Life of a Dancing Engineer

Last night, I attended this event at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, as a volunteer for Project Smile, not to be confused, as I confused it, with Operation Smile.

The event was really nice, I was surprised to find that Yelp organizes real life events, and it was also interesting to watch the Yelpers become real life friends. I was also impressed by a lot of the fashion, considering that this was a meetup of a bunch of people who primarilly know each other through a website. I think it was the first time I’ve been at an event with such a plethora of beautiful dresses, shoes, handbags, etc., since coming back from Shanghai. At one point I even commented that “It is a really good thing that I can’t just buy those shoes by pointing my cell phone at them yet! My bank account would be empty by the time I got home!”. The photographer quickly replied “don’t even talk to me about emptying bank accounts!”

The actual exhibits were all on the 3rd floor, while we were setup at the door on the first floor, and then again with a photobooth and a table on the 2nd floor (which the photographer commented was great, because it really slowed traffic down, making it a lot easier to lure people into having their picture taken, without forming too much of a crowd ^^;).

All in all, I saw lots of funny pictures taken, took a handfull of really cute and funny ones myself (covering for the photographer while she was away), feel like I helped a worthy cause, met some really nice people, became more than a little intoxicated from consuming more than my thimbleful limit of alcohol, ate lots of yummmmy food, saw a bunch of cool exhibits (including the glass flowers exhibit), had a really fun walk and conversation with a new friend afterwards, and gave my body a probably much needed rest from dance (though I’ll never admit it! ~_^)!

Before the gala, the dancer inside me was crying out not to skip dance (which became even more difficult when my friend called asking me to convince her to get off the couch and go to the very dance class I was missing!); but in retrospect, I am glad that I decided to skip dance and go. I dance an average of 6 days per week, and it felt a little bit healthy (though the dancer still doesn’t really agree) to go out and socialize with people outside my tiny little dancing bubble! 🙂 And, more importantly, to do something for other people, not just the selfish dancer inside.