Right in the middle of the exam period and I receive a call from a friend from act3. He says his violinist hunt didn't go too well and asked me to play the cello for Chandran's proposal to Amy.
In the spirit of conspiracy I agreed, upon which I had to sneak to the office with my cello early in the morning (on the day I was supposed to be studying) before anyone came, to see what pieces I should play. And I realised that the proposal was elaborately planned to the finickiest detail, from the date (full moon), to the exact spot/ bench at Botanic Gardens, to the lighting (tealights and more candles, to the 12 roses and scattered rose petals, with escape plans (we had a choice between camouflaging ourselves in the foliage or running (cello and case and stool and all) to a far away gate to hide).
It was, in short, like staging a play, the stage being the spot where Chandran would be proposing, with us the backstage crew scurrying around manipulating the lights, music and videocam.
So today was the big day, and the moon which was hidden behind clouds cooperated and wiped the smudges off its face. It all happened really fast, and Bobo provided the cues for change of music while I was trying to prevent my cello from slipping, and trying to distract myself from the black ants that kept biting me (mosquito repellent doesn't work!). And it was really embarrassing to be playing by a road! It was quiet no doubt but there were still quite a few cabs and cars driving by, the occasional jogging couple, and flocks of families coming out from Halia Restaurant who stopped and stared.
(It was after that I realised that they even timed the cello to start playing only when the jazz band took their break between sets...)
It happened so fast it was quite like a hit and run accident. It was only later on the cab back to the act3 office that Chandran messaged us to say that Amy said yes, upon which we exploded with euphoria. (I don't know what would have happened if Amy said no though.) But when we watched the video of the whole thing at the office, although we couldn't see their faces, we heard Amy's laugh, the part where she said yes to The Question, and how she kept repeating the word "perfect". And after that she cried, or at least we think, because we saw her wiping her eyes. This was before she spotted the camera's red light.
"Is that a camera?"
And we saw her pointing at the lens. Hmph. Then the fun was gone because, well, actresses act in front of a camera. Okay maybe we weren't supposed to be voyeurs in the first place but Bobo decided it was too good to miss being caught on camera. But when Chandran brought the candle near her face (so that we could see her expression), the lighting in the shot was so good she looked even better than she did in the 8 Days article stuck in front of Chandran's office space.
So rarely do men go through so much trouble. It was totally crazy, but undeniably fun. Then Bobo popped the question,
"So when is it going to be your turn?"
Haha.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
"I can save the world"
Drifted like a dark cloud through social work tutorial today and then realised that I'm not as irritated by stupidity or insensitivity as I am with idealism.
We were drawing ecomaps depicting a family's social relationships and discussing potential interventions, and it was faintly amusing to see how everyone referred the family to the FSC for everything, from tuition services to psychiatric help to financial aid etc like the FSCs are a petrol kiosk i.e one-stop shop for all your needs. I suppose it is true to a certain extent, but to have people put so much faith in what social workers can do, and to have classmates who are so fired up with the fervent zeal to connect the client with this or that service can be rather unnerving at times. I suppose they mean well, and perhaps they do really believe in the extent of help that social workers can provide (and I do believe that social workers do help a lot and in many ways), but they make it sound as if they can solve the world's problems on a piece of paper. Not too unlike GP essays.
And the ideas of empowering clients through choices? Choices can be crippling because of the immense responsibility it places on an individual should you make the wrong choice.
We talked about suicide prevention in tutorial and what came up most was the word 'Hope'.
"we should give them hope in life so that they can continue living"
As if hope in life can be so easily imbued in someone. And this is assuming that all of the social workers possess hope and want to live in the first place, doesn't it?
Two semesters into university and I cannot find any trace of the social worker in myself. I lack the necessary optimism, the idealism that translates into motivation for action, perhaps also the desire to help, especially when you see that all help, be it physical or emotional, only serves to prolong a person's pain. Because to live is to die, and to live longer means to have yourself eaten away slowly from the inside.
"Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Isa step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone, and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them,
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them." - T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
We were drawing ecomaps depicting a family's social relationships and discussing potential interventions, and it was faintly amusing to see how everyone referred the family to the FSC for everything, from tuition services to psychiatric help to financial aid etc like the FSCs are a petrol kiosk i.e one-stop shop for all your needs. I suppose it is true to a certain extent, but to have people put so much faith in what social workers can do, and to have classmates who are so fired up with the fervent zeal to connect the client with this or that service can be rather unnerving at times. I suppose they mean well, and perhaps they do really believe in the extent of help that social workers can provide (and I do believe that social workers do help a lot and in many ways), but they make it sound as if they can solve the world's problems on a piece of paper. Not too unlike GP essays.
And the ideas of empowering clients through choices? Choices can be crippling because of the immense responsibility it places on an individual should you make the wrong choice.
We talked about suicide prevention in tutorial and what came up most was the word 'Hope'.
"we should give them hope in life so that they can continue living"
As if hope in life can be so easily imbued in someone. And this is assuming that all of the social workers possess hope and want to live in the first place, doesn't it?
Two semesters into university and I cannot find any trace of the social worker in myself. I lack the necessary optimism, the idealism that translates into motivation for action, perhaps also the desire to help, especially when you see that all help, be it physical or emotional, only serves to prolong a person's pain. Because to live is to die, and to live longer means to have yourself eaten away slowly from the inside.
"Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Isa step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone, and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them,
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them." - T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Friday, April 01, 2005
crawling through mud
Some recent epiphanies: You get as much as you want to get out of university. Ok maybe I'm just saying it to comfort myself over the amount of work I have to do, be it the social work video presentation or the preparation for the theatre practical exam, but I've come to realise that the best thing about being in NUS is that it allows for so much flexibility as to the amount of work you want to put in.
Take for example, my social work project - we were given the option of choosing to do a video presentation/role play/ powerpoint presentation. My group decided to do a video presentation which ostensibly is the most insane task given the amount of effort that has to be put in, as opposed to a powerpoint presentation, and being the natural slacker that I am, tried to persuade them to change their minds. However, it ended up that I was swamped with work, from writing the script to acting to editing the video and coordinating the slides etc.together with another girl, in a group of 7.(probably they resented my slackness..just kidding...)
Initially it was really frustrating, especially since filming took 3 days and editing took another 4 days (4 hrs each) of sitting in front of a huge computer screen watching all the takes and retakes, cutting the video, (laughing at the NGs), adding the voiceovers, filtering the noise, adding the transitions, timing each slide to coordinate with the voiceovers etc. Basically a painstaking process after which you come out feeling extremely retentive.
But yesterday when we finally exported the video into a VCD, it was such a satisfying moment, kinda like giving birth I imagine, to see something through from scratch all the way to the final product, knowing that at every stage you had a hand in making it what it is now. On the other hand one can say that it's really narcissitic because "Wow it's all about MY artistic sensibility" etc but I really think there is no way a narcissist will consent to crawling through the mud and doing all the dirty work...There's too much at stake for his/her image. Unless of course, the narcissist is a sadist.
And I think I am learning so much more this semester, not only because I learnt how to operate a medium sized video camera, how to use adobe premiere etc, but also how to really enjoy working (myself to death), and seeing really how much more there is to learn of life, of people, of God who constantly amazes especially when we least expect it.
Another case in point: yesterday's masterclass by the Australian String Quartet as part of the Singapore Chamber Music Festival. It really exceeded our expectations, not just because we haven't been playing with each other for very long, but we never expected it to sound like we were having fun, especially when we were still struggling with tuning during the rehearsal and trying to get our tone correct. But the tutors were really nice, (we got the cellist and 2nd violinist). I almost died when I knew the cellist was going to be coaching because normally the coaches will focus more on the people playing their instrument, but it went well and he actually demonstrated on my cello which really helped!
Actually we thought we wouldn't manage to get into the concert tonight (which is basically the showcase of selected chamber groups from the masterclasses), because the other groups had 'connections' (eg the organiser was an ACS student and his son was playing) but surprisingly it turned out that it was the ASQ who was doing the selection so we got in amazingly! What was even more surprising was that after the masterclass, Leslie (the T'ang Quartet cellist) passed his name card to Judy (our adhoc coach) and offered to coach us for free! It was really surreal. The T'ang quartet has a really dynamic coaching style - I watched their masterclass last year.
And so what I meant to say was, as much as I went in and played with Zech3:4 in mind, I came out of it experiencing Jeremiah 33:3. Totally unexpected, totally unbelievable. Totally awesome God is.
Take for example, my social work project - we were given the option of choosing to do a video presentation/role play/ powerpoint presentation. My group decided to do a video presentation which ostensibly is the most insane task given the amount of effort that has to be put in, as opposed to a powerpoint presentation, and being the natural slacker that I am, tried to persuade them to change their minds. However, it ended up that I was swamped with work, from writing the script to acting to editing the video and coordinating the slides etc.together with another girl, in a group of 7.(probably they resented my slackness..just kidding...)
Initially it was really frustrating, especially since filming took 3 days and editing took another 4 days (4 hrs each) of sitting in front of a huge computer screen watching all the takes and retakes, cutting the video, (laughing at the NGs), adding the voiceovers, filtering the noise, adding the transitions, timing each slide to coordinate with the voiceovers etc. Basically a painstaking process after which you come out feeling extremely retentive.
But yesterday when we finally exported the video into a VCD, it was such a satisfying moment, kinda like giving birth I imagine, to see something through from scratch all the way to the final product, knowing that at every stage you had a hand in making it what it is now. On the other hand one can say that it's really narcissitic because "Wow it's all about MY artistic sensibility" etc but I really think there is no way a narcissist will consent to crawling through the mud and doing all the dirty work...There's too much at stake for his/her image. Unless of course, the narcissist is a sadist.
And I think I am learning so much more this semester, not only because I learnt how to operate a medium sized video camera, how to use adobe premiere etc, but also how to really enjoy working (myself to death), and seeing really how much more there is to learn of life, of people, of God who constantly amazes especially when we least expect it.
Another case in point: yesterday's masterclass by the Australian String Quartet as part of the Singapore Chamber Music Festival. It really exceeded our expectations, not just because we haven't been playing with each other for very long, but we never expected it to sound like we were having fun, especially when we were still struggling with tuning during the rehearsal and trying to get our tone correct. But the tutors were really nice, (we got the cellist and 2nd violinist). I almost died when I knew the cellist was going to be coaching because normally the coaches will focus more on the people playing their instrument, but it went well and he actually demonstrated on my cello which really helped!
Actually we thought we wouldn't manage to get into the concert tonight (which is basically the showcase of selected chamber groups from the masterclasses), because the other groups had 'connections' (eg the organiser was an ACS student and his son was playing) but surprisingly it turned out that it was the ASQ who was doing the selection so we got in amazingly! What was even more surprising was that after the masterclass, Leslie (the T'ang Quartet cellist) passed his name card to Judy (our adhoc coach) and offered to coach us for free! It was really surreal. The T'ang quartet has a really dynamic coaching style - I watched their masterclass last year.
And so what I meant to say was, as much as I went in and played with Zech3:4 in mind, I came out of it experiencing Jeremiah 33:3. Totally unexpected, totally unbelievable. Totally awesome God is.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)