An old lady sits on her front porch, rocking away the last days of her long life, when all of a sudden, a fairy godmother appears and informs her that she will be granted three wishes.

''Well, now,'' says the old lady, ''I guess I would like to be really rich.''

*** POOF *** Her rocking chair turns to solid gold.

''And, gee, I guess I wouldn't mind being a young, beautiful princess.''

*** POOF *** She turns into a beautiful young woman.

''Your third wish?'' asks the fairy godmother. Just then the old woman's cat wanders across the porch in front of them. ''Ooh - can you change him into a handsome prince?'' she asks.

*** POOF ***

There before her stands a young man more handsome than anyone could possibly imagine. She stares at him, smitten. With a smile that makes her knees weak, he saunters across the porch and whispers in her ear, ''Bet you're sorry you had me neutered.''
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Thursday was a post-less day. Why? Because I had to attend the EMD of Victoria School, and miss 3 out of 4 lessons I had yesterday practising the skit that we were gonna put up. Plus Lunch and travel time to get to VS. Yes, I left home for about 16 hours. And people complain about working from 9 till 5?!

So yes, minute to minute account - I don't believe myself - of Thursday, 1st November. And yes, this should be rather lengthy, because I'm not sleepy.
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Thursday 1st November:

I paid attention when Mrs Low was teaching Physics. Temperature. It was alright, I guess. Except when Cherlyn refused to see things from my point of view - which was correct - regarding the increment of Celsius and Kelvin.

And we discussed about names, and how some mad scientist would probably name their kids. Maybe "Hydrogen", or something noble, like "Neon" or "Argon". And Cherlyn suggested that I name my kids "Atomic" and "Bomb" if I ever have twins - which I highly doubt so. But yes, imagine. "Atomic! Bomb! Leave your Play Station 2, come down for dinner right now!"

GOSH. Those kids are gonna get teased at in school.

Mrs Low called upon me to answer a question - and might I add that it was all Choo's fault? Because Choo asked me how hot the PCDs were, and I said: Damn hot, so I was called upon to answer a question on the difference between "Heat" and "Temperature". I remember saying something crappy like "Heat is the level and amount of hot energy in a body, but temperature is the measurement of this energy." And Mrs Low was like, laughing and all, and she asked me to cite an example.

So I was blanking out, and I cited the example of the sun, of which the heat of the sun was great, but the temperature was a hundred billion million Celsius high - I'm sorry Mr Sun, I kinda forgot how hot you are - and Cherlyn was laughing at me, and so was about a hundred other people in the room, so I was quite embarrassed. But Mrs Low didn't scold me, so it was okay.

I was boasting throughout Physics that I wasn't gonna attend Chemistry and Biology, but I would be coming back for A-Math, and Cherlyn was damn pissed off. Or was it jealousy, huh? Jealousy, I presume.
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Chemistry was in the Language Lab. Or rather, my time in Chemistry was spent in the Language Lab.

ELDDS was the love. I was impressed. And we - Ayesha, Varuni, Kim and I - had our little dance workout. Dance coordination, rather. And the result was alright. But it wasn't enough to be able to rock the house. As in, deep down inside, nobody felt like dancing. Honestly. And Ms Elaine Chua was in the Communicative Arts Room, so we thought that we shouldn't disturb her. But, knowing ELDDS, whether we be inconsiderate, or plain loud - Ms Elaine Chua was over outside the door, and initially I thought we were gonna get screamed at, but she was rather understanding about the entire affair, and she didn't scream at us or tell us to get out and all that.

And anyway - Aleena found the perfect dress for her hat, thanks to Kiren. And after practising like, thrice through, we packed up and left for VS, to look at the stage and all of that.
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And of course, that was when I cut myself again. And by accident again. Something's wrong with me. I keep playing with sharp objects, and I keep getting cut. Well, this time round, it wasn't a stapler, but a pair of scissors borrowed from the General Office. I don't know how or why, but the instant I stepped out of the General Office while playing with it, I cut my finger again. And it was the same finger, except that it was on a different hand.

Today - just now, that is - I slammed my own finger - the one I punctured with a stapler - out of a car door. Uh, that just means that I cleverly slammed the car door on my own finger. I tell you, its hard to be only typing with one hand, because every - any - force exterted has serious repercusions.

Its tough being my index fingers, darlings, I understand. Not when you have such a dumb owner. I'm sorry right and left index fingers. Truly.
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We took the bus to VS, and it was long and tiring and warm. I was quite happy when I walked out of Crescent, knowing full well that a Biology class was carried out in full fledge while I left, flanked by 10 others. And I was wondering what any teacher would say when they saw us escaping out of class, but we didn't meet any. Wait, we did. We met Mr Keong, unsmiling, on the slope, and he looked fierce, which made me feel very threatened. Mr M was telling us about the routes and all, and that we had 17 stops till VS, even from the stop opposite Hard Rock Cafe. And we were all so tired, we couldn't say anything. Kim and I spotted this gay guy walking into a building, and he looked rather suave. Or so we thought.
He had a fashion sense.

36 came, and so we left for VS.
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Reached VS at 11.30am, or something like that. VS, can I comment, is utterly huge. And I like VS. The school, the environment and yeah. Its a very nice school. And in my head I was comparing Crescent to VS - I don't know what to say.

The auditorium was nice. I liked the rather simple presentation of the auditorium. There was this 3-people band playing there, and the music was quite good. Sam was boasting about how she could "play better" than the drummer - who was already damn cool and damn good - but then again, maybe Sam was being humble, because she could so so so much damned better than the drummer guy.
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Some ELDDS members were assessing the guys who walked into the auditorium, and the guys who walked in all automatically sat at the back, even though the performance was going on in full fledge. And it was quite weird, or so I thought.

We left and went back to Crescent, and I realised that Winston had smsed me at 12 to ask me if I was already at his school, so I was late in smsing back, because we reached Crescent at 2.
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Lunched with Aleena, Stephanie, Jenem, Padmini and Karishma at Pasta Mania. Which reminds me of a line that Aleena had which I dearly loved and laughed about it for a long time afterwards - meaning now - and the audience loved it too!

Something along the lines of - PastaMania! Oh, you macaroni, my spaghetti, my sweet carbonara, sitting there so cute like a little meatball.
OF COURSE - with the Italian accent and hand gestures thrown in.
Santa Maria!

We were late in meeting the other ELDDS members, mainly because: We got stranded. No, honestly. I know nothing about public transport, owing to "pamperism", and we were in Plaza Singapura, and there was no bus back. At least, we couldn't find the bus-stop. So we had to call people, and then we smartly decided to take the MRT back to Redhill and walk to Crescent.

At Redhill, we were tired - and full - but Stephanie was saying that it was stupid to take a cab from Redhill to Crescent, and besides, the taxi couldn't take all six of us. So we walked back, hurriedly. While walking past the bus-stop outside Crescent, I met Cherlyn whom I ineptly dumped - I don't think "ineptly" is the word I wanted, but I kinda forgot what I was about to say - and Juanita too! And they were saying that Ms Elaine Chua was gonna be our A-Math teacher next year, not Mrs Lucy Tan, or whomeverso.
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Rehearsal run through on film - thanks to Stephanie's camera - and things were a little screwed, but in toto: IT WAS GREAT.

I was super happy, and fussing over my hair and chunrie - or something that's pronounced that way to an extent - and dancing with Kim and Varuni. To which, may I say, that Sam the idiot was using her phone to film down every single bit of the dancing - dirty or not - that Kim, Varuni and I were doing. But thank god I broke away, and the dancing was done mostly by Kim and Varuni. Sam has threatened to put the video up on Youtube, and someone please tell me if you see it, so that I can properly sue Samantha Low for that derogatory video.

Kiren's acting was super super super fantastic, and Aleena was her usual self: her never-failing-to-amaze-people self. Dances were rather... Uncoordinated, which we smoothened out within 3 minutes - proving once again just how competent everyone in ELDDS truly is.
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The actresses were so dismayed after their first run-through in VS, because they rehearsed, and nobody actually laughed or found any of their jokes funny, even though it was line after line of fantastically created original Crescent ELDDS humour - meaning: Hair-splitting funny. But people didn't laugh and they didn't care. So the actresses were quite upset with the response from the audience that we had then.

Stephanie wanted to ask the Victorians feedback and all that, but we had to get permission from Mr M first. But Mr M refused to let us ask them, because he said that it wouldn't be fair for us.

Well, I told Aleena that with her costume and all, the VS people would love her utterly and flock to her for her number. So maybe I flattered her a little too much, but hey - it helped.
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Bus to VS was horrible. Why?



Fourth point is probably the most important, and the first point is second in ranking. Aww, poor Sammy-wammy. But yes - the stupid air-conditioning crap thing was leaking over me!! I was terribly disgusted. And I wiped the mess - water - up with Lydia Lim's tissue, who was unfortunately sitting next to Azalea.And so, moving two seats behind to Sarah from 1C1, who was sitting alone, the poor Sec 1 honey, I found the most fantastic theory ever. EVER. Even Einstein couldn't do it, aww.

And the reason is: Because Michelle, who was so hot, she could melt the damn pipes in the bus, henceforth causing the leakage. Ego boost, okay, it was an ego boost before I had to do that on stage!

Travelling time to VS was quite short, and I was fussing about my hair, and the chunrie, and the dance, and I managed to unsuccessfully convince everyone that I was Indian, because of the chunrie and all.

The bus was horrible, because it braked suddenly and I got thrown off two seats away. And I was so amazed, I was like - OMG, I'm that light to be able to fly?!
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We got ushered into the canteen, and Varuni and I walked down and got our food. And I couldn't eat anything, because it was spicy. But I was quite nervous, so I wasn't hungry. In the end, I ate the cabbage and the potato thing - Hyeon says its called a Kentang - and got ushered upstairs into the auditorium.
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ELDDS checked into the female staff toilet, and people were fascinated by the presence of a female toilet in a male school. And so I asked Varuni a rhetorical question, which is: Why is there a male toilet in Crescent?
"Its specially adapted for the 15 male teachers in Crescent, by Mr M."
And I was like - So there are no female staff in Victoria?

Asking the obvious. So anyway, I was in the female toilet with Karishma earlier, because she wanted to go to the washroom, and I accompanied her. And there was some female teacher who was also in the washroom, and she spoke to us, and she was really nice.

Well, she asked us about our school, like, "What school do you come from?"
To which I replied extremely politely, "Oh, we come from Crescent Girls' School,"
And she said, "Are you here for the performance?"
So I said, "Yes, we're performing for Evening of Music and Drama,"
And she was nodding approvingly, smiled at me, and she said, "Well, good luck!"
So I smiled back politely, and said, "Thank you," and held the door for her when she walked out. And I was smiling still when she walked out, and I waved, but she didn't see.

Apparently, she's Winston's Math teacher. Nice lady, really.
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But I'm missing the point here. The point is: ELDDS trooped into the washroom, occupied it, and everyone was squealing and everything, I was hoping that the guys walking outside couldn't hear anything. Unfortunately, the door was wide open, so there was alot of noise, and some guys wanted to check out the source of the noise, so Mr M told us to shut the door, and give us some privacy.

Inside was hell - People were scrambling around.

"Is my mascara okay?"
"Pass the lip gloss to me, thanks!"
"Ms Vicky, do I look okay?"
"Is my hair nice?"
"OMG, OMG, WHERE'S THE BLUSH?!"
"Stop obsessing over yourselves!"
"Are you done with the eyeliner?"
"I'm so hot, I need air!"
"Let's camwhore! Pictures! Come on!"

Typical. But in no particular order whatsoever.

No wonder people outside were a little more interested in what was going in behind the doors of the female staff washroom.

So Crescent ELDDS stalked out of the Victorian 2nd level female staff washroom, primped up, ready to rock the house. Mascara on, eyeliner on, lip-gloss on, blush on. But I wore blush and lip-gloss, not mascara or eyeliner - I tend to get a little over-reactive.
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Seating was scrambled up. We walked up and down a million times - might I helpfully suggest that I was also carrying my tablet - eventually reaching the Galleria hanging directly under the ceiling of the Victorian auditorium. And so we settled, me beside dear sister, Varuni, behind Samantha Low, so I could kick her chair or do something like that.

Varuni and I were reminded by Mr M to not lead too far out, because we were both wearing skirts, and the row below us were susceptible - or rather, WE were susceptible. There was a photographer in orange taking our photos, so I told Varuni to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

VS ELDDS came in their costumes, and they were teasing an actor in the group to sit with Crescent, because "all the girls sit there, so go and sit there!". Varuni, Sumukhi and I went to the front of the Galleria - I'm gonna call it that, I don't know what it really is - to watch the first item: The 3 people band. And that was when we found out that it was an alumni band, so, it was kinda cool.

Azalea knew the emcee of the show, who had waved to her earlier when he spotted her. And she sat behind me, crushing on one of the singers. And they were saying rather moving speeches like they weren't going to return to Victoria because they "never really left". Which is deeply in touch with alumni members. And they dedicated some song to a Victorian who had been involved in an accident, and there was a little mood change in the environment, which, I must say, ELDDS appreciated and somehow, without communication, understood the bonding between Victorians. Somehow, somewhat.

And I thought that it would have been extremely meaningful for me, if Azalea, Joyce and Eugenia, Varuni and Sumukhi weren't there to get Ayesha to take a video of the guys in the band. And the whole picture was pixelated so much, there was only pictures of 2 people in black jumping around with guitars and the drummer was cool - but there was no image whateverso depicting the drummer. And poor Ayesha had to crouch on the floor to take the video - as best as she could - and I tried my hardest to protect whatever dignity she had left, by draping a chunrie over her. It didn't work, because I got cold, and the first item ended, so I could get my warmth back.
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Next was a performance by the VS ELDDS, which was a play called "Madman on the roof", and it was enjoyed. I loved the little Japanese "mother", and I saw him afterwards in the "Galleria" area. And the servant clad in a blue kimono was rather subservient and his actions were huge, which created a dramatic effect - which is the point. So acting wise was good. Madman was played, with much humour. And there was an old fraud, whom everybody loved. Oh, especially Ms Chan. Ms Chan loved the little old fraud in the leopard skin, she almost rushed backstage to kiss him.

Prop - the rooftop - looked pretty interesting. I like the idea of the rooftop thing. And we saw them preparing the prop when we got there in the morning, so it was quite interesting to see that the various disjointed bits that we saw in the morning worked together to form a rooftop.
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The VS choir was next. I swear I have never heard a boys choir before, and they were rather nicely dressed.

And I was so surprised to hear a boys choir, I think I was slightly agape. But we had the immediate order to get down to the stage immediately, and I left my glasses with Lydia Lim, due to furthur encouragement by Varuni to leave my glasses behind.
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And might I add, at this point of time, that I am blind, and I fall almost all the time? And I was already tripping over the steps at Victoria, plainly because I didn't see it - and I had glasses on. I think my little accident - which occured about thrice, but that's another story - earned a few laughs from VS ELDDS, but they couldn't have been laughing at me.

And guess what I did without glasses?
I WAS SO BLIND.

Varuni had to lead me down the stairs, because I couldn't really see, and Aleena had to help me afterwards, because Varuni sped on forwards. And after that, I had to count steps of the staircases - average 8, but I counted a 6, and another 9 or something - to prevent me from missing a step.

Out of the winding staircase, it was dark. Out in the open, we made our way to backstage, and the VS ushers held the door and everything for us and wished us good luck. I couldn't really see their expressions, so I just smiled at all of them and said thank you. And once again, Varuni had to lead me to the backstage door, where a VS usher was waiting for us to enter, so I said thanks to him. Poor person, he probably had to wait a really long time for me to enter, and he had to hold that bloody heavy door until every single one of us went in.

So aside from throwing my dignity and pride of being able to travel independently, I had to depend on my poor sister. THANKS VARUNI DARLING! And even though you dumped me, you still came back. Aww, I'm touched.
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OUR PERFORMANCE WAS GREAT.

Or so, we all thought. The audience was so responsive, do you know how happy I was!?!

Hell, the VS crowd could so beat the Crescentian crowd in responsiveness. They were like "UHHUH, YEAH", for Jenem's line, I was so damned happy, I almost yelped backstage. And there was alot of hugging and all, the VS backstage crew was in a line, and they were staring at us.

Oh yes, and did I mention that the VS backstage crew are extremely polite? I was tripping and falling over the props and everything, because I couldn't really see very well, and the path backstage was so dark, so this VS backstage crew member had to hold me up to keep me from falling, and the number of bruises I had backstage was a symbol of how well he kept me balanced and not tripping and crashing into the props. To which, I might add, I have no bruises. So yes, thank you, mystery VS backstage crew member. I kinda forgot if I said thanks.

And then Ayesha was busy fussing over her costume for Baby Got Back, and she couldn't find her hat, so some other VS crew member actually found it for her. Okay, so we - Ayesha, Ms Vicky and I - were panicking over the hat, and the VS crew member decided to stand up and look around - he was sitting on it - and he asked us, "Is it this?" and I couldn't really see, so I reached down to take it. Well, his hand was already halfway there, so I accidentally brushed him with my icy hands, and I think he kinda jumped back. Its so cold backstage, thank god I had the chunrie.

Bollywood dancing was fine. I copied Varuni. And the hip-hop was... I'm assuming the crowd liked it. Because Varuni was forced to break off from the group and do her own thing - AND SHE KINDA LOST IT ON STAGE, SO SHE DIRTY-DANCED - and people wolf-whistled, I think. Urmilla was standing between Kim and I, and she copied Kim, and I copied her, so in the end, the dance was rather synchronised. Crumping at the end to finish the song, and I seriously hoped the crowd was fine with the turn-out.

Once backstage, we were quite estatic. But there were about nine pairs of male eyes backstage, so we had to act decent, and we hugged everyone else instead. The play ended - as all good things have to end - and we strutted - we were proud of our achievements - and bowed twice.

The applause of the crowd resounded around the auditorium.
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We left the stage, because it was intermission time, and when we got behind the backstage door, the VS guys were around us, ushering, and saying, "UHHUH. YEAH!"

Have I mentioned how much I like a responsive audience? OMG, I love those people endlessly. So I was smiling, laughing, saying thank you, we love you, and stuff like that. Honestly, I seriously loved the audience so much. So, so, so, so, so much.

Thank you, VS audience. You people were the absolute love.
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During intermission, ELDDS walked around in groups, and thank god Lydia Lim darling brought my glasses down for me. And we walked around in groups, in pairs, and I was teasing Aleena by asking her if she thought that walking in a group was safer for her, and she was like - OI! HAHAH. But there was no way, no way at all, that that fantastic mood could be wrecked by anyone or anything at all.

I met face-to-face with the actor who played the role of the blue kimono Japanese servant, and I told him that his acting was great. And he appeared like he wanted to say something, which fell into a low 90-degrees bow instead, so I was laughing and laughing.

Walked past the Band Room while going back to the Gallery - I just remembered that its called a Gallery, not Galleria - and I seriously considered walking in and see whom in there I knew. But I decided not to ruin my reputation in front of my juniors, so we stalked up the staircases to take our place in the Gallery and clap and laugh in accordance to 1, 2, 3, 4 by Feist.
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The Chinese Orchestra was the next item. VS has an extremely good CO, but it was quite sad, because not many people appreciated the music. But they did an extremely good job, otherwise.
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VS ELDDS was next again. And it was the play which I had been looking forward to all night aside from our performance: Twelfth Night.

Oh, I was terribly impressed with Twelfth Night. Somehow, I want the script to that. I love it, I really really do! It was basically summarising Twelfth Night into a poem, with rhyming lines, and it was really seriously great!

The acting done was extremely impressive. The actor for Olivia - Gagendran, as I have heard - was convincing. Very convincing.

I loved the play. Funny, and original. No doubt that the plot was from Shakespeare, but the presentation of the play itself was great. And VS ELDDS was showing great support by yelling "Chiobu! Chiobu!" and screaming "Kiss her! Kiss her! Kiss her!" I kid you not. And I was all the time laughing and laughing beside Azalea, hoping that I wasn't attracting too much attention, because I was laughing even at the unfunny parts.
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We had to leave within 1 minute of the band performance, which was the last item. And so we made our way out, Azalea's heart torn into shreds.

While we were making our escape, some representative from VS was telling us that two representatives had to go to the farewell ceremony. Varuni dragged me off, and the guy leading us was apologising so much, I had to tell him that it was perfectly alright.

Once backstage again, the darkness reigned - but I could see more clearly - and I saw the drummer and the trombonist. Saw Joshua first, and the first thing I noticed about him was the colour of his tie.

Joshua: I can go answer your question on your tie colour now. Your tie colour was PINK. And so Varuni and I had first class seats for the band performance, but we kinda danced backstage. And I highly hope that nobody was actually looking our way.

But eventually, everyone in ELDDS got called back. So it wasn't that much of an embarrasment, as when we planned to give the audience a flying kiss when they applauded for us. As a little trademark of the MTV Baby Got Back Dancers. But no, we didn't. Still, Crescent was placed in front of the VS choir, and we got our picture taken, and so we were ready to leave.

I told Joshua that his tie colour was pink after the concert. And he was like - yeah. Still. Didn't get a chance to speak to Winston though, because we had to leave - but I saw you, Winston! As much as you saw me.

The Victorians were cheering after the concert, I guess its tradition, as much as
C-R-E-S-C-E-N-T
is to us. ELDDS cheered for VS, and I happen to have cheered at the wrong time, but it was so deafening, I don't think anybody heard.
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And so we left the auditorium. And I cleverly decided to turn back when we reached the door to see where the other ELDDS members were, and I saw Teo Zheng Xian and I was like, "What are you doing here?!"

And what did the classical joker say?
"What? Its my school what."

EMBARRASSING, THROUGHLY EMBARRASSING.
And what did I do on stage? I don't want to be reminded.
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Azalea and I were drunk after the concert. We sang our woes and Azalea nursed a broken heart. And I nursed my pride, dignity, and tried to fix a heart in shatters.



My poor dear junior and I. Emo-ing. Picture taken by Azalea's camera phone, hence.. Look at the screwed up faces.
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NIL SINE LABOURE.
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