MC chalet is over. :)
Was especially enjoyable coz we didn't have to pay anything (well, hardly anything) since the whole thing was funded by the extra that um... I dunno, suddenly appeared in the Welfare Cell's budget. :P
Anyway, was fun, although it could've been more so if it'd only rained less.
Met at Parkway Parade and bought a whole lot of food for the barbecue before checking in; was tempted to buy a book from the MPH there while the earlier few of us were waiting for the rest of the MC to show up, but decided not to. :P
Learned that tau pok can be rather excruciating; both to be involved in and to watch. Tau pok refers to this thing that the guys sometimes do, randomly picking one guy, and then a whole bunch of them pile on top of him; all done in friendliness, of course. :)
When we got to the chalet, first thing that they did was to tau pok Xuzi, the poor guy. :P
And I've done at least one new thing this year, aside from stepping into a club for the first time at the mini-bash during Arts Camp-- we went for a KTV session altogether on the first night of the chalet; wasn't completely enjoyable for me, since most of them wanted to sing Chinese songs which I knew absolutely nothing of, but it was all right.
Chong Han wanted to sing Phantom of the Opera stuff since he'd recently watched the movie (he's already spouting off random lyrics at random intervals as it is), and I managed to spot "Music of the Night" on the selection list for him!
Then later, when he and Diana and me were singing it together, I think I kinda shocked Steven at how high I can go. :P Got horribly embarrassed after that, so I left it to Chong Han and Diana to finish the song.
Xinyan brought her lappie so that we could watch movies on it, and earlier, we'd rented a few VCDs at Parkway, so after we'd all bathed
and were sitting around doing nothing, Alvin, Hock, Yuimin, Xinyan and I all gathered around her lappie on the beds in our room to watch the first disc of Bridget Jones' Diary; was pretty damn funny, really. :D I love British humour. :D
Speaking of rooms; we got rooms K7 and K8-- K8 was all right, although I suppose it could get a tad stuffy if a lot of people were in it, but K7 (my room) was freezing.
Second day... came back to the world of the living somewhere around 11 am, I think, but we lazed around the room till about 12, haha; had brunch at the McDonald's (quite a long way down the road), then we walked back to the chalet to start on preparations for the barbecue. Most of us decided to rent bicycles on the way back in the end; only $6 a day! Anyone who wants to rent bicycles for a nice ride in the park, go to East Coast Park, I'm telling you. :P
So, bicycles. It's been an awfully long time since I last rode a bicycle, so was a bit unstable at first, but was all right, I guess. :P
Got back to the chalet and started thawing the food and washing it and marinating and seasoning and whatever whatnot, and came to the most interesting epiphany that livestock lead better lives than we do. Aside from the "getting slaughtered for food" part of the clause, that is.
I mean, all they ever have to do is eat and eat and eat, and to ensure that they're healthy, the owners of livestock farms will also definitely ensure that they have good living conditions and that they're well taken care of; and even after they've been slaughted, they'll still be washed and given a massage (in marinade). We should all have been born chickens or something. A lot less worries, no? :P
Finished everything at some point in the afternoon, after which we made our way down to the beach, presumably to play Captain's Ball in the water, but silly accident-prone stubbed my toe on some rough, sharp rock; basically abraded the skin on my left big toe to the extent that it started bleeding. So, no water games for me.
Cycled back to the chalet, did some last-minute fiddling around with Ivan's and Denise's prezzies, and took a nap till the rest of them came back at about 5 pm. Was actually surprised that they came back as late as they did, coz while I was cycling back, it was already starting to rain. Which means that the lot of them had been playing in heavy rain, while out in the surf. They're crazy, that's what. And probably suicidal. But then, that's not really my business. So, meh.
The guys got the fire started and we began cooking food at about 7 pm; Yuimin went nuts and spiked everything except the Jasmine Green Tea. Most of the affiliates who were coming were late coz of the heavy rain and traffic jams and whatnot, so after we'd cooked (and eaten) quite a lot of food, a few of us grabbed the bicycles that we'd rented at about 8 pm and rode off. We cycled all the way to Bedok Jetty and stayed there for about 10 minutes.
We pretty much went into our own little corners then, and right then, I had too much time to think. It's my brain's natural response, I'm telling you; leave me alone and before long, I'll start thinking strange/ deep/ confusing /worrying thoughts.
Thought about exam results and scholarships and school fees and the friends I have and the sorry state of my non-existent love life and strange random things, like how since the jetty was so long, standing at the end of it made it so that really, you were standing right in the middle of the open sea.
We headed back after that, and I think all of us were in a much more sombre mood then. Arrived back at the chalet as it was nearing 9 pm, and was quite tired by then. Tired from the activities of that day and the previous day, tired from too much thinking and too much to think about, tired from constantly having so many people around for almost two whole days.
Ivan had arrived by then, and God, I was so grateful for that. Yes, I know, the MC chalet was supposed to make us all bond and everything, and it probably did, to some extent, but let's face it: I'll readily admit that there will always be only so few people whom I will feel completely confortable with.
Denise arrived a few minutes later, after quite a lot of confusion, but hey, she managed to get to where we were, which really, is all that mattered. Ivan cut his birthday cake (which he later told me was the one thing which had surprised him the most; he hadn't been expecting a cake, he said) and then the most amusing thing of the whole night was when Denise, Ivan and I were all trying to plan to give each other presents and pretending that all of us didn't already know, haha.
See, Denise's Christmas prezzie was bought by Ivan and me, Denise and I had shared Ivan's Christmas-cum-birthday present, and the two of them had shared my Christmas prezzie.
I think the only one who wasn't exactly expecting a present was Ivan, haha.
I was creeping around the both of them, getting Denise to write a short message for Ivan's present, and Ivan to do the same for Denise, and I noticed the two of them giving each other pointed looks and mouthing words to each other while glancing at me; the whole thing was quite silly and laughable, really, but it was so much fun!! Gift exchange!! :D
Ivan and Denise got me Esprit's "Free" fragrance (yippee!! lovely lovely sparkly shimmery glitter..!), and Denise told me about how it was something of a joke when Ivan bought it.
Denise: I told him to just go up to the Esprit counter and ask for the Free perfume, and he told me, 'Yeah, and what kind of free perfume costs $39??'"
*Bursts out laughing*
People started to drift off inside the chalet then, where it was cooler and everyone was just getting lazy and clustering around the TV in one of the rooms. Then someone started a game of "Silent Heart Attack" and that left just a few of us lingering outside, joking quietly while being intermittently interrupted by screams and raucous laughter from inside the rooms.
It got to the point though, that the rest eventually went on back in, leaving only Ivan and me with the barbecue and some of the food that had been left on it for pretty long. We found that those food were already half-burnt, so we decided to indulge our pyromaniacal tendencies for a while, especially since no one else was around.
We chucked all the half-burnt food into the pit itself, letting it catch fire and burn, and all the while, Ivan was grinning away while chanting parts of that verse/rap from "Eight Mile" where Eminem and his buddies are burning down that abandoned house where a girl was raped or something in the movie, I think.
When the sausages and other finger food were little more than blackened masses and cinders, we started putting stuff away, then Ivan and I went for a really long walk all the way to Bedok Jetty; I suggested walking there coz well, I don't know East Coast Park, and since we'd only just cycled there, that was the only place which I could think of.
Was nice, walking and talking about everything and anything; was probably also somewhat disturbing and fascinating at the same time coz he and I have problems which are well, quite freakily similar. Reached the jetty and hung around for a while; watched one of the fishermen there think that he'd landed something, but in the end, it turned out to be just a plastic bag; too bad for him.
When we were walking back though, it started raining, so we had to stick it out at one of the shelters near the jetty, where we chattered on some more. Started walking again when the rain stopped, but as we neared the chalet, it started again!
And the sucky thing with that was that Denise had informed us that the side gates had all been shut and locked, so we had to go around the side to the main entrance to the chalets! So by the time we got back, we were both rather wet; not completely soaked to the bone, but still, quite drenched.
We were back at about 3.30 am; we'd been gone for about two hours, and by then, everyone who was staying over for the second night was huddled up in one room, gossipping about stuff that Ivan and I only caught on to later. Some of the gossip brought a considerable amount of anguish to some people, but I shan't say, because er.. well, they wouldn't want everyone else to know either. :P
There was some debate as to whether or not we should even consider sleeping, but in the end, we did; at about 6 am. :P
The rain didn't stop though, and when we woke up at 10.30 to be checked out by 11 am, a lot of us found that we really didn't want to wake up, especially since my room was so cold and the blankets were so warm and the rain was so heavy.
But then the rain started letting up and we checked out anyway; I reached home sometime past 12, and slept till about 7.30 pm, haha... and really, that's about it; that's how I spent the last few days of the year. :)
Thursday, December 30, 2004
This is an advance post.
I'm posting this on the 29th of December, really, but I'm doing so coz I'll be away at the Arts Club's MC chalet from later today till the 31st, so I won't have access to a computer then.
I'm posting this under the 30th of December because of the two closest friends whom I've had the greatest pleasure of meeting and knowing in my life, and coincidentally, both their birthdays are on the 30th of December, albeit there's really three years age difference between them.
Firstly, Pamela.
Even though Singapore's a small country, how many people can actually claim to have gone through almost your entire schooling life, in the same schools as one other person? And how many people in the world have truly wonderful friendships that can last this long?
People in uni sometimes ask me if Pam and I were from the same JC, and my answer to that is, with a grin: "Same JC, same secondary school, same primary school."
We've known each other since we were 10, which means that we've known each other for nearly half our lives, and the thing that I'm most thankful for is that as we go up the academic ladder and our schedules both become more and more packed, and even though we may not be in all each other's classes, there's no love lost there.
Each time we meet, even though we haven't seen each other for a long time, it's like picking up where we left off, and it's this degree of comfort with each other which I really appreciate. I love that we can go on talking and jabbering about complete nonsense and that no one would actually understand but the two of us. I love that we can be talking about the same thing, yet seem like we're on different tracks, and sometimes not even finish our own sentences, but we still understand what we're both getting at. I love that around her, I can be as bitchy as I like and I can complain all I want, and she'll let me, even if she doesn't completely understand, and she might even join in and we'll end up a pile of giggles after that.
I love all this and so much more; this is probably one of the few things in my life which I will never be able to fully put into words, and I'm glad to let it remain that way. Being able to completely reduce something to words takes something away from the whole experience, somehow.
Secondly, Ivan.
Yes, so I've only known Ivan for about two months, as compared to the ten years that I've shared with Pam.
Still, the "connectivity" (in Kenny's words) we have is both amazing and disarming to many people around us; the things which we have in common and the way we behave around each other, completely at ease-- which people find rather "suspicious" given that the two of us are of opposite sexes-- never ceases to make me always want to stop and wonder how it all happened.
The very first time I met Ivan was during the O Week Councillors' pre-camp, when I was sitting with Pam and Greg and him while their OG were making their mascot. At that time, we were no more than acquaintances; I probably thought of him as one of those people whom you'll meet during things like this, orientation and stuff, but whom you'll probably never see again for about a year or so.
That turned out to be wrong, I guess, and I'm very happy that it turned out to be so. :D
I remember later, when school had started, when he and Greg and I were hanging around the clubroom one day, making up our own silly "jepalang" civilisation as ideas came into our heads and laughing ourselves silly; I think that by that time, I'd forgotten his name. :P
And then finally, when he was stuck with having to back up his laptop, we just hit it off and got along like a house on fire. :D
For some strange reason, I've never really felt like I have to hold back anything around Ivan, in much the same way as I do with Pam; right from the start, I don't remember ever feeling uncomfortable around Ivan, unlike how I usually get around strangers.
And what am I thankful for here?
I'm thankful for the fact that we have so much in common in the way of our twisted thinking (albeit that he's more twisted than me), I'm thankful that he indulges my childishness, I'm thankful that he listens when it's needed, and I'm thankful that he made me his godsister, giving me three things at one shot: a brother, a godsibling and an older sibling all at one go!
Pam told me once when we were in J2 and when she was really into the astrological stuff, that if you arranged all the twelve signs of the zodiac in a circle, each sign was supposed to get along best with the sign that was directly opposite it.
For me, a Cancer, that sign is Capricorn. And I bet you're not surprised by now; 30th December falls nicely under the influence of Capricorn.
I've never believed that the zodiac and all the stuff which people write about it is completely true, but in this case, I think I've just got really lucky. :D
So, my dear Pam and my dear kor, here's something that I wrote for your birthdays this year. :D
Capricorn
For Pamela and Ivan,
on their 19th and 22nd birthdays respectively,
this 30th of December 2004
I think I've made my wishes
Set them free
With all the birds and the fishes
But only two ever came home to me
I think I wished for love
And I think I wished for kinship;
Two halves of a pair of turtle-doves;
Friendship like this
Shall sweep me off my feet
More often than anything else.
So let this be for what let us meet
And the higher powers
All claim their own glory;
I will simply wake each morning--
From sleep stolen I shall be sorry
But ever your companionship
Shall raise my spirit.
So wrap it in its trappings
Friendship and the misgivings
Imbued on it by the world
I will show you the exception
That proves the norm
And bound in the tape of friendship
Sealed in the love of happiness
And laughter and tears
I will tell you
That being free must be something like this.
I think I wished for love
I think I wished for kinship
And I think I'd never known that friendship
Could be love like this.
I'm posting this on the 29th of December, really, but I'm doing so coz I'll be away at the Arts Club's MC chalet from later today till the 31st, so I won't have access to a computer then.
I'm posting this under the 30th of December because of the two closest friends whom I've had the greatest pleasure of meeting and knowing in my life, and coincidentally, both their birthdays are on the 30th of December, albeit there's really three years age difference between them.
Firstly, Pamela.
Even though Singapore's a small country, how many people can actually claim to have gone through almost your entire schooling life, in the same schools as one other person? And how many people in the world have truly wonderful friendships that can last this long?
People in uni sometimes ask me if Pam and I were from the same JC, and my answer to that is, with a grin: "Same JC, same secondary school, same primary school."
We've known each other since we were 10, which means that we've known each other for nearly half our lives, and the thing that I'm most thankful for is that as we go up the academic ladder and our schedules both become more and more packed, and even though we may not be in all each other's classes, there's no love lost there.
Each time we meet, even though we haven't seen each other for a long time, it's like picking up where we left off, and it's this degree of comfort with each other which I really appreciate. I love that we can go on talking and jabbering about complete nonsense and that no one would actually understand but the two of us. I love that we can be talking about the same thing, yet seem like we're on different tracks, and sometimes not even finish our own sentences, but we still understand what we're both getting at. I love that around her, I can be as bitchy as I like and I can complain all I want, and she'll let me, even if she doesn't completely understand, and she might even join in and we'll end up a pile of giggles after that.
I love all this and so much more; this is probably one of the few things in my life which I will never be able to fully put into words, and I'm glad to let it remain that way. Being able to completely reduce something to words takes something away from the whole experience, somehow.
Secondly, Ivan.
Yes, so I've only known Ivan for about two months, as compared to the ten years that I've shared with Pam.
Still, the "connectivity" (in Kenny's words) we have is both amazing and disarming to many people around us; the things which we have in common and the way we behave around each other, completely at ease-- which people find rather "suspicious" given that the two of us are of opposite sexes-- never ceases to make me always want to stop and wonder how it all happened.
The very first time I met Ivan was during the O Week Councillors' pre-camp, when I was sitting with Pam and Greg and him while their OG were making their mascot. At that time, we were no more than acquaintances; I probably thought of him as one of those people whom you'll meet during things like this, orientation and stuff, but whom you'll probably never see again for about a year or so.
That turned out to be wrong, I guess, and I'm very happy that it turned out to be so. :D
I remember later, when school had started, when he and Greg and I were hanging around the clubroom one day, making up our own silly "jepalang" civilisation as ideas came into our heads and laughing ourselves silly; I think that by that time, I'd forgotten his name. :P
And then finally, when he was stuck with having to back up his laptop, we just hit it off and got along like a house on fire. :D
For some strange reason, I've never really felt like I have to hold back anything around Ivan, in much the same way as I do with Pam; right from the start, I don't remember ever feeling uncomfortable around Ivan, unlike how I usually get around strangers.
And what am I thankful for here?
I'm thankful for the fact that we have so much in common in the way of our twisted thinking (albeit that he's more twisted than me), I'm thankful that he indulges my childishness, I'm thankful that he listens when it's needed, and I'm thankful that he made me his godsister, giving me three things at one shot: a brother, a godsibling and an older sibling all at one go!
Pam told me once when we were in J2 and when she was really into the astrological stuff, that if you arranged all the twelve signs of the zodiac in a circle, each sign was supposed to get along best with the sign that was directly opposite it.
For me, a Cancer, that sign is Capricorn. And I bet you're not surprised by now; 30th December falls nicely under the influence of Capricorn.
I've never believed that the zodiac and all the stuff which people write about it is completely true, but in this case, I think I've just got really lucky. :D
So, my dear Pam and my dear kor, here's something that I wrote for your birthdays this year. :D
Capricorn
For Pamela and Ivan,
on their 19th and 22nd birthdays respectively,
this 30th of December 2004
I think I've made my wishes
Set them free
With all the birds and the fishes
But only two ever came home to me
I think I wished for love
And I think I wished for kinship;
Two halves of a pair of turtle-doves;
Friendship like this
Shall sweep me off my feet
More often than anything else.
So let this be for what let us meet
And the higher powers
All claim their own glory;
I will simply wake each morning--
From sleep stolen I shall be sorry
But ever your companionship
Shall raise my spirit.
So wrap it in its trappings
Friendship and the misgivings
Imbued on it by the world
I will show you the exception
That proves the norm
And bound in the tape of friendship
Sealed in the love of happiness
And laughter and tears
I will tell you
That being free must be something like this.
I think I wished for love
I think I wished for kinship
And I think I'd never known that friendship
Could be love like this.
Monday, December 27, 2004
Seems like most everyone whom I know is talking about exam results and posting those results on their blogs.
You're not going to see that here.
I'm very disappointed with the results that I got, but there's nothing for it now. Will just have to work harder next sem or work differently; must be more consistent, and must not pick crappy modules.
Seems like there's someone out there who just doesn't want me to be happy; the papers seemed pretty all right when I did them, but I guess everyone else who was taking those papers was better than me.
But I'm gonna have to find a way to beat this.
I am not yet so weak of will that I will not stand where I have fallen; my legs have strength yet left in them that they can carry me for many more miles; the faith of those who love me will help me lift my head high.
It's not over and I'm not out of the fight yet; this is where I turn the other cheek, this is where I say that I'm back for more, and this is where I say, "Bitch, you ain't seen nothing yet."
You're not going to see that here.
I'm very disappointed with the results that I got, but there's nothing for it now. Will just have to work harder next sem or work differently; must be more consistent, and must not pick crappy modules.
Seems like there's someone out there who just doesn't want me to be happy; the papers seemed pretty all right when I did them, but I guess everyone else who was taking those papers was better than me.
But I'm gonna have to find a way to beat this.
I am not yet so weak of will that I will not stand where I have fallen; my legs have strength yet left in them that they can carry me for many more miles; the faith of those who love me will help me lift my head high.
It's not over and I'm not out of the fight yet; this is where I turn the other cheek, this is where I say that I'm back for more, and this is where I say, "Bitch, you ain't seen nothing yet."
Friday, December 24, 2004
Oh my God, oh my God, so excited!!!! :D :D :D
Sorry. Haha. Just had to blog after seeing this: the trailer for "Kingdom of Heaven", starring.. ahem, Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons, Edward Norton, Marton Csokas and Brendan Gleeson!!
Okay, so I don't really care for the last two so much, but they're familiar names, so I just had to add them in, haha.
Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons don't need much speaking for; I loved Jeremy Irons' performance in "Man In The Iron Mask", anyway; he looked very French with that trimmed moustache that he sported for the film.
Edward Norton; the first time I ever saw him was in "Primal Fear", and I just loved him in that film. Since then, I've always made a minor fuss about anything with Edward Norton in it. :D :P
And if the names Marton Csokas and Brendan Gleeson don't ring a bell, well, here's something that should help:
Marton Csokas played Celeborn in the LOTR movies; Galadriel's husband, for those of you heathens who didn't read the books. :P
Brendan Gleeson played Menelaus in "Troy". And by the way, it's pronounced "ME-ne-LAY-us", not "ME-ne-LAOS" as in the movie. The movie is filled with a LOT of gross discrepancies, anyway, but I won't go into that; I'd go on rambling forever otherwise. In short, the story just isn't the same when you exclude all the Olympian gods and the parts that they played in the Trojan War. But I can sympathise; a story of that magnitude just wouldn't be able to fit on the big screen otherwise, let alone draw large crowds.
As for Orlando Bloom, well, surprise, surprise. I think he's finally "blooming", so to speak. :D
From what I've seen in the trailer, his acting is LOADS better than it was in "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Troy"; it's no longer as "cringy" at certain parts and seems more natural, less rehearsed-- in the way that musicals and Broadway plays always seem rehearsed and over-dramatised, but the difference is that with the latter two, they're supposed to be that way. :D With screen, it needs to flow, and although I'm a fan, I do realise that he hasn't really hit that mark yet in his previous movies, so really, I do actually wonder why all those directors are raving about him. :P
The soundtrack featured in the trailer is lovely as well; and Orlando Bloom gets to do a "Hector"; that is, he gets to do things like raise his sword and yell really loudly and charge and spur others into battle. Haha.
And there are a few moments in the film where the scenes are dead ringers for scenes in either "Troy" or the "Lord of the Rings" movies, but really, it still looks really good! Can't wait!!
But it looks like I'll have to. Sigh. 6th of May 2005. Sob.
Oh well. Anyway, here's the trailer for you folks, so that you can finally see what I've been ranting on about for the last 15 minutes. :D
Kingdom of Heaven (QuickTime required)
Sorry. Haha. Just had to blog after seeing this: the trailer for "Kingdom of Heaven", starring.. ahem, Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons, Edward Norton, Marton Csokas and Brendan Gleeson!!
Okay, so I don't really care for the last two so much, but they're familiar names, so I just had to add them in, haha.
Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons don't need much speaking for; I loved Jeremy Irons' performance in "Man In The Iron Mask", anyway; he looked very French with that trimmed moustache that he sported for the film.
Edward Norton; the first time I ever saw him was in "Primal Fear", and I just loved him in that film. Since then, I've always made a minor fuss about anything with Edward Norton in it. :D :P
And if the names Marton Csokas and Brendan Gleeson don't ring a bell, well, here's something that should help:
Marton Csokas played Celeborn in the LOTR movies; Galadriel's husband, for those of you heathens who didn't read the books. :P
Brendan Gleeson played Menelaus in "Troy". And by the way, it's pronounced "ME-ne-LAY-us", not "ME-ne-LAOS" as in the movie. The movie is filled with a LOT of gross discrepancies, anyway, but I won't go into that; I'd go on rambling forever otherwise. In short, the story just isn't the same when you exclude all the Olympian gods and the parts that they played in the Trojan War. But I can sympathise; a story of that magnitude just wouldn't be able to fit on the big screen otherwise, let alone draw large crowds.
As for Orlando Bloom, well, surprise, surprise. I think he's finally "blooming", so to speak. :D
From what I've seen in the trailer, his acting is LOADS better than it was in "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Troy"; it's no longer as "cringy" at certain parts and seems more natural, less rehearsed-- in the way that musicals and Broadway plays always seem rehearsed and over-dramatised, but the difference is that with the latter two, they're supposed to be that way. :D With screen, it needs to flow, and although I'm a fan, I do realise that he hasn't really hit that mark yet in his previous movies, so really, I do actually wonder why all those directors are raving about him. :P
The soundtrack featured in the trailer is lovely as well; and Orlando Bloom gets to do a "Hector"; that is, he gets to do things like raise his sword and yell really loudly and charge and spur others into battle. Haha.
And there are a few moments in the film where the scenes are dead ringers for scenes in either "Troy" or the "Lord of the Rings" movies, but really, it still looks really good! Can't wait!!
But it looks like I'll have to. Sigh. 6th of May 2005. Sob.
Oh well. Anyway, here's the trailer for you folks, so that you can finally see what I've been ranting on about for the last 15 minutes. :D
Kingdom of Heaven (QuickTime required)
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Woohoo!! The whole Guinness World Record-breaking event is over and done with, so here goes: the events of the 21st, 22nd and 23rd December 2004, as experienced and brought to you by yours truly. :D
21st December 2004
Arrived at Expo at about noon; went to Hall 2A where they were setting up everything, and our work was more or less divided into two kinds of things.
There were the people who were cleaning the sand off the candles in one corner, and there were a few people who were sticking mounting tape on marked out "lanes" to hold the candles later.
The "lanes" were these long, wide, black strips of tape that they'd stuck on the ground in a pattern of eight concentric circles and divided into three sectors. Engineers had been there the night before or so, and they'd already calculated and stipulated how many candles/squares of mounting tape should go in each lane. The candles were supposed to be arranged in three rows on each "lane", following the curvature of the strips of tape, of course.
So the difficulty here is that, it's already been clearly stated that the little squares of mounting tape have to be spaced approximately three fingers apart, and the number of candles in each row has also been set.
Which means that, if while you're approaching the end of the lane, and you find that, oh sweet lord in heaven, there's FAR too much space left for just three candles, OR too LITTLE space left for another twenty candles, well, you're just going to have to go back and remove and re-space out the pieces of mounting tape all over again. And if cutting the mounting tape isn't difficult enough most of the time, removing it is. It's really sticky.
We had a break for lunch, during which I found out that Ivan hadn't slept at all last night, and had instead been up doing inane things on the net. -_- As a result, he was, apparently, falling asleep while cutting and sticking the mounting tape before lunch. I don't think he'll ever learn. :P
After lunch, we finished sticking all that mounting tape; 10,000 candles means 10,000 little squares of mounting tape. Ivan and I were working on Lane 7 together, and anyone who knows the two of us or have seen the two of us around each other, will know that some silliness was bound to ensue.
How right you are. :D :P
To help ourselves keep track of the number of tape that we'd stuck, every ten pieces of tape or so, we'd used markers to number one of the pieces of tape. Ivan and I went one step further; we marked the pieces of tape at intervals of ten, and then, we (mostly he) would draw something silly on the black "lane" with the chalk that Pei Pei brought after lunch.
He started with a simple piece of a small tortoise at the number ten mark, then it started to get more elaborate from there, with me adding little stick figures and extra wordings and subtitles to some of them. There was a sauropod wading through water with a a stick figure riding on its back, and I added a wakeboard to the little stick figure that was clinging onto its tail. Next was a giant cockroach, next to which I wrote "Prehistoric ka-zhua". Next was a graphical representation of the life cycle of a butterfly, followed by a picture of Godzilla and King Kong combining forces and destroying some unnamed city.
In the middle of the lane, around piece-of-tape-number-190, I wrote "Lane 7 Art brought to you by Ivan (and Gerri)", and then the drawing picked up again. I drew a most adorable cartoon-ish spider, and Ivan followed that with a drawing of PacMan on the verge of eating a "ghost"; then there was my drawing of a crab, followed by Ivan's drawing of the twelve individual animals of the Chinese zodiac.
In short, Lane 7 turned out to be quite the zoo (and source of amusement to all present). :P
With what little manpower we had, I was actually quite surprised that we managed to finish sticking all that tape before dinner (which was at around 7). After that, it was time to stick the candles on, and around 11 pm, I got slightly hysterical.
I was tired, it was late (and so it was just about time for my usual late-night silliness) and I'd had two cans of Coke in the last 8 hours. I was jabbling away to myself merrily while sticking candles to the tape, working with Ivan and Denise, and pretty soon, I was giggling at almost anything, and finally, when someone (I can't remember who it was) who was working on the lane in front of ours stood up and accidentally knocked over a candle, I let out a panicky, semi-anguished "ARGH!!", after which I dissolved into giggles at my own overreaction.
Ivan promptly grabbed hold of me and told me to "get a grip". :P
After which I only giggled some more and went on sticking candles. Even thinking about it right now is setting me off. Heehee. :D :P
Anyway, Ivan left a little after 11 pm (so sad...) and we only finished sticking all the candles at around 4 am, after which we took turns to bathe with the one shower available (it was quite a homely bathroom, though) and then we all fell asleep.
22nd December 2004
I woke up at 6.15 am and wandered outside, where it was still rather dark and really windy (read: chilly); watched the sky get light, and then wandered back indoors; fell asleep again, and only woke up at about 9, whereupon we did a brief check on the candles, and then the few of us who were awake decided to go see if we could get anything in the way of breakfast. Some of the girls (Denise, Diana, June and Si Ning, I think) had gone to Diana's house to wash up, so other than Steven, the only ones who were awake were Beng Chong, Swee Giang, Chee Khiong (from NTU, but I think one of the Arts Club people had asked him down to help) and me.
We strolled down to the food court, and then strolled back when Diana called to tell Swee Giang that she was bringing breakfast, and when we were nearing Hall 2A, I heard VERY familiar music blasting out into the corridor.
Fantasy Project's "Crazy Baby".
Someone had actually put one of Ivan's techno CDs into the console and was actually playing it. I couldn't believe it, and when I entered the hall, I found Chong Han and Xuzi fiddling away with the console. Alvin made a call to Ivan ten minutes later when I told some of them that Ivan had still been asleep when I gave him a wake-up call at 10.30, and then I asked him to pass me the phone.
At that time, "Rave Heaven" was playing.
Me: Kor, can you hear what's in the background??
Ivan: No.
Well, I was out in the corridor at the time, but the music was pretty loud and I was surprised that he couldn't hear it. Anyway, I walked further into the hall, and just as I did so, the "main" part of the song came on, the part with all the electronic beats.
Me: Can you hear that now?? *grinning away madly*
Ivan: *short pause* Hey. That's my CD!
Me: *Laughs* Yeah, someone actually played your techno!!
Someone then came to brief us on the days proceedings, after which I fell asleep again, being rather bored. Only woke up at about 11.30, and wandered outside again, where a group of us were sitting and chatting idly. Ivan was there, and Si Ning remarked (rather pointedly) that it was very coincidental that I woke up when he arrived. "Telepathy", Diana supplied.
*Rolls eyes* Whatever.
Just remembered that I shouldn't say "whatever" so much. Hanging around Ivan is shrinking my vocabulary, ironically enough, considering that he's an English Language major. I suppose he's not anymore, though; he did say that he'd be switching majors.
Had a dry run of the ceremony, during which we all kept making fun of the phrase "dry run" and after it, Hock asked if we were going to have a "wet run", hahaha...
Ivan brought his camera; entertained myself with it for a while after our "dry run", looking through the pictures that were stored in there. It's scary how alike he and his sister look. I mean, I know siblings are supposed to look alike, but I figured that as the two of them are of different sexes, there should be... less similarity? But no, there isn't. Seriously, I think that if Ivan left his hair really long and removed his glasses, he'd look almost exactly like his sister; if not, then just a rather ugly girl. :P
Otherwise, the two of us spent a good deal of the unimportant moments of the briefing making jibes at Ivan's job as a banquet waiter. :P Well, he was the one who kept telling me that everything was reminding him of work; from the way the reception for the media and volunteers and performers was set up, to the way that we had to walk in in an orderly file and light the candles.
Then, when Steven mentioned that we might need to show the VIPs to their places to start lighting the outermost lane of candles by saying "'Excuse me sir, this way, please' or something like that", that just set me off. :P
Me: (pointedly to Ivan) "Sir, this way", "Sir, would you like a drink?", "Sir, would you like me to change your plate?"
Ivan: Shut up, lah...
Heehee.
Things went pretty fast after that; lunch, followed by yet another short briefing for us, then about 10 of us sat down behind the raised platforms for the audience's seats and we all played Indian poker for a bit as the other performers for the event were briefed on their parts.
When things finally got started, we all milled around for a bit, watching the performances, and cringing at some of them; imagine things like a little five-year-old girl singing "It's A Small World" in her high-pitched, little-girl voice. *hair stands*
And then there were those same little girls doing (supposedly) provocative dances to things like Tom Jones' "She's A Lady". Ivan and I agreed that it was something akin to exploitation of children.
It's quite bizarre and unsettling to see mothers dolling their five-year-old daughters up to look like porcelain dolls, caking them in make-up and dressing them in costumes that reveal more than they cover, and then making them dance to music that they most probably don't even understand; especially when the dance contains elements of things that they probably shouldn't understand for another ten years or so.
Anyway, the emcee finally got around to us, talking about how we'd been selling the candles for the past three weeks and arranging the candles and such, and how the whole thing wouldn't be possible without us (you're very welcome, by the way, haha); we all did a loud whooping cheer, then quickly became more sedate as we filed out and went to our positions.
Then, when we were lighting the candles, we found out that there was a problem. The wicks of most of the candles were much too short! So we had to spend quite some time (and flame and lighter fluid) on each candles, melting away some of the wax near the tip to get a longer wick to light. The lighter fluid in my lighter ran out shockingly fast; I'd only finished lighting one row in my lane when I looked at the level of lighter fluid and found that it was almost completely depleted!
We started lighting using the already lit candles, and when it was becoming clear that we were gonna take longer than expected (the performances that were meant to distract the audience's attention from us seemed to be over way too soon), it was admirable how the emcee improvised and changed the routine, asking the audience and the VIPs to come down and help us light the candles, and according to Steven, people in the audience actually did come down and help. :)
When the candles were finally done, we all gathered together and cheered and screamed our lungs out, and sang along to Michael Jackson's "Heal The World", which they were playing over the speakers; then, when we were assured that the Record was safely down, there ensued a mad rush to start blowing out the candles.
Everyone started making wishes and blowing out the candles, things like "Good CAP score!", "CAP 5.0!", and from Yuimin: "TEN sugar daddies!!"
In answer, Tim blew out a candle and shouted, "Sugar MUMMY!" :D :D
Then Steven wondered out loud if perhaps the last candle would be especially effective in granting wishes...
The whole lot of them then scrambled over to the last little candle, and there were a lot of whining noises from those who didn't get it, but then I noticed that Ivan and Steven were both insisting that they'd each got it first. :P
We didn't do much in the way of clean-up; the cleaning staff at Expo took care of that. All we did was kick over those candles which were less than half-burnt-down, and then pack them in boxes for the organisers to give to the less-fortunate, poor families in less-developed countries.
It never ceases to amaze me that destroying something will always be so much easier than putting it together in the beginning. Logically, that makes sense, since you're just knocking over everything that you've built, but I just keep thinking that.. there must be some way to.. explain why it's so, you know what I mean?
So, anyway, we left pretty soon after that, Steven, Si Ning, Alvin, Ivan and myself were the last to leave, and when we left, the Expo staff were almost done clearing up all the candles; what they did was they ripped the black tape for the "lanes" right off the floor, taking the candles and mounting tape and most of the dripped wax with it. Very efficient, they were. And also quite sad to note that while we'd spent more than 12 hours setting up the whole thing, it was gone in under an hour.
Oh well.
Got home that night and saw a 5-minute segment on our record-breaking attempt on the Channel 5 news at 9.30; sadly, no mention of NUS or the Arts and Social Sciences Club anywhere; I saw myself, I think-- my back was towards the camera at the time. Ivan said that the Channel I news had nothing, and neither did the Channel 8 news.
23rd December 2001
Ivan sent me a message at 8.41 am, which ran along the lines of: "WTF??!! Have you seen today's Straits Times yet? One picture taken from far away and about 5 or 6 lines of comment, and NO MENTION OF ARTS CLUB AT ALL!! WTF?!?"
Yes. You get the idea. :P
But really, upon looking at the picture, I found it wasn't so bad.. aside from the issue of zilch mention of Arts Club. The picture itself was quite nice; if you look closely enough, you can even make out exactly who's who.
Borrowed four DVDs from the Video Ezy rental store; "Troy" (yay!), "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King", "Black Hawk Down" again (coz I miss it :P), and borrowed one of those boring, plot-less, dance and R&B and hip-hop movies for my sister.
Met Olinda Cho at the Cold Storage Gourmet just across the street from the Video Ezy as well; my youngest sister and I were just coming out of the aisle for crisps and tidbits and such when came by, pushing her trolley; she stopped to let us go first, and I think I recognised the outfit that she was wearing as something that she'd worn on Singapore Idol before. Black jacket and track pants with her black visor cap pulled to one side.
My aunties and my cousin arrived at about 9 pm; things got slightly amusing for me then. See, on my mother's side, I only have two first cousins, and they're both guys; they're brothers, and they're five and four years older than me-- the one visiting right now is the older one.
Thing is, I've been brought up to address them as "kor", but given how I've been calling Ivan "kor" for the past one-and-a-half months... well, this is just causing me no small amount of amusement, I assure you that. :D :D
Sigh... Christmas prezzies.. need to finish my Christmas shopping soon. Good thing I'm not getting presents for many people; one of the many pluses of maintaining a small but close circle of friends! :D Oh, and I almost forgot Christmas cards!!
*Smacks forehead and rushes off to find cards*
21st December 2004
Arrived at Expo at about noon; went to Hall 2A where they were setting up everything, and our work was more or less divided into two kinds of things.
There were the people who were cleaning the sand off the candles in one corner, and there were a few people who were sticking mounting tape on marked out "lanes" to hold the candles later.
The "lanes" were these long, wide, black strips of tape that they'd stuck on the ground in a pattern of eight concentric circles and divided into three sectors. Engineers had been there the night before or so, and they'd already calculated and stipulated how many candles/squares of mounting tape should go in each lane. The candles were supposed to be arranged in three rows on each "lane", following the curvature of the strips of tape, of course.
So the difficulty here is that, it's already been clearly stated that the little squares of mounting tape have to be spaced approximately three fingers apart, and the number of candles in each row has also been set.
Which means that, if while you're approaching the end of the lane, and you find that, oh sweet lord in heaven, there's FAR too much space left for just three candles, OR too LITTLE space left for another twenty candles, well, you're just going to have to go back and remove and re-space out the pieces of mounting tape all over again. And if cutting the mounting tape isn't difficult enough most of the time, removing it is. It's really sticky.
We had a break for lunch, during which I found out that Ivan hadn't slept at all last night, and had instead been up doing inane things on the net. -_- As a result, he was, apparently, falling asleep while cutting and sticking the mounting tape before lunch. I don't think he'll ever learn. :P
After lunch, we finished sticking all that mounting tape; 10,000 candles means 10,000 little squares of mounting tape. Ivan and I were working on Lane 7 together, and anyone who knows the two of us or have seen the two of us around each other, will know that some silliness was bound to ensue.
How right you are. :D :P
To help ourselves keep track of the number of tape that we'd stuck, every ten pieces of tape or so, we'd used markers to number one of the pieces of tape. Ivan and I went one step further; we marked the pieces of tape at intervals of ten, and then, we (mostly he) would draw something silly on the black "lane" with the chalk that Pei Pei brought after lunch.
He started with a simple piece of a small tortoise at the number ten mark, then it started to get more elaborate from there, with me adding little stick figures and extra wordings and subtitles to some of them. There was a sauropod wading through water with a a stick figure riding on its back, and I added a wakeboard to the little stick figure that was clinging onto its tail. Next was a giant cockroach, next to which I wrote "Prehistoric ka-zhua". Next was a graphical representation of the life cycle of a butterfly, followed by a picture of Godzilla and King Kong combining forces and destroying some unnamed city.
In the middle of the lane, around piece-of-tape-number-190, I wrote "Lane 7 Art brought to you by Ivan (and Gerri)", and then the drawing picked up again. I drew a most adorable cartoon-ish spider, and Ivan followed that with a drawing of PacMan on the verge of eating a "ghost"; then there was my drawing of a crab, followed by Ivan's drawing of the twelve individual animals of the Chinese zodiac.
In short, Lane 7 turned out to be quite the zoo (and source of amusement to all present). :P
With what little manpower we had, I was actually quite surprised that we managed to finish sticking all that tape before dinner (which was at around 7). After that, it was time to stick the candles on, and around 11 pm, I got slightly hysterical.
I was tired, it was late (and so it was just about time for my usual late-night silliness) and I'd had two cans of Coke in the last 8 hours. I was jabbling away to myself merrily while sticking candles to the tape, working with Ivan and Denise, and pretty soon, I was giggling at almost anything, and finally, when someone (I can't remember who it was) who was working on the lane in front of ours stood up and accidentally knocked over a candle, I let out a panicky, semi-anguished "ARGH!!", after which I dissolved into giggles at my own overreaction.
Ivan promptly grabbed hold of me and told me to "get a grip". :P
After which I only giggled some more and went on sticking candles. Even thinking about it right now is setting me off. Heehee. :D :P
Anyway, Ivan left a little after 11 pm (so sad...) and we only finished sticking all the candles at around 4 am, after which we took turns to bathe with the one shower available (it was quite a homely bathroom, though) and then we all fell asleep.
22nd December 2004
I woke up at 6.15 am and wandered outside, where it was still rather dark and really windy (read: chilly); watched the sky get light, and then wandered back indoors; fell asleep again, and only woke up at about 9, whereupon we did a brief check on the candles, and then the few of us who were awake decided to go see if we could get anything in the way of breakfast. Some of the girls (Denise, Diana, June and Si Ning, I think) had gone to Diana's house to wash up, so other than Steven, the only ones who were awake were Beng Chong, Swee Giang, Chee Khiong (from NTU, but I think one of the Arts Club people had asked him down to help) and me.
We strolled down to the food court, and then strolled back when Diana called to tell Swee Giang that she was bringing breakfast, and when we were nearing Hall 2A, I heard VERY familiar music blasting out into the corridor.
Fantasy Project's "Crazy Baby".
Someone had actually put one of Ivan's techno CDs into the console and was actually playing it. I couldn't believe it, and when I entered the hall, I found Chong Han and Xuzi fiddling away with the console. Alvin made a call to Ivan ten minutes later when I told some of them that Ivan had still been asleep when I gave him a wake-up call at 10.30, and then I asked him to pass me the phone.
At that time, "Rave Heaven" was playing.
Me: Kor, can you hear what's in the background??
Ivan: No.
Well, I was out in the corridor at the time, but the music was pretty loud and I was surprised that he couldn't hear it. Anyway, I walked further into the hall, and just as I did so, the "main" part of the song came on, the part with all the electronic beats.
Me: Can you hear that now?? *grinning away madly*
Ivan: *short pause* Hey. That's my CD!
Me: *Laughs* Yeah, someone actually played your techno!!
Someone then came to brief us on the days proceedings, after which I fell asleep again, being rather bored. Only woke up at about 11.30, and wandered outside again, where a group of us were sitting and chatting idly. Ivan was there, and Si Ning remarked (rather pointedly) that it was very coincidental that I woke up when he arrived. "Telepathy", Diana supplied.
*Rolls eyes* Whatever.
Just remembered that I shouldn't say "whatever" so much. Hanging around Ivan is shrinking my vocabulary, ironically enough, considering that he's an English Language major. I suppose he's not anymore, though; he did say that he'd be switching majors.
Had a dry run of the ceremony, during which we all kept making fun of the phrase "dry run" and after it, Hock asked if we were going to have a "wet run", hahaha...
Ivan brought his camera; entertained myself with it for a while after our "dry run", looking through the pictures that were stored in there. It's scary how alike he and his sister look. I mean, I know siblings are supposed to look alike, but I figured that as the two of them are of different sexes, there should be... less similarity? But no, there isn't. Seriously, I think that if Ivan left his hair really long and removed his glasses, he'd look almost exactly like his sister; if not, then just a rather ugly girl. :P
Otherwise, the two of us spent a good deal of the unimportant moments of the briefing making jibes at Ivan's job as a banquet waiter. :P Well, he was the one who kept telling me that everything was reminding him of work; from the way the reception for the media and volunteers and performers was set up, to the way that we had to walk in in an orderly file and light the candles.
Then, when Steven mentioned that we might need to show the VIPs to their places to start lighting the outermost lane of candles by saying "'Excuse me sir, this way, please' or something like that", that just set me off. :P
Me: (pointedly to Ivan) "Sir, this way", "Sir, would you like a drink?", "Sir, would you like me to change your plate?"
Ivan: Shut up, lah...
Heehee.
Things went pretty fast after that; lunch, followed by yet another short briefing for us, then about 10 of us sat down behind the raised platforms for the audience's seats and we all played Indian poker for a bit as the other performers for the event were briefed on their parts.
When things finally got started, we all milled around for a bit, watching the performances, and cringing at some of them; imagine things like a little five-year-old girl singing "It's A Small World" in her high-pitched, little-girl voice. *hair stands*
And then there were those same little girls doing (supposedly) provocative dances to things like Tom Jones' "She's A Lady". Ivan and I agreed that it was something akin to exploitation of children.
It's quite bizarre and unsettling to see mothers dolling their five-year-old daughters up to look like porcelain dolls, caking them in make-up and dressing them in costumes that reveal more than they cover, and then making them dance to music that they most probably don't even understand; especially when the dance contains elements of things that they probably shouldn't understand for another ten years or so.
Anyway, the emcee finally got around to us, talking about how we'd been selling the candles for the past three weeks and arranging the candles and such, and how the whole thing wouldn't be possible without us (you're very welcome, by the way, haha); we all did a loud whooping cheer, then quickly became more sedate as we filed out and went to our positions.
Then, when we were lighting the candles, we found out that there was a problem. The wicks of most of the candles were much too short! So we had to spend quite some time (and flame and lighter fluid) on each candles, melting away some of the wax near the tip to get a longer wick to light. The lighter fluid in my lighter ran out shockingly fast; I'd only finished lighting one row in my lane when I looked at the level of lighter fluid and found that it was almost completely depleted!
We started lighting using the already lit candles, and when it was becoming clear that we were gonna take longer than expected (the performances that were meant to distract the audience's attention from us seemed to be over way too soon), it was admirable how the emcee improvised and changed the routine, asking the audience and the VIPs to come down and help us light the candles, and according to Steven, people in the audience actually did come down and help. :)
When the candles were finally done, we all gathered together and cheered and screamed our lungs out, and sang along to Michael Jackson's "Heal The World", which they were playing over the speakers; then, when we were assured that the Record was safely down, there ensued a mad rush to start blowing out the candles.
Everyone started making wishes and blowing out the candles, things like "Good CAP score!", "CAP 5.0!", and from Yuimin: "TEN sugar daddies!!"
In answer, Tim blew out a candle and shouted, "Sugar MUMMY!" :D :D
Then Steven wondered out loud if perhaps the last candle would be especially effective in granting wishes...
The whole lot of them then scrambled over to the last little candle, and there were a lot of whining noises from those who didn't get it, but then I noticed that Ivan and Steven were both insisting that they'd each got it first. :P
We didn't do much in the way of clean-up; the cleaning staff at Expo took care of that. All we did was kick over those candles which were less than half-burnt-down, and then pack them in boxes for the organisers to give to the less-fortunate, poor families in less-developed countries.
It never ceases to amaze me that destroying something will always be so much easier than putting it together in the beginning. Logically, that makes sense, since you're just knocking over everything that you've built, but I just keep thinking that.. there must be some way to.. explain why it's so, you know what I mean?
So, anyway, we left pretty soon after that, Steven, Si Ning, Alvin, Ivan and myself were the last to leave, and when we left, the Expo staff were almost done clearing up all the candles; what they did was they ripped the black tape for the "lanes" right off the floor, taking the candles and mounting tape and most of the dripped wax with it. Very efficient, they were. And also quite sad to note that while we'd spent more than 12 hours setting up the whole thing, it was gone in under an hour.
Oh well.
Got home that night and saw a 5-minute segment on our record-breaking attempt on the Channel 5 news at 9.30; sadly, no mention of NUS or the Arts and Social Sciences Club anywhere; I saw myself, I think-- my back was towards the camera at the time. Ivan said that the Channel I news had nothing, and neither did the Channel 8 news.
23rd December 2001
Ivan sent me a message at 8.41 am, which ran along the lines of: "WTF??!! Have you seen today's Straits Times yet? One picture taken from far away and about 5 or 6 lines of comment, and NO MENTION OF ARTS CLUB AT ALL!! WTF?!?"
Yes. You get the idea. :P
But really, upon looking at the picture, I found it wasn't so bad.. aside from the issue of zilch mention of Arts Club. The picture itself was quite nice; if you look closely enough, you can even make out exactly who's who.
Borrowed four DVDs from the Video Ezy rental store; "Troy" (yay!), "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King", "Black Hawk Down" again (coz I miss it :P), and borrowed one of those boring, plot-less, dance and R&B and hip-hop movies for my sister.
Met Olinda Cho at the Cold Storage Gourmet just across the street from the Video Ezy as well; my youngest sister and I were just coming out of the aisle for crisps and tidbits and such when came by, pushing her trolley; she stopped to let us go first, and I think I recognised the outfit that she was wearing as something that she'd worn on Singapore Idol before. Black jacket and track pants with her black visor cap pulled to one side.
My aunties and my cousin arrived at about 9 pm; things got slightly amusing for me then. See, on my mother's side, I only have two first cousins, and they're both guys; they're brothers, and they're five and four years older than me-- the one visiting right now is the older one.
Thing is, I've been brought up to address them as "kor", but given how I've been calling Ivan "kor" for the past one-and-a-half months... well, this is just causing me no small amount of amusement, I assure you that. :D :D
Sigh... Christmas prezzies.. need to finish my Christmas shopping soon. Good thing I'm not getting presents for many people; one of the many pluses of maintaining a small but close circle of friends! :D Oh, and I almost forgot Christmas cards!!
*Smacks forehead and rushes off to find cards*
Monday, December 20, 2004
Was helping out at my jie's concert last night; we (myself, kor, and two of jie's other friends, Kenny and Ashra) were supposed to be paid $5 an hour for it- ushering work, that is- but it didn't really feel like work since the UCC ushers did most of the ushering, haha. All the four of us did was ticketing and give out programmes. Ivan and I were the ones giving out programmes, haha.
So Ivan and I spent all our time (in between surges of crowds) talking about random nonsense, poking fun at some of the people that we saw and badmouthing/jinxing some which annoyed us.
One such person who was the object of our pointless discussion was, in Ivan's own words, a "very outstanding" young lady. Ahem. People who know my kor well enough will understand that statement very quickly. :P While we were standing around waiting for the theatre doors to open, Ivan pointed her out to me, and well, the way she was standing, with the pamphlet that she was reading, she wasn't really.. um. Visible, shall we say; so I couldn't... er, see.. her.. very well. :P
So later, when she *did* walk past us to get into the theatre, I "took notice" and when I looked up, Ivan was giving me his "see what I mean??" look, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
Then at about 7.20 pm, while we were waiting for stragglers, there was a lull in the traffic after the UCC ushers had just let in the recent crowd of latecomers. At that time, the only people out in the foyer were the ushers, the few staff on duty at Dome Cafe, and three people seated on one of the benches, eating McDonalds.
Ivan and I were talking and making our usual care-less, off-handed jibes at one another, and when he made one particularly twisted statement, I moved to smack him with the programmes that I was holding, but it was the kind of thing where I raised my hand, followed through with the motion, but stopped just short of actually hitting him.
I'd actually done that quite a few times over the course of the evening, along with a few times when I *did* actually smack him. :P Anyway, at that point in time, I happened to look up, and I saw the three people over at the bench break out in quiet laughter while looking over at the two of us.
That pissed me off. I told Ivan so, and he made some non-committal comment, but later, when they'd polished off their McDonalds and proceeded into the theatre, then we laid right into them with our little bitchfest. :D :P
Me: Laugh at us some more; I refuse to give any of you a programme! (which was true; Ivan handed them their programmes)
Ivan: You make it sound like their receiving a programme is a life-and-death situation.
Me: Well, why not. *silly grin* Without it, they'll be completely lost! They won't know what the titles of the pieces are!
Ivan: Yeah, I suppose if they didn't know the titles, they'd probably drive themselves crazy trying to find out, and then they'd resort to downloading.
Me: Yeah, and then they'd get caught, and when they're caught, the stupid sodding buggers will already have about 2000 odd other songs in their collection so they'll all be jailed for 10 years or something--
Ivan: (cutting me off) Gerri, don't jinx me.
Ivan has A LOT of songs in his collection, you see. And even saying that he has A LOT is an understatement. And also, the two of us have discovered that we both possess a similar "talent" for jinxing. Not actual voodoo or anything, mind you; it's just that many of the bad things which we anticipate will happen, will, uncannily enough, actually happen.
We missed the first half of the concert; the part before the intermission, and sadly, we missed "The Seventh Night of July", which was the last song before the intermission.
After the intermission though, we went in, and we caught the brass quintet and percussion ensemble bits; the brass quintet's "Amazing Grace" was nice, but I prefer "Amazing Grace" to sound more slow and weepy, and less like the jazzy version that they were playing. Percussion ensemble's "Instant Carmen" was also lovely; Rachel's snare drum roll was amazing-- one of these days I'm gonna have to figure out exactly how percussion players do it. :P
Then the rest of the band came back, and I particularly liked the first movement of the "English Folk Song Suite"; had a very fast Irish feel to it, with a lot of clarinet and flute and other upper winds voices dominating. I love traditional Irish and Scottish dance music; it's the kind that makes you want to get up and dance a merry little jig along, haha.
After that, we helped move some of the band instruments back to their practice room (timpanis! I haven't helped move timpanis for ages!), then waited for Rachel a bit, then she treated us to supper; Fong Seng prata. I know I said I was boycotting the prata at Fong Seng coz it's ridiculously overpriced, but Rachel's friend, Nicole, studies overseas and she was back in town for her concert, so she wanted to try the prata, so that's what we did.
Jie gave most of us a life home after that; only Ivan still had to take public transport-- best she could do was drop him at Clementi since he lives all the way in Tampines.
When she dropped me off near my place, she mentioned that she'd write the cheque for me, and then I suddenly remembered that everything that I'd been doing tonight was supposed to be for work! Funny thing is, it didn't feel like work at all! Haha...!
Now for today's archery training: 150 arrows; my upper arm and back muscles are terribly sore. It's going to be even worse tomorrow, I tell you.
My later ends were much better than the first few; however, if this continues, then it means I'll need a long time to warm up before shooting. Not good. Maybe if I train more, the amount of "warm up" I need will lessen.
There was one end in particular where I kinda shocked myself, haha. It was only after I'd shot the fourth arrow of that end that I realised that all my arrows had formed one lovely clump of orange and white (my fletches are orange and white) in the middle of the board. And I realised then that every arrow that had landed in the board, you could hear a metallic sound, the sound of metal hitting metal, which means that the arrows were hitting against each other when they landed in the board.
My fifth arrow went off, but my sixth and last arrow hit with a metallic sound again. When we went to retrieve our arrows, the five that had landed all grouped together all had varying angles of entry, and I thought that was bad, until Nicholas pointed out that if the arrows were aiming to land in the same spot, obviously a preceding arrow would be crowded out of that spot by an arrow that was already there, so it'd settle into the spot above it, and probably at a weird angle, due to the "deflection".
Returned to the Archery Lounge after my shooting to find them playing bridge... oh, I forgot to mention that some of the guys finally taught me how to play bridge on Friday! Haha... I finally know how to play; it's quite simple, but requires a lot of brain work and memory work, and I don't have much in the way of either. :P But it was fun though. :D
Anyway, bridge seems to be gaining popularity amongst the archery people; I hope the Lounge doesn't turn into another "Arts Club Room" where the only thing anyone does in their free time besides sleep is play bridge or mahjong. At least in the Lounge, people actually read or do something productive or destressing on their lappies in their free time.
But, as I was saying before I digressed (again), bridge. That there is a complete (and new) pack of cards in the Lounge is, in itself, a rare occurrence.
See, the seniors are in the habit of playing poker with any playing cards that we have, and they usually play it at the range itself. When I say "playing poker at the range" I don't mean that they sit down to one side of the shooting line and play poker; I mean that they tack up the cards on the board, stand at the shooting line, and shoot the cards.
So yes, you can see why each deck would have a few cards missing.
The cards either become too full of holes to be actually usable anymore, or they drop off the board and go missing, or.. whatever else. Sometimes, when they're too lazy to take down the cards, they even leave it there for us to practice no-target shooting. Which just results in further damage to the cards, and eventually, their disposal. :D
Well, have to go pack now. Going to be staying overnight at Singapore Expo tomorrow to help them prepare for the record-breaking thing on the 22nd. Ivan and Denise are coming too, so YAY!! I have people that I can talk crap with! Hahaha...
I'm probably going to blabber their ears off when it gets really late at night, and then kor will probably start smacking me on the head with whatever's on hand, but hell. Oh, I hope they're both staying over. And I hope kor brings his lappie. Then we can play stuff on it; music or maybe whatever games he has. But shockingly enough, Singapore Expo doesn't have wireless connectivity. :( Which is odd, since you'd figure that a supposedly "world-class" exhibition venue should have wireless connectivity. *shrugs* Oh well.
Listening to Yanni's "In the Morning Light" and "Nightingale" right now; the latter is lovely-- features a Chinese flute and manages to strike this very delicate balance between sounding Eastern and Western at the same time. Maybe I'll change my blog music soon and let you all hear it. :D
Toodles, oh, and do drop by the Singapore Expo on the 22nd if you have the time... just to see the all-important event take place, if nothing else! :D
So Ivan and I spent all our time (in between surges of crowds) talking about random nonsense, poking fun at some of the people that we saw and badmouthing/jinxing some which annoyed us.
One such person who was the object of our pointless discussion was, in Ivan's own words, a "very outstanding" young lady. Ahem. People who know my kor well enough will understand that statement very quickly. :P While we were standing around waiting for the theatre doors to open, Ivan pointed her out to me, and well, the way she was standing, with the pamphlet that she was reading, she wasn't really.. um. Visible, shall we say; so I couldn't... er, see.. her.. very well. :P
So later, when she *did* walk past us to get into the theatre, I "took notice" and when I looked up, Ivan was giving me his "see what I mean??" look, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
Then at about 7.20 pm, while we were waiting for stragglers, there was a lull in the traffic after the UCC ushers had just let in the recent crowd of latecomers. At that time, the only people out in the foyer were the ushers, the few staff on duty at Dome Cafe, and three people seated on one of the benches, eating McDonalds.
Ivan and I were talking and making our usual care-less, off-handed jibes at one another, and when he made one particularly twisted statement, I moved to smack him with the programmes that I was holding, but it was the kind of thing where I raised my hand, followed through with the motion, but stopped just short of actually hitting him.
I'd actually done that quite a few times over the course of the evening, along with a few times when I *did* actually smack him. :P Anyway, at that point in time, I happened to look up, and I saw the three people over at the bench break out in quiet laughter while looking over at the two of us.
That pissed me off. I told Ivan so, and he made some non-committal comment, but later, when they'd polished off their McDonalds and proceeded into the theatre, then we laid right into them with our little bitchfest. :D :P
Me: Laugh at us some more; I refuse to give any of you a programme! (which was true; Ivan handed them their programmes)
Ivan: You make it sound like their receiving a programme is a life-and-death situation.
Me: Well, why not. *silly grin* Without it, they'll be completely lost! They won't know what the titles of the pieces are!
Ivan: Yeah, I suppose if they didn't know the titles, they'd probably drive themselves crazy trying to find out, and then they'd resort to downloading.
Me: Yeah, and then they'd get caught, and when they're caught, the stupid sodding buggers will already have about 2000 odd other songs in their collection so they'll all be jailed for 10 years or something--
Ivan: (cutting me off) Gerri, don't jinx me.
Ivan has A LOT of songs in his collection, you see. And even saying that he has A LOT is an understatement. And also, the two of us have discovered that we both possess a similar "talent" for jinxing. Not actual voodoo or anything, mind you; it's just that many of the bad things which we anticipate will happen, will, uncannily enough, actually happen.
We missed the first half of the concert; the part before the intermission, and sadly, we missed "The Seventh Night of July", which was the last song before the intermission.
After the intermission though, we went in, and we caught the brass quintet and percussion ensemble bits; the brass quintet's "Amazing Grace" was nice, but I prefer "Amazing Grace" to sound more slow and weepy, and less like the jazzy version that they were playing. Percussion ensemble's "Instant Carmen" was also lovely; Rachel's snare drum roll was amazing-- one of these days I'm gonna have to figure out exactly how percussion players do it. :P
Then the rest of the band came back, and I particularly liked the first movement of the "English Folk Song Suite"; had a very fast Irish feel to it, with a lot of clarinet and flute and other upper winds voices dominating. I love traditional Irish and Scottish dance music; it's the kind that makes you want to get up and dance a merry little jig along, haha.
After that, we helped move some of the band instruments back to their practice room (timpanis! I haven't helped move timpanis for ages!), then waited for Rachel a bit, then she treated us to supper; Fong Seng prata. I know I said I was boycotting the prata at Fong Seng coz it's ridiculously overpriced, but Rachel's friend, Nicole, studies overseas and she was back in town for her concert, so she wanted to try the prata, so that's what we did.
Jie gave most of us a life home after that; only Ivan still had to take public transport-- best she could do was drop him at Clementi since he lives all the way in Tampines.
When she dropped me off near my place, she mentioned that she'd write the cheque for me, and then I suddenly remembered that everything that I'd been doing tonight was supposed to be for work! Funny thing is, it didn't feel like work at all! Haha...!
Now for today's archery training: 150 arrows; my upper arm and back muscles are terribly sore. It's going to be even worse tomorrow, I tell you.
My later ends were much better than the first few; however, if this continues, then it means I'll need a long time to warm up before shooting. Not good. Maybe if I train more, the amount of "warm up" I need will lessen.
There was one end in particular where I kinda shocked myself, haha. It was only after I'd shot the fourth arrow of that end that I realised that all my arrows had formed one lovely clump of orange and white (my fletches are orange and white) in the middle of the board. And I realised then that every arrow that had landed in the board, you could hear a metallic sound, the sound of metal hitting metal, which means that the arrows were hitting against each other when they landed in the board.
My fifth arrow went off, but my sixth and last arrow hit with a metallic sound again. When we went to retrieve our arrows, the five that had landed all grouped together all had varying angles of entry, and I thought that was bad, until Nicholas pointed out that if the arrows were aiming to land in the same spot, obviously a preceding arrow would be crowded out of that spot by an arrow that was already there, so it'd settle into the spot above it, and probably at a weird angle, due to the "deflection".
Returned to the Archery Lounge after my shooting to find them playing bridge... oh, I forgot to mention that some of the guys finally taught me how to play bridge on Friday! Haha... I finally know how to play; it's quite simple, but requires a lot of brain work and memory work, and I don't have much in the way of either. :P But it was fun though. :D
Anyway, bridge seems to be gaining popularity amongst the archery people; I hope the Lounge doesn't turn into another "Arts Club Room" where the only thing anyone does in their free time besides sleep is play bridge or mahjong. At least in the Lounge, people actually read or do something productive or destressing on their lappies in their free time.
But, as I was saying before I digressed (again), bridge. That there is a complete (and new) pack of cards in the Lounge is, in itself, a rare occurrence.
See, the seniors are in the habit of playing poker with any playing cards that we have, and they usually play it at the range itself. When I say "playing poker at the range" I don't mean that they sit down to one side of the shooting line and play poker; I mean that they tack up the cards on the board, stand at the shooting line, and shoot the cards.
So yes, you can see why each deck would have a few cards missing.
The cards either become too full of holes to be actually usable anymore, or they drop off the board and go missing, or.. whatever else. Sometimes, when they're too lazy to take down the cards, they even leave it there for us to practice no-target shooting. Which just results in further damage to the cards, and eventually, their disposal. :D
Well, have to go pack now. Going to be staying overnight at Singapore Expo tomorrow to help them prepare for the record-breaking thing on the 22nd. Ivan and Denise are coming too, so YAY!! I have people that I can talk crap with! Hahaha...
I'm probably going to blabber their ears off when it gets really late at night, and then kor will probably start smacking me on the head with whatever's on hand, but hell. Oh, I hope they're both staying over. And I hope kor brings his lappie. Then we can play stuff on it; music or maybe whatever games he has. But shockingly enough, Singapore Expo doesn't have wireless connectivity. :( Which is odd, since you'd figure that a supposedly "world-class" exhibition venue should have wireless connectivity. *shrugs* Oh well.
Listening to Yanni's "In the Morning Light" and "Nightingale" right now; the latter is lovely-- features a Chinese flute and manages to strike this very delicate balance between sounding Eastern and Western at the same time. Maybe I'll change my blog music soon and let you all hear it. :D
Toodles, oh, and do drop by the Singapore Expo on the 22nd if you have the time... just to see the all-important event take place, if nothing else! :D
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Ladies and gentlemen, Team NUS Archery now has its first compound archer! Haha.
Nicholas' friend from RH came yesterday to shoot with us, and I think he'll be representing NUS for the competition in January. Speaking of which... I'm still not really sure what that competition is. :P
I think they said earlier that it was IVP, but then I heard that they changed the institutional shoot standards coz it wasn't fair for the polytechnics, seeing as how the uni students are older than them. Well, mostly. :P So I think the January competition is now called the NTU institutional shoot, according to Rayner's blog, and I trust Rayner's info coz he's in training cell, haha. I mean, training cell people know these things, what... and perhaps maybe secretarial cell as well, since they'll have to help us register and whatnot.
Was busy for the whole day again; did my last candle-selling shift at Expo (sold 53 candles between June and myself, despite the fact that we were both feeling really tired and lazy, haha), then rushed off for alumni band and about 4 pm, coz Expo is really damn far from anywhere, not to mention that CJ's in the west.
Well, okay, according to the land usage in Singapore, CJ is in the central area, but technically, Singapore's "central" area is in the west. So me travelling to the east so often in the past week (candle-selling on the 13th and 14th, rag bbq at downtown east on 15th, and candle-selling again today) is really straining my EZ Link card and my patience. Yes, I'm finding it quite annoying. And tiring. Strange, isn't it, that even if you were sitting down or sleeping all the way on the public transport, you'd still feel tired.
Argh. East is like a damn ulu place; when Denise and I were on the train heading towards Pasir Ris for the raggers' bbq, and we were approaching Tampines station, she pointed out that the housing estates in Tampines have a LOT of open space, as compared to Jurong, where she lives. She was making comparisons coz she used to live in Tampines, see.
And then when the train stopped at Tampines, about three-quarters of the passengers on board disembarked. O_O Seriously, the train went from "almost full" to "less than half empty". So apparently, a large proportion of Singaporeans live in the east.
Anyway. I think I digressed from my main point.
*Scrolls up to see what she was supposed to be talking/ typing about*
Ah. Alumni band practice. Right. :P
SP alumni came over today, so we had our first (and only, if I'm not wrong) combined practice, and it was good! Sounded so different and so much better with more people, and you could kinda see the difference between the CJ people and the SP people.
The CJ people were a more... fun bunch, I'd say. The SP people didn't seem as close a group as we were, and the SP clarinetist on 3rd with Chee Khiong and me seemed really serious and everything. She didn't talk much, but she was messaging loads, though.
Oh, and the wonderful thing about the new arrangement now that the SP people are here, is that 3rd clarinets are now in the second row! Hahaha.... That means that we're further away from Alvin, and he won't be able to hear all our mistakes, haha. Although I suppose he'll still be able to hear if we don't play. :P
Only downside to this is that the attention-seeking bugger in me is screaming in absolute outrage that I'm not in the first row anymore and that people won't be able to see me. But hell. I'm rather happy where I am, thank you very much, haha. I'll even be able to hide behind the first row if I get lost and then the audience won't be able to see the absolute confusion on my face if that happens, haha.
Sometime before practice started, I looked over at Pam, and was struck by the irony; see, in CJ band, clarinets and oboes (if there're any) take up the first row and the flutes are in the second row, on the conductor's left.
Now, the new arrangement is such that flutes and first clarinets are in the first row, while second and third clarinets are in the second row, on the conductor's right. So when I looked at Pam, I realised that she was seated where I normally would be, and vice versa, haha!
Speaking of practice, time for some shameless plugging. :D
This practice is in preparation for a joint concert by the CJC and SP Alumni Bands, which will be held on 19th March 2005, at VCH, I think, if they've finally decided on a venue.
All are most welcome. :D I'm "booking" you all really far in advance, haha, so if you fear that you shall forget this all-important date by February or March (or even January) next year, don't fret; I shall be on hand to remind you when the time draws near! Haha. :P
Oh, and while we're at it: plugging for Arts Bash 1!
21st January 2005 at Rouge. I was told that it's opposite Somerset MRT, but I think it's more specific to say that it's opposite Specialists' Shopping Centre, since Somerset MRT station has two exits, I think. Tickets are $14, there's 1-for-1 throughout the night, and vodka shots at $5 till midnight. Most importantly, if you want tickets, get them from me!
I have to sell 20 tickets, so yes; I'm sure you understand. :D
I have "booked" my kor, haha. And jie, if you're reading this, feel free to ask me for tickets too if your friends want any, haha. Also people like Wai Lun and Wei Jian, the lot of you who're suddenly obsessed with clubbing ever since you stepped into NS (which I think must be a damn sad time to suddenly become obsessed with it, since you won't be free most of the time then!).
Okay, shameless plugging is over. :P And for that matter, so is this post. :D
Nicholas' friend from RH came yesterday to shoot with us, and I think he'll be representing NUS for the competition in January. Speaking of which... I'm still not really sure what that competition is. :P
I think they said earlier that it was IVP, but then I heard that they changed the institutional shoot standards coz it wasn't fair for the polytechnics, seeing as how the uni students are older than them. Well, mostly. :P So I think the January competition is now called the NTU institutional shoot, according to Rayner's blog, and I trust Rayner's info coz he's in training cell, haha. I mean, training cell people know these things, what... and perhaps maybe secretarial cell as well, since they'll have to help us register and whatnot.
Was busy for the whole day again; did my last candle-selling shift at Expo (sold 53 candles between June and myself, despite the fact that we were both feeling really tired and lazy, haha), then rushed off for alumni band and about 4 pm, coz Expo is really damn far from anywhere, not to mention that CJ's in the west.
Well, okay, according to the land usage in Singapore, CJ is in the central area, but technically, Singapore's "central" area is in the west. So me travelling to the east so often in the past week (candle-selling on the 13th and 14th, rag bbq at downtown east on 15th, and candle-selling again today) is really straining my EZ Link card and my patience. Yes, I'm finding it quite annoying. And tiring. Strange, isn't it, that even if you were sitting down or sleeping all the way on the public transport, you'd still feel tired.
Argh. East is like a damn ulu place; when Denise and I were on the train heading towards Pasir Ris for the raggers' bbq, and we were approaching Tampines station, she pointed out that the housing estates in Tampines have a LOT of open space, as compared to Jurong, where she lives. She was making comparisons coz she used to live in Tampines, see.
And then when the train stopped at Tampines, about three-quarters of the passengers on board disembarked. O_O Seriously, the train went from "almost full" to "less than half empty". So apparently, a large proportion of Singaporeans live in the east.
Anyway. I think I digressed from my main point.
*Scrolls up to see what she was supposed to be talking/ typing about*
Ah. Alumni band practice. Right. :P
SP alumni came over today, so we had our first (and only, if I'm not wrong) combined practice, and it was good! Sounded so different and so much better with more people, and you could kinda see the difference between the CJ people and the SP people.
The CJ people were a more... fun bunch, I'd say. The SP people didn't seem as close a group as we were, and the SP clarinetist on 3rd with Chee Khiong and me seemed really serious and everything. She didn't talk much, but she was messaging loads, though.
Oh, and the wonderful thing about the new arrangement now that the SP people are here, is that 3rd clarinets are now in the second row! Hahaha.... That means that we're further away from Alvin, and he won't be able to hear all our mistakes, haha. Although I suppose he'll still be able to hear if we don't play. :P
Only downside to this is that the attention-seeking bugger in me is screaming in absolute outrage that I'm not in the first row anymore and that people won't be able to see me. But hell. I'm rather happy where I am, thank you very much, haha. I'll even be able to hide behind the first row if I get lost and then the audience won't be able to see the absolute confusion on my face if that happens, haha.
Sometime before practice started, I looked over at Pam, and was struck by the irony; see, in CJ band, clarinets and oboes (if there're any) take up the first row and the flutes are in the second row, on the conductor's left.
Now, the new arrangement is such that flutes and first clarinets are in the first row, while second and third clarinets are in the second row, on the conductor's right. So when I looked at Pam, I realised that she was seated where I normally would be, and vice versa, haha!
Speaking of practice, time for some shameless plugging. :D
This practice is in preparation for a joint concert by the CJC and SP Alumni Bands, which will be held on 19th March 2005, at VCH, I think, if they've finally decided on a venue.
All are most welcome. :D I'm "booking" you all really far in advance, haha, so if you fear that you shall forget this all-important date by February or March (or even January) next year, don't fret; I shall be on hand to remind you when the time draws near! Haha. :P
Oh, and while we're at it: plugging for Arts Bash 1!
21st January 2005 at Rouge. I was told that it's opposite Somerset MRT, but I think it's more specific to say that it's opposite Specialists' Shopping Centre, since Somerset MRT station has two exits, I think. Tickets are $14, there's 1-for-1 throughout the night, and vodka shots at $5 till midnight. Most importantly, if you want tickets, get them from me!
I have to sell 20 tickets, so yes; I'm sure you understand. :D
I have "booked" my kor, haha. And jie, if you're reading this, feel free to ask me for tickets too if your friends want any, haha. Also people like Wai Lun and Wei Jian, the lot of you who're suddenly obsessed with clubbing ever since you stepped into NS (which I think must be a damn sad time to suddenly become obsessed with it, since you won't be free most of the time then!).
Okay, shameless plugging is over. :P And for that matter, so is this post. :D
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Random thought: How can something be both "new and improved" at the same time?? I mean, if it's "new" then that means that nothing of its kind has ever existed before, right, so it can't have been "improved". And if it's "improved", then that means that there's an older version of it, so it's not "new" anymore then, is it?? *Rolls eyes* Advertising gimmicks.
Raggers' BBQ last night!! Haha... was fun as usual, with people like Shaun around, there's never a lack of food or a lack of variety of food. He's like our own Jamie Oliver, seriously. Probably minus the fact that he doesn't talk as much as Jamie Oliver does. Unless he's busy mumbling to himself, but he's quite endearing when he does that, hahaha.
Have noticed that BBQs are generally unhealthy affairs. Below are my reasons for thinking so.
1. Food is sometimes half-cooked.
2. Food is sometimes not cooked.
3. Food is almost always oily stuff.
4. Food is always experimented with, sometimes resulting in.. odd, combinations.
Like at the last Rag BBQ that we had, Shaun introduced us to cheese shrimps, which basically consisted of covering shrimps with slices of cheese and then wrapping the whole thing up in aluminium foil and setting it on the grill to cook. When you open up the foil after the shrimp is cooked, the cheese will have melted all over it, so you get lovely cheesy shrimp!
At our last BBQ, the aluminium foil was too small, so when the cheese melted, it bubbled out of the opening in the foil and spilled over onto the crabsticks on the grill next to it; that gave us the idea of cheesy crabsticks, haha.
So we had cheesy shrimp again (can I name it "chrimp"?? :D), crabsticks with honey, sausages with honey, sotong balls (does anyone EVER realise how wrong "fishballs" and "sotong balls" sounds?? o_O) with butter or honey or char siew sauce or a very strange combination of all three, or two of the three, and there was roast chicken, curry chicken with potatoes that Jasmine's dad made for us, and chicken with garlic butter that Shaun made, and beef patties with onions that Shaun made too. Oh, and for dessert, banana with chocolate. Whole banana with chocolate cubes; wrapped in foil, of course, then you set it on the grill for a while and when you open it up, the banana's all soft and covered in chocolate. Yummy. :D
I'm making myself hungry all over again. :P
And of course, there was alcohol. Vodka. Smirnoff's in two flavours: Raspberry and Green Apple Twist. Smirnoff's must be the alcoholic beverage with the highest concentration of alcohol that I've ever drunk. 37.5% alcohol.
When I found out, I'd already drunk half a cup, and I was like, "Whoa. No wonder." Haha. Seriously, when you smell it, you can smell the green apple, but when you drink it, you can't even taste the alcohol, but I guarantee that you'll feel it. The minute the thing touches your tongue, the sharpness of it wakes you right up, and upon swallowing the drink, you get that burn that one usually associates with alcohol, only it goes two ways: it shoots right down to your gut and up to your brain at the same time, and the feeling kinda stays there for about five minutes.
That's for the green apple flavoured one, though. The raspberry one tasted milder; probably because on its own, green apple is a sour fruit, after all.
So I drank about a cup of the green apple twist, and I only diluted the last half of it with Coke; even then, it was still damn potent.
I got pretty damn high after that, making random silly comments and giggling about my own and others' funny comments for much longer than a sane person would/should.
Denise kept saying I was drunk. I resent that. I was not drunk, and there is a difference between being completely wasted and drunk and just being high. Also, I have better control of myself than some other people at that BBQ.
Anyway. Moving on.
So I had alcohol, sugar and caffeine (from the Coke and chocolate), and good company. PLENTY of reason for me to be damn high, haha. Our rag BBQs are always the best BBQs that I've ever been to; including the Rag steamboat that we had in school halfway through Rag; at that time, the bunch of us were already becoming VERY familiar with the school, despite the fact that we weren't even matriculated yet then, haha... :D
My sis just came out of my parents' bedroom, announcing that Season One of "The OC" has now officially ended in Singapore.
It reminds me of how crazy over it I was when it first started airing here, and how I proclaimed that it was gonna be my weekly dose of teenage angst. That kinda faded off after a while when for some reason (Singapore Idol, I think) the show went on hiatus for a LONG time, and when it started up again, I was much more busy with other things, like schoolwork.
Well, there goes another good show. I find myself missing Buffy from time to time, despite the fact that I'm not a hardcore fan or anything. The last season was especially enjoyable coz I liked the change in Spike; yes, so I have a thing for tortured, dark characters with attitude problems. Bite me. :P
The ending, the last episode, that is, was slightly predictable, however. That Spike and Anya would die was just something that I saw coming from a mile off. They're a vampire and a vengeance demon respectively, so them helping out on the side of good is just something that isn't supposed to be done. So it makes sense that in the end, in helping the good guys fight the evil that are really their kind, they'd die in the end. It's like coming full circle, after all. If all the evil in the world has to go, then I guess they'd have to go along with it; it is their nature, after all, no matter how much they've changed for the better.
And under that, I suppose there's also an undercurrent as to how opposing your nature never comes to any good end? Something like the "nature vs nurture" argument, I guess.
People can change, I suppose, but how much can they possibly change? And supposing it's all down to nature; then that makes the effort to change obsolete, doesn't it? Or perhaps, making an effort to change what is in one's nature would only be like winding up a toy in a different way.
But what if you wound it up the wrong way? Would that only make it worse? And if you wound it up the wrong way, would it just break completely and become utterly beyond repair, or would it just stop and not go anymore?
Questions, questions, questions. I always have too many of them, and they're mostly useless. In the sense that they don't really have a lot of practical application, that is.
Archery training again tomorrow. Woot. Hope there're seniors! Haha.. Jennifer's really funny, though. Oh, but tomorrow's supposed to be full FITA shoot standard... 50 ends. Meep. 150 arrows. Arm is gonna be so sore. *Shrugs* Oh well.
So I shall leave you here, with an amusing quiz for you to do. :D Isn't the little yellow penguin cute. >_<
What color is your inner penguin?
brought to you by Quizilla
Raggers' BBQ last night!! Haha... was fun as usual, with people like Shaun around, there's never a lack of food or a lack of variety of food. He's like our own Jamie Oliver, seriously. Probably minus the fact that he doesn't talk as much as Jamie Oliver does. Unless he's busy mumbling to himself, but he's quite endearing when he does that, hahaha.
Have noticed that BBQs are generally unhealthy affairs. Below are my reasons for thinking so.
1. Food is sometimes half-cooked.
2. Food is sometimes not cooked.
3. Food is almost always oily stuff.
4. Food is always experimented with, sometimes resulting in.. odd, combinations.
Like at the last Rag BBQ that we had, Shaun introduced us to cheese shrimps, which basically consisted of covering shrimps with slices of cheese and then wrapping the whole thing up in aluminium foil and setting it on the grill to cook. When you open up the foil after the shrimp is cooked, the cheese will have melted all over it, so you get lovely cheesy shrimp!
At our last BBQ, the aluminium foil was too small, so when the cheese melted, it bubbled out of the opening in the foil and spilled over onto the crabsticks on the grill next to it; that gave us the idea of cheesy crabsticks, haha.
So we had cheesy shrimp again (can I name it "chrimp"?? :D), crabsticks with honey, sausages with honey, sotong balls (does anyone EVER realise how wrong "fishballs" and "sotong balls" sounds?? o_O) with butter or honey or char siew sauce or a very strange combination of all three, or two of the three, and there was roast chicken, curry chicken with potatoes that Jasmine's dad made for us, and chicken with garlic butter that Shaun made, and beef patties with onions that Shaun made too. Oh, and for dessert, banana with chocolate. Whole banana with chocolate cubes; wrapped in foil, of course, then you set it on the grill for a while and when you open it up, the banana's all soft and covered in chocolate. Yummy. :D
I'm making myself hungry all over again. :P
And of course, there was alcohol. Vodka. Smirnoff's in two flavours: Raspberry and Green Apple Twist. Smirnoff's must be the alcoholic beverage with the highest concentration of alcohol that I've ever drunk. 37.5% alcohol.
When I found out, I'd already drunk half a cup, and I was like, "Whoa. No wonder." Haha. Seriously, when you smell it, you can smell the green apple, but when you drink it, you can't even taste the alcohol, but I guarantee that you'll feel it. The minute the thing touches your tongue, the sharpness of it wakes you right up, and upon swallowing the drink, you get that burn that one usually associates with alcohol, only it goes two ways: it shoots right down to your gut and up to your brain at the same time, and the feeling kinda stays there for about five minutes.
That's for the green apple flavoured one, though. The raspberry one tasted milder; probably because on its own, green apple is a sour fruit, after all.
So I drank about a cup of the green apple twist, and I only diluted the last half of it with Coke; even then, it was still damn potent.
I got pretty damn high after that, making random silly comments and giggling about my own and others' funny comments for much longer than a sane person would/should.
Denise kept saying I was drunk. I resent that. I was not drunk, and there is a difference between being completely wasted and drunk and just being high. Also, I have better control of myself than some other people at that BBQ.
Anyway. Moving on.
So I had alcohol, sugar and caffeine (from the Coke and chocolate), and good company. PLENTY of reason for me to be damn high, haha. Our rag BBQs are always the best BBQs that I've ever been to; including the Rag steamboat that we had in school halfway through Rag; at that time, the bunch of us were already becoming VERY familiar with the school, despite the fact that we weren't even matriculated yet then, haha... :D
My sis just came out of my parents' bedroom, announcing that Season One of "The OC" has now officially ended in Singapore.
It reminds me of how crazy over it I was when it first started airing here, and how I proclaimed that it was gonna be my weekly dose of teenage angst. That kinda faded off after a while when for some reason (Singapore Idol, I think) the show went on hiatus for a LONG time, and when it started up again, I was much more busy with other things, like schoolwork.
Well, there goes another good show. I find myself missing Buffy from time to time, despite the fact that I'm not a hardcore fan or anything. The last season was especially enjoyable coz I liked the change in Spike; yes, so I have a thing for tortured, dark characters with attitude problems. Bite me. :P
The ending, the last episode, that is, was slightly predictable, however. That Spike and Anya would die was just something that I saw coming from a mile off. They're a vampire and a vengeance demon respectively, so them helping out on the side of good is just something that isn't supposed to be done. So it makes sense that in the end, in helping the good guys fight the evil that are really their kind, they'd die in the end. It's like coming full circle, after all. If all the evil in the world has to go, then I guess they'd have to go along with it; it is their nature, after all, no matter how much they've changed for the better.
And under that, I suppose there's also an undercurrent as to how opposing your nature never comes to any good end? Something like the "nature vs nurture" argument, I guess.
People can change, I suppose, but how much can they possibly change? And supposing it's all down to nature; then that makes the effort to change obsolete, doesn't it? Or perhaps, making an effort to change what is in one's nature would only be like winding up a toy in a different way.
But what if you wound it up the wrong way? Would that only make it worse? And if you wound it up the wrong way, would it just break completely and become utterly beyond repair, or would it just stop and not go anymore?
Questions, questions, questions. I always have too many of them, and they're mostly useless. In the sense that they don't really have a lot of practical application, that is.
Archery training again tomorrow. Woot. Hope there're seniors! Haha.. Jennifer's really funny, though. Oh, but tomorrow's supposed to be full FITA shoot standard... 50 ends. Meep. 150 arrows. Arm is gonna be so sore. *Shrugs* Oh well.
So I shall leave you here, with an amusing quiz for you to do. :D Isn't the little yellow penguin cute. >_<
What color is your inner penguin?
brought to you by Quizilla
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Woot. I think I have joined the likes of Shiling in idolising the Archery National Team. Haha.
Some of the seniors came to coach us today in school; namely, Jennifer, Benson, and another girl whose name I think is May. I think they're all Nat Team members. Most of the seniors seem pro enough to be Nat Team to me, though. :P
Good news: Jennifer said that while she was watching me during the competition, she noticed that my form is good, and my bow arm is very strong (eh? really?? :P).
Bad news: But my release is bad. That's not really anything new though. I've known that there's a problem with my release technique for a long time, but I've no idea how to correct it. Most probably coz you can't see the way you release. :P
Good news: Benson came over later and helped elaborate on some of the stuff that Jennifer was coaching me with. AND NOW I FINALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT HE WAS TELLING ME ABOUT TWO MONTHS AGO!! :P
Bad news: Benson's technique makes my shoulders ache horribly. But then again, that's sort of a norm here, haha. So nothing new. :P But his technique does make things feel more... right, so to speak.
So, after that short but rather productive training session, headed off to Expo to do my shift, selling candles for charity. Arrived early, while Kelvin Si and (year 2) Clement were still doing the last leg of their shift, and man... they sold a damn lot of candles for a weekday. Must've been Clement's friendliness and his networking skills; Kelvin's too, although I think, with Kelvin, to a lesser extent. :P
Was feeling really horrible with my flu and sore throat (yes, unfortunately it's confirmed, I *AM* sick now), and I really didn't want to get up and ask a whole lot of mostly selfish, apathetic people to please be generous and help the poor and that it's only $2 a candle so won't you please consider?
So, I sat at the table and watched the cashbox for a bit while Denise was mostly out there pushing sales. However, I can never sit still for very long when I'm doing this sort of charity/flag day kinda stuff. Don't ask me why; I'm not very sure either. Maybe it has something to do with collecting money, albeit that the money isn't really going to be for me. :P
So, I got up and went to help her, but I didn't dare stray too far from the table since the cashbox was really just sitting there in plain sight, so I figured that we'd need a third person to watch the cashbox at least, and Denise wanted to go buy something to eat, so one person couldn't really handle the booth, anyway.
Called Ivan, since he said that he was going to drop by and help us, anyway, and take note of this: when I called, it was about 4 pm, and he said okay, he'd come down right then.
Apparently, waiting for the bus and the bus ride to Expo from Tampines takes around two hours, because by the time Ivan reached Expo, it was just past 6 pm.
Denise screamed her usual greeting (for him) when she spotted him: "Piece of shit, you're FINALLY here! Took so long!!! From Tampines only, leh..!!"
And he replied saying something about having just woken up when I called; I didn't really hear the rest of what he said, but I think we can extrapolate from the first sentence.
We'd sold about 76 candles by the end of the day, although the last one and a half hours of our shift was spent scratching silly things in the fake-snow decorative frosting on the glass pane of the building, and with Ivan and me using the pamphlets to smack Denise on the head for her random, silly, giggly comments.
I've found that fundraising stuff is always more fun when you're doing it with the right people; preferably people whom you know and are comfortable with. I know that's probably the way it is with almost everything in this world, but I think with fundraising events, the good company always plays a big part in your not getting too depressed at being rejected so often. :)
Some of the seniors came to coach us today in school; namely, Jennifer, Benson, and another girl whose name I think is May. I think they're all Nat Team members. Most of the seniors seem pro enough to be Nat Team to me, though. :P
Good news: Jennifer said that while she was watching me during the competition, she noticed that my form is good, and my bow arm is very strong (eh? really?? :P).
Bad news: But my release is bad. That's not really anything new though. I've known that there's a problem with my release technique for a long time, but I've no idea how to correct it. Most probably coz you can't see the way you release. :P
Good news: Benson came over later and helped elaborate on some of the stuff that Jennifer was coaching me with. AND NOW I FINALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT HE WAS TELLING ME ABOUT TWO MONTHS AGO!! :P
Bad news: Benson's technique makes my shoulders ache horribly. But then again, that's sort of a norm here, haha. So nothing new. :P But his technique does make things feel more... right, so to speak.
So, after that short but rather productive training session, headed off to Expo to do my shift, selling candles for charity. Arrived early, while Kelvin Si and (year 2) Clement were still doing the last leg of their shift, and man... they sold a damn lot of candles for a weekday. Must've been Clement's friendliness and his networking skills; Kelvin's too, although I think, with Kelvin, to a lesser extent. :P
Was feeling really horrible with my flu and sore throat (yes, unfortunately it's confirmed, I *AM* sick now), and I really didn't want to get up and ask a whole lot of mostly selfish, apathetic people to please be generous and help the poor and that it's only $2 a candle so won't you please consider?
So, I sat at the table and watched the cashbox for a bit while Denise was mostly out there pushing sales. However, I can never sit still for very long when I'm doing this sort of charity/flag day kinda stuff. Don't ask me why; I'm not very sure either. Maybe it has something to do with collecting money, albeit that the money isn't really going to be for me. :P
So, I got up and went to help her, but I didn't dare stray too far from the table since the cashbox was really just sitting there in plain sight, so I figured that we'd need a third person to watch the cashbox at least, and Denise wanted to go buy something to eat, so one person couldn't really handle the booth, anyway.
Called Ivan, since he said that he was going to drop by and help us, anyway, and take note of this: when I called, it was about 4 pm, and he said okay, he'd come down right then.
Apparently, waiting for the bus and the bus ride to Expo from Tampines takes around two hours, because by the time Ivan reached Expo, it was just past 6 pm.
Denise screamed her usual greeting (for him) when she spotted him: "Piece of shit, you're FINALLY here! Took so long!!! From Tampines only, leh..!!"
And he replied saying something about having just woken up when I called; I didn't really hear the rest of what he said, but I think we can extrapolate from the first sentence.
We'd sold about 76 candles by the end of the day, although the last one and a half hours of our shift was spent scratching silly things in the fake-snow decorative frosting on the glass pane of the building, and with Ivan and me using the pamphlets to smack Denise on the head for her random, silly, giggly comments.
I've found that fundraising stuff is always more fun when you're doing it with the right people; preferably people whom you know and are comfortable with. I know that's probably the way it is with almost everything in this world, but I think with fundraising events, the good company always plays a big part in your not getting too depressed at being rejected so often. :)
Sunday, December 12, 2004
AAS Shoot is over!! Yay...! :D
So now I'm DAMN tired and sleepy and feeling slightly flu-ish thanks to the damn lousy weather over the last three days while I was out in the open, and also probably because it's kinda cold over here right now, where I live.
Seriously, the weather was terrible. AAS's Jurong range is, for all effects and purposes, a temporary range, coz DM Archery had to relocate there temporarily while SAFRA moves from Bukit Merah to bloody TAMPINES of all places. Nothing against Tampines, but it's just damn FAR from ANYWHERE!! So, since it was a temporary range, there wasn't really adequate shelter, and the all the tarpaulin that they'd managed to string up as shelters just sloshed down a whole lot of water at some points during really heavy rain, when it just couldn't hold all the water anymore.
So it went on like that for two and a half days; it started raining halfway through sighting on Friday, then it rained after the first half of the standard class shoot on Saturday, and then on Sunday, it rained before we even got started and rained AGAIN when the whole thing had ended.
Shitty weather; when it rains, it's damn cold, and then when it stops, it's warmer than ever coz when the sun comes back out, you've got all the humidity to deal with, what with all the puddles of water, and plus, the range is set up on an old tennis court, and tennis courts reflect a HELL of a lot of heat.
With all that crap, I won't be surprised if I fall sick. But I seriously hope I don't. I have NEVER been sick more than once in the space of one year. For that matter, I've never been sick more than once within the space of THREE years. I generally have a better constitution than both my sisters; why, I'm not certain. All I know is that they're supposedly allergic to a lot of things that mean nothing to me, and that they both had plenty more infections and whatnot than I did while they were growing up.
So what usually happens for me is that every three years or so, when a new kind of flu virus develops, someone in my household will catch it, and I'll invariably get wind of it (literally); I'll be sick for a few days or so, but nothing that I can't get rid of with a little running around. After that, I'm back to normal, and the "three-year-cycle" repeats itself. I don't want to break my record! I know what they say about there being a first time for everything, but really, I believe that "first time" can wait till I'm out in the working world and I can finally make full use of the all-powerful "Medical Certificate". :P
All that aside, AAS Shoot was fun... except for some casualties.
Casualty number one: as early on as before the second end, Jianwu suddenly shouted over to Rayner that Imy's eye was bleeding. Rayner, myself, Angel and Huiting immediately rushed over to Imy's lane, where most of the juniors had already crowded along with some of the judges, and we found out that she had a cut just above her eye, and that it wasn't her eye itself that was bleeding. Was pretty damn scary though; when I first caught a glimpse of her, she was pulling away the tissue that she'd pressed to her eye, and it came away with a splotch of red on it. Apparently, while retrieving her arrows, she'd accidentally walked into the arrows on the lower target face, and the nocks cut her, I suppose. They sent her to the nearby clinic and she returned later, quite all right and they let her make-up the ends that she'd missed.
Second casualty: well, okay, maybe not really a "casualty", but close enough. During the second half of the standard class shoot, Rayner almost dropped his bow, but managed to catch hold of it just in time; sweaty palms. Being in the lane just next to him, I exchanged a wide-eyed glance with him that said "Thank goodness..."
But then, just as we shot our arrows for that end, someone else's bow actually DID fly out into the shooting area and land on the floor. When the end was over, we found out that it was Jianwu's. Jianwu's another case of sweaty palms, and in this case, the other half of the sight had gotten bent when it landed on the ground. He was lucky that it was just the screw on the other end, and not the sight itself.
Anyway, one thing I learned: it's easier to get stressed in team events than in individual events.
All the seniors warned us about getting stressed because of so many people watching us and whatnot, but really, throughout the individual shoot yesterday, I didn't feel a thing. I felt nothing from the time I set up my bow, right up till the time I shot my last arrow.
We realised later that, really, you hardly notice the "audience". Because when you're shooting, you concentrate mostly on the target board, and even when you load an arrow, you'll turn back, but you'll just be looking at the arrows as you take one out, not at the "audience". That is, if you turn back at all. Some people don't turn back.
Speaking of the "audience"; one odd thing (among others) that the other juniors and myself noted yesterday was that in archery, almost ALL the spectators are also competitors. I.e: they're watching to see how well/ badly you do.
It's also another "quiet" sport; make too much noise while shooting's going on and some group of people will definitely make a loud shushing noise.
It's different from things like golf, though; in archery, you have the time to mingle around and talk to your fellow compeitors (if you want to) while you're collecting your arrows and taking your scores and when you're not shooting. Although I suppose this doesn't really apply in most professional competitions; like say, in the Olympics-- they've people to retrieve their arrows and take their score for them, and I doubt that they waste any time on idle chit-chat.
Also, given that the archery cirle in Singapore is relatively small, it's almost like everyone knows everyone else. To start with, given the small pool that they can draw from, there're archers from the national team in almost every tertiary institution. We have Alvin and Kenneth (and probably some other seniors that I'm not aware of..), SP has the SEA Games silver medallist (think his name was Albert Loh), and so on. Then, at these kinds of competitions when everyone mingles around, everyone gets to know someone knew and check out the competition all at the same time; Weizheng and I were already taking note of the hotshots that NTU fielded, during the awards presentation.
One thing that amused me to no end in this competition however, was one of our seniors, Benson, this guy who always sounds really experienced and wise with his advice (and it works), and his twin brother.
We never knew that Benson had a twin brother till Friday, when we were at Boon Lay Interchange waiting for 178. We were all hanging around just outside the queuing line, when Benson, another guy who looked freakily like him, and a girl came up and stepped into the line.
It took a while for most of the juniors to realise that they looked almost exactly alike.
So I went up to Khim Nyang and asked if that was Benson's twin or something and got a nod in return; they are, in Shiling's words "so disgustingly alike, I can't stand it".
They dress the same way: they wear the same shorts, the same shoes, wear identical pairs of sunglasses; their hairstyle is the same, and their hair is even dyed the same way in the same colour.
The only way we could tell them apart at first was by the shirts that they wore.
See, Benson's from NUS. His brother's from NTU. So all you had to do, from Saturday onwards, was look at the shirt to tell if it was Benson or his brother you were looking at.
The fact that the two of them are from rival schools here is just part of what made it all so amusing for all of us; on the first day during the open class shoot, Benson and his brother somehow got allocated to the same lane-- Benson was on target 2B and his brother was on 2D. For the juniors who stayed to watch the seniors shoot, we were somewhat fascinated by the continuous string of yellow and red hits that the Benson twins (what we came to call them, since we didn't find out his brother's name till the end of the first day and it was getting rather tiring to say "Benson and his brother" all the time) and some of the other archers were scoring. Especially people like the SEA Games silver medallist on target 14B, whose three arrows almost always looked like ONE thick arrow from where we were. That's how damn tight his grouping was. O_O
The next day, in the standard class knockout shoot, Rayner was up against this guy from NTU, and they were in Lane 16, the rightmost lane. Now this is the funny part. What happened was that while they were shooting, Benson was on the left, behind Rayner, coaching him and telling him where to shift his aim to, and on the right, his brother, Henry, was doing the exact same thing for the NTU guy. I would've dropped to the floor laughing if it hadn't been a serious distraction at that time. :D :P
After that, in the open class knockout shoot, the twins ended up pitted against each other, so they were both shooting at the same time, in the same lane, and I'm telling you, from the far end of the range, the similarity was once again absolutely stunning. I mean.. wow. Really freaky. I actually wanted to go over and see if the atmosphere in that lane was slightly different from all the other lanes, since they're brothers and all, haha. But when I saw the crowd and the mess of bowstands and bows that I'd have to pick my way through to get to Lane 7 (their lane), I decided against it.
Then, standard class team event. My team was next to an NTU team, and we were in Lane 16. Rightmost lane, so guess what happened?
Yep. Repeat of the standard class knockout shoot. Benson was giving encouragement and so on to myself and my teammates, Shiling and Angel, while I could hear Henry doing the same to the left. Only way I could tell who to listen to was by listening to the direction that the voice was coming from, hahaha.... :D
Remember how I said that I found the team event much more stressful? That's because with the individual event, whatever happens is your problem; if you shot badly, that's your problem; if you shot well, then good for you; in a team however, shooting badly means that you pull the whole team down. There's the pressure to perform there. And what's worse is that you really CAN'T panic, or you'll make the rest of your teammates panic as well, and then everything really will go to hell.
Shiling was working herself up nicely no matter how much I tried to calm her down the whole day, and Angel kept talking about getting "butterflies" just before the event started, so bloody hell, despite how badly I wanted to scream at someone (I specifically had the NTU people in the next lane in mind), I had to make nice with the stupid stress bug and smile and keep telling them to relax and cracking lame jokes because me panicking wouldn't have done anything. I'd probably have worked myself into a fit if I'd got started down that road, anyway.
Boy did it come back full force when we started the first round; I'd agreed to be the last shooter since I shoot quite fast and I didn't think that I'd get stressed as easily as the two of them. What happened was Angel went first, and her first arrow hit the red in the upper target face.
That may sound like a good thing to you.
Not when we'd decided beforehand that Shiling would take the bottom-left target face, Angel would take the bottom-right face, and I would take the top face because I don't fare well with a low target face.
This means that Angel's arrow had gone off, and now she'd have to aim for the upper target face, which means that either way, I was stuck with shooting a lower target face.
Then Shiling went, and she was so stressed that you could see it. All the seniors were clusted around, and even myself and Angel were telling her to relax, and above it all, Benson's voice was ringing out, constantly telling her to "man man lai (take it slow), relax, focus".
It got to the point, however, that I was twiddling with my arrow fletches while my gaze was alternating between her and the clock. I could hear my own heartbeat while the clock merrily counted down from 70+ seconds to slightly over 60 seconds.
I had about a minute to shoot 3 arrows, with a triple-face target, which none of us had trained with before! ARGH... was so gonna panic right then and there.
Surprisingly, that first end of mine was all right; scored an 8 and a 7, but my last arrow missed and landed in the upper target face, right next to Angel's first arrow. Found out later that Angel and I had aimed at the same place, and our arrows had both gone off.
My final end was bad though; 3 Ms. And the final score was 108; the NTU team next to us got 120. Considering that we were only 12 points away, that's all right, I guess. But when you consider that if I'd actually scored something that last end, our score would've been higher and we might've been higher in the rankings.. maybe even high enough to go on to the next round... well, that just sucks, really.
And since that NTU team went on to the finals, we probably *were* close enough.
Oh well. No use thinking about that now... next competition is January 29th! Training, training, training... :D
So now I'm DAMN tired and sleepy and feeling slightly flu-ish thanks to the damn lousy weather over the last three days while I was out in the open, and also probably because it's kinda cold over here right now, where I live.
Seriously, the weather was terrible. AAS's Jurong range is, for all effects and purposes, a temporary range, coz DM Archery had to relocate there temporarily while SAFRA moves from Bukit Merah to bloody TAMPINES of all places. Nothing against Tampines, but it's just damn FAR from ANYWHERE!! So, since it was a temporary range, there wasn't really adequate shelter, and the all the tarpaulin that they'd managed to string up as shelters just sloshed down a whole lot of water at some points during really heavy rain, when it just couldn't hold all the water anymore.
So it went on like that for two and a half days; it started raining halfway through sighting on Friday, then it rained after the first half of the standard class shoot on Saturday, and then on Sunday, it rained before we even got started and rained AGAIN when the whole thing had ended.
Shitty weather; when it rains, it's damn cold, and then when it stops, it's warmer than ever coz when the sun comes back out, you've got all the humidity to deal with, what with all the puddles of water, and plus, the range is set up on an old tennis court, and tennis courts reflect a HELL of a lot of heat.
With all that crap, I won't be surprised if I fall sick. But I seriously hope I don't. I have NEVER been sick more than once in the space of one year. For that matter, I've never been sick more than once within the space of THREE years. I generally have a better constitution than both my sisters; why, I'm not certain. All I know is that they're supposedly allergic to a lot of things that mean nothing to me, and that they both had plenty more infections and whatnot than I did while they were growing up.
So what usually happens for me is that every three years or so, when a new kind of flu virus develops, someone in my household will catch it, and I'll invariably get wind of it (literally); I'll be sick for a few days or so, but nothing that I can't get rid of with a little running around. After that, I'm back to normal, and the "three-year-cycle" repeats itself. I don't want to break my record! I know what they say about there being a first time for everything, but really, I believe that "first time" can wait till I'm out in the working world and I can finally make full use of the all-powerful "Medical Certificate". :P
All that aside, AAS Shoot was fun... except for some casualties.
Casualty number one: as early on as before the second end, Jianwu suddenly shouted over to Rayner that Imy's eye was bleeding. Rayner, myself, Angel and Huiting immediately rushed over to Imy's lane, where most of the juniors had already crowded along with some of the judges, and we found out that she had a cut just above her eye, and that it wasn't her eye itself that was bleeding. Was pretty damn scary though; when I first caught a glimpse of her, she was pulling away the tissue that she'd pressed to her eye, and it came away with a splotch of red on it. Apparently, while retrieving her arrows, she'd accidentally walked into the arrows on the lower target face, and the nocks cut her, I suppose. They sent her to the nearby clinic and she returned later, quite all right and they let her make-up the ends that she'd missed.
Second casualty: well, okay, maybe not really a "casualty", but close enough. During the second half of the standard class shoot, Rayner almost dropped his bow, but managed to catch hold of it just in time; sweaty palms. Being in the lane just next to him, I exchanged a wide-eyed glance with him that said "Thank goodness..."
But then, just as we shot our arrows for that end, someone else's bow actually DID fly out into the shooting area and land on the floor. When the end was over, we found out that it was Jianwu's. Jianwu's another case of sweaty palms, and in this case, the other half of the sight had gotten bent when it landed on the ground. He was lucky that it was just the screw on the other end, and not the sight itself.
Anyway, one thing I learned: it's easier to get stressed in team events than in individual events.
All the seniors warned us about getting stressed because of so many people watching us and whatnot, but really, throughout the individual shoot yesterday, I didn't feel a thing. I felt nothing from the time I set up my bow, right up till the time I shot my last arrow.
We realised later that, really, you hardly notice the "audience". Because when you're shooting, you concentrate mostly on the target board, and even when you load an arrow, you'll turn back, but you'll just be looking at the arrows as you take one out, not at the "audience". That is, if you turn back at all. Some people don't turn back.
Speaking of the "audience"; one odd thing (among others) that the other juniors and myself noted yesterday was that in archery, almost ALL the spectators are also competitors. I.e: they're watching to see how well/ badly you do.
It's also another "quiet" sport; make too much noise while shooting's going on and some group of people will definitely make a loud shushing noise.
It's different from things like golf, though; in archery, you have the time to mingle around and talk to your fellow compeitors (if you want to) while you're collecting your arrows and taking your scores and when you're not shooting. Although I suppose this doesn't really apply in most professional competitions; like say, in the Olympics-- they've people to retrieve their arrows and take their score for them, and I doubt that they waste any time on idle chit-chat.
Also, given that the archery cirle in Singapore is relatively small, it's almost like everyone knows everyone else. To start with, given the small pool that they can draw from, there're archers from the national team in almost every tertiary institution. We have Alvin and Kenneth (and probably some other seniors that I'm not aware of..), SP has the SEA Games silver medallist (think his name was Albert Loh), and so on. Then, at these kinds of competitions when everyone mingles around, everyone gets to know someone knew and check out the competition all at the same time; Weizheng and I were already taking note of the hotshots that NTU fielded, during the awards presentation.
One thing that amused me to no end in this competition however, was one of our seniors, Benson, this guy who always sounds really experienced and wise with his advice (and it works), and his twin brother.
We never knew that Benson had a twin brother till Friday, when we were at Boon Lay Interchange waiting for 178. We were all hanging around just outside the queuing line, when Benson, another guy who looked freakily like him, and a girl came up and stepped into the line.
It took a while for most of the juniors to realise that they looked almost exactly alike.
So I went up to Khim Nyang and asked if that was Benson's twin or something and got a nod in return; they are, in Shiling's words "so disgustingly alike, I can't stand it".
They dress the same way: they wear the same shorts, the same shoes, wear identical pairs of sunglasses; their hairstyle is the same, and their hair is even dyed the same way in the same colour.
The only way we could tell them apart at first was by the shirts that they wore.
See, Benson's from NUS. His brother's from NTU. So all you had to do, from Saturday onwards, was look at the shirt to tell if it was Benson or his brother you were looking at.
The fact that the two of them are from rival schools here is just part of what made it all so amusing for all of us; on the first day during the open class shoot, Benson and his brother somehow got allocated to the same lane-- Benson was on target 2B and his brother was on 2D. For the juniors who stayed to watch the seniors shoot, we were somewhat fascinated by the continuous string of yellow and red hits that the Benson twins (what we came to call them, since we didn't find out his brother's name till the end of the first day and it was getting rather tiring to say "Benson and his brother" all the time) and some of the other archers were scoring. Especially people like the SEA Games silver medallist on target 14B, whose three arrows almost always looked like ONE thick arrow from where we were. That's how damn tight his grouping was. O_O
The next day, in the standard class knockout shoot, Rayner was up against this guy from NTU, and they were in Lane 16, the rightmost lane. Now this is the funny part. What happened was that while they were shooting, Benson was on the left, behind Rayner, coaching him and telling him where to shift his aim to, and on the right, his brother, Henry, was doing the exact same thing for the NTU guy. I would've dropped to the floor laughing if it hadn't been a serious distraction at that time. :D :P
After that, in the open class knockout shoot, the twins ended up pitted against each other, so they were both shooting at the same time, in the same lane, and I'm telling you, from the far end of the range, the similarity was once again absolutely stunning. I mean.. wow. Really freaky. I actually wanted to go over and see if the atmosphere in that lane was slightly different from all the other lanes, since they're brothers and all, haha. But when I saw the crowd and the mess of bowstands and bows that I'd have to pick my way through to get to Lane 7 (their lane), I decided against it.
Then, standard class team event. My team was next to an NTU team, and we were in Lane 16. Rightmost lane, so guess what happened?
Yep. Repeat of the standard class knockout shoot. Benson was giving encouragement and so on to myself and my teammates, Shiling and Angel, while I could hear Henry doing the same to the left. Only way I could tell who to listen to was by listening to the direction that the voice was coming from, hahaha.... :D
Remember how I said that I found the team event much more stressful? That's because with the individual event, whatever happens is your problem; if you shot badly, that's your problem; if you shot well, then good for you; in a team however, shooting badly means that you pull the whole team down. There's the pressure to perform there. And what's worse is that you really CAN'T panic, or you'll make the rest of your teammates panic as well, and then everything really will go to hell.
Shiling was working herself up nicely no matter how much I tried to calm her down the whole day, and Angel kept talking about getting "butterflies" just before the event started, so bloody hell, despite how badly I wanted to scream at someone (I specifically had the NTU people in the next lane in mind), I had to make nice with the stupid stress bug and smile and keep telling them to relax and cracking lame jokes because me panicking wouldn't have done anything. I'd probably have worked myself into a fit if I'd got started down that road, anyway.
Boy did it come back full force when we started the first round; I'd agreed to be the last shooter since I shoot quite fast and I didn't think that I'd get stressed as easily as the two of them. What happened was Angel went first, and her first arrow hit the red in the upper target face.
That may sound like a good thing to you.
Not when we'd decided beforehand that Shiling would take the bottom-left target face, Angel would take the bottom-right face, and I would take the top face because I don't fare well with a low target face.
This means that Angel's arrow had gone off, and now she'd have to aim for the upper target face, which means that either way, I was stuck with shooting a lower target face.
Then Shiling went, and she was so stressed that you could see it. All the seniors were clusted around, and even myself and Angel were telling her to relax, and above it all, Benson's voice was ringing out, constantly telling her to "man man lai (take it slow), relax, focus".
It got to the point, however, that I was twiddling with my arrow fletches while my gaze was alternating between her and the clock. I could hear my own heartbeat while the clock merrily counted down from 70+ seconds to slightly over 60 seconds.
I had about a minute to shoot 3 arrows, with a triple-face target, which none of us had trained with before! ARGH... was so gonna panic right then and there.
Surprisingly, that first end of mine was all right; scored an 8 and a 7, but my last arrow missed and landed in the upper target face, right next to Angel's first arrow. Found out later that Angel and I had aimed at the same place, and our arrows had both gone off.
My final end was bad though; 3 Ms. And the final score was 108; the NTU team next to us got 120. Considering that we were only 12 points away, that's all right, I guess. But when you consider that if I'd actually scored something that last end, our score would've been higher and we might've been higher in the rankings.. maybe even high enough to go on to the next round... well, that just sucks, really.
And since that NTU team went on to the finals, we probably *were* close enough.
Oh well. No use thinking about that now... next competition is January 29th! Training, training, training... :D
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Okay, shooting was way better today. 159 for ten ends of 3! Yay!! Passed.. haha. But there's no grouping whatsoever. So within one end, the score is highly polarised. My first arrows tend to be really shitty, either scoring in the white or black or M, and then the last arrow will land in 10, 9 or 8. Weird, isn't it. It'd make more sense the other way round.
Anyway. Sighting tomorrow. AAS admin are a bunch of mentally incapacitated morons. With less than five days before the competition, first, they change the scheduling of events, then they change the timing of those events, and THEN, they change the nature of the events themselves, from 20 ends of 3 arrows to 10 ends of 6 arrows. At least I think it's 10 ends.
It better not be TWENTY ends of 6. I WILL DIE. My arm will drop off and in the midst of writhing in its death throes on the ground, will be spitting venomous curses at me for overworking it to its death.
Watched "Blade Trinity" today with Ben and Zhan Tao after training. Don't ask me why I did that. None of the "Blade" movies are my usual fare; in fact, I've never watched the first two. Maybe I just needed something brainless to do. And maybe I wanted to see a compound bow in action too. Haha. Think it was the same with the two guys too. :D
I mean, for about the first half-hour of the movie, we were only mildly interested in the proceedings; then came along Jessica Biel and this really fancy weapon which looked like a bow, but where the string was supposed to be, there was this thin, bright blue band of light; like a laser, really. And all three of us got really animated and excited about how cool her "bow" looked-- we found out later that it wasn't a bow, but some unique weapon that'd been specially developed for use against vampires, coz that blue band of light is really UV light. Which vampires are.. um, allergic to. You know. Sunlight and all.
Oh, but later, there came this scene where Hannibal King's saying that he "can't shoot around corners", and she responds with "I can", and all three of us were like "Oh, yeah, compound bow.."
And she whipped it out, with a skillful jerk of her arm, unfolded it from its collapsed state, loaded up the arrow and fired.
Whoa. Fun. :D
Seriously, the highest points of the whole movie for us must've been when she was shooting. With the bow, that is, not with the guns. Of which there were plenty, I assure you. Expensive things too, since they all apparently had silver bullets.
Later after the movie, Ben and I were even debating about a scene where she shoots a series of arrows through a sensor which detects their speed, and slowly, the speed of her arrows starts to get faster; she goes from 274 feet per second to 320 feet per second.
We were debating the possibility of increasing the speed at which the arrow travels; something which obviously isn't possible unless you pull back further on the string, but the thing is that your draw length is supposed to be constant. So I figured that the only way that you could control the speed of the arrow would be to tighten or loosen the strings; something which I figure would have a greater effect on a compound bow than on a recurve bow.
On a compound bow you'd have to tweak all those gears and such, while on a recurve, all you can do is twist the string to shorten its length and in so doing, pulling the limbs further back.
Here's something to help with your visualisation:
Diagrammatical representation of a compound bow
Compound Bow
Compound bow with stabiliser; the stabiliser is the rod which you see extending from the lower part of the bow.
And here's the bow that I use in archery: the recurve bow, so named because its limbs curve away from the archer, and which is supposedly harder to master than the compound bow.
Diagrammatical representation of recurve bow with V-bar and side and central stabilisers
Wooden recurve bow. This is the kind that I use. These don't come with (or need) a stabiliser. In this picture, the sight is not present on the bow.
Metal recurve bow. This is the type that my seniors use, replete with V-bar and side and central stabilisers.
And Jessica Biel has muscles, man. You can see it really clearly in the movie, but more towards the end when she's fighting off the bad guys and she's wearing this tank top. Specifically, it's the muscles in her upper arms and back, around the shoulder blades. Must be all the archery training. :D
And Ryan Reynolds as Hannibal King was a riot; he was verging on being another Jim Carrey half the time with his strange jokes and funny behaviour and expressions, but I loved his quick wit and humour.
The film didn't have much in the way of a storyline (hey, what did you expect??), but it was worth the $6 to see that wicked compound bow and watch Hannibal King's character.
Anyway. Sighting tomorrow. AAS admin are a bunch of mentally incapacitated morons. With less than five days before the competition, first, they change the scheduling of events, then they change the timing of those events, and THEN, they change the nature of the events themselves, from 20 ends of 3 arrows to 10 ends of 6 arrows. At least I think it's 10 ends.
It better not be TWENTY ends of 6. I WILL DIE. My arm will drop off and in the midst of writhing in its death throes on the ground, will be spitting venomous curses at me for overworking it to its death.
Watched "Blade Trinity" today with Ben and Zhan Tao after training. Don't ask me why I did that. None of the "Blade" movies are my usual fare; in fact, I've never watched the first two. Maybe I just needed something brainless to do. And maybe I wanted to see a compound bow in action too. Haha. Think it was the same with the two guys too. :D
I mean, for about the first half-hour of the movie, we were only mildly interested in the proceedings; then came along Jessica Biel and this really fancy weapon which looked like a bow, but where the string was supposed to be, there was this thin, bright blue band of light; like a laser, really. And all three of us got really animated and excited about how cool her "bow" looked-- we found out later that it wasn't a bow, but some unique weapon that'd been specially developed for use against vampires, coz that blue band of light is really UV light. Which vampires are.. um, allergic to. You know. Sunlight and all.
Oh, but later, there came this scene where Hannibal King's saying that he "can't shoot around corners", and she responds with "I can", and all three of us were like "Oh, yeah, compound bow.."
And she whipped it out, with a skillful jerk of her arm, unfolded it from its collapsed state, loaded up the arrow and fired.
Whoa. Fun. :D
Seriously, the highest points of the whole movie for us must've been when she was shooting. With the bow, that is, not with the guns. Of which there were plenty, I assure you. Expensive things too, since they all apparently had silver bullets.
Later after the movie, Ben and I were even debating about a scene where she shoots a series of arrows through a sensor which detects their speed, and slowly, the speed of her arrows starts to get faster; she goes from 274 feet per second to 320 feet per second.
We were debating the possibility of increasing the speed at which the arrow travels; something which obviously isn't possible unless you pull back further on the string, but the thing is that your draw length is supposed to be constant. So I figured that the only way that you could control the speed of the arrow would be to tighten or loosen the strings; something which I figure would have a greater effect on a compound bow than on a recurve bow.
On a compound bow you'd have to tweak all those gears and such, while on a recurve, all you can do is twist the string to shorten its length and in so doing, pulling the limbs further back.
Here's something to help with your visualisation:
Diagrammatical representation of a compound bow
Compound Bow
Compound bow with stabiliser; the stabiliser is the rod which you see extending from the lower part of the bow.
And here's the bow that I use in archery: the recurve bow, so named because its limbs curve away from the archer, and which is supposedly harder to master than the compound bow.
Diagrammatical representation of recurve bow with V-bar and side and central stabilisers
Wooden recurve bow. This is the kind that I use. These don't come with (or need) a stabiliser. In this picture, the sight is not present on the bow.
Metal recurve bow. This is the type that my seniors use, replete with V-bar and side and central stabilisers.
And Jessica Biel has muscles, man. You can see it really clearly in the movie, but more towards the end when she's fighting off the bad guys and she's wearing this tank top. Specifically, it's the muscles in her upper arms and back, around the shoulder blades. Must be all the archery training. :D
And Ryan Reynolds as Hannibal King was a riot; he was verging on being another Jim Carrey half the time with his strange jokes and funny behaviour and expressions, but I loved his quick wit and humour.
The film didn't have much in the way of a storyline (hey, what did you expect??), but it was worth the $6 to see that wicked compound bow and watch Hannibal King's character.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Am back. Avoided blogging for the past few days because, 1) I was too damn lazy, and 2) my arm hurt like all hell.
I haven't touched my bow for a whole month. The result of that is that now my shooting is absolutely disgusting, and my bow arm is not as steady as it was before the exams. And lack of practice means disuse of the usual group of muscles. Which then equates to pain in the shoulder blades and back muscles.
Yes, if you didn't know, when you pull back on the bowstring, you're supposed to use your back muscles, not your upper arm muscles. It's a strange, complex thing, but the way it works is that, although you'll be pulling the string back with your middle three fingers, your fingers and arms are relaxed; the only tension is in your back. Confused? Well, it's easier said than done, anyway.
I find myself once again confronted with the irony that my holiday is more packed with activities than a normal month during term time. It happened during the mid-sem break too, if you're wondering about the other time. This in itself is very bad; not just for the stress factor, but also because this means that now I can't go out and work. Damn it.
Went for that scholarship talk for SPH's Journalism Scholarship on Monday. Think I stand an okay chance. Seriously hope I get it. If not, I don't think I'll be around NUS for much longer. But, sucky thing is, that they need the transcript of my first sem's exam results. And when are results going to be out for first-years?? Effing 26th December, that's when. That's almost three weeks away!! I need to send in the application ASAP, damn it...
My sis tagged along when I went for the talk; were only about 50 people in attendance, and I felt so old suddenly. I mean, despite the fact that I'm only a year older than the rest of the interested applicants, I didn't feel that way. Maybe it's something to do with how Uni is a pretty far cry from JC life, man. Or maybe I'm just thinking too highly of myself.
Anyway, my sis and I arrived at the venue early; half an hour early to be exact, because I wasn't sure of the place and so we left the house really early, but later we found the venue much more easily than we expected, haha.
So while we were hanging around waiting outside the room (ballroom?), all the people slowly started streaming in, and my sister and I started bitching about some people; there was this particular petite girl who had on a lot of make-up and a lot of wavy hair falling just past her shoulders; the amount of hair she had just made her face look damn small. And she was wearing these tight black pants and a skimpy, loose top with spaghetti straps, and heels.
She had this strange way of walking and this really overdone look which just really set my sister and I off.
Me: (upon seeing her) What the hell.
Sis: (upon noticing said objection of my negative attention) Er.
Me: Why the hell is she walking like that?
Sis: A bit too much make-up, yeah? And she walks like Brenda Wan, man. Eugh.
(Brenda Wan is a teacher in our secondary school who, when she walks, swivels her hips from one side to another in a rather exaggerated manner.)
Me: Are you kidding? She's worse than Brenda Wan. Brenda Wan's ass just migrates from the east to the west and vice versa within the space of a single step; this girl-- it's like when she takes one step, her hips go from left to right and her body goes up and down as well; does she think she's walking on springs or what??
Sis: Think she can't wear heels.
Me: And her head looks huge on her body, man. Like lollipop syndrome. And Ally McBeal. Maybe she's bulimic. Or anorexic.
*Sis gives me distasteful look, then looks at said weird girl again, then looks as if she agrees with me, but doesn't say anything. End of short bitch-fest*
I think it was just the fact that it was relatively early in the morning then; early morning air has a strange effect on my brain cells. Renders them completely useless, I tell you. And even after that, for the rest of the day, they remain half-concussed. Explains the way I am, doesn't it.
Went to school for training then. God, I just pissed myself off. 103 for ten ends of 3?!?! WTF?!? And what the HELL kind of disgusting score is 1-1-M?!?!
SHIT.
So gonna die. But heck. It's only first competition, anyway. Don't expect to go very far. But must note it down for future reference; even when they're exams, must stay in shape. Khim Nyang says that if you don't shoot for two weeks, you lose your form. Well, guess what, most of the juniors haven't shot for almost twice that long. I know I haven't.
But, at least now there's some kind of hope, haha. Coz Rayner's in my team now! And Rayner is damn good; he gets things like 234 for ten ends and he still thinks that his score sucks. *Facepalm* Rayner....
Also, I have discovered the miracle that is muscle relaxant cream. Or gel. Well, okay, it's gel. I was rummaging in my mum's cupboard on Tuesday night to find something for the muscle ache, coz I was so worried that if it persisted then I wouldn't be able to train properly.
So I found the muscle relaxant, and am now a happy bunny. Because after I applied it, it didn't hurt anymore! By "it" I mean my arm, not the gel.
God bless the person who invented muscle relaxant. And if he's dead, well, I hope you grant him sainthood. He saved my arm, if nothing else.
Just exaggerating now. You can ignore me. :P
I haven't touched my bow for a whole month. The result of that is that now my shooting is absolutely disgusting, and my bow arm is not as steady as it was before the exams. And lack of practice means disuse of the usual group of muscles. Which then equates to pain in the shoulder blades and back muscles.
Yes, if you didn't know, when you pull back on the bowstring, you're supposed to use your back muscles, not your upper arm muscles. It's a strange, complex thing, but the way it works is that, although you'll be pulling the string back with your middle three fingers, your fingers and arms are relaxed; the only tension is in your back. Confused? Well, it's easier said than done, anyway.
I find myself once again confronted with the irony that my holiday is more packed with activities than a normal month during term time. It happened during the mid-sem break too, if you're wondering about the other time. This in itself is very bad; not just for the stress factor, but also because this means that now I can't go out and work. Damn it.
Went for that scholarship talk for SPH's Journalism Scholarship on Monday. Think I stand an okay chance. Seriously hope I get it. If not, I don't think I'll be around NUS for much longer. But, sucky thing is, that they need the transcript of my first sem's exam results. And when are results going to be out for first-years?? Effing 26th December, that's when. That's almost three weeks away!! I need to send in the application ASAP, damn it...
My sis tagged along when I went for the talk; were only about 50 people in attendance, and I felt so old suddenly. I mean, despite the fact that I'm only a year older than the rest of the interested applicants, I didn't feel that way. Maybe it's something to do with how Uni is a pretty far cry from JC life, man. Or maybe I'm just thinking too highly of myself.
Anyway, my sis and I arrived at the venue early; half an hour early to be exact, because I wasn't sure of the place and so we left the house really early, but later we found the venue much more easily than we expected, haha.
So while we were hanging around waiting outside the room (ballroom?), all the people slowly started streaming in, and my sister and I started bitching about some people; there was this particular petite girl who had on a lot of make-up and a lot of wavy hair falling just past her shoulders; the amount of hair she had just made her face look damn small. And she was wearing these tight black pants and a skimpy, loose top with spaghetti straps, and heels.
She had this strange way of walking and this really overdone look which just really set my sister and I off.
Me: (upon seeing her) What the hell.
Sis: (upon noticing said objection of my negative attention) Er.
Me: Why the hell is she walking like that?
Sis: A bit too much make-up, yeah? And she walks like Brenda Wan, man. Eugh.
(Brenda Wan is a teacher in our secondary school who, when she walks, swivels her hips from one side to another in a rather exaggerated manner.)
Me: Are you kidding? She's worse than Brenda Wan. Brenda Wan's ass just migrates from the east to the west and vice versa within the space of a single step; this girl-- it's like when she takes one step, her hips go from left to right and her body goes up and down as well; does she think she's walking on springs or what??
Sis: Think she can't wear heels.
Me: And her head looks huge on her body, man. Like lollipop syndrome. And Ally McBeal. Maybe she's bulimic. Or anorexic.
*Sis gives me distasteful look, then looks at said weird girl again, then looks as if she agrees with me, but doesn't say anything. End of short bitch-fest*
I think it was just the fact that it was relatively early in the morning then; early morning air has a strange effect on my brain cells. Renders them completely useless, I tell you. And even after that, for the rest of the day, they remain half-concussed. Explains the way I am, doesn't it.
Went to school for training then. God, I just pissed myself off. 103 for ten ends of 3?!?! WTF?!? And what the HELL kind of disgusting score is 1-1-M?!?!
SHIT.
So gonna die. But heck. It's only first competition, anyway. Don't expect to go very far. But must note it down for future reference; even when they're exams, must stay in shape. Khim Nyang says that if you don't shoot for two weeks, you lose your form. Well, guess what, most of the juniors haven't shot for almost twice that long. I know I haven't.
But, at least now there's some kind of hope, haha. Coz Rayner's in my team now! And Rayner is damn good; he gets things like 234 for ten ends and he still thinks that his score sucks. *Facepalm* Rayner....
Also, I have discovered the miracle that is muscle relaxant cream. Or gel. Well, okay, it's gel. I was rummaging in my mum's cupboard on Tuesday night to find something for the muscle ache, coz I was so worried that if it persisted then I wouldn't be able to train properly.
So I found the muscle relaxant, and am now a happy bunny. Because after I applied it, it didn't hurt anymore! By "it" I mean my arm, not the gel.
God bless the person who invented muscle relaxant. And if he's dead, well, I hope you grant him sainthood. He saved my arm, if nothing else.
Just exaggerating now. You can ignore me. :P
Sunday, December 05, 2004
WARNING: There is an obscenely HUGE amount of jabble about band stuff in this post. As a result, non-band people may find the first half of it boring. You have been warned. Now read on, anyway. :D
Yesterday's Band Festival Concert must be the BEST band concert I have EVER been to in my LIFE!! :D
*Squeals just thinking of it*
All right, maybe the beginning was a little slow (although there was this girl drummer on the snare drum in the Bach Festival Band whose roll technique was DAMN good; you couldn't even hear the individual strokes, man), but it got better as the evening progressed.
Rossini Festival Band. When I saw that their first song was gonna be Steven Reineke's "Rise of the Firebird", I was really looking forward to it; I hadn't heard that one before, and was thinking that if it was anything like his "Fate of the Gods", that'd be something. Sadly, the piece didn't last very long.
Explosive but short; it ended before I could even really get the feel of it! So sad... :(
Then there was this Chinese-y piece that they played called "Feng-Yang Hua-Gu".. which translates as "The Flower Drum of Feng Yang" (don't ask; I don't know what on earth that is). Only thing worthy of note here is that Cornelius was playing the Chinese drums! Which I think are supposed to be the focus of the piece. And Cornelius is a fellow CJ Band kid (basically means he's my junior), so ha. :P
Soon Aik and I were looking out for all the CJ kids throughout the concert, lol.
Hm... Wind in the Willows (Rossini band's last piece) by Johann de Meij is also quite a lovely piece. Liked the first movement, "The River", better than the second, "Ratty and Mole"; "The River" had a more... hm, emotional quality to it, I think. It's the kind of piece which has that kind of reflective quality about it, although "Ratty and Mole" really did remind me of those Sunday afternoons when I was much younger, sitting on the couch and watching "Winnie the Pooh and Friends", followed by "The Wind In the Willows". :D
Strauss Festival Band's "Suo Gan" was lovely... it's a Welsh lullaby, although when Soon Aik and I first saw the name of the piece in the programme, we thought it was a Chinese piece, haha.. :P There was an amazing French horn soloist here though; to quote Soon Aik, during his solo in this piece, it sounded like "a lady was singing". AND there was a beautiful English horn solo as well; the cor anglais looks damn difficult to play, and it sure sounds like the sound quality of it is hard to perfect, so this English horn sounding just so amazing is something that I really had to applaud the guy for.
Thing is, it's by James Curnow, and I'm fairly sure that he composed another piece that I love, but I can't remember what piece it is! Something in me believes that it's "And The Multitude With One Voice Spoke"-- which is the first band song that I ever loved-- but I'm not sure!
Aaron Copland's "Variations on A Shaker Melody"; a quiet but lively piece which I enjoyed very much, the theme of which is the melody used for the song, "Lord of the Dance". This song has to be the only band song that I've heard where there's almost NO percussion; throughout the performance, I only saw the timpanis being struck twice (near the ending). And perhaps it's also worthy of note that Imran was on timpanis then. And yes, Imran's another CJ kid. :D
Finally, Liszt Festival Band, which Pam's sis, Anne, was in. :D Their conductor was a Thai, so Soon Aik was very excited; she's Thai too. Well, half-Thai, since her father's Indonesian.
They started off with "Firestorm", which got a few giggles from all over the auditorium; not because of the song, mind you-- there's nothing funny about "Firestorm". It was more because the conductor, Lt. Prateep Suphanrojn, is rather short, and as the piece begins with an explosive, loud note, he did this really big, jerky flourish to begin it, and everyone was giggling at how comical that action seemed on someone of his size. :D
Sadly, "Firestorm" was also rather short, although I think it was more enjoyable than "Rise of the Firebird"; then there was this march that he'd composed himself, which he'd named after his family name: "Suphanrojn March". Nice piece, but I'm not really one for marches, so was rather glad that it was short. :P
Then, what had to be the BEST piece of the evening which made the whole concert really worthwhile: "Krisda Piniharn", a Thai piece which he'd arranged.
This piece was everything that I love in a concert band piece and so much more; it was engaging, enjoyable, emotional; it swelled and dipped in what seemed like all the right places; it just completely carried me off with it.
And it just got even better from there. :D
"Magic Beams" which was composed by King Bhumibol Adulyadej; it was a step down from "Krisda Piniharn" in its intensity, but nevertheless still absolutely engaging. Soon Aik said that it sounded better in a full orchestra (which most pieces do, I'll admit), coz Lt. Suphanrojn's arrangement had a lot of snare drum parts in it, and Soon Aik said that it didn't sound as smooth as it does with string instruments.
Speaking of which, I did notice that the pieces that he chose to perform had a lot of snare drum activity in them.
Their last song was "Orient Express", which hey, is an absolute classic, and I loved every bit of it. Especially loved how the percussionists got all the sound effects of the train's movement just right; the whole song was just this smooth, gradual, continuous building of the melody, and it all reached this perfect climax at the end; I LOVED IT, geez, need I say more?!? :D :D
Oh, but the most amusing thing of all was that everyone loved the Liszt band so much that they ended up performing TWO encores for the audience, and at the end of the second encore, the lights immediately came on; I think the organisers were worried that we'd ask for another encore, haha...
We saw Alvin and Miss Soh down in the front block of seats during the interval, so myself, Soon Aik, Wai Lun and Wei Jian went down to say hi and chat a bit; Brother Paul came up to us towards the end of the interval-- he's as scary as ever, man. Haha. Although he looked older, since he'd just had his hair cut and a lot more white was showing in his hair. Poor guy. Must be all the stress back in CJ.
Funny thing is, he remembered Wei Jian and Soon Aik, but not Wai Lun and me, haha. So when I mentioned that we were all from the same batch and that we'd only graduated last year, he got this really surprised/ shocked look on his face and looked semi-worried. Haha. Maybe he was concerned that his memory was failing him. :P
Miss Soh commented that Wai Lun and Wei Jian looked different, and well, yeah, they do. It's the miracle of NS. :P
The most dramatic case of it was with our senior, Kenny; he was rather plump when he was in CJ, but when we saw him the next year, he'd shrunk to about half the size that we remembered him being. O.O He's now very scrawny. Shocking, to say the least.
With Wei Jian and Wai Lun, well, it's just filled them out pretty well. Specifically, Wai Lun's forearms are now about twice the size that I remember them being, although everything else is still the same. He's still mine and Pamela's "small boy". Haha. Although he has grown slightly. Not by much though. I'm still taller than he is. Hahaha.... :D
Wei Jian's chest is broader, but I didn't notice that till Miss Soh pointed it out; I probably didn't notice the change coz I still see him every week for alumni band. But yeah, when she mentioned that, and I gave it some thought, I realised.. yeah; Wei Jian isn't as scrawny as he was back in CJ.
Well, maybe not "scrawny" per se... Wei Jian was DAMN skinny in CJ (still is), but back then he was all wiry muscle and long limbs (STILL is, damnit); now it's like.. there looks like there's slightly more flesh, if you know what I mean, haha. It looks like there's more substance to that body, now that his chest is broader, haha..
Was looking at my jie's blog just now, and saw all those pictures of cars.... O.O Woot.
But no piccies of my own dream car there, so all of you, feast your eyes upon this most magnificent beauty of all beauties:
Maserati Spyder
And from the back...
My ideal model of a Maserati Spyder would be a darker blue than this; prussian blue. Note the "Maserati" reflecting off the hood of the car in this picture. Something about that is just.. damn.. sexy. :)
I've loved the Spyder since the day my cousin taught me to appreciate cars; it's Ferrari incarnation is all right, it's one of the few Ferrari cars that I could actually like-- I don't like most Ferrari models because Ferrari tends to have these large engine "vents" in the hoods of their cars, which, for me, just spoils the whole sleekness of the car.
For comparison's sake, here's the Ferrari Spyder:
Ferrari Spyder; looks good, but nowhere as sexy as its Maserati cousin. :)
After the Maserati Spyder, my second fave is the Maserati Coupé. Yes, I happen to be obsessed with Maserati's cars, but my obsession stops at the aesthetics and its speed and horsepower; I don't go that far in depth. :P
Maserati Coupé
Yet another Maserati Coupé; but this picture shows just what cars like these were made for. :)
Now wasn't that fun. I just spent about an hour gushing about band stuff and cars! :D :D A complete waste of time, but it feels damn good. Wasting time is probably therapeutic or something. :P
Yesterday's Band Festival Concert must be the BEST band concert I have EVER been to in my LIFE!! :D
*Squeals just thinking of it*
All right, maybe the beginning was a little slow (although there was this girl drummer on the snare drum in the Bach Festival Band whose roll technique was DAMN good; you couldn't even hear the individual strokes, man), but it got better as the evening progressed.
Rossini Festival Band. When I saw that their first song was gonna be Steven Reineke's "Rise of the Firebird", I was really looking forward to it; I hadn't heard that one before, and was thinking that if it was anything like his "Fate of the Gods", that'd be something. Sadly, the piece didn't last very long.
Explosive but short; it ended before I could even really get the feel of it! So sad... :(
Then there was this Chinese-y piece that they played called "Feng-Yang Hua-Gu".. which translates as "The Flower Drum of Feng Yang" (don't ask; I don't know what on earth that is). Only thing worthy of note here is that Cornelius was playing the Chinese drums! Which I think are supposed to be the focus of the piece. And Cornelius is a fellow CJ Band kid (basically means he's my junior), so ha. :P
Soon Aik and I were looking out for all the CJ kids throughout the concert, lol.
Hm... Wind in the Willows (Rossini band's last piece) by Johann de Meij is also quite a lovely piece. Liked the first movement, "The River", better than the second, "Ratty and Mole"; "The River" had a more... hm, emotional quality to it, I think. It's the kind of piece which has that kind of reflective quality about it, although "Ratty and Mole" really did remind me of those Sunday afternoons when I was much younger, sitting on the couch and watching "Winnie the Pooh and Friends", followed by "The Wind In the Willows". :D
Strauss Festival Band's "Suo Gan" was lovely... it's a Welsh lullaby, although when Soon Aik and I first saw the name of the piece in the programme, we thought it was a Chinese piece, haha.. :P There was an amazing French horn soloist here though; to quote Soon Aik, during his solo in this piece, it sounded like "a lady was singing". AND there was a beautiful English horn solo as well; the cor anglais looks damn difficult to play, and it sure sounds like the sound quality of it is hard to perfect, so this English horn sounding just so amazing is something that I really had to applaud the guy for.
Thing is, it's by James Curnow, and I'm fairly sure that he composed another piece that I love, but I can't remember what piece it is! Something in me believes that it's "And The Multitude With One Voice Spoke"-- which is the first band song that I ever loved-- but I'm not sure!
Aaron Copland's "Variations on A Shaker Melody"; a quiet but lively piece which I enjoyed very much, the theme of which is the melody used for the song, "Lord of the Dance". This song has to be the only band song that I've heard where there's almost NO percussion; throughout the performance, I only saw the timpanis being struck twice (near the ending). And perhaps it's also worthy of note that Imran was on timpanis then. And yes, Imran's another CJ kid. :D
Finally, Liszt Festival Band, which Pam's sis, Anne, was in. :D Their conductor was a Thai, so Soon Aik was very excited; she's Thai too. Well, half-Thai, since her father's Indonesian.
They started off with "Firestorm", which got a few giggles from all over the auditorium; not because of the song, mind you-- there's nothing funny about "Firestorm". It was more because the conductor, Lt. Prateep Suphanrojn, is rather short, and as the piece begins with an explosive, loud note, he did this really big, jerky flourish to begin it, and everyone was giggling at how comical that action seemed on someone of his size. :D
Sadly, "Firestorm" was also rather short, although I think it was more enjoyable than "Rise of the Firebird"; then there was this march that he'd composed himself, which he'd named after his family name: "Suphanrojn March". Nice piece, but I'm not really one for marches, so was rather glad that it was short. :P
Then, what had to be the BEST piece of the evening which made the whole concert really worthwhile: "Krisda Piniharn", a Thai piece which he'd arranged.
This piece was everything that I love in a concert band piece and so much more; it was engaging, enjoyable, emotional; it swelled and dipped in what seemed like all the right places; it just completely carried me off with it.
And it just got even better from there. :D
"Magic Beams" which was composed by King Bhumibol Adulyadej; it was a step down from "Krisda Piniharn" in its intensity, but nevertheless still absolutely engaging. Soon Aik said that it sounded better in a full orchestra (which most pieces do, I'll admit), coz Lt. Suphanrojn's arrangement had a lot of snare drum parts in it, and Soon Aik said that it didn't sound as smooth as it does with string instruments.
Speaking of which, I did notice that the pieces that he chose to perform had a lot of snare drum activity in them.
Their last song was "Orient Express", which hey, is an absolute classic, and I loved every bit of it. Especially loved how the percussionists got all the sound effects of the train's movement just right; the whole song was just this smooth, gradual, continuous building of the melody, and it all reached this perfect climax at the end; I LOVED IT, geez, need I say more?!? :D :D
Oh, but the most amusing thing of all was that everyone loved the Liszt band so much that they ended up performing TWO encores for the audience, and at the end of the second encore, the lights immediately came on; I think the organisers were worried that we'd ask for another encore, haha...
We saw Alvin and Miss Soh down in the front block of seats during the interval, so myself, Soon Aik, Wai Lun and Wei Jian went down to say hi and chat a bit; Brother Paul came up to us towards the end of the interval-- he's as scary as ever, man. Haha. Although he looked older, since he'd just had his hair cut and a lot more white was showing in his hair. Poor guy. Must be all the stress back in CJ.
Funny thing is, he remembered Wei Jian and Soon Aik, but not Wai Lun and me, haha. So when I mentioned that we were all from the same batch and that we'd only graduated last year, he got this really surprised/ shocked look on his face and looked semi-worried. Haha. Maybe he was concerned that his memory was failing him. :P
Miss Soh commented that Wai Lun and Wei Jian looked different, and well, yeah, they do. It's the miracle of NS. :P
The most dramatic case of it was with our senior, Kenny; he was rather plump when he was in CJ, but when we saw him the next year, he'd shrunk to about half the size that we remembered him being. O.O He's now very scrawny. Shocking, to say the least.
With Wei Jian and Wai Lun, well, it's just filled them out pretty well. Specifically, Wai Lun's forearms are now about twice the size that I remember them being, although everything else is still the same. He's still mine and Pamela's "small boy". Haha. Although he has grown slightly. Not by much though. I'm still taller than he is. Hahaha.... :D
Wei Jian's chest is broader, but I didn't notice that till Miss Soh pointed it out; I probably didn't notice the change coz I still see him every week for alumni band. But yeah, when she mentioned that, and I gave it some thought, I realised.. yeah; Wei Jian isn't as scrawny as he was back in CJ.
Well, maybe not "scrawny" per se... Wei Jian was DAMN skinny in CJ (still is), but back then he was all wiry muscle and long limbs (STILL is, damnit); now it's like.. there looks like there's slightly more flesh, if you know what I mean, haha. It looks like there's more substance to that body, now that his chest is broader, haha..
Was looking at my jie's blog just now, and saw all those pictures of cars.... O.O Woot.
But no piccies of my own dream car there, so all of you, feast your eyes upon this most magnificent beauty of all beauties:
Maserati Spyder
And from the back...
My ideal model of a Maserati Spyder would be a darker blue than this; prussian blue. Note the "Maserati" reflecting off the hood of the car in this picture. Something about that is just.. damn.. sexy. :)
I've loved the Spyder since the day my cousin taught me to appreciate cars; it's Ferrari incarnation is all right, it's one of the few Ferrari cars that I could actually like-- I don't like most Ferrari models because Ferrari tends to have these large engine "vents" in the hoods of their cars, which, for me, just spoils the whole sleekness of the car.
For comparison's sake, here's the Ferrari Spyder:
Ferrari Spyder; looks good, but nowhere as sexy as its Maserati cousin. :)
After the Maserati Spyder, my second fave is the Maserati Coupé. Yes, I happen to be obsessed with Maserati's cars, but my obsession stops at the aesthetics and its speed and horsepower; I don't go that far in depth. :P
Maserati Coupé
Yet another Maserati Coupé; but this picture shows just what cars like these were made for. :)
Now wasn't that fun. I just spent about an hour gushing about band stuff and cars! :D :D A complete waste of time, but it feels damn good. Wasting time is probably therapeutic or something. :P