dancing cheek to cheek

*warning* This post contains the boring details of my dance history. Not for everyone. =P

I first learnt to dance at Berkeley. There was a weekly social dance class, and we were taught the very basics of waltz, cha cha, Lindy and a few others. I certainly wasn't born to dance. Team sports were more my kind of thing. Shakin' and moving those hips don't come naturally to me. Put me on a dance floor and i'm about as groovy as a surfboard. But it was fun, and no one cared that I wasn't a dancing queen. When I moved down the peninsula to Palo Alto, M (at Stanford) and I often went to these social dances and had so much fun dancing till we got really dizzy.

It was in Boston that I was introduced to the world of competitive ballroom dancing. I started out shy and tentative with the Boston University team. I struggled for almost a year, trying to find a suitable partner. I never did well at competitions - I didn't know how to move, didn't know how to balance, didn't know how to look good. Moreover, I focused on Latin, which involved being sexy, and I don't do sexy very well. Haha... =)

It was not until I started dancing with David that things started to pick up. He danced with the MIT team, and it was there that I was introduced to a very different instructional environment. There were classes tailored specifically for different levels of dancers, and these classes strongly emphasized basic technique, something sorely lacking at BU. It was with David that I got my very first ribbons! (Yeah, when we make the finals, we get ribbons, just like in dog shows.)

no, that's not a legal dance move.

I continued dancing Latin with a new partner, Stewart, and we did okay at comps. We usually almost always made semi-finals at the Silver level, but found it really hard to improve. We were both too alike - laid back and aloof, so we never really pushed each other to practice and become better dancers.

yar, everyone tells me I should get him to smile more.

A year down the road, started competing in standard and smooth with Kenny. When I started, I was not very confident at all. I hardly knew the basics of these new dances, so how was I to show them off on the dance floor. Most of all, I didn't want to let Kenny down, as he had done really well with his previous partner. But I never looked back once I started. I knew that this was IT. Instead of sexy, think dreamy and elegant. Not exactly words to describe myself, but the feeling of floating across the dance floor was amazing.

Recently, I stopped doing latin, and decided to concentrate on standard and smooth. Happy happy! We've been doing really well at competitions and I attribute it to Kenny (who's a great leader) and the fact that i'm much happier doing what i'm doing now. We've moving up to the Gold level next semester and competition will be really tough. Wish us luck!

Dance has greatly influenced my life. I still don't have good enough posture and high heels still kill my feet, but I've improved so much since those California days. More importantly, I'm discovering and exploring this new side of myself, and I certainly like it! =)

Fastforward in time

To those of you that still visit my blog, thank you for believing that my life could possibly be interesting enough to provide some type of entertainment. =P Well, now that D is here in Boston with me, life has changed significantly, and thus, so should the content of this blog.
Life is good here.. we've settled into a comfortable rhythm. I'll go into that when I have a little more time. Well, to bring this blog up to speed, here are a couple of pictures from the past 2 years, a glimpse into my little life.

So D's in Boston! I must have looked at over 10 apartments before settling on this one. Boston is a pretty historical city, so many of the apartments are..um... 'charming' (read: old). Ours has elevators, on-site management, garage parking, and a pool (which unfortunately has a creepy lifeguard, but that's another story) etc. It's only an 8 minute walk to school, so we wake up unbelievably late every morning. Well, guess i'm a spoiled little princess! Here's our dining area all neat and uncluttered - not anymore, unfortunately.

Just as with great power comes great responsibility, with big kitchen comes big meals. We try to experiment with different dishes and cuisines. Yum! We have every common kitchen appliance imaginable - hand blender, juicer, george foreman grill, slow cooker, deep fryer. We have managed to convince ourselves that some of these things may come in handy some day. Here are some pics which explain why my face is now as round as a fishball. =(

japanese-inspired dinner: grilled miso cod and shitake miso soup

a feast with friends: 'claypot' chicken rice, carrot cake, kung pao chicken and sambal kangkong

ma la hotpot heaven

okay. this is making me hungry. We have many, many more pictures of food. Eating is our favorite pastime. I could share 3 pictures with each post for several posts! Must move on..

Glorious summer...
...and fall (Halloween with labmates)

Winter came....

...and refused to leave...

Signs of spring (in Chicago, the windy city)

Finally, summer weather has again descended on Boston. Kayaking, sailing, windsurfing, picnics, fruit picking... can't wait! Boston gets cold pretty early (Sept-Oct) in the year, which doesn't leave me with many weekends to enjoy the sun. Another reason to love summers is to have friends and family visit. Already this year, Daryl's friend V, my old friend YS, and a senior from RGS have stopped by. I enjoy having visitors. Not only do I get to know Boston a little bit better, but I get to spend some time catching up and sharing life's stories.

the adventure begins...
Guess it's time to wipe the dust off this online journal, and start blogging again with a vengeance. After all, there is much to say. Life just got more exciting, and that much sweeter. =) I left Singapore for Frankfurt on sunday night, then took a three-hour train ride to Leipzig. So here I am, back in his arms, taking in the sights, sounds and smells of a wintery german stadt.

It was quite a journey, for I definitely did not travel light (16kg overweight!). I had a huge (I mean HUGE) suitcase filled with countless goodies (pineapple tarts, bak gua, shrimp rolls, ikan billis, chicken floss etc.) for the greedy one. Okay, I guess my numerous clothes and shoes must have added quite a bit of weight too. Then I had my huge 55L backpack, stuffed to the brim. Then I also lugged along a classical guitar for his entertainment. *sigh* With the thick winter coat and scarf limiting my movements, I could hardly walk 50m without resting. And boy did i have to walk alot. I must thank the nameless strangers that helped me drag my luggage onto carts, into trains, off trains, across platforms, up escalators... Not knowing where to go and which train to take certainly didn't help. Anyhow, I made it safely to Leipzig...so it's all better now. *cheers*

Anyway, i think i quite like winter. Especially if you have a warm hand to hold whenever you feel like it. When I first stepped out of the Hauptbahnhof, it was a very different world that greeted me. Cute little trams , cobblestone streets that look like pavements, bare naked trees, the cold whipping wind... can't wait to explore the city more. Haven't been to many places although this is the 4th day of my visit...Daryl's still got a week of school, so i'm spending my mornings lazing around, grocery shopping, and preparing lunch. When he visited me in Berkeley, all he did was laze around and play guitar. *ptui*

We've also done quite a bit of cooking. Invited his german housemate/classmate to dinner last night, and prepared a yummy but spicy meal of sambal kangkong, mapo tofu, and kung pao chicken. mmm.... happy tastebuds. =) Think i'm quite a big disruption to his frugal lifestyle. Since i've arrived, we've gone grocery shopping twice (in three days!), and the fridge has filled up with all sorts of food, fruits and juices. I didn't spend very much...but I suppose he usually buys enough food for only a day or two, whereas I plan for a whole week or so. He'd better get used to it.

We're heading to the Canary Islands next weekend for a week's fun in the sun...then spending the following two weeks touring mainland spain and portugal. I'm really looking forwards to some warmer weather, and white sandy beaches..oh, and seafood too. Most of the fish here seems to be dried or salted or smoked. After that should be heading back to the US for 2-3 weeks for grad school interviews and open houses. I've had some positive responses from a few schools already...and so the year ahead doesn't seem so uncertain anymore. =P

Oh, I feel so lucky. I'm really glad that i took a year off before applying to grad school. I gained so much more than I expected from my internship. I did some cool science research, interacted with some really great people, became better friends with M, stayed in a cute studio, earned some $$ for my trip to europe, danced alot, laughed alot, and mm..maybe got a better idea of my plans for the future. Then I got to spend chinese new year in Singapore. The snacks, the food, the family, the ang pows. I enjoy spending time with my parents more and more as I get older...the three weeks we were together seemed strangely short. Mm.. I suppose as they get older, the more I want to make the most of the time we spend together?

Oh, and my adorably handsome baby cousin. I love him so much. I melt when his little hand clenches tightly around my index finger, and when he smiles at me, and when he gurgles excitedly whenever I talk to him. I guess I experience only the good things. I don't have to change his soiled diaper, I don't have to feed him every 4 hours, i don't have to wake up to his crying at 3am in the morning, i don't have to carry him until he falls asleep, i don't have to pacify him when he wails at the top of his lungs. Man, i'm not ready for kids. But is anyone actually prepared for the responsibility of caring for a totally and utterly dependent being, until they are actually faced with it? Oh well, hope that he still remembers this jiejie when I return to Singapore sometime in May. Babies grow up so fast...they remind me how old i am.

Okay...gotta clean up the room and shower. Moving in all my belongings and stuff has added a lot of clutter. Have to stop procrastinating. I hope that it'll start snowing, then we can go out and take pretty pictures. I'm so happy i could burst. *POP*

The Move
This is perhaps the biggest and most significant event in my life in the past few months. Yep, I moved. Into an apartment in Mountain View, which i had never been to before. An apartment that i had never seen. With roommates that i'd never met. And with absolutely no idea what to expect. Save for the roach problem, everything has worked out really well thus far. WHAT ROACH PROBLEM?! you may ask. Mm...my roommate and I are now very coolly nonchalant about the irritating pests that plagued us upon our move in. We didn't even cook for 2-3 weeks because of these unwelcome kitchen guests. Well, I can now bite the heads off cockroaches with my bare teeth. Nah, not so powerful yet lah. Luckily they're the small German cockroach and not the huge-ass singapore flying ones. We've tried fumigating, roach bait, roach killing powder and insecticide...and ironically the problem got better once we started cooking. MMm...my cooking ain't that bad right?
Anyhow, living in this apartment has been pretty safe, and it has nice amenities such as a pool and a playground. It's been fun living with my new housemate, Emiley, who i believe has a Singapore obsession, apparently triggered by a fascination with our very own SDU. She knows so much about the country, and loves the food. We've even made plans for makan at Banana Leaf tomorrow night! Yar..and she even tried to make me record the answering machine message in a strong singaporean accent, just to amuse her and her friends. harhar.
It's also been fun furnishing my room from scratch. Cheapskate lil' me plowed though Craigslist everyday, and now i have a cosy little room with a glorious queen sized mattress and twin futon amongst other things....all for less than $50. Just put up pictures of ABC, my parents, the canoeists, and so on...they add warmth to a boring room.
If i could choose, i would stay in a furnished studio. (Yes, and become even more antisocial) At the end of a long day at work, i just want to have my own private space, without having to be cordial and constantly worrying if i'd be stepping on someone else's toes all the time.
One thing i hate about the whole moving process though, is meeting up with prospective co-tenants or roommates. With every person i meet, i try to be really friendly and open, so that they get a good idea of who i am and where i come from. Also, on their side, they have to open up their homes, and provide a glimpse of what life for them is like. It hate it especially since i feel much of it is just superficial courtesy rather than real i-like-you-so-muchnesss. There was this little old lady whose room i went to see. The house was okay, the room was okay, but she was nice, eager and sincere. I felt so terrible turning her down, coz she actually was so honest and open to discussing all the terms of rental since she had a good feeling about me. I felt bad for a few days after that.....but i really wanted to stay in a studio by myself. Later i met another old lady that made me feel very unhappy. She had a great studio, a cute doggie, and well, seemed friendly enough. We talked for quite a while, and i would have probably gotten the place if not for what happened next. I mentioned that i had to wait for a phone call from another renter before i could give her my answer....that was an earlier arrangement that i had made. This old lady suddenly became someone else. She folded away my application, stood up, picked up the dog, turned off the light and abruptly ended our meeting. She could not even spare a smile from that point on. I was disappointed at the way things turned out. I don't understand how people can be so hypocritical. Oh well, at least i got to know what my prospective landlord would be like before i learnt the hard way. No more old ladies for me from then on.
i'm dead serious.

high ho (to the tune of Heigh Ho)
High ho High ho
It's off in a plane we go
We fly so high, we touch the sky
High ho High ho High ho ...
Somehow this little tune that my sec 1 gep camp group invented has stayed with me all these years. Given, it is not a very difficult tune at all, but aiyah...give me some credit lah. We were the "Wright Brothers", thus 'High-ho"...geddit? haha..cute little sec one peeps we were. =) We were bundled off to this dark youth hostel thing on Sentosa, where every group shared a room with many many bunk beds. It was on this camp that i picked up some very useful skills, such as how to play Daidee. Of course, we played a slightly nicer version called "Asshole". it was fun, sitting on the top bunks of beds, calling each other assholes, manholes, kings, queens and the like. Oh, and bridge too, now that used up more brainpower, but it was useful, and helped me get by many boring moments in the future. somehow, i think that if you play bridge, people assume you have some kind of mental capacity. But when u play daidee, it's more "aiyeeee, u got all the 2s, no wonder u win lah". but fun fun fun all the same.
Anywez, i've kinda lost the point of this blog. Just wanted to send some love out to him, all the way across the pacific, who'll be getting on the plane to SF pretty soon. *huggies*
------------------------------------------------------------
Anywez, check out Singapore's First Online Ghost Stories. *evil laughter* Haha...campfire tales have gone high tech! Remember all those leetle black books with spooky eyes that we have read some time or another in our lives? It's somewhat like that, except the stories are submitted via email and posted online. farnee titles like 'terror tekong" and "bedok beware". They even have a picture section, which is erm, interesting. go see see!