Novo: July 2007

Novo

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Childhood

Now that I listen to the Gummi Bear theme song I must say this guy has an amazingly high voice! And he even transposes up a semitone! And I must say the transposition point is very neat. Nice!

Yeah this was one of my favourites. Bouncing here and there and everywhere. High adventure that's beyond compare.

And no. I wasn't much of a transformer kid. I prefered mask crusaders. They were all really kiddy cartoons. Very unlike semi-adult stuff like spongebob. Spongebob is actually VERY adult! All the references and puns are pretty mature.

Not sure what's up with kids nowadays. Heard of a 18 month old who's addicted to Nintendo Wii. 18 months??? was i even talking then?

Well. Hooray for my normal childhood!

posted by Ben Tan @ 6:43 PM 0 comments

Monday, July 16, 2007

Reminiscing Choir - GWH

It's been 3 months since the choir got the vaunted Gold with Honours for SYF.

We were lucky.

Lucky to have a great bunch of seniors who were focused on their objectives. Lucky to have members who were passionate about what they do. Lucky because of their sacrifices. Of time. Sweat. Of tears.

Many people (colleagues, principals, alumni from my time) congratulated me for the 'good results', attributing the fact that my 'expertise' and past experience as a chorister must have somehow rubbed off onto the choir.

I'm not so sure I can take an ounce of credit since I didn't sing nor conduct. In fact, to me, it wasn't so much about the members' actual singing, but it was the sheer tenacity and courage each person brought on the stage. We were for the last decade an underdog choir, a 'has been' kind of choir. Even 5 months before the SYF we were deemed as miles away from the real top dogs, the first leaguers - Cat. High, VS, TKSS, FMSS. We were patted on the back with nice words such as 'you're improving', 'good progress' 'your choir is stabilising'. We were always a 2nd division choir because we are a 'cheena' school. How many SAP schools even get a Gold for Choir?

I'm sure most choir members did not realise this huge societal background that works against most chinese school choirs (think about it Dunman, Cheung Cheng, Chinese High, all have 'poor' choirs), and that the 'english' schools have for the last 30 years dominated the choir landscape. Even during the SYF competition day itself some SYC members were scoffing AH Choir when they walked down the tiers. They whipped out their tuning forks to 'check' on the key and whispered to each other how flat we became. SYC is the most snobbish english choir that exists. No surprise I quit 7 years ago huh.

I kept this very much to myself because it is not the duty of the young to fret over this generational stupidity that started during my time. But man, I was never so deliriously estatic in my adult life when the results were annouced. I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but I leapt up to my feet, and I was actually running around, and that I ran to mr toh and whacked him so hard on the shoulder, that the guy sitting on his left was frantically asking me to relax.

Choir No. 44. We showed them good. We showed ourselves good.

posted by Ben Tan @ 6:05 PM 0 comments

Friday, July 6, 2007

The Brit boys

Okay this post is FOR the raving lunatics called 3G girls who have been bugging me for the photos.

Ohhh! Faints! The golden hair.

Armpits

Only 1 Armpit

I guess they've been really nice chaps. Can't imagine the extreme boredom that gordon had to go through sitting in a class of pubescent kids when he's already 18! It's like you going back to primary school and doing close passages.

I think they did pick up some stuff from the class - like the armpit rubbish that the 3 musketeers are always up to, and that ming swee has some fetish for hairy balls. But besides the splendid entertainment, I think alot of credit goes to the girls (esp. yantze and cihui) who made those fantastic cards and photos for them. I was seriously impressed! So were they! They just told me exactly that before they left for the night safari.

You cannot even imagine the amount of work some teachers have put in to have the 17 of them here in ahs. Kudos to you peeps.

posted by Ben Tan @ 9:44 PM 0 comments

Monday, July 2, 2007

Rants

What can $45 buy you?

1. A very good international buffet dinner at Carousel.

2. A nice Addidas dri-fit shirt

3. 10 large packs of yummy Kettle chips.

4. 4 episodes of hilarious Sam and Max

5. 1 tank of ron95 petrol.

6. 2 months of (my) phone bill.

7. TO HAVE YOUR DENTIST TELL YOU THAT YOUR WISDOM TOOTH (suddenly) CANNOT BE EXTRACTED.

Yes. $45 just to tell me that. No cleaning, nothing. $45 for putting a tube to my cheek and peering into my somewhat large mouth with his fancy metal toothpick and tiny vanity mirror.

What's worse, he was originally the one who insisted that it should be removed.

'Professionals' my bloody arse.

posted by Ben Tan @ 1:26 AM 0 comments

About Me

See my complete profile