Snap Back To Reality, Oh There Goes Gravity

Yesterday was Friday 13th.  It was also the day that I finished my first whole week of work since the end of February.  Since I work full time I thought that was pretty good going, over 2 months of not working a full week due to holidays, bank holidays and those days where I just thought mid afternoon; "you know what, I'm gonna go home now".


So now it's back to reality, I've had my hiatus (I'm just gonna look that up to make sure it's the right word...yes, yes it is), I've been to New York (that's another story...or blog posting I suppose) and I've also moved house and changed various circumstances.  


It's time to start afresh.
(I wonder how long that way of thinking lasts.)

She's A Dancing Machine

I think it was over 6 months ago now that my Michael Jackson mad friend called me up and mentioned a Michael Jackson dance workshop going on in London in December.  Being someone who cannot do any freestyle dancing but enjoys a structured dance, and of course not to forget that I too am a huge MJ fan, I agreed to go.  We were supposed to go in December when the dancing day would have been 4 2 hour workshops and a 30min showcase set over a 12.5 hour day.  Pretty hardcore!  However we had to defer because of the December snow.  

So it got to the next workshop which was last Saturday.  The format of the day changed and was now just 3 2 hour dance classes, that was tiring enough!  Costumes were encouraged so for the Thriller workshop, I dressed in the below attire.

 I think that would have been a brilliant Thriller costumer had it not been for the brilliant white colour of the shirt and the perfect crease lines from when I took it out of the packet.  So we learned Thriller, the dance from the video.  It was brilliant and definitely my favourite workshop of the day.

Next up was History In the Mix.  Or something like that.  This is where we learned a Jackson 5 inspired dance to a medley of songs,  That was hard.  We then learned a few bits from Billie Jean, that was even harder.  We finished off that workshop with Beat It.  Having already 'performed' this before on a top of a hill during what I hope was a drunken night out, I already knew bits of it.  It was really easy to pick up and it was great to finish the workshop with something that I could actually do.  My costume for this workshop was black sparkly shoes, white socks, black leggings, a white tshirt and a gold sparkly jacket.  Unfortunately it was way too hot for the jacket (and the subsequent suit for the Smooth Criminal class) so I just pranced about in this..

The last class was Smooth Criminal, it was brilliant fun but again very difficult.  The SC music we were dancing to was a live recording so it had extra musical parts to it and because of this we created a whole piece of musical theatre.  There was a storyline and everything.  

This was a ridiculously difficult day but it was great fun and highly recommend to anyone who is a MJ fan and likes to dance.  

To finish off we spent the evening in Ping Pong which was a lovely Dim Sum restaurant.  I've never had that before, it was a day of firsts for me.

So Annie are you ok?  Are you ok Annie? 

Where do we go now?

I'm really struggling at the moment.  I'm looking for a hotel in New York City, that shouldn't be hard to find right?  Trouble is, I'm not made of money and have already made the decision to fly Virgin - because, well to me it was a no brainer, I've flown with them before and it was an enjoyable experience.  Though saying that, I was in Economy and I'm not entirely sure any Economy flight experience is particularly 'enjoyable'.  Especially as I am 5ft 11.  I like aisle seats as I can then cause chaos to airhostesses by blocking the aisle with my extremely long legs - otherwise they just don't fit in the space!!  And as I've already said, I'm not made of money so even Premium Economy is out of the question.

With me previously writing that I've already decided to fly Virgin, that is a slight issue as I've never booked a holiday separately like that.  I've always booked the flights and hotel together.  In reflection on that comment, I have actually booked them separately once before: Amsterdam, 2007 (or 08), I went with 6 blokes...but that's another story.  This may be a truer statement: I have never booked a long haul holiday separately before.

So, back to hotels.  I put out an 'ad' on Twitter, well it was more of a request I suppose, to find out if anyone knew of any good deals for hotels in NYC.  I got 2 responses from 2 hotels which looked incredible.  At around £150-£200 a night per person though and with the flight on it's own costing nearly 500 big ones (Hurrah for the Virgin sale - flight under 400 quid), it's not really something I can afford.  Shame though, The St Giles Hotels and also Room Mate Grace really do look fantastic.  I'm still working on that one though.

Does anyone have any cheaper suggestions?  All suggestions will be greatly received.

Holiday! Celebrate!

We're 13 days into the New Year and this is my first blog post.  I'm pretty slow.

So, New Years Resolutions (which I currently haven't broken!) have been made and I am sticking to them, won't bore you with them but they are there on the back burner just quietly reminding me to stay on track. 

Exciting (depending on who you are) news has come up though, I might be going to New York City at Easter.  I didn't fancy going on my own and a friend is going then so thought I'd tag along and do 'research'.  Also on that note of wanting to move to NYC, my social networking put me in contact with someone who also wishes to move there, she is quite a few steps ahead of me though being of triple nationality and one of those nations is the USA.  Lucky sod.

Speaking of social networking, due to me spending a lot of time doing it, I have been asked to lead a social networking presentation.  Complement or punishment for spending too much time on Twitter? Ha!

Anyway holiday, yes, I haven't been on holiday for nearly 2 years so I think this will be a well deserved break and I thought also about heading to Montreal to 'see an old friend' - that phrase totally reminds me of X-Men where Professor X and Magneto refer to each other as that.

On a completely unrelated note but just something that has been bugging me, does anyone know why I can't get The Office season 5 on DVD from Lovefilm?