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I was intending to start mugging like crazy after yesterday, but allow me one more moment of indulgence. I need to blog about farewell yesterday. [EDIT: Ok ended up as over one hour of typing, not just "one moment" haha.]
Ok, so it wasn't my farewell. But we put so much effort into it. For our seniors.
Reached school at 7am for final last-minute preparations. Damn early. Slept at 12 plus the day before. Luckily I managed to last throughout the whole day. Jonny and I still hadn't got the SL gifts ready yet haha. Sure, it was a last minute thing, but not too bad I guess. Um m&ms sorted into different coloured layers and put into glass bottles which we got someone else to get (haha slack). I'm really not good at gift ideas...
Alright so after just um idling around, practicing the two songs and (occasionally) helping out with the preparations. 3 hours just went by like that. Almost 10. We rushed like mad to get everything to the AVT from inner plaza. And then the seniors themselves weren't ready with their stuff, so the whole thing was postphoned to 10.30. Phew. Gave us more time, so we could at least quickly write rioHC 2006 on their caps (which already had their own names painted/'glittered' on), some indication of choir. Otherwise, like I was telling some people, 20 years down the road they might look at their cap and say "eh, what's this. ooh I didn't know I made a cap". Something like that haha.
And so we waited for the J2s to arrive at the AVT. Started late at around 10.45 I think. 10 to 12 was supposed to be Handover, organised by the J2s. The (ex) P and VP, sua and val, said their stuff, and then everything started. The previous exco went down in front and then they called up the new exco members one by one. Why they started with Bass SLs first puzzled me haha. Maybe it was just cos they were sitting at the edge of the row. Hm. Alright so jonny and I went down first. Sure enough, like jonny had said (cos he was around for last year's farewell) they handed down this boxer shorts with stars on them. It was the Bass SL... um "heirloom" since 2003. The previous SLs wrote their names on a star each before passing it down. Not bad eh? haha. One by one the new music comm, and then the admin comm were called down. Too bad kenneth wasn't there. I shook guowei's hand instead for the RM-logistics post.
The seniors already gave us our gifts when we went down, so we went back to get ours. I had to stall for time, cos after only a few hours, the "Sean e Bass SL" I wrote in permanent marker on the bottle was already fading! Aaah. Ok so I hastily rewrote it and went back down to pass it to Sean while Jonny gave his to Edmund. Jonny came up with some crap (yes, really crap haha) about how the different layers represented something. Like wth haha. Ok so I guess at least taking lit helps in something. lol. I hope our gift was um good enough. Hm I wonder if the m&ms would decompose or something. Ok they should right. Or would they melt. Aargh. At least there's still the bottle I guess.
So after a bit of photo taking we had lunch. The seniors already told us beforehand that lunch was to be provided by us, haha. So to cut costs we went for pot luck. The food was not bad actually. But I didn't get to eat much. Was too busy helping out with preparations inside the AVT while the seniors were outside eating. Streamers, candles, video and all.
After lunch we quickly rushed everyone in to watch the video. But Miss Lim came, and she wanted to audition the 4 potential SCs first. So we had to sing the front parts of Calme and Hainan. Not that I minded or anything, but 4 times of the front parts, each time stopping just before the song got to the better part? Aargh. haha. I was kinda hoping Jonny would be the male SC. But Defeng got the post. Looking back I think it wasn't that everyone expected Jonny to be SC. Everyone was hoping Jonny would be SC. Oh well. Not that I have anything against Defeng, but Miss Lim has her reasons I guess. Both Defeng and Jonny are good la. Oh, right, almost forgot. The female SC is Mel. I was kinda expecting that. Sort of. Hm actually come to think of it, does it always have to be one male and one female SC? haha. That's be ideal though I think...
We sang Stand By Me for the seniors. It definitely wasn't perfect- far from it in fact. But like Kim said, it was meant for entertainment haha. And I'm sure I spotted some seniors laughing. For the wrong reasons lol. I love singing the bass part of Stand By Me! Dm dm, dihdih dm dm, dihdih dm dm, dih dm dm, dihdih dm dm, dihdih dm dm, dihdih dm dm.... Ok no pitch no fun haha. Basses had a melody part too. We um did our best haha.
So we continued with our 'programme' with the showing of the video. Zhongwei's damn pro at this kinda stuff. Even after watching it so many times just the day before to check for errors, I was still moved by the pics, the messages and the bg music. Oh and speaking of errors, man were there a lot haha. Before the final cut that is. He had to re render it twice haha. Takes really long to render a video. But it was worth it. And whoops I think in the final cut there still was an error. There's no such word as "stucked" haha. Tsk tsk tenors dunno how to spell. Anyway the messages jonny wrote for the bass tribute was really touching. Sua's message was a little too harsh though, even though jonny meant it as a joke, so I er put a ;) at the back. Apparently that did the trick haha.
Alright after the vid we performed another song. You Raise Me Up. Arrangement done by Sarah. Sometimes a really simple arrangement does the trick. Damn nice. I was struggling to maintain my composure and just sing the notes.
Next was our batch gift to the seniors. The caps! Glitter still kept falling off, but the caps were still very nice! Aren't jonny's ideas great. But I was the one who went to get the caps. Aargh I wonder when I'll get my money back. Anyway we each just picked a cap "randomly" (some people still chose) and then went up to give it to the seniors. I got Benjy's. Couldn't think of anything to say, so I er just passed it to him. Aargh I should have said something. Aaah and I think I shoke Sean's hand beside him immediately after giving benjy his gift! Ok I hope he didn't think I was ignoring him or something. Ok nvm... probably thinking too much.
Section time wasn't really section time. Cos we just mingled after giving our gifts and started taking a lot of photos. I really loved our basses gift idea. Still do. We wrote [insert name] e Bass on the front of an XXL underwear for each of the seniors and a message at the back! Haha! And the underwear was byford man. Good material. Not that they'd actually wear it though haha. Some seniors gamely wore it for us to take pictures. Oh right the messages. Well we started with a hidden message for Sua's (U suck!), by using red instead of blue for the special letters in the main message that made up the special message haha. Then next we did Edmund's- sua sucks u too! And then Sean's- sua sucks not u! Haha. Really amusing. I hope they didn't take it too seriously. After that we got kinda bored (or rather I persuaded jonny to stop with the "sua sucks" haha) so we continued with "money face" for Benjamin (he was the treasurer), "computer brain for Jun Wei, "dao wushu" for Yi Hui, "ping pong noob" for Chun Kai, and "soccer" for Guan Han. Notice nothing negative for Guan Han's hidden message. Cos we couldn't think of anything else haha. Ok I must say though that the whole point wasn't just he hidden message... The main message is important too! People just kept noticing the hidden one haha. Oh well. We tried to make the main message as personalised too. Nothing too generic. Jonny insisted we juniors each say something to the J2 basses before we gave them our gifts. I almost couldn't hold back. Dunno what came over me. Aargh. I just said "we'll miss you" or something.
We had a lot pictures taken haha. Luckily I remembered to bring my camera. I've got a lot of pictures. Aaah must sort them out later though. I tried to take a pic with every senior I knew personally. Btw, I dunno why, but I think I've almost got a phobia of looking at my own photos. Photos with me in them I mean. I just don't like how I look in photos. Very prc. It just seems weird, cos I'm ok with myself in the mirror. I actually like how I look in the mirror actually. Hm... Alright enough vain stuff haha.
A lot of seniors broke down during the photo taking. They also came together to sing a lot of songs. A lot of nice songs. I hope we get to learn them.
Well that was it for our farewell programme. But the seniors had their own thing after that. The string 'game'. Most of us stayed back to watch. Put simply the "game" just involved the passing of a ball of string to someone after twirling the string around your own finger/hand and then thanking that someone for something. The result was an 'emotional web'. And then they cut it all up and each person got to keep their bit of the string. Very meaningful, really. And the stuff they said to each other... very touching. They weren't directed at me, but what some the seniors said were really heartwarming.
Jonny seemed a bit pissed throughout the string thing though . He joined the choir with the J2 batch last year when he was sec4, so natually he was attached to them, but there they were saying goodbye to each other with that emotional web thing without him. I'm glad they allowed him to join them halfway. He was as much a part of their batch as he is ours. He said it was awkward haha. I'm sure he's grateful he got to join in. Hm jonny do you read my blog. I hope not lol.
Anyway, whatever MBTI says about me, it's wrong. Or I just don't know myself that well to self-test I guess. Because I am not devoid of feeling. That's one thing I found out yesterday. I was kinda expecting to get emotional already, cos when I was watching through the video the day before I already almost got teary. I didn't actually cry or anything yesterday. Got watery-eyed at some points, like when we sang the song, and during the section stuff. Sort of broke down when val invited jonny into the circle to join the emotional web. Aargh now that I think of it it's so embarrasing, breaking down in front of the P and VP.
男子汉大丈夫流血不流泪。 Ok to hell with that haha. I'm still a guy lol.
After the emotional web thing we still stayed behind with the seniors, listening to them sing, joining in when we could and all. Hm we should have a head start on all those carols haha. Ended up leaving at 6plus. I hope our batch can be as, if not more (if that is possible haha), bonded as the J2s.
Farewell was just really emotional for us all I guess. The irony of it all- The farewell brought us junior and seniors closer together. I regret not talking more with Sean, Edmund, Benjy, Yihui, Chunkai, Guanhan, Junwei and Sua. They're great bass seniors. Like it was said in the video, Basses love each other. Cos we are the best!
rioHC.
Woah. My first over-2000-words post. haha.
hyperxi's life @
6/17/2006 11:28:00 am
