Monday, the 25th of June 2007, which is the day Thai Ruk officially opened for business, is incidentally the day i became the Queen of Cash Registers. As of now, my feet feels like flippers, my mind rubber, and my arms lead. But i decided i had to write down all my thoughts n whinings before they became even more distorted in the morning.
At 10am, i was already down at the stall. Once there, my job was to film the Thai Buddhist monk (whom they specially flown to Spore) while he conducted the stall-blessing ceremony. Sounds eas enough? The tricky part was women were not allowed to look at him str8 in the eyes. And therefore, me, officially declared an adult woman on the 7th March 2007, had to film him without looking at his eyes - which basically meant i had to film his face without looking at the top half of it. Like......???????????? "-_-
Told u it wasnt easy.
Then i had to figure out how to operate the cash register which supposedly stumped everyone at the stall. But being THE ever-amazing Jiayan, of course i succeeded.
*smirks*
And so i was to be in charge of manning the cash register for the rest of the day. And when i say manning the register, it automatically translated to taking orders, remembering them, remembering which customers made which orders, and the most mentally challenging one of all - WHERE THE *bleep* TO FIND THEM.
Once again this sounds damn easy. But try doing that while balancing the heavy bowls of tomyam, green curries, zhap chai pengs and stuffed chicken wings in one single tray. U've gotta diy to learn that it's not so.
12 noon was the most emotional part of the day. Coz i tucked into my pineapple rice breakfast , feeling a huge sense of relief n optimism as i unclenched the fist that was my heart. It gave me new hope that the business might just work out fine. My vision became blurred with tears of relief at some pt.
At 4pm in the afternn, i found myself - out of sheer boredom coz i had been stripped of my mp3 player and my current novel - watching Sharapova on the telly, because it was conveniently dangling right in front of the stall. I survived the boring times msgg rubbish to xw teo. It also had the useful function of keeping her from dozing off at work, u see.
At 8++pm, my lovely Jane came with her equally lovely bf Calvin to try out the food. Boy was i sooooooo happy to see her. I needed that wee bit of friend support to motivate me for the rest of the day!
And by 10 pm, i had already clocked my personal best time - 12 hours of standing without rest.
But i would rather work nonstop just so to see my mum's business prosper. By that time, i came to realise how knowing how to speak ur dialects could make it so easy to communicate with local customers. Was able to handle the different customers speakign in different tongues, which in this case, refers to dialects. One of them even praised me on my Cantonese!
So proud of myself. Maybe my friend was right. I aint that stupid afterall because i am able to master different languages! And maybe...just maybe, if the business continues to be good, i might even have a chance to bring the Thai Ruk brand to Germany!
But ok. Snapping back to reality, im glad i went down to the stall to help out today. Coz i learnt sooooo much more things in a day at the stall than i would have in a week sitting in lecture theatres. And i realised that perhaps i dont hate doing business all that much afterall. heh... I remembered ever swearing not to meddle with business coz i simply had no interest in it; and the way some drama serials i watched on tv as a kid portrayed businessmen to be evil n cunning didnt help.
So, all in all, i worked for a whopping 16 hours in a day from 10am to 2am. And i could still bring myself to blog abt my day's experience after my loooong day even as my eyes are reduced to mere slits.
Told you i was amazing.
Brought the kids out for an excursion yesterday, which made me a damn happy girl coz it meant that i didnt have to do any teaching:p But of course, it's always a joy to see the kids having fun outdoors too. Kids these days are getting too little of that...and i think they've become more prone to getting sick precisely becoz they've been cooped in the classrooms for too long. Suffer the little children.
Having fun at the merry-go-round. Now u see them smile...
Now you dont...coz all of them became giddy n nauseous after all that spinning. haha!
Them playing twister. And sometimes, its through games that...
you see the darndest things...
... that kids do just to win.
the long n never-ending road... kinda reflects how i feel abt the journey before me
haha...and this kid's the one who drives me crazy.
It's a pretty fun place - save for the glorious smell of animal poop n pee - where u can buy animal feed to feed the animals. (obviously a very clever ploy by the farm owners to earn moolah and get free labour at the same time) The kids were having alot of fun though, so i guess it wasnt an issue:p
Me feeding the goat! Heh... it's quite cute, coz they lick food out of ur hands. Rmb to wash ur hands after tt tho.
Hmm...i cant quite find... ermm... words to describe the look on this billy-goat's face.
Dog...or hairy rabbit?
Okay...im not sure how genetics works for rabbits, but apparently little blackie here is the love child of the hairy one and another white rabbit..?? haha but it's adorable nonetheless!
Newborn rabbits!
Yuan yang...or mandarin ducks.
and adults are so freaking boring in comparison:p
但希望这感觉，停留在心理面。
Spontaneity has never been associated with the 3 words: ho jia yan, but it did yesterday. Like i was telling ling, all it took was a very bored lame shit (me), some miscommunication, and a couple more bored but want-to-be-happening (BBW) people to make it happen.
Let me explain using a very simple timeline:
9.08pm - rcvd phonecall from BBW1 to confirm movie outing
9.15pm - book tickets online + jio more BBWs
9.22pm - finally finished booking tickets for a 10.05pm show
9.23pm - change n eat dinner
9.45pm - catch BBW1's ride to cine
10.15pm- reached cine n met up with BBW2. late coz i directed BBH1 to the wrong expressway exit
10.22pm- finally settled down on my seat:)
So, apart from giving the idea that im very susceptible to persuasion and influences, i hope i also gave a very good reason for why you should never ask me to give you directions as you drive. Coz my directions are usually wrong unless im cocksure abt the place:p
Casualty count: 3.
Today is the day i called the Traffic Police emergency hotline in a last ditch attempt to - oh my goodness u wont believe this - organise a trip to the Road Safety Community Park for the kids. Although i knew very well that i wasnt even supposed to call that number in the first place, i ended up barking (im sure i didnt yell, but i cld have simply been unfriendly) at the operator in frustration coz all i got from calling the road safety park no. for TWO WHOLE DAYS was nothing but a continuous ring ring, ring ring and an irritating automated voicemail beep. Really umm zai si, i am. Luckily no men in blue at my doorstep.
But it makes me wonder if we could have made better use of the taxes that my parents pay to feed phone operators who are non-existent in the first place. Like if we've got fare hikes, ERPs, CBDs and the likes to pay for the building and maintainance of roads and public transport...
THEN WHERE DID ALL THAT MONEY GO???
Im in a 'i cant be bothered to try to be nice n civil' mood today. So I let the devil out, and let my anger show. Maybe i kept too much of it inside for too long.
I probably hurt quite a few people coz of this, so im really sorry if i did.
Yeah! Tonight's show at the hdb hub was much better, and much more enjoyable than friday night's!
Received feedback that we sounded better, and the crowd liked my bu zhi de~! Spooked some of them off - literally - when we sang Uninvited by alanis morrisette.heh...purpose achieved. But am sorry for killing off Andrew for Unwell tho. We went generously sharp...and so he...ermmm...did an Audrey. Man style. (for those not in the know, Audrey's our senior who can hit inhumanely high notes.)
And speaking of reaching inhumane notes, i sang pretty lowwww notes myself. Like my version of Writing to Reach You by travis. I did the 4-liner solo in our mish-mash song Wonderwall, at a freq which was simply out of the human hearing range. At least i cldnt even hear myself. Sexiliciously hoarsey manly me:p
In summary, the 7 of us were having so much fun onstage for the first time!
Oh, one more thing i was happy abt? My Reso dears like Edlina, OOPs n EnD came to hear us sing! Some of them - meisi, jeremy n lloyd - even came for both shows.
But even better still, My parents and sis came...with a surprise - My granny!!! See, just when u think that none of ur closest friends will come support u, u can count on ur family to give u just the 'oommph' that you need. And the family support worked wonders for me:) I got my bottom smacked for not telling my granny tho...just like the old days when baby me peed in my oscillating sarong bed. Smack THAT!
(note: some dongdongs decided to congregate at some other dongdong's hse to listen to some trashy 'Smack that' instead. how bad taste is that! hahaha)
Think i was content to let my day end like that? Dead wrong. I rushed down to Bar None after sending my granny home to listen to Cal's band perform. A damn happening choice i made, coz the music was fab. (way better than some random 'smack that' song) Great to see Cal so totally in her element! That talented babe, she played the keyboard, sang, and even wrote n composed one of the songs in her set. And btw, she arranged Wonderwall for a cappella too.
Damned, im jealous:p
Went to xiaowei's friend's studio opening just now, which was a pretty hot place - both literally n not-so-literally. Was quite warm in there, but showcase dances were hot, the singers had hot vocals, and the guitarists were hot too. ha..Only place that was relatively cooler? The chillout lounge. Can rent the place to club somemore. Cool~
(Note to all Reso members who read this: I found an alternative place to pract! This place is strategically placed uin Bugis, so the Easties, Westies n the North-Easties can meet there to pract! Only thing is the hourly rates are at 10 per hr lah. More ex than comm rm 2, but much more convenient. Ooh. Btw juz b's one of the co-owners too. i think.)
Went home after tt, n found my mum still packing books at the student centre. *guilt* So i went to help her out. And amidst the packing, I found all the books i bought my sis to prepare for her psle last yr. AS GOOD AS NEW. haha... Then it made me feel sorry for her that she received so much crap from me last yr. And guilty as well, coz the rest of my family havent been able to give her as much attention compared to what me n my bro rcved as kids. TAking off almost everyday after work to sing in sch didnt help. She must have been soooooo darn lonely for the past week coz my parents, bro n i arent at hm most o the day. haiz...
Wonder if she reads my blog secretly while she comes online to watch anime...coz if she does, i've got smthg to say:
"sorry, mei."
So we finally performed last night! Didnt sing as well as we wanted to, but i guess it's better now than acachamps. And thankfully, we still have Sunday to redeem ourselves so to speak:)
Thanks to Becky (if u ever read my blog) for your pre-perf msg! It's your thought that counts, even if u cldnt turn up to watch!:)
on a hindsight, i forgot to mention that i managed to keep (mostly) to the pitch for my solo! Yeah~~!!! Had been flat for most of the prior practices... And what was the secret behind the improvement? i tiptoe-d in my heels! haha. it helped me think higher coz i felt taller!
Pract ended ultra late tdy...just reached home.
And somehow, my rendition of bu zhi de today brought me more pain than usual.
the music was me; me was the music.
Personally, i think those couples who PDA on public trains n buses should just take their business to some better, more conducive vehicles like their own private cars. Or if they dont mind the smell, the rubbish truck would be a good place too.
For nice and romantic alternatives, try thick bushes, deep drains or canals. They're pretty harmless during low tide.
took down the previous blogpost coz i found it quite dumb. Don't know why i've got a penchant for posting stupid posts when im groggy.
heh, come to think of it, maybe the past few posts have been a lil dumb too. hahah! Sorreh for those affected~
Sighz...I've lost (most of) my voice and im feeling quite upset abt it. Coz i cant even complete a sentence without dropping out to a mere hoarse whisper. And i really sound like a real she-male this time!!!:( Labels: silence is not golden
It's damn painful having to keep quiet, esp. when im used to talking alot! Hope that xia sang ju+pi pa gao combo works. I need no less than a miracle to be able to sing on Sun:(((
Cantab's finally over!!!
It's been quite annoying having to memorise n sing songs in languages which i dont exactly understand but i guess the fact that we managed to learn, memorise and perform at 'syf gold standards' (according to Timo) in 2 weeks flat means we're incredible people somehow huh:p ( note: shitty circumstances not taken into consideration)
But while some of us alumni ppl walked off the stage thinking that we've done a good job, perhaps we've quite forgotten to give the SC some credit.
True, he gave us quite alot of headache trying to figure out what he's trying to convey each time he flapped his arms, and dealing with his AP was no less painful, i thought he did a pretty gd job last night - at the very least, i cld see that he tried his best to prevent us old birds from losing face on stage.
Fell short of gg up to him to commend him after the performance tho, coz i figured he didnt need validation from me to know that he's gd:)
And on the topic of giving credits where credits are due, i've got to thank my dear friends for coming down to watch us and sending those encouraging msgs! (wld've been better if a certain muggerhead didnt decide to give us a miss just to start on her fyp tho:x)
Thanks to 小甜甜 for providing the laughs, helping me with my barangs after the show n piggyback-ing me for 50m! Haha...but what's most impt was he said i was light! *暗爽*
Much much gratitude for another 大甜甜 for sending me soup to ease my hunger pangs! Was having a bad sore throat, and thus surviving only on corn bread for lunch n dinner u see. So uber happy was i to see nice, hot soup in front of me, n a bright yellow sunflower, i thought i saw a huge, golden halo on 大甜甜's head!:D
Wait...Maybe excessive gastric juices in the stomach causes hallucination.
Hahaa...but hugs to 大甜甜 too, nonetheless!
my flowers! in a 八仙过海 porcelain vase. haha!
Heh...Guess im thankful i joined Cantab this time. Got to know my seniors n juniors a lil better. Man-ly Altos rawk!!! And like hs mentioned before we got up the stage to perform, its been ages since we felt the pre-perf jitters, ages since we last walked through the backstage of vch, and of course, ages since we last heard the all-too-familiar line:
"YOU HAVE NO BRAINS!"
Dynamics: ffffffffffff.