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Rain of Terror

I am currently sitting in my cousin's house, blogging about something that has been the subject of debate since twenty minutes ago.

The angels are taking their time in there...

The rain right now is simply abysmal. I can only describe it as a hydro-bombardment, with thunder coming along every ten seconds or so. According to my uncle, you're supposed to be able to see the Punggol HDB branch from here. You can't now. Whether that means the rain is heavy, or the world is a better place, only HDB knows.

It must also be noted that just ten minutes ago, I was playing a 5 player FFA game of Zero Hour with everyone playing Nuke Gen. I would like to compliment EA LOS Angeles for their technological breakthrough. It has been a thoroughly immersive experience and I would like to know how they got this power.

A lot has happened over the week. There was the Arts Fest, and... damn. Alright, there was the Arts fest.

Well, as with every event that happens in the school, I'm going to document it and then rate it. I'm afraid that my rating system goes somewhere along the lines of a fraction, like 3/5, and has nothing to do with alphabets and sex scenes.

It has been a tradition of mine to make a title for the whole thing in big bold letters everytime, so following the cliche:

Arts Fest 2007

There. Happy?

I would first like to clear up the whole toilet cake thing. Yes, we won the first prize for the Visual Arts category and won a printer worth $200. We've decided to eBay the thing, split the cash, then use the remainder to compensate LC (we told him it was a week old).

The Arts Fest covered two days. The first day could only be described as... (It should be noted at this point that due to the uneventful- wait... damn! That's the word! Anyway, due to the uneventful nature of the whole first day, I am referring to the Arts Fest programme schedule as we speak to try and get a rough recollection of what the hell happened and why it was so bad.)

Alright, according to the schedule, the first event was the opening speech by Dr Hang.

...

It looks like I've made a mistake here. The first event that mattered was...

Alright, I'm being mean here. Dr Hang raised a few points on how rigid the system used to be, which no one can deny (I mean, he's the principal.). He brought up a personal example: How he wanted to learn both Art and Technical stuff but could only choose once and how he went up to the principal (look, he was only a kid at the time so there shouldn't be any confusion here) and asked for an exception and he got one in the end but with the principal doing a "The Coffin is Too Big for the Hole" ripoff on him and so on and so forth and how fortunate we are to be *BREATHES* able to get the best of all the bloody worlds avaliable to us.

*Two shocks to the chest later*

Anyway, after the speech we all applauded (I'm assuming it was in appreciation of the speech) and the Chinese Orchestra came up and played a song. Yes, a song. In other words, they played a different song. Not that funny Golden Dragon Chasing Tail thing. It was actually a different song. But I would like to point out something here:

The Chinese Orchestra came up first, right?

The music they played was suprisingly Western. It sounded like something along the lines of Western Opera music. The following exchange then occured between me and an equally confused brother:

Me: It's freakin' western opera.

Darryl: Damn, yeah.

M: I'm thinking handmaid right now.

D: Say what?

M: Aristocrat woman, handmaid following behind...

D: *Insert hysterical laughter here* OH my god, yes!!! (Asthmatically)

Nonetheless, it was all very interesting as to how they were able to achieve this sort of Western effect using instruments that pledge their alliegance to the Emperor at the age of two. It was a nice refreshing change from the same oriental music we get every year.

*Stares demandingly at Band*

Speaking of the Band, they didn't play. I really don't have a clue why, but it could have something to do with the Chinese Orchestra and the bad economy.

And then a speech by Dr Wong on how wonderful the number 1 is. I've given up trying to appreciate these speeches.

And here we get to the cake stealing bastards of the day. Nick Wong, Random Guy 1 and Random Guy 2 come up on the stage, hang a 1 UP mushroom in front of them, and then play the Mario Bros. Level 1 Theme using percussion (xylophone, drums etc).

The only problem I have with this performance is this:

School Uniform? Seriously, come on.

Anyway, on to the Preg- I mean, You've Got It! competition. Most of the performance acts were Ad Hoc, come up with people who were bored of not seeing people perform any Ad Hoc.

Some pretty good performances out there, like the ad hogue monoloc between Ying Zhen and Mom, and... I'm going to need help on this one, since I skipped almost half of the performances. Brenda and somebody else's duet was pretty good.

And that's all I'm going to say regarding the performances.

Alright after all that fiasco I went outside to attend to the toilet cake (*slaps forehead*), then pretty much went inside at random intervals, then came out again.

Not much I can say here, but we won the Visual Arts competition and now have ONE printer and THREE very happy team members.

And yes, toilet cakes are made with love, son.

Anyway, I skipped the museum visit so I can't say anything about the place (damn).

Now here comes the more "controversial" (aka hated) part of the whole Arts Fest.

It is widely known that before World War 2 Hitler was very mean to the Jews, and while this has absolutely no relation with the Arts Fest whatsoever and no one has a rectangular mustache, I must say that during the Mass Perse- er... Dance I rather felt like one of the Chosen People of God (with a capital G).

See, some little bugger on the planning team decided to have us all dance to Hip Hop instead of music. (Oh come on, i mean seriously, you can't expect me to not hate the stuff.) It should probably be revealed at this point of time that Hip Hop isn't like cake (and sadly, isn't a lie as well), and that not everyone likes it. However, this didn't stop the clever person (*twitch*) who planned this whole thing from making everyone line up in neat rows and flounder like total idiots while some people dresssed in baggy shirts and equally baggy or baggier pants do some funny actions that seem similar to scratching one's unmentionables.

Frankly we would all have been fine with this whole thing (aka not have hated it as much) if we weren't forced to line up in neat little columns and dance for the Emperor, or the Fuhrer or whatever. And so a couple of other comrades (I shall not name them here so as not to implicate them) and myself decided to sit at the side of the Hall and watch everyone else scratch their crotch or do something that looked like it. At that point all we could do was just shake our heads and that have another dose of the good ol' stuff, because not only was it totally unfashionable (coming from ME), it just looked plain ridiculous, so much that even people who listen to Hip Hop would have put off listening to it altogether.

Later, under the watchful eye of Dr Wong we all had to do it together as a school again. So when the time came for the Year 3s to get rid of that nasty itch I simply blended into the crowd. (I almost won that game of chopsticks!) It should be noted that the only ones who actually tried to scratch their unmentionables properly were the Year 4s (or 5s. I couldn't look), probably because they like this sort of thing.

Then at last the War was over and we were all allowed to go home to our families.

So what happened? How did we lose the War?

Well, firstly the guys who planned this whole thing probably didn't get the revelation that not everyone likes Hip Hop (Hi there!).

Secondly, not everyone enjoys dancing to it or even dancing in public for that matter, which puts the whole concept of a Mass Dance at risk. But the main point here is that not everyone may enjoy dancing to the stuff, either because they just don't like it or they don't think they could do it properly to look acceptable enough.

Thirdlee, it should be noted that from watching what the people in the funny baggy clothes were doing, the moves they were (trying to) teach us weren't very Hip Hop-ish, which usually involve some sort of breakdancing, which you don't put in the same room as the average NUSHs student. So really, trying to look punk and being punk are in entirely different buckets.

Anyway, I'm running out of coffee now so I'm going to have to put off the second day (aka the good day) to another time.

I better leave now. I hear them coming. Farewell comrades.