After tuition tonight, I went to buy a cup of bubble tea thinking that, well, I did not have one in the longest time ever and also kind of hoped that it will help me stay up later to do some homework. But right now at about 1 a.m. in the morning, screw it, I thought. Not like the solutions to the numerous scary questions I have been staring at in the past week will come to me suddenly. Also, spent the whole day otherwise ticking things off my agenda list so I'd really appreciate a break.
Shall begin with my experience with the Atelier choir first :D
11/12/13, Wednesday
What a beautiful date and day! Truth be told, I was very excited upon hearing about such an opportunity since September when I saw it in the programme booklet for SYC's concert then, We Are Singapore. Afterward, preparations for the atelier choir began and I was really glad that I am able to go for it! This experience really means the world to me. How else can I improve myself as the chorister, perform at such a location (dream come true) and do what I love at the same time? :)
After crazy five-days-in-a-row rehearsals (ONLY), it was showtime. Of course, I was quite pleasantly surprised that in just 5 days of practice, we are able to pull off 5 songs with some kind of expected standard due to the nature of this concert. I'm pretty sure this efficiency is due to the fact that we are all like-minded individuals, or should I say choristers?
Walked from Bugis to SMU for pre-concert prep with my dhschoristers, had (the most effective) stretches, warm-ups and run-throughs before we went for lunch at Yoshinoya. It was really funny because we argued a lot on where to go to; we firstly wanted to get to Plaza Sing (The Cathay was visible from where we were standing, omg) and then while walking in that direction, we passed by a group of atelier people and found out that they wanted to go to City Hall, which made a lot of sense because Esplanade is walkable from there. This made us debate yet again on where to go to, so we decided to follow them after all and walked in the opposite direction. But somewhere along the way due to some intercommunication issues some of us thought that we were still going to Plaza Sing, so we ended up taking the circle line from Bras Basah to Dhoby. This frustrated the hell out of one another because of all the time we had wasted! u_u
After lunch, we chilled at Plaza Sing for a little as we had a lot of time left. Nothing much happened, except that we went into this cute vintage shop, watch teletubbies dancing on stage (SO amusing! My junior, Bryan, and I laughed so hard at that) and then went to Daiso so that the guys could get last minute bright ties and Bryan bought a xmas hat. Made our way to the esplanade stage doors and soon we were having final rehearsals, costume change, dinner and showtime.
Steeping out of our dressing room one last time, which has a toilet, lockers and dressing tables. Did I mention? The backstage of Esplanade is a maze of rooms and aisles which leads to its four main performing areas. In fact, we reached a general consensus that it looks like hospital aisles, design and all, but the rooms remind us of hotel rooms. At around 7 pm, we were waiting in the room and the PA system went: The stage is live. The stage is live. Do not cross the stage. Do not the cross the stage. Haha, professional much?
The SYC had a few songs to perform before us, and we were all waiting and watching them from the live TV backstage. I don't really have stage fright, but I was quite anxious because I am really afraid of this one song called My Soul's Been Anchored In The Lord, and I'm singing S1 -pales- yeah, if you heard the youtube recording, you would know what I mean... -pales even more- Really afraid of not living up to expectations, you know? When I first got onto stage I did freak a little and wished that I had flats instead because I "cannot get a grip" in my court shoes suddenly, and took a little while to find my voice for our FIRST tagalog song and only sops sing the melody/lyrics. No pressure there at all...
But all is well and our 5 songs passed in a blink of an eye. After Paskong, we had intermission where the Atelier needs to run out from the backstage and enter via audience entrance to catch the second half of the concert - as an audience. See, this is really the best of both worlds. But me, being a rather sentimental AND thick-skinned person, decided to lose all my face to stay back and ask for Mr Velasco's autograph while everyone went off. Thankfully, he did not reject my request and I now have yet another reason to LOVE my Paskong score! I was so happy I skipped down the steps!
His autograph, my ticket and not in this photo, my stage pass. Needless to say, the rest of the concert was awesome and I loved all the Tagalog songs. I enjoyed myself so much, some parts were so funny! Christmas spirit, guys~
This event practically wraps up my eventful 2013 year. To be honest, I am both looking forward and dreading next year. If things do go as planned, next year will be a pretty eventful year as well - with what is probably a lot of commitments. I also have many personal goals in mind that I hope I can slowly develop in the coming year.
Lately, I have also been browsing through winter boots, windbreakers, coats and outwear (online shopping is unhealthy, guys) and I really couldn't help but want to go overseas :( somewhere cold, preferably. Hopefully my family will go on with our plans for Japan after my brother's psle.
With this post, happy new year.
