My Blue Heaven

Hungry anyone..?

Man, check out these burgers!!

Apparently this is from Denny’s Beer Barrell Pub in Pennsylvania known for the world’s biggest burger which weighs in at nine pounds or four kilograms! It’s catch phrase: “No One Has Finished It”!

For $23.95 it comes with:

• 2 tomatoes
• half a head of lettuce
• 12 slices of American cheese
• full cup of peppers
• 2 onions
• plus a river of mayo, mustard and ketchup
• and topped with pickles

So… hungry anyone…?

In other news.. I’m going to see Saturday Night Fever tonight, at the Lyric Theatre! Yay! Should be some good dancing fun to watch. 🙂

Current listening :: “Just No Other Way” – CoCo Lee

Friends are friends forever?

I’ve been noticing that as I’ve grown older, the number of friends I have seem to be diminishing. Is this just a “thing” that happens as you grow older? You lose the larger groups of friends you had when you were in high school and university, and instead just cultivate a few close friends. But for me, it seems that even the good friends I had, and was once close to, are diminishing also. I dunno if it is something I’m doing wrong, or if it is just something that happens in life, and I should just accept it as a matter of change?

It makes me feel really sad to lose good friends.. to just grow apart over time. I know it happens, and that with life changes, people move in different directions. Friends come and go – you are close for a time as circumstances permit, and enjoy that shared intimacy, and then you drift apart, and it is gone.

I kinda regret that loss. And I miss the groups I was once a part of.. like most of my uni friends (whom I hardly see anymore). Its strange.. thinking about those times. It seems like it was so long ago, like it was all just a dream. Hrm. Ok this is getting a little maudlin..

Weekend Update

I had a nice weekend… even though I got sick on Saturday. 🙁 Damn this cold weather!! (I should be skiing! :P) Anyway, the Jazz In The City festival was nice. I caught the Bill Risby Trio… and even had a chat to the man himself – and guess what, he remembered me!!! *glows* I met him when I attended this Performance Arts conference in 98 (Cooma), as he was one of the staff in the Band seminar stream. He didn’t remember my name, but he recognised my face. How cool is that! 🙂

Anyway, on Sunday, Paul and I watched Jersey Girl – not a bad movie. Bit of a tear jerker (ok more than just a bit) and very cute. 🙂 On Sunday evening we went to visit St Pauls Castle Hill’s 5:30 service, and their arts festival afterwards (bumping into Vron’s family and Vanessa who were also visiting). The service was pretty good! I liked how things were run so smoothly.. like the transitions between things – from singing, to video, to prayer, to singing, to sermon, to communion. Very smooth and seamless. There was no “And now we’ll have some singing…” and then waiting for the musicians to go up and get set up. And it was good how the service was very youth-friendly (being a service mostly made up of high schoolers, I think?) – the sermon was easy to understand, with very little jargon, and had lots of interesting illustrations. The music was vibrant and energetic (using lots of hillsong I noticed.. in fact I think 100% of the songs were hillsong that night! Lots of songs from United Live latest album too.) Personally, I think I’d probably prefer the 6pm service (for a slightly older crowd) – though I have yet to try it.

The Arts Festival afterwards was good.. despite it being absolutely freezing standing around outside! I liked the last band that played (dunno their name?), esp when they played “One Way”! 🙂 And the short “Church” drama was absolutely hilarious! Very very clever! The dance was kinda cool too (using the song from the end of Honey – which reminds me.. I wanna see that movie again!)

So here I am, back at work, and feeling pretty tired. How miserable is the weather today. Yeuch! Cold, wet, and grey skies. 🙁 I really should be skiing. *sigh* (I’m obsessed, I know.. but its the best season in 13 years!!!! And I’m missing out on all that fresh POW! *cries*)

Current listening :: “What’s Up Lonely” – Kelly Clarkson

Another term gone by

Last night was the final week of my Jazz Performance Group for term 2. Another 10 weeks gone by. I’m a bit disappointed to say that I didn’t get as much out of this term as I have in the past. Partly my fault, I missed nearly half the course due to varied committments and events. So yeh, I don’t think I actually improved that much this term. I’m considering what I should do next term – I might go back to Jazz Fusion, because I like how that class pushes me, and really improves my technique and skill. Especially with the warm-up scales and exercises we have to play (in all 12 keys) at the beginning. I’m just not.. disciplined.. enough to do it myself at home. 😛 And I also like the varied styles we play (not just swing, but also funk, latin & bossa). Anyway, we’ll see.

The other option was to give myself a rest next term. Its obvious I don’t really have the time to fully commit to these classes, much less practice regularly at home. I dunno. Also, the $$$ is an issue too. These classes aren’t cheap.. and I really did waste quite a lot of money this term by missing all those weeks. 🙁 But I know if I don’t do a class, by half way through next term, I’m gonna be really missing it. And my skills will probably get rusty as there’s no added motivation to practice, and no new things to learn. Also next term is the last term for the year, which means there will be a concert to play in… another opportunity to perform! But it will be hard if I jump into Jazz Fusion again, coz I missed last term and the things they would have learnt. That class is pretty full on, and Nick takes it really fast! *sigh* Decisions decisions.

Last nights class was fun. We’ve been playing through “Autumn Leaves” the past 2 or so weeks. It’s a nice piece, and I really love the arrangement we played. Alan’s been a great teacher (and he’s an awesome musician too!) Pity my impro-ing sucks, and I’ve been too lazy/busy this term to improve very much. 🙁

Finally Friday

So glad its finally Friday! So whats planned for my weekend? Tomorrow I’m gonna be going into the city with Paul for the Jazz In The City jazz festival. My sole purpose is to see Bill Risby play! He’s an absolutely awesome awesome jazz pianist. Internationally known. Plus he’s a christian too! His going to be playing in a trio at the Old Vienna Coffee House in the QVB tomorrow, 11am-2pm. Then maybe afterwards, some friends and I might go Karaokeing. Hee. And at night I’ll hopefully be going to watch “Jersey Girl” with Paul. Its a Kevin Smith romantic comedy?! But it looks really sweet and cute.. and soppy. *sniff* Sunday we have our monthly youth celebration service – and I’ll be playing piano this time.

Anyways, I really should get back to work. Wasted most of the morning already. Plus I have to finish writing this study for tonight. Argh. *stress stress*

Current listening :: “First Love” – Utada Hikaru (I really feel like going karaokeing again.. I so wanna sing this song!)

I’ve been thinking..

Too much lately. I might have blogged about some of them, but I can’t remember now. Always happens.

Listening to good ol Norah Jones at the moment. Her first album “Come Away With Me” has become something of a travel soundtrack for me. I listened to the album on repeat both times I went to the snow, as I travelled down on the overnight coach. For some reason, I find it really conducive to putting me to sleep. I guess its just so laidback. I like. 🙂 Now, listening to it conjures up permanently etched images in my mind of the NSW countryside flying by in the dim light of early dawn. Its a very peaceful feeling. But one overlaiden with a just tinge of nostalgia. Hmm. I actually found I like travelling down on the overnight coach by myself. I feel at peace, like I’m heading somewhere good, somewhere I can be happy, away from the stresses of life.

Mmm.. am feeling rather contemplative at the moment. And maybe a touch melancholy. But one good thing is that I am dealing with certain issues (and memories) better now – the emotions are more of a dull ache, or maybe a twinge of regret. I guess it just comes with time.

Current listening :: “Shoot The Moon” – Norah Jones

Happy Birthdee, Cerisie! :)

I had a pretty good weekend. Went to a good friend’s 21st on Saturday night. Held at the Port Orient restaurant, in Darling Harbour, complete with full Karaoke system… we had much fun. 🙂 We sang the cheesy classics – “Tonight I Celebrate My Love”, “Thats What Friend’s Are For”, “Eternal Flame”, “I will always love you” (we had some strangers from the party next to us join in with us for that one… hahahha), and more…. I even had a turn at singing “Endless Love” with Mark Lee (which we totally stuffed coz we didn’t know the parts!!)

Anyways, I took some piccies with my camera and have uploaded em to my gallery. Here are a few highlights:

I also sorta “debuted” my new dress that night… heheh. Got comments that I looked like a “Bond” girl… or someone out of an Austin Powers movie. Hahah. Yeh, I suppose the dress is pretty retro.. I should wear it to Club Retro one day! 😀 Here’s a full length pic (though you can’t see the brown suede calf-length boots I wore with it! :P)

Other stuff

Other than that, my weekend was fairly uneventful. Friday night had Glue. Saturday day, had to do stuff at home, and then Sunday I slept in and went to church for music practice, and evening service. Music was good. We jammed to this new song by Mark Peterson “See Him Coming” (on the latest EMU album “We Are His People”). We like. Its cool. Its caro. 😀 We’re gonna be introducing the song this Friday at Glue.

Oh, and I’ve also uploaded the rest of my ski trip photos. Clicky here.

Current listening :: “Why Not” – Hilary Duff

SIC Pics

I’ve just uploaded a few pics from my ski trip. These weren’t taken by me (as usual, I keep forgetting to bring my usb cable into work to transfer the pics off the camera). There are a few shots of ppl in there, but its mostly pics of us jumping off the cornice on the first day. 😀 Here are some highlights:

View the rest here. Will upload more when I get the chance! 🙂

Current listening :: “Fake Plastic Trees” – Radiohead

Fully S.I.C

I had the bestest best time on the weekend. I spent a wonderful three days carving it up on the slopes of Perisher Blue. T’was brilliant! The weather was perfect – blue skies and sunshine each and every day we were there. The snow was in top form – being cold enough, it was topped up each night with snow-making to give us a nice fresh dry cover the next morning. And the company was great – went with a bunch from a ski club (to their annual Ski Info Conference) for the first time, and made many new friends. Ahh it was sooo much fun! There were about 40 or so of us, and we all stayed on snow at Smiggins (which was just fantastic, and soo soo convenient – the ski lifts were just across the road from my lodge!)

I went down on Thursday night via an overnight coach (again) and came back Sunday night. Won’t go into details about everything, but I took a few pics on both my digital camera and phone – which I will post up sometime this week (hopefully tomorrow!)

I also had the best skies I’ve ever skied on – which probably was a major contributor to my great time. I asked for High Performance skies, but they didn’t have any in my size (160cm)… so the very kind folk at Snowline Ski Centre upgrade me to last years 2003 demo’s (a Rossignol Bandit X, for those who are interested) for free!! And with a fresh wax just before giving em to me, ahhh.. *sigh*.. they just glided across the snow so smoothly, it was like skiing on air. Makes such a difference having a decent pair of skies.

I didn’t ski as hard as I have in the past this time – I didn’t even do Olympic or Kamikaze (and both were open with decent snow on them – tho prob a bit hard packed in places). The only crazy thing I did was on the first day, I got dragooned into jumping of the “cornice” at Smiggins. The cornice is just that… a cornice, high above Smiggins. (Accessed by hiking up, either left of the Bourke T-bar or right of the Link T-Bar.) Its just a fairly steep section, with a bit of a drop off at the top. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it, but I went up just to take a look. I ended up going off it, after some encouragement from the others – and man, I was literally shaking just before I did it. I think I stood up there too long – looking at it and thinking about it. But I did it, and didn’t stack either! Yay for me. 😀

Anyways, I had today off also, to rest and recuperate. It’s been a very relaxing day for me – went for a swim/spa/steam/sauna at Ryde Aquatic Centre to ease those tired muscles. Suprisingly, I’m not really all that sore! I expected myself to be hardly able to walk, but apart from a sore-ish and stiff muscle here and there, I’m alright! I get more sore from dance class! Maybe its because I’d increased the dancing and exercising in the few weeks beforehand and was in a fairly fit condition.

Well, its bedtime for me. Wanna get an early night to give myself some extra recovery time. Nitey nite folks!

Current listening :: “Who’s That Girl” – Eve

Chasing Liberty

Having a rare free weeknight to just relax at home… I hired Chasing Liberty on dvd last night. Being a bit of a Mandy Moore fan, I’d been looking forward to this being released in Australia… but alas, it went straight to DVD. 🙁

Anyway, I quite enjoyed it – t’was a bit slow to start, but it got better towards the middle, and I loved seeing the relationship between her and Ben grow, and the chemistry between them. As with romantic comedies, the ending was very sweet…. *sigh* 🙂 Also the backdrop and locations in the movie were just beautiful. It was set in Prague, Vienna, Berlin, and London… kinda makes me wanna go visit Europe. Hmm… maybe next year eh..

[Update: 10:30am, Wed 28th July]
I forgot to mention one thing that Vron reminded me of – I absolutely LOVED his british accent… damn it was kinda hot. I have to say.. he was very nice.. plus the added bonus of that accent. 😀

Current listening :: “17” – Mandy Moore

Say it ain’t sooooo!

Nooooooo…. I just found out that Ben Fletcher is leaving, or actually, has just left Bluebottle Kiss!!!!! :((((( Noooooooo…….. 🙁 Guess they’re back to being a trio… unless Jamie finds another guitarist… but Ben and Jamie were a duo… they made BBK…. argh.. 🙁

As a few have requested on the BBK mailing list, I really hope Ben plays ONE last gig for us fans.. as a farewell… please… coz I missed the most recent tour.

*sob*

Current listening :: “Everything Begins and Ends At Exactly The Right Time” – Bluebottle Kiss

Monday Blues

*sigh* Sucks going back to work on Monday. Especially with this dreary, cold weather. Doesn’t help the mood.. I actually felt kinda depressed and really tired this morning. But I’m feeling much perkier now (probably due to the mocha I had 1/2 hour ago.. hee :P).

My weekend was fun! Quite jam packed and tiring. On Fri night, My youth group kicked off term 3 with our annual BGR talk, given by Dudley and Elizabeth Foord. I thought it was very good (the Foords are always awesome!)… it was well delievered and very thorough in content. And I think the Gluesters got a lot out of it… it was good for them to listen and learn from this very wise (and old) couple.

Saturday was a veeery nice day for me. It was kinda our 3 month anniversary last Thurs, but we were busy. So Paul planned for something special on Sat – we went to Dee Why for a lovely lunch, followed by a romantic stroll along the beach to the rocks and the end (it was really really nice to be back at the beach… I missed it… why can’t it be summer again sooner!!) Then we went to Lane Cove Aquatic centre for a (becoming weekly) swim and some relaxation time in the spa/steam room/sauna. After which, we went to have dinner at a yummy Teppanyaki restaurant near my place. T’was a very very lovely day.

Later that night I went to The Lottery (Kev/Ben/Dre’s combined annual birthday bash) at Jackson’s on George. I mean, free dance party.. how could I say no? 🙂 I got there pretty late (after midnight) which meant I missed seeing a few people who had already left by that stage (the old fogeys), but I still had a good time on the dance floor. And I spent the better part of an hour dancing in the cage… hee. 😀 Only stayed for a few hours though, and ended up getting home at nearly 3am.

Sunday was jam packed with meetings – had a meeting with my fellow Glue yr 10-12 leaders to plan for term 3, then had a music meeting to discuss.. ideas/ways to improve music at Evening Service.. then it was time for music practice before evening service at 5pm. We were visited by some fellow christians from EFC, which was cool. They joined us afterwards for dinner too at the “fine” establishment of Anh Dao vietnamese restaurant.

R.I.P

After many priviledged years of access to ICQ at work…. I think I’ve finally been shut down. 🙁 They did a firewall upgrade on the weekend, and now, miraculously, my icq doesn’t work anymore. Not happy Jan. I’ve spent a good portion of today trying to figure out how to, well I wouldn’t exactly call it hacking… just trying to get through my work firewall. Trying different ports, finding out the proxy server address and trying SOCKS/HTTPS connections etc etc. And damn it.. still no dice. :(((( *sigh* Look’s like my days of icqing at work are all over. R.I.P.

(On the brighter side of things… at least my msn still works..! 😀 *Touch wood!*)

Current listening :: “The Tourist” – Radiohead (Wonderful, wonderful musical masterpiece of a song…)

Ouchie

Man, my back is soo sore today. And I have a bruise on my shoulder and back. 🙁 Went to dance class last night (needed to use up the last prepaid ticket which expires next week). Ramon was back, as were many old faces from my starting days at the Sydney Dance Co (way back in 2000).

Anyway the main routine was so cool! It was to Michael Buble’s “Spiderman Theme” from Spiderman 2. So the style of the routine was very traditional jazz/theatre jazz – which is always heaps fun! However, Ramon being Ramon, decided to incorporate some killer backwards and forwards rolls. Hence today I’m left with incredibly sore muscles in my back, a lovely bruise on my right shoulder (a bit bigger than a 50 cent piece), and a lump in the middle of my back (next to the spine.. I’m guessing this is a bruising too). Nasty. :\ I’ve been hobbling around work the whole day like an elderly woman.

Here is a picture of the aforementioned backwards roll, in action!

I could do the backwards one relatively easily… it was the going straight back over into a forwards roll that got me. The tempo was fairly fast to be doing that kind of acrobatics. Not impossibly fast, but fast enough that you had to just throw yourself into it. And throw myself I did…. hence frequently landing on my back with a loud crunch. Not too graceful I know.. but hey, we were just learning it.

Anyways, I just took some photos of the bruises with my phone. Heh. (I even found another nice one on my elbow that I didn’t know was there before!) I was gonna upload them to my moblog but darn Vodafone MMS seems to be down or overloaded. Will upload em later. Gotta go now… gonna have a back massage now 😀 and then got my Jazz Performance Group (piano) class at the Con (resuming this week after a nice 2 week break).

[Update: 6:20pm, Mon 26th July]

Pics of the bruises:

Current listening :: “Spiderman Theme” – Michael Buble

I said Brrr its cold in here!

Man how COLD is it today!?!?! Far out brussel sprouts. Only 9 – 15 deg forecast for today…. and its currently sitting at an absolutely freezing 11 degrees C in the city.. I don’t think it got much higher than that today either. Brrrrr.. I’m even cold in my office, which is quite rare because we have a fairly good heating/air conditioning system in this building which keeps the temps nice and regulated. But yeh, been trying to keep warm by continually drinking hot water or green tea. Nice.

Have been feeling particularly motivated to go forth and become a healthier, fitter person lately. Fitter.. happer.. more productive. *cough* Anyways.. 😛 I ate a pretty healthy chicken caesar salad for lunch (minus the egg.. yeuch), and had a fresh juice (the Flu Fighter from Viva Juice – apple, pineapple, lemon, parsley and ginger) and 2 Good Start brekky bix (with a smattering of honey and light white milk) for brekky. Not that you’re really that interested eh? Anyways, gonna be hitting the gym again tonight. That Body Balance class I tried last week was pretty good… a combination of Hatha Yoga, Pilates and Tai Chi – and combined with some cardio work, then finished off with some relaxing sauna time – should leave Kazzart feelin’ goooood and ready to have a restful and early night of zzZzzZz. 🙂

I think a certain psycho gym junkie friend has been having a motivational influence on me!! 😀 Been doing pretty well so far – last week I went to 2 dance classes, hit the gym twice, and went swimming on the weekend.

*sigh* Nearly COB… only an hour to go!

The weekender

I had a really good and relaxing weekend. On Saturday Paul came over for some brunch (which really turned out to be lunch, coz we went out to watch the auction of our next door neighbours house), after which we went to Chatswood for a bit, then went for a swim at Lane Cove aquatic, then went for dinner in Burwood (also managing to drop in on a mutual friend’s suprise b’day dinner), and finally caught the 9:30pm session of King Arthur in Burwood. T’was a very nice day all round.

I have to highlight, however, my visit to Chatswood – to the Max Brenner chocolate bar. My gosh.. I think I died and went to heaven as soon as I stepped into the shop. Its soooooooo gooooooooood!!!! Chocolate, chocolate, everwhere! And lots of different and delectible ways of eating it on the menu.. whether in liquid format, or cake, or fondue. Yummmmm. Ok, I know I’ve just been talking about getting healthier and fitter… but one can afford to indulge once in a while.. can’t they? 😛 So I had a creamy italian style hot choc and the strawberries with fondue.. yummmm.. melted choc sauce. Anyways, I think I worked most of it off at swimming afterwards. 🙂

On sunday I had a family gathering/yum cha lunch at the Cantebury Club. Quite nice there actually. My cousin, who had come over from London for a 2 week holiday, was leaving that night. So we all went out to lunch together (Paul included.. heehee he’s practically part of the family now :P), and then just hung out at home before I had to leave for music practice for evening service.

Current listening :: “Brave New Girl” – Britney Spears

UK Street Funk

I went to my first UK Street Funk class today. Its a 1 hour lunchtime class that runs for 5 weeks in the city. (Very convenient eh!) The teacher is Farah Shah (she’s taught at SDC before too and has danced with Ramon etc), and she’s pretty good! I really enjoyed myself and I can’t wait till next week! I really love going to dance class… it just makes a huge difference to my week. I always feel heaps happier and more energetic after I go to a class.

The style of this class is a combination of Hip Hop, Funk, Street Locking, Popping and Jazz/Funk – something I want to do to expand my ability and style of dancing. I’ve been doing Ramon’s jazz class for so long (3 1/2 years now!) – I think I need to do something different every now and then, and learn from different teachers who have different styles. Also, funk/hip hop is something I’ve always found a bit challenging.. not because I can’t get the steps, but because I can’t seem to get the feel and style very easily – I always look kinda stiff! Having the right style and bounce makes the steps look totally different. Its really a different way of dancing (from jazz).

Anyways, I’m looking forward to learning the rest of this routine over the next 5 weeks. The dance is to Usher’s “Yeah!”!! 😀 I’m doing a *d00t d00t* dance to the *d00t d00t* song… hahah. (Sorry “in” joke.)

Anyways, gotta go now! Its home time! 🙂

Current listening :: “All For You” – Janet Jackson

Where Is The Love?

RICE 2004 finished with a bang on Saturday night, with 61 kids praying the prayer that night. How awesome is that. It was so amazing working with 200 other leaders from different chinese churches all over Sydney. For me, I had so much fun playing in the RICE band, with a bunch of musos and singers I barely knew just a month ago.



Some highlights of the night for me – jamming with the musos as kids streamed into the civic centre (I think we played “I will not be shaken” something like 3 times!), hanging out backstage when we weren’t playing (in the stage doorway, practically on stage.. I’m sure some of the kids would’ve seen us goofing around and taking pictures of each other pretending to be asleep), watching Ian Powell get “homie-fied”, just the vibe of the night.. as we played.. how everyone responded to the music, singing loudly and clapping with the music. Here are some piccies taken by one of the photographers of the night (taken from here). Also see my moblog for pics from my perspective during the night.

The two backstage photos were taken by James, one of the songleaders and singers. Anyways, I really enjoyed playing with these guys. The setup was awesome.. we had a full professional sound setup (to rival the SaltLight album launch), with a professional sound guy working it all. It was hard though, because the dynamics of the hall was so sensitive, even though we had foldback, we could barely hear ourselves onstage, coz he had us turned down really low to maintain full control over the sound. But apparently we sounded really good out in the house.. so I was told. But yeh, I guess thats something a muso needs to get used to.. playing onstage and not hearing yourself very clearly, but still having to be able to play to the best of your ability… in time and with the same energy and dynamics.

So yeh, I was totally exhausted by the end of the night. Actually, I was exhausted by the end of practice, BEFORE Rice started.. I think I put too much energy into that final afternoon rehearsal.

Other than RICE, my weekend was pretty good. On Saturday morning I got my hair trimmed – my fringe was getting waay too long and was really annoying me. So I went back to Blue Star Hair in Eastwood to get another very honky-ah haircut. I was kinda hating it for the first day or 2 (too layered and feathered!!), but now its settling down and I’m getting happier with it with each passing day. 😛 Then on Sunday, I hung out with Paul and also actually spent some time at home – my cousin is here from England! She and my bro were in Brisbane for the past week having a holiday, and they came back for a day before heading off to the Central Coast for another week. They’ll be back next weekend again, so it’ll be good to see her again.

Strains and pains

I went to see my chiropractor this afternoon, coz my upper back has been hurting since Saturday (I think I hurt/pulled something while I was lifting my amp during setup before RICE). So yeh, thought I’d better get it checked out. She was really good.. basically she massaged around the area that hurt (between my left shoulder blade and my spine) to loosen the muscles, then BANG, she basically shoved into my back and with a great loud crack along my back, she fixed everything up. She said the problem was something to do with a rib and a vertabrae being pulled/bunched too close together or something like that. Anyway, hopefully it’ll get all better soon. Still a little sore, but she said it’ll probably be a bit tender for a few days. I guess it doesn’t help that I’m hunched over my computer all day at work.

Anyway, I really need to get myself a better way of transporting my instruments. That keyboard is just ridiculously heavy.. I have no chance of lifting it by myself. I’m barely managing carrying my amp around as it is. I need to get myself a trolley of some sort. Either that, or I should just bulk up those arm muscles at the gym. Hee. Hrm.. now that I think about it, I used to be able to lift my amp fairly easily… perhaps I haven’t been working my arms enough lately.. gotta pick up on those weights and push-ups! I also got her to look at my hamstring, which I kinda strained about half a year ago (yeh I waited too long.. I know). Not much she can do now.. but she did use this electric pulse thing to send electricity deep into the muscle to try and realign the muscle tissue.

Been feeling kinda.. down.. lately. Just sad.. depressed.. thinking too much about things I should just let go and move on from. Need to somehow control those memories that seem to be consistently haunting me. I know ppl assume that I’m all ok about this, and have moved on, but I suppose I’m not fully, and haven’t, and won’t have, for.. I dunno how long. How long do these things take? Meh.

We awoke from our dream
Things are not always what they seem
Memories linger on
It’s like a sweet sad old song

Current listening :: “Can we still be friends” – Mandy Moore

The hillsong experience

Went to a Hillsong Night Rally last night. Similar to last year, it was big, big and big. Hehe. I think around 20,000 people attended, filling the Sydney Superdome as well as the overflow in the State Sports Centre. I managed to squeeze in enough seats for a few friends, one row from the very top at the Superdome. Man it was packed. Took some piccies whilst up there too (larger pics on my moblog):

So anyways, the singing and music were very cool, as always. But, like last year, the actual teaching was.. not so good, I’m sorry to say. We heard Joyce Meyer that night, and whilst her talk would’ve been a very good motivational speech, it didn’t really have much to do with the bible at all, other than the initial reading of the verse from Isaiah, and the occasional random quote of a verse from other parts. I learnt more about different species of birds than I did about anything else. It’s a bit sad…. was there nobody else in the 20000 odd people that actually thought about what she was saying? Or did everyone just blindly accept what she said, whilst parrotting the “Amens” (using her illustration, which was a good and rather amusing illustration in and of itself).

Anyway, I don’t wanna come across all harsh and critical, because it’s not my intention to put others down, or be a discouragement. But I would encourage anyone who attended to actually read the passage in its context, the chapters surrounding that verse, and find out what Isaiah is actually about – then think about whether what she said actually had anything to do with the passage itself.

I found the talk a bit waffley in general. She’s a very good speaker and a great comedian, but yeh, she tended to go on a bit, and draw all sorts of connections and allusions that aren’t actually in the passage at all.

Weekend time

Anyways, enough on that. I’m so glad its a Friday. Got a pretty packed weekend coming up. Tonight I’m actually going to a dance class at SDC!! Ramon’s friday night int/adv jazz class. W00t! Should be fun… haven’t been dancing in aaages!

Then tomorrow is RICE! How exciting! The music team has rehearsal and setup from 2pm, nice and early. We’re actually getting a full professional sound setup – with foldback and inputs for every instrument! How cool is that!! Then tomorrow night is the big night… we’re expecting nearly 1000 high school kids to turn up to hear a great message by Ian Powell on “Where Is The Love?”. Then I think Sunday will be set aside for some much needed chillout time with Paul. 🙂

Current listening :: “I’ve Just Begun (Having My Fun)” – Britney Spears (from the extra cd on the In The Zone dvd!)

Not Happy Jan!!

I had a pretty crappy start to the day today. Well.. actually it *started* quite well – I got up early, managed to actually have brekky at home, and actually caught the bus I was supposed to catch – all of which occur quite rarely.

Anyway, I was sitting at West Ryde station waiting for the train in my usual spot up the front, when I felt something light fall on my head. Thinking it was a leaf or twig, I reached up to brush it off, when I felt something wet.. and assumed it was water from somewhere… then I looked at my hand… and saw this white and brown goo. Yep, I’d just been crapped on by a bird!!! And it was in my hair! Ewwwwwwww!! It smelt too. I managed to clean most of it off with some tissues… and have since rinsed that section of my hair in the bathroom at work. But I’m definitely hitting the gym early today so I can have a shower and wash my hair. Thank goodness I brought my gym and shower stuff in today!

Now, thats not all. I was relaxing on the train (trying not to think about what was in my hair). Then we stopped at burwood.. then croydon.. then ashfield……. WHAT THE?? My train does NOT stop all stations between Stratty and Redfern. What the crap was going on?? No announcement was made, no warning given to change trains at strathfield for a faster service. I was peeved.. very much so… and upon finally reaching Wynyard, I was fully prepared to give the driver a piece of my mind. Except the door was closed and I couldn’t see inside. So, stumped, I stalked off, vowing to call up and make a complaint to cityrail. Not Happy Jan!!!

/rant

[Update: 12:07pm] Ahhh… feeling much better now! Made the call, the guy was quite helpful and polite. And yeh, just feeling better. Now I’m off to the gym for a much needed workout and shower! Yay! 🙂

Current listening :: “Toxic” – Britney Spears

Quickie

(No it’s not what you were thinking). Just a quick update before I dash from work. Gonna watch Mean Girls tonite with Paul.. yay! 🙂 Work today was pretty… standard. Not too busy, a little boring, so I managed to amuse myself on the net as per usual. 🙂

On the cold sore front – it seems to be getting better. You can barely even see it now (as my webcam pic shows), and its definitely healing. My ulcers are also healing, and don’t really hurt that much anymore… yay! 🙂 Ok gotta run… bye!

Current listening :: “Naughty Girl” – Beyonce

Go Britney

Hehehe.. I bought the latest Britney DVD today “In The Zone”! I must’ve spent around 40 mins watching it, my eyes glued to the DVD preview station at Virgin Music in Metcentre.. and then I bought it. Hee. Its coool! Its got lotsa live performances of stuff from her latest album, as well as one or two old hits. Anyways, as usual, the dancing and chore is really cool. Thats why I buy it.. to watch Britney and her dancers dance, and get inspired by their moves (esp in light of a certain upcoming event involving the use of dance). 🙂

Current listening :: “Me against the music” – Britney Spears (Rishi Rich’s Desi Kulcha Remix)

RICE Fest

Rice Rice Baby. RICE Fest on Saturday went really really well. We had about 850ish high schoolers turn up to Concord Primary School, plus 200 of us leaders, makes it over 1000 people that day! Phew! 🙂 Anyways, we had beautiful weather, and great fun was to be had all day. I was on the Centre Stage team – organising the Dance Off and RICE Idol, which went spectacularly well, after much running around (I had to make a mad dash back home in the middle of the Fete, to get all my CDs to use as backing tracks for the RICE Idol).

The bands were pretty rockin too – well at least Revive were. Heh. They’re not bad. I like their covers of pop songs (I remember last year they did a rocky cover of Britney Spears “Baby One More Time” – so this year I guess keeping up with the tradition, they did a punk rock cover of Christina’s “Beautiful”. Haha classic.) So yeh, t’was cool. And it was pretty effective the whole shutting all the stalls down during the talks.. there were heaps of kids who came over to centre stage to listen.. in fact most of them, I think, did that. Here are some pics from Ajamedor’s site (I didn’t have my trusty digital camera with me coz my bro’s taken it to Brisbane with him):

Anyways, afterwards a lot of the leaders went for dinner, and I was gonna join them, but I ended up just staying home for dinner instead. My cold sores and ulcers were getting too painful, and I was pretty tired (as was Paul). So I decided not to push it (I probably wouldn’t have really eaten much anyway coz of aforementioned mouth issues), but just relaxed and took it easy at home. (Also Bankstown was a bit far.. and I wanted to save money too.)

So I’m now looking forward to next Saturday’s main event “Where Is The Love”. I’m playing keyboard in the band again, which has been fun. We’ve had 3 rehearsals so far, our final one will be on Sat afternoon. Hope things go well, and we can hold it together! The Willoughby Civic Centre (where it’ll be held) is pretty huge – with a really nice, large stage – where we’ll be playing! How cool is that! I haven’t played on a stage since the SaltLight launch. 🙂 Hopefully all the kids who came to RICE Fest will come again this Sat (though, dunno how they’re gonna fit em all in!)

Other weekend miscellaney

Apart from RICE Fest, my weekend was pretty relaxing. Me and Paul watched Spiderman 2 on Sat night, which was cool. 🙂 I liked it, t’was a bit different from the first one.. with more drama and personal story about Peter Parkin. (Poor guy has it tough.) But t’was good, and I liked this ending more than the first one. Hee. Anyways, I wanna see Mean Girls! 🙂 Apparently it’s supposed to be pretty good.. like compared with other teen girly movies. Looks interesting!

Oh yeh, and I forgot to mention, the weekend before, we went and saw Prince and Me. I really liked it! It was sooo romantic…. and sweet…. *sigh* I’d definitely recommend it for any romance/girly flick fans out there! Though its not in the “I’d pay to see it again” category, I still very much enjoyed it.

On Sunday I slept in till 1:30pm (nice!), and then went over to Paul’s place. We went to Burwood Westfield (our regular Sunday hangout nowadays) for lunch and then went to Evening Service.

Moozik

Lately I’ve been rediscovering my passion for music and playing music. I wanna… play more, expand my skills, challenge myself, and yeh.. just do more music stuff. I wish I had more time to jam with people, play in different bands, and even do gigs. I have an opportunity to play with some ppl from my Con class, but I just never find the time, and he lives so far away, on the other side of Sydney in Malabar. Also I need a more portable keyboard. My current Yamaha S80 is soooo damn heavy.. I always need someone to help me carry it. I need a smaller one! Yeh, and I need more time to be able to put it into good use! I suppose I should start by playing at home more often… experimenting, learning and expanding my own skills and styles. I wanna learn to play funk.. like maybe Jamiroquai stuff.. he’s soo coool. 🙂 Anyways… I just wanna be able to jam with people more often. Get something good going. Like a band or something. *sigh*



Current listening :: “Love Foolsophy” – Jamiroquai

Run down

Been feeling pretty tired and sick lately. I think I’m just run down and fatigued.. from too much stress and lack of sleep. I really need to slow down and relax, and just chill. (Sleeping earlier will probably help too eh.)

And to my utter chagrin and annoyance, I’ve discovered I have a cold sore! I’m soo pissed off. I’ve never gotten these before, and I dunno where I got it from (actually, I have an inkling – my dad had one just last week. :\) My upper lip last night was all swollen up – it looked like I’d been punched, or had a bad accident with some collegen. Anyways, I stocked up on Lysine tablets, Zovirax, Blistex lip ointment, and have read up on every homemade treatment known to man. Can you believe some people swear by EARWAX?? Ewww. I haven’t been desperate enough to try that – for the moment, I’ve done teabags, ice, and have doused myself with Lysine tablets, lip ointments, and water. Hopefully that’ll do the trick. It seems to be drying up, and its only day 3.

Anyways. Just gotta relax… and think positive thoughts. How’s this for a cheer up picture (sent to me by Paul) – certainly brings a smile to my face. Hee. :D.

Current listening :: “The Girl In The Other Room” – Diana Krall