Second Friday without DJing and...

May 11, 2007

Yikes. What is wrong with me? I am next to useless.

Work is funny. I feel rather useless and fairly unmotivated. But people must think I am doing great and not being rewarded enough. I suppose I need not complain about that. Getting surprise notices twice in a course of two weeks after a more typical adjustment five months ago seemed silly though. Maybe I should complain and see if that changes things.

Cyrille writing to meet him at Wagamama with less than 2 hours warning - I suppose that's no real source of complaint either - even if it meant dropping a couple of things I wanted to do at work. I was five minutes late at 8:35 and was the first to get there. Sebastian, Euvian, Zern, Zhenzhi and Cyrille arrived over course of next 30 minutes or so. We were seated around 9:10.

As is the case at Teri-Aki, Euvian apparently sticks to one dish at Wagamama - chicken katsu curry. Cyrille and I took after her example - I think she made the right choice at Teri-Aki. Zhenzhi had Wagamama Ramen - my dish from last week. Sebastian had Ebi Raisukaree and was surprised by hot chillies. I don't remember what Zern had - aside from Kirin (500 ml bottle also taken up by me and Cyrille). Cyrille did not give a convincing reason why he chose Wagamama again when he found it to be merely okay - I thought my explanation (that Cyrille finds pretty much every eatery in Cambridge to be average at best) also was not satisfying.

The topic turned to Cambridge spots with good food. Euvian apparently liked a Thai place - I did not get the name … apparently across the bridge (and up the hill?). Zern mentioned Kingston Arms - a place I used to frequent with my work colleagues until one of them was banned for disorderly conduct. Cyrille likes Mai Thai - we talked about this before.

Everyone except Zhenzhi ended up at Club Salsa. Who was the instigator?

When Vishal saw us, he went from the pre-recorded CD blaring Noche De Salsa to La Palomilla and thus surprising Cyrille. Other songs heard during the course of the evening included Alabanciosa (Manny Oquendo), Vasos De Colores (Marvin Santiago), La Llave, Tres Dias De Carnaval (Celia Cruz & Johnny Pacheco), Pancho Cristal, Un Verano En Nueva York (El Gran Combo), Me Libere. Songs not heard included Playa No More, Micaela, La Vida Es Un Carnaval (wow!).

It was a nondescript night for me though. Despite having all evening to dance, I didn't feel particularly inspired. I don't think I was any good either. Mimi showed up later so I had three dances with her (first one On1, second one On2 and third one Bachata) in a row. The only one I felt okay about was the On2 dance and only because the number of times we went off time was a record low number - maybe two? Bachata on the other hand was rather awful - I think it was the first time I danced Bachata in many months - definitely not after having been to Spain. I can't believe how bad I had become - even having Mimi cheerful throughout did not help.

Whether I was dancing with complete beginners (there were a number of those) or familiar faces like Euvian, Mimi or Natalia or everyone in between, I had difficulty staying engaged or trying anything interesting or whatever. I came away thinking that I was useless and that I could have done a much better job after pretty much every dance. Whatever it is, I didn't have it tonight.

After a while, I was thinking that I can't wait for Vishal to start playing Reggaeton so that I would not have to face my Salsa funk any more. By then, the group had dwindled down to Mimi, Cyrille, Euvian, Zern and me. Silliness was cathartic to a degree.

Is it worthwhile? I don't think I could be considered completely impartial. After all, it's not like I have an one-hour drive to gain entrance on Fridays. I did buy Cyrille (and me) a drink - to make it easy for him to wake up tomorrow morning (on two hour sleep he said on the way out).

Another topic. Congresses. Bournemouth. Hamburg. Benidorm. Everyone trying to talk everyone else into any number of those things. Scala too especially in light of the coach deal. What? Is Cambridge not enough?