The results are out - we were Category Champions for the Sacred Music A Capella competition, and Gold award winners for Contemporary music.

I felt more emotional this time round than I did at Bremen, and I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that I started to tear even before the results were announced. It's quite ridiculous.

Oh well, tonight we sing in the Champions'concert. What a wonderful feeling.

Tomorrow we fly to Shanghai for more sightseeing. We haven't planned what we want to do yet haha. Lots of rotting.

The day beckons. I get more nervous nearer the day.

I recall in the previous competition, I felt like puking everytime we were standing backstage waiting to go up and show the world our stuff.

That was my first ever competition.

Hopefully this one will be better.

iEmoNemo.

I'm such a delinquent associate. Instead of working like a good employee, I went to eat junk food and bought a pair of cool shoes hurhur

I have been completely unproductive the entire morning. My mind is only on two things:

1. Xiamen and praying all the European choirs get food poisoning / diarrhoea.
2. My new camera.

I was editing and cropping my photos all the way until 2.30 am last night while being an attention whore and sending pics to everyone who was still on MSN at that time. I APOLOGIZE if I kept anyone awake.

This morning i got up at 7 am (= crack of dawn and an hour earlier than usual) and the first thought on my mind is "Oh what a cool camera I have. Oh I can't wait for Friday"

And then I got to work and I couldn't remember what I was supposed to do. And then I went to see my pics again. And then YL msged me and I was on gChat. And then I downloaded the recordings and went "grosssssSSSSsssssss weSilver"

And I selected the most brainless of tasks outstanding - doing up a document list. I have no mood to work, and my concentration is about zero.

God help me and my transaction.

PICS!!!

(edited - oops forgot to include link)

K, there's apparently a button to focus lock. =). Glad I discovered it before I went to Xiamen.

Some pics. I'm sorry, some are a bit out of focus. Apparently I'm supposed to press a button to focus lock.

I am IRRITATED. I must have taken some 140 shots today, of which probably *25* as passable. A lot of the shots look OUT OF FOCUS. Like, got one pic, it focussed on someone's left collar instead of the face. Blardy hell. Tt one throw to the bin.

Either:

1. I have extremely poor technique
2. I need to learn how to focus lock - I thought it's just half press on target, then it will focus lock - this resulted in a lot of sharp and in-focus boobs (centre of picture), but OUT OF FOCUS FACES. wtf.
3. f1.8 not very suitable for a lot of shots - very poor depth of field. Help. I need lessons.

Friday

It's Friday. I'm in the office. Not because I have to. But because I got nothing better to do. Sad innit.

There's no one around except for this girl down the corridor and the night secretary. All the cats are away in Shanghai for a retreat, and the mice are out to play. Had a 2 hour lunch at Brewerkz today. They now offer 20% off food during lunch hours, and $3.50 pints of yummy beer, and that's BEFORE the 15% Amex discount. What a great deal! I had 2 pints and had to walk back to the office or I would've passed out.

I STILL haven't bought my lens. Gagggh. I must buy TOMORROW. Or mebbe Monday.

Bah

Just heard a recording of last Sunday's run. God, I got in a really foul mood after that. The recordings really suck. Wtf's wrong. The microphone never lies.

 

This is worse than Bremen 2004.

 

I went to check out my first ever rock concert on Monday. What an exciting experience!!! I'm a groupie!!!

It sits silently in front of me. The tasteful maroon ribbon and gold wrapper calls out to me to be undone, so that I may reach my tubby fingers into its inner sanctum wherein lies the forbidden pleasures waiting to be plucked. It whispers seductively to my tastebuds: "You know you want it.". It implores me to take it now. My tongue tingles and and my tastebuds salivate with excitement and anticipation.

How do I resist its guileful ways?

I hate it when my boss goes on holiday and comes back with a box of chocs. I just know I'm going to end up eating the whole box of chocs.

That plus the two pints of Ben and Jerry I bought over the weekend. I'm going to look like M0ses Lim soon. Maybe I too need Xando Platinum 2.

Once u have used a digital SLR, you never want to go back to a normal point and shoot cam - the pic quality really sucks - at ISO 200 it looks like a watercolour painting.

On the other hand, it is every geek's bane - it has so many upgrade options. Today two choir scumbags started telling me about lenses and stuff. And NOW I WANT TO BUY A NEW LENS. I've barely like shot 20 pics on the camera and I want a new lens. I WANT I WANT I WANT. I've been surfing Clubsnap for 1.5 hours doing nothing but looking at forums. Urgh.

I should be memorizing my scores.

Competition is in two weeks! And we have been forsaken by "God" again. Idiot. No sense of priority.

Some updates

Of late, I haven't had much time nor energy to blog. It's ironic that in the month of June during the GSS, my expenditure was paltry, since I didn't have time to eat lunch out, eat dinner out, buy anything of mention etc, save for the comfort purchases of a laptop and a new LCD screen.

This brings me to my latest announcement: I'm now the proud new owner of a swanky Nikon D50 SLR! The chak chak sound is really quite soothing and therapeutic. I mean, I took 10 pictures of my stupid water bottle...I was tempted to buy a lens, but, as NC says, you shouldn't buy everything at once otherwise you'd have nothing to look forward to to buy. How true.

In the course of purchase, I heard a really corny / effective (depending on how you look at it) sales line. This guy, obviously considering whether or not to buy a digital SLR with an upgraded lens or to stick to the stock lens, tried out the "upgraded lens" for at least 10 mins appearing undecisive. The salesman swooped in for the kill and said:

"Sir, you're obviously trying to tell yourself that the basic lens is enough for your use. I only have one thing to say - you've worked very hard to buy this camera. You only have one hobby, and you deserve to get the best your money can buy to support this hobby."

WAH! Super effective. That was our punchline of the day. Feel guilty for buying anything? nvm. I DESERVE it. I've worked hard. Haha, so off we skipped to Chorale feeling rather uhm, deserving, of our purchases. Never mind that it cost and arm and a leg and could feed a family of 4 for a month, or an entire village in the middle of Kelantan - I deserve it!

And thanks to OL who was nice enuff to come and join us to look around.

Apart from that, choir is coming along ok - some of the juniors are actually quite chatty. We welcomed a new entry into the Circle of Trust hurhur....it's not my fault - I'm not bitchy. I WAS GOADED. iGoaded.

Went to watch Superman on Friday - I'm a huge Superman fan - I needn't remind ye faithful blog readers that when I was younger I used to uhm, wrap myself with a blanket and jump off the ledge of a shelf onto a spring bed yelling "SUPERMANNNNNNNNNN", and thought that wearing underwear on the outside was the pinnacle of coolness. I'm glad I've outgrown the phase. So it was with great disappointment that I found that they've turned my favourite superhero to some sort of a SNAGgy wimp with personal issues - I'm not interested in another Batman!!!! There were no great feats of superheroism or supervillainism. It was all quite lame. The story focussed more on the feelings of regret between Lois and Superman. But if that was the focus, then the actors were pretty lousy - all that regret didn't come through. Sigh. Anyhow, I'm glad they kept the music the same - it brought back lots of childhood memories. The guy does the Christopher Reeve rendition of "G'nite Lois" pretty well. Bah, I want to be Superman. Which other superhero is as cool as Superman??? Apart from Magneto lah he's my favourite supervillain.

My colleagues remarked that I'm the most sarcastic guy they know. I OBJECT. I where got sarcastic. I'm like how nice. Bah.

Sigh. I can't wait for Saturday.