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ranking

I found this graphic on regional characteristics interesting. I'm not surprised to find out we Washing*tonians are introverts all. We are also very open, whatever that means. I also grew up in one of the most introverted states, Vir*ginia.

Vir*ginia also has the dubious honor of ranking lowest on the agreeability scale!

12:02 p.m. - Sept. 24, 2008

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hard shoe

I'm back doing Iri*sh dance after a month off. A lot of the women in my class have got hard shoes now, and I'll probably get some as well. There are two types of Ir*ish dance - hard sh*oe, a form of clogging or tap dancing, and soft sh*oe. You always start out in soft sh*oe because it's more forgiving. Hard sh*oes are very noisy (much noisier than traditional tap shoes) and so it's very obvious when people aren't doing the same thing. They also have heels, as you can see. I think both forms are very cool, and both can obviously be done at a very high level. Soft sh*oe at a high level involves really amazing jumps (among other things) while hard shoe includes extremely rapid footwork. We are learning the basic hard sho*e steps, and they just seem incredibly fast to me - and yet we're doing them at about a quarter of the pace a more experienced dance would. I really need to practice more.

My parents arrive tonight for a 2 week visit. I'm nervous as I always am. We've been living apart for more than a decade now, so being in close proximity for 2 weeks is pretty intense. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to a bit of a break as I'm taking off the next 2 Fridays. That will be the least of my vacation for the year.

8:11 a.m. - Sept. 24, 2008