dalena | 25 | counting fancies
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a dancer with mosaic
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layout: detonatedlove♥
pictures: ohhspontaneityy
stocks: _excentric_
hits:

It feels almost like something possessed me yesterday, and drove me to my dear ole blog which has faithfully accompanied through my teenage years, and now stands abandoned and sad in the cyberworld. Does anybody even visit this place anymore? I checked my site tracker (also still standing!) and well............I'm surprised that there is actually still some semblance of readership drifting around.

So, it's been a /really/ long while hasn't it? More than a year has flown by since the last post - and oh wow, how much has changed since. I don't quite know how or where to begin!

--

1. Work
I've been working at TLL for over 2 years now! There are days where I can't believe that it has already been 2 years, it seems like time just flies by in a jiffy. Many have told me that they are actually surprised that I've managed to stay put in a place for this long - testimony to my perceived poor attention span and general commitment phobia, I suppose. But I guess we all grow up someday. So here I am still, with two feet solidly planted in the working world still.

2. Boyfriend
As I'm sure all of you know, yes I'm still with Zee. :) SEE it's true - I'm no longer commitment phobic, ha!

3. Dance
Drastic changes on this front. No longer a dancer with Attitude Dance Studio but now, with Mosaic Dance. No longer a pure Salsa dancer but now, a West Coast Swing dancer. And I'm teaching too! Shocking news, innit? I'd never have dreamt that I would ever be part of any studio except for ADS, choose any other main dance over Salsa, or teach. But now I've done all three at a go!

...that being said, it's not like I no longer have ties with ADS or that I no longer dance Salsa - I suppose I just like dramatizing things as usual. ;) Mosaic Dance is centered around 4 social dance pillars - West Coast Swing, Salsa (helmed by ADS), Zouk (Two Left Feet) and Tango (Wai Chung). So ADS is a separate studio that offers Salsa classes under the giant umbrella called Mosaic dance.

But yes, check out the Mosaic Dance site anyway if you're wondering on earth I happen to be talking about, or if you just feel like you would like to take up some dancing or fitness activities, and agree with me that Bugis is seriously an awesome location for a dance studio to be at. Think of all the food! The shopping! The convenience! Enough said.

--

Alright, that's enough updating for today.

Labels: life, salsa, wcs, work mania

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As promised, let me just briefly run you all through my life in the last 1.5 months.

30 Oct 09 - It was my last day at BarterXchange. I had really mixed feelings about leaving the company because I had the most wonderful colleagues there (especially Emi and Felita!) who really brightened even the dreariest work days up by simply being around and being themselves.



The other TCs (trade consultants) bought me some random farewell presents and held a mini farewell dinner for me at some Thai place at Temasek Tower. I can't remember its name for the life of me, but the place had pretty interesting decor and the food was decent. After that it was drinks @ Harry's bar for us to close the day\



1 Nov 09 - Zee's birthday! We celebrated the whole weekend, and the lucky boy had 5 cakes this year. Brought him to Dozo for dinner - and I must say the food did live up to its excellent reviews online. We were both quite pleased, yes. :)



13-15 Nov 09 - SISF 2009 rolls around! This year, we performed on Saturday night (thank goodness), and all went pretty okay I suppose. According to the audience, it was probably our cleanest performance to date (for the pro team, at least). Good to hear, especially since we were all super nervous since the choreography was so much more technically challenging than what we normally are used to.





Do you like our costume? See what I meant by a skanky costume coming up...we had so many wardrobe mishaps during practices, but it was worth it in the end because everyone looked so hawt and sexy on stage in this. ;)



You can watch the video below and view the pictures, and tell me what you think!



Then a month of bumming passed by...until:

15 Dec 09 - First day at my new job! Took a Management Associate position up at The Learning Lab, which is essentially a very premium private enrichment centre. No, I'm not teaching (God forbid) - in the management/operations side of things.

So far, it's been pretty good. My colleagues are generally friendly and accepting and nice, but it was quite a culture shock for me initially since the office is located at United Square, away from the crazy pace of the CBD. I suppose I've been so used to running for work all the time in Shenton Way/Raffles Place. Over here we start work at 9-11am depending on your allocated shifts, being in a shopping centre means that the crowd only really comes in after lunch. The relaxed pace and atmosphere still feels foreign to me, but I'm certain it's all a matter of getting used to.

Anyway I'm blogging from work now so unable to upload too many pictures - you can check them out on Facebook if you really want to see them!

And yes, I promise to /try/ to update more regularly...

Labels: random, salsa, work mania

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Really, really late update coming along now - on the Singapore Grand Prix - Formula One 2009.

Guess who was on the starting grid with all the drivers this year? :)

So, yeah, I was a fake Singtel Grid Girl (together with 29 others) to make up numbers on the grid and add-on to the top 20 girls in the competition. Congratulations to Shumin, Constance and Cordelia for winning top 3!

We were transported around from the Singtel Tower at Pickering Street to the circuit via the specially chartered and wrapped Singtel Grid Girls Hippo Bus! I love these topless Hippo Buses - the feel of your hair streaming behind you in the wind is priceless. Plus we're elevated so high up compared to the other vehicles on the road that we get to more or less escape the pollution. Not to mention the view...



Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to bring our cameras or phones around so we have really few pictures in uniform, and completely none of us on the grid! Guess I should find some time to go online and dig up some pictures of us on the starting grid from various media sites/photographers.





Here's me with my partner on the grid, Su Yin (and Cheryl's head cheekily popping into the photo). We were originally slotted to be on Kimi Raikonnen's grid but somehow landed on Torro Rosso's Buemi instead. Su Yin was holding his placard and I was waving the Swiss flag. Frickin' heavy man, especially so when the wind starts up. But on the bright side, Jenson Button (my new favorite driver) was right in front of us. Lucky Sam and Amanda got to be on his grid!



Cheryl looks damn cute here right? Haha.

After that, we changed out and photowhored excessively in the tent and on the bus out of the circuit. Most of the girls stayed on for the official F1 party, but a number of us were too tired/feet had died/didn't feel like partying and so partied our way back to the Singtel Tower on the Hippo bus instead.






It was quite something to see the blown up pictures of the various girls plastered all over the bus. Cordelia made me risk my life to run out to the middle of the road, just to snap a photo of her with herself on the bus!





Well, all I can say is that being a Singtel Grid Girl isn't easy. Working for the supporting races in the day was literally painful, as the sun was scorchingly hot and bright to the point that the asphalt was just absorbing all that heat nonstop. We could feel our feet sizzling through our boots and socks! Many of the girls got blisters from just standing on the grid for the supporting races. Fortunately the bottoms of my feet are so abused and thick-skinned from all the salsa dancing that I do so it wasn't so bad for me.

For the final race itself, we were standing on the starting grid for a ridiculously long time. We were the first to march out, then we had to wait, then the mechanics came in, then more waiting, then the drivers drove in, and there was still more aimless waiting before we finally were given the cue to march out of the grid.

Still, I suppose it was fun and quite an eye-opening experience to be in the centre of all that action on the track.



And so I shall leave you with my smiling picture on my F1 all-access pass. ;)

Shall update with pictures and a video of the performance at Jitterbugs on F1 Friday soon!

Labels: work mania, yay

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For those who didn't already know, I started work last Wednesday as a trade consultant at a SME called BarterXchange. It's been a pretty uneventful first few days of work thus far, basically just coming into office for training and to learn the ropes, especially because my direct boss is on medical leave for a week (flu & high fever so everyone's paranoid). I actually think there's a bug of some sort passing around the office because now my whole section is sick and on MC except for me!

It's been quite a surprise to everyone and even to myself that I've suddenly just jumped into the workforce without any warning, since after all I probably am one of the most relaxed about job-hunting. In fact, I was quite prepared to take my time and slack off all the way to the end of the year before looking seriously for employment. In a way, I still can't quite believe that I've already started work and this is something that I'm going to be doing for a long, long time - if not, for the rest of my life. Of course, I don't quite necessarily mean this job per se. I meant...working.

We had a LKCSP pioneer batch gathering at Professor Pang's house on Saturday, which brought back (too) many memories about the last one we had there back in year 1. Oh, how things have changed...we were such babies then, all caught up with the excitement of university life and what it had in store for us, but look at us now. All of us have come a long way since, but the road ahead still remains long, stretching so far into the future with its convoluted twists and turns.

Who knows what another ten years will yield?

Labels: work mania

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Much apologies for the lack of updates! I've been insanely busy the last few weeks, full of working and dancing my feet off.

CommunicAsia 2009 was held last week at the Expo and I was working from Tuesday to Friday for Blue Coat Systems! In case you haven't heard of them (like me prior to this job), they deal with internet security and acceleration on a corporate level, so their clients are mainly the big firms of the Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch level (in the past). I can't remember their current clients for the life of me but these two names stuck in my head because it immediately inspired an OH NO in response when I was talking to some of the staff. I'm sure you can guess why, huh.

The uniform was uber cute! A short little police girl outfit - really short, actually, that we had to wear boyshorts around underneath for all four days in case we flashed the public our asses.



My police patrol partner for the event was Crystal!



And next to us were the Yahoo girls who kept us endlessly entertained...Sarah and Beatrice. They were giving free slushees out for all 4 days so the crowd traffic was pretty good (you know how it is when there are freebies in Singapore!) - we obviously benefitted from the crowd flow too. :P



I also met Amy walking around distributing flyers in her sexy cheongsam - it's quite funny because we'd only met each other on Monday while working for the Sound Series Project at The Arena. She's really young, only 18 but I couldn't tell because she carries herself so well and in such a mature fashion - which I found extremely surprising but good too because it meant we hit it off really fast and well right from the start. :)



All Crystal and I had to do was walk around distributing flyers and carrying the signs to attract people over to the Blue Coat booth. It meant that we had a lot of opportunities to run around and check out the entire trade show, and also of course, being the busybodies we were, we just had to go look-see to find out who was working for the event and at which booth too!

The LG booth was the nicest of the lot. Many girls at their booths, but I don't know most of them save for like one or two, and their booth was always so crowded that I didn't want to go in and interrupt the girls just to take photos, in case they ended up getting scolded. LG imported their dancers straight from South Korea too to put up shows throughout the day.



I was originally supposed to work for LG for CommunicAsia 2009, but ah well long and unpleasant story that had a good ending I guess since Blue Coat paid better. The welfare was also super good - all the staff were damn nice and let us relax and take breaks from time to time when our feet were tired, and they even fed us donuts and eggtarts and whatnot.

On the flipside of the whole welfare issue, there were the poor, slave-driven Samsung girls...who also were unfortunate enough to have reflective floors in the booth that nobody informed them out, so they had to discover the perils of the job on the first day when perverts were taking upskirt shots of them on the reflective floor. Disgusting behavior, no? On the bright side, they had very pretty uniforms. :)









There were NUMEROUS familiar faces at Samsung...but I only managed to catch Stella, Sam, Shn and Amelia for photos. I was so glad to see Sam there! We had a super fun but bitchy lunch together on Friday.

Anyhow, enough blogging about CommunicAsia 2009 for now - I'm just glad the 4 days of standing in killer heels are over, though I must say I was quite sad saying goodbye to the Blue Coat people on the last day. They're really a nice bunch, one of the best client companies I've worked for to date.











Yay and thanks to everyone who kept me alive in the 4 days of work! :)

Labels: work mania

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Been a long while since I last posted work pictures, hmm? Then again, it's been a long time since I've worked for anyone as well. Last week was my first time doing a Tiger event in ages! And...they've changed the uniform - check out the pretty demure Tiger dress that we get to wear now!



Quite lady-like and nice, isn't it? :)

Was working for the soccer sixes event held at the Singapore Cricket Club and there really wasn't very much to do except for standing around, applauding the speakers and just vaguely looking attentive and pretty and like I'm not bored stiff by the lack of anything to do.



Okay, will post more soon (hopefully about more substantial matters)!

Labels: work mania

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Oh boy, I do seem to be perpetually in costumes for the last few days running! Been working loads since the boyfriend flew off on Friday and half the friends are away on holiday or just plain busy with their lives - leaving me with more free time than usual, especially since there's no school at the moment. Makes sense for me to up the working factor a little and just earn that much more money for the next term right? :)

Thursday - some mingling event at Franklin Offshore's D&D. Twenty of us sailor girls were hired to run around, eat, drink and party with the guests. The costumes were super cute I tell you!





I also made two new fun friends at work: Lynn (who happens to be from SMU too, year 2, but we've never seen each other in our lives somehow) and Tourmaline. I swear it's been ages since I've found people at work that I can click with and talk to so easily. The best part is - we found out that we were going to be working together quite a bit for the next few days, which means good company is guaranteed.





Friday - Jack Daniel's event at Cafe del Mar, where my job was to...mind the Nintendo Wii where they had a Guitar Hero World Tour station set up! Super fun huh. ;) I even got to play with the customers who (foolishly) decided to challenge me. HAHA. Okay I really should not brag about my GH skills since I actually rank as one of the worst players in Rock Band guitar/bass when I'm at Mark's with the rest, but seriously, compared to the rest of the normal world...!!!

Then there was Saturday - the Harry's bus party tour where six of us girls had to dress up as Santarinas to take pictures with the guests and all. They rented a topless Hippo bus to take the guests (and us) from one Harry's bar to another around town, from Marina Bay to Dempsey to Chijmes and so on to end at the Esplanade branch. There were two buses so we were split three Santarinas per bus, so Lynn, June and I were grouped together the whole night.





Everyone was super high and all especially on the bus, waving to random strangers, screaming like mad and throwing water all around. Santa even made an appearance halfway through the night!







So yes well, three days straight of partying and boozing led to a partial voice loss on Sunday when I woke up. :(

But no, Sunday was not exactly a break, because there was still En Motion's Shanghai Rouge event to attend at night. Compulsory event to attend because the sister was performing! Yay! Her first big performance for the salsa scene. Rushed out in the evening to find a cheongsam for the event so that I would be at least vaguely dressed in theme...which was post WWII Old Shanghai (I think) when the people were making a slow transition in culture, from east to west.

I was very pleased with the cheongsam I bought - but look, isn't her performance outfit cute? She was dressed as one of the more Westernized ladies of that era - with their frilly tops and high-waisted skirts, lady-like brollies and immaculate coiffures, being all dainty and elegant.



Cheryl was also performing (for the first time too, I believe) for En Motion's student performance team!




The whole place was really like, whoa, cheongsam overdose all around! A surprising number of people were sporting enough to dress up more-or-less in theme so we had many cheongsam-clad ladies, some gentlemen in Western clothing, rickshaw pullers/trishaw riders, and even a Japanese soldier. It was fun!























The sister then changed to her cheongsam after she eventually got bored of dancing around in her performance costume...we're so gonna wear these for Chinese New Year in 2009! Might as well, right? :P



Now that the whole flurry of activity is over, today was a good rest day for me. I'm actually utterly sick of putting on makeup because I've had to do it for the past four days running, and oh trust me, as vain as I may seem, it's not something that I particularly am used to OR enjoy. The skin on my face feels like it's going to suffocate to death, and I feel so restricted half the time because I can't just carelessly rub my eyes anytime I feel like it. Hmmph.

Ah well, I suppose that's the price to pay if you want to look good (or at least, better than usual). Now off to bed I go because a shoot awaits tomorrow!

Labels: party time, salsa, work mania

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