When I am smilin'......

I love this song so much. First heard in Adam Sandler's " Anger Management".

When you're smilin' When you're smilin'

The whole world smiles with you.

And when you're laughin' When you're laughin'

The sun comes shinin' through.

When you're cryin',

You bring on the rain, So, stop you're sighin',

Won't you be happy again!

When you're smiling, Keep on smilin'

And the whole world smiles with you.

I was jogging (yeah!) as usual yesterday when I got a phone message from Kementerian Kesenian people asking me to call them back on Monday. In fact they were trying to reach me at the office yesterday evening (around 6.30 pm) and I was already halfway climbing up the "Tamarind Springs" slope in Taman TAR. Luckily my colleague picked up the phone and relayed the message to me.

Hahaha.. Alhamdulillah. Apparently my appeal letter to Dato' Rais Yatim I'd sent few weeks ago seemed to take effects on the officials who must be frantically trying to find answers for the blunder. The officer in charge musti dah kena "bambu" for not going thru my application thoroughly. And now finally, they asked me to provide the 'budget breakdown' and also the detailed syllabus for the course. I hope it is a 'good sign' when they started to ask these infos from me.

But then, budget breakdown tu OKlah but detailed syllabus? Ayoyo.. come on, asking a world's leading teachers of physical comedy like Avner for a detailed syllabus? You must be joking! But then fair enough, I wrote to him last night ( came back to office just for that) and this morning ( Yes, I went back to sleep and come back this morning. :) ) I got the expected reply from him.

Sure enough he wrote,

Dear Iskandar,

Thank you for writing. There is no official syllabus for the Eccentric Performing workshop.

It is a professional level course, but has no academic standing per se.

We we meet for two 3-hour classes every day for over sixty hour of class work.

In addition we meet in the evenings for presentation of assignments and critique of student's work.

Below are two handouts that summarize the principles of what is taught.I hope this helps. Unfortunately I am on tour and will not be able to fax these documents.

You can find additional material and bigraphies on both Julie and myself at the Barn site, www.celebrationbarn.com, as well as at my site, http://www.avnerTHEeccentric.com.

I must advise you that the workshop is nearly full, so please submit your application as soon as possible so we can hold a spot for you.

Please do not hesitate to write if you have any further questions.

With best regards,

Avner Eisenberg

I am bit worried on the last lines. The workshop is nearly full and I am still 'ding-dong'ing with ministry officials.

Kalau nak bagi, bagi ajelah kan?