All I Do Is Eat And Sleep And Sing

Actually that should be all we did was eat and sleep and sing and work. Bump-in week just before actual shows meant we all had to be in Actor's Studio Lot 10 by 6.30pm every day (initially bump-in time was 6pm but the parking rates would have bankrupted all the members), get dressed, rehearse songs and dance, have our dinner, and on performance days, get ready for the show after that.

And after the rehearsal/performance, it was to the gym for a quick shower before going for a quick supper (or just changing out of our costumes and heading to sup with friends who came for the show), then heading home to zonk out.

Now that it's all over (freedom, hurrah!), we can get back to doing other stuff!

Like going for BodyCombat and shouting our head off! And other cardio classes in gym!

We've already started with BodyJam last week when Junior told us about the All-Stars BodyJam class that was on on Thursday, where we danced to relatively new releases of Jam for one and a half hours. Interestingly, the only track which we really enjoyed? 'Rich Girl' from BJ34. It's currently BJ50 now.

GOODNESS WE'RE STILL HANGING ON TO TRACKS FROM OVER THREE YEARS AGO! BODYJAM 34 WAS IN THIRD QUARTER 2005!

And not to mention we've got movies to catch up with! Now that there's no more Wednesday evening rehearsals we've already done Astro Boy last Wed when the Chief won free preview tickets, and this week there be some chinese movie and Ninja Assassin to watch!

Speaking of movies, finally we get to chill out on Friday night with the guys for a dvd night! And our choice of movie? Paranormal Activity. After hearing a fair bit about it we thought it would be something good, but it turns out that the copy we got had the toned-down ending, as lad informs us today that there's another version with a bigger thrill factor.

Blair Witch is still far better. Perhaps if lad gets the alternative ending copy of Paranormal Activity we'll all watch it again.

And best yet was having quality time with the Chief for the weekend where we take it easy!

Happiness is tasting the freedom you never knew you lost, even when it is doing something you enjoy.

When I Called You Last Night From Glasgow

Dear Janvier in our future,

We're writing to you from 6 years ago, just thought of reminding you of our choir times while we were studying in Strathclyde. We tried calling you but well, waiting six years for you to respond will take far too long.

Of course, seeing how we are writing to ourself in the future, you should know what happened already but knowing how our memory tends to be spotty we thought this letter would be a good refresher of your past, our present.

Well, now that the University of Strathclyde Music Society has finish performing Faure's Requiem in the Barony Hall, it's time to focus on the upcoming Canty! We'll be singing in the Scottish Plainsong Choir for this, and songs include hymns, Gregorian chants and medieval music. Definitely something different.

So far we see new people joining for the Canty - since this is open to the public to join the Plainsong Choir. There's going to be a few rehearsals only for this in Edinburgh and Glasgow but we'll only attend the nearby ones in Glasgow. And of the three performance venues we shall only go for the performance in Old St Paul's Episcopal Church in Edinburgh and for St Andrew's In The Square in Glasgow. Don't think that we want to be that Adventurous to go all the way to Dundee and try and find St Salvador's Episcopal church on the day itself. We worry we'll get lost.

We'll definitely perform in the Glasgow venue not only because we're staying there but also because that performance will be recorded and we will want to get ourself a copy for keepsakes, and not to mention we can proudly say that we were singing in that recording too!

And there's going to be some movement as well for some songs! We can't really call it choreography as all that we're going to do is sing a song as we all walk in, and when we leave. Other than that it'll be the usual stand-sing-sit variations.

So how are you getting along 6 years from now? Still singing? We kinda think that once we leave uni, it's going to be most likely that if we want to sing in a choir it would be back in church. Or maybe no more choir. Well, we'll find out more in the future.

PS. We would like it if you could reply, but that, too, we think would take years.

Yours,
Janvier

I Was Sick And Tired Of Everything

Well there were some members who were definitely sick, and after each rehearsal everyone was tired.

With the rainy season here again and it raining almost every day, there's been a bug going around again and a few people have been sniffling and hacking, especially audible after we've run through some songs and were waiting for feedback from our musical director or director or choreographer.

One bunch of members who are sick include members of the Red Myvi (Shuku, Louie [oh cannot resist using his first name!] and Carrie), as from one member getting sick soon all three of them were sniffling, hacking and such like, Shuku has gone from singing alto to bass overnight.

We could not resist using the term, 'An incubus of viral plague,' when refering to the Red Myvi.

Even us! So far all we've felt was a slight soreness in our throat when straining to project our voice to the end of the theatre.

Other than that, everyone's been doing their best, such that after every rehearsal at the Actor's Studio everybody goes home tired. Singing can be very tiring!

And today, it begins! This year's performance! Rhythmic Roots at The Actor's Studio Lot 10! If you ever wonder how music from the various ethnicities and cultures from the Asian countries sound like, drop by to find out!

We can almost taste the freedom after that!

Janvier Soldat And The Sleazy Swim Shower

It was a bright morning when Janvier woke up one weekend. Not by his own volition, as normally given any weekend he would sleep all the way till late afternoon. And although today he was suppose to be up and ready by noon so that he could head off for a good dim sum brunch before rehearsals, instead of being able to sleep all the way till 11.30am he found himself wide awake at 9.30am.

So what did Janvier decide to do?

A few things probably factor in here. The invites by Junior to come swim at his place that Janvier couldn't attend. Also, the fact that the last time Janvier went swimming and getting some sun was his trip to Phuket.

So Janvier decided that it would be the day where he pays his first visit to the Kelana Jaya Swimming Pool. He tried searching online for some information about the place, like how much is the entry fee, lockers, operating hours, and what he could garner was that the lockers are dirty and old and the advice was to just keep everything with you.

Janvier packs his bags and head off to the pool. It is about 10.45am when he arrives at the KJ Swimming Pool and he parks, pays the RM4 entry fee and...gets lost. He sees stairs heading upstairs and downstairs, and unclear directions as to the men's changing room. After wandering past the surau and all he finds the changing room, and sees the lockers outside.

Those are terrible lockers. Rusty, dusty, musty. We want to keep our belongings safe and clean. The lockers do not give that impression.

In the changing room, there is a wide open space with tiled seats. Janvier decides to scout the area for changing rooms. There was none, so he heads into a shower cubicle to change into his swim trunks.

Heading to the pool Janvier gets slightly daunted at the length of the pool. Olympic sized? He knows that he may have problems swimming the length of the pool, since he never had good stamina. Also, for a weekend the pool was not as crowded as Janvier feared it would be. There were a couple of people lying on the side of the pool working on their tan, and children playing at the corners and a few people doing their laps on some lanes.

Janvier puts his bag and Crocs aside somewhere where he can keep an eye on it, dons on his goggles and jumps into the pool and swims to an empty lane. He then does the breast stroke to the other end of the pool.

Three-quarter-ways down the pool Janvier was hyperventilating already. However ego did not allow him to stop swimming and so he gasped for breath while struggling to the edge of the pool. Sweet bliss was reaching the end of the pool, where all he could do was lay his head at the edge and gasped till his breathing slowed back to normal.

Janvier would have rested for a fair bit, except he got pressured when the swimmer on the next lane arrived, rested a while, then started swimming back. And Janvier noticed that each stroke of that swimmer was equivalent to two or three strokes of his. So Janvier started swimming again.

Only to give up when he had about five more strokes to reach the end, and he walked-paddled that bit.

At that point Janvier saw that there was not much time left for him to do any more laps, and so he decided to just bob in the pool and get some sun. And around the same time, the suntanner near him got up.

Janvier looked at the tanner. And looked away. So did the suntanner.

Janvier took a double take. So did the suntanner.

Janvier and Sinner took a triple take before recognizing each other.

Janvier was not wearing his glasses, of course. Sinner probably did not wear his contacts either, hence it took so long before they id'ed each other. They chatted until 11.30am, and then Janvier took his leave. Especially when Sinner told him that his face was turning red.

Back in the changing room Janvier's senses suddenly became much more aware. It did not require special senses for it. When men walk back and forth between aisles three times without any reason, or keep looking out from their shower cubicle while showering their hair more than once, Janvier could feel a chill that he did not feel coming out from the pool.

Grasping his bag he quickly headed to the nearest shower cubicle. Only to find that there was no place for him to hang his bag. He headed to the next row, and saw that those cubicles had nails hammered outside, so he hung up his bag and began rummaging for his shower gel. It took some time because the nail was quite high up and it was not easy for Janvier to find the shower gel that ended up buried at the bottom.

All the while standing out there with one hand in his bag, Janvier felt eyes on him. He felt as if he was parading for others and that made him rush frantically to get that shower gel and get into a cubicle quick. What really propelled him into the cubicle and lock up was when people started walking past and rather too close for comfort.

Janvier decided that he would take a very quick shower, dress up, head back and then take a proper shower. He also thought he heard a moan from somewhere.

Back home, as he takes a proper shower, he notices that even when spending less than an hour in the pool there was a noticiable difference in skin tone! Delighted, he now wonders if it is worth heading there again just to tan up...

DVD Deliberations

So we've finished Battlestar Galactica and Hercule Poirot for now, and of late instead of watching DVDs of movies we've missed over the past months, we've been watching...the director's commentry for Lord Of The Ring's Fellowship Of The Ring.

And later we'll go back and watch the designer's commentry, the production and post-production team commentry, and the actor's commentry. By the end of it all we'll probably need to buy new DVDs again.

Why the commentry and not a movie? 'Cos we've watched LotR before, and so can easily stop any time, while if we watch a movie we'd like to finish it in one seating. Not really feasible when we only come back from rehearsals near midnight.

Also, we've resorted to watching LotR because we've an inkling to watch odd films if we were to go buy DVDs. It started with us remembering a phrase: Clockwork Orange. Never did get a chance to look it up so we wiki'ed it, and that led to Soylent Green later on because we wanted a synopsis of the movie, and then that led to reading synopsis of movies on Wikipedia like Stephen King book-to-movie titles and to other Kubrick films especially 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Clockwork Orange's idea of ultraviolence then is violent, but from the way it's acted out (as watched from YouTube) it doesn't seem so, nowadays movies are rather violent too. It's hard to picture it as violent when Alex sings 'Singing In The Rain' while attacking someone...



From there, since we started on movie synopsis we thought we might as well read up Soylent Green's synopsis. And from this trailer, well, you don't even need to watch the entire film. Just watch the trailer and then, go look up the secret of Soylent Green if you didn't already know and would like to know.



What we do want to catch if possible, is 2001: A Space Odyssey.



But the one question that runs through our mind each time we think of buying the shows to watch: These are old movies. Do we have the patience to sit through them any more?! Nostalgia is one thing where we have already readily accepted the fact that certain elements of a show is old, like the original Star Trek and the fake panels in the background of the Enterprise, but for shows we've not watched or heard before?

We should be preparing for movies like this instead, yes?



Prince of Persia movie! The games were good, but we don't have any feel for Jake Gyllenhaal but hey if the movie's good we can live with it.

Asides from movies, the only DVD telly series we're interested in? Oddly enough Gossip Girl is still sitting on our shelves as we don't find the interest for it much, but we're keen on picking up Monty Phyton's Flying Circus, and The Legend Of The Seeker when and if it comes out over here.



Hmmm should start reading Terry Goodkind's books then regardless of the differences.

My Life As A Necromancer With The Tribes From The East

Life as a necromancer, as I remember, was always glorious. The power extended to us necromancers, gave us great abilities, allowing us to raise the dead after we slew our enemies in battle. As a necromancer of great strength not only could I raise the dead, my powers allowed me to raise Skeleton Archers instead of mere skeletons to bolster my army strength.

Armies tremble to see my banner and horde of skeletons ready to rain death upon them, and while some desperately flee others readily offer their allegiance to me, in the futile hope that I would let them live. Foolish mortals.

What way is there to join an army of undead, but to be undead?

But if the mere mortals could prove their worth, I allow them to live...for a while. Infernal Succubi Mistresses have seduced me to let them live before, showing me they can shoot fireballs to hit everyone. Sylvan Hunters show their archery skills. Sylvan Druids, Shadow Elven Matriachs, Human Zealots and Inquisitors all show their magical prowess. Dragons, Titans, Cyclops, Angels and Demons are all welcomed.

For the rest, they serve me better as skeleton archers, or vampires lords, or archliches (although I fondly remember the time when they called themselves Power Liches).

Ahhh. The glory days when I stormed my enemies' castles with over two thousand skeleton archers.

I retired sometime when the Tribes Of The East arrived, as I had other duties to perform, staying only long enough to infiltrate a Stronghold, pretend to be a Barbarian and lead an army of Goblins, Orcs, Wyverns and Pao-kais, even Cyclops to march the lands. I find that they make excellent vampires, the way they thrist for their victims' blood. But the way they find their goblins expendable makes me feel that the goblins would be much more useful as skeleton archers.

Now I have come back from retirement, only to find that my necromantic powers have changed! By the tears of Asha, I have been weakened! Where I used to be able to raise skeletons after every battle nonstop, leading to my warmongering and bloodlusty charges, now I find that my necromantic powers limited to this thing called 'Dark Energy'. With this Dark Energy drained before the week ends, I cannot raise any new dead! And now what we raise is dependant on who we kill!

Coming out of retirement it was wise that I decided to visit my neighbour and tentative Sylvan ally, General Bun, or Bunny to his friends. Having impersonated a Sylvan Ranger before, the two of us have slightly different opinions about running the army. I deplore his wanton treatment of pixies, as I prefer their superior sprites. Also, he prefers his Arcane Archers while I would rather the Master Hunters.

Also it is obvious that General Bunny takes care everytime he attacks, strategically splitting and arranging his armies before marching into battle, while I send them en masse, knowing that their Eternal Servitude would bring them back to life should they fall in battle.

It has been two weeks claiming new territories for my Necropolis, and already I deplore this newfound Dark Energy dependancy to which my army growth is now limited.

Hmmm. Perhaps we should pick another faction to go to should our time as a Necromancer be over.

Nightly Nociception

After a couple of major incidents, we've come to observe that if we were to suffer from anything that would keep us awake, it would be around 6am before we would be able to drop off from utter exhaustion (regardless of further pain or suffering).

It all started on Monday at rehearsal.

See, for the dikir barat song choreography the lot of us are supposed to sit cross-legged on the floor and clap and sing and whatnot. And on Monday we were sitting cross-legged on the floor for a good hour or more, we had a large blister on the outer side of our right foot. And by the time we noticed the blister it had already burst.

Normally this would only be a mild inconvenience. We'd just need to go get a plaster and problem solved. And this we did.

Come yesterday we see a few others also with plasters on their right foot. Heh.

And last night as we were sleeping, the pain started.

Perhaps a little explaination will be needed. See, we had an operation yonks ago that left our right leg slightly weaker and the foot partly numb although we still do have certain amount of motor control thankfully. And it's 'partly numb' ya, not totally numb. Don't think that we can go around poking a needle into our right foot or putting a naked flame near to it won't hurt us.

At the time we'd left the blister exposed as we were done showering and had to change our plaster. At first we thought that there was some rough residue stuck on the blister wound. A mild brush across the wound and once we were satisfied that there was nothing on it, we slumped back to sleep.

Only to be disturbed by a sharp pain again. A sharp, cold piercing sensation at not only the wound but the skin surrounding the wound area too. And it stung frequently too! Everytime we think we could drop off to sleep, we would get a sting that would get our heart beating faster for a while and us unable to rest.

Think of someone taking an ice-cold needle, and piercing it into your foot. Make that ten needles. And then taking it out, letting the pain subside and for you to recuperate. Only to pierce you again about about 2 minutes later. Continue for the entire night.

We suspected that it was due to the nerves on our foot but there was only so many things we could try to remedy the situation at past 3am at night.

Panadol. Antihistamines to help sleep it through. Cleaning the wound and applying a fresh layer of Fucidin. Oh and plaster it up again.

Nothing worked. Oh we didn't take the stronger painkillers as we didn't think adding possible gastric pain to our current situation would be helpful. Oh and our muscle relaxant was left in the office.

We were even desperate enough to try dabbing our ulcer gel onto the surrounding area of the wound just to see if the lignocaine would help numb it till we fall asleep.

No such luck.

Further desperation led to us applying the gel onto the wound as well.

Still no luck.

Possibly the only thing that worked was whacking our foot to cause more pain, but this kind of pain is the kind expected from a normal wound that would heat up slightly and lead to a mild sustained and dull pain. But eventually the sharp nerve attacks would return.

Somehow we must had knocked out in exhaustion. Throughout the entire night we never did look at the time, because doing so we would not only know what time it was, but we would automatically calculate the number of hours of sleep we would have left and despair. But we do know that by 6am we would be totally exhausted because Wee Wog has already woken up by then and have harrassed our parents to let her out to the porch so that she can do her business.

We've now gotten better painkillers courtesy of our nearby clinic, and tonight we shall see if we can sleep through it!