G E E B E E ▲ ∆



Gwendolyn N.
26 years young, a dreamer struggling ever so slightly to not let the world's negativities consume her.


Friday, July 11, 2014

S**t Kingz vs. GOT7



I just find it amazing how they didn't credit THE kings for the choreo. And how they conveniently ripped the song from the video itself (you can hear the cheering and all from the UDC people). I'm sorry but a few extra flips won't do anything much when you ripped off someone's choreo.

On a side note, can we talk about the perfection that is Shoji??? (From S**t Kingz, duh. He's the one with the grey snapback, black shirt and sweats.)

The way he smiles when he dances.. just makes me meeeelt so bad hehe and to be honest everyone in S**t Kingz is dope, but everytime I watch this Caught Up choreo (more than once a day), my eyes immediately go to Shoji.

I've kept this postcard for the CODE:EDGE 3 finals in 2009, all cuz there's a photo of S**t Kingz on it (they came down to perform with Parris Goebel and Aus Ninja).

Wednesday, July 09, 2014

Decisions, Decisions.


A tribute to my long hair. Sigh, I miss you already hairie!

So it's been a while, and yet I still can't figure what instrument I would like to pick up.

I'm keen on drums, but not having a set at home would seriously limit my practice time. Worse still if I would like to take exams on it.

It's weird to mention this now, but I still have that pair of drumsticks in my drawer (gift from D that I kept (rotting) there since sec 4). Ah, I'm surprised I didn't throw it away following the breakup then. But yeah, it'll prolly come in handy now hahaha.

I would pick up piano from where I left off in sec 2, but then I remember why I dropped it in the first place – I was too committed to Student Leaders and sailing, and didn't have the time nor the energy to practice every. Single. Day.

So I'm left with guitar, which I would love to learn again (and my mom is more keen on that) but everyone in my family who knows how to play the guitar picked it up on their own. I really don't see why I have to take lessons like I did in sec 2 for an instrument everyone can learn on their own.

And oh to digress, I checked out the lineup for #AFAID2014 and got so excited when I saw that T.M.Revolution would be there!

Since then I've been listening to his songs on repeat. Can't wait to see him in AFA Singapore 2014 (if he does come, which I'm praying praying PRAYING for). Though AFA Singapore 2014's in December, major bummer because I'll have to wait 5 months.

My 43 year-old Ojisan Revolution (in hot pants) *heart-shaped eyes*

Seeing T.M.Revolution LIVE last year really made my year, and I would die to see him again!

No but seriously, I get extremely excited when I think about seeing him again. My heart pounds so fast and so hard that I'm just like, I NEED TO WATCH AN MV NOW.

Then I watch and drool.

Okay, T.M.Revolution aside.

To digress again,  I keep freestyling recently, only to realise that I lost my vocab for hip hop. Especially my groove, which seems very forced now. My years of training my basics gone down the drain, just like that.

Now that my knees feel slightly better, I decided to slowly get back in the groove of things (hah! Ge the pun? Groove? Groove of things?? lol ok can) and push myself hard and improve fast to feel confident enough to audition for O School Recital 2014!

It has always been my ultimate dream since I first started taking dance seriously to be a part of O School Recital. I missed so many opportunities to audition, and I will always remember how sour I would feel about missing the auditions. Then again, I also remember how happy I felt for Daryl and Guohui when they both got in almost 4 years back for the popping item! Ah, time flies.

So yes,
1) Improve/work on basics again
2) Work on groove
3) Train for stronger core..... (indirectly train for abs hehe.) Core MUST gao gao!

Then hopefully when the 20th of July approaches, I can full out at auditions without my self-confidence knocking me down before I even start.

Looking at the two upcoming dance battles on Facebook, I'm wondering if I should even sign up. Sigh it's been a while since I felt so low in terms of confidence level for dance. Gone were the days I would just sign up because I knew I could do it.

Well, I can't wait for Fredy's class tomorrow night cuz it's been almost a month and a half since I attended open class due to training with SDB for our J8 competition!

Someone once told me this, "It's even harder for you dancers cuz y'all train for like what, months? For only 4 minutes or so on stage!"

That's true but when it comes to something you love and am so passionate about, it's all worth it :)

Oh, look out for my next post because I would prolly be doing another Gwen Bakes post! It's been too long!

Goodbye and goodnight... for now!

Friday, July 04, 2014

Weight Loss

One of the best feelings of all is definitely one where you walk into a shop, and when you ask the lady to gauge your shorts size, she tells you "You should be.. wearing a size S. Let me get that for you."

The best feeling? Knowing that the last time you were in said store, another salesgirl looked at you when you asked about the clothes and which ones had your size, and she basically told you that you couldn't fit most of the clothes, or that she had to get you the ones which were bigger in cutting.

(And yet you couldn't fit into those.)

Last I weighed myself, I was 0.7kg away from my goal weight (GW)!

This means I've lost a grand total of 11kg!

While I'm really excited, I tell myself not to mind the scale too much because when I stress about my weight loss (and start to ask myself why the results aren't coming), I tend to not lose weight.

Weird, huh?

Lesson learnt: Things happen when you care/stress/try to control them less.

To those who have been asking about what I've been doing, what "secrets" I have......

I'll be honest and say I have none. Cheers to honesty!


Though I've analyzed what I've been doing over the past few months and I found out some stuff:

1) I will attribute the fact that I'm not having school (hint: stress and eating when I don't need to just because my friends are eating) to my weight loss.

Bottom line: don't stuff your face if you're genuinely not hungry!

It's okay to tell your classmates/whoever you're having lunch with I'm not hungry, it's okay you guys should go ahead and get your food!

Made that mistake a lot when I first started out in my polytechnic as we had lunch breaks so often. Everyone would stuff their faces with a full meal at almost every break, and if we weren't, we'd be stuffing our faces with 'finger food' – devilishly good, deceptive, yummy stuff such as chicken nuggets, sausages, chocolate doughnuts... you know where this is going.

Problem was, I didn't stop myself from joining them because I felt bad being the only one not eating. Sometimes people would accuse me of being on a diet, and that made me feel ten times worse, leading me to cave in and to get myself a whole bowl of noodles/rice with dishes.


2) When I started out on my 4 month-long internship, my appetite dropped a lot. 

This was mainly due to the fact I was tired day in and day out, rushing projects through lunch and basically having no mood to eat while I dealt with my clients – let's just say they weren't the nicest people a video editor could deal with.

This is not to say that you should not eat even when you're stressed and have no appetite. I generally try not to force myself to consume a full meal when I understand that my body does not feel a need for it.

In such times, I get myself a cup or two of Milo, and get biscuits and sweets to fuel myself (low blood pressure problems). The moment I feel hungry, I eat.


3) I learnt how to only eat what I need.

Growing up, my family taught me that it wasn't good to leave even a grain of rice on the plate. I was to finish every morsel given to me.

That was fine for me as a kid. I was skinny, had a lot of energy and hence required more food. At a certain point of time in my life, I had 2 servings for dinner every night.

As a young adult? Not so much! Overeating is never a good thing when you've got your ass planted on the chair in the office all day long.

Your fingers don't need that much energy to type/click, trust me on that.

Ever since my internship started, I learnt how to listen to my body. If it signals that it's full, it's full. I've always had a weak stomach, so forcing myself to consume whatever was left on my plate would make me extremely bloated and sick. Which explains my big bloaty stomach in poly.


4) Eating healthy DOES NOT EQUAL TO weight loss.

I had a period where I ate so clean that eating McDonald's fries would keep me sick for the next hour. My body wasn't used to the excessive oil and salt.

Sorry to burst your bubble (extra apology to all those who eat nothing but clean), but regardless of how clean I ate, I never saw results.

Why? I was eating TOO MUCH.

Keep this in mind: "Too much of a good thing is bad."

I overloaded on the veggies, the chicken breasts.. boy did I eat like there was no tomorrow. I would then burn a little of them off by jogging/dancing, but after that I would return home only to eat again, justifying my actions by telling myself how I ran long and hard (eeps, sounds wrong), and how they were low in calories too.. technically a win-win situation.


Oh well. There we go!

If I have more pointers I'd definitely come back to post more, but it's 3:24AM now, and my brain is begging me to hit the sacks.

On a side note, so much has happened over the last week.

The one that hit me the most was when I called NTU only to hear that my appeal was never sent through on their online portal. Which annoyed the heck out of me as I clearly remembered submitting it infront of 3 other friends! System glitch maybe?

That's handled, thank God. At least I discovered it sooner than later, so I still may have a chance!

Then came decisions I had to make on my own, and I've gotten those settled too. Extremely proud of myself for stepping up and finding back the old Gwen who knew how to handle her own shit.

What can I say? When something major happens, it's as if a switch flips on in my head, snapping me back to reality, telling me over a loud hailer that no one else is responsible for my happiness and for my life but me.

I'm glad I'm taking things well and showing more maturity than I ever thought I had.

There's nothing more rewarding than to see yourself getting things (you've neglected for a while) back on track. :) finding myself again hasn't been easy, but it's amazing how once I put my mind to it, results come faster than I've ever thought was possible.