My Blue Heaven

The zone

“My soul is bare, my hips are moving at a rapid pace. Can you feel it burn, from the tip of my toes running through my veins.” Ahh.. good ol Britney. I wasn’t sure what to think of her new song “Me against the music”, but after going to dance class last night, I love it! Well, I probably love the dance itself more than the song, but hey, the song is good too. They go together. 🙂 He used the Rishi Rich remix version.. which I reckon is way better than the radio edit.

So, for the first time in over 2 months, I went to dance class. I can’t believe I hadn’t gone for so long! It was great… it felt sooo good to get back into dancing. Physically, I’m still good for it.. I guess my workouts at the gym help alot. I could manage the warm up and lyrical routines fairly well.. even across the floor was not too bad. My turns and chasses were a little on the rusty side though. I had to stick with single turns mostly.

My weakness was probably the main routine – to Britney’s “Me against the music”. Even at the end of class, I hadn’t quite gotten it.. I was still often following another person, scrambling to catch up because I’d forgotten the next step. It was hard to remember it all and keep up the speed, having not danced for ages. I guess this more modern jazz/funk style doesn’t come as naturally to me as traditional lyrical jazz/ballet. I wish I could dance better in jazz/funk/hiphop styles.

Still, the class had started on this routine the previous week, so I guess most of them had a headstart and were already familiar with it. He’s going to be doing even more next week but I can’t go coz of my jazz performance. Darn it!!! I really wanna learn the rest of the routine. I saw the whole thing before class, when a group of the more elite dancers in the class were rehearsing it for the end of year Christmas party performance. They looked soooo good.. damn me but dancing is sexy. I love the routines Ramon comes up with, and last nights’ was one of his better ones.

Oh, and yep, I’m most definitely sore today. That familiar all-over-the-body soreness which only comes from dance class. Coz not even the gym can make my muscles ache like this.

Current listening :: “Me Against The Music” – Britney Spears and Madonna (Rishi Rich’s Desi Kulcha Remix)

Beach baby

Sorry I haven’t blogged for a while.. and I know its bit late to be blogging about my weekend, but I’ve actually been pretty busy at work the past few days (*gasp*) and haven’t had time. 🙂

I went to the beach on the weekend! Finally.. the weather was warm enough! On a scorching hot Saturday (I think it hit over 30 deg C) me, my bro and a few friends took the opportunity to go to Collaroy beach. (Sydney’s northern beaches rock!) My first swim at the beach for this summer. I even took my boogie board and caught more than a few waves. 😀 It was great! I loooove the beach.. I’m definitely gonna try and go heaps this summer, any Saturday that I’m free! Anyway, here are some nice piccies I took.

I’m hoping to go the beach again this Saturday… but the weather is forecasting rain! Grrr. 🙁

Current listening :: “Into You” – Fabolous Ft Tamia

Kitty update

Coltrane’s favourite position these days seems to be lying down, sprawled out on his side. He’s getting so big… with his cute furry gut. 🙂 One of his frequents is the kitchen floor, where he sprawls on his side, awaiting either a tummy rub or tidbits of food from the kitchen table. Another is my bed. Lazy cat…. I think the word is sloth. 🙂

Heh. I just recieved this email, forwarded from my boss:

“There will be a Haka performed at 15:00 this afternoon in the Ground Floor foyer. You are welcome to come along and enjoy the entertainment. All Blacks/NZ flags are available if you don’t have one.”

Cool! Think I’ll pop down and have a look. 🙂

[Update: 4:24pm]

Oh and almost forgot to add… I’m gonna be playing in the end of term concert with my jazz fusion class, at the Con – on Wed 26th Nov, 7pm (if u wanna come). Eek! I’m gonna be soloing too! Double eek! I’d better practice lots in the next 2 weeks! :\ We’ll be performing “Wisdom” by the Yellowjackets.

Current listening :: “I feel the earth move” – Mandy Moore

Hipster Bingo

Been wanting to post this image for a while. I found it on a friends blog… its a game you can play at gigs (much like the “asian count” game me and my friends used to play), called “Hipster Bingo”. Hehe. I found it funny. Click on the image for a larger view.

How to play: Print this out and take it to the next show you go to. When you get a bingo, scream “BINGO!” at the top of your lungs, then break a bunch of beer bottles on the floor and get thrown out.

It sucks being sick. At least its not a full-blown cold or anything. Just a bad sore throat, a bit of phlegm and a general feeling of tiredness. I’m attempting to quickly “cure” myself by flushing out all the toxins and germs with many litres of water, and am also drinking fresh squeezed juice of oranges, green apples, pineapple, strawberries, mint and ginger every morning. Hot honey lemon helps with the sore throat. And its yummy too. 🙂

I think I’m actually starting to feel better today. And this only hit me yesterday morning. See what a good nights sleep, lots of fresh fruit and water can do in a day.. 🙂

Current listening :: “First love” – Utada Hikaru

These are a few of my favourite things..

I know everyone has their favourite food, drink, colour, fragrance, movie etc etc. But I was just noticing my “favourites” (or preferences) when it comes to other, erm, stranger things. Like toilet cubicles. I always go to the same toilet cubicle at work. The first stall on the left. I guess I’d picked it early on as the best one to “go” in and have stuck by it ever since. I even go so far as to mutter a “doh” under my breath when its taken, and I have to go to the “second best” one (3rd from the left).


I’m sure there are other things too. Like the sink I wash my hands in afterwards. I always used the same one.. until it broke. There are other common things.. like the train carriage I get on in the morning, sitting upstairs or downstairs. Personally I’m a front carriage, downstairs girl. What about you?

Withdrawn

Anyway… I’ve been feeling a bit anti-social of late. I dunno, I just feel like… I’m happier when I’m by myself. Like I just want some alone time, which is actually quite unusual for me. Meh. And I have a sore throat. 🙁

I think I’ll watch a movie by myself tonight. I did ask a couple of girlfriends if they were interested, but they’re busy. I don’t mind. Its nice to just go see a movie when you feel like it, and not have to worry about organising it with other people. I’m gonna see the new Mandy Moore flick “How To Deal”. Yay! 🙂

Tonari No Totoro

Check out the new 2004 Studio Ghibli calendar! How funny is the Totoro drawing! 🙂

Oh, and I only just found out about the new animated totoro short, called “Mei and the Kittenbus“. Arghh!! A kittenbus!!! How cute is that!!

Current listening :: “Can we still be friends” – Mandy Moore (Pretty song :))

Fine dining

Last night Andrew and I went to Aqua Luna in East Circular Quay for a scrumptious dinner (armed with my entertainment card of course). Below is the view from our window side table. Nice.

The highlight for me would have to be the antipasti (entree) and dessert. Andrew and I shared the crab entree.. and it was absolutely divine (below left). Shelled and shredded fresh crab meat, in either parsley & basil or red peppers, to be spread across woodfired bread topped with an avocado mix. Yummmm…. And of course for dessert, I just had to try the famous Chocolate Nemesis (a rich, flourless chocolate cake – below right is what I couldn’t finish). After my first bite, I understood what they meant by “orgasmic”. *sigh*

Miscellaneous

Left: The sky looked really pretty on Sunday evening after church. I love dusk.
Right: My feet, post spa pedicure. 🙂 (Nail polish: OPI “I’m not really a waitress”.)

It sucks to wake up and remember.

Current listening :: “Can you keep a secret” – Utada Hikaru

Rock On

Its finally over. I can’t believe it. *sigh* The official Saltlight Productions “This Way Up” CD launch came and went (with nearly 500 people in attendance) on Saturday 8th November, 2003 at the Newtown Theatre.

What an experience it was. I’m still reeling from the vibe.. the excitement of it all. It was great! I’ll try not to do a blow-by-blow account of what happened on the day. In summary, I arrived pretty early at around 9:15am (though not as early as the poor tech guys who arrived at 8am, and worked non-stop the whole day to set the place up with professional sound and lighting). I then had my hair and makeup done in the city (the makeup with a free napoleon makeover voucher!) and headed back to the Newtown Theatre to setup, sound check and have our final rehearsal before the performance.



The night itself went by in a blur. I can’t believe how fast it went.. before I knew it, it was intermission. Then we were bumping out. Woah. I was pretty nervous beforehand, filled with all this pent-up nervous energy. I had to fight the urge to scream every few minutes to let it all out. 🙂

Some observations on my part, and things I learnt on the night:

• Sound and lighting is of utmost importance. Screw that up, and the performance is pretty much screwed. Our tech guys were awesome! They worked so so hard all day from 8am till midnight to set up, run the show and pack up. You guys rock!
• On a similar note, smoke machines are way cool. (Esp when combined with pretty lights.) Except when you’re onstage and enveloped in a cloud of smoke… breathing becomes a tad difficult.
• Five songs go by really fast.
• I almost tripped when first going onstage at the beginning of the show. Anyone notice?
• Playing with live brass (in the first song, “Nobody Else”) is great! Really makes a difference to the song!
• “Rearrange” rawked! 🙂 Tim made an impromptu call for all moshers to come forward, and all these youth (mostly from our youth group) came rushing forward screaming and jumping around. It was sooo funny! Me and Vron were in the stage wings cacking ourselves!! The only downer was the massive amounts of feedback coming from somewhere.
• My star moment – playing lead piano on the Ben-Folds-Like song “In Gods Eyes” went great! It was amazing… the best I’d ever played the song… it all just fell together for me. We were really tight as a band, and the incredibly hard syncapated rhythm was a breeze for me. Amazing.
• I had no idea my organ solo in “80 Years” was deafening everyone in a 100 metre radius of the speakers. Oops my bad!
• We had the sound mix and levels right by about the last song of the night. :\
• Even though I didn’t do any of the setup (other than my own keyboard and sound check/rehearsal), I was somehow really tired by the time of the performance, and afterwards, well, I was absolutely exhausted.. though exuberant too.
• Both Andrew and Tim mastered the “rock strut”. Haha. Tim even did the “crowd pleaser” (playing right up to the moshing crowd at the edge of the stage during his solo… what a rock god :P).

Check out the photos in the gallery of the performance and of people during the night (kindly taken by my bro, using our digital camera). Also, if you didn’t weren’t able to come, go here to download some bootlegs (heh) of the night. (Thanks Fuzzi!)

Current listening :: “Into you”- Fabolous Ft Tamia (damn I love this song.. just makes me wanna bump’n’grind (thats dancing btw)… And I finally found out who it’s by! Darn radio stations never introduce the songs..)

21 Hours

In only 21 hours time.. me, Andrew and a bunch of other musicians and singers will be onstage at the Newtown Theatre, playing/singing to the best of our ability to a crowd of about 400 odd people. *Scary!* Hope and pray that all goes well tomorrow at our official “This Way Up” cd launch. I can’t believe we’re finally here. Gee time flies.

I’ll be getting there at about 9ish hopefully to setup and do other errands, and soundcheck will be at around noon I think. We’ll have our final rehearsal from 3 – 5pm, then thats it.. show time at 8:30pm! Anyway, I’m off to sleep. Gonna be a big day tomorrow..

Amorous ram?

Heheh. Check it out.

Stuff

Today has been a pretty good day. Maybe coz the weather’s so nice – sunny, mid-20’s. Got myself thoroughly waxed (yes, overshare, I know :P), and am looking forward to a nice refreshing swim/spa/steam tonight with a girlfriend at the Lane Cove Aquatic. Should be great… I miss my regular-ish swims there. I mean, my workouts at the gym are going great… been keeping it up at 3 times a week! But today I feel like a swim… the variety is good!

Also booked myself in for a spa pedicure on Friday. I have the day off to rest, practice and do other stuff, so I might as well use it for some pampering. 😀 I’ve been meaning to try the spa pedicure for a while.

Oh, and I got my tax return back a few days ago…. hehehe. Big smile when I saw how much money I got back. 😀 Of course, it was then pointed out to me that the reason was probably coz I’d paid off my HECS debt, but didn’t actually tell my company I’d paid it off, so they continued to take money out of my salary for it. *sigh* Guess once I fix that, I’ll probably end up paying the ato money next year. 🙁

Current listening :: Coverage – Mandy Moore

Holiday

I soo wanna go on this trip. I’ve been wanting to learn to surf for a while now… as I’ve always enjoyed body boarding, since I was in primary school when my parents bought me a boogie board. I still have it now, and use it too.

I remember my dad taking me out in the waves, and holding the board for me, pushing me off as a wave came so I could catch it back to the beach. It was so much fun! I can’t remember when I learnt to do it by myself… but I was still pretty young. (And without fear too, if I remember correctly.)

*sigh* I wanna go to the beach! When is this darn weather gonna warm up? I remember it being warm enough for the beach in October last year!

I also really want to go here, here or here. (NB. They get progressively more luxurious and expensive.) *sigh* Any tropical island will do! I’ve been torturing myself with wallpapers of tropical beaches and islands from Webshots. Much like the below images… Aiyah.

Saltlight Launch

Only 4 days and counting till the “This Way Up” CD Launch! Eek! We had another rehearsal last night, which went quite well. I hope we’ll be good for the launch. We didn’t really get to go through the songs as much as I would have liked.. like my song (In Gods Eyes) we only did once! But I suppose we’ll be ok.. good enough for the average listener anyway. 😛 And we get another practice on Sat before the performance. I guess I should keep practicing during the week…

Current listening :: Coverage – Mandy Moore (Mandy’s new album.. woohoo!)