this year my choreographer totally test my capability as the teacher in-charge because she used 26 tables, 26 chairs, 1 movable white board, 1 movable notice board, 4 floorball sticks and 1 big cardboard box as props for the bdazzled item.
there is no way these props can fit into the school bus so i have to request for budget to rent a lorry. thank goodness VP approved the lorry rental budget. and not forgetting all the coordination and planning in transporting all these props to star performing arts centre, and bringing all these props to the stage in the shortest possible item before our item.
the theatre looks super awesome! and our dressing room is super awesome too. i prefer star performing arts centre to UCC. hahahaha.
a mishap happened at the start of the item. we had a chair missing! thank goodness my kid who didnt have the chair quickly run into backstage and informed me that her chair is missing. and the stage manager, Melo, exhibited quick thinking on her feet by telling the audio engineer not to play the music first, and asked the emcee to go out and stall some time.
and we still can't find the chair so we had no choice but to grab a random chair for the kid. i think they were a bit distracted from this mishap. but i think they still did well, and we achieved the 'Diamond' Award. phew... i was so scared that in my last year as the teacher overall-in-charge the show choir wun get Diamond.
my batch of sec 4 students. they really help us alot in moving the props, and even appeared during the last 30 seconds of the item to make the item more majestic and impactful. thank you so much for sacrificing your precious time.
and it is the yearly routine again!
first time trying the new IPPT system, and thank goodness i got GOLD. my initial plan was to do 44 sit ups and 44 push ups and run 10 min 50 s to get gold. first station was push ups, and i did 39. so i know i have to do alot of sit ups in order to get back the points. thank goodness i did the 53rd sit up at the last second and so i got 24 points. if i did 52 i would have got 23 points only.
2.4 km was disappointing also. i thought i could run 10 min 30 s because i did 10 min 22 s on tuesday. 10 min 40 s is 42 points and 10 min 41 s is 41 points. to get gold you must achieve a min of 85 points. imagine if i did not do the 53rd sit up i would have gotten silver instead of gold. #nightmare
but still i am thankful and happy to get gold! it is 500 dollars! this gold is definitely more achievable than the 5 station system. i always screw up at pull ups and always miss by a few seconds for 2.4 km.
in the afternoon i went back to school for show choir practise. it was my vice president's bday and i bought a cake for him to celebrate his birthday. so everyone was having vocal warm ups and then i appeared with the birthday cake. deniece (the vocals instructor) who was on the piano immediately change the song to birthday song and everyone started singing happy birthday. he was on the verge of tearing. after the song i asked him to say a few words. and he said:"being in show choir is the greatest gift i ever received." omg so touched everybody was like AWWWWWWW.
and then i went to madame patisserie at turf city grandstand for dinner! the cakes and the food were super good!
rainbow cake! best rainbow cake i ever tasted so far!
matcha roll
lobster roll. still not as nice as the one we had at boston quincy market.
from top left hand corner in clockwise manner:
blue berry pancakes with scrambled eggs and caramelised bananas; peanut butter curry shrimp pizza (sounds weird but taste very nice); lobster roll; aglio olio
thank you darling for the treat~ (she got a very good performance bonus hee hee hee)
so happy to see miss yap again after one year. she came to the workplace to conduct a music workshop.
i first got to know miss yap last year, when she was in charge of the combined schools choir performance at gardens by the bay. she is a music teacher, and is at arts education branch as a music specialist.
we first crossed swords with each other during an email exchange, when she addressed me as Miss. actually i get that all the time, but on that particular day i was feeling a bit cheeky, so i replied her email, signing off as Mr, and even attached my handsome photo,
(omg my crooked teeth from last time)
and so after we got a bit more familiar with each other throughout the countless rehearsals, she admitted to me that she was really so scared for offending me by calling me Miss. hahahaha.
anyway i am thankful to find a new friend who shares the same passion as me in the arts.
she told me that darling is very pretty and she even went to stalk her. hahahaha. hope that your bf propose to you soon and you can use samuel ng as your prewed photographer!
i ran 2.4 km on national day, after a very full lunch buffet.
and i was quite surprised by my timing. it was 11 min 1 s. the asics city relay last last saturday, the dance practises with BLS, the intensive rehearsals for the national day concert and the football match last thur must have helped improve my stamina.
so i went to check the ippt scoring. with my fitness now, i can easily obtain a silver.
if i do 44 push ups, 44 sit ups and run 10 min 50 s, i can get GOLD!!! my last GOLD was during my nsf days. ever since i ord, i nv manage to get gold at all.
so today i went to run 2.4 km again.
and to my astonishment...
i am thankful that today is a public holiday.
the day started when i drove to boon keng to collect 2 x portable fans from the nuscd diva mrs wee.
a few months ago mrs wee was raving how wonderful this portable fan is, how it made her 2 children so comfortable in hong kong's sweaty summer and what made the summer worse is that hong kong got no trees. (let's appreciate singapore for being a garden city and of course Mr LKY's vision of making that happen)
and hence i asked her to buy 2 portable fans for me. one for XX (darling's niece), and one for the future child. hahahaha.
mrs wee was super impressed that i actually made the EFFORT to drive to her house at boon keng just to collect the fans from her. and she compared me to a friend of hers who was willing to drive to a super far place just to buy otak. ok a bit random but nvm. hahahahahaha. thanks for the fans mrs wee!
on another random note, darling bought a new phillips air fryer! thankful to her sec sch friend who was able to get it at a 50% discount!
so we decided to cook lunch using the air fryer!
zucchini! we wanted to make this because the zucchini at one ninety (four seasons hotel) was very nice!
white fish filet with pesto sauce!
chicken drumlets marinated with dark soy sauce, sambal chilli and honey! marination done by darling!
french fries from potato strips! potato strips cut by darling~
the food was easy to prepare, good to eat. but the air fryer was hard to wash. i posted the pictures on instagram and my colleague replied, giving me a tip to protect the air fryer during the cooking so that washing can be easier! my colleague was a member of the air fryer club since last year. i am thankful for social media and thankful for responsive colleagues. :D
looking forward to prepare more delicious food with the air fryer!
the golden jubilee long weekend is coming to an end, and these pictures below best depict the feelings of teachers and students.
lunch was at 72++ per pax. food was OMG. my best buffet dining experience ever. the parking fee was crazy though. park there for 3 hours and it cost 18 dollars.
they got free flow caviar! my first time seeing caviar!
we wear red (insisted by the mum) to show how patriotic we are. LOL.
the little sis said i look deceptively skinny. hahahahaha.
happy birthday singapore!
on the eve of the nation's bday we went to equinox (yesss again) to have high tea. :)
hello niece! very long time nv see you already~
i really love the view of the nation's city landscape from equinox. majestic and breathtaking. gives me a chance to reflect and i am thankful with what i have right now. :)
behind the scenes was a bit crazy. i need to do costume change, do make up, make props and run from changing room to backstage to make sure that everything is flowing properly. thank goodness i have wonderful colleagues and wonderful AVA students at the backstage to make sure that everything is in place. and not forgetting the wonderful choreographer derek seong who help to do the make up as well as the props.
our light sabres! look really good!
after the performance is the usual photo taking with everybody! especially it is my last performance.
firstly with DXM. i feel really paiseh that they come here to perform for free, so i bought them pop figurines.
how can i not take with my beloved show choir. :)
the show choir graduating seniors!
the president of malay dance. showcasing the racial riot. haha.
jean, chinese dance alumni. thank you so much for agreeing to come back to dance, and also the 2 boxes of tokyo banana. will buy 2 boxes to repay you in december when i go to japan for my honeymoon!
estel, the chinese dance president, who is also a very good ballet dancer, and also helped show choir in numerous performances. thankful to have her in my performing arts journey.
she will most probably take over estel as the next chinese dance president. i have seen her grow in stage presence and leadership over all the rehearsals. really proud of her!
i woke up today at 430 am. and couldn't go back to sleep. i must be too excited about my swansong performance.
this year's national day concert is combined together with arts festival. somewhere in May, i sat down with the humanities HOD, a geography teacher whose name is nallu who has stage experience (he will most probably take over my role when i leave) and the SH of art to conceptualise the whole performance. it was decided that we will present the story of singapore from the past to the future, through music, dance and drama. so we titled the concert as 'Our Home Our Story'.
Act 1: The Lesson
Act 1 reveals a classroom scene where the teacher (acted out by my school counsellor Mr Singh) is going through a lesson on the history of singapore. the students do not understand why they need to learn about the history of singapore as they think that it is of no relevance to their life.
classroom scene performed by my show choir. the song chosen is michael jackson's 'They Don't Care About Us'.
the teacher came back and scolded them: we study the past to understand the present, we understand the present to guide the future. where is your resilience? just look at what our forefathers had to go through...
Act 2: Japanese Occupation
This segment was choreographed by me. and the performers are none other than my show choir students. i used the music from the 2010 nuscd production 'Cold Night'. we only rehearsed this 2 times and went up on stage to perform. i had alot of guts and alot of faith in them. hahaha.
haiz told them not to laugh already and they still laugh. zzz...
they must learn from their teacher in-charge who is so into it. :D
Act 3: Racial Riots
Internal threats plagued the nation in the early years, for example the 1964 racial riots between the chinese and malay community.
the racial riot item was choreographed by me. i chose a song from the 'Ip Man' soundtrack that brings out the tension very appropriately and thank goodness the whole song is only one min. and thank goodness i only had 2 practises with the dancers and they went up on stage!
right after this item the band performed 'fate of gods'. this song is very majestic and also a bit emo, so while the band is playing, the english drama students were on stage to perform a mime about separation between singapore and malaysia.
Act 4: Independence
this scene was acted out by drama students, taking up the roles of LKY, toh chin chye, s rajaratnam, goh keng swee and othman wok.
Act 5: The Test of Soverignity
SIA hijack scene, where the commandos saved the passengers from the terrorists. this scene portrays the importance of national service, where we must defend our own nation with our own people.
Act 6: The Future
the final act, that showcases the future of singapore. vibrant city, vibrant performing arts!
i performed dance and wushu so many times on stage, but this is actually my first time singing! hahahaha. i specially got the discipline mistress, miss ho, to sing together with me. and i purposely arranged for a whiteboard to cover her to keep the whole school in suspense. the song is 关怀方式, a locally composed song, and sung by 2 singaporeans, chen hanwei and cai lilian. so this is the most suitable song for a national day concert commemorating our golden jubilee.
you can imagine the thunderous applause and cheers the moment she popped her head out. hahahahaha.
everyone was cheering frantically. even the teachers! some even took out their handphones and on their flashlights and waved them in the air.
the most priceless scene. head of performing arts singing a duet with the discipline mistress. hahahahaha.
and how do i know that she can sing? because every year on teachers' day, i will organise a ktv session with some of my colleagues. and last year she 鸟 me, asking me why i nv jio her. so to make amends, i jio-ed her to sing with me on stage in front of the whole school, and she readily agreed! and when we rehearsed for the first time... WOW. she can really sing! this year's ktv session i will definitely jio her. hahahahaha.
dance dynamics as usual did not disappoint, with their super high level of energy and confidence on stage!
the cirque du soileil item, choreographed by derek seong! derek really put in alot of effort in choreographing this for us. thankful to have him to be involved in my final performance.
check out the light sabre effect! kudos to derek again!
what a perfect triangle!
the 3 jedi warriors! obiwan kenobi plus his 2 padawans.
i invited this kpop group, DXM, to perform. my student knows them and passed me their contact. they are quite famous in singapore's kpop scene and i am so thankful that they are very willing to come down to perform, and for no charge! they put up a really exceptional perormance!
and lastly, the finale, just for all the sec 4 students of the performing arts CCAs, to thank them for contributing to their CCAs over the 4 years. this finale is even more epic because i only spent 45 minutes yesterday evening to rehearse with them. i deliberately chose an epic emo song to signify that this will be my last performance, as well as the last performance for the sec 4 students.
all the emotions flowing. hahaha.
i also invited jean to come back to perform for the finale. jean has been a special part of my performing arts journey in the workplace, as she was the female lead in the b2b dance drama production in 2011, for the workplace's 25th anniversary celebrations.
and ta da! that's it! thankful that everyone loved the whole concert. and they told me this is the best concert ever. i am thankful to everyone who contributed to the success of this concert. thankful to everyone who embarked on this magical journey with me over these years.
*bows 90 degrees in appreciation
