A walk in Pasir Ris Mangrove

took a short walk in pasir ris park's mangrove trail this evening with mom and dad.
am reminded that my parents grew up in the kampong and know much about nature.

dad says the young leaves of this plant can be grounded and applied to wounds to stop bleeding, yet to find out the name of this plant, if anyone knows, pls tell me!

berries, a favourite food of hill pigeons

the holes in the ground you see here are homes of the Episesarma crabs

lots of Episesarma crabs are found in the Pasir Ris mangrove, dad says they used to put these crabs into salt water and eat them as snacks

we ended the day having dinner at Loyang Point, chicken rice at Mom and Dad's favourite stall!

the beauty of a dancer - he is strong, yet soft

attended pilates class today by jacek, he's a good teacher especially cos he understands exactly what male dancers need to develop and work on in order to strengthen himself.

class at nanyang kindergarten is a little chaotic today, because we are preparing the kids for a performance for their trinity certificates. but it'll be worth it cos we can see them learning how to work together.

morning class was by janek. last exercise was a faili assemble, which ended with a double tour. i was following behind as usual, but i could feel myself getting more stable in jumps. did only single tours, but they were well finished. in the end, janek gave me a praise for that - good for a time of pushing through the plateau!

anaheim ballet videos are back!

am so happy! guys check the latest clips by anaheim ballet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8IkDoD7nAI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df7LTuUbwak

anaheim is back! anaheim is back! ring the bells! sound the announcement!!

woohoo!

heh

departures

watched "departures" in the morning and found it a rather beautiful film. the story is about a cellist who lost his job after his orchestra was dissolved, and he decides to go back to his hometown with his wife to start afresh. he responded to a job in the classifieds titled "departures", thinking it is a travel agency, only to discover it has misprinted "departed" and the ad is looking for professionals to prepare the bodies of deceased for burial.

though death is not a welcoming topic for most of us, this film made it thought provoking for the viewer to ponder about life and death. we all have to face death at a certain point of time, but people who have gone through near death experiences would tell you that life is particularly meaningful when you have loved ones to cherish.

the movie demonstrated the professionalism of the encoffiners, the unsung heroes who are also known as the gentle gatekeepers between life and death, between the departed and the family of the departed.

being an artist, the fact that the movie involved a musician ties close to me. some experiences in life may not seem related directly to what we wish to do, but because art is a reflection of life, every experience in this journey allows us to mature in our thoughts and thus our creations. the lead actor found more meaning in playing his cello after going through the pain and feeling of loss with the family of the departed. in this case, he had found meaning to play to his boss and collegue at work, who have turned to become his close friends. with every experience comes an opportunity to grow and change. will seize every opportunity to learn as much as life can give.

2 more days

almost done with this confinement.

i've already made a mental list on what to work on once back to class. reading ballet texts doesn't really help to alleviate the wanting to dance. but at least it helps me to tell myself i'm still doing my homework. finally managed to clean up my room after a few months of late nights. will try to keep it that way as much as possible.

reina msged sometime in the afternoon after hearing i'm sick. kind of her, thanks reina. and v brought me some lunch at 3. sweet of her. the day went by with typing maniac and vids of mj. found a couple of good ones today, here they are:

he puts lots of soul into every performance, which is admirable from the points of both audiences and his fellow performers. take a look at the seond vid, there's a part where his backup singer walked over to him to help him up. i jus wonder just how much his knees could take with him crashing them to the floor like that constantly. but then again, every performer has their injury to tell, especially dancers.

here's a couple of dance pics, miss class!

stuck at home

stuck at home the whole day cos of my fever, can't go for class, my body is itching from head to toe already. thanks jesper for sharing the vids to keep me occupied and the music as well; max i think you wanted to talk to me but when i msg you back you're busy already, drop me a msg yea; v thanks for your msgs i hope you are having a good class.

reservist during the last week was a good catch up time with buddies from sispec and hqncc. it's amazing how people recognize each other's faces even though we may have been from different platoons previously. and most of those whom i've never met before are very friendly people, which turns out we all made lots of new friends during this in-camp training. sorry but no photos to share cos military camps don't allow camera phones in. anyways we only had one day of out field training. which is lucky so we didn't hav too many dirty laundry to wash when we got back home.

the outfield training was section movement where we had to bring 6 other guys walking around the forest of lorong asrama to practice our formations, and how we move from bound to bound to attack the enemy if we encounter any during patrolling. some of us were equip with smoke grenades and some with thunder flashes (to simulate grenades, they're really loud explosives) during the training.

this one week of training built quite a good camaradie among everyone of us, though most of them were from the same unit previously apart from me, i learnt a lot from how they work together and how they manage to get tasks done efficiently. one week of training is definitely more than enough already and im glad to be back to civilisation, where my daily encounter involves tendus and plies.

here's a vid for this weekend:

tribute to micheal jackson

Was in camp for ICT over the last week and got the news of micheal jackson's passing on through a platoon mate of mine. His mom called him just to tell him that mikey has died. lots of his fans must be damn sad right now. we remember mikey for his smooth moonwalks, which he seems be gliding around as if he's on butter. some of his other iconic dance moves are still well recalled by people today.

here's a vid of smooth criminal, the first mj vid ive ever watched, thanks to wei han and max, my best buds in sec sch till now. enjoy

catch the famous lean on 7:17!

RIP Mike, from Singapore.