I received a message from Shobha today on Blackberry Messenger. She said, "Fi I think it is about time you updated ur blog!!!!!!!"

I promised her I would do it today. So here I am, at 2.25am, updating my blog while simultaneously sending out Talent Hub's e-flyers which usually takes me days to complete. Blogging should take me another 4 hours at least considering broadband speed in Malaysia is slower than.... you know what? There's nothing slower. Nothing.


*my prediction of time above was completely wrong. It took me two days to finish this post because the uploading process of photos took FOREVER.


Here are some random snapshots from the past month. Or two months? I forget. Been awhile, hasn't it?

MAP

Becks and I went for the opening of a new artspace in Solaris Dutamas called MAP. We got there rather late so we missed quite a lot of the action. There were very interesting art pieces all around the foyer and in the White Box, and some bands playing in the Black Box.

First Dance Social @ Talent Hub

When I grew up dancing, I went for a lot of socials. Every Sunday we would have a "tea dance" and every few months there would be a fancy Dinner & Dance.

When you learn social dances like Latin American, Ballroom Dancing, Salsa, and even Swing, you need somewhere to dance. You need to socialize with different people and dance with them. Dancing with each person would be a completely different dance experience.

I'm trying to cultivate this social dancing ____ I can't think of a word other than attitude___ in our students. I want them to experience social dancing outside of a clubbing environment.

Many dance schools already organize socials for their students. Most of them charge a "entry by donation". Just a small fee to cover the cost. For now, I'm organizing all our socials for FREE. It's a small price out of my pocket every month, but if it successfully introduces our students to a social dancing environment and they enjoy it, then mission accomplished.

It was also Sanjeev's birthday that night. We went up to TwentyOne for some drinks. I was shocked. Since when did Sanjeev have so many friends??? Surprisingly, I don't have a single photo on my camera. Sanjeev took heaps on his camera. But as I type this, Mr. Superstar is in SPAIN and too busy to upload photos.

Joseph threw Rachel a surprise birthday party the next day at their apartment. And boy was she surprised! However, the surprise party was two hours delayed. So when Rachel arrived, I had 15 minutes to gobble my food and rush to Quattro where I was judging the competition below.

Pole Stars Semi-Finals @ Quattro

Dressed in the theme of leather and lace, I judged the semi-finals of this Pole Dancing competition.

The finals will be held next week at The Opera. I still haven't figured out my Glam Rock outfit! Eeeek!

SEWO Talent Time

Judging yet another competition, my old school asked me to be a judge for the SEWO Talent Time. Funny how they couldn't wait to get rid of me in school and now they ask me to come back?

I had to remind myself that these were young kids and to be kinder with the scores!

Look at how I'm trying to control my laughter!
(Photo courtesy of Deborah)

At the end of the event, they invited all teachers, Alumni members and judges on stage to sing the school song. O...M....G....! They made me stand in front next to the current headmistress and Sister Enda. I tried to squeeze to the back row but the teachers pushed me in front. Haiyoh! If you don't know, Assunta School song is VERY LONG. I went blank! Would let them sing the first word of every line to jog my memory. Not too bad. I bluffed my way through.

FREE CLASSES @ Talent Hub

Feeling generous, I offered a full day of free classes for anyone at Talent Hub on Labour Day. Response was fantastic and we were fully booked for all 17 classes offered!

Bubbly Brunch @ Prego, Westin

Our yearly Easter celebration of Bubbly Brunch had to be postponed a few weeks later. We turned it into a mini birthday-do for BAD (of which he didn't know of course) and an early celebration as he embarks on a new chapter of his life.

Bubbly + clown nose + good food + funny balloons + more bubbly = lots of cam whoring.

As much fun as I have every year, and this year was no less of it.... BUT.... I think we need to look for a new Bubbly Brunch venue.

Prices have gone up. Significantly. And that's fine. We don't mind paying the price if you give us more. Not if you give us LESS!

A few years ago (3-4 years ago maybe?), this is how much alcohol I parked at any one time:

This time, they limited not only the amount of alcohol, but also our choices.

The picture above had the YUMMIEST Apple Martinis and Lychee Martinis ever. You can also spot some house pouring drinks in that picture.

This year, we were only allowed to park TWO drinks at any one time. We also only had a choice of bubbly, red or white wine, beer, and Bellinis.

I understand why they are limiting how many drinks you can park - to avoid wastage. Fine, I get it. Though wastage is something I do not believe in. Trust me and anyone who has ANY meal with me can attest to that.

Is that enough to get us stupidly drunk? Of course it is. Is it a problem that they only allow you to park 2 drinks at a time? Not really, just means we have to down our drinks faster if we want another one.

But at a whopping RM268++ per person, I think I would prefer to be given more choices, and not for it to be limited even more with every visit.

Also, charging us for water is just stupid.

BAD and I already have our eye on the next 'new' thing to try. Possibly at the end of the month. It looks quite exciting! Can't wait.

Sunsilk Co-Creations

My dancers performed for the launch of the Sunsilk Co-Creations with their hair expert Yuko Yamashita. Going with the whole Japanese theme, the dancers were dressed in Harajuku inspired costumes and performed to "Harajuku Girls" by Gwen Stefani.

CLEO's 50 Most Eligible Bachelors 2010

I trained the boys again for their dance performance this year. Initially we were supposed to have 10 boys but many of them couldn't commit to the dance rehearsals so we kept it to 5 of them who were consistent. I'm glad we did!

This year I made it into a bit of a joke. Cleo team wanted a medley of two songs and asked me to recommend something. After bouncing off some ideas with my friends who know songs (I don't listen to the radio so have no idea what's playing these days), I decided on these two songs:

1) Nobody - by the Wonder Girls
2) Single Ladies - by Beyonce

Even though I live in a cave sometimes when it comes to music, even I know these two songs are famous and almost everyone has watched their music videos with rather distinguishable dance steps.

If YOU live in a cave and have never watched the videos before, then watch it below.

And so after many hours of pressing repeat on both YouTube videos, I learned the steps, broke it down to easier movements, re-choreographed, and had the bachelors prancing around Talent Hub wearing boxer shorts and wife-beaters. Mmmm...mmmm...mmm.......

Oh yes I love my job!

After all those weeks of training, it was finally the BIG day to see all my hard work paid off. You can imagine how gutted I was to discover I was TRIPLE booked on that day. After juggling all 3 events... I had to make a sacrifice. I was with the boys at Zouk for full-dress rehearsals in the afternoon, but I had to give up the finale that night. However, I did send two students from Talent Hub to be my spies and to take videos/pics!

I'm not sure what they call this but it's like Swing Line Dancing and it's crazy fun! I think it's called the Shim Sham?

Salsa Social

Yet another Social? Yes... I went a bit crazy.

We were convinced nobody was going to show up for the Social because everyone was calling/texting to say they couldn't make it. At that point I really wasn't too bothered cause I was exhausted and all I could think of was my bed.

Quite a number of people turned up in the end and it was loads if fun. We were dancing and chatting till 1am (social 'technically' ends at 10pm!). Now we really need a disco ball for Talent Hub.

Bachata has also been given a new name. Bruschetta.... or Dance Humping....

Mother's Day @ Vineria

Food was good. Italian waiter served our table. I had to be well behaved cause BAD was sitting next to me. He made me read the menu out loud to distract me while the waiter took everyone's orders.

Before dinner I ran up to Times to buy my sister a Mother's Day card. My mother doesn't appreciate cards so it would have been a waste of money on her anyway.

Picked out a simple card and it cost 19 bucks. For a small Hallmark card. The next card with a cheesy poem was 24 bucks. We're not talking giant size here. We're talking small regular sized cards with nothing fancy on it.

RIDONCULOUS!

Happy Mommy's Day to my sister and mommy. Next year I'll make you a card with crayons.

Although the food was good, service was atrocious. We asked about 4 times for bread. We ordered 2 pizzas for the middle so everyone could share as a starter. Guess what? It never came.

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I'm off to buy BAD's birthday present all by myself! If you've read my previous posts, you would know that he has always chosen his presents. This time, it's alllll me. He's so curious and has been bugging me everyday about it. Am giving it to him tomorrow night, then on Thursday, we are off to Sabah for a MUCH deserved getaway. Yayyyyyyy!!