This song has got to be one of THE most nonsensical and inane songs I’ve ever heard. Will.I.Am just keeps singing the same line over and over again (“Tell me where’d you get your body from?”) and the airheaded babes will just reply the same answer again and again (“I got it from my mama!”). And there’s even one part which goes:

And if her mama real ugly,
I guarantee ya she gonna be ugly like her mama.

It’s such an INANE song!!!!! Of all the stereotypical things to further make women into sex objects…

I have to admit the beat is catchy though. But that doesn’t make the song any less CHAUVINISTIC or INANE.

I did something really brilliant today.

Today my team and I went for the 5th Crystal Dancesport Championship (organised by World Dance Academy) to take part in the line dance section of the championship, which had line dance, hip hop, ballroom and latin. Of course, as usual, we didn’t have enough to form a team for any team event (there weren’t any for line dance anyway), so we went in for the individual events. The dances were exactly the same as the APMDC dances, which was why we didn’t hesitate to join this competition.

Me, Andrea, Kobee, and Kit

Kit and Andrea went back into the Primary and Novice events respectively, whereas Kobee and I, feeling a little more adventurous, decided to go into both the Novice and Intermediate events.

Wait, that’s not the brilliant part.

With the our events being almost back-to-back, it was vital that we conserved energy; I did what I could by taking my energy drinks and supplements, and we did our usual warm-up while waiting for the Novice event to start. I had already warmed up some although not considerably enough, so I decided to do some stretching so that I could do my high kicks nicely.

And what happened was… as I was doing the front split stretch, something suddenly gave way and with a sickening crack, I slid all the way down uncontrolled!

Now THAT deserves 5 STARS and a CHERRY ON TOP!!! Wasn’t that completely brilliant?

(In case you’re wondering, that was Sarcasm with a capital S)

There I was, with at least 2 rounds to dance, and I had already injured and overstretched my leg muscle!

I could just about get up and I began to hobble around praying that the pain would subside. I even rubbed some analgesic cream but it wasn’t much good. And when I tried to do my high kick, it was all I could do to try to continue to the next step.

It was the first time something like this has happened to me. Oh, it’s not that I’m not used to injuries; being rather clumsy as a child, I had more than my fair share of knocks and scrapes. But not being very flexible, I don’t usually have overstretching problems simply because I never dared to push myself more than I normally can. My flexibility has been improving very much of late, and I suppose based on this brilliant move I made, it isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Fortunately the competition didn’t start for quite some time, which gave me time to hobble around and try to see if I could still dance in spite of my bad leg. I could just about manage, and so I decided to try because there was no way I was going to go down without a fight.

The Novice round didn’t go very well. As a dancer, I could feel that I hadn’t done as well as I normally could have I didn’t even dare look at my coach after the event was over. And when the round was over, I actually had to limp off the floor. I almost hoped that I didn’t make it to the finals, because I wasn’t sure if my leg could hold up.

As it is, luck was against me. Or for me. Whichever way you want to look at it. I made the finals of the Novice! Oddly this time, the pain disappeared when I was dancing on the floor, but it came back the moment I stepped off. I guess the adrenaline must have blocked off the pain receptors.

Three quarters of SKAB

Oh, and the results…

I got 6th in the Novice… and 2nd in the Intermediate!!!

I guess I should just stick to Intermediate.

Me and Kobee – 2nd and 3rd place respectively

I learnt one thing today – how to dance through pain. I’m very thankful that all the line dance events finished in the morning as my @$$ is hurting very, very much now (it’s only a little after 5pm!) , and I can barely walk or even sit without cringing in pain. Imagine trying to dance NOW if the finals were held later. I think I’d just have to give my competitors a walk-over!

I don’t know how I’m going to be able to go to work tomorrow now with a pain in the @$$…

And that was the totally brilliant move I made today in this totally brilliant story.

When the Prime Minister recently suggested that schools be made into single sessions, his suggestion was met with mixed reaction, but mostly adverse from the teaching community. Some protested that they shouldn’t be expected to become babysitters, and one parent actually wrote into The Star’s Letter to the Editor (published 28th September 2007):

Frankly, it got me quite annoyed. It’s not that I’m totally against single sessions; I think that it has its merits. But what what made me so angry was that the parent actually accused the teachers of being selfish. Talk about ungrateful!

So (for the first time ever) I penned a letter to the editor as a response to this letter. It’s been edited (that’s why some parts sound a bit stunted, especially the first paragraph) but most of the letter is pretty much intact. They also took out some of the more colourful and incensed paragraphs. This is the letter as published on 30th September 2007:

Granted, I’m a teacher at a private school; but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel for and support my fellow colleagues within the government service, right?