entertainment tonight

I've been watching belly dancing for the last 4 hours. I haven't had so much fun since I don't remember when. Apart from the obvious reasons for enjoyment, the girls were really, really good. You could feel their energy and fun flowing into what they were performing. The dances were all really different, from different countries and different styles, from traditional ones to "fusions" of modern and traditional elements. It was fantastic piece of art to watch.

Ok, I'll start from the beginning (I hate doing this). There was this dinner we were invited to. It's something along the lines of Lebanese belly dancing performance with dinner. The reason we were invited was because one of the groups that was performing was Bulgarian girls, doing traditional dances. It was at the stonyfell winery starting at 7pm. We got there a bit late as usual and as a consequence, we had to walk 200m or so from their secondary car park to the function centre. That was cool though, because the walk was nice and you get to see around the winery. The view from the function centre is unbelievable. You can see all the central parts of Adelaide. This view just kept getting better and better as night fell upon us and you could see all the lights of the city.

Anyway, we get inside and get seated around the table by a guy in a fess. After some yummy food (which was more of an assortment of nibbles rather than dinner), the dances began. There were three sections of the program, separated by short breaks during which there was music and lots of people danced around :) As the night progressed, they were getting better and better.

The first section felt sort of like a loosen-up section. It had some experimental stuff, notably one Goth fusion, where the girl was a ghost, covered in lots of smoke, and a white eerie shawl. It finished with a bunch of kids, ranging from about 5 to 13, who appeared to have immense amount of fun. So much in fact that it was infectious and everyone was quite uplifted after that.

The second section was about the different cultures during the night. There was one belly-dance, which was combined with Spanish music and flamenco moves, along with all the bells and whistles. There were a few very modernized pieces (the kind of thing you would see in a night club, but with belly dancing thrown in it - I hope it catches on :) and notably the Bulgarian group, which was quite different from the rest, but good in its own right.

It was great to see what can be done with simple things. One of the dances in the third section involved two simple shawls. They were flowing around the dancer, creating a great sensation of water or wind flowing all around her. It was amazing that you can feel the power of nature just through her movements. Another dance was with a sword. Mmmm, the excitement … you could cut the tension with a knife … which she did (

The rest ... well, it cannot be explained - it has to be seen. I can just say that it is fantastic to see women that feel free and express it in a beautiful way.    

Tastelessness makes the world go round

Just think about all the tasteless stuff people can't survive without - water, rice, salad, popcorn ... A lot of them I think are liked because they are tasteless - they can be made to taste like anything by combining them, and still serve their role in survival. Anyway, that's all you get from this unrandom thought.

Getting a job as part of a job

Here is how it goes. My boss decides to apply for a job he sees and sends in my resume. As a consequence I spend the most part of today applying for a job. It went like this:
- [11:00 am] call the employment agency (hays) to arrange an interview
- [01:00 pm] have an interview with the agency
- [02:00 pm] have a practical test on jsp, something I've worked with for about 2 days in my life
- [03:30 pm] they arrange interview with the actual employer

Anyway, the interviews went pretty good. It's good to know that things can go well and if I needed and really started to look for a job out of desperation, there is some chance I wouldn't end up on the street ... or developing OS for the dole?!

As a consequence I think I have a new job, under the old one - outsourced, starting Monday till the end of the year. I'll be on the 12th floor on the corner of a building on King William, finishing some chump's jsp program, cause he left all of a sudden (or was sacrificed in the transmutation of gold or some other random precious metal) and some other php search engine thingy. The people there seem really nice, and with a small IT team, I have a feeling it will be a good working environment. The time is flexible (there was something mentioned about 10am or whenever ... I liked the sound of that). No matter what happens, if it goes ahead it will be a good experience and a chance how others work.
On the slightly bad side, I'll have to find a way to get to the city each morning.

Oh, well, let's leave things to take their turn.

Birthday party

Today I had a so, so day at work ... building some website, using exponent (an excellent cms tool, that I highly recommend to end users) and doing some admin stuff to help out. At least it went through quickly and I was on to bigger and better things.

Yay, I had some sort of social event in my life. Today is my step sister's Glen(long story) birthday. To celebrate that all important date in history, we were out to dinner with "our" family and her kid, the ever-shining Sunshine.

Glen and Sunshine are vegan, so we entrusted the choice of restaurant to them. We went to Sprouts - a little vegetarian restaurant in hindmarsh square. This restaurant actually has a long history in the family. Glen used to own it for years but had to give it up. Luckily for her, it stayed vegetarian even after changing the owner and is still a good place with an excellent atmosphere to go to.

The food was absolutely divine. For all people that think vegetarian food is all about green things, they have bad memories about from their childhood, I can say one thing - I thought the same. Now I have to admit I knew nothing. In all honesty, the meal was somewhere in the top 5% of bestest meals I've ever had. I had a mushroom/tofu steak, which was really spicy, with nice garnishing of feta cheese, zucchini and baked potatoes in chilly tomato and capsicum sauce on the side.

To top that up, I had a astonishing desert - chocolate lasagna. You probably know what lasagna is - layers of tasty, cheesy sauce, separated by layers of pasta. Well, the chocolate lasagna was onto something way more brilliant. It had layers of chocolate ice-cream and coffee flavoured chocolate moose, separated by layers of chocolate and nuts. I can't even begin to express how tasty this was. For everyone that hasn't tried it already, this is one thing you would want to write down in your "100 things to do before I move on from this world".

Before you start thinking I'm totally obsessed with food (which I'm prone to be due to my zodiac sign and all), I'll veer off to the left and get back to the rest of the evening. We all had good time. Sunshine was particularly hyper (and if you know her and how hyper she is with her normal disposition, you would know what I'm talking about). Lots of joys to be had with a little, tired, hyper girl, running around and playing with everything. She was very happy because of her mum's birthday and the excellent day she's had with her. She even skipped school to celebrate.

Anyway, I think Glen had a good time, as we all did in a good company. We talked about good books and other joys of life in general. Everything was high spirited and will leave me recharged for the rest of the diminishing working week.

Now back to a newly discovered bad habit - Anime (Full Metal Alchemist at the moment).

tata, that's enough for one day. The rest of it maybe tomorrow ... maybe never ...

Hello

expectations are unjustified