Artaud is a crackpot!!

After 3 months of intense generating, writing and editing, I have finally completed Unit 4 at 4am this morning. 10 pages of A3. Filled. Drama and Theatre Studies. I hate this subject. It torments and pushes my patience to the limit. I must be crazy for refusing to drop it. It is so ironic that I left the exam hall thinking that the worst I could get is a B, not knowing that in fact all of us were expected, yes, expected to fail. I am truly scared. Really I am. I am scared of the immense faith that I place on my teachers. The same teachers that told me my notes were infallible, that nothing would go wrong, that I am brilliant. Sometimes I hate myself for believing them that much. I wish I could drop drama. But I can't. The fact is that I can't bear to drop it. I love the feeling of being someone else. I love the stage. I love the applauding and cheers of the audience at the end of a performance. I love the satisfactory feel of completing a play. I wished someone would force me to drop. I can't do it myself. I hate Artaud. Balinese hand movements. Yeah right. No one in their right mind would look at our play and define that as Balinese hand movements. Too bad those that watch our plays weren't in their right minds. That's what theatre studies is all about. Lying and bullshitting. It is all fabrication, an improbable concoction. I hate that part the most. I hate writing a bunch of lies to get marks. I hate writing a bunch of lies so others could get marks. Why should I put in so much effort to get equal marks as one that relies on my effort? No matter. 6 more months and I am done. No more studying the ideals of a crackpot. No more dealings with schism in my group. To conclude, no more drama. 

Nausea- Another puking incident

Who knew that a simple cup of tea could have caused me to suffer for two days. After attending the Oratorio, Elijah by Mendelssohn, I went to a nearby coffee shop for a cup of tea while waiting for the traffic to subside. The tea looked absolutely fine, tasted absolutely fine, therefore I assumed that it was absolutely fine. I woke up at 5 in the morning to a nauseous feeling caused by a churning stomach. Of course, my first reaction was to wake everybody in the house up and announced my newly contracted sudden wave of queasiness. Mum told me she had already threw up 3 times so I should just wait around until I do. Well, I headed straight to the TV room with a spinning head and an agitated stomach. Wasn't the best idea because watching TV just aggravated my head which aggravated my stomach. Just a note, there are really good shows in the wee hours of the day, those that I haven't seen for a while, like those Disney cartoons from the 50's or 60's. The first rush of partially digested food up my oesophagus came around 6am, and I just managed to reach the sink in time. Bloody hell. I hate puking non-stop, especially before the sun rises. Darkness just give me a sense of despair and hopelessness. This incident reminded me of the flight to Italy from Bangkok, and that non-stop puking was caused by dehydration. The only difference is that it was dark the entire flight because we were flying west. One could only imagine the dread I felt, I thought it was the end of the road for me. Seriously, I did. No parents, no close friends, just 23 newly met people, a lot of puke pouches and a bunch of air-hostess that did not speak English. Plus, the pain of an empty stomach was killing me as my stomach did not allow me to consume even plain water. Utter misery I tell you. 
Anyway, back to the more recent puking incident. I could not sleep anymore after throwing up a few times. for lunch, mum just cooked porridge. Eating was hard enough, keeping what I ate was harder. Uh, I hate the feeling when my stomach muscles contract to regurgitate. Well, this went on until night, just before I fell asleep. The next day, for some weird reason, my stomach was all bloaty and I couldn't eat much either, thus suffering the consequences from the building up of acids. Right now, I am not fully recovered yet but at least I could eat more and keep food in. 
Sometimes I wonder why sicknesses like these do not come when I need it most (like after studying and writing essays the entire night in school). A whole day of vomiting, just because we wanted to avoid traffic. Oh the irony.


Death be not proud

After weeks of checking the dance section of the NYT, I was thrilled with all the new articles on the new season in New York. That is, until I saw this

News article

I am truly sadden by the sudden passing of Clive Barnes. I enjoyed reading his articles especially the 'Attitudes' column for Dance magazine. I have high regards for this man as he inspired me to pursue my dreams of becoming a dance critic. He will definitely be missed in the dance world.

Finito!!!!

Yes!! Geography is finally over. No more staying up till 4am trying to cram everything in . No more having to drag my chair, pillow and blanket out on the balcony to study. No more worrying about how clouds form.
The paper was not too difficult nor was it particularly easy. The paper was weird, it took me a while to realise what's weird about it. River was not part of section A, a first in CIE geog exam history!! Thank God I studied three physical topics and population instead of just focusing on Rivers and Population, which was actually what had I intended to do. Let's just hope I didn't stuff this one up. I swear I will cry if it goes wrong.
Anyway, mum and sis just left for Korea, leaving me and my good-ol-dad(who spoils the heck out of me) in the midst of KL until Monday.

List of things to do within 2 days.
1. Get a trim
2. Buy a dress
3. Buy a leotard
4. Visit the restaurants on my list of places to eat
5. Watch a play
6. Buy Larkin's poetry collection
7. Find some of Pinker's works
8. Remind dad to mail letter to Andrea
9. Buy sticky paper so that me and Tania could watch bugs die in agony

Oh, speaking of bugs, there was a huge green beetle on the outside of our window netting the other day. It was neon green with black strips all over. Of course, our first reaction is to get the bug spray. After a few jets of poison, it started crawling upwards till it hits the window sill and fell on the window ledge. I started freaking out and spraying like crazy. I hate bugs. I hate big bugs. I hate big bugs that have weird colours on them. It was twitching like some spactic thingy. Oh, how I love watching bugs suffer before dying. Well, it twitched and toss and turn until it fell of the ledge. Me and Tania heard a splat when it landed on Suria's concrete backyard. Ewwwwww....ewwwww....ewww......
I wished I had taken a picture of it. Oh well, I will when the next one comes.

2 days of destressing...too bad Tania is stuck in Ktj..all alone..talk about role reversal man..




Knock, knock, knockin' on Heaven's door....

Upper6 Drama 08/09 presents
Knockin' On Heaven's Door

That's the title of our play. Why? We thought it would be interesting naming it after a Bob Dylan song for Mr. S who is leaving, though the content of the song have absolutely nothing to do with the play. Anyway, I know we finished it ages ago but I still wanna blog about it anyway.
Our play was very simple. It had no storyline. It had no dialogues. It had nothing that most play would have. Heck..It didn't even have a proper stage. We chose the art centre staircase as our acting area and it should be the first in KTJ history to have an exam piece there. Basically, our play was about the Seven Deadly Sins. We screamed, crawled to earth, acted hysterical, became puppets, descended to hell, became demons, tried to kill ach other, die again, and went to heaven.

Our stage

Walk into the light

I played Anger. I actually wanted Lust but Leila wanted it more, so I decided on Anger instead. It was a sort of a challege because I have this perpectual smile etched on my face but I managed to change that smile into a scowl. As a Poe fan, I just had to incorporate something Poe into my monologue. I based my monologue on 'The tell-tale heart', I just had to change the dementia into rage. Wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, I just had to keep a straight face while screaming. Oh..I love screaming at people. I wish I could do it more often just that I don't want to be sent to a mental institute.
I insisted on doing a dance in the hell scene after watching so much videos of 'So you think you can dance'. It was hard to find music that sounded remotely angry so I chose 'Warriors' from Lord of the Dance. It was kinda weird dancing contemporary to Irish music but it was fun. I scared a hell load of people in the process. I am not exactly pleased with the dance itself, but what more could be done in such a short time. I did managed to throw in a few of my favourite moves. Pas de chat, step, Grand pas de chat, step, pas de chat, fall. Ballet to Irish music. I would like to meet another dunderhead who could think of this. I am never going to show Ms. Yeu this video.

Cast and crew

Oh, and I got full marks!!! Yay!! But so did everyone else. Oh well, it was sorta a group effort anyway. I have to thank God for giving me the strength to last throughout the entire play. I swear I was getting lightheaded during the freeze. And I shall never look at James' face ever again. I froze at the wrong moment which meant that I had to stare at him for the next 8 minutes or so without moving an inch of muscle. Very smart Deborah..very smart indeed. Oh well..it's all over now.
I miss it though. Especially the screaming. Oh well, we'll see what the next play brings forth..

Never watch a Nutcracker Ballet in September!!


Two weeks ago, I went to watch the Nutcracker Ballet by Dance Space with Ms Belinda and Tania at KLPAC. The idea of attending a Christmas Ballet in early September was not exactly elating but I was thrilled nonetheless as it would be the first live ballet that I am attending that would be performed by a somewhat professional troupe...or so I thought...
The Nutcracker is a ballet that all ballet lovers have seen a gazillion times yet never get sick of. The Tchaikovsky music for this ballet is one of the most enchanting ever in the classical ballet world, from the exuberant party scene, to the climbing notes of the growing Christmas tree, to the twittering waltz of the snowflakes, to the melodious waltz of the flowers, ending with the sweetest grand pas de duex of the sugar plum fairy and her cavalier. I should have suspected that this production of Nutcracker would not take on the traditional form when the brilliant composer's name failed to be mention on the poster or anywhere on the leaflets. Only parts of Tchaikovsky original music was used and the rest was some kind of mismatch random music. I don't mind unfamiliar music but sometimes, it best to stick with the original.
This Nutcracker by choreographer Steve Goh takes on a slightly alternative story line, with the main girl named Claire instead of the conventional Clara or Masha(as the Russians would call her). Claire receives a toy nutcracker from a magician, her sister gets jealous and breaks it, the magician fixes it, and the nutcracker came to life at night to fight the army of mice. He then take her to the land of sweets where they meet the sugar plum fairy. She summons up a celebration for the victorious Nutcracker and an array of dances are carried out. In the end, the nutcracker prince marries Claire and they live happily ever after. Nothing is wrong with this storyline at all as I have seen a more bizarre Nutcracker before but the problem lies with connecting each scenes. I felt that the production was very disjointed and lack a certain story-telling substance that all Nutcracker should have. I know it is a school production and I shouldn't expect much but I am paying RM150 to watch at least a decent Nutcracker. Come on, my ballet teacher in Seremban thought that Sleeping Beauty was part of it. This just shows how badly the ballet was communicated to the audience.
A typical school ballet would always, and I mean always have small little girls, some as young as 4, swinging or flopping around to the music, and this production is no exception. It is understandable of course. Parents want their child to have some time on stage. Lines after lines of little girls in mice costumes and painted faces came scuffling out, nodding their heads about and running in again. They were cute but not particularly enjoyable for me to watch (I did not pay RM150 to watch kids run around). And this brings me to the Chinese dance section of the ballet which was absolutely a bore. The one in the real nutcracker is around 1 minute long; This one, which of course used some modern Chinese music to allow all its little girls a chance for the spot light, was too long to sustain any bit of attention that remains.
Moving on to the main characters. The girl who played Claire, I have to admit, is a very good technician. However, this is another case of good dancer, bad choreography. The choreography was a bit repetitive in certain scenes especially with the bluebird lifts (plus the prince was not even strong enough to bear her weight). The male lead was not as good as the female, actually nowhere near the standard line. Well, this is Malaysia and I understand that the stereotypical view imposed upon male dancers here so I salute the three male dancers in this production.
There was nothing special about the set design, though I like the lights around the rim of the stage which lights up during the Land of sweets. The costumes were not that spectacular but what can one expect when one resides in Malaysia. The last tutu worn by Claire was a bit too 'bling bling' for my liking. It was almost blinding when the lights hit the tutu as the prince did another bluebird lift.
I know I am being a bit too critical but Ballet is something that is deeply embedded in me that I could not, I mean won't let it go if something is not right. Hope for a Malaysian company? Not anytime soon.

Busy..busy ..busy

I've been so busy lately. Endless things to do. I promise I will update soon.

Tutti

I haven't been blogging for a long time again due to the severe shift-less disease that seem to be taking hold of me since the ending of all my exams-externals and internals. One more week to the end of term, so just a quick recap on my third term in KTJ.
I didn't do much this term at all though there had been some interesting events that went on. The fact that I manage to miss all the compulsory games this term still amazes me. Anyway, term 3 was a rather tremulous term stuffed up with exams after exams. I've completed half of my AS with only Geography and GP remaining to be exam in November. I think or at least I hope I fared fairly well so I don't have to retake any papers. My internals went pretty well despite the fact that I didn't have enough time to study. Geog was a bit of a let-down cause I spent the whole night trying to cramp information into my head and did not study for Elit because of it. However, my ELit test went pretty well considering that I did was write anything (usually nonsense) that I could think of.
Prom was the highlight of the term. It was an enjoyable weekend, spending time with Tania and Cher Waye. Oh yes, Hilton was simply downright sumptuous. Never had I been in a room which takes account of every small detail, from the Crabtree and Evelyn products to batik bathrobes to the little containers that holds the teabags and sugar. Prom itself was fun as I spent most (perhaps all) of my time with Tania. For pictures, just go to CherWaye's blog as I am too lazy to upload those that are in my possession.
Next week is OBS...yikes....I haven't been to any camp since National Service and apparently I heard that OBS is way tougher than NS. Oh well, I would just have to bring out that 'don't-worry-you-won't-die' attitude that I have been holding up since the Wirajaya thingy in NS. Those who know me will know that I absolutely detest camping especially camps that involve long hikes and staying out in the open for a period of time. I simply hate the idea that there are no toilets around...oh well...Tze Chiang said the same course that we will be going through is for 13-15 year olds..I am surely better than any 13 year old right...
By the way, I might be moving to the Art Centre next term if all goes well to leave space for the August intake. I don't really mind where I stay though as I am not as involve in the house as others but the only person that is hampering me is Sylvia. I sorta feel bad leaving her alone with Christin plus I would miss all the free Korean food that I usually get. Anyway, she would be welcome to my place anytime.
I am looking forward for the end of term. I need a break after this hectic term that seems to overburden me with endless stuff to do.

The absurdity is finally over!!!

L6 Drama Presents Ionesco's 'Rhinoceros'.

The best drama crew ktj has ever or will ever see

Rhinoceros is basically a play about the absurdity of life, in other words, the play is meant to be confusing and have no meaning whatsoever. The synopsis-everyone turns into Rhinoceros except for Berenger who decides to fight it...kinda reminds me of 'I am Legend' actually.
Well, since we were running out of time due to some unforeseen circumstances, our teacher decided that all our characters should be a stereotype. So, in the end, I played Daisy and the Housewife. Daisy is a complete airhead with nothing much going through her mind except her nails. Wasn't hard learning to play a bimbo..The trouble came with the neurotic housewife. Apparently I was too happy to play a neurotic so they changed the neurotic into dementia...I scared myself while watching the video of the performance...Anyway, I am so glad it's over now

THREE's the charm

On Wednesday, I went to KLPac to see a physical theater piece entitled Three. It's actually based on Mitch Albom's book, Five People You Meet in Heaven (which I read the night before). So basically, it's about this girl who died then went to heaven and relived 3 significant moments of her life, guided by an angel who brings her around heaven.
As I walked into pentas 2, I was greeted by this huge mass of dry-ice, giving it the whole room a hazy, uncertain, somewhat lost feeling....It was kinda cool cause we weren't expecting something like that before the show started. I sat on the aisle seat of the second row which gave me a pretty good view of everything as this show is part of my written exam.
On the whole, it was a good play, not sensational or anything but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I do find certain parts of the play confusing cause it doesn't link up with the next bit. It's based on personal interpretations after all. My favourite performer from the play was probably the girl who played the Temptress. She brought out the evil & sexiness of the role really well plus she stared at me....
Well, I guess it's not as hard to write as the whole play has no conversation which saves me the time of trying to remember important bits of dialogue. Better get started on my 20 page-notes.

After a prolonged hiatus

*sorry my dearest blog..I have forsaken you. I promise not to do it ever again* moving on...

Currently, I am at home for term break. My second term in KTJ was..to sum it all up in one word-gruelling. My sleeping time seemed to have diminish drastically over this term. Just a quick recap on what had happened.

1.Athletics
I took part in High Jump and got a gold for that. Jawahir totally conquered the entire event. We won for both juniors and seniors. For Juniors, we only won by a small margin..one or two points. But for seniors, we vanquished the other house, sweeping every single gold medal except for discuss. I can't believe it myself but we did it...



There wasn't really much of a competition for high jump. I only did 5 jumps and won the event. In fact, I killed all the rest with 120cm and it wasn't really that high either. But I can tell you, I was shaking like hell just before my jump. It was seriously nerve-wrecking, sitting on the grass, waiting for your name to be called, watching others taking their jump, praying that I could get over the next hurdle. Anyway, its all over now..and I won!!!! *victory dance*



2.Midsummer Night's Dream
Well, it went on pretty smoothly despite all the drama...It was held in the hall for the first two days because of the weather. I actually preferred the hall as it is air-conditioned and mosquito proof. Anyway, it was fun though a bit boring cause I had long intervals between each dances. All I had to do was learn 3 dances with the weirdest movements imaginable, stroke the donkey's ears and...Miss Sarah's favourite word...SMILE...


looking adoringly at the ass



At least I had Tania to accompany me throughout the whole process of this play. My costume was made by Miss Lek and she did a terrific job on it. However, I must admit that the wings were pretty annoying. The wings were stapled..yes..STAPLED onto my bra. The worst part about the whole ordeal was that my bra couldn't support the weight of the wings and started pulling upwards. You can imagine how I felt during those 3 nights...One more thing, Ms Nathalie literally glued my body and poured all the red glitters on and I was the brilliant one that suggested it to her after discovering we had no red body paint. The glue glitter looked amazing but believe me, its not worth the pain of having to peel it off after the show. Anyway, the whole thing went pretty well and everyone had a good time.

we are pretty SMILLING fairies

3. North Korean Art Exhibition
I don't know how she does it but Jessica managed to persuade me to go with her to an art exhibition by North Koreans. Honestly, I like looking at at pieces when I have loads of time but not during an exeat where I just want spend whole day long in some ginormous mall. Fortunately, the exhibition was pretty small but I've got to admit, I was pretty impress with the work that was exhibited. Jess got all excited that she gets to meet North Koreans. I just walked around and randomly took pictures of art work that I liked while Jess took pictures of every single art work there is. There seem to be a theme for the whole exhibition cause most of the art work are of animals especially tigers in the safari. I think some of the artists went on a trip to Africa because I don't think that there are any leopards or zebras in North Korea. Here are some of my favourite pieces:



reminds me of what Ms Carol calls, the sublime

And finally, my favourite piece-A tiger waiting to pounce on its prey, silently waiting for the right moment, eyes focussed, ears attentive to the surroundings, camouflaging among the grass..just waiting for the precise moment. Love it


I had a another good term. Now I just have to prepare myself for the upcoming exams. I can do it. It's not that hard...I hope....

Outings and Excursions!!

I went out a lot in January, practically every chance I get. Chillies was our first stop during exeat due to Jessica's weird obsession for it. I went with Shaf, Brandon, Tania and Evan. The trip to KLCC was kinda interesting as Maxwell seemed to have ways to make our hearts skip a few beats..Anyway, we spent the whole day at KLCC then went up to Chillies for dinner. This time, we had Margarita Presidente as our 'special drink of the night'. As we all seem to have bad estimation for food, we ended up over ordering and jamming down the chocolate cake.

a tradition

Next was The Curve. I found this sandman at IKANO. He doesn't sprinkle sand into children's eyes but he does fill bottles with sand and create a pattern in them.
The next Sunday, I had a drama excursion to KLPac for open day. And boy, did I have a great time. KLPac was as alluring as the first time I saw it. All the props and costumes were displayed at pentas 2. It feels weird going into pentas 2 as the room looked so much bigger when I saw Psychosis.

Costumes for Cinderella

I went to the belly dancing workshop which was really fun. I pulled Tania and Anjali into joining it with me and we all had a good laugh as we tried to follow the instructor and ended up looking pretty much like three very ungraceful geese.

London bridge is falling down...
As we came down from the studio, we saw this Japanese Buto performance,Curse of the Forbidden Palace, which was pretty intriguing as the actors were dressed up like clowns. They walked around like expressionless dolls and posed for people to take picture of or with them. One gave me quite a scare when she refused to let go of me after grasping me around the neck...
Buto perfomance. He actually reminds me of Goofy..

Then we just strolled around the place looking at interesting things along the way. We went to the Koi Garden which was simply divine. With the beautiful landscape, nicely trim tress and the gentle gushing sound of water, who wouldn't feel at ease there..

and you could also see people wearing kimonos around..

Overall, the trip was fun. Here are a few random photos to sum everything up.

Foyer of pentas 1

Performace by Balletbase


Rehearsal for 'Three'

View from the ligthing room

Pentas 1

Summary of January

Ok...So I haven't been writing much on my blog due to my hectic time schedule and the fact that I have as much energy as a sloth. Anyway, I will just sum up all the interesting bits of January. 
January 2008 had been one heck of a busy month. Lets start with House Night. JAW finally managed to get the pool after one and a half years of waiting. The lower sixers were in-charge of everything and overall, I say we did a good job. The best part of the night was when me, Cher Waye, Tania and Anjali attempted to get a good photo of us jumping into the pool. And we managed to do so after a whooping 24 attempts. 

Just splashing about in the pool

Picture perfect

Next up is Sixth Form entertains. I was suppose to do a ballet parody but it was cancelled at the last minute due to the passing away of Mr Quah. At least I did managed to have a good laugh at the guys during rehearsals. 
Then came cross-country. As I said before, I hate running. Its not that I am not fast or anything, its that I really don't have the stamina for long distance running. Practices started the first day I went back to KTJ. As predicted, I usually ended up walking or trying to jog with Tania or Stephanie. The real thing was more strenuous than expected as it started at 5pm where else our training was usally at 6.

Grape and Orange Fruit Salad


I finished in time(yay!!) with a position that is not worth mentioning..However, I am still pleased that I managed to cross the finish line with some people still behind me. 


and we still have some energy left to camwhore!!

Hand in hand we dragged each other back to the house

Another drama excursion, and this time to KLPac once again. Its KLPac open day and I had a wonderful time there. The performance were delightful and the place was as gorgeous as ever. I Think I will blog about it in a different post since I have so much so say about it. 
I am still in basketball and volleyball for some unknown reason. I got the part of Mustardseed for the school play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, I have to choreograph something to Kate Bush 'Moving'(wwwhhhhyyyy!!)as well as be in the costume crew. 
Man, I sure have dig myself into a grave...Oh well...
   

Inferno

Everything feels wrong. I am constantly angry. Life in KTJ hasn't been easy lately.

1. Taking four subjects isn't the smartest choice. Math. I hate it. I really do. But being the pure Chinese that I am, I am obliged to take it. Geography. I am enjoying it. That's the weird part. English Literature. Love the lessons, hate the prep. Drama. The biggest risk I have taken so far.

2. Cross-country. I hate running. End of story.

3. I miss ballet. I miss it dreadfully. I miss being in the small air conditioned room, surrounded by mirrors, with the smell of rosin in the air. I miss stretching on that pathetic excuse for a barre. I miss tying my slipper ribbons and cursing like hell when I can't untie them. I miss the pain on my butt after an afternoon of class. I miss ballet...

4. The accumulating pile of unfinished preps. Miss Ng gives a staggering about of unnecessary work. Mr Suresh's essay are impossible. I am actually hoping for Geo prep, but she doesn't seem to give any.

5. Sixth Form entertains. I am kinda disappointed that my ballet thing got canceled, cause I spent a LOT of time going to Irinah practicing. Oh well...they have their reason...

Basically, life sucks at the moment. Never mind, Chinese New Year is a week away. At least I get to go back to that meager town that I love so much :)

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