Raya Mode : ON

I know I am working tomorrow. Yes, I am working!

Full circle of work to go through. What more, it's end of the month so, many things to finalize and Singapore's not on a long leave like us, so, hello deals! I don't think I will even remember that it's a day before raya when I step foot in the office tomorrow.

But for what it's worth, right now, I am feeling the raya vibes already baby! and it's sleepover at Shura's tonight! There goes my sleeping time, I don't think we'll be sleeping =)

Selamat Hari Raya everyone! Maaf Zahir & Batin =)

Booked

This girl who's always kissing me in public is back on the same land as me! =)

ShuZam! Lil miss best friend and Mr Fiance is home and I am (always) booked (when they're home) ! 

Can't find me? Try calling Zamir! *winks*

Don't Settle

I woke up for sahur to see US stocks closed higher. Gold prices fell. and amongst others, Steve Jobs resigned.

Apple shares rallied up. Share tradings suspended. AND THEN they dropped the bomb shell. Very smart. That way, prices won't fall and confidence can still be restored in the meantime. Smart from the start!

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

I read this and it made me smile :)

Something I can truly relate, especially so today. Time flew by in a swift and it has been a very happy day at work!

180 degrees

Note: This was written on Sunday but I don't know why I forgot to click publish. I suddenly saw it in my draft and in need of some happy vibes. So I re-read this and publishing it now.

A weekend I was looking forward to, seemed like a bummer at start. Simply because my schedules didn't look too friendly for a change in plans. I wished I had more than 24 hours a day.

Turned out, it was a 180 degrees change.

I had the most fun designing and drawing the most peculiar arrangements for new dresses first thing int he morning! I never thought! As it is, mine was just me being all random, designing dresses, putting a train at the skirt, drawing additional flowers and beads to make up the border, fancy sleeves and very extravagant flows for the skirt. Accompanied by Center Stage music playing in the background and mum and dad by my side giving me their inputs, it was very very fun. Well, mum's was useful all the time, where as dad's? He was more of "Eh! Look, this dress looks funny but in a beautiful way" or "Wow, girl's dresses these days, patutlah mahal! So busy! (Read: Busy means too cluttered). Kitorang dulu dulu simple je". Too cute, and true too. Typical parents.

Afterwards, whilst mum and dad went grocery shopping, I went on to catch up with my CIMB TCB loves, seniors and juniors! I know we work in the same firm, but my god, it's been such a long time since we last caught up and it felt really good to see everyone doing well where they are. As far as I can remember, the only time we spent loads of times together was during classroom training! It's always a motivation when I see happy colleagues :)

Then we did the best happiest thing I could ever think of. Go crazy at a DVD store and stocked up on Musical shows! Hoamigod, I was so crazy in the shop, I felt like getting everything! Just picking out what to buy was a very happy thing to do! I saw Grease, Wizard of Oz, Step up, Swan Lake, Ice
Princess, Jekyll & Hyde, Hairspray, Rent, Dreamgirls.....ahh! I wanted everything la ok, nasib baik banyak bersabar bulan puasa ni.

That didn't stop there, coz I came home to watch some of them and afterwards got so very very very motivated and happy, dancing and singing along like there's no day but today (that's a title to one of the songs in Rent), I forgot my day started out on a low. Magical musical much? :):) Never underestimate the power of dance and music combined really! To add to that happiness, we had a big family buka, with all my cousins and aunts and uncles and it was just happy times. Food, terawih, football, movies and lil nephew! :))

It's normal now that when I get too happy during the day, I'll be very exhausted when night time comes. Good thing it's a weekend, but that was before I remembered that Fazril, Aimee and I had a sahur date at McDonalds, just like we did last year. 4.30 am and we were up, out and about till 9 plus! My goodness, we've not caught up since forever! and in that 4 hours, we spilled everything that we had! It felt so good, and suddenly I remembered our London times when we used to do similar random things like this. It made me realized that I needed that chilled, relaxed, silly times, being our crazy selves over happy meal with familiar faces. Coz I forgot how fun it could be! :)

Too much happiness and lack of sleep. Of course I came home and crashed! I fell asleep and even lost track of time baybeh! I thought it was time for work when I woke up, but no, it was time for happy dinner with my no 1 favourites, mama, daddy and abang to celebrate daddy's birthday :)) Japanese FTW!

Not enough with that...I was supposed to have supper with my Dreamgirls. But guess what? SURPRISE! We went to watch Glee 3D instead!! I was singing throughout!

There's something about musical, music and dance combined, favourites and super duper random plans that can make me so so so so very happy! So happy that I feel motivated. Yeah, when I'm happy, it releases this adrenaline that can motivate me. Weird I know, but hey, I love the feeling! :)

So that's, Rent, Legally Blonde, Center Stage, Hairspray, Ice Princess the musical that I've watched over one weekend. *faints* I have never ever done a 5-musical-movies marathon in 2 days ever!

*beams*...if I can go into my system now, I think the happiness level is ticking right at its peak! I just love busy weekends! For now, I shall sleep with a smile knowing that 'hey, it turned out to be another happy weekend' and countdown till lil miss best friend comes home!

Mama : "Haa, shura balik soon kan? When she does, I'll just see you a month after la".

Classic. When shura's home, people usually don't see me often! If you need to look for me, call Zamir :P Shura and I tend to not hear our phones!

Creating happiness without much effort is a skill and I'm very thankful for that! :))

Comfort Zone

As market crashes, my work piles up. Why? Because I work in Investment Banking Product Management. No time in the market means no work for us, coz even when market crashes, we develop products that we potentially see could attract investors, taking advantage of the falling market. 

For now, work is a good distraction to keep me motivated. And office is a comfort zone.

Center Stage

...the middle part of the stage (duh). Left stage is casts' left, but audience's right and vice versa. Then there's the apron and upstage downstage. Oh I miss my Director shouting it to us during Dreamgirls.

Yes, I love anything musical and anything dance related. But eversince Dreamgirls ended, the inclination and passion have grown even stronger than before :)

It's unfortunate that I have no leave left, using every single day I had for Dreamgirls. Hence why I have come to terms with the fact that I won't be able to go for anymore audition if it would require for me to rehearse intensively every single day. However, Allah is great and fair. I have just agreed to join another in December, but this one only requires for cast to rehearse on weekends. That works with my work schedule :)

Center Stage. My new addiction right now. For now, can I just dream to be a cast for Center Stage if there ever was? It's a film about 12 young dancers who gained admission into the School of American Ballet in New York. They come from various different backgrounds and it focuses on the issues, struggles and difficulties in the world of professional dance. Films like this pumps up my adrenaline to dream the impossible and also motivate the hell out of me, really! There's so much you can express through dance and music. Just get into it and you'll understand what I mean.

Last time I ballerina-ed my way on stage was for a New Year's Eve show at KLCC, and we did Swan Lake. It was amazing, from the costumes to the dance itself, all the way to the energy in the crowd and having the whole of KL City brightly lit as our background. *melts*

I'm in love! Seriously, just look at the choreography! Just so beautiful, I can cry. I wished I could perform like her :)

I used to joke with my girlfriends that I wanna marry guys who can sing and dance coz I think they're just so hot, and so that everyday when I wake up, he can sing to me before I go to work, I can start waltzing and singing together with him and that should be enough to give me the greatest happiness and be on cloud nine! :) 

Back to square one

Just because I've missed random outing moments and I want to be back where I first fell in love with the lights and buildings, standing where I am capturing this photo below with my two little eyes :)

Something I used to do a lot prior to my super-hectic-schedule past few months! I've always believed that whilst you're still young, that's the time to take advantage of the flexibility you have, filling it up and making myself busy busy busy :) Plus I get quite restless sitting still, so time to re-fill all those weekends!

First stop? Exactly where that picture was taken :):) 

No Stranger

This was written on 20 July 2011 but I was too sleepy to publish it by the time I got home!

No stranger

Previously I thought my schedule was at its craziest when I had rehearsals during the day and futsal training afterwards. So, it’s 7am-till-11pm worth of physical and vocal activities. By the time I get home, it’ll be close to 12 and I’ll be too exhausted to do anything anymore. That went on for a few weeks!

I was wrong.

Currently, right now is definitely the toughest ever. Now that I am back at work full time and Dreamgirls has started running from 13^th July- 24^th July, it is beyond hectic! So, my day starts at 6.30 am. Office hours run till 5.30 pm for me, latest. Rush to Istana Budaya for my call time. Get dressed up, mic-ed up, and made up by 8 pm. Show starts at 8.30 pm and would end at about 11.30 pm ish. Get unchanged, mic-ed out, return back everything to step one and then go out to meet the audience. By the time I get home and get ready for bed it’ll already be about 2 am. That’s excluding weekends when we run 4 shows straight! I just don’t look like me at work on Monday!

6.30 am – 2 am. 19.5 hours of physical and vocal activities, mentally stressed and work exhaustion. Every. Single. Day. I’ve never ever felt this knackered before. I look like a zombie now and I’ve lost track of time and day.

What’s not a stranger to me anymore these days is the fact that I realize I wake up in my sleep. It wasn’t too chronic previously when I would sometimes dream of us dancing to a choreography. Once after watching Super 8, I dreamt of exactly the scenes from Super 8 when there were fights going on in the background, but this time with us dancing the Dreamgirls’ moves! And quite scarily, I think my dream came true the day we had the BERSIH rally. Fights were going on in KL, whilst we Dreamgirls continued rehearsing happily. 

But these days, I sometimes ‘see’ my fellow Dreamgirls. At times I ‘see’ my costumes hanging by the cupboard and when I get closer, there’s actually nothing there. I communicate with them that I ‘see’ too. Yes, I actually get out of bed and start taking my cue, interact and perform my routines. I am not kidding! Funny thing is, I realize all these happening, and at the same time also realize that it’s actually sleeping time. My system gets very confused! I tell my body to sleep, but it has this fear of missing a cue when I need to go on stage. Once, I found myself waking up on the floor. Unexplainably weird but I’m used to it already now.

The priceless experience that sometimes can be so unexplainable. 

Our New York boy

He's talented. He's funny. He's awesome. He's caring. He makes sure we learn the right techniques and sings the right pitch. He makes sure that at the same time that we rehearse, we're having fun. He makes sure that we know the real background of Dreamgirls and absorb ourselves into our characters. He motivates us. He inspires and he never fails to give us the biggest hug every single day, before and after our shows just to transfer us some awesome Broadway energy!

He's this very humble yet so very talented famous American superstar I was very fortunate to be able to act, sing and dance in a production with. 

Kris Coleman

The day he left back for New York, we knew that that was the real ending to Dreamgirls. We cried, he cried and post production blues kicked in.

Coz your presence has made Dreamgirls even better than what people expected it to be

=)