I feel like a deflated balloon.

I’ve always enjoyed training for dance competitions. Even if the outcome isn’t fantastic, even if I don’t make the break rounds, even if I flop, I still enjoy the training nevertheless. That has always been the best part of the competitions for me. The medals and trophies attained are just an added bonus. For the MODF, we had practice 3 times a week. Now my nights are free and I get to sleep early, but I’m feeling lost instead…

Well, on the bright side, I met up with three different friends for breakfast/dinner/lunch over 2 days. My social life seems to be on the rise. Hahaha.

Just to fill up space, here’s my bragging rights:

My trophies from the Malaysian Open Dance Fest 2009

That’s my trophy for modern jazz individual (2nd), trophy for line dance individual (3rd), and medals for team events (3rd). I’m short of a medal for one team event, because there was a mix-up during the prize presentation, which the organisers haven’t fixed to date.

Here are the photos Pei Ru took during the night of the finals at Shangri-la.

In other news, I dropped my watch! My favourite watch!!! *sobsob* This watch was given to me by my website clients – a very sweet couple who thought of me when they saw this watch. Notice the brand of the watch in the photo below?? Best watch I’ve ever had! No one has ever had a watch with a brand in their name… mind you it’s not custom-made!

I dropped it as I was taking it out of my bag to put it on, and it fell straight onto the floor with a resounding crack. The impact not only caused cracks to appear on the glass front, but some of the diamantes were severely broken too :(:(:( Fortunately it’s still running though.

I dropped my watch! Notice the cracks on the glass front??

So I had to dig out one of my other watches to get the battery changed at a watch shop in One Utama. While the battery was being changed, I showed this watch to the sales assistant and asked if the glass face could be replaced. Admittedly, this isn’t a famous brand and obviously the shop I went to doesn’t carry the brand. The lady just handed it back to me and said, “It’s not worth it to change. Some of the ‘diamonds’ have already dropped off.”

I couldn’t believe how snooty she was. I mean, this watch is important to me for personal reasons, and it’s not some RM20-piece-of-junk picked up from some night market. So I just paid for the battery change and went off. I was actually contemplating buying a new good watch from the shop since they were having a sale, but her attitude completely put me off.

I’ll just have to go look for another watch shop to get it fixed then; probably a family-owned watch shop, if they still exist. Going to watch shop chains are of no use; some shops are so snooty, they won’t change the battery of a watch if they don’t carry the brand. At least if a shop is run by a family, they’re nicer and more willing to do what the customer asks.

Anyway, while I was in Midvalley today, I saw a Swatch roadshow and went to poke around. I asked a sales assistant to show me their waterproof watches (almost all of them are) because I have always wanted to get one for a long time, especially one that I can go swimming with. (Sometimes when I swim at the pool in school, I lose track of time. It would be good to have a watch so that I can check on the time.) She helped me pick out a really pretty and trendy white watch.

My brand new Swatch watch!

Yeeha!!! I haven’t had a watch with a rubber strap for a long time. Come to think of it, I haven’t bought myself a watch for a long time. Some of my watches were either free gifts with items bought, or given to me by friends. My watches in the past few years have all been either metal straps or leather straps. So yay!!! Now I’ve got one I can wear even when I’m exercising or dancing.

And… this is my first Swatch in my entire life!!! Hahaha!!! When I was in school, I’ve always wanted a Swatch because all my friends seemed to have them, but they were pretty expensive and I never worked up the courage to ask my parents to get me one. And I didn’t save for one either, because I felt that it was really too expensive, and I could easily get a working watch for less than half the lowest price of a Swatch. So this is like a childhood wish that’s been finally fulfilled. The only thing missing now is the rubber watchface guard that was the rage back in school.

I consider this my belated birthday present to myself, and my reward for my achievements at the MODF

Actually I spotted another Swatch watch that I also really liked; it has a metal strap with crystals in the them. But I can’t afford to buy too many watches And I’ve still got to fix the glass on my Zyenn watch.

Pretty good week so far, in spite of the cracked watch. And to top it off, it’s the second three-day weekend in a row! WOOOOHOOOOO!!!!!

The finals for the line dance individual junior, open, crystal and diamond, as well as the belly dance intermediate individuals of the Malaysian Open Dance Fest were held tonight at Shangri-la Hotel. Today’s competition is the 7th Crystal Dancesport Championships, with various events in Ballroom Standard & Latin ranging from junior under-12 to senior over 55, from beginner all the way through professionals; scheduled to run the whole day from 7am to midnight. The abovementioned finals were to be held for about half an hour at 7pm, at the start of the evening session of the championship.

Initially I was supposed to go over and spend the day there, helping out my coach Bronya (who is the emcee) and basically, to kepoh because I wanted to watch a few people I know compete in the events. Unfortunately – or actually, FORTUNATELY, because I made it into the Line Dance Individual Crystal finals, I knew I could not do so because I had to conserve my energy for the finals. I wasted a whole day today just to get onto the dance floor for two minutes tonight. I wasn’t going to run around doing unnecessary things especially when I wasn’t needed, and tire myself out and blow my chances for a good placing in the finals. The initial plan was made, because honestly… I had not been expecting to get into the finals.

At any rate, personally, I would have preferred it if they just completed all the line dance finals yesterday; but the organisers had their own reasons to put the finals at Shangri-la tonight.

Anyway, so I wasted the whole day today by waking up late, and taking a mid-morning nap, before finally making myself get ready for the competition. I-Vee came to pick me up, and we went to pick Pei Ru up, and then we headed to Shangri-la.

I-Vee herself had also made it into the Crystal finals (same as me), and Pei Ru was coming along to support and help us. Pei Ru helped me with my hair, and also helped I-Vee out with her make-up.

I admit that I was extremely nervous about the finals. I tried to keep moving before going onto the floor, but I was still feeling so cold, especially since I was wearing a short skirt, and I was showing off my midriff.  (Sorry no photos yet, I didn’t bring my camera – have to wait for photos from Pei Ru!) Amanda Leou (the official photographer’s daughter, who is also one of the photographers for the night) told me I looked so moody. It must have been nerves.

Well I gave it my all on the floor, and all I could do was hope it was enough. I did kind of miss my wall for 2 counts, but I caught it back very quickly. Thank goodness there were no variations!!

After that, I was hanging around outside waiting for the results. I thought that the prize presentation was going to be quite early, but we were kept waiting for a while. Our event started about 7.30pm, but by 9.30pm we were still waiting (and dying of hunger). We line dancers did enjoy ourselves for a very brief period, when we went onto the floor during the country march past and did little dance steps instead of just walking around the floor.

In fact, the prize presentation was supposed to be held outside in the foyer so that the ballroom competition would not be interrupted, but for some reason they suddenly changed their minds, and decided to interrupt the competition after all, and have the prize presentation in the hall. When I heard that, I began to fret a little… I didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of everyone if I got last.

Actually, to tell you the truth, I really wanted to get into the top six (6 is usually the cut-off for the number of finalists, but this time there were 10). But somehow I wasn’t very confident with the way I danced, so all I kept thinking while waiting for the prize presentation was, “I DON’T WANT TO GET LAST.”

Well, I didn’t get last. Or second last. Actually, I kept trying to keep count while the results were announced. Since all ten finalists would be placed, Bronya did announce the placings (“in tenth place… in ninth place…” etc) but I’d keep counting the people who have already been called and were standing by the podium for the photo, just to be sure. I kept losing count because I was so nervous, even while just waiting for the results. I was always expecting my number to be called anytime; I was kind of holding my breath every time a number was announced.

By the time the seventh placed dancer was announced, I was relieved, because that means I did manage to get into top six.

By the time the fourth placed dancer was announced, I was in disbelief.

I could not believe that I got into the top three!!! In fact, by then I knew I got 3rd place – and I was already very happy! I was skipping to get my trophy when my number was finally called. I was not foolish enough to expect any higher because the dancers who got top 2 were very good. I’ve known them for a few years now, and they’re very good dancers, and they have very strong ballroom technique.

It’s been so long since I’ve managed to a podium finish in events with more than 3 contestants… I probably had a bigger smile than the top 2 winners combined!

I know that I’m still not that good, and still have so much to work on… but it’s so great to be top 3 for a change, and to beat so many people!

In related good news, I-Vee got 8th place! So proud of her. She’s come such a long way. She has shown remarkable improvement even from the competition last month, where she had been extremely disappointed in herself for not doing well at all. This time, she managed not only to get into the finals, but to even beat 2 other people. Congrats, I-Vee!

Thanks, everyone for your good luck wishes – I’m sure they really helped me during the competition yesterday as well as tonight! Also, thanks to Pei Ru for helping me out with my hair and my number tags and stuff. And to I-Vee for the effort in fixing up the bling on our shoes and costumes. And to those who came to support us yesterday. But most of all, thank you, Bronya for your patience and for the yelling and for the drilling. There’s no way I could have gotten this far without your constant support and forthright criticism.

Thank you to the organisers of the Malaysian Open Dance Fest for successfully organising a great competition! Looking forward to next year!

Here’s the video of our performance at Jubilation 2008. Jubilation 2008 was a series of line dance workshops organised by Judy Teh, and consists of workshops conducted by many big names in the line dance industry, including Scott Blevins, John & Jo Kinser, Bronya, Wendy Teh, and Vincent & Felicia Chia. There were also several performances, by Wendy Teh and her friend Tracy; a solo by Sae Min; a solo by Philip Sobrielo Gene of Singapore; and Bronya & a bunch of her girls. I was one of the bunch of the girls

I didn’t want to upload the videos of the other performances as it wouldn’t be nice to do so without their permission; but here’s the video of OUR performance. Bronya was invited to do a performance on her own actually, but she included the rest of us as a team performance was always more exciting to watch than a solo, usually; plus the rest of us loved performing so we didn’t hesitate to say yes!

The performers are Bronya, Mei Ling, Peggy, Tracy (not the same Tracy as the one who performed with Wendy) and myself. I-Vee recorded the performance, and the front bit got cut off, but she only missed the first 3 seconds. Enjoy!!!

Finally. I’ve managed to convert and upload the video of my team’s competition piece at the Malacca competition.

It’s taken from the back but you can still see our moves. Bear in mind that this is the first time we’re competing together. And it’s line dance. So don’t expect something out of So You Think You Can Dance!