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8/8/2007, 881 and other numbers
The day before Singapore's National Day (her Independence Day), Jason collected his Singapore Permanent Resident Identity Card. It is blue. (Mine, for a Singapore citizen, is a pink card. It also happens to work out as far as our color tastes and genders, I suppose...) Meanwhile, while he was out getting his card and doing bank stuff with IC in hand, I was out doing a tour (solo) with a local school, who had arranged mass day trips for half its students the day before National Day. There must have been over 15 tour buses involved, each carrying over 40 students. It was like a military operation. We had our orders, schedules, gathering points at appointed hours, and etc.
Some minor hitches, but overall , all went well, especially considering the scorching weather and the tight schedule. The class I got was great, and had very capable and helpful teachers. I couldn't have asked for more. I kept fawning over them, I think. The day went by too fast, was in fact cut short unexpectedly, and so I didn't get to tell them the best war stories, which I'd promised them earlier in the day. Thwarted!!! I dare say we all were disappointed. And the students were such a good audience, too. I might get a massive ego from this job.
After that, had a sore throat and minor headache again, but they went away quickly enough. Must have been the high I also got from the whole thing.
On National Day, my parents and I went to watch Royston Tan's 881, that was made out in the movie trailers to be comedic. Which it was. And brilliantly done. CG effects and corny laser weapons even managed to fit in the obiang kitsch-iness of kung-fu-esque face-off scenes. But in the end, none of the trailers or reviews had prepared the audience for the heart that was present here, and done so subtly, with lines so carefully restrained (as opposed to overwrought), that just the tiniest gestures during the quieter scenes were drawing out buckets of tears.
I enjoyed the movie more than the National Day Parade. Not that the parade was bad, but the pacing was spotty (haha, I'm critting it like a movie), and the emcees had some really silly-sounding lines to say. But the military displays were kinda impressive, and I have to give kudos to the way that water, the bay, the bridges and the floating stage were utilized for the show. (I had to wonder if the Coliseum in Rome, which apparently was capable of being deliberately flooded for the staging of mock naval battles saw this kind of technical display. Things were transferring from water to "land", land to water again with nice smoothness.) I didn't like some of the chapters of the show that were such head-scratchers that paragraphs of gibberish had to be spouted to explain them... I'm not unintelligent, thank you, I just think that certain items couldn't make, or didn't have a clear point. Jason also got to understand why I said our parades have a lot of snark potential. There is something Disney-esque about them, if you go for that kinda thing.
And lastly: Dear Singaporean content gatekeepers, I'm sorry if some of you have been scarred by post-modernism, but obscurity of message != Art.
Woo! It's the weekend!
Some minor hitches, but overall , all went well, especially considering the scorching weather and the tight schedule. The class I got was great, and had very capable and helpful teachers. I couldn't have asked for more. I kept fawning over them, I think. The day went by too fast, was in fact cut short unexpectedly, and so I didn't get to tell them the best war stories, which I'd promised them earlier in the day. Thwarted!!! I dare say we all were disappointed. And the students were such a good audience, too. I might get a massive ego from this job.
After that, had a sore throat and minor headache again, but they went away quickly enough. Must have been the high I also got from the whole thing.
On National Day, my parents and I went to watch Royston Tan's 881, that was made out in the movie trailers to be comedic. Which it was. And brilliantly done. CG effects and corny laser weapons even managed to fit in the obiang kitsch-iness of kung-fu-esque face-off scenes. But in the end, none of the trailers or reviews had prepared the audience for the heart that was present here, and done so subtly, with lines so carefully restrained (as opposed to overwrought), that just the tiniest gestures during the quieter scenes were drawing out buckets of tears.
I enjoyed the movie more than the National Day Parade. Not that the parade was bad, but the pacing was spotty (haha, I'm critting it like a movie), and the emcees had some really silly-sounding lines to say. But the military displays were kinda impressive, and I have to give kudos to the way that water, the bay, the bridges and the floating stage were utilized for the show. (I had to wonder if the Coliseum in Rome, which apparently was capable of being deliberately flooded for the staging of mock naval battles saw this kind of technical display. Things were transferring from water to "land", land to water again with nice smoothness.) I didn't like some of the chapters of the show that were such head-scratchers that paragraphs of gibberish had to be spouted to explain them... I'm not unintelligent, thank you, I just think that certain items couldn't make, or didn't have a clear point. Jason also got to understand why I said our parades have a lot of snark potential. There is something Disney-esque about them, if you go for that kinda thing.
And lastly: Dear Singaporean content gatekeepers, I'm sorry if some of you have been scarred by post-modernism, but obscurity of message != Art.
Woo! It's the weekend!
