Blogging hiatus interrupted as AC Milan wins European Champions League for seventh time.

I'm a big Manchester United fan. Most people know that. I've been supporting the Red Devils for a long time now, and purely because they're a good team. They're skilful, they're tenacious and heck, even though I think Sir Alex is an arrogant blowhard, I wouldn't be much of a fan if I switched teams just because of that, would I?

In any case, what most people don't know is that there is a team I support purely because of one player's looks, and that's AC Milan. Now, who might this player be? None other then Paolo Maldini, who, besides being one of the best defenders in history, is exceedingly good looking in the Italian classical sense and has the most piercing pair of eyes I have ever seen.

So, Senor Maldini, on winning your fifth winners' medal at the ripe old age of 38 (old for football anyway), I salute you.

And on an aside, how amazingly awesome is Michael Buble's latest single, Everything? Every time I hear it, I want to get up, swing, twirl, dance and just sing for joy that I'm alive. Even the music video captures the joyous quirkiness that this song embodies.

Blogging hiatus declared.
Reason: Exam Panic

No life is ordinary. Each, no matter how small or insignificant, is a tiny spark of divinity.
- Margaret Weis

Re: Heroes

After all the Star Trek references, how cool is it that Hiro's father is played by none other than Mr. Sulu himself?

The main takeaway from Spiderman 3 is... when Spidey goes black, he becomes all sorts of emo. Seriously. Just check out Peter's hairstyle after he gets all gooed up.

And when the Green Goblin's line from the first Spiderman pops up ("we attack the heart!"), I cracked up and said, "Yeah, that'll do it. He'll get all depressed and goth-like and start cutting himself after that."

Damn, can Benji pop and lock or what?

Wow, I'm on Day 2 of Benji fangirldom. It sure didn't take much to convert me - just two workshops and one dance.

As some of my friends know, I really wasn't a big fan of Benji's during So You Think You Can Dance. I thought he was too goofy and didn't take things seriously enough even though he was a swing dancer. Maybe it was because I didn't follow SYTYCD, but rather, only managed to catch the last two episodes thanks to my long office hours, so wasn't exposed to the full Benji effect. Incidentally, Benji's sister, Lacey, will be on the next season of SYTYCD.

Anecdotes from yesterday's workshops include Benji:

• Telling us about how there is plenty of technique in swing dance and how he took offence at SYTYCD judge Mia Michaels telling him - and the rest of America - that he wasn't as technical a dancer as the other contestants. "I've been training, and now I can do as many spins as Nick and Travis. Ten pirouettes," he stated proudly. "And when I see Mia, I'm going to say, 'YEAH!'" making the universal "in your face" gesture. Hee!
• Being slightly obsessed about a shellfish he had eaten for lunch (I'm guessing at the Victoria St food court) which stained his lips purple, which he noticed whenever he happened to look in the mirror for too long. "I didn't kiss anyone, I swear!" he told us.
• Doing some pretty mean beatboxing when he put on a piece of music for the West Coast Swing workshop and asked us to feel the music. It reminded me of Lennart (from the Rhythm Hotshots) and his "boom boom be-dop shoo wop be dop" method of feeling of the music, which sounds rather weird when written down but works amazingly well.
  
• Speaking Singlish which a bunch of young students from the West Coast Swing workshop were teaching him. "Si bei suay ah!" and "wah lau!" seemed to be among his favourites.
• Taking his sweat-soaked Bruce Lee T-shirt off after the Swazz workshop and searching for the restroom so that he could change. Needless to say, us girls were delighted.
  

Benji's workshops were a lot of fun. Tough but fun. The warm-up was killer; my thighs were starting to shake from the strain of all the stretches, and the abs section of the warm-up felt like some kind of boot camp work-out.

The first workshop was a 1.5 hour Swazz workshop. Swazz, for the uninitiated (and that included me just a few days ago), is the dance style which Benji came up with for his solo dance for the So You Think You Can Dance finals. It's a solo jazz dance which has a lot of swing elements, and is pretty fun to do. I'm not a big fan of jazz dance but I definitely enjoyed myself even though I felt a little out of my league given the number of people who came from a jazz dance background in the class. It's great learning from someone who's so passionate about dance, and yet at the same time, loves to goof around without being so pissy about the proper technique and needing to have the perfect jazz kick and so on.

And the best part of that workshop? He asked us to film him dancing so he could put it up on his MySpace to show others that Singapore has dance too. I'm really glad I have this habit of bringing my digital camera out to any big event I go to.

The second workshop was a 1.5 hour West Coast Swing (WCS) workshop. WCS isn't danced in Singapore, as far as I'm aware, and so, every one of us in the class started off more or less on the same level. Benji pretty much taught the basics of WCS, starting from the anchor step, and including basic steps such as the sugar push, whip, inside arm turn and so on. One of the great things about WCS is that it can be done to any kind of music. I've been looking for a social dance with one particular feature for so long so it's nice to know that that kind of dance does actually exist.

Sadly, there wasn't any social dance during the workshop given how much he had to get through, but I did get the chance to partner him when he was demonstrating a move. Fortunately for me, it was also the time when he wanted us to dance to music, so after he went through the routine with me, he continued dancing and doing some rather different and cheeky moves for about 30 seconds to a minute and while I was intimidated (which he - and everyone else - could see), it was most definitely a lot of fun dancing with him. (Cue total and complete fangirl gush and meltdown a la time I danced with Daniel Heedman)

These past few days have been absolutely fantastic, and the Benji dance workshops are most definitely icing on the cake.