{Monday, Oct. 09, 2006}
Class steamboat dinner, "Cultural Programme", visiting a dear friend

for the class steamboat, only 8 turned up. sad isn't it?

When i was coming up the escalator i saw someone at the top who looked familiar from behind, but i wasn't sure. When I got off the escalator, I got a second look and was sure who it was. Only 1 person I knew has that posture.

I ran up to Jason but didn't manage to scare him. oh well. i'll have chances in the future.

the bus was waiting at the bus stop. we were lucky, considering how long the wait can be. fortunately, there were no muggers along the path between the mrt station and bus stop like when i went with my OG. they were so irritating.

When we alighted the bus, Jason went straight into the arcade. Maybe he spotted them in there because I couldn't see them at the steamboat sitting area. Later I found out from XL that Jason saw him come out from the arcade. XL boarded the bus that we alighted from. We found them playing at one of the machines. [i never really liked arcades because they were very noisy, full of glaring lights and yet dim.] YH was relieved when I came because she had been the only girl amongst the 5 guys.

we ate at the same steamboat place that i had been at for all my previous trips. i think i prefer that place because the location is better than the others in the middle.

we had fun cooking things. Zac learnt how to use the chopsticks (yay!). It was a disappointing, but then again it was expected, that most of the live prawns were dead (only 1 was alive). Some might think that i was sadistic by being excited to kill the prawns by dumping them into the pot of boiling stock. I believe that Live is better than Dead because it's fresher. fresher is better in most cases. YH was a bit upset about the live prawns. she didn't like the idea of killing them by throwing them into the pot in front of her. she suggested that they be beheaded first. i don't blame her.

the live prawn that i put into the pot kicked and flicked stock onto Jason. While we cooked, we had attacks from jumping oil which would cause us to jerk back. I love eating prawns, happily peeling and eating them. peeled 2 for YH. when the prawn container was empty, someone put in the half-melted butter into it, in rememberance of the 17 prawns killed according to Zac. [so few prawns?] we were done eating by 8pm+ .

took 1 MRT stop down to Raffles Place to meet up with the rest of the family who were having dinner at OCBC executive club. Daddy was entertaining his very dear friend Uncle Yoshida and his wife. When I had finished my steamboat they had only started dinner! Daddy walked from OCBC centre to look for me while I waited outside at that place with a black tiled pathway in between 2 white buildings which were the entrances of raffles place MRT, the place that often appears on the TV news. it was the first time i ever saw that place in person.

the service at OCBC exec club is very good. the staff members saw me and knew that I was my Mum's daughter (dad probably told them) and several of them lined the 2 sides of the straight corridor and showed me the way there. it was embarrassing. they also managed to create a space for me ( i wasn't part of the expected quota of guests). wow.

I curi makan MP and MT's food. I had half of daddy's lobster. i was shocked. LOBSTER! it was a $38 a person menu i think? wow. And you know what? according to Mum and Dad, the food is better than at Fullerton Hotel, the grand 5 star hotel near the merlion. my parents were invited to a wedding dinner of their very good friend's daughter who married a rich man. (fullerton is really expensive). the wedding dinner food was "terrible". So, if one marries a rich person who wants to hold a wedding dinner at some rich place, don't do it at Fullerton. ( i also think the Shangri-La's location isn't very nice. I think a really posh place is the Raffles Hotel. now that's really grandeur.)

the food at OCBC was really good. in between we were tonking on the piano. because we were the only guests around they unlocked the baby grand for us. before I was there, Mrs Yoshida was playing variations of chopsticks and she with the others were having a great time on the piano.

my mum intially regretted choosing exec club over Prima revolving tower because that was next to the new VivoCity (which she only found out about a few days ago). Now i don't think she has any reason to regret her decision.

after that Daddy took them to Merlion Park, and we 3 sisters followed. It was so hazy and we couldn't see the Sheares bridge that well. The next day I found out that at 9pm, probably around 1 hour before we were there, the PSI reading was 150. :S We had a great time taking pictures. I didn't get to see the photos my mum printed but daddy said they were nice.

what a wonderful night it was, with the exception of the irritated plastic-ky throat.

Today there was a "Cultural Programme" organised by the language dept where the arts was brought to us. I was covering the event for photog. the percussion by "Heartbeat" was really cool. It was the second percussion group that performed for us at SAJC. there's one boy who went up on stage that i can tell has the beat, he really loved it and was enjoying himself. he was the least shy and can see that he was grooving. i somewhat wished i could play with the instruments.

the theatre group "The Neccessary Stage" put up quite a funny play. i was laughing and found it difficult to take pictures.

after the break there was a series of short films by Objectifs. the narration for the first film "Careless Whisperer", starring the Careless Whisperer from Singapore Idol Season 1, was really funny. and i agree with the filmmaker Royston Tan (yes, him). Singaporeans who speak English with a fake caucasian accent, especially american, is REALLY irritating. if a person was brought up in america, it's fine because that's a real american accent. but i don't like those fake accents. for example, my brother who watches american programmes especially cartoons. he believes america is better that Singapore i'm pretty sure. i find that irritating. he can't even speak a word of chinese. i've never heard him say a chinese word in Years.

I think crocodile journals, a clay animation film wasn't really nice. the crocodile wore a fake smooth skin when he goes out into the human world. when he went to an animal-themed costume party, he went as himself. his "friends" saw his costume and thought he went over the top with his full body costume. when they tried to pull off his "mask" after removing theirs, they realised he was a crocodile and ran away. so poor thing that croc.

I saw the film "Blackboard White Shoes" before. it's the crowd's favourite. It's about 2 primary school boys who have to undergo inspection at the same time, and only one of them have a pair of whiteshoes. they nearly got skinned but managed to pull it off.

the MTV one was ok, evaluating what was love.

I didn't like the last one called "Autograph Book". it had clear obvious vulgarities. worse still, the actresses were primary school girls. even worse, the maker of the film came down and was to entertain questions. i felt like asking her from the other end of the room where i was "Why did you choose to use vulgarities?" but i didn't because it would be rude.

i have a problem with vulgarities. they're not cool. they're unclean, uncouth and insulting. why on earth do people choose to use them??? like artists...they may say that it's the real world and they are merely reflecting it. well, they have a choice on what to reflect because they have control on what they produce. they don't have to reflect everything.

they may say the world is polluted already and they do not make it worse by adding to it a few more instances of vulgarities. my personal belief is that eventhough the world is full of violence, we people remain peaceful and "good" and don't go around create violence and aim for a better world. can't we apply that to vulgarities?

sigh... tomorrow, my dear best friend is going back to Australia. they had such a short stay in Singapore. Mum, MP and I visited them last night and played with the cameras a la neoprints style (self-entertainment) while our Mums had a good chat. we were done past 12midnight. we could've chatted till 1am+ for sure. i won't really miss them because i can catch them online. :)

i spent 1 and a half hours blogging. that's why i put myself on that 1 month hiatus.

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The current mood of animalz at www.imood.com

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