Goodbye 2011!

Time flies! Started off the year as an unemployed graduate

4 months and 4 days into the year, after hopelessly job hunting and depressing interview rejections, i finally scored an accounting job with a Chartered Accountant in Melbourne! Continued working two jobs (in the chicken place at nights and weekends) for 5 months. Got too busy to blog consistently

I told myself that i would get an iPhone once i got a job, and that i did =) Also told myself that once i am employed i will join pole dancing classes again because the exotic dance costs a bomb. Discovered aerial hoop =) Fittest in my life, but not skinny unfortunately

Only hopped on the plane once (return trip) for a wedding in Newcastle, north of Sydney. It was the first wedding of a friend my age, that i could attend. Travelled around the state of Victoria a bit, including Grampians, Ballarat, Lake Eildon, Mornington Peninusla and Mount Buller

Learned a bit of Spanish. Adios dos mil once!

Tubing in Vang Vieng

A must do i've heard. So when in Laos, i did!

Tubing is renting one of those yellow rubber tube, which i read is the inside of truck tyres, and you sit in the middle part and float down the river!

The first bar. The traveler friend i was in Laos with does not swim and obviously didnt wanna go tubing.

I went alone, but the thing with traveling is you are never alone =)

Canadian girls i met on the tuk tuk from the town area to the first bar

Japanese guy i met while waiting for the tuk tuk to depart

The bar owners build slides

They also build... structures to make the river into a natural theme park

Climb to the top and then swing!

They give u really short instructions: let go in the deep area. Thats it.

Looking back at these pictures, it looks really dangerous! The shallow part is so near the deeper part. The kid is walking there!

Splash!!! Yup, thats me in the above four pictures =)

People just chilling out as if it was a beach. Nice and sunny, on holiday with no care in the world.

What day of the week is it? No one cares! I miss those times, this trip was in November 2010

When you are tired of one place, move on to the next!!

By hopping onto your floaty tube

That blue thing i'm carrying is my dry bag, specially made for scuba diving! Items in the bag such as my camera and phone stays dry.

I took my camera out when i was floating just to camwhore! Obsessed with blogging! Hahah

How do you stop at the next destination? Simple, there are men who will throw a rope with an empty bottle at the end to floating tourists. Grab hold of it and they will reel you in and to their bar! Primitive yet so genius!

Surprised

Week 8 Hoop and Week 16 in Pole were fantastic!!!

Above: The Tease! The trick i had no problems with from the start of Level 2 =)

The Siren. I'm still struggling with this one. Supposed to straighten both arms and lean back but i havent been able to

And the trick that i didnt think i could do on week 16:

The Inside Leg Ballerina! Surprised myself =) =) Lots of room for improvement though. Take a look at how my teacher does it!

She's awesome!!! She promoted the studio in the Sexpo exhibition 3 days in a row, 8 hours of pole dancing each day. Thats insane!!!

In Hoop we didnt have a camwhore session, so back to the drawing board!

Tried the above move, also not expecting i could do it and whoaaaa, i did it! "Hello Abs, nice to meet you!". Its actually quite comfortable hanging upside down like that once u get your legs balanced: equal weight in front and at the back of the hoop!

The Waterfall next. I was so scared the first time !

1. You get into that position on the hoop, with both hands palm facing the back holding onto the pole beside your hips.

2. You lean forward, make sure you keep the bent leg bent, let gravity do the job and you end up like this

Dont ask me how it works but it just does and hey, i didnt fall!!! =) =) Hurts the back of the knee but its so cool!!!

Hoop Videos of Me!

Put my name down for the Christmas Showcase, attended practice and ta-da!

Tell me what u think!

Pictures!

Ready to roll!

Look at my arms! I see muscles!

Check out the blond behind me, she has bven bigger biceps!

Swing swing on the Compass Spin!
.

Love the pink lighting and my silhoutte =)

My blog is a shrine, narcissist self worship!

You have to love yourself before u can love others =)

Chin up! Pole and hoop are related because both demand upper body strength. The first few times at pole classes this year, my arms ached from Tuesday to Saturday.

I cant believe i did pole and hoop four days in a row this week and my arms are only mildly aching now. My ribs/centre/core hurt though and the back of my legs are all bruised...

The Normal Flag. Look at my reflection in the mirror!!

Was shit scared the first time i did this! But at the same time i felt so graceful!

Feeling beautiful is intoxicating, addictive and empowering, that is why i love hoop!

It was also a childhood dream to be a circus performer! Hahahah

Felt awesome up there as The Lady in The Moon, i cant see anyone below but i could hear the crowd cheer as we extended our arms!

Nope, no fear of heights! Its just amazing!

This move is called Smokey Joe

Take a closer look, in the Smokey Joe, we dont sit on the hoop, one leg is hooked and i hold myself in place using the back!

In the midst of doing the Flip Switch. This picture has the most circus look!!! =)

Part 1 and 2 of the performance



Messed up some of the floor work so i cut out those bits! Hahaha



In total i attended 2 casual classes, 7 course classes and 1 performance practice before the showcase =)

Passed!

Had my hoop class today. Week 7: assessment week! I passed!!! Yay!!! But I need to work on the rollover move.

Oh my god, next year I can take intermediate circus fitness aerial hoop classes! Unbelievable, never in my life did I think I could do this! :) At 25 years old!!

Exhausted! Goodnight!

Circus Fitness Aerial Hoop

Thats what we are taught on the first class of Beginners! Single leg hook

Second class!

Unless u have wings, u need to have biceps to get up like tweety bird! We also did some fancy hand and leg switch thing that confused me. Can do it no problem now =)

Week 3 we did some... twisty thingie that can't be drawn and resulted in this big bad baby

Picture taken on the Sunday after a Tuesday class, if i took it on Thursday its much worse! You should have seen the panic on my friend's face when she saw it!

Week 4

One leg hooked and your back holding u in place!

In the following video, i've counted 5 to 7 things i can do!!! =)

Of course she does it and move onto more advanced stuff, i just learned to do the basic and then go back down to the floor. Soooo much fun! Empowering =)


It started to fade, can u see the C shape? Because the hoop is round

In week 13 of pole, i attempted the Nasty Girl.

8 weeks ago i was so frustrated i couldnt do it, now i am soooo much better. Still not perfect. The above drawing illustrates my mistake. The butt is too far away from the pole, in theory, its supposed to touch the pole.

Front view of the Nasty Girl, the right way to do it. The muscles in between my ribs hurt because of it!!!

BodyBalance at the gym today really helped! I also did extra floor stretching on my own =) =)

Dazzler illustrated

Dazzler (an invert where u hang upside down on the pole, with your legs gripping onto the pole above your head)

To get into a Handstand, let go one hand and then the other so that both hands are on the floor with face and belly facing the pole


Both legs still holding on to the pole. Slowly descend, let go one leg and then the other.

In this drawing, i messed up the ankle work. Wrong grip, whoops!

The Tease! The only trick i had no problems doing =) My left wrist is stronger than my right wrist for some reason, so when i do this, i tend to put my left hand below my butt

Eye Candy, looks easy but trust me it ain't!

Late Night Shopping

Went shopping alone today. I work soooo far away from the city, so far away from most of my friends. Had dinner alone in the food court too. But that doesnt make my evening any less fulfilling!

Spent ages trying on dresses! No one's opinion to listen to but myself! Sometimes u get friends who have bigger budgets and u end up spending more than u want to. Sometimes u have friends with extremely low budget and they talk u out of snapping up a bargain!

Umm, i bought 4 maxi dresses cuz they were cheap...

See the bruises on the back of my knees? Result of Hoop classes! =) They arent as dark and ghastly as they were a week ago! Well worth it, love love love my hoop classes!! What i struggled with on Week 2 of Classes, i can do with no problem in Week 4 =)

And in Pole, it took me 11 weeks to finally do the Dazzler into a Handstand (an invert where u hang upside down on the pole, with your legs gripping onto the pole above your head. Let go one hand and then the other so that both hands are on the floor with face and belly facing the pole, both legs still holding on to the pole. Slowly descend from there =)

All out of breath after doing the trick, scary too! I was thinking what if i fall??? I'd go head first =S

The Queen

Queen Elizabeth of England... gave Melbourne and a few other cities in Australia a visit a few weeks back

I don't get why Aussies are so patriotic and fanatic about The Queen. They just refer to her as The Queen, as if she was Australian.

All over the radio, all over the papers

My Malaysian friend who is an Australian Permanent Resident genuinely likes her and lectured me about it! He said "She is Your Queen now" because i am a PR here too. Never thought of it that way!

I've been in Melbourne for exactly a year now. Though my initial entry was in March 2010, I left KL on 8 November 2010 to come here for good

Also, http://www.baybeetea.com/ is three years old! I've been blogging for longer than that, though i feel myself getting less and less disiplined to blog as often as i used to =(