the story of february 19th 2005...

woke up at 9 am to play some football with kelvin, colin and kenneth. it wasn't the highlight of my day and i don't really want to talk about it. so, yeah, football in the morning.

ah heck! CHINGAY WAS JUST TOO BLOODY HAPPENING TO WAIT FOR ME TO DESCRIBE.

i got my hot pink shirt, which is quite cool by the way, and sat at orchard park, waiting for the whole procession to start. i didn't go for the preview, so i didn't know what to expect; which is in a way, better. the sea of pink was too bright to go unnoticed as we all walked to our respective sections. i was in section 1, outside tangs and wisma, at the VIP section where the president was. a few of them re-wrote the SRJC cheer into the SR Nathan cheer. it fit so nicely, almost as if it was destined for him. i was at the starting point for the parade and where all the cameras and celebrity hosts were. there was kym ng, that dude who acted in double happiness and two other folks whose names i don't know.

oh okay, after some searching, the hosts were:Dasmond Koh, Jeff Wang, Kym Ng, Quan Yi Feng.

anyways, it was quite surreal seeing them in person cause you always see them on TV. they were really smaller than they looked. there were these caucasians who were dressed up as gods of fortunes; one from Belgium, one from England. they were rehearsing their introduction of the president and i couldn't help but unleash Herbert and imitated the English 'cai shen' when he rehearsed his lines. the Belgium dude sounded, evil.

that entire stretch of orchard road that was closed [from wisma to heeren] was fully prepped for the parade. tall aluminum frames, hanging a sick amount of lights, wrestled the with the trees for space. there were gianormous speakers attached to the frames and set up along the roads. it was like one giant gig. oh, it IS one giant gig.

so anyways, some Harley Davidson enthusiasts brought their choppers to start things off. they stopped at where i was and revved their engines like there was no tomorrow. a lot of them hit the gas so hard that you could see flames flickering out of the exhaust amidst the loud popping sound you get when you hit it too hard. the low humming of the engines was 'whoa'. i swear many femmes were going, 'orgas' in their heads when they heard and FELT it, cause it was so loud that it resonated through your body. the crowd followed the lead rider with a wave as they went back and forth the stretch of road.

that was what you didn't see on TV. when the actual thing started, the cai shengs announced the arrival of the president and all that. you know, same shit you see on national day. so anyways, the president kicked off the parade with one awesome pyrotechnics display. a giant metal frame of a mask was in the middle of the road with pyrotechnics attached to it. it spurted out sparks and stuff. then, fireworks flew down from the blacony of tangs into the mask. it was really cool to see one streak of sparks, like a comet, strike the mask. all this was happening in front of the Chingay entrance, which had really long lines of firecrackers exploding like mad. i was so bloody near the entrance and almost went deaf. seriously. it was the loudest damn thing i ever heard. Werd boys, you think jamming is loud? well, it was like jamming times 200. i'm not kidding. if you didn't cover your ears, your ear drums would rupture or something. when i removed my fingers from my ears for a while, i could feel them vibrating madly. i was so scared to lose my hearing i stuck my fingers back in immediately. so, the firecrackers kick started the parade and oohhhhh boy. what a parade it was.

well, there were many nice performance but i'm going to highlight those that i actually watched. as a motivator, you're supposed to face the audience and not gawk at performers. and the performers were really cool by the way. i was very close to them so you could like smile at them and they would smile back.

i want to go to RJC. okay, wait. let me rephrase that. i want to see the people in RJC and dream of going there. did you see the rafflesians' performance? two words: my goodness. first of all, the neighbours were so unbelievably neighbourish, as in over 11 neighbourish, that they do not deserve the lowly term of neighbour. they are true blue hotmamajamas or HMJs. all my pre-conceived notions of RJC being a geek school were broken, put into an atomic smasher and burned over and over again in the sun. alright, i'll be subtle about this. first of all, the moves were full of gyrating and arching and everything that would cause a dude to shudder in disbelief. second of all, the costumes were not very modest and a certain piece of it was like a bloody second skin for the dancers. it was the kind of stuff that makes the loins go boings. to be right in front of them was, whoaaaaa. for a dude, either an unconscious smile would creep across your face or your jaw would drop like a lead weight when you see such things. it was the former for me. and when one of them saw it and smiled back, WHOAAA. if the ACFC dudes were there, there would be one long and loud 'WOOOOOPPPPPP!' anyways, all good things had to come to an end and that's what happened.

there was another item by some chinese oraganisation and it was quite um, interesting. there was this hell theme and there were lots of people on the floor, doing Gollum impersonations in their Earth-embracing costumes. there were supposed to be possessed or something and many of the girls were swinging their long hair around when they did some move that was supposed to make them seem like they're in a trance. they were arching a lot too. hmm, it actually was quite a bit, ooh. anyway, they were about to end when suddenly one of them jumped at me and went, "RAAAAARRRRGH!" she totally caught me off-guard and i would've instinctly impaled her eyes with my pink Chingay noise-maker sticks if they were sharp. scared the shit out of me. i guess she was too into her character or something.

then, there was this one performance by some people representing ACCS some telecommunications thing. my goodness. the dancers were practically wearing the blue version of Elektra's costume. that one was another loins go boings item. OH, and THEN, there was the item by the singapore american school. WHOOAAA. i wonder how parents can let their children wear so little clothes and dance in orchard road. but then again, they're american. they would've danced naked if it wasn't for the law.

there were a lot of other cool items too. there was one really cool dragon dance thing, where they climbed up a tower and made the dragon ascend it. the dragon had lights all over it and a dude had to follow behind with a power generator in a cart to light up the dragon. there were also some dudes who had flaming torches in their hands. they were like fire-throwers rather fire-breathers. they had some sort of fuel in powder form, which they threw into their torches, causing a large orange fireball. it looks nice on TV but when you're actually there, you feel the heat. and it was really hot. the guy can be like across the street, about 20 metres away and cast the flame and you can feel the heat hit you like a wave. there were a lot of colourful performances as well. they all added up to a great parade overall. the floats were boring though. they were lorries in disguise.

after the parade there was the PAR-TAY. man, was it happening. for those people who didn't join in, too bad, missed out on a lot. it was like a street-rave party. i never thought i would be damcing to techno again but there weren't that many techno songs. took a while for every one to warm up and i rubbed shoulders with the hosts, literally, before the party started getting hot.

i was drifting with some motivators i don't know. drifting, drifting when *bump*, the hosts! they weren't that big. the dudes weren't that tall. kym ng was really friendly. one motivator asked for a picture and she gladly obliged with a genuine "ke yi!" in mandarin. she seemed happy to take a photo. that's good. i hate celebrities who put on airs. so we were there, me and some group of motivators i don't know, just clapping to the beat when some cameraman came and started filming. we were all behind the hosts screaming and yelling as they said something about us motivators in mandarin for the people at home. i don't know if i was in the shot. must watch the repeat telecast to know. then, suddenly photographers from the press appeared and we took pictures with the hosts. quite cool. the hosts were then ushered off as the party really got started. and what a party it was.

it was crazy. that's for sure. i was like dancing with random people. everyone was just so high that it didn't matter who you were dancing with. there was confetti and streamers everywhere. it covered the entire surface of the road. people were like grabbing it from the floor and throwing it into the air. motivators with water bottles swung them overhead, giving anyone nearby a shower. people were jumping, singing, having a real good time. i didn't know anyone in my group so i ended up wandering the stretch, looking for people to dance with. i stumbled upon some random motivators again and we kind of stuck together. it was easy to get lost and the size of the crowd was beginning to swell. we were dancing to rock, hip-hop and techno. good mix i must say. they played Linkin Park's 'Somewhere I Belong' and i haven't partied to a rock song for a long time so i just started jumping like a Duracell bunny. it was much more spacious than in a rock concert so i jumped as high as i could. definitely fun. then, the group i stuck with wanted to get drinks and ventured deeper into the crowd of people to find the water bottles in their goodie bags. i think some people took them and we were all despondent after that as we were really thirsty after all that singing and jumping and dancing. then, i looked down and saw an unopened 1.5 litre bottle of green tea that someone left on the floor. i picked it up and everyone was like, "yay!" and we drank and we merry.

it seems that i always have strange encounters with caucasians during big gigs or events. after when we were drinking the tea, some group of caucasian dudes came up to me and asked, "dude, can we have your shirt?" i don't know what happened, but suddenly i started talking to them in my american sports commentator accent. i shall call him Bob. so Bob was speaking through me and it was quite freaky. the dude who asked me for my shirt actually understood me. i told them that it was my only one and to go look for the chief motivators to see if they had extras. anyways, the party ended and the motivators had a mini one back at the assembly area. we all sat down for the debrief when the dudes came back and asked for my shirt again. they asked me to get some for them and for their friends who were performers from the american school. oooh. *rubs hands* in the end he got his shirt and i was left amazed at Bob.

everyone dispersed when were dismissed. i didn't have anyone to do anything with and just started walking. walked to Borders and realised that i was walking in circles. i just flagged a cab home in the end. ah, what a day, what a day. oh and i went to the SAJC fun fair for a while too. Malcolm forced me to braid my hair there. it was alright. quite a few neighbours and a few HMJs. i bought an SAJC shirt too, it's the wannabe SAJCian in me that made me do it. closest thing to the school i would ever have, since i'll most probably never make it there.

Werd's first song is up! 'The Singer' is what it's called.

my god it's 5 am! shit! sleeeeep!

"it faded..."