estepheia | Feis report / our weekend / my health

So, after an 8 hour coach ride we took a long pizza break, then drove another hour to the hotel. Curfew was soon after. The next morning we were all bright eyed and bushy tailed. Everybody got changed. We'd gone to Stuttgart with 39 people, 8 of them kids, several grown up dancers, and several parental units. The kids had to dance first. I don't remember the exact placements but they didn't do as well as I'd hoped. Tina made 6th place in the Beginners Reel and fifth in the Light Jig. She was pretty unhappy about the results. She'dexpected to do better. But the other dance schools had way more children to dance. Stuttgart alone had 28 kids compared to our 9. Anyway, after about 5 minutes the Feis was practically over for our kids because they only had one (or in Tina's case 2) dance to compete in. Luckily, the kids were well behaved and watched the other dancers afterwards, but it still seems way out of proportion to make the kids drive that far for just a few minutes on stage.
Our grown-ups did better. Unbelievably, Mr. E came home with three medals, a fourth and a sixth place aaaand gold for his Beginner level Light Jig. Of course we cheered like lunatics. My BBF, S., made a very unexpected second place in the Beginners Reel, which stunned everybody. S. started dancing with me and she's outdanced several other dancers of our club who've been dancing a year or maybe two longer. All in all, Rince Samhain participated in something like 70 competitions and won 66 medals, among them about 20 or so gold medals. Our best dancer won 7 gold medals and 1 silver; she was easily the best dancer of the entire feis. Our ceili team made third place. Our two-hands won gold. Our second ceili team did well, but they did not win a medal. Still, nobody could tell that because of a broken foot and a disgruntled club member leaving, two dancers had stepped in only two weeks before. All in all, we can be proud.
After the feis, at about 8 pm or so, we all climbed into our couch and drove back to Braunschweig. We arrived at about 3 am, climbed into our cars and drove home to our beds.
The coach trip was gruelling. The air conditioning was on too cold, so that my cold went completely south. I am hacking and coughing and my entire body aches.

Yesterday we had friends over for a fantasy roleplaying session. Great fun. Ofterwards I helped S. finish and print out a paper for university. I finally got to go to bed at 5 am. Thankfully, Mr. E sent the kids off to school and left me to sleep. I feel sick, and depressed, and hung over, with my limbs aching from all that coughing and from sitting cramped in that coach for so long. I also feel like I ought to have spent the past 4 days working on either my stories or my courses (I am horrendously behind schedule). This cold is killing me. Maybe it's a chronic bronchitis or something. In any case I ought to muster the energy to see my GP...
Maybe once I've taken a shower.
Kill me now.
(Sorry about the long whine, but sometimes whining helps, you know?)