　おいしい！

Friday, November 24, 2006

I received my first xmas present for 2006!!!! Guess what it is?

7:06 pm　うまい！Y

4:12 pm　うまい！Y

3:58 pm　うまい！Y

This is the season of theatre yet again. There is going to be a theatre performance on the 9th December in the village of Mesnil Berard and yours truly had a part to play! Yay! This is my first performance in France and I am really looking forward to it. I am playing the part of a magician's assistant, you know the woman which appears and disappears and things like that! Heh. Happy to say that no French is required in this part and yet it is the facial expressions that are crucial. Will have to train my face muscles and be as expressive as possible!

Lalala. Rehearsals are also underway for the Soirée Cabaret on the 24th February. It's so sad that I will not be here for that one. Choosing between celebrating Chinese New Year with my family and being in France a few days earlier for the production is not exactly a choice. I can never bring myself to leave Sg on the third day of CNY. CNY is my favourite festival as I love all the New Year goodies and all the ang pow collecting! Luckily my wedding banquet has not taken place yet so I can still hope to collect ang pows for the next two years! yay! My family usually celebrate Chinese New Year with big family gatherings and lots of dinners at different relatives' place. Thus, I really really really cannot give up the goodies, the food and the gambling much as I wanted to be here for the Soirée Cabaret. Sigh. Sometimes, we just cannot have the best of both worlds eh?

Kiba is rehearsing for his Tango sequence with Isabelle during this period and my god! They were really magnificent! No one would have guessed that they have never done Tango before! It's so cool! So chic! The music and the steps. Ooh la la! This brings to mind the movie "Dance of a Dream" starring Andy Lau, Sandra Ng and Anita Mui. Really really like that movie. The theatre teacher Alex is a pro! She dances just from memory and choreographs the steps for all kinds of dances! Some people just have the dancing genes in them! Theatre is a joyous celebration of the human spirit. I'm so glad I did not give it up.

There will also be a big production in June 2007. Lalalala. Really need to brush up my French by then. It's really just a matter of motivation really. Courage courage!

I am currently reading the book "Dracula". Bram Stoker is a genius too! It is taking me awfully long to read these days. Motivation, motivation. I should keep on motivating myself lest I sink into the melody of oblivion :) Cheers to one and all and theatre rules!

Labels: theatre and tango

3:03 pm　うまい！Y

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Hippodrome de Vincennes (Yesh! I was there!)

Hi everyone. Back again after a long drought of non blogging. It has been awfully cold and still is. Clad in jacket, jeans down to socks in the house! Sigh. Problems with the french administration is just cascading down my shoulders and sometimes I just feel like calling for a half time. A small city state has its own benefits after all. At least Singapore is efficient.

Went to one of the biggest race course in France and that is the Hippodrome de Vincennes. Vincennes is the city beside Paris and yes, there you go, civilisation all over again! Yay! It's not that I don't like the countryside, but the town girl in me, loves to see some big shops and busy streets once in a while. It may sound perverse but town is action! Countryside is inaction.

Being invited to this course by one of the best horse trainers in France is indeed a huge privilege. Early in the morning at 8.30am, Kiba drove me to the Haras (a horse training farm) as I would be going on a big covered truck with the jockey, trainer and the two horses involved in the race. I can't even begin to describe how huge this truck was. You shall see for yourself. It was a fun 2+ hours ride to Vincennes as I was immersed in French gossips and chatters. I tried to study the French highway code but once I opened the book, my eyelids just felt heavy automatically. You have absolutely no idea how boring the French highway code is. Of course, it doesn't help a single bit that it's in French of course!

We reached the Hippodrome de Vincennes and with the trainer and jockey, I was allowed to go into the forbidden-to-public areas such as the horses' boxes where they rest before and after the race. I also got to see the warm up and cool down track, the shower boxes and all the preparations behind the scenes to get horses geared up for the races. Never have I expected myself to be involved in the French punting arena. It was truly a day in the life of a horse trainer's helper! It was immense fun and I would love to do it again!

The small track for doing warm ups and cool downs

This was also the first time I betted on a horse. I spent ten euros, putting a five on placements and another five for winning. The odds were 1-18 and if I did win, it would have been a jolly present indeed. The races were so exciting and without further ado, let me show you some snapshots! I was a crazy girl that day! Snapping all the way!The jockey, Aurelien, gets ready for the race, with trainer, Marie close behind

The jockey, Aurelien, gets ready for the race, with trainer, Marie close behind

The stables shown in the photo are called boxes by the French. They are where the horses rest before and after a race and each horse has their own box. They are really celebrities you know.

The French horse races are divided into three categories in fact. As you can see, last Saturday's race was a trotting race with a sulky. A sulky is the blue structure as seen above. It consists of a seat and two wheels and it is extremely light. It is tied to the horse and the jockey has maintain the reins all the time and it requires a lot of forearm muscles. Accidents do happen when jockeys are thrown off the sulkys when they do not have enough strength to maintain the reins. It is incredibly exciting and of course, the jockeys have to train everyday. The horse pulls the sulky with the jockey on it and it's required to jog. Once, it starts to gallop, it will be disqualified immediately. The other two categories are horse back riding with the horse trotting and horse back riding with the horse galloping. Usually the races will be of one category for that day. As for last Saturday, there were 9 trot races with sulkys. It is pronounced as seeyouukees by the way.

Aurelien with the horse, Pocket Money, back from warm up in the big track

Races up close!

Magnificent steeds

The betting centre

The punters

The scale of justice! nah, this is to take the jockey's weight for horseback riding

Members only, was refused entry, but snapped away!

Marabourbon taking a bath after the race

All covered and warm

Me with horse trainer Marie

Blogger Beta is driving me crazy. More troublesome and more bullshit. Please remember not to upgrade. Yup, that's my premature ending of the entry. A nice and memorable day. Sigh. I need the happy pill and Blogger is soo not helping!

1:44 pm　うまい！Y

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Bonjour tout le monde! (Hi everyone)

Typing with a sore palm since I took a flying dip outside the house onto the mud just now. Don't ask me how I did that! I have absolutely no idea. It's been so long since I fell in such a splendid manner that it's almost hard to believe that I am actually a clumsy person. Haven't updated for a while 'cuz ran out of things to say? Haha, well, the fault lies with the lazy atoms in my body that are preventing me from doing anything constructive. Actually blogging is also not very constructive, but then again.

Heh. The weather is kinda perpetually at 6°C now and I'm practically freezing my butt off. I miss the warmth of SG (minus the humidity that's for sure) Kinda fun to just walk around town wrapped in many layers, topped off with scarf and trench coat though. Heehee. The kind of thing which I could never do in SG unless I want to incubate some chicken eggs. Heh. Love the trench coat that i bought. From what I can see, this entry is just going to be a free flow of random thoughts with nothing to its end. Sometimes, do you have the idea that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about? Well, I do. And that's the kind of thing I'm talking about now.

Took my virgin drive through the windy roads of the French countryside in the dark of the night. Well, I was kind of naughty actually. I have no license. As yet. Well, well, not as if the French gendarmes are the hardworking sort anyway. It is really fun to drive in the night as the surroundings are really different since everything is cloaked in the dark. Nearly bought Kiba's side mirror (i.e. crashed it against the wall of a house) Heh. Yours truly is still trying to figure her way out on the right hand drive. Well, thanks for asking, none of us was injured. We were miraculously alive and in one piece upon reaching home. Though a kerb was mounted, wooden gates nearly crashed and the occurance of some yelling and shouting and subtle redirection of the steering , nothing much really happened. :) Oh, of course, I forgot to mention that I almost drive through a house. Well, the key word here is almost. Hah. Don't worry, I'm just kidding.

Weighed the walnuts that we picked up the other day and it was a whooping 58 kilograms! Ooh la la! We are going to be rich! heh. Picking walnuts is a backbreaking job to say the least, not to mention that i did it in my very tight Ms Selfridge jeans! Ooh la la! I am a farmer. Period. But a pretty farmer in selfridge nonetheless! haha!

The chimney is being pulled down today and mess is everywhere! Mess! I hate this word. Don't you think that the very sight of m-e-s-s put together makes one very frustrated. Yeah, there's a whole lot of mess upstairs and I pray to God that I won't be the one doing the clean up. Please please! Really suffering from a lack of sleep these days and yet I am not the caffeine kind. Sigh. Give me some sleep and I will be a new girl!

It's been cold, cold, cold. Hope the new chimney goes up soon and the mess be no more. The chimney guy seems efficient. Me. No. Like. Mess.

Been putting up little adverts everywhere for giving tuition. Hopefully will receive some calls soon. As of now, I have only one tutee but things can only improve! One must look on the bright side. Oh, did I mention that I killed my chances of a bank job in Paris? I think I can go and jump off the hill! Ms miao, where has your confidence gone? I become a coward each time the phone rings. I am so accustomed to say "hello" into the receiver and not "bonjour". Nobody tells me that this is not going to be easy. I did not expect this to be easy too but neither did I know that it is so difficult. Alas, what could not kill me can only make me stronger! Lalalala. Stepping stones out of stumbing blocks and the whole deal! Aja! Aja! Aja Girl! Fighting! Ok. I think I watched too much korean serials. Miya ne.

Lalalalalala. Heard the xmas lights are up on Orchard Road. Are they nicer this year? Or do they suck even more? Not really holding onto high hopes. Won't be able to see them anyway. This is kind of weird. Remember how I always bitch about those lights. Somehow this year, I kinda miss those lights. Just a little. No matter how ugly they are. Centrepoint always have one of the most beautiful decorations. Tangs will have those luxurious looking yellow lights that glitter like gold. Ahhhhh... I miss Singapore. Give me a bowl of bak chor mee anytime!

4:22 pm　うまい！Y