Larissa's Birthday Party

Words fail me as of now so I'll let the pictures do the talking. Suffice to say it was a great party, replete with lots of food (yay!), chatting and photo-whoring. Enjoy!

Stuck in Neutral

It's between me and the Cimmerian dark. When they say you look into the abyss, the abyss is looking back at you. How true that is. Now those blithe splinters of lights have bled away, those fever dreams and fool's hopes have fled and crumbled into diamond dust, all that remains is the waiting, lurking shadows. I'm afraid to succumb. So I say, darkness be my friend. If I truly am to fall. Until then, keep on dancing, grudging and gawky, to the carousel's jolly tune. In red-hot iron shoes.

Dramafeste!

It's not everyday when the vice-prinicpal of the JC makes a personal visit to your classroom from his far far away office just to tell you your mum has found your missing file. Unless of course, your mum told him there was a "family emergency."
Had MT dramfeste meeting in which Brian and Jonathan alternately disgusted and amused everyone else by having a lightsabre battle with their prosthetic wangs and singing "You Raise me up" as accompanying music. The song now hold new meaning for me...:S Had ushering duty for dramafeste; the final briefing right before the start of the event salved my guilt at missing all the previous briefings.
As the doors swung open, I spotted a few familiar faces amongst the throngs of people, namely Terence, Anna, GGY, Charmaine, Zhang Fan, Yuan Zi, Ching Ting, Philana and...Mr Chan!!! A few minutes later, I was fairly sure aisle ushers served no further purpose except to intimidate the audience into sitting down. I do believe everyone has a sufficient degree of intelligence and literacy to recognise and find their seats, thank you very much.
Mrs Butler chased us out to the outside world because we were potentially endangering the lives of the audience by blocking the escape route in case of a freak fire. Jennifer and me stoned outside during the HH play, entering the LT when it was MT's turn.
IMO, MT did a great job! William was so calm and collected despite the sound glitch or rather, lack of sound, that the audience barely even realised the prolonged opening scene was improvised. Seemed to engage the audience well enough judging from the scattered laughters now and then. Didn't catch BB's play but a nice, friendly BW usher, John, let me stay behind to watch MR and BW's play. BW's play had stellar cast so the performance was accordingly, stellar. Something about a play within a play, involving the theme of prestidigitation. MR's was like a choral speaking and far too much like a print-to-screen of 1984 for my liking. No points given for originality there. The co-ordination and blocking of the players was superb though, given the size of the cast.
Talked to Mr Chan following the end of the production and we shared some our ideas and views on the plays. Met Charmaine, GGY and their other classmates for a light super snack before going home.

Lost

ARGH!

I lost my homework file =).............:(:(:(.

What a brilliant time for it to go missing, when a deluge of tutorials are being gone through.

The silver lining: I have a cast-iron excuse for staring at a blank desk during lessons

If I don't find it, the cost of photocopying all the notes will be ASTRONOMICAL!!!

Not a good way to spend ang bao money on...

Wanted: Pink file with notes, tutorials and assignments done preferably =P
Reward: Eternal gratitude and that feel-good sensation that comes with being a good Samaritan

Steamboat at Jeremy's

When I reached Jeremy's place, the first thing I did was to head to the kitchen to check out how things were coming along. The spicy tang of Weilu's secret Chongqing recipe flooded my nostrils while the chopping sounds of Philana working on the meat filled my ears. Tried to make myself useful but my incompetence proved too much for Philana to take and she volunteered to wash and cut the vegetables.

Was quite ravenous by the time the steamboat or teppan yakki in my case (cannot take spicy stuff :( ) began so it was an eating spree for me! Black pepper fish, mushrooms, beef, fishcake, vegetables, more fish...Mmmm! I can feel myself ballooning :(... To add to the spread, there were love letters, kueh, pineapple tarts, pizza biscuits and ice-cream as well! Helped to clean up the unsightly leftovers; don't feel I'm so useless anymore ;).

Didn't feel like playing mahjong so I went to the lounge (seriously cool place with loads and loads of alcohol *swoons*) to play DDR, popping in and out occasionally to watch the mahjong folks. Left at about 11 with CT, sated and happy!

Take-Five!

The Mandarin oranges record-setting event was kind of lame; it goes into the Singapore book of records not Guinness. I highly doubt there were 2000+ people eating Mandarin oranges at the same time considering the number of ponners.
We dunked Jayanthi into the pool, never mind her fervent protest and exclamations. She tried her utmost to wrest herself free of our grip but unity in solidarity!!! Mr Hodge, whom we met along the way, made a deviation from his usual seriousness and went "Can you please not beat her up in front of me?", to our flabbergasted expressions after.
Split from the group after Jay became a "luo tang ji" to watch talent-time. It was extremely exciting for 2 reasons: One being the performances of the groups (duh!), the second being the painfully acerbic comments of Mr Vadi. "My grandmother can sing better than you. Do you want her number?" The other 2 judges' two cent's worth appeared trite and bland in comparison to his caustic words. Sam and Benny predictably won the Dance category and were asked to have an encore performance that wowed the masses for a second time.
Contrary to my plan of going home and sleeping, the ever-persuasive Terence and his sidekick Wang convinced Joanna and me to visit Coronation for lunch. There, we met JX and the 3 of them engaged in their usual irreverent conversation while Jo and me tried to comprehend the going-ons and laughed on the sidelines. Sometimes, it's a wonder how I get along with them well when our wavelengths can be so different. Wang paid an extra 4 bucks for my meal (me no $$$) and I owe him one bucks cus I possess only 1/4 of a conscience =).
Home it was to zzzzz...

Valentine's Day

The SO3Q guys surprised all the girls by giving them sunflowers! So sweet of them =)! I hope it can last for a few days more.

Thank you to all those who gave me presents, be they chocolates, jellies or cookies, and those heartening little notes.

For Clementi fencing training, Oleg bought Nellicia a delicious mango sponge cake as a belated birthday present! I've been eating lots of savory chocs, cake and other such foodstuffs these few days. And to think CNY is creeping closer, bringing with it the promise of more delectable goodies (and unwanted calories =( ).

Skated around the carpark and saw a very familiar looking car number plate...guess who?? It was Eugene and his gf, probably going to his house to celebrate Valetine's day. For the second time, awwww...so sweet =P!

Let the love or friendship in the air works its magic on you people!!!

BBQ at JX's place

My darling Papa gave Joanna and me a lift to JX's house. It was a good decision because I realised his house was really really far in. To quote David "Oh baby...", when he got off and saw 9A. JX's place is 56G btw.
JX's has a room of his own!!! Ok no big deal but considering I don't have one.. Papa, if you're reading this which I highly doubt but hope in any case, *hint hint*. His house has an uber cool layout; unlike having a common corridor that branches to the different rooms, his rooms are all linked to each other, somewhat like a maze. And JX owns a sabre, no not the fencing sort. Went cycling with Terence, Faii, JX and Joanna around the slightly hilly estate. Cycling after a long reprieve from hitting the road felt like going home, achingly familiar. We didn't travel for long because we had to pick Charmaine up.
The bunch of us headed back to JC's room and some people started playing with my accesories, a black beret and punk bracelet. Dinner commenced not long following her arrival. Jing Xiao, JX's sister, baked us crumbly golden-brown cookies while Terence, master chef, grilled steak. The pictures will speak for themselves regarding the spread =). Our guest of honor David came in a bit, looking shagged and chao tar from beach handball. Thoroughly stuffed myself on the dishes and was unplesantly surprised to discover the teacher I had made a wise comment to in the lift was JX's lit tutor and that he had told his entire class about the incident. He would have even found my class if not for the fact JX covered for me O_O. Guess I owe him one..but he still owes me 10 bucks!!!
Terence fed the leftovers to the cats. The three girls peeked into JX's neighbour's Spanish-styled house. David tried to unravel the mystery of my lagging camera.
Attempted to do some clearing up before returning to JX's room. Me, David and Joanna koped the bed (not a threesome) annoying JX cus we were soiling his bed with his filthiness. Had a whale of a time laughing our heads off at Sec 3 David (guai), Reuben (chubby!) and Darren (Darren, only smaller). JX and Terence taught the clueless 3 how to play poker, which Charmaine turned out having quite a flair at. Won enough games to ensure I didn't kena the stripping forfeit that wasn't carried out anyway. If only Darren, Reuben and the rest of the sabre team knew the fun they were missing... Took a shot of vodka, thereby severely impairing my mental faculties and sense of awareness. Kept on insisting I had 3 of a kind (sixes) when in reality it was a pair of nines. Played till 12 plus then papa drove over to give us all a lift home.

Many thanks to JX for organising the bbq despite all the trouble and clearing up that came with it, Terence and Charmaine for doing the cooking, David for coming down even though the evil exams draw too close for comfort (best of luck for them!)and everyone else who made today so enjoyable =).

Little Juniors

David enlisted our help in getting the juniors to do proper basic footwork (step forward, step back) and simple lunges. Did some simple demo - a horrendously embarassing moment even though I didn't stumble over my feet. Sabre attendance was poor but on the bright side, we escaped PT...for now. Went around correcting juniors on their footwork, postures to the best of my knowledge. I sure do hope I was instructing them to do the right thing and not some mangled version of the appropriate way. In a sense, its somewhat like a bonding session. When I got a bit bored of playing the underpaid coach, I fenced a little epee.
There are 40+ J1s; I can barely put the name to the face on the side of the girls, with the exception of Lorraine, Shan Shan, Sarah and Hui Min, not to mention the guys. Hot on the heels of footwork came...PT -__-. We idled at the steps, watching the J1s work their little legs and gossiping, occasionally checking on the progress of J1s and spurring them on.
Was rather glad for the laxness of today's training. Hadn't slept much the night before as I had been talking to Eug. Better get more rest for Thursday's training...

Junior Trials

Final Placing: 8th out of 14. Bleh... It wasn't too bad considering the presence of heavyweights from the Nat Team and PRC and plus I was feeling mildly feverish. And apparently, this doesn't quite give you a lot of points.
I was in a killer poule (there were only 2 actually, but mine had more goliaths ) and lost 4 bouts out of 6. By the end of whole fiasco, I half-thought I was going to be eliminated in a tragic repeat of last week's Fencing Singapore Challenge. As it turned out, I was to fence Audrey (9th placing) and got pass the hurdle. Another thing that went wrong; my electric lame actually FAILED to conduct in at least 3 patches, probably since I have never aired it since...I can't remember. The Romanian ref, after giving me a touchy-feely demo on how to solve the problem, finally poured water on it so it would have better conductivity. While other people spend their CNY money buying new clothes, I might end up spending it buying a new lame -_-.
The most frustrating issue of all was when I was to fence the first-seeded girl. I didn't think that I would make it but by the first half, I was up 8-4 thanks to relying on the beat-blade tactic. I started to think I might win but lost 13-15 X(. During the one minute rest break, the Romanian ref who coincidentally was the girl's coach, went over and commenced yelling at her ("You see this! You like the score!!?). I felt so mortified and embarassed as I was sort of the cause of her predicament. Oh well...I need to focus more and keep my cool...David said the 1st and 2nd half were like 2 different people fencing O_O. My consolation was that Ellyn, was ranked 2nd, after losing to Ann in the final. Darren, Reub, JX and Faii predictably landed themselves a spot in the top 8. Reub managed to beat JX 15-14 cus his ankle was busted. Then again, JX doesn't quite need the ranking points as much.
Need to acclimatise myself to the fact that DE begins pretty soon after poules over. When I queried "Now?" twice, Oleg responded "No, no, no, Tomorrow" and "No, no, no, go to cinema" respsectively with some exasperation. :P