today was really an epic day, to mark the final day of july. first started with a performance for the international delegates who came to my workplace for the world debate championship. the workplace hosted this prestigious international event. honestly speaking i also dunno how come my workplace was selected to host it. the performance was actually the item that i choreographed for this year's cny concert. because of my busy schedule i simply can't find any time to practise with the students, so we only practised for less than an hour today and we just went on stage to perform. i have a lot of faith in my students. hahaha. batman told me that there are some parts that could have better coordination but overall the performance was good. most importantly the international delegates were very impressed with the performance and so yes the restage was a success! :)
after lunch i brought the show choir kids to SCAPE for the first combined b-dazzled rehearsal. and they had a very bad run, and the worst thing is all the other schools were there watching the run, and they felt really depressed after that. and they cried during our debrief. i am glad they cried because they knew they screwed up and they are capable of doing better. they cried because they have the heart for show choir and this means alot to them. i believe they will pick themselves up and become better performers. and right after the rehearsal i rushed to 海南会馆 for the sibu rehearsal. i was already late and so i didn't eat dinner. we had a really intensive 2.5 hours of rehearsal, doing crazily difficult 民间 steps with an empty stomach is no joke. i was literally dying at the end of the rehearsal. and omg how can BLS do all this at his age?! he is amazing! i am really glad to learn dance from him and my chinese dance students are definitely a privileged lot to learn from him too. looking forward to a memorable august!
went to pan pacific hotel for peiyi's wedding, who is my dance friend from nuscd. peiyi was my dance partner in 'Sexes In The City', choreographed by michael.
this was 7 years ago!! OMG.
congrats yizhuan and peiyi!!! today we also planned to have an early birthday celebration suprise for nzj. so after the wedding i just asked nzj and the other dancers whether wanna go somewhere to chill. nzj: ok lor let's go! jingwen: 我们去哪里? me: 去 equinox. jingwen: SERIOUSLY?! equinox is a very atas place located at 70th floor of swissotel. at equinox you can see the beautiful city landscape. no need to sit singapore flyer. can go to equinox. hahahaha. xuehong said that he has rehearsal and can't join us. but actually he went to pump the baymax balloon with helium air while we are taking photos and talking cock.
really like this photo alot! thank you nzj for taking for us! and finally xuehong arrived!
totally made a grand entrance. hahahaha.
happy nzj with the presents! as you can see his presents revolve around baymax. i got him the baymax figurine! and then darling asked nzj whether he got suspect anything a not. nzj: don't have ah. it is very yy. HAHAHAHAHAHA.
photo taken using my gopro, edited by nzj. this is the life! nzj and xuefen start to take photos of the baymax figurine and balloon.
hope you enjoyed the surprise! all of us also enjoyed the chilling out at equinox. it is really a nice place! :)
the past years have been in the hall. this year the workplace decided to make speech day a cosy affair by having it in an air conditioned room.
ya nan, from modern chinese dance. besides audrey yong, she was always featured in all my special items.
midzi and dinah, who did a wonderful rendition of Taylor Swift's Blank Space and Style. alot of students and teachers came to me and asked me who are they and praised them for their awesome performance.
the cca award winners. L to R: mujahid (art club), jerriel (wind ensemble), chau li (show choir) and yiyun (netball). congrats everyone!
one of my most gham colleagues in the workplace! we share the same passion for performing arts. both show choir and dance dynamics are doing very well under our brilliant leadership (self praise TTM hahahahaha).
and this will be the last racial harmony day for me at the workplace.
on monday afternoon i went for an interview at a potential future workplace in the north. my last interview was the job interview that took place 9 years ago at M-OH-YEEEEE. so i was a bit nervous. i thought the interview will be done at a conference room. instead i was brought straight into the Principal's office. the principal asked me to sit on the sofa, and he sat beside me. and a few moments later the VP came in and sat opposite me on an armchair. and our interview begins! the questions asked are: what are my strengths and weaknesses, what have i been doing at the current workplace, why did i apply to change workplace, does batman know about me changing workplace, etc etc. i feel like it is more of a chit chat session. we even chatted about whether is darling also a teacher. hahaha. at the end of the interview the principal told me that besides me there are other applicants for the PE teacher vacancy. so he still need to decide who to take and he will get in touch with me. this afternoon i received a phone call from the VP, and he told me i am selected. :)
it is the gathering again at fooshin's house! we always try to have the gathering at least once a year, to catch up and reminisce the good old days. thank you fooshin for always preparing food for us. your quiches and lentil soup are really amazing and are worth dying for.
thankful to have this group of good friends to support one another, and to share precious memories of dancing on stage, backstage experience and supper outings since 2007! and come to think of it the founders of FMC (Forget Movement Club) are seated in a triangle. hahahahaha. we are always thankful to have people like michael and bin gege in nuscd who can remember all the movements.
so thankful that today is a public holiday. i will like to wish a selemat hari raya aidilfitri to my muslim students, colleagues and friends! today i went to gain city megastore at sungei kadut (ie 鸟不生蛋 place) with darling and her family. i had a tiring but fun time playing with the niece. so sweet that she will always come to me to hold my hand to walk around the place with her. hahahaha. after that we went to Dong Po Colonial Cafe at 56 Kandahar Street. it is along the same street as the rich and good cake shop that sells the yummy swiss rolls. both darling and i love that cafe a lot and although her parents never say anything much about that cafe, we can tell that they also like it. :)
dongpo colonial cafe has a very old school ambience and sells old school pastries!
this lemon meringue tart was amazing! and they made their own jams!
term 3 has been good so far. now i am preparing for 2 big events: the national day concert and b-dazzled. national day concert is combined together with the arts festival. a lot of work has been put in to conceptualise the concert. we are presenting the story of singapore from the past to the present, in the form of a dance drama production. this time i am not the artistic director. i am nurturing a new colleague to take over my position. i am still performing for this concert and hence it will be my final performance and my swansong in the workplace! next monday i am going to a school in the north zone for an interview. wish me luck! b-dazzled is the show choir festival organised by singapore show choir academy. the past 2 years it was held at nus ucc. this year it will be held at the star performing arts centre. thrilled because i have never been there before and i get to check out the backstage. i always love exploring the backstage. probably because of the performer's blood that flows inside me. my instructor told me that she is super sad because this is her last year working with me for b-dazzled. very sweet of her to say that as she has quite a domineering character and that makes me appreciate her words even more. :D right now my friday nights are devoted to dance practises with xuehong and bai laoshi. it has been great working with bai laoshi so far and he is very good in spotting my weaknesses. and the way he correct my weaknesses is in a super humourous manner. let me share some of his 经典名言: "YY 你太厉害做造型了。每一个动作都是造型。民间是民间。不要每一次做造型。" "YY 你跳舞太用力了。你每次一用力，就想起要跳十二分钟的舞蹈，你自然而然就跳的轻松多了。" and the next sentence is the ultimate. not commenting on me, but commenting on our dear xuehong. during that practise there was me, nzj, bin gege, peter and another male dancer called zixiang. xuehong was not around. "在你们当中，fen 最厉害偷懒。你们都太实在了。" hahahahahaha. really ultimate.
the day started well because i present prizes to some of my students who did well for their mid-year examinations. kudos to my colleague (who is the sec 2 level head) for preparing these prizes.
in the afternoon derek seong came down to the workplace to choreograph the cirque du soleil item for the modern chinese dance girls. this item will be showcased during the workplace's national day concert. hope that the girls will practise hard and do a good job on that day! and then in the evening i went to this room in 海南会馆 for dance practise.
carpeted floor, no mirrors, weird stench. at least got air con, and is free of charge! this dance practise is for my upcoming performance at SIBU Dance Festival. i will be going with bai laoshi, xuehong, nzj, bin gege, meizheng, peter teo, jean (my student) and a few other dancers which i dunno. there will be 2 dance items, 1 choreographed by bai laoshi and the other one by xuehong. i am very excited because i finally get the chance to dance in bai laoshi's item. this is the best time to dance in his item because once i get married with darling it will be very difficult for me to dance on stage anymore. so i am really very thankful for this opportunity and i am so glad to learn from him. and i finally get to do the crazy split pose with the insanely flexible meizheng.
