I was invited by Sabrina to a bloggers gathering recently hosted by Philips who were doing a presentation on their Ambilight and Ambisound Experience.
It was hosted in Curduroy Cafe which I thought was a charming looking place overlooking the sea. Despite some of the reviews I’ve read online, the service Curduroy Cafe was lovely. They were quick to whip up a vegetarian meal for me when they found out that I couldn’t eat the meat products there.
It’s always nice to meet new friends and some of the bloggers I met were actually rather nice. I am amazed that Jayden and I hit it off quite well 🙂
I had a lot of fun playing with the demo products. The Ambilight and Ambisound was really cool. I’d get one if I have the moolah. Wished that we had more time to play with them though as I was still fiddling around with the controls when they were announcing the last event.
It was a fascinating Sunday morning for me at Frontier Community Centre. I spent my morning enjoying the time watching at all the different types of dances.
It was hard to miss the colourful flyers which was pasted in the glass display beside the lift at my house. Even though I did not have much interest in dance, I felt compelled to drop in to the event.
Ushers to the event
When I arrived, there was such a cheerful atmosphere as the entire hall was full of people doing the line dance, each person shouting out an enthusiastic cheer every now and then as they danced along.
There was supposed to be a bachata demonstration but I missed it while stealing a moment to go grab a drink. But I was consoled while watching the beautiful salsa dance. It was most impressive! They were dancing and spinning so fast! At one point, the male dancer balanced the head of his female partner on his foot in less than a minute. I was completely astounded.
I like her dress. I like her legs even more. Can I have it?
Later on, there was a modern dance and hip hop display performed by youths. While showing mum the video that I took, she commented at how naturally flexible the kids were. We’d probably be warded into the emergency room should we do something similar 😛
One of the things that crossed my mind while watching the youths dancing was how heartened I was that these kids were doing something positive with their time doing things that they are passionate about, rather than indulging in negative influences.
Dance – Not only for youths!
After the kid’s performances, came the Bollywood dance exhibition. Indian dances are so exciting with the drum instruments in the music. What would complete the exhibition if there were a bhangra dance and workshop at the same time 😀
One of the highlights were the new vogue dance exhibition and mass workshop. This dance, having originated from Australia, was a repetitive dance of a couple of steps – it looked easy enough to pick up, but I couldn’t help laughing when we all tried to do it ourselves – we were all over the place. Hehehe! 😀
All in all, it was a surprisingly lovely morning for me. Apart from the dance, it was really nice to see all those smiling and cheerful faces around me. Radiance all around. And it was beautiful 🙂
Last tuesday was the graduation ceremony for the graduating batch of students at the school I am working at.
As they went up the stage and said their goodbyes, my heart ached a little. These was the batch of kids whom I first encountered when I arrived here. Slowly one feels an attachment to them and now it was time for them to leave the nest.
Its always easy to take things that you are used to, and take it for granted, benignly believing that things will always stay that way.
And I start to wonder if this was a fraction of the feelings that mum is feeling, knowing that I too, will one day leave the nest.
As mentioned in the previous post, there was an Italian Cultural Fair organized by the People’s Association and the Italian Cultural Institute at Sengkang Community Club.
I attended the event with my Italian Language Classmates – Chinguan, Lucy and Veron. I also asked Attilio along even though with him being a native Italian, as I thought that he might enjoy seeing how the event was organized. NTT, an Italiophile, was supposed to be part of my entourage too, but unfortunately, he had urgent matters to attend to at the last minute.
There I met Daphne Loo, one of the organizers from the People’s Association as well as Andre, an understudy to the director for the Italian Cultural Institute. They, along the other beautiful Italian ladies from the booths were very friendly. They answered our questions in an expressive and amiable manner.
While waiting for the video to start, we had a buffet dinner of Italian food and we mingled with each other. I was glad that Attilio came and met my classmates as it was such a riot listening to them trying to talk to him in Italian while Attilio patiently taught us slowly some Italian. We definitely need more practise!
At length, we were ushered in the theaterette where we were pleasanly surprised to see free goodie bags with some authentic Italian food. There was a short speech by Mrs Clorinda Lidia Canzio, the director of the Italian Cultural Institute. Shortly after, a film showcasing Italy started.
To be honest, I was quite underwhelmed by the video as it was not what I would expected it to be. Because firstly, the footage was quite dated. From the quality and the clothing of the people in the footage, it was obvious that the footage was in the 80’s. Secondly, it was full of cliqued and corny terms like “Calabria is like a young child holding a flower, greeting you mischeviously“.
I think that if they have chosen some like the Lonely Planet Six degree video clip, it would have been much superior.
Comparing the event with the Spanish Cultural Workshop, I would have enjoyed the fair more if it was more engaging and better organized. I was lucky that I was with company. I would imagine that I’d be quite bored were I to attend the event alone.
Nevertheless, being the first collaboration of this kind, naturally, there are a few kinks to smoothen out. Hopefully, the next collaboration would be improved.
Oh gosh, take a look what cartcart sent me! Its a snapshot of the pics he took of me while webcamming! *secretly happy* And because I’m completely narcisistic, I’m putting it up as an entry 😀
Do join me if you are free this saturday and let me know if you’re going. The more the merrier! There will be Italian food to sample, loads of things to see, and hopefully some good looking Italians to talk to too :D~
They say, to enter a battle, you must ready your weapon.
