Never an easy weekend

Friday night:
Band this week was pretty disastrous - attendance wise - but at least we've got a conductor... I managed to sit my entire committee down for the first time and discss the plans going forward.

I feel a little more at ease about the plans now, only that alot of work will be needed to make them happen. If I plan for something, I want it to happen. There are contingencies of course, but I damn well will aim for the original plan.

I'm a bitch to work under. And I'm not even getting paid for this. It's all passion I tell you. My drive is higher. Probably explains why I'm even more pushy. But I've promised myself to make sure to reward each person I've pushed... My form of redemption.

PS: For anyone who cares, Clementi Town Secondary School (CTSS) will be shifting to New Town Secondary School's old premises for 2 years starting Jan'07. In case anyone's interested.
This type of news will definitely hit the alumni band hard. Just when I thought I had things settled, stupid things like this must come up again.

When I left for home, I realised I hadn't had dinner. It was 11pm. Went to the counter to get a meal home. I know that once I got home, I'd be in front of the computer working on band administrative stuff. [A habit I caught from work. Thankfully, it's a good habit.]

Guess what?
"A filet meal, drink change to ice-tea, no upsize. Thanks"
From the left side of my ear were the words: "Hey! Clarice!"

FYI, Clarice is a name I used in Poly and ONLY poly.

This guy was someone I had met while writing for my school paper. I'd lost contact with him a long time back. I like keeping in touch with people, but, I'm sorry, this guy was just not in that list of people.

So happens this guy has been calling me the past couple of weeks but I was always at work, school or something. Plus, I wasn't very interested in picking it up.

And I had to bump into him.

Singapore's sometimes a liiiiiittle too small huh?

I grabbed my food and made my exit quickly. Sure enough, I was in front of the computer for the next hour, munching and typing. I'm a sucker for doing summaries of my own meetings. I feel more in control. People don't understand that minute-takers have a certain power. Like personal assistants/secretaries.

I am having funny ideas about organising this grand event, in view of the school's temporary shifting, for a gathering of alumni from CTSS. Possible? I think it is. I am sure it will be very difficult, but do-able. I wonder... will I be able to pull off such a mega project? Will I have such a chance to try?

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Super long Saturday:
Needless to say, I was still feeling extremely tired from the night before. After breakfast, Ki came over and almost immediately started his gaming.

So engrossed..

He especially liked it when we made Homer Simpson change into only his underwear, which Kiki calls pampers.

A small mess he made outside my room. We finally managed to pull him away from the xbox.

Dearie finally made his way over, and got Bladey along too. The 3 boys sat at the balcony talking while Ki played with the dough my mum prepared.

But it wasn't long before Ki headed into the room and the 3 of them landed up playing with the Xbox again.

They left for LAN gaming at nearby Ginza Plaza. Evon was there waiting for them. I was very reluctant to let Dearie go, but I was still tired, Ki was around, and I had a karaoke competition (preliminary round) that night.

Ki was finally rocked to sleep. I decided to pop in the VCD I was to use later, just to check. Sure enough, as luck would have it, only that 1 track I was supposed to use couldn't play on either VCD player at home.

Panic. I was pretty much prepared for a nap actually. I grabbed my keys, didn't even brush my hair, put sunblock or ANYTHING.. got my purse and left. I was pissed off. In a paid of old shorts and a ready-to-be-a-rag t-shirt, I walked to Clementi central. I didn't get the VCD that I needed. All I needed was that 1 Kit Chan song.

My mum called and said I should go to Popular Bookstore at Jurong East. ARGH. I was EVEN more pissed off. I was ready to doze off anytime and here I am walking around in the heat getting a dumb VCD I know I'll probably not be able to find.

I did make the trip to the CD shop at Jurong East. I asked the shop assistants and they didn't have it. I searched for alternatives and grabbed a VCD with a song I roughly knew on it.

I trudged home. Ready to beat up and cuss at anyone who stood in my way. I opened the VCD, popped it into the VCD player, and was ready to smack it when I realised it wasn't a Karaoke VCD but just the MTV. Trust me, I seldom get pissed off like this, but when I do, it can be quite ridiculous.

But why didn't I rip the VCD into pieces? Because Ki was there. The cute little thing had woken up and gave me a hug and started to climb all over me. I tell you all anger melted when he did that. The unbelievable power of the Ki. Heehee!

Anyway, my mum was getting very kan cheong too. I took out my only other karaoke VCD. A-mei's. It was the only backup. My parents, in a last ditch attempt took a car-ride to some other cd shop, but to no avail. Guess what my mum did that I'd never have done?

My mummy brought the VCD to the community centre and asked the fellas there to play the track there. Amazingly, it worked. I was at home then. I didn't see what happened, but damn, how it is possible I still wonder.

By 7pm, I was registered and had to wait for my turn (2nd last person) to go on stage to sing. 8 out of 17 people would enter the semi-finals. My mum likes me to join these things. So I go. No harm. Hardly any such opportunities once you're outta school anyway. My mum paid $10 for registration, so MUST go. Haha!

The only way I can get returns on "investment" is if I be the top 8 of the total 34 who had signed up. Blech.

While my parents took care of Ki who was running all over the community centre, I was sitting there alone waiting for my turn. Argh. Dearie and Bladey hadn't come yet. Anger was riling up again.

On the flip side, I met a fellow band member there. Pretty girl hor?

Compared to me - my mum snapped this just before I went on. She just snapped. Hahaha! Looking fat and tired here huh?

When it was close to my turn, my parents dragged Ki to the hall and waited for me to go up on stage. He likes to clap.

My dad took a video of me singing on stage, so no photos. I was pretty satisfied with how I sounded. Confident enough to say I'd get through to the next round. First time my dad hear me sing. Heehee!

Right after the last fella sang, I was running around the community centre with Ki. I tell you that running I did there let me sweat enough to lose whatever weight gained from dinner earlier. He loved to run around so much that he didn't want me to stop. Eeks.

My number got called, so I went up on stage as one of the semi-finalists. My band friend got in too!!! Yay! Time to hunt for another karaoke VCD. ARgh. I hate this part. Can never find anything I want. I'm glad I made it through anyway. I'm sure my parents too.

And if you think Saturday night was over for Ki, it wasn't. Guess what he did when he got back?

Look at how he's sitting? Aiyo.

Bladey had the honour of Ki talking and playing with him. He doesn't do that with everyone. Haha!

Ki even let him eat his sweets. I think he particularly liked it when he plonked onto Bladey's tummy. As if it were a cushion. Ki's 13kg. Imagine that weight bouncing on your stomach. HAHAHA!
[Dearie had it worse last week. Ki JUMPED onto his stomach. A few times.]

Ki definitely liked to play with Bladey. Probably because he prefers to play with guys. Like they understand what he wants better, and how to play the game better too.

Dearie wasn't neglected either.

But it wasn't too long before they had to go off again. This time for supper. Blech. I was supposed to bathe and sleep. I think I played with Ki some more, until he was ready for bed.

I had a nice long bath, turned on the aircon, and got ready for bed.

*RING RING*
My mobile went off.

Dearie presented me with a dilemma: An invitation to go karaoke-ing with his gaming friends. My brain started weighing the pros and cons.

The pros won.

I told my mum, changed my clothes and waited for Dearie to pick me up. Yeah. I was exhausted. But the bath helped. I did intend to go karaoke-ing that night. Dearie knew. It was why he asked. Awwwww...

Too bad, it wasn't long before I got pissed off again. Dearie handed me a helmet with no visor and was waaay too loose for me. I had to hold it in place myself. So much for safety huh? Grrrr... the one I usually wear is too small for Bladey so he didn't bring it out but damn, I don't know how Bladey managed to tahan that helmet.

Got there at 1am. Semi-pissed off. 'Cos Dearie usually doesn't like KTV-ing, but I guess he wanted to be there this time because the rest of his World of Warcraft friends were there. Including Evon. That was another draw for me to be there. At least another person I know, and definitely wouldn't mind me gatecrashing.

They had this really huge room. So cool. Plenty of beer around. Dearie and I didn't drink - he, because he rode; me, because I don't like to. Plenty of them were quite high. It was a long time since I'd been around such a bunch. Very fun people of ages 20 to 30+. About 12-15 of them? I can't remember.

I didn't mingle. I was too tired to do that. I just wanted to listen to people sing, and have a go at it myself. Just a couple of songs would do. There was this guy who could sing and rap Jay CHou's songs. Now THAT was amazing. I sapped up every moment he had the mic with Jay's songs.

I was all ready to go home at 4am. But they were going for supper. One of the guys puked in the room. THe youngest one. Haha! So funny and disgusting. A very fun loving bunch of fellas. Great to hang out with for laughs. Dearie and bladey didn't seem to mingle around very much but I think they just enjoy being there. I understand that. I was like that too. Haha! Fun lahz.

Went to some ulu ulu corner and had supper. I just had a drink. By the time we left it was probably nearly 6am. I was notably exhausted. Evon had left at 5 I think. She was on morning shift at 7:30am. Poor thing.

Dearie sent me home. My parents were already up. I changed into my pyjamas. Fell onto the bed. I was oblivious to the world once my head hit the pillow.

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Sunday:
Incredible. Undisturbed sleep till nearly 3pm. First time I woke up so late I think. Wow.

I was zombified, but functioning normally. It didn't seem like long before my parents wanted to head out for an early dinner. I got dragged along to Chinatown to look for VCDs at the same time.

Chinatown was more like a mini-m'sia town to me. Well, ok, maybe mainly 1 shop. I was nice clothes I could wear. The type I'd probably find in KL for cheaper, but my mum and I didn't want to hold up my dad from dinner so we left after browsing.

Walked around to search for the VCD after dinner but no luck. As expected. I thought we were heading home, but my dad drove to IMM to try some more. They really want me to sing well. Haha!

Anyway, still no luck at IMM so we decided to just head home and perhaps try Carrefour one of these days.

I'm looking for Na Ying's "AI SHANG NI DENG YU AI SHANG JI MO". Anyone have the karaoke VCD/DVD?

It was CSI night as usual. Dearie missed half the 9pm episode. But at least we caught the other 2 episodes together, and bits of Coupling which is another British comedy, and Wildboyz on MTV.

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Tomorrow's Ice Age 2 movie night.

Dearie just reminded me how he once asked me to join him and his friends for the 1st movie. Back then I was always busy part-timing and didn't go with them. I can't remember which year it was already. Back then, we were probably only starting to get to know each other better.

Memories.

Now Dearie is still so sweet. In his own kind of funny way.

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It was a very very very long weekend. It wasn't easy. But I made it through alive.
Live life to the max.
People like to say that.. but do they really?

I think I am. :O)