My first blog make-over!

Yes, yes, yes, I've made-over my own blog many times, but today I spent almost all day helping out a friend of mine, Rima Rashidi, who, together with her buddy Siti Hajar, has started her own business: Studio Vocal Siti Hajar!

You see, they had established a blog for the business, but had chosen the cookie-cutter harbor template which pained me so to look at for a business site, and me being me, I offered to jazz it up a bit to the best of my limited abilities...

I had all these fancy ideas for the header, but have very basic photoediting software and skills, so decided to go with black plus basic colors. Blue is a color associated with communication, so I decided to make that the main color. The rest of the day was spent tweaking all those friggin' colors... here's what I handed over to them:


... if you notice, this blog has yet to be properly "completed" in terms of color-tweaking, precisely because I'd get fed up trying to figure out the best combo! But hey, I'm now inspired to do some color tweaking here, and long-overdue header tweaking at my today.com blogs :)

And a final shout-out for my pal: if you happen to be in KL/Selangor, and have been wanting to sign up for voice lessons, why not drop by Studio Vocal Siti Hajar and check them out? They will be open for business & registration on January 4th 2010 @ 6pm.

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25 days to 2010: Rachel Guerzo is "Just Friends"

I'm so proud of, and for, Rachel Guerzo! My junior from high school, Rachel always did have a great set of pipes and lungs on her, and over time has established herself as pretty much the female jazz vocalist in Kuala Lumpur. And now, Rachel is finally releasing her debut album entitled Just Friends.



Here's her official biography:

Born into Malaysia’s most influential music family the Solianos, pianist and singer Guerzo has emerged as one of the most exciting and innovative jazz musician in her own right, honing her craft and playing to discerning live audiences over the past two decades. Influenced by consummate performers such as Shirley Horn, Tania Maria, Diana Krall and Eliane Elias, she both learned from them and gradually discovered her own unique voice.

In addition to playing regularly with her father, saxophonist Salvador Guerzo, and her uncle, drummer Rizal Soliano, Rachel has worked with some very fine musicians such as Michael Veerapen, Steve Thornton, Valtinho Anastascio, Pascoal Mirelles, Lewis Pragasam and Farid Ali. She headlined the Sunrise Jazz & Rhythm Festival in 2007 and her début album will be released later this year. In April 2010 Rachel will make her debut at the prestigious Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS as part of its Spotlight: Jazz series.

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You know what, I might just make my way back to KL to catch her DFP performance next April! No kidding. I'll see what I can do to set those wheels in motion.

In the meantime... ... I've hunted high and low for a good vid to post of Rachel's live performances, to no avail: you can check them out for yourself here. Instead, I humbly ask you to click on through to Rachel's site on AMP (if it's down, try back later, k?). There you can listen to her covers of What are you doing the rest of your Life? and Only Trust your Heart. I hope you'll agree that's one amazing youg lady!

Hope you have a great week! (Mine started out white!)

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The Fragility of Life

I am still reeling from the shock of the news that awaited me the yahoo email account devoted almost exclusively to my Malaysian schoolmates.

St Mary's Primary and Secondary School was where I grew up.

Where I made lifelong friends.

Friends who may not be in immediate touch, what with my lack of communication except for this blog, occasional text messages, and rather strict moderation of our Yahoo!Group. But we St Marians (and I make this statement based not just on my batch!) have been blessed with this community-mindedness, this cohesiveness, this friendship that continues despite the "realities" of adult life, including, as all too common in Malaysia, shall we say, racial polarization?

Aaaaannnnyway... what I'm getting at is I've always looked back on my time in St Mary's with great fondness. My last 2 years especially - Form 4 & 5 - was where I kinda joined my "gang" ... nothing gangsterly laaaa, more like, finally, a group of people with whom I actually ... belonged. Among the people in this gang is someone we fondly call Ojai. She was the more loud and outspoken one, dynamic, outgoing, and also the first of the gang to get hitched. Over thirteen years of the ups and downs of married life, some of which was shared with me the last time we met, and my that was one of those last-minute things that just kinda happened the night before my flight out, Neome and I met her at Bangsar and chatted for *how* long??!! :)

... and then ...

On Friday 5th September 2008, around 5:40 am, while having sahur (eating before the start of fasting), Ojai's husband complained of dizziness and numbness on one side of his body. Got him to a clinic, suspected a stroke, but that was eliminated.

A CT scan told the cold hard truth - a brain tumour.

A big one.

Like 25% of the brain was the tumor. And it was intimately involved in the blood supply to the brain, thus complete removal would not be possible. But removal needed to be done. He went under the knife on Monday 8th September. There were major complications during the op, but he emerged, and is now recovering better than the doctor's expectations.

I can only imagine, and poorly, how her and her family's life changed that day.

And it is with pride I share her advice to us, which reflects how she healthily she is dealing with what has happened:

Friends..please dont ever take ur health, ur life for granted... go for regular check-ups (it wont prevent the disease but it can help early detection & cure), maintain health insurance (at least have 1, small if not big) to assist u should God honour u with test such as this.

Most of all, Value your time with those who matters as u cant be sure of how much time u've got left.

Well... A lot may feel this is sad..but I feel blessed.. as God has given us...a second chance to make better paths in our lives...

Friends.. I'm taking this opportunity to thank all of you for your prayers/thoughts/support.... if I ever missed telling you guys, I'm telling u guys now... I'm glad to have friends like u... mmmmmmmuuuuuuaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!

-OJAI-

A sloppy mmmmmmmuuuuuuaaaahhhhhhh!!!!! right back at ya, dearie!
My prayers are with you and your family, Ojai.

/out

St Marians' recap

... I've been out of the blogosphere for a while... and yesterday/today I'm slowly making my rounds again... I notice two of my three classmates who blog have had introspective pieces posted in the last month or so ... one reflecting on how her kids are missing out on so much positive interaction with her father, if he'd lived longer... and the other wondering about change, trust, and life in general. One of them also had a brief moment of joy then sadness when a pregnancy didn't last long. My thoughts and prayers go out to the both of you, and your families: don't let the past haunt you or bring you down - take what you can from the experience, learn from it, then move on, enjoy life, k? I'm always happy to see introspection going on tho, I've always felt people in general do too little of it. But that's my take on life. Anyways, one more thing: the 3rd of my blogging schoolmates? She's preggers! Congrats, dearie!

i suppose i was an early bird...

... because I'd certainly caught a worm! :p

that previous entry about the lesbo email thingy? was a worm targetting Yahoo!Mail users. thanx for all y'all's comments/thoughts on that, btw.

but that's not why i've been silent....

... i suspect the PC's modem might be fried or something... i just. can't. dial. up! but using the exact same connection with the laptop is fine. grrrrrr!

... and then... can't sign in to blogger... so I'm doing this via flickr... we'll see lah if this gets posted or not....

"this" being the pic of the 11 of us who attended the pseudo-reunion a week ago. i was going to list all 11 of us, but that would involve coming up with too many pseudonyms at a time when my brain is feeling a bit fried.

so no names lah.

which one am I? the one in green lah! ;-)