Exams are finally over!!!
I've got a thousand and one things I want to do swarming around in my mind but for now, I think I'll just slack off for a day or two...
I won't be going overseas this holiday, not for exchange programmes, home-stay or for a vacation, so I have decided to support the local tourism industry by indulging in some intra-country tourism. Here is a rough draft of my itinery for some good holiday fun within the island-city of Singapore:
1. Participate actively in Anime Club activities.
Nicholas from JMC has commented that we have become rather quiet recently, so it's time to bring our Anime Club back to the forefront of the local anime scene once again. I don't know what's going to happen to Graphite 2006 but we are collaborating with STAC in the organization of the annual Kohaku Anime Song Battle competition at NUS in June, so look out for it!
Plus, I think Adnan wants to fulfill his dream of building a Gundam Suit for cosplay publicity purposes before he graduates, so I think I'll be pretty busy this holiday cutting and sawing and painting away! Hope the costume doesn't end up like the Kaonashi one...
Oh, and there's the Anime Chalet too! \(^v^)/
2. Go for karaoke sessions with JMC friends.
Actually, I don't sing karaoke 'cos I've got a terrible singing voice. But I do want to go for at least one session of JMC karaoke just to hear Brandon's famous singing (according to Roger). I missed his performance at the JMC karaoke contest during the semester and now I am actually willing to pay money just to hear Brandon sing (!!) so he had better attend the sessions as well...
And in case you get the wrong idea (which I believe is the case for most of the JMC people I know), I AM MERELY GOING BECAUSE I HEARD THAT BRANDON SINGS VERY WELL AND NOT FOR ANY OTHER REASON THAT YOUR OVER-ACTIVE IMAGINATION COOKED UP.
3. Attend the D'J Party at the Street Fest 2006.
It's sad that Lucify and some of the more established bands like Elysium and LGF do not seem to be playing at this year's Street Fest but I think it'll still be great fun with all the cosplayers and VK fans flooding the streets and rocking away to head-banging J-rock music! This is the only time in the year that you can see gothic lolitas and leather-clad, eyeliner-and-black-lipstick VK girls (and guys who look like girls) walking along Orchard Road as if it's the most normal thing on earth.
My mom is sewing a red tartan dress for me to wear to the Street Fest. Yay!!! \(^v^)/
4. Visit one Victorian-style tea cafe.
It's the Gothic Lolita Syndrome (not to be confused with the Gothic Lolita Complex, or Lolicon for short). I want to sit pretty in lace and ruffles, sip English tea and eat dainty tea cakes full of raspberries and cranberries and strawberries and all other kinds of berries. Berries are good for your health, by the way.
I heard that there is one such tea cafe called The V Tea Room at the Esplanade but they sell cookies flavoured like Ikan Bilis so I have my doubts.
5. Visit one chic coffee cafe.
This desire is probaby due to Adnan's influence. A bunch of close friends (preferably female), sitting over a table of iced, ultra-chocolatey coffee concotions with weird names and chatting the afternoon away about all things from Sartre to Shopping... what could be more like heaven? And as for the preference for girlfriends, well, aren't guys generally more interested in watching soccer, sleeping at home or playing with their technical gizmos?
6. Visit one interesting restaurant.
I'm tired of the run-of-the-mill Cafe Cartels and Munchie Monkeys that my friends and I complain about and yet always seem to return to. I've been to Friends at Serangoon Gardens with Jan, and the food was exorbitantly priced despite not being exactly spectacular. As for the wine, which is their speciality, I can't comment as I don't imbibe any alcohol.
Holland Village seems to be a good place for finding interesting, niche restaurants and arty-farty cafes, and Shilei is trying to organize a small club outing to one of the cafes at Holland V where you can play board games with your friends, so I may get to fulfill this wish soon.
7. Raid the shopping malls in Orchard and Bugis.
Actually, "raid" is an overstatement when you compare me to Jas, Shopping Queen of Singapore. She can buy 7 tops at one go; I freak out if I spend more than $50 in one day at the mall. So far, I have bought a really cute black-and-grey striped blouse with frilly white lace and ribbons at the Heeren (more accurately, my mom bought it for me). I still want to get more black and white T-shirts, VK blouses and gothic skirts *___*
The only problem is: lack of money. Which brings me on to the next point.
8. Find a job.
I am not under any scholarship, so I have no holiday attachments. No internships for Lit students either. I also don't like selling stuff or distributing flyers or serving burgers or calling up strangers to talk about the latest credit card plan. What I would really like is a job as a research assistant to one of my Lit lecturers but that's going to happen as much as the Opposition winning the elections in Singapore.
Somebody let me do Baito??
9. Watch at least 3 films at NUS Central Library.
I've just realised that Diana has been harbouring the same intentions as me to take advantage of the holiday period and raid the precious UNCENSORED treasure trove of videos at the Central Library. The only drawbacks are the long journey back to NUS and the librarians' bureaucratic insistence on giving them the course code and lecturer's name even though it's the holidays and obviously no undergrad is watching the films for class purposes.
10. Beef up on my Lit Major Cred.
After studying Lit at the university level for 2 years, I have now come to realise that I suffer from the disadvantage of a rather poor childhood education in reading. To be fair, my parents spoke only English to me as a child and let me read plenty of English books, and that has certainly been an indelible influence on me as I've grown up to love reading, but as science people, they never knew what books to encourage me to read. As a result, I chose what I wanted to read on my own and began reading a lot of contemporary fiction (some not even very suitable for my age) and neglected much of the canonical works of the Western literary tradition, like Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, for example. Now, I'm not saying that Western classical literary works are necessarily "great" as the Western scholars who have a deep ideological interest in this have claimed, but it would have enriched my experience of literature much more if I was more aware of the conscious and unconscious intertextual interaction between texts.
Anyway, I am now trying to read more to make up for my loss. I intend to get through Dostoevsky soon, and then move on to Chekhov and Sartre. Then there's also the modernists Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence and James Joyce, and contemporary writers like Ishiguro and Iris Murdoch. And since I'm taking Japanese Film and Literature next semester, I also want to read works by Mishima Yukio, Natsume Souseki and Murakami Haruki. And the biggest challenge of all: I want to try to read Ba Jin in Chinese.
11. Improve my Japanese.
This I intend to do by re-reading my old textbooks, reading Brandon's Jap 5 textbook (kashite kureru kana...), watching more anime, reading Japanese manga and uh, playing the ren-ai sims games my friend gave me...?
12. Improve my drawing skills.
I have been so inspired by the young local artist Alexis that I'm thinking of signing up for art school and rediscovering the fine arts. As of now, my drawing skills are way sub-par. Does anyone know where I can sign up for short-term art courses?
Wow, that's 12 different things to do in a 3-month vacation! By the way, my friends and I met up with our JC Math teacher yesterday evening at Country Manna. The picture of us is shown at the top of the post; guess which one is the teacher. Answer will be provided in the next post ^___^
kaoru said at 12:30 AM