Boston Tea Party 2016

So, this past weekend was Boston Tea Party!  Went with 3 other friends and stayed in Newton (just west of Boston) via AirBnb, which worked out great!  It was a pretty fun time overall, and I feel like my dancing improved noticeably as well, which was nice.  There were definitely some times when I was feeling like a zombie and wanted to just be home though x_x.  I think you can only handle so much dancing/performances/workshops before it all starts to drain you out.

Highlights included watching the invitational crossover jack & jill contest, where they pair pro WCS leaders with pro lindy followers and vice-versa (always a fun time), some pretty useful workshops that I liked and got some things out of, a special 20th anniversary performance where the workshop instructors showcased all of the different styles of swing dancing over the years, watching the pros join in as the entire room got up to do the shim sham (and afterwards, some hip-hop line dances, including "Shake That Ass" -- omg so good), and of course a bunch of good social dancing as well.  Also John Lindo was DJing and played Slow Burn, which was awesome -- probably one of my favorite WCS songs (my bestie is a huge fan of Made in Heights).  I also tried to get the names of a handful of the better WCS songs via Shazam for my own use later, heheh.  Hanging out with friends in general was fun too, and it was great getting to catch up with everyone as well as have random conversations about dance, dance culture, and other random fun stuff late at night over Trader Joe's ice cream ^^;

All in all I'm glad I went, though I don't know if I'd do it again next year -- just, too much money and time invested for something that isn't necessarily "special" in any particular way.  I was talking with J about this as the trip was winding down too, about how yeah, it was nice to see the performances live, and it was nice to do the workshops, and the dancing was really cool too, but if we're honest about it, I can always watch performances after the fact on youtube, and I can always watch workshop videos online as well and practice on my own, and I can always just go to Mission City or Dance Boulevard  or something for social dancing.  And yeah, none of those will be quite the same, but it also won't involve ~8 hours of transportation back and forth and all that.  But I'd go again if it was an "happen to be visiting the area anyways" situation like it was last year.

I did leave the event feeling better about my WCS dancing than when I came in, so that's good at least =P

Other random stuff and happenings....I spent some time cleaning up my place a little bit last night -- I want to get some photos and video of my entire place as it stands, for keepsake and memory purposes, since it's really been nice to me, and then after that I can start actually packing stuff up and taking down alllllllll the stuff from the walls in preparation for my move next month! (moving into a friend's new place in Sunnyvale to save rent, exciting!)

Work schedule is changing!  Tuesdays and Thursdays are now late days for me (late in late out) although I'm going to try and keep the same sleeping schedule if I can, and get some personal stuff done in the mornings on those days hopefully?  We'll see!