Monday, November 27, 2006  2:30 AM
Saturday shopping spree
A fulfilling shopping day has to include: -
1) Four hours at Topshop
2) A mind-boggling, life-changing decision over a pair of mustard yellow shoes which had me sitting at Topshop for an hour just staring at the pair of shoes and weighing the number of outfits I could wear it with against the cost of the shoes
3) Rebates and freebies, with bad customer service in tow
4) Meeting your friends in Topshop
5) Catching up with them in the dressing room
6) Painfully rejecting some potential pieces of clothing
7) Having to dig out the emergency card because you feel it in your bones that your current account is going dry
8) Crystal Jade dinners
9) Photo-taking under the Christmas lights like fanatical tourists
10) Shrieking, singing and laughing all at once
11) Familiarising yourself with the changing rooms at Topshop, Forever21 and Zara
12) Bitchfest, ahem, discussion fest on the late train ride home
And yesterday's Saturday shopping spree was all that, and more. It's the first taste of REAL freedom I've had in the last 3 weeks, and it's the start of more to come - sleepovers, long talks with many 'what-ifs', Christmas shopping, high-teas, shopping trips, HK drama/movie marathons, lunches, dinners, sun-tanning - it's finally here.
--
Carrie in Sex & the City: How about I read you a little bit of my favourite poetry? [Reads from Vogue] "Cocktails at Tiffanys calls for classic charm. Oscar de la Renta sleeveless silk full skirted dress with black patent leather bow belt." Now that is pure poetry.
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Friday, November 17, 2006 11:27 PM
Pieces of jade and gold
SCGS will never be the same again.
This year has been one where changes are vast with the unexpected departures of those we will love and miss forever. I still hold the school in such high regard because those ten years of my life really played a big part in shaping the person I am today.
Our principal, Miss Heng, who has been the figurehead of the school for as long as I can remember, announced her retirement this year. For almost thirty years, she has been watching us grow in line with the school's vision of raising 'kim geks', which I believe means capable women of character (although some prefer to believe it as tai-tai's). I don't think any other person can replace her in the way she has run the school, with her firm belief of the kind of girls we would be in the future. She stressed being refined, speaking well and good grooming, and that was evident with the sudden torrent of deportment, hygiene and speech classes we would be forced to attend once the exams ended every single year.
Of course, I never had much opportunity to interact with her much because I was never the top pupil, head prefect or exceeded in anything spectacular, neither was I a juvenile delinquent that needed to be called to her office every week. The only time she talked to me was when I came back to school a few years after graduation and I bumped into her in the hallway, and she decided that I had turned Greek because of the colour of my hair.
I wonder how SCGS girls will be like in the future, without her shepherding us and countlessly stressing that the school song sung, "till the work be done" and not "till the world be done".
The second unexpected departure came two days ago with the sudden death of every single SCGS girl's favourite canteen figurehead, the meepok man. Meepok Uncle was the celebrity during recess, he was, without fail, the one with the longest queues and what everyone looked forward to as the highlight of their day. I call it the acquired SCGS girl's taste. No one I know doesn't love the SCGS meepok, and even when a non-SCGS girl says it's ordinary, SCGS girls love their meepok like they love lana cake. It's amazing how we can all eat it almost every day for ten years, and still think it's the best food in the world. When I eat at Canteen B in NTU two days in a row, I already feel like dying.
I remember praying during Amath lessons that were right before recess that we would be let out early so we could all run down to get our daily dose of meepok. And when we did, it was a mad rush of girls in a dash to be the first in line. We would race to the canteen and in our cliques, order our sprinter friends to 'chope' places for us in the queue because we all knew that in the next five minutes, the queue would be terribly long. It was also the only thing I ate in primary one, because it was the only thing my mom had taught me to order.
"Uncle, $0.50 mee-gia tang, bu yao cong, duo yi dian rou."
(Uncle, 50cents skinny-noodle soup, no spring onions, more pork.)
By the third or fourth year I was in SCGS, he knew what I liked without me having to order. He never had much expression, and I don't think I've ever seen him smile, but everytime he saw me, he would confirm that it was mee-gia I wanted, and in his gruff voice say, "bu yao cong ah?"
He had been there ever since my mom was studying in SCGS, and by the time I graduated, he was still faithfully serving meepok in the school. He was slow in movement, and his hands were callused and immune to the hot soup, but he never tired of the job he held so dear.
He will be dearly missed by every single SCGS girl.
And till this day, I only sing one school song with pride. It's also probably because I still don't know the lyrics of my JC school song.
Glad that I live am I
That the sky is blue
Glad for the country lanes
And the fall of dew
After the sun the rain
After the rain the sun
This is the way of life
Till the work be done
All that we need to do
Be we low or high
Is to see that we grow
Nearer the sky
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2:01 PM
Goodbye, Wilbur Schramm
The worst paper in the history of comm studies is over. Oh finally, this day has come. You could just hear the collective shrieks of glee and exhilaration when the examiners were collecting the scripts. Agreed by every single CS student, CS201 is the most tedious and tiresome subject ever. But it was all smiles yesterday once the clock struck 7pm, and our professor Benjamin Detenber decided to parade around the examination hall with a huge hat on his head, firmly establishing his role as a CS lecturer indeed as he contributed to the scene that we already made.
The number of dyed heads, huge earrings, necklaces, beanies and colourful shirts clearly separated us from the engineering bunch who were also taking the exam in the same hall.
And for the first time in weeks, almost every single CS person on my list was online. This is what happens when something like CS201 comes to take over your entire life for a good two weeks. I rewarded myself with a wonderful dinner, lots of television and a ten-hour sleep, something I've not truly appreciated in a long long time.
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Sunday, November 12, 2006 9:36 PM
Sunday sunsets
IhateCS201ihateCS201ihateCS201ihateCS201.
I think if I knew about this course before I came into university, I would be deterred from doing Communication Studies altogether. I mean, I thought I would be doing things I love like writing and all that, but nooooo instead I'm stuck here learning about Wilbur Schramm and Sigmund Freud and Harold Lasswell and Kurt Lewin and Claude E. Shannon and symbolic interactionism and cybenetics theory and I feel like drowning myself right now like Carl Hovland did (yes, I remember stupid things like that and not what he did for the communication field).
For those saved from this terrible torture, CS 201 is really Communication History and Theories, and the textbook is this 500 page scholarly journal looking thing with NO pictures and NO colour.
And I just can't seem to remember anything.
I like staying in church till real late because no one else is around and it's all still and serene with this aura of peace when the sun sets and you can actually hear the birds chirping. We cooped ourselves up in the fellowship room studying (and talking) today till sunset, and as we walked out we realised we were the only ones left in church and the gates were locked. So I attempted to climb over the gates, and once I made it over successfully, the gates slid open as if there was a magical force behind it. Gen and I stared at the gates in wide-eyed horror, undoubtedly freaked out by this weird occurrence. I conjectured that there might have been someone in church or some automatic device that opens the gates when they sense people climbing over it (but on second thought, that thought was really dumb cos that would mean thieves would make it in easily all the time), but Gen thought I had unlocked the gate somehow in the process of me climbing over. Whatever it was, we were admittedly, scared and we quickly shut the gates and shuffled off quickly - but it really seemed like an act of God, somehow.
I'm actually writing about an experience, something Gen should take a cue from and follow suit, as a closure to the conversation about the evolution of the way we blog these days and how friendships can actually be formed through writing about experiences.
But this has been a nice day despite the studying. I always love Sundays.
The whole earth falls to its knees
At the sound of Your beautiful name
And all the voices in the world unify today
To bring You this song of praise
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Monday, November 06, 2006 9:02 PM
A celebration to remember
So we did it, after 40 days of learning about a purpose-driven life, bonding and thought-provoking sharing sessions. I daresay that our small group has experience all kinds of emotions during the six sessions, with laughter, tears, wistfulness, happiness and immense encouragement.
And of course we achieved our ultimate aim - winning the best dressed/most creatively dressed competition. I remember how excited the girls got when we realised that there was going to be a competition, and immediately we started planning what to wear. We came up with it at last, two days before the event while having dinner at the Soup Spoon. Without a doubt, our glee couldn't be contained. Fashion disasters we were going to be, complete with the most mismatched colours, fake eyelashes, high socks, stockings, ugly specs and weird hair.
There wasn't much competition at the celebration lunch. With the exception of a whole bunch of Rick Warrens, some pirates and a table thinking that wearing caps was their definition of 'dressing up', we created a stir the moment we walked in. They laughed, pointed and I'm sure we were ridiculed at, but every single moment of the newfound 'fame' was worth it. Being a GG entails all that I suppose, and I think going up on stage to parade in front of more than 1300 people is part of the learning process.
We took a total of 70 photos, a real feat. And why not too, since we only dress like that once in a lifetime? We pretended we were on America's Next Top Model and even had someone directing a few random aviator shots. It made photos worthy of a pictorial book.
Hookers, Harajuku girls, deluded ballerinas, bookish schoolgirls, hobos - whatever we were made out to be, I think we wouldn't have done this before 40DOP. Perhaps we all finally gained the confidence that people now know who we are inside, and how we look on the outside does not matter to them anymore. We've changed, from being the backrow girls at Senior Sunday School who would not be seen during service without a fashion magazine in hand, to a group that's certain of our identity in Christ no matter how we look on the outside.
By the way, we are still vain. We still plan our Sunday outfits days before.
Honestly, I do think this is what having fun is about. Making the event out to what you want it to be. Twenty years down the road, will the cap-wearing table remember this event? Probably not. But we will, and it will remain as one of the fondest memories in my heart.
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