My Blue Heaven

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