Yes! I had a very merry Christmas weekend in church this week. For the past two weeks some of us in choir (including myself, who were chosen by our I\Cs to be in this fun thingy) were practising for busking (singing Christmas carols) for the Christmas weekend. We had two sets of carols to memorise within 4 practices, which was quite a challenge to some of us who were not that musically inclined. We were told that a few of us would be singing for all 9 slots. And so we practised and practised and practised....
Saturday, 24th December came. Christmas EVE!!! We were very excited as well as nervous as we would be singing to HUGE crowds and did not know the exact locations of Expo that we would be singing... First, we sang at Attributes. That was a good try, but not a good place to carol as the members would be rushing in for the Christmas Service and not many people would stop to listen to us...
The second place was at Foyer 3, which is the area with the food and drink stalls. We were well received there, considering the fact that we sang a different set of songs for the first time for the second slot. The third slot was at Foyer 2, in the air con foyer. That was also quite well received but the sound was too echoy, so we were asked to sing at foyer 3 again for the last slot of the day.
Finally, CHRISTMAS IS HERE!!! On Sunday, we had to report at 8.30am at Expo. Me, for once, had to crucify my flesh to sleep longer and wake up to bathe, change, make up and prepare to go from Jurong all the way to Expo when I had only about 3 hours of sleep. For the first timeslot of the day, we sang at Foyer 3, but was stopped after singing 3 songs due to unforeseen circumstances. Since then, we had to act upon instructions after we gathered at the allocated times and place, which is in Hall 6, where the Christmas Carnival was. As there were changes to the timings, I was not able to sing for one of the new timeslots as I was attending service and had brought a new friend to join us. After service, I rushed to join the rest for the last second timeslot of the day. Before our performance, there was another ministry which is performing in the same hall. That ministry was.... (Drum roll....) Strikeforce! This ministry is the only one of its own kind and I am a pending member in it (Pastoral & CGL approval is needed before a member is officially in the ministry.) Anyway, we went to support and enjoyed the performances thoroughly.
The last timeslot was at 4pm, we gave our best shot and received fabulous feedback from choirs members who were amongst the crowd. After that one of my caroling mate and I went to play the rides. It was quite exciting but not much kick (for me...) I was thinking of going for the ride which spins while you are standing in a circle. When I saw the speed that it was spinning, I was like, "Wow! That thing sure spins very fast!" After the ride, I saw people coming down with jelly feet and I thought, "hmmm, I think I'll skip this one because its too scary..."
In the evening, I met my member, Carmen, for dinner at Outrum Park and went to have a walk round Chinatown. Then we went home, sleeping on the bus... Zzzzz
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
Fun + Tiring Weekend
What a tiring but fun weekend I had! Especially on Sunday whereby I had to rush to at least 5 places in a single day...
Let's start with Friday evening. After work that day, I went for my outside choir chalet at Changi. Its a two-storey bungalow with 1 master bedroom downstairs and 2 bedrooms on the second floor. On the first night, only me, Xu Yi, Shize, Shiwei, Shijing, Jianhao, Shuhui and Kai Kun stayed over. Edwin, our ex-member, arrived at 1am and played with us. The rest arrived one by one the next day.
We didn't sleep a wink on the first night. All of us except Xu Yi were playing mahjong all night. [ Wait a second, you think playing mahjong must be played with chips or cash don't you? Well, in our case, we had two categories: with chips/cash or with our snacks food as chips (no money involved).]
After our overnight mahjong session, we went for breakfast at 7am. Shize treated us to the meal as he had won quite a sum of money during the mahjong session. After breakfast, we went to catch our beauty sleep for 4 hours. We woke up at 12.30pm and went for lunch.
Aftyer lunch, we rested for a while and some of them went back to play mahjong while the rest of us played games like improvised version of Ping Pong (no tables involved, we used the floor as tables), skipping and hula hoops.
In th evening, before the BBQ starts, we played the indoor version of Food Chain, translated as Shi Zi Lu Kou in Chinese. This means we do not need to look for the food and finish them but we just list out the food names on Chinese with the last word of the last dish and the first word of the next dish as the same word.
The next game was using straws and paper clips to build the tallest and firmest structure. this structure must be able to stand for at least 5 seconds. In the end, both teams lost as both could not stand firmly onto the table for 5 seconds. Then we went for the BBQ.
During the BBQ, we talked about everything under the sun (decent stuff of course!) like Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings, our choir practices, etc. We had lots of fun chatting and getting to know one another better. After that, we played Guess-Who-Am-I game whereby a person will try to imitate a person or and object and the rest gotta guess who opr what he or she is is trying to imitate. As Shize has a flair of acting and clowning around, he came up with most of the riddles and none of us could guess some of them as they were too 'chim'. After washing up, we went to sleep one by one.
The next day, which is Sunday, I woke up super early (much earlier than I usually do on a Sunday) and got ready to got church at Expo. After service, I and some other church choir members rushed to catch our shuttle bus back to Jurong premises for Chinese Church. After we sang for Chinese Church, we went for lunch.
After lunch, I went back home to put my heavy stuff and took a cab to Tiny Box Music School (opened by Li Fei Hui, one of the local xingyao singers ) it was a talent conpetition organized by NUS. There were various categories like Singing and Emcee, I joined the Solo Singing category. I was given quite positive comments from the judges but I don't think I am in. After taht, I went to People Association (PA) for my first Strikeforce practice. there was a welcome performance for us, the piece of music which they had played in Osaka earlier this year. Then Bro Tan Boon gave us an intro of the ministry and laid down some expectations for the members. This practice was a 'trial' for us new members as the official entry had to be approved by Pastor and cell group leader.
At 8.30pm we were released and we went home. On the way home, I saw one of my ex-cell group members, Zhiwen and I realised taht he joined Strikeforce too. WE chatted till i had to alight from the train as my parents were at Outram Park MRT station to send me back home.
When I reached home, I immediately went to dreamland after I showered...
Let's start with Friday evening. After work that day, I went for my outside choir chalet at Changi. Its a two-storey bungalow with 1 master bedroom downstairs and 2 bedrooms on the second floor. On the first night, only me, Xu Yi, Shize, Shiwei, Shijing, Jianhao, Shuhui and Kai Kun stayed over. Edwin, our ex-member, arrived at 1am and played with us. The rest arrived one by one the next day.
We didn't sleep a wink on the first night. All of us except Xu Yi were playing mahjong all night. [ Wait a second, you think playing mahjong must be played with chips or cash don't you? Well, in our case, we had two categories: with chips/cash or with our snacks food as chips (no money involved).]
After our overnight mahjong session, we went for breakfast at 7am. Shize treated us to the meal as he had won quite a sum of money during the mahjong session. After breakfast, we went to catch our beauty sleep for 4 hours. We woke up at 12.30pm and went for lunch.
Aftyer lunch, we rested for a while and some of them went back to play mahjong while the rest of us played games like improvised version of Ping Pong (no tables involved, we used the floor as tables), skipping and hula hoops.
In th evening, before the BBQ starts, we played the indoor version of Food Chain, translated as Shi Zi Lu Kou in Chinese. This means we do not need to look for the food and finish them but we just list out the food names on Chinese with the last word of the last dish and the first word of the next dish as the same word.
The next game was using straws and paper clips to build the tallest and firmest structure. this structure must be able to stand for at least 5 seconds. In the end, both teams lost as both could not stand firmly onto the table for 5 seconds. Then we went for the BBQ.
During the BBQ, we talked about everything under the sun (decent stuff of course!) like Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings, our choir practices, etc. We had lots of fun chatting and getting to know one another better. After that, we played Guess-Who-Am-I game whereby a person will try to imitate a person or and object and the rest gotta guess who opr what he or she is is trying to imitate. As Shize has a flair of acting and clowning around, he came up with most of the riddles and none of us could guess some of them as they were too 'chim'. After washing up, we went to sleep one by one.
The next day, which is Sunday, I woke up super early (much earlier than I usually do on a Sunday) and got ready to got church at Expo. After service, I and some other church choir members rushed to catch our shuttle bus back to Jurong premises for Chinese Church. After we sang for Chinese Church, we went for lunch.
After lunch, I went back home to put my heavy stuff and took a cab to Tiny Box Music School (opened by Li Fei Hui, one of the local xingyao singers ) it was a talent conpetition organized by NUS. There were various categories like Singing and Emcee, I joined the Solo Singing category. I was given quite positive comments from the judges but I don't think I am in. After taht, I went to People Association (PA) for my first Strikeforce practice. there was a welcome performance for us, the piece of music which they had played in Osaka earlier this year. Then Bro Tan Boon gave us an intro of the ministry and laid down some expectations for the members. This practice was a 'trial' for us new members as the official entry had to be approved by Pastor and cell group leader.
At 8.30pm we were released and we went home. On the way home, I saw one of my ex-cell group members, Zhiwen and I realised taht he joined Strikeforce too. WE chatted till i had to alight from the train as my parents were at Outram Park MRT station to send me back home.
When I reached home, I immediately went to dreamland after I showered...
Monday, December 05, 2005
Moving House & House Warming
This morning my Operations Manager came in with a piece of paper in his hand. He gathered the people and announced that there would be a little "house moving" and "house warming" for majority of us. In the end, all of us except me and the people in the Marketing Department had to move from our current table to another table for "feng shui" sake : courtesy of my Managing Director. (Personally I don't believe in this as I am a Christian, but because he do, we'll have to follow his instructions.) As there are less than 10 people (excluding the Marketing Dept) in the office, we'll have to shift the currently unused computers onto the floor. The best part is, my supervisor used thinner to clean her table, which is causing protests among the office people due to the pungent smell.
Everybody whose place had been changed decided to do the shifting today, including my Operations Manager. Their thinking was "get it done and over with", so they are shifting to their "new" tables now...
Everybody whose place had been changed decided to do the shifting today, including my Operations Manager. Their thinking was "get it done and over with", so they are shifting to their "new" tables now...
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