Our annual Family Day has come and gone. All the energy that was poured into its planning, coordination, frenzied last minute prep and eventual execution was rewarded nicely on this fair Sunday evening. The turnout wasn't as massive as last year's, but I think everyone there had fun today and I'm sure we managed to raise some moolah for the church building fund.
I had a brief chance to snap some shots when the event started so here are some of the early highlights. Since I was also manning a fiendishly fun stall I had to sacrifice capturing the many memorable moments that were present throughout the evening. Maybe next year...
Here is Linda gleefully deep-frying a batch of golden nuggets! And she calls herself a choir member while selling such voice-detrimental tidbits! And to top it all I was 'forced' to buy a yummilicious chicken wing from her stall... well, don't look at me like that, it was a moment of weakness ok?!
To be honest I have no idea what this game stall is. I think you're supposed to attempt to throw table-tennis balls into them but they will just bounce right out so you'll never win anything. Hehe... actually I just thought it was a nice abstracty kinda pic so that's why it's here.
The classic shooting arcade found in every movie that showcases a fun fair and, of course, in Shalom! In this, participants are supposed to shoot the terrorists and not the civilians to earn points. Apparantly, most people kill civilians when they're not trained marksmen *glances guiltily into the distance*
Finally this is MY ultra fun stall - the "Wheel of Misfortune"! Corny, I know but, hey, it was last min ok? Participants are sabo-ed to come up to spin the wheel where they could end up singing a song, attempting a tongue twister, doing a charade or juggle. Or they could walk away with a gift voucher for immediate use. Needless to say, we weren't too pleased whenever someone won since the whole point of the stall is to sabo others for laughs. Also our location wasn't ideal which led to a difficulty in sustaining interest. Well, live and learn, right? We'll get 'em at next year's event!
I was embarassingly back to Billy Bombers for staff lunch today. I had an additional 1-for-1 coupon that would have expired in a few days, so we wanted to make the most of it. Only 4 of us were able to make it today; but we had a very nice waiter who gave us another coupon so effectively we only paid for half a meal.
There was chicken on the menu today, and the ever-fantastic milkshake of sin that BB is famous for.
Irrefutable evidence of piggery! We all had a deliciously decadant milkshake each... *burp*Here are some of the beautiful people that I have the privilege of working with! They love to laugh, are good company, generous souls and willing partners-in-crime. Oh, and 'crazy' comes to mind, too...
Dinesh never gobbles, only savors. He's always the last to end a meal but he probably enjoys it more than the rest of us speed-eaters.
Rach is pointing to a cute gimmick spoofing the upcoming elections. By participating, we all received a 50%-off voucher for another visit! It's an evil plot by BB to make us all obese!We finally waddled out of BB with much tighter pants than when we arrived and sugar levels blasting through the roof. Ok, gotta take a break from restaurant-ing for a while, ya?
Going for fish & chips at Billy Bombers was an easy decision to make; especially when there was a coupon that I could brandish to get 2 servings for the price of 1.
We strolled into the flagship store at Bugis and slid into their signature pink booth seats. There was no real need to look at the menu. The pleasant waitress arrived, I showed her the coupon and we waited for our meal to be served.
It was then that we realized the music that was playing in the restaurant appeared to be, how can I say it, NOT going anywhere. We listened carefully to it in puzzlement and realized that it skipped so that it kept repeating the same instrumental phrase in an endless 30 second loop. It didn't help that this was some sleazy sounding saxaphone solo either. 
The fish & chips of massive portions arrived and we attacked it with ravenous gusto. The grating music loop, however, kept playing in an insidious attempt to burn itself onto our consciousness. I observed the staff going about their duties stoically. Maybe it was an endurance test for them to build up their ability to suffer in cheeriness.
We barely finished our meal. It was delicious, of course, but it felt, dare I risk being corny, endless. Finally our waitress sauntered by to clear our table and I asked her,
"Just out of curiosity, is the music that's playing right now meant to loop like that?"
She said something about how their hands were tied because of a technical fault. I wasn't really complaining, just checking, so I smiled and asked again,
"You mean you all can tahan ah?"
"Cannot!", came the reply a little too swiftly and enthusiastically topped with a toothy grin.
She cleared the table and left us bemused by her response. Barely a minute later, the offending music dimmed into silence and Karen Carpenter's 'Top of the World' started up. Our jaws hit the floor. Whatever happened to that 'insurmountable technical fault that no one could rectify'? They obviously cared enough to consider it an annoyance, but not enough to actually do anything to improve the situation.
I was reminded of how we know about the issues we each need to deal with in our lives, but they usually remain sadly untouched because of apathy or sheer laziness. You know what I'm talking about; we all have demons that need slaying, prorities that need tweaking and maybe expectations that need adjusting. By leaving them to rampage on their own unchecked, what does that accomplish ultimately?
Endless dissatisfaction, that's what.
I just received this beautiful email which I felt absolutely compelled to share with everyone. I hope you will draw strength from it and find it as meaningful I did!
Did you know that an eagle knows when a storm is approaching long before it breaks? The eagle will fly to some high spot and wait for the winds to come. When the storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm.
When the storm is raging below, the eagle is soaring above it. The eagle does not escape the storm. It simply uses the storm to lift itself higher. It rises on the winds that bring the storm.
When the storms of life come upon us (and all of us will experience them), we can rise above them by setting our minds and our belief towards God. The storms do not have to overcome us. We can allow God's power to lift us above them. God enables us to ride the winds of the storm that brings sickness, tragedy, failure and disappointment in our lives. We can soar above the storm.
Remember, it's not the burdens of life that weigh us down, it's how we handle them.
Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles [Isaiah 40:31]
Eagle portrait courtesy of Deviantart.
This is a vid from the Land of the Rising Sun from which we get cool stuff like anime, videogames, sashimi and wasabi peas (not an exhaustive list, of course).
In this, a group of celebrities, who presumably speak English, are gathered to watch a vid of a man who obviously doesn't. They are not allowed to laugh at what he says (or tries to say) but it's very tough because it's really very funny. After each segment, anyone in the group who laughed is taken aside and given a really vicious lash right on the butt!
Like I said, bizarre, but funny... sort of.
WARNING: this takes quite a while to download!
After a lovely lunch at Bugis Junction, Nita and I headed to Victoria Concert Hall (VCH) where the children choirs were in competition throughout the week for the SYF season.
I have always loved VCH for its classical architecture, acoustics and the fond memories they hold of my days in choral performance. Today, the young children I saw were forging new memories on the same stage and hallways that I hope will last a lifetime of loving and making soul-stirring music.
Children choirs have come a long way since I last was in one. Nowadays, expectations are much higher, and the repertoire is far more challenging. Children can no longer rely on the 'cute' factor to woo a discerning audience. They have to exhibit all the qualities of a trained choir while still remaining adorable.
Many of the choirs that we saw in the afternoon were highly disciplined and focused. While nearly all choirs had issues of varying severity with intonation, many were surprisingly superb with timing, expression and management of difficult music that would stump youth and even adult choirs. Kudos to the conductors who have to teach and lead excitable young children to make, not mangle, music!
As always, listening to good choirs makes me sorely miss my own involvement in the choral scene. I'm talking about singing here; the feeling of creating a seamless piece of art together with those who fervently share that passion is quite unlike anything else one can ever experience.
I believe some call that the journey to harmony.
The grand old dame of performance arts, the VCH is nowadays overshadowed by the modern and spiffy Esplanade by the Bay. However, despite the slick trimmings of the newer landmark, my heart will always have a special place for VCH.On the way home from church on Saturday, I decided to put my juvenile photographer's eye to a little work. I figured I could snap some artistic pics of the many cats I usually see lounging around my area. But they were all on vacation, or in mass hiding from me. Maybe they weren't feeling terribly charitable towards amateurs that day.
Fortunately there were 2 sympathetic felines who were quite happy to pose for me... well, actually only 1 was truly glad to pose, the other was actually sound asleep when I snuck up on it.
This kitty was slumbering by a parked motorbike in the parking lot. It eventually awoke to my noisy hovering and stared curiously at me for some moments but remained unfazed and went right back to its catnap.
When I went home, I found my Gemma napping by the window with the sunlight making her fur gleam. Naturally she woke up and spoilt the original composition but I managed to snap this before she came snuggling up my calves, thereby ruining further photo ops.I've finally finished playing Grandia III, the RPG I gushed about a couple of posts back. After an impressive start and largely engaging first disc, the storyline darkened and dragged for the second disc before ending on an unfortunate low note. And if one takes into further consideration the numerous plot-gaps that were left unaccounted for, it collectively left a somewhat unsatisfactory taste in the mouth when the credits finally rolled.
Oh well, I guess one can't have everything all the time. The game, however, did contain many moments of greatness to salvage its flagging story. Witty and in-depth dialogue, awesome environmental graphics and a fantastic battle engine kept me going to the end. I took nearly 4 times longer than the game actually requires to finish it; basically admiring the gorgeous scenery and soaking up the fun of battling which eventually resulted in my characters becoming overly (and needlessly) buff. According to the videogaming forum I lurk on, the final boss fight was supposed to be a major test of attrition lasting 30-40 mins. I ended it in less than 10.
Well now that the Grandia experience is finally over, I can look forward to the next one! The fifth installment of the venerable and beloved Suikoden series has been released to great fanfare and superb reviews. I'm planning on picking up a copy next week. Till then, I'll be doing more forum-lurking to whet my appetite.
images courtesy of RPGamer
It happens every year (well, almost), but I just can't seem to learn how to cope with it. Every time an important weekend crops up my to-do-this-instant list just bloats and inflates dangerously, causing me immense stress and irritability.
One of the tell-tale signs of methodical drowning in piling paperwork is the tendency to forget or muck up little details; like emailing wrong attachments to people, or losing the ruler I was holding in my hand 2 mins ago, or forgetting to inform key people of things they should be informed about. It's stuff that wouldn't normally cause too much grief, but when time is tight and tension is high, well, let's just say it's really bad for my health.
Today, the usual last-minute 'do this, check that, print this, re-align that, design this, double check that, re-do the first thing' flurry of flying papers, furious typing and listening to the copier machine drone endlessly happened. Why am I not surprised? But more importantly, why couldn't I have done anything to prevent/avoid this?
As I sit here now, the industrious copier is churning out music sheets for tomorrow's choir as I attempt to unwind the internal spring. That's the last thing I need to do today; but I'm pretty sure that I forgot about something devastatingly crucial. Normally what happens is I lay in bed till dawn trying to figure out what I missed. Then I brace myself for when tomorrow comes, and there'll be some tough music to face.
Or not.
Oh great, the copier is done. Finally. Now I can grab some chow.
Nita and I were loitering at Raffles City on Monday evening when we decided to head down to the basement supermart. Imagine our surprise to see the store in darkness when we got there. Apparantly the power was down (or the store manager was in a mood). There was one valiant emergency light close to the entrance but the rest of the store was plunged in total darkness.
We stood there hesitantly for a few moments, unsure of whether we were still allowed to enter. Wouldn't the store have a policy to be wary of looters sneaking merchandise away during a blackout? Well, none of the frantic staff who were rushing about importantly seemed unduly worried so we weaved past them and strolled on inside.
There were still some peeved shoppers shuffling about and peering among the aisles. I whipped out my phone and turned the flash on, thus giving the very false impression of radiating kindess and serenity. Coolness! Two Australian ladies close to us exclaimed in surprise.
"Can you help us get some things at the back of the store with your light?"
They were evidently drawn to my kind and serene glow.
"Sure, ma'am, lead the way!", I replied gallantly.
"How did you know to bring that flashlight with you?"
Darn, guess my glow of goodness still needs to be worked on.
"Oh, er, this is my phone. It has a camera and flash on it.", I said evenly to avoid sounding hoity-toity about it.
And here I was thinking I'd never ever use the puny flash on my phone! But not only did I use it, it was for a good cause, too... or at least I think it was. It turned out the ladies had wanted to pick up some cans of premium beer so I hope my flashlight and I didn't 'encourage' them to get drunk. Or worse, they might have spiked the beer and knocked someone out in order to remove a kidney or two...
Oh my gosh, what have I done?!
In any case, it was rather fun to be wandering in a pitch-black store, trying to shop while avoiding knocking over something or someone. Just as we left (after paying as law-abiding citizens do, of course), the lights came flickering on to a collective murmur of approval.
I wonder what it would be like if the entire mall had been out of power? Maybe my goodly glow would have been more obvious? :)
It's been ages since I've posted any outdoor snaps taken with the bona fide camera. Here are some architectural shots of the newly-opened Picturehouse and Marina Mandarin hotel.
Me no like flies; especially clumsy ones.
I was lunching today at Downtown East's food court. After the usual wringing of hands and pacing back and forth in agonizing indecision over what to eat, I settled grudgingly for the Chicken Chop. It wasn't very good, unfortunately, but that's not what today's post is about.
If you've already visited the newly-opened food court, you might have realized the place is horribly infested with annoyingly gleeful flies. I can't imagine why that would be the case as it's not been even a month since it reopened after renovation.
*shudders to imagine state of cleanliness behind the spanking new counters*
Well, anyway, not too long after I had started on my meal, I observed these two speeding flies zooming in my direction at food level. One of them deftly swerved away in a professional-looking arc, thereby successfully avoiding my food, but the other one slammed into the deep-fried bun and fell backwards into my coleslaw, probably in a daze.
Ok, it was no biggie to lose the bun, but my fav coleslaw? Dumb fly.
After regaining its senses, the silly thing tried to get up from the ruined coleslaw but, of course, its wings were plastered securely to the creamy gravy. Of ALL the flies in that food court, I had to get the moron of the lot. So anyway it did the next best thing and wriggled its many hairy legs frantically in a supreme effort to spoil my appetite.
It worked.
After deciding I wouldn't waste my 5 bucks by storming off, I deftly rearranged the bun so it hid the offending fly from view and proceeded to finish the rest of the meal as quickly as I could, all the while mindful of any other ridiculous flies with suicidal tendencies that might plunge headlong into my food, or worse still, my open mouth. Antics like that give flies everywhere a bad name; not that they need any more help.
The next time I'm at that food court, I'll see if the outdoor eating area is any better.
I lug my big faded leather bag into the room.
All heads turn towards me in wide-eyed expectancy.
I catch my breath for a moment before heaving the bag upside down.
Its contents spill out onto the polished floor in a resounding cacophonous crash.
All heads gape at the unsightly mess.
But at least my bag is empty now.
I stroll out.
On Sunday, the anniversary chorus finally had a chance to sing the first draft of the opening song. While they were learning their parts in each sections, I could tell they were all quite horrified at the extremely unmelodic lines I expected them to sing. I knew the various parts would be difficult to get a hang of; they're supposed to gel into clashy jazz chords, afterall; but I was glad that everyone tried their best, at least.
When the moment came to put it together, I was bracing myself for a big failure and for the members to demand I pay for life-long professional therapy to overcome the trauma of singing such awful work. However, the chorus sounded really good with the tight harmonies working even better than I had envisioned. I wish they could have heard it for themselves the way I heard it when they sang.
Anyway, that helped a great deal with the energy and inspiration for continuing with the compositions. I managed to come up with the opening lines and melody for the next song that very evening! Yay!
So, I'll be on leave from tomorrow onwards to spend some alone time with my thoughts and heart. I need to firm up the motifs and establish a stronger feel of the music. I will also try to get started on as many songs as I can. Ideas are swarming through my head now, I just have to catch hold of them and pin them down before they dissolve into nothingness.