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Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Yeah, got my laptop back.... now back in action with blogging! Have many many things to blog... last year's stuff, this year's stuff.... wow what should I begin with...? Christmas 2004 Christmas was erm... 2 weeks ago. But so many things happened. So many things and so many people moved me during the festive season. Caroling was as usual... an annual routine for me, but every year's caroling is different. It was different for both hall choir caroling and chorale. For hall choir and acappella, we carolled in Orchard Hotel for 5 days... It was an experience with its merits and demerits. It was good that we got a more established place to carol compared to the previous year and they paid us good money, really... It was a better place than the ulu grand plaza park royal because the crowd, as in, the public was better, more appreciative of our caroling. There wasn't really enough time to practise for caroling during the holidays... everything was so rushed, but thank goodness we were okay enough to satisfy the hotel management. Orchard hotel has really excellent christmas decorations... they were excellent to me... In the lobby, they had this huge gingerbread house with a gingerbread, candy and chocolate shop in it, and there's this excellent toy train display which was supposed to be the most conspicuous thing in the hotel lobby, supposed to be the primary highlight of the hotel. Cool~. Initially caroling was a bad start because we had trouble with the management as to which is the most desirable position for the choir and acappella group to stand. First, they placed us in a very unconspicuous position which was under the low ceiling and behind the gingerbread house. It made me wonder whether the hotel staff knew anything about caroling or not... seriously it doesn't make sense to pay us so much and then hide us in one corner of the lobby where perhaps our singing could not be heard as clearly due to constraints and poor acoustics of that position. It made me thought about whether the problem lies with the place, or the singers (say... don't expect too much from hall choir and acappella). For aca, we actually sang without mics, so it was really soft unless you stood near us... we sounded good, but not loud enough. Ok.... the second day was the same... until... one of the managers requested that we stand on the second storey, meaning, the balcony instead of the main lobby. Well, the balcony faces the main lobby entrance, so he might be thinking that the projection of sound may be better. But.... Screw the idea man... it's really a stupid idea to pay us so much and then hide us in a corner which was even more insignificant. Really... i think he doesn't understand the meaning of caroling, which pissed me off, cos' I can't stand it when the hotel managers insist on lousy decisions like this when they seem to know nothing about the meaning of caroling. Standing on the second storey to sing.. made caroling meaningless. Caroling isn't just about singing, and producing christmas music, it's also about a live performance where the singers make a connection with the crowd, the audience, where through live performance, the crowd can feel a sense of warmth and christmas spirit from the singers, it's more exciting when you can connect with the crowd through your music... yeah... if not what's the point of caroling, might as well just play a christmas cd or whatever. But none of the managers seem to understand this. Ok well... so i was pissed. I wasn't there everyday but eunice and josephine managed to get the choir down at the lobby entrance on the third day and so on.... Aca caroling was cancelled cos' it's stupid to sing like this without mics... since the hotel does not have enough mics to provide. Ok, so in the end, we shifted down to the lobby entrance... right at the entrance, right next to the toy train display, so much more striking and it was good overall. Am satisfied with the standard of caroling.... Glad to have known the choir and aca peeps a lil' better, especially eleanor, zhiqian, delphia, gladys.... blahblah... Oh and we had cute towels as x'mas presents. Yippeee. Glad to have known the chorale peeps better too. Ok we went to grand hyatt and sheraton. It was superb. It was the usual- not much practice, because we know our carols well, and we just sang and wowed the crowd. Did a lot of walking in grand hyatt. Instead of the usual half an hour session at one venue, the lobby, we walked around the hotel, changed our venues ten minutes after ten minutes... The restaurants had really great food great buffet!!! argh... but only for the rich people. We sang in a few restaurants and we had to squeeze together to sing... cos' of disgusting space constraints. All in all, the x'mas spirit was there and it was quite fun. Sheraton towers wasn't as good a place to sing in... both hotels look grand, classy and posh... cool~ but nothing can beat caroling in ritz carlton. Christmas eve was quite a bad night for me... cos' after caroling... orchard road was soooo jammed, sooo packed, it was sooo hard to locate eddie, supposed to meet him after caroling. So hard to make my way around orchard, so irritating to walk along orchard road too... really, those crazy people in orchard road armed with bottles of foam, having fun spraying and pranking each other and on strangers somemore. It made me so pissed because i was an innocent victim of all the spraying... There were a few times i wished i had scolded them, or shouted at them cos' i was angry... pissed... the orchard road crowd was really inconsiderate... and this dampened the christmas spirit. Nvm whatever.... Ok the last christmassy stuff i did was the celebration in church. Ok, i didn't do much for this cos' too occupied with other things. But my church friends were so enthusiastic (they had to be rite) that they made me enthusiastic somehow... hmm... I have to say that it was a success because a few people were saved that night and also... I think it was one of the most exceptional and successful christmas thing we did so far in church. The video clip was refreshing!!! well done... if only we had better equipment i think... But what touched me most in the end was the whole-hearted effort of the youths, the excitement and enthusiasm in them, and their heart for the church, their heart for the Lord. =) Almost everything that night reminded me of the last cmb concert... the amount of effort, the number of rehearsals. It was like seeing another cmb comm in church.... organisation... especially the lightsticks which reminded me of the lightsticks we used in the last cmb concert in march, same concept, the goodie bags which reminded me of our intensive marketing for huge goodie bags, the video too.. reminded me of our short smg clip... it was.. like a mini-cmb in church, smaller-scale... Deja Vu moment... but of course different motives. Anyway, the sense of familiarity was there. For one, I was part of the organising committee, and for the other I'm the performer on stage, and now... I'm chairing the comm.. Hmm. During christmas, I thought a lot about the real meaning of christmas, especially since the theme in church was to get people to seriously contemplate the true meaning of christmas... Really, without Christ, there'll be no christmas... for the christmassy ideas of giving and sharing, of love, joy and peace, of spreading the cheer... all stem from Christ the Lord. God gave his son to us cos' he loves us... and so the idea of giving and love... so thats why people give x'mas presents to each to other... as an epitome of the greatest present which God gave us- his Son. Joy and peace because of the good news that Christ the King has come to Earth... Even Santa Claus is created from the idea of giving. Hmmm... Now... i suddenly miss X'mas... maybe because I was so busy i didn't really have the time to just relax and enjoy the x'mas spirit. _______________________________ It was after x'mas that i realised i have so many things undone... so many things which i have to urgently attend to. So when i say i feel stressed... i think i'm crazy. Other people must be thinking i'm crazy since it's holidays... what's there to be stressed about... yeah. Major position of authority I am in... it really takes a lot of effort and sacrifice to get things going, to organise things... I hope that I won't lose my love and my passion for doing things when I get really really busy... New year eve was spent in church and then we stayed over. Ok did something different this time during new year's eve... it was good to stay around with church youths.. considering they're the bunch of people i talk to the least. _______________________________ I have to say that I'm always in my 'thinking' mode. Friends always tell me to think less... because maybe somethings aren't really worth my thinking-so-much, since nothing really concrete comes out of it or that nothing is really resolved. I pray that in this new year... I'll learn to become a more understanding person towards my friends, my family, especially to people who mean a lot to me. I pray that I'll be more understanding towards my parents (since we don't spend a lot of time together), and that I'll be more understanding towards jf too. Seriously, it's not easy to be understanding... meaning to really empathize and see and feel things from another person's point of view. Only with more understanding, more compassion. In return, I hope I'll be understood as well... that at times I have to fulfill my duties, my responsibilities because I must and am obliged to. It's not that i don't think of you people, but i have no choice but to sacrifice that free time i have in order to get things done. After all... it'll only be for some time.. definitely not permanent. Sometimes I wonder whether the general feeling is still unhappiness, that nothing much is done and achieved. If this is the truth, then I'll be so upset... I don't know what to do. I only hope that through mutuality and understanding that everything will work out well. Sometimes I think I'm so silly... but it's silly me again rite. It's because I'm weak that's why emotions get me down so much sometimes... Ok sigh... getting into the sad-thinking mode again. What can really remove my worries? It's to know that everything will be fine... and that everything is fine and everyday is a happy day for you and me. Now it's really full steam for CMB events.... and still in the process of charging for more academic work. CMB rocks~! Posted at 3:15 AM |
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