like an aweful and a very embarracing event where every passing person or car could see me or children younger than me were "dancing on ice" but somehow it wasn't about that. It was about spending time with friends, learning your weaknesses, crossing something off the bucket list and most off all trusting someone enough to lead you on a path where one fall will leave you bruised. And the best thing was I didnt fall and that's saying something considering this was my first time. Hey, maybe I'll figure skate my way to olympics some day. A girl can dream ;)




Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark, professionals built the Titanic: Unknown
Seasonal greetings
from
Emily xx