to even start to talk about the summer ball at this totally bomb ass chateau in Courances, one has to start 3 days prior. Waking up, i suffered the world’s worst panick attack, that i didn’t have a ball-like dress. the competition would be tough and in all the strat classes you learn, it’s blue ocean man, so I worked hard to change the game. While others had issey miyaki, i found myself skipping classes to head into paris for salvation. shopping, if anything would definitely yield at least SOMETHING for the ball?

a key point to note: if u do intend to achieve an agenda of sorts, don’t bring shota with you. my parisian clothing run turned into a cafe-toting, parisien walkthrough and turned up ziltch in the clothing dept. I did, however, end up taking mindless shots (see below), buying strange crap like new skull n crossbone laces for my converses - you know, random shit that actually matters. it’s just the french thing to do nothing and shota has a well-practiced photo pout. i, definitely need a haircut. not sure how long i can sustain this 80’s coif.   given the sad state of affairs and relative desperation, i found myself negotiating for curtain drapes to make a giant bow on my somewhat semi-formal-esque outfit. that alone took 30 minutes of figuring out knots. i almost feel like i could be a sailor now. matty n hussein looked hot and we had to do mafia shots to seal in the posterity for the moment. chekkit. too hot for rocking i have to say. the recloses radikals are here to killya.

so, what do i think about the summer ball? firstly, i dont remember much. i did remember hawking a full bottle of champ around, queuing for some appetizers that took forever, watching some fireworks and dancing. a lot of dancing - mostly jumping around like a monkee. i had some anal french security guard who gave me the "no crazy wild moves" killar finger wave 4 times. 4 times! after tottering around looking dazed n confused, here is a run down of things i have lost 1) mobile phone 2) insead badge 3) atm card 4) my dignity - i think i fell down about 3 times but thankfully, i felt no pain whatsoever. 5) makeup. oh my god, do you even know what’s its like to have no makeup at all?!?! the thought is scary and warrents at least 30 secs of deep, penetrating thought.

to sum up the night, here is a pic that i do not even remember taking. actually, here’s 2 pix! where are all these pics coming from? i am starting to think i may have just had more than my fair amount of alcohol. there were sightings of me running barefooted on the grass - see that’s useful, at least i now know why my bath is full of grass bits. thanks colin for sending it in, enuff said, no makeup, dishevelled and bagless - definitely signs of excessive drinking. this is an illustration of a parked brain in reverse.

p3’s classes have been more interesting than not - definitive sign is when i sleep and snore less in class. I think my fave has to be IPA and macro, although i envision doing poorly for both, since in reading the text, i encounter strange and terrible words such as "odius, odium, hedgemony". maybe i am just dumber with age cos as i am writing this, i find myself checking to see if i had spelt it right. to me, i probably should hve taken this course 5 years ago - i would probably had a better shot at it, if anything my spelling would be much better. damn microsoft spellcheck! right now, i realize how little i think of the world and the events at large, and it could be some kind of endemic disease, but i do think this ambivialence or mental laziness is a function of yuppiedom and realizing that life is so much simpler when all you need to think about is what to do with your Friday evenings. i guess IPA and macro have been great at reviving my socio-political conscience. and p.s - watching west wing does not count as general knowledge of the universe…although i would have liked to think otherwise.

3 weeks in and my schedule hasn’t been too too crazy, which is a pleasent relief as i find myself enjoying my house, sitting in the garden reading and playing the piano. There have been more dinners and parties than usual and the brillance of summer is starting to hit. went for a run yesterday at 945pm just to catch the sunset and the french countryside is breathtaking. there are still moments where definitely, france is bloody beautiful. And, i am learning to eat cheese, which is a pleasent surprise for me still, u can’t take the asian out of a girl, so i made sambal mussels, prawn paste chicken and vegetables for dinner. nothing quite like hawker style food to get me going. for that, going back to sg in p5 is gonna be ace.

surprise dinner tonight organized by jason - i love surprises. there is nothing more gratifying than having an inkling that you might receive a surprise and the actual high of getting one hand-delivered. there is quite nothing like the feeling knowing that there is someone out there that loves you enough to plan something around your life and happiness. for that, we have to drink to it.

more ipa calls, so chat later.

it’s been a looong week where i haven’t gotten much done. after a bummed out trip to paris last night ( we totally missed our window to party at triptique cos the diplo gig was sold out), lindsay and me walked around in the cold for a while and headed home. Dragon week came and went and it was nice that the chateau had been prettily decorated (although, i didn’t do anything to help at all). still, it looked like people had a good time.

today is meant to be a quiet day. i signal quiet days with singer-songwriter music. i whip out jason mraz’s "sleeping to dream" - one of those brilliant tracks that just makes me go wow…damn. the lyrics are amazing and i am trying to read IPA to this but decided to stuff it and start singing to the lyrics. my fave sentence - am always wondering if i will date someone who could write lyrics like that:"I am sleeping to dream about you, and i am so damn tired, of having to live without you, but i don’t mind that i am sleeping to dream about you." is that hot, or what?

in line with poetry and lyrical brillance, here’s a snapshot of our poetic potency on the recent pyreenees trip. Andy really stole the show with a couple of his lines. chekkit (will take some time to load, just cos i dont have a clue about video compressions). there’s still loads more of this shite, whereever it came from. good times, n good laughs…we must have been royally drunk for this to happen. never again, i say! but it’s been a weird week of music, poetry where i discover a couple more poets, musicians and djs at insead. and of course, i finally hear the infamous Blue Ocean song by colin mutchler - which made me half gaff at its sheer comedic content but also am at the same time amazed at how the music worked pretty well. definitely singable. and the best part is the song includes REMIXES. that’s right - u hear me, there are remixes available. click and njoy.

so much for quiet night. just received an invite for movie in paris, drinks in paris and paris paris. gonna be a busy night again. ciao funksters.

un-fuckin’-believable. unexpected. random. mad. emotional. that was gilles petersen’s set tonight at favela chic. bloody legend. a hugely unpublicized event, gilles petersen started spinning at like 6pm…to the dinner crowd and self-selecting hipsters of all sorts. as usual, the beautiful favela chic crowd lived up to its name, with electro kids, hippies, happy gay men, beautiful models all milling around. in my mind, this has to be one of the best fuckin events all year. there were moments where i danced till there were tears in my eyes. i love it when music hits you so hard that you don’t even need drugs because all you want to do is smile and dance and feel the beat. while i always tagged gilles petersen to the essential mixes and sorta tech/ progressive house, tonights music was completely out of whack. he played samba, soul, funk, broken beats and nu-beats. i had not heard nyorican soul in forever and gilles p played that. nothing quite like "black gold of the sun" to get you going. there was an mc on the decks - i never danced so hard. actually, i think i pulled a muscle but it’s well worth it. there is a moment when you are in your own headspace and you look up and frankly, life looks pretty damn great. there was couples dancing, making out, love or lust was in the air. i love it all… éuphoria is a pretty good replacement for all things that could possibly go wrong

the night already started good. we headed to paris and it only took us 45 minutes to get in. parking was easy peasy. the pre-party was at benoit’s house, which is a crazy myraid of records, decks, wires and wine. we had champagne, put on some classic soul music, danced in circles in the hall, shared japanese tempura and licked the salt content up to stock up energy for the night. benoit was talking about doing a dj set entirely with soul tracks about rain and sun. i requested that he added love and romance to the mix. and that, would be just pure sunshine. that’s all you need - 3 elements of happiness. we practiced some cool robotic moves and cheesy pick-up lines and set ourselves up to go.

happy? yes. tired? definitely. my ears are ringing and i think i am deaf but man, it was totally worth it. i felt like i had died and lived again. that’s what a great dancing night does for you…and it only took half bottle of champ and 1 mojita. not bad for a night’s work.

time to crash; it’s a nu day and i have to start finding good soul tunes. am thinking definitely sister sledge and i do want to get nyurican soul. there’s a bunch of obscure shit that i also need to get. some nina simone remixes. too fuckin’right.

now, bedtime.

i got the chance to rockclimb or more like boulder around fonty yesterday. been meaning to do it for ages since arnaud and mel d asked me but have been far too lazy to get off my arse and do it. but since i had the privilege of totally and fatally embarressing myself in front of a bunch of P5s yesterday, i thought…why the hell not? after all, they leave in 6 weeks and all images of me being a curled up, a scared shitless twat with quivering arm mucles, will probably be swept under the carpet, together with all their drunken and bad lvm behavious

rock climbing in an au natural environment is hard. despite my relative training with hiking, on the pyrenees and my experience with indoor climbing, climbing outdoors isnt quite the same i admit. firstly, there is the business of bugs that are drawn to sweat. and sand…every-freaking-where. and like…no ropes so you can cheat by hanging on to your belayer. so yeah, it’s just harder.

gilles petersen spins at favela chic tonight…sneakers up. dancing with benoit and lindsay is gonna be ace - since both are relentless dancers, although, i kinda wished the height ratio wil be lower. i hate being so short here, i find myself having to scream louder at parties, which does terrible things to the vocal chords. but as long as my dancing feet work, that should be fine. pony up!

it’s the first weekend of P3 and it has been an exhausting week of socializing. i do believe i have been drinking since tuesday night and while i love the taste of beer and wine, the effects of drink are wearing me down. checkpoint: running the treadmill today was not only a joke, it was actually nauseating. it’s terrible. when the gym sup asked me how my workout went, i gave her a wane smile and muttered…"not so good". she immediately burst out laughing - guess she saw my expressive look. weak ass that i am. so let’s see, lvm on tuesday, one old school dress up dinner on wed, one bbq at our place on thurs and vorspiel/ shangri-la on friday + bojana’s hen party for saturday. talk about being partied out…

i have finally accepted gavin’s persistent offer to work on onesead…fun stuff. for some reason, when i came to b-sch i always thought myself as a right-brain/ math person. apparantly, i am in fact a left-brainer who is considered creative. how did that happen - but life is random so there is not a good explanation for eveyrthing i suppose. and, people develop over time, so i guess i am developing into somewhat of a different creature. certainly more grumpy in the mornings.

right, been seized by sudden urge to organize a random dinner and will do so…right now.

first things first - the vorspiel yesterday was great. albeit it could have been sunnier, and classes could have ended at 6pm instead of 7pm but the turnout was pretty good. i did think about spinning electro breaks but then, i did wake up yesterday feeling like i really, really, wanted to dance. really. so club sounds and awesome house music was the way to go. roll on, roll on, it was great to see new faces at this vorspiel, it’s good to know that at least we are getting in new blood. about 10 odd people came up to us and told us that vorspiel should be weekly and that friday was the perfect deal. i would love to do it, i would - but am wondering what admin is gonna say to that. my initial gut feel is just to say no, probably just once a month but matty pretty much sat me down this morning and yelled into my ear that he thinks vorspiel should at least be twice a month. parties and me…hard to turn down a proposition like that.

post-vorspiel, we hit shangri-la. theme of the night - Miami vice. seriously, i was astounded how many people had white jackets…really. i mean, who the hell buys white things unless they were looking to look like wide-screens on display? the only bust-hugging top i had, i had to roll that out just for kicks. sometime around 4am, the police came and shut the party down…so we all had to evac the joint. this gives me the idea for nakspiels - i mean, we should be completing the cycle right?

another crazy day ahead. first, bojana’s hen party/ dinner - i have to dj again, which means i got to put on a hen’s night set list…hmmm…this is going to be tough. despite having 80GB of music with me right now, i am lacking in everything bon jovi, geri halliwell etc etc etc. how did that happen? problem arises when u have like all of belle and sebastians and death cab for cutie’s albums that also means that i don’t get to chat with people again. at some point in time, my insead experience may consist of me starring into my laptop screen and playing music. interacting with the mouse in all likelihood. but all is fine - i did get offered a sympathy dinner date, so that’s cool. it’s a favour i can call in anytime

wow, i didn’t know vorspiel friday would have such an impact on the administrative muscle at insead. i knew i was getting into hot water trying to renegade this event but admin finally caught up with me. i sat in the mba operations office today for 30 min trying to explain what the spirit of vorspiel was, how students would not get drunk and naked on the porch of insead and scare away visiting execs and how there would be no live band, dancing queens or fire-breathing…(i sorta lied there because i really wanted a fire-breather at one of these things). but overall, thanks to gavin-freaking-adda for like not being a good enuff administratve gnome. so gavin, no dinner date for u.

moving into the new house has been real nice. its great to be surrounded by friends u love. we are putting out a barbie tonight and setting up a small dinner thing, with great music and good fun. this week has just flown up so quickly, cant believe i am on Day 3 of P3?! geez, at this rate this mba is over in NO time. no time at all…should i now bother to get new bedsheets? would the marginal benefit of having new sheets outweight the cost and time that they would get utilized?? but i will do one thing - read the damn FT daily. with macro on play, vengence is mine!

back finally from a 5 day mountain hike/ drink bingeing party in the pyrenees. that’s south of france for those that are wondering…it’s ok, i didn’t know that either. 8 hours drive, some lost directions that led to many, cold, cruel sandwiches at the local gas station finally brought us to the most charming house ever. thanks holly j for the awesome recee-ing.

so, day 1’s baby hike of about 1900m or something resulted in me cramping up, making faces, falling down twice, falling asleep at the mountain top and realizing that i am a loser of a mountain goat. to top that, the Whoonu game we played, everyone handed me items that they thought i would like, of which "big cities" and "new york city" were 2 choices that came out tops on my list. see, i am a big city girl. i think i like the idea of hiking, and cooking, and lying on the grass but actually hiking has been somewhat of a harrowing experience. i definitely think i was a weak link amongst the healthy pack. to pass time, we played a lot of games, some involved humming popular tunes using farm animal sounds. if u have ever heard of abba’s waterloo hummed using cricket - check in with giles…he makes a mean cricket rendition.

tomorrow starts a new day with some old faces, and a ton of new ones. disorientation all over again. fun fun fun…i learnt something new today - i always thought kraftwerks autobahn track said " fun fun fun down the autobahn". having listened closely to all 24.5 minutes of the track today in gile’s car i realized it is GERMAN! how surprising…wonders never cease.

it’s 1030pm and my accomodation options for the night have just run out. un-freaking-belivable. this means i get to couch-crash tonight. great way to start a period…but first a quick beer! that’s the way to spin it.

today’s blog is all about movement. things are moving along speedily (way behind on the studying), but THE NEXT VORSPIEL will be on 12 May. so be there or be square (sorry, couldn’t resist). the music will be rocking and hopefully the weather doesn’t screw us over. there will be a hotdog crew to provide food and happy hour is on at the bar as usual.

poster looks different this time around - i thought the style would reflect a bit more summer fun and robotic coolness. so meet marvin- the may vorspiel mascot. as usual, head to the vorspiel friday site for updates.

on other movement items…i could not resist putting up this link to Ramstein - german industrial band with some serious moves. it will give you a whole new meaning to rubber penises. thanks biggie rice, for sending this along. it freaking made my day. although, i now have decided to throw away my own rubber penis for one that sprays. see it to believe it. anyone who knows what Buck Dich means gets a free hotdog from me. seriously.

last note on movement: to consistently change my scenary and finding an excuse to shut my eyes while tripping my way across the hall, i find myself rotating between cubicles on the southwest wing. flipping between sun spots and a swap between cristobel and jj is always entertaining and allows my brain to rest for approximately 35.6 sec.

ok, tons of fun but i got to squeeze in another 7 hours of studying. how does my ass look like stuck to a chair…? pretty damn nasty if u ask me. ciao amigos and good luck!