Mayday D.N.A Concert, 29/8/2009

My right eardrum is still slightly ringing. But, oh well, that's just a consequence for all the adrenaline of 'live' concerts.

We had booked the tickets at the early bird price, thanks to Jack's cousin, who was hollering every single line of lyrics, crisp and clear, all through the concert. That's what all die-hard fans do. Jack and I weren't big fans of Mayday, but with all the praises from attendees and media of their 回到地球表面 concert, we bought the tickets with the hope of witnessing their prowess on the Indoor Stadium stage as well.


Only for the fact that none of us anticipated that we would both fall sick. Jack was still nursing a bad throat, while I was done with 6 Biogesic tablets at the time we entered the concert hall.

Anyway, Star Lounge was waaaay cool! They had a mini buffet, and gave out free refreshments to Star Pass holders (like us!). Can't believe I haven't been utilizing such VIP privileges even though I've been a Star Pass holder since February last year.

Like David's concert, Mayday made great use of laser effects, and played with Physics alot. Like how they made 怪獸's guitar reflect those laser beams off his guitar, or how that magnificent stage had little pockets of surprises at every corner. While they're certainly unrivalled in the Mandopop arena as the SuperBand of the century, the concert had failed to leave something significant in me. Perhaps it's because I haven't been a great listener of their songs, or maybe I had been too choosy when it comes to the re-arrangement of songs for concerts. David has taught his fans to expect fresh arrangements to songs during concerts because it wouldn't make a difference if I had listened to the CD instead. It didn't really drive a message in entirety home for me. No doubt would Mayday score in terms of the wholesomeness of the 4-hour concert, but the little spark plug just seems to be missing from this rock engine.

But I have to give it up to them for the high interactivity the band had with the stadium crowd. Apart from the extended walkways for the crowd to grope the band members as they walk past (lol), every band mamber had full involvement with the crowd. Plus their signature songs were ever-so-impressive, like 終結孤單, 溫柔 and my favourite 擁抱.

Two sick cats, and the view from the Star Lounge

Overall, It's a 3er out of 5 for me. It captured me for the pyrotenics, selection of songs and special effects, but not with the emptiness it left me to fill even after 4 hours of blaring music and countless encores.

Week 3 has been mad. And it's ONLY Week 3. I'm just glad it's over. I hate my odd weeks.



18 months spoke alot about you and me. It told us that love was a kind yet cruel force, and it whispered the little secrets that belonged solely to us. It bore the scars of tiffs, of jealousy, of lonely nights, of long weekends, and of the tears shed in the name of love. As always, I could never fully put into words the love you shower upon me, and I just hope love is the best I can give to you.


Happy 18 months, love. And trounce that viral fever with all you can muster, because I'll need you in my life, in every moment of you and me.

Point of no return

I have a few wishes at this point of time:

1. To have uninterrupted sleep for 48 hours.
2. Have my 3219 magically summarise itself into 400 words.
3. Conjure a box of Meiji Melty Kisses out of thin air and stuff myself nuts.
4. For Jack to recover from fever. Like now.
5. To turn back time and introduced the 370Z as my favourite car, instead of the R8.
6. That the MacD delivery guy will be hypnotized into delivering fresh pineapple to my house at midnight.

Yea, I know I'm slightly out-of-sync today. It's just one of the consequences of zombification. (Mr. Gui claims it's his term, so I'm just building on his vocabulary.)

And did today turn into some classmate gathering day? I bumped into Connie and Chee Hsiang before breakfast with Jack at Engine, and then met Shaun in the queue at the Central Library. Freaky. And I guess some little secrets are better off not revealed, because then less people would be affected. It's my way of putting stuff behind me and get on with my bittersweet life.

Oh, and Geyao's first activity today! It's good to get to meet the newbies and interact with them, and laugh myself crazy with their mad antics. But I'm looking forward more to streaming next week, where I'll finally hear them sing! And it felt just like yesterday that I did my streaming!


Then life gets cruel at this point and I have to go be the serial mugger again.

Drawn into the meelee

Blogspot obviously hates me.

Anyway, school's starting to take its toil on me. And it's only the third week, when all hell breaks loose, a.k.a the start of tutorials and assignments and deadlines and projects and reflections. Why haven't I gotten used to all this even after 4 semesters? MKT tutorial was enjoyable today, because I successfully got the assignment I wanted (on BMW and Aston Martin ads), and we're working on Sony for our group case assignment. Yays. Elmie asked us what our names meant during 2201 tutorial, so I came home and did this search on www.babynames.com just minutes ago.

Julie:
The meaning of the name Julie is Youthful, Downy
The origin of the name Julie is French
Notes: Diminutive form of Julia

I'm French. Oooooooohhh.


Just some backlog blogging here before I dive back into my assignment. NUS GEYAO's Welcome Tea was a successful event, despite some severe technical glitches on the first day and complaints received from the school for congregating so many people at the function room and using up so many chairs. Face it, Big Brother. We're definitely more appealing to the student body than all your red tape tangled together. So cut us some slack, or continue to be a nuisance. Sometimes, adults can be so annoying.











Thanks to Daniel Chia for the splendid photos! Don't mind if I kop some of these for non-commercial use! Anyway, if you're wondering why Bun and RongSheng were making kissy expressions and gesticulating, they were hoping (on both days of the Welcome Tea) that we would repeat what we did for the internal FBH. Haha. We didn't.


Saturday marked the last day of my tuition at Tiong Bahru. The parent decided that it would be better if she sent her two kids to a tuition centre and participate in learning as a group, so she decided that I should stop tutoring her kids. And that was before her daughters decided to do well and score in their CAs last week, placing one within the top 3 in her class and the other the most improved in creative writing (that's what I teach).
2 words: good luck.
Jack decided to be play the good future son-in-law role early by helping my mum and I do grocery shopping and lugging in the afternoon, and stole a glimpse of my birthday present from my parents. Hehe. Will probably reveal it after my birthday, so I don't get robbed before my birthday. Haha. Then we got so tired, we each occupied one of the 2 sofas in my living room and dozed the afternoon away, until he had to drag me off to have dinner. One of my favourite days.

Yesterday evening was spent celebrating Jack's grandma's birthday, and as usual the karaoke session that was running synchronously with the dinner was entertaining. He's from a family of born singers! Haha. But his family gatherings are always so enjoyable and lively, it never gets bored, even when I can't eat three-quarters of the delicacies they serve. Haha.

Argh. Back to 3219.

And it's only Week 2.

Just as module bidding was getting off my nerves, tutorial balloting incurred my wrath 2 days ago when it simply refused to allocate slots to me. I had tried to compromise with the brainless system by forgoing the chance to join Jiahui for her NM tutorials and concentrating on balloting for SSD and MKT as my first few choices, and the system had to kill this supposedly foolproof method. Argh.

Welcome Tea Session 1 was messed up by shrieking feedback from the speakers, but the sound engineering crew managed to pull it off by reacting quickly to stubborn Physics. We played to a full house (with more loitering outside the venue), and managed to convince at least half of them to put their names down. While I had a really bad panic attack before the performance and halfway through it (due to the horrid feedback), just watching everyone in the audience listening so intently to us subdued me a little. And this was what I had always been striving to achieve: people who would just listen to me. Isn't this what Geyao is about? I had loved the band, especially our band for our song, because I felt like I could finally interact with the band, and allow myself to bring the song's emotions up and down simply with the execution style.

And I had to meet this absolutely rude freshie after the Welcome Tea(I shall not try to be biased by mentioning the nationality), who simply refused to listen to what I was saying, and was babbling on and on with his question to my junior, who was struggling to comprehend him and answer his question. Hello?! WTF?! If it isn't an ego problem, then it must have been the fact that you don't respect me as a speaker. WTF. If I ever see him in Geyao, I'll be sure to give him hell, simply because he had been such an arrogant bastard.

NUS Geyao Welcome Tea 09/10!!!

I'm running the risk of getting stabbed to death simply by staying up way past my bedtime, simply because emptying my guts out before I sleep seems like a comforting thing to do.

Well, first of all, for freshies who have asked about NUS Geyao's Welcome Tea, sorry for being the procrastinator, but here's your event poster (courtesy of my lovely Geyaorian juniors from CNM)! It'll be held on 19th and 21st of August @ 7pm @ YIH Function Room 2. No obligations needed, this is just a session to showcase what we love to do, and why we come together in this CCA to fulfill our individual passion for music. Be it playing an instrument, singing in a full band, or churning out original compositions, Geyao converges the best of all 3 worlds under our roof! So just drop by, say hi to our Geyao band, grab some refreshments, and enjoy the entertainment, with absolutely no strings attached.


Moving on to a more dreary topic, it's only the second week of school, and my lectures and readings are already flaming my desk. Gawd. While lecturers have been kind enough to provide sufficient entertainment during lectures, the piles of readings haven't been kind to my eyes. And it's only the second week of school. I need to get a life. Make it two.

Random

Just something that has been bugging me ever since the start of lecture today. I realised I don't have close friends (a.k.a clique-less) in my own major, and it kind of sucks to come to realisation that the 'friends' that I have made while taking major modules has, unfortunately, distanced themselves like I'm some plague. Am I that detestable? Or do I have the 'I'm not interested in talking to you so piss off' face? While I'm glad that I'm not sucked into the business of clique rivalry and bitch fights, I can't help but pity myself for being such a sucker when it comes to making friends.

So while I sat alone and waiting in the lecture, early and beaming with anticipation for the lecturer to start and end, I get the silent treatment and do-I-know-you stares from familiar faces and supposedly peers. And the person who started making small talk with me happened to be a stranger whom I've never had a chance to befriend over my 2 years of study in the course. Ironic. Seriously, I would have been perfectly happy with my life in CNM if it hadn't been for the fact that such people existed.

I envy those who have course mates who stick to them like glue, e.g. Jack and Gordon, because you know you'll never go wrong when someone's there to watch out for you during lessons. While I hated the rigid nature of course planning at their faculty, at least they had each other when it comes to clearing doubts and serving as half-time entertainment during lecture. Me? I spend the 5 minutes during break checking my handphone, scribbling on my notes and discreetly revisiting those faces who turn away when I spot them. Ya, like I'm Medusa.

Yes, Year 3 is going to be testing, academically and psychologically. And while I spend some time disentangling myself from the troubled web of mangled pseudo-friendships, life is still going to go on, and I'll still have to face those feature-less faces who have fought alongside of me just months ago.

G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra

To begin with, Rise of Cobra sounds like a bad B-rate movie name, and even more so when you plop yourself down into the not-so-comfy seats of Shaw at Bugis Junction and realise that the movie has almost nothing to do with cobras.

I've had enough of movies that classify themselves as Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi/Thriller and yet offer nothing much to substantiate their tags. Do you think you can fool a 3-year-old kid with those horrid computer graphics of yours? Do you think the U.S President you casted in the show could get away with a British accent, who has nothing in his scripts except for "Have they made any demands?" ? The romance part was horrid as well. The only part I enjoyed was probably watching young Snake Eyes and young Storm Shadow sparring in their martial arts school, because they reminded me of 2 young pups frolicking in the meadow. Plus, Sienna Miller was... let's just say she still loses out to Megan Fox.





And sometimes, I really don't get it.

And the pressure mounts

Jiahui’s words dragged me back to reality, and back to the fact that this semester is going to be the make-or-break 13 weeks. While almost everyone is going overseas within these 2 semesters for exchange programs, ol’ me will have to bite the dust and hold out until I hit my desired target in Singapore. My heart dare not stray to SEP contemplations, because the likely despair that I would face if I could not satisfy my paper chase is daunting. And it’s much more with the thought of stepping into society, cold and alone. I guess it’s worth missing out all the fun and exposure, since I don’t deserve it enough.

Was making my way to Subway for dinner with Jack when we were 'nabbed' by a Japanese TV station for an interview. Haha. Pretty hilarious, because we feel super out of sorts, and the female presenter was kawaii-ing my sandles and earrings (I was joking to Jack that they were probably thinking why Singaporean girls had such bad dress sense and could not afford to buy better shoes).

And the juniors sure knew how to bargain when it came to buying used textbooks.

I’m 10 hours from my first lecture of my third year, and something tells me that I’ve got to get some stuff off my chest to ‘officiate’ this new beginning.

While it definitely signifies the start of another lengthy and treacherous journey from lecture to tutorial, and from mid-terms to finals, Semester 5 is probably the start of many ends. It means the end of fooling around with trying to skip lectures; it marks the end of dreaming up absurd dreams; it marks the end of overly-enthusiastic involvement in the things I love the most. And I have to put it down, whether I wanted to or not.

So as I go about trying to trump the odds of the intellectual’s journey, I hope I’m going to acquire yet another set of valuable lessons to bring along in life.

C’est la vie.

Frustration

Bleah.

I have no idea if I had made the right choice of tagging along and throwing hundreds of points into bidding. This might mean that I won't have much choice when it comes to bidding next semester. This might mean that I'll screw up my plans, my results, etc. This might mean... Argh. Sometimes I really hesitate, contemplate and regret too much.

Batam trip, 1-2 August

Batam KTM Resort - 10 minutes from Batam Ferry Terminal

Our twin-sharing hut!

Prior to this trip, those in my circle would know that my mum had kicked up a big fuss about this, in addition to some other matters at home. It used to be a childish one-sided tug-of-war in the past, and I was known to always give in whenever the matriarch threw a bad case of hissy-fits. But this time, which I deem as one of the many turning points in my life, I chose to fight for the chance to have a say, albeit the cold war which ensued, and lasted, even up to this moment. The red passport, amidst the mess, is finally mine to keep.

And travelling with Jack, as well as the G couple, was totally worth the fight to the end. Parents, being parents, would have definitely been skeptical about boyfriends and girlfriends travelling together, because of the dumb adage "男女授受不親" (single men and women should not come into intimate contact with each other). In other words, parents are afraids that we're going to do stupid things and the woman eventually loses out. Were our parents worried? Yes. Did they trust us? Yes, except my mum. Do mums always have to think that their daughters are naive and easily swayed? For one, I'm not one of those sluts who throw themselves at men. For another, Jack is not one of those assholes who want to throw their girlfriends into bed. And for the simple fact that we respect and cherish each other so much means that we're not going to jump the gun just because of primal needs.

Travelling with the G couple was a whole new experience, because if you think you've seen them squabble enough during boardgames and all, you haven't seen it all yet. Having travelled together overseas umpteen times, they're the best bet for the couple to travel with, especially when I'm always the kan chiong spider in strangerland. Plus, they always know what to buy and what isn't worth the money. And what's them without boardgames?

Agricola - which we didn't get to play in the end because we were missing some pieces.

Early birthday presents from the G couple!

Contrary to what everyone thinks, NOT everything in Indonesia is dirt-cheap. The tourists' watering-holes, for example, charges food court prices for food that tastes unpalatable but you have no choice but to wolf it down because you're cows away from the city. Batam KTM Resort, the one we stayed at, was a good example. Perhaps it was just a psychological influence, but we can't help but agree that the food we had tasted conspicuously like they had been cooked with the water that had been used to wash our feet during the spa session. *Gags* The next thing we knew, our pineapple rice for dinner tasted like that as well. *Gag* We couldn't complain, because we had no other choice. That is, unless we wish to turn into cannibals, or, if we ate the squid the local people caught from the sea, in which the local children had played and bathed in. *Gag* Breakfast buffet was... *speechless* If I said that best course had been the cornflakes, what do you think?

Cocktail

"Urm, can I have green rape?"

Mushroom Omelette loaded with butter - Ultimate food from hell

The spa session. They totally made us believe that changed our slot to 5pm Batam time would guarantee a beautiful sunset view while enjoying the spa.
Beautiful sunset view? Checked.
Getting to see it? How about getting your arse to see it?
Because our arses were facing the sea during the session. Thanks. But the massage on our side were pretty satisfying, and at the final part where they cracked our spines (not literally), it felt as though someone undid all the tight knots in my body. The jacuzzi was alright, perhaps not as great as the one we had in Singapore and not as clean, but the evening sun was a pretty sight to behold. Gordon and Gerlynn were complaining non-stop about theirs, about the masseuses, the dirty foam and water in the jacuzzi, the oil, the sea salt... Oh well. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. As least we had enjoyed ours. Oh, and Gordon actually tipped them. Haha.

Beautiful post-sunset glow

The rooms were beautiful, we got a hut to share, with 2 rooms and 2 beds each. Thankfully, the air conditioning doesn't switch off even after we leave the room, and the bathrooms were clean. After all, we're 4 clean freaks huddled in a country outside Singapore. And we could watch Singapore channels there! While I got trounced during boardgames again(my best score was finishing one point behind Jack in Vegas Showdown), I had better luck with Hearts, Big2 and poker card games. Plus I love the rustic deco, from the glass panels on the door to the ceiling fan and bedside lights.

The city tour has got to be the better event, because we finally escaped the horrid food at the resort. Apart from visiting several tourist attractions and almost getting conned into buying keropok (fried prawn and whatever fritters) and Polo Ralgh Lauren shirts, Batam City Square's probably the best stop of the tour. We changed S$20 in all, and had trouble spending it. But the food was good, from Kueh Bahalu at 80c for 8 pieces, crepe from S$1, durian roll from S$1, we had it all. The place was burgeoning with fashion stores as well, and the only thing that hindered me from shopping was the time constraint.

Rating for this trip would be 6/10, largely because of the food. Half the marks when to great company and half to everything else combined. If you like to be gastronomically challenged, Batam KTM Resort's the place for you.