Trips

Just saw off my mum at the airport. She's going to hop around some educational seminars in Europe, that lucky girl. In just over an hour's time she'll start that 13h flight to London, then transit to Zurich, and then back to London to transit to Glasgow, and back to London before arriving back on the 10th. ARH I'd love to be on a trip like this, sponsored on the Government's tab. Yes, I know it's all taxpayers' money and all that, but the questionable utility aside, an European tour like that! At a time like this! So you see, when you're the one actually receiving the perks, it's rather harder to say that civil servants don't deserve so much pay...

Well, it'll definitely be good weather over there, I think. Sadly, with all that hullabaloo about a second screwed up wave of bombings, London has been on the BBC alot lately, and the weather over there looks really fine. It certainly undermines the sense of security, I guess. London only escaped by a lucky break. Once again the fact is underlined that there is quite little that you can do to prevent something like this. The best way of self-defence may well be the development of apathy, so the survivors can carry on as per normal.

And to shoot the wrong person...from the looks of things he had it coming to him, running away from the police at a time like this. But still...terrorists kill innocent people too, except perhaps with less discrimination, to be sure.

Anyway, London will have a new interest for me for the time being.

Just now at the airport again seized by the all-too-familiar feeling of sentimentality washing over me. The control tower at night, a staff of incandescent power rising upwards and crowned with haloes of red and blue. I realise now that it's a childish fascination at heart, my fascination with travelling. To call a business or educational trip an "adventure" is not entirely inaccurate, but it does romanticise the whole affair a lot. And then thinking that there are only very few people that I would trust to travel with me on those expeditions...

Mum hasn't been gone on a business trip since I was in Sec 4, if I don't remember wrongly. And I haven't gone abroad with my family since Sec 4 too. By some strange turn of events I've gone more places on school trips than on family trips. Is that supposed to be the way things are supposed to be? Ah well. I do hope that she enjoy herself, at any rate. Waiting eagerly to get the digicam back, with its precious cargo...

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Went to watch Dischordant, this RJC acapella group, at the Arts House yesterday with the Chorale people. Had quite a lot of trouble getting there cos of the NDP rehearsals, and all the roads were blocked up. I intended to take a luxurious stroll along City Hall and the Supreme Court, but when I exited the MRT station I found myself face to face with an armoured column. It was only when the choppers thumped overhead with the Singapore flag that I remembered. Spent a good thirty minutes traipsing along the cordons trying to find a way to cross the river, and in the end had to take the train to Raffles Place.

I couldn't resist standing and watching for a bit, even though I was risking lateness. And as I watched the choppers thudding overhead, and then the tanks revving their engines, and then the jets roaring past with the shockwave reverberating off the pavement, and then the unseen artillery thumping in the distance, it occured to me that fighting a battle in the city would be a very fearsome prospect. The sounds of battle would echo throughout the streets. Our airspace would only be big enough for one air battle at a time. And everywhere, the sound of artillery would be unavoidable. An urban battle in Singapore would be a harrowing, inescapable aural experience.

Anyway...besides such gloomy reflections, it occured to me that this year would be the first year since Sec 3 that I'd be celebrating National Day without someone to host. Florent in 2002, Hong Kong relatives in 2003, and Young and Co and the Frexprog II people last year (of which OD happily swallowed up all traces that I logged there), and this year...no one. It feels like there's something missing. I guess I could make contact with the exchange students that are here. Orly, for example, is terribly lucky. She was in Lyon with me, and this year she's going to Bordeaux, if I'm not wrong. Bumped into the French students on Racial Harmony Day, all racially harmonious in their Chinese getup. But I guess it'd be too obsessive to chase a connection like that. But all the same...at this time of year, I do feel at a loss, adrift, almost, waiting for someone to introduce Singapore to. I really do miss the exchange experience.

Right...anyway, finally arrived at Arts House and with a bit of time to spare, too. I must say that the Arts House is the coolest arts venue that I've ever seen in Singapore. The old Parliament chamber has been transformed into a theatre of sorts, so where the MPs and the press once sat, now the audience sits. And the speaker's stand and the president's seat and all that paraphenalia has been replaced with a stage. And a really nice touch was that they left the placenames on the seats, so I was sitting in a seat allocated to TCS News, while Sara Ho was downstairs in the parliamentarians' section sitting next to Lee Kuan Yew's old seat =P Whoever had the idea of such a transformation was quite a genius.

The performance itself ruled. Fantastic stuff. Even I, not a die-hard acapella fan, cannot but take my hat off to them. Their renditions of Change the World by Eric Clapton, This Much is True by Spandau Ballet and With or Without You by U2 were extremely memorable. Chern was saying that one of their Sun Yan Zi songs was CD quality, which I had to agree with. And they even featured Good Riddance by Green Day with acoustic guitar accompaniment! That guy is really multitalented, what with being Chorale's old student conductor, the arranger for the acapella group and also not a bad guitarist to boot. Oh, and their Perfect Day was just positively sublime. Had half a mind to stand up and cheer along too =P

Hehheh, they were really thick-skinned, though, "hint-hint"ing throughout the second half. I personally think that they didn't need to hint at all. And I think they knew that too, so I take their shameless hinting as a self-depreciatory joke =P But seriously, they were very good stuff yesterday. And to think that they actually loved their group so much that they would go through all that trouble of booking the Arts House, rehearsing and setting up this finale performance (they will have to break up to go to uni and NS). I wonder if Fruits and Veggies will end up like that. Hehheh, I wonder if anyone would be able to survive two hours of our kind of songs. But we rely on shock effect to be entertaining. Ah well...Fruits and Veggies has already lasted longer than I expected. Who knows, eh?

After that, was strolling down along the road in front of the Supreme Court on the way back to City Hall. After the NDP rehearsal, the roads were totally empty, the stands silent and devoid of people, the floodlights turned down and shadowy, and confetti littering the streets. The quiet and darkened arena was still festooned with the national colours, the banners and decorations that show how prosperous this little island has become. And strangely enough, in the quiet Padang last night, I suddenly felt that old pride in Singapore again. In the middle of the silence, I felt that I belonged right there, more than usual anyway. It always happens near National Day, this resurgence of nationalism. Sure, it's all propaganda and cliche, but somehow that doesn't stop me from being irrationally proud of being a Singaporean. Having people to host helps too...when there are foreigners here, you feel additionally proud when they are wowed by the showcase. Their sincere admiration always sparks off my own enthusiasm. But without them, I was rather surprised last night to feel that familiar warm glow spreading again, under the red and white banners. I guess I still am rather naive in this way. Either that, or the propagandists who decorated the Padang really knew what they were doing. The way that it's done up now, how can you walk past it without feeling patriotic?

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Want to write more...about Friday's trip to Bras Basah, then Saturday's scholarship talk at MOE HQ, and the sublime and wonderful new National Library, and Grace and Jiachuan coming over today to study. But it's getting rather late already. Ah well...keep all that to tomorrow then. Till then...

pondered by phoenican @ 24.7.05