Now as good a time as any

I figured now is as good a time as any to commence, or recommence, my biweekly journal. I went back to read my emails to Chun while she was in Connecticut. There are 10 of them, one sent roughly every two weeks, each fairly long, and someday I will publish them online, maybe in a couple of years when the distance is healthy and comfortable enough. Anyway, I think the thought of mindless living--not remembering the past--is kind of sad. Hence the starting, or restarting, of this endeavour. The length of each post is something I can hide behind, knowing it will probably deter most people from reading everything. But for those who do bother, I hope you will bear with me.

Chun broke radio silence last Monday, virtually at least. I had just got back from her Open Studio session--loved the choreo, but felt like s*** cos couldn't execute much of it properly. The text conversation had barely begun, when I inserted a seemingly harmless comment. I said, with the disclaimer that I may be wrong, that she should get her timing right, that it changed from the original. Maybe a day or two later, I went to Chun's blog. She hadn't updated it much. I saw a post from December, which was probably made soon after the long phone conversation we had when I was in YIH canteen some night in Ensemble camp. I remember it ended amicably, but I realize that I have selective amnesia--just like how I don't remember my CAP--because glancing through the post, I suddenly recalled what the rest of the phone conversation was like. And now I hesitate to talk to her... too much. When I saw the video of her class on Facebook, I realize from watching the guys that I had got my timing completely wrong. What I thought was right was wrong. What I thought was wrong was not wrong, at least not by my saying so. My little comment was exactly what is so wrong about our dynamic. And so now, shame on me; 'dishonour, infamia, is like bubble gum, wherever it touches it sticks'.

Dance dance
Danced quite a bit during Holy Week. Mazlan's class was so fun. I enjoy his style a lot... not to mention his ditzy antics. Went for Ryan's the next day with Xu Zi, Nicole, Eva. He did partner choreo to Kat DeLuna's Love Confusion. Choreo was more digestible that usual I felt. It was a lot of fun as well. I felt free and happy.

GEM
Went to watch TPDE's dance production two Fridays ago. I met some of the dancers from church but they were cordial, and were without the freaked-out vibe Khye gave months back at O School. The show was good--although the ones who shone for me were surprisingly not the lead characters. I loved Joycelyn and Audrey, and Samantha was really good in the reggae number.

On Japanese music
Utada's new album is pretty bad. Maybe it's a grower. Besides 'Come Back to Me', there are only two other good tracks. One is 'Apple and Cinnamon', and the other is 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence - FYI', which reworks a classic by Ryuichi Sakamoto (坂本龙一, my name backwards!), who scores films such as the awesome Derrida documentary I watched a few weeks ago. Utada's new version of his song has the inventiveness that characterizes her past work, and that is missing from most of this album. Even the few good tracks are plagued by sometimes cringe-worthy lyrics. The album has 10 tracks, which makes rating it quite convenient--2.5/10. Still an Utada fan though! Speaking of Japanese music, Yvonne Poon got me hooked onto UNIQLOCK for a couple of days. The cinematography is awesome, the choreography is adorable, but most of all I love the music by Fantastic Plastic Machine, who according to Wiki belongs to a genre of music called Shibuya-kei--part funk, part jazz.

Note to self in 2042
Do not say 'What is wrong with you' out of concern. Do not think that by airing your displeasure about someone that you are helping them, or earning Samaritan points. Think about the intention behind your words and their implications. I think there's a great difference made by being non-intrusive, non-expecting, non-condescending with comments. Oppression is the threat of losing free will.

On the cerebral approach
Played tennis with Dad for the past couple of Saturdays. Got into the old groove for a while today. And I took considerably less time to 'warm-up' so that's good. I realize with tennis, there is a balance between thinking and not thinking. The problems with thinking are that it breeds hesitation, it involves frustrating body-programming, and necessarily a high percentage of errors over trials. The problem with not thinking is that I come back to the sport one week/month/year later and I've lost all ability. Honestly I prefer the cerebral approach--being able to control, manipulate, employ the body to achieve various effects. But it has to be managed, just like in dance, and not be allowed to take over the playing itself.

7 hours of sleep
I spent the long Holy weekend entirely cooped up at home, an act I am doubtless going to repeat. I'm almost through the first day of the reading break and it's quite obvious I need to get out of here. Last weekend I barely made progress on my Post-colonial Literatures essay, and really only soldiered through it on Tuesday. Most of the time was whiled away online, whether it was checking up on Twitter and Facebook, or resurrecting my Messenger account and very belatedly updating the software. More noteworthily, I've been deleting scores and scores of friends on Facebook. I've found the news feed too cluttered to read, and I've realized a lot of these friends aren't really friends anyway, some I may never talk to again. It was fun finding people from the past but it's time for them to re-enter obscurity. The culling has taken over 200 souls to date... and it shan't stop here! I'm quite addicted to deleting people. Facebook can get incredibly distracting and one particular distraction was finding Willie Chan in the midst of my deletions. I knew him in the army and wow, what a surprise. So anyway I worked on my essay until 5 in the morning, had 4 hours of sleep and trooped to school. The next night was spent editing the project that Yvonne Heng did all by herself. This also took until 5 in the morning, and gave 3 hours of sleep. I feel really bad about being an awful project-mate. I know my editing made quite a difference, but Yvonne really saved me this time. When it came to Thursday I was a little woozy from being unused to getting so little sleep.

Reggae class was good though. I'm learning a lot; I just hope it sticks. I think of all the styles of dance I've tried, reggae perhaps requires the most programmed spontaneity. The feel is quite foreign to my body, and is made up of a great number of little nuances. The activation of muscles is incredibly specific, but has to sit comfortably into the groove of the music. Super super fun when you feel it though.

I tagged along with Michelle Rose and Eva to NUS. We found Brian and Ce Zheng in RH studio and fooled around there for a while. They're damn cute la, the two buddies. Anyway we go to Michelle's place for pineapple cheesecake her dad made--very nice--then hung around in her fabulously disshevelled room. She showed us this video of Lee Evans, and I cannot get enough of the line (said in orgasm) 'The rubbish...wants taking owwwwwt!!!!!!' Michelle can do it real well. Off to Sheares for supper with abovementioned buddies, (Claris)Sa, and Rui Si, who sent me home after. Saw Vanessa; talked for a while. It was fun... and embarrassing, largely cos I keep unintentionally launching projectiles from my gob. Sorry Michelle!

On Kris
What really inspired me to get down to writing and to starting this blog was actually Kris Allen's performance on Idol that I watched last night. I've always loved Kris, but in each of his would-be stellar performances there was always some glitchy moment which did the whole thing in. I think the four best of this season can be split into pairs: Adam and Danny are bleah, and consistent, Kris and Matt are wow, but inconsistent. 'Falling Slowly' again wasn't perfect (the off-tuneness clearly bothered Randy much). But strangely this was the kind of fragile, vulnerable performance that could accommodate those vocal imperfections. I think that even when technique and articulation are not en pointe, the emotion and character of a performance when genuine and powerful can save it.

Kris Allen 'Falling Slowly'

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I'm glad I'm not alone. The download numbers from the website above are currently: Kris 2287, Allison 1287, Anoop 1118, Adam 1058, Matt 1015, Danny 824, Lil 423. A song I love right now is 'Colours of the Rainbow' by Alesha Dixon. It's a European digital single. Very 'Insomnia'/'Forever'--great melody, nice beats. And you must check out Demi Lovato's 'Don't Forget' on Ellen. An amazing performance. She also looks gorgeous in the music video. I love her voice, her personality. She is only 16, amazingly. A little good taste, a fair amount of business acumen, and I think she can do great things.

Alesha Dixon 'Colours of the Rainbow'

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