We were asked to write about our most momentous day of 2008 for this week’s Star Blog.
My immediate thought was, “That’s the party I just had which I just blogged about.”
I tried to think of something else. But nothing really came close. Truly, my most cherished memories are those when I’m gaming. Haha. Especially gaming with friends.
So the party is what I wrote for Star Blog, although I tried to write it differently, plus I threw in a new video.
Please click here to read it!
And now, I’m going to recap my past two weeks, in case people don’t believe me when I tell them that I’ve been busy to the point of psychosis.
Starting with a party.
Nov 24 (Sat) — Drunken Guitar Heroes
I organised a party for my delinquent friends, luring them with Krispy Kreme donuts (all 3 dozen of ’em, courtesy of my favourite Hong Kong-based cousin who goes by the endearing moniker of Monster).
At the party, I made everyone play battle mode in Guitar Hero 3. The loser of each battle had to drink a shot from an unwanted bottle of raspberry vodka that had followed our group from party to party for two years because nobody ever wants to drink it.
We all ended up pretty drunk (because I made sure everyone took turns to play and lose) and had to crash at J&J’s place overnight. Was planning to blog about this (I have incriminating videos! Wahaa!) but haven’t had time to sort out the pics and vids yet.
Nov 25 (Sun) — Free And Easy (Not)
I say free and easy because I had no appointments. But free and easy is not as free and easy as it sounds. It just means I could stay home to nurse my hangover work on any number of things piling up on my metaphorical in-tray — advertorials, scripts, blogs, rehearsals.
Nov 26 (Mon) — New Project In The Works
Met up with some folks to discuss a video blogging project that was supposed to have started this week but got delayed due to technical setbacks. (Which was actually fortunate because I don’t know how I would have found the time to work on it otherwise.)
Nov 27 (Tue) — Playing Truant To Work
I skipped ABT (gym) class for the fifth consecutive week. Not because of laziness (as is usually the case) but because I’ve been so busy meeting deadlines that exercise has to wait.
Spent the day slaving over my script for 3 Men Meet 3 Women, instead, because I needed to cough it out, pronto.
Nov 28 (Wed) — Anti-Smoking Crusade
I’m acting in this anti-smoking play designed to persuade staff in the civil service to quit smoking. Yes, it’s an educational play but we try to make it funny so that it distracts our audience into forgetting to be annoyed by the messagy nature of the play.
(Rehearsal picture taken at Health Promotion Board auditorium)
We go to exciting places like airbases to perform. (Actually, it’s a pain to go to those places because of all the security procedures at entry and exit points.)
On this day, we had two shows to perform at two different locations, one of which was Tengah Airbase. I made a discovery there: If you park your car backside in, it will get towed away. An officer kindly alerted us to that fact when we made the mistake of parking our vehicle like normal Singaporeans do. But he didn’t want to explain why.
Nov 29 (Thu) — First Rehearsal
I had my first rehearsal for 3 Men Meet 3 Women, which I already blogged about.
Nov 30 (Fri) — Trying To Plug Holes
I was able to get properly psychotic today because I didn’t have any engagments. So I was forced to stay home and work on the damn script, which had just been shot full of holes from the previous day’s rehearsal. Spent all day stressing over plugging the holes. Didn’t make much progress because I was too panicky to concentrate properly.
Dec 1 (Sat) — Crying At Auditions And Laughing At Parties
I auditioned for a feature film and cried real tears when performing a monologue which I only had 10 minutes to prepare. It’s really liberating and fulfilling when that happens. Actually, I always find it easier to cry on fresh material than on prepared pieces. I don’t know if other actors are that way.
After my audition, I rushed to Morte’s birthday dinner. (Late again.) The plan was to surprise him with dinner and a birthday cake. But because Morte is an inquisitive dongo who likes to sneak up behind his wife and peek at her MSN conversations, which, during one inopportune night, involved secret birthday party plans, he already knew everything even before the day arrived.
After dinner, we came to my place for Drunken Guitar Heroes Part 2.
Don Juan de Porko (picture, left) showed us the alternative way to mash buttons. (Check out his left hand.)
The Goonfather commented on this photo: “F**king Stamford Raffles or guitar hero, siah??”
Well, I don’t know who or what The Goonfather himself was trying to be when he struck this pose (below).
But I do know it’s the best pose to strike if you’re in the mood for cramping both your arms before the song is done.
Dec 2 (Sun) — Meeting Ate My Social Time
A technical meeting was held to discuss – duh – technicalities and logistics for 3 Men Meet 3 Women.
I wanted to discuss my script with the director, producer and my partner, but there wasn’t enough time and I had to rush off to watch the Slingers. I even sacrificed half the basketball match by leaving the meeting later than I’d planned.
Dec 3 (Mon) — Mission Complete
Today was the ultimate do-or-die day. I absolutely had to rewrite a passable script even if it killed me. Countdown to performance: 11 days.
So I sat down and forced myself to keep working at it no matter how many times I got stuck. I would write one page, then get up to walk around my room complaining, “I’m stuck!” and pulling my hair out, then sit down again and write some more.
Using that method, I finally completed the script despite being horrendously tired from lack of sleep. I did-and-didn’t-die!
Dec 4 (Tue) — Happy Big Project
Met up with a bunch of happy people to talk about starting a new theatre/media group so we can create our own platforms to do the things we love to do. There are already several ideas we want to work on as soon as we have time. This is the way to live life, is it not!
Dec 5 (Wed) — Hobnobbing With Elites After A Long Day Of Work
I had a corporate photoshoot at Singapore Polytechnic. Not for SP but for Ministry of Manpower (related to my Promoting Singapore video). Photoshoots are generally boring because they don’t engage me actively, since I have to stay still in specific poses. Staying still too much makes me want to jump and dance and run around a football field yelling at the top of my voice. But photoshoots are easy jobs that pay well for minimal effort so I like them for that.
From the photoshoot, I had to rush to NYU Tisch Asia for a party. I was half an hour late. Then again, is there such a thing as “late for a party”?
Wasn’t really a party, actually. It was a mixer, the purpose of which was to allow potential future hotshot actors and potential future hotshot directors to network. Many of those potential future hotshot directors came up to me to say they recognised me from the two short films I had acted in for their coursemates, and to congratulate me for doing a really great job. I hope they were all genuine compliments.
Dec 6 (Thur) — Qiaoyun The Blogger, Qiaoyun The Model
Was invited to Samsung office, together with a small group of bloggers, to talk about blogging, new media, gadgets and yet another project, which I can’t reveal now. It was a fun meeting. Strangely, no one took any photos.
Right after that was a 3 Men Meet 3 Women rehearsal. We did hotseating today. In theatre terms, that means an actor gets into character and has to answer questions thrown at him by the director and/or other actors. All questions must be answered in character. It’s a cool way to explore a character deeper and to test how much an actor knows his role.
Throughout the hotseating, my director claimed, the way I physically sat screamed “Qiaoyun the model” instead of my character. Well, I sat the way I thought my character, a high society lady, would sit, like all proper and posey, you know?
Dec 7 (Fri) — OMG Reshoot
We had to reshoot an episode of Snap! (the kids drama now showing on Channel 8, Sundays, 10:30 am) because one episode was dropped for inappropriate content (which is subjective, in my opinion). So we had to shoot a new episode with a new script to replace the dropped one. My hair is now four inches longer than in the other episodes. I hope no one notices.
Today — No Rest For The Weary
Attended a Philips press event for bloggers (I’m really tickled and a little disconcerted that bloggers are more and more being recognised as an alternative for conventional press). I’m sure you’ll be reading about the event pretty soon from some popular blogs in the Singapore blogosphere. I can’t talk about it now because I have to rush off (yet again) for a rehearsal after posting this blog.
SEE I NEVER BLUFF YOU ALL.
I’m working on so many things at the same time that I don’t have time to tidy up my wardrobe, which is now looking like a tornado hit a clothing store and dumped its spoils into it.
I don’t have photos for many of the activities I mentioned above because all the rushing about saps my energy. I don’t have any strength left to even take my camera out. Haha. I mean, I do enjoy every meeting, every rehearsal and every project. But the fact that they’re all clamouring for my attention at the same time is killing me.
I’ve been rushing from one thing to another so much that it’s a wonder I can keep track of what’s going on.
When I bump into people recently and they ask, “How have you been?” I give a tired look and say “Busy.”
If they ask, “Busy with what?” I’m speechless because I don’t know how to start answering.
Next time someone asks again, I’m going to answer, “I’m so busy I’m turning psychotic” and then give them the link to this post.
It seems that I’m recognised as a gamer more than I’m recognised as an actress because I keep getting interview requests as a gamer, but no one ever wants to interview me as an actress.
The media loves Sheylara the gamer but doesn’t give a hoot about Qiaoyun the actress. *sob*
Some time back, I was interviewed by The Straits Times and Playworks magazine as a gamer. Recently, I was interviewed for a TV programme about gaming. It’s not out yet, though. Will update when it is.
For part of the interview, the TV crew invited itself to one of my Wii parties.
I wish they could have focused more on me as an MMORPG gamer because that’s really my main passion. But I guess it’s more visually exciting to watch someone prance around with a Wiimote than to watch someone stare at a computer screen.
So I invited my friends over and ordered tons of delicious junk food.
Major droolage! Fuel up for the coming major exertion!
Except that the boys were really boring and chose not to exert themselves, preferring to sit on their lazy bums to play Monkey Ball.
I can imagine they’d be lying down on the sofa to play less intensive games like, say, Ridge Racer, on the PS3.
They were asked to ham it up a little for the camera crew.
So they put on bigger smiles.
dotdotdot.
Anyway, the main event was the interview.
I had to answer many questions, some of which were about my personal gaming experiences, while others were commentary-type questions that made me feel like I was doing a GP essay.
This is my “Waiting for them to Finish Setting Up the Lights” look:
“Animatedly Answering a Question” look:
“Are You Taking My Photograph?” look:
Through the director’s monitor:
I don’t really like being interviewed, actually. Especially on video. I take a long time to come up with good answers. I’m not very good at talking, preferring to write.
Anyway, the ordeal ended and the camera crew left and we played Mario Party 8! We had to take turns because that game only accommodates four players.
I can’t remember why I was grimacing and why Wang Wang and Minou were looking at me grimacing. But I think I grimace a lot when playing the Wii. I scream and giggle a lot, too.
Maybe that’s why I won the girls vs. girls match. I think the girls were unnerved by my periodic hysterics.
When we played, the boys ate. When the boys played, we ate!
Such decadence. Such fun!
I sold my Wii after this party because I simply don’t have time to play it anymore and, like I said, my main passion is in MMORPG. So the money I got back from the Wii sale will finance my new graphics card! Wheee!!
But I hope we can still have Wii parties in the future. My Wii was sold to Minou and Kerrendor, hehe. And two other couples in our group have Wii, too. *hint*
A big wet smoochy thank you to Wang Wang and Morte for letting us crash at your place, and to all my friends for the fun!
Morte and Wang Wang just bought a plasma TV so we all invited ourselves over to play Wii on their lovely new TV.
Nanny Wen made dumplings for our dinner. (Even though the Dumpling Festival is already over.) You can count on Nanny Wen to do stuff like that.
Quite appropriately, she wore her Little Miss Late t-shirt.
In reponse, I wore my Emily t-shirt.
We decided that it was damn cool, so we camwhored a good while before leaving for Morte’s place.
When we got there, the boys played Bleach on the Wii while the girls heated the dumplings.
The fruits of Nanny Wen’s 4.5-hour labour!
Wang Wang dug out her stylo teapot for us.
Nanny Wen’s dumplings rock! Yum! And then, it was time for Wii!
Mario Party 8 is currently THE best party game because up to eight players can play at one time. Provided, of course, that you actually have eight wiimotes.
We only have four wiimotes collectively, so we had to take turns.
[Edit: I got mixed up with another game. MP8 can only accomodate 4 players at a time. Thanks to Mince Pye for the correction!]
It’s a cute game!
But I’m not going to talk about it because I’ve put it on video.
We spent like three hours playing it because it’s a progressive competitive game that takes quite a while to get to the end, plus we had to do it twice so everyone got a chance to play. But it was so fun I wouldn’t have minded playing again.
But the boys wanted to play Project Gotham Racing 3 on the Xbox 360.
How could that be???
Super zzz.
After MP8, PGR3 is like watching water boil.