Perfect Timing
Yay! It's Christmas Eve!
The past few days have been a bit crazy. And I'm so glad that my sis agreed to let me car-sit while she's out of town. Strangely, since the ComfortDelgro fee hike, I've not taken any of them last week. Somehow, those that came my way were not.
Monday - flagged down a Silver Cab though I was hoping to get on the bluey to see exactly how much more I need to pay if I cab to school in the morning.
Tuesday - managed to skip a couple of cabs and got hold of a TIBS. Not in the mood for discovery.
Wednesday - I was in the blue mood again, but what did I get? Prime Cab - the orangey brown one that looks like a SUV. My first time on this cab, I think. You don't find many such cabs on the road.
My sis came to fetch me in school on Wednesday late morning and we drove to the airport to drop her and the twins before my 'job assignment' began. Since then I've been cruising half the island in her MPV...but mainly in the east lah.
So Wednesday, we had our office BBQ at Pasir Ris Park in the evening. So the car came in handy to fulfill social obligation (as someone once put it) and to move some items to the venue. Quite a bit of good food. We even made our own pizza over the grill, thanks to our OBS-trained colleague, Terence. The short spurt of rain was of no deterrence to us. God was gracious enough to spare us from getting drenched and we were able to carry on with our fun-filled adventure.
Thursday was a public holiday. Went Church for rehearsal in the morning for Sunday's Praise & Worship. Couldn't do it on the usual Saturday evening due to Christmas @ Katong event. After which I picked mom up from home to go to Mui's house for hair trim, a drove-out dinner and simply to chill. Played a bit of SIMS2 with my nephew, Keith. Stayed over that night.
Next morning (Friday), I gave sis a lift to TP (usually it's the other way round). Woohoo! Cheap thrill of the day, haha! Late afternoon, a recce trip to the Christmas @ Katong stage with a few students before my next 'thrill' - a drive to Singapore Conference Hall for St Patrick's School Alumni Band Concert. SCH leh. CBD area eh. Heavy rain leh. Haha...thank God I got there and home in one piece without missing any turns.
Saturday - helped to man stall at Christmas @ Katong. My zone rented a stall and those who were available took turns. Cornerstone Choir had the first performance at around 8.30pm. Then a few of us accompanied Pst Rupert for dinner at Hua Li Xuan. I miss him as our Music Director. We were ministering together even before he became a Pastor. It was so awkward at first to start calling him Pst Rupert. But for the sake of those who didn't know our history, the change was necessary. Now I'm so used to it that I can't bring myself to address him by his first name. Strange. It's like one of my students who kept calling me "Ma'am". One day he called me by my name and my ears twitched a little.
The tiredness that accumulated till Saturday overflowed to Sunday. I snoozed my phone alarm a couple of times when I just couldn't bring myself to get out of bed at 5.45am. Gotta be in Church in an hour. I'm glad I kinda got my barang barang ready the night before cos I 'keh kiang' go and turn off the alarm and dozed off. Soooo dangerous! Thank God I woke up at about 6.10am. Was a bit late. This cannot happen again. No wonder I spoofed a little when singing for offering item in the first service. Second service was better cos Chin Sin conducted us, otherwise I think I should be blacklisted.
So it was a super long and eventful day conducting my Choir team and sing for offering at both services, went back to school to open the studio for band practice before they set off to Cornerstone in truck and buses, get them settled, get them on stage, sing with the Choir before sending everyone and everything back to school again.
A big thanks to the band members for coming back to school on a Sunday during their short vacation and sticking around till late at night. I'm so amazed that so many of them could squeeze into the tiny stage of 20 by 12 feet. The percussions and trombone sections were downstage, fighting for space with the stalls and crowd. Yet they managed. I'm thankful that even Mr Tan didn't complain about the tiny space left for him to conduct. I salute their ability to adapt to the situation and came through to complete this assignment and did it well. That says a lot and I don't take it for granted. Not forgetting Phyo from Visual Central, who was faithfully and quietly snapping away so that our efforts could be recorded and brought out as evidence. I'm really pleased.
As for the performance, I think the band did pretty well. Maybe I'm just biased because they are my students and I just feel so proud of them when they play as a band. But...I really think they played well leh. The organisers were smiling, the audience were all ears and entertained. Mr Tan was right. There is no reason why they should sound bad if everyone play his/her own part.
2 interesting things happened that were unplanned but they happened in perfect timing.
The first was the coming in of the floats. The plan was that when they were approaching, the band would be signalled to stop playing for the emcees to announce their arrival. But at the point, the music that the band was playing seemed so appropriate that the coordinator just let the band carry on playing. It was like the music was timed to usher in the floats and send off the VIPs with a bang. Both myself and the programme coordinator just looked at each other with dropped jaws.
The second thing was the using of the gong for the closing ceremony. Everything we brought there were put to good use. Even though godson decided not to bring out the gong due to space constraint, it made its appearance because the programme coordinator needed to borrow it for the closing ceremony. The Guest of Honour, MP Mr Chan Soo Sen and the Chairperson of Cornerstone Community Service, Mrs Daphne Yang, both struck the gong just in time for us to quickly bring it down from the stage to the truck. That was not in the plan when I worked out the logistic schedule.
Many other little things worked out well even though they caused a bit of concern at first (e.g. the flooding afternoon rain, which could have caused a logistic nightmare, stopped at crucial time. Thank you, Abba!).
I hope the students realise that they played a good part in making the programme. It may be a casual setting, but the VIPs were by no means of low profile. If it had been an event organised by SAA, an MP appearance would mean the presence of Directors, Deputy Principals and PCEO himself. Oh, you can imagine all the hoo-haas happening behind the scene. So...this performance is an opportunity that's more than meets the eye. I believe that if they could see beyond yourself, they would be able to see and appreciate this, too. Having said this, what's more significant is that they contributed to bring the spirit of Christmas to the community at Katong and Joo Chiat. God bless you all!
The past few days have been a bit crazy. And I'm so glad that my sis agreed to let me car-sit while she's out of town. Strangely, since the ComfortDelgro fee hike, I've not taken any of them last week. Somehow, those that came my way were not.
Monday - flagged down a Silver Cab though I was hoping to get on the bluey to see exactly how much more I need to pay if I cab to school in the morning.
Tuesday - managed to skip a couple of cabs and got hold of a TIBS. Not in the mood for discovery.
Wednesday - I was in the blue mood again, but what did I get? Prime Cab - the orangey brown one that looks like a SUV. My first time on this cab, I think. You don't find many such cabs on the road.
My sis came to fetch me in school on Wednesday late morning and we drove to the airport to drop her and the twins before my 'job assignment' began. Since then I've been cruising half the island in her MPV...but mainly in the east lah.
So Wednesday, we had our office BBQ at Pasir Ris Park in the evening. So the car came in handy to fulfill social obligation (as someone once put it) and to move some items to the venue. Quite a bit of good food. We even made our own pizza over the grill, thanks to our OBS-trained colleague, Terence. The short spurt of rain was of no deterrence to us. God was gracious enough to spare us from getting drenched and we were able to carry on with our fun-filled adventure.
Thursday was a public holiday. Went Church for rehearsal in the morning for Sunday's Praise & Worship. Couldn't do it on the usual Saturday evening due to Christmas @ Katong event. After which I picked mom up from home to go to Mui's house for hair trim, a drove-out dinner and simply to chill. Played a bit of SIMS2 with my nephew, Keith. Stayed over that night.
Next morning (Friday), I gave sis a lift to TP (usually it's the other way round). Woohoo! Cheap thrill of the day, haha! Late afternoon, a recce trip to the Christmas @ Katong stage with a few students before my next 'thrill' - a drive to Singapore Conference Hall for St Patrick's School Alumni Band Concert. SCH leh. CBD area eh. Heavy rain leh. Haha...thank God I got there and home in one piece without missing any turns.
Saturday - helped to man stall at Christmas @ Katong. My zone rented a stall and those who were available took turns. Cornerstone Choir had the first performance at around 8.30pm. Then a few of us accompanied Pst Rupert for dinner at Hua Li Xuan. I miss him as our Music Director. We were ministering together even before he became a Pastor. It was so awkward at first to start calling him Pst Rupert. But for the sake of those who didn't know our history, the change was necessary. Now I'm so used to it that I can't bring myself to address him by his first name. Strange. It's like one of my students who kept calling me "Ma'am". One day he called me by my name and my ears twitched a little.
The tiredness that accumulated till Saturday overflowed to Sunday. I snoozed my phone alarm a couple of times when I just couldn't bring myself to get out of bed at 5.45am. Gotta be in Church in an hour. I'm glad I kinda got my barang barang ready the night before cos I 'keh kiang' go and turn off the alarm and dozed off. Soooo dangerous! Thank God I woke up at about 6.10am. Was a bit late. This cannot happen again. No wonder I spoofed a little when singing for offering item in the first service. Second service was better cos Chin Sin conducted us, otherwise I think I should be blacklisted.
So it was a super long and eventful day conducting my Choir team and sing for offering at both services, went back to school to open the studio for band practice before they set off to Cornerstone in truck and buses, get them settled, get them on stage, sing with the Choir before sending everyone and everything back to school again.
A big thanks to the band members for coming back to school on a Sunday during their short vacation and sticking around till late at night. I'm so amazed that so many of them could squeeze into the tiny stage of 20 by 12 feet. The percussions and trombone sections were downstage, fighting for space with the stalls and crowd. Yet they managed. I'm thankful that even Mr Tan didn't complain about the tiny space left for him to conduct. I salute their ability to adapt to the situation and came through to complete this assignment and did it well. That says a lot and I don't take it for granted. Not forgetting Phyo from Visual Central, who was faithfully and quietly snapping away so that our efforts could be recorded and brought out as evidence. I'm really pleased.
As for the performance, I think the band did pretty well. Maybe I'm just biased because they are my students and I just feel so proud of them when they play as a band. But...I really think they played well leh. The organisers were smiling, the audience were all ears and entertained. Mr Tan was right. There is no reason why they should sound bad if everyone play his/her own part.
2 interesting things happened that were unplanned but they happened in perfect timing.
The first was the coming in of the floats. The plan was that when they were approaching, the band would be signalled to stop playing for the emcees to announce their arrival. But at the point, the music that the band was playing seemed so appropriate that the coordinator just let the band carry on playing. It was like the music was timed to usher in the floats and send off the VIPs with a bang. Both myself and the programme coordinator just looked at each other with dropped jaws.
The second thing was the using of the gong for the closing ceremony. Everything we brought there were put to good use. Even though godson decided not to bring out the gong due to space constraint, it made its appearance because the programme coordinator needed to borrow it for the closing ceremony. The Guest of Honour, MP Mr Chan Soo Sen and the Chairperson of Cornerstone Community Service, Mrs Daphne Yang, both struck the gong just in time for us to quickly bring it down from the stage to the truck. That was not in the plan when I worked out the logistic schedule.
Many other little things worked out well even though they caused a bit of concern at first (e.g. the flooding afternoon rain, which could have caused a logistic nightmare, stopped at crucial time. Thank you, Abba!).
I hope the students realise that they played a good part in making the programme. It may be a casual setting, but the VIPs were by no means of low profile. If it had been an event organised by SAA, an MP appearance would mean the presence of Directors, Deputy Principals and PCEO himself. Oh, you can imagine all the hoo-haas happening behind the scene. So...this performance is an opportunity that's more than meets the eye. I believe that if they could see beyond yourself, they would be able to see and appreciate this, too. Having said this, what's more significant is that they contributed to bring the spirit of Christmas to the community at Katong and Joo Chiat. God bless you all!
