and i u n f o l d

Randomness.

- I was at the Bu.gis library recently and I had some time to kill so I ventured over to their section on Poli Sci. Browsed thru some of the titles and read a little. I got engrossed in it and geekily enough, I was happy to read that stuff. I dunno… I guess I had forgotten how much I enjoy Poli Sci. I find it endlessly interesting. And so I made a promise to myself that I will start to borrow and read Poli Sci books. That way, my brain cells won’t rot, I keep on learning… and if I ever wanna go to grad school, all that insight would be a great help. Plus, it’ll be fun. :)

- I was stopped by 2 girls outside Whee.lock and they were doing a school project and asked if they could take photos. I was like, HUH?. I just picked up Jason!pod and was rushing to O.Sc.hool for dance and wasn’t exactly looking glam. Haha. But they wanted people who were dressed “sporty” and somehow I fit. So they took a pic of me (with a paper plate with a ? on it over my face to protect my identity, lol!) and took photos of what I was wearing. I was asked a few questions about my style and fashion and what-not. Despite my usual eloquence (wahahah!), that incident took me by surprise so all my answers were kinda blah (on hindsight). I did however find a kindred spirit: the girl who “interviewed” me concurred when I answered “leggings” as the fashion trend I wish would just go away and DIE. Haha.

- I want to re-read the HP series. I just need to find my books.

- Totally in love in How.Do.I.Breathe by Mario and Make.It.Work by Ne-Yo. Repeat mode, baby.

- I want a new phone. Mainly because not being able to SMS sucks.

- I need to buy a bag in camel/coffee/light brown. I had ordered a motorcycle bag in that color but the spree screwed up on the supplier side, so no bag. Booooo. I was looking forward to it too.

- I need 2x more closet space. Too many clothes hanging outside my closet. *facepalm*

- I want to go clubbing. Need. To. DANCEEEEEE.

- I miss TbB.

- Vaguely thinking of what to do for my birthday. Hmmm. Should I even do anything?

- PMS PMS PMS. Why don’t that time of month come already and then be over and done with?!? Hmmmmph.

- Need to sleep, else I’ll be a total grouch tomorrow.

GOOD NEWS! I have my replacement i.Pod!!!! Woooooo!!! So so happy. He’s so brand spanking’ new that it almost makes me forget about all the music I have to replace.

So here’s my plea: You have an idea of the kind of the music I like. Pop, R&B, hip-hop, sappy songs, etc etc. You have an idea of the artists I like and who I listen to. If you’d like to help a poor girl out, help me rebuild my music library! Live tracks, b-sides, unreleased tracks are most especially wanted. If you wanna share, please upload to you.send.it or mediafire.com . I will love you forever. :)

My new i.Pod has been named Jason!pod. ‘Cos he’s a reincarnation of JD!pod and Jason is JD’s first name and also ‘cos there are other Jasons I like (ie Mraz and Dohring). Heh. Hopefully Jason!pod will live a long, healthy life.

Dance this week was brutal. Especially’s Ryan’s LHH. Aaaaah, we learnt only 2 eights but IT WAS SO DIFFICULT. I barely got the choreography down and it looked crappy (not the choreo, but my execution). Ryan would do it and I’m like OHHHHHHHH and it’s so TA-DA!; but when I do it, it’s SHIT. Aaaargh. Frustration, frustration. LHH is a big challenge for me. My body just doesn’t move in that way comfortably! Damnit. I will get there, I will get there. I realized that I have to eat before class, else I just don’t have the energy to get through an hour of intensity. I also realized that despite the torture that is his warm-up, I quite like it. It helps a lot and it’s nice to see that I’m less inflexible. Heh. (Jen, once again, you missed out on the S.oul boys! Heh.)

LAHH on Wednesday wasn’t any better. I was a bit of a zombie (cos I didn’t have dinner). Really fast choreography… and I had a couple of brain freezes. GAH. And starting August, it’s gonna be LAHH II. AAAAAAAAH. And it’s gonna be back to back with LHH on Thursdays. Geeez. I suppose I will gladly die of exhaustion for those 2 classes. I need to go back to Pat’s class for a bit to get my confidence back. LOL!

End of the month. Pay day (yay!). BBQ tomorrow night with my colleagues, should be fun. Looking forward to gorging on BBQ food. Haha! Inching closer and closer to my posting to a position that’s hopefully not so crappy. Weekend soon. Going on leave soon (hell yeah!!!). Turning 24 soon… yikes.

Off day tomorrow, woot woot!

Still alive but I’ve just been in a weird funk of a mood so I didn’t feel like writing anything. I would’ve word-vomitted all the shittiness I was feeling cos of work and I was sick of whining. Not that keeping it in is any better but it felt like beating a dead and broken horse, y’know? So I just turn off all my thoughts on that. Yes, I hate it still. The end, is hopefully and thankfully near. I’ve endured 5 months.

What else have I been up to? Mainly meeting up with friends or just relaxing at home. I met the RJ peeps on Friday after a LONG time and it was damn nice to see them again. Laughed a lot about stupid things and it’s good to see everyone’s doing all right for themselves. Hung out with the posse a couple times; I missed the Minds gathering (Sorry Juls! But I had promised to meet my JC friends. I hope it was a good celebration; HAPPY BIRTHDAY!) but we went to the OoTP when it came out which was fun. I went to support Val at her pageant (2nd runner-up and Miss Body Beautiful!) which was interesting. Tons of bitching and snide comments about other people, hahaha. Of course, I’ve been to dance class to help keep my sanity; though I was so tired at last week’s LA hiphop, that I wonder how I got through it and managed to catch the choreography… auto-pilot or something like that.

News on JD!pod: RIP baby. When I went to the App.le service center to get checked out, he was proclaimed dead. Luckily, I had the foresight to buy Apple-care, which extends their warranty for another year. So, they’re replacing JD!pod with a new one. I’m sad sad sad to lose JD!pod and especially all my music, but I’m relieved that I’ll get a replacement. Phew.

But, my phone has fuckin’ rebelled on me. For some reason, it hangs whenever I try to compose an SMS. So, if you message me, I can’t answer. BUMMMERRRRRR. So, call me if it’s important. I gotta wait til my fuckin’ contract ends in Nov before buying a new phone and switching to the cheaper corporate plan. BLAAAAAAH.

I bought and read the last (sob!) HP book. Hmmm. Am gonna write something about it soon. I’m hoping to reread the whole series soon. :)

Sorta planning a trip of BKK. Weekend before N.DP. Hmmm. Mom backed out cos family from the Phils is coming over and I dunno if Hani still wants to go. If anyone wants to, HOLLLAAAAA. I took leave to get away from crappy!work so hopefully I’ll do something other than bumming my days away. Haha.

Also, SYTY.CD3 = LOVE.

I really really don’t like going work. I feel my soul and life force slowly ebbing away every time I’m there. Yeah, I’m back to the slump, that low-point where I feel sick and completely unmotivated to do anything productive at work. I just sit there and wait for time to pass. I would feel guilty about being paid to slack my time away BUT DAMNIT IT’S THEIR OWN FUCKIN’ FAULT FOR PUTTING US IN A GOD-FORSAKEN POSITION. BLOODYMOTHERFUCKIN’HELLLLLLLLLL.

(I need a break. A long one.)

G.in’s class this week is cancelled. I is sad. Won’t be able to dance her class until 2 weeks’ time which is the next time I’m free to go.

JD!pod is terminally ill. Going to check tomorrow if he can be healed. Sigh. If not, I dunno. Maybe me and i.pods don’t mix somehow, despite my love for them. This is the 2nd pod to die on me. If JD!pod goes, I dunno if I’ll replace him. But how can I live without my music? (Ya, after I rebuild my music collection, that is.) I need an mp3 player.

I’ve been feeling a little… sad? I dunno how to describe it really. Maybe not so much sadness as a lack of satisfaction about the things going on in my life (or lack thereof… yeah, I think it’s the lack thereof.) Makes me grouchy and non-social and hermit-like. Some times I feel like crying but I dunno what reasons I have for the tears. Is my life that bad? In the grand scheme of things: no. But I still feel like crying or screaming or kicking something or breaking something just to see it crack into tiny pieces. I don’t wanna clean up the mess though.

One year after graduation… and this isn’t quite where I thought I would be. That’s a sobering thought.

(To keep my mind off the tragedy of JD!pod, I must think of something else. Insert happy dance thoughts.)

Fo’real y’alls, O.Sch.ool is my new favourite place.

Jen and I went for the LA.hip-hop class today. IT IS SO TEH SHIZNITTTT! It would be cruel and unjust torture to make me choose my fave between lyrical and LA… but I have to say that I love the vibe of LA.hip-hop. I love Gi.n’s choreography. Very intricate. Hard as hell to learn and get right, but so so nice that it’s worth the effort. Cos when you do get it right, it’s like WOAH.

The choreo was to Ch.ris Bro.wn’s new song, which I had first heard of from Firah since she posted the music video on her blog. Kick-ass song; I admit that his songs are my guilty pleasures. I still rock out to Run It cos I love the beats. Haha! Anyway, this new song is equally catchy and damn damn nice to dance to.

As usual, no counts; we learn by the beats. Challenge! Major challenge! I get distracted by the different things going on in the song plus the moves are so detailed and have to be hit on certain beats, so my brain and muscles were fried. Haha. I know there were a few places I was off (too fast, probably) and a certain combo that I always messed up cos it’s so quick. Haaaa. Frustrated but in a good day. The only one “perfect” time coincided with the routine being video-d; probably ‘cos I told myself that I better damn well get it perfect! LOL. But my version of “perfect” is probably not really perfect. But at least I hit most of the choreography, esp that combo that eluded me. Hahaha. We’ll see when the clip’s up.

Class is hard, because you learn the moves and then just like that, you gotta somehow make it work. And for styles like lyrical and LA, a lot is dependent on you being able to hear the beats. Some times, it’s easier and more obvious. But it can be hard to catch when to hit during which beat. Drives me nuts. I find that it’s times like these, hours after class, when I can listen to the song really loudly and obsessively run thru it on my own that I understand how to fit the choreo to the beats and hit everything correctly. Heh. Belated understanding. But you learn from it.

I love her choreography cos it’s so groovy and has that ghetto feel that I like in my hip-hop. It has attitude. It has spunk. And it fits the specific song so well and it flowsssss. You can’t just half-ass the moves; you really have to dance it and inject your own feel into it. I learn moves and combos that are still foreign to me so I’m constantly on my toes to get it right. Gotta adapt to moving my body is new ways. And, of course, the feel and style that’s so connected with the choreography is a whole another ballgame.

Love love loveeee it.

So, yes. I’m gonna be a regular at those two classes. Fo’sureeeee. :D

EDIT: The clip is uppppp! It’s here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nj3FbTKByA . And quel surprise! I can actually watch myself without cringing. Haha. I didn’t do too badly; okay, fine, I confess I actually like myself in that clip. Haha! What a novel feeling. It’s not perfect but at least it’s not terrible. :P And yes, the video is the one time I got it all right. LOL! The combo that eluded me was the one at around 28secs. Heh.

Went for G.in’s LA.hip-hop class today. Want to rave about it… but right now I’m worried about JD!pod. He gave me the sad!face!icon which is SO NOT GOOD. Tried some troubleshooting but no response. Sigh. The upside is that JD!pod is still insured under Apple.care so hopefully I can get him repaired (for free or at least, cheaply enough). Thank god I bought Apple.care. The downside is that I have no backup of my music at all. Almost 20GB of music, plus my quirky playlists. I’ll be sad to lose my dance mixes from past performances, random live tracks from my fave artists and stuff like B-sides or live tracks that are not easily replaced. Gah. Le sighhhhh. :(

At this point, I just hope that JD!pod can revived. If he can be, then I’ll be so relieved. If all is lost, then I gotta say goodbye to JD!pod. Sobbbbb. (NOOOOOOOOO!)

OKAY FRIENDS, IMPORTANT NEWS: we must go hang out and play board games at M.ind.Caf.e one of these days. Heh heh.

I was out with my aunt today and while talking to my uncle who works at Mi.nd.Ca.fe, it came out that TbB has been there a few times! I went, “OMG, ARE YOU FUCKIN’ SERIOUS?!?!” (exact words, ahahaha!). And he was like, yes. And talked about how all the staff was chickenshit but he ended up asking something, “You look familiar, are you TbB?” and it really was him. LOL. Apparently he was all scruffy and casual and wearing a cap. And he played Boggle. (Love!) I was just sort of flabbergasted (psyched that at least I now know one place that he goes to). He said that celebrity-types tend to come on weekday late-nights when the cafe is less crowded. Hehe.

My uncle doesn’t work at that branch of the cafe anymore so he hasn’t seen TbB recently and I was like, “Damn next time you see him, you gotta call me and I’ll come!”. And then my mom teased me about how I’d pretend and be all like, “Ohhh, what a surprise to see you here!” if I saw him. Ahahahaha. And my aunt gave me grief for liking him. My uncle was like, ‘You’re out of his league”, which made me do a double take, but he meant it in a you-can-do-better-than-him kinda way. Hahah.

And my little couz, Ryan, is seriously FREAKING ADORABLE. Have I mentioned that he likes to dance? It’s so cute. My mom video-ed it down one time and I gotta post it up here. I keep telling my aunt to get him to dance class once he’s old enough. Hee hee.

I passed my exam on Friday. Yay yay! Taken 3, passed in my first attempt. 3 more to go! Got one this Wed so I gotta start studying. After the exam, I did a lot of walking to run some errands… which was a major mistake cos I was wearing Aldo heels. Ouchie. The balls of my feet still somehow ache. Blaaah.

I got my hair done on Friday. On a whim, sorta. Cos I walked by the hair salon on my way home and it turned out the hairstylist was free so she could do my hair. Got a trim and color and highlight. I wasn’t sure what color to take so upon her advice, my hair is now reddish-brown with brown highlights. According to her, once the red fades (which it quickly will), the color and highlight will be what I want. Heh. I also talked to her about what my next hairstyle should be and I mentioned wanting a bob or something like Cam Dia.z’s hair… and she thought that it would suit me. Except that it’s the trend now and I also have wait for my hair to grow out so that I can get rid of the really damaged bits so that when I straighten and cut in that style, it’ll work perfectly. So yeah, I’m definitely considering it. In the meanwhile, I’m liking the trim which makes my hair feel less heavy and I’m getting used to a darker-haired me. LOL.

Can’t believe it’s already July! The year is passing me by…. so many things I still want/need to do!

I really can’t watch myself dance. It makes me balk. Bleurgh.

Val, Jen and I went for LHH (lyrical.hip.hop) on Thursday but since Ry.an is away, G.in was teaching instead. The class was small for a change so that was kinda nice. Learning the choreo was erm… interesting. Took me a while to get it and since I was standing directly behind G.in, it was like extra stressful or something. Haha.

My (hopefully achieveable some time soon) aim: to be able to dance like G.in. She’s a tiny thing but she packs a punch. And out of all the female dancers here, I love her vibe most. I watched her dance the choreography and was like, damn how can I make it look like that?

Anyway, the interesting thing is: videos! She video-d the whole class doing the choreo and after the class was over, a few people stayed back and got her to dance it with them. When else can you get a chance to say “Oh yeah, I danced with G.in!” so us three got in the action too. Hahaha.

It’s kinda funny (in a depressing way, haha) to see that vid. And to a) see myself dance that style and; b) see how I compare with G.in (answer: not too favourably). Aaaargh. I can name at least 5 things I can do better and I’ve spent too much time watching how she does it and how I can emulate it. Frustrating! I mean, in my less-critical frame of mind, I know I’m not absolutely terrible at it… I just want to be so much better at it than I am now. I wish I had the time to go for that class every week but damn my friggin’ work schedule. Damn damn damn.

I’m also trying to figure out other ways in which I can build a stronger sense of groove and style that would fit the lyrical and LA and softer type of hip-hop. And there are moves that tend to come up often like the gliding and the waving and the pushing-with-tension move that I can’t (yet) do nicely that I want to be able to do well. I don’t have that vibe yet. Because even when I think I’m being a little more loose and groovy, it seems like it’s not enough… and that a level of tension and stiffness is still evident in my dancing. I need to eliminate that. I need to be more fluid. I’m thinking: maybe stand in front of a mirror and experiment with the way I move? Just groove and see what looks good on me and to be more aware of my movements and how it projects. Hmmm.

She had me at the opening riff.

Y’know that big riff that opens Ain’t.No.Other.Man? Christina hit it and that was that. I was like, DAAAAMN.That set the tone for the entire concert.

I love her music but I’m not fangirly over her so it was okay to not have the best tickets. I’ve always said that as long as I can hear her sing live, I’m good. And yes, I am good. :)

We all know she has a great voice. Sometimes during live performances, she can be a little shaky at times and maybe over-do it or turn a little screamy/shrieky. But there was none of that during the concert. I felt like she was on her game. It was controlled and beautiful and she damn well knows what she’s doing. Throughout the night, I was just amazed at how consistently good she is. Girlfriend can sing anything and blow it out of the water.

I’m a huge fan of Stripped so I felt like I was seeing the wrong tour. She mostly sang stuff from her recent album and while her vocals and performance were faultless, I felt less into it because I prefer her older stuff. I have to say though that the “theme” of the concert, the throwback feeling, worked really well. The costuming, the set and the songs really meshed well together. It came off as very polished.

Christina herself is beautiful. She’s tiny but has a body like woah. Girl has nice legs and a cute butt. Heh. And I love her hair. Really. She looks much better as a blonde. What I like best about her is how sassy and cheeky she is. It’s there in her performance and her smiles and the little looks she gives the audience and when she’s interacting with her dancers. I love her sassiness.

The highlights of the show for me were probably her ballads. Goosebumps. She made me teary during Oh Mother and Beautiful. I also love love Fighter because I love that song to death. (Not enough songs from Stripped, damnit!) Seems like I’m one of the few who love ghetto-Christina (aka the Stripped-era when she was all angry and uber-sassy and yes, ghetto) because everyone fell over themselves for Candy.man and Lady.Marmalade (yes, she is diva enough to sing it all by herself; she rocked it though!). Weird audience. Cal and I would’ve killed to hear her sing Impossible, but we knew it wasn’t gonna happen. Heh.

It was a good concert, mainly because Christina is so freakin’ talented. She is THAT GOOD. So even though we had nosebleed seats, I’m glad I went and heard her sing. She could’ve just stood there with a spotlight on her and sung the entire night without any gimmicks and it still would’ve been amazing.

Still wish she had brought the Stripped tour instead. :P