I completed a three day course for Scrum Master Certification today that my company hosts every three months, taught by one of the pioneers of Agile. It also is good for Project Management and CMMI credits. All this is in perfect time, since one of my objectives for my next evaluation is to lead a Scrum iteration, in preparation for the lead position I applied for. A Scrum Master is also known as the Chief Impediment Remover.
Scrum is a process methodology that focuses on three concepts: frequent delivery, constant process improvement and communication. There are a lot of tips and tricks that have been invented to apply the concepts and over three days we covered quite a few of them. In almost every one of the group scenarios, I found myself stopping, looking around and automatically facilitating by returning people to focus and encouraging stepwise completion. I was instinctively doing what I had seen strong women do in assuming leadership. Of course, I kept hoping that others would step forward to facilitate, but I only had so much tolerance for utter chaos. But it also encouraged me that these men I work with willingly let me have the mantle of facilitator. It was a wonderful experience.
When I slipped into my jeans the other day, I was pleased to see my waist really cut in and my size 12 jeans once again loose fitting. I stepped up to the scale to see how much weight I had to have lost and was surprised to see I went up to 200 instead of down to 190. Oh right, muscle weighs more than fat. Carrying three loads of laundry across the apartment complex and back confirmed that I did feel stronger in my lower back muscles and not as painful as the previous week. The belly dancing is definitely having an effect.
Tuesday night, we reviewed undulation. I did much better on the chest lifts and drops, but still feel it almost impossible to hold my hips still while doing ribcage rolls. We then moved on to learn transition moves, including the grapevine, the step-cross and the choo-choo. There were accompanying arm movements on the last two movements of course, and we moved on to choreography way before I had mastered the simple coordination. I kept getting absolutely lost trying to do the choo-choo, not finding an easy way to get back in. All these transition moves take more space that my apartment has, and that leaves me unable to practice them for now.
Yesterday morning I woke to a strange surprise. What I had thought at 2 AM was a strange ribcage sweat was revealed in the mirror to actually be my second case of nocturnal lactation. A quick Google search on "belly dancing lactation" brings up an article that explains that ribcage rolls have been used in the middle east for exactly that purpose.
Tomorrow is the opening performance of the Vagina Monologues at the University of Utah. Its sold out and Saturday and Monday are close to selling out as well. There's talk already of adding a fourth performance Saturday as a matinee performance! It's going to be an incredibly long day tomorrow. I have to leave work in costume at 11, go through technical rehearsals from 12 to 5, and return at 6 for start of the show at 7. It's expected to run two hours, which means that I'll be leaving around 9:30 to 10 PM.
It will also be the three month marker to Sexual Reassignment Surgery. I contacted the passport information desk to see if there was any action on getting the vital documents. I had to speak to a supervisor in order to finally find out that the record states that the agency is doing a full search to find my documents. It's nice to have feedback that is more than "Trust them to have your best interest at heart and call back in a week."
That's about it for now.
Hugs and God Bless,
Sophie
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