Shall We Dance?

I like dancing, and I enjoy dancing. It's one of my favorite things. Then why after all these years I’m still in level one? There’s a good explanation. Learning all the dance steps and flowing grace requires time, and a compatible dancing partner is too hard to find. These make it more difficult for a woman like me who has a busy job and a family to attend to. Every time after a few lessons, I was forced to stop because of other obligations.

Why dance intrigues me? I love music, I love beautiful songs. When beautiful music is on, my heart and my body fly, they want to feel the rhythm. When I dance, my heart sings and I’m happy. Worries or pressure seem so far away. That’s why Whenever I saw people dance beautifully and gracefully, my heart is intrigued and my legs want to prance or shiver with excitement.

Can you imagine that I was awkward at dancing especially with ballet when I was small? My mom sent my sister and me to a dance class even though we could only live from hand to mouth. I don’t know if it was because my muscles developed slowly or because my sister was an excellent dancer that I felt frustrated compared with her. I disappointed my mom and quit the lessons.

Many years later after I entered the college, I found it was easy for me to pick up steps that students danced at that time. Dancing soothed me and helped me liberate myself. Yet I stopped going to parties later because I didn’t like the atmosphere very much and also because I met my boy friend who had two left legs.

Numerous years passed. Just when I was about to give up the hope of dancing, I met my lady friends who also like to dance. We motivate each other to explore the dance world. With Sherry and Linda’s coaching I even tried Japanese dance, the dance that I never even dreamed of doing. Among all of us Lydia is the best ball room dancer. Irene focuses on line- dance. Now it becomes routine for her to show us some new steps whenever we get together. Pamela arranged a few Jitterbug classes for us to learn from her husband. After all these pleasant experiences, I found it almost impossible for me to give up dancing.

But what about all the obstacles? In order to have more options, I began to practice the male part of leading the dance. Everybody says dancing lead is much more difficult than female part and I have to learn all over again. That is not entire true and I believe I can handle it. By dancing the male part, I can always find a partner because male dancers are welcome everywhere. After a few months practice I finally made a difference. At the housewarming party I, as the male dancer, tried my awkward steps with my lady friends.

Surprisingly my lady friends put up with me nicely, they even enjoyed my lead.
It built up my confidence. I shall keep pursuing my dancing dream. I take Lydia my role model. One day I can proudly say “Shall we dance? Or “May I have the next dance?”

Trini

My Housewarming Party

It’s hard to believe that I just had my housewarming party. I’ve moved several times in my life, never once felt excited about it. They were all for practical reasons and I moved with little notice. This time I couldn’t keep a low profile. My ladies friends were happy for me because I’m finally moving back close to town. Everyone was curious about my new apartment and new environment, so I held a housewarming party. It took me almost three months to finally get everything settled down. Three months of non-stop packing, planning, moving and unpacking. Finally it was time for me to relax a little bit.

We set the date more than a month head so that all the goldies can make it. Still, there was no guarantee everything would go our way. Michelle couldn’t fly back on the scheduled day from her business trip as she planned, She was going to miss the gathering. You see? Murphy’s Law! We felt very sorry when receiving her e-mail. Yet, my instinct told me that things might change at the last moment, it’s Murphy’s Law! What do you know? Michelle did work every possible way to fly home on Saturday to join us for the evening program. She missed the exciting Karaoke part, still we were all deeply touched and welcomed her with wide open arms.

Sherry, Irene, and Pamela arrived first. Lydia and Linda came second. When Kate, Gina and her friend from afar Vita arrived, we had finished lunch and moved to the Karaoke room. Everyone bought something good to eat though I reminded them not to. With good snacks, drinks and numerous songs, we almost blew the roof off.

Linda and Sherry had to leave before Michelle arrived for a wedding banquet. Sherry would return for the slumber party and see Michelle. Michelle arrived before six. We had another exciting chat with some new topics while having dinner. It’s about 10:30 p.m., nobody wanted to leave before Sherry returned from the banquet. When Sherry finally showed up, we had another blast laughing and taking photos.

Only Pamela and Sherry can stay overnight. Michelle having been away on business trip needed to be with her husband. Others had programs early next morning. So we called it a day.

Pamela and I walked Gina, Irene, Kate, Lydia, Michelle and Vita out. To our big surprise, we couldn’t find Lydia’s car. What happened? It was towed! How could that happen? It was a narrow alley next to our reception area. This had never happened before. It was my fault and I hoped my negligence didn’t make their husbands worry. It took us quite a long driving back and force to the tow station to finally had the car released. Luckily we had each other’s company to deal with it together. We even joked and laughed about it.

Sherry was home alone. Well, I knew it was perfectly alright with her as long as she has a book in hand.

When Pamela and I arrived home, it was midnight. We were still wild awake. After taking a shower we continued our chat and took some more photos before we hit the sack. Women!

I don’t know when we fell asleep. It doesn’t matter. We had a wonderful time. Pamela left shortly after we got up the next morning. Moses came to pick her up. Sherry and I kept spending our day together having breakfast, watching movies, taking a stroll on the oldest street of the town, enjoying the snacks sold by the street vendors and eateries until it was 5:00 p.m. Wow, how did all the time pass?

After sending Sherry off, I sighed, “I made it, I finally made it!’ It was an enjoyable party. Everybody seemed happy and excited. As for me? I’m going to have my new life at the new place. Hope my family loves it, too.

T/Ms meetings - Murphy's Law Is Everywhere

This blog hasn't been managed for some time. So why not put the meeting minutes I wrote for my club here.

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Tonight was a night full of surprises, wonders and flexibility. Murphy’s law played tricks on our meeting. Yet, team work and T/Ms spirit prevailed, and we had another enjoyable meeting like always.

Surprises? Robert brought six or seven of his colleagues to the meeting. They really helped warm up the atmosphere. For the first time in many months we had four speakers and they all showed up and fulfilled their assignments.

Wonders? Quite a few meeting roles were open. Before the meeting, we had two assignments untaken. When the meeting started, GE hadn’t showed up because of her job. The attendance rate was a bit low. The club President Randolph went to get the agenda and meeting material from his office realizing that VPE Grace couldn’t come. It took him only seventeen Minutes, almost impossible during traffic hours, to get to the venue just in time to take over the opening given by acting President in time. Murphy tried.

Flexibility? Shortly before the meeting, all the meeting roles were finally filled up. Some members had to take two meeting roles. Debbie was asked to host the Table Topics Session besides being the Variety Session Master. Ray was both the Ah counter and the Vote counter. I myself, the GE took kind of three meeting roles, too, acting President, Language and General Evaluation. Murphy did it again.

The other important factors that made tonight’s meeting successful were:

1. A romantic theme “Romantic” generated interest and sharing from the audience. Carl and Randolph’s sharings were beautiful and touching. The 1st love was too good to forget; to be real romantic one has to do double what the beloved one expects.
2. Besides setting the beautiful theme of the meeting, TME Carl did a good preparation to ensure interesting introduction and smooth transition.
3. Variety session and Table topics masters Debby Ho did a wonderful job in creating laughter and
Threw questions related to daily lives to get both members and guests to comment on the topics.
4. Four manual speeches given by Marc Liang, Jamie Liu, Jo Shih and Larry Lee made tonight’s meeting truly educational and informative.
5. For senior members John Wen, Randolph Chiang, Mike yang and Choi Chang, give truly practical and helpful evaluations.

At last, I must say together we tied the bolts and nuts precisely to make the fruitful and enjoyable meeting possible no matter how hard Murphy had tried. By Trini Ding, DTM

The Royal Wedding

"Fairy tales are experienced by their hearers and readers, not as realistic, but as symbolic poetry." ~Max Luthi
The Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine/Kate Middleton was broadcast live around the world. Still probably over a million people gathered at Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace to witness the wedding of the century in person. Even I by myself watched the live and video coverage over and over again.

Picture source: news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//110429/481/urn_publi...d49dbba2f/

Because of the time difference, the wedding ceremony took place our evening time and it was perfect for me to watch it on TV at home. The day before the wedding, I took it simply as a world event, nothing special. After the news clips were played repeatedly, it successfully aroused my curiosity and attention to the point that I left my TV on soon after I arrived home. After the live broadcast of the wedding, I continued surfing from one channel to another to watch the repeated news. I was addicted to it. Was I manipulated by the media?

I started to ponder on it. Why it made such impact on people around the world? What does it mean? How did it successfully draw the world's attention from other events? My interpretation on this Century Wedding is given from three perspectives; dream, fantasy and fairy tale.

It's like a beautiful dream or a fantasy comes true. All girls have their dream of meeting the love of their life who is both rich and handsome, and having a beautiful wedding, wearing the most beautiful gown. Boys dream of a beautiful and sweet girl. right? In reality, it happens to a very few people that possess just one or two of these elements. But it happens! So hold your dreams or whatever fantasy you have, it may be realized one day. Have hope, your dreams may come true.

Fairy tale - Among all those limited countries that still have their royal families to signify the glory of history, The Great Britain is the strongest, most powerful and most significant one. All the members of the royal family still receive a great attention from the world. Their weddings look sacred, holy and grandiose that there's no any other wedding no matter how luxurious can compare. The tear-jerking love stories of princes and princess exist in all fairy tales. The love story between Prince William and Kate was full of dramatic effect, too. In addition Prince William has shown the world his strength and softness besides his charisma, Kate Middleton represents confident and charming modern women. They are like match in heaven.

All in all, the Royal Wedding seems the most exciting and stimulating event at this time of trouble. My best wishes to the royal couple. Wish they live happily and peacefully ever after.

Trini