Raphael Speaks Again

If you don't know who Raphael is, it's the name given to my phone. The pictures I take are what Raphael sees. Here's one random camwhore shot of some V13 people in the VJ canteen.

This was when I was on stage, doing The Chairs. The TSD class watches.

Went shopping and movie with the V13 girls. Here's a shop called TRF, short for This Ridiculous Fashion.

Found this in Topshop. Believe it or not, the two things they're carrying are bags of some sort.

This is outside the cinema.

Thursday, we went to watch Much Ado About Nothing. A really good show.

The Amazing set of the show, if you can see.Bubble tea with Gabriel. I was apparently sucking on his 'COC'.
And funny enough, the white liquid in there tasted good.

We were caught eating on the bus. Report us on STOMP!

This is the half the class left on the last minute of the last lesson in semester one of J1 life in VJC. We are the surviving few in A15! (the rest all pon)

I went to see Much Ado About Nothing. It was a really good performance. Written by Shakespeare, the style of the play was something I had never seen, since this was the first time I watched a Shakespearean play. I think besides the cheem talk, I really love the intricacies of Shakespearean plays. It's really fancy and dramatic. And I like it dramatic. And the dialogue is so amusingly clever and intelligent. It really makes you think.

That production was stylized into an olden day Singapore Peranakan ish context. I didn't quite get the context, cos I didn't really feel it was appropriate. I don't know, maybe it's just me being ignorant to our past of English people immersing into the Peranakan culture and Singaporeans into the English. Besides that, context and tradition was good.

Actors and directing were impeccable on the whole. Reading a script of any Shakespear play, you might find it draggy and rather static at times, but the director, I thought, did a good job making use of various actions, and different deliveries of the story and the lines. And also the use of proxemics and the choreography of specific movements and moments. There was a really good balance of drama and naturalism, static and motion-filled, and even Commedia Dell'arte and Vaudeville. Though I doubt the two were existing in the period of Shakespeare's existance. However, I didn't quite like how the group of soldier ish people were brought up. I totally missed out on the purpose of their existance on stage and I thought that as an ensemble, there was a lot of room for improvement for them to be more together and more contextualized with the rest of the play. But besides that, the actors like Adrian Pang, Jason Chan, Micheal Corbidge, and the whole lot were really a feast for the soul.

I must say that the one thing that strikes people first is the set. It's elegance and stature alone brings one to admirance of its mere standing on the hillside of Fort Canning Park. It was a brilliantly desigened set. And especially with the Peranakan, olden day Singapore theme, the set was made more brilliant and worked well. It really served an aesthetic and functional purpose, which is really the best a set design can do for a play. The design really gives a lot of room to make the play less static and more play of space and proxemics. Really nice.

It was an excellent and exciting night for everyone there. We all sat on the grass and picnicked under the stars while watching the play and it was simply magical. A rather unique theatre experience, if you haven't actually been to their previous Shakespeare at the Park play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. I think I should have gone for that, but how was I to know? It happened two years ago. I would probably go if the SRT does another Shakespeare piece at Fort Canning Park again.

Last night was Friday night. Friday nights for me are meant for relaxing and taking in the weekend mood. That night, I was made to contemplate on life and how it can converge and diverge in relation to people's lives. A One-hour duologue, Fairytaleheart was a thought-provoking piece of Youth Theatre that really touches your heart. It's about how two strangers meet in a dark and abandoned community centre and they get to know each other's lives. Eventually their lives converge.

Magic is the word to describe how the director, set designers and light designers made the story or rather stories, come to life and eventually fade to dark as the play comes to an end. Though the really cool lighting effects achieved by the use of 45 candles on stage were really the intention of the playwright himself, the production team from I Theatre really did a good job putting it on stage and expanding on that magic, with the use of torch lights and UV lights and glow-in-the-dark paint.

The actors were brave and brilliant in portraying the characters in the script and also bringing the audience, however big or small (there was 15 people that night), on a rollercoaster journey of emotions that spark from the lives and turning points of the characters.

Overall, a great one hour spent. Indeed, it is much recommended for everyone, especially youth.

Well, so much for all these drama blabbering. The holidays are here! I hope to see you people soon though...

Fix it!

Today was tiring, for some reason. I don't know why, but I was really tired today. I mean, yesterday was a day off, for goodness' sake. For the first time ever, I fell into deep sleep during a lecture. Econs. It was horrible. Woke up as if I had slept for days.

TSD was fun. We tried to stage The Chairs at the PT. It was fun playing the old woman. Her name is Semiramis. Don't know how you pronounce it, cos it's kinda French. And the whole play does not make sense at all. AT ALL. Seriously, read ten pages of it and you have no clue what it's about at all. Don't think I'll be using The Chairs for mid year papers.

Drama meeting. It was the first meeting we had with the new Exco. Was really fun working with the year one members. They're a promising batch, I must say. After the three years I've been in Drama. As a V.Actor. Now, we're the all new Dramatic Society for Dramatic People! Our board is gonna look so cool, all of you watch out for it on 13 June onward.

We have started work on about two of our many projects. Apparently I'm a "singer" in the Piano Ensemble concert. They asked for three people from Drama, and I'm one of them. Well, they helped us out for Dramanight. So now, we're helping them out! :) So nice to be good fellow performing arts CCAs.

Speaking of which, I think the performing arts scene in VJC is really neglected and under-represented. I mean, two years ago we got a clean sweep with everyone getting gold and above. WE got the sustained achievement award for the performing arts, which is near impossible to get. And what do we (performing arts CCAs) get? A cut in our budgets. Still, our amazing Dance club gets no dance room. Poor souls. The performing arts CCAs have to compete for rehearsing venues. There are the classrooms, the concourse, and the dance area. They're always hogged up anyways.

And Drama is really sad, cos we don't get much money, even though Drama is an expensive CCA to run. It is, really. Just on SYF this year, we spent more than $1600, including SYF fees. AND we didn't even have money to hire a coach or an external instructor. We do it all ourselves. And still, we get less money allocated year on year. PLUS, we don't have DSA Drama. Why? Because "we're not good enough to have DSA." Isn't it the point? Get DSA people, and we get better. I don't see why not. And how are we supposed to get better if you're gonna neglect us more?

And it irks me more how much stage time we got to announce SYF results. The sports CCAs got their own celebration on stage. The whole team gets on stage and they get to waste time with their under-rehearsed speeches. And what do we, performing arts groups get?

TWO MINUTES. And NO, you can't have the production team on stage, you're only allowed two people to represent them all. And they squeezed all the SYF results into one assembly. ALL into one assembly, even though we got our results at different times. It really is disgusting. And why is there an athlete's night? Why isn't there an arts night or something? Why is it that athletes who show great performance get recognised and performing arts people don't? Why do the athletes get the yellow Adidas shirt for the soccer finals and everyone else doesn't? Why do sports CCAs get supporters for their games, and when it comes to SYF, nobody is asked to go for support?

I'm not being snobbish or anything, I just feel strongly that the preforming arts groups in VJC are really neglected, and it is unbecoming. Someone fix this.

Transit.

Yesterday was exciting. And the day before.

Sunday
Went for CIP at Orchard Road! Dressed up as poor homeless kids and did tableus on the pavement to attract people's attention. It was so cool, you guys should do it if you have the chance. It happens almost every Sunday for three months. Photos on Facebook.

Then, went to watch MJC Presents: Visage. It was an amazing show put up by the drama club of MJC and I must say, they did a really good job especially on Lady Audley's Secret. I loved it. I thought the actors were near brilliant, directing was impeccable and genius, I thought the set was pure talent and the costumes were vibrant. Thought the venue was a bit cheapskate, I still thought it was a good stage design for the play they did, very nice proxemics and it was cosy and clsoe to the stage whereever you sit. Nice job everyone. Met their director Dwayne. Finally. After hearing so much about him from you-know-who Wong and my brother. He even invited me to his play this Friday, and I'm going! :)

After hanging around with the MJ bunch, we left for the Esplanade (Dom, Gabriel and I). To meet Kim, NingXin, Ian and Cathlin. We went to Marina Square to camwhore and we danced and sang in the walkway and everyone stared at us. The video's on my Facebook profile, go have a look. Dom da-bao-ed some food and the two of us left the two couples who so dearly missed us when we left. They had dinner there. And if I happened to have stolen anyone's girlfriends while we were hanging out, I just wanna say, I can't help being more attractive than you. And it was fun playing with your girlfriends. HEEEEE. Kidding lah, I won't steal them from you two :)

Monday
Yesterday we went to support the soccer guys and we beat MJ 3-2. Went back to school with Yvette, Kim and Val. We camwhored and video-ed each other to make the one month anniversary videos for Naughty Lady Of Shady Lane. PHAIL. Videos on my facebook profile. Five videos in total. And counting. Arrived in school and we waited for the soccer guys to return. They returned. Kim said hi to Gabriel. We both went back home and the soccer guys went out for Dinner or something.

On my way home, I realised I didn't bring my keys. Called home and there was nobody there. Called my brother, thinking he would be back soon since we left the soccer match from the same place. Turned out he was at Parkway eating snow dessert with his friends and Sal. What in the world was I to do. I went to Tampines Central to wonder around aimlessly to kill time. Bought a bun and a bubble tea. Walked as slow as I could back home, taking a longer route. It was dark. Reached home and still, my brother is not back. Waited at the bus stop. He returns. We both go inside my house. F MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a total waste of my life.

Today
FULL DAY! :)
Went out with V13 girls. Someone had to bail out on us because he was walking his non-existant dog. Or at least he didn't tell me about it. We watched Night At The Museum 2. Waste my money. What a crap storyline. Everything else was good though. The characters, the actors, casting, music, special effects, were not bad. Storyline was rubbish. Killed it all.

Went for lunch and then shopped for Simin's dress.
Left for NUH. My cousin was hospitalised today for falling down in school. Not sure what happened. Then I took the train heading for Buona Vista. At Outram Park, my dad says we'll go tomorrow, I don't go today. I got off, turned around and headed home. F-MY LIFE!!!!! again, this kind of rubbish time wasting activity involving transport and transit.

Speaking of which, I'm moving house. It's gonna be in Bedok, and very near the interchange. Should save me some time to get lost in transit.

The Camera Shy

Crash

Post 180! =)

Yesterday was exciting. So much happened.

It was a Friday, so I had eight periods of nothing in the morning. YES, why bother coming to school, you might ask. Well, I had PE. That's why. Cos it's the only exercise I ever get. Well especially after eating the 16-grams-of-fat-Posh-Brownie the day before. Yes, we played soccer for PE. It was a bunch of girls from A12 against A15. I was on the A12 team just because there was a team size discrepancy. We played like mad bitches. Hilarious. After PE, went to Twenty Four and whiled my time away, having conversations with Serena, Eva, Vino, Jasmine, and a few other TSDians. Actually, I did manage to do a bit of math. Yup.

At two thirty ish, my class (or at least half of it) boarded the bus and went off for Match support. It was our soccer girls against the team from SAJC. We won 3-1. It was fun cheering. Especially for Eunice and I to be the only ones in the top gallery to be cheering our lungs out. Everyone else were so quiet and solemn, I think everyone heard everything we said during that 90 minutes. Oh well. Waited for the buses to bring us back to school. It was so horrible. We were the first ones out and we waited for about twenty minutes. We went to ask the teachers when the buses would come, and at that moment, VJC kids were thronging onto the buses which (unknown to ourselves) had already arrived. I went all "F MY LIFE" and so we didn't give any chance to people when the third bus came. Success was sweet when we got on the bus. Back to school we went.

Back in school, Saku, Saranya and I went to Day and sat in to watch the second half of the year one TSDians doing their Mid-year duos. I did mine the day before. That night's duos were better than the previous one. Sigh. But after the Duos we crashed Guitar concert for two songs. It was a full house so we stood at the back of the upper gallery. Twenty minutes later at nine, they had an intermission. A few of us TSD people went to Swensen's for dinner. Gabriel tagged along for obvious reasons (me!).

At Swensen's we had a ball of a time talking about random rubbish and making ourselves look stupid. We stayed and feasted till closing time. When they finally shoo-ed us out, all the shops in Parkway were closed. Which meant only one thing. The perfect camwhoring moment. It was a nice backdrop, really. On we went.

When we finally decided to leave, it was already eleven ish. Went home on 31 with Jasmine. Slept at 12.30am. Today I overslept and woke up at eleven. Disgusting. Had brunch, and now I'm wasting my time telling you how my day went. Oh well. Actually, I'm supposed to be out shopping with my family. Don't know what happened to that plan. Brother's at school or something, rehearsing for tomorrow's show. Can't wait.

THIS IS AN EDIT TO THE POST
hello again! :)
Well, I just remembered a few more things happened.
While in school waiting for the bus to leave for match support, the girls were being horny and all and were taking photos of the soccer boys in the field doing some random disgusting things I shall not mention. Especially Andrea, taking photos with her SLR camera. Disgusting horny thing. And girls accuse guys of being horny. SHEESH.

Another thing happened. As we were walking out of school that night to go to Swensen's, Kim and I were having a conversation that went a little something like this.
Kim: ...I will throw you into the bushes.
Me : I dare you.
Kim: I bet I can lift you up and throw you into the bush over there.
Me : I dare you, Kim.
Kim: You wanna bet?
Me : I don't bet.
And immediately after this, you hear me groaning in shock and the sound of rustling bushes. Yes, she literally picked me up and threw me into the bushes. KIM YOU SUCK!!!!!

After dinner, Jasmine and I left, and the rest went off to Val's house for a movie or something. Hope you guys had fun!

And omg that day's duologues revolved a lot around sexual content. And of course, Justin Khaw was one of them. There was Jasmine and Noreen being all les, Sal being manly, Natalie being "gay", Justin hitting on Cindy, and... well, you get the point.

And my gosh, I haven't told my mum about the exco results. Hm... how should I tell her.

Well, I hope this edit made the post better. Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

Sunshine

HI EVERYONE!!!

Hahah I'm feeling random. Oh well.

Yesterday I went to MJC for soccer semifinals against ACJC and we won 3-0! Hah. Oh and I met someone familiar there, someone who looks a little bit like me. Oh well. Haha photo on facebook. Somewhere.

Oh oh oh strings concert was amazing! They played so many good songs that I can actually hum along to! And most of them I don't even know the titles. Like just random tunes I've heard before. And then there are the crowd favourites like Phantom of the Opera, and Pirates of The Caribbean. Damn cool. And they were soooo good. Left and got a lift from Yasmin's dad. Thanks again! OH and some gabriel I know left his handphone in the PT and lost it. What a loser right? Yah....

Sigh.

Today was another day at school. Workshop till five thirty. Went home with Simin, and we had another random conversation on the journey home. I think Simin is so interesting to talk to la. Like you can go on and on and get nowhere. Like how the sun should have a switch so we can turn it off when you want to get sick (cos the sunlight gives you Vitamin D which is healthy) cos you don't want to go to school the next day. And by doing that, you get unhealthy so you fall sick more easily. And so you don't have to go to school the next day. All because there's an on/off switch to the sun. And moon, cos it's shiny. Yeah...
(Now read this paragraph again but really fast. You should sound like Simin)

WE're getting our exco results tomorrow morning in the concourse. SO EXCITING! :D

Smile back at me, won't you?

I've been feeling quite random and happy these past few days. It's annoying. I'm smiling at random people who walk past and I doubt they know me. Just yesterday and today, I think I've smiled at about three random people in VJ. One smiled back. And I've been so happy to the extent of neglecting school work. It's bad.

Smile at you =)

Yesterday I spent half of my 6-period break talking to Gabriel. Then I went off for econs tutorial, and he crashed the lesson cos the teacher knows him. He kept asking weird questions that arts fac people don't ask, it was really funny. After tutorial, we hung out till five. That makes 3 hours.

Today was a11 immersion day for me. After 2.4km run I hung out with Timothy, aka mister vice president. Along with his class. At the stone tables. For four hours. It was fun =) We talked about lots of random things, and of course Bjork was one of those really really random topics of conversation. Thanks Timothy for that half-a-day of fun and bitchyness! Oh and for vice-presidency! =)

Tomorrow we're going for Strings Ensemble concert! So exciting. Camwhoring again, I think. I hope. =P

PUN -DAY

This is today, when we were excavating the TSD store room. It was scary when we found the lump of pressurised wooden fragments on the floor that's been hidden under a notice board lying on the ground. So we had to scrape it all off. THIS is shit work.

I got stuck in a beehive after Drama workshop today! Oh oh oh they're releasing exco results next week, such a turn off!!!!

Shoe. Thought it would be nice ot take a photo of it, but no.

Timothy at Musicfest. Glitter and all :)

Oh I forgot to do my geography homework, so today I got thrown out of geography tutorial! Hahahah omg that was fun. See what I mean by "So Messy!" ? I really didn't remember that homework. Everyone else did. SHeesh.

So Messy!

Uh... I happened to stumble onto this space, so.... Hi.

Okay well I really don't know what I'm doing now. I realised today that I've been using less of my organiser, otherwise known as Jotterbook. Yup. I usually write down things that I need to do and do them. But I haven't written anything in it for a long time. This is bad.

Exams are coming. SHIT. "I'm so screwed." This sentence becomes a common slip-off-my-tongue affair nowadays. That's because the truth is, I AM SCREWED. Simple as it sounds. Just not as simple an issue. I am lagging in all ways. I need to do some mugging.

Oh oh oh, just so people know, I'm getting very sick and tired of Commedia Dell'arte. It's been going on for three weeks and we're still doing this. I'm sorry, but I fail to see how it's actually useful. URGH!

Oh A15 gave our CT Ms Teo a mother's day gift today! It was a small mirror, and painted on it was "World's Best MAMA" painted in bright Bimbo Pink. And she liked it I think. Hahah.

Oi people!!! I still need more people to go for my brother's play on the 24th May. It's MJC Drama's first ever public production. Matinee at $12 and Evening at $15. Im not quite sure about venue but it's somewhere near Victoria Street, Waterloo Street that area.

Okay by any chance if VJ Drama members are reading this, take note! Tomorrow meet at 2.45pm at Concourse! I don't know if we're getting results for Exco elections, but tomorrow's gonna be fun. Mr Young's gonna hold our workshop! :)

Oh I was evesdropping on someone's conversation this morning, and the guy was like, "I went in at the bottom gallery, still got seats one. You were at the upper gallery right? Yeah, the bottom gallery also got seats. But I left after Vocal groups, cos the ushers were chasing some people out already." Which means, there were crashers at MusicFest! Hahaha. Okay, random. But still, if people are gonna talk about illegal stuff, don't make it so loud and public la. I was walking just in front of the two guys, and I heard the whole thing, hahahah!

Well, that's all I'm gonna say for now. Oh Btw, Kim has a blog! Go check it out. Seeya!

Post MusicFest

I think I've been eating way too much chocolate within the past three days.
Well, I won $30 from Don't Forget The Lyrics. Spent half of that on chocolate on Friday. Mostly for Kim, Dom, Nat, Timothy, Gabriel. And some were just random. Like, as and when I like I'd just open one and pop it in. Wow.

Oh MusicFest was nice. As usual, P.A. was being P.A. so the technical screw ups were no shockers. But the performances were awesome. I really liked the teams I supported. Which were DAYM, 3MIC and Funk Out Crew. I thought they were the best of their categories. Not because I'm supporting them, but because they were "simply the best" of the category.

Oh I thought the JC Dance SYF piece was mind-blowingly amazing and deserving of Gold With Honours. It was the second time watching it, and I really thought they were amazing. Everything about it was done with so much clarity and artistic intelligence - the choreography, costumes and make up, technique was impeccable. And then there was the IP dance piece...

On the whole, a thoroughly entertaining show. Oh and the Music Videos were really good this year. Especially the winning video from House Comm. Go see it if you haven't.

Yup. Well, yesterday I had a whole day of PW, and we still haven't finished our GPP. Seriously, PW is getting on my nerves.

Well, that's all for today. Go find pictures of Musicfest on FaceBook! I'll see you soon :)

Absurdly Unfunny

Sigh, people just don't get it.
What's wrong with them? I ask myself.

I think being racist is a bad thing. It is, isn't it? I mean, if it's gonna be a joke, it's fine. But there are limits to jokes anyway. Like it's funny, laugh, hahah. Okay. Then why do you wanna repeat the thing over and over? It's just not funny. AND it's discriminating. I don't understand why we can't not be racist. Why is it so hard? Even the littlest of things, you want to bring up our racial differences unnecessarily. What's your point? That I'm a minority and there's no space for people like me?

Whatever happened to the notion of "The Human Race"? I mean, aren't we all the same if you think about it? And yes, if you believe in Adam and Eve, you should know that we're not that different.

Yes, well those were my thoughts at one point of time i the boring half of the day. Morning. It was just another day in school. Wait for it to go by, like a ritual. Almost like the Theatre of The Absurd. Gosh, it's really true, the depiction of Absurd Theatre. I see many parallels to real life. Heh. Scary or what.

Went to McD's today for Edmond Drama Meeting. Had a long discussion. Fun. Food. Went home. Bleargh. Bored of school.

Sigh, people just don't get it.
What's wrong with them? I ask myself...

May Day Photos!

Some of the hundreds that we took.

The Best May Day Ever

There's sand in my hair and I'm freakin broke.

Hah.
But today's activities more than make up for that.
Went cake shopping with Dominic at Vivocity. Couldn't find anything worth it, so we went to Harbourfront Centre instead. Got nice little cartoon cakes. Met Gabriel at Sentosa Express, then we went to Siloso to meet Edmond, Kim and Val. Three of us ate, and then we cut the cake and shared a spoon. Yes, one spoon among six people eating cake. And Gabriel smudged cake on my hands and my back. Then Gabriel joined them in the sea. Then I was stripped off my top and half-heartedly dragged into the sea. That was rather enjoyable, I must say. The first time I went swimming in three years. Yes. Three years.

Well., we kinda just played in the water. Of course, some of us were having too much fun makin' out in public. Gosh, and they camwhored as well. hahah but on the whole, a really random gathering that was really really fun. We should do it again some time. Edmond, bring some protection for your lobster red face. Pictures on Facebook.

Went home alone :(
Hahah but I had a really great day.
Nice balance of some alone time and some social time with really cool people.
Love it.