The Disco Fox

These events occurred during the week of February 14 - 20  2011, Sorry for the delay.

Not a whole heck of a lot going on this week.  Things are going more smoothly with the girls which is nice.  They don't fight me on everything any more, just a few things.  We've had some nice outings.  On Friday I picked the girls up from kindergarten.  We have one of those little bike trailers for the kiddies.  I brought them a snack and then we went to the library and picked out a couple of movies and some books, then we went to the bakery to have a pretzel.  We then took the long way home, because while the girls are riding in the wagon they are happy, they are not fighting and they are occupied and these are all good things, it's even worth being out in the cold a little longer.  Also it's great exercise to bike with an extra 50 or 60 pounds and 2 more wheels worth of friction.

This weekend there was a Young Single Adults conference.  Friday night was a dance with a "Hollywood" theme.  The decorations were movie posters (including one of the 12 foot nylon types the theaters have of TRON Legacy) and sillouhettes that my group made.  Also gold stars with our names on them down the hall ways.  There were groups from all over Austria and parts of Germany there.  My star said "Betty" on it because my institute teacher can't pronounce my name (the "th" sound doesn't exist in german and it's very difficult for german speakers to imitate) and I certainly don't discourage it, in fact I really like the name Betty and so I decided to start introducing myself as such.  The strange, or rather different thing about dances here is that the people actually dance.  And I don't mean the Mormon sway and they don't just pair dance to slow songs.  The step they do is called the Disco Fox...  I Disco Foxed to Red Hot Chili Peppers...

Yes, Hannah really is that short

...Part of me wishes I was joking about the name.  It's a 3 step in 4 time so Left Right Left Pause Left Right Left Pause.  And there are spins and turns and dips and it's very intimidating looking.  I decided I would avoid pair dancing if I possibly could and have someone that I know teach me later for any future dances.  But my talking buddies (Hannah and Rahel) are very lovely and charming ladies that know everyone in this group and therefore were asked to dance frequently.  But when one of them would leave, someone else would show up, sometimes it would be someone from my institute class in Linz or sometimes it would e someone that is much braver than I am when it comes to introducing themselves to strangers in a foreign language.  One such brave soul was Arnulf.  He was the first person to whom I introduced myself as Betty (I really hope the name sticks)  I had a head cold last weekend that settled into my chest this weekend.  So I of course sounded like a 50 year smoker, those of you that have heard me speak when I've lost my voice can attest to this.  Trying to speak and be heard above the music proved to be very difficult and I can only hope that I didn't cause any permanent damage to my chords.  I did end up dancing with a couple of guys, one (dressed as Han Solo *swoon*) was named Dagobert.  He is a very attractive young man.  Not only was he dressed like Han Solo (which is attractive to me) but he actually resembles young Harrison Ford (who is attractive to everyone)  H asked me to dance, I told him I was terrible he said he doubted it but would teach me.  He taught me the basic steps, was patient when I got off step or stepped on my own feet, or didn't follow well (I'm a bad follower) he also carried on a conversation.  He's from Berlin and is studying architecture at Universität Wien, he served his mission in Bulgaria and his English is very good.  A little later I danced with Michael from my institute group, he was also very patient with me.  But now, I am a disco fox ;)

Overall it was a pretty good party with great food.  Dances aren't generally my thing but I survived.

My institute group was in charge of cleanup so we didn't leave until nearly 2:00 a.m.   I got to bed around 3 and had to be back at the church in Linz by 9:00 to help with the opening meeting conducting the hymns, which meant I had to be up at 7:30.  So I got about four and a half hours of sleep.  It's been a very long time since I went a night with only 4 1/2 hours of sleep.  I think it was the night I before I flew here.  So a couple of months.  I've been getting 6-8 hours since I've been here which is nice.

As I go up to conduct the opening hymn, I tried to raise the music stand and the shelf lifted right off a few people laughed I panicked for half a second, put the shelf on the piano (don't worry it had a cover on it so I wasn't scratching the piano) chuckled a bit and composed myself by the time the introduction was finished.  Then the workshoppers introduced themselves and gave brief overviews of their workshops.  Hannah, Rahel and I stuck together.  The first workshop we attended was about problem solving.  It was taught but one of the professors at the university in Linz.  He taught us a method of abstracting our problems.  He had a stack multi colored squares of paper.  He told us to focus on one of our problems and then come pick up some squares that we felt represented our problem.  We could have as many as we felt we needed any colors that we felt comfortable with.  Then he had us arrange the slips on the floor in a representation of our problem, rearranging them as we searched for a solution.  It was really interesting and it's as helpful as you make it.  But it was definitely different from any other church type lecture I'd ever attended.  It wasn't an object lesson, there wasn't any gospel tie in at the end it was just exactly what it appeared to be.  The next workshop was about being single...

... not about getting married or how great marriage is or how everything we do should be somehow guiding us toward our eternal companion.  But it was about enjoying being single.  Seriously refreshing, like Sprite refreshing.

A married couple talked to us about ways to enjoy our time being single, mainly focusing on traveling and meeting tons of people.  They weren't encouraging us to avoid marriage or to block it from our minds, but they were definitely telling us to not have it be our main focus, while it is a necessary step it doesn't have to be the next step.  The church here rocks.  That's all there is to it. After a lovely lunch spaghetti, bread sticks, salad and Krapfen (Berliners [jelly doughnuts]) we broke into small groups to do skits.  w had about 2 hours to plan and rehearse. In my group were Michael and Antwi and then a bunch of people I didn't know.  Each group was given a costume and a list of fairy tales, movie quotes, and songs from soundtracks.  We had to combine one thing from each category into our skit.  We ended up with Rotkapchen (Little Red Riding-hood) a young american girl alone by mistake in the mysterious land of Linz.  Playing the Ugly American shouting slowly in English, I found Antwi, Schwartzkapchen, who rescued me and we set off in search of a party.  The big bad wolf was a rapper that Antwi and I met in the woods and brought with us to Oma's disco.  Then our narrator got in an argument with the bouncer (Michael) it was all pretty funny.  After the whole shindig wrapped up a few of us went to the Schmidl's (they have a son, Perry, who is about 25 studying in Vienna, he came into Linz for the festivities of the weekend) to watch a movie.  Antwi fell asleep on my shoulder.  The movie was called Wo ist Fred?  I didn't particularly care for it, I understood what was going on, and most of the dialogue, however, having worked closely with the mentally handicapped for the last two years of my life, I find it difficult to laugh at a character who pretends to be mentally and physically disabled for personal gain.  At any rate, after the movie all of us but Perry jammed into Michael's car.  It's only a tiny bit bigger than a smartcar if a smartcar had 4 doors. So there were 5 of us, our bags and some sound equipment in this tiny little car.  Christian, Antwi and Rahel fell asleep in the back seat and Michael and I had a conversation about music and movies, Utah Mormons and the Honor Code.  He and I seem to be on the same page as far as those things are concerned. 

So all in all a pretty cool weekend.  I don't hate institute, or YSA or other single Mormon's.  I love this place.