| back at it |
[Nov. 14th, 2009|09:50 pm] |
Had a lesson with Coach L on Friday - my first lesson in something like 2 months. We resurrected Silver MITF, and I'm pleased that they are not nearly as dire as I had thought. Which isn't to say they are at all good, mind you. Started with cross strokes, and she totally called my bluff - I have really beautiful cross rolls, but my cross *strokes* are, well, cross steps. We went right back to the beginning and I'm trying to learn to cross with the foot on the ice in stead of stepping over. And I actually made some progress. Then we did power pulls. Backwards are very nearly there, front ones are rather a disaster, but they will come. Finished up with 8 step mohawk, and I have all the same problems as before, but still - I can muddle my way through them and so we have something to work with. We didn't do 3s in the field or the straight line spiral.
The only other exercise news I have to report for the week is that I danced for 2.5 hours on Tuesday. I'm teaching Beginner ChaCha for half an hour and then I had an hour of Intermediate (Rhumba, Polka, and Vienese Waltz) and an hour of advanced (West Coast Swing). Was exhausted and sore afterwards, so that was very nice.
Plan for next week: skate Monday, ballroom Tuesday, skate either Thursday or Friday.
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| Coach has a plan |
[Nov. 12th, 2009|08:50 pm] |
Had my 2nd Tuesday lesson. Tried to talk to coach that since I do not skate that much, I feel like playing around a bit more, focusing less on moves (those need serious dedication and practice), etc. Well, coach has a plan - and that plan is all work. No goofing off ... and that's why I love my coach. He really motivates me, and gets me to work hard.
We still spent a lot of time on basics. The main thing I'm happy about is progress we had on my BI-3s - yes, I can eek them out good enough to have passed juvenile and adult gold MITF, but they do not feel good. My BO-3s at least some of the time are actually enjoyable to do; BI-3s are just plain scary. I asked coach how to make them more correct, and we took them apart. Of course, one lesson is not enough to completely fix them, but there was improvement and I did get several turns that were much more correct, so I am happy.
Overall - yes, I am quite rusty after not having lessons for 6 months and not practicing much, but it is not as terrible as I feared.
Next week will have a lesson on Thursday. Can't wait. |
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| LiveJournal Major Notes: Notes, Tweaks, Bug Kills, LJ_Cares! |
[Nov. 12th, 2009|01:53 pm] |
Notes augmented
We've enhanced and de-bugged Notes. If you haven't tried it yet, now's the time! You can create a private note when you ban multiple users. You can also delete multiple notes at once. Lastly, paid users have the option to add a note (visible only to you) whenever you add or remove a friend (guaranteed to avoid embarrassing social mishaps). If you don't currently have a paid account, you can upgrade now! It only takes a few minutes and costs less than a bad shopping mall haircut (plus, it's way more fashionable)!
Product tweaks and bug kill
- In another effort to zap spam, comments containing links from domains LiveJournal deems untrustworthy are now automatically screened
- If you sign up to get notifications of the Writer's Block question of the day, you'll now see the daily question in the email notification, so you'll have a little extra time to ponder before you post. You can subscribe to Writers Block notifications here
- The issue causing random comments to vanish has been fixed!
- If you visit a LiveJournal page and get prompted to log in, you'll be returned to the same page after you sign in (Thanks, Dreamwidth)!
- If you don't edit the timestamp for an entry at all, the entry timestamp will indicate the time the entry was posted instead of the time the Update Journal page was loaded
- Comments with paddings/backgrounds render correctly within the comment box (and will no longer wrap outside the box and break frames/margins)
New FCK fixes rich text editor!
- We've updated our RTE (Rich Text Editor) to FCKeditor version 2.6.5
- When switching from the RTE to HTML editor, links for syndicated feeds are no longer broken
- RTE now functions properly in Safari 4.0
- An extra line/space will not be auto-inserted whenever you switch from RTE to HTML editor
- The insert image link now works correctly in all browsers
LiveJournal Cares
We’re pleased to introduce you to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact.
In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop.
Papered in postcards
A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor.
Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits!
Photos of the week
We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile.
You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump!
( Read more... )
Curtains
We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week! |
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| hello, October? |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|08:04 am] |
First of all, I am DONE with my thesis. Turned in 3 copies of the final revisions with all the revisions last week. So YAY for that.
October totally got away from me - I was sick for something like 3 weeks - nothing hugely serious, but annoying. I started out with a tummy bug and then just as I was getting over that, had a flu, and then the flu turned into a bacterial infection. I also had two conferences in October, and so my skating was minimal - although I did keep plugging away. I think there was a two week stretch in there when I was too sick to skate at all, but other than that, continue to manage to go at least once a week. While this isn't ideal, I figure it's better than nonce a week, right?
DavidBowie is gone for his winter ventures, and I haven't had a lesson with him since September, due above stuff. So I will start back up on Friday with Coach L with lessons. I am going to ignore dance for awhile and concentrate on Silver Moves and my pathetic attempts at freestyle. My new boots are breaking in - they push on my ankle bone in a way none of my previous boots have done, but it seems to be a function of the tongue, so I'm working on figuring it out. Otherwise the boots are quite comfy, and I'm happy with them.
I've accepted that there's probably no way I'm going to get back to skating 3x/wk in the forseeable future. So now I'm concentrating on trying to consistently get to the rink 2x/wk. Addtionally I have ballroom 1x/wk. If I can manage that, I'll be pleased. If I could find another form of exercise that I enjoyed as much, I'd probably give up skating for now, to be honest. But other than ballroom which requires a partner, I've not found anything I enjoy a quarter so much or that I would actually *do*. So I continue to try and skate for now. And hopefully to be more consistent with updating. |
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| urgh |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|04:02 pm] |
I pulled my freaking hamstring AGAIN at synchro. Stupid lunges. It doesn't
hurt when I do it, but then I can barely walk the next day.
our team is doomed. I think the chances of us skating at sectionals are
about as good as sasha cohen turning up for nationals (i'd say skate
america, but I already heard she withdrew, so it's cheating) we had 4 people
at practice. We won't have a full roster until December. Registration
happens before then. It's a lot of money to register as USFS members, pay
for the competition, aquire costumes, on a hope that it will all get
together. Honestly at this point I really don't even want to do christmas
show because I don't think we'll look good. we've never had a practice with
the full team.
My own skating went well saturday. I even jumped!!! I fell on a backspin
and ripped a hole into my underarmour pants. *cries* Also my MITF are
pitiful. |
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| LTS |
[Nov. 8th, 2009|10:01 pm] |
Never thought that demonstrating properly bent knees/ankles while teaching LTS for an hour can make the said ankles very, very tired! Serious practice afterward was out of the question.
Yes, taught my first ever LTS classes this weekend. Was thrilled to have an adult student - I am comfortable with adults, will take some time to learn "tricks" to be a good little kids' instructor. Sessions are not busy yet, so a good time to pick up some skills in that department.
As far as my own skating goes, reduced my "official" work hours - got 1/2 day off on Tuesdays to skate/have a lesson. Of course, that came at a price of getting a pay cut, but I am thrilled to be able to take lessons again. Had my first lesson after a nearly 6-month break on November 3rd. It was "back to basics", with a million corrections on everything from stroking to cross-strokes. Loved every single minute of it. |
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| LiveJournal Major Notes: Spam counter-attack, RSS feeds again, CSI Deadly Intent contest |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|01:15 pm] |
The empire strikes backIn recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.
RSS feeds againIf you're addicted to , ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.
Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!
c_s_i
If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.
Enveloped in postcardsLast week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.
Photos of the weekIf you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... ) |
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| jumping is part of skating? |
[Nov. 4th, 2009|07:37 am] |
First off- what a LTS group. The second Snowplow class had 3 new skaters, 1
who didn't speak English, 1 who barely did, and one who was great with
English, and told the other kids to watch what I did with my feet, since
they couldn't understand me. LOL- one would hope they figured that out
themselves. Thankfully they all did pretty well once we got on the ice, but
man once they got confident enough to get going it was a SPLATFEST. I hate
that so much, but it's tough to convince them to slow down...
My own lesson was okay. We did salchows and toeloops. My jumps are
pathetic. Andy wants me to work on the salchow for distance, and start
focusing on getting the tracing to look right. I also have to change my
arms, and not switch them on the three turn entry. I think he said lead
with the right arm. Whatever it was I could feel how it helps the rotation,
and prevents the "swingy" look, but it is a huge change.
Toe loops we started just with the back pivot. HAHAHA. Not good. Then
Andy tried to get me to pick much closer, and told me I was preparing for a
quad toe, and he just wants a single. I told him if I could just get the
pivot, I was sure I'd be able to handle the rotation :) But I tried to
switch the picking, and the pivot is still just as hard. So then he told me
to make my 3 turn curveyer. Which doesn't help at all. I hate toe loops.
Apparently I did ONE that was an honest to goodness toe loop. That might be
up to 3 in my skating career. |
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