facekara 7 and the punctuality conundrum

The last message read:
Ok guys, I've made the booking for 1pm. Don't be late.

That sounded pretty serious. Like most people around me, Joan has never been one of those people I considered a stickler for punctuality.
But I'd pulled an "On the way" on her the day before, when I was running 20 minutes late for badminton, and I was the one with the whole tube of shuttlecocks.
So, I didn't want to take the "Don't be late" too lightly.

It was another one of our little Groupon-bought adventures.

None of us had any idea where this place was, other than that it was in Sunway Pyramid. Their Facebook page wasn't very helpful, either. Here's a hint to businesses: you might want to give people easy access to information about how to really get to your doorstep. Directions so simple that people with no sense of direction can use would be good.
Mercifully, I bumped into another one of our little group somewhere along the way, who had also gotten lost. We eventually located it tucked away in a little corner past Italiannes and Teh Tarik Place.

At the top of a short escalator was the reception area which consisted of a fountain/pond thingy that joined the two sides - one with the counter and all the rooms, the other where the kitchen presumably was.
It was a half hour wait before the rest of our party arrived, during which said friend and I stood around the reception area, markedly void of chairs, hearing the muffled wails that were supposed to be renditions of Adele's music.
Note to self: people may hear my very syok sendiri version of Rolling in the Deep, too!

When we were shown to the room, it seemed decent enough. I was also kind of happy that they use a touch screen system - no more fiddling with remote controls that are labeled in Chinese! Even more entertaining was that you could add to your syok sendiri-ness by adding clapping and cheering sound effects. But then we were told that the system lags and we should allow it a couple of seconds each time after we click on something.

Well, it didn't just lag - which was a little annoying, because that meant the music lagged, too. But after a couple of tries, the whole system hung (hanged? I still haven't figured out what's the correct way to express this). We eventually had to move to another room. By this time, we were about half an hour into our three-hour session, which they very kindly let us extend.
During this time, we also had conclusive evidence that the walls were way thinner than they should be. In between songs, we found ourselves having a good laugh joining in on the rather amusing selection the people in the room next door had going on - Abba and Justin Bieber amongst them.

All that aside, we all left pretty satisfied, having spent the afternoon acting out our secret desires to be part of a boyband, a rock band, a diva and an indie songstress.
But I probably won't be rushing back for more lagging backup music, and screechy microphones that took a long time to calibrate or whatever you do with them to make them not screech.

Not my style

I wrote in the last post that  I was really psyched about having found a new dance class. Well, not really anymore. I've since gone for three classes and none have gotten better than the previous one.

While I was waiting for my first class to start, I was chatting with a few of the regulars and one of them told me that she'd been taking this class for about 2 years now and that the instructor is really detailed and really works on one dance until everyone gets it perfect. Promising, I thought.

And then when the class started, I was a little taken aback. This was the beginners class and the choreography was simply full of complicated steps that added no value in learning the basic techniques. They were the kind of things that would be 'nice to have' to make a routine look more interesting. I found myself spending more time trying to remember at which point I was supposed to walk forwards or backwards rather than concentrating on getting my shoulder shimmy perfectly even while walking.

Nevermind, I thought. Every teacher has their own style. Let's stick with this for a bit and see how it goes.

Later that lesson, I found that we had to do a reverse belly roll - something I've yet to learn as my previous instructor was still trying to get us to perfect the belly roll itself. And it was quite apparent that nobody else in the class, including those who have  been with her for a year or two, seemed to know how to do it right. No references to "Remember that time we worked on this. Just suck in here, release there?" or anything of that sort from the instructor either.

At the second lesson, we got to a point in the routine where we then have to do hip drops and she actually encouraged a lack of isolation and thus lots of bouncing about.

And at the third lesson we were doing some kind of formation thing where we ended up in one line that was rather more complicated than necessary. And then when she did spend a lot of time working on a particular move, it was one of the walking ones that required some bending of one knee and pushing the other hip back, it didn't seem like there were any precautions one should take to ensure they're not hurting their knees or back. Well, my lower back was aching (and not in a good "I've had a great workout" way) the next morning.
It just seems like she's just hurrying us along with all sorts of shortcuts to make her routine "look interesting" at the coming recital the studio is having.

A little bit bummed that this didn't turn out to be the kind of class I was looking for. Admittedly she does make us try out a lot more things that my previous instructor did, but trying it out isn't the same as actually learning a technique properly.
Kind of like getting your little beginner pianist to perform super-simplified classical greats on the piano that add no value to technique instead of having the child pwn his John Thompson at the class recital. Okay, that was a seriously random and super old school analogy. But you get what I mean!

Join the self-loathing club!

"So what is it you hope to achieve by joining the gym?" the membership sales guy asks.

M and I look uncertainly at each other. 

"Umm...nothing?" M ventures.

"What?!" he looks incredulous - as if nobody who joins the gym ever has weight loss goals that are anything less than The Biggest Loser proportions.

"Just to stay healthy lah!" I say, a little bit annoyed by the seemingly stupid and useless question. Why does a gym need to know that on my bloody application form which the stupid fella isn't letting us fill in ourselves, but is filling it in for us by playing 20 bloody questions with us instead? 

More importantly, why does it seem like this guy has never met someone who loves their own body and is at peace with themselves? Okay, let me clarify that a little bit. I obviously wish I were a little less jiggly in all the usual places, and a little more jiggly at the one or two more where it counts.

But judging from the way he seems so horrified, he either tries to sell memberships by making you feel bad about your body, or is just so used to being surrounded by people who do.

A couple of my new colleagues appear to be the norm that he's exposed to -and are probably people he successfully sold memberships to. Or at least, his colleagues did since they do go to this gym.

One of them is this very petite girl with perfect porcelain skin that has a rosy glow. Yet every time you talk to her, the fact that she thinks "she's so fat" and "hates her fat face" comes up. EVERY TIME.
Another one obsesses over her flabby arms while her friend constantly shows off her toned arms but constantly hates on her thighs. I once overheard a conversation between the two of them where one said "You know no matter how late I get home, even if it's like 12am and I'm damn tired, I still do a couple of squats before bed." WTF? Get home late, sleep liao lah! Or, you know, do something that will help wind down. 

Anyways, we finally got through the the process of signing up for our 7 day pass. Yes! All that just for a bloody 7 day trial that we were supposedly already entitled to according to some freebie card they hand out. Children, this is like seeing a house made of candy.
By then, we're exhausted and just want to go home. That was Day 1 of the pass.

On Day 2 we went for some yoga class which was pretty okay except for the fact that they seem to not only not have air-conditioning but instead it almost feels as if the room is heated. And no, it wasn't supposed to be that kind of yoga that's supposed to be in a heated room, whatever that's called. Anyways, the class was pretty enjoyable right up until the last bit, savasana. This bit typically entails lying on your back and freeing your mind - sort of meditation-like. Except that I'd been working out under a lamp. And the lights were turned off for this portion. And all I could think about was how creepy the instructor sounded as she talked us through it, and how I was going to prevent my eyes from hurting when the lights came back on.
Also, the floor was kind of pulsating with the music coming from the rest of the gym just outside the door.

The next day, we both had after-work plans.

On Day 4, I had a shit load of work to do but wanted to try out the Pilates class. I eventually managed to tear myself away from my desk just a couple of minutes before the class was due to start.
When M and I finally got in, we saw everyone by their mats, so we figured we'd just made it in time - the class hadn't started yet. We roll out our mats and stand around for a minute like everyone else, who hasn't said anything. And then this woman, presumably the instructor, comes in with a bunch of Pilates rings and obviously we head over to take one for ourselves. She doesn't say anything at first even though she's seen us and then as I'm about to get one, she says, "Oh actually we don't have enough." So I look at her thinking, "So, why are you just standing there? Aren't you going to go get some more?"
Next thing I know she's saying quite loudly so that everyone can hear, in this high and mighty voice,"I don't normally allow people to come in to my class any later than 10 minutes." Again, I look at her wondering where she's going with this and thinking, "So? Has your class even actually started? Or are you stiffing all these people by making them stand around while you get the Pilates rings IN THE MIDDLE of your class?"
"So, I'm afraid you can't join my class," she says, not at all in a very nice way.
Okay lor. M and I roll up our mats and head out.
Stuff it bitch. I don't need to leave my hectic day at work to dance to your stupid little tune. Coming to the gym was supposed to help me stretch out and relieve me of my stress, not give me another deadline to meet.
Okay, to be fair, I totally know these things take some discipline. But she was just not nice about it at all.

After that, I just said screw the gym, and their bloody stupid 7 day pass which is really just ruse to get your contact information for them to spam you. I don't need this attitude from anyone. To be fair, that doesn't necessarily apply to all gyms. Just this particularly stupid one.
I've since gone back to dancing. Yes, I finally found a class! Yay!
More about that next time.

Work-life balance

Someone once told me that there's no such thing. You've just gotta love what you do because that's where you're going to spend most of your adult life. Not with your lover/spouse/kids/best friend; but at work (although come to think of it, sometimes work may not be mutually exclusive to some of the aforementioned alternatives).

"Well screw that," I thought. I'll work 9-5 (or, you know 8-7 if I have to), and nothing more than that. My evenings and my weekends are for my loved ones and my hobbies.

Well, you know that the balance is tipping toward work when you forgot one of your best friends' birthdays (forgot one of your best friend's birthday?), haven't shopped for anything for your granny even though you're going over for a visit really soon, still haven't bought the aforementioned bestie a present, and are in real danger of forgetting to renew your season parking/pay bills/shit daily.

Also, you know you're working to much when all you want to do once you get back (way past 7pm), is share random shit from 9gag and Pinterest.

And also have started using the word shit a lot on your blog even though you've tried to avoid any language that's about there or harsher on your blog. You know, because you've spent all day trying to avoid saying anything super duper mean to anyone, even if they're the ones whose incompetence is screwing up your workday and hence, screwing up your work-life balance. 

Arrive early, leave late

That's probably one of my pet peeves about being in an entry-level position.

You're usually hired in batches - whole bunch of you start out together, and in some ways that's pretty awesome. At least you've got work buddies by default.

But then comes the rivalry.

From what I hear from friends, it seems like at some places, they do this on purpose. Some kind of 'survival of the fittest' thing. But lucky for me, I haven't encountered any such thing at my workplace. Until now.

We're in a meeting where a bunch of us hired at the same time are involved, along with a few more senior colleagues. And I'm not sure if one of them is just trying to be humourous but falling flat, or just being a plain snide bitch. She makes lame jokes that sometimes sound like thinly veiled insults.

Ever since I changed department and therefore would have another hire from my batch as a direct comparison, I knew this was going to happen eventually - I just didn't know who would say it.

"The people in your department are always so busy! They all work very late. I see you around all the time when I stay late at work...," the lame or possibly bitchy woman says to the other girl from my department,"but you...," she looks at me,"I never seem to see you. How come you don't stay late?" She gives me this look and says it in a way that the next line is obviously hanging in the air, unsaid. "You're lazy and a pain in the ass for giving me more work to do a couple of months ago. Just you wait until I get a chance to give you a bad review."

I felt like saying, "Because I'm efficient and you're a stupid cow."

Okay I don't think cows are stupid...I just like the way that insult sounds.

And also you're not my boss: you have no say in my review.

And also don't try to induce some kind of rivalry between me and the other girl - she's a nice person!

I settled for giving her my best ditzy look.

Dammit. Why can't I ever think of a smart comeback that nobody will realise is mean/cutting/youshouldcurlupinalittleballandcryinshameformessingwithme, except the person the comeback was intended for?

"Are you just going to sit there and text?"

Okay so I totally sucked. And didn't make all that great an impression.

There I was: the snooty looking girlfriend with her sunnies pushed up on her head, sipping hot chocolate and busily tapping away at her phone.

But really, I had no idea how to react.

The part of me that had been so gung-ho and "I might suck now but I'm totally going to try this and be sporting about it" just totally froze.

When we got to the courts, my man's friend was already there. Brief hellos and all went fine and then we walked into the building. And I my insides just froze.

At the court nearest the entrance, there were 7- or 8-year-olds playing so well I could almost envision all off them stopping dead for a milisec and then laughing their asses off at me the moment I started playing.

I was snapped out of that horrifying thought by some guy who'd come over to say hi to my man.

"Oh that's one of the guys I usually play badminton with on the weekends," my man explains to me.

What?!

The only reason I'd agreed to play today was because I though we were only playing with a regular bunch of people, not his usual superawesome badminton kaki.

I mentally headslapped myself for not thinking of it sooner. What, did I think there'd be only one court at the place? Of course those fellas are going to do their usual Sunday morning thing even if my man wasn't joining them this time around.

For a little while I was like a deer in the headlights. I sat down on the bench next to our court and texted Hairy for help. What the heck am I going to do? Between the little kids who are so freaking awesome, my man's badminton kaki who are going to totally know I suck and my man's other group of friends whom he said weren't that great but were all a zillion times better than me, all I wanted to do was make up some excuse to leave.

And then Hairy texted back:

As long as you're wearing a knee-revealing skirt or shorts, you're fine.

Haha. Okay the lame joke really made me laugh at myself for making it such a big deal. And my man, with perfect timing, as usual came over to ask me if I was just going to sit there and text all morning?

And so we won a match against his friends. Mostly because I knew to just serve when I had to and pretty much got out of the way as much as I could after that...and maybe swatted the shuttle away whenever it came within arm's reach. I was actually pretty pleased with myself after that. After awhile, couples are a little hard pressed to find "firsts".

Well, I counted it as "the first badminton match we played and won together".

I suspect he doesn't quite see it that way.

"U wanna play badminton Sunday?"

Oh shit. those are about one of the last things I want to see in a text from my man. This writer may be a lot of things but a sports person is not one of them.

It was only made marginally better that we'll be playing with another group of friends rather than his usual badminton kaki who are all so super awesome that I'm pretty sure will definitely hate having an extra player who will literally be the one who keeps dropping the idiomatic ball, okay shuttle.

I never understood sports - the idea of running towards some ball/shuttle/puck/*whatever* that's flying at you with potentially nose-breaking speed just baffles me.

The other frightening part of it was the prospect off looking like I fit the stereotype of the sio chia girlfriend who squeals when a shuttle flies at her, runs like a, well, girl; and just seeming unpleasant and unsportsmanlike in general.

Well there's no way I'll get in any practice or magically improve in three days.

So the next best thing, I thought, was to watch a mix of tutorials & actual matches online.

Tutorials

I never cease to be amazed at the number of how-to videos on any topic there are on Youtube. But then, I got bored after four, which were under 2 minutes each.

Actual matches

I tried picking the more interesting matches to watch, honest! Then again, I wouldn't know what would constitute an interesting match. So I just picked the first one with names I recognized.

After semi-ignoring my screen, playing games in another window cleaning my room through one and a half matches, I learned only one thing -sports commentators for badminton matches aren't expected to be as excitable as football sports commentators.

Oh please, please, please let my awesome personality make me seem like less of an uncoordinated dork.

*cross fingers*