the blues experiment part V

Can't lie, breakfast was one of my favourite things about the Experiment. Because I LOVE BREAKFAST

Especially when you can have it on a sunny terrace like this.

I'm gonna save the Friday photos for another post, because I took an insane amount of photos during the Friday formal dinner + dance. That means that this is the post containing all the random things that happened on the Thursday and Saturday. So, here they are, in no particular order:

I played Bananagrams, and did pretty well for a non native English speaker, if I may say so myself!

Others preferred pool.

Getting ready for the social.

Various sessions happened:

Hanging out happened:

These moments of hanging out with people throughout the week were really interesting for me personally, by the way. I didn't do even close to as much socialising this week as I had thought I would. I found myself withdrawing and resting in my room a lot more than I usually would. Even though that gave me a bit of FOMO, I worked to accept it for what it was: my innate way of handling all the muchness that was this trip. There was a lot to process, and apparently I needed to hide away some, to do that.

Also. I know that there are people in the dance world who like to "collect" people. People who will judge a dance weekend based on the number of new friends they made. As if the number of new friends you make is what matters, rather than the quality of the relationships? I'm not saying this because it's something I noted specifically during this week; only that my own urge to hide away made me think about experiences from other dance events. I don't understand this part of my community, the urge to try and get to know as many people as possible, or, as is often the case - to be well known, yourself. I get it, I get that that's a source of validation, that people know you (know of you). But is it a healthy source of validation? Is it sustainable? Oh, don't misunderstand me, it's not like I don't sense the allure of it, and am drawn to it, myself - the notion of being A Person in the dance community, being Popular. Of course I would like that. It's great. You get asked to dance more, if nothing else! But I'm working against that pull. I want to spend the precious little time I have in this place, forming deep and lasting relationships. Not collecting people like numbers on my facebook page.