Back to School

It's first day of my third term at university... time to take a blogging break from studying! hahaha... Anywayz, just a quick update of what I've been up to since coming back from Amsterdam:

Nothing.

Yes, yes, je vais been a lazy little piggy wiggy. Doing quite a bit of spring hibernation, esp with the dratted head cold I've been struggling to overcome, contributed by a sense of pleasant confidence that I won't miss any classes if I do oversleep. But, I have managed to get a teensy bit of studying done, so all's not lost.

Went to see the Bolshoi perform Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake at the Lowry. For those in the dark, the Bolshoi is the premier ballet company in Russia, and argubaly the best in the world. In fact, they were the ones who premiered the first performance of Swan Lake, so lots of history there. 'Twas a very interesting, visually exciting first experience at a ballet for me. The production was top notch - props and scenery rich, dark and lush, costumes gorgeous colours and textures all the way... Tchaikovsky's lyrical score had a strangely distant quality almost like the way one hears the eerie waltz through thick mist in Ravel's La Valse, thanks to the odd acoustics caused by the orchestra pit being half under the stage.

Under the lead of new artistic director Alexei Ratmansky and choreographer Yuri Grigorovich, the interpretation of Swan Lake was shifted from the familiar fairy tale to a darker psychological drama, the focus of the performanace here being more on Prince Seigfried's internal demons than the Odette/Odile power struggle. Siegfried himself was played by gorgeous hunky Sergei Filin with one helluva nice firm butt (hey, no complaints about him standing with his back to the audience sooo often ya?); the lovely exotic Maria Alexandrova was graceful and lyrical, and even though she didn't quite dazzle with the famous 32 fouettes en tournant (I counted only 29!), her interchanging characterisation of the fragile Odette and strong Odile was totally spot on. Now if there's one thing the Russians know how to do, it is ballet. The sheer discipline of the dancers produced some utterly stunning images of intertwining limbs, curvin patterns and yearning bodies. For some more official photos of the lovely ballerinas and eye candy (heehee), click here. Shame we didn't get back in time from Amsterdam to enjoy the famed visceral virility of the Bolshoi's male corps de ballet in Spartacus horr... ;D


Aiighh reading Phing's bloggy just reminded me! Oh my, how could it have slipped my mind?! Hahaha.. after Swan Lake Phing, JJ, Francois (cute... Luxembourgish? Luxembourgian? Luxembourger? heehee..) and I headed into the city (poor Shyan having to rush off his Roman pottery report thingy) Hungry Boy being hungry again, Burger King it was for an early nightcap before meeting Roy and heading off to Opus. We had to reintroduce Francois to the greasy pleasures of American fastfood!! Waaah how cute is that? one refreshing human who's not been "mcdonaldised", so to speak haha.

Anyways it was a 7quid entry to Opus! Trotted down the path to Paparazzi - I've never been on a Saturday night before - where they were playin a weirdly random mix of dance, RnB and hip-hop, and way too many obscure 90s songs... :S And then there was this slimy creepy puny skinny little Indian bugger! I swear he was sorta following me around arrgghhhh... Didn't help with JJ grinning and sniggering everytime I moved around our cosy circle n the Indiano following around on the outside. No dancin, grabbin, grindin or pullin with me, yo! Thank goodness I had three wayy bigger n better lookin guys with me hahaha... Come to think of it, maybe the guy was following JJ around, not me...

Between then and now there've been a few movies @ AMC, couple of times makan-ing and hea-ing about, a couple of intense days with a friend who needed someone to be there, a memorable weekend marathon of Prison Break (ohh, Michael Scofield, how you have stolen my heart...) because I didn't want to start the term with any unwatched episodes, a crazy day's outing with Li Ying in our search for the perfect evening dress, plus an interesting first attempt at cooking bak kut teh combined with Linus' movie night. The friend's now feeling hugely better and on the way to the discovery of happiness, Michael Scofield remains in my heart until I can get my hands on episode #20 haha, the vaguely successful bak kut teh will be attempted again with another poor unsuspecting bunch of guinea pigs, and The Dress will make a hopefully spectacular appearance this Saturday, at our very own Malaysian Night!