salsa high

So Comex is in town again and being such a technogeek I happily joined in with the festivities along with what must have been half of Singapore.? To be honest, I really wasn’t looking for anything (read:?true technogeek), however despite?the idea of having to join the throngs of people packed in 3 expo halls, scouting out cheap deals just got me all tingly inside.? And yes, cheap deals did we find.? I got myself an Olympus?? 720 SW for $699 and I think it’s pretty darned good.? It’s shockproof to 1.5m (the salesman demonstrated it) and waterproof up to 3.0m (the display? model was underwater) and it’s 7.1 megapixels, though I don’t really know what that means because I’m not really into cameras (till now hehe).??Oh and the coolest?feature is that it can counter the effects of my really?wobbly hands.? Somehow, no matter how wobbly my hands are, it’s managed to take the?sharpest pictures.? That’s?like a godsend?for me!? I didn’t have a chance to look at the competition, though,?because the Nikon booth was flooded with people taking photos with the Nikon girls.? But I didn’t see anybody advertising a waterproof Nikon camera anyway, so there.? Ooh, and I got some freebies along with the camera – 2 xD cards (512MB and 1GB), extra battery, some cool silicon casing which I don’t think I’ll be using and a screen protector, which I think I won’t use because the wrapping was in Engrish.

Anyway,?that was it for my purchases.? Lizzie got herself these cool iPod speakers which also doubled up as a radio, radio alarm clock ANd an iPod charger.? By the way, I’ve become quite trigger happy with my new camera purchase, so here’s a picture of the speakers.? I think they look real cool and now my Lizzie can wake up to music.? Haha, did I not mention that I dragged poor Lizzie kicking and screaming along?

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And Lizzie also got herself a new laptop!? It’s an Acer one and I think it’s pretty good with a 1.66 Core Duo procesor and 1GB of ram (free upgrade) with a 80GB hard disk drive plus 4 years warranty for just $1,598!? That’s cheaper than the NUS deal she was mulling over.?

We finally escaped the crowd and headed home to slack for a while before heading for dinner.? I brought my camera along, so here’s Lizzie at Fish ‘n’ Co in Tampines Mall.

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She sure looks mighty satisfied after her grilled fish, doesn’t she?

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Anyway, so after the whole day of walking at Comex, we decided to skip Union as originally planned and I sent her home and I helped her fix up her new laptop, and it’s such a beautiful thing.

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After a few hours of twiddling around, we finally got it up and running perfectly, and so the first thing I did?was to?help her install her favourite game…

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It’s alive!!!

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By the time we were done, it was already?about 1am and so I headed for home, but not before this:

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Bah.? Double yellow lines.

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So that’s another $70 down the drain.?

Goodness knows how fast time flies! We’ve been together 9 months now and it seems like only yesterday when we?decided to be together. Anyway, its been a fantastic 9 months and we’re still going strong! =D Happy 9 months dearie!?

Upon reflection, I’ve come to realise that one of the most electrifying salsa nights I’ve had were those nights where I could spontaneously come up with steps and totally sweat the night out and just keep moving.? One of the main ingredients of that, I feel, is the music (and of course having lizzie around).? Yes, the music devours my?soul and posesses?my body?to do its bidding and the result is electrifying, and I’d never thought I’d say something like this but I could feel myself inside the music.?

What sort of music does this to me, then?? The truth is that I don’t really know, but it’s got to be catchy, it’s got to be fast and very loud.? Yeah, dance itself is fun and music like that just keeps the flames going.? To me, it’s totally amazing stuff!

I guess it’s been some time since both of us posted and the reason is that we’re both ultra busy, Liz (see post below) and I.? Yeap, I’ve actually been busy with NS work, after hours and all that.? But that’s over anyway, so here I am blogging at work.? Haha.

The past weeks have been quite tiring, but I’ve still found some time to go salsa.? Met up with Linus last last Thursday at Hard Rock Cafe and it just so happened that they were having a salsa performance there.? Unfortunately, due to that, we had to pay extra to dance there, which pissed Linus off a fair bit and he tried to argue his way out of it to no avail.? So we did the next best thing.? We stayed up on the second floor and watched the performance till the manager, I think, came to us and told us that we could enter for free.? So we just stood around waiting for the performance to start and mingling around with some of the Xen people who came to watch.

The performance was quite spectacular.? There were many stunts and tricks that seemed to require a great deal of brute strength but yet performed so easily and effortlessly.? It was beautiful to watch.? If I have one complaint, though, it’s that the whole performance (about an hour of it) was just stunts, albeit different ones?although I could spot one or two repeats.? But all in all, I enjoyed it although it was a pity lizzie wasn’t there to see it.? I think she would have enjoyed it immensely.

After that we danced till late and I had so much fun!? I tried out new improvised moves that really tested my lead and did so many lengthy shines?that I?basically just danced my heart out.? By 1 am I was totally exhausted but somehow I just kept going.? I danced till Hard Rock had to close and shared a cab with Harry home.? Certainly it was one of my better dance experiences, yet, it just wasn’t the same without lizzie around.? Well I hope she comes next time to experience the electricity of salsa in Hard Rock.

On a side note, I danced on 2 with almost everyone there and no one seemed to notice.? I wonder why that is.?

About 2 weeks ago, my immediate boss called me into her office on a Friday…and promptly informed me that the CEO had decreed that she would be attached to another subsidiary company for 3 months….I asked “when?” and she replied “the coming Monday”. Sheesh, that left me only 1 weekend to mentally prepare for the?onslaught of a very staggering workload: I was?to take over all her cases…which was close?to 30? 40 Maybe? And at that point in time, I was undertaking like 4? 4 measley easy peasy kinda cases.

Ok, I reasoned that it would be a good chance for me to prove myself…but it appears its much easier said than done. Right on the very first day, I screwed up some stuff for the meeting…sheesh…I fumbled while presenting the case and I spotted this mega calculation error (which I should have picked out if I wasn’t so strapped for time..) in the report, a copy of which was passed on to the CEO. I held my breath and prayed that he wouldn’t spot the tiny error…which at that point had become?so huge it was literally?glaring at me. He glossed through it. I heaved a sigh of relief. I was a wreck that morning.

?And now 2 weeks later, I’m multi-tasking like crazy; I don’t even have time to go to the pantry to refill my cup or go to the toilet; My phone is ringing non-stop; I come into office earlier and leave much later than I did for the past 1 year since I started work. Well, you must be wondering by now what kinda job am I doing. I’m a marketing exec at a developer firm. My company is local?but its a fat cash cow..it owns about 9 commercial buildings worth about 1 billion bucks….and I’m hardly getting a fraction of that…There are only 4 runners in my dept?and now that my boss is temp away, that leaves 3…to manage 7 of the 9 buildings. And i get to manage?the only 2?pairs of twins. Why twins? Well, cos they are twin towers…so thats 4 buildings..comprising a sprawling 1 million square feet of space…imagine that filled with tenants….and the problems that come with it.?

My job is simple: to renew the exisiting tenants, fill up the vacant space and of course, to manage the tenants, which by?far is the most tedious and frustrating. I get ALL kinds of tenants, from the?nicest to the nastiest.?I’m definitely honing my negotiation skills at this rate I’m going.?But grumbles aside, I have to admit I learn much more and much faster. I suppose when you are thrown into the deep sea without a buoy,?you just have to paddle harder?or think of some creative way to stay afloat, ie strip of that pants, tie the ends and start blowing. *WAAIILLLL* I miss my schooling days.

Its wed tomorrow. Mid week. I get to dance after 6 days of non-action (suffering withdrawal symptoms already) and best of all I get to see Tien Yew! Yay! 🙂

Note: I may sound preachy here, but these are?just my feelings and perhaps rants?on the issue unsorted and perhaps a little?condescending.? I don’t intend any offence so don’t get pissed over one man’s views.? For those wanting more, a full objective article about dancing salsa on 2 will be posted soon enough.? Yes, I admit that this post is hardly objective and terribly biased and preachy.

Recently in the Singapore salsa scene, there’s been a surge in interest of dancing salsa on 2 for various reasons, but the most common reason is to try to be politically correct, dance-wise.? Basically many people think that they’re dancing to the clave.?

That’s total bullcrap.?

As I’ve mentioned in my Clave article, the clave plays only 5 notes, so technically your 6 steps should somehow be reduced to 5, which seems to me to be ridiculous, and definitely not how salsa on 2 is danced.? The above link contains diagrams on how salsa on 2 is danced, so do check it out.

Now, with that aside, dancing on 2 for me is fun!? I love it, in fact I love it so much that I try to dance that with lizzie every chance I have.? I’m definitely not swayed by assertions that on 2 is THE right way to dance because of the clave or because it’s dancing IN the music etc.? No, I dance on 2 because I like the syncopation within the steps.? I think the short pause allows for lots more styling and results in a more appealing dance, to both the dancer and the audience.? The?break step?also happens to coincide with the bass note, which gives your break a groovier feel.? This groovy feeling is even more pronounced when the bass is stronger, ie what many people call an on 2 song.

About “on 2 songs”,?I strongly feel that?the term is a?misnomer.? You can dance to any song on 2!? It merely depends on how the song makes you feel, and it would be very unfair to think that a song gives everyone the same feelings.? Therefore, dancing on 2 becomes a personal choice and not dictated to you by the song.

Dancing on 2 is certainly different from on 1 but not that different.? Sure, there are some variations you can do on 1 but not on 2 and vice versa, but most can be converted.? They might just requrie some initial thought.? But after dancing on 2 for a while I found that I could convert many variations on the fly, which I think says a lot about the connection between on 1 and on 2.?

I think one of the major hurdles to dancing on 2 naturally is counting.? Sure, counting is useful when learning the basics of on 2, but after a while when you’ve got them internalised, it is important to learn to shut that voice in your head that goes 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 7.? Do that and your on 2 steps will just flow.

So stop counting and start dancing on 2!

They’re cruncy, tasty and absolutely delicious.? I wonder why they’re not sold in Singapore, the supposed “food heaven”.? Anyway my colleague at work just came back from Australia?after a business trip and bought this big pack of nougats and we’ve been feasting on them since the beginning of the week.? And uh, I regret to report that it’s only day 2 and it’s half gone.? Damn.

Someone should import nougats to Singapore.? They’re the best snacks EVER and us gluttonous Singaporeans have a right to have them at our doorsteps!

You know, this is probably not in line with my plan to lose weight so I really should curb my craving for those crunchy white sticks…? Oops, just popped another into my mouth.? Mmmmmm.

In my attempt to start losing weight, I’ve taken up running.? If you can remember, I did blog about my first attempt the Sunday before.? Well that ended with me having aching legs for the good part of the week, leaving me quite immobilised and unable to continue any more running sessions.? So that was quite a failure, or so I thought.

Last Sunday’s run was amazing!? Yes, sure I felt the tiredness and nausea set in due to my relatively unfit state, but I woke up yesterday morning without a single aching muscle!? Amazing isn’t it?? I still ran the same distance, but on a tougher route yet as of now, I feel no pain.? I wonder what made the difference, because I have never ever not felt an ache after exercise in my entire life, and that’s quite somthing considering that I’ve been playing badminton competitively since my?primary school days.?

By the way, running on an empty stomach helps in burning more fat right?? Or at least till your body starts cannibalising on itself.? Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing.? I can’t last as long but man, the feeling after completing the run is good.? I feel like I’ve burnt so much fat.

Anyway, I’ll be running tonight again, and hopefully there won’t be muscle aches tomorrow morning.

I love dancing with lizzie!? Wednesday night was such a great dance night and we both had so much fun!? The music at Xenbar was not its usual fare and was fast and dynamic with some songs that we’ve never heard before, but they were all good.? It was like hit after hit after hit, how much better could it have gotten?? Not much, I must say!? I conclude, good salsa music = fast salsa music.

Of course it helped that lizzie is also a great follow, the best ever!? She executes moves exactly as I want, now that’s dancing!

There are some days when I just cannot seem to dance….I call those days salsa slumps…but tonight was amazing. It started out as a usual evening at Xen, with lessons at 7 plus till nine. The belly dancing lesson with Yanqing was physically challenging….isolation is a killer…I probably would ache all over tomorrow, esp the abs…but technically muscles are forming, so I shouldn’t complain…haha…

We hung around till Joyce finished merengue class then we hit the dance floor with a vengeance. Today is one of those salsa high days…when?we can dance song after song without any drop in energy level or enthusiasm….and execute relatively decent moves and spins….but that’s always the case when I dance with Tien Yew, cos he’s the best lead ever!!

Anyway, the salsa music and beat was in sync with the beating of our hearts and you could just feel the fever in your blood…..yup I usually experience that after 16 spins at one go (yay! I finally discovered the secret of multiple turns…). Tien yew and myself were dancing on2?so much, that I had difficulty switching back to on1. Still I had so much fun tonight!

And now my feet are aching…I’ve got some cuts on my feet from the shoe strap and I’ll probably ache big time tomorrow. I’m gonna hit the bed soon…but not before I get on the phone….. 🙂