My Blue Heaven

I miss music

I’ve been going through some archive recordings of gigs I’ve performed in the past. Such as the Saltlight “This Way Up” album launch, my performance at Ernie’s wedding, jazz concerts at the Conservatorium. Listening to these performances (cringing occasionally :P) really brings back strong memories. And it makes me realise something. I really, REALLY miss playing the piano. I miss being involved in creating and performing music. I miss having music as a part of my life. It’s been in my life since I was 6 years old. And for the last 8/9 months, I haven’t been able to play at all because I don’t have access to a piano. I also miss singing. I just miss music – making music.

It’s hard to describe what I feel as I listen to those old performances. The things I remember… like the few minutes before the Saltlight Launch.. I vividly remember standing at the window, trying to breathe in the cool night air.. because I was so nervous that I was shaking. Then walking up the stairs onto the stage with the band to massive cheering. That was a pretty cool moment – the audience was so supportive.. the atmosphere of that night was awesome. 🙂

I want to experience things like that again. I want to perform again. To play again. To jam again. To get in that “zone” with my band mates. To almost be able to read each others minds because we knew each others playing styles so well. *sigh* Ok I’m starting to get all soppy and emotional now.

Anyway. I think I’ll sign up to the next piano course at CityLit. I missed the last one, Jazz Piano 1 coz it filled up. There is a Latin Piano course however starting late april. That does sound very appealing. I’ve never done much latin/afro-cuban style piano playing before – it sounds really cool because the rhythm is so syncapated and complex. I’d love to be able to play like that.. esp since syncpated rhythm is one of my weaker points. So… maybe I’ll be able to keep up some form of playing… even if I don’t have a piano at home to practice. At least I’ll be playing once a week.

For those who would like to share my trip down memory lane. Audio downloads here, here and here (don’t worry the exe files aren’t viruses – they’re just some wierd format of music playback – from one of those small portable recorders). Visuals are here and here.

And now to the weather. Hehe. It was snowing this morning!! Hee! Rather mesmerising to watch snowflakes gently drift down around you whilst walking to the station. But now its turned into a fairly miserable drizzle/rain. Hopefully it’ll be cold enough for snow again tonight. 🙂 Pilates last night was great… the class was just what I needed. Challenging, but I felt energised and refreshed afterwards. Its also at an LA Fitness closer to work, conveniently on my route home. Methinks wed night is gonna become pilates night!

Current listening :: “In Gods Eyes (live)” – Veronica Abednego (With me on piano.. 😛 man that song pushed my playing abilities!! Talk about sore hands.. Hehehe..)

Frrrreezing today

Weather has turned horrible again. Last week, we saw a glimmer of hope… a glimpse of spring. But alas.. it turned bitterly cold again over the weekend. Cold, windy. rainy, grey. Top temp today was 4 degrees. Gotta love London.

So anyways. My saturday shopping expedition turned into one looong hair cut and colour. My hairdresser was running 45 mins late to start, and then the colour and cut took about 3 hours! Mostly the colour. I ended up getting bold red highlights, but underneath the hair so it shows through the ends and in patches around the side. The rest of the hair was dyed black to bring out the contrast and cover up old highlights. Here’s a piccy of the finished result at the hair salon (check out the stylish white decor).

After that we had to rush off to meet some friends for dinner and movie. We watched Aeon Flux, which I thought was pretty cool. Very sci-fi/futuristic.. but without the spaceships.

Well, just a quick update coz I gotta rush off to the gym now. Am booked in for a pilates class! 🙂 I’ll leave you with a piccy of this gorgeous cat at a friends place.

Current listening :: “Girl fight” – Brooke Valentine

TGI Friday!

Another week gone by.. and it’s Friday again. Yay! It’s kinda sad but I am starting to develop a deeper understanding of the “live for the weekend” philosophy of today’s workers. It’s not like I have weekends of boozing and partying. Not at all! It’s just that the working week kinda sucks. It really is a cycle of “Get Up – Work – Go Home – Sleep”. With little time for anything else, other than food. Maybe I might be able to squeeze in a session at the gym.. at the price of a late dinner at 11pm and even later bedtime. Which makes me reluctant to go more than once during a week night. Meh. It’s all because I live so far from work. Travelling for 3 hours a day to work REALLY sucks.

Ok enough whinging!! I’m happy it’s the weekend (in 5 hours!) I already have a few enjoyable things planned. Am going to hiphop class tonight at DanceWorks again. Woohoo! Been looking forward to this the whole week! Then tomorrow I’m booked in for a haircut and colour at my favourite salon – Sanrizz in Covent Garden. Kwai and myself are doing a dual-haircut session again. Hee. Both with our favourite hair stylist, Harumi. I’m gonna go for something a little more interesting with colour this time. I’m sick of always getting the same old half head highlights/streaks. Wanna do something a little bolder and more interesting. And methinks it’ll include some brilliant shade of red. 😀

After the hair salon, we’re meeting up with 2 friends (married couple living up in Hartfordshire) who are coming down to hang out with us in central london. And guess what – we’re gonna go shopping on Oxford Street. 🙂 Yay! I get to shop at my favourite stores – Mango, Zara and Morgan De Toi. 😀 Ok its gonna be a slightly expensive weekend, but I’ve been really good for a while now. Not eaten out at all etc. Will have to budget carefully with the shopping. I have the potential to go wild in those stores!! But I’m not gonna do another Brussels!

Hopefully that night we’ll be going to watch Aeon Flux, which just came out today. I like Charlize Theron. 🙂 Sunday will be KC Actors Studio as usual, and St Helens at night.

Anyway, it’s definitely time for lunch. My tummy is rumbling!

Current listening :: “We belong together” – Mariah Carey (love this song!)

Steppin’ it up

Now that I’m no longer sick (yay!), I’ve started getting my fitness and dancing regime back on track. Finally!! I worked out that I’ve been sick for about 3 & 1/2 weeks over the past month… thats most of January! Two separate colds, but equally annoying. It was driving me nuts.. and I was going into some serious dance class withdrawal. I wanted to dance so bad I would start busting mini-moves whilst walking home listening to my ipod. R&B/hiphop seems to have a dangerous effect on me these days – my mind just keeps thinking up dance moves/routines whenever I listen to it.. nothing concrete enough for actual choreography though. The moves are too vague. I’m no choreographer.. not creative enough.

Big news! I have FINALLY found a good hiphop class!!! Yay!!!! I discovered Danceworks on the net a while back, but only just got around to trying it out. I went to the intermediate Xpress Yo’self class on Friday night. It was very cool. Much less funk and closer to the real hiphop style I learnt back in Sydney. Woohoo! Danceworks seems to have a few fairly advanced hiphop classes. Gonna definitely try em out. Though the label “Pro” is a bit intimidating… might do a few more intermediate classes and work on my strength and fitness a bit more first. I nearly did my ankle in at the class on Friday coz my muscles were giving out. Compensation in the wrong place is a dangerous thing.

Anyways, I’m also back at it at the gym. Kicked off last Thurs with a really good workout session with Kwai. Man my arms were soooo sore over the weekend… not to mention my back and abs and legs. It feels good though. Being active again. Makes such a difference to my mood, energy and overall well-being. I don’t feel the need to eat as much either. Am going to the gym again tonight. I think I’ve sufficiently recovered enough to go at it again. 🙂

French women don’t get fat (its true!)

Speaking of food, I’ve been reading this book called “French Women Don’t Get Fat” by Mireille Guiliano. I guess some people might call it a diet book, but its not really. Quite an interesting read… more about the french way of life.. in particular their attitude towards food.. and their differences from our unhealthy Western (particularly american) attitudes and practices. More importantly it contains many secret french tips and tricks for cooking and enjoying mouth-wateringly delicious food (yes even chocolate and bread) in a way that is guilt-free and doesn’t make you fat. It answers that elusive question – why don’t french women get fat? (During my trips to France and Belgium, I did often wonder about that!) It contains heaps of really scrumptious and creative french recipes. I won’t spoil the whole book, but part of the secret is quality over quantity. Quality (and seasonal) ingrediants, more taste and variety… eating less yet enjoying more. Smaller portions but much greater variety. Actually sitting down and eating slowly, paying attention to the food.. savouring each bite, not scoffing food “on the run”. And more of the important things like fresh fruit. I’ve already tried the Grandma Louise Oatmeal with grated apple breakfast. Perfect for winter mornings. Yummy.. and healthy! 🙂

Current listening :: “We belong together” – Mariah Carey (I rather like the latest Mariah album!)

Lappie gone sickie

My laptop decided to get all huffy with me and not boot up. It all started when Kwai was trying to hook my lappie to the tv to play movies. Well he accidently set the nvidia display settings for my laptop screen to pal secam (instead of the tv), and contrast went all funny. So I was trying to fix it back, when nvidia display properties decided to crash, and I couldn’t access it thereafter (nvcpl.dll would crash upon load). So we uninstalled nvidia drivers, and then reinstalled, and Lo and Behold, my laptop wouldn’t boot up windows xp. Not even in Safe mode. Grrr. (It would always crash on the same line – the one with agp440.sys). So I can’t even get into windows to rollback the drivers. Grrr. Well, not all is lost. That night we met up with Kwai’s friend for dinner, who happens to be a systems engineer, who deals with laptops a lot, particularly Toshiba ones. We gave it to him to take into work, where he can back up all data safely and reinstall win xp (can you believe the Toshiba backup CD that came with my laptop has Windows 98 on it and not win xp!!!!) He’s also gonna install a few extra useful programs I didn’t have before (like office 2003, adobe cs2, nero 6 premium, McAfee that doesn’t expire)… Sweeeet! So now I have only to await my precious lappie’s return.

Updates

So, what else is new. Well last weekend I watched Walk The Line. Not bad, I quite enjoyed it. I always liked Reese Witherspoon. And I was impressed that they both actually sang the songs. Its quite similar to Ray, but more country/rock’n’roll.

And on Sunday, KC Actors Studio officially opened for its first class. The turnout wasn’t too bad. Beginners had a few no-shows, with only 7 people in the class. But intermediate had a good number of people. I think about 12/13? Everyone seemed to really enjoy the class. I actually did the beginner class – on Voice Technique with a rather eccentric, but very good, teacher. Reminded me a bit of singing lessons actually, the whole breathing part, but was more in depth. The general feedback seemed quite positive – people liked the laidback, non-stuffy atmosphere of the school. A few of the intermediate students and the school staff (Kwai, his friend Matt, another girl and myself) went out for a drink afterwards at the nearby pub. Was interesting hanging out with actors. One of them was quite experienced and had done quite a bit of work already. He’d even gone to Patrick Stewart’s birthday do. Hehe.

Well. Other than that, been recovering ever so slowly from my cold. Its taken me a full week and a half, but I think I’m finally getting better. I even went to the gym last night! Had a great workout, and even though I was tired, I pushed myself to do 25 mins on the x-trainer (1.85 kms, 265cal) plus loads of weight training, concentrating on my arms (thanks to a personal training session from Kwai – who is actually a personal trainer too). He’s gonna be helping me get back into shape. I think I need someone to push me in weights training. I’m not really used to doing much, I’ve never even used all those machines before!

Tonight we’re going to his friend’s place for dinner. They own two young cats!!! Argh! I can’t wait. I get to play with kittys again. Yay! 🙂 And only 1 month till I come back! Wow. Its so soon! Counting the weeks..

Current listening :: “Crazy” – Britney Spears