Tuesday, September 25, 2007 . 7:00 PM
Okaaaay....The past few days have been rather interesting....I managed to get a small temporary job with Eureka Campaign Consultants as a stagehand/mascot on Saturday and Sunday.The events were about Mid Autumn Festival celebrations and I picked Saturday's location at Gek Poh Shopping Centre near Boon Lay MRT. One and a half hour bus ride from my house. Typically, I Zzzzz-ed all the way there and reported for work at 4pm sharp. The event coordinator was a young chap who was pretty friendly. It was a small event with a puny stage so there was only the coordinator, DJ, Emcee and myself there to operate the whole thing till 9pm. By the way, Gek Poh Shopping Centre has a lot of balls calling itself a shopping center. The building was about as big as a small Community Centre, with a pathetic ground floor with outlets selling cheapo slippers, a hair salon and a maid agency. Don't even get me started on the second floor.
It was pretty fun and interesting being a stage hand. Moving all the equipment and handing out the occasional prize was all very educational for me since I've always wanted to work in staged events.
So, all went well until the last 30 mins where I was made to put on a thick, fat, smelly, fat-suit mascot costume and paraded around for half an hour entertaining the simple minded aunties, grandmas and kids. I walked around the whole shopping centre sweating like I was being cooked alive in an oven. My face was literally wet with drops of sweat getting into my eyes and the heat was freakishly impossible to describe.
When my torture was finally allowed to end, and the Emcee helped me get the suit off, he was like "WHOA!!!". I was dripping with sweat everywhere. I now understood why the coordinator gave me a company t-shirt to wear before starting work.
Sunday was slightly better as I had picked Dawson Place Shopping Center (another pathetic place) at Queenstown MRT. The event was indoors in the air con so it wasn't that bad this time. Everything went okay until I had to put on a different mascot costume. This time, the costume reeked of sweat smell from the last person to wear it. I was staring at my coordinator in horror and all she could do was give me a sympathetic smile.
My second parade wasn't helped by the fact that this costume design was poor and it the head didn't fit the body so the chin strap inside the head was choking me the whole time. I grimaced as I duly performed by job to the best of my ability and tried not to yell at the kids who saw me as a cute, walking punching bag.
I didn't sweat as much this time though. Probably because of being in the air con. Thank God.
Anyway, a man's got to do what a man's got to do: Earn $100 to grab that $150 Linkin Park ticket.
Summer school's started for me since Monday. I'm retaking my Engineering Maths and so far its been pretty good. By far the best lecturer I've had.
Gotta go for dinner now...but before I forget to mention: During the two days of events, they had hired two La Selle student singers from China for each day. And both days one of the two singers were pretty/hot. Didn't look like China girls at all until they spoke to me with their freakish accent. I don't have to tell you how I responded.
(Bryant squeaks out some Chinese sounding words which probably didn't make sense at all.)
Monday, September 17, 2007 . 12:33 PM
Helloooooooooo people!! Long time no post because I haven't found the time for it. 12 days to be exact.London was soooooooooo cool...totally relaxing to just walk around in my jeans, shirt and slippers. Tempereature was around 16 - 20 degrees Celcius so it was like walking around in air con. Wooooo!! The British people are the friendliest in the world. I even stalked this girl going to work. LOL. She didn't even turn around to scold me.
Didn't do much there other than visit those typical tourist places. Buckingham Palace, Princess Diana's Palace, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, The London Eye. The rest of the time I was just wandering around, exploring the city. I arrived Friday night so I couldn't do much other than sleep.
Saturday morning was great, went to their local supermarket Sainsbury's (like a billion times better than our dumb NTUC) and bought some stuff for Sunday's breakfast. After that, me and my dad went to this Ladbrokes opposite the hotel to place some bets on the England - Israel match. Visited those tourist spots until around 1pm when we took the Underground to Wembley Park Station. The stadium was pretty empty at 2pm because kick off was at 5pm. We slowly walked towards the stadium and stopping at those road side sellers. Sold those stuff like England caps, shirts, scarfs and stuff. Reached the stadium and collected our tickets. 50 pounds each by the way, which is around S$150. The gates doesn't open until 3pm so we went to a nearby cafe, bought drinks and read newspaper.
On the outside, Wembley looked impressive already. But on the inside, it was amazing. I had to take 5 flights of escalators up to reach my seat. FIVE!!! At Kallang all we did was take a few steps and there we were. I reached our seat entrance and when I came out onto the stands, my jaw dropped. We were so high up and the place was HUGE. Massive. Enormous. The stadium was only 1/4 full as it was still early.
So dum di dum, we waited, I took photos and just marveled at the place, comparing it to Kallang. Lol. Anyway, about 20 mins before kick off, I had to pee and when I came back, the England team was just coming out to do their warm up and as I emerged from the seat entrancec, the stadium was almost full and there was huge roar for the England team. Everyone was standing up and cheering and clapping and screaming. I got back to my seat and couldn't believe my eyes. I was looking at Steven Gerrard, John Terry, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Rio Ferdinand, Michael Owen, Joe Cole with my own eyes. For once, I was not looking at them through some black box. This was real. The players were real and not some character from Fifa 2007.
I'm not going through whole match because all I can say is that that was the best moment of my life so far. Words cannot describe that experience.
So, Sunday was pretty quiet too; saw some English girls on their way to the clubs, wandered through city again, bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Halllows for only 9 pounds (S$27). And also bought some presents for my great friends. Miss them so much.
Didn't want to leave the hotel when Monday morning came. But all in all, I had to.
On Wednesday night Sam told me there was a Linkin Park concert coming up and I went nuts. How could I not know that? Anyway, one more week, and that ticket will be in my hands. Muhahahahaha....
Gotta go kill some people with my M4A1 now...Happy Holidays to all Poly students!!
Wednesday, September 5, 2007 . 8:25 PM
Helloooooooo people!!! Its been a long time since my last post. Basically had a lot of things to do:
Friday (With Sam & Kar Ho):
- Visited BHSS on Teacher's Day
- Went crazy over Heroes cast at Vivo
- Lost $14 to the smallest glass of cocktail ever
- Checked out the price of one season of Friends
- Bought back two packs of Heeren Wanton Mee
Saturday:
- Accompanied Grandfather to Raffles Hospital for eye surgery
- Dragged me and Hanafie's asses to Commonwealth only to find out that his Gigabyte GeForce 9750 GTX was perfectly fine
- Dragged our asses BACK to Boon Keng to stuff our faces with McSpicys and once and for all fix that stupid problem with this computer
- Eventually fixed the problem and spent the rest of the day playing CS and DOTA
- Had a heart to heart over-the-phone talk with Lee Hua about his problems
Sunday:
- Gamed the whole day
- Watched the Man U - Sunderland match (1 - 0). Goodbye Solsjkaer (20), Welcome back Saha (9).
Monday:
- Gamed the whole day
- Finished up Friends Season 3 and started on Season 4
Today:
- Gamed the whole day
- Came up with a rough plan for my London trip, and started packing!!
Anyway, quick summary here. I was kinda disappointed with what happened at Vivo with the Heroes cast. I was expecting at least an autograph session or something but after standing there for 2 hours (they were an hour late) they finally arrived only to say "hi" and entertain us with some beatboxing before leaving after 10 mins. I was really sad. In fact, even sadder for Sam & Kar Ho. I mean, they won a pair of tickets!! And we all thought it was a meet and greet or at least an autograph session!! Sam was all excited and dressed up but in the end all they got was front row gawking. The only interesting thing was the goodie bag they received with shirts, a Heroes comic book, posters and a notebook. Sigh...and a couple of days later I was watching Channel 5 (the only channel I watch) and I saw a Heroes trailer. I wanted to laugh because Star World has shown all of Season 1 already and Mediacorp is so slow and sad. Hahahhaha...I watched the whole season even before Star World finished it. *wink*
I have to go now...its the end of Season 4 of Friends and Ross is about to marry Emily in England. Rachael is going to realise that she still has strong feelings for Ross and she's going to fly there to try and stop the wedding. Soooooo sweet...*sobs*...I know whats going to happen since this is like the third time I'm watching Season 1 - 10 but I still laugh at the jokes, comedy and cry at the sad, sweet parts.
