Charm and family is leaving for KL from 23rd to 25th Dec...

So Merry Christmas in advance, my dear friends, and have a wonderful blessed lovely year ahead with your loved ones =)

Love you all!

More on carolling

How do I feel about the CHIJMES gig? Well, I am feeling decidedly tranquil now, after a long day, but I still stand by the fact that Reso mustn't take up any more gigs from CHIJMES anymore. (Do the people from the management google blogs for feedback, I wonder?)

If it were an unsatisfactory performance someone somewhere would get into trouble, I think. It's a painful thought, but I sincerely believe that the Reso people have put in their best for the circumstances in which we were made to sing, without a sound system, out in open air, with an event organiser who is generally a nice guy but who... well, isn't quite aware of how a cappella functions, and a stressed up management-person who is generally impatient and (clearly!) annoyed at our very presence, who gives off an almost disdainful air... The repeated emphasis to be entertaining, lively, and loud, to bounce and sway and grin widely and walk around singing, to cover as large an area as possible and to please do only fast songs, never mind if you keep repeating the same songs... it's an awful compromise of quality a cappella singing. If they wanted bouncing santarinas and merry elves they could have said so, right at the very beginning, when they promised a sound system that failed to manifest itself. (and then perhaps we could have rejected the gig, and they could have found their merry bunch of yodellers, and everybody will be happy)

But I suppose things like these ought not matter... Several things more to grumble about but the fizz has gone out of the desire to complain about lousy planning. What mattered, after all, was that the clients are happy, and I think we didn't do too badly there-- we met some very nice appreciative audiences =) (those who were near enough to hear us, that is... there is only so much that enthu-hyper bouncing and snapping and singing loudly can do.) Christmas is a time for sharing, and I'm glad there is the opportunity to share the festivity with people who are able to enjoy them.

Plus the load of hard work put into practices paid off by itself through the delightfully fun pracs talking shrieking laughing and singing together with one of the most lovable bunch of people around. The clubroom was crowded almost daily, and every practice feels like some sort of a family reunion, with the rowdy merry chatterings and familiar carols drifting down the corridors of YIH, so that you feel abuzz with the festive spirit already =)

That said, the earlier MINDS gig was a lot more rewarding one, simply from the delighted smiles and waves of the children and the adults, too. I love the kids! Was initally worried about whether they would be able to sit through a full half an hour set, but they remained relatively attentive and decidedly cheerful throughout, randomly fidgeting at times, but joining in with such gusto whenever they catch a familiar tune. I would rather dance and bounce and sing for them any day, in exchange for their happy contentment.

Shall post up pictures after I get them for my fellow singers =)

Carolling Updates

Monday 18th Dec 2.30pm: MINDSville@ Lorong Napiri

Thursday 21st Dec 8pm-11pm at CHIJMES (two sets of 45 minutes; we'll be moving from restaurant to restaurant)

More updates on other Reso gigs that you can go for this season here!

Vodka has a stinging spicy taste at the first sip, like fire that burns your tonuge and runs down your throat, but the warmth that follows is a surprisingly settling one. And then subsequently the fire fades and sweetness sets in, in an odd sort of bittersweet aftertaste. With enough ice it feels almost like a soft drink, an unassuming sprite or coke, without their overwhelming sweetness or gassiness...

Interesting, as new things always are... And deeply fascinating, the layers in a drink, concocted in such a way that some flavours prick the taste buds in such marked distinctness, while other layers remain an inexplicable mix that you can't quite make out.

Almost like a human being.

Does your reaction to alcohol make your layers of self more distinct, and more murky at the same time, I wonder?

It still feels odd, wondering what I would be like if I had consciously helped myself to drink, whether it would mean a heightened consciousness of the self or a gradual dissolution.

Okay, this is starting to sound like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. *ponders* But if you aren't a person struggling to over-achieve in the way Jekyll does, forcing himself to live up to abysmal expectations --societal, and his own-- all the time, then there wouldn't be a repressed Hyde springing out from within him, raging to be freed. There's something about an inner balance that keeps you the way you are, I think, alcohol or no.

Mmm. Very random thoughts.

Speaking of Jekyll and Hyde, they changed the focus of the level 4000 19th Century module to geographical spaces. No more gothic. *wails in a banshee-like manner* WHY? I've been looking forward to taking that gothic module since year 1! WHYEEEE did they change the syllables? No more explorations of deep dark other-side of the human psyche =( Granted, they dispersed texts like Dracula into the Feminism module and Frankenstein into the Psychoanalysis module, and they're still fun to do, but it's not exploring the texts in their full gothic element! Aiyeeeerrrr.

Darn, I think I have effectively disrupted my previous contemplative train of thought. Sheesh. More news on the Reso Chlamp (or perhaps a picture or two) next entry, when I get round to uploading the pics =)

today and yesterday

Utterly exhausted.

Quite fulfilled, though =) Resolved to clear up the room good and proper today, and clear I did, along with my brother. Together we conquered 8 shelves, four cupboards and a table. Not merely the usual packing this time, but a major project--a dilligently thorough job of vaccuuming every nook and cranny and ant, dusting and wiping every dusty surface, going through old work and discarding stuff (we cleared an approximate two garbage bags) and getting everything back in place.

And look what we've got!

(S.K. declares that I must credit him for half the work, so there's his victory sign =) )

And since this is turning out to be a photoblog and blogger's picture-uploading function is working(!) I shall post a few more pics!

Went Vivo for lunch with OOPs (before lucky Cheryl flies off to Aussie) and a movie!


Gotta love those groovy penguins =) Was close to bouncing to every song, and contemplated quite seriously, for a while, whether OOPs could venture into singing and tap dancing *glint in eye* Ohohohoho.

But before the musical director freaks out I think we'd better work on our pitching and blending first, lar =)

And then we tap dance. *grins*

And after the movie it was dessert-for-Amanda at Earle Swensens! (Amanda's birthday is coming soon, everybody please go and wish her happy birthday when you next see her) We had a lovely window seat with a lovely lovely view!

*pause*

Eh. Hang on. Did we forget to take a group photo?

*horrified*

We DID forget to take a group photo! Despite having three cameras! And such a stunning view! Wei~!

*clears throat* Well. Anyhow. Jeremy taught us how to do artistic close-up shots, so the remaining four of us spent nearly an hour, between bites, taking pictures of the salt and pepper shaker, and various cutlery *grins*







Lovely, no? =)

Pulau

I so resent my disability to sustain a decent conversation with people in general. It makes me feel excessively dumb (in all senses of the word!) How do I describe to you how I feel about your play, for instance?

And because I didn't come across AT ALL intelligible with my halting mandarin and my awful AWFUL tongue-tiedness where the brain just flails around like a chicken wildly struggling in deep waters, and Char is not online for me to whine at, I shall attempt to articulate bits of foggy thoughts about Pulau here. Just to make me happy.

After mulling over the play in the shower (I think better in the shower, for some odd reason) I guess the main thing that comes to me with regards to Pulau is that sense of... incompleteness. It wasn't just the girl who was incomplete-- the girl who has lost something that she cannot remember (how often have we felt this way, if only in our dreams?) The story itself gives off, repeatedly, a--how do I put it? an "almost-but-not-quite" feeling. A desire, or a memory, or a clue to what this whole play about is slowly unravelled, unravelled... and then taken away. Whether with a rejection, or an awakening from the past with a sudden jerk, or a narrative that is suddenly interrupted and then overlapped by the next narrative...

And the sense of loss, too, that pervades the piece... So that you don't know, any more than the character does, what she really is seeking...

I'm trying to figure out why I'm having difficulties articulating my thoughts about the issues explored in the play (beyond the fact that I suck at verbal communication), so I'm turning the play over in my head and talking it out here. Writing allows me to attempt to catch fleeting images and stitch them into coherent picture, somehow, and you don't see me flounder and stammer for words-- I can hesitate and let my fingers hover over the keyboard and flip the thoughts over and over in my own time, without pressure. And you still get to see pretty paragraphs, worded comprehensively in the way I would like them to sound.

But I digress. Back to figuring out why the ambiguity I feel.. (and now the literary part kicks in) I'm thinking, even as the play makes allusions to Singapore, to politics, to entrapment upon an island, you can't just compress it into a single theme or issue and say, "This play is about being trapped under the rigid Singaporean rule" Because it isn't, I think. (Note the multiple disclaimers: It's always "I think", not "It is", because nobody can impose a single reading on any piece of work--it limits the richness of the text. And my views might be completely different from the writer's, for all I know) It's subversive, definitely, in little ways, and it provokes you to contemplation... to wonder at some point, for instance, why there are certain things "you" (the ruling party?) can impose on its people... of ridiculous little ironies that govern us even in our deaths... yet there is this vagueness that I can't... quite... explain... The significance of this sense of loss that you cannot identify... but what have we lost? Always, always it comes back to this thing that you have lost, that you're desperately seeking, that keeps you tied to a single place, trapped, so that the only movement, within the play, is the shift from one memory to another, all linked by this sense of incompleteness and loss...

And I love the fact that everything is done within a space no bigger than a square metre, a tiny "island" of sand that they never stepped out of =) The performers were brilliant =) Goodness, the emotional intensity! The lighting was well done, too, in setting the mood, and the sound gives the island a very 3D feel...

There. Now that I've got it out somewhat, I feel so so much better. *smiles* If I can at least work a sensible fraction of these into the conversation just now I wouldn't feel so utterly unintelligent, and I wouldn't have left the poor playwright feeling puzzled and bemused and awkward by my own fragmented incomplete sentences, and Charlene wouldn't have to do all the chatter and attempt desperately to involve me in the conversation as well. I am half tempted to email and say "Your play is brilliant, it's just that I need time to digest it because it's so heavily layered! Gimme a little more time and I can tell you how I feel about it" (now, that's not so hard to say, is it, Charm? Beyond the ummm, maybe, eh... yah...?)

Sigh. Think of all the darn times you can learn from thought-provoking discussions with these brilliant people, that all but disappear because you can't talk!

I am so thoroughly exasperated by my astounding communication skills sometimes.

Feeling grumpy with regards to the last paper, and am inclined to sulk and feel sorry for myself (act smart lar, huh, construct complex arguments that you don't know how to argue for during exams lar, huh, machiam like you got so much time, huh, then in the end cancel paragraphs after paragraphs, huh...)

But never mind. *shakes fist in air* Charmaine shall not die but live on in... in... eh. Okay this quote doesn't work. Haiyer.

Must not mope lar Charm.

I must say though, it's very nice to go back to the clubroom and find your friends immensely excited and relieved (even more than you were!) because you finished your papers. Thanks guys =) All the best for your papers k... you guys have been the absolute best study mates ever =D (And hor, if you're reading this before Wednesday, WEI! Go back and study lar! And then we can go watch Happy Feet! And sing!)

Swingles tonight! And Sunday breakfast tmr!

Am feeling better already =)