SG Fairy

Went with Him to this wine place at Mackenzie Rd... it's a small charming place where you can enjoy a glass of wine or two.... we were the only customers the owner had, but then again it could be coz it's a Monday and it was still rather early in the evening. I didn't mind the lack of a crowd though - it created a most intimate setting.

My favourite was the Robertson Beaukett 2004 from South Africa. I do enjoy South African and Chilean wine. This particular wine smelled really fresh and a little spicy, and had a mild pineapple taste! It was totally new to my tastebuds. It was also extremely smooth ... totally delicious.
I shall purchase a bottle and really enjoy it when I'm able to...

I think it was also the company this evening that made the wine even better.... He msged me just now asking if I had enjoyed the wine... and I think what He really wanted to ask was, 'did the alcohol get you intoxicated and horny enough?'

Yes, it did.

Lol................

Anyway, if there are people keen... the website for that wine place is http://www.winearcade.com/wine

They're also a wholesaler of sorts too btw... my eyes lit up when I read that they pay a lot of attention to wine from South Africa... I really like the wine from there...

My parents left the country early this morning but far from being all happy and celebrating, I actually feel kinda lonely at home.

Split personalities... I'm weird.

Oh, I watched Cabaret just now... excellent, totally excellent. The stage set was really nice, the music, songs and dances were good, the costumes lovely, the actors marvellous... and Fei Xiang... when you see him perform on stage for something like this, you can't really picture him as being Fei Xiang the chinese star, but rather, you start seeing him as Kris Philips the broadway theatre actor (Kris is his realy english name, by the way). And he really shone on stage.

Even better than all that... Beatrice Chia was excellent as director... the directions were so good... she knew what to draw your attention to, how to work some of the really important scenes so it'll impact you with a bang. And no, the really important scenes were not the lovey-dovey ones though they were nice... but it's the socio-political ones that were woah!

Cabaret, as an art form, in case you didn't know, didn't really start as the whole Moulin Rouge garters, fishnet stockings, wine and sex thing. When it first started, it was more a means for artists to comment on contemporary issues. Later on, sometime after the 1st WW and when it had moved into Germany, then the more lewd form emerged (gee, I wonder if there's a link there!).

So this muscial Cabaret, was really a smart way of blending both cabaret as the original art form that it was, and that which people associate a cabaret with, fantasy and sleaze. There's the Kit Kat Club with all its sleaze, and oh yes, in the SG production there was a LOT of sleaze (the Kit Kat girls have names like Lulu, Rosie, Texas, Frenchie and Syphillis, and they dressed as cowboys, french maids, and various underwear and leather gear). Yet, there was also a strong socio-political message underlying it all - bear in mind that the time period for this musicial was that just before Hitler came into power.

You have the real events happening in the lives of the two couples in the muscial, and then you have the cabaret performances at the Kit Kat Club, which basically features songs which comment on the events happening to the couples. Example, the main lead, Cliff, accepts an offer to smuggle goods for the easy money, and immediately after that the Emcee and his girls sing 'Sitting Pretty', a song about different currencies.
And that's when you realise just what cabaret is all about. Yes, it's sleazy and humurous, but aren't the more outrageous stunts the ones that bring the message across better, with greater impact? So you see what happens in real life, and in case you've missed it, the cabaret people come in and do a piece about it that makes you sit up and go, wait a min!

There was one song 'Tomorrow belongs to me' which was quite chilling... and the performance was done in such a way that I thought of Les Miserables and the scene where the cast went 'Do you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men!' It was THAT powerful. Lol... I also had this image of Mao's communist party when I saw that scene.

Some of the verses of 'Tomorrow belongs to me went like this:
" Oh Fatherland, Fatherland,
Show us the sign
Your children have waited to see.
The morning will come
When the world is mine.
Tomorrow belongs to me!"

And then the cast does the Hail Hitler sign...... then Act 1 ends.

Guess what the opening scene of Act 2 is?
A cabaret performance, with the Emcee comes out with a Hitler moustache, is handed a big inflated ball with the world map printed on it, and a machine gun. He sits on the balloon and guns all the cabaret girls down. The scene ends with the cabaret performancers marching off, the sounds of their boots so loud and hollow... and as the next scene opens to show the Jewish guy, the sound of the boots can still be heard... so chilling.

And as the couples get more desperate, whenever the Emcee comes out to perform, his clothes get more slobby and he starts looking more pained, like he is in despair, forced to put on a smile and appear happy.

Anyway... you wanna find out more... go do a Google search.

Really good performance I tell you... I hope they bring it back again... in the meantime, I'm gonna look for the movie version.

... that I'm proud of myself.

So tempted to lambast the way the U.S. has been dealing with the whole ME thingy... the stupid administration...

But no.... I shall not start rambling on, lest I start sounding all crazy.

Oh, in case some of you dun know just what the fuck I'm talking about, then you better get your nose in the news... coz the world does not simply evolve around you. Some say that oh, politics is boring and doesn't affect them anyway so why bother? Well, simply because there are people, normal people like you and me suffering and dying out there, and if you're human enough with a heart, you'll care.

Oh, you mean, you're really a hard bastard? Oh well then, how about this for a reason why you should care what happens in the world : oil prices.

I'm glad that got your attention, you materialistic baboon.

Student – Teacher, are you married?

Me – No, I am not. That’s why you greet me as Ms SgFairy, right? ‘Miss’ means not married.

Student – Then Teacher, you got boyfriend?

Me – Haha, no, I don’t have a boyfriend.

Student – But why? Teacher very pretty mah.


I swear this really happened.

When the kid asked me about the whole boyfriend thing, I was so tempted to reply, “No, I dun have what you exactly call a boyfriend… it’s complicated, but yes, we do sleep together and have great sex, so I suppose that sorta counts as a boyfriend thing.”

But I didn’t…. not coz I didn’t want to traumatize the kid, but coz I wanted to avoid the question which would definitely come after that: “Teacher, ‘sleep together’ means what ah?”

I wasn’t hired to teach sex education.

I’ve never believed in getting guys from a bar/club. I know, I drink and all that too, but somehow, I just dun think that a conversation with a guy that begins with the involvement of alcohol will lead to anything – yes, I can be quite the prude.

This guy was chatting me up today at the pub where I work the Monday shift. Pretty nice guy, not bad-looking, quite rich…. The conversation was ok… but when he started asking me to go out with him and all that, I just got totally turned off. I was just not keen at all. I’m not saying that I expect it to lead to a relationship and all that coz, hey, it was just him asking me out for dinner. But in terms of like, just going out for dinner, that alone, I was not keen.

And I started thinking, am I weird? After all, it’s just a meal, so what’s the big deal, right?

I figured… nah, I’m not weird…. Just have freaking high expectations…

I’m a snob.

Do you all realise.... that we're now a little more than halfway through 2006?

Fast eh?

This year.... it has been a little of a weird year... spent close to half a year in a floating state of lost identity in terms of my 'work' coz I mean, I was working and all that, but I still felt like an undergrad. I suppose the commencement ceremony wasn't a waste of time after all, helping me to really close that chapter of my undergrad years. Now, I really do feel like, I AM WOMAN'... not a little girl, not a teenage girl, not a young lady... but a woman.

Lol... somehow, it gives one a certain heightened sense of sexuality.

anyway...

I had a little sms conversation with a fren my age just now... she just msged to say hi, and we got to talking a bit.. and when i asked her about her plans etc, she told me that she didn't know what she wanted, what she would like to do... nothing. I thought she was being overly-dramatic and asked her "but you at least know when you'll have wedding bells right? (she's very big on marriage :P)" and she replied, "I used to have a idea of the when... but now i dun really know what to even do with my life leh! like, very blur leh! see how lor!"

and i didn't know what to make out of it... i mean, this girl used to have her entire life planned out.. she'll recite every planned stage of her life like a mantra... and she was really focused on her goals. If i remember correctly, it was something like, get job once graduate, engaged 3 years later, marriage the following year. a child 2 years into the marriage, the second one 3 years later, after which, she'll be a housewife.... and she would always declare to us, voice full of firm conviction, that all that will happen, to the dot. she had aims, nvm whether they were realistic or not. and now, from all that she told me (i'm obviously not going to tell you all every single thing she said!), she just seemed so totally lost.

i think that's the worst.... it's one thing not to beable to fulfill your life goals, it's another to not have the slightest aim in life.
and it kinda pained me to hear her talk like that... she wasn't just standing at crossroads, wondering which turn to take. it was like, she was not even on a road, but completely floating in darkness.... a sharp contrast to what she was like in the past.
and the most scary thing is, it wasn't like as though something tragic had happened in her life, and so hence she now felt lost. it was a case of, waking up one morning, and just suddenly feeling so shitty.

i pray that i'll never be like that. i mean, i dun have my entire life planned out as thoroughly as my fren had in the past, but at least i have some vague ideas as to what i want.... example, get my own place by the time i'm 30; if i'm single at 35 then i'll start seriously thinking about whether i should find a sperm donor, or adopt, or have no kid at all; get some form of business going by 40; that's also the latest age by which i can delay starting my retirement fund. --- the ages change every now and then, but that's the rough idea. and it's a sorta comfort, having that rough timeline drawn out somewhere in the back of my mind.

and i hope i would never wake up one day, and feel totally lost.

better log out before i ramble on further.. lol... you guys must be thinking "wtf is this post even about?"

i just wanna write, cannot ah? :p

today was the second time i conducted the creative writing class... not too bad... it's amazing how compliant kids can become when the teacher is waving a bag of sweets around... suckers!

the kids are, on the whole, ok... i'm already starting to have some favourites... and some of the girls were pretty fascinated by me... they had started out whispering among themselves, throwing me glances every now and then. i wondered, were they talking about me? you're heard the thing about how some people are so paraniod (or proud) then whenever a group is talking, and one, just one, looks in your direction, you immediately assume the group's discussing terrible things about you.... when in actual fact, they could be talking about something else.

so i ignored the girls, telling myself, 'for goodness' sake woman, the world doesn't go around you!' but then they kept looking in my direction so many times, they HAD to be discussing me. maybe i didn't zip my pants up. i checked; it was in its proper place. maybe i had some ink mark on my face... i discreetly looked at my reflection in the window; nope, just my usual war-paint.

finally, towards the end of the lesson, when i happened to be walking past the table where that particular group of girls were, one of them asked me with a shy smile, "Teacher, are you Malay?"

"Nope, I'm Chinese."

Group of girls chorused: "OOrrhhhh..... but you look Malay leh"

Me: "Maybe coz I have some Peranakan blood"

One girl: "Then you know Malay?"

Me: said in Malay, but i'll give the English translation " a little only!"

One girl: "Ms SgFairy very pretty leh, and the hair very nice!"

I swear the girl said it! Not some fiction of my imagination... nothing to do with the horrible humid heat too...

Lalalalala.... I like compliments... so sue me

As i get my butt ready for bed,
I pray I will get some good sleep,
So I wun wake up on Blue Monday,
Feeling like a total shit.

-The End -

watched SI again just now....

i wun bore you with details of Fei Xiang's wonderful performance again... lol...

oh... i found out that my parents will be away for 1 1/2 weeks beginning august....

hurray!!!!!

you have been warned... if you are not comfortable with a woman ranting on abt her idol... then i advise you completely ignore this post.

i will not be responsible for your mental well-being... you cannot sue me for mental trauma.

during Singapore Idol results show today, Fei Xiang made a special guest appearance.... and he still looks so yummy, it's unbelieveable! He's so tall and dashing, his hair flowing so smoothly down... his eyes, omigosh, his lovely blue eyes... as he sang "on the day that you were born, the angels got together, and decided to make a dream come through...." his eyes twinkled, and he gave his totally hot and sexy lazy grin... and i went, oh sigh....

my facial muscles ached by the time his segment finished, coz i had been beaming from cheek o cheek throughout his performance, body swaying to the music...

i can imagine N rolling her eyes now...

i can't wait for the 29th of july.... i'm gonna watch Cabaret then! and ya, i mean, i am going to watch it coz it's a good play, it's a toy factory production, but erm... it's always coz it's Fei Xiang!!!!!!

i wun be able to move my facial muscles at all at the end of the play lor...

sigh.... yes, i am a sucker for broad shoulders, lovely eyes, and a sexy voice.... didn't you know? those are some of the requirements my future husband needs to have... it'll be best if he can sing like Fei Xiang, but i'll just settle for someone who can at least carry a tune...

no wonder i'll never marry!

oh my dear Fei Xiang...

i'm a happy woman.

*note: this is a totally nonsensical post resultant of some female hormones at work here.... this blogger is normally not so silly and ladida*

i'm doing some part-time teaching now... creative writing for pri 4.... just once a week for a couple of weeks...

i felt so old lor... in the classroom with all the young bright eager faces looking up to me... and the funny thing is, while this started out as being a quick easy way for me to make some extra pocket money... as the lesson progressed, i found myself really wanting to make sure they understood and went away from the lesson having learnt something of value.

awwwww.....

then again, it was a pretty good day. i've got some mischievious boys in my class but they were still quite ok today, so i haven't felt like killing them yet.

so there i was, in the UCC..... there was such a bustle happening... graduates, parents, and other beings surrounding me....

i found some friends and we went off to the robing room... the guys were kinda hopeless... struggling with their gowns, their ties a mess... so i helped them out a bit, and then when my parents did come with my own fancy-wear, i got myself ready. my make-up was as perfect as perfect could be (damn that huge zit on my face! i had to use a ton of concealer for it) and my hair... well, i hadn't figured out some neat hair style for it, so it just flowed down. the mortarboard made my cheeks look extra fat, but fuck it, i wasn't gonna moan and groan abt it. it was my graduation - i should be emulating confidence and total joy.

:P

as i sat in the main ceremony hall, waiting for my turn (i was sitting in the last row, so it was a freaking long wait), i was somehow reminded of the movie 'Chicago'. one of the last few song-and-dance routines was this piece called 'Razzle Dazzle', which basically is about how the entire court session is like a circus performance... have impressive charts, raise your voice at the right moment, then soften up and appear all vulnerable when you need to appear so... you suck in the jury and dazzle them with so much rubbish, they can't think anymore. the entire court session ends up not really being a court session, but a whole wonderful, glorious dance act. it's all fake... all stuff dressed up so nicely it no longer resembles anything remotely close to the truth. and that was what the entire convocation was becoming, to me at least. but then i can be such a cynical old bitch sometimes.

there were friends i met, friends who were't really friends... we'll all go 'HI!!!', complete with big smiles and hugs and well wishes... and then we'll walk away from each other, with no intention to keep just-made promises to keep in touch - we hated each other guts too much during school. most of the people there i didn't even know, really... since i had delayed my graduation by a year and had missed most of my batch.

the entire ceremony was so duh... so many people on stage that i didn't recognise... the number of people i clapped for were so few... when it came to be my turn to go up, i kept chanting to myself "dun fall, dun fall, dun fall, dun fall...." i walked up, waited for my name to be called, went to the dean, shook his hand, got my scroll, and was walking down the stage already. halfway to the collection point to get my cert, i stopped and thot, 'wait a min, it's over already???' all that hard work for three bloody years summed up in just a couple of seconds?????? i felt so cheated.

i mean, the thingy i got on stage wasn't even personalised lor.... just some white scroll holder... we only got our certificates backstage after it was over. i understand that that system prevents any mistake being made but still.... i felt the entire label of being a 'graduate' suddenly cheapen.

after the ceremony ended, we all went out and that's when it got really chaotic...
people scrambling ard to take pics and stuff... and my parents were like, 'oh let's go out and take pics!'
they were like, so eager to take pics of me in my gown... it was totally embarrassing lor... i felt like some trophy being dragged ard... "oh stand here, the flowers behind very nice!", "take here, got the commencement banner here"... me, i did want to find some friends to take pics with, but i never can understand why people have this thing abt taking pics with flowers... not like nus flowers are that pretty anyway.. and my dad had to drive to my hall, and take a pic of me with the entire hall as my backdrop. the entire thingy just overwhelmed me...

back home after dinner... i finally had some peace and quiet to myself in my room, and sat down and starting thinking... yes, all the big ceremonial hoo-ha is nice... but it's even better to just sit down and think abt the entire graduation thing. for the past 3-4 years, my identity was as an undergraduate majoring in political science... now, my identity has changed, i am a graduate with a bachelor of arts. i am a working woman now. when you sit and really think about how your identity is different now, how your entire life is different now, then the entire significance of graduation really hits you then.

when i first got my nus package, full of information abt the various subjects the arts faculty had to offer, and the various orientation activities available, it was the start of a new chapter in my life. and i had a rough idea of what that chapter would be like, and how it would end.

today, in just one day, the old chapter was closed and a new one opened in just a few seconds. the main difference b/w both chapters is, i have no idea what this new chapter is going to be like.
and that both scares and excites me.

ironed gown - checked

ironed sash thingy - checked

mortarboard - checked

white shirt - checked

skin stockings - checked

respectable heels - checked

ya.... i think i'm ready for the circus tomorrow...

lets just hope i dun slip and fall on stage tomorrow.

of what can crop up every now and then in our local political scene.

damn.... and i was just getting all used to the new administration under the younger Lee, thinking, hey, maybe he's not that bad after all.. we've not been plunged into the dark repressive times as some had predicted we would. maybe creativity would still continue to flow and we'll still have some freedom.

and then the govt has to come in and put its ugly mask back on.

and i feel so silly, for having let myself get sucked into the entire PR thing, and i feel so digusted with myself for having thought that things would continue to get better... but most of all, i feel betrayed. like, i had stood up for you, believed you, and now you bring in this kind of shit?????

it wasn't so much the whole attack against Mr Brown that i am upset about. I like MB, but i'm not a die-hard fan - some people are unhappy because they're protective of their idol.

what really, really really really pissed me off was this line from Bhavani in response to MB's column:
It is not the role of journalists or newspapers in Singapore to champion issues, or campaign for or against the Government.

that is truly, one of the most digusting things ever said by the govt. and THAT, is what really x 100 upsets me.

During my uni days, i took a module on the elements of journalism. our key notes came from this particular book, written by Americans. now people who know me know that i can be very cynical about the Americans' version of democracy. i believe in the 'Asian Democracy' idea because it simply indicates that you cannot force one brand of democracy on every country and expect it to work because every country has a different population, environment, and so on. the basic idea of democracy should be kept, but when you go into the details, i believe that they have to be adapted accordingly to the unique needs of the country.
but anyway, i was really inspired by this book... it really opened my eyes into what journalism should be, nevermind that much of it was in the context of the US political landscape. but the basic elements of journalism are universal.

Journalism is the system societies generate to supply news aka, information. It basically serves the greater public, it has that duty to the public.
that book had gone on to explain that journalism provides independent, reliable information that citizens require to be free, that promotes democractic culture. being an Asian democracy, being Singapore, we cannot expect our media to provide information that's totally uncensored and unmanipulated, but i believe that some degree of freedom should be allowed.

Journalism's first obligation is to the truth, it's first loyalty to its citizens. Lets' not even go into the bit about how the media should be an independent monitor of power, take on the role of government watchdog. we can make up a wish-list, but let's also be practical when discussing the now, the immediate present. there're so many aspects of journalism that i could go on and on about, and i could bemoan on how we lack so much. but in return for stability, i am willing to sell half my soul to the devil and close one eye to the less democratic aspects of our govt, and accept that well, we're an Asian democracy which needs to retain some authoritarian elements in order to ensure our multi-cultural/racial/religious society can function.

but there are some elements of a democracy and that of journalism that i believe MUST be kept, for example, as a democracy we have to have elections - and as the last GE showed, we're progressing. when it comes to journalism, there's one thing i believe we MUST have - journalism providing a forum for public criticism and compromise.

the forum function of the press would make it possible to create a democracy by encouraging the basis upon which democracy would stand - compromise.

of course the forum has to respect facts and not be prejudiced, in order to be effective. it also has to be open to all members of the public. and the discussions have to be enlightening, instead of a turf defence sort of thing. the media should be a place where people can come together, and have thoughtful discussions, challenging people to think.

hence, the media has to bring up issues, issues that interest the public because they concern the wellbeing of the people. of course the media cannot be bias, but it can function as a medium for government and people to exchange thoughts and have discussions.

yet, instead of seeing it as a golden opportunity to properly address the public's worries on the increased cost of living, and assure the people that the government understands and is taking good care of them, what do they do? they immediately come blasting in. and then after tackling mb, bhavani drops in her parting shot, warning the media to bloody well shut their traps.

of course i understand that technically, Bhavani was just saying that the media cannot be bias and champion and/or campaign issues but that the media should be calm, and present facts. but this being the singapore govt that we're talking about here, you have to read between the lines.

where do you draw the line between reporting the situation, and championing the issue that is highlighted because of that situation? i thought that MB was merely saying that hey, we're having problems coping with increased cost of living!! yes, he was being all humorous and stuff, but i thought that humor actually helped make the entire cost of living issue sound less depressing and less likely to stir up people's emotions. people would just read it and go 'haha, funny ah? ya lor, so expensive to do things nowadays, but what to do? haha, funny, tis MB.'

and instead of saying, "yes, we understand mb's concerns and would like to assure him, and the rest of the public that Big Brother is taking care of things", they start shooting him. for goodness' sake.. what exactly was so earth-shattering that Mb distorted from the truth? people do know that cost of living is higher coz people are struggling.

and now singaporeans have lost a voice, someone who would help speak up for them, and let the govt be aware of the daily struggles and worries of the average singaporean.

and the Today editorial team... i do believe that they should suspend themselves, you know. if you're pro-Bhavani's words, you'll agree with me that the team should be suspended because they were the ones who put MB and his column in in the first place. if you disagree with Bhavani, then you'll want the Today editors suspended coz they were so concerned with covering their arses, they suspended MB - they cared more about themselves than their public duty as journalists. they have simply failed the very people they said they would serve.

why have i spent an hour typing this blog post? not coz i have nothing better to do... some people think that politics and events happening in sg is boring and they should not bother. but they should, they have to. because politics directly affects their way of living. as dull as news may be, it affects their lives, and enriches their knowledge. and i care abt how i'm gonna live and make it in sg, the place i call home. i care enough to bother. this isn't just abt one man getting suspended. it's about politics, about journalism, about the people. and if we let this issue just quietly disappear, then soon enough, it'll come back to bite us in the arse.

i better stop before i really do blabber on and on and on

For those uninformed... TODAY has suspended Mr Brown's column.

Go here for more information:
http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2006/07/regarding_today.html#comments

Sad... so sad... sick feeling in the stomach...

This, my dear friends, is what happens when the opposition does well in the elections.

Then again, it's also what would happen if the opposition did not perform well in the elections.

And where does that leave the rest of us ordinary Singaporeans?

Stuck in between... gagged...