"Team awards during Oirechtas is the only time you'll see seventeen year old guys dancing to 'Barbie Girl' and feeling no shame."

It's true . . . I promise you.  I was trying to persuade my 12 year old friend to dance, and pointed out several guys who had to be between 15 and 18 years old to prove that there was nothing shameful in it at all (I was dancing too, I have to admit).

But anyway.  From my previous post, you already know why I was in Denver for the weekend, and, odd as it may seem, I did get some dancing time in among all my city explorations!  My sister danced with the younger age groups on Friday, in the traditional set competition.  She placed 6th!!  I'm so proud of her!! :)  We also had 4 Nationals qualifiers and 3 Worlds qualifers from the younger kids.  Saturday was team day, and all of our teams (U10, U12, Seniors, and Adults) made the top ten!  This was brilliant . . . I honestly didn't think any of our teams would recall, since the U10 team had 2 six year olds, the U12 team had 2 new dancers, and the seniors were just dancing . . . well, not so great.  The adults, well, they only had two teams in their competition, so they better have gotten first!!  Sunday was a good day too.  I danced then, and I think I did really well!  My hardshoe round went brilliantly, and in the softshoe round, the girl I was dancing next to almost ran into me!  I got places ranging from 84th to 48th (out of 85 . . . ) and ended up 62nd!  I was sooo happy, considering that this was my first time dancing solos at Oireachtas!  We only had 2 girls from our school recall, but everyone danced soooo well.

Irish dancing is pretty much all about the waiting.  You wait for them to start the competition . . . you wait for your number to come up . . . you dance . . . you wait for the next round . . . you wait for the recall list . . . you get the picture.  It was especially interesting dancing in Denver.  The high altidue and 30 degree temperatures do not help when youre trying to warm up and stay warm.  Okay, so the Convention Center wasn't 30 degrees, but it was still cold.  It was pretty hard to dance 3 steps in the altitude, and most girls came off looking miserable.  It was easier for me, I think, because we'd been practicing doing 6 steps (dances twice through without stopping) at class, but my throat was still really raw from trying to breathe once I came off the stage.

Overall, it was a brilliant trip, dancing-wise.  We're a very close-knit school, so everybody saw at least a few of their teammates dance.  We had a huge party Saturday night to celebrate how well everyone had been doing, and we would always try to hang out with each other, in the ballrooms or at dinner.  I can't wait for the next feis in Palm Springs :)