Men in tutus

Oh how pree-tee you look in Swan Lake!

Last night I went with my mum, dad and sister to watch the Trocks. When I first found out they were coming to Singapore, I e-mailed my dad if he wanted to go and his initial reply was, "Why you ask me to go watch a bunch of poofters dance?" After enumerating the various reasons why he should go - "Cos you know, watching men dance in tutus and en pointe is really funny!" and "it's sorta culture, ballet what!", eventually managed to persuade him to go (also cos then he'll pay for my ticket harhar).

It was quite funny, but then again, men in drag is always funny. I wonder why? If you can ignore the hairy chests and the too muscly-to-be-gurls bods, the emm...'ballerinas' were actually very good. Some of the pointe work and pirouettes would put some real ballerinas to shame. Too bad we were sitting waaay up in Circle 2 to see the facial expressions. My favourite was the Dying Swan, although this dying swan was more like a dying moulting swan. Swan Lake was funny too, with a flock of crazed swans and super-effeminite prince. Heh heh.

Gripe 1: Lovey-dovey couple (yech) sitting next to me did not clap at all. Not a single time during the performance, not in between acts or at the end when they took their bows. Then you go watch for what?
Gripe 2: Theatre was half-full, so how come we cannot move forward to get better seats?

Aiyah, I so suck at writing reviews, at least for performances. Better read the one by Life! lah.

Not prepared for it

Sawadi kha. Dichan chuu JellyGirl kha.

Learnt my first sentence in Thai yesterday. Was in church for the first meeting on the upcoming trip to Korat. I had signed up to join my church on its next mission trip in Oct, where they would hold a 3 day English camp for university students. It wasn't until we were sitting in the room discussing logistics and the programme that it finally hit me we had to plan everything. Like think up of games and activities to make the lessons more interesting. Before, I had this vague idea that everything would be planned out for us, and all I had to do was show up and attempt to teach people how to speak English. Oops, obviously didn't think this through properly.

So now until mid-Oct when we leave, we will be meeting every Mon and Wed to plan stuff. PLAN. I'm so bad at planning. Eek. Lucky there are more organised people in the group.

In which I ramble about my fun weekend

One of the bad things about having a good weekend, is the coming back to work bit on Monday. Boo-hoo. 5 more days to the next weekend. Let's see:

Culture vulture
Went to the Gil Shaham concert on Fri with my mother and sister. Unlike other concerts where I was sort of ho-hum about them, I was really looking forward to this concert cos I wanted to listen to the Butterfly Lovers Concerto, have never heard the whole thing. Have only heard bits of it here and there in drama-mama HK and local TV serials. And oh boy, it did not disappoint! It's a beautiful piece of music and Gil (can I call him Gil? Mr Shaham seems so impersonal) played with such emotion and sensitivity to the piece. His tone! His vibrato! Wah...in awe. Definitely a very entertaining performer to watch. You could tell he was really enjoying himself on stage. Everytime he put his violin down, he would break out into a huge goofy grin and look excitedly at Lan Shui and nod his head in time to the music. And when he reached a part which he particularly liked, he would stamp his feet. While playing. Once, he even looked like he was going to break out into a hoedown. Heh heh. I think I want to buy the recording of Butterfly Lovers when it comes out. Then can listen and pretend I also can play like that.

I bake cake...
Because my father had bought so many punnets of strawberries, I decided to try baking a cake following Jamie Oliver's Party Cake recipe from his Return of the Naked Chef book. It's essentially a chocolate cake with double cream and strawberries sandwiched in between. Everything turned out fine, except I couldn't find double cream and had to settle for thickened cream. That is when I made the discovered that thickened cream is not thick! What the?! When I spread it over the cake, instead of staying there, it sort of splooshed around and became a puddle. Bah!

...and bring it to a BBQ
So I brought the cake to the big BBQ on Sat night. Now this kind of BBQ I can handle. Some friends' uncle and auntie had let them house-sit their penthouse while they were away on holiday, leaving them to hold the fort and keep the maids busy. And we were like little kids having a party. Whoo the adults have left! Bring out the wine, crank up the stereo! Instead of us standing over the BBQ, all we had to do was sit around the huge table and wait to be served. Oh and what food we had! City satay, pork chops, sausages, steak, mushrooms, bacon pasta, salad, with chocolate pots, madelines, bread & butter pudding, Haagen-Dazs ice-cream and my cake for dessert. Too...much...food.

After the gorging had finished, the night descended into the classic boys vs girls battle of Pictionary and Taboo. Unfortunately the boys beat us in both games. But it is ok, the girls will have their day in the rematch next Sat. Ah ha!

Harold & Kumar go to White Castle
Then on Sunday, after a yummy breakfast-lunch at Cafe Rosso* in Holland V where I had the best and yummiest scones and encountered real thick cream that did not move when I spread it(Bulla, do you see this cream? This is what I call thick cream), we headed to Lido to rub shoulders with the masses and watch Harold & Kumar. Ahahaha the movie so funny. I laugh so loud. I think John Cho is quite cute and now I want to eat White Castle burgers. Dammit.

* This place tickles me. A cafe with an Italian name and Japanese chefs? Heehee.

Peasant's Quest (Warning: will suck time away)

Burnination! Requisite screen grab from game

One of the first computer games I played when I got my own PC (486...wah so fast) was this walkthrough solve-puzzles game called King's Quest. Sure the graphics were dinky and pixelly, but it was fun. Anyway, have discovered a great parody of the game called Peasant's Quest by homestarrunner. Have spent a frustrating hour trying to play the game but have only managed to get 1 point out of 150. Bah!

Then, oh joy, I discovered the cheaters sheet - a walkthrough! Hahaha...burnination shall occur. Uh-oh, I'm never going to be able to get back to work now.

Email from the Vice President (HR)

To: All Faculty and Staff Members

I know that many of you are looking forward to the implementation of the 5-day workweek at the University. For others, the 5-day workweek may not mean very much because the exigencies of service and work commitments are currently not limited to a 5-day workweek.

With regard to the implementation of the 5-day workweek, it is important that we refer to two salient points stated in the Public Service Division circular dated 25 August 2004. The two points are:

(1) Service standards are not affected with the implementation of the 5-day workweek
(2) No reduction in the total number of working hours per week or on a fortnightly basis for those currently working regular office hours.

OHR is in discussion with Schools and Departments within the University on the proposed implementation. When all implementation and operational issues pertaining to service delivery and service standards to the various stakeholder or constituent groups have been clarified and resolved and the University is ready to implement the 5-day workweek, all faculty and staff members will be informed.

In the meantime it is business as usual.

Thank you.

Baaaaaaaah!

This is why I want to be a rhythmic gymnast superstah

Picture by Associated Press: Russia's Irina Tchachina 'clubs' the competition (harhar)

Long, lean, lithe and flexible. Sigh. How come I didn't look like that when I was doing rhythmic? Err ok never mind.