I kinda sorta have been having a blast

It's been a while! I am behind my blogging schedule because I ought to have three drafts by now, but since I've delayed this long, I'm just going to mash them all into one post which... would actually be more fitting...

Anyway, here are some updates on life from early November until now!

9 November, 3pm: Metamorphosis 

It was a last minute decision to catch Nafa's production of Metamorphosis and thank god there were seats still available. I heard a lot about this play and we also watched some videos during TSD about the man who adapted this novel for the stage, Steven Berkoff. I had the chance to read the novel a few days before I caught the play and I must say that the novel is depressing and strange as heck. That means all of you should go ahead and read it and examine the existential crises presented.

What I liked about the adaptation was that characters were given more depth than was granted in the book, although Jolyn thought that the responses to Gregor's transformation were a little too abrupt and vehement given the predicament...

Novel-Stage disparities aside, I thought that the Singaporean touch was endearing and the set, especially the cage-like bedroom, really excited me. It's one of my favourite things about watching a play after reading it: you never know how the set is going to look like and how the characters are going to interact with it ^ ^ 

Unfortunately, the audience was seated on two sides of the black box so whenever there was action on one side, the audience members on the other side couldn't really see. Other than that, I was in awe of the energy sustained throughout given the physically demanding job of playing Gregor, but physicality gets me so excited hehehehheehe

After parting ways with yanch and his siblings, Tricia, Jolyn, Pei Ling and I (HJ went to Bugis+) went to Tom's Palette for gelato!

Dinner was at a Hong Kong restaurant in Bugis Junction! I was very tempted to order a dramatic dinner of Piercing Heart Spaghetti, Baked Dragon Boat, Double Agent and Black Grandma... but I passed. 

9 November, 8pm:  One Point Six One Eight 

The next play was actually a poetry performance as part of the Singapore Writers' Festival!! It was like Spoken Word but more theatrical and stylised. The collection of poems performed were by Madeline Lee, written about her adventures in Africa and about the Egrets that stop by Singapore annually when the weather changes. It was a delightful experience because of the combination of meaningful poetry, high energy physical scenes and beautiful music and singing. Two of my favourite things combined too! WHoOoo

Before and after the show, there were Sing lit books on sale and the publisher was so nice because he told Jolyn that she could pay as she wished if she didn't have enough money for the books :') I also read some poems by Eleanor Wong in her collection of Life ~ Sciences and it made me really feelsy because of the marriage of sciences and lit ;-; The math ones really hit me in the gut :'(

Some photos from that night!

Above are some gifts from my mum who went to New Zealand with my sister the whole week of VA! Look! The Evenstar and the One Ring!!!!! Looking at the photos that they took really makes me want to drop everything and do some travelling. I can't wait to travel with friends next time.

Meet my TSD group mates trying to devise a scene for our group piece. We've been meeting up as much as we can to try to  put something together in time for next year's review and possible showcase. Here we have Dhiraj and Gordon in a climatic scene where the former is trying to choke the living hell out of the latter, as Tricia, Ally and I watch on.

25 November, 4pm: The Suit 

Headed down to DBS Arts Centre after a rather unproductive day at trying to fill out the skeleton scenes that we developed. We were so blessed to have had the chance to watch The Suit, one of the Three Titans featured, directed by the legendary Peter Brook. It was a tragedy rooted in dark humour and with occasional singing of English and traditional African songs. I enjoyed the fact that there was audience interaction that culminated in a light-hearted mood tHAT CRASHED in a roller coaster ending. 

28 November: Penny University with Zeqi

Met this princess on Thursday!! It was the first time meeting her since last year (i think) and it was definitely a blast :-))))) We were quite sure we wanted to hop onto the cafe bandwagon so we went to the mainstreamest hipster cafe in town: Penny Uni! It was a pleasant surprise seeing Ms Umi there too! Ahh, I found myself kult magazines! kult magazines? Check, you're hip and artistic. Look at her long pretty hair and dress!!! I always find us in very different styles when we go out: her pretty, sophisticated look and my comfy, homeless look. Very complementing.

Mandatory blown-up photo of my virgin Sir Ben with smoked salmon and the frickin hollandaise ok

Kevin Brauch voice: Over on the iron chef side, we have smoked salmon atop some brioche and on top of that is a poached egg topped with hollandaise sauce, a distant relative of mayonnaise and cherry tomatoes in a salad on the side.

Rosemary blend, strawberry shortcake and banoffee pie

Later, we took a trip down to my favourite place (bras besah)! We exchanged life stories and reports on current antagonists in our lives. I also told her all about A12 and slipped into missing them very much.

Important four part selfies in the styrofoam aisle at Art Friend feat. Bang bang! Bangs are back!

Really experienced a merge of past and present times when I met this lil Zeqi :-) Looking forward to spending another day of unrestrained unlady-like talk with the reason why I have a sewer mind. 

29 November: OGL meeting

Got together with the OG for some discussion and I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were 10 of us in attendance, mostly fresh faces! I taught them how to play Set and we worked on our cheers in an attempt to bridge the work from meeting 2 and meeting 3. It turned out really great because we removed the awkward parts and added actions to five cheers. I'm hoping that everything turns out fine for Orientation 2014!! I spent a grand total of 8 hours with them that day and I can say that I'm excited to get to know them better! It was really sweet of the ODAC boys to gift us with souvenirs from Indonesia too!

6 December: Gathering at Qin Ge's house

After a hell of a long time of not seeing and hearing them and their nonsense, I was so happy to meet the """"gundam gang"""" or what part of the class is called due to our semi-failure of a Gundam Seed marathon the first time we had a gathering. I had been cooped up at home (partially of my own accord) for the past week, but I was ready for a day of pure fun and games yesterday ^ ^

As usual, we went shopping for treats before heading to wq's lovely place! I learnt to play Rummy and Bridge (how about a round of applause) as the sky clouded over. The rest (Kx, Ash, John and Hubert) finally arrived during lunch which we had at the hawker centre. Ash, Yanch and I then taught Gordon the ways of Mahjong and we all watched Saw I. There was a big hooha about which movie to watch because we all suddenly panicked and chickened out of Insidious (and I promptly suggested ROTK but... to poor reception... never mind shu yu). The movie was really gory but I was so pumped to watch it because horror/thrillers are best viewed with a large crowd of rowdy friends he he. Still not sure how some of them managed to play monopoly while watching it because throughout the movie, everyone was coping by yelling stupid commentary, sex jokes and bad puns at the screen. 

Photos!

1) The view from Qin Ge's place! His balcony is big enough to fit a dining table and the entire place is so well-kept that it's just a joy to be there :-) So glad angsty Qin and family let us chill at his place!!! 

2) Rummy with Yanch and Gordon 

3) Dinner at Ajisen with Wq, Yanch, John, Kx and Gordon :-)

Group photos featuring Hubert's tongue (on my head again oh god) and Gordon "rubber neck" Chua

We had such a great time that we're already planning another soon!! :") So enormously blessed to have found kind friends in them and other members of the class not in the photo :-) Really looking forward to a day that we can do this with more folks :") It's early in the AM now but I'm still running on the fun we had. Hopefully I can spend the rest of the holidays as well as I spent this day with my class! ◕‿◕｡✿