Spring Awakening: don’t miss it.
It’s very rare for me to be enthusiastic about a local theatre production. I think I’ve seen far too many histrionic ones that have left me disillusioned with the quality of theatre in Singapore. I’m a long way away from my starry-eyed days as a theatre studies freshman. But so many of my friends gave Spring Awakening glowing reviews that I decided to take the risk and asked K to watch it with me. He booked really good tickets in the second row from the stage, so we had a close-up view of everything, including the actors’ dentition.
Spring Awakening has the honour of being the only local production in my 15 years of theatre-going to make me cry, and I NEVER cry at movies or plays. Yes, it was that good. I won’t attempt to do a review because Matthew Lyon has done an excellent job of it here and because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone planning to watch it. But I do want to say that I highly recommend it to everyone – young and old – because it covers so many relevant youth issues that it’d be a pity not to make use of it to tell troubled young people that they’re not alone. Alison is a little too immature to watch it now, but I hope they will restage it in a couple of years’ time when she can understand the message and identify better with the characters.
There are four more shows left – two each tomorrow and Sunday – so don’t wait. Book your tickets today.
February 24, 2012 1 Comment
Five signs that I’m getting old.
1. I need to be asleep by midnight, otherwise I’ll be a zombie the next day. It used to be that K and I would hang out with friends on Friday nights till the wee hours of Saturday morning. We’d catch a movie (or two), go bowling, and still have energy to go to Simpang Bedok for roti prata and coffee after. Now, K and I count ourselves lucky if we can sit through a 11pm show without nodding off.
2. When I see teenage couples clinging like leeches, I shake my head in disdain, quite forgetting that I was like them not so very long ago. Yeah, I was like them not just on the train, but on the bus, and in the park, and in dark places. You know. You were once like them too.
3. I am throwing out all my Aldo and Pedder Red shoes for Clarks and Ecco. Heel heights should be no more than two inches. Anything higher than that is to be kept in storage and given an airing at wedding dinners.
4. I feel uncomfortable about wearing low necklines anywhere except to a formal event. Going to church is not a formal event. I also don’t like any skirt or dress that doesn’t fall just a hair’s breath above my knee. This annoys online shop owners to no end because I keep asking for the length of every dress that they put up for sale.
5. I’m bothered by newly discovered freckles on my face. When I was young, I wanted freckles just like Megan Follows in Anne of Green Gables. I also wanted a boyfriend who looked just like Gilbert Blythe but clearly, you can’t have everything you wish for.
I wonder what I will be like when I’m twice my current age.
February 23, 2012 1 Comment
Face off with konjac magic QQ ball.
I was persuaded to buy a magic QQ ball for $25.90 over the weekend at a blogshop fair in United Square. The saleslady’s pitch was pretty convincing, as was my noticeably lighter opisthenar after she’d finished rubbing her demo ball over it. Also, I’ve been thinking of buying a Clarisonic but have been putting it off because I’m too cheapskate to spend a lot on skincare. This seemed to be a cheap alternative – if it worked.
A QQ ball is basically a sponge made from the fibres of konjac – yes, the same konjac from which konnyaku jelly is made. It’s sold in different “flavours” – charcoal for whitening, aloe vera for moisturising, tomato for acne-prone skin and cucumber for pH balance. I was recommended cucumber, which both Alison and I can use. The sponge is supposed to draw out impurities, balance the pH of your skin and remove blackheads, all things the Clarisonic is supposed to do, except for pH balance. One sponge lasts six months, if you treat it with TLC.
The sponge in its container. It comes with a string attached so you can hang it from your bathroom rail to dry when it's not in use.
The ball comes in its own durable plastic box with a secure cover which is quite hard to take off so you can travel with it in your luggage and not worry about it falling out. I tried it on my face first before letting Alison use it (the saleslady said she could), just in case it caused any allergic reactions.
I rubbed it methodically over every inch of my mug.
You have to rinse the ball under water before use, then rub it on your face with either water or cleanser. I didn’t want the sponge to get cleanser all over it, so I just used it damp, making sure to cover every inch of my face while rubbing. Then I rinsed my face, rinsed and squeezed the ball dry, and handed it over to Alison for her turn. She rubbed it enthusiastically over her face, because she recently spent several hours under the sun at Wild Wild Wet and her face is peeling like the lizards in V.
She could use a QQ ball.
After Alison had finished, we could have sworn that her face looked less brown than before, but since the light had changed in the interim, I don’t have a good picture to show the difference. Today, though, it’s quite obvious that her tan has lightened a little, and the swath of new skin on her nose isn’t as contrasting with the rest of her face as it was before.
As for my skin, I could simply be imagining things, but after scrubbing four times in the last two days, I seem to have far fewer bumps on my face than I usually do at this time of the month despite exfoliating with scrubs and scrub masks. My face is also smoother and a lot less oily than it usually is after a full day. I always have to blot around mid-day, and my face gets oily again a couple of hours after. Right now, there’s just the barest hint of greasiness, which I’m happy with. Let’s see how I fare tomorrow at work, with makeup for eight hours or more.
You can buy QQ balls at Magic Global’s online store.
February 19, 2012 1 Comment
A new Kindle.
I finally have a way to manage my habit of accumulating more books than I can read in a lifetime – a Kindle Touch! After waffling between an iPad and a Kindle, I decided to go with the latter since I already have a iPhone which can do practically everything an iPad can do, just on a smaller screen. Also, I just wanted an e-reader that would let me download ebooks that take up virtual storage space instead of analog books that I have no more shelf space for. The frills and fancies of the iPad had no appeal for me, hence the Kindle.
It’s part of the modern human condition to be very excited about any new technology gadget, so Alison and K fell upon the package eagerly, tearing it open before I even had a chance to take photos of the unboxing process.
The Kindle packaging isn't as difficult to open as it looks.
Now Alison says she wants one of her own, too.
Once the excitement had died down, I uploaded a couple of books onto it, but decided that I would not take it out with me until it had a decent cover. Since I refused to pay for a proprietary cover, the natural choice was to make one of my own. I hunted down a few free patterns, before finally deciding on one from Birdful Stitches. I had to throw one nearly-completed cover away because I’d used interfacing that was too stiff, making the whole thing impossible to wrangle. After cutting out a second set of fabric pieces and trying not to fall asleep in the process, I finally completed one that I was happy with.
Fabric is Michael Miller's Carnival Bloom.
Plain cotton twill on the inside.
The triangle corners are so snug that there is no danger at all of the Kindle falling out of the cover. K had to help me wrestle it into place! If I want to change covers, I’ll probably have to cut the Kindle out of the corners. But on the whole, I’m very pleased.
I’ll end this post with a picture of Alison’s hamster Wish, who is very difficult to photograph because he (she?) is a curious little thing that’s always, always moving!
Just because there's a lot of yellow in this photo, too.
February 11, 2012 3 Comments
A new dance bag for Alison.
Remember the hobo dance bag I made for Alison last year? It’s really too small for her growing stash of ballet things. She now has to take her character shoes, skirt, ballet shoes and character dance embroidered cushion with her to every lesson, which means that the bag is stuffed to the gills. I decided to whip up a bigger bag that would comfortably accommodate all her stuff.
The finished bag with all of Ally's ballet things inside, with room to spare.
After looking at some patterns online, I decided that a simple, roomy tote would be easiest to make and the most practical for her needs. I used a tutorial from Skip to My Lou, but modified the dimensions to 14″ by 14″ because that is the exact measurement of my quilting square ruler, so I didn’t have to fiddle with measurements. I also added medium-weight interfacing to the outside fabric to give the bag a bit more shape. The beauty of this tutorial is that you can make the bag any size you want – just remember to modify the length of the fabric to make the strap accordingly or you could end up with a 6″ by 6″ bag with a 10″ strap drop!
February 2, 2012 2 Comments