The prix this year is grand

Well, here I am, in Macau ready for the Grand Prix. It's become a fun little reunion for everyone now especially since there are so many familiar faces. I'll admit, as much as it's exciting, it's also quite nerve-wrecking having to do real-time translations of the press conferences. A combination of different accents and technical terms does make it quite challenging but in its own way, it's exciting.

Before Macau, it's been a wild ride, having me in Singapore last week, flying back to Hong Kong for a day, then zooming over to Kuala Lumpur, flying back to HK early in the morning and basically gigging like crazy. November has always been one of the craziest months for me, so this is no surprise.

What's interesting is how I'm coping with things. A few years ago, this schedule would overwhelm me and I'd have a hard time trying to stay afloat. Nowadays, the schedule hasn't relaxed, but it's more about my mentality about it that has changed, making it very normal to me.

I've tried to line up my schedule for the rest of the year so I'm busy until the 3rd week of December when things die down in general. It'll give me a good chance to make the most of 2015 before I do my yearly review of what I've achieved before I welcome in the new year.

So, still ahead are 3 more days of the Grand Prix, 2 more trips to Singapore, a fight night, a couple of school talks, a quiz night, a whole load of meetings and a few school visits. Wahoo!

Here's to a kick ass next 10 days, and let's make 2015 insanely awesome! :)

OMG This cruise ship!

Woah, my last entry was before my cruise ship gig and let me just say, I can totally understand why people take cruise ships as vacations. I had one of the best weekends in a very long time. I guess the idea that I switched off for a day (no internet for a day) and literally had everything next to each other (the one thing I really hate.. commuting... was kept to a bare minimum), was like a dream come true. I'll admit I was super duper nervous about the shows I had to do but they went pretty well especially since the audience's average age was like 60+
That meant my set had to be super clean and nothing rude. Lucky for me, I had enough stuff and it was fun. My first show was the nervous one for me because I was going into it as a blank sheet of paper. Once I had that down, I was feeling good and the 2nd show had me do a bit of crowd work and that was a lot of fun! :)

But after that, I had the whole of Sunday on the ship and boy of boy was that a vacation. All I did was workout, eat, enjoy the sun and then finally soak in a bit of wifi ahahah... oh and I enjoyed the nights sitting staring into the black ocean and starry sky. I get why people would just travel the world and come back alive. It totally made sense.

Following my time in Adelaide, as much as I was a bit stressed about popping on to a ship rather than catching up on my work, this was a well needed break. I came back home after this totally re-charged.

However, it's been a while and I'll admit, man real life is exhausting. I can't believe it's been like 2 weeks since the cruise ship because so much has happened, I've had gigs, projects, changes, challenges and man basically a packed schedule. However, I did also have 3 consecutive days of literally top to bottom packed schedules. I'm talking about the type of schedule where you wake up and have appointment after appointment all the way till the night when you come home, have like 1 hour to get changed and reply urgent emails then sleep. I've learned how to cram in even more time in between things (eg. replying an email while in the lift because I'll get my reception back once I get out and before I enter another office) ahahah.

I guess as stressful as this is, in its own little way, it's like a daily mini-adventure for me. It's also fun because I've had many different types of talks from universities, to small social groups to others where I had to keep people entertained while talking about a certain topic. Very interesting when you're 3 days into this and you start to think if you said something already when it was from another talk 2 days ago ahaha.

Oh well, November is one hectic month for me but I'm powering hard to make sure I survive it. I've got a Singapore and Kuala Lumpur trip ahead of me before I head over to Macau for the annual Grand Prix.

Oh and did I mention I've started doing some yoga. Yeah, I know right? It's finally happened. But I'll be honest, I started doing it mostly for the flexibility and movement exercises but slowly I'm learning to appreciate all the different types available and the most mind-blowing one is yin yoga. Insane how I have literally never held a certain pose voluntarily (Sitting on my chair doesn't count) for 3 - 7 minutes at a go. It's interesting because it seems like my fitness level has improved ever since I started doing this, but honestly, it's hard to tell because I've also improved my diet and general technique in things I do.