#301: Formal

Hello once again!

Last Friday, the 14th of November, my school held the annual formal for the 3rd year students. Of course the 2nd and 1st years are there as well, but they just don't really do a lot. The 3rd years are the one getting "celebrated" despite the fact that we have a little more than 6 months left of this school. For some reason the formal is in the fall in stead of the spring, which would totally make more sense(!!), but it's tradition - and it will probably just stay that way. I'm a bit unsure what to call it, there's prom, ball, formal - and surely a lot of other names - but I'm going with formal because it's mostly long dressed, and we learn a certain dance we have to dance, called les lanciers. There's five rounds, and the first round goes something like this:

The version we do at my school isn't totally identical, but it's quite close to what's on the video. I believe the dance will give you a clue as to why I'm calling it "formal" and not a dance, prom or a ball. The most of the years the formal has been held at my school, there has been taken pictures of the classes in their formal wear. Of course it's just a picture, but for a lot of people it's quite a big deal - because it's formal, you're all dressed up, the girls have had their hair done - and it's just a rare opportunity to get a beautiful picture of the entire class, all dressed up.

All formal

As far as I believe, this is the first year there has been a professional photographer out on the school to take the pictures of the classes. The other years it has just been one of the teachers from the school who lined the students up, and took a few pictures with poor lighting, and the students had approximately 0,2 seconds to pose, focus, smile and look at the camera before the photo was taken. This year it was a professional photographer with these huge flashes, a nice attitude and he took a bunch of pictures, and choose the best. I'm quite happy about the pictures. Now, I'm saying pictures, as in plural, and that is because we also took at "silly picture". Prepare, it is gold.

TADAA

We went from a nice, formal pose to complete silly chaos in about 3 seconds, and it felt hilarious! I think I was trying to do a Will Smith - "I made this/Look at this!" pose, and I think it went okay. There is a lot of lifting, grabbing and weird poses and faces, and I think you can really tell that we're having fun. Of course some people are just kind of standing there, but that's how it will always be ;-). The boys in my class are mental, I love those idiots. Oh, and if you don't know who I am - I'm the blonde out to the far right in the red dress.

I loved that evening, and I feel like wearing my beautiful dress all the time! As you might see on the picture I wasn't wearing the biggest of heels, as my boyfriend is "only" 8-10 centimetres taller than me, and I didn't want to be taller than him - luckily I found a cute pair of silver sandals to wear. Despite the heels, the dance went amazing! I didn't trip or fall of stumble - we remembered everything, and we were smiling and we were just fantastic! My dancing partner and boyfriend is the silly manboy 4th from the right in the row of boys.

The pictures were up yesterday, so I figured I would post them here, and just give you all a little update. Tonight I'm going to see a basketball game in the EuroChallenge leauge, with my boyfriend and his father. It's my boyfriends birthday tomorrow, and the dude is going to be 19! I know I usually say I feel old, but at least I'm not as old as that old wreck ;-) The bell is about to ring, to call off the school day, so I'll wrap it up!

See ya - and thanks for reading!

#300: Glasses and London

Hello one again!

It's been quite a while, I am aware of that. It is sort of silly how I can get writer's block just because of a blogpost, but apparently I can - woobdidoo! I just opened my blog, and I haven't posted since the start of September, and before that it was 14th of August.. Well, poop. I remember when I felt like I could post fourteen thousand things a day, but I felt like I would be posting too much, and well, now I'm shit at posting regularly. I do, somehow, still get views, and not just on the "chainletters" post, but on other posts as well - which is something I don't really understand.

Since September a lot of things have happened. I've gotten glasses, which is one thing! The glasses I have are reading glasses, but I'll be wearing them "permanently, because the "top" of the glasses are only +0.25, which is almost nothing. I got tested to 0.25 in the top and +1.0 on reading distance. The dictionary tells me that it's called "crossfade" and we should always trust the dictionary. My glasses are crossfading, so I can use them on class, for when the teacher writes on the blackboard or the smart-board but also look down and read.

I honestly thought that crossfading glasses would fuck with me and my sight, but it works really well. It has really been a relief to get glasses, I had almost forgotten how it felt to read and have relaxed eyes. It sounds weird, but people with reading glasses will know what I'm talking about! I looked at a few pairs, but ultimately ended up choosing the ones I saw first, and I'm starting to see a pattern here, it also happened with my formal dress (more about that later). Of course it was the most expensive pair of the three, but as my father said: when it's glasses you're going to use for years, it better be glasses you like to wear, or else you're not going to wear them at all.

This is a still from a video, it was the first thing on my phone.

In my fall break I went to London with my boyfriend - LONDON BABY! I've been to London once before, but the circumstances were quite different. First time I went, I went with my parents, two of their friends and two of their three children. Doest that make sense? Okay.. My parents + me. Married couple friends + two "children". The "children" were about two and four years older than me, so we didn't interact much. Anyway, the other family wasn't much of a history-loving family, so we spent most of our time in London visiting attractions and just seeing the city, and we went to see Lion King as a musical. I loved it, but I really wanted to see some of the historical parts of London. 

Another thing was that I was in a wheelchair, because I had some sickness in my foot. Another thing that was special about the trip was that we were staying at a super, over-the-top, extremely and almost way too fancy hotel. It was crazy. We were there celebrating my parents' copper wedding, which is something we celebrate at 12½ years of marriage. We were then staying at this crazy fancy place, with a huge breakfast room, with a chef in each room, ready to cook omelets and all sorts of crazy stuff - and you almost weren't "allowed" to move a finger yourself.

This time around I was there with my boyfriend, and we stayed at his cousins' girlfriend's place. It was extremely cozy, and we went out for drinks, saw a play with one of the girlfriend's friends as the lead role, and I actually got to see some of the historical sites I've been wanting to see. The fact that we stayed in an apartment, and went out to get our food at shops and small pus and so on, made it feel like we were living in London, not just visiting on vacation. I really loved it, and I got to go to Tower, which is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. 

Aren't we just hella cute? I think we are.

I remember the time I was in London with my parents, my mother feared the tube like it was the devil or something. My dear mother found the system hard to navigate through, and left it to my father and I to figure out where we were going. This time Marcel and I had some time on our own, which meant that we were also going to navigate through the tube all by ourselves. It went well, but damn did we get weird look for eating in the subway.. Is that not normal? Anyone from London who could help me here? We lived in Fulham, and the tube ride from there to Tower was 50 minutes.. 50 minutes. My dear lord, that was soo long. 

All in all the trip was amazing. My goal is still to go to the "Warner Bros. Studio Tour London - The Making of Harry Potter", I am a huge Harry Potter fan, and I would love to go there! Marcel has been there before, and I am honestly super jealous.. So next time I go to London, it is a must for me to go there! And I will be going to London again! Marcel-s cousin and his girlfriend said that they would love for us to come back again some time, and we definitely will!

This is it for now, it feels good to finally have written something. Why it always turns into freaking novels, is something I'll have to work on - bye ;-)