A hectic Sunday

Yesterday was one of the most hectic Sundays of my life.
In the morning, there was the New Balance Real Run. Barely two hours later, I was to begin the final dress rehearsal for my choir, Victoria Chorale's annual concert: In Song 2005 - Perfect Fourths. At night, the concert proper would take place.

On Saturday night, throughout practice, I was really tempted to give up the run. Like, how can I run a bloody 10km, 1.6 of which was to be a sand route, in the morning and still have the energy to sing for the rest of the day? But then, I was reluctant to be a wuss and finally decided to go ahead. After all, I had already been most generously outfitted from head to toe in running gear by New Balance as part of the media challenge, and I had been training (sort of) for the run. And so, I headed home straight after practice to get some sleep as I had to wake up the next morning at 7am.

The next morning dawned bright and early. Upon reaching the Seah Im interchange where I was to meet my colleagues, I had a shock when I saw hordes and hordes of people in jogging outfits milling around. Call me sua ku but I'd never seen so many sporty people in one place in my entire life before! VJ's annual wussy "cross country" run to ECP don't count, :)

Anyway, media members were accorded somewhat special treatment, so the whole experience was rather pleasant and smooth. We had a special entry pass, which meant we didn't have to pay Sentosa's entry charges; there was a special media tent where we could register, rest and do all the admin things instead of queueing all over the place like other participants; we had access to the VIP/Media breakfast reception tent where we had an endless flow of Delifrance sandwiches and pastries, while others had to buy from food vendors; and there was this really shiok complimentary post-run sports massage.

The race started at 845am, and about an hour and 20 minutes later, it was all over, for me at least. I had ran about 8+++km worth of fairly undulating route, and trekked through 1.6km worth of sand, soft-as-flour sand. I swear, the sand part was much worse than the undulating road!

But it was really scenic, Sentosa is really quite pretty, if you ignore the fact that it's largely plastic beauty. I was really quite excited and happy during the run; I didn't even curse at kiasu, brawny guys who kept shoving people aside in a bid to overtake. Act seh for freak? Want to show off your fitness, go join the StanChart 41km marathon lah! Besides show-offs, there were also some weirdos. Like this woman who ran in long sleeve shirt and long track pants. She must have been absolutely BAKING...

After the run, I bumped into Topo and Les. Really cool to meet your friends at such a huge event like this! Topo is really zai man, she missed the start of the run because she went to the toilet and she ended up at the finishing line way before me. Now I know how she gets her perky and firm butt. Les was with Sharon, looking blissful happy, haha, but didn't get to talk to him much. Shall get him out for dinner soon.

So, I left the event at about 11 plus. Took the bus out of Sentosa and a train to City Hall, where I walked around Citilink Mall emanating the foul reek of sweat and looking super out of place among the hip and trendy. Luckily, the boyfriend and some of our VC friends arrived at Esplanade not long after and we proceeded to have lunch.

After lunch, I had only 40 minutes to bathe (in Esplanade's dressing rooms' shower) and get dressed in our sari. ARGGGGHHH, horrors, no time to dry my hair so was forced to tie it up while it's wet, ARGGGGHHH! Gross! Sorry, I'm really particular about my hair...

Anyway, rehearsals were a mixed bag of affairs. I think most of us had nerves and didn't do as well as we did the previous night at practice. But luckily, we loosened up by the time the actual performance rolled around and previously shaky, insecure parts were more or elss perfect. Unfortunately, previously perfect parts screwed up somewhat but thankfully we kept our heads and kept singing and managed to cover them up rather well, I thought. All in all, a great concert! Not so much our singing and performance, but the entire experience was just surreal and so magical. I was on a major adrenaline rush the whole day; I didn't even feel sleepy or zonked after the performance ended! I'm so glad I decided to go for the run after all.

A major note of thanks and appreciation to all who attended our performance; I hope you have all enjoyed the pieces and our singing. It is because of people like you that encourage us to keep on singing and improving on our art. To all my friends who attended to show their support, I can't tell you enough how much it meant to me, even if I didn't have much time to spend with you guys backstage. Thanks for the chocolate strawberry, beautiful flowers and most of all, continued encouragement, you guys really are the best!

IN SONG

Come Sunday, the fruits of our labour will be on public display at the Esplanade for all and sundry to evaluate. Well, maybe not all and sundry, but those who have bought tickets to In Song 2005: Perfect Fourths, organised by the VIctoria Chorale.

Preparations for the concert began in the beginning of 2005, concurrently with the Hua Yi - Chinese Festival of Arts collaboration with Singapore Chinese Orchestra. Coming on the heels of our achievements at the Choir Olympics 2004 in Bremen, Germany, and with the unprecedented influx of bubbly and lovable newbies fresh out of VJ, it seemed like we had gotten off to a promising start and would see a glorious finale come 28 Aug 2005.

Now, with less than a week to go to the concert, things seem kind of worrying. Ticket sales have been dismal so far; media response has been downright cold (typical) and certain friends have acted deaf and dumb when asked to support the concert.

I bear some glimmer of hope that things will turn around for the better, truly. But even so, I'm steeling myself for the possibility of us singing to a barely half-filled hall. And I pray that if that happens, each and every member will be strong enough to still give of our best and convince those who believed in us enough to attend the concert that we make good music, that the Victoria Chorale is an excellent choir. If not in skills and musicality, for those are truly subjective qualities, then at least in spirit.

Have you gotten your tickets? Get them here

Peeves

1. Stop bumping my articles to the next issue just because an ad has to squeeze into the already close-to-bursting issue. I know the ads pay all our salaries, but for goodness' sake, there's something to be said for editorial integrity, no? It sometimes seems as if editorial is akin to the butter spread in between two slices of bread: JUST SOMETHING TO HOLD THE BREAD TOGETHER. In this case, some words to hold the ads together.

2. Stop asking reporters to write all the darned advertorials. We're not SPH; we don't have a pool of hundreds of journalists; we don't even have a special projects team of writers to handle contract publishing and you expect us to write and translate endless advertisements and advertorials?

3. If you say you're going to pick me up at a certain time, please have the decency to call to let me know if you're going to be late by, like, 15 OR MORE minutes. Don't stay silent and incommunicado; don't snap at me when I call you to ask if you've gotten lost since it's an unfamiliar place; don't say you're on your way when you're still at home drying your hair; and most of all, don't clam up and give me the silent treatment when you finally arrive and i ask you what exactly happened to make you so late. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO GIVE ME A LIFT, SAY SO FROM THE BEGINNING. I UNDERSTAND THAT DRIVING CAN BE A CHORE AND AM CERTAINLY NOT DEMANDING TO BE FETCHED HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE.

World class food city?

In Inside Track, the 9 Aug 2005 The Straits Times Guide To Singapore, critics roundly denounced us as a world class food city.

"Singaporeans feel that just because they have money, they can go into any restaurant and eat what they want to eat, not how it's supposed to be eaten. They have money but no taste, and I'm tired of trying to educate them. Ninety per cent of Singaporeans who go out to eat just want to be seen."

"Instead of always looking out for cheap deals, be willing to pay good money for good food."

I am so irritated by comments like these.

Why can't creamy pasta be eaten with tabasco sauce if people like it that way? I can't stomach the full Western works of a soup, an entree, a main and then a dessert, and so can't most Singaporeans. It's a matter of habit; so we usually head straight for the mains and sides. What's wrong with that? If the Germans can eat smoked fish with apple-flavoured sour cream, why can't I eat chilli sauce with steak, especially if the steak is substandard? Who dictates all these so-called haute cuisine rules anyway?

And what's wrong with looking out for cheap deals? I like to eat cheaply, so I head for places like East Coast Food Village and obscure coffee shops in the heartland, where over 80% of Singaporeans live. That's where some of the best food on the island can be found, and that's also where Singaporeans can hang out in all their unglam glory. Tatty tees, sloppy slippers, uncombed hair, faces shorn of any trace of makeup and no disconcerting armamentorium of cutlery -- that's the Singapore citizen at his most unpretentious for you, like the food we grew up with.

Au Jardin or Triple 3 buffet dinner? NO WAY, THANKS VERY MUCH. Overpriced, average food and so-so service, I would have put that $130+++ to better use if I had spent it over six hawker meals for two at the Esplanade's Glutton Square instead. Or two wondrous dinners at Spizzico, a small and intimate Italian outfit at UE Square. It serves up the most fragrant and delicious seafood pasta (sorry, the Italian name's kinda long, it keeps slipping my mind), with a tomato-based sauce that is almost certainly stir-fried to aromatic perfection with olives and garlic. The tiramisu's sublime, and they also serve up unlimited servings of home-made bread that's crisp on the outside and warm, soft and fluffy on the outside. It tastes nothing like your cookie-cutter Delifrance baguette, and my advice is to dip it in olive oil or unsalted butter. Now that's one heavenly place I wouldn't mind blowing a hole in my pocket over.

See, I don't mind spending money on good food. But please remember that not many people can afford to regularly shell out $220 per head for a dinner. And stop bashing the so-called sub-standard cafe joints. Yes, I agree that at best, their food is passable. I mean, how wrong can you go with deep frying chicken and slapping burgers together right? But they do fill a niche, one that these haughty (pun intended) cuisine places find beneath them to fill. Haven't you noticed that those who frequent the cafes are usually the young people who haven't all that much money to spend, but would like a taste of Western and International cuisine beyond what the local coffee shops' Western food stores offer?

I know, because I used to be, and still am at times, one of them. And I'd rather bring my money to places that accept me and my tastebuds and try to service me to the best of their ability, than to suffer the know-it-all arrogance of another who thinks that I need to be educated on how and what to eat. Thank you very much, but I have a mind of my own, unlike that weird Korean girl in Tsui Hark's Seven Swords, and I know very well what I like. Maybe that isn't the best of what's out there, but it's enough for me. Perhaps that will condemn me to the blackest depths of gourmet Hell, but so be it.

I'm an unrepentant fine cuisine-ignoramus and I'm happy to be one.

Where we are one big family

How do you get annoyed with Singaporeans, ugly though they may be on every other day, when they turn up in droves clad and painted in red and white at the main NDP parade, as well as the other heartland fringe events?

When not just the Tampinesians converge at the Tampines event, but a sizeable horde from the northeast and rest of the east as well, such that snaking long queues formed up at the bus interchange, and that was just a drop in the ocean compared to the millions of people milling about the area?

When, although the pedestrians jaywalk and take their time crossing the roads, cause jams to form and render traffic lights useless, noone cursed and swore and bus drivers and passengers alike looked on indulgently with a smile?

In short, how can you not be touched when all across the nation, people took time out and paid tribute to this little red dot that we all call home? And like I always do every year when National Day rolls around, I bless the Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and the rest of his Old Guard team, because I'm always reminded of how they are the far-sighted and passionate founding fathers of the country.

Happy Birthday Singapore, and may we have even better years ahead!

Great night out

Today was a good day for many reasons.

First up, I hit 9km for the first time in my entire life. I had gotten up at 7.15pm, lazed in bed for another 20 minutes, and then headed to the reservoir to run. By the end of the run, my legs felt like lead, I was sweating like mad and my knees seemed about to collapse and give way. Maybe I should seriously think about taking glucosamine supplements regularly if I'm going to keep running.

But anyway, I felt really good. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I won't do too badly at the New Balance Real Run later this month. It's one thing to run on level ground, and another to run on Sentosa's undulating terrain. Huckerby has checked it out and I think if I can get past the first 5km of uneven ground, I should be able to finish the run decently. Ganbatte!

Next, at an event in the afternoon at Fullerton, the guests were invited to help themselves to the impromptu mini supermarket shelves set up at the sides of the room. I had loads of fun hauling bags of organic potato chips and cartons of organic soy milk into the grocery bag provided, but was rather appalled by well-dressed, rich-looking women who just swiped the shelves clean, especially the skincare products. One woman didn't even bother to see what she was grabbing, she just walked up to the shelf and cleared out five bottles with her arm! How disgusting. And the poor men had to content themselves with hovering behind hordes of women, since they probably aren't used to sales-like behaviour.

And then, while I was at Fullerton, I got a call from J and C, asking me to go down to a cocktail event my ex-company was holding tonight. They, my ex-boss V included wanted to see me and catch up. I had originally intended to put in OT tonight to finish up some stories, but decided to heck it and have some fun. So off I went to the cocktail, and luckily I was dressed atypically in a white shirt, grey skirt and patterned scarf ensemble that passed off as business wear. Otherwise, V would have made me stay outside the room.

The only edibles at the cocktail were canapes and assorted dainty desserts, and the crowd was the same old, same old. The speeches were also no different from those in the past two years. But never mind, after the cocktail ended, the four of us headed across the road to the Glutton Square (Bay?) at Esplanade. V bought us fried Hokkien prawn noodles and fried carrot cake, yummy. And then as usual, we talked about various stupid people in the company and their stupid ways, and exchanged other trivia. Like how a rather prominent key management personnel, who's also a fairly well-known social and political figure and must be drawing a six-figure salary, asks for discounts at budget drugstores or makeup stores.

Lulled by the cool, gentle night breeze and the gastronomic satisfaction of yummy local comfort food, I think we simply enjoyed one another's company without having to do much. For a moment, perhaps a misguided one haha, I almost wished for those days back when I was an intern in the department assisting them all.