After months of training…well, about 3 months of training…(especially intensive over the last 3 weeks), the day of reckoning is finally here. About 3 hrs from now, the team would be flying off for Manila, where the Philippines Salsa Congress is held.
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Ready or not, here we come. 
After logging in my last blog, I realised that I have not blog for a span of 11 days. That’s quite a record considering the fact that my blogs were never more than 7 days apart since I started blogging a while back. Furthermore, I’am not on hols, isn’t it ironic?
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It’s certainly ironical as I definitely don’t feel that I’am on a hols right now. Instead of work, Salsa trg as taken first priority in my life over the last 2 weeks. Daily salsa trg starts in the evening and ends when the night kicks in, about 1/1/2 to 3 hours practice depending on the availability of the other team members and the studio.
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Its definitely tiring, but well needed and I certainly can’t complain, since everyone else except me gotta work and its really tough on them. Emotions get high (especially mine) when things doesn’t go the way we want them and its certainly very easy to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, do the wrong thing at the wrong time or say the wrong thing at the wrong time and then find yourself being mercilessly gunned down by the person that you have absolutely no intention to provoke. Well, things just ain’t going very easy around here.
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Personally, I do not know whether I am too stressed up or too hard on myself that I’am not seeing the results that I’am supposed to see after throwing in so many hours. While people around me are definitely improving, not by leaps and bounds but certainly improving, I seems to be stagnated and rather in certain case deproving…this is very very sad news. Well, I still have one last week ahead and let’s not dwell on this anymore but put my best foot and hand forward and hopefully, this persistence would pay off in the end and somehow everything just turn out right. Wish me luck (definitely I need more than most of my other team mates…hahaha)
Caught “Harry Potter : Goblet of Fire” earlier this evening, right after a strenuous 3 hours of non stop salsa practice that has pretty much being the norm for me over the last 2 weeks.
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Well, as a fan of the Harry Potter series, yesh, I have somehow managed to read all 6 books in a span of 1 month sometime this year and quite coincidentally, the book that started me going was “Goblet of Fire” and thus I was pretty much looking forward to the movie version as I wanted to see how the story is being brought to the big screen this time round.
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Alas, to my great disappointment, the movie was a total let down, a mere touch and go film that did absolutely no justice to the book. If it was anything, the movie was probably the tip of the iceberg as compared to the book in terms of depth, character development and the general development of the greater story.
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I am a weird follower of the Harry Potter series. I started off with the movies without even reading the book and back then, which was a good 5 to 6 years back, I simply dismissed the notion that a ‘children’ book would be of any good and was quite satisfied with the reasoning that it is probably due to sheer marketing gimmick that the book was such a best seller. Well, the first 2 installment of the Harry Potter series movies were pretty good I must say and now having read the 2 books as well, I would say that due justice was been done and there was definitely much character and plot development as well as depth in the first 2 movies. I shall refrain from commenting on the “Prisoner of Azarkhban” as I did not watch that movie, though I would pretty much love to do so if some kind soul is willing to lend me his vcd/dvd as I have absolutely no intention to purchase them now until the whole 7 movies have been released in a collectible version. Enough of digression.
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Granted that “Goblet of fire” was definitely much thicker in volume as compared to the earlier 3 books and its definitely no fun doing an executive summary of the book in the form of a movie, however, this is not a complete mitigation. If this is an indication of how things are gonna be run in the future, I am sad to say that the next 2 installments of the Harry Potter series – “Order of the Phoenix” & “The Half Blood Prince” are definitely gonna turn out to be even worse than “Goblet of fire” as they are definitely at least 20 – 30% thicker in volume and if the same approach is to be adopted to squeeze the so called “exciting” aspects and crowd wowing scenes of the book into a movie version, I would certainly have no wish to watch them..
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Besides the lack of character and plot development as well as depth, I am pretty sure that the average audience especially the muggers (in this case, those who have not read any Harry potter books before) would agree with me that the whole show is quite lousily connected. Everything just seemed to be in a mad rush and things just keep on happening as if the Tri Wizard Tournament took place in about a week. There was no adventure this time round, pretty much a bullet train ride from start to end that leave those who have not read the book feeling pretty much lost and have absolutely no idea what the f*** was going on (pardon my language) and for those who have read the book, certainly would find the movie grossly inadequate.
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The deepening of the friendship between the trio takes to a higher level while they risk everything to assist Harry in completing his task, the normal problem facing teenages (envy, puppy love, jealousy, angst), the relationship building between Harry Potter and his God Father Sirius, the dark plot behind the dark lord’s revival, the snipes and background of the war fought with the death eaters and the severity of the situation back then, the background on the various death eaters characters, the entire school term in which Hogwarts, how Harry struggled and pains to learn the various spell, the difficulty of the Tri-wizard Tournament was completely left out. In fact, the list is pretty much unexhaustive and these that I have listed out are just some of the notable points that I can still recall despite having read the book about 3 months back.
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Character casting is another area of contention. Besides the correct casting of the main trio and some of the Hogwarts long standing teachers, and oh ya, Cedric Diggory, the rest are pretty much crap. Let’s just touch on a few, Dumbledore. Yeah, sadly the old dumbledore has gone back to his hometown to sell salted duck eggs, but I’am pretty sure Hollywood has no lack of actors that could fill his post. The new Dumbledore seriously does not look wise, experienced, mature, powerful, awe inspiring, warm, fatherly or grandfatherly, doesn’t have a sense of presence around him and in short, has nothing to show as a great wizard of his time. His performance couple with his look really make him more like a silly old man, who somehow seems to be moving in a bounce around manner and not the steadfast type of those that would be expected of his age. For those that have read the book and watched the first few movies would definitely agree with me that this guy’s a fluke. In fact, I even thought that he look like the Hong Kong comedian ‘Xu guan jie’ at one of the scene when his glasses are off. Everything just don’t seem quite right with him around. His presence in each of the scene just doesn’t give off the reassuring feeling that a true Dumbledore would probably instill in everyone. (thus explaining at the devastating effect when Dumbledore….oops…shouldn’t say that much on this ah) Well, in short, absolutely lousy casting on this one.
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Cho Chang. Well, I guess Westerners have a weird idea of what constitute a really really beautiful and eye turner Asian lady as being described in the story. We seriously have plenty in the region and what they have chosen is certainly not up to the standard. Well, Harry is seriously better off choosing Hermoine instead if Cho Chang looks like this.
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Fluer Decloare, think I didn’t get her name quite right and can’t be bothered at 3 am in the morning to check with the books, but well, not too bad, but like Cho, seriously, this super duper eye turner supposedly French lady would need to do better.
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Let’s try one question. After watching the movie, for those who have not read the book, do you know whom Harry found dead in the forest? Probably not. I don’t supposed the movie did much explaining who the heck that guy was. For those who answered Barty Couch, good for you, great observation. However, do you know what’s the impact of his death, the politics behind the Ministry, the subsequent repercussions and consequences. This is just one example of a totally not develop plot. The producer might have solve the problem this time round by having a really sumarised executive summary, but I bet he’s gonna have problem in the future as all these things have not been careful explain in a delicate manner and its just gonna snowball.
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Well, enough said. Anyway, my grouses probably wouldn’t get anywhere except to discourage people from watching the movies and turning to the book instead, which I seriously implore you to do so. It is really a great book, easy to read and interesting story. I certainly did not regret buying all 3 books at one shot back then. Well, happy reading and less watching people!
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Oh ya, for those hardcore Harry Potter fans, if you really like the movies, just ignore my comments ah. I certainly don’t wish to have people coming up to me and shouting abacadabra, imperius or crucitius at my face.
Wouldn’t exactly say time flies, but one year has indeed gone by, just like that for this year. Its already November now and as per previous years, the time to chart the direction for the upcoming year and to plan for the parties and gatherings with the numerous festives down the road in December.
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Was going through the various emails and realised I hasn’t being in contact with my frens much this years and its really hard to search out an email with all the friends from one clique. In the end, I had to scrawl through the past emails and started reading some of them.
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Of course, I couldn’t help by notice a past which I had tried so many times and sadly, in vain to put behind me for many a times this year and indeed, that episode pretty much marked the up and downs for the entire year. Through the emails, its so amazing that so much can change in the short span of one year. From a long time friend, we have become so much closer towards the end of last year (probably due to the increase number of outings and movies) and things were really looking up. Looking back, the happiest time I had was probably from November 2004 - March 2005, then things started to go awry, as I decided that your love is more important than the friendship. It was a huge risk to take, but I guess I had made it even worse with a few other lousy decisions that somehow stem from a character flaw and of course, you and I both the ending now.
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Well, I’am just amazed at how fast changes can happened and how drastic it can change. Not blaming anyone, as I alone has made that decision. On hindsight, it has been errorneous, indeed, but who would have known and who would have thought about it.
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Its probably the change in season that has led to the outburst of emotions as I could kept it under wraps pretty well for the past half a year. Okay, perhaps not very very well, but I have tried and that probably explain some of my weird actions, reactions, choice of words or behaviour throughout this period. I guess I just haven’t totally let it go yet. Nonetheless, since you have already put it behind you, as a guy, (and one pretty egoistic one), I definitely cannot lose out to you and I must take it in stride. But before that day comes, I’am still very much in love with you and yesh, should the opportunity comes for me to voice it out once more, I would not hesitate to say to you, "I love you"
Still didn’t managed to start my exercise regime and its already mid week as I’am penning this blog. Doesn’t bode well, I shall try harder tml. Nonetheless, I’ve embarked on the building of my jigsaw puzzle today. Boy it was no easy feat, I took the easiest part of the jigsaw puzzle and still didn’t managed to do the whole thing…didn’t know how Amelia did it last time, she just spent less than 1 hr and she has one difficult corner in place. Guess, there’s also skills and talents involved in jigsaw puzzle building, and I’am quite sucky at it.
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Well, it wasn’t the only sucky part, in fact, the slow progression in jigsaw puzzle building was the okay part of the day. After I left the house for my salsa trg, everything started going haywire.
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First, I met this mad lady (okay, nearly mad) in one of the departmental store around Chinatown who happened to be one of my "client" before. For those, who knows which line I’am in, you would understand what I meant by "client". Well, I tried to ignore her, but she was railing at the top of her voice. Though I managed to suppress myself not to pick up a fight with her on the spot, once again, she totally spoil my day as always when I had to talk to her everytime in the past. Hey man, I have nothing to do with her pedicament and maybe if she would understand that I have already helped her alot, she would not have behaved in this way, and then again, she was the one who got herself into that fixed last time, not me, I was merely assigned to her, so come’on…give me a break already. I hope I would never have to see her, ever again.
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Well, perhaps due to that, I wasn’t exactly in the right mental state when I went for my training and probably that magnified all the problems I had and it was a disaster man. More or less the whipping boy for the night, everything that I did was wrong and of course, with that, comes the screaming…well, can’t help it if everyone else was relatively more okay than you are, isn’t it? Tough luck. Hopes it get better by tomorrow, since that’s when the performance gonna be. If not, okay, let’s not think of the if not.
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Definitely need a swim tomorrow. There’s just so much angst and unhappiness inside me that I need to get rid of. Also need to brush up my mediatation, always have a difficulty trying to concentrate and I think its getting much worse. Hopefully, I can used this 5 weeks to calm my soul. Well, ming tian hui geng hao. Smile.
Have been using programs like icq and msn for a while and I notice something which is very odd to me…For quite a couple of time, when I say "hi" to someone, the other party would reply a "what’s up?" or "how can I help you?" kinda reply.
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Well, I mean for starters, icq and msn are chat programs where people use it to…well…chat…so, saying hi is just a way of initialising a conversation and seriously speaking, nothing’s up and I’am just saying hi. Thus, I seriously don’t know how to reply when people ask me what’s up on msn, as I would usually say, "nothing", which sounds equally odd.
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Hmm…well, I guess its just me.
As usual, I totally love this type of show. Totally unreal and highly romanticed, but I love it. Haha. For one who believes much in fate, this is really my kind of show.
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Nothing much really to comment about the show. Its really pretty much the usual boy meets gal (in spirit) and boy and gal falls in love, kinda situation. Of course, there are a lot of funny loopholes I can comment on about this movie, but as a romantic comedy fan, I choose to ignore them.
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Cheers to romantic comedy. Even if there is like another 10 such shows coming along, I would watch them all…
After going in a few circles, I realised I’am still back at square one. Well, I guess that’s what you get for going in circles, its 360 degrees, so you can’t help it but come back to Square one. Or can you? You probably can, but can me? Probably not. That’s why, i’am back here once more…
Its a torture to be hungry in the middle of the night when you are about to sleep. To eat, is to make yourself supremely unhealthy and not to eat, would subject yourself to more torment as I’am one such person who can’t sleep on a hungry stomach. Damned. Should have eaten at the supper earlier on. At least, that would have save me the time and effort to whip up a meal.
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As usual, my favourite food for the night at home would be maggie mee. Don’t think of it as a normal bowl of maggie mee as I added, onions, carrots, vegetables, canned mushrooms, crabstick and of course, not forgetting the most important of all, the egg. Take a look. 
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It really seems like going back to hostel life once again, where I have supper at godforsaken hours with my neighbours nearly everyday. We would all chip in some food and usually, one or 2 of us would go and cook, then its eating, chatting and watching bo liao television programs that was still showing on tv during those hours. Then, we probably retire to our beds at even stranger hours and I would usually skip classes in the morning next day as I would only wake up in the afternoon. Hah! Not exactly a very good routine for many ah. Well, it had been fun. Though I can’t turn back time, but I really enjoy the time spent with all of you neighbours back then.
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Special thanks would go out to Changhe, Winnie, Edwin, Geko, Gayle, Teik Seong, the occasional Zhan wen, Renjie and Yuehua. Its kinda strange that I suddenly brought this up, but seriously thank you for being there to make hall life so much more interesting and meaningful during those 3 years! Cheers!
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One more thing. Now that Yuehua has gone to China to work, anyone gonna volunteer his house for the christmas party this year. Hey, its the time of the year once again. I wonder how different things would be this year.
One of the few Salsa night that I can truly say that I felt good about, except last Saturday’s night at C.J. salsa house party as well as earlier when I went down to Union.
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Somehow, was less conscious of myself tonight and from that, I was able to feel the music a bit better and really enjoyed myself. Though, there’s seriously so much more that I must do for the moment. Body isolation, spins, cleaning up my turns. Well, guess I would just take one step at a time. Must always remain happy, that’s the most impt!
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Cheerios to all budding salseros and Salsaras!
