Dancing + potential places to live

[luzula]

There are two shared households (the Swedish word is "kollektiv") who want to meet with me this week! Each of them are interviewing two people, so all things being equal, I have a 75% chance that at least one of them will want me. I am really hoping I can find a place where I can feel at home. And I think I actually have an advantage in being slightly older and having a ten-year experience in living in various "kollektiv".

In other news, I've taken up flamenco dancing again. I have taken four years of flamenco classes in the past, but it feels like ages ago now. Still, they let me jump back into one of the more advanced classes--we'll see how that goes. But I have a good memory for choreography, so hopefully it will work out.

Ooof, the first class was hard--all the super-fast stamping in high heels! My poor feet! But still, it's unexpectedly therapeutic: I feel like I'll be able work out my feeeeeelings in my dancing, when I've learned the steps well enough to let go a little. I am so glad we're doing seguiriyas this semester rather than something like alegrías, with a happy party mood. I could just not have done that. But seguiriyas, yessss. Much more serious and deep, which I am definitely in the mood for.

Comments

[seascribble]

Fingers crossed for one or the other of the kollektiv(/s/? I don't know how plurals work).

Flamenco dancing sounds fun! I hope it turns out to be emotionally helpful. *hugs*

[chemm80]

Flamenco dancing—how interesting! I think I can honestly say you're the only person I know even slightly who does that. I bet you're right about the therapeutic benefits, too—exercise + creativity—how can you go wrong? Go, you!

[luzula]

The word is the same in plural! : )

Otherwise, Swedish plurals...are pretty irregular. I mean, the plural of "äpple" (apple) is "äpplen", but the plural of "blomma" (flower) is "blommor", and the plural of "bok" (book) is "böcker". There's a lot of vowel-shifting going on. Wow, I never really thought of how very irregular they were before.

Yeah, I hope the flamenco will be fun!

[luzula]

It is something that takes a long time to learn--even though I took classes for four years, I feel like I've only just scratched the surface. But yeah, the exercise factor is not to be forgotten, either. I haven't really worked out in some time, so this felt really good for that reason, too.

Although I do kind of miss pair dancing, so maybe I'll take some lindy hop classes or something, as well.

[seascribble]

That is what got me about Arabic and plurals during my brief and unsuccessful attempt to learn Arabic. I do much better with French where things tend towards the expected.

[luzula]

I listened to an interesting series of lectures about language a while ago, where they said that languages that historically have had a lot of adults learning them as second languages kind of get the irregularities smoothed off of them, because people can't really learn such irregularities well as adults. Like English which had a lot of the Germanic irregularities smoothed off when (among others) the Vikings came (for example, English doesn't have gendered nouns, and it has regular plurals). And also like Swahili and Mandarin Chinese, which are apparently much simpler than others in their language groups. But this makes me wonder about Arabic, which surely ought to be such a language as well? I wonder how it compares with other Semitic languages.

[troyswann.livejournal.com]

Yay for dancing! I know exactly what you mean about getting to the point with choreography where you can "let go" and go with the feelings instead of constant headwork. I'm not sure I've got there more than once or twice myself (academics and their headwork. What the hell, man?), but I bet flamenco will be great for it! All that attitude, not to mention the energy of stomping! Good luck with it!

[luzula]

It's a different kind of headwork from the academic kind, though? Physical headwork, if that isn't a contradiction. So I don't mind it that much, actually. But yeah, it's such a great feeling when you get to that point.

[ride-4ever.livejournal.com]

Ah. You looked so immersed in the dancing at BP...I'm not surprised to learn that you've had dance training in such a vibrant form of dance.

[luzula]

The flamenco style does tend to bleed over when I do "ordinary" dancing, yes! I'm not surprised it showed.