An afternoon to remember

The school of music and ballet that meimei goes to, organized a concert for their students.

 At first, I couldn't figure out why there's even a need for a concert to be held. Parents pay for their costumes and the tickets anyway.

But after watching their performance, I began to appreciate the effort and pain they put to create this concert for them in showcasing their talents and passion.

 There were performers made up of children, teenagers and even the more matured ones The shows went smoothly without the uncomfortable silence between them even though the work behind the stage was tough, moving those musical equipment in and out.

There were vocal performers, violinist, pianist, and a solo performer of the gu zheng who ranks 4th in an international competition. She is very young and talented, there's a future ahead of her looking so brightly as she asserted such confidence on stage. I believe everyone in the audience was mesmerized.

 And of course, the ballet made up the bulk of the whole show, displaying various themes like chinese folklore, latin, angels, and a whole lot more!

I was dazzled by the beautiful display of colors and costumes of those ballerinas, and of course the graceful moves. Maybe somewhat missing were those smiles on their faces. If they had smiled more, that would be perfect. Perhaps they were too stressed out!

These spicy chilly red little dancers were what I was looking forward to. Another parent and I thought that this show had the most and best choreographed steps. Of course, we could be a little bit biased...

These 2 little toddler angels basically ran around the stage but they totally stole the limelight! They were just too cute! And by the end of the show, both of them sat down and gasped for breath. So so adorable!

Guess I loved the above costume the most, but come to think of it, I do love all of them! They are all so beautiful and my friends said so too in FB where I uploaded more of these pics. Yes, finally I understood why the need for this concert. It's an encouragement for the students and an opportunity to perform their best foot forward for spending so much time learning and practising whatever it was they were in.

Ooh~ one of my dreams is to be a ballerina. At this age, I don't believe I can pull it off anymore and make my dream come true. Anyway, I'm happy for meimei that she gets an opportunity to learn ballet, even though once in awhile I am thinking of pulling her out as I think involved in both rhythmic gymnastics and ballet is so tiring (for me!) and time consuming. 

But she's so happy to be going to both and thriving well in them (at least, to my standard). Well, if she's unhappy or stressed out or dragging her feet to these classes, then it ought to be stopped. That would have defy the meaning of it all, that is to relive the passion and have fun learning.

So, watudo, chauffeuring continues....

Meimei's Pri 1 ballet exam

This was her after the trial. She seemed pretty composed during the trial, which we were allowed to watch and that only comes once a year, so we had better enjoy that!

As the exam was drawing near, we, the moms or dads (which are rare to spot hanging around waiting for the girls) were the most ker-nian. There were extra classes and extra hours to further prep the girls for their exam day and on the last day of practice, we were made to wait for about 2 hours! Some were saying they hadn't have their dinner yet, some ranting oh boy, their bedtime would surely be midnight, what with the journey and the homework all not completed yet.

As for me, I really am thinking of persuading her to quit the ballet class and just focus on the rhythmic gymnastics. She is all teary-eyed and so sad-looking whenever I bring this up and would plead with me to let her stay on to the next grade. Grr... I can't be continuing like this, chauffeuring her around like a mad duck all the time, can I? And furthermore, the fees are so sky high, what with the extra add-ons like costumes, socks, shoes, this and that. This hobby is SO EXPENSIVE!

Girls are high maintenance!

At the salon

Getting her hair tied up in a bun by a pro, only to realize later that I CAN DO THAT TOO!! What a total waste of money!

Little pink swans

After over 100 classes or so, finally meimei had sat for her first ballet exam and graduated to another level, which I assumed she had passed and moved forward.

The lesson before the exam day, we were allowed to sit inside and watch their little performance, which was a delight, since she refused to show me at all and we were not permitted to watch in earlier classes for fear of "disrupting" their moods. I took the opportunity to record her not-so-graceful-but-oh-so-cute moves. Her papa hurried over from his office to catch her little performance (the first for us so far), but was rather disappointed, I guess. What does he want? Black Swan?

Eve of the big day, I was a bit kancheong too, which was a surprise since I don't think I cared that much if she make it to a real professional ballerina or not. I suppose the teacher had passed on the bug to us as she fuss over them so much. Ballerinas, whether young or old, they do take it very seriously and want everything to be just perfect.

When it was all over finally, I really couldn't help but heave a silent sigh of relief. I guess the extra classes and longer than usual last few ones had taken a toll on me. I felt so tired ferrying her to class 3 times a week, waiting up to 1.6 hours for her and braving the heavy rain on one or two of those nights to the car from the school.

That called for a celebration, for that I trimmed off her long hair to same length over slightly below the shoulder and we were rewarded for a week's break from ferrying her to and fro ballet classes. Yay!

She really looks mighty cute in shorter, neater and easier to manage locks now. OK, I might be a bit biased here, I guess we are allowed to once in awhile, eh?