Just discovered a new artist- Carla Bruni. Italian by blood, she grew up in Paris. She's apparently a supermodel-turned-singer, and released her first album in 2002. What's impressive is that she wrote all of her own songs. Anyway, I highly recommend checking her out. Album title is Quelqu'un M'a Dit and is available in the iTunes Music Library. I don't understand French, but it's still beautiful to listen to. Maybe it's even better that way-- never gets boring ;)

Clee's song pick of the day: "Sway" by the Pussycat Dolls. Check out the 30-second sample at the iTunes Music Store!

Sewing ballet shoes is hard work. I feel like my eyesight has degraded by 0.5 just from sewing the straps for just one of my shoes tonight.

I've deemed this the right-foot shoe.



Purty shoe! Can't wait to start dancing in it.



Now onto the left shoe!!!

Thanks to listening to other people's iTunes libraries, I've developed a strong affinity for the electronica/dance genre of music- especially a variant called trip hop. For example, I've known of Portishead ever since I was in high school and we did warm-up to Portishead music in dance class. However, I never really appreciated their music until now- now, I absolutely love the style. Smooth, lyrical, hip-hop with a dark edge to it (hence "trip hop?"), groovy, and never canned or anything you could get sick of listening to. I've re-discovered favorites such as DJ Shadow, Moby and Fatboy Slim. Now I'm schooling myself on the various trip-hoppy bands. Here's Wikipedia's entry on trip hop. Snippet below:

Trip hop (also known as the Bristol sound) is a term coined by United Kingdom dance magazine Mixmag, to describe a musical trend in the mid-1990s; trip hop is downtempo electronic music that grew out of England's hip hop and house scenes. Characterized by a reliance on breakbeats and a sample-heavy sound pioneered by Coldcut's remix of Eric B. & Rakim's "Paid in Full", trip hop gained notice via popular artists such as Portishead, Massive Attack, Tricky, and rock-influenced sound groups such as Ruby, California's DJ Shadow, and the UK's Howie B. Londoners Morcheeba and Glideascope are also often associated with this sound. The latest addition to this line of performers is Jem

On a completely different topic, I went to ballet class this Monday at Academy of American Ballet-- my first dance class in who knows how long. Well, at least I thought it was going to be ballet. Turns out that they recently began alternating Monday evening lessons with pilates every other week. So I took my very first pilates class. My abs haven't been this sore in a long time. One neat thing about this class and going to the ballet school is that I was introduced to it by a fellow Orkut user. I founded and moderate the largest dance community in the Orkut network, called "Dance Like No One's Watching" which is where I met her. She's probably the first person I've ever met in person from any of these social networks. Yay for Orkut! And thanks Margaret! Your passion for ballet has inspired me to get off my ass and start dancing regularly again. *tear*.... okok, sarcasm with the tear. but in all seriousness, at least I'm (sort of) on the road to draining the water bed.

This is not good. My belly is officially a water bed. Yes, seriously, it is. Gotta do something about this.

I admire people who have the discipline to exercise everyday, because it really is not an easy thing to do. Especially for someone like me who has very limited options in terms of where to exercise. There's a gym and 2 swimming pool-treadmills (pools where it's about the size of a large bathtub but you can swim "laps" in it b/c the current pushes against you), plus a multitude of fitness classes and programs. But I just don't like working out at work because I don't want my coworkers to see me laboring and pooping out. Basically, how weak I am. Or see me all sweaty and red. Yes, maybe that sounds lame, but oh well. I'm just waiting for hip-hop classes to return. Until then, I will have to get off my arse and do something. Not only do I have this water bed situation, but my flexibility is slowing leaving me! No!!! Back to ballet it is.