Gingerbread Belly Dance Bonanza

Well it's been quite an interesting few days. For one, I am flip flopping all over the place with respect to my last course credit.hmmm. On the job front, the search so far has been unsuccessful, but nonetheless I will certainly keep looking. ahhh, so what else is new?

1) The gingerbread house has been finished, and as I write this, unfortunately, it has also been entirely destroyed and eaten. While full credit goes to Jeff and Steph for the idea and construction of the gingerbread house walls, roof, and chimney (with a hand or two from Anninha, Renata, and I), completion of the project seemed rather bleak when we didn't have the proper ingredients to make icing. Nevertheless, I think I managed to sort that out by adding heaploads of icing sugar- we went through about 4 tubes of the stuff.. mmmmm... very sweet, as you can imagine. It was also David's birthday so Ola, Anninha, Renata, and Steph, and Jeff and I, as a present, made him a mini but not so small version of him in gingerbread which basically consisted of a really skinny body with freakishly long legs and arms (see photo above- guess which one..) We also built and decorated the house with tons of icing sugar (the chimney was overflowing with it), sprinkles, chocolate sauce, macadamia nuts, and banana chips, and gumdrops- we had to get creative. Jeff smashed the house with his elbow a couple days later, sending pieces flying everywhere, all of which has now been eaten!!!

2) the University of Leeds bellydancing society is putting on a show this Saturday on campus at Riley Smith Hall, "The Elements" for charity. I am in 4 numbers and have been so busy with daily rehearsals, but I have fallen in love with it. I am of course a bit nervous about dancing in front of literally everyone I know in Leeds, so there will be a belly dancing party in Steph's kitchen tomorrow, which coincidently, is aptly located such that all of Leodis Residence will be able to see us... show time!

3) After Steph and I finally tracked down the chess club, which I should mention stood us up twice last semester, we finally found them (they changed the room) conveniently in the campus Old Bar on Tuesday, and we brought Jeff along for the ride. I am quite aware that this definitely makes me a nerd, and no, I am not ashamed, the chess club, ironically, seems to be another excuse to drink at Leeds. I ended up having 3 pints, initially against my own will, but hey, how could I refuse- I haven't been drinking too much at all recently anyways. It was actually quite fun, I think we sat in the Old Bar for at least 4-5 hours or so. I feel like I am actually getting quite good and hopefully I'll pick up a few tips here and there from one of the guys, but hey, I challenge anyone reading to a game!

4) Tonight, being a Thursday night, I headed, of course, to the Spice Bar. I went at first with the belly dance society for the shisha and to watch the belly dancer, who is amazing. One of the best parts of the night was when one of the songs we are all performing on Saturday came on, and we all stood up and danced to it for everyone. Then my flatmates joined us, along with Arsh and Matty, followed by a whole bunch of international students, as well as the chess club. It was nice to have such a large group of maybe 15-20 people!!! Hopefully next week we can have a repeat!

So performance this weekend, Anna's brother is coming to visit! oooh and carnage ;)


- xoxo.