i will get to 1000 words tonight or die trying. bi4 sheng4!!!!

WHAT A PROCRASTINATOR.
Posted at 2:09 AM

i conclude that not sleeping causes you to do randomly horrifying things. not sleeping is of course already paramount, so that you greet the morning not so much fresh as a daisy as mottled with zits and other blemishes like an aphid-ridden rosebush.

then, life being life, a call is received at 7am in the morning to go watch mamma mia at 10.25, but departure from home is to be in t-minus 15 minutes if you want a lift from very obliging parents of slightly crazy friend :D. this is followed by absently discarding conservative underwear for electric blue sequined semi-thongs-- with white shorts.

oh, and of course, the piece de resistance, also termed the moment of dawning epiphany: dithering over whether to bring the laptop with oneself for lessons later, only to decide at the last moment to leave it at home sleeping and to realise, some 50 seconds later (too late to go back to the house), that the charger is in your bag, and that on hindsight (literally) the electric blue sequinned semithong was a bad, bad, bad idea. not the cleverest of things to do.

BUT: as bill anderson in mamma mia said, "spontaneity, spontaneity, spontaneity" (or something to greatly similar effect). the gods favour the foolish. mamma mia is an excellent movie, and if anyone would volunteer to get me the soundtrack i would be quasi-eternally grateful. best movie date i've had in AGES hahaha. helped that the theatre was small and nice and cozy and there weren't too many people to hear us either guffawing or commenting or chocolate-chewing. i smiled all the way, except when i cried. and even when i cried i was smiling, sort of. yes, yes, i cried at mamma mia. hi, i cry at everything, even a rendition of huang fei hong on the guzheng. what did you expect?

a lovely song from yesteryear is being piped into the artificial happy-housed constructs of my current environs. "oh, think twice, cos it's another day in paradise". nobody said paradise was perfect, but maybe this is as good as it gets.


although i would definitely like to turn down the crankiness, seeing as i smarmed me marm after she commented rather loudly on the unsightly state of my face after handing me my laptop. so much for regrets during mamma mia's mother-daughter moment.

the winner takes it all
Posted at 4:31 PM

the third song for ahmad's item was linda kiraly's can't let go. i don't know whether it was the premise of the story behind the choreo, or the song itself, or maybe just the steps and the emotion we were supposed to feel-- that was the song that's been the most hardhitting for me throughout this whole performance. the first time he taught us the steps i couldn't really catch them, but then suddenly they seemed to fit and flow and touch a nerve or something.

__________________________________________
i tried, i tried.

Harder to find the words than i thought it would be
must everything be ambiguity?
enforced mystery?

but maybe that's because it's in images-- images that flash past the mind's eye like a moving picture of stills, snapshots. One remembered glance on a bus ride home, one captured angle of a certain tilt, one frozen moment of a choreo; maybe because it's dance, and the closest you can come to describing dance is something utterly inadequate like "cross-open-up-down". Dance is felt and danced, not-- if ever-- described. And yes, you can describe emotions, but when they're so closely and intricately bound up with dance that they become assimilated into each other, when you can't tell where feeling ends and dance begins--

maybe, just maybe,m that justifies mystry, ambiguity, a lack of clarity. Fuzzy logic.

so, ambiguity it is.

the first time we did the last song's dance-- the first time ahmad did the shooting bit, and fell-- john or yayi reached out to try and catch him. ahmad said "ai why you catch!" or something like that-- but ye gods, i can completely understand why they reached out to catch him. -i- reached out involuntarily when he started falling. the whole emotional build-up was... almost scary, almost breath-taking,

i can't let go

the words are hard to find.

this love is so dysfunctional

the storyline, the music, the choreography-- everything seemed to be about his life. his life, his loss, his isolation. silver gray blue white-- not the colours i'd first seen him in, but did it matter? they were the colours that i most remembered him in, in that one class he had taught on his birthday that i had been so grumpy about. the flash of the diamante belt buckle that carried his name; the steel in his eyes as he flashed that glance, irritated, at the intruders; the denim jeans, the cap, the black shirt.

that song-- that choregraphy-- it was, maybe, one of the most challenging songs for me for this performance. i had difficulty with all the other choreographies-- i mean, i always do-- but this was the one that i wanted-- needed-- to do well, if not perfectly. it was something that involved not just a determination to-- for want of a better term-- "do right" by the choreo, but also to... do justice... to a memory. to a remembrance.

i've hesitated, typing this, so many times. i use "a" instead of "my", add ellipses for thought, for unfathomability, for uncertainty. i cannot lay claim even to my memories, because it seems selfish, presumptuous-- but--

i knew it wasn't going to be easy.

it leaves me so emotional

we all dance for our own reasons. i thinkt he first time we really did that choreo -properly- was the day/week I visited SGH with J; i remember her saying that the song and its lyrics was so painful because for her it really described what she was going through. i couldn't bring myself to speak, because i didn't know how to speak-- but it was brought home so clearly to me that everyone has a motivation for dancing. maybe not so much motivation as-- a motive force, something that drives you to practise a hundred and one times (literally. at last count about a week before busking my play count for the song was 127); something that keeps you behind an hour after practice on weeknights and that keeps you up till 2am after a full day of practice/rehearsal, still trying to get your extension right...

i'm in way too deep and i can't let, can't let, can't let

maybe it's as simple as love-- love for what it represents, love for what it means to you. love for the meaning you give to dance-- for the honour it does to the memory of someone who inspired you, or someone who cared for you, or someone who stuck up for you, or someone who widened your horizons, or even the someone you found one day staring back from the reflection in the glass of as7 or a studio mirror. for the sweat, the tears, the bruises, the lack of sleep-- everything is worth it.

i digress. all through the rehearsals and the performances i wanted and wanted so badly to have everything i felt materialise in that one particular song. ahmad told us all repeatedly (i rmemeber once, during cleanup in cfa) that we had to dance from the heart; and this song-- this song-- was really the one that was closest to my heart because it felt like it so personified his life. the first time that emotion really dawned on me was-- ironically-- the one run that we did the worst for. it was friday i think-- the day before the first performance-- and the first time we had full lighting and everything. i scrambled out after crushcrushcrush with only the thought of not having wardrobe malfunctions and getting into my 2nd outfit as soon as possible. i pulled my shirt straight, i turned around--

and looked into another world altogether.

melodramatic? but that was how it really felt to me. the mist, the lights-- so starkly, unforgivingly, heartachingly white-- the way they came down in... bars, lines, on the floor, and then revolved and turned; the drapery of the backdrop cloths-- when i did the slow walk in it really felt like i was entering another world altogether. everyone around me felt like-- ghosts. lik i didn't even know them, or anyone, like all i could see was the blue and white and gray, and not people per se. then the music crescendoed-- and we ran to our positions.

i can't let go

every movement, every step after that just layered heartache upon heartache in this hollow right in my centre. i don't know how to describe it, but that was the first time i felt emotion-- truly felt something rather than, i don't know, the usual sense of panic and stress haha. writing at this point i can't remember if this run or saturday's matinee was the performance where, upon the last gunshot, as we sank to our knees, i really started crying a little. but it felt good, it was cathartic, and the sense of wonderment at the emotion was just inexplicably-- inexplicable. i have no words left for it.

of course, this run was also the one that we disappointed ahmad so much for. argh.

i hoped throughout the shows-- and expected-- that sunday's would be the climax, when i would really really feel the whole wave of emotion breaking over me as i danced that last piece. well-- it didn't. but i didn't feel as disappointed as i thought i might have, because it just means that there's still so much further for me to go. and i'm glad the road is long, because i don't ever want to lose this. ever.

suad-- and busking-- has taught me so, so, so much. i learnt not to make excuses-- who the hell cares if you're tired? your aching back, your strained muscles, your knees that (haha) have no more cartilage left-- who cares? you should never give a damn-- never, never, NEVER make excuses for yourself. pain is temporary, and dance-- dance is forever.

don't blame the choreographer for a difficult step, or for being harsh, or for being exacting. blame yourself for not being good enough. and then-- practise. the amount of practice you have to do to improve is mind-bloody-boggling-- as i was telling jinglin that day on bus 10, i really don't know how we got through the preparation for suad this year. haha. i think monday was the only day i usually didn't have dance prac of some sort or another (so that day went to teaching tuition). but it gives me an inkling of the amount of time i really need to practise to improve even the tiny little bit that i did.

and that, finally, is all i wanted to say (except for perhaps also remembering that both the items i was in drove our respective choreographers to tears. ARGH.). but i'm hoping that if ever i feel like giving up or that this is enough, or that i think i can't take anymore, i can look back on this and smile and read and remember and know there is greater strength than i can ever fathom in dance. dance is life, dance is love. :)

in loving memory
Posted at 12:01 PM

baby it's alright you ain't gotta flaunt for me
if we go there you can still touch my love it's free
we can work without the perks just you and me
thug it out till we get it right

IT'S OVER. (and i don't have nearly ENOUGH pictures. i mean, look at costumes alone, i NEVER did get a pic of my gold costume and i don't think i have one of the purple. i am pretty damn sure i don't have one of the green one. and DEFINITELY no donk outfit. ARGH. hahaha)

but that's really superficial. i can't even begin to tell you how glad i am-- how utterly proud and grateful (and still disbelieving/incredulous) i am--

i can actually call myself a dancer. :D

never mind the fact that i still pretty much SUCK. haha. it's still a dream come true :):):)

thanks everyone for coming!

- dear sister light huiwen (who DRESSED the part hahaha. DAMNIT we should have taken a pic with one of our swordfighting poses [minus the time when she whacked me on the head]) who rushed down from camp with her bf;
- the LLBs who showed up with a cactus and a winnie the pooh water bottle HAHA and who gave me the WEIRDEST looks during the entire performance. i mean, krys, what was with the face?? hahahaha. AND LYNETTE ALSO omg hahaha;
- the raggers and their respective other/better (heeheehee) halves. i'm glad they enjoyed the show! haha and EURGH the lame stuff about how yonghui and chengying actually do qualify as blast alumni technically. right. these are corporate lawyers to be, my dears;
- my parents and my brother! i can't believe he actually DID tear himself away from the comp long enough to watch a show hahah-- and of course my parents, who've sacrificed so much just to help their insufferably ungrateful and unfillial daughter fulfill this tiny tiny dream. they transported me around, carted bar chairs up cars, suffered through insane drives (ok, TWO of them. but eh who asked them to let me drive on the expressway after 7 hours of dance. hahahhaa), fetched me to school on ungodly sat mornings, stayed up and waited for me till 12 plus-one every night i had dance... love you love you!! :):)
- and of course, my dearest dearest dearest creatures! ning, ni, abby-- it was so so good to see you all there. :) i adore you girls! haha. eh and mr i-call-your-friend-chubby-cheeks also. hahahaha. damnit. *pokes own face* thanks for the flowers, all, and the time taken to watch me. hahaha. when i think of all the CRAP i put you through-- trying to dance all night during our sleepovers or when we're er chinese new year visiting, subjecting you to the horrors of my uh lack of coordination or overenthusiasm in various dodgy clubs... hahaha. whoopsy. OH OH and making you guys dance in class. HAHA. eh but i must claim credit only where it is due-- the stupid mel c and bryan adams "when you're gone" or whatever was my fault, but the lion king one was ning's. TOTALLY. :D but really thanks much. you've been there for me all the time-- i don't even know where to put the latest bouquet because i still have all your other posies and nosegays (haha) from all the other performances. POCKETFUL OF POSIES :D

post-concert blues still looming. sigh. but i'm getting by, i'm living on a prayer, i'm holding on to the ghost of everything that's been and gone. how much so? very much so. yesterday walking in from the mrt station i turned on my player and spent the next ten minutes going through all my steps again :D and i just remembered all the practices and the entire concert and how wonderful it was. even the lowest crevasses of the lowest valleys-- even they were good, because i learnt something from them. ALL of them.

and my fellow dancers-- how could i forget? my awesome choreographers, who made me feel for my items in a way i never thought i could before-- idil who made me understand the importance of teamwork and uniformity and that dance is never (ok rarely) about free-soloing and more about working with everyone else in the item as a whole; ahmad who told us to dance from the heart, who taught us lines and control and tension and strength and the need to dance outside my comfort zone and to go further and better and higher. their creativity is AMAZING. they're so completely not your usual run of choreographers; i don't know how to put it. they really meld so many styles together-- even jamal would have been proud of them (and he was critical of hip hop because it seems like all we do is run around in a group go har rarr RARR for a few eights and then run to another formation and har rarr RARR for another few eights.). these choreos had stories, and visions, and dreams, and life.

(i think this entry is going to go on forever)

ok. i have to cut this shorter, man, because if i could choose any topic to write my thesis on this would probably be it. because i just can't stop/ i just can't stop/ i just can't stop hahahaha. everyone really amazed me, but here are some of those up for special mention. jinglin, fred, yvonne h (yvonne power!)-- thanks for the gifts! fred's message really touched me also. AND I STILL OWE THEM MY CARDS hahaha. mich rose-- it was awesome working with her, the girl i shall forever remember as the one who saves my sanity, who stands up in times of stress and comes through stronger, the one who met my glance as we finished reading idil's messages to us only to realise that we both had tears in our eyes. dressing room 7, for pure girlfriendship and camaraderie and bonding and picnics and eyelash sticking and gossiping and trauma hahahaha. eva, who twisted her ankle but still danced like a dream, who is an awesome awesome awesome girl; she and elson came up to me after the concert to tell me to keep dancing and to dance for myself and not care what others said. i was so touched-- i still (almost, almost, i'm not that big a crybaby) tear a bit la. these are WONDERFUL people.

blessed (=

three shows; i messed up the first-- i even wrote down my mistakes haha because i was so mortified! my fan came out late on "and the light burns right off the rock- KIAK!" hahaha and my positioning was off for the last part-- i nearly tripped rebecca because i didn't move back enough. for ahmad's item i forgot to do the "cross-open-up-down" backing and turned to run instead omg damn obvious can. 2nd performance, standing right in front first row, for the with you transition instead of going left-wave-right-back i did RIGHT WAVE. obvious much. but the 2nd performance was HORRIBLE i had NO energy NO feeling and i just felt so empty and void. i was just so TIRED. i think people saw it haha when i walked out of the theatre ahmad was like "you okay? *pat pat*".

no major mistakes for the third performance, except that i couldn't maintain my footing for the opening item and my hands fluttered up two steps too soon (but quickly descended again once i realised my error) at the end of idil's item.

but-- hmms.

i think the closest i came to feeling raw emotion was the first performance-- the matinee. i've never blogged about this before, but--

i'm cutting this entry into half. it's madness otherwise. haha.
Posted at 11:46 AM

all i'm waiting for is emotion to take me over.

it's true. when you don't dance from the heart nothing is breathtaking.

this love is so dysfunctional
it leaves me so emotional
i'm in way too deep and i can't let can't let can't let
i can't let go

one. last. show.

remember
Posted at 2:13 AM

I PASSED :D

the instructor took pity on me la. but I PASSED. omg. i hit the freaking pole while para-bloody-llel parking and i tried to move off in 2nd gear on the slope. ah ha ha ha. BUT I PASSED. gods. i still can't believe it.

skipped all my classes on monday to deal with driving and the backdrop for idil's item. sigh. sigh. SIGH. sunday's run at PA was-- painful. in so many ways. HAIZ. i don't even feel like talking about it-- not for a while. but suffice it to say that the night was an eye-opener-- watching all the other items in full costumed glory, as people started putting in their all, as everything took shape and started to come together--

in pat's words, "we got a show".

watching everyone just made me realise ALL OVER AGAIN how much more i have to improve to even be on remotely the same level as the least showy of them. and it's not just competitiveness-- if that, at all (i mean if it were mere competitiveness i would like seriously be doing my company tuts and attending all my lectures instead of blogging and thinking about dance 24/7 right-- even in the middle of my driving test haha i think i was running through idil's steps when i suddenly realised HELL green light and got 4 points for delay in moving off). i can't explain it, not really, but something has got to be the driving force for what keeps everyone dancing. maybe it's as simple and as complicated as something called love :).

i think... hmms. as much as i wanted a proper time and a proper separate post to deal with all of theis-- well. there's no time like the present, is there?

31st august-- or was it 30th? the confusion that mabel and i faced as we sat in lecture talking about jon's birthday seemed so-- unbelievable. could we have forgotten, so easily, after a mere-- what, two years? i didn't post on that day; nor did i have time to go down to bright hill. and-- if i am to be perfectly honest-- i didn't feel the need to, any more.

i think that last rain-logged teary trek through kneehigh grass and mud, clutching a single perfect white rose against that creamy paper-- that image i don't think i'll ever forget-- was enough for a leavetaking, for me. i guess i should face the truth-- i never was that close to him, although i won't deny he impacted my life and shaped some of the best memories of friendship and class-ship (? haha) i've ever had. maybe it's merely because

but i'm glad haojin's post appeared; i'm glad some of us remembered, that we still keep you in our hearts, no matter in how paltry a manner. you-- you-- the boy with the ever brilliant smile you'd flash at the oddest, most unexpected of moments; the boy hiding behind the door with a bouquet of bright sunrise-yellow chrysanthemums, velvety blooms clutched close to your chest (who knew that, mere years later, jin and i would lay poor facsimiles of the blooms you held that day at an altar too far removed to be of any use or any comfort?); the drummer-boy, smart and fast and slick and cool; the crazy-- spider? haha. was that what we christened you? who refused to pay xf class funds because she rendered you no "services"?; the boy so breakable, who fell into sliding tackles and lost the use of a hand for a month and subsequently broke the other and hence became ambidextrous, who stepped into the road and got knocked down and broke a leg (how lee jyun used to push you around with your cast-leg protruding like some battering ram, and with you screaming away); oh yes, you, the laughing hyena, the boy with the sparkling eyes, whose one april fool's day msg i kept for 5 years knowing it was the last one i'd ever receive; the boy who boasted of chokeslamming people; the boy who slammed a football into xf's head and a hundred-plus bottle into my face (ha, the blood and the bruises); the boy who apologised so profusely, so horrified; the boy forever 17 and summer-kissed and summer-loved.

i'd like to think you're happy now. happier than perhaps you were, or would have been, here.

your name and face and memory accompanied me for half the journey on the nike plus human race. 31st aug-- how apt, i thought, or perhaps ironic; that on the one race day that is supposed to signify life and passion my thoughts would be with you. apt-- because you were so full of vitality and vivacity, and the date was yours-- your birthday, or at least close enough? ironic-- because the operative word there is "were".

past tense, past, past, gone.

morose much? sigh. the nike race was the third one i completed this year and i have to say it was the WORST. sigh. so many many many people. the other half of the run-- when i wasn't thinking abt jon-- i was cursing the people running. or, to be more exact, strolling. seriously. a RACE, people, a race. there were so many people that i couldn't help but think of an edna st vincent millay poem or sonnet-- leastways, i think it was her, or else carol ann duffy-- about how if our sun were to go out we could keep the world warm by friction alone. didn't complete in my target of under an hour-- went 3 mins over. 10 mins better than my run nus result (which, of course, had the dubious honour of nearly making me break down in sheer unadulterated fury over the run up vigilante drive-- i got through that hell-stretch on pure anger, nothing else) but nowhere near my shape run's happy 1h 13 secs. RARR. well. i guess at least i made it through all three races-- something i thought would be such a hurdle to overcome. i am just never going to take part in the nike one again, although shape and run nus are always to be considered.

and-- yet another item i've wanted to talk about for a while-- for a really, really long while. weeks? perhaps it deserves a separate post, but if i do that i'll just delay forever and it will NEVER get posted.

but then again-- this is already a freaking long post.

and i have tutorial tmr at 9am. which is 4.5 hours from now.

sigh, alright. NEXT TIME.

so i guess the blog title-- 18 pts-- wasn't just a reference to my driving test results. maybe all that i've failed to blog about for so long can really be summed up into 18 succint, simple, sundry points.

(except who wants to blog in point form? i mean, where goest thy narcissism? [i forgot how to spell narcissist. or narcissism. omg. ok. malvolioism?])
Posted at 2:04 AM

i am cabbing so much it's driving me mad.

or at least, maybe it's just the incessant emptying of my wallet that's driving me mad. Just YESTERDAY alone i spent 40 plus dollars on transport (ok, admittedly, half of that was on an ez link top up, but the mere fact that i'm beginning to resort to twenty-dollar top ups instead of tenners kind of speaks for itself). the last ten bucks of the day--night--morning--whatever-- was a total UNNECESSARY necessity; to elaborate, i took the penultimate bus 10 from kent ridge at 11.30, 11.45 and stayed awake in the godawfully warm and stuffy and motion-sickness-inducing vehicle till just past siglap, where i promptly fell asleep and woke up in tampines.

clever, clever. the last bus 10 in the opposite direction had left at 11.02pm, so i was stuck 5 bus stops away from home at 12.42am. wonderful.

so i cabbed. sigh. i hate the midnight surcharge.

cabbed to school too because after driving that morning i came back home and collapsed in a semi-coma, awaking in a mad rush to realise i was going to be late for dance. so i took the train to buona vista and then cabbed in. haiz. for that short trip? 6 bucks.

i should stop whining. maybe i can gush about my costumes instead. oh, or rather, the lack thereof, and the lack of time i have to make/buy any, never mind the lack of inspiration. hahah.

i'm sorry if i sound crabby. i'm not. i'm actually loving-- or at least peacefully co-existing-- with my life the way it is now. cringe-worthy moments aside-- like when i *wince* happily forget about wikipedia templates and shades of blue and show up in eyeblinding azure instead of blue blue-- or when i CAN'T CATCH STEPS *curses creatively for a few minutes*-- it's all good.

i'm nowhere near good enough to dance for a living, but that doesn't stop me from making dance my life, my centre, my raison d'etre. :D yes, aphorism-spouting.

i haven't been awesome-- not as a daughter, not as a friend, and definitely not as a sister. I guess this is sort of the price i pay-- for not being good enough, for being a procrastinator, for my temper. I can't attribute all my failings to dance (e.g. lack of time making me short-tempered or selfish or whatever)-- especially not when i've felt more than once that maybe it's my only redeeming factor at times.

i'm not looking forward to when dr is over and life goes back to my previous definition of normal-- a normal that i am afraid will seem all too bland, all too hectic, a mad paper chase of legal drudgery (in more ways than one).

there is so much more i need to say-- so much more about what dance has made me think about, about the moments when things fall together, when things fall apart, when suddenly the music finds meaning (or i find meaning) or the way we all manage to find our own personal reasons for dancing. there is 31st august to blog about, school to talk about, quiet trips home on 10 in the lonely darkness as i pass kallang stadium or on the mrt as i pass a certain house in kembangan, as i stop to mark a moment of remembrance and to, in a way, dedicate part of the dance to him.

there is the thought of dr, coming up so so so fast. there is the thought of never never never being good enough.

so much worth fighting for
Posted at 1:47 PM