Sound Lessons :)

The Singapore Polytechnic musical, SuPerstar, exceeded my expectations! :) Admittedly, them expectations initially weren't very high... I was torn between being impressed by their slick marketing brochure, and not-so-impressed by the fact that it didn't seem to present itself as anything more than a celebration of reality TV talent shows. But I was proved wrong about that second part...

First up, kudos to the director-cum-musical director, as well as the scriptwriter. I think they took it beyond "Let's take the talent show and put it into theatre format -- look instant musical!" but in fact managed quite cleverly to bring out several issues about the whole phenomenon of reality TV shows, and reality TV talent shows in particular... For example, the very real possibility of friendships being affected when both friends are in the competition. Plot-wise, there were a couple of parts that I felt could use improvement (the "moment of threat" to the protagonist that might have prevented him from continuing in the competition was just a little too short to be very believable/significant/suspenseful, and the "recovery from the threat" itself was also a bit too hilarious to really be taken seriously), but mostly it ran quite smoothly and was an engaging enough structure to support the songs without falling limp in the intervening bits. As in, I think the non-sung dialogue was pretty good work :)

Speaking of which, the songs were rather well done too. One thing I LOVED about this production was they provided subtitles for the songs on the screen so you could tell what people were really singing!! :D Of course, it would be much better if the all the singers were good enough in articulation so you didn't need subtitles to hear what the song was about, but for a visual-oriented person like me it was very much appreciated indeed :P Not only that, but they printed all the lyrics in the programme booklet so people could keep a copy of it!!! I am very very pleased indeed :) Otherwise, I would have been reduced to frantically copying down lovely phrases in my notebook just so I wouldn't forget them and could blog about them afterwards :P (I decided not to do so here... Because there are just so many i'd clog up my own blog :P Also: copyright issues!) Honestly though, I really think they should take this musical to the public arena and tour it or something. A little cleaning up needs to be done, but I honestly think standard-wise it's at least on par with Godspeed the musical, and that it's the most honest portrayal of the issues of the reality TV talent show phenomenon that doesn't take itself too seriously to be fun. Think about it eh, SP? ;P

Talent-wise, I am very impressed indeed. Of course they were not professional singers, but after having been for Forbidden City recently, I feel that too often people make far too much fuss about a professional singer until they suffer from comparison with their reputation. Therefore I think one must judge each performance based on what you think was done well there and then right before your ears/eyes. There were a couple of really good singers (the actors playing Shelley and Jun Liang), one or two others that seemed to have a reasonable standard with a few moments of ooh-ness (and, sometimes, one or two moments of "ouch"-ness), and most of the others were just having fun :) There's nothing wrong with having fun, and in fact I rather like to watch this kind of fun, but what I'm saying is there was real talent in this musical and not just in terms of singing, either. This is probably the first time I've actually woken up to the fact that "Yah... The orchestra must be super-stressed because they are 'on' all the time, in a manner of speaking... The actors can go backstage and take a breath or two but the orchestra just keeps playing and preparing for the next song and playing!!" Well of course they have a break here and there too like during the dialogue or when a different section of the orchestra is playing or something, but still it seems quite nerve-wracking. Also, I quite liked some of the bits where sound was used as support for the dialogue -- especially the bit where someone played on an electric organ to imitate a ringtone sound :P There was very good use of multimedia -- very good use indeed! I was particularly inspired by the use of photographs of different places being used to indicate setting on a big screen behind... and also all the animation bits which included a spoof of the beginning sequence of the Idol shows :P Oh yes how could I forget the dancing :) I think the choreographer was pretty good, particularly in big-group sequences (of which there were quite a few) -- not spectacular, but the kind of stuff that I involuntarily go "nice!!" at, for example the crossing of two circles of people to become one circle inside the other. But I think the bit that really WOKE me up to the diversity of talents in SP was during one soloist's performance when instead of having background dancers, they had people on roller skates skim around the stage gracefully. Beautiful!!!

Oh yeah and I think President Nathan is a nice warm-hearted man :) He had done the usual VIP thing of going up on stage to take a picture with the whole cast and receive a token of appreciation... Then he actually held out his hand to a young man who was sitting on the floor during the taking of the picture, and pulled him to his feet. Wow! Not only that, he didn't just ceremoniously take the token and leave, but actually spoke to the cast and complimented them and even looked for the director and shook his hand. I was really amazed and I think he deserves great kudos for that :)

Going home in the car, I had an epiphany. You know the song with the chorus that ends:
"If love never
lasts forever, tell me
what's forever for"
And if you really listen to it carefully you'll see that the lyrics actually don't make much sense. I mean I think I know what the songwriter's aiming for, which is the notion that love lasts forever, else there is no use for the word "forever" because love is so integrated with forever, but if you break it down in a logical manner you'll see that it makes no sense because the theoretical concept of "forever" is quite separate from the theoretical concept of "love". Yet because of the tune, and the way the words just seem to fit the tune, and the way the words just sound right in that combination, many people love that song (and that phrase in the song). And if you were to sing it as part of the song you would be more likely to think "Ohh, what a beautiful sentiment/how true to experience/what a moving statement" instead of "This sentence doesn't make sense". So just like my blog title, we can be sharp and precise and be accurate about something, but if the expression doesn't move you, then in my opinion it has failed to be an effective part of communication. One might as well write "you can't understand unless you're in my position" which is probably the closest to absolute accuracy, in terms of describing experience, that you can get. Which is deeply dissatisfying. Sometimes, I feel, we as human beings get too technical about "what's factually right" and forget the emotional aspect of communication. And what, you ask, is the emotional aspect of communication?

Just a few minutes previously, there was this radio talk show on and the guest speaker was some sort of expert on helping children deal with stress -- i.e. talking to parents saying stuff like "You have to recognise your child's emotions; if they are angry at someone they will not be able to focus on their studies" etc etc. It sounded terribly theoretical and I wondered if the expert had really done her research because she sounded like she was presenting a very one-dimensional view of how children experience stress about studies and she kept repeating that point over and over again. (Doesn't this phrase sound like it uses redundant words??) I was just mulling it over with dad and we wondered whether such self-improvement talks were really useful in real life... and then I dug up a thought that seemed to be waiting just below the surface: "Sometimes, it's really more about giving people hope than actually changing their behaviour." And really it seems to make sense. I mean stuff like frivolous chatting -- how can it be of real empirical use to people?? But it is, because regardless of the nonsense content, what is being communicated is actually feelings... And it can be really affirming to receive vibes like "You are a fun person to talk to" or "There are people who care about you" or "You are really witty -- see I'm laughing!", stuff like that. And that actually translates to a better attitude to whatever events come after that chat, a better disposition towards the world and thus higher chance of creating cooperation leading to possibly better output, better emotional health and hence physical health as well (it is proven that mood actually does affect your physical state) and so on. I don't want to make it sound like the elixir of life but I hope you get my point.

To get back to hope: People can't change their behaviour overnight and they may not achieve it in the long-term either, but sometimes all they really need is that little push of hope to help them believe that things can get better and keep them going on in life. And maybe you say that I'm idealistic and that those talks give people false hope instead of real actual change -- but let me ask you, realistically, can anybody who is not you be 100% correct in telling you how to change your behaviour? No. Does that mean that such motivational speakers have no use then? Not at all! They may not be right in analysing the reasons for their experiencing a better life, but they ARE providing an example (and in many cases, quite a few other examples as well) of people who HAVE managed to better their lives and that gives people hope to continue trying to better their lives in various ways. Being realistic will only result in them saying "It's no use, such change only happened to that person and it won't happen to me -- so forget it." In effect, being "realistic" is simply going to depress people, which is why I feel that people in Singapore seem to age so fast, because they're so haggard with hopelessness. "Realistically," they say dolefully, "you are only deluding yourself if you say things will get better, so why hope? Just walk this journey and breathe a sigh of relief when it is over." I say to you, wake up your idea! Things HAVE gotten better, they may not be on an ever-ascending slope but they have gotten better and gotten worse and gotten better so what makes you think things only get worse and worse? Hope helps you believe that "there's something better further on", it helps you strive for the better so even if things aren't perfect they are better and life won't seem like an ardous journey anymore, but one that has at least some measure of enjoyment :) I think hope is a miracle pill.

Let me end by quoting a comment made by a member of the audience that I overheard as we were streaming out of the hall: "Eh, now I want to go and write a song!" I don't know what the director would have felt if he had heard that, but to me that is the one comment that would make it all worthwhile. To know that a work of art, no matter how tediously it came into being and how short-lived its life, had inspired someone else to want to create art themselves, is to me the very essence of being an artist. This is the standard that I strive to be judged by, and one day hope to achieve. I stand by my view that art is the passing on of hope! :)

Dreams again - this is getting tiring

I haven't much time so I should type quickly. But I was a little traumatised by the dream so it'll take some time to gather my scattered thoughts.

I don't know which part of the dream it is that I remember, but I remember sortof watching as a third person in what seemed to be a movie... Those sorts of movies that get a famous actress to act like a bumbling tomboy in the first half and then get transformed in the second, or some such thing. In this movie, the female character apparently is a bimbotic officer of some armed forces group... I have no idea if they are the police or some rebel group. I do have an impression of schools in the midst of tall lalang, and scurrying students, and what seems to be hiding the hall of the school, but I don't remember much about that part. Anyway, this bimbotic officer is apparently on some type of mission with a few other women officers, and for some reason they go to a road somewhere and are attempting to move some road... barriers? I don't know what they are called, those metal bars that stand upright to about your waist and are painted black and yellow and basically stand all in a line to prevent people from driving where they shouldn't drive. The ones they are trying to move seem to be at a pedestrian crossing, and just as they are about to move off, the bimbotic officer breaks a nail and stops... The other women officers berate her and they start off again, but just as they lift up the metal things to carry them off, an army-like vehicle appears in sight (was it an army jeep? I don't know enough about vehicles to tell) and I involuntarily let out a groan of dismay... I don't even know why. The women officers quickly let down the metal things and pretend they were always on the ground, and some male officers from the vehicle surround them and start to question them. I see one or two women officers grip the metal things tightly and I start to guess what's going to happen next...

And indeed, with a synchronised move, all 6 women grab the metal thing they were about to carry and swing it at the soldiers (or so I assume) talking to them... Each women seems to be facing about 3 soldiers and so with the first swing they hit one, then they swing in the opposite direction and hit another, and the momentum carries them around so they try to swing again to hit the third. Now somehow there is a woman officer from the vehicle left over... And while I don't remember any more about the men, she comes to challenge the 6 women officers (or so I think). This is the point in which I'm not sure if we have moved to being a theatre play, because when this new woman officer demonstrates her prowess in fighting and beating the 6 woman officers, the beaten women officers wipe red paint across their faces to indicate their injuries in a very symbolic way. Suffice it to say that it looks rather real and all of a sudden I realise they are in a grey prison cell (and strangely enough, I'm in there with them). Something happens (I can't remember now) that makes me aware that they have been (or, at least in the story, are supposed to have been) beaten up so badly that they've almost lost their mind... Because the fierce woman officer accuses someone of smuggling something and they laugh almost hysterically and own up. Anyway what this girl has "smuggled" is a purple towel... And for some strange reason there is the impression in my mind that something has been revealed which the regime that the fierce woman officer belongs to does not like. There is also a prejudice against the woman cleaner of the cell (where did SHE come into the picture??). So the fierce woman officer comes into the cell and takes the purple towel from a pile of towels on the bed, and asks the girl if this is what she received from the cleaning lady? The girl says yes, and then the officer takes a bigger, pastel green towel from the pile and says that the girl can have it if she will cooperate with them. The girl seems interested (in the very light-headed, almost insane way) so the woman officer asks her again about the cleaning lady, "you mean she told them what happened so she could get this towel?" and the girl affirms again. Then the officer tells the girl to go off with her.

At this point in time it seems very important to me that they do not fire the cleaning lady and that the "them" are made aware of what is going to happen so they can take steps against it or something. So I take my handphone from my pocket (!!! as if they would have let me keep it!) and type a message under the book I am reading (again, !!! would they have let me keep books? Then again, in the dream I had the impression I was a "favoured" prisoner of sorts because I wasn't beaten and bloodied like the rest.) without letting the guards see what I'm at, and am about to send the message to BK (I don't even know why BK -- he's the president of nu(studios), my NUS film club). That's when I awake, because my alarm was ringing.

Even after I've half-awoken, I kept wondering how I was going to hide the phone and whether they would keep track of all the handphone signals going out and whether I would be in danger and how I could keep the phone hidden and safe but able to access it again to read the reply...

It's scary. I do so hate war stories and movies and things about prisons, and to start my day with a memory of dreams like that is not very happy indeed. :S

dreeeeeam, dream dream dream

Oh dear I've been having too many dreams lately. :(

Two nights ago, my dream (or dreams? Since they appeared not to really be linked) was a very convoluted and slightly disturbing one. There is one part that I'm quite sure wasn't the beginning but for some reason doesn't seem to really fit anywhere in the chronology... It's something about Joel (recent acquaintance in USP) dropping his handphone or something important because he wouldn't tell me something and I kept bugging him about it, and the thing that was dropped was almost run over by a car, and in the end I found out what it was and said "Why did you refuse to tell me, it was such a trivial thing anyway?" and I don't remember his reply. Hmmm.

The other longer and more convoluted part goes like this: For some reason I am shopping in some neighbourhood with my mother and brother, and this neighbourhood looks somewhat like the Bukit Batok neighbourhood we used to live in, except the shops have all been renovated. My mother slips for some reason and falls with her face pressed into something which makes her face dirty. My brother says something like "Why are you so careless?" and I admonish him for being heartless and give my mother a tissue to wipe her face with. We walk towards this shop that we had thought quite intriguing and wanted to enter, but we realised that further inside this shop they sold stuff for temple offerings like incense and stuff like that. So we didn't enter it but we entered another shop which I have the vaguest impression of as selling things for hobbies like kites, possibly. Just then I hear someone call "Dionnie! Reinie!" which are the names of my twin nieces, and I turn around and they've just walked past the shop so I call out to them. Surprisingly, my mother appears not to be surprised at their presence at all (despite the fact that in reality they live in Ponggol and are not likely to be in our neighbourhood at all) and we chat with them for awhile.

Suddenly the scene shifts to a swimming pool (this might be because the twins love to swim :P) and it's like one of those holiday resorts, with a pavilion and all. An "ang-moh" boy is trying to retrieve a tennis ball from the gutter of some pavilion roof, and after he succeeds he falls into the pool with a big splash and rubs his thigh which apparently hurts, although he doesn't appear to be in danger. I was watching that incident from the pool itself but suddenly i'm standing on the second level of a pavilion that seems to be built reaching out over the pool, and there are some guys in the pool that I appear to be talking to. They point out a length of cloth hanging from the railing on the side of the second level which is opposite to mine, and none of us have any idea what it's doing there. Suddenly a girl who appears to be a pageant contestant of some sort (in a bikini, complete with sash and all) is standing just above the cloth, and one or two of the boys starts whistling and swimming towards the cloth while the girl beckons them to climb up it. All of a sudden I notice there are more lengths of cloth tied at regular intervals to the railings overlooking the pool, and girls who look like the other pageant contestants start to appear at the lengths of cloths and there looks like 1 girl for each guy in the pool. Then I realise there is a cloth hanging just below my feet and I tell the guy "Don't even think about it!" :P After that, I realise there are a couple more pageant contestants coming with sashes that match the grey cloth hanging below me so I grab my towels (one white and one dark green) and scuttle past to make room for them. I join my friends in what seems to be a lobby and we're sitting down on sofas... for some reason I have the impression they are my university schoolmates, possibly from USP. But Tabitha (from my Sociology honours class) is there too, so I'm not too sure. The other university schoolmates (two girls) are gossiping and expressing disgust about how the pageant girls (I get the impression they were referred to as foreigners) are taking away our local guys, and then suddenly one local guy appears in front of us and asks Tabitha for a dance. I comment "Nice!" because it appears that at least one local guy isn't too dazzled by the foreigners and likes local girls, and we egg her on, so she goes with the guy, but before he leaves he turns at the last minute and touches the hand of one of the other university schoolmates (who appears to be dark-skinned), whispering "I'll see you later..." And then both my university schoolmates burst out laughing because that guy has turned out to be a playboy after all.

After that I walk to the (very short flight of) stairs behind the sofa and meet a few girls who seem to be from MGS... But I meet Mariko there who was from my primary school (FMPS) so I'm not sure about that. Anyway Mariko is wearing this dress with green print that doesn't seem very nice, and for some reason I spitefully make a sarcastic comment about it, and she responds sarcastically too. Then she mentions that she is going to see her father and that hits me in the heart, because I remember something about her not being on very good terms with her father. So I apologise for being mean and say I truly hope she will have a happy meeting with her father, and she makes a reply and walks up the stairs. I'm about to follow after her (perhaps to apologise again) when I meet my friend Sue Mei from MGS. I put my arm around her and turn to continue up the stairs, but I see someone hanging like a burden from Mariko's back in a very weird position facing us, with her hair covering her face. I peer under her hair and see that it's Huiling (my MGS friend who committed suicide in 2001), and at that point I scream like I've never screamed before in my life, and Sue Mei screams as well and I wake up in a cold sweat.

I know dreams often don't mean anything but I am still a little disturbed by that. And my parents don't seem to have picked up on my distress when I talked to them about it; generally they don't seem to want to talk about Huiling at all when I do bring up the topic. And the day after the dream was when we learnt about my uncle's brother's suicide. But anyway... I think it was just the memory of MGS and petty social bickering that reminded me of our "loners' group" in MGS, and hence Sue Mei, and hence Huiling. So it doesn't mean anything... only I wish I could talk about it to somebody and have them understand.

Well, I'm talking it out to my blog, now :) So I feel much better.

Last night, I dreamt again... This time about being chased in a group of people through fields and over rivers, kinda like in a war scene except it didn't look so "Chinese". I remember dipping my feet into the clear cold water of the river and looking for children in the tall grass. All of a sudden I was hiding behind a tree while a big car/bus/vehicle of some sort drove up, but I couldn't hide well enough and was discovered by a lady in a pink hat/outfit. Suddenly I was in some sort of talent agency (?) and being selected for some grooming programme... they claimed I had the most "potential" even though I protested and said "How could I possibly be better than all those other girls?"

Then I left the talent agency to go somewhere else and waited for a shuttle bus outside (shades of visiting Dad at CGH) and sat on a nice wooden park bench while doing so with my bag next to my feet. I'm not sure at what point Weiyi (from my JC class) was sitting next to me (because I have a vague memory, not sure in this dream or the previous night's one, of her sitting next to me in some random bus and us being surprised and chatting) but there she was on the park bench next to me, commenting about SiJia whom we had just seen some way down the road. I was saying something about how I didn't know SiJia was a Christian until I read what her T-shirt said, and Weiyi was saying something like "Yes, she doesn't really flaunt it around, she's not the type that always wants to talk about it" and I felt a subtle criticism about my own tendency to talk about Christianity and Christianity-related stuff in front of my friends, whether they're Christian or non-Christian (although presumably it only matters more to non-Christian friends). But I can't help it, Christ is so much a part of my life that I honestly don't see how I can compartmentalise belief in Him into just one little box labelled "Religion" instead of acknowledging that His spirit infuses (and is SUPPOSED to infuse) all and every part of my life.

Oh well. At any rate I woke up soon after that, or so I think :P I don't remember anything after that, so I guess I must have.

How strange dreams are. :/

Back! :)

yeah i'm back on blogger. why huh... well i enjoyed my stint on LJ but having to limit my entries for the sake of not inundating my friends' Friends pages has left me using lj-cuts furiously, or just not typing that much at all... which hasn't been very satisfactory. so i'm back on blogger for verbosity's sake :P

a new rule, though: since i'm supposed to be using this for story ideas & whatnot, i might as well train up my writing skills as well by making myself type in full sentences and with proper grammar and that. :P from the next post onwards! :D

moved.

k guys i have moved... my livejournal is here --> http://www.livejournal.com/users/jewelblue/

i'll still keep up this blog though for... i dunno, remembrance's sake? :) also to redirect pple i guess.

or to write stuff i don't want pple to comment on!! :P hardly happens, this, but you never know...

moving...?

i have been bugged to either get a tagboard, or move to livejournal. tagboards aren't free (oops tt sounds miserly hee but i just don't like the whole e-commerce thing) and livejournals are... well okay they're cool. but i dunno. kinda like the blog look better. *grinz*

but if i dun move then friends can't respond to my postings... hmm. :/

but if i move i lose all my old entries. *sob* i can cut-and-paste but tt ain't the same...

and i just like blog. i like my blog title.

maybe the real reason is that if i move, i have to set up a new acct all over again. and find my friends all over again. which is kinda like friendster all over again. which i don't really wanna repeat the experience of :P

BUT if i don't move... my friends can't reply. *sighhhh*

questions quoshtions. to move or not to move. it's 3am in the morning and i haven't done anything i wanted to and i should sleep pretty soon. but now i got the qn stuck in my head i can't sleep til i settle it. to move or not to move, to move or not to move...

sigh i think i'll move... but it will be with longing and regret. *looks back sadly at blog* sayang, sayang...

something beautiful

got this frm an event posting tt i'm sending around...

"While 'Sayang' is commonly equated to love, its implications go beyond just love. It has a variety of meanings that is rich beyond its common English translation. For example, tender affection, caresses, hugging and all the cuddly, nuzzly things between persons. The word also has other meanings, denoting a sad, wistful sense of pity, a passing of an opportunity - or an age."

yes. sayang sayang. sweet sad word. shall be happier later :)

please

please, God, take me now. i don't want to be a carnal creature, to suffer exhaustion and thirst and pain. i know i'm one of the least qualified people to say this but i don't know how else to put it. every word i say i hurt someone. every time i smile it darkens someone's day. God, make me an angel instead of a human... please...

claire dear i know i promised you i'd post sth for you here, but i just can't find it tonight... i'm sorry dear i'll post it soon enough ok? keep checking back...

for the person i'm talking to: you know who you are, and you know i don't know how to respond. please forgive me for being myself. if i had been someone else it'd be different, but you know who i am, i know who i am and God knows who i am. i can lie to myself and you but end of the day i can't escape His gaze. i'm sorry.

please forgive me... everybody. please.

if i didn't like children so much i'd cut out my womb

period.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD
PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN
owww.
*mutters under breath*

managed to finish 8pgs of the musical script. happy with that but must work harder. must do making of nation response paper now tho. not happy with that.

is too pained to continue. owwww

foooooood.

know what? i ate food just now, and i was happy. *beams* i can seriously see how eating disorders affect people so easily. it's the food i tell you. the food.

read somewhere that this fella ate McStuff for a month to try and see the effects, and apparently his body kinda broke down... wow. but then again, anybody who eats the same food for a month FOR FUN probably doesn't have a functioning mind either. okay, so maybe he was making a point. but my point being that nobody'd be stupid enough to eat that food 3 times a day after day after day for a month right? not even a week! heck, not even 2 days!! i doubt even 2 consecutive meals... moderation in everything remember?

ahh misleading food. never eat the crumbs at the bottom of a cardboard box. i almost swallowed a lump of glue; fortunately i wondered why the crumb i was eating was so chewy. bleahhhh. and over-MSG-ed stuff makes you wanna puke after that. or maybe it was the glue.

if i can't defeacate tonight i'll know why.

Woohoooooooooooo

hahaha life has been... INTERESTING so far. i meant to post some time ago that i felt happy, then sth happened which was not-so-happy, then i felt really really tired, and now i'm like happy tired happy... hahaha bet that all just sounded so bimbotic. let me restate that:

1) i was happy sometime ago (probably because i more or less sorted things out with myself and with God)
2) i was not-so-happy =>i remembered at 2am Sunday night that i had a response paper due next day... and i hadn't even read the readings yet!!! NOT happy. which leads to--
3) i was really really tired =>coz i spent the night doing the paper and lay down in bed at like 7.30am to catch 2hrs sleep b4 bundling myself off to sch at 9.30 for my 10am class... or rather mum bundled me, i was hardly awake...
4) now: am happy (coz paper is handed in uneventfully and there's no work due tmr -- i think) and tired (because i didn't really get a chance to sleep much now did i?) and happy (partly because i'm so tired i don't really know whether i'm happy or not so i think i'm happy, but also because artsradar seems to be such a success. *beams*)

ooh ooh i haven't posted about artsradar yet. actually not much pt even if i do coz not that many pple actually know abt my blog... heh. :P but oh well. i am still rather pleased with its success so i shall post it here. (45 members as of today!! :)

< Are YOU an arts enthusiast? Like to know more abt the Singapore arts scene but don't have the time to scour countless websites and online mags? ArtsRadar aims to do just that for you! :)

We:
1) collect event/contest/publication/audition notices from our personal emails, thru word of mouth, from online websites, even newspapers if we think they sound sufficiently interesting
2) condense them all into ONE weekly missive
3) send it to you!
All you have to do is email us at artsradar@hotmail.com and it's done!

Wait wait that's not all! We're constantly checking the radar for notable/noteworthy arts organisations that could link up in various ways! Email us if you're looking for collaboration/cooperation/hobnob-ination! :)

Also coming up: Events Calendar comprising all arts happenings in the S'pore arts scene, plus reviews of events that have been attended and Statements of Trend (i.e. THIS group is good at doing THIS kind of theatre, etc etc). "But how can you aim to do so much??" you ask in shock. Well we don't promise to succeed in all of them at once, but with YOUR help, we can give it as good a shot as anyone can!! To that end, if you're a web designer interested in working with us to get up websites for the Calendar and Reviews+Statments of Trend, let us know! If you go for an event and write a review, send it to us! (Note that such reviews will have to be a little more formal and objective since we will be basing Statements of Trend on these for the newer arts groups.) If you want to join the Radar team (i.e. the team that does the searching for and analysis of events, currently consisting of -- *gulp* -- me), send us a note and you'll be welcomed with open arms! :) There's room for everyone in ArtsRadar...

But ah, lest you shy away from getting EVEN more involved in arts stuff (increase in arts involvement very often coincides with decrease in time spent on work/school/otherstuff) I shall offer the consolation that you can merely sign up for the event notices, sit back and watch the arts scene come to you! (no excuses for whining about a non-existent S'pore arts scene, now. heh) Simply email artsradar@hotmail.com, and get the ball rolling today! :)

-->Grace Toh (artsradar admin)
p.s. Do feel free to fwd this mail to your friends and family who are arts enthusiasts too! Vive La Compagnie! :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ArtsRadar is a branch of the Creative Arts Programme (CAP) Alumni.
CAPsite: http://capalumni.undonet.com
Online forums: http://invisionfree.com/forums/CAP_Alumni
For CAPers not on the alumni mailing list, email CAP-ital-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to subscribe. (free of charge!! :P)
*If you know of anyone who would like to be on the ArtsRadar mailing list (anyone interested in the arts, need not be a CAPer) please send an email to artsradar@hotmail.com and we will see to it promptly :)
~~"CArPe diem!"~~ >

now is that cool, or is that cool?? hahaa... :) i've even got a celebrated figure on the list. it's like semi-celebrity!! hehe. it's cool in a way but adds pressure to perform too ahhhh coz we've got to live up to what we promised. i hope i can do it. i hope i can do it and keep my sanity. this is so fun :)

muahahahaha. off to inflict artsradar on friendster. g'nite world :)

All happy now

i think red is truly a happy colour. i have been wearing as much red as possible the whole of todae n everybody who sees it seems happy. (happy)

but i guess it's truly God's doing. after that talk wif my mum, n reading 4 consecutive days of daily bread, i'm almost convinced to dump the other quiet time material i was doing coz it didn't seem to help me at all n only made me more aware of how much more i had to do, while daily bread just totally helped me to see it all, cleared my mind and everything... but at the same time i shouldn't be so complacent so i guess i'll keep reading that harder one, only i'll read daily bread at the same time too so i won't be too stressed out every day.

tmr is reorganising day. i'm hoping to get lots of things done. which reminds me that if i wanna do so, i gotta go sleep now. but i must state this on my blog first so that i don't chicken out of it later. TMR IS REORGANISING DAY.

g'nite :)

Cried in the car...

... and scared my family to death. particularly my bro since he was arguing wif me over some small thing a few moments b4 that. but it wasn't him, really it wasn't, it was just my feelings taking over me again. must be PMS.

then again i don't think it's all that unjustified. i was so happy tonight, u know? we'd had reunion dinner wif my mum's family and the company was good and the food was plentiful and boy, you shoulda seen the scallops -- BIG. yeah, i was happy. then we came home and i had a nice time wif my parents; doing the yearly "bao hong bao" before the first day of visiting... and arranging sweets and all that. all cheery and full of fun, logged on to check mail and wish pple happy lunar new year (after sending countless sms that is) and *boom* i get hit again.

why does this happen? i thought i had enough to deal with already. i mean yeah, first time i get the msg, u know? i'll work on it, just leave me some time to try... i mean maybe you wanna remind me but really some things cld be said nicely u know? i just felt totally struck down and silenced once more... i couldn't say anything last time and it really isn't going to help if you do this again you know.

i mean i know i shouldn't take this so personally, there's truth in it and besides i suppose you're doing it for the edification of the whole group but there's just sth niggling there that doesn't sit right with me and it's messing up my whole emotional balance and i struggle to sleep each night. do you know that? do you mean to cause that? i like to think you don't, but sometimes bare words can seem more cutting than they actually are. this is getting me so down, and sometimes i wonder if i should just step back, step away, but i can't because God put me there and who am i to question if He's right? i just have to keep working at it i guess. just do my job even though i've lost that blush of enthusiasm for it. it's a responsibility; i guess it doesn't have to be a pleasure as well. but oh, how i wish things were different!

then again, it must be as that speaker at FT said: "The first mark of being a Christian is love. The second is suffering." yeah i guess if i look at it that way i can grit my teeth and bear it somehow. it won't be easy but i've told myself from the beginning that i'm such a small, insignificant person, with such small ability for this role, that i have to trust God in everything and let HIM shine through... let HIM lead. and now i just have to believe that. i've always had problems with the fear of God -- because i always viewed Him as a friendly entity, and it never occurred to me that He IS God, and He is great, and it is only out of the goodness of His heart that He treats us like children, like His friends... i need to learn that awe of Him all over again. and i guess this could be one of the ways that i'm learning it.

but this is a really hard lesson, and i just wish i could sleep at night. you're not alone Dawn when you say you wish you could sleep. it's escapist to say i don't want to think about it, but i can't do much even if i DO think about it... i mean there's nothing that i have to say to the group right now, at least nothing that is impt and can be condensed. i'm not even confirmed yet; not yet a full member of the church. sometimes i really feel like the most inferior, the most immature in the whole group, and i'm taking on this huge role??? and i want to ask God why but it's so disrespectful to. i'm just so messed up and confused here. God... please give me strength!

i don't even dare to reply anymore. i don't even dare to talk on forums anymore. i'm drawing into myself, and i don't like it, i really don't. am i doing the right thing? is there something else i should be doing? should i react in one way or another? i don't know, God! i'm just so lost and hurt and confused. and i shouldn't be, but that doesn't change the fact that i am. i just don't know how to deal with this; i wish i did dear God...

i'm crying now, and it's horrible. i don't look very palatable even at the best of times, and this is not one of them. how can i be happy tmr? i hope i can be happy tmr. it's not very nice to show "a black face" as my mum wld say, at other pple's houses. i want to be polite and friendly and caring, but how do i do that when i'm not even sure what kind of a person i am, i'm not even sure if everybody hates me for talking too much when there is absolutely no need for doing so???

there, i've said it. yes, i talk too much. i've always wielded the fact like a shield when anybody showed the slightest sign of irritation, and i suppose it's "all coming back to me now" and i find my shield has cracked and can't protect me anymore. i do talk too much, i do, i do. and i SHOULD cut down, yes i should i should. but dear me, it feels like i'm pulling off an arm and a leg and it HURTS... it really does like deep chest pain hurt not just the "oh i'm so hurt that i'm not a perfect person" kindof hurt. i just don't like being plain and uninteresting. i don't know if that's me. maybe that kindof thing SUITS me. you know, no frills, just direct and straight to the point. i mean, i'll be ever so much more efficient and get much more things done. but i wouldn't enjoy it as much. but was my enjoyment ever supposed to be accounted for in the first place?

times like this i realise how much i really live for myself and not for God. if my life were truly God-centred i don't think i'll be having all these vacillations. human flesh and pride; worldly thoughts and ideals. but i always thought becoming like Christ was a long lifetime process, and some pple go faster and some go slower and those that go slower do so coz they can't handle so much at one time. and i thought i was one of those pple. but am i? maybe i'm just lazy. maybe this is prodding me, telling me to hurry it up. is it? dear God, i don't know...

i guess end of the day there's just one thing i can stick to, and it's this: "Whatever you do, do it as to the Lord, and not as to Man" (i'm sure i've misquoted this verse but i really have no clue as to where in the Bible it might be; new testament maybe?) basically the idea that Man can say what they want but ultimately it is God who will judge what is right. and although some men may speak the words of God and provide needed admonishment, there are times when all you can do is ask God to show you the right thing and then do it and never mind what they say. i guess i have to learn to do that this time. i just pray that God will help me to succeed.

and just to cheer everybody up a bit: Happy Lunar New Year to all out there (if there's any) :)

Still troubled

i don't know why, but i'm still troubled over something that happened recently. i know i shouldn't, but that doesn't stop me from feeling doubtful of myself all the time and wondering if i can really make it as a leader. i didn't ask for this -- never did, but it came my way and God saw to it that everything fell into place, and now i'm just hyperworrying that everything's gonna fall apart. i shouldn't, really. i think i need help.

it must be my pride acting up again. i've always thought (for long periods of time, at least) that i hadn't any, but at times like this the ugly beast rears its head and i'm looking all too disgustedly at myself behaving like a little kid. 5 mins ago mum added onto that by coming into my room and complained that i (along wif my dad and bro) never moved without being pushed and how tired she was pushing us to do this and that all along (for example, changing our bedsheets and so forth). i could see where she was coming frm, but at the same time i felt so bone-tired about everything i had to do, and i really didn't know how to respond so i said nothing. i've been doing that an awful lot nowadays. maybe this is good. maybe this is training me to shut up more. my tongue (and in certain cases, my fingers) has run away with me more than once and i've always told myself i'd be careful what i say from now on. so maybe this is practice.

i don't know, and i've got to go now. but i'm still troubled. i wish i weren't.

Late night again

i told myself i was gonna do this but i think my brain's gonna give up on me anytime soon.

at any rate today was a good day... i think. FT was awesome, the speaker really spoke to issues i was dealing with and i'm having a struggle with myself all over again. angela also told me some really gd stuff i need to think over about how to be a Christian and an artist at the same time and not compromise either... totally changed my pt of view and i shld really go thank her. think i'll find her email add tmr and send her a msg. but as for the info itself... i need to allocate one day to really sit down and deal with this; i'm thinking tmr wld be a gd day to start but i hope the stuff i have to do doesn't take over everything like it usually does.

so much to do
musical
homework
organising
artsradar
other writing

deardear there is so much to do. it isn't very early now either and i have a 10am class. sleep grace sleep!!!

New year. New blog!

*rereads blog* just realised how LONG ago my last post was... heheh. guess it's time to take this ol' blog out of the dust-pile and shake it up a bit... i wish i knew html tho coz now all i have are the nice boring standard templates... owell at least this one's BLUE *griinz*

well well what shall we make this blog into? actually my purpose for taking this out again is coz i feel kinda bad abt whining and blabbing on everybody else's forum and website except mine. so since i have a blog, might as well use it rite? :)

i have to get a comments page somewhere, and nicer templates. this is gonna take some getting used to. but well at least i can form the impression tt i'm talking to an audience even if i'm not really, see? :P and i can go on and on without tiring all my frens out...

owch i just realised it's like 3.30am. but i'm not sleepy. mum knows why. guess i won't type it here (some things you just don't tell everyone, u know?) but suffice it to say i was quite down, and ended up wasting my time playing online games to cheer myself up. (ok, so maybe that was an excuse. it's such a bad excuse that it proves i was/am perturbed, right? :P) i think it might be coming to that time of the month again, which is why i have to cry.

oh yeah i still need to get used to this crying thing... i mean sometimes i really can't see what i have to cry about you know? i have this wonderful life, wonderful home, family, privileges, talents all, but every now and then i "get the blues" as they say and i really have to cry and so i pick the silliest things in the world (usually) to cry over... it could get embarrassing over time. but now it's just silly. i wonder: does this mean that it's really impossible for a person who hasn't experienced certain kinds of suffering to ever really appreciate life in its full beauty? i mean yeah i know that there are pple dying of hunger and starvation, pple dying of dirt and disease, pple dying of being tired of living and so forth, but i still eat lavish meals (sometimes), still grumble that i don't have a perfect figure (actually this happens only when i go shopping, which is why i dislike shopping. then again it happens when i go swimming too, but i LIKE swimming. hmm. but i digress), and still whine that my life is so boring. boring?!?!?! when i have so many things to do?? but yeah, boring. i dunno.

i just want to write. i just want to sit in a huge library and read books all day, and write all night, and never venture out into the world to get hurt or scorned at or put down or disregarded. or judged. i know everybody says you can't write very much or very good stuff if you don't experience life in its entirety but maybe i can write good one-dimensional books. i don't know. i want to connect with people, but i don't want to connect with people. and sometimes i feel horrible because i feel like i'm only interacting with people coz i want to find out what life is like so that i can write. everything's about writing. i want to write. this is bad.

and this is really really bad considering i shouldn't be letting writing take over my life. passion, fair enough, but i really shouldn't forget my First Love -- God. i know i'm tremendously indebted to Him and He's my Lord and Creator but lately i've been feeling unmovable. i mean, shouldn't i be loving Him and deeply in love with Him all the time? i sing the songs but sometimes i wonder if i mean them like i should, or i'm just doing vocal cord exercise. it's a horrid, horrid feeling: like you want to love someone so, so much and to show that love and really appreciate them but sometimes you just forget and after that you get really really guilty... i hope it doesn't last. i like it when i was a kid, when i knew nothing complicating and all i felt was this deep sense of peace and security coz i knew God would take care of me no matter what. now that i've a mind of my own it keeps interfering and every day becomes instead a struggle, or rather a teetering between what's right and what's wrong... sometimes it's just what's right and what's not-so-right. somebody told me before (i think it was michael) that i was such an uptight person coz i was always balancing on the line btwn good and bad, always afraid of falling, but he (was it a he?) said maybe sometimes it's not bad to fall... you just pick yourself up again. but i don't know what i'm falling into; i don't know if it's a nice soft bed or an endless abyss, a bed of thorns or rippling stream, so i don't dare to fall just in case some unforseeable circumstance denies me the chance to get back up again. i've seen so many of my friends spiral downwards and downwards into muck and mire, and i don't want it to happen anymore please God... i want to save them all but i don't know if they'll want to be saved. i can't reach them with my short weak arms; God, please reach out and hold them! don't just touch them, hold them... and let them know that they are loved, that it's not to late to stop yourself falling, that You will still love them please God...

but sometimes pple kindof like the muck and mire. oh of course they would be happy to be saved, washed and dressed in clean white linen, but while they're in muck and mire they decide to enjoy it while they can; after all, everybody else is in some sortof muck aniwei!! then they wallow, and dig themselves in, and decide it's cooler down there than up there, and besides you have lower to fall... that sorta thing. i guess it's easier to just lie down and wait for someone to save you, than to be up there on the tight wire doing the balancing act.

but the show must go on. and i need to go and sleep sometime soon. i am waking up, what -- 10am? got class at 12. FT in the evening -- really hope to be revived in spirit and ready to do God's work then. so much is at stake here i really can't be slack at this kinds of things u know? talking about slack i am having difficulty accepting what i'm currently reading as part of my quiet time. i never knew it was so hard to be disciplined. i always thought i was a pretty good Christian; well like they say in Chinese "there's always a mountain higher than the next".

ooh brought the couplet home that i purchased frm the USP... it looks nice and my mum is very pleased with it. she wants me to translate; i can barely read out the words! but they are nice words though. things to do with nature -- very pretty.

so much more to say haha. can't imagine why i neglected my blog til now. this is therapeutic, of a sort. now the only debate left is whether or not i actually want to let my friends read this... *hmm on one hand it would be nice to know one is talking to actual PEOPLE out there but on the other hand not everything is addressing to a person sometimes i talk to myself or to God but then again if i have a blog and don't show it to anyone then i'll just go back to the forums coz i need human response and that would just irritate everybody again...* i'll decide tomorrow. this is a way too long blog. but it is MY blog and i'm talkative. haha. i am wondering how this is supposed to help me shut up in real life (looks like it might work the other way instead) but it is too late to think Serious Things and so i think i'll just shuttup, and go to sleep. g'nite world~

tumteetum

2nd day of Friendster and i'm bored already. bleah. :(

in happier news, i have written my first play! and my first screenplay! but you knew tt already. (see THAT's how long i haven't been updating my blog!!! :P)

back to original point: i'm bored of Friendster. i want the holidays to come.

coward the me.

some questions never get answered
some questions never get asked
some questions never get past the brain
and much less past the mask

maybe i should advance
maybe i should retreat
maybe i should just heck it all
and contemplate my feet

~born2Bblue

seeking answers.

Late At Night

it's late at night
(so late that it's morning)
and i'm tired and dead
(but still wide wide awake)
and i'll soon have to wake up
(but i'm not asleep yet)
oh how heavy my head
(my heart's heavier instead)

and i pause, and wonder
why i haven't heard
from you in ages
not one single word

i've tried to say hi
but you always seemed busy
i know you've got work
and i know it's not easy --

but is that it?
that all?
a silence unsaid?
are you sure?
it's the end?
has our friendship gone dead?

i don't know what you're thinking
i don't know how you feel
do you want me to ask you
or would you prefer me to justshutthehellupandgoaway?

~born2Bblue

arghhhh

am upset. cannot find a way to show nustudios peeps the stupid short little video thingy i created without having to create a website specially for it!!! arghhh. upset upset upset. :(