Saturday, November 11, 2006

Ballet and afterwards

I went to see ballet by the LiaoNing Ballet Company last night. Liao-ning is the province in China where my dad was born.

The ballet was not a story and did not really have a theme, it was just a series of dances put together to showcase the talent of the company. There were a few traditional dances, like the 'Four Little Swans' from Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky, and also Chinese ballets (names of which I forgot but are rather famous stories, and very nicely done), and a couple of 'modern' dances. (One of them was rather artistic, so much so that it looked to me more like the dancer was rhythmically having seizures than dancing.) All in all, it was very nice. Especially the love dances, because love is probably the easiest thing to express in ballet. There was a Chinese one that was so cute.

I can understand now why little girls want to be ballet dancers now: I never did understand it before. The costumes! So pretty! The hair-pieces! So shiny! And they dance with such ease, it makes me think that I can leap and step like that too. But I had the sensibility (unusual for me) not to try, I just know that I will dislocate something, and end up in the emergency department being x-rayed by my co-workers. The other part little girls love is the charming muscular princes or male dancers. Unfortunately, the male dancers I saw were not very good looking at all, not at all like the ones in ballet that you see on TV.

I parked my car at the train station close to my house (I catch the train to work) and met my parents in the city straight after work to have dinner and watch ballet. When we went to the train station to pick up my car, it was a devastating sight. The window on the driver's side was smashed - most of it was on the ground or inside my car. The door was unlocked, but nothing was missing from it. (The most valuable thing in my car was the Red Cross Basic First Aid kit, bought at $16)

My car had been vandalised before, when a tyre was slashed while parking at pretty much the same spot. Last time I looked at it and laughed and called my dad. This time, though, it was a pretty devastating sight.

So this morning I spent trying to arrange for it to get fixed and cleaning the glass from my car, and vacuuming it. As I was doing this, I said a little prayer in my mind for whoever did this: that they may one day find the Lord and repent and change their ways. My mind wasn't really in that prayer though... I just wanted my car fixed ASAP so I can enjoy the beautiful day by shopping inside a shopping centre. Somehow, even though I was wearing gloves, I still managed to cut myself. Worst thing is, when I called O'briens, they told me that they would clean the car and it was included in the price. ARGH! Oh well, the whole thing has been an exercise to practice stoicism, particularly when I handed over $233 for the replacement window.

2 comments:

Neon_stamp said...

Ugh, that's not too good (in reference to the car I mean). I hope you get that fixed A.S.A.P.

We need one of those car sirens that go "YOU ARE TOO CLOSE TO THE CAR. YOU ARE TOO CLOSE TO THE CAR. PLEASE REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THE VICINITY. MOTHERF*CKER I'M TALKING TO YOU"
But that might encourage more vandalism than deter it. Fun thought though.

As for the ballet - lol. You girl you :D Judging the male dancers.

Sida said...

The car has been fixed.

When I first watched ballet on TV, I was quite surprised to see reasonable looking dancers. In my mind, talent and good looks rarely go together, particularly in males. (They tend to have one but not the other - or, as is more often the case - neither of the two blessings) So I was surprised, then I came to expect good-looking dancers.