in my earliest days in camb, i had wondered whether i would ever be fond of this place. it would be a place to which stress- loads of it, and the loneliness and discomfort of being in a foreign place would be associated, just like how spore was associated to these before.
even in the holidays, the 'glorious' 5 week easter holidays when the weather is just brilliant for any kind of outdoor actvity, the tension of the portending tripos is building up. people start to shut themselves in their rooms, libraries to brace themselves for the battle in easter term.
i feel obliged to do the same. but every morning as i walk out of basing, i see this:
the serenity of river cam, and trees bursting with cherry pink and blossom white.
and from the library, i noticed this tree which i had not noticed before:
a cherry blossom fluorishing with all the newly-gained energy of spring after dormancy in winter.
then, i took a step back and wondered in awe at the creation of the Creator, and wondered how i could be so parochial to be weighed down by the burden of work. isn't it said in ecclesiastes that work done under the sun is meaningless, a chasing after the wind? "What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless.- Ecclesiastes 2:22-23".
i don't mean there is no need to work at all. instead, it is unnecessary to augment the importance of it to a level that causes undue distress. what is most important, God will provide, and we have peace in that.
"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life.Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. -Luke 12:25-27"
so is camb still a place of stress? yes- but it is not going to (and shouldn't) stop me from rejoicing every day.
it came as a real shock, the news about her death. it is more of a shock, when it says she ended her life herself.why? why would a fine young girl do that? she's just 21, in her fourth year in university.
i don't know her well personally. but sometimes i do feel a special connection to her. she was my first chem tutor in jc. also an ex HC and MGS girl, and so was also my "double" senior. we had the same bio tutor, who on the first bio tutorial told me that i resemble her.
if only someone could reach out to her in her darkest moments. if only she reached out for somebody. if only.
i have not been very productive today... the mind kept wandering into random thoughts.
spoke to a former ballet classmate online, and realised that the grade examinations are just a month away. so it has been long since i left the studio. the last time i took the exam was in 2001. that was a major grade exam which i had to take alone. the last exam in which i had a partner was a year earlier.
i miss the thrills of taking ballet exams. in fact, piano practical exams too. when i accompanied my brother to his piano exam last year, i wished i were there to play too as i stood in the corridor to listen to the candidates' playing.
it has been long since i took any formal lessons in ballet or piano. but ironically, i think i have become more discerning in appreciating both of them. maybe it's gaining maturity with age. i have finally understood many of the things that the teachers tried to tell me last time, and i believe i would be able to show far greater improvements now if i were to learn again, provided time permits me to put in such commitment.
but sometimes, it is just such a heartache to realise that i have fallen so low from standards previously achieved. and such heartaches sometimes pose to break all motivation and inspiration. but then again, these can be overcome with grit.
and i think the birds do it wonderfully well. accompanied by the soft rays that gradually illuminate the sky, and the fresh breeze that brings the smell of green grass from the gardens.
how i wish i could withstand the cold, to sit in the gardens and soak in the morning dew, the tranquility, and the joy and peace of heart that all these bring.
and to sit quietly in the presence of my God and sing his praises.
it has never failed to amuse me, the vicissitudes of the weather here.
just when i thought the cold spell is over, the temperature plunged again -- a low 4 to 5 degrees despite the bright sun. the weather forecast predicts snow showers in the wee hours of thurs, which is explains why i'm still awake at this strange hour of the day. the few of us are mad enough to camp over at siew kit's place, hoping to catch the last snows in camb at 3 am.
i was at the bank yesterday when the sky was overcast with ominous dark clouds. then without warning, ice started falling from the sky-- my first hailstorm! you can actually hear the ice hitting against the ground! the wind was so strong that the streams of hailstones were close to horizontal as they fall.
it will be cold for the next few days, then the temperature will rise to a warm 13 to 14 degrees by sunday. how interesting- ten degrees difference just a few days apart. it certainly takes time to get used to this capricious weather. or, is it possible to get used to the unpredictability at all?
when the tree that was still bald a few days ago is now thick with foliage
when the daffodils adorned rivercourt, and the angmohs sit under the two-0'clock afternoon sun outside cafe uno reading papers through their sunglasses
when the tourists start streaming to the river to go punting again, and when camb is generally lively with students lazing on the grass wating for term to end
and
when the sun rises at 6 in the morning, which means i have been waking up before 5 regardless of what time i sleep the night before ( i think my pineal gland is hypersensitive to blue light...)
when i still have the spring in my step despite the lack of sleep
when i am just filled with this inexplicable sense of well-being
i love being in the spotlight, hearing the audience applause, and even more, their cheers, and seeing the cameras flashing away.
i love the feeling of the heart thumping against the chest, the stifled screams of euphoria amidst pants for breathe in the wings of the stage right after the show, knowing we have put up our best.
i love, especially, the final curtain call, when you look at the crowd and the elated expressions of fellow performers and know that the tears and fears in previous months of preparation have finally paid off.
i love performing =)
------------------------------------------------------------------------- lent term was like a daze. three separate performances in seven weeks. the first was sandstorm, the second was malaysia night last sat, and the third was chisoc variety show yesterday. there were three different groups of people to work with and to get to know better, and oh yes, three distinct styles of dance to learn and grasp.
all three were pretty successful, though i have a biased fondness for you-know-which, merely because the group consisted of several close friends. nothing beats the support and encouragement for each other towards a common goal =).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- malaysia night
the publicity officer sold it as "the most excellent and lamentable tragedy of romeo and juliet" . here's what the blurb said:-
"The most repulsive thing ever seen to (wo)mankind plays Juliet, an understudy pines for the handsome but mentally-challenged jock, and the club president plots to sabotage the show in the name of the country. Romeo cannot seem to remember any of his lines at all, and a very confused Fairy Godmother happens to crash the practice..."
the eccletic mix of characters indeed sent the audience into stitches from the beginning of the play till the end. there's some mockery of things malaysian , wonder if non-malaysians understood the it.
anyway, jinyang made a video of the show =) . they say pictures say a thousand words. what more a motion picture? hope you get a feel of the atmosphere :-
actually,i haven't watch the entire play myself, just snippets of it because while they are rehearsing, we who were in the finale dance were either backstage preparing or practicing outside the audi.
similarly, while the real show unfolded, we were crammed in the dressing room... taking photos!
the dancers- from both kenneith's dance and 'THE INDIAN DANCE!'
fairy god mother from hazelnut land! ding dong is hilarious.if you could watch him in action, both in the play and in the finale dance, you'll agree =)
shirley, the co-choreographer of the dance
weishen, my partner, trying to look cool
and so we performed. was quite pleased with how the dance actually turned out, considering that most of us are novices in social (?) dance. will upload the video of the dance soon.
and when the curtains finally closed... we were just immensely proud of the entire production =)
a week later, at the same auditorium, it was the chisoc variety show.
(chisoc is only nominally chinese ( ie PRC). it's actual a hong kong society. the entire show was mainly in cantonese.)
it was a performance that caused me undue stress, partly because i was struggling through the middle of term, and partly because i couldn't seem to grasp the style of the dance ( being sexy.. sigh). anyway, it turned out not too bad afterall. and i was looking forward to the first sunday with no dance rehearsal.
from left: vicky, flora, me, nicola
nicola, co-choreographer, and me. notice our eyebags... signs of sleep deprivation toiling in camb in general
clara, kristy, nicola, and chris in various poses from the dance . clara's the main choreograher and item leader. she made me believe that it is possible to polish a 7 minute dance in about 2 months. she's amazing, both as a dancer and a leader.
michelle and theresa. we are all in basing!
and wanqian and weishen, who came all the way to churchill to support the show.
i need to feel sexy again. and to convince the audience that i AM sexy, to make them go, quoting a friend, 'OH YEAA'...
so the projects undertaken this term have the side benefit of teaching me how to increase my sexual appeal, to exude 'feminine confidence' (again, quoting a friend; this shows how clueless i was before on how to be sexy).
the last project of the term will take centrestage tonight. hope all goes well, if not with a bang, for the sake of those who poured in tremendous effort to make it an extravaganza.
i am sexy i am sexy i am sexy i am sexy i am sexy i am sexy i am sexy i am sexy i am sexy i am sexy i am sexy i am sexy i am sexy i am sexy ...haha.
it's thursday again, the evening of the day that i look forward to in the week. besides it being the start of another week, ie another milestone reached in the term, it also marks the end of the weekly supervision crisis and the necessary stress.
i have physio and cells supervisions on thurs. and both supervisors, particularly the one for cells, are very enthusiastic in giving us assignments to help us learn. and both set deadlines at wed lunchtime. so on mon, tues and wed i am in this frantic state of reading and writing, on top of trying to juggle two practicals and two supervisions at the same time.and thurs is the unusually long day for me. so the cumulated sleep deprivation only makes thurs mornings all the more dreadful.
but come evening, everything is good, like the sense of relief i am indulging in now. on top of that, there's the weekend to look forward to. not that weekends are free, but eventful enough to be away from essays and textbooks and to just enjoy the company of like-minded people. there's malaysian nite this sat, then there'll be the chisoc variety show performance on the next. and in the following weekend, there's spring salsa ball, and then i'll be in oslo on the one after. then it'll be easter break! didn't realise how eventful lent term actually is... maybe because i'm always in this daze from lack of sleep!
i must say i have been fairly enjoying myself this lent term. for one, the plant physio lectures are amusing, not that i understand plants any more than animals (in fact less because there is so much individuality in each species), but because of the enthusiasm that the lecturers exude, sometimes to the point that borders eccentricity (think dr hanke, and no less, dr griffiths). i wish i had the time to elaborate what i meant, but not this evening as i want my sleep and i have thermodynamics to mull over before the evening deadline tomorrow.
i think i should just end here by saying that the plant sciences department in camb is cool, like the shady spots under the Fagus sylvatica =).
like how all sojourns form enclaves in a foreign land, we camb first years gathered at st john's for reunion dinner when home is half a world away. we tried to bring the flavours of that part of the world which we are so familiar with to this dinner of special significance, and i must say it was done beautifully, largely owing to the mega effort jinyang and ryan put into planning the steamboat dinner and lugging all the groceries back from chormei. so it was an evening of scooping fishballs and wantan from the soup, eating kangkung (which i have not seen since last october) with thai chili sauce, and seeing pan-fried japanese tofu, all in the midst of the oh-so-festive chinese new year songs.
dinner started late at 8pm because the people with the food (we from magd) came late-- like how dinner at home starts late because my family reaches my uncle's house late. the food was great, and everyone was stuffed full because the cooks (ryan, jinyang, jiechao, weishen) put in long hours to prepare it and to make sure that it is in abundance--like how my aunt will prepare the dinner and all the chinese new year cookies to last us kids for the next few days. jit ern's room was filled with laughter, the loudest being dingdong's-- like how the living room at my uncle's house will be, especially when john laughs at the funny movies. all in all, the reunion dinner was great, and was as "chinese new yeary" as it could be. why, we even had lo sang:
video is courtesy of jinyang =)
this was the first time i didn't have new year eve reunion dinner with my family, and there is indeed that strange feeling that something is amissed. when i was in primary school and had to write essays about cny celebration, all the model essays i refer to would definitely include lines about relatives who work abroad rushes back just in time for dinner, or something similar to emphasised the reunion dinner. even tv adverts stress on the dinner, like the one in the elders' home where the old ladies all sat around the table bragging about their sons' achievements only to hide their pain that these sons don't even visit them on new year's eve, or the funny one about the old-fashioned grandmother who made sure everything was in the auspicious red and had the family around the dining table waiting for her grandson from america, only to find that he was red from head to toe but brought back a black girlfriend! these remind me again and again how family togetherness is a strongly rooted chinese tradition, and how blessed are those who have a family to share a meal with. but it has never hit me this hard before now that i have been through a new year without the precious company of family. how much i miss all of them suddenly!
it is unlikely that i will be at home for cny for the next two years. then, hopefully i get to spend a nice long one during my year of attachment, and hopefully nothing much has changed yet, and that cny at home is still the same cny as i know it. then it's five years of abroad living again. by the time settle down properly in a place not too far away from home, i might already be someone's wife and be eating reunion dinner with his family instead. is all this part of growing up, a reminder of how precious moments are transient?
anyway, it is indeed by god's grace that there is still a new year for me, and that this new year is a challenging one, one in which my weakness is apparent and that i can rely on his strength instead.
happy new year eveyone! xin1 nian2 jin4 bu4, shen1 ti3 jian4 kang1, wan4 shi4 sheng4 yi4
and its magical allure brought out the inner child of 9 twenty-year old nat scis. during the break between chemistry lecture and physiology lecture, we ran and snow-ball fight each other with no inhibitions on the icy lawns in downing college.
video is courtesy of jinyang =)
when the temperature gets too cold, the rate of chemical reactions slows down-- so we learn in chemistry. and i am going to blame the lower metabolic rate in the brain for the lack of urgency to go for lectures that morning, haha. before qb, i took the pleasure to capture the icy beauty of magd:-
view of magd from basing
bright's building
first court
then in between qb and chem, we idled around downing site to gasp and awe at the snow ( inviting curious stares from the angmohs when we asked them to help us take pics) before snow-balling each other all the way to chem lecture, thinking that the first thermodynamics lecture will very well be on why it feels colder when snow melts.
so, today was a day of snow-fun, a welcomed break in the otherwise work-loaded week, not that any supervisions were cancelled due to the snow though...anyway, =).
me, yi lun and jie chao with the snowman guangyuan built me, siew kit, wei shen, jin yang
"The wind whips up a sandstorm, leaving you fightingthrough the blindness. Force against force..."
that was the blurb mandy wrote for our piece for elemental. but somehow it seems to more aptly describe the post-elemental week i had. my room was in such a state as if it had just been through a sandstorm; and physically and mentally, i felt i had just survived one. i am tired; the acne outbreak and dark eyebags on my face are just too evident to miss. i feel like going on an escapade, shut myself away from work, emails, rehearsals, socials for a day or two, but the camb schedule just don't permit it! now that physio prac is on every week, it feels as if there can be no moment to lose- slack and risk being left behind, or buck up and catch up.
it was strange how elemental seemed ages ago when at this time last saturday i was still listening to sandstorm on repeat mode. i didn't have high expectations for brilliance performance of our piece; we were after all from the beginners contemporary class, a group consisting mainly of people who were on the stage to dance for the first time. friends who watched it said it was good. perhaps we were indeed, or they could just be too polite to say otherwise. last wednesday's class with mandy had an unusually large turnup. maybe we did impressed the crowd who watched the show. but to take into account all possible explanations ( as we learn in practicals), we could have done so badly that people think they could do better than us! haha.
i did feel sorry for myself for not being able to join other more 'pro' dance groups. but at the same time i felt relief not being put under the pressure to meet high expectations. camb has opened my eyes to a world of much higher standards than i have previously been aware of. a good dancer here generally refers to one who can do a myriad of dance forms- from ballet to tap to contemporary to streetdance to social to lindy hop to baroque to greek (i have not even heard of the last two prior to this...) , has participated in national competitions, has been with a dance troupe or trained at a performing arts school at some point in his/her life, and can choreograph. wow... i can never be one of them.
on the other hand, i see people who are not afraid to try, like some of my fellow sandstormers. i should too. i think being less self-conscious and more thick-skinned will do me good in exploring new things. perhaps it is what it takes to admit that others are better than you.
i really should be sleeping now, but i am feeling super hyper. i think it is the coffee; drank two cups of it before the performace because i was feeling lethargic then. seems like i have overdone it now. there is probably still a significant concentration of caffeine in the brain blocking the adenosine receptors. and from wiki, it is the reduction in adenosine activity that leads to an increased activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine that largely accounts for the stimulatory effects of caffeine. so that's a bit info for physiology =)
physio prac was cancelled today due to power cut in the department, so i had an unexpected but welcomed free afternoon. thought i would do some work and catch some sleep, but at around 4.00pm, which was a good five hours before the show, i was feeling jittery already. so years of performance experience does not help very much in alleviating pre-show apprehension. and spending hours "preparing myself mentally"for something that lasts less than 4 minutes is probably why it always seems to me that i have less time and energy than other people to be involved in an array of activities. i have not been utilising time and energy efficiently!
the way around it is probably to learn to focus the mind in the right things at the right time. easier said than done, but i'll just have to keep practising.
so the right thing to do at this hour is to sleep. the first lecture is at 9 in the morning and there are 3 lectures, 1 practical and 1 supervision tomorrow. in the evening, it's the third show for elemental. sometimes i feel like i have to be superwoman to tide through this week.
it snowed. what delight it was to wake up and be greeted by white snow covering the roofs and branches of trees outside the window. the tranquility it brought with it momentarily took away the sense of urgency to prepare for the new day. for a while, it felt as it was christmas again.
the first flakes came yesterday. but i missed it by a mere five minutes because i was in the lecture theatre. when lecture ended, there were not even traces of the elusive snow anywhere. seniors said it only snows lightly in cambridge, so i thought i would be pleased enough to just see fallen snow. moreover, the weather forecast says it usually snows in the middle of the night. by the time it's morning, the snow would probably have melted.
so it was a pleasant surprise to see white magdalene:-
and low and behold, IT IS SNOWING RIGHT NOW! i see snowflakes from heaven from my window!
haha, i sounded like a 3-year old getting excited over possibly the commmonest things around =)
and just as the seniors told us last year, you'll know when it snows because everyone (almost) will put "snow" by their msn nicknames. how true, haha.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Not all children get to go to school. Such is the poverty in Sierra Leone that families need all the resources available to survive, which means child labour. Life expectancy is 39-years-old for men and 42 for women. Often a child is taken from school to replace a deceased mother or father. This brother and sister are making their way to cultivate rice in a field some miles away. The other kids in the village are at school.
finally, it is here! the parcel that i have been expecting since two months ago and have been checking for its arrival at the porters' since last week!
just couldn't suppress the grin when i was opening it. felt like a child unwrapping christmas presents. well, since i did not get to unwrap any last christmas, might as well assume that this is a LARGE belated one.
elemental is just a week away, and the last proper rehearsal for polishing just ended an hour ago. so from now till the real show on tues at the adc where people are actually paying to watch a dance show, there will be only one technical run and one full dress rehearsal for which the full cast can logically be present.
it is not that the organisers of the show or the various performing groups are not putting in enough effort. in fact, a senior told me that we actually had more practices this year compared to last year (are you serious?) . it is just me feeling insecure with the liberal way by which things are run. i feel uncomfortable when there is too much room for spontaneities. it is perhaps the lack of faith in people to do the right/ necessary things when they could give all the reasons to not know what to do. it is perhaps the unconcious belitiling assumption that many will not take the initiative to find out what to do. it is perhaps the result of being under the ruthless rein of the jc cca system, which had seeded in me an urge for iron-fist control.
but the people here, in my dance group at least, are different from those i encountered before. again and again, they have proved that my secret apprehension is plain superfluous. these people join dance because they have the passion for dance and performance, even among them who are complete novices in dance. when we came back for the first rehearsal after six weeks of absolute holiday ( there is no such thing in hc dance hitherto! ), the people actually remember the choreography, despite complaining about not practising much on their own over the hols! they actually care enough to even think of practising by themselves!
i admire our choreographer's faith in people's ability. she lives by the motto "if you say you can't, you won't. you can." when i first talked to her about my interest in joining her piece, she told me all she wanted is commitment. she neither held any auditions to select people for her piece, nor did she do blocking according to the abilities of the dancers. all were treated fairly and equal because she thinks we all can achieve the same. how great an encouragement this is for people who love dance but never had the opportunity to dance, just because they are not good enough!
she is fantastic when it comes to working under pressure. there were several crises since we began rehearsals for the piece. any of them could have driven an ordinary choreographer mad. once, a handful of people who said they would be in the piece decided to change their minds after they learnt the choreography. then, there were difficulties finding venues for rehearsals, such that the already pitiful number of rehearsal sessions became uncertain. a few days ago, we thought we would be missing a dancer because she had to be in poland for an award presentation ceremony organised for her by a university during the period of the show. and just yesterday, a fellow dancer had an accident and could barely get out of bed without help, which means she cannot perform! poor choreographer had to think of ways to cover her absence in the very last rehearsal! but she did not blow up, which is very professional. put it simply, she is C-O-O-L.
i am keeping my fingers crossed that things will turn out alright for all six nights next week. i have never done performances in five consecutive nights before. the closest was just two. and even then i was drained, like every bit of energy in me was squeezed out, after the adrenaline rush wore off. really hope all of us have the strength to juggle work and performance to last for the week. and from what we did for rehearsal just now, i think the show is going to be exciting =)
i was just so pleasantly surprised when my friend nonchalantly placed three 2 pound coins on the table for me-- lying among them is the elusive DNA 2 pound coin! thought i'll never lay my hands on one, as all nat scis i know are vying for it since the day the lecturer introduced it to us. my friend just had not realised that the treasure had been lying quietly in his wallet! after the initial shock and excitement he kindly let me keep it, despite having wanted one for himself just as much. thank you wei shen!
the handsome double helix
description from wikipedia:
Released in 2003in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA. Reverse: Representation of the DNA double helix, DNA DOUBLE HELIX above, 1953 TWO POUNDS 2003 below. Edge inscription: DEOXYRIBONUCLEIC ACID followed by a decorative side view of a double helix.
the lecturers never fail to remind us that watson and crick made the discovery in the cavendish lab, which is in cambridge but oh-so-far-away. similarly, they never fail to emphasise that the discovery of the z scheme in photosynthesis, the cloning of the first animal (note: dolly the sheep from scotland was the first mammal), etc. etc. etc. were done in cambridge. what a way to inspire us to win more nobel prizes for the university!
when the daffodils adorned rivercourt, and the angmohs sit under the two-0'clock afternoon sun outside cafe uno reading papers through their sunglasses
nicola, co-choreographer, and me. notice our eyebags... signs of sleep deprivation toiling in camb in general 
view of magd from basing
all the goodies from home =)
