okay... *ahem* Let me first make it clear that I'm not the princess... I am a trespasser on a mission! The princess has proven to be a tad too lazy to blog about one of the bestest days in history.. so I shall cut and paste my own entry here instead. haha. [Disclaimer: Be warned- the blogging style will be very very different]

-squirrel

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yay~ Now I shall blog about one of the greatest days in my life. 26th May - La Risonanza 2!

[*nostalgia* Time just passes so quickly... As cliched as it sounds, it seems like just yesterday that we held our very first choir concert.. and now the second one is over.]

Woke up at 7.45am... just in time to watch American Idol!! haha... oh gosh.. what a lovely start to such a great day.. I almost refused to get out of my house.. but boy am I glad that I did. Went to Parkway's Macdonalds for breakfast with Zaidah, Irene and Grace.... after which we then went shopping! You know, I wonder just how many people there are that actually go shopping on the morning of their concert. Which is why we rock. Anyway, only Grace did the buying... and she's a gorgeous girl.. =) So she looked great in everything she bought... being typical girls, we got so caught up with shopping that we only left Parkway at 12pm.. and we were supposed to meet at 12.30!! Wahaha. So we took a cab and arrived at VCH in total comfort. Oh, and get this, we actually arrived at the very same time as the other alumni people and the juniors! *smug*

Upon reaching VCH, we reunited ourselves with the juniors... OOH. and the little solo-singing mafia bunny of mine had the audacity to pinch the 10 bucks that Zaidah was giving to me. Got it back in the end though.. haah. I have such fun [and very naughty!!] juniors. Anyway, we ancient ones settled ourselves in the audience seats while the choir got ready on-stage to practise their abba musical. haha... I love the actions.. and I love the song, so I was totally having a great time. Ohh! We took photos too... in the seats... and everything was going fine and dandy-

Until Zaidah, Irene and I got recruited to protect the food. Which was absolutely baffling, I must admit. Why the food, you ask... well, being the nice, kind seniors that we are, we agreed and so proceeded to the lift lobby.. and discovered to our bemusement that all the packets of food had been opened and were laid out under the fans. It didn't seem very logical to me.. and I'm still wondering about that now. Although I do believe there was some crytic explanation about how the curry in the food would spoil if it was left covered or something like that. And I tell you... I was practically starving by this time.. since I had an earlier breakfast than the other two girls... and there before lay practically a hundred, fragrant and tantalizing packets of food.

[Playing on repeat mode- Greed is a deadly sin, Greed is a deadly sin....]

Anyway, the three of us promptly settled down on our bar stools and indulged in some idle chit chat. Ahh... we congratulated ourselves on landing such an easy task.. ha! Protect the food indeed... the food could jolly well look after itself--- wait. What's that little brown thing hopping at the corner... to our horror, we discovered that it was a fat little greedy sparrow on a mission to poach food! The audacity of the bird!! So I rushed towards the bird in a heroic bid to shoo it away. It flew sweetly to the top of a nearby pillar where it regarded us thoughtfully with a cock of its head.

After that, the three of us warily moved our table over to the corner where the bird had made its attack and kept a sharp look-out for the avarice-ridden avian. Of course, moments after we deserted the spot we had been sitting at, the sparrow dived down at the packets just inches away from it. This time, Irene played the heroine.. although I found it rather unjust that she only had to rise slightly from her seat to chase the bird away... whereas I had to practically leap onto the sparrow before it deemed to make its exit. Bloody bird... fancy taking advantage of a squirrel! Anyway, we got momentarily distracted by the chiming of piano keys from the closed door at the other end of the lobby.. so we got up for a snoop-around. It would have been a little spooky had it been at night.. but it was a bright and sunny afternoon... and we saw this caucasian guy tinkling with the piano keys. I had the hardest time detecting him, so we spent quite a bit of time peeping and prying in front of the door... and we turned back just in time to see Mr Yong appear out of the lift. Ahh... he caught us in mid-snoop.. that was a little embarassing.. but thankfully, his attention flew straight to the opened packets of food and he was like, "huh? How come you all put the food like that?" And we went, "we wouldn't know either..." hee.. close call.

After a few more scuffles with the sparrows, we were relieved by nelson and some other junior... bk i think... so we proceeded back to the concert hall where we spent a pleasant few minutes watching the choir practise their steps for the musical. Mr Kwei was rather mean though! He kept poking fun at some junior's actions... though, I must admit, the way he did it was rather funny though. Opps.. feel so mean... anyway, I can't really remember what happened after that... oh yes. We decided to go out to catch a quick dinner.. [after our little session of protecting the food, we didn't quite feel up to eating the packed dinner] Before we left, we decided to leave our sutff in one of the girls' dressing rooms.. so we dumped our stuff on the floor and set off in search of food.

We enjoyed a rather sinful meal at KFC and discussed American Idol.. yay~ My current favourite topic! But I was quite sad to find out that Carrie had won instead of Bo.. I mean, yes, I do love Carrie... but I somehow loved Bo more. haha. Still.. oh well, I guess she does deserve it. Anyway, it got rather cold, so we decided to leave... after walking around a bit at Funan, we proceeded back to VCH. OOhh... and we stopped for photos on the way! Darn, I so wish I had brought my camera. Anyway, there was this really cool "I WAS HERE" sculpture thingy outside the building opposite the concert hall.. so we decided to take some shots there.. we were making our way happily over.. Zaidah was even suggesting that one of us climb up onto one of the letters when suddenly-

"DON'T STEP ON THE GRASS!!!"

The obvious culprit was Zaidah.. who got a total shock and quickly retracted her foot. hhaaa... it's really kinda hilarious on hindsight.. after that, we imitated the paranoid grass-loving guard and kept reminding each other, "Don't step on the grass ah!!" Hmm... oh yes, a really nice indian security guard offered to be our photographer.. aww.. how sweet. Yay.. we've got cool shots... and after that, we got so psyched that we began to act like tourists.. and took a couple more photos.. hee.. so fun. I do find it funny though.. that I actually have more photos of other countries than I do of my own country... I must remedy that!! Oh yes, we spotted a hippo bus and got all excited about capturing it in the background.... when we discovered that the camera was off. So the bus whizzed past. *sadness*

We finally returned... and proceeded backstage to collect our stuff... Zaidah had to go to the ladies, so Irene and I opened the door to the dressing room and discovered to our shock that all the gowns, make-up and other stuff had disappeared!! And in their stead hung a suit jacket. A male suit jacket.

Mr Kwei's suit jacket.

The both of us were like... aaahhh shit!!! Our things were in the conducter's dressing room!!! So we quickly gathered everything and hysterically rushed out to the sofa where we burst out laughing. And at that precise moment, Mr Kwei appeared, smiled at us and entered his dressing room. MAN. Talk about a close call.. if he had arrived a few seconds earlier, he would have found us in there. Not a very pleasant thought. But a very funny one. Zaidah was absolutely horrified when she received the news and nearly threw a fit when she failed to see her paper bag which was strategically placed behind the sofa. haha!! Such craziness... I love it!!

And there was much more of that to come. ^^ yay~

hmmm... what happened after that... oh yes! We proceeded to the toilets on the first level to get into our gowns and make up.... urgh. The gown looked absolutely horrible on me... anyway, I got changed in record time and was congratulating myself on my effieciency. Then I heard Grace's disembodied voice coming out from one of the cubicles complaining about the stockings... and then I remembered- Oh heck. I had forgotten to put on the stockings. Oh, the girls had great fun in laughing at me. Stupid stockings... they look awful and feel awful. Anyway, I eventually proceeded on to make-up and managed to badger Zaidah into helping me apply some mascara. Upon which I blinked and got a lovely black line across my lower lid. Hey, it actually looked good can...sorta like I had applied eye liner or something. It had to come off though... thankfully, after that the make-up was completed without any other freak accidents. And I managed to get away without wearing too red a lippy... heh heh heh~~*

The concert then began!!! Grace, Zaidah, Irene and I rushed out to the television screen outside the hall to watch our darling juniors... TK choir [our guest choir for the night] was sitting there quietly.. awaiting their turn. We were joined by Mr Yong... and Grace began to chat with him!! And somehow, the conversation got drawn towards the topic of pokemon. Oh, I think I remember how it began-

Grace to us - "I saw that lickeytongue thing.. very cute"

Mr Yong cutting in - "Orh.. that pink pokemon ah."

We all turned to him. "You like pokemon?"

Mr Yong [enthusiastically] - "Of course!"

Goodness. Who would have thought that of Mr Yong?? And to top it off, after dissolving into utter laughter at Grace's imitation of her friend's pikachu alarm clock... he actually recovered enough to do a little dance while going, "Pikachu! Pikachu!"

OOOOOHHHH MYYYY GOOOOSSSHHHH.

I tell you.. the five of us, including him, burst out into barely suppressed laughter... and at the very same time, the TK teachers were admonishing them for whispering a little. And there we were laughing. But it was okay... i Mean... the conducter was laughing the loudest of all la. Oh my goodness... after that, we were like, "later on stage, you better not do any action that remotely resembles that little pikachu dance of yours.. otherwise we'll burst out laughing right there and then."

All in all though, I thought it was actually really nice.. having that little conversation with Mr Yong. There was a point where Grace was describing about how her friends nearly killed her while on an overseas choral trip when she burst into the room early in the morning screaming in excitement, "Dove!! Dove!!" At the exact same moment, Mr Yong and I said the exact same thing-

"If it was me, I would have killed you too."

And I was- kinda shocked. Fancy me agreeing with Mr Yong!! I mean, it's no secret to anyone who reads my blog that I don't exactly have a super opinion of Mr Yong... but I must admit, he does seem rather nice now that I've seen the other side of him. Soo... yah. That's a good thing.

Hmmm.... and then we went on-stage for the female chorus!! And you know what Mr Yong did before the second song... he did some flying motion with his hands.. and the four of us.. and even him, i think... had difficulty in controlling our laughter. Hmph!! I shall always see him as pikachu now... pika-yong... hahaa.. *ahem* Anyway, I got to stand beside Zheng Jie... yay~ She's so sweet... I was telling her back-stage, "after 2 years, we can sing together again!" and she grabbed my hand and went, "yay!!" ^^ I love my juniors. The songs went well... I've soo missed singing with a choir... oh yes, the warm-up before the concert was particularly memorable too... I finally managed to hit a B! yay-ness.

It was over all too soon... and the intermission began. There was a mad scuffle as the juniors rushed to get changed into their abba costumes and we seniors attempted to hug them and get changed into our normal clothes in the dressing room without revealing too much of ourself. And then Nga Chi, Sumi and Duan Hui came backstage!! Despite our happiness in seeing them, they were quickly shooed out again as the whole back stage was practically in pandemonium.. juniors running everywhere... hairspray in the air... ^^ Yes, I've missed that pandemonium.

We eventually managed to rush out and grabbed seats next to Nooch, Sumi and Duan Hui before the intermission ended... and got ready to cheer our lungs out for our beloved juniors. And they deserved it. The year 2 chorus brought us on a trip down memory lane with "Blue Moon"... we were like singing along in the audience.. the chamber ensemble was brilliant... I especially enjoyed their rendition of "Short People"... okay. I hate that song... but they were sooo cute. Xiang Rong even had this tall top hat to make himslf taller... sooo funny. Zaidah and I went totally crazy screaming and cheering and clapping for them.

I managed to have a little bit of rest when TK went up to perform.. I liked their second song... especially with that conga bit... haha... it soo reminds me of that time when I was in sec 4.. and I sang Luo Spiritual together with my darling anglican choir... =) Such wonderful memories... And then my absolute favourite part of the concert began. The abba musical!! Zaidah and I kept smiling at the juniors... mouthing and singing along with them... I loved how we managed to catch the eyes of some of them and that they actually smiled back... we cheered and clapped soo sooo hard after each song... and it was lovely to see them enjoy themselves so much. Yah... so my hands were swollen and red by the end of the concert... but it was worth it. Back then, when I was still in the choir, my favourite part of it was receiving the applause at the end... now that I'm sitting as the audience... my favourite bit is being part of that applause. ^^ I'm just sorry that I couldn't join them for the celebration buffet yesterday.

And so the concert was over.... but the fun didn't end there! Met up with Keng Foo after that... and I got roses from both him and sumi+duan hui+nooch. yay~* Zaidah got my ivory rose though... not fair!! hhaa... but that's okay la. Ohh... met rayner too... and we all took photos together!! It was so cute... we were like... just calling anyone at random... "come! come! take photo, take photo!!" And the juniors were giving out bottles of Newater!! haha... I thought that was friggin' cute. Hmm... we finally made our way downstairs... and waited for AGES while zaidah took photos and caught up with her TK juniors. ARGH. Getting her to move was like getting a herd of hippos to dance a ballet. Eventually, we did begin the journey home.. and by then, only Keng Foo, Nooch, Zaidah and me were left. OH my gosh... Zaidah and I were so totally high the whole way.. and we kept cackling... I think Nooch and Kf were quite shocked.. haha. I just love my post-concert highs!

And then we spotted the moon!! It was golden!! Sooo pretty... so guess what we did? Zaidah and I ran across the road and posed for photos, getting Kf to be our camera man. We ran back.. and Zaidah pulled Kf over... I took the photo this time... and they were striking poses. So i was like, that's soo cool!! I want to take that kinda photo too!! So i dragged nga chi over while Zaidah ran back and took the photo for us.. haaha... had so much fun posing with the flowers.. the rose between our teeth... the bouquets in our hands.. posing with a flying kiss... hahaa~~~ So totally fun.

Chatted a lot more on the MRT ride home... and then it was time to part... Zaidah got off at Eunos for a late-night supper with her mother and sister... nga chi and I left kf at tampines... then nga chi and I parted at the interchange. =( Still.. i saw quite an endearing sight on the bus.. there were these two big guys... and in Zaidah's terms, they'd actually be the kinda "real men"... [LOL].. and one of them had a baby on his lap. And the two of them... were cooing to the baby... singing to it.. tickling it.. and i thought that was soo endearing. Haha.. for some reason, I just love seeing big men dissolving at the sight of babies. *smiles*

And that was a nice end to a totally gorgeous day.