I love...

I was talking to ol' friend JW the other day, and she made a remark about me. She said that I tend to obsess a lot, i.e. I get crazes: I find something I like, then get absolutely engrossed and preoccupied with it, thinking (and talking) about it 24/7 . Then it fades and I'm normal again until something else comes along. Obviously, I disagreed with her choice of words.. obsessed is such a strong word! To me, I think I'm just being passionate (cos' that's just me), not obssessive. Although I have to admit that it's a very fine line.. (And having said this, I'm sure those of you who actually know me fully agree with JW since I am exactly like that!) Anyhow, I refuse to have this 'stigma' attached to my name so for now, let's just call this passion, ok?

Following on from that, I have a new craze.. it's a Disney Channel original movie and was just released early this year. Yup, it's High School Musical alright! Oh my gosh, when I first heard about it/saw the advertisment, I knew that I was going to like it. After all, this is my forte - singing, dancing, acting! But when I actually watched it, I was blown away by how incredible the movie was! The actors were absolutely brilliant, and I do mean brilliant.. the singing was of star quality, the music, all original, was so catchy and just sounded great.. and best of all, the dancing. Ohhh... the dancing.. it was absolutely brilliantly amazing! The choreography was simply excellent (they won an Emmy award for Outstanding Choreography!) and the dancers were brilliant - perfectly coordinated and most important of all, looked like they were so energetic and like they're having so much fun!!!

What's the story? Well, it's a typical American high school where the main character is Troy, the all-star, coolest-guy-in-school who everybody adores. He's the basketball captain, the playmaker and is the one who's going to bring the regional basketball championships home. But then he meets this girl, Gabriella (played by Vanessa Anne Hugdens) who is a maths whiz, i.e. nerd, and they both discover that they both love singing, especially together. Without giving too much away, it's basically about following your dream, breaking free from stereotypes and acceptance amongst everyone regardless how different they are. All in all, a very feel-good, everyone-lives-happily-ever-after movie: true to Disney, alright!

Need I say more?

Of course, with every movie craze I get, there must be a guy who I am very fond of, to say the least.. this time it's the lead guy, Troy Bolton, played by Zac Efron. I (and all my friends whom I persuaded to watch it) thought that he was absolutely amazing! Definitely a rising star, I'll certainly be watching out for this cutie in the future! I mean, he's an ace actor, and I mean, really really good.. he's a great dancer, has loads of style when he dances so much so that he completely stands out from the crowd, and he's an awesome singer. Plus, he's really cute (and adorable) and absolutely charismatic too! What more could you ask for?

This was taken from one of my favourite scenes in the movie - isn't he so cute?

Here is him in yet another scene of the movie, enjoying his singing.. Look at the expression..wow!

And just in case you didn't get a close enough look at him, here he is!
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Anyhoo, I just thought I'd share with you my amazing experience with this movie.. I absolutely love it and according to my sis, on the Disney Channel (cos' I can't afford to subscribe to it), they're also play the 'sing-a-long' and 'dance-a-long's. So cool! But to be honest, don't think I really need it. Know why? Well, I've watched it so many million times, and listened to the soundtrack another couple million times that I can sing to almost every song now!

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But that's not my biggest accomplishment. Get this: there's this huge, energetic and really cool finale dance at the end of the movie.. and in keeping with my latest 'trying-to-get-into-shape' thing, I decided to try and figure out the steps! After a gruelling 3 hours plus, I did it! Mind you, not an easy task at all!! Then I've been spending another 2 hours plus teaching JW and JT the steps, and dancing together cos' let's face it, it's much more fun to dance together! (We've still got a bit more to go..) Gosh.. these few days have been absolutely exhausting for us ok! But it's sooo cool.. we enjoy dancing it soo damn much, we get great exercise and sweat like absolute pigs and at the end of it, feel frickin' fantastic afterwards!!!

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I've always said that this has been my passion.. there's nothing more I want to do in the world than dance, sing and act for a living. Heck, you don't even have to pay me, I'll do it just cos' I love it! Sighh.. unfortunately what am I doing? Medicine.. f**kin' medicine.. Really, one of these days, I'm going to stop whining about it and instead, go follow my dream and break free.. Disney style!

Our lovely date

WS's one week leave is coming to an end.. and that means that once again, I'm going to be all alone, sad, miserable and well, lonely. Sighh.. I really wish he didn't have to go.. This week really flew by for me and I wish we had more time to spend with each other. Double sighh... I'm really going to be counting the days before I next get to see him.

On the up side, we went to watch Grease, the musical, last night.. It was really quite fun and very enjoyable. We were thoroughly impressed with the singing because boy, did the singers have amazing voices!! They stayed almost perfectly true to the original 1979 movie so that was quite impressive too.. The only thing that I was kinda disappointed with was the dance choreography. I expected to see so much better, especially after watching Saturday Night Fever in London (which is pretty much a similar kinda show).

The other thing that bugged me was that I was very annoyed throughout the whole show because the whole theatre was very noisy/rowdy. There were tons of school kids and they obviously can't keep quiet.. It was great that the energy level was very high in the theatre, but sometimes you want to hear the actors sing/talk, not the people around you! There was this stupid lady sitting right next to me was singing along (with her 11-year old pudge daughter) to all the songs and it was soooooooo irritating! I mean, I didn't pay all this money to hear you sing, lady.. I want to hear the professionals, thank you very much! Plus, the theatre very cleverly opened a confectionary stall outside all the doors, so basically, throughout the 2-hour show, you could hear people opening sweets packets, slurping on drinks etc. It was highly disturbing!!

But ranting aside, it was quite a good, fun and highly amusing show and I'd definitely recommend all you John Travolta/70's fans to go watch it.. (Have to admit though, like I've said previously, I was definitely more impressed with Saturday Night Fever.)

Ooh, we took some pictures inside the auditorium with my brand new spanking phone! Unfortunately, being that it's a cheapo one, the quality isn't great.. Plus, the lighting in the theatre was quite dim so that doesn't help either! :( Ah well..

Can't really see us, it's too dark!

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Illegal photo of the stage!

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Anyway, the next part of our date was a very romantic dinner at Petit Paris, a very lovely and authentic French restaurant in the heart of Nottingham. We ordered a 2-course dinner - WS had duck with walnut and asparagus salad for starters and chicken escalope with rocket for the main course while I had Mediterranean fish soup with croutons, mustard and emmental for starters and pan-fried duck with creamy potatoes for the main course. Wish we had taken some pictures, but oh well.. hehe, we were too hungry!

In the restaurant

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Then we came home and took more photos!!! Hehe.. (Ok, these ones are pictures from a proper camera!)

:)

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Me!

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Well, that's the end of our lovely date.. Sorry it seems like a step-by-step walk through everything, but it's really for my sake, I wanna remember this wonderful day!!

Ooh, WS bought a new phone too.. and his is really a brand spanking new phone.. It's the Sony Ericsson k800i with the new 3.2 megapixel Cybershot camera so obviously, his photos are going to be far better than mine! :P So jealous..

;)

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The only thing that's better about my camera than his is that I've got this cool application called 'Face Warp'.. like its name suggests, it can warp your face into all different kinds of funny things! Here's an example:

This is WS, looking quite normal (taken with my phone)

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This is him, all twisted!

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While this one's called 'Insect'!

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Ok, that's it from me for now.. again, not the most intellectual of my musings but at least it's entertaining! (Well, if not for anyone else but us! Hehe..) Til' next time.. toodaloo!

Red roses..

I've only ever been able to appreciate art from the Impressionist era, and without a doubt, my favourite painter is Claude Monet.. I find his pieces enticing, hopeful and captivating - drawing the viewer into his world, allowing him/her to see it from Monet's own eyes. So when I stumbled upon a quote from him the other day, I simply must put it here.. and it so happens to be within context! :) Monet said, "I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers." My love and appreciation for flowers instantly grew..

My darling is currently staying with me for a week... (he's on his quarterly leave) And as although he can sometimes be a pain (he forced me to complete shifting from my old house to my new house AND finish unpacking), I'm loving it completely that he's here.. Plus the fact that my new room's got a double bed does make it even better!

Anyway, my sweetheart surprised me today with a lovely, and I do mean, lovely, bouquet of red roses.. they were absolutely beautiful and not just like normal roses, but huge ones!!! (I also accidentally found the receipt, and they weren't cheap!) I was absolutely ecstatic and spent the whole afternoon taking photos of them (and of me, of course!) so I'm just here to show them off! Hehe..


So here they are...

My beautiful bouquet..

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Which is prettier? ;)

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Aren't they just gorgeous?

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My attempt at taking a 'professional' shot.. Are u convinced?

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A little close-up

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Another new thing I'm trying.. ;)

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And finally.. my favourite shot of them all...

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Tadaa!!!

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Ok, that's it from me for now..