ego-stroking

I'd intended to crash a couple of Life Sci lectures today but ended up crashing M1 med instead. I had fun. I actually knew what the lecturer was talking about at first, and when he ventured beyond comprehension I decided to draw the LT on a piece of RI foolscap and dedicate it to Uraku, Hongyue's OG. The people in his OG were awfully awfully nice people. Almost makes me want to crash again. (I have no life)

EDIT: I met Larissa in school as well. (THERE. happy? =D)

and then I went home and decided to throw together a medley of all the tunes i'd ever composed:
http://wongkangwen.googlepages.com/medley.mp3
a little ego there yes I know but what good is a guitarist without an ego.

Lari's meme

1. (the person who tagged you is) -Larissa

2. (your relationship with him/her is) - Friend/Band Manager

3. (5 impressions you have of him/her) - outgoing/independent/intelligent/mature/sweet

4. (the most memorable thing he/she has done for you) - taught me how to shop for cologne

5. (the most memorable words he/she has said to you) - "=D" this must be her favourite emoticon. which is great because it's my favourite too!

6. (if he/she becomes your lover, you will) - nah I'll leave jem and her alone (:

7. (if he/she becomes your lover, things he/she has to improve on will be) - ditto. the person who made this meme is very persistent.

8. (if he/she becomes your enemy, you will) - suffer a crushing defeat under her superior debating prowess

9. (if he/she becomes your enemy, the reason will be) - me insulting her height

10. (the most desirable thing you want to do for him/her now is) - tell her a joke

11. (your overall impression of him/her is) - I have so much to learn from her!

12. (how you think people around you will feel about you) - "he's weird"

13. (the characteristic you love about yourself is) - i’m weird

14. (the characteristic you hate about yourself is) - my inertia. sort of like in field camp, when you stand up you don't want to sit down, and when you sit down you don't want to stand up.

15. (the most ideal person you want to be is) - no one really! sort of a cross between all the people I respect and admire..

16. (for people that care and like you, say something to them) - potatoes are an excellent source of carbs

17. (pass this quiz to 10 people that you wish to know how they feel about you)

1. Soon Heng

2. Tovya
3. Charlene
4. Nik
5. En Qi
6. back atcha Larissa
7. JX
8. Wenhui
9. Fenglei
10. Vicky

(who is no.6 having a relationship with?) - jeremy!

(Is no.9 a male or female?) - male

(If no.7 and 10 are together, will it be a good thing?) - oooh great things will happen!

(What is no.2 studying?) - architecture

(When was the last time you had a chat with no.3?) - a while back. I think she's stressed.

(What kind of music does no.8 like?) - a lot of stuff

(Does no.1 has any siblings?) - younger brother

(Will you woo no.3?) - totally. hey charlene! "woooo~"

(How about no.7?) - he's a guy.

(Is no.4 single?) - yah

(What’s the surname of no.5?) - Teo

(What’s the hobby of no.4?) - singing

(Do no.5 and 9 get along well?) - this is a weird meme.

(Where is no.2 studying at?) - this meme is obsessed with what and where no. 2 is studying.

(Say something casual about no.1) - BRUDDER!! :D

(Have you tried developing feelings for no.8?) - uh..she's my sister

(Where does no.9 live?) - sengkang.

(What colour does no.4 like?) - I'm bored

(Are no.5 and 1 best friends?) - maybe I'll go see what's on TV

(Does no.7 like no.2?) - or see if the shoe cupboard needs arranging

(How did you get to know no.2?) - when I joined Mr Pink. by the way, are we still Mr Pink?

(Does no.1 have any pets?) - he benchpresses a baby elephant

(Is no.7 the sexiest person in the world?) - almost

dreams of youth

I hope ah hui doesn't mind me posting these here. or anyone for that matter! anyway here goes:

overheard during duty

after dog has rummaged through trash bags, creating a huge mess

Karthi: How did the dog get in?
Staff Sim: I look like the dog parents meh?

I dunno why but this tickled me to no end!
I did NOT just see MM Lee wear a cartoon lion cap.

Filming weekend day two

I dragged myself out of bed at 6am and reached TPJC at 730. Daniel owes me one, big time.

Today's shoot was going to be in the LT, a scene which involved a Math test during which the teacher would steal glances at Wei Tian. I was really confused about the plot at this point. But anyway, no more impromptu flirting, thank goodness.

More people came today to swell the ranks of the extras. On top of Jonathan, WW, Jacq, Ching Yi, Roslyn and Cai Xiang from yesterday, there were a couple more TPJCians (?) - Justine and Hui Yi, the guys from OSC - Xuan, Jay, Colin and Henry, and a couple of Ah Hui's friends. There was also Karen, this British lady who played the part of the teacher. She remarked that Ah Hui was an outstanding director, very sensitive to detail, gives his actors room to express themselves. I totally agree with the latter.

Being an extra is unglam through and through. A lot of people asked me why I bothered to go, to which I just replied "help friend mah." I think the impossibly nice people here were the peeps from TPJC. I mean, they didn't even know anyone from the cast or crew. And if it wasn't for them, I would have just died/evaporated from boredom.

Evening. I bode farewell to everyone, exchanged Hitler salutes with Daniel for good measure and headed down to Baybeats. Met Tov, had a quick dinner at O'Brien's, and made it down to Esplanade just in time to catch this China band with a North Korean drummer. The music was great, but the "Sank you", "socking to myself" and "you gais ah faaking awsum" kept me from taking them seriously.

Next up was this self-indulgent local band who forgot to tune their guitars. Nothing much by way of music, but the crowd went surprisingly wild this time. The bodysurfers, moshers and exhibitionists all came out of the woodwork. The mosh pit looked particularly tempting, but it wouldn't have been nice to leave Tov behind. The third act was a band with vaguely Muse-eque vocals, which Tov enjoyed a lot. And finally, a pretty decent band from Malaysia/Indonesia with American accents and a Jack Black lookalike for a singer. That was when we decided to call it a night. Turns out that the two bands that I enjoyed weren't local. tragic innit?

It's been a while since a good hard rock band graced this part of the world. I say hard rock because I know metal would be wishful thinking. Sometimes I pass Fort Canning Hill, look up and think of the chaos that once engulfed that place. And how I ventured into the pit and moshed with the best of them in RJ uniform, bag and all. Good times.

Filming Weekend day 1

Having missed Daniel Hui's previous production "The Bracelet", I'd felt obliged to go for this one. Besides, my weekend was turning out to be one huge black hole and Daniel Hui's offer was to me like the prospect of sleep to a lazy koala that had been force-fed a caffeine-rich diet for a week. Okay I'm not too good with similes, but what essentially sealed the deal for me was "Food n drinks provided plus u'll get good karma :-)" So I went.

Picking uniforms wasn't much of a problem for me, but Karthi had to borrow Eugene's trousers. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Ling Min in the filming schedule was indeed Ling Min from 6E! The other principal actor, Marcus, was this Eurasian-looking guy. Eugene hadn't arrived yet.

The first location was a classroom. Karthi and I strolled in and picked two seats all the way behind, all pumped and fired up to be extras. No sooner had I sat, Ah Hui motioned for me to go in front. "Eh Kangwen sit here and flirt with her."

After the initial trauma, I shuffled up front, grinned sheepishly at lingmin and mumbled "This wasn't what I'd bargained for." Basically the scene involved a flirtatious retard trying to get the attention of the female lead (named 'Girl') while the male lead (Wei Tian) steals glances at her. Let's just say I wasn't Wei Tian.

Flirting is a delicate skill which I obviously do not possess, because the next few minutes involved frantic deliberation over how I was to go about it, and how she would respond. This was more or less how it went in the end:

flirt: aiya promos coming again..so sian!
girl: yah lor..and did you see in the canteen there was this countdown thing..
flirt: yah so stressful..they dunno what they're doing" (I later found out that LM wasn't fabricating the countdown thingy, and that I had just taken a jab at the TPJC faculty)
girl: especially my maths..I can't even do simple problems.
flirt: really? hmm....hey I happen to be really good at maths!
girl: yah you're always top in class..will you help me?
flirt: yeah sure! you free after school? we could find an empty LT and do some sums together! girl: okay sure!
flirt: let's do lunch before that..what do you like to eat?
girl: i like japanese!
flirt: what kind of japanese?
girl: sashimi
flirt: ooh I happen to be a really good japanese chef. my dad taught me. why not come over to my house (her idea) and I'll make you some sashimi! It's really quite simple. You just buy some fish and chop it up..

I don't think what we were saying mattered, which was a good thing. But I think they actually recorded the dialogue in the next scene, which involved "big actions" i.e. contact. This surprisingly only required a couple of rehearsals and one take, which we both thought was disgusting, but they took it anyway. Low standards lah ah hui...
(I shan't post the dialogue here because frankly, I'd rather forget it)

What we needed to do next, now that the shooting for that scene was over, was to provide the ambient noise. It's pretty interesting how it's done - shoot the picture, silence on set other than the dialogue, record ambient noise later on and overlay. We had to get into groups, pick a topic and talk about it, thus creating ambient classroom chatter. We were pretty much done with that scene after that.

It was the assistant director Vel, rather than Hui, who did most of the "commands" which I thought the director was supposed to deliver. I found out during lunch that the directors and the crew were all pretty stressed out and sleep deprived. But Ah Hui always looks sleepy, so no difference there.

Apart from a scene where the students are supposed to walk out of the classroom after their lesson, the afternoon was pretty uneventful. But I did get to know my fellow extras better, and found out to my bewilderment that KI - which some of them were doing in place of GP - involved Achilles never being able to catch up with a tortoise with a head start, given that he is only able to half the distance between them. Go figure.

Two pictures (a portrait of Wai Wan and a collab with Jacq) later, I cabbed down to Lido to watch Invisible Target with my sis and Fenglei. Pretty spectacular movie in my book.

Well here I am in office at 6:30am after the worst duty ever. 8 signews, 2 translations, 18 articles and a report to boot. Listening to Cradle of Filth makes it all easier to bear though.

I just received news last night that my computer is now officially FUBAR. I don't think the news has quite sunk in yet, because I haven't as yet had any sort of reaction that justifies the gravity of the situation. It's only a matter of time before that comes though.

In the meantime, I've been trying to keep way out of computerland (besides when I'm at work of course) by means of tuition, outings and more outings. Which is why I was damn grateful when Ah Hui gave me something to do this weekend. I'm going down to TPJC to sit around an be an extra in his film! Yeah it's nothing much but at least it will keep me busy (?!) for one weekend. And then there's Baybeats this weekend as well, which I'm still looking for company to go with.

I don't really know why I'm working so hard to keep my days packed. All of this is distracting me from what I ought to be doing - that is, the UCAS and Melbourne apps.