wonderment

14In everything you do, stay away from complaining and arguing, 15so that no one can speak a word of blame against you. You are to live clean, innocent lives as children of God in a dark world full of crooked and perverse people. Let your lives shine brightly before them. (Phil 2:14-15)

Haiyah, I really don’t understand. I want to be childish and wilful but reading the above verse during devotion today clamped a strong hand on my pride. *gulp* Swallowing my pride is more yucky than swallowing those huge gastric tablets. Man.

Help me Lord to understand Your will in this mess. Am I just running away?

The friend in this post got me Deb Fung’s autographed CD (!!!) and I’m hooked!

She takes literal passages out of the Bible and puts music to them. Reminds me of when Val and I used to take Psalms and just sing it with any tune that was in our heads. Totally cracked us up especially when we went out of tune or if it was obvious that one of us was trying to squeeze the entire sentence in one breath.

Deb’s taken some of the loveliest passages in the Bible and sung them in her sunshiny way. It’s been great for memorising entire Bible passages! I don’t have the most fantastic memory in the world but I’ve caught myself singing Psalm 108 … still not word for word but getting there!

One thing I’m not so crazy about is the way the audio was recorded … In some tracks, I have to bump up the volume to hear her words clearly, but that causes the instrumental track to distort because it’s much louder than her voice. Seems like the instruments were recorded directly into the mixer but her voice is captured by a cheap mike that makes her voice come across thinny and a little jarring at times.

Technicalities aside, this is good stuff coming from a 23-year-old who wrote, sung and produced “Innermost being”. Song arrangements are rather safe, appealing very much to a local audience. I don’t know why, but when I hear it, it shouts “Singapore! Singapore!” Perhaps the type and genre she does sounds quite similar to some of the local Christian groups I’ve heard like Forerunner and Eric Lee.

Remember I said that the song Eternity was good to start the CD? Apparently it ends the CD as well, except that this is the techno/dance remix. I’m no fan of techno/dance and in fact, when I hear some pop song dance remixes, it’s downright tacky! (Think “My heart will go on” or “Lao Shu Ai Da Mi”)

Yet … I’ve got to confess … I like this particular dance remix. It’s not OTT and oddly refreshing to hear because the lyrics actually have some meaning!

My verdict: If you can Deb Fung’s CD anywhere on this tiny little island, I say, GET IT! Rather than getting music that feeds on worldly things, get music that actually does lift your spirit - by looking up to God.

Hey, can someone tell me how to spell the ballet footwork pattern that is pronounced as “par-ta-bou-rey”?

We were making so much fun out of the term that by the end of the night it became prata-boleh (prata good) for us. And I had that ingrained so deeply in my head that when I went to google it … I literally wrote prataboleh. Somehow, I don’t think Google quite got me.

I asked Val about it yesterday and she said, it’s par-ta-bou-REY … not LEH.

0.o

Okay, so I’m taking jazz dance lessons, that’s what all the fuss is about. After giving up ballet for so many years, going back to dance is something of a dream come true … (Stop laughing, I did take ballet! Got photos one!)

I’ve always thought of taking up dance lessons but never got round to it, either because of time or money or just had no friends to go with me. Pris was attracted after watching John’s sister’s hip hop dance performance and John was mighty sporting to want to join us!

This is a basic jazz class but half our class is made up of returning students with some level of experience and the other half, consists of bumbling newbies like us. We usually do 30 minutes worth of warmups (that gets you dizzy at the speed she goes), 20 minutes of dance routine and 10 minutes of cooldowns.

Warmups include a scary stunt that I never thought I’d be able to try - you lie flat on your back and raise one leg. Paddy (the teacher) will then put her foot on your other thigh and push your raised leg as far backwards as you can possibly manage. I saw her help one of the younger girls do it and her foot could go all the way to touch the floor by her ear. The moment I saw it, I cringed! Not surprisingly, the girl can also do perfect splits while the rest of us look like clumsy oaffy elephants.

So this week was our second session and I tell you, even though this is held at a community centre, the standard of teaching is pretty high. Perhaps the only difference lies in that classes are bigger than those in a professional school.

This has gotta be the most fun thing I’ve done in a long time. Paddy keeps us on our feet most of the time and I usually can keep up (which is quite an achievement given that I haven’t exercised in a while) but when she starts doing her crazy hand or foot patterns, I’m as lost as a bat.

That’s why it’s so stress-relieving to have a couple of friends with you. At least we all get “malu-ed” together. Hehe.

Gotta to start hitting the gym soon. Most of the students in the class are lithe creatures that put my jiggles to shame. But I guess more than that, it helps if you train your arms, legs and buns to execute those fancy moves with finesse.

Haha, you could say this is in preparation for school or what, but I’ve got another class coming up tonight.

Vegetable planting.

Go figure.