The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian

After Montage 2008 and dinner and harbourfront's foodcourt.
Eugene, Fifi, Gerald and I were thinking that it was too early to go home.
We decided to walk over to Vivocity to check out what movie was available.
Just nice, the timing for Narnia was starting soon.
We decided that we'll catch it.

I've never watched the first Narnia movie so I don't really know the story behind it.
But kind Gerald summarised the first movie into a short 5min understanding.

Bad news was that the person who sold us the tickets screwed up the movie timing and we ended up getting tickets for the later show.
It was first row seats.
Luckily, the staff at the entrance were quick enough to get us into going-to-start-soon timing, which is what we asked for.
And from the first row, we changed to the last row.
Yipee.

The movie was rather crappy.
It's like a combination of LOTR and Harry Potter (the guys said that there was Shrek too).
The flying bird like creature which lookes like those in Harry Potter and the moving trees in LOTR?!?!?!
3 blind mice in Shrek which are no longer blind here?!?!?
hahah
Of course there were funny moments.

The movie was 145min long and it ended past midnight.
Luckily I rented car that weekend.
Sent Fifi back to his house at CCK and drove myself back home.

Aslan's roar,
Peiyan

Montage 2008: Tension

Once again, the annual Montage is back again.
This year NUSPS celebrates her 10th Montage with the theme TENSION.
With this special occasion, the 39th MC decided to bring Montage nearer to home and held it at UCC instead of Suntec.
I took charged of the ticketing, aka the ticketing officer.
Things weren't as smooth as it seems as the current committee worked with UCC.
UCC had many don'ts which created many obstacles ahead for the committee right up to the day before the BIG day.

But I must say that this year's montage turnout was better than last years.
The alumni, though I think they were hibernating somewhere, were here to gather too.
And for the first time, the NUSPS big family took a group photo together.

It was rather sad to see the nicely done up exhibition area being torn down after a day of showcase.

(photos by Nicholas)

The NUSPS big family (alumni, seniors, current committee and support team).

Past montage posters (7 out of 10).

Happy 10th anniversary to Montage,
Peiyan

Grinder-Man Workshop 2

I'm back at the workshop again the next day,
With pain throughout my body.
My neck hurts, by back hurts, legs hurt too.
Everyone in the theatre studio was asking if you got any pain.
Later on, Maki would say that it's normal to have pain since we just started learning it.

As usual, we started with warm-ups.
After that, my legs did not hurt that much bcos it was used to the movements.
But my back still hurt a little.
After warm-up, we did the stretching thing again and then walk/run around the room.
The ultimate aim was that there is no one telling us when to change or stop.
Someone has to give initiate the command to the group.
It doesn't matter if you hit someone, it is unavoidable.

The next activity we had was to mentally think of 2 people in the room and try to form an equilateral triangle (triangle with all side of the same length).
And once you get it, you are suppose to jump and shout "yay".
The objective is to get everyone to stop.
Quite a fun game.

Then we did the free air painting,
And the worm in the body activity.
It is a free expression activity which after some time I hated it cos I ran out of ideas.
The worm in the body is to think that there is a worm moving around your body and controlling which ever part it moves to.
The aim of it is to let the worm control your movements and not your mind controlling the worm to control your body parts.

After that, we did the no communications group work.
In groups of 4 or 5, we have to stand in a line as a group and move across the room without any communications.
Someone has to start the movements.

And later, we played the continuous freeze pose game with the black boxes.

The instructors, Hitoshi and Maki

No communications

Continuous freeze pose with black box

Great news, at the end of the workshop, we are told that everyone is selected for the rehearsals and performance.
Yippee!!!!
My very first performance at the Singapore Arts Festival.
Do look out for Ginder-Man.
I'll email all my friends to tell them about it.
hehehe

More pain to come,
Peiyan

P.s. There is no time for me to take pictures during the workshop so the photos in the entries are taken by esplanade staff and they uploaded them on the Grinder-Man group in Facebook.

Grinder-Man Workshop 1

I went for my first workshop at Esplanade.
The workshop was a prep course for one of the Singapore Arts Festival's performance.
The group conducting the workshop is Grinder-Man.
They are from Japan.
The instructors are Hitoshi and Maki and our wonderful interpreter, Pauline.
Details about them can be found here (but everything is in japanese).

The workshop isn't about dance nor music.
It's about free expressions.
Though the basic skills are taught, the way of expression, such as freeze pose, is up to individuals.
Everyone was very stiff at the beginning of the workshop.
We started off with warm-ups and simple works to soften our joints and muscles.
Then we tried to stretch ourselves as if there is some rope pulling us up and another pull down, and then quickly tug in to make ourselves as small as possible.
It was a swift action.
After that, we did the same stretching thing again but this time, we had to freeze pose and then drop to the floor (like a dead person falling to the ground).
It was quite painful intitally.

We did many things during the 4 hour session.
One of which was to learn how to walk.
We had to find a partner and using our fingers, press on the tail bone (somewhere just above the butt hole), and push your parnter to maker him/her walk forward.
And finally, we played with the black box, which everyone was waiting for.

A quick view of the workshop with the box (from facebook group album).

I had a big bruise on my left knee and my back is hurting badly by the end of the workshop.

Ouch~
Peiyan

Should I have taken it up at first?

Was it a wise choice for me to volunteer myself to be the ticketing officer for Montage?
I never foresee myself to end up so unhappy doing it.
I getting tired of this.
Very tried.
No one has been able to understand my feelings.
No one has been able to understand my thoughts.
Why can't most of the things flow as I wanted them to be?

I feel that I'm a shit worker doing ticketing,
Selling tickets to don't know what kind of event.
I don't feel like a ticketing officer.
I don't feel part of Montage.

I'm not a wonder woman.
I don't have magical powers.
I cannot create miracles.
Things don't come out with a snap of my fingers.

You say that I'm given the space to have my plans running.
Since when was I given the chance to sit down and discuss about my plans?
You tell me that the committee wants to do this this this for ticketing,
I said NO.
You never asked for my opinion,
And threw at me the whole lot why it's better to follow what the committee wants.
What kind of ticketing officer does the committee treat me as?

I was not asked to attend meetings.
I'm fine with that.
But the least could be done was to update me on any progress I needed to take note of.
Not the other way round.
I don't know what was discussed during meetings,
I don't know how far the progress has gone.
I'm very sure that ticketing was never on the agenda list.
Because no one borders to ask me to update them.

I took the initiative to post the progress occassionally.
No one showed concerned about it.
And people can still come and ask me about the progress after that.
What does my post mean to the committee.
I'm not posting for fun.
Nor to boast how much work I've done.

I had to verbally asked how many helpers they got for Montage.
They told me 3.
Wow...
What can you do with 3 helpers?
There are more models than helpers.
Luckily I asked.

I told one of the committee members that I intend to resign from my post of a Ticketing Officer.
And I thought it could just be a one-one sharing of how I felt.
Eventually I managed to tell myself to carry on for Montage and not for the committee.

What exactly is my role in Montage?
I don't know.
The view is so hazy...