At Ismail rehearsals, we will sometimes begin our session with some breathing exercises. Now the thing with our breathing exercises is that it follows some ‘yoga’ techniques which requires us to get on our knees. Hence it can be a bit painful on the knees and ankles. This becomes rather uncomfortable and obviously the best way to keep them from hurting is to either use a pillow or a blanket, to give some cushioning to the floor.

In KLPAC there are three big pillows and since there are only three we have to really rush to be the first to reach any one of these pillows. There are a certain THREE PEOPLE i fight with for this pillow - whom i shall identify later. I have come to accept that sometimes I can’t get the pillow, but this time I saw one of the big pillows left unguarded, next to the bags.

Here I am… I found the pillow and the most obvious thing to do is to grab it quickly before the person who left it alone sees. With eyes deadlock on my target, I grab it with all my might and sink my finger nails into the soft cushiony thingie called…. cushion….i can’t think of a word, k? But it’s the BIG PILLOW!!!

See my happy face! I was so happy that it was left unguarded i didn’t realised a small tiny problem. As i get ready to run off with my prize possession… something held me back. Click on it to view a bigger picture and see if you can spot my problem…

As i pulled it towards me, by giving it a good yankidy yank. This is what happened.

I got stuck..

Why?

The fella actually PINNED the big pillow to his bag!!!!! Talk about wanting to make sure no one steals your stuff while you are away. Sniff sniff, as I pulled the pillow, i felt it weighed down. When i turned to look, i saw a humongous pin attached to the pillow and the bag….

What i can’t have the pillow???

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Wait… breathe…

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I cry okay!

I shall now reveal who are the people i fight with for the BIG PILLOW!

**hongky accent** The peeepel hor I fight fight with for the beeg Pillow hor… is that short haired person at the back who looks like got no lip (fang: don’t hate me ), Minli - my blogging event buddy and finally that dark thing there that you cannot see except for his teeth (don’t hate me even more for that ) LAX!!!! **end of hongky accent**

That fellow hor (oh wait still got sumore) he is one funny funny funny dude and he makes rehearsals a lot more alive. Hahahhaha while I don’t forgive him for taking the pillow and kacauing us a lot.. I still think he’s cool. Hah!! See!! I’m still such a nice person!

Lesson here.. come earlier… earlier.. like super super early and save the pillow and when you are done… hide it!

I say it is very possible, for I am a girl after all (no you can’t think otherwise!!!). 

For the past few sessions of rehearsing at Ismail, there is a scene that requires us to learn how to do some dancing with a partner. Partner in the sense like where you dance with them, jazz like, or ballroom like. We were learning the waltz!! Wooo heeee.

Yes I am ecstatic because I’ve always wanted to learn how to do partner dances and even more so ballroom or even latin dances like the salsa, tango. And the one i want to secretly learn is the Paso Doble a very macho and sensual dance. Ooooooohhhh… yes can you tell I’m swooning!!

Sure Fire sign my dear boys, just like I was telling “somebody” today since we were on the topic of dance, if you ever ever want to get a girls attention or making her completely smitten over you. You have to know how to play the game. It’s very simple, us girls don’t ask for much, we just want to be loved and pampered till kingdom come (yes you can run now). However another way to just get us all blushing and behaving silly.

Is…

ask…..

us…

to dance!

Ooooh there is nothing better than to here someone of the different gender, asking you to dance. I used to be a dancer and on some level I still very much am a dancer… For me to feel the glide between two people, with just simply body movements is wonderful and terribly romantic. Especially when you do a very slow dance, when it is easy to just look deep into the persons eyes and then … ooooo ooo oo… sigh….

taken from us.holland.com

Boys you can snicker, role your eyes and even say meehhhh about this, but it’s true! Dancing is a powerful medium of  message between two people and probably enough to move masses. Don’t knock it!

So yeah.. just ask the girl you want to be with or your girlfriend right now to dance. It’ll spark a number of things within her that could ahh well…. just very be good for you

First.. if i recall correctly was Joe getting the flu..

Then shortly… Min Li got the flu.. along with Tony because I really think they pandai-pandai (so cleverly) went clubbing right after rehearsal (which usually finishes at 10.30 or 11pm) and stayed there till 3 in the morning.. Ok I secretly also wanted to go clubbing with them, but I know I’ll end up saying now for two reasons. One Mister G doesn’t fancy clubbing much and would prefer me to be home.. - awww (this is a sad aww and sweet awww). Two I should be going home to rest and not getting all drained out.

Anyways.. so now Tony is sick… and following closely behind.. Nick Dorian is also now sick…

Now in our tiny little group of Me, Tony, Nick and Fang.. there’s just Fang and me left..

Apparently now it’s my turn to get the sniffle wifflies. Sighhhh…

What do i need? Some sleep (oh did i mention i woke up at 6.30am for no reason at all!!!??)

I’m bottling up with this:

VITAMIN C!!

Note: This was meant to be passworded.. but sigh.. just not working and it’s already out in the open.. so i’ll let it be.

I’m having those moments again, where i fear much about what I am doing now. Ever since i had yet my conversation with my father regarding performing arts yet again on how he thinks i should wake up and smell the coffee. Sigh even as I write it, it just causes me pangs of pain because i know there is someone out there who should support me is not giving me full support. I would like to think so that my mom does support me on this, and I am very grateful for it.

I’m rather just worried, because I can’t seem to see or rather hope to see where it can take me. Obviously I hope for a lot more but when will it come. Am I too eager? Am I just not being patient? At the moment now I’m heading towards theater, when in truth i would love to try screen. But maybe I’m not ready for it… or maybe I’m just not right for it.. maybe not now… maybe not ever…

Put it this way, the screen is all for those who have looks. They barely go to the one who is either average or just mediocre. I’m not saying i’m either, but i feel that way sometimes. I feel that I’m not good enough at all.. I’m not pretty enough, I worry too much on my weight, how big my arms are going to look, how wide my waist will look once they place i see my self on a plasma stretch tv.

I see my friends like Andrea Fonseka.. who I have no idea even remembers me from our days at Taylor’s, who is making it big now in the scene. I’m very happy for her, because she made it through the Miss Malaysia pageant. With a stream of bad results to finally being endorsed by Marie France and now she’s looking fab.

I’m being a pig and I’m not helping myself as much when it comes to my looks i suppose. I’m being all lazy, when i know i should be hitting the gym even more so now. Shit…. i just feel like crap. I don’t believe in those get slim quick ready methods because it just goes against what i believe in being healthy. Then again my lifestyle now is not exactly something that I will call superbly healthy either.

But that’s on my physical being.. why do i rant about it so much. It’s because i know that, the times i dont get a role is because i don’t have the look for it. Shit again.. i know that girls who have the looks, gain more attention and favoured way more, because others are trying to well goad them into being nice and then you can say hey i know a pretty thing.. I mean shit laa.. …

On Friday, I had met up with Colin (and i’m still sorrryyyyyyy) to rehearse our piece “A Late Lunch” (ALL) for the stage performance called “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” this coming September. The piece in general is about the relationship between a father and daughter… I’ll just end it at that.

The wonderful thing I love about the scripts i’m working with here, is that there is tons of layering for the characters. A few weeks back, i was just scraping the surface of the characters i had to play (as the rest of the gang i would gather). As the weeks progress though, we are getting deeper with the characters we need to empathise with.

The past few rehearsals, i usually choose not to draw much on emotional feelings cause well - i didn’t know if it would be a appropriate or not, or would it look too much or something - so i just ran through the lines, just trying to gather what i can most about the character. On Friday and even today (both Footstool Players rehearsal dates) I drew on a string which i didn’t want to bring out at first.

The piece ALL ended up with me breaking down - just enough for my character. What i was quite surprised with was when i just allow the emotions to come out, i got a better understanding of the character. Usually when we rehearse, Colin will ask whether i have any new thoughts on my character.. Most of the time I have answered no, nothing new to me yet… However, unearthing the feelings, brought a new sense of ‘aha’, like why is my character saying this and it gives a better thought process as well. Personally… i didn’t want to get in touch with emotions just yet…. i know i can but, just my worry that one i may get depressed about it or two.. i will lose the emotion later on. Cause hey! Bare in mind we have to do this continuously for a few nights. Wahhhh cham laaa. lol.

I am thoroughly enjoying my rehearsal process, albeit a bit short at the moment. Even more so now that we will be on a break for a quite a bit before the next rehearsal. We’ll make time for one another ^_^  Gosh… life is busy.. entertaining… sobering and just well.. sigh… it’s moment like these i cherish a lot. Performing and the hard work just puts a smile on my face..despite all the stress it may give sometimes. Let’s see how much deeper we can go in uncovering the layers.

This image was taken from CartoonStock, pls visit them.

You how you say a woman can multi task a lot easier than a man. Yes it is true - for some. But sometimes I really hate multi tasking. Especially when it involves people asking me to do things which is not really my job or purpose anyway and yet I help them anyway because i’m doing it as a favour. And then when I do that favour, they start rushing me.

The thing with a lot of us, is that we are impatient, and because of that we always end up asking people to hurry up. Finish something up faster. Come on move move move, what are you doing just standing there doing nothing. And then even worse is when they ask you to hurry up cause they want something out fast, and you can’t do anything about it.. because hey the net is down or there is something wrong with the computer. Like it kena (got hit by) virus or maybe the comp hung.

I mean arrrghhhh…

Sometimes I would almost think we don’t have even enough time for some ‘personal business’. Hence we just bring it all out with us.

Then worst of all, is because you multi task too much, i get very frustrated and then i can’t really focus. When you can’t focus you end up making mistakes or your brain will go on a freeze and you just can’t seem to think straight.

Just….. arggghhhhhhh…. enough!!

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.

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To multi task or not to multi task. That is the question!

So say i need to edit something, or i want to convert it into a different format so that it can be watched across all computers. The most well used video format I would think is safest to go with is either AVI or WMV. Before on my old desktop i did have a converter to convert the files from FLV -> AVI. But I don’t have the program anymore, so best bet is to find stuff online.

Here is my list of the available Online Video Converters out there. These are just the ones i prefer and find reliable.

1. Vixy.net
   Vixy was the first one i started using and it has served me well. I’m happy to also say that it has finally come out with it’s latest desktop version converter.

   

2. Media Converter
   Media converter is another one which i enjoy using, mostly because it is so clean in its look and you can also customise how your end video product will be.
   

   

3. Zamzar
   I experimented with Zamzar last year and it’s not too bad but not a complete fav of mine because it was just a bit slow. It also allows you to convert video files from your pc online and then download it once it’s done.
   

   

   
   

4. Flv To
   I haven’t tried this one out yet, but it looks promising

   

   
   

5. Catch Video
   Catch video’s layout is very very friendly showing all the type of conversions available straight on the homepage. They seem to be doing a tie up with the social platform Moli at the moment too. Don’t know how that is working out.
   

   

   
   

6. Mux.am
   Mux ia another one that is easy to use. Similar to Zamzar, it also gives you the option to convert files form either your pc or straight off from the web. You can even send videos to your phone. Mux also looks to be another video community.
   

   

There you have it my happy list of video converters. Tell me if you see an even better one out there.

On Intense Debate there is this little thing at the side of your profile picture icon that will show what is reputation like.

“Commenters on your blog are held accountable by fellow readers with our voting and reputation mechanism”

“Gain authority through a reputation system that follows you”

Since they have the reputation/ comment voting (please allow me to be happy and narcissistic for a while :P ) I was quite delighted to see my reputation points go up. Reason being cause I’ve been trying to figure out how to make it go up. Seeing it just at 0p was quite .. well.. sad

Came to a point i usually just flick my eyes over from the point system and can’t be bothered with it. Till i actually saw a wonderful green on it and this is what I saw..

To be honest.. i still don’t quite get how it went up.. So if anyone could be so kinds as to explain.. Much obliged

The Children Bible Explorer Series is produced by Pristine World. The voice recording which is still on going for this week, is the third installment of the series. The first one was called Genesis Vol , followed by Genesis Vol 2 and Genesis Vol 3.

The one we’re currently involved is a continuation of the series called The Gospel Story.

You can find out more about the books and cds at their website. The purpose of the book and cd is to give a more interesting manner of how we can tell the wonderful stories from the book of Genesis. Children will be able to see the characters come alive and then at the end of the story, they can try out the quiz and games to test their memory and how much they understand about each situations. I was giving the quiz on The Ten Commandments a try. I was suppose to arrange all the Ten Commandments in order within a time span of 30 seconds… and I failed miserably …. pressure laaaaa, but I got one right! Also not easy without a mouse…

Here we are at the recording studio in Seksyen 17, which is have to admit was a bit hard to find at first. I’m not familiar with the area and furthermore, it was really hidden. But I will Thank God for such a thing called GPS and Google Maps. Two beautiful things that should always be with you on the road. Now if only the GPS was free connection!!

Colin Kirton, our VO director who happens to also be playing the voice of Jesus.. Oooohh pressure!! :P And right next to him is Peter C.T. Lim. He is the writer and producer for the entire Children Bible Explorer Series. On the laptop he’s showing me a couple of shots of what the characters we will be VO-ing for. This is also to give us an idea of what the character is suppose to sound like.

This is what Sky Studio looks like. And there we have Jon Tan standing dawning on the guitar to strum us a couple of tunes while we waited for our turn.

This is the sound editing room. Samuel, having a read on the otherside of the mirror while Eu Bing, is getting prepped. Eu Bing’s and Colin’s favourite word of the day after that was “taught”.. hehe. You try pronouncing the word taught not like thought.

Us inside the recording room.

Colin giving us direction on how to do a crowd scene.. not so easy.. lol. But that was loads of fun!!

Part of the voice over cast (L-R) Ian Ng, Soon Wei, Me, Rudi, Peter, Samuel and Jon Tan.

Till the next update

“Set in Perak, Malaya in December 1941, Sybil Kathigasu, her husband
Dr. A.C. Kathigasu, and the Captain (her Resistance contact) listen one
evening to devastating news of the British defeat throughout the
peninsula.

Suspicion is rife, Japanese collaborators are present in every town,
and the feared Kempetai - the Japanese Military Police that is
answerable only to itself - is beginning to take an interest in the
small town.

Sybil, however, refuses the Captain’s advice to flee to the jungle,
and instead redoubles her efforts to thwart the Japanese. Before long,
Dr Kathigasu is arrested on suspicion of aiding the resistance, and
Sybil’s arrest follows soon after.

She is subjected to torture and interrogation at the hands of Sgt.
Yoshimura, the head of the district Kempetai, who is convinced Sybil is
a Resistance spy.

Starring Sukania Venugopal, Doppo Narita, Darius Taraporvala, Ashraf
Zain and Wong Wai Hoong

Directed by Dato’ Faridah Merican.

Written by U-En Ng, based on the book “No Dram of Mercy” by Sybil Kathigasu.”

Heading into the Actors Studio, we are all greeted with familiar faces in the art scene. That day we saw a number of our Ismailies buddies, Gavin Yap, Joe Hasham and of course Dato Faridah who obviously had to be there.

The set was very economically well done. It looked as rusted and worn out as it should’ve been in the days.

With just a grill door in located towards center left of the stage and a bench, we have the cell that Sybil was once trapped in to serious torture by the Japanese soldiers. If you look on towards Stage right you will see a table and a chair where Sergeant Yoshimura would interrogate and torture his captives. Sorry I don’t have a clearer pic but you can check out more at kakiseni.

I did enjoy the show a lot, and I think our Japanese guest brought down by Faridah was fascinating, although his accent was a bit heavy on some areas. The story began, with Sybil (Sukania Vongopal) talking with her husband, Dr Kathigasu (Darius Taraporvala) and Another Soldier (Wong Wai Hoong). She is then arrested and taken to a torturous series of events by Sergeant Ekio Yoshimura (Doppo Narita) and his subordinate constable (Ashraf
Zain).

On one hand, I was watching it as an actor myself, which to be very honest kills the joy of watching a performance at times. Because you are constantly either thinking “oh hey, she’s acting- you can tell” or “hmm can thay be done differently” or “I see that person act in the same manner somewhere before, is that a habit?”. Yeah thoughts like that float in my head.

It was only after the intermission that I started to enjoy the show for what it was and I found that it got more interesting. As the complexity of the characters grew. Especially for the constable - the guard outside Sybil’s cell - who questions why is she fighting so much, to not even save her own skin let alone her family. He also starts to question his own reasons for siding with the Japanese - just in order for him to cari makan.

In the process, while the play was suppose to focus more on Sybil, but
surprisingly I found myself more drawn towards the Sergeant Yoshimura
who has conflicting thoughts of his own. All this while, we’ve always
seen the Japanese sergeant as a monster for putting one through
torturous moments, such as seeing the scene where Sybil watches her
daughter dawn lowered into a bonfire or watching her husbands finger
being snipped off with pliers.

Yes I now know about Sybil Kathigasu, but I also felt more sympathetic towards the sergeant. It just goes to show how well Doppo Narita acted as his character. He was able to bring forth the slight human turmoil that his character felt in doing the terrible things he had to in order to be loyal to his country. Small things such as the constant wiping of his hands with the towel, was just enough to show how he wanted to wash the blood of his hands but couldn’t or. You could also see how broken he felt when the war was over, and he knew that he would be subjected to a number accusations for the way he had handles his captives. But he was doing ti for his country.. could you blame him to.

Very well done, but just a slight disappointment on the shift away from the original title which is suppose to be about Sybil. The play strikes us with how little we know about the unsung heroes in our country and allows us to see it from a different perspective. None the less, the play was still strong and worthy of applause

Oh yeah moving on, we took shots after the show and guess who came to watch. Dr Tunku Ismail’s son and grandson

And how could we not get a cast picture too