"With Aerobic Strip Tease, you can do it at home - it makes it easier for women that don't want to go to the gym." ~ Carmen Electra

Did anyone else read that quote and go WTF?!?!? I have to admit when I googled "aerobic quotes" I didn't expect to find that one... but its pretty funny I think.  Hmm, it turns out that Carmen had a whole workout video thing going on for a while... some of it involving aerobic stripteasing... It also turns out that I probably woudn't recognize Carmen Electra if shown a picture of her before now... This is a shot from one of her videos.  I had to admit I pictured my class a little more similar to this... cute outfits, swooshing hair, all with an 80's kick to it.

Instead my class was lead by an overweight teacher (always a little off putting) and I felt like I stepped with one foot a million times more then with the other foot.  Sam had suggested that I try to get some pictures of myself in this absurd situation, OK, he didn't say absurd, I added that.  But I forgot, and now thinking of it the gym isn't really the place for pictures... I think Sigrid would have thought I was INSANE if I had remembered to ask her to take a picture!  

In my head I this great scene playing out... dance moves kind of like whathisname in Footloose and wearing leg warmers and a pink head band... Following all the steps so seamlessly that the teacher asked me to move to the front of the class for others to watch... In general a slightly glamorized version of what happened:

Instead, I spent most of the class facing the wrong direction and stepping with the wrong foot.  Then I wouldn't be able to turn around properly when the time came and I would end up standing on top of my step watching the others spin around in near perfect harmony!  Ok, not everyone was perfect, Sigrid had a hard time also, and said she got a little dizzy trying to follow along.  I felt like I would be really getting it and following along great and then anticipate the next move and would wind up falling off my step trying to change mid move to whatever was really the next move.  The whole class was a build up of moves that just got longer and longer and faster and faster... the music also go much worse... not a good selection AT ALL!  So, honestly this is a bit more of what it looked like:

That is me with the orange hair (paint didn't have my real color), in the all black with red shoes... and BRIGHT BLUE socks! I forgot to add that to the picture!  And that is my overweight instructor in the front in ALL red as many of them are in this gym.  There were some girls there that looked exactly like how I wanted to look: great hair, cute outfits, perky little bums and perfect synchronization with the teacher... I think they have been going a bit longer then me.  I don't know if I will be going back again, I may stick to my Medel class, where I have to hop, skip and run but at least I don't end the class feeling like a idiot, hopeless back up dancer and my right thigh will soon be twice the size of my left.  We will see.  I don't think Sigrid was that impressed either... maybe she won't want to go back either... then I won't feel like such a quitter! And Barbie can keep her outfit:

This morning in the hot shop I worked with Maja and we got a glory hole for the first time in FOREVER and we decided in revolt of making wineglasses ALL the time we were going to make big things!  Also, use color... it always makes things more interesting!  I made a cool big bowl, killed it by trying to put a Swedish Foot on it and then had to throw it and and then made a super ugly but BIG yellow bowl with some blue and white lines on it.  It might be less ugly tomorrow, but probably not, probably more ugly!  

After lunch I worked with Rosanne and the teacher felt bad for us having to make wineglasses so much that he let us have a glory hole! The weird thing was that only Rosanne and I were interested in using the glory hole! Everyone else continued with the wineglasses.  You could tell maybe they were getting tired of it too by the end of the lesson when they started cleaning up maybe 20 minutes early!  Rosanne and I tried to make these blue and white stripped things.  I made a kind of cool bottle, hopefully it is still cool tomorrow!

I also found the only wineglass I have saved this week:

 It has a fancy stem that I made using that fancy stem squishing tool.  I like it!  And for once the glass is a legit wineglass size, not schnapps or brandy!

 I also noticed these sitting in the wagon and thought maybe if I took a picture it would better explain the graal technique I was talking about yesterday.  This is the two colors overlayed and then cooled down:

 Looks like yellow and white.  You carve away the yellow to reveal the white underneath.  It already has the hole in it so you can just pop it on the end of the pipe once you get it hot enough again!

 People do them in all different colors.  This one appears to be orange and black.  Today I saw a Dane named Mads blow one out that was red on the outside and orange on the inside and he had carved flames in it.  Kind of cool looking.

He took a picture of the piece that Marianne blew up yesterday in the demo with me holding it, I will put it up after he gets it on facebook which will probably be soon knowing this guy.

In the mean time, off to bed!  Tomorrow I am riding in an extra lesson this week! The late night Thursday jumping group!  I am excited and think I may try to make this a regular occurrence if I can!