Audition at NUS

[Tuesday, June 12, 2007]

Jianhao called me after 2am, perhaps just for something related to property, which pissed me off. Firstly, it was so late already and the call could have waked my family and me up; there were chances that my family would sleep early and especially me because I was so drained. Secondly, I really hated hearing about property because I had met too many ugly agents and would really appreciate people would stop bothering me unless they had free money to give me for the fact that I had worked more than the money I would be receiving.

My mum had been irritating me as well as usual using her random stupid questions and self talking. I went to the room to rest in order to escape from her and she obviously could sense my anger, but she would never know she was hindering me from my work, which had contributed to the money I could give her every month.

Eventually I dozed off and woke up at 3am to continue with my work until 5am. I woke up at 8am to continue with my stuffs and then left for work.

The early call from a client quite stunned me. I was the “web support” maintaining the forum and she must have thought that I was the webmaster of her company’s website that I could do all the programming and web design, and that was the reason why she had approached me. Anyway, it took me quite long to figure out what she wanted but Pingping took over after that.

Ruifen continued to bug me even when she was on medical leave. Lunch was Chinese mixed vegetarian rice bought by Carol and Cherie. I wanted to help Cherie with her work but new requests in the forum came in.

Ricia from MediaCorp called me but I told her I could not go for filming anymore unless it was on weekends. Later on, Amen from NTUC club called me to check if I had sent the cheque over for the beach volleyball game. I was glad to have Weiyao and Kimmy crapping at my department with me to ease the embedded tiredness inside my mind.

I left home at around 6.10pm. I saw my neighbour who was waiting for her sister to return from pushing the NTUC trolley back. She had difficulty in walking and I helped her to carry many heavy plastic bags to her door in my rush for time. I did a little work before leaving my house. I took train to Buona Vista and transited to bus 95, which took me to NUS. I did not find out the road name and luckily I stopped at the correct roundabout.

Xuejing called me just in time and Kenny came over to fetch me. I felt an ease with both of their presence at the weird room, which had a door that could not block the band’s music from going in.

By then, I was so exhausted and famine had strike me badly. My throat was very dry with the threatening sore throat and my brain was blank with the extreme lack of sleep. By then, I totally had no confidence for the audition especially when the script was in English. We continued to chat there and then Xuejing accompanied me to the toilet. We had another round of great chats before I started walking towards Dover ITE. I met Xinkai at the track and chatted with him again before going off to take bus 97.

I did not doze off on the bus even though I was very tired. I alighted after Tanjong Pagar Railway Station and walked towards the prata shop where I got my dinner – mee goreng.

It was around 9pm when I got home and quickly filled my stomach because I knew Jianhao would come any time. He arrived at the car park at around 10pm and I passed him his document. I was very turned off for the property stuff continued to bug me. I did not even earn a quarter of what a normal diplomat holder would get on average for the past months and yet it was taking up hells of my time.

Peh's first audition

I failed to revive the video clip taken when Peh was singing. The file size was there (28.6mb big) but it just could not work.

It was a half day work again for the afternoon MA (medical appointment) at MMI (Militry Medical Institute). This time, Yongfu was going there too (different storey though) and so we decided to go together.

I was rebellious for the first time; as he asked me to have lunch at NUS, I did not even bother to go to the cookhouse to scan my card. It was a waste of money but I thought it was okay for the rare coincidence.

It was the usual route there but this time we went to the canteen straight. I felt dumb walking to the seats a few times, especially in my uniform. Then, we decided to carry our bags along since there were quite a number of empty seats.

We both got the chicken chop for $2.20 each, feeling so pleased with the price much cheaper than NP ($2.80) and SP ($2.70), and any other places. It tasted quite alright but the fries could be improved.

Since Yongfu and I would be going to the same direction after our MA, I tried to coordinate with him. My MA was at 2pm and his one was at 3pm, but he was going there earlier.

So, I tried to finish up everything fast and cut down the number of times I had to work out. It took me an hour still. In the midst, I triggered the pain on my right middle finger carelessly ocassionally. Anyway, I checked my phone after that and Yongfu had already left the building long ago.

After reaching home, the sky was roaring loudly, threatening to soak me in water anytime. I was exhausted but my determination to go and give Peh my support overwhelmed every single thoughts of giving up. I must be crazy.

Before I left the house, I messaged Peh in MSN to get more information. I was not a genious but enough to create surprises.

Me: Want to go Jurong Point? [far enough from his house and Marina Square]

Peh: No, I have audition later. [might be foolishly feeling bad for rejecting me?]

Me: Wah! Where is it? [pretending once again]

Peh: Marina Square.

Me: Which part? … Blah …

Peh: … Blah …

Me: Who is going down to support you?

Peh: Sem and his friends. [Sem is the only one who had promised to go]

Me: Haha. He bluffs you one! He’s joining Gilbert and I at Jurong Point now. [I lied again!]

Peh: Maybe he will join me later. [stunned?]

Me: But we’re catching movie at 8pm. [my greatest lie – definitely no time to go down if we were to catch a movie!]

Peh: Nevermind. I SMS him and ask. [at the same time I called Sem to inform him about my trick]

Me: Your “Ren Yuan” (personal connection) not good lo! [trying to sound it more real for him to believe Sem is really not going down]

Peh: … Blah …

Me: … Blah …

Peh: … Blah …

Me: Must introduce me if got any pretty contestant okay? [trying to sound it super duper real that I’m not going down]

Peh: Despo.

Both: … Blah …

I set off and reached fifteen minutes earlier like Gilbert. Then we spent some time at the MPH, where I read my Photography magazines. They were so expensive that I had never given a thought to purchase any. Gilbert looked so bored that I stopped reading and continued with his shopping.

Sem and Tze Siang were late. We met up at the Long John Silver. I could not stop laughing when Sem told me he did not reply Peh’s several SMSes. After finishing our dinner, we moved on to the Live cafe – Ai Qing Hai.

Peh was sitting down there alone and I believed he must be very happy and surprised to see us there. Sem started to tease me when his two friends arrived because one of them, the girl, knew Wanxin – my sweet ex polymate who had suddenly lost contact with me. I did not feel shy but awkward that she was asking for me. Sem could have played some pranks on me.

The table was small. The chairs were identical to the one I always used at home, except that they had some cushion on the sitting area. The banana milkshake I ordered tasted almost plain, without any taste of banana, and the pearls were totally tasteless.

We had our toilet break soon and Sem led us into the Pan Pacific hotel. We were questioned by a lady who told us to use the toilet at the lobby instead.

Though we were no very shabbily dressed, our use of term (“toilet” instead of “washroom”) kind of gave us off. We made a few wasted trip one level down and finally found the high class toilet. Each of them tried so hard to push the tap down, not noticing that they were fully automatical ones. Just as we were turning into the cafe, we saw the toilet just next to it.

There were forty contestants for the singing job. Basically the contestants were so good in singing that I decided I should never ever let them hear my embarrassing singing.

Peh was placed at the thirty-six seat, whereas another friend was just a few numbers in front of him, therefore I decided to prepare my camera only when his friend went up. Suddenly, the lady called for his name and we were all stunned since we were expecting his friend to go up first.

I quickly took out my camera as he approached the stage and decided to just adjust the setting without changing the batteries (the rechargeable ones which I had used for a few outings without charging). Halfway through, the empty cell red logo blinked and it seemed to freeze immediately without time for me to halt and close it. It seemed that the batteries had dried up before the video clip was stored properly.

Anyway, Peh had impressed many people even though he had forgotten his lyrics for a few seconds that the clapping sound was still quite loud when some of the contestants had left.

We were billed around $12.50 each person inclusive of GST for just one lousy cup of drinks. It could be a good place to bring my future girlfriend to but even the quality of the water sucked so much, I had to rethink over it first.