Ok, since the last update such a long time ago… really REALLY long post.
1. carolling with church
didn’t join them at ttsh after all on the 19th. pity. was looking forward to that. but the day before, i caught a chill and was sneezing like heck so i figured it wasn’t too good for me to go down and be around germs and all that in a hospital so i had to give it a miss. looking at the pics though, it looked pretty good. quite pro.
20th was the marathon carolling thing. sang at geylang east home for the aged, after getting lost and almost not locating the place – apparently there were 2 homes that had that same name. as always when we carol at an old folks’ home, they’ll be there sitting and staring at us. should have sung jingle bells. everyone knows jingle bells and can appreciate and sing along. after that session, had time to kill so some people were cam whoring outside the home or hanging out at macdonalds gossiping about taylor lautner’s (?) impossible abs and how some scrawny guys in the choir want to work out and look like that.
by the way, not sure if I’ve already mentioned it but i watched New Moon on tudou the other day. yes, the picture quality sucked (what else would I expect?) but the film was marginally better than Twilight. i enjoyed the werewolves bit a lot. bella and jacob acted together very well, unlike she and a certain sparkly vampire. like the bro says, which self-respecting vampire *sparkles*??
no, wait, hang on. the geylang east home for aged thing was the week before, on the 13th. dang. i’m mixing up my dates. on the 20th, we started out from church then to a GRC christmas party at joo seng. yup, that’s what happened. we went there and sang one session at the beginning of the ‘party’. then there was a break in which me, the bro, daryl and marion went looking unsuccessfully for a void deck to sit and catch some snooze before our next session after lunch. we ended up sitting at a random bench along the covered walkway watching traffic. attempts to snooze were unsuccessful due to gossiping and talking. anyway, dr fatimah lateef was there. she’s the mp? i think. someone important in parliarment anyway.
there was a dude doing a magic act before we sang our second session. pretty interesting. did some tricks i hadn’t seen before. ok, he had to resort to using that song ‘witchdoctor’ in his finale act but i think, given a few years, he’d make quite a decent party magician. of course, it was the super hyper girls of the choir that were clapping and participating the most. those kids were just crazy. the smallest thing would set them off. really. teenage girls these days. i don’t recall being that rowdy ever when i was a teenage girl. then again, i wasn’t as hyper as them.
after the party we headed over to queenstown for another ‘party’ thing by beyond social services. this one was kids. we were all like, omg kids. these kids were the type that couldn’t sit still and it was kind of evident when we entered the function hall. pretty chaotic. anyway, i’m grateful to tessa for being good with the kids. we had to dress up the guys in christmas themed costumes – santa, snowman, christmas tree. my group, daryl, had to do santa but i think because it was mostly girls in the group, they started doing a fairy santa with that funny tail thing on the hat and wings. poor daryl was covered in masking tape and had a toilet paper ‘beard’ stuck onto his face and heavy newspaper wings taped to his tshirt that would have fallen of if he made any sudden movement. predictably, we didn’t win.
having survived the kids, it was quite quiet in the bus cos even the girls were worn out i think. marine parade was the last carolling stop. wasn’t too bad, as usual. the wind kept blowing my hair all over the place. ernie was there dressed as santarina and george managed to get santa to come down and take photos with the kids. i pity the poor ang moh dude dressed up as santa. he must’ve been boiling hot in that suit.
last stop of the day was dawn’s house for our annual christmas party. it was uneventful except for the zac and aloy twist to the ‘button you must wander’ game. my gag reflex really kicked in when they used chicken skin instead of a coin or button. talk about disgusting. i had to leave the game after one round or risk seeing my dinner again. yuck. things like this are why i don’t like orientation-type games. did the gift exchange thing. chelsea was my secret santa. aloy was being dumb, standing in for those who weren’t here. it was especially funny when he stood in for my bro cos my bro is the tallest guy in choir but aloy is the shortest.
2. carolling with mj
so that was the last carolling weekend with the church. meanwhile, rachel had contacted me to ask if i wanted to sing for the mj alumni’s carolling session on the 22nd. i initially said no, cos i couldn’t attend the practices but then she asked again a few days later and said they needed altos and the songs were all nus choir songs anyway. so i was like, ok, should be fun. i miss carolling with the choir anyway. so i went. i was the freaking oldest there – the only one from the 03/04 batch. not that it was a problem. people like harris, gerald, rachel and the nus folks were there so i knew people. sang at an office building at the expo area. there was a child care centre there and they brought the kids out to watch us sing. no surprise that jingle bells was a huge hit with the kids. they started dozing and fidgetting once we started the slow songs. gerald hit an earth shattering high note while attempting to sing the descant part in a song. well, he didn’t exactly hit it; more like screamed it out. i think he even shocked himself. but it was fun singing with them.
rachel asked all of us to say a few words at the debriefing after the performance. i introduced myself as being there when the choir and mj first began and was very amused to hear quite a few ‘omg, really?’ from the kids. yup, old enough to call them kids now. lol! but, it’s true what i said – that the mj choir is like my baby that’s all grown up now and i’m really proud of them. they’ve come a damn long way since i was in the choir. back then, we were happy winning silver at the genting competition. now they’re getting gold with honours and going for competition in europe. europe was just a dream for us back then. we didn’t even go into syf back then. haha! so that was a good feeling, carolling with them.
3. nus carolling
didn’t carol with NUS this year cos of work and the church choir’s carolling. but i promised i would go down to watch them. so on the 22nd, after singing with mj, i went home to slack for an afternoon then headed down to wisma atria to watch the carolling session. Daryl joined me. it was not bad although they had to compete with the mall music. was a bit annoyed by their ‘chreeestmas’ pronunciation but i shall not say too much about it. For all i know, i also do that.
went to watch them again at conrad on christmas day. that one was miles better. it was a small group, mostly juniors but they sounded fantastic. seriously. brought the family to go watch too and they thought it sounded like a cd, which i told gabriel. then again, the atmosphere at conrad was brilliant and the acoustics wonderful. the lobby was reverberating with sound. very very nice. i miss carolling with them. pity working nights makes that impossible. :p
4. EL gathering
Anyway, back to the 22nd again. after wisma atria, i rushed over to holland village to meet up with the EL folks. By the way, you can probably tell, like what i was complaining on twitter the other day, that my off days are much busier than my work days. it’s ridiculous. can’t wait for the holiday period to be over so I can have my off days to myself again and not have to rush all over the place to meet up with friends, to carol, to meet appointments etc. not that it wasn’t nice meeting up and all, it was just so rushed. Anyway, back to the point, met up with them for steamboat at the holland v branch of crystal jade. it wasn’t bad. not many of us were there but it was a loud noisy affair as usual. met vanessa on the bus on the way. well, rather, she met me cos i didn’t really see her on the bus. honest! i really did not see her, although she saw me and was wondering how long it would be until i noticed her. but to my defence, a) she had drastically changed her hairstyle, b) there was a family with 2 little kids sitting directly opposite me attracting my attention, c) i was too busy looking out to check where to alight cos I had never taken that bus before. so, she met me after we both alighted at the stop. apparently she’s working at the same company as me but in a different location. oh well.
dinner was not too bad. loved the xiao long bao. wish could have more but it’s such a sinful indulgence. it’s so sad that things that are so enjoyable are bad for you. like eating.
after dinner, went off to a pub for a drink. well, they did. i just sat around. was my first time in a place like that and it was an interesting experience. not much to say about it. just, you know, the usual after dinner, gathering talk cock session. took a cab back with wanni after.
5. midnight mass
and then came christmas eve. had to work on that day. told to report early. they had a little lunch thing going on in the office so that was nice. but had to work nevertheless. the stories about santa and all were pretty good to get me into the christmas mood. loved subbing that story about the AVA animals. the picture of that dog was just so adorable. Speaking of adorable, i came across this picture the other day on yahoo:
enough said, I think. anyway, yeah. released early on christmas eve. there was quite a bit left over after lunch. my colleague S was pretty funny when she was clearing up. she sent round a message that went to the effect of: emergency! opened 2 boxes and found SATAY! yeah. basically, we did not realise there was satay until we were clearing up. and then later, she sent round another message to the effect of: you all come and ta pow what you want before i come round and force you. lol! so yeah, i went and packed some bee hoon and satay for dinner. wasn’t too bad.
on the way home, there was an incident at upper aljunied road that halted traffic for a damn long time. basically, upp aljunied rd is a very small 4 lane road that gets damn congested during peak hour. when i was there, i think a taxi did an illegal u-turn and knocked into a motorcycle. no one was injured, there wasn’t even broken windows or anything. but the problem was, the two drivers were busy taking pictures (for insurance proof i suppose) and together, the 2 vehicles were staddling across almost 3 lanes. can you imagine???! so i was in the bus and the bus was stalled there for damn long because the gap in the lane was big enough for cars but not big enough for a bus to go through. basically, there was only ONE effectively working lane at 6.30pm on the eve of a public holiday. damn angry. in the end the bus driver had to back off and go around through that one lane and that lane was oncoming traffic that consisted people who were rushing to get home for christmas and none too keen on being nice and giving way. :p
midnight mass was normal i guess. had carolling before mass. the three guys – josh, aloy and cliff – sang a freaking cool rendition of O Holy Night. it was LOVELY. pity they had to share one soloist mic between the three of them though. never mind. there’s always next year when we can bring in more mics. i did the narration bit for When A Child Is Born. that was funny cos during rehearsal, i screwed up the timing and couldn’t finish the last sentence on time. Think it went alright during the actual thing. first time doing that narration bit but it’s a really nice bit. mentally thanking cba for involving me in that audio play thing cos it made me think about how i was saying it, rather than just reciting monotonously like i probably would have done last year. oh, and we got away with singing Ding Dong Merrily On High during the pre-mass carolling session. khoo was funny when he was commenting at the announcements about us not singing ‘profane’ songs. wtf! name me a profane christmas carol. ‘jingle bells, batman smells, robin laid an egg…’ as if we would sing something like that. he would have gone better with saying ’secular’ songs. profane. LOL!!!!
gloria was killing, as usual. don’t know why. i haven’t yet sung a gloria that wasn’t killing. announced the communion hymn wrong. :p wonder what happened to those notebooks that i introduced and was using for the past year. can’t be that just because i’ve been gone for a month that everything has gone missing right??
6. nus choir gathering
moving on. not really keen to recap what happened on christmas day itself. went shopping, bought a bag, came home. mum had a family party. the kids were misbehaving. food was alright. a kulai cousin came over with his girlfriend and i was wearing that silly looking santa hat. :p haha! oh well.
26th, went shopping at the metro expo sale. bought a lot of crocs shoes cos they were relatively cheaper than at the crocs shop. almost 50% i reckon. finally got hold of those high-heeled crocs i’d been eyeing for such a long time. should’ve bought the black pair though. i need a pair of black heels. but as it is, i got a brown pair which adds up to a total of about (what?) 4 brown heels i have in my shoe rack at the moment. gosh.
rushed back to go to for the st stephen’s feast day mass. paul and val were doing the choir. been such a long time since i last sang with them. they got down a huge bunch of people from st theresa’s to sing with us too so it was a lovely big choir for once. archbishop must’ve been pleased. know khoo was. rushed off after mass to go to plaza singapura to meet up with jun and some other nus choir people (boyu, norma, xinrong, jiatian, chalala). it was great meeting them! haven’t seen them for such a long long time. my voice must really be going because i had only spoken one sentence and xinrong asked if i had a sore throat. which i didn’t really but i said i did anyway. easiest answer. he said my voice shouldn’t sound like that. :p damn.
we went to watch Alvin And The Chipmunks 2. wasn’t bad. quite worth it if you’re looking for mindless good quality entertainment. wasn’t too impressed with the Chipettes because i’ve heard that kind of singing before – on High School Musical. seriously. those HSM girls sing like chipmunks, i only just realised. theodore’s so cuuuuute! really wanted to squeeze him. poor fella, especially when he saw his brothers fighting and when he thought the eagle’s gonna come and eat them. adorable.
adjourned to TCC after the movie cos we bought a cake for Lala cos it’s her birthday the next day. unfortunately we couldn’t consume outside food on the premises so we sang her the birthday song. it was amusing cos a while before, we were being loud and boistrous, but suddenly when we were singing the birthday song, we were all at a p. almost whispering. funny! lala pretended to cut the cake then we put it back into the box for her to bring home. as usual, was the first to rush off home because i was the only one living in the east and couldn’t afford to take taxi again. ended up changing bus at happy gardens and catching the last bus home. first time i did something like that. was pretty cool experience. haha!
so, that’s it for bringing everyone up to date with what i’ve been up to. now for some miscellanous stuff:
7. others
subbed a story the other day that i seriously have to share. i was reading it and shaking my head over the way parents think these days. it’s a typical case of what my friend had for his msn nick a while back: nowadays, kids are dyslexic, ADHD, ADD etc. in our time, they were just stupid. so true. basically, that article was talking about how things like messy illegible handwriting could point to deeper problems like dyslexia, how low social skills could mean autism, talking about how kids get stressed out and need help to take care of their mental wellbeing etc. the most ridiculous thing i think was this (paraphrased): having a short attention span, especially to things that don’t interest them may be a sign of ADD. major WTF moment there for me. if i wasn’t in the office, i would’ve been shouting, ‘WHAT??!?!!!’ isn’t that a basic tenet of all kids? to not pay attention to things that don’t interest them? anyway, judging by that article, i was analysing myself and my bro. we’re both supposed to be have ADD. i’m supposed to be autistic and my bro’s supposed to be dyslexic. messy handwriting. lol. mum said my bro used to be able to write mirror writing, just like leonardo da vinci. he did it for quite a while in school until the teacher actually complained to my uncle to came to pick him one day. clearly dyslexic. haha!
kids got it easy these days. teachers are no longer allowed to touch the kid. i remember in my time the teacher hauled me to the front of the classroom by the collar, literally. oh the many times our books got flung out the door into the corridor outside, or the stand in the corner and pull your ears. not allowed to go to recess cos you don’t know your four times table. messy handwriting was merely a sign of sloppiness and it meant writing out ‘i must not have bad handwriting’ a thousand times or something. i know i got punished loads of times for bad handwriting and had to copy out pages and pages from the textbook as ‘handwriting practice’. if a teacher did this today, the parent’ll probably complain to MOE, the school, the principal, the newspapers and spark off a huge debate about teacher ethics in schools. when i was in school, they didn’t care about student well-being. you finish the damn homework or else. anyway, let’s not get worked up about this. i’ve done my time in the schools and i have expressed my outrage at that certain article. i suppose the reporter should be blamed for framing it in that angle.
started reading this book Violin by Anne Rice. it’s… different. there really isn’t a plot and it’s like the ramblings of a mad bereaved woman who’s probably on the brink of a mental breakdown. but it’s written very well, in typical Anne Rice style. very dark and poetic and elegaic, i think. it’s like poetry in prose. i just realised that Anne Rice’s writings are all so sad. there’s no element of real happiness or love or romance stuff in it. it’s very dark and sombre and sad. sometimes there are action sequences and all but in the end, it’s a lot about loss and regret. very different from the Christ the Lord series, i just realised. that one wasn’t sad. it was just… a story. i suppose there isn’t really anything much to twist in the retelling of such a famous tale already. but then again, it wasn’t all sunbeams and daisies either. there was an element of fear and uncertainty. is this why i like Anne Rice’s novels so much these days? that’s a bit worrisome i suppose, if i’m a therapist analysing for mental wellbeing.
ok, i think that’ll do for now before i ramble on into other random things i’ve seen/read/heard.
Recent Comments