and i u n f o l d

Dear Self,

STOP OBSESSING. YOU WILL BE FINE. You will be more than fine; you’re be on damn fuckin’ FIRE, that’s what. All the stressing and freakage is producing nothing but bile in your stomach and making you feel like you wanna barf.

You know the choreography. You’ve been listening to the mix on repeat. You know the blocking. You’re gonna look hot. Don’t second-guess yourself; don’t let your doubts consume you. You’ve performed countless times before and it has always turned out good. SO DON’T DOUBT YOURSELF.

Go out there, take a deep breath, tell that fuckin’ naggy voice in your head to SHUT THE FUCK UP, and just DANCE. You can do it. YOU CAN DO IT. Just dance, and enjoy every single blessed moment.

Much love,
Me

On the eve of one of the most stressful performances I’ve experienced, my nerves, frustration and anxiety has been transformed into inspiration and motivation.

Ka.ba Mo.dern @ Fu.sion 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LziHtGXLx5Y

They are, by far, in my humble opinion, the tightest, illest and dopest dance crew I have ever seen. SRSLY. I was completely in love with their 2005 piece at Vi.be10 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDSNCfclvGc) which I thought was MOTHERFUCKIN’ AMAZING and the best shit since sliced bread. I still do watch that from time to time cos that performance is just PURE LOVE.

This new one? I swear, I almost wept at the beauty of it. I think I still might prefer the ‘05 piece but this ‘07 one is so damn tight and on-point. Amazing choreography and blocking, flawlessly executed. They could not have been any better. IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL and towards the end, I swear I got teary. How they only got 2nd place is beyond me.

I’m feeling inspired and motivated and full of love for dance and reminded of how much I love it.

Recital in 2 days! Aaaaaah! The item isn’t 100% finished yet and we have one last rehearsal on Thursday, which I expect will run really late. I’ve been obsessively listening to the dance mix all week, mentally running through the choreography. I wish we could see the footage from the full rehearsal on Saturday so that I have an idea of how we look. Sighhh. The item, in my perception, looks good… good choreography, interesting blocking but I’m worried about the execution (mine and the group’s as a whole). Hopefully it’ll all come together nicely on Saturday. Quite a number of people are coming to watch, so I’m feeling the (self-inflicted) pressure, fo’sure. The costume crisis has also been solved so all I need to do is rock the performance. Riiiiiiiiight.

Had a fun time yesterday hanging out with the Butterfly Babes; we took a bunch of really cute neo.prints, haha! Then Jen and I met up with Can.dy, Ce.lia and Jimm.y. Hahaha, Jimmy was such a pimp cos there he was with 4 ladies! We had dinner at Fish.&Co before heading to Dem.psey in Jimmy’s car (”Marilyn” cos it’s white) for yummy B&J ice-cream. Then Jim.my inflicted us with cheesy 80’s music on the ride home, like OMGWTF?!?!?! Hahahhaha. Like I said, twas a good good night! :)

I did actually end up meeting the guy from Fac.ebook. We had lunch today. Supposed to go for coffee after work but he was in the general vicinity cos he was in a court session in the morning so he suggested lunch. And I figured, okay at least lunchtime is like a stipulated hour or so and hence I’d have an out if I need one. Heh.

His session ended a little later than he expected so we met at around 1pm and he came by my office building and we walked to the place for lunch that he had suggested. It turned to be this nice, kinda-swanky-ish restaurant along Mid.dle Road that I never knew existed. Lovely place. Chivalry is apparently not dead, y’alls; he was all like letting me walk first and pulling my chair out so that was nice.

Our food was a little tardy so we had a lot of time to talk. I was feeling tired (not enough sleep), wasn’t really up for being an extra charming version of myself and had no energy to dress “up” in the morning, so he got a pretty toned down version of me, I thought. Haha. But he was quite sociable and chatty which drew me out of my tiredness and my little bubble; otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have exerted myself. Surprisingly, conversation flowed quite well. We talked about a lot of random stuff ranging from fave movies, to school, to travel, to family. We clicked, I guess. No obvious awkward silences/moments, luckily. We also had dessert which turned out to be damn freakin’ yummy. SRSLY. It was damn good. The main course was pretty good too, but dessert was the highlight yo.

In the middle of it all, Cal & Hani called me as I had asked them to, to check on me. LOL.

Lunch ended up being like 1.5hrs (haha, luckily my boss isn’t around and no one really keeps track of how long you go for lunch, otherwise I would be a dead duck), including the 10min walk go-and-fro the restaurant and my office. I wasn’t really thinking it was a date per se but he paid for lunch (and my guess is that it was around $50, at least… maybe $70?) and was like very gentlemanly. It seemed date-like, even though I hadn’t categorized it that way in my head. (Then again, what constitutes a date these days?!?) But it has a kinda casual, friendly, easy-going vibe too, which was nice… it just seemed normal and not like we were hanging out for the first time, which we were, of course.

Hmmm… anyway a good time was had, which was a nice surprise since I was so ambivalent about it initially. He seems like a cool guy so I can at least see myself hanging out with him. Dude, with the dormant-ness of my sadly lacking social life, there’s always room for the widening of my social circle. Heh.

Besides, I’m still holding out for TbB, remember? Heheheheheh! ;) I’m getting closer to it actually happening, I can feel itttttt! Oh, such blind faith I have… He has a perf on Recital day which sucks cos otherwise I would’ve dragged someone there with me. LOL. *draws squiggly hearts*

Speaking of of squiggly hearts, I am still a 14-year-old fangirl deep deep inside (…or not so deep, really) cos Nicky Nick is KILLING ME WITH HIS HOTTNESSS. Guhhhhh. He has been looking fabulous, sounding amazing and just… *flails* I [heart] him so much. Back.street needs to come here again and I NEED TO MEET HIM. I should start building some kind of immunity against his devastatingly crippling HOTTNESS (remember, I’m the girl whose brain blanked out whenever I saw him) so that I can be at least mildly coherent when I meet him. Mmm, Nickkkkkkk.

And and and, KL next week! Woot wooooooot!

Sooooooo. TbB thingy went well. :D

Hani was supposed to come but she didn’t make it so twas just me and Cal. The event was pretty much in Mal.ay which just didn’t compute in our minds. Ahahahaha! I was only paying attention half the time; the other half I was mesmerized by the Pretty or snarking. TbB was matchy-matchy with me; he was wearing a white tee with this kinda-fug light brown vest. I was wearing my tres cute leopard-print hoodie (which I love).

ANYWAY. It was in Ma.lay so ermmmmm, we were zoned out a lot. He sang 3 songs, one of which was the song about me (aka. MY.BG). Wahahahahaa! I [heart] that song. They had a hilarious competition thingy with three fans, where they have to answer questions and their answers have to match his. One of the questions: if he was stuck on an island, which would he choose to have with him? 1) PSP; 2) flashlight; 3) photo of his girl. I said he’d pick 3) and sure enough he did (along with a PR answer to go with the choice). The girls guessed PSP (???) for some reason, heh. The other random question was what animal he would be: I was like, hmmm maybe a horse. Or a tiger…..OR A BIRD like an eagle of something. His answer was a bird. HA! I would’ve kicked ass on that damn game. But the most hilarious part was when they had to sing some of his songs and we SWORE that the first girl would win that round cos she was the only one we could hear and the other two were like whisper-singing at a pitch only dogs could hear. BUT NO! The audience cheered for someone else. Like, HUH?! Maybe they heard something we didn’t, haha.

Because I have NO WILL POWER when it comes to him, I bought the Ma.lay album. (SHUT UP.) Joined the long-ass queue and I wanted to be at the back of line but after we got in, the line just grew and grew.

So, here’s what happened: After the girl in front of me, he went straight to signing and so I said hi to him, which made him look up. He said hi, and saw that it was me and HE REMEMBERS! Heh. He was like, oh new look, and asked me how I was. By the time I answered, he was done signing and we like started talking. He asked me when did I get my hair cut and I said that I did a hair show a while ago. And then HE COMPLIMENTED ME by saying that it looks good. (Heeheeee!) I probably had a stupid smile on my face at that point. So then it was my turn to ask him how he’s been and he said he’s been good, busy. And then his manager rained on our parade and tried to hurry things along and not-so-subtly hint that we need to move on. Haha! (She was probably mentally rolling her eyes at the flirting, ahahahaha!) So I said thanks and then we shook hands, smile, keeping major eye contact and then he said something like, see you again soon and I was like, yeah. That moment, with him like smiling into my eyes… VERY VERY NICE. Le sigh.

So, yeah. :D Twas nice that he remembers, cos the last time we actually spoke was back in January although I’ve been to a few thingys since then. Plus, new hair and all. The compliment was a total SCORE!, hehe. This was actually really nice, cos it felt like a normal, casual conversation. Hmmm, I dunno how to describe it. But it’s a good thing. :)

Cal, Hani and I watched Star.dust that night and even though we craned our necks cos we sat in the front row, it was worth it. It was such a cute and enjoyable movie. Between Hani drawing parallels with me and TbB, me lamenting that Tristan reminds me of Step.hen Gately, snarking about the glowing and cracking up like crazy, we had a damn fun time watching it. Now I feel motivated to actually finish reading the book. Heh.

Okay, friends, the obsession crush is baaaack. ‘Cos y’know it was like dormant for a while? Haha.

TbB is so adorable. *flails* He went to visit this orphanage for R.aya and there’s video. AND HE FREAKIN’ KILLED MY OVARIES BY BEING ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS WITH KIDS. ZOMG! I cannot tahan. SRSLY. There’s just something about a guy who’s good with kids that just SLAYS ME. He had this little girl sitting on his lap and THE CUTENESS KILLED ME. DED. Gaaaaah. (Also, he looked hot as hell. HOTTTT.) Fuck la, I adore him so much.

Can’t wait for Saaaaaturdaaaaay. :) :) :)
[/crazy]

If other boy-related news, cute guy on FB replied to my message and essentially kinda asked me out? Hmmmm. I dunno how to respond.

I HAVE KRIS.PY KREMES!

My colleague went to HK and I off-handedly mentioned buying them for me. And when I walked to my desk this morning, I saw a box of half dozen yummy donuts. OH THE BLISS! That was really sweet of her and it totally made my Monday.

And because I am lame, the thought of seeing on TbB on Saturday also somehow made me cheerier. HAHA. Oh god, help me. The little thrills in my life.

Anyway. I’ve inhaled half of them donuts and HELLO, SO ORGASMICCCCCCCC! Srsly. So fuckin’ good.

I’m having a dance wardrobe crisis for the recital. We’re wearing them baggy b-ball shorts and I have no idea how to make it work. I don’t want to look blah and I’ve never tried that look before so now I’m LOST. Bah. I need to look ghetto and cool and like YEAH! Y’know? Ahahahhaa. I don’t make any sense. Right now my option is pairing those shorts (which I haven’t gotten yet) with an oversized wifebeater and a cropped but not-fitted hoodie. Hmmmm.

Also, my neck is feeling better, thank goodness. Thank you, deep heat. Hahahaha!

EEEEEEPPPPP!

TbB. Saturday 17/11. 6pm. East.Point Mall.

WHO’S COMING WITH ME?!?!?! [insert pleading puppy eyes]

I waaaaant to see him. IWANTIWANTIWAAAAAANT.

Been lying low lately. Not that I didn’t write any, I did; but it was all word-vomit and by the time I re-read what I wrote, I decided not to post.

No, nothing bad happened. Just moody. Hmmph. I totally go through phaseness of Hermitness where I just can’t be bothered to be social and chatty and nice and all that stuff. The I-wanna-be-alone mood.

In actuality, life’s been good.

Two weeks ago, I came home on Friday to the sight of my brand-spankin-new No.kia 5310 Xpress.Music. HELL YEAH BABY! It is a sweet sweet phone, y’alls. So thin and sleek and awesome. And, of course, I’m naming it Marty. Heh. Thank youuuuuuu, MartyK!

After ogling my phone, I rushed out for dinner with my JC friends. Then we went for drinks at the Winebar at Z.ouk which was super crowded. Nonetheless, it was a good night. And some of us ended up talking til like 3am.

Saturday was the D.AP show and Jen and I went to support Val. (Good job, babe!) There were some other B.lasties there, so y’know it had to be a rowdy affair. I hadn’t seen most of them in the longest time so it was real nice to hang with them again. Then a bunch of us went for supper at New.ton and daaamn, the food we had was good. Seriously good. $24 for stingray, fried rice and veg that was shared among Jen, Roz and me. Quantity was just nice and it was yummy. Mmmm. Then we just sat and talked…. eventually it was just Ah.mad, Roz and me and yet again, it stretched til the wee hours of the morn.

The funny thing was that the running theme for both nights was Fa.cebook. Weird, right? It has taken over the woooorld! I remember joining it on exchange when I first of it on the LJ-comm for UN.C. It was a way to stalk keep track of the people I met and use it as a way to get to know them. Haha, FB was like the fountain of knowledge: to find out how old people were, what were their majors, what they liked and errrrmm, their relationship status. AHAHAHAHAH. And it’s still very useful as way to keep in contact and say hi once in a while.

Anyway, the running theme was FB. We would just talk and talk about it and it was actually really amusing. Who’s on FB, what’s fun, nominating people for Superlatives, super.poking… ahahaha. Sheeeesh.

Then last Saturday was raya-ing with my JC friends. 8 houses in 12 hours!!! Insanity. We ate at every single house and it was a pretty varied menu (except for the recurrence of mee.rebus! Thrice!) I was sorta ambivalent about the whole thing initially cos a) I’m not like super duper close to them as some of them are with each other; and b) most of them are seriously attached and their other halves were joining in the outing. But it turned out to be a fun day and it was real nice catching up with friends I hadn’t seen in AGES.

Work has been picking up. I’m a dork but I find corporate stuff really interesting. We had a meeting with our HOD on Friday and he was telling us some stuff and it’s just fascinating to me how a company works. My own workload is picking up as well, which is a good thing, cos my hours pass more quickly. Naturally, there’s some in-built stress that comes along but so far so good. I’m so pleased to be where I am now cos I think it is a position that is most well-suited to me, out of any other positions I could have gotten. Also, there’s been changes to the salary ranges and I’m hoping that my salary will be adjusted upwards and more substantially than just to the minimum amount. *crosses fingers and toes*

The only thing that is downer right now is the neck pain that has been plaguing me. It started off early in the week (for what reason, I dunno), was exacerbated by a bad night’s sleep, and further aggravated by dance practice on Thursday. Aaaargh. I thought it was getting better but then we do this head snap to the left and towards the end of the practice, I felt something get pulled. And BAM! It hurt like a fuckin’ mofo and I basically couldn’t move my neck at all without it hurting. Went home, went to bed with a cold pack against my neck/shoulder and woke up feeling like crap. Suffered at work and finally got to numb the pain when I got home and slathered the area with deep heat rub. Aaaah, relief. It’s now Day 2 of numbness and while it’s a little better, it’s still not gone. BAH. I’m skipping out on the recital vetting session tomorrow cos I don’t wanna aggravate it by dancing. Hopefully it’ll be better by Thursday’s practice. *lathers on more deep heat*

Also, I got a message from a kinda cute guy on FB. (He poked me, I checked him out and he was kinda cute so I poked him back… yes, I am shallow like that!) He quoted JT lyrics (the “Tell me where you from…” line from Summer.Love), which greatly amused me. Maybe I’m lame but it totally made me giggle. Now I dunno what witty reply to give to that. Hahahahaha. And I HAVE to give a witty reply! Heh.

I’m feeling really down and depressed about dance, about the way I dance.

I’ve been dancing for 4 years or so (eek!) now. I love it, of course, as you can probably tell. I have gotten better, I think, through the years in comparison with when I first started. But now it feels like I’ve hit a plateau, like a ceiling and I haven’t broken through and I don’t know how to break through. To be honest, I feel like I’ve been stuck beneath this ceiling for a while now. That while I’ve stagnated, the people around me are improving and getting better. I can see it and it frustrates me even more.

Mostly, it’s the thought/feeling that after 4 years, I should be better than I am now. I’ve progressed, yes, but not as far as I could have and should have. It’s terrible, because I have this idea of what I look like when I’m dancing and the illusion is shattered when I watch myself dance when it’s video-ed. There’s a disconnect there between my perception and reality. It makes me somehow feel like those delusional people who audition for SYT.YCD and they’re like, I AM TEH SHIZNITTTT, but really they suck. I’m trying to correct it, to be conscious to myself and my movements and my posture and my weight placement and all those other bazillion things. Sometimes it does look better and other times it’s like, OHGODNOOOOO! *covers face*.

As a dancer, you’re always learning. There’s always something new, always a new combo, always different teachers who have their own style. It’s an on-going battle. But there comes a point when you become competent enough to be able to deal with the stuff thrown your way. When your technique is solid and strong enough to keep you afloat.

I guess my perfectionist (along with my competitive) streak that’s rearing its ugly head. I want to be good. Not to be better than others but just good enough, for me. I’m not even talking about other genres; just hip-hop. I want to be good in hip-hop. Good enough that I can be happy with myself. And good enough for validation from others. That’s the HILARIOUS thing; I’m mostly self-assured about myself in the other aspects in my life but when it comes to dance, validation from other people (dancers) means something. Too much of a something, sometimes. And there are times when it’s hard to discern if people really do mean it, or if they’re saying it partly because they’re your friend and they want to support you in what you do. I’d also like to hear what I could do better, what needs improvement and what I need to build on. At this point, really, all I want is to be good and to feel good about my dancing. To be able to watch myself dance and go, “That was nice”. It’s not a lot to ask for but it’s gonna take a lot to get there.

(I think I’m PMS-ing. Srsly. And no, this post has little to do with the fallout from Maaarty. More like brought about from being in dance class. Strange but true. :-\)

ETA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3vo0EH3xPo
In a weird contradiction, I find myself surprisingly okay in this week’s LAHH (by R.yan cos Gi.n was sick). But I’m not even gonna link the LHH clip cos… UH NOOOOOO!