monoceros blogs4 blackouts in a year. One in NYC, two in Ann Arbor, and one in Singapore. Just brilliant.
I was listening to my discman when the lights went, and I thought, here we go again. Blistering hot, and no wind. I carried my discman around (the music of "Infernal Affairs" was playing) and reached clumsily for my battery-operated nightlight. I hadn't used it in a while, but the batteries were still inside and still working. So I plucked the star-shaped light and headed out of my room in search of my parents and brother. LK was staying the night at his place and I was glad because he wouldn't be able to sleep in this heat, not that I would either, I'd be grumbling to no end.
My father was fumbling with the house alarm, and my brother, his diving torchlights. So I brought over my little star to help my dad. Starlight, star bright... .
After that, I began lighting candles in my room while my brother passed round his cache of diving torchlights. I have a huge candle from Bath and Body Works, something I purchased with Lin Kiat in Ann Arbor in 1999. It stood unwrapped for the past five years till tonight. Its wonderful scent was unleashed and there's now a little depression where some wax has melted.
I threw open the windows but no wind blew. Just darkness all around and voices from the neighboring houses. Finally, I decided to take a shower that I'm glad I wasn't taking when the lights went out. It cooled me down somewhat and then the lights returned.
Folks were cheering outside, and then LK sent me a message saying he'd had a blackout in Clementi too. I wonder how many places in Singapore were affected.
At least the blackout didn't last too long, and I didn't have class the next morning.
Reminder to self - order Tuscan breakfast set and some minute pastries at Cafe Rosso. Bring husband. Indulge.
My dear friend, Elizabeth, has received the most wonderful news. Now I can say I went to school with that famous writer. You'll probably see her novel everywhere in the future.
Go here to read more about the sale of an MFA student's first novel, a work that took close to a decade.
Note: Not every MFA student graduates with this kind of success!
Got this list from blog buddy A L. I seldom do these things, so I wonder why I filled this one out. Who knows? It's almost midnight, I have yet to get clean and ready for bed, but I'm just stuck at this weblog.
01. What time do you get up? Around 8 in the morning.
02. If you could eat lunch with one person, who would it be? Ennio Morricone.
03. Gold or silver? Gold - white or yellow or rose.
04. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Breaking News.
05. Favorite TV show(s)? Whose line is it anyway? Smallville. Six Feet Under.
06. What did you have for breakfast? Cornflakes and milk.
07. Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Hannibal Lector.
08. What is your middle name? Colette.
09. Beach, City or Country? I love 'em all.
10. Favorite Ice cream? Ben and Jerry's Fudge Central.
11. Butter, plain or salted popcorn? Salted.
12. What kind of car do you drive? A VW Golf, although I miss my Honda Del Sol.
14. What characteristic do you despise? Pretentious-ness.
15. Favorite flower? Hmm, lilies-of-the-valley or hydrangeas.
16. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? This is hard - my list is too long. Florence, Venice, Cinque Terre, Paris, Xi'an, Hainan Island, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Egypt, Montreal, Chicago...I give up.
17. What color is your bathroom? Singapore - beige, black, green and some earthy-pink. Ann Arbor - beige.
18. Favorite brand of clothing? Anything that fits.
19. Where would you retire to? Middle-Earth.
20. Favorite day of the week? Saturday.
21. What did you do for last birthday? Wrote a paper. Nobody around me knew it was my birthday and I wanted it that way.
22. Where were you born? Singapore.
23. Favorite sport to watch? Used to be basketball, then American football. Now it's tennis.
26. What fabric detergent do you use? Tide.
27. Coke or Pepsi? Don't take soft drinks. Don't like 'em.
28. Are you a morning person or a night owl? I can be either, depending on the situation.
29. What is your shoe size? US 5. UK 4. Sometimes, I'll get a 6 for hiking boots (I wear two pairs of socks or really thick socks) or flip flops (because the smaller sizes are gone)
30. Do you have any pets? Four clownfish, two tangs, two cleaner shrimps, two blood shrimps, one harlequin shrimp, and one recently deceased starfish called Calcifer.
I got up this morning to the news that Kim Sun-il was beheaded. There's a picture of his grieving parents on CNN.com. When I first read about his plea to his country to remove its troops from Iraq so that his life would be spared, I feared for the man. He was alone and sounded horribly frightened. In a video broadcast , Kim had cried in English, "Please get out of here. I don't want to die. ... Your life is important, but my life is important."
Who knows what thoughts went through his head during his captivity and just before his death? He wasn't a trained soldier and certainly wasn't prepared for violent death. And it got me thinking - perhaps he should have been stoic about his impending death. Perhaps he should have remained silent before the camera. It certainly would have been brave and selfless of him if he had asked for nothing, had sought no help from his country. And yet, he did what was human after all, appealing for freedom from death.
After everything, an innocent man is dead, and the more important question is when will these horrors stop?
I've been making several visits to Kinokuniya these past weeks. Armed with my envelope of 20% discount coupons (it's a little depleted since my father returned from a vacation and I had to split the horde with him), I waltzed in and out of the store's sections - literary fiction, Chinese literature (okay, I've only checked out the Jimmy Liao books), children's books (Lemony Snicket, The Princess Bride), comics (Hellboy, Chobits), grammar (nice to see the CUP books I used to have on my desk), magazines (I still look at In Style's Wedding issue even though I'm done with mine!).
On one visit, I noticed a pile of books by Haruki Murakami near the cash registers at the front of the store but didn't pay much heed. On a subsequent visit, I stopped to look more carefully. His name was familiar but I couldn't figure out why. The cover of Norwegian Wood, the novel that brought him great renown the world over, was certainly something I'd seen before. Alas, I've arrived a little late to Mr. Murakami's colletion of writings. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Norwegian Wood seem to be the most popular titles, but I chose his collection of short stories instead - The Elephant Vanishes.
The book hasn't left my bedside table, unless it's accompanying me on my long MRT rides. Heady stuff - surreal, Carver-esque, and thoroughly addictive. The startling little piece - "On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning" - was so lovely I had to read it twice. And a few more times afterwards. It's a bit funny, poignant, sad. A five-page story that has the ability to hit me right there.
A man tells of how meets his 100% perfect girl on the street, and about the story he should have told her. Simple, beautiful premise. Spare prose. A wonderful last line.
The other book I picked up was Haruki Murakami And The Music Of Words by Jay Rubin, one the the translators of Murakami's work. Murakami opened and ran a jazz bar in Tokyo for a number of years and has amassed some 6000 records - this guy loves his music, and it shows in his writing. Many of his stories feature characters who know and love jazz, pop, or classical pieces.
On another note, I've just learned that my public reading has been scheduled for October 22. I'm not going to think about it (read: get nervous) just yet. What to read, what the weather will be like, who to invite, who to thank... .
I had my first reading at Michigan State University a few years ago, but the first time almost happened at secondary school. I had written a story about a girl and a strange creature, got a little prize (which I've since lost and can't remember what it was anyway), and was asked to read it before the entire school. I was fifteen and I was terrified. I told my teacher that I couldn't do it, that my throat wasn't up to it. She was extremely disappointed in me but I was secretly pleased with myself to have escaped. The other girl who won, Aileen Chew, bravely read her story, and she read it well. But I was still pleased I didn't have to be up on stage.
This time, it's "read, or you don't graduate."
This review came out two months ago, and I should have posted it when I first read it then. But since I recently put up Lynne Truss' book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, on my weblog as part of a list of writing tools, the timing works out decently.
When a peer in my writing program considered using Ms. Truss' book in the classroom this fall, I cautioned him, saying that the book hasn't been edited for an American audience, unless you count a couple of sentences in the Foreword as "edited for an American audience." American punctuation is quite different from British punctuation - serial commas, periods (full-stops) that always occur inside quotation marks (inverted commas) - and the book might leave his freshmen more confused than confident as they enter the realm of college writing.
The reviewer at The New York Times finds more problems with the book than just differences in punctuation style. Go here to read more.
Ann Arbor is an hour away from Detroit, but who cares? It's the main city of Michigan, and I'm damn proud that they won, a 100-87 win too. A bunch of low-profile players beat the Lakers and their stars Shaq and Kobe Bryant - brilliant!
Detroit won its first title in 1990. This year, the Pistons were the Seabiscuit of the NBA finals, and everyone's glad Seabiscuit won.
The next animated film by Hayao Miyazaki will have a lovely theme song, judging from the 42-second clip I heard late last night. It's written by Yumi Kimura, who wrote and sang the theme song for Spirited Away. However, this time the theme song will be sung by the actress, Chieko Baisho, who voices Sophie, the heroine of the film. Joe Hisaishi, who is composing the soundtrack, re-arranged the song for the actress.
You can listen to Yumi Kimura sing it here. It sounds pretty. (Scroll down to the second pink box, look for two little music notes. The song you're looking for is the second one, with a longer title, and it means "The promise of the world." The first song is called "Shooting star" and that's pretty too.)
Lynne Truss, who wrote the best-selling Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, has produced a list of top 10 reads for other word enthusiasts.
Here's where you'll find it. (Lots of Oxford publications.)
I left my favorite cookbooks in Ann Arbor, so I decided to arm myself with a new one this summer. After reading about Francesca D'orazio Buonerba in my mother's NTUC Lifestyle monthly magazine, I was convinced that she valued the art of Italian cooking. She had no qualms about saying that certain Italian restaurants in Singapore serve and/or cook Italian food in ways that aren't authentic and that do a disservice to the the cuisine. I noted that she's a member of the Academia Italiana della Cucina, an institution founded to safeguard the principles of Italian dining and cooking in italy and abroad, so I figure that the recipes produced in her book will help the foodie get the real deal, depending on the foodie's culinary skills, of course.
While the title of her book, Pasta In A Wok, suggests fusion food, the only Eastern thing about her recipes is the suggestion of tossing the pasta and sauce in a wok, whose depth and curved shape make the process much more convenient. Even her friends in Italy have asked her to visit with gifts of woks for them.
My parents recently returned from a trip to Switzerland, a tour which took them to two lakeside towns in nearby Italy, where my dad finally had a plate of pasta which he thoroughly enjoyed and completed to the last mushroom. My dad seldom likes pasta because it's too saucy, too tomato-ey, too rich. He told me that this plate of pasta he had was cooked well, so well the strands of tagliatelle were smooth, and had the added benefit of not being drowned in sauce. There was only olive and garlic oil.
Too often in Singapore, you'll find your pasta tasteless and covered with a heap of sauce that doesn't really salvage the meal. I was once served spaghetti that was the spitting image of yellow mee at a restaurant that doesn't deserve its popularity and has way too many outlets in Singapore. And of course, there was more sauce than was necessary. I really wanted to send the plate back and demand real spaghetti (was that too much to ask for?), but I was weak and just accepted the meal with a grimace. I've never been back to the restaurant or any of its outlets. Despite an Italian name, the food served there is nothing like Italian food. Far from it.
When I was a student in Florence, my favorite pasta dishes were al dente - no tomato-based or cream sauces for me. I had perfectly-made pasta and superb mushrooms from a little shop called World of Pizza, but strangely enough, it served only pasta. The same grouchy lady served me and my friend, Jess, all the time, but I forgave her her dour face because I just wanted her spaghetti porcinara. I still miss it.
If you don't have time to try cooking your own Italian dishes, try eating at one of my favorite restaurants that does serve authentic Italian cuisine: Pasta Brava at Craig Road (Tanjong Pagar). Vantan , another Italian food lover, and I have had several great meals there, and we both agree the food is perfectly palatable.
Lin Kiat took the day off from work, so the two of us decided to check out the new theme park by NTUC Club. Wild Wild Wet - okay, I'll forgive the name if the place really offers thrills and spills.
It was hard to enjoy all of it though. It's the June holidays, after all, and every kid this side of the island seemed to be at Pasir Ris with parents in tow. Long queues for the Funkey Card, which is Downtown East's version of put-money-in-your-card-and-spend. Long queues for rides.
After LK and I got our pass, got through the entrance to the park, we found ourselves a locker which didn't work, stuffed our belongings in, got someone to fix our locker and then we were off to the first ride. We queued for some twenty to twenty-five minutes before getting our chance to slide through a long, dark tunnel. Okay, not bad, but not very great.
We gave up on queueing for other rides and headed for the wave pool called Tsunami. We hung out there for another twenty minutes with other waiting folks, huge bobbing floats (a considerable number of girlfriends were perched on top like queens while the boyfriends pushed the floats around or gazed up adoringly at their ladies; I regret not getting LK to rent one for us), and the occasional kid kicking you in the stomach. LK and I asked the lifeguards when the wave was coming. "It comes every fifteen minutes," one of them told us. "But the other lifeguard said that to us twenty minutes ago!"
Finally it arrived when LK and I were at the deep end. We were gasping for air as the water sloshed over our heads repeatedly. (We really should've gotten a float.) Floats knocked into us the moment we surfaced, so we gave up and headed towards the "shore" where the waves broke and pummelled us at a rate and depth that we could handle.
Then we went to the kiddie section (actually, most of the park is rather kiddie), that turned out to be more fun. The slides and climbing structures were equipped with faucets, buckets, and pipes that poured water into more containers that finally emptied onto you if you were unlucky enough to be standing underneath. Kids could pull strings to release the water onto themselves or aim some water guns (they looked like gas pumps) at hapless victims. LK enjoyed standing underneath a pipe which emptied water very strongly - good massage for the shoulders and back. We saw a bunch of kids gathering at a certain spot and wondered what they were waiting for. Minutes later, a huge bucket perched high above had filled with sufficient water and the bucket groaned with its weight. It bent until a dizzyingly large amount of water crashed onto the happy campers below. It really was quite a sight. I determined to catch the next "waterfall." I got my place early while LK waited on the side to witness my demise. It was a long wait. When it did happen, I got more arms and legs in my face than water. The children around me were screaming with such glee you'd think it was toys falling from the bucket. But it was a cool experience anyway.
Wild Wild Wet isn't very large but it's supposed to be the largest theme park of its kind (the wet kind) in Singapore. I sort of regret never having visited Fantasy Island before it closed now. In any case, maybe LK and I will return in July, once the kids are back in school and the crowds diminish. Then I'll get to have another water-dumping session. We'll bring LK's niece next time; she'll probably have her float with her so LK and I had better rent one of our own too.
More info on the park can be found here.
First off, here are my links to tennis:
1. I'm married to a tennis nut who, as a secondary school student, hit the balls so hard they flew from the school courts to the main road.
2. I'm related to a tennis nut who bought my husband a tennis bag and who goes with my husband to tennis shops regularly. (This is my brother.)
3. My parents watch major tennis tournaments religiously. (Unless they're traveling - they are in Switzerland now - and then they get my brother to record matches for them.) (Also, my mother used to play tennis, and as she got older, she picked up pickle ball, which is a sort of indoor tennis for older folks.)
4. One of my friends from junior college, and who helped at my wedding, is a terrific tennis player, and is a regular guest in my brother's and husband's tennis group.
5. This tennis group is interestingly made up of our friends who helped at our wedding - actually my brother's friends who ushered, sang in the choir, and guarded the rented decorations. I suppose after the wedding was over last July, they discovered something else to enthuse about - tennis. My brother and Lin Kiat now book courts several times a week and the whole group visits a particular shop in Queensway to buy new rackets or to have them strung or to buy tennis-related birthday gifts for each other.
Since my return to Singapore, I've been surrounded by tennis fever. So when my brother forwards me a link to a movie with a tennis theme, I feel obliged to watch the trailer.
And it's a good one! Paul Bettany stars as a fading once-top-ranked tennis star from the UK. Just as he's about to retire, he meets a young tennis player who's on a winning streak and she shows him what it's all about. Wimbledon comes from the makers of Notting Hill and Bridget Jones' Diary (you'll learn this too, if you watch the trailer) so it ought to be funny British romantic comedy.
I bet the tennis folks will be watching this to see what rackets the players are using, so I suggested that they do a group outing this September when the movie opens.
The trailer can be found here.
Ex-colleague and good pal Barney just had an operation for his back, which has given him enough trouble over the years. I hope it went well and that he'll have a quick and stress-free recovery over the next couple of weeks.
Looks like I'll be visiting with DVDs and food.
I've finally stopped being a sloth...I think. I've done considerable clearing of my bedroom floor, and the luggage in the living room has been emptied and put away.
Today, I organized my teaching notes and used paper clips to separate them into sections. The planning has begun. Fourteen weeks of class this fall semester. Two lessons each week. That makes 28 lessons I have to prepare for. Uh, I can feel my confidence faltering and my head starting to whirl. What will I do in front of my class for three hours every week? Will I conduct the class standing or sitting? I think I'll stand, to give me that false sense of largeness. Right, but will I have enough to talk about? I don't really speak well. I mean, I can talk and talk, but sounding intelligent is another thing. When I'm nervous, words fly out of my mouth in fragments and with faulty syntax and with little coherence.
I got past reading two sample syllabi before spacing out on what's the worst thing that can go wrong in the classroom. I came up with several scenarios.
1. I don't ask the right questions relating to an assigned reading. That is, I don't ask the right questions to lead or draw out responses from the students.
2. A student has an interesting interpretation of a reading and I don't really know what the kid is talking about. What will MY response to his response be?
3. Several students ask the same question, and I have absolutely no idea how to answer it.
4. I start stuttering.
5. While walking round the class as I speak, my ankle gives way and I tumble into the Inferno below.
6. I have no idea what I'm talking about.
7. I contradict myself.
8. Someone asks me a question about US politics.
9. Someone asks me a question about Singapore politics.
10. I ask a question, and no one answers.
Enough spacing. Back to the planning.
Having seen every summer blockbuster thus far, LK and I are out of movies this week. So we're on to DVDs.
My brother procured the Infernal Affairs trilogy recently, and my family's gone a little nutty over the Hong Kong movies. My father, the king of MP3s in the house, has already gotten hold of Tsai Chin's "Forgotten Time," the song which plays in the stereo shop when Tony Leung's character, Yan, demonstrates a set for Andy's Lau's Chin.
The first installment "Infernal Affairs" won several awards in Hong Kong, including Best Movie and Best Song, and performed very well at the box office. I anticipated an action film stuffed with bullets and blood and car chasing. While there are fancy cars and the occasional bullet-riddled body, the film's actually more dramatic than the usual HK movie fare, thanks in no small part to the ensemble of actors.
Yan is a cop working undercover in a traid and Ming enters the police force to gather information for his triad. Cat-and-mouse game, the movie is rather gripping. I got rather attached to the characters, particularly Tony Leung's scruffy and smirking Yan. He does get a little looney at times. Ming walks the fine line between good cop and bad cop - does he really want to be a good guy?
The drama is played out against a dynamic Hong Kong backdrop. Hong Kong's always been exciting in real life and the movies. The script is belivable for the most part, except for when both sides discover the presence of moles - surely the cops and baddies would be smart enough to stop meeting with their moles in the event of being followed?
Well, we'll be watching the next two movies. They should be fun, although my brother warns that we'll have to pay attention in the third film. The plot's a little convoluted.
Go here to see the official site, and to listen to the cool soundtrack.
The players in Infernal Affairs III
My growing suspicion that President Bush really made that grammatical faux pas sent me scouring my weblog for similar mistakes. Several typos made my prose seem horribly weak. I cringed every time I zeroed in on bad typing.
I'm not a know-it-all in the case of grammar or punctuation (and I'll never qualify for a spelling bee), but I'd like to think I know enough to get me through some professional writing and editing. However, I've been collecting a stack of cleverly written grammar and style books, a la Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. Before this wonderful little book came out, I had in my possession Lapsing Into A Comma: A Curmudgeon's Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print--and How to Avoid Them, a great title I picked up while working as an editor in Singapore.
Since then, I've come to enjoy reading similar books on style. Even Bill Bryson has contributed with Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words. Years ago, he also wrote a book called The Mother Tongue, about the English language and how it changed with time and with place. American and British English. I'm fascinated by the differences. While working on adapting a British publication for American release, I had to change all British terms to American ones. The typical funny ones were: "rubber" to "eraser" (in the US, condoms are called "rubbers"), "trousers" to "pants" (in the UK, pants assume the same meaning as "underpants" or "underwear"). My piano teacher once told me to never say "I'm stuffed" if I'm in the UK. The phrase has the equivalent meaning of "I've had lots of sex! Ooh, so tired!" ===Apparently, there's no such meaning to the phrase! My teacher must've got it wrong. So ignore this! Thanks to UK resident, May, and UK citizen, Barney.
Anyway, not to veer further from my topic, here's an amateur grammarian's book list:
- Lapsing Into a Comma : A Curmudgeon's Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print--and How to Avoid Them by Bill Walsh
- Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O'Connor
- Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know about Writing by Patricia T. O'Connor
- Sin and Syntax : How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose by Constance Hale
- The Deluxe Transitive Vampire : A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager and the Doomed by Karen Elizabeth Gordon
- Torn Wings and Faux Pas : A Flashbook of Style, a Beastly Guide Through the Writer's Labyrinth by Karen Elizabeth Gordon
- Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
- The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White (yes, the one who wrote Charlotte's Web) (If you choose to have only one book on style, it has to be this one!)
- The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage
- Oxford Fowler's Modern English Usage Dictionary
- Copy-Editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors and Publishers by Judith Butcher
- The Cambridge Guide to English Usage by Pam Peters
I just caught the trailer for the controversial film that won this year's Palme d'Or. I sure hope to see the movie when I return to Michigan in the late summer. The trailer itself has some interesting and provoking scenes. Go see it here.
On Michael Moore's site, the director writes that fans outside of the US will get to see the movie this summer. Most of us, he says, but I'm not sure if this includes Singapore.
Too, I'm not sure if I heard this correctly, but in one scene President Bush says, "This is an impressive crowd to haves... ." Horrors!
Didn't turn out to be terribly bad after all.
I had nearly forgotten all about it on Saturday. Lin Kiat had to attend a wedding in JB, so I had dinner with my brother, our friends Alvin and Mandy (the two of them met at my wedding - Alvin's my brother's great friend from JC, and Mandy's my great friend from JC. And they are both very tall), and Winston and Shiau Lin (Winston's another of my brother's friends, and Shiau Lin, my brother's senior from choir - they both helped at my wedding, and are now dating. Was anyone paying attention at the wedding? *grin*).
Halfway through it, Van Tan calls me (around nine-ish) and says I really should come down to the party. Miss Heng, our old principal and several teachers are there. I'm hesitant, but weakening. I tell her I'll see what I can do. I ring Dimsumdolly and ask her if she's keen to go. In the end, we both feel like we want to, but she's stuck in Yishun. I ask everyone round the table and they say, "Go." So I leave, walk briskly home, open the front door, and look in the mirror. The hair is far from salvageable. Oh well. I keep it in its unruly ponytail. I don't bother to change out of my sweaty T-shirt, I change from crumpled jeans to not-so-crumpled jeans, exchange flip flops for strange black shoes, clean up smudgy face, grab car keys, and drive like the wind towards One Fullerton, all the while muttering, "Oh, please don't let me be too late."
(Clearly, I was already late. I'm never this late for events so this was a first for me.)
Van Tan comes to meet me as I walk towards the pier. I'm very glad for her company as I come face to face with the largest group of lovely and excellently dressed girls I've ever seen. I notice people noticing them. I notice the requisite foreigners smiling and making sideway glances at them. Laughter, wineglasses clinking, designer clothes (I think), fancy shoes, brilliant haircuts, beautiful complexions, namecard exchanges, cameras flashing. Okay, I'm overwhelmed. And beyond me, a full moon is rising in the sky.
First old girl I saw is a friend from really old days. She and I went to Marymount Convent for three years of primary school before transferring to SCGS in Primary Four. She played photographer of the night and gave me a free Polaroid of Van Tan, herself, and me (since I was a last-minute attendee, I hadn't paid anything, so my Polaroid was paid for my other nice girls who'd paid for the event. I feel bad). I hugged a number of girls I hadn't spoken to in years, and proceeded to a table where a number of my classmates sat. Name game. I got all right save for two, whose names were formulating only vaguely in my brain. Van Tan whispered their names in my ear. I thought that everyone had remembered everyone else's names and I was the only loser. But one girl told me when they'd arrived, they were all struggling.
It really was great to see so many familiar faces. Some changed, some barely changed, many that have become very beautiful. So many poised and radiant and successful women. I even learned about some of the girls who weren't there. A number are working overseas in NYC or London. Some were probably held up at home because of children.
Married girls, soon-to-be married girls. Several surprised that I'm now married. I guess it doesn't help that I don't look old enough to be married. Close maybe, but still looking young, as someone told me last night.
I bought a set of postcards of SCGS - my part to help raise funds to build something new for the school. I think Van Tan got it down - you can read her post.
Okay, name drop (of people I saw and/or spoke to) -
Aileen
Wendy
Gillian
Isabel
Hui Min
Jiayun
Bin Bin
Andrea
Jaclyn
Georgina
Shirleen
Adeline
Lynn
Pearl
Sangita
Sandra
Ching Yee
Daphne Ng
Jiaying
Jiamin
Peiyi
Giro
Melissa
I couldn't see or speak to everyone, of course. There were about forty to fifty girls there!
Things I missed:
- seeing Miss Heng and the teachers (only my form teacher stayed back, and I did get to chat with her.)
- A group picture (Van Tan, are you getting this picture eventually? Could I see it too?)
My old form teacher, Mrs. Lim, who doesn't look old at all, told me that there was another function in the morning. A bunch of old girls, all turning 50 this year, had gotten permission from Chatworth International School (they took over the old site of SCGS on Emerald Hill) to enter and reminisce. They even donned the blue school uniforms!
Perhaps we'll have another reunion in the future, although one girl was against it - "What, and see our aging process?!" I suppose it's always a joyous event to be reunited with people from the past, and a slightly sad one to realize how much time has passed since then. Getting on in life, aren't we all?
Plenty. And I just haven't been writing it all down. Here's a brief list (since returning to Singapore):
1. Bought a bunch of CDs.
2. Bought a bunch of books.
3. Cut out a bunch of Kinokuniya vouchers from the newspapers.
4. Visited my old office twice - I just love hanging out with my old colleagues. A recent visit allowed me to have lunch and tea with them. It was almost like old times, I was downstairs with the marketing and sales departments folk, trying out chocolates, ribbing the girls, and discussing movies with Nigel.
5. Finished two editing jobs for my ex-colleague and my ex-boss.
6. Went out shopping with Miss Dimsumdolly. We were at Kinokuniya on Vesak Day when we spotted DPM Lee Hsien Loong with his family. Everyone tried to stare without being obvious (and we all failed). Only one person went up to him to ask for an autograph.
7. Watched Kiki's Delivery Service on DVD. Another delectable offering from the maestro Hayao Miyazaki. He made this in 1989, and it still looks wonderful in 2004. Speaking of anime, I watched Grave of the Fireflies for the first time. This was in May, a day or so before I left for Singapore. My heart was ripped to shreds. And I watched it twice. I'll try and get hold of a copy and make everyone watch it too. Yeah, everyone else's heart ought to be ripped to shreds. *grin* Now I shall go out hunting for a fruit drop tin, place it on my desk, and remember the dear little Setsuko. *sniff*
8. Read a lot of fun books, nothing serious. The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, Ella Enchanted (better than the movie!), Howl's Moving Castle (I've read this three times now - I hope Miyazaki does a lovely job with this; we'll see next year), The Dante Club (great fun! Very recommended.)
9. Watched the latest summer flicks.
10. Ate some of my favorite foods.
11. Drove in the city.
12. Bought new flip flops. Or rather, LK bought me these. And I bought him a tennis racket.
13. Attended my high school reunion! Or rather, the second half of it.