#shearmadnessmalaysia!

Pardon the lack of a creative title, but there you go, SHEAR MADNESS is here in Malaysia!! And no, it is not a matter of wrong spelling, but a matter of puns! You geddit? You geddit? ^_^

To be honest, I have not heard of Shear Madness before it was brought to Malaysia, but being an ardent perfoming arts supporter and stand-up comedy fan, I am definitely not missing this one! Furthermore, with names like.. Gardner and Wife, Phoon Chi Ho, Qahar Aqilah, Marina Tan, Junji Delfino, Na'a Murad and Alfred Loh, what could go wrong??!!

So, Shear Madness, how do I words it? Well, let's start off with Gardner and Wife, the production house. They have always been bringing in world-class acts and performances to the Malaysian audience which I am shamefully never a part of until now(due to $$$$-constraints ;_;). But after yesterday, I realised that their performance is worth every penny and cent, and hell, an experience is worth much more than what needs to be paid! (Hint : I am going for round 2 and 3 and......(if I can find kaki to go with la XD))

A retro hair-saloon!!!

 

A bit of Shear Madness storyline:
It started on a normal day, in the hairdressing saloon. A few unconnected individuals but in every aspect, connected to Isabel Fernandez, came together, either by appointment or coincidence and then! Isabel Fernandez was discovered dead! Who did it?? Who so brutally killed her with a pair of shears(we are Malaysians, parang would be better la)?

Now, the beauty of Shear Madness is not exactly in the storyline, but in the execution of the play. From this point on, I fully disclaimed that other that laughter and madness, your experience would have no similarity with mine. XD
The one that I watched had a fair bit of sexual innuendos and satire on politics, so it was really entertaining for me. Or perhaps, even things not meant to have an innuendo also become one for me like the part where Tommy(played by Qahar Aqilah, as a fairly... queer hairdresser) said that Chanel(played by Marina Tan, as a beautician, with super Ah Lian pattern) had a very, very, very close relationship with Isabel Fernandez by doing scissoring motion with his hands, completely naturally. XD
Oh! The poem(s), how melodious it sounded to my ears, because the words were very well-linked to the 'writer' of the poem. And there was a super short reference to Poetry Slam! ^_^

In this opening night(yesterday!), Phoon Chi Ho and Alfred Loh played Inspector and Sergeant, respectively, which eliminated them from the suspects list. OF THE NIGHT. However, I am not ruling out that in other shows, Inspector and Sergeant roles would be played by others, as in the list of suspects, there are also The Contractor and The Student, to be played by Chi Ho and Alfred, respectively. Just a quick note, the Inspector seems to act as the moderator when the time is right. XD

Oh! Oh! Here comes my favourite part of the whole thing, which is, THEY BROKE DOWN THE FOURTH WALL! When things like this happen, I am definitely excited and happy because, the audience then becomes part of the show (reminds me of Corporal Punishment). In this case, things were taken a step further where the audience gets to steer the direction of the murder!! How it goes, I am leaving it up to you to experience it yourself. =P

In short, ie. tl;dr, I am definitely watching it again and perhaps, I can get the outcome I finally wanted. *hinthint*winkwink.
 

Yayasan Sime Darby Arts Festival at KLPAC!!!

Yeap, I am late (as usual) but then, better late than never! Especially when it is about sharing the arts. As the title/picture/rest-of-the-content, I am writing about my experience during the Yayasan Sime Darby Arts Festival 2014 (YSDAF). I only attended 14th Sept, which is Day 2.

First off, when I arrived at the KLPAC, I headed towards the indicine, waiting for doors to open because at 11am, a short session to understand Shakespeare is available. I cannot exactly say I am a fan of Shakespeare since I do not fully understand his works. Perhaps the more suitable word would be... deeply intrigued. Anyway, this session allows me to further my understanding in Shakespeare's language and acting methods(in some ways). Presented by Shakespeare Demystified, I realised that in Shakespeare's works, the best way to understand are to link the words to feelings or imagery.The funny thing is, to read Shakespeare is definitely NOT the same as performing Shakespeare and to understand Shakespeare, the latter is much more useful.

Alas, when I came out from indicine, the weather was storming indeed. I kind of pity the outdoor activities like Panggung Pusaka, Lorong Makan and the flea market(for lack of better word). But blessing in disguise indeed as I managed to experience what Urumee Melum(spelling differs but you get the pronunciation) is. It is like a rock concert made with traditional instruments of Tamil origin. Luckily enough, there would be performing again at Panggung Pusaka later in the evening.

Anyhow, the thundering rain was no match for my grumbling stomach and I did buy some food but the wet tables and chairs were..... difficult to adapt to, so I discover little pavilions around the lake, supported by stilts and it was much easier eating in these pavilions, than trying to eat while holding an umbrella. The seats, in the pavilion that I stumbled into, was like work of art to me. Made with wire frames, those seats was pretty sturdy. It felt a little serene, sitting inside the pavilion, looking into the lake, with droplets of water falling(as the rain reduced to a slight drizzle).

So, after lunch, what's next? I went to pentas 2 and see what local bands and artiste had to offer. But I only stayed for two acts, which are An Honest Mistake band and Bihzhu. I have long heard of An Honest Mistake but I have yet to seen them. Finally seeing them perform, I can see that they are really committed and I really wish them all the best in the future. Bihzhu's performance came as a really present surprise because I have not heard of her before but her genre is jazz and gosh, her voice was so clear over the music. And she interacts with the crowd really nicely too.

Next on, I enjoyed sometime which is closer to my heart, poetry. The forgetful me has forgotten the name of the poets but what I remembered was as such :
1. Corrective Couture, where it gave me the impression of challenging traditional views of what a woman should be, in some ways. Hugely amused by this one.
2. A poem accompanied by guitar strumming which suddenly seems more like a song than a poem. Nonetheless, entertaining indeed.
3. A poem which tells a tale of .. sis-mance between to housemates, and reminded that it just takes one thing for everything to explode and to finally iron things out. In this case, it was the colour of a cup. Lol.
4. A romantic poem of long love, where the protagonist is a soldier(sounded like one in the poem) and the love of his life was waiting for him.
5. A poem about being YOLO and involved audiences' participation by requiring the audience to yell 'JUMP!" when the hand signal was made
6. Two poems in Bahasa Melayu which left me in awe, partially due to the fact they were accompanied by violin and guitar and in BM. It felt very... jiwang (am I using this word correctly?)

A word of caution, as with all poems, the above are just my own understanding. Possibly it differs from the poets own meaning and intention but that is what make poems so wonderful and beautiful, right?

So, that is as much as my muddled goldfish brain can remember. But I do have to say, there were times that they are so many things going on that I was at a lost of what to do and where to go, and it is then I understand the meaning of sacrifice, lol. A mismatch lesson learnt but it was all good. It is the arts anyway!

A Shaman's Journey revisited!

And the shaman being referred to is..... Asakura Yoh! Yeah, for those who recognise the name, I am actually going to talk about Shaman King ("SK")(manga version). Granted, SK started its serialisation more than 10 years ago and ended its run in 2004. Hence, 2014 is exactly a decade after it ended. Well, since I recently completed reading the manga (I would say more like.. marathoned it, rather than reading), I figured a dissection or just some thoughts of it would be just fine. Lol.

Initially, I thought SK had the usual shounen plot. Main character meet other characters, started off as either allies and rivals, and eventually all became allies because of a greater cause. Anyway, if you want a summary, wikipedia article can help you much better. For me, I think the driving force of SK is actually the characters' individual development and how well the plot twist can occur ie completely defeats my expectations. For example, like how "Bokuto no Ryu" became a shaman and eventually a comrade of Yoh's during the Shaman Fight(or Tournament) when in the first few chapters, he was portrayed as a 'normal delinquent' and could also be considered as an enemy of sorts.

If there is one thing that I really applaud SK for, it would be the fact that the mangaka (Hiroyuki Takei) uses actual birth dates and year for each significant character. So, it is quite fun, really. Sometimes I make little calculations on each character and give them a definite age at certain point in time. I mean, it is common for mangaka to give birthdays for characters but specific years are definitely not a common practice.

Lastly, the best part about SK is really the ENDING. Nah, not because I want the manga to end! But because the mangaka really wrapped up the story, with some fast-forwarding to the future of showing how the significant characters became and so on.

Well, I know I didn't really go into details and specifics because I was sort of trying to make you read it, rather than me spoiling the whole story for you. And as I have said at the beginning, this is just some of my thoughts and insights regarding SK manga. I didn't make a comparison with the anime because it just doesn't seem fair to compare those two. 

Sengoku time! (AniManGaki version!) aka 2014's theme

CHAAAAARGE!!!!! Through the doors and enter a world of the Warring States, where Kei-Chan tries to conquer Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre!!
(Nah, Kei-Chan didn't, actually event-goers, cosplayers and all other related people did. :P)

Anyway, that was how I pictured the opening of Day 1 of AniManGaki (AMG) 2014 to be like. While I didn't managed to make it for both days of AMG 2014, I didn't had the slightest doubt that it will be another awesome year!

And based on the response I managed to collect via the internet, it would seem that most people enjoyed themselves. Of course, there were some negative points too but hey, we can never satisfy EVERYONE, can we?

Well, it was sad and depressing, not to be able to attend an event that I had attended(more like helping out or be a free slave) annually, like a pious devotee, since its inception in 2009, and missing out on all the fun this year. Especially when there are so many things that I was really looking forward to, like Animenz piano performance, Bin Yun's singing performance, the panicked faces of the crew during the 2 days (sadist in me) and the look of satisfaction on event-goers, invited guest, doujinshi crowd, cosplayers and definitely, the whole crew when the event came to an end.

Ah, another thing, AMG was trying to break the Malaysian Book of Records for the longest figurine display! But no information has been mentioned at all regarding that, so nope, no idea what's the outcome so far.

Oh well, I guess that is as much as I can write for not attending an event, which I will definitely be attending next year!

Reminder on teachers and friends

Hm... This is a common story, which by now I would assume a lot of people had read, but I just can't help other than to post it here, because the story really struck me and has been stuck with me for so long.

So, read on first :
 
One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name. 

Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. 

It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers. 

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual. 

On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. 'Really?' she heard whispered. 'I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!' and, 'I didn't know others liked me so much,' were most of the comments. 

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. 

The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on. 

Several years later, one of the students was killed in Vietnam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature. 

The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin. As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. 'Were you Mark's math teacher?' he asked. She nodded: 'yes.' Then he said: 'Mark talked about you a lot.' 

After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to a luncheon. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher. We want to show you something,' his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket 'They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it. Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. 

The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him. Thank you so much for doing that,' Mark's mother said. 'As you can see, Mark treasured it. 

All of Mark's former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, 'I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home. Chuck's wife said, 'Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album. I have mine too,' Marilyn said. 'It's in my diary' Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. 'I carry this with me at all times,' Vicki said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: 'I think we all saved our lists' 

That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.

(Life lessons that came with the email: ) 
The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be. So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is too late. 

And One Way To Accomplish This Is: Forward this message on. If you do not send it, you will have, once again passed up the wonderful opportunity to do something nice and beautiful. But it's up to U to forward this one. 

If you've received this, it is because someone cares for you and it means there is probably at least someone for whom you care. If you're 'too busy' to take those few minutes right now to forward this message on, would this be the VERY first time you didn't do that little thing that would make a difference in your relationships? 

The more people that you send this to, the better you'll be at reaching out to those you care about. Remember, you reap what you sow. What you put into the lives of others comes back into your own.

And that was the end of the email I received. Maybe you had read it some time ago, but it is a good reminder. I would have love to do something like this for my friends, but then, I am too lazy to compile and rewrite the list. So I shall just stick to spending time with them whenever I can. Lastly, teachers. The awesome-est beings after parents. They know exactly what to do. Especially with the Teach for Malaysia initiative. I have read stories of how the teachers and students life/perception had a shift and most times, it is more heart-warming than heart-wrenching. Oh well, I guess that's it for now. And please, do spend time with your loved ones. :)

My 1st time with NIVEA’s rinse off body lotion

Whee~~ I finally had my first time with NIVEA's rinse off body lotion and gosh, I went for 7 days straight since I first started! I tried the white bottle(picture is somewhere below :P), which is for normal skin but NIVEA do have a blue bottle one, which is for dry skin and I assume to be the more powerful one la! So, now, share my experience with the experiment below (lol, the last time I wrote something like this was for SPM, which is about 5 years ago or maybe more? :P)

---Beginning of report---

Lab (bathroom) report
Title :
Effect of NIVEA's In-Shower Skin Conditioner (for normal skin) after 1 week

Materials :
NIVEA In-Shower Skin Conditioner(washable lotion), body shampoo and water

Apparatus:

Shower equipment and towel

Hypotheses :

By using washable lotion, it can
1. Saves time in body care and maintenance in general
2. Makes skins impeccably smooth
3. Evens out skin tone and reduce spots

Constant variable :
Quantity of washable lotion and frequency of daily usage, which is once a day.

Manipulated variable :
None available
(Scientist note : Due to the low budget availability, the scientist was not able to manipulate any variables like test subjects or location)

Procedures :
1. Take a full bath from head-to-toe and bathe as usual.
2. Rinse off all shampoo and body shampoo and make sure the skin does not have any residue left.
3. Take a palm-full(yeah, I have a large surface area to cover :P) of washable lotion and apply all the body, arms, legs and etc etc etc.
4. Rinse off washable lotion with water once application is done (See! No waiting time required at all!)!
5. Dry off body with towel and enjoy the sensation of having a layer of moisturiser over skin.
6. Record observation and findings (available below).
7. Repeat steps 1 to 6 for 7 days (In my case, it is from 20.2.2014 to 26.2.2014).

Observation and findings (recorded based on days/date):
Day 1(20.2.2014) - Using the washable lotion for the first time, I immediately noticed that my skin became fairer. There was also reduced redness from spots I have. However, after I dried myself, I felt that there was a layer of smoothness on my skin (My initial thought was actually 'why my skin feels so weird de'). I thought it was from over-usage of washable lotion when I took my bath.

Day 2(21.2.2014) - Using the same amount, method and order, the spots that I have reduced their redness further and I still felt that layer of smoothness on my skin. I think I am beginning to get used to that feeling. Being a person that has been neglecting this aspect of my skin due to lack of time and effort, washable lotion is a blessing indeed!

Day 3(22.2.2014) - Today, I realised that my skin tone evened out slightly, particularly at the neck and arm area. Ok, just to share a little, I am a modern day slave to money employed by a company and I tend to wear short sleeve formal shirts for work. So there is an obvious difference on my arm. XD So yeah, washable lotion is helping me out here.

Day 4(23.2.2014) - I finally felt that my skin is really turning smooth rather than just feeling smooth after continued usage. Besides that, my spots are also beginning to fade away rather than just losing their redness. Also, instead of having two separate colours on my arm (light brown and fair), now I have a gradient on my arm due to the light brownish part slowly being lighten.

Day 5(24.2.2014) - I began to realised that while I have lengthened my time in the bathroom(which I absolutely love), I save time putting on my clothes because I don't have to wait for the drying process. Besides that, that layer of smoothness does not cause any issues when it comes to putting on your clothes cause I assume it is just the skin showing some form of reaction that it is working with the washable lotion.

Day 6(25.2.2014) - Other than the stuffs and effects mentioned above, there was really nothing else I can say about this product other than the fact that despite using palm-full of it each day, the bottle still feel as heavy as the first day I started using it (does the product secretly multiply during our sleeping hours or something).

Day 7(26.2.2014) - After days of focusing only on the effect and sensation on my skin, I only remembered to sniff the washable lotion because every time I use it, there seem to be barely any smell, so I wondered if it is scent-free or my nose is weak. Turns out, it is very lightly-scented with NIVEA's signature scent. The one where, if you smell it, you will know it is a NIVEA product? Yeah, that was really pleasant too!

Conclusion : All my hypotheses are met with no let-down and disappointment! XD

--- End of report ---

Haha, I thought I simplified the post, I didn't realised it still turn out to be pretty lengthy. Anyway, basically that was my experience with NIVEA's In-Shower Skin Conditioner. And, before I forget, there is this really awesome video(which you might or might not have watched by now, because I think sometimes YouTube shows this as well?) with eye-candies for both female and male ;)

Now, have fun people and go get your hands on some bottles of this amazing NIVEA In-Shower Skin Conditioner! More likely than not, it will be a staple in your bathroom!