the weekend started on a good note with the excellent BJ class on fri nite...
on sat morn i received an sms from my colleague who lives 5min walk away from me... she is currently on maternity leave and wanted to come pass me some stuff to hand it to hr...i decided that i should pay her a visit instead so that i could see the little fella..
this is Ethan :) didnt managed to catch him awake..
after I left her place, had lunch with my family and den went to cityhall to meet missy beh...it has been terribly longggg since we went shopping! like doing some serious shopping.. not counting the online ones which i have been doin cos it's convenient and cheap...
as usual.. we ALWAYS get distracted by:
1) Lingerie 2) Swimwear 3) Beauty products
:p
while we were at suntec, I went to the photo studio called "picture ME" to collect my free solo photo fr dnd... the lady that attended to me...she had very poor customer service... and she looked like she was quite sick of her job... although i had to choose 1 out of 5.. it was tough... cos the photos aint very nice...
in the end i settled for this... the colours are more vibrant on the actual copy...
after the shopping session, i headed to our rec club for a deepavali event... the briyani was yummy :) one of my colleague, an aunty lent me her daughter's punjabi outfit... so nice~~ will post up photo soon.. so after the makan, we decided to head to the karaoke room.. been dying to sing... haven sang for quite some time.. and so we sang till abt 1plus... that explains why i m still awake now... cos as usual... waitin for hair to dry...
tmr another session of karaoke.. haha with evil twin and gang... postponed for a gazillion times already..
it has been a great weekend... like i told angie.. i jus need a few gd pals rather than a bunch of new, frivolous "frens"...
muz have gotten a tad bit emo cos of the stress at work.. but i m feeling really great now after the session of body jam earlier.. i jus love attending gym classes... my avenue for relieving stress :) dun worry peepz i m a tough nut... everything is fine~~
either i dun have confidence in me or i dun really have much confidence in men in general
i should be excited but yet i m sceptical... its like a struggle b/w the head and the heart all the time... mayb it comes with age? i din used to be such a procrastinator... it has sure gotten worse
perhaps the nature of my job of having to meet and get to know ppl just makes me wanna hibernate whenever i can now...
mayb i m jus tired of goin thru the whole cycle again... mayb i m jus afraid that there will be empty promises again....
anything can happen... even when it seems impossible
others say... this is totally ridiculous... honestly, i think it is indeed ridiculous... and mayb naive too
why m i in such a ridiculous situation den? jus when my life seem to be happy dandy...and hoping that i can jus enjoy this feeling a little longer or forever.. sth always happen out of the blue.... i m not ready to take on this kinda stuff right now....
after lotsa sweat, our social comm's event of the yr finally took place at Orchard Hotel last nite... although not many ppl came dressed up, our consolation? our Chief Executive was 'forced' by his wife to dress up! and as a bonus, he went round to scare ppl.. esp the directors! they all were shocked when they realised it was him... lol
the committee :) we put in lotsa work for our dance item.. haven seen the video yet but i m sure we did well!
my dance partner for the second yr in a row..hee~
thats our emcee edmund....rrrr
our performance for the PUB Got Talent competition.. although we didnt win i think we did an excellent job! but we are quite appalled by the judges aka the boss's definition of the word "talent" :P watever it is we had a great time performing on stage...
i cant embed videos here so u can check out the video on my facebook..
the rest are some random pics... i finally got a sense of how brides feel having to change a few outfits throughout the nite :P
i love this witchy pic!
there are still lotsa pics lurking ard somewhere in someone's camera... esp when the dance floor was open...
i jus cant stand it when some men drink, they get all touchy and start groping the gals *sweat* i spent quite abit of effort steering clear of their path... there were other scandalous stuff too... haha..thats a hush hush..
anyway...like my mum always say... u wanna see a guy's true colours? drown them in alcohol~~ ;)
The first time i met him, I was totally "electrocuted" HE is suave, charismatic, smooth, gentleman, a little quirky... but i bet tonnes of gals tat met him must have thot the same way too..hahaha...
a possibly unreachable target... but well at least there is a glimmer of hope for the single women out there.. now that i noe ppl like him (though i think a small %) still exist ... lol
this whole dnd performance thingy and everything else that comes with it is already stressing me out.. and den there are two ppl who totally irritated the hell out of me..
one is bimbo gal... btw she has nothing to do with bimbo club she had no contribution apart from turning up for dance prac and costume fitting.. we told her to try one set of the costumes to see if she is comfortable with wearing sth like that.. instead she "CHOPPED" the prettiest one in the lot... den later she kept complaining that the bottom of the skirt had a lobang.. and her heels kept getting trapped in it.... i asked her to show me her dance move and obviously she wasnt doin it right thats why her shoes got stuck....
anyway we told told her that we will be mending it... but she jus went on and on and on and i really cant stand when the guys kept echoing wat she says like hellllooooo i can understand english perfectly and i dun need to hear the same thing a gazillion times... plsssss...seriously i m not deaf... well she din turn up for dance prac yest and we couldnt alter the length and waist area of the skirt until tmr....
on another note... another team member of the inter dept perf decided to finally speak up today which is 3 days after our last dance prac session that he aint comfortable with one of the move throughout the whole practice session and i clearly remember when i suggested that move, i kept asking if he was comfortable doin it... he said it was okie.. didnt utter a word... and now 2days b4 the show he tells me that he cant do that part w/o giving any constructive suggestions to try and salvage ... i asked why didnt he bring it up last wk or even during the last prac where we tried to thrash things out? he cited that WE did not having many moves as reason... i dun deny that i dun have a whole library of moves to pick out and execute anytime.. but i told him that if he had sounded the alarm earlier, i would have gone to youtube or ask my frens for suggestions
for this yr's dnd, i will be involved in 2 performances..one is the committee performance and the other an inter dept talent contest..
i m quite excited and nervous at the same time.. esp for the committee performance cos it is more complicated than wat we did last yr...
on wed, we had our first lesson with the choreographer..and when she played the song for us to hear... our jaws dropped and faces turn pale... hahaha... the song was really fast and when she showed us the moves... omg... so much more complicated .. BUT by the end of the first lesson we almost got the whole routine right... the teacher was very pleased and surprised too.... we were quite surprised ourselves :)
the dance has a combination of flamenco and tango...paired with the costumes we got... great!
i kinda came up with the concept and choreographed the dept performance thingy... 4 of us involved...there is singing, dancing and acting... we have bling costumes too .. i think this performance will have quite a good visual effect...
this grp has quite good chemistry... i have confidence that we will put up a good show :) we started first rehearsal on tue and by thur everything seem to fell into place :D now we will jus need to refine the moves... i m hoping we can get into the top 3 position... hee~~
my dad was asking my mum to dig out all his olddd photos cos his company dnd committee wanted to play the 'guess who' game....and all the bosses had to submit their younger days photo....
back in the 60s my dad was already in skinny pants, black framed specs and skinny ties!! we are totally goin back to the 60s!
my dad was old SJI boy... i think those pretty gals in the photos muz have been that of the CHIJ gals! hahaha.. there was this photo he took with a classmate... they had somewhat like a moehog hairstyle can! so happening!
(picks out one photo) dad: you see last time my younger days i very handsome
me: ya
dad: really you see i very handsome
me: ya ya handsome
dad: really i m not lying
me: (-_-)lll i saw some of the pics of your frens oso quite handsome.. do u think they have handsome sons too? if have you let me noe ... :p
this is the pic.... this muz have been the neoprint back then...
as part of the dnd this yr, every dept is suppose to do a grp performance. Initially when my colleague approached me to join 2 other colleagues to form a grp to perform, i rejected her.... so i suggested another colleague R who i was told is a very very good guitarist... until i heard him play yest... not exactly captivating nor outstanding...
anyway, this R told my colleague that he needed someone to play the keyboard to back him up... and den she asked me again to join in cos if i dun play R doesnt wanna play which means we cant send in a grp bcos the criteria is min3 in a grp... so i thot okie i can TRY... i have neva played e keyboard in my entire life... i only played the piano.. (i made this disclaimer but they insisted that it's the SAME)
we decided to have the first practice last nite... and in prep for that i stayed up till 2am to look for the scores online and dug out the tracks so that we could listen to them during the trial rehearsal to see if our plan could work.. and i was already tired from tango that evening...
so last nite we tried out plan A which is to sing/play medley of songs from popular musicals like phantom, cats etc.. and that was the FIRST time i touched a keyboard and oso the FIRST time i m playing the score.. since i was young, my teachers already told me i can sight read pieces quite well.. this means that i can take a piece and play once through with the timing and tune more or less there... but this does not mean that i can play flawlessly at the first instance...
i started learning when i was 6 or 7 and stopped at grade3 but continued to play for my own leisure till today.. and i m no prodigy, maestro nor professional pianist... but still i can play many songs and they sound decent.
and there i had R and T (another colleague who decided to pop by and disrupt our practice) ... i tried to practice on the keyboard... but i had trouble getting used to it cos the keys are plastic and light... when i hit it hard to get a good accent it doesnt have the effect compared to the piano... and i m a slow learner whether in dance or watever... worse thing i had to stand and play... so my arms were in an awkward angle that i was totally not used to...
i tried my best nonetheless to sight read the pieces.. and for the first time in my entire 25 yrs on this earth.. the 2 guys MOCKED at me and said i should use FEELING and not look at the score... excuse me... this is the first time i m looking at the score... i m no prodigy who can listen to mp3 once and play out the whole music at the first instance... how to play if i dun look at the DAMN score...
den they tried to teach me by pointing out that i m hitting the wrong chords... fingers on the wrong key.. when they did not even take proper lessons to learn how to play the piano.. i have been reading scores in treble and bass clef for the last 20yrs.. i can well read my notes correctly and i know which keys are wat on the piano
they insisted i follow their timing which ended up with 6beats in a 4 beat bar... (-_-)lll and one of them even exclaimed that he doesnt noe what the diff notes mean... essentially diff notes denote diff beats... in that case dun teach me abt timing and rhythm... you cant always play by FEEL... sure, after getting the basic music right... you can improvise and inject more feel and stuff into it... but thats when u are familiar with the song already....they just kept LAUGHING at me like i m so stiff and trembling while playing the keyboard... stiff mayb cos i couldnt really switch to a diff playing style .. but for sure i wasnt trembling.... they just took me as a big joke...
that wasnt the end... they wanted me to transpose the key fr C major to G major (on the spot, immediately) and play that cos it is a more comfortable key for my colleague to sing.. sure but i m NOT a transposing soft-ware... so i tried... managed to identify a few chords for them... but they kept insisting that i was wrong... i was really pissed already... i sang out the note, hit it on the piano, they still couldnt get it on the guitar.. so much so for them thinking they were brilliant... oh and btw they were not really familiar with the repertoire of songs... and they wanted to advise me on the tune...how ironic...
and by the way... i used to play the french horn for 6yrs while in sch... that is the most diff instrument to play bcos you need to have good hearing and pitching.. in the past we had to be auditioned to see if we could play the french horn... not trying to brag here but i m very sure that the aural aspect i m def much better than them..
i am VERY upset over this whole thing... fine if you want to call me petty... but i dun think anyone will like being mocked and laughed at esp when it is those that were mocking and laughing who are the REAL donkeys.. it is extremely frustrating when ppl who are not better than you correcting you for a mistake you NEVER made...
anyway, i know i will not be able to get used to the keyboard in 2-3practices....so i suggested that we could use a plan B.. again i stayed up till 2am to come up with another concept.. which i now think i should not have done... i should have jus told them "sorry i m backing out... too bad, find someone else" ...
i saw R's email response to my new concept ... he said "u muz be joking, we are halfway there already" TWIT.. we only had a trial last nite to determine if plan A would work .. how can we be HALFWAY there?????????? and den he insisted tt we should borrow 2 colleagues who are not in the corp dept to play with us.... although he doesnt spell it out ... i could tell that he wanted to play band style... and even if the competition allows... i jus feel there is no meaning if you get ppl from outside the dept... in his email... he said that he, T and another colleague will FIGURE OUT the songs and sort out the arrangement and i jus play like how i played last nite (WHICH WAS TOTAL CRAP.... I HAVE NEVER HEARD MYSELF PLAY SO BADLY IN MY ENTIRE LIFE) i said umpteen times that the keyboard DOES NOT work for me... he still insisted... i dun wanna go up the stage and make a fool of myself... to make sure that the keyboard really doesnt work for me... i went home and played the whole repertoire on my piano..i sounded fine
unfortunately my other colleagues in the grp will have to decided if they want to go with plan A or B... if stick to A i will back out... if B... R will back out... honestly at this point i dun mind dropping out... why should i bother? why should i compromise?
Mr R doesnt noe who he is dealing with ... i dun wish to show my nastiness unnecessarily....
11:23PM - PATCHWORK & QUILTING PROJECT 1... IN PROGRESS
spent the whole wk trying to finish up these 4 circles for tmr's class... why it took alot of time is bcos i had to trace and cut out all the pieces and den hand sew... no cheating... cannot use sewing machine :p
tmr the teacher is gonna teach us the next step of putting them together... i chose to make a clutch/handbag..while some of my classmates wanted to make pillow case, coin purse etc... but in view of the timeline..i felt that the pillow case is too big of a project and will take too much time.. on the other hand, the coin purse too small to learn much... so i decided that a small baggie should be somewhere in b/w
the teacher will also intro us to our 2nd project tmr... we are expected to finish 4 projects in 8 lessons... so alot of homework to be done! but i get a great sense of satisfaction when i start seeing the stuff slowly being pieced together
had a dept retreat 2 days ago at macritchie... though it was called a retreat... it was not exactly err fun... but sitting in a few grp discussions and sat thru quite a few unexpected presentations
okie thats besides the point... what i really wanna say here is i have a very nice colleague who i worked with to so called plan this retreat... he offered to give me a lift to macritchie tt morn so that we can go early to do set up as all the stuff were in his car... also bcos he usually drops his maid off at his mother in law's place which is near my place
so he told me to wait at the roadside 8.10am... knowing that ppl dun usually come on time... i went out at 8.20am... den he buzzed me and told me to walk to the bus stop.... so i walked to the bus stop.... and before i reached he buzzed me again and asked where i was... den i said i was approaching the bus stop den he say oh it is the other bus stop (-_-)" so i ran like 200m to the bus stop.... when i got into the car... i saw the wife and i was like "oh no" cos the wife works in tampines...
den he said... "i m sending my wife to work and den pick up katty (our colleague)" OMG lah!!!! so i went from yck to tampines den up the PIE to paya lebar / kallang... blah blah before goin to toa payoh/braddell/thomson area and to the reservoir...
honestly he really should have sent his wife from his home in punggol via the tpe to tampines and den come down to yck to drop the maid off and pick me up and den to macritchie.. this is a more logical route... seriously he should have jus told me all these when he offered to gimme a ride... i would have gone to macritchie on my own in a cab and reach in abt 10-15min.. instead of goin round the east for 45mins ....
i really appreciate the offer to gimme a lift... ermm but i really dun like surprises
i think these days my patience level seem to have dropped quite a bit... this morn my colleague totally irked me in a meeting by asking qns abt things that we jus mentioned... obviously he wasnt listening its like the moment we finished talking abt it... he asks... arghh...it reached a point... i turn and told him... 你真的是慢五拍。
not surprising, i was the youngest student in class... i think the only under 30... there were 4 new students including me and the rest were regulars..... some of the regulars brought their past works to show us.... goodness they were totally awesome! at least i m quite sure that when i retire i can do all these craft work to keep myself occupied...
there is no limit to the things that u can create with patchwork.. and this is prob the only time when u can put all sorta cloth with diff design, pattern, colours together and they actually look gd.. this is one of its unique characteristics... and btw ppl, all hand sewn okie... not zoom with the sewing machine...
we had to buy this special ruler and it cost me a good $27.. this is prob the most expensive ruler that i have bought in my entire life..... but okie lah i m sure i will use it for a long time... it is a special ruler with parallel lines and other things... bought thread and needles and cloth from the teacher too... save me the hassle of goin to look for all the stuff..
we will be learning to make 4 diff items during this 8-wk course the first item i have decided to make is a clutch... selected 2 diff cloth one floral and the other pastel green.. wanna do sth more vintage, old english... hee...so look out for it in the next few wks :)
i cant stand ppl who think they have contributed jus by replying to an email stating the obvious and not attempting to offer any constructive suggestions...
numb
excited
infuriated
irritated