A Whiter Shade of Pale

Well, my week in school has been alright I suppose. I met my salsamates on friday night for Widah's surprise Birthday Late-night dinner. After alot of frustrating planning and attempted organising, we eventually reserved a table at the Station Kitchen's Charcoal grill at the new St James Power Station. I met Widah earlier to walk around Vivocity, but as it got later, we decided to check out all the clubs at St James while waiting for the rest of them to arrive. Unfortunately, it was pouring... Thank goodness for umbrellas. For the first time, I felt compelled to make my umbrella look hip enough for clubs. Haha.

1. Well, we visited Movida first. No salsa music- just boring chill-out Latin Jazz.
2. Next, we popped by TigerLive. Smoky.
3. Bellini Room is filled with well-heeled, older and more sophisticated patrons. There was this live singer on the stage, giving his all.
4. Gallery Bar has nice views!
5. Powerhouse played tame house music which didnt do much to make us feel better in the wet weather. It has no shelter from the main entrance... They should do something about it.
6. Dragonfly- I didnt even step in. The entrance was PACKED, with ah lians, ah bengs and the likes.
7. Boiler Room. Where was that?! So apparently, its just an extension of the TigerLive room. Widah & I checked it out for a short while. The DJ sucked because he kept interrupting the music to talk crap & remind ladies to go on the podium. Just shut up & get a life man... Well, the crowd is still significantly older than MOS patrons. I see middle-aged people trying to let their hair down and dance, but i just get annoyed because they keep bumping into us. Please, if you have a big bag, just deposit it lahhhhh. (grumbles.)

Dinner (my second one that night) at the charcoal grill was pretty alright. I liked the grill concept, plus the ingredients were fresh enough. So that was it, I rushed home to ZZZzz since i had school the next morning.

Saturday was spent in school having my 'Technology & World Change' lesson. I believe I'm starting to like my Italian Prof despite his thick accent and soft speaking voice. He has a subtle sense of humour which tickles me. But i'll only catch it if i strain to listen to him. I had lunch with Tanu, rushed home, passed Marie's Birthday gift to Sam. After which, I rushed to Rafflescity to have dinner with Tracy at Coffeeclub. Dessert was at OUTP, as shown above. Finally, rushing to the Substation to watch the play.

I dont know if i'm being too critical about the following plays, because I was taught to have high standards. On top of that, I am some sort of theatre practitioner myself. Not that I'm a pro or anything, but at least i had some forms of experience from my avant garde teacher/director/mentor/friend Mr Gary Tang. He influenced us to expect more from any artistic productions, which is only fair since we have to be discerning viewers, rather than passive absorbers. I've since moved on from Drama/Role-playing as it's so primary school! (Anyone is capable of that. )

The 1st play was about casual relationships set in a high-schoolish context. This poor boy called Joe (Somebody Asshole) is invisible, used, mocked, ridiculed by his peers. So his confusion turned into dislike, then into hate(which he tried to deny and suppress), until he realised that his long-time crush has morphed into one of "them" too. Sigh, typical high school geek story. Dude, live with it. You will find your own friends eventually. I just thought it was another done to death topic with no new layers or perspective to it. Its basically the retelling of the modern school-boy geek who is socially awkward & EMO.

The 2nd one involved 2 college boys talking about this guy's 1-sided love relationship and his super long wait for the girl's (impossible) phonecall. Its redeeming quality is the humourous presentation of this common situation experienced and faced by many, many people. I liked the lovelorn boy's portrayal as it looked genuine. His friend, Peter seemed entrenched in the clockwork routine of rehearsals. I didnt see Peter's soul in the performance. He always seemed as if he was merely waiting to say his lines.

The 3rd one was about people and their struggle to meet society's expectations of slimness, their struggle with their body image & self esteem. The lines were mostly in poetic verses, which aesthetic quality made it more appealing to me than the first. It was performed via symbolism, metaphors & monologues. Not as refreshing as it could be, but better than some melodrama script.