A Taste of New Orleans Jazz right here in KL!

I love jazz music!

Any chance I get, I'll drag my friends with me to a jazz fest or concerts that are held year-round in the city.

The Petronas Philharmonic Hall, situated between the Petronas Twin Towers, hosts jazz bands, mostly uncommercial but widely popular in their country of origin, from time to time. And I don't think I've missed a single show there (actually I did.... HARRY CONNICK, Jr!!!), especially since the tickets are dirt cheap!

Anyway, we were there to watch the Preservation Hall Jazz Band from New Orleans, who performed at the hall on Aug 15 and 16. I hadn't heard of the band prior to the concert, but I was aware of the rich history and legacy of the city of New Orleans in its contribution to jazz music. So I was really looking forward to hearing them perform.

Concert night, my buddy Kim and I went straight to the box office to collect our tickets and get dinner before heading up to the hall. I had forgotten that the dress code for this type of concert was smart casual. Still, I was shocked at what some of the audience were wearing!!

Does no one know what the term, "smart casual" means?? It does not mean wearing three-quarter drainpipe or cargo pants; neither does it mean wearing round neck tee shirts OR sneakers OR slippers!!! Yet, there were aunties that looked like they'd just gone grocery shopping before making their way to the show. Yikes! It looks some of us need to educate ourselves on what constitutes smart casual whenever an event calls for this kind of dress code.

Back to the concert... It was love at first sound for PHJB! The band members consisted of seasoned professionals both young and old (the band leader is 36-year-old cutie, Mark Braud) who've played with jazz greats and legends, past and present.
They not only entertained the audience with their talent playing their respective instruments, but got us laughing as well, with their solo vocal renditions that were more like stories told to the sound of bluesy, soulful jazz.

I still have goosebumps thinking about last week's show, which was way too short and ended way too soon. My love for jazz just quadrupled after watching them perform.

The band will be in Taipei on the 28th and will end their Asian tour at Taipei on Sept 1.

Man, I soooo wanna go to New Orleans now!!!

Another lame-assed weekend...

The weekend is here... and I'm broke!

Not like it makes a difference since I hardly do anything on weekends. I'm done at work early on Sat mornings, then I head home and straight to bed. It's usually 7 or 8pm when I wake up to dinner, some rerun on HBO, but this weekend at least there's live football on tv.

By midnight, I'm in bed again until 630am on Sunday, when it's church day. And for the rest of the day, there's nothin to do but veg out... which I hate doing!

But I have discovered a new hobby which is making stuff, like bags, for instance. I was so gung ho about bringing designs to life that I broke the sewing machine my mom bought for a steal!! My toy broken, I'll have to wait patiently for it to be repaired when I bring it over to the service center this weekend to have it fixed.

Looks like I'll have to go back to my beads and think up new designs... ones that'll hopefully make me some money.... :D

The Season's back, baby!!!

I'm stoked! It's the new football season!

It's back to noisy Sat/sun nights, cheering on the boys with mum and the siblings.

It's an ugly scene when I watch my team play live. Real ugly.

I love them! And it's about the game, not about the men, where women football fans are concerned. So get with it boys!

LFC RULE!

My daily grind

It's a friday morning, on Aug 14 2009.

I'm at work. Yes, I work the graveyard shift, permanently. It's not difficult to figure out the kind of business I work for. My employer is a BPO. Our clients are a major pharmaceutical company and we run the HR call center to take care of their staff in the States.

I started out as a voice on the phone, now I monitor the performance of those voices on the phone. It's a fun job, sometimes. But it's no fun being the bad guy (that's what the call center people think of you anyway), analysing the performance of these employees and telling them to suck it up and do their job cos that's what they're paid to do! Alas, that is what I'm paid to do.

Sometimes, though, I wonder if there is more to life than just this job I'm in. I'm certainly grateful to be gainfully employed, what with today's recession being felt the world over, but really... have you ever stopped and asked yourself what all this will lead to in the end?

Think about it! You go to work to get paid at the end of each month, only to use 1/10 of your hard earned money to pay for the food you eat daily (mostly takeaway from a mamak restaurant near work). Let's not forget the hire purchase payment you have to make on that car you don't-really-own, plus gas and toll money to help you get to work so you can get paid and start the cycle each month without fail!

Some of us may not even like what we do for a living!

When fresh graduates join the workforce, their first job is a stepping stone to something bigger. So they stick with a company for one, maybe two years, and once the experience is gained, they add it to their one page resume and put as much detail about their first two years on their first job to make it two pages. Then ship off this newly updated resume to other companies offering not necessarily better jobs, but ones that pay more. They continue to do this until they find: a) a job with a dream-employer (read: one that has a better benefits package); OR b) a job that will take them up the corporate ladder.

I started my first job after leaving secondary school. The initial idea was to save up enough money to go to college, as back in the day, banks didn't offer study loans. But the money earned from working was just too good to put away for something better like tertiary education! So I worked, and with each job, with promised myself to go back to school each year or stay long enough to earn a promotion. But I was always bored with every job I found! I could only do something for two years at the longest. And then I'd get restless, which is when I start making plans.

Before I knew it, I turned 30! I was ashamed. I had accomplished very little in my 12 years of being corporate slave. It wasn't too late to do something about that though. So I enrolled in college part time, to study law. Three years later, I've put my pre-law exams off (for the last time, I swear!) as I've had trouble juggling the graveyard shift, evening classes, and completing assignments.

Today, as I sit in front of my company-owned laptop, waiting for my ride to finish her work for the day, I am trying to figure out what life has planned for me. What the heck am I here for? There has to be a reason for living, and it's not just about slogging at the office 8-12 hours a day, five days a week, to bring back a paycheck where you only get to enjoy 10% of your earnings.

If I die tomorrow, I'd like to have a good life flash before my eyes, one where I've accomplished what I was set here to do, and not just that of an average human being who worked like everyone else, didn't contribute much to society and is now dead and buried with nothing to show for her 30-something years of living!!

While I wait for God to whisper my life's purpose to me, I will simply fill my time and eliminate boredom by banging on the keyboard a bunch of gibberish I call my blog entries, while trying my hand at crafts, a new hobby I'm so into at the moment.

Somebody get me a cup of instant coffee!!