Earnestly, Erna

Archive for October 2008

A reminder to love

October 21, 2008 Music, Musings One comment

It isn’t often I tell my friends to go watch a play, especially not something local. Too much overacting, horrible enunciation (I will never get over a certain thespian saying "CHAL-dren" instead of "chill-dren") and the feeling that the players are acting, instead of becoming, their characters.

But if you have a heart at all then I’d suggest you let Footstool Players remind you about that "Crazy Little Thing called Love".

They’re making the rounds at churches right now because their roots are in Christian-themed theatre, but this particular show isn’t about faith – it’s about love. And few things are as universal as the feeling that inspires more songs or works of art than any other emotion.

It’s a series of rather poignant sketches that alternately poke gentle fun at relationship cliches, or paint pictures of hurt, loss and longing. They also have the nifty addition of songs to create a sort of musical flow between the sketches, to help create the mood.

One sketch that bothered me, yet at the same time rent the edges of this jaded heart to shreds was Word Picture acted ably by Ee Soon Wei and Adrene Wong. Soon Wei has a slight lisp, which could have proved distracting but instead added a touch of vulnerability to his silently hurting career man character. I applaud Adrene’s daring tackle of dialogue which is a little unrealistic in its verbosity – the metaphors seem too carefully written to be believable but in the end, it’s not the words but the general feeling conveyed. It’s real in the sense you really feel the hurt, you see the gulf they unwittingly put between them and you want them to build the bridge they need to cross it and find each other again. Oh, my poor, poor heart got such a workout at the end of it.

Thankfully not all the sketches are as emotionally-wrenching as that one, with plenty of room for brevity and laughs.

So do yourself a favour and catch the Footstool Players at KLPAC next month.

Dates and ticket prices are below:

6–8, 13–15 November 2008 @ 8:30 pm
8–9, 15–16 November 2008 @ 3:00 pm
Tickets: RM30 adults / RM20 students, senior citizens and disabled
Tickets available from: KLPac Box Office Tel: (03) 4047 9000
Actors Studio at BSC Tel: (03) 2094 0400/1400
Tickets on sale from late September. Check www.klpac.com for details.

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October 19, 2008 Personal One comment

This would be where an emo post would be, if I were to actually bother writing said emo post.

Insert existential angst.

Reminiscing.

Rants.

Touchy-feely connecting with inner child.

Whinge. Cringe. Minge.

Done. That made me feel just as good as writing an actual emo post that might bore/defame/worry people.

Bloodwork and its consequences

October 18, 2008 Personal No comments

So I’m 30 this year.

I haven’t exactly been a paragon of virtue, nor do I exercise regularly beyond walking to work. Eating too much, sleeping too little and a generally sedentary, complacent lifestyle has led to my gaining 10kg over the course of a year.

After much procrastinating, I went to nearby Pathlab for tests.

The bad news first.

I’ve got pretty high cholesterol levels, and I’m borderline anemic.

The good news is that apart from that, everything else is fine. Doctor also suggested I take a Hep A vaccination since I do travel on occasion.

My borderline anemia explains my constant lethargy so I guess I’ll need to modify my diet as well as work on my fitness.

And for the curious: I’m HIV and VD-negative. Clean. Nice to know.

So my slow and steady fitness program will now have more fuel to get me started. Goodbye fried foods. It was great knowing you.

Sitting on your behind all day is bad for you

October 16, 2008 Fitness No comments

…as if you needed to be told that.

After the start of my mission to lose weight, I’ve lost 3kg, gained back half of it and discovered a few things.

1. I get bored easily

2. I have precious little stamina

3. I do better with more frequent but shorter workouts than longer, less frequent ones

Two times a week just doesn’t work for me, because if I miss one session then that means I only work out once a week which won’t help much with Mission Remove The Gut.

So it’s three times a week for 20-30 mins. Eating more frequently, but with smaller portions.

Sometimes, though, you also need a little help from your friends.

Take this little convo I had:

“Don’t kill me but you need to lose a liiiiitle bit of weight.”

“…”

“Hey, at least you’ll always have someone there to remind you!”

I like the sound of always.

And the bitterness creeps in

October 16, 2008 Personal 3 comments

The new site will be up sooner than expected and am looking forward to it coming out, building it up and pushing The Mag firmly into the online space.

But a few realisations about my new role have started to sink in.

1. Less perks. When I was editor of The Mag, it was tiring, stressful and a threat to my blood pressure. But at least it came with the odd perks and of course, PR people being ever anxious to make nice with you.

Being Web editor, despite my rank being pretty much the same in terms of seniority, public perception is that I’m not a decision-maker and that currying favour with me is no longer important.

2. No/little chance to travel. My journo friends at papers bemoaned the crap pay and lack of glamour, but at least they went overseas at least three times a year. Those days are gone for me now. I’ll be lucky to go down to Singapore now, and that’s only if there’s a slot free because the ‘first tier’ or newspapers decline the invite.

Hardly anyone calls now and though I don’t miss the barrage of calls, sometimes I do feel somewhat unimportant.

I guess my ego’s been hurt somewhat by my new status and it gave me reason to have a pity party of one.

But really, there are good things.

1. I’m less stressed

2. I rarely have to answer the phone

3. Though PR people no longer give me much credo, nothing’s changed at work as far as the pecking rank goes.

4. I have more time to do things like play WAR, work on creative projects on the side and do the occasional ‘lance piece.

5. The Web’s still growing as a space and has plenty of room to move forward. Publishing on the other hand has been static for years. So the news reporters get to go overseas and will get the plum invites. But I report only to my boss, I get a lot of say on what content goes on the Web and enjoy more autonomy that I did on the magazine.

Instead of relying on press releases, I have time to hunt my own stories and not rely as much on pitches. I get instant gratification instead of waiting a whole month for my pieces to appear. And unlike print, I get to play with video, music and the online medium to engage my readers with more than just the written word.

The good outweighs the bad. I can’t complain, really.

Important thing is: no more frickin’ advertorials that I don’t get paid extra for. Whoo bloody hoo.

I can’t help it really

October 14, 2008 Personal No comments

…if I like making fun of you ever so often.

Because deep within my humour, I hide little crumbs of bitterness.

But the barbs are less painful now. The jibes a little less snide.

It’s still better saying what I feel this way than being too frank, too cutting.

Because sooner than later I’ll forget. Because I forgive you more easily than I realise.

Cherating Travel Diary – Part One

October 14, 2008 Travel No comments

Inspired by Suan’s idea to keep a travel diary during her Hong Kong trip, I’m chronicling my Cherating trip.

Day the first:

We met up at the office for breakfast. Of all mornings there had to be a massive jam on the LDP that day so quite a few people were late for the 9am rendezvous.

Which left more time for camwhoring.

Me and Elly, my frequent lunch victim.

This was my ride all the way to Cherating. A Nissan cruiser we use for our roadshows and promos, with Cruiser driver Richard and salesdude William as his co-pilot. I played spoiled princess by reclining in the backseat. Richard drives fast but he was careful on the turns and even with my car sickness, the ride was bearable. Tip for other carsick prone people: don’t eat anything too heavy, have gum or other stuff to nibble on and stay hydrated.

Drama did ensue on the road, though. With five cars and rather haphazard co-ordination, it was inevitable there would be some problems. One car got lost which threw our schedule off; we had to wait at the Temerloh rest stop until the car and its wayward passengers arrived.

Once we got to Cherating village, I couldn’t help but appreciate how blue the sky was. A far cry from the cloudy vistas of Klang Valley.

We arrived at Club Med at 3pm, hungry and exhausted. I was rather dreading the 6pm inter-team football match later at 6pm. Bosses had ‘brilliant’ idea to break us into three teams, naming them after Japanese cars: Nissan, Honda and Toyota. They made me captain of the last team which made me a bit apprehensive about having to choose football, volleyball and basketball players. I admit I suck at team sports. Ask my secondary schoolmates: I was never cut out for athletics and I don’t think I’ve ever not been unfit all my schoolyears.

Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one out of shape. Years of sedentary activity will do you in, you see. Most of my collegues were deskbound and it was plenty hilarious to see their antics on the field. Team Nissan outplayed us all but we had fun. I even managed a decent tackle but never, never make me goalie.

Then after football and plenty of bruises to show for it, we cleaned up and had dinner together. Also caught a show at the Club Med theatre arena which is always a fun thing to do.

You see, every week the GOs will perform for a few nights and entertain the crowd with song and dance skits. They’re high-school production level yet impressive in the amount of work you see, cooked up in such a short time. After that, I cajoled colleagues into joining me on the dance floor.

I danced until my right knee gave out and then by 11.40am I was ready for bed and preparing for the next day.

My sole disappointment was in the lack of GO company. GOs or gentil organizeurs are Club Med’s hospitality experts who sit with you at meals and keep you company throughout the trips. They’re fun, very knowledgeable at what they do and help make your trip anything but ordinary. Then we found out that Club Med was all booked out and the GOs were tied up with all the other groups. Disappointing, but still, I was having a lot of fun anyhow.

The next day would bring more fun and laughter…and some GO company.

I just can’t fill that void you leave behind

October 14, 2008 Personal No comments

I hate it, baby, because you’re not here and I’m not there.

I hate waiting 365 days to hug you and have you look at me.

When you go, there’s always a vacuum that I can’t fill.

And sometimes, sometimes when I try and fill it up a little, just for a while, I try and forget that it’s never enough.

But then you call me up at work today, just because, and everything’s sunshine again because when you tell me you love me, the darkness goes away.

Because nobody’s you, baby.

Retreating to Club Med Cherating

October 13, 2008 Travel No comments

Well, just returned from my 3 day, 2 night stint at Club Med Cherating with the office crew.
The weather was great – sunny, nearly cloudless skies and lovely starlit nights. Beach still as clean and water as gorgeous as it was last time. Club Med Cherating recently had renovation work done, with quite a few changes instituted as well.
The good:

Open Bar. Cocktails all night and day? Happiness in bottles for those who drink like a fish.
Spruced up rooms. My twin room was lovely and spacious compared to the tiny cabin-like room i had the last time.
Still plenty of yummy GOs (gentil organizeurs) to ogle.Nothing like staring at stomach muscles so defined you could play tick tack toe or a game of checkers on them.

The bad:

No coffee servers. All self-service now. I miss brewed coffee.
Pastries disappointing. Food standards seem to have dropped a little since the last time I was here.

Played football, volleyball and tried out archery there. Also hung out at the beach for a bit but also spent some quality nap time. Danced till my knee complained the first night; the second night my colleagues were too plastered to join me so I chatted up a local GO instead. Very nice, very young, very buff, very good company.
Here are the photos I took on my Nokia N82. Nothing I could hold anyone for ransom for, sadly. It was still nice to be able to enjoy sand and sea, and be able to have fun with people you share an often stressful situation with.
Would I recommend Club Med Cherating? Oh heck, yeah. It’s gorgeous, plenty of things to do, with food and drink all-inclusive and far from the hustle and bustle of Klang Valley. Would I go there again? Maybe to a Club Med in another country, though of course I can’t recommend Cherating enough.