Monthly Archive
Browsing entries posted on March 2005
Behind the scenes at prom
First of all, I would like to apologize to everyone who has visited this page only to be greeted with the same old post. Very sorry about that.
My boyfriend came down for a visit.
I suppose that explains everything. Except that he went back on Sunday and I’m only updating now.
Dinner and Dance 2005 is over, finally! The last and most important event of my committee. It went relatively well. It could most definitely have been better, and I know what mistakes not to commit next year (get my makeup done on time, brief the emcee properly, make sure the stars of the evening get fed) to make it even better.
I didn’t have a camera last night, so I missed out on some really good shots which we can all laugh at when we’re married with children. The graduating seniors came up with some really good ‘Wardrobe Malfunction’ ideas. A bunch of girls came in secondary school uniforms (bear in mind that they are 21 and above) complete with accessories such as nerdy square black spectacles made of paper, children’s schoolbags with cartoon characters, and best of all, nametags identifying them as ‘astronomy club president’, ‘gardening club president’ and ‘library president’, among others. These clubs are renowned for being slightly geeky and the preserve of nerds. They were absolutely adorable! It was like ‘Revenge of the Nerds’.
The boys from my floor also did something unusual, if not very inspired. They wore the school uniforms of girls’ schools. So they were prancing around in pinafores (one of them could have done with a bigger size, he was suffocating) with cutesy bags and pins in their hair. And when the pageant winners were announced, they stormed the stage to envelop the prom king in hugs. (It’s ok, he’s one of their gang.)
The best-dressed table, however, went to a bunch of guys who played the nerd card right. They were perfectly uniform in checked shirts, bow ties, bermuda pants worn at waist height, and spectacles made out of fat plastic wire. They looked absolutely adorable! They even kept in character the whole night, acting nerdy and moving their bodies stiffly. Gosh, I hope they didn’t go clubbing dressed in that…
Other honourable mentions include a group of girls called the Geek Gods, with names like Apolo (wearing a cardboard mint) and Poseur-don (wearing the hip-hop style with bling). And the sportsmen who turned up immaculately dressed in suits and boxer shorts. Yes, the silky kind, with love-heart patterns.
It’s really gratifying that people actually took our theme seriously and dressed the part. We weren’t trying to create a Halloween theme, we just wanted everyone to dress really oddly, in contrast to the usual formal style. It was great fun seeing how crazy they went with their ideas, and photographs were being taken all night long to capture these very strange manifestations of sartorial nonsense.
For my part, I mostly ran around with a walkie-talkie, coordinating events. I was in charge of the lucky draw so I spent a lot of time at one corner of the stage holding prizes (and in the case of a giant soap hamper, putting my back out carrying prizes). It’s just as well I was at the corner, because I had to share the stage with the pageant contestants at one point, and I must have looked like a sad little weed next to beautiful flowers (and trees) such as them.
At the end of the night, everyone enjoyed themselves, no one tripped onstage and nothing majorly untoward happened. Most important, the guests had a good time, and the event management company kept up their end of the deal. Cheers!
Lecture bits
From the stats lecturer: He was explaining that sex is sex, and gender is gender, and wondering aloud whether we are raised to be so prudish as to substitute ‘gender’ for ’sex’. He told us that the sociology department could deconstruct gender for us, but only biologists and very skilled surgeons can deconstruct sex. Hah! That’s a good one!
From the psychology lecture: There was this guy sitting in front of me, and at one point I saw him making gestures with his hands. He seemed to be making square angles with them (as though delineating a cube) and was changing the position around but in the same manner. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing, and my classmate gave this response: “He’s practicing his para-para sakura moves.” Para-para sakura is sort of like line dancing, where everyone in a huge crowd does the same movements. In the youth context, it refers to an arcade game where you execute the moves on a machine, usually with your hands. It was all the rage 2 years back.
In other news, I played a fat virgin in my drama skit. It’s one of those satirical skits, hence the strange characterization.
Stop the world and let me get off!
Phew! It’s been a grueling week. Started off all right, with a leisurely Monday (my week is structured so that the intensity increases from Monday to Friday) and now, Friday night, I’m just plum tuckered out. After you read this entry, you’ll probably feel tired too!
I had 5 performances in 3 days for choir and drama. I don’t mind performing, in fact I’m probably cured of my stage fright by now. It’s just that the practices take up time. But now that it’s all over, I can’t stop singing and reciting my lines. Withdrawal symptoms.
I had a midterm test on Tuesday which I was actually very well-prepared for (a rare incident, I assure you) and that was it for Tuesday, since the test took place during my only Tuesday class. I had 90 minutes to write a 2 page essay but I handed it up in 40 minutes and hauled butt out of there. I had to go pick up someone at the airport, and it was a 90-minute ride to get there on time. My only regret is I forgot that he was coming through duty-free, and thus forgot to tell him to buy me a bottle of spirits since it’s much cheaper there. Darn!
Wednesday was quite a bad day. I got my test results back from my stats module. I passed, but very poorly. I could most definitely have done better, except that I screwed up the first 2 questions. I can count and express formulae very well. I just can’t write those reasoning-type answers that ask why I choose a particular answer over another. So I was quite disappointed, but I guess I only have myself to blame for not reading the textbook properly.
After that I had to skip a lecture to do 2 performances, to an audience of our own singers. The people walking by (it was a busking-type thing) apparently were too busy to bother with us. *sniff* but at least we were rewarded with points for performing. Heh, those were actually extra points but I feel I earned every one!
Later that afternoon I drank 2 cups of what I think to be bourbon Coke, although I can’t be sure. It’s all legal, it was part of a psychology experiment. It was very interesting, although I felt very bloated afterward due to the large amount of liquid. I have a small stomach so it was extremely uncomfortable for me.
And we were performing again that night! Kudos to the choir though, we came through on the pitch and rhythm although we were lacking in expression. We left it up to the boys to rouse up the crowd with a gospel song. They rocked. I had time to see off my boyfriend before heading off to a meeting which I actually enjoyed. Our meetings aren’t as formal as actual business meetings, and anyway when you are planning fun activities, it’s very difficult to be strait-laced. Sex, alcohol and rock n’ roll pretty much define the undergraduate experience, and even more so when you’re living on campus and everyone around you thinks in the same hedonistic manner.
And just when you thought I was done with Wednesday and was going to bed, I didn’t! I took my shower and went to tutor my friend. He had a quiz the next day and knew nuts about his course. He really, seriously knew nothing. It was a biology course and he had never taken biology so he didn’t know what the lecturer was going on about. We did 3 hours of intensive revision and we still didn’t manage to cover everything. He said he’d buy me dinner if he did well, but I don’t think that will materialise. I’m not saying he’s stupid. I’m just being realistic that having covered so little material, it is impossible for him to get a good grade. Wait, I take that back. It would have been easy for him to get a good grade if I took the quiz sitting beside him. The catch is, I took the same course last semester (in fact I sold him the textbook) and besides, the quiz was conducted like a real exam, in an exam hall with assigned seating, so it would have been impossible.
I finally gave up at around 3 am because I was just too physically tired, and I had a 10am lecture the next day. Gosh, the cycle just doesn’t stop, does it? Thursday wasn’t as bad though. I got off classes at 4 pm, lugged a carton of Coca-Cola halfway across campus, and went out to a 3-course dinner with my boyfriend. I made a huge mistake by ordering the spicy Dynamite pizza, thinking that they were exaggerating the fire factor. They weren’t. It was unbearable. In the end I gave up after eating half the pizza, and swapped it for my boyfriend’s sandwich. Even He-who-grew-up-eating-chillies needed glass after glass of water to douse the flames. Never again. I’ll stick to plain ol’ Hawaiian pizza from now on.
Friday wasn’t so bad, actually, even if I had to wake up at 7 am, with the sniffles. The lecture was quite funny (more on that later) and our performances at night were okay, albeit uninspiring. But who cares about being inspiring? We’re just trying to fulfil our performance quota and not go out of tune or fluff our lines. All that is over now! No more practices or dramatic readings. Now I can get back to the committee work that’s been piling up, and the laundry that threatens to overtake my room.
Next week: The Bash Report. No, not an exposition on domestic violence. A report on the Pageant Preview Bash to be held at Singapore’s best club on Wednesday! I’m looking forward to bash. Finally, I will get to see the famed Zouk. It’s been around for 14 years or something, and that’s a real achievement in the nightlife industry where a club closes down after maybe 3 years of operation. Oh, and I’m looking forward to the pageant contestants’ reaction when we reveal what we have secretly (heh heh) planned for them. None of them read this blog, so I’m safe. Haha!
And the week after that, the culmination of much hard work: Yousucks Hall Dinner and Dance! Strangely, without the dance. The programme for the night ends at 11 so that adults (and by that I mean parent-age adults in positions of authority) can go home at a decent hour, and early birds can rest well. The rest of us more hedonistic people will head to a club to dance the night away. Darn, I think I’ll be going home early. I have an 8am class test the next day. Why, oh why, couldn’t they have had it on the 24th? The 25th is a public holiday and I could have joined in the clubbing. *pout* There’s always next year I suppose. I’m the person in charge of making DnD a success and here I am going home early. I should be out celebrating my success or drowning my failure!
Oh my, what a long post. I shouldn’t have condensed the entire week into one post, but this is the first time all week I have had time to properly sit down and type.
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