OH!

Nah, I didn't go for some sea adventure over the weekend.

I was at the 24-Hour Playwriting Competition 2010, organised by TheatreWorks. (I'd wanted to join last year but couldn't find the time.) This year's venue was the SAF Yatch Club Changi (located in an extremely obscure part of the island, next to the Naval Base. I saw a submarine!).

It was a pretty amazing experience. As the name of the competition suggests, you camp at the place for 24 hours and attempt to churn a play out. There are creative stimuli given at regular intervals and you have to incorporate them into your play, in order of release. The stimuli could inspire or ruin you, depending on your luck.

There're two types of stimuli, specific and non-specific. The specific ones could be dialogue or an object or anything concrete. The non-specific ones are totally experiential and up to you to interpret. But you have to make them noticeable enough in your play for the judges to pick it up (if they don't, they suppose you left the stimulus out and you're disqualified).

We sat at round tables and my table had three 20/30-somethings and two 50/60-somethings. The age gap didn't facilitate communication much. And of course, I was there alone, which really made everything much less mortifying. It is always ideal for greenhorns to sit with older, wiser people and people who've joined the competition for over 5 times.

The competition lasted 24 hours, but I left 2 hours early for the SYCO concert. So that's 22 hours. I slept for about 3.5 hours, took a shower, about 5 tea breaks and 10 toilet breaks. That's about 17 hours of hardcore sitting, thinking, rejecting your ideas, and sometimes, writing. But it's a great feeling to be there to write. I'd never force myself to finish writing anything if not for the competition.

Plus, the food was pretty awesome. Totally helped. I think I drank 5 to 6 cups of hot tea. (In the end I mentioned tea in my script. I love tea.) Surprisingly I didn't eat much, but they bought us cheng tng at 12 midnight. And they had the best carrot cupcake (I swear) I've ever eaten. Like, the cupcake of my dreams. Dense, moist, not too sweet, topped with icing sugar... I won't go on.

The venue was a bit small but very pretty. When I was feeling burnt out around 6.30am I took a nice walk along the marina and totally got inspired, if that's what inspiration feels like. For some reason, the more visual something is, I tend to ignore it. I pay more attention to smells and sounds. I was going to kill off my character (morbid much), then I realised a person like that wouldn't kill himself. (Epiphany? Hahaha)

And I need to dedicate my eternal gratitude to Valentia Angelin, who gave me tons of wholesome advice and encouragement over the phone and MSN (it's not cheating, right?)! As a reward I named one of the characters after her haha! Let's join next year!

Ah, there's too much to say on my part! It's as if so many things (or nothing at all) happened in that short day. Let's just say I left the competition with more than a script.

My play is titled Repair. It's about the Oedipus complex. (I wonder why myself.) It's not something I had enough time or energy to do, but I guess it's a decent attempt to vomit stuff out. Nevertheless, it's been a pleasure to write. I'm inspired! (:

"Light travels faster than sound. That's why most people seem bright until you hear them speak." -- Author Unknown

"Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole." -- Author Unknown

"Your ignorance cramps my conversation." -- Anthony Hope

"The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right." -- Mark Twain

Angmohs are so terribly mean and funny.

I think anything that could've been expressed about elitism has been said in the past few years. A brief, somewhat simplistic conclusion on my part:

1) Elitism is ignorance on both parties' parts (the ever-amusing "elites"/"non-elites" divide). Singapore has a skills-intensive economy, so academics matter to a great extent. But in real life, some skills can't be taught. For example, many people from elite schools have terrible common sense.

2) Let's just say that elitists are definitely not the true elites.

3) Elitism is a non-issue. To be pragmatic, it is a problem that can only be managed, not solved. So we should quit all that angst already.

---

(On a side note,)

Mark Twain said this about someone who cheated him in a business deal and had since died:

"But I bear him no malice. In fact, I'd send him a fan if I could."

Hahahaha what a mean guy.

My hamsters gave birth a couple days ago. It's quite a gory sight.

Imagine seven purple-pink naked tiny jellybeans with thread-sized limbs squirming blindly (and I mean that quite literally because their eyes aren't developed yet)...

And because the hamsters were my sister's impulse buys, no one has a clue what to do with them. We're all afraid they'll turn into cannibals and eat the babies alive or whatever. But the mother is neglecting some of the weak ones, they're so skinny! ):

More importantly, does anyone want baby hamsters? The babies grow lightning fast, doubling in size every 4 days or so. My sister is leaving for Australia in three days, afterwhich no one in the house will have time for nine hamsters.

ADOPT!!!

JTS at Chinese Swimming Club was amazing. We literally went mad with the karaoke.

And bowling. My first time bowling. (Ever. You're probably mocking me now) Ironically I striked with my first ball. HAHA. And I kind of lead for a while. Mmmm (: My lane had a bunch of crazies. So crazy, in fact that Iris, Izumi, Jordan, Zeph, Bo Xiang, Runze and I were throwing consecutive balls at the same set of pins.

We striked many times together. But we kind of spoilt the machine on several occasions because the balls and pins got stuck. This woman who was sitting outside the bowling alley (watching us from behind a glass wall) gave us this judgemental glare and told her friend "these kids keep anyhow anyhow throwing together, keep spoiling the machine" and pointed at us. (First things first, I can lipread pretty damn well.) Pointing is not very polite. "Being judgemental from behind a glass wall" should be the new term for old, bitter, plum-wrinkled women.

I think many adults are quite stupid sometimes. There is something about being a child that makes time pass so slow. You feel so aware of your existence, at every moment of time. Adults are intoxicated with luxuries, alcohol, caffeine, fatigue. They forget. They assume.

I don't want to be an adult. ):

Gyoza-making session with the class was awesome (anything that involves food usually is). I could've got drunk on the tiramisu. I am still having recurring dreams of it and being disappointed every morning. Is good food cruel or what?

I need to shed all the extra flab from Japan D: YOG rehearsal was such a great workout. My arms hurt. I can't believe we have to rehearse in some army camp in Mandai, next to the lions and dolphins and monkeys.

My dad is really getting kind of old. He accidentally downloaded a Miley Cyrus app on his iPhone. But his addiction (and my mum's) to these random games is pretty funny.

Deedledum 3am madness

Post-exam euphoria runs high! (:

Went to the same cinema for two movies yesterday and today. Knight and Day was surprisingly funny. It's a pretty good movie to celebrate with. And Toy Story 3 was, of course, awesome as heck. I will hug my teddy to sleep now.

Phew, going out with the classmates and Lens Frens totally unwinds. (: Chinwag is important!

Then the imbalance between work and play slowly creeps in, starting from tomorrow... /: Oh well. We should play hard while we can.