the one where i was a chinese poetry judge
you heard that right. The juggleress was chosen to be a judge on chinese poetry. and i turned out to be quite a simon cowell. can't blame me, i didn't understand half of what they were saying! (i did try to look like i understood....give me credit for effort)
so on tues i went for my first poetry slam, which, for the uninformed, happens every last tues of the month at Velvet Underground. Basically people just go up to the stage to read poetry. Sometimes if they have time there's an open stage where you do anything you want up there. Depending on the theme, sometimes they have other acts besides poetry.
the theme of the month was Moon (inspired by the mid autumn festival). and that was why they held a chinese poetry slam for the first time. and because the place was basically filled with ang mohs, they were really hard up for judges who could understand chinese.
i wonder why they approached our group for a judge (made up of steph, weips, me, kris and fred. fred is, of course, just a life sized cowboy balloon sculpture, to accompany us lonesome ladies). Probably cos we made the most noise. Or maybe our black hair gave us away. (interestingly, although we all have black hair, besides fred who has a pink hat but no hair, i was the only one who studied mandarin in sch)
so anyway those hyper ladies literally pushed me into the arms of the person who requested a judge. So i went on, thinking, ok, it can't be that hard. i'm so not qualified to judge but i doubt anyone in this room is. The next thing i know the MC announced the next judge on the panel who is a chinese professor from one of the instituitions. NAFA or maybe from china something like that. The "professor" in his name already freaked me out.
it's a gd thing the MC said none of the poetry was original so we just had to judge on the presentation. I would have just died if i had to judge original chinese poetry. Ang moh poetry i already catch no ball. you want me to understand and appreciate the beauty of chinese poetry!?
yup yup. so i just sat thru 6 NAFA china chinese students presenting chinese poems. catch no ball. i was looking more for the way they recited it, expressions feelings and such. extra marks if they memorised the entire thing.
the marks i gave were even lower than the chinese prof. oops. i even gave a 6.8 for one of them which i think is the lowest point given by any judge the entire night. OOPS. (i wasn't trying to be mean, just felt that this girl wasn't as good as the one before whom i gave a 7.) in fact i was gonna give a 6, then i peeped at the prof and he gave 8, so i changed mine.
i did give a 9 to one of them. and the MC quipped "wow someone is generous." there was a guy who looked quite cute (no the 9 wasn't for him) and he memorised the entire poem and he was really intense. gave him an 8.5. heheha. the 9 won by the way, he got 2nd.
-------------------------------------------
the story of Fred
went busking with alan and MJ before meeting the karaoke Idols. alan made a beautiful life sized sculpture of a cowboy which didn't get sold. maybe that's cos he's selling it for 50 bucks.
anyway i stopped him from bursting it (though i thought if we held a balloon gun next to fred's head and then burst the head with a pin that'd be quite an impact. peaceful thoughts....peaceful thoughts....) and thought fred would be a great gift for Kris who was performing poetry that night. actually i thought the 3 balloon flowers would make a good gift, fred was just a funny gift i thought they'd be too embarassed to carry around. amazingly kris loved it.
so fred joined MJ, alan and me for dinner at taka. i carried him on the streets and he proved quite a hit with passers-by.
"Yo guys i think i shld shoot an advert for SDU. 'Need a partner? Get a real guy'"
we even met Zzen on the streets, this Channel 8 actor on the 7pm show now (huang biren's 2nd son). MJ and i taught him juggling for the NKF show sometime back. He's nice enough to come over to say hi. Cool guy, no airs, hardworking, sincere. hope he makes his mark on telly.
the yoshinoya staff kept staring at our table and fred. pple walking by yoshinoya would walk in just to look at fred. Fred's making us blardy jealous. i think alan was mildly embarassed.
So i carried fred to meet the Idols and more stares abound in the MRT. I thought the Idols would laugh fred off and we'll leave it behind somewhere but noooo...kris loved it. which means fred's coming with us to Velvet.
so up the SBS bus went Fred. and us. Fred's so large he took up the entire width of the walking space in the bus. which means it was quite an ordeal for the pple getting off the bus. they pushed Fred, flattened him, fred responded by jabbing seated passengers with his guitar...good thing no one complained. or smiled for that matter.
(weips)
"you know steph's so loud, she could lead a forum on the bus!"
I was afraid Velvet wouldn't want Fred around. They were more than welcoming though. I think it's cos it's poetry slam night, and they're much more relaxed and accomodating. Needless to say fred again lapped up attention until we banished him onto the corner of the sofa.
-------------------------------
So Kris proved to be quite a poet. Both steph and i thought it was a love poem but it turned out that there were two layers of meaning to her poem. the first level was on love and the hidden level was a humorous jab at poetry in general. err.....ok, whatever the poet says. haha. (as you can see, i am so not a judge)
I thought she was pretty good when she went up, but i'm not the most objective person am i. In the end she got 4th, and the winner was this really intense guy who was really engrossed in this poetry recital (which i thought was amusing)
Steph had a bad day at work, got ruffled by some really anal kids and parents. Weips and I started discussing how to take revenge for her. ("we'll use Fred to stalk the kid! Put Fred at the kid's bedroom window. Ha!" "We'll blow Fred's head up in front of the kid!""Steph you shld just whack him when the parent's not looking!""ya man, so when she turns around her kid's like at the other end of the room")
She seemed alright after a while, back to her hyper ways. She was the first to bounce onto stage to answer a question and collect her mooncake and she was also the first to be on stage to sing "yue liang da biao wo de xin".
i'm surprised velvet is so small. it looks like a nice cosy place to book for a personal party, but i bet it'd cost a bomb. weips and I think that our pink flamingos act would suit the poetry slam night well. I think juggling might be able to fit in too. hmmm. we'll see. Pink flamingos sounds like a gd idea.
-------------------------------------------
have been sleeping a lot. A LOT. it's quite scary. i can just sleep the day away. and i messed up my laptop too, will need to format it soon. shit.
i've got 2 programs which i installed and it's now un-installable. No options to uninstall, not even from the control panel. shit. and they can't even work anymore. shit. i'm never gonna trust that company's programs again.
last sunday was the prize giving ceremony by the Hainanese Clan association. They hand out token monetary awards every year for pple with decent results. So one fine day last week they called my dad up and asked if i would be kind enough to give a speech on that day. A speech in HAINANESE?
my parents thought it was quite funny. so they told me abt it like it was a joke. they were quite horrified when i said i was game for it. it'd be so fun wouldn't it! to speak hainanese in front of senior citizens whose native tongue is hainanese. I can't even say "tea" in hainanese without making it sound like a bad word!
in the end i decided to pass it up. Cos we weren't even planning to attend the ceremony that day, with or without the speech, dad was busy and it'd be too much of a rush for him.
i also figured it'd be one of the things i'll regret near the date. sat was the 150 balloon night and i wouldn't have time to prepare. a HAINANESE speech. whew. i would have loved to tape myself down.
my finger's still swollen from the 150 balloons ordeal. shit. i thought it's just a muscle ache, but my finger would'nt be swollen from that. I think a fracture would be more painful than this. Prob something in between muscle ache and fracture. like a twist or sth. Twist balloon until finger twisted. Best.
i'm getting fatter with each day of slacking. oh dear. i sleep way too much, eat way too much and do way too little. acknowledgement is half the battle won! now is the doing something abt it part........
quote of the week:
"wow these china students are really talented. They can sing, recite poetry, dance and act!"
"yeah, but can they say 'I can speak English'?"
you heard that right. The juggleress was chosen to be a judge on chinese poetry. and i turned out to be quite a simon cowell. can't blame me, i didn't understand half of what they were saying! (i did try to look like i understood....give me credit for effort)
so on tues i went for my first poetry slam, which, for the uninformed, happens every last tues of the month at Velvet Underground. Basically people just go up to the stage to read poetry. Sometimes if they have time there's an open stage where you do anything you want up there. Depending on the theme, sometimes they have other acts besides poetry.
the theme of the month was Moon (inspired by the mid autumn festival). and that was why they held a chinese poetry slam for the first time. and because the place was basically filled with ang mohs, they were really hard up for judges who could understand chinese.
i wonder why they approached our group for a judge (made up of steph, weips, me, kris and fred. fred is, of course, just a life sized cowboy balloon sculpture, to accompany us lonesome ladies). Probably cos we made the most noise. Or maybe our black hair gave us away. (interestingly, although we all have black hair, besides fred who has a pink hat but no hair, i was the only one who studied mandarin in sch)
so anyway those hyper ladies literally pushed me into the arms of the person who requested a judge. So i went on, thinking, ok, it can't be that hard. i'm so not qualified to judge but i doubt anyone in this room is. The next thing i know the MC announced the next judge on the panel who is a chinese professor from one of the instituitions. NAFA or maybe from china something like that. The "professor" in his name already freaked me out.
it's a gd thing the MC said none of the poetry was original so we just had to judge on the presentation. I would have just died if i had to judge original chinese poetry. Ang moh poetry i already catch no ball. you want me to understand and appreciate the beauty of chinese poetry!?
yup yup. so i just sat thru 6 NAFA china chinese students presenting chinese poems. catch no ball. i was looking more for the way they recited it, expressions feelings and such. extra marks if they memorised the entire thing.
the marks i gave were even lower than the chinese prof. oops. i even gave a 6.8 for one of them which i think is the lowest point given by any judge the entire night. OOPS. (i wasn't trying to be mean, just felt that this girl wasn't as good as the one before whom i gave a 7.) in fact i was gonna give a 6, then i peeped at the prof and he gave 8, so i changed mine.
i did give a 9 to one of them. and the MC quipped "wow someone is generous." there was a guy who looked quite cute (no the 9 wasn't for him) and he memorised the entire poem and he was really intense. gave him an 8.5. heheha. the 9 won by the way, he got 2nd.
-------------------------------------------
the story of Fred
went busking with alan and MJ before meeting the karaoke Idols. alan made a beautiful life sized sculpture of a cowboy which didn't get sold. maybe that's cos he's selling it for 50 bucks.
anyway i stopped him from bursting it (though i thought if we held a balloon gun next to fred's head and then burst the head with a pin that'd be quite an impact. peaceful thoughts....peaceful thoughts....) and thought fred would be a great gift for Kris who was performing poetry that night. actually i thought the 3 balloon flowers would make a good gift, fred was just a funny gift i thought they'd be too embarassed to carry around. amazingly kris loved it.
so fred joined MJ, alan and me for dinner at taka. i carried him on the streets and he proved quite a hit with passers-by.
"Yo guys i think i shld shoot an advert for SDU. 'Need a partner? Get a real guy'"
we even met Zzen on the streets, this Channel 8 actor on the 7pm show now (huang biren's 2nd son). MJ and i taught him juggling for the NKF show sometime back. He's nice enough to come over to say hi. Cool guy, no airs, hardworking, sincere. hope he makes his mark on telly.
the yoshinoya staff kept staring at our table and fred. pple walking by yoshinoya would walk in just to look at fred. Fred's making us blardy jealous. i think alan was mildly embarassed.
So i carried fred to meet the Idols and more stares abound in the MRT. I thought the Idols would laugh fred off and we'll leave it behind somewhere but noooo...kris loved it. which means fred's coming with us to Velvet.
so up the SBS bus went Fred. and us. Fred's so large he took up the entire width of the walking space in the bus. which means it was quite an ordeal for the pple getting off the bus. they pushed Fred, flattened him, fred responded by jabbing seated passengers with his guitar...good thing no one complained. or smiled for that matter.
(weips)
"you know steph's so loud, she could lead a forum on the bus!"
I was afraid Velvet wouldn't want Fred around. They were more than welcoming though. I think it's cos it's poetry slam night, and they're much more relaxed and accomodating. Needless to say fred again lapped up attention until we banished him onto the corner of the sofa.
-------------------------------
So Kris proved to be quite a poet. Both steph and i thought it was a love poem but it turned out that there were two layers of meaning to her poem. the first level was on love and the hidden level was a humorous jab at poetry in general. err.....ok, whatever the poet says. haha. (as you can see, i am so not a judge)
I thought she was pretty good when she went up, but i'm not the most objective person am i. In the end she got 4th, and the winner was this really intense guy who was really engrossed in this poetry recital (which i thought was amusing)
Steph had a bad day at work, got ruffled by some really anal kids and parents. Weips and I started discussing how to take revenge for her. ("we'll use Fred to stalk the kid! Put Fred at the kid's bedroom window. Ha!" "We'll blow Fred's head up in front of the kid!""Steph you shld just whack him when the parent's not looking!""ya man, so when she turns around her kid's like at the other end of the room")
She seemed alright after a while, back to her hyper ways. She was the first to bounce onto stage to answer a question and collect her mooncake and she was also the first to be on stage to sing "yue liang da biao wo de xin".
i'm surprised velvet is so small. it looks like a nice cosy place to book for a personal party, but i bet it'd cost a bomb. weips and I think that our pink flamingos act would suit the poetry slam night well. I think juggling might be able to fit in too. hmmm. we'll see. Pink flamingos sounds like a gd idea.
-------------------------------------------
have been sleeping a lot. A LOT. it's quite scary. i can just sleep the day away. and i messed up my laptop too, will need to format it soon. shit.
i've got 2 programs which i installed and it's now un-installable. No options to uninstall, not even from the control panel. shit. and they can't even work anymore. shit. i'm never gonna trust that company's programs again.
last sunday was the prize giving ceremony by the Hainanese Clan association. They hand out token monetary awards every year for pple with decent results. So one fine day last week they called my dad up and asked if i would be kind enough to give a speech on that day. A speech in HAINANESE?
my parents thought it was quite funny. so they told me abt it like it was a joke. they were quite horrified when i said i was game for it. it'd be so fun wouldn't it! to speak hainanese in front of senior citizens whose native tongue is hainanese. I can't even say "tea" in hainanese without making it sound like a bad word!
in the end i decided to pass it up. Cos we weren't even planning to attend the ceremony that day, with or without the speech, dad was busy and it'd be too much of a rush for him.
i also figured it'd be one of the things i'll regret near the date. sat was the 150 balloon night and i wouldn't have time to prepare. a HAINANESE speech. whew. i would have loved to tape myself down.
my finger's still swollen from the 150 balloons ordeal. shit. i thought it's just a muscle ache, but my finger would'nt be swollen from that. I think a fracture would be more painful than this. Prob something in between muscle ache and fracture. like a twist or sth. Twist balloon until finger twisted. Best.
i'm getting fatter with each day of slacking. oh dear. i sleep way too much, eat way too much and do way too little. acknowledgement is half the battle won! now is the doing something abt it part........
quote of the week:
"wow these china students are really talented. They can sing, recite poetry, dance and act!"
"yeah, but can they say 'I can speak English'?"
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