I always begin September with a little bit of dread. With my birthday, looms the reminder of time passing and the glaring comparisons to those around me and how I’m still chasing after them.
This year however, my birthday (and the rest of September) has been full of unexpected joy. My friend Angela recently started writing a delightful monthly blog and it’s inspired to write about this past month and immortalise these happy weeks.
Okay let’s go chronologically through the month.
Sept 1st
It’s Spring!
I started this new IG channel with Jason for funsies since I’m always taking piccys of the sky and have now infected him too. I have a whole heap of sky pics in my library, ahhh, managing social media accounts is so tiring to me, why did I do this?! 😂
Sept 2nd
I played DnD for the first time with my colleagues. Rhyan is an excellent dungeon master, helping us create our characters, creating individual opening storylines for our characters to arrive at our “dungeon” starting point and our motivations for being there. He narrated in various accents and prepared a map for our party and NPC character references too. All my future DnD campaigns are definitely ruined.
Sep 6th / 7th
Alicia flew over to see me this weekend and we watched Cirque du Soleil: Corteo with Angela and Mandy on Saturday night. Corteo wasn’t as fun or cool as Luzia last year but it’s still impressive and a good time for me.
It’s always fun catching up with Alicia, she’s a bundle of happy chaos.
On Sunday, we went to Popmart and bought Labubus and Emma’s. This whole trend is hilarious to me l. I’ve always collected cute stuff and have always been very selective on my collections. It was only a matter of time before I succumbed to one of these modern toy collections.
We walked so much that day from the paper exhibit at the state library to the city to chinatown – of course we needed to have our 春天的地一杯奶茶.
Sep 9th
Jason walked me to ballet after work and got me Emma & Stitch boxes!
That night I earned my True Blue status.
Sep 10th
It’s my Birthday!
I went to my favourite class – back & mobility class.
We did elbow stands.
Angela came specially for me and gave me.. A BLIND BOX !!
Sep 12th
Went for birthday dinner with The Blueprint, our last dinner was April 17th! Come on team D:
(Our next dinner is booked, but that’s because it’s also going to be a farewell feast for Wil & J 😭)
I enjoyed a premium dinner service by Sally at Mr.Wongs that night. She paid extra attention to me, such as specifically offering me hot hand towels, dropping by to check on me, upgrading dishes only on my side of the table and then giving me a handwritten note at the end of the night. Bless.
Sep 13th
We were invited to Callum and Jess’s place for a housewarming potluck. We brought a plate of deep-fried XO eggplant from Mr. Wong’s the night before and made a large bowl of spicy cucumber salad. When Cyrus and Chelsea arrived, they brought cake and 2 felt headbands for Chelsea (Sep 16 baby) and myself to wear and we had 2 cakes after our potluck feast.
We had a yuzu cake and then a ..
LABUBU CAKE!
Sep 14th
The celebrations continued today. We had lunch with Marty’s family in Burwood (it’s was Jordan’s bday on the 12th and Brian’s on the 24th).
In the evening we watched the Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle movie (part 1 of 3) with ski friends – Richard, Gloria, Arnold and Karmen, then had dinner at Nakano darling, thanks for winning Arnold!
Sep 15th
The weather is great, I wore shorts to work today!
Work’s been swell. Lots of prep for the AC Claws of Awaji DLC and neck deep in PAX prep +_+
Sep 16th
I spontaneously went to watch Twisted Tales and Sydney Fringe with Angela. Fun times :>
Sep 17th
I baked my one-trick Basque cheesecake for the office.
I cleared Forked Tower: Blood with Ume nii-chan \o/
Sep 18th
I was ambushed at work by Ed, Mike and Jaycob in the morning. They just wanted to say hey, you’re doing great! ^^
Marty finally helped me install my floating shelves in the evening. Yippeeee~
Sep 19th
I went to visit Ashleigh and baby Cali in the morning. It’s been ages since I went to Balmain/Birchgrove. Such a spectacular view from their local park.
That night I went over to Chan & Chhaya’s to watch sing KPOP Demon Hunters ✨
Sep 20th
Today was a huge day. It’s Bluebird Student Showcase day!
I started off with my normal hour long drive to the studio, had my 2 hours of classes teaching and rehearing. Hazel had a bit of a tantrum in the morning, but a few hours later she would completely dazzle the audience on stage.
I hung around the studio after my class to help with setup and the time flew by so quickly, the 2pm show came and went. Then I got ready and it was my turn to take the stage at 6pm.
Back when I was preparing for Bend The Air, I trained about 4x a week and stressed about the routine in the weeks leading up. This time, I practiced just once a week and had no rehearsal/tech run in the morning.
The first minute on stage I did kinda blank out and watching the clip of the first combo that someone took of me, I was pleasantly surprised to see that while my mind was blank then, my body just moved on its own. The next three minutes tho, I was very aware of the performance and doing my utmost best in front of the kids and their parents. The routine went much better than how I did in the competition.
Stress truly affects my performance.
The kids in the 6pm show were awesome as well. I was stupidly excited to watch them. One of them who was quite shy at the start of term totally stole the show with her poise and lines and musicality.
Sep 21st
Went to play mahjong with Alex & Christie.
Always a happy time with them and their 3 kitties.
Sep 22nd
It’s Taro’s birthday!!
Sep 23rd
Today we had our September babies lunch (7/15 in our office are Sep babies!). We had to reschedule it from last week, and as a bonus Sam from the SG office joined us 😀
I ate lots at lunch.
I also ate lots at dinner – took Jason to have 酸菜鱼 🤤
Sep 25th
Went to watch the Sydney Symphony Orchestra perform The Music of Joe Hisaishi inside the opera house. It was tres magical.
Immediately booked tickets for their next show in Feb next year ~ ~ ~
Sep 30th
I went to eat sukiyaki with ski fam. Congrats on your win Gloria!
And that brings me to today.
It’s October 1st, what a great September to remember!
I received quite a few gifts this year – blind boxes, a jumper, a hoverboard (to nyoooom around in FF), a Demon Slayer x DOPA Tanjiro haori, and my own Stocklis ⛷️
See you next year!