Week 2... Injury Strikes!

After a lovely restful weekend, I decided on Sunday afternoon that I needed to hit the gym. I scoped out my options (which, in Newcastle were not that plentiful) but found a really pretty gym down on the Esplanade called "The Forum." Totally fancy. Heritage building. Lots of highly attractive people. Score.

I'm determined to get a good body before I step foot on the boat. For one, because I will occasionally have to wear skanky costumes in front of crowds of filthy rich passengers. Secondly because I will be spending a lot of time at exotic beaches, and every skinny guy knows that beaches are not great for self esteem... So I made the effort of going to the gym before rehearsals on Monday AND Tuesday. This meant getting up at 6am and being at the gym by 7am. Hideous, but so worth it. I had intended to this every day during the week, but on Tuesday morning my workout did not quite go according to plan...

Now, this is probably my fault, so I can't really complain... but it was still really, really annoying. So there I am, loving myself in my gym gear, and I head over to the shoulder press machine. I decided to lift a bit more weight than I usually would, simply because there were a lot of really buff guys at the gym and I didn't want to look too ridiculous in front of them. Normally when I get this feeling I just go to the stretching area and do the splits to show off, but I thought it was time to try a different tactic. So there I am, giving it Arnold Schwarzenegger on the shoulder press, and I feel this horrible twinge in my upper back that shoots pain straight up into my neck. Instantly I get off the machine, grab my stuff from the change room and leave, trying to play it cool so all the buff guys don't know that I hurt myself =(

By the time I got to the studio at 7.45am, my neck had absolutely no range of motion. Front, back side to side. Nothing. Devo. All I could think was, “I'm gonna get kicked off the cruise because I look like Lisa Kudrow in 'Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion' when she has her scoliosis brace!” But I soldiered on, booked a physio appointment for that afternoon and took it easy in rehearsals. Now, I don't know if any of you have tried to learn hectic choreography without using your neck AT ALL... But it is very difficult. Especially when every second count of the dance you are learning seems to be a head roll or (my favourite) a snappy head to the front haha...

The physio said I had sprained a muscle in my upper back and that my neck must have tried to compensate, and consequently spasmed and seized up. Great. What a good idea. So basically my body just made things even worse for itself. Good move. But after some nice massage and constant wheat pack action ALL week I'm now totally 100% again! Yay!
I think I've learnt my lesson though... I will still be back to the gym on Monday, but this time I will try to pay less attention to what all the insanely good-looking people think. Apparently they are a serious health risk!

The rest of the week was amazing. Our 2nd show is jam packed with full-on dancing, literally from Irish dancing, to classical ballroom (if there is such a thing?) to a slutty Latin skank fest... A. Mazing.

I really do love dancing more than most things in life, so I'm still in complete employment heaven. The only downside is that any form of liquid I take into my body in rehearsals is sweated out pretty much instantaneously. The more I drink, the more I sweat. It's getting out of hand. And it's really pretty gross. I don't know why I keep talking about it. Soz...

Anyway, after 2 weeks and 2 shows learnt, I still couldn't be happier. I can't believe how lucky I am! Every day I get up and sing and dance with an incredibly talented bunch of people, who have become my little cruise family. We've even had a MacBook Pro Photo Booth photo shoot... That's how cool we are hahaha...

Thanks Photo Booth for the Good Times