orngesodalampst

30 was supposed to be great. 30 was supposed to be my year. At least according to my mother, who could "feel it." Well, 30 has been crap. At least, the second half of it. Still in this deadbeat job. Still living at home. No finances, no prospects, job or otherwise. No hope in any foreseeable future. And just when I thought things couldn't get worse, when I literally thought to myself, 'the only way to make this worse is to get in a car accident,' what happens? I get in a car accident. Right after I have to pay a ton of money out of pocket, right after my prescription glasses break and I don't have the insurance to get new ones, right after I'm sick for 2 months and have to miss a ton a work I could have been paid for. To add insult to injury, I hit them, which means my insurance will go up and I got a bullshit citation of $125 on top of it. As if I didn't have enough money problems to worry about. My bank account is the lowest it's been since I...

Tonight was my first night of Pole 5, revisited. We worked on shoulder mounts, flags, handspring preps (with a flag hold and split grip hold), the pull-up climb, aerial invert, and spinning handstand dismount (never heard of this one before). I met my goal of achieving the shoulder mount on my first try, impressing my instructor, Tiffany, who was with me when I first returned to pole. The last time I had a pole class with her I could barely do a normal invert and slipped down the pole when I tried to shoulder mount, so it's no surprise that she was surprised. It was Kate's tip that tipped me over the wall, which was to lift my hips in the air. Once I tried that, I was golden. Sure, it doesn't look or feel very smooth like with the other girls, but I can confidently and consistently do it, which is the starting point. Also, there was only one other girl out of four who could do it. I was worried that I was going to be way behind everyone else, but I turns out I might be sm...

I went back to edit my 2018 goals post and saw that I was really depressed at the time of writing and therefore, couldn't think of many goals. One of the things I mentioned was that I had no job prospects and felt like I was going no where. Well, since then I was offered a job interview with the Harbor District for their Community Engagement Manager position. The interview is on Thursday and I'm more nervous that usual. Firstly, I really want the position. It's everything I want in a job, combining both my community organizing and experience design interests. It's literally the perfect blend and one I don't think I'll come across again for a while in Milwaukee. It would also be a major step up because this is a top-tier position. I imagine the rest of the pool of candidates are big players in Milwaukee. I want this so badly and know I would be good at it, I just need someone to give me a chance. So I reached out to my entire network and asked if anyone might ...

If I'm going to be writing a bunch of these, I might as well start numbering them. Tonight was my last class of Pole 3. Next week I'll be on to Pole 5(!). I worked myself super hard, and I can feel it in every inch of my body. I'm making visible progress every week, which is really encouraging. I was super sick last Monday, so I was pretty awful at Pole 3; but by Thursday night's Strength and Conditioning class I was back to 80% and giving it my best. That night I was able to lift myself on the pole with just my arms 3 times; which doesn't sound impressive, but when I first started the class, I couldn't even lift myself once. Tonight was the night that I finally got the inverted V . And more than once, though after a few times my arms were too tired to keep going. I was able to hold it solidly for a few seconds and come down with control. I also tried doing it in reverse from bat; and although I couldn't get it at first, Kate was able to give me some po...

I'm pretty proud of myself. This last week I've cooked THREE new things and they ALL turned out delicious. <3 All the recipes are definitely keepers, and the main dishes don't take more than 30 minutes to make (be still, my heart!). It all started when I went down to H-mart last week and decided to make the purchase of a Korean stone bowl, while also picking up some fresh tofu for my mom/me and my coworker. I've been wanting to make my own bibimbap and recently found out that I like spicy Korean soft tofu soup, which requires a stone bowl, so I figured it was a good time to get one. I considered if I was actually going to use it or not, but I've already used it twice and found out that both recipes take less than 30 minutes to make; so I will definitely be using it a lot. And it gives me more opportunities to try more Korean food, of which my knowledge is pretty poor. Buying the stone bowl also gave me a reason to buy the long metal Korean spoons that I love. :...

Today was one of the best pole dance classes I've ever had. I signed up for Pole 3 with Kate after accidentally dropping into one of her Pole 2 classes, and she may be my favorite instructor to date. Which is ironic, given that I used to be so intimidated by her when I was teaching and therefore actively avoided her. She was so advanced, I just kind of assumed she would act all high and mighty; but that's not the case at all. She's absolutely delightful, just like Val. Pole 4 turned out to be a bit harder than I could handle, and even my first Pole 3 class was a little intimidating; but I absolutely flew through it today and proved my worth. I'm so so incredibly happy with my progress and successes today. I'm not quite as flexible as I was 2 years ago, but I think I might be even stronger. It only took 2 months - considerably less time than I thought - to get back in the game. Today's class was super low-key, which is the biggest reason I think I was as succ...

Having missed a class, I went to go to a Burlesque 1, week 1 make-up class; but it turned out to be a Pole 2, week 6 class! Well, that was fine with me. The other two girls there were super cool, and I liked having Kate as a teacher much better. Sadly, there were still a ton of things (new things or things we didn't learn until much higher classes) that I couldn't do. Sad sad sad. The other gals were taking Pole 3 and since I liked them and figured I could use the recaps, I decided to sign up, too. I'll be simultaneously taking Strength and Conditioning class, so my hope is that I'll still be able to retake Pole 4 when it's all done.  So, as previously mentioned in my 2017 round-up, I took up pole again this last December (last month). The last time I took a pole class was in 2015 when I was still working at Safe & Sound, and I've been really wanting to get back into it. A lot of it was the time commitment thing, but some of it was just not wanting to ac...