not a gd day today. not sure why. just feeling not high.

wouldn't have woken up if kf hadn't called me at 11, asking if i was at boon lay already. there goes all my morning plans. felt quite bad that i couldn't wake earlier, but i just had to leave mysef with only 1 hr of sleep.

the ntu fair was so crowded we couldn't really do anything. the juggling turnout was strong, but most of them were outside so didn't see them much.

performed in the auditorium after the accountancy/biz deans held a sharing session. it was one of the weirdest and funniest Q&A session i have ever heard.
----------------------
(this guy with a weird accent, dunno what asian country)
Guy: Hi profs, i am blah blah, from accountancy.
Dean: yes?
Guy: yes what else do you want to know?
Dean: er, you have a question?
Guy: yes, the dean said just now that all we have to do is pass exam. is that true?
dean: er... ....what do you mean?
Guy: what is the value of a first class honors? why shld we study hard for it?

china guy: what shld we do to get A?
dean: . er... blah blah

singapore girl: what IN THE WORLD is double major?
---------------------------
it's truly weird. haha. but so amusing to sit in and listen.

anyway MJ, SY and I went up to perform. it was a grand setting and stage but i didn't prepare any performance so personally i didn't do a great job.
MJ was good though, his slick clubbing drew grasp and applause.

i'm too props dependent. can't really impress with minimum props cos i dun have that advance technique i think. darn. and yet being a highly technical juggler is not one of my aims. but without it i feel so inadequate.

on the way home we decided to busk at jurong point for a while. actually just MJ, we just watched. the crowd formed readily, and they were not too bad genorisity wise. There are a lot more free riders than clarke quay undoubtedly, but there are still a few nice generous ones around.

we shld try to busk there more. somehow i feel more paisei there though. and i'm not sure how the crowd will react to my act. there's also the worry of messing up. in clarke quay we have full permission. here not so. i dun relish being hauled to the police station.

------------
there was this guy who tried to scare us off. alan said he's a bit drunk. i'll call him Farkoff.

Farkoff: excuse me! you got permit?!
Us: sorry?
Frakoff: Permit! for being here!
Us: oh yeah, we have busking licenses.
Farkoff: show me!
Me: Sorry and you are?
Farkoff: Me? i'm a cop!
Me: oh ok, you think you can show me your pass? cos our licenses have some of our details so i'd like to make sure before showing them to you.
Farkoff: ok never mind, you all just wait ah...wait here. (takes out handphone but walks away)
-----------------------
it's strange. we didn't even kachiao him. i'm quite glad i asked for his pass. it's a sudden thought thingy. and it wasn't cos i thought he's fake, i just didn't want to show our license to a stranger. i must admit i was quite worried though, calling home from the police station is so not cool.

the good part that happened, and this is always the part i love abt public performing, is that a few uncles and aunties came to talk to us after Farkoff left.

Aunite A: dun worry, i was watching him as he left. he walk all the way to the mrt then disappear liao. he's a drunk la, you all dun bother. you continue performing. dun care abt him. dun let him scare you.

and we had a small chat with them. it's nice to chat with stranger like this. it's like the world is suddenly so much warmer, where we just talk freely.

i think a small group (that's where auntie A and gang came from) gathered when Farkoff talked to us aggressively. haha. the power of kaypoh-ness.
-------------------------
not very on abt busking today. the high has gone down a valley. prob due to the auditorium performance. and also the boon lay arena which is a new exciting challenge but scary because of Farkoffs and permit problems.
----------------------------
on a more heartwarming note, the RJ class is meeting on sat which is cool, though i can't make it, damn. the email group is suddenly more active and feel slightly closer and more in touch with them.

meeting steph and weips tmrw. had a nice brief chat with steph on the phone.

gotta meet up with jen and xiwen more. haha.

It's Jen's BIRTHDAY!
heh heh...happy birthday to you, hippy birthday to you..HAPPY BIRTHDAY to JENNNIFFEER, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
 
(confession: i only remembered after i read linnet's blog and she mentioned it. i was like "oh shit yes it's Jen's birthday!")
 
i'm sorry..besides my family's birthday i dun think i can remember anyone's birth dates at all. maybe just the month.
 
anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEN!

This is one of the best articles i have read on busking. came across it ages ago, but accidentally stumbled upon it tonight again (gosh i am SO not supposed to be blogging. need to do proper stuff and sleep fast).

My guiding principles for busking all came from this article. The main points are:

1) a busker sells entertainment. if you're not entertained, dun drop the moolah. a busker is NOT a beggar. it is NOT a disguised form of begging. keep those sympathy coins.

2) if i get no crowd, I am doing something wrong. ME and just ME and totally ME. Dun blame the crowd, dun blame singapore, dun blame PAP.

3) every successful busker started by failing. badly. learn from the failure.

4) the street is the best place to hone skills. the busker is trying to make pple, who aren't there for him, stay and watch his show. Not only does he need to be entertaining enough to distract them from their original purpose, he has to be so good that they want to PAY him. Like put money in the hat of a stranger that just ate 30 min of their time. if he is crap, they walk. instant feedback.

in a stage show, the audience is held captive. whether you're crap or not they have to watch (since they're there, and hopefully for them there are other shows), and clap politely at the end.

once you can gather a crowd, keep them there, and actually make them pay (a lot) willingly, you know you've succeeded. conquer the street, conquer anything.

robbie williams honed his skills on the street. i guess that's what's so thrilling abt busking. it's so painful and embarassing to fail, but once in a while there's a gd response and it feels blardy rewarding. the money collection is basically the point system. the more you get, the better your show.
----------------------------

From Larry Moss (http://www.balloonhq.com/faq/twister_busking.html)

"A busker generally works hard for the money he makes. He isn't looking for handouts from kind and generous souls in the same manner as a panhandler. He is, in fact, selling something. The something, however, isn't so cut and dry. A busker sells entertainment. I like to think of it as selling smiles and memories. There's no tangible exchange of goods.
....

The street is a difficult place to work. You must create organization out of chaos, grab personal space out of a public way, communicate with strangers, and work long hard hours under pressure.

So if it's that tough, why the street at all? Well, everyone has a different answer. But most of the performers who I talk to have similar reasons.
 
Basically, it's because they love it. If you can get through the obstacles, then it is a wonderful way to make money. It is a rush no like other to have groups of people applaud you and then rush forward with fistfuls of money. There is also no job in the world where you can have complete independence, be utterly creative and expressive in your work, and have an instant performance evaluation.
 
I talked about how appealing the street is for me, while still describing the street scene as being an incredibly difficult place to work. The fact is, while difficult, it can be the most rewarding form of work.

The very thing that scares most people is the thing that I like most. The only people that stay to watch your show are those that genuinely enjoy what they're seeing. Those first few minutes are rather trying. That's when you have to convince them to stay and play along. But once they're watching, you know you've won them over.

When that show ends, and you have a crowd around you applauding and giving money, it's not because they're being polite. It's because they want to do it. Every time my street show ends and I can look into the smiling faces of my crowd, I know I've done something right. If I look and see that there is no crowd, I know that I need to improve, but I don't have to answer to a disappointed audience that paid admission to watch.

It's not easy, but if you stick it out and develop a show that works on the street, you've got something to be proud of. You'll know that your income has been earned. Most importantly, after all of the hours put into developing that show and learning how to work with your crowds, your performance and audience interaction skills will be greatly enhanced for your work in other venues. "
---------------------------------

from my somewhat limited busking experience, my most memorable moment was when an expat lady and her 2 little girls came up to me (during one of the de-trash shows) and went " i really like your show."

one of the funniest moments was when i built up my show (and crowd) to my finale and the blardy snow machine started spewing snow. all the built up habis. the entire crowd went to catch snow.

the worst moments were always when i start the show and mess up all the tricks. that is unforgivable.

it's a gd thing i remember the fun times more than the times i want to bury myself in a heap on shit.

gosh i am so not supposed to be blogging.

let's leave with a message by good old disagreeable Jason Garfield:

"Most hack jugglers juggle no more than 5 balls and 4 clubs.
Most good jugglers perform the juggling of 7 balls, 7 rings and 5 clubs.
An exceptional few perform 9-10 rings and 7 clubs.
Nobody can juggle 30 balls."

source: JasonGarfield.com (Jason Garfield is 11 times world champion juggler and has 2 world records)

i'm a hack juggler. argh.......7 balls....5 clubs......

good day for juggling yesterday. has been inspired for a while watching videos (running out of space on my C drive!) but blardy cramps stopped me from practising for 2 days.

i actually skipped 3 ball warm up and went straight to 5. felt comfortable and had a gd run too. the power of inspiration. 5 ball cascade getting to be smoother i think. i'm a bit closer to the stage of 5 ball nirvana, where "doing 5 feels like doing 3".

in fact i think i managed to invent a 5 ball trick. inspired by a video i watched but didn't watch closely enough to see how he did it so i figured it out myself. now it probably looks quite different from what i saw. i shall call it Evo's Evolution!

i thought maybe in such an inspired state i just might be able to miraculously do 6 or 7. no such luck.

reverse backcross not too bad. need to work more on penguin. behind the head throw eludes me. did 5 balls with my stage balls as well. not bad. after using them the bean bags feel so small. also did some contact work with the stage balls.

decided to give blind juggling a shot. it was sooo cool. it feels like magic when the balls landed in my hands without me looking. awesome.
-----------------------------
didn't do much sun and mon. i really just let them slip by, to recuperate i guess. surprisingly i didn't feel that much guilt, felt like it's the hols.
(spent whatever's left of yesterday night designing my website. which of course, probably has no practical use whatsoever.)

it's pretty bad though, to let time just slip by. ok now i feel guilty. let's go kick some butt.

i realise i'm quite a worry wart when "starting a business".

is that a good trait for a businessman? some say entreprenuers must be gung ho, just jump in and take the risk. and then they add hastily that the risk is "calculated" risk, and pple who just ignore all risks and gung ho jump in are pretty foolish.

so do we "just do it" or do we iron out the nitty gritty first.

tough.

i'm the sort who wouldn't "just do it". but my powers of procastination and inertia means i'll tuuuu for damn long before taking any action. so i need pple to prod me into action and inject dosages of enthusiasm.

2nd dilemma. New businesses inevitably have teething problems. some say to stick thru it, ride thru the bad times and the good times will come. some say get out before it's too late.

so stick on or stick out?

tough.

interesting. it's like a school project in the real world. the scary thing is how big we want to make this. and how high we'll rise or fall.

if we even start that is.

The Post to Read when You Feel Like shit

there was an article today abt how if a guy is kicked in the groin, he'll be in so much pain "it feels like he's gonna die". Now we all know what to do in self defence. :) Anyway i was thinking thank goodness i'm not a guy but i'm currently doubling up due to blardy cramps. damn.

if i had written this post yesterday night it would be much more delirious. Then again yesterday my eye lids were half closed, my limbs were aching like hell and probably the only word i could spell was zzzzz. if that's even a word.

it has been a quiet week, culminating in a big grand climax on fri and sat. a packed 2 days, physically exhausting, mentally a roller coaster but overall i feel the love i feel the love. heh heh.
------------------------------
Friday -- I felt the Love part One

I finally got responses from 2 of the jobs i've been eyeing. One has been quiet for more than a month and i pretty much lost hope on it. Heeheehaha. Was really glad to hear from them and i think it was one of the few interviews i didn't screw up.

"yes I think you're a very smart and confident lady."

hehehaha. sorry very unabashedly thick skinned here. big ego big ego. hey this post is titled "the post to read when i feel like shit" so allow me some ego booster.

anyway i'm jumping the gun here. it's not like i've nailed the job. (and i think it's rather sad that pple get happy when they hear they've gotten the job while i get happy hearing that i get the chance to go for interview) 
There are 3 shortlisting stages to go and i'm not even sure i got thru this first one. I'm just happy anyway. I feel the love anyway. haha.

I watched an episode of the Apprentice the day before. It looked rather crappy initially but near the end i thought it was great because i picked up a few lessons on the way (from reality tv...oh dear...this IS sad).

anway there's this girl, i dunno her name so let's call her Elsie(?!). She showed great potential previously but on this episode she was the leader and her team lost.

(paraphrase)
Donald Trump: "Elsie(?!), Although your team lost today under you, you have done great work in the past and i really thought you have the potential to go far. However, what really nailed the coffin was that while the rest are fighting for their lives to stay, you have remained quiet. You have lost the fight. You're fired."

I felt quite sorry for Elsie. And respect too actually. She broke down after the lost and totally accepted that it was her fault despite it being a team effort. I think she remained quiet partly as a strategy and partly cos she took the blame squarely on her shoulders. not wanting to push it to someone else. If i was the boss and saw all this I would definitely want her around. Responsible, reliable and she would not want to screw up again. She may not be a great leader but she's a good worker. but definitely not good in office politics. unfortunate downfall.

anyway so the lesson learnt from Donal Trump is this:
if you want something bad enough, fight for it.
 
I was glad i got this message before the interview.
 
Another part of the show was quite funny. Elsie(?!) had a teammate, let's call her Bullshit, which she trusted and confided in. Bullshit was the one who advised Elsie(?!) to keep quiet in front of Donald Trump. haha. if that's not bad enough, when Donald Trump asked Bullshit who she thought should take the blame for the team's lost, Bullshit said Elsie(?!). what a slap in the face. haha. Not sure if Bullshit was deliberately back stabbing, doesn't seem so. maybe it's clever editing. Elsie(?!) doesn't seem to be bitter abt it.
 
So anyway, if you want something bad enough, fight for it. think i'm a bit more focussed now. definitely more buoyant at least. i felt the love.
---------------------------------------
the rest of the day was spent at the esplanade juggling. one of the better practice sessions. worked on balls, clubs, passing. Gab shot some videos of me juggling. was surprised that the patterns look quite different from the side, much prettier. heh. looks more difficult too.
 
tried back to back diabolo passing as well with alfred and huifang. not as difficult as we thought, but needs more practice and a higher ceiling maybe. Also did 5 ball passes face to face and from the side with Min Jiang. Needs more work but looks magnificent.
 
Siyong: "How did you get scratches from juggling balls?"
Me: "oh these were from min jiang's fingernails."
 
it was quite funny. have one very obvious red 4cm scratch mark on my forearm. Min Jiang was horribly apologetic abt it.
 
Stayed at the esplanade that night till 12.20. Latest i've ever stayed there.
-------------------------------------
Saturday -- I Felt A Little Shitty At First

woke up from a 3 hour sleep hearing the rain much to my dismay. A full day ahead. Will be lugging my at least 5kg equipment bag round singapore. now I'll be struggling with an umbrella as well. I might have to carry instead of push the 5kg bag in case it got wet and the wheels get muddy. woe woe woe.

besides i hate my bean bags getting wet. so if it's an outdoor carnival i can't use beanbags. add 5 more stage balls into my 5 kg bag. now 5.5kg. shit.

so it was crappy. Halfway while peeing i suddenly got a brain wave.

"today is a game and your goal is to entertain. Do it and you win."

"You're being paid to entertain and lift the crowd. Nothing is crappier than a grumpy entertainer. to put it in a cynical way, you're being paid so you have no right to be grumpy you blardy ass. to put it in a nice way, you're being paid so you have more reponsiblities to be cheerful."

"In fact, because today is such a shit day, the crowd will be more subdued. so they won't expect so much. if you can be cheerful, you'll exceed their expectations and be great!"

so i left the house, huffing and puffing and pulling my luggage all the way. enthusiasm level: high.

when i got to the bus stop there, i realise not only do i have to climb UP the overhead bridge, i'll have to walk through a maze on HDB blocks on TOP of a HILL. it was still raining and the bag is still 5.5 kg. More huffing and puffing. this time i had to carry the blardy bag up the stairs instead of pulling.

enthusiasm level: medium. at this stage i was just thinking abt the money to get me along. it wasn't much cos it's for charity, but trust me i wasn't feeling charitable at all at this point. it is then that i realise why it is not too much to ask for money (even if it's a token amount) for charity events. I like performing and i dun mind doing it for free especially if it's for charity, but when it gets too troublesome then all the "i like performing" and "this is for charity" gets obscured. the only thing left to motivate me is the pull of cash which i can use to get more props. yes i am but a human being after all. amen.

i finally reached the school after getting lost in the HDB maze (with the rain and the 5.5kg bag). i saw the banner and it says "open house". doesn't sound like a charity event to me. then i found out that the money we raise by busking goes to the school funds and not "charity". that peeves me a little. I suppose a school event isn't a corporate event, but it certainly isn't charity too.

if it was alan he would probably have walked off because it's cheating. i decided i wouldn't do that because 1) i've come all this way, 2) it doesn't reflect well on me professionally, 3) i guess it was partly my fault for not asking the details properly, 4) it was still raining, my bag is still 5.5kg and i'm not walking back into the maze.

enthusiasm level: low.

walked into the school and waited in the foyer. screaming kids all over the place. gosh. the only thing i was glad abt a primary school was that i'm taller than most of them there so i have fresh air to breathe. but it was noisy and packed and everyone trying to walk but jamming the place...

enthusiasm level: .........

anyway we got to our booth, and i tried to do my show. which is when i learnt my next important lesson:

never start a show without warming up
 
i started the show, got myself a small crowd of kids, and then realised my muscles were cold and stiff from last night's session. so part of my show was "if i get it, go 'wah!', if i drop it, go 'aiyoh'!"
 
diabolo: "aiyoh!!"
clubs: "aiyoh!!" aiyoh!!!"
 
and then most of them left. kids can be so frank. i had to apolgize to the few still lingering and ended my show there and then to warm up. i couldn't bring myself to start another one though. confidence was shattered.
 
i'm so glad siyong and siwei were there as well. think overall we didn't do a bad job as a whole, but it wasn't a great job from me. siyong did some fire with the staff and gloves. siwei did some ballooning. we did some club passing. i taught some kids the diabolo.
 
lessons learnt there:
1) don't start a show without warming up
 
2) don't have to plan for shows cos you never seem to use your plans
(i like planning though cos i get new ideas)
 
3) If you have to plan, dun stay up late the night before to plan leaving you no energy to execute the plan on the actual day
(i'm more inspired the night before lei. the power of procastiation.)

4) i'm not good with kids.

yup. min jiang is pretty good performing for them i think, while i'm never quite comfortable. i appreciate their frank nature, and even though pple say kids are the easiest to entertain, i can't quite reach out to them cos they dun understand jokes and what you say. they like more visual comedy i think, which i'm not comfy with.
--------------------------------------------

huffed and puffed my way to fort canning. went with my parents as a guest. did nothing much there. lots of free food. very happy eating. a few balloonists there. some familiar.

one observation abt the mingling balloonists is that they just twist and give, twist and give. they dun really try to entertain, you know, like tell stories, make pple laugh while they twist. they dun even look like they're happy twisting, but that's understandable cos it's prob tiring twisting hundreds of balloons per hour. pple dun really mind, even if they have to wait, cos they get free balloons. oh well a story telling balloonist would really stand out among his peers. overseas balloonists do that i think.

also met a caricature artist there. shit i forgot his name. worked with him before. nice guy, friendly, very artistic. think he gets quite a lot of shows with gd money. happy for him.

was gonna jump into the giant inflatable balloon bed full of kids. it would be fun if i jumped in and the whole thing burst.

oh all this while i was in my sort of clown suit. i looked like over-age kid. Mom said i looked cute and should dress like that more. I would be quite embarassed if i were them actually. "this is my 23 year old daughter" is quite embarassing. wonder what the bra woman would say.
----------------------------------------------
Saturday -- I Felt the Love part Two

waited for the rest of the gang at the esplanade. I was exhausted by this time. too much juggling on friday till late night, then only 3 hrs of sleep, then the early morning, then the disappointing school gig, the huffing and puffing, the running all over the place.

for busking you need a great deal of energy. i had none. not sure if i wanted to do it. besides it was drizzling outside.

gd thing i met up with alan first. we talked a bit. the theories of busking and such.

Alan:"you know what we did at De-Trash in Orchard? I watched your show and i think you can match the buskers in the Busker's festival. Maybe not the quality but you were able to draw a similar crowd."

now i'm not that big-headed to write something like that (even though it's my blog and it's ego boosting time) without some disclaimers. firstly i can't match the buskers yet. no way. their quality is way high. and even though i got a decent crowd when the busker's perform they virtually clog the streets.

We did De-trash next to the traffic junction and next to the snow machine too. so there were pple i could attract while they waited to cross the road. and they were also plenty of them waiting for the snow machine to spew snow so they shun bian watch my show since i'm screaming into their ears. not that the buskers in the festival didn't have aids. it was publicized and they have technical support and sign boards and these stuff attract crowds too.

anyway what alan said boosted my confidence a bit. and when min jiang came and started practising, i got up to warm up again. This time it was quite fun and i got a fresh boost of adrenaline.

Clarke Quay

there were 8 of us there tonight. and we were on the street soccer court with spotlights and the amplifier.

i wasn't sure if i wanted to do a solo show. warmed up more and i was still not confident and quite scared of drops. (those darn kids shattered every ounce of my confidence).

i suggested that we do a mass show, like all 8 of us go one after another, put up a routine for 3 min each. Alan didn't like it and urged me to do a solo show. the crowd was pretty good tonight too. even when we were playing around some were watching. we had lights and radio and that helped. Min jiang also sort of started his show, entertaining small crowds and they did gather and were very accomodating and nice. ("wah min jiang you finish 2 shows liao i'm still warming up")

so i did a show anyway.

and i felt the love. haha.

it was great. the crowd was lovely. they enjoyed it (i think). i enjoyed myself, the volunteers were tremendously sporting. what a rush.

i thought i could never re-create a de-trash again (unless there's another snow machine). clarke quay has given me a lifeline for busking.

the takings were ok. i should work on improving that. i shld also work on my ballooning. i give out balloons to my volunteers and i twist them before the show starts. the longest part of my warm up was twisting balloons! and they're the ugliest balloons ever twisted.

Alan:"your dog looks like a sausage."
Siyong: "What is that???"

quote of the night:

Me:"hey folks i'm just warming up now the show's starting later. you're watching all the secrets of the show!"
passer-by:"your warm up is more exciting than the show!"
-------------------------------------

Post-analysis:

different places have different crowds and are suitable for different shows. Orchard has a great human traffic and statue shows thrive there. Clarke quay has family crowds out on strolls with lots of free time and are good for busking shows. there're also lots of family expats and they are very accomodating, generous and spontaneous.

I've never tried the heartlands. my guess is that the crowd there will be huge and possibly friendly too but not so sure abt generousity and interaction. Unless i come up with a full mandarin show. 

Had a post show chat with min jiang and his analysis was that family crowds like dramatic stuff like knife juggling while for kids they like silly stuff, like making silly faces and actions.
----------------------------------------
so at the end of the day, all is good. i felt the love. physically i was a wreck but emotionally i was really happy.

it's one of the best periods (and i dun mean period as in the one giving me cramps. period as in period. time sort of period) in this few months of facing rejection and being lost.

i'm not quite there yet. job searching needs work. on the performing front, i think like job searching, i need to sort out what kind of performer i am and focus on it.

on friday, i won my game. on sat, i lost a morning game but won the evening one.

after a high comes a low. :) i'm prepared. bring it on, cramps and all!

took my unicycle out for a ride again after a long break (so much for daily practice). it went pretty well, was surprised that like juggling, you never quite forget the skills you learnt the last time, however long it is.

pedalling getting smoother. could lift up both poles for a while. one day i'll fly...one day.

bumped into bro while i was stuggling along with my mop pole and bamboo pole. he said something along the lines of "you are so bloody wu liao" (in chinese it's summarised neatly into 4 words "wu liao tou ding").

a caucasian passer by suddenly walked past and went "that's very smart!", for a split second i thought he was being sarcastic but then he went "that's the way to learn!" with a sunny smile and 2 thumbs up so all is cool.

of all the pple i've come across in the backlane (and that includes Nepalese soldiers) it's always the friendly ang mos who respond and throw encouraging remarks to whatever i'm doing (juggling, learning the unicycle, balancing mop pole). some of the chinese families are friendly too, but they'd always stand at one side and wait for me to react to them. interesting differences.

-----------------------------------
lemme chronicle my unicycling lessons so far. who knows might come in useful for piakworks one day.

"giraffe unicycling makes you face 3 of Man's greatest fears. the fear of heights. the fear of falling over. the fear of jumping on something with your crotch." ~one of the entertainers, forgot his name

 
how to learn the unicycle without being gung ho

 
1) get used to sitting on the uni. sit between 2 structures (mine was a wall and a cupboard) and just practise mounting it, sitting and pedalling a bit, and coming down.

Fears faced: uni seems to be so uncontrollable and slippery. the fear of falling off is at max level.

2) move along with one hand on the wall/gate/fence. I dun like fences cos they're so nua.

Fear: the fear of moving.

not sure whether step 2 is actually good. i was stuck at it for very long. then again maybe it's not useful cos my gate was too short length for me to move beneficially far, and although street soccer walls are great i can only use once a week for one hr so maybe not enough practice.

if there are street soccer walls available, a gd method would be to see how far you can travel without holding on. But without the wall the feeling's entirely different, hence the questioning of the usefulness of this step.

3) i would consider this my breakthrough (not that i can cycle yet). use 2 poles (mine was mop and bamboo pole) to support the sides. now i can cycle anywhere, anytime i want cos my support moves with me.

fear: falling forward and backwards, so much that i couldn't even pedal one cycle at first.

this is how i breakdown the lessons of unicycling. In bicycling there are only 2 degrees of fear. Fall left or fall right. In uni there are 4 degrees, front back left right (if you count diagonal as well then infinite degrees, but quite hard to fall so weirdly).

when we use support poles, we're reducing the left right degrees. so we concentrate on getting used to the forward backward motion only. this is important because the only way to stop falling sideways is to pedal smoothly.

using support poles is also very similar to the goal of riding without any support at all as compared to using support walls. by lifting the poles you can simulate riding in 'real life', with the walls even without holding the wall, the physical presence of the wall is a psychological boost.

4) watch other unicyclists, and videos.

do not underestimate the psychological impact of this step. watching how other unicyclists ride with such ease reduces the magnified difficulty of this skill. watching the beginners learn by falling encourages you and bravens you, cos no one actually dies by falling off. also watch the experts try giraffe (2m) cycling for the first time. now it seems so dumb to be afraid of falling of your puny, short, 1m uni.

watch as many videos as possible too. if almost everyone can idle a uni, a giraffe uni, and juggle 3 torches and balance balls on their heads at the same time then you can certainly learn to just ride the damn thing. if vova can idle a uni and juggle 5 clubs at the same time, then you can certainly ride without any clubs at all.

if all these pple can ride, so can you. some of them are your friends, pple you know, some can't even juggle, so unicycling is definitely not a superhuman feat. unicycling is as much mental as physical. because it has 3 of Man's greatest fears. in females maybe just 2 of the 3 fears. heh.

of course there's another way to ride. most would choose this way cos it's much faster. Just pedal like hell and pray you don't fall. if you fall, get your butt back there and repeat previous step. it works too i think, though i can't endorse it personally cos i didn't try this step. besides, this manual is titled "how to ride without being gung ho", "but with much time" i should add.
-------------------------------

i sound like i can ride already. i can't. still have some way. but i think i've improved today, hence the ya-ya-ness. i'll keep at it. one day. one day. preferably before the whole thing rusts.

also trying to get 6 balls running. tough tough. one factor may be that i dun even have the physical arm strength to start off. and then they're so many balls in the air, so hard to prevent collision. tough. glad that i can practise over the bed, picking up 6 balls every 3 seconds doesn't sound like fun. then again i almost lost a ball this afternoon, overturned the whole room and bed before finding the friggin ball. was so pissed i decided to unicycle. figured you can't be pissed and scared at the same time. the brain can't cope.

Chicken Soup for the Juggleress:
 
"Find the why and you'll find the how"
~Anthony Robbins
 
"Keep focussed. When you concentrate, you see opportunites you wouldn't otherwise see."
~loosely quoted from anthony robbins
 
"Life is a game. You set the rules, you play the game. You win when you achieve the things you set out to get. When you drift, or plan too much with no action, you're not playing the game. And therefore not living."
~loosely quoted from Gone Fishin philosophy
 
"piakworks sounds like a toilet company. Or mosquito killing company."
~steph chui
 
"piakworks: we dun do toilets."
~Jiahui
 
"let's make it happen."
~Gone Fishin boss
 
"Nothing's ever too difficult. It's just how much you practise."
~Etienne
 
"Dear Sir, we're from unpiakables and we can make your students unpiakable too!"
~MJ & I
 
"So many things to start, but i've never been happier!"
~Siyong - unpiakable, ntu club founder, drinks vendor
 
"You girls have been given the brains and education. Don't waste it."
~RGS Bursar

"1 person with belief is more powerful than 99 with merely interests."
~ Anthony Robbins

"All journeys begin with small steps. Setting goals along the way helps."
~rojak quoting
 
 
Let the Games begin. NOW.

the paper today had an article on blogging. and the reporter recommended a blog which he said was damn funny. i just went to check it out.
 
very unfunny.
 
and the post i read was full of emotional but flawed arguments. i felt like rebutting, but not as wu liao as that. esp since she doesn't look like one who'll engage in intellectual debate. besides the pple who posted comments all agreed whole-heartedly with her weird line of thought. that makes 67 emotional, not very clear headed pple.
 
couldn't get further than the 2nd post. i absolutely think linnet's blog is much funnier and entertaining.
 
flashmob just had a mob on saturday. i was so excited when i first heard about it and was raring to join. but their gigs are pretty dumb and not funny. like freezing in the middle of city hall, and the recent one where they all took pictures in the wisma underpass.
 
ok it's not all that dumb, but it's not hilarious. the ones in US were really funny. can't remember specific examples, but i was giggling away reading their exploits. one was about some city hosting an arms (like weapons) exhibition, and a bunch of them started approaching pple attending the exhibition to buy arms, like prosthetic arms. So they were wearing matrix like suits and carrying suitcases labelled "i'm armed" or "wanna buy arms?" and inside the suitcase were the fake arms.
 
one time they pasted notices on train doors -- "do not rush, doors close when excited."
 
that's originality. that's humor. not freezing in city link mall then later complaining that singaporeans are a dull lot because they dun care. i wouldn't care i think if i walked by. what's there to care? or smile abt? i would think it's just another silly orientation dare.
 
to make matters worse, the flash mob founder once blasted all the sleeping members in the yahoogroups for not taking part. it's along the lines of "join in or get out". Bushism. i was irked enough to post a reply, explaning why pple shld be allowed to do what they want. he had the cheek to delete my post. so much for democracy.
 
i'm still inside by the way. wanna check out what they do in future mob events and hopefully one day they'll raise the standard of creativity and excite me. even if they dun, as a sleeping member i'm probably annoying the moderator so earth to all.
 
the fish cafe wasn't as good as i thought it would be. well it was a good atmosphere to chill, the people and bosses there are all friendly and outgoing. but the place is sabotaged by venue and space. it's located in ulu bt batok, in some damn bloody ulu road flanked by private houses.
 
the place was too small to perform in too. a stage would have been nice.
 
oh well. dun regret making the hour long trip (plus another 10 min bus ride from bt batok mrt), would have wanted to check it out.
 
it was a gd brainstorming session today. memorable moments:
 
"but some pple are just too spastic to pick up juggling"
"let's create a spastic corner and dump them there"
 
"why not we name ourselves non-verbally with a symbol. You can't read out our name, you have to draw it out in the air."
"so we tell clients 'we come from [draw], and what [draw] offers is a comprehensive package of blah blah'"
 
"the mind map looks very lopsided and the only thing i can read is the big money sign in the middle"
 
at the prata place:
"can i have 2 splatter"
[everyone frowns thinking hard what splatter is.
the indian waiter frowns thinking hard when in the history of roti prata "splatter" came in. maybe he shld consult his grandfather and the bible of prata]
"oops, i mean plaster. 2 plaster"
 
weips' tissue prata was one hell of a mountain.
 
we went to some void deck after to juggle a bit. siyong did his fire staff and we did some fire palms/manipulation. also did some club passing with minjiang until the lights went out at the study corner.
 
weips and i had more ideas for our videos. "the fire/hazeline commercial", the "EZ link on my butt" clip.
 
it's all pretty cool.

yesterday was a spectacularly bad day.
 
i looked so bored and glum someone thought i was the salesgirl.
 
haven't been this angry for a long while. haven't been this bored since Commencement.
 
anyway true to tradition this blog does not get updated when the juggleress fumes.
 
i got to know almost the entire family background of the the bra woman. if i wasn't in such a foul mood, i might have thought this old dame was very friendly and chatty. but noo, when i'm in a bad mood i dun need to know that her son is in NS, her daughter works in LTA earning 3k a month, they dislike her buying clothes for them and they are all as stubborn as me. it doesn't help that she thinks i'm 15 and underdeveloped so i dun need such a big cup.
 
i basically told her to piss off. in a non verbal manner. i'm not that rude.
 
life doesn't cease to be funny even when one is pissed. it's tiring being pissed and glum the whole day. slept soundly. didn't juggle, didn't feel like doing anything. i'm surprised how apparant it is that i'm pissed, it's all over my face. i can feel that others know i'm pissed at something, or maybe it's just cos i'm pissed. that's a lot of piss.
 
today was much better but still didn't feel quite right. went for juggling at the esplanade. balls were ok, but couldn't get in the groove for clubs, and couldn't concentrate for club passing. An unhappy juggler is a bad juggler.
 
luckily things got slightly better when siyong taught me all the early doubles tricks. He actually did the 'bite club with teeth and then wham it across' trick. i managed to learn clubbing the club over and Robin Hood.
Darren also taught me the luke burrage penguin trick. cool.
 
Just as i was abt to leave to meet weips, darren started telling me abt the history of juggling.
 
"there was this soldier in the Song Dynasty who juggled 9 cannon balls and scared all the dunno what Dynasty soldiers off because they thought all the Song soldiers were this good."
 
and then he had all the exotic Egyptian drawings of jugglers. wu5 ling2 mi4 ji2. we shld learn the patterns from the drawings sia. there was this drawing of someone doing 3 balls and 3 knives flats at head height. if that's true then he's really god.
 
"maybe the drawings are just of them praying. the black dots could be just dirt and not balls"
 
maybe.
 
saw stephanie tan and her sis in city hall mrt. she saw my huge bag and thought i went bowling. now why would i carry a huge bag for bowling? to steal all the bowling balls? she told her sis i eat fire and her sis gave her an incredulous look.
 
esplanade was pretty quiet for a saturday. only one bunch of subdued breakdancers, one stunt cyclist whom the police hauled away, one bunch of normal dancers, and one recorder player whom the breakdancers tried to shut him up by basically shouting "shut up la". oh yeah in one corner was a couple making out. what an appropriate place.
 
sometimes we had an audience. many pple carrying gowns today. wondered why until i met Lihua (who was also carrying the gown) and she was there to take pic. i see.
 
was supposed to catch supersize me with weips but it was sold out. bummer. weekends are annoying. remind myself not to step out on weekends. why rush with the crowd when i have all the weekdays to cruise.
 
so as usual we just wandered around and talked.
 
weips has a korean friend and i dun know his name so i called him Kimchi in my sms-es to weips. she replied me abt kimchi and accidentally sent it to him.
 
sms:
W: "I sent the msg to kimchi!!!!! i said Kimchi blah blah blah. i'm in deep shit!"
Me: "OH NO!"
W: "THAT DOES NOT HELP"
 
so the night was spent discussing whether calling a korean 'kimchi' is insulting.
 
"i won't mind if someone calls me laksa."
"what abt mee pok?"
"hmmm"
 
weips thinks calling a jap "sushi" is bad, but "wasabi" is ok. i think both are fine. we both agreed calling an indian "papadum" is bad.
 
"well kimchi is a little mean, but it's funny too."
"ya, imagine if he's angry and tells his other friends 'those girls called me kimchi', I think i would burst out laughing...."
 
i still dun think kimchi sounds that bad, not as bad as chinks (chinese), honkie (HK), slit eyes (er, Jap?) or Nigger (blacks). kimchi just sounds damn funny.

The Newpaper (Thurs July 15 2004)
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/top/story/0,4136,67920,00.html?

Neighbours feed old lady, clean her up
STARVING MUM LEFT TO WALLOW IN FILTH

SHE is 86 and senile.

She can't walk after collapsing from an illness three months ago.

Neither can she go to the bathroom on her own. So the widow spent her days lying half-naked on the cement floor, amidst scurrying cockroaches and her own body waste.

A deep wound on her head was festering, attracting flies.

Locked up by her son at their home in a Cheras village in Kuala Lumpur, Madam Fu Yueying survived on neighbours' handouts of rice and bread, reported Guang Ming Daily.

Sometimes, she would mix her faeces and food listlessly before shovelling them into her mouth in a daze, oblivious to the stench.

Her daughter is married and lives elsewhere.

Her 28-year-old son, who lives with her, said his 12-hour shift at an Internet cafe makes it hard for him to take care of her.

When he leaves for work in the evenings, Madam Fu would lie alone in the dark, as the lights at the house have died long ago.

He did not say why he didn't buy food for her, but said he cleaned her up after work every morning.

Madam Fu became senile after her husband died two years ago and started bringing rubbish like cans, torn clothes and fruit peels back home.

Soon, the pile of junk grew to a big pile and her son had to pay some council workers RM300 ($134) to cart off the junk in three big lorries.

To stop her from scavenging further, he locked her up at home. So Madam Fu would sit at the doorway, waiting for handouts.

Sympathetic neighbours would stand outside and give her bags of food hung from the end of a pole.

A neighbour, Madam Chen Baolian, 73, said: 'Sometimes, we would take bread, rice with mixed vegetables, Milo and coffee to her. Sometimes, we'd ask her if she was hungry and she'd reply.'

But the old woman's mind was wasting away, her body reduced to skin and bone.

That's when the neighbours demanded the house keys from the son, which they duplicated, so they could give her food directly. They even took turns to change her diapers and put on her pants.

But Madam Fu would rip them off, covering herself with a thin bedsheet instead.

Her son doesn't know what illness she has and he said his 7pm to 7am shift made it difficult for him to take care of her.

It was not reported what he did during the day and at times when the neighbours feed his mum. But he said he couldn't afford to take her to a hospital on his RM700 salary.

'I thought of putting my mother in a welfare home or old folks' home, but because my sister and I have financial problems and cannot afford it, we ruled out the idea.'

A welfare department official said the son could have been charged for abuse of an elderly person.

With the help of some government officials, Madam Fu was rushed to a hospital yesterday. A neurosurgeon will examine her head wound, and the welfare department is arranging her long-term care.

It may put her in a welfare home or let Madam Fu's daughter care for her. She may also be returned to her son, with the department conducting weekly checks.
--------------------------------------

it's very tragic and sad. wish i could paste the picture here which will do more than words ever will.

feel like commenting, and yet dun feel like commenting. i'm speechless.

on one hand it's beyond me how the son can just watch his skin and bones mom day in day out and live with it. I can't even bear to put upon him the treatment he gave his mom. it's just not something we can tolerate doing to a fellow human being, much less someone as closely related as this.

who am i to judge. he probably has his problems and stress to drive him to such depths of cold heartedness. Senile old folks are also pretty hard to handle and are trying tests of tolerance.

i commented. but still dumbfounded.

so much suffering in this world. i'm sure there're more out there as yet undiscovered. it's tragic. Juggleress, remember this.

i can do 4 ball mill's mess. i can do 4 ball mill's mess. i can do 4 ball mill's mess. i can do 4 ball mill's mess. i can do 4 ball mill's mess. i can do 4 ball mill's mess. i can do 4 ball mill's mess. i can do 4 ball mill's mess. i can do 4 ball mill's mess. i can do 4 ball mill's mess. i can do 4 ball mill's mess.

yipeeeeeeeee!

heheheehehhahahahah.

ok technically that's not true cos i can only do 2 half cycles of 4 ball MM, and the shape is so not there. BUT, i managed to get the hand motion right, and i caught the right balls. smooth flowy 4 ball MM in the horizon.

the secret to the MM breakthrough?

use different colored pairs of balls. that's it. and it took me this long to find out how vital that is.

yesterday (start: 4am, stop: 5.30 am) was a grand day for juggling. it's been pretty long since i jammed around with the balls, maybe that's why.

managed to sort of do:
-reverse backcross continuous twice
-backcross not much breakthrough, still the same
-penguin catches
-4 ball sync column pairs side by side
-4 ball mill's mess
-5 ball 100 catches
-6 balls not much progress. prob cos my arms were too tired liao!

cool stuff. hehehaha. my arms may actually look more muscular if they're not obscured by all this fat.

shopping was pretty boring. almost fell asleep.

From Gone Fishin:

~~~~~~~
Is life is a game?
Although we all live in the same physical world, sharing the same time and space, how we experience life is strictly shaped by our own set of beliefs and the lenses through which we see what is happening.

When someone that we know dies, what does it mean? What do we experience? We could grieve the loss. We could be happy, in that their sufferings had ended. We could be indifferent, in that death is an expected event anyway, and should not come as surprise.

I think there is no universal truth about what life is all about. It is entirely up to us. And we are free to change our views about what it is or what it is not.

I think life is a game. To understand life, we first need to understand what we mean by a game. A game is something that we play. Some people play to win. Some play simply for the sake of playing, where winning or losing does not matter. Some do both. A game is fun. A game has rules. And a game has an objective. A game may be played alone, or with other players. A game is played out in some space, on a field, over a period of time.

The game of life begins when we are born, and ends when we die. The field on which we play this game is the world we live in. The objective or ultimate goal is what we set out to achieve for ourselves. We win if the objective is met when the game is over. We lose if it is not. The reward for winning is the state of fulfilment at the time of death. Without a goal, life ceases to be a game. Without a goal, we stop playing, and end up on the sidelines, watching others play. When we stop playing, we are indeed already dead. We become living corpses, observing and talking about others' games, lamenting how our lives are empty and meaningless.

In this game, we make up our own rules. We might decide that we shall not knowingly cause any harm to another, as we play the game. We might decide that we will do whatever it takes to win. We might even divide the game into stages, and apply a different set of rules at each stage. These rules become our internal guidance system, and set the boundaries for our actions. They govern what we should or should not do.

To play a game well, we need strategy and tactics. Marathon runners do not win simply by running. Soccer teams do not win simply by kicking the ball. So is life. Having a strategy enhances our ability to attain our goals, and win the game.

A game has an opponent. In this game, the opponent is the self. Keeping up with the Joneses is a classic way of playing against someone else, only to lead to the inevitable realisation that such a game is futile and meaningless. When you play against someone else, you are not playing your game of life. In this game, the outcome is that either you win, or you lose. Whether others win or lose is their business, not yours.

The game begins when we are born. While we may be conscious of it then, we are already playing it naturally when we are young. As a child, we simply wake up to a beautiful day, and play. We begin by playing alone. As we grow, and befriend other children, we begin to enjoy their company. Still, we play our own games, while sharing the same playing room. Next, we begin to play with other kids. And gradually, we learn that when others win, we lose. We acquire the need to compete. When you are the only child, being first and being last is indifferent. But when you have a sibling, your being first means your sibling is second, or last. A race begins, which later translates into a rat race that we get caught in when we are adults. In that race, we end up playing someone else’s game, and forget to play our own.

Well, if life is a game, then my game looks like this. The objective of my game is to live in a manner such that I will die in peace, knowing that I have led a meaningful and fulfilling life. This game is played through giving and receiving. Whatever I give, I receive. The more I give, the more I receive. When I cease giving, I cease receiving. The strategy is to remain engaged in meaningful and fulfilling activities at all times, while continuing to dream and embark on new endeavours that will bring greater meanings and fulfilment in the future. The tactics include acquiring the necessary skills to live my dreams well, and inspiring others to join my cause such that I can contribute to humanity in a greater way than that I can do alone.

If life is a game, then playing is the only way to truly live. Playing means being in action out there in the field, striving to meet the objective of the game, within the rules that are applicable. Strategising and analysing is not playing, but merely preparation for playing. Executing our tactics is playing. Deliberating endlessly on whether we should or should not follow our hearts and pursue our passion is not playing. Taking the first step into the direction of our dreams is playing.

Indecision and procrastination are two of the most common phenomena that keep us from playing our games. Indecision puts us on time-out. Procrastination puts us on eternal suspension. To get back into the game, we need to be decisive, action oriented and time sensitive. Remember, the game may be over anytime from now. Do not take for granted that you will have all the time in the world to accomplish your goal. While it is essential to strategise, and analyse past games such that you learn and grow, do strive to be in action most of the time. You do not wish to be caught by surprise, that when your time is up, you are still planning the game from the sideline.

So play the game, and enjoy. Playing is fun. And if you are not having fun with life, you are not playing. You are probably trying too hard to play, and struggling to live. Always have your goal in mind. Master the rules. Know your opponent. Know yourself. Acquire the essential skills. Have a strategy. Get out there and play, for that is the only way to live.

The Fisher 2004
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i haven't been to the cafe yet (in fact i've never heard of it till tonight), but i love it already! it's everything i can dream of and more! hope it's not polished up like the sushi restaurant menu. i doubt it. i have to check this place out!

smashin! swim on my little snakefishes!

went for interview today.

i thought it'd be a seminar, since the HR person was like "come and find out what the job's abt!"

was skeptical that it'd be another phillip capital recruitment strategy.

it wasn't. it was a true blue interview.

which is a relief. but it's also kind of dumb since that means i went for an interview with zero knowledge of the position.

they told me a bit and asked how i felt. told them the truth. wouldn't mind trying something new but without trying out i can't say "i'm the ONE" with a resounding thump on the chest.

i think i might lack interview skills. haha. could have sugar coated but right now i'm on the side of telling the truth. truth and nothing but the truth. maybe not very smart but that's how i am...now....upfront, not out to cheat, that's who i'll want to be.

the interviewers were pretty nice. carried themselves very professionally. it was a nice informal chat. apparantly in this line the hours are loooong but they do it for the love of it. and they are pretty close to each other too (prob since they pratically spent the whole day together). that'll be a nice environment to work in i think.

Bank: "you're quite unfocussed."
Me: "yeah"

Gleaneagles: "you're better suited for research."
Me: "yeah"

haha. shld really stop this trend of agreeing with them. but actually they have their points. in a weird way the way i've written my resume and talked has brought up more clearly what i feel, and they can see it while i can't by myself because i'm all muddled. so the interviewers are somehow reading my personality more clearly than i consciously am.

strange. funny. and pretty dumb.

the worst part is that i can't really convince them i want the job without convincing myself. How to persuade them when i'm not even sure myself.

sort of have a focus now. hope this snakefish doesn't die.
---------------------------

had sushi dinner with weips. sushi meals are always so fun. the wasabi is such a kick! the pictures on the menu looked extremely good, kudos for the photography. so gd that i skipped the belt. couldn't resist some sushi just for the wasabi though.

"oh oh too much"
(flail arms, jump off seat, tears welling. weiping watches enjoyably)

"imagine if i dined here alone, i'll be sitting in a corner flailing arms, jumping off the seat and doing my little dance with every sushi."

also met up with steph. the gang's almost completed! alia will be back in august according to them.

steph's house is really nice and cosy. so much that weips and i talked abt renting a place too in future. we might annoy each other if we stay together so we'll just "rent adjoining units and drill a connection door". yes. brilliant idea.

steph's horribly jet lagged but she's still as energetic as a normal person. when she's at full strength she's unstoppable. haha.

weips said that Ruimin managed to get his Phd from MIT in 4 years. My god. He wasn't even aiming for a Phd. His thesis was just so brilliant that his sup submitted it for a doctorate instead of bachelor or masters. MIT. wow. that's what i call brilliant. top class brains. hats off.

over in our small little town weips and i were playing win lose or draw. i was trying to draw "Liang Po Po the Movie".

"sounds like bow"
"sounds like paw"
"oh bo co fo po?"
"tan po po the movie?"
----------------------------------

talked to siyong over icq abt our plan A. haha. we're both getting very excited over it. and check this place out:

http://www.gonefishing.com.sg

that's plan A.1

It's always nice to be in the company of pple who share a common interest. we just talk until we both get high. haha. incredibly he likes Guns N roses too, like who in this modern era has ever heard of GNR?
-------------------------------------------

tmrw's shopping day. mom's wardrobe rack collapsed from the weight of clothes some time ago. she fixed it somehow, and now she's back to testing the resiliance of the long suffering rack.

gone fishin sounds like a smashin place!

didn't feel like doing anything yest.

but in the end i did pretty much.

100 slow penguin catches. 3 huge mails.

didn't really sleep at all. took 2 deep long naps.

feel quite disoriented. but then that sort of makes today interesting and different.

ate too much. too little physical activity. feel disoriented, fat, still tired. naps can never replace sleep.

too much coffee, too little sleep, and the chalazion says hi.

tmrw will be different. let's see how it turns out.
------------------

asian juggler. cool site.
http://www.tuanle.de/index2.html

whatever happened to sleep early and wake early.

almost succeeded. think i like nights better. the feeling's abt the same but at night there's just so much lesser distraction.

julian passed us a forum thread on the dangers of fire breathing. oh man it's really bad. an american professional fire breather lady got burned horrificly when the wind changed (not disfigured, but her respiratory track was badly damaged). she's recovering and facing it up very bravely but her account of the accident sounded very bad.

the singapore football team has done us proud. last time lost to malaysia 4-0. Now lost to malaysia 2-0. hey that's half the deficit.

suffering from post graduation depression. still wondering where the hell i'm heading. thought abt it last night until i fell asleep. story of my life.

dun feel like juggling. dun feel like applying. dun feel like not doing anything.

things can only get better. let's go kick some ass.

Commencement Day requires a posting of its own. Warning: spoilers ahead.

Drinking Sprite Ice. not bad. one day they shld mix everything together. Sprite Ice Lite with Lemon, Vanilla and Coke. With a touch of Kickapoo.

i think this blog is taking up a chunk of my time. I was gonna write (yes write not type) in my diary cos some things are better left said to myself. I couldn't resist blogging though. i've become a voyeur...an exhibitionist. oh dear.

I'll leave the sensitive stuff to my diary and put the rest here then. I'm keen on putting in some tribute posts. like Tribute to Weips, Tribute to Steph etc (yes yes and BH and xanga-ed). but that would take up even more chunks of my time. hmm see how.

Highlights of Commencement that no one will ever highlight:

- the semi-live video they screened before the ceremony started was a demo of how to look totally unspontaneous while trying not to look unspontaneous. it was painfully clear all the questions and answers were scripted beforehand.

and even then the dua liaps interviewed sounded just like all the other engineering profs. not very interesting.

this is a gem:

Ramya (oh did i mention Ramya was one of the MCs in the video): So how was your student exchange program?

EE graduand: oh it was really cool. we went to xxxx university, and it was cool because....we witnessed the killings of 2 malaysians.

Ramya: that's very tragic.

Anyway the last bit was just a slip of the tongue i think, a spur of the moment comment thing, so she's not being cruel. it was quite funny.

-suddenly after the video stopped strange music started blasting and strange pple started walking along the aisle. the profs and deans in funny costume. i feel like i'm in the story of the emperor's new clothes. i mean, i suppose there is some tradition going on here but everyone looks weird in our gowns but everyone's just taking it as it is.

-Pro-chancellor's abrupt first line: i declare the start of the ceremony.

-Pro-chancellor's abrupt 2nd line: i declare the end of the ceremony.

in between is just a lot of name callings and shaking hands with an extremely lifeless pro-chancellor.

Bro: your chancellor doesn't even attempt to pretend to be interested!

the person reading the names also sounded like the other engineering profs- monotonous and unenthusiastic.

everyone's just sitting around, hungry, sleepy, tired, dun really care who's on stage, sifting through 200 names for just that one that matter. at least that's how i see it.

another gem:

valecditorian (yah wrong spelling i know): "And who can forget, the energy and enthusiasm of the pple who taught us...."

(big screen zooms on row of profs on stage, looking lifeless, monotonous...dull)

Anyway after the pro-chancellor's big 2nd line, the balloons flew down, the Dumbadore-lookalikes got off stage, and it was photography time. up to here i was still tremendously bored especially since i was aching, sleepy and this is such a big contrast to yesterday.

the mood was contrasting. the level of engagement was contrasting. the whole protocol and properness of today vs the wild and break all the rules if you can of yest.

that's interesting in itself. the fact that yesterday i was jumping around eating fire, throwing balls at kids, getting pple to drop pennies and today i'm in my gown, holding my scroll, shaking hands with the pro-chancellor whom i never even knew existed. it's like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. or Dr Jojo and Mr. Jojo.

dun like taking pics too it's quite superficial but after a while of taking pics with others it became more fun. got warmed up.

overall the experience wasn't that bad. Just noting down the stuff in here tongue-in-cheek to make the somewhat dull event more memorable. (this is a disclaimer in case the pro-chancellor happens to drop by my blog).

There are other stuff too abt the event. it can get quite demoralizing since suddenly everyone appears to be Singapore's Brainiest Graduate. Also have chim things which set me thinking. These things shall be left for my diary....
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Tidbits:
-Robbie Williams honed his skills on the street

-Steve raguzt: "i started out performing on the streets. it was painful. i dunno more for me or for my audience."

-this apparantly very successful juggler i forgot his name: "When people ask me how to be good, i tell them to perform in as many amusement parks as they can find."

-World Juggling Federation is in December. The best of the best.

the events that occured in the space of 24 hours couldn't have been more different. opposite poles of the spectrum.

the entire saturday was spent "working" with juggling mates. we didn't actually get paid, but all food and drinks were provided for the day, just for performing juggling. what a bargain. self generating, self sustaining fun.

the day started at youth park where we were introduced as "kong1 zhong1 pao1 wu4" performers, by two girls, siyong and yvonne.

i had pretty decent fun performing, although as expected the crowd was sparse due to the drizzle and besides no one ever ventures into youth park which is machiam at the corner of earth. at least the performance before us was the CHIJ symphonic band, so we had 40 uniformed girls trapped by the rain as audience.

the hip hop group that performed was really good (incidentally these are the same guys we see every week at the esplanade). they had choreography and individual stunts, with an extremely catchy soundtrack and they were full of youthful energy. not surprisingly they captured quite a crowd (not CHIJ girlies, pple just started appearing). one day i shld model a juggling item like that. think watson think.
----------------------------------

turned out saturday was also VJC charity busking day. we walked past 2 VJ singing guys along the pavement and decided to crash the party for the hell of it.

"Hi Sir we were just passing by after a performance and since i have all my props i'm wondering if i can just crash your party"

"yah sure go ahead!"

"oh by the way i'm doing knife juggling."

for safety's sake we decided to plant Moses as my volunteer. Throughout the day boon teck was asking me whether i've ever dropped the knives on the volunteer, whether it'll hurt, what will happen, this and that. just before the Moses act i was joking with boon teck "haven't dropped before. maybe this time i'll drop."

and i did.

poor moses. gd thing i dropped on his legs and not face. ooh.

to my credit i did try to veer the knife off, earning myself a bruised shoulder, so hopefully that cushioned the impact a bit.

anyway all's well that ends well. Moses was fine, the audience thought i dropped on purpose, i managed to gather a crowd for a while and it had been tremendous fun.

the knife routine is not a gd busking routine i think. suspense is good for stage audience but not street audience. quite strange to try it. oh well when we left the VJ student council was doing mass dance as busking. "Gimme a V-I-C-T-O-R-I-A!" so maybe my act isn't so strange after all.

Siyong and I also tried street club passing. that was fun we really shld try it again. Basically we were just climbing up and down the stairs and walls and benches at Taka while passing to each other. Damn tiring after a while cos we kept dropping when on the high walls and we had to climb down, retrieve the club, then climb up again. also quite wu liao now that i think abt it.
-------------------------------------------

busking at clarke quay was alright too. 3 of us were taking turns performing and just jamming and even though it was very amaturish a small crowd did stay behind. it's a gd place to hone performing skills. they were also generous i would say, not that we earned a lot that night but i think if we keep working on our presentation the taking will rise quickly.

Siyong's fire staff was a gd crowd puller. I ate fire a few times (siyong said i've improved! haha) and going by alan's logic that every stick does the damage of 10 cigarettes, effectively i've smoked maybe 40 cigarettes that night in one hr.

gaffes of the night:

- threw a diabolo high. not only did i not catch it, it bounced and knocked the hat over, spilling the money all over the place.

- nearly made a little girl cry cos i took her doll and tried to make the doll eat fire. huifang had to appease her (the girl, not the doll) with a balloon.

Busking with a gang is quite cool. we're like a mini travelling circus. it's more fun and there's more banter and we can cover for each other but it's also easier to get shy.

Alan didn't like the place at all and he left early. Taking the disc man and hat with him.

"what shld we do, there's no more music. continue or stop?"

Jojo: "I can sing."

"yeah, and we can use the money from the hat to buy another hat."

anyway we stopped and blew our earnings on supper at KFC. For the record our earning in that hr was 25 dollars and 42.3 cents. the 2.3 cent came from this guy who gave a malaysian 5 cent coin.

Huifang: "i just watched supersize me. dun feel like eating fast food sia."
"dun worry that's McDonald's we're now at KFC."
Huifang: "yup, wow the tray of fries with cheese and mayonaise is damn yummy."

so we bought 24 dollars worth of KFC. stayed there till the elderly cleaner came along,

"excuse me ah now is 11.40. the doors lock at 11.30."

All of us: "oh that means we'll have to stay for breakfast!" followed by a discussion of how i can use my knives to cut meat and siyong's kerosene to cook and how we can pass clubs ard the place.

We did leave quick in the end.
---------------------------------

Jojo's a really cool guy. Learned more abt him yesterday.

After we left KFC and the rest ran for their buses, Jojo and I decided to try out the wild idea of club passing on escalators. We were gonna use City Hall MRT but went to the quieter Esplanade underpass instead.

it was a blast. i stood on the ground while Jojo rode up the escalator and got further and further. After a while we'll drop and Jojo had to run down while gathering clubs. damn funny sight. like damn wu liao and nothing better to do. (well it's funny for me cos Jojo's the one doing all the running. i'm just watching him run.)

the only time it worked was when one rode up first and the other rode up too after we got too far apart. it looks pretty nice. travelling club passing.

anyway the reason why Jojo looks so unlike the high ranking business executive that he is is because he has a Phd! He's Dr. Jojo!

Dr. Jojo, unicyclist and juggler.

wow. His degree in in biz, his Phd is in biz, and he has already published quite a few books. This was the guy running down the escalator collecting clubs!

back in KFC Jojo suggested to huifang and i that we could pass diabolos back to back. That requires one right handed and one left handed player which is not common and so back to back has not been tried much so far.

"yeah we shld try that. and if we succeed we'll name it after Jojo!"
Huifang: "yeah! let's call it Jojo's...er...backside."

the funny part abt the above joke was that no one heard her saying it. i heard a bit but it only registered when i got home. i think it's damn funny now...haha....the joke itself and the fact that no one heard it so no one reacted and it was like such a natural comment.
----------------------------

woke up this morning aching like crazy. only managed to sleep 2 hours. ache from little sleep, ache from muscle ache (too much passing), ache from knife juggling, ache from tripping and twisting my ankle. and guess what, it's Commencement DAY!

Using the b-l-a-r-d-y s-l-o-w 56k m-o-d-e-m because brother kapo-ed the bb one.

not intending to stay online long but kinda high now...too high to sleep.

been a good girl today and stayed home to do some applications before leaving the house vey late. amazingly i'm still not done yet. suddenly i'm quite on and clear abt my career path. This snakefish's still alive. i'll see when it gets PIACK! whacked on the head.

went to bendemeer to shoot some passport photos. mom said not to go to the one with the "old man" cos he got cranky during our last family portrait shoot. well there was only one studio left there. with an "old man". i wasn't sure if he's THE "old man" since everyone in that area looks old. but then i saw my uncle's family photo on display so yeah, that's THE "old man". There was even a story behind that photo on display. My auntie wasn't satisfied with it and refused to pay and take it. so now it's on display. so weird. luckily tempted as i was i didn't tell him "hey that's my uncle!".

the "old man" was more interested in my huge juggling luggage bag than anything else. he kept asking where i was heading to. when i told him the bag's full of toys he asked me what kind of ball game i play. i told him these are juggling equipment, in english and chinese, but he catch no ball. (pun! pun!)

it was also when i was talking to the "old man" that i realise i can't remember my hp number in chinese. jiu3 er4, no, jiu3 ba1, errrrr, jiu3...er.....

so his receipt is full of cancellations. haha. i finally blurted the number out in english before he got cranky. what a blardy banana me.

collected my money which dropped from the sky. cool. kekekekeke. met up with alan and edmund along the way. both of them are like entertainment hotcakes. man. they dun do juggling though. Juggling's so tough for busking, also quite tough for stage and expression. sigh. maybe it's just an excuse. there might be a way. maybe.

edmund's advice:
"always talk to the customer and find out what they want. never let there be a difference between what they want and what you think they want. after you find out their expectations, exceed the expectation."

okie dokie.

fire attracts too. ben was playing with fire above the esplanade and 2 guys from an entertainment company went over to get his contacts. sigh. oh juggling oh juggling...the poor cousin of all art forms. there must be a way.

talking abt fire. i ate fire again! haha. after such a long time. my first attempt was crap, but i think the later ones were better than whatever i did in the past. managed to burn my tongue a little. which was quite comforting cos it wasn't as bad as i think it would be.

now i have a headache and aching chest. i think it might be the fire-eating and the breathing in of the kerosene the guys were playing with. or it could just be imaginary.

xiwen started a blog! haha. blogspot's too plain sounding for her so she had to sign up with some xanga blog. kekekeke. just wrote a comment to her. suspected i won't be able to submit so i tried to copy and backup my comment. cannot copy. press submit. cannot submit. my comment habis. gone to xanga world.

it's a high night. the cash from the sky, the fire-eating, my live snakefishes, i'm even quite on abt the juggling performances tmrw.

quite sure that one of these days PIACK! all the snakefishes will die.

oh i met Jasmine the swimmer and Shimei at the esplanade today! Just as i was dressed shabbilly and my hair mangled from all the club passing. told you everyone's suddenly free and floating around.

tmrw will be spent performing and sun will be spent stoning at UCC. Mom's more kan cheong than me abt what to wear beneath the gown. I dun really care what's inside but she thinks it must be white, collared and sleeved.

"i think you shld wear my blouse. or the RGS blouse."

"you threw all my RGS blouses away. and i dun wanna wear your blouse. there are 300 pple up there each for 2 seconds no one's gonna care whether i have sleeves.

Jen's friend is not even gonna wear anything inside!"

not very reassuring.

mom thinks i shld spend the whole of tmrw trying the gown. mom doesn't know i'll be out from noon to midnight. mom will surely nag.

wondering whether i shld bring 3 balls on stage to juggle. mom will surely flip. if i juggle everyone might now really notice i have no sleeves.
-------------------

message of the night:

i realised, with help from the xanga-ed one, that i've been writing abt a lot of pple. and i noticed that i haven't written much abt beautiful hair. apart from the fact that the name induces goosebumps (haha), i think the ironic fact is that i know beautif....hai...beautifuuu....let's just say BH, haha, reads my blog. so it makes me weird to write stuff cos it's like i'm writing stuff to her. it's weird writing to BH abt BH. while i'm not sure whether the other folks read my blog (i think xanga reads occasionally) so it's easier writing abt them.

yes. so now it's clear why BH only appears in the comment boxes. haha. :)

Funny how some biz websites are full of content and yet they say nothing. I can surf thru the whole thing and still wonder what the hell they are selling.

Funny how my aims and goals currently have the lifespan of a snakefish in a wetmarket. (weips: know they kill live snakefishes? the guy holds it down in one hand and just WHAM! it on the head. PIACK!)

God is right. this is a journey. Find out new things along the way....abt me, abt the industry....abt the harmonica.

abt the harmonica.

just picked it up and started blowing and inhaling. Since it's been lying ard for long i think i just sucked in lots of dust and mites. yucks.

contemplating skipping juggling tmrw to do stuff. how incomprehensible.

just got news that i'll be receiving payment for a cancelled event. haha. It's really money dropped from the sky. I didn't think there was a hairline chance of getting anything, but Alan slugged it out with them. My boss. My hero. keke.

the week coming up is filling up. just when i'm trying to get stuff done at home. not my doing, suddenly everyone wants to do stuff. Pple want to meet, mom wants to shop (for 2 whole days), nus wants me to scram once and for all, alan wants to pay me, juggling commitments.

and there's Supersize Me to catch. wonder if i'll puke if i buy Macs in to munch while watching the show.

Time to sleep. let's see if i'll ever wake up early as planned.
----------

quotes of the day:

"what does an assistant trader do?"
"how do you spell that? T-R-A-I-T-O-R?"

"I taught Joey the actress how to juggle."
"Oh! Joey Tay ah?"


Brought my mom's clothes to sch as costume for a play. Hung it at the window. Huang Lao shi saw it and came over.

(english translation)
"is this suit yours?"
"no it's my mom's"
"Oh! your mom is an opera singer?" she said beamingly.
"no." i said blankly.
"oh." awkward moment. walk away in stealth.

there was a birthday scene on tv just now.

and suddenly i was flooded with memories of xiwen's birthdays in RGS.

in sec 3 i bought her a birthday cake. Lighted it up and put it on her desk when her whole class was at PE. The idea was to surprise her. Surprise her i did, cos when she got back the cake's all burnt from the candle flames. I think she shared the burnt cake with her class. like made them eat it.

in sec 4 i bought her a big fat watermelon. carried it to school and presented it to her first thing in the morning so she could carry it around the whole day. refused to pass her the plastic bag i carried it in. that was cool. haha. Her partner was absent that day so she sat next to the watermelon on the desk for all the lessons. (think the melon couldn't fit into her locker)

Gong Lao shi: Xiwen, ni wei she me dai da xi gua lai xue xiao?
xiwen: meiling gei wo de sheng ri li wu.

in RJ i bought her a cute monkey doll eating a banana. together with a real bunch of bananas. and of course again she had to carry them around the whole day lecture to lecture.

memories.

nice cool day today. lazed the day away. seems to be a long time since i had time to spend lazing at home. yeah.

it's kinda cool the situation i'm in. whenever i feel like i'm a shit juggler i get motivated to apply for jobs. whenever i get bored or disillusioned with applying i head back to the comfort of juggling.

this is one of the few days i feel like i'm shit in both.

didn't sleep at all on mon cos had to go sch at 8.30 on tues. the late euro nights and the sleepovers has finally taken it's toll, with the 'no sleep' night being the final straw. was so tired on tues afternoon i fell asleep on the nus ping pong table. like standing up, upper body slumped face down on the table. machiam fainted while playing ping pong. i got up, walked ard a bit to wake up, and then promptly slept lying against the ping pong table leg.

i think min jiang was quite amused at my state of semi conciousness. even while the group was chatting i wasn't totally awake, was quite afraid i'll spew something rude, tactless or nonsensical since my brain wasn't functioning anymore.

quite a feat getting home. fell asleep standing up in the mrt. in NEL hope i didn't lean against the guy next to me too much. slept thru the entire evening, felt so disoriented when i woke up at midnight.

even though i slept at 2 and woke up at 10 i was still tremendously tired. it's not how early i need to sleep, it's how early i wake up. i've conditioned myself to feel tired anytime before 3pm. better switch it back. after all, the nights hold no more mysteries to me, it's now the early mornings that i crave to experience.
-------------------

Min Jiang did most of the demo yesterday. and he was doing a good job too. i was surprised the sports camp pple, cool as they look, are actually not that dao. they picked up juggling really fast, wonder if there's some link to sports and juggling. Felt so dumb telling them "2 is the hardest part to juggling. after 2 sure can do 3". and then 5 seconds later they do the perfect 2 ball cascade and look at me like what was so hard abt that?

anyway looking at min jiang i realise i may not have what it takes to be a juggler entertainer. He was doing a good job, but i'm not sure i'm comfortable doing what he does. Juggling entertainment is either be funny or be wow. i'm not good enough to be a technical juggler. so no wow. i'm not comfy doing slapstick and stolen jokes seem so contrived. so no funny. i shld just stick to juggling for personal amusement.

went down for Gleneagles interview today. The interview was alright, more like a dialogue session really. the first thing that struck me was that for all the glam appearance outside, the behind the scenes was quite, erm, unglam. And i realised that the engineers who work there are not that much different from the engineers in my Mom's department.

Anyway they were really nice to get me there to talk to them even though they were pretty sure i'm not the right candidate. they gave me an overview of what the industry is abt and where i stand and why it's hard, and probably unsatisfactory, for me to do what they do.

"Sometimes when degree holders come here they leave because they are looking for 'something more'. i dunno what 'something more' is, but it's not easy getting used to the work here."

"Starting out is always the most difficult. I hope one day you'll find the job you're looking for."

i was pretty excited getting the call from gleneagles (funnily enough interview calls always come in 2s. got another call just before the interview). got it during the sports camp demo and suddenly in the middle of the demo i injected a burst of energy and enthusiasm. haha. (side-track: part of min jiang's demo was to jump in 3 times in one show. since there were 8 demos he had to jump 24 times in total. keke.) When i filled in the application form with "Biomedical Engineer" i thought "damn that sounds good!", haha.

i'm not sad or disappointed that i didn't get the job. Seeing the workplace and listening first hand to what they do did sound like it's not what i was looking for. (and of course i'm not what they are looking for) That's why it was pretty nice of them to call me down and not just ignore me.

i'm confused again though. there seems to be a huge gap between what we learn in sch and what is being done outside. basically what we learn is good for research cos there're lots of theories but in the industries they dun really care abt theories. it's hands on babe. they dun really care how the machine works, just as long as it works when it's down.

it's all pretty shitty. All the As has gotten me to RJ, and all the As got me to NUS, but now all the As don't seem to worth anything anymore. I dun feel like i know anything at all.

weips and i met Shiyun in wisma.

"how's work?"
"mmmm, like that lor, you know, how work usually is."

Indian phd guy i met at salsa.

"Undergrad at nus is tough man. i'm glad i did mine in india."
"Isn't phd more stresful that undergrad?"
"no, not if you like what you're doing," he said beaming away, "most undegrads dun like what they're studying."

God please tell me what i like/want to do.

God: find it out yourself you blardy ass. it's the journey that counts, not the destination. this is the journey.
-----------------------------------------

for all the confusion i'm in, the upside of today was that i learnt the rambutan and alligator dance. (along with the cigar/seagull, coconut, durian, window/indian tree, fedora dance).

all courtesy of weiping.

invited by weip's fren to go for salsa tonight. it looks pretty fun but i'm not that interested in it. weips felt the same, so we decided to invent our own dances. it was a blast. the dances look damn obiang and funny but still cool. wouldn't look too out of place at Mambo night. haha.
-----------------------------------------

back to pondering my future. and circling adverts. and applying for jobs. i'm kinda afraid my emailed letters are not getting through because my computer is virused. none of my interviews so far (not that i have many) came from emailed applications.

yes loser rule number 1: blame everything/everyone else.

siyong and minjiang are pretty much getting a hang of unicycling. i'm still running around with my bamboo and mop poles. i'm loser with a capital L to the power of 5.

this is just a shit night. at least i have the dances for buffer.
-------------------------------------------

"Jac is married and working already. she's probaby busy doing family planning...financial planning..."

"And here we are planning what we want to do on sat."

~At Jack's Place (overpriced and nothing special abt the food. good ambience and service though)



"There are pple out there starving and homeless. what makes you think your problems are bigger than other's?"

"Well, they are MINE."

~Ally McBeal

i like this quote:

"Once upon a time, I naively thought, all my childhood dreams would come true, each and everyone. Till I grew up and age in years, I came to the realisation that, life is like a hot air balloon, if you wish to go any higher, you gotta throw out the sandbags, one by one. Gradually, in the end, all my dreams have been thrown away. And me? I have become the person that I knew least. "

~by dunno who. quoted from someone else.

just found out that lifen is working as a producer in mediacorp news. that's so cool.

the social pressure's not bad actually. it drives up my motivation to nail a job.

unicycling not bad today. the pedal fear's gone now just need to ride smoother. unicycling slow is damn strenuous on the thighs.

hard work always pays off in the end.

do i believe in fate? i dunno. maybe. anthony robbins will wring me by my neck and shout "take control!" but it's hard, tiring and scary. so i'll take semi-control and leave the other semi to fate.

the uncertainty of it all is frustrating. but it's liberating as well in a sense. i shld learn to appreciate the liberation more. the blank sheet in front of me. nothing is there, and therefore anything can be there.

yeah.

back to circling adverts.

~~~~~
Me: Did you guys know Sean McKinney died from depression?
Min Jiang: oh dear maybe we shldn't learn the 7 club cascade.
~~~~~

PS: Greece won.