RUTGERS 2000 -- March 4-5

"Mangoes and raisins"

reported by Wendy McRae

This past weekend Laurie, Nick and I made the journey down to Rutgers U. (somewhere in NJ, we're not sure where!) for their first ever competition. It was a very small comp -- only about 80 competitors, and they didn't have any divisions above silver (though arguably some people there should have been dancing in higher divisions!), but it was a lot of fun. Here's what you missed.

Results:

Nick and I danced in all the Silver events, and did respectably, if not spectacularly -- we got some honourable mentions (i.e. made finals, but Rutgers didn't give out finalist ribbons), and took home two pretty pink 6th place ribbons, for Int. Foxtrot/Tango and Int. Rumba/Cha cha.

Laurie, dancing in Bronze for the first time, decided to boost her chances by dancing with three different leaders (not all at once): Jared and Chen from U. Maryland@College Park, and Wendy from Cornell (!!). She and Jared got called back for some events, including Jive and .. Tango? (sorry I don't have my notes with me) and won two whole real Raisins for coming 6th in the Mango fun dance. She enjoyed dancing with the extremely nice Chen, and with Wendy she was called back to the semifinals of Int. Rumba and Cha cha -- all in all a very solid Bronze debut! (played hard, did good).

In the team match, an eclectic 6 person Cornell/Rutgers/Temple Dental came 4th out of 6 teams -- we were pretty happy with that! (considering how much team spirit and unity we had! :)

Nick put in a stellar effort gathering information and judges for our own competition, and we had it announced to everyone there as well.

Best of all, the whole thing was over by about 5 on Saturday afternoon, so we (that is, Nick -- good job, driver Nick!) drove back to Ithaca that night and had dinner at Maxie's where we were served by Gene Simmons from Kiss and received colourful Mardi Gras beads.

I wish you could have all been with us, but you weren't.