Fortissimo

Orientation in the morning... Same as yours, we were distrubuted into groups (albeit randomly) and played Wacko as our icebreaker. I faired quite well. But around 2/3 of the time was talks, endless talks about plagiarism (very very serious offence in America). Let's put it this way. Here in Asia, while we treat plagiarism as an offence, we look upon sex in broad daylight as downright crude and absolutely disgusting. Over there they don't seem to mind open sex as much as plagiarism.
Also about the importance of our GPA (grade point average - their MSG) and CGPA (cumilative GPA) and some study tips for this new form of education. Quite like Mr. Wong's take on Chemistry - you see the big picture, the big jigsaw fitting together instead of studying each piece and wondering where the hell to fit it to, or which part of the picture it might be in. Then the usual series of games, points and prizes. We got Toblerone for being fourth last. Still better than first prize ($40 Swensens voucher - each OG has approx. 10 people).

After that met Chuan En at Bugis to eat teppanyaki. That idiotic scholar told the chef, 'He wants a little chili, gimme alot.' And I think that guy was in a bloody bad mood, he gave me reasonably little, and dumped like four heap teaspoons of cut chili padi on Chuan En's portion, which made Chuan En pour. Later Chuan En whispered, 'I think he doesn't like my face.' I looked at him and whispered, 'I know, absolutely.'

Later when we got to the Esplanade I dropped my bag at the cloak room, and the went to the movie memorabilia shop and while I was browsing my magnets (got Harry Potter 2 & 3 poster magnets and a series of the four house crests and the Hogwarts crest - this set would be valuable in time to come, more than the rest anyway), Chuan En was freaking out at all the cute stuff there. I gave the guy a look which sort of said, 'Another regular...'. Poor thing just shrugged. After that we stopped at this tea shop, and the woman invited us to tea. It was only a standard sample cup size, but it was super strong and calmed us for the performance later. But not before Chuan En gave a little show of a gay freak. 'Ooh!' he squealed, flinging his arms up, 'this tea is soooo exquisite.' I was in one corner covering my eyes and shaking my head in utter embarrassment. And I have to drag that idiot off twenty minutes to showtime dammit! I broke into a run when I heard the bell, a sort of last call before gates close, and yelling at him and his gay freak show. And then he repeated it at third circle at the theatre.

'Where?! Oh where shall we go? Where do we enter? We shall be late!!!'
'Okay, relax, my colleague will show you there.'

We went in in time, plenty to spare, but not before I got the programme book at $4. Cheap people.

Inside I started hissing again about his freak show. 'Oh sorry, I just had to let off some steam. Stress, you know.' Whatever.

So fifteen minutes into the show, a stream of people suddenly flooded in in the dark. The two blondes above us, apparently pedantic opera-goers, hissed 'Stupid!' as a woman squeezed past them a second time. But they helped shush this idiot by our side. Stupid old man. In the first act, he was apparently unwrapping a sweet and attempting to stuff the thing into his mouth quietly a la Mr. Bean, which of course made it even noisier. And in the second act, during the big aria (the famous song from the opera) that egghead was actually explaining it to wife in Cantonese. 'Listen to that, beautiful, isn't it?' and he started humming along and waving his hands. I was tempted to inform him that there was only space for one conductor as far as the evening was concerned, but an usher flicked on her flashlight in his face and whispered something which obviously meant shut up, and he did that, but started humming more softly after awhile. Meanwhile I was more experienced and bent right next to Chuan En's ear to whisper softly, 'Cio-Cio-San, centre', 'love duet', 'big aria'. He was not too good though, insisting on not listening to anything and 'having a fresh experience that night'. In the end he was asking questions for the first twenty minutes, until I said I'd explain at intermission.

I guess I'll spare the singers' analysis. It was money well spent, that's all I'll say.