Go get yourself some sleep, boys.

So guys, while I'm working on the writer's block, please make do with this semi-pictorial update.

Meet-ups, birthday, etcetera

5 Sept: Dinner with my favourite TJ girls @Thai Express Raffles City. Two of us are already working now, and all of us attached, teehee... 

I'm lovin' the summer-y top and the matching necklace, babes... Thank you! :)

12 Sept: Surprise cake from the A-Team! I was already asleep when they unveiled the whole cake and candles thing, but thank you mwah mwah!

Also some time last week, had:

• lunch with Syaheeda (thank you for the charm bracelet, darling! I still need to pass you the souvenirs from Europe!)
• dinner with the Settlers + Wayan + Mas Iwan + M'Dhita to celebrate Adityo's new chapter of life (kikikik...)
• another lunch with Devi + Melly + Indrie who have just joined the firm.

PwC's Yellow Ribbon Project

7 Sept: Joined the firm's contingent to do some good (see this entry) :)

That's Stephanie, Valerie, Rachael, Victoria, me and Jun Zhi before we hit the streets. Jun Zhi there is a competitive bodybuilder, who takes a gym bag full of eggs, protein-rich food and other nutritious snacks to work EVERYDAY. Don't play play with him ok! =D

Stentorian @Noise Concert 2007 - Hear Us Rock!

2 Sept: The boys made their waves, this time aptly by the sea, as Noise Singapore went to the East Coast Park. Noise Singapore is an arts festival dedicated to creating noise about the work of young artists in Singapore.

Check out Iylia's pair of retro/rockstar shades. Whoever said that white frames are passé?

I love the following shot of my baby. He looks so boyishly intense :p

Now I'm gonna shamelessly rip the boys' gig schedule for the next few months off their blog and put it up here because you may wanna check them out! Their originals have recently hit the airwaves on 98.7 fm!

1) Off Beat!

September 21, 2007 @ Home club

$12 before 11pm, $15 after (inclusive of first drink), $5 beer and 1 for 1 housepour till 12am

A night of great live music with Jess Chen, Shoe Box Diary and Stentorian. Free door gifts for the first 20 people! Event starts at 9.15 followed by the popular indie disco Beat!

2) Semi Acoustic gig

October 20, 2007 @ Earshot Cafe, The Arts House.

Come chill with us at Earshot Cafe with a cuppa and nice plush seats! Watch this space for more details.

3) Weekend by the bay with Stentorian

December 1, 2007@ Esplanade Outdoor Theatre (Ok i made the name up cause i don't have any details and wanted it to sound cool).

We will be playing two sets at the outdoor area that day so don't worry if you can't catch us for the first slot. The first set starts at 7.30pm and the other one starts at 8.45pm. Admission is free! We heart esplanade!

4) Rock Your World at Timbre

January 2, 2008 @ Timbre

The Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) 2007 aims to collaborate with key figures in the local music industry to organise music programmes that will be the highlights of the Rock Your World year-long series. These music performances will headline each Rock Your World, lasting from 7.45pm-9pm. Before each music performance, anoratorical or drama performance will feature from 7pm to 7.45pm.

Man, the Esplanade (again, woohoo) and Timbre! I'm so excited for them! Anyone wanna come along with me to catch them in action? :)

Movie Reviews

While some of these movies are not exactly recent ones, I'm rolling out the reviews anyway, heh.

Paris Je T'aime

Kinda like Love Actually (which I love!) in a way, but quirkier. The character development could've been better here, but hey, Paris, je t'aime aussi!

Hairspray

Great cast, singing and acting, oh yeah. Not so much the kind of musical I dig, though. I prefer something with more... grandeur.

1408

Succumbed to peer pressure and it was just an awful decision. Not into the genre in the first place. To me, John Cusack is its only saving grace.

Ocean's Thirteen

One word will suffice: Sleeeeeeeeeek.

On a random note (I know I'm kinda slow since I'm only at Season 1 Episode 5), Hiro Nakamura is soooooo freakin' hilarious!

Stentorian totally rocked the venue last night at Baybeats!

Man, if their performance didn't depict the right combination of skills, energy and showmanship, then I don't know what did. You just gotta feel the enthusiasm displayed by the crowd -it was nothing short of amazing.

Since my camera doesn't exactly take night photos of outstanding quality, let me give you a glimpse of pictures from the official website.

Must say I'm really impressed by the boys. It was like watching the performance of a major-label band which has taken to the stage a hundred times.

For a peek of Stentorian's live performance last night, here's a video of their last song, Fly (credit: Lilian).

Oh, you might not able to see it clearly in the video, but my baby was doing this tricky stunt whereby he played the drums in standing position :p  

More photos from Baybeats here and here.

On another positive note, the band has also released an EP recently. I think it looks and sounds pretty good!

(photo credit: http://www.stentorian.blogspot.com)

If you're interested in grabbing a copy, let me know yea?

P.S. The Vienna State Opera is coming to town next month! Performing Le Nozze di Figaro! I didn't have the chance to see it (arguably Mozart's most popular opera) in Vienna, so I'm gonna make sure I see it at the Esplanade this time. And yeah, if you're thinking of getting me a birthday present, you know what to get your hands on *winks* 

P.P.S. Have finally uploaded the complete set of my graduation photos. Click here to view!

1. The weekend was spent rushing through my Strategic Management report and yours truly's brain is incredulously rusty it was progressing at a snail's pace

2. Yesterday was packed with classes and Kaiko -which was fun, just that I expected the club to be much bigger and/or less crowded *shrugs*

3. I'm still sorting through the hundreds of photos now and the speed at which my laptop is running with Photoshop open (which I need to reduce the picture size) is killing me!

So yes, trust me, your patience is greatly appreciated :)

Before I forget, I hadn't mentioned the fact that Stentorian, my baby's band, got through the ever stringent Baybeats 07 audition, had I? Fact is, I was extremely annoyed over some matter when the audition result was announced, so I had no mood to blog about it.

There.

Now that I'm not pissed anymore, CONGRATS, YOU GUYS! I know it's quite an achievement to be in the line-up :) Oh by the way, if you're as thrilled as I am, go view the short feature video on the auditions at the Baybeats homepage. See if you can spot Stentorian and their song (hint: it's the 2nd of the 3 songs featured on the video)!  

The best thing of all, I'll be back in time to catch them live at The Esplanade, so hurrah!

Watched The Queen on Saturday, after all the rave reviews that Helen Mirren received at the Globes. Agreed, she's awesome as Her Majesty, but I found the storyline a tad dry, it being revolving solely around the late Princess Diana's tragic death. Too much coverage was done on her death that what's supposed to have been solemn mourning turned a little stale.

Oh by the way, we love the new GV at VivoCity. Hurrah to the spacious leg room. The popcorn could've been sweeter, though.

After getting myself a German dictionary and packing ourselves Carl's Jr dinner, we headed down to meet the rest of Stentorian boys for their Baybeats audition. Getting through is not gonna be an easy feat, considering there are 30 or so other bands that are competing for the few spots. That said, I have faith in the band 'cos they've got the complete package (skills and looks), plus you can expect a few hot bods thrown in for good measure in their performances. AHAHAHAHA.

Once the boys were done with impressing the judges, we decided to go for supper (dinner in Andrew + Lilian's case) at New York New York @CityLink Mall. It was my first time there, despite having been enticed by its cosy ambience for the longest time. 

Ayank and I had a glass of velvet white hot choco. It's terribly sweet it gives you a sore throat.

Lilian had some pasta with mushroom sauce, which tasted pretty good, fortunately.

Iylia had blueberry pancakes with ice cream. The pancakes don't look very appetizing, them being blue in colour due to the, uhm, blueberries.

We also sampled the fried Mars bars with ice cream, but they're not as tasty as those you get at Raffles City/Far East Plaza basement, albeit as sinful.

Lilian was cajoling the boys to watch Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera with her in March, and Iylia in turn tried to get my baby to be his "date", since I'll be away then.

Hm. I seriously doubt the two guys could stay awake throughout the musical, considering my baby's record of nearly dozing off when we watched the movie version 2 years ago.

Number of visa at hand: 0

Boohoo. My passport is still stuck with the Austrian Embassy because they're short-handed during the holiday season. If my visa is still not ready for collection by this Friday, I wouldn't be able to go home as scheduled and need to buy another ticket! *horror of horrors*

Yet assuming I can go home in time, will only be left with 3 weeks to get my UK and Slovakian visa done. Wonder if that's enough. Urgh. Blame it on the inefficient host university who only issued my acceptance letter (which is required for the Schengen visa application) 3 weeks ago.

Met up with Cheryl and Min Dan last night to settle our itinerary, and we didn't even manage to confirm our Easter Break's because (1) We don't know whether there's an affordable direct flight from Ireland to Lisbon -if there isn't, gotta return to London first before flying off to Portugal, (2) We're still undecided as to how many places we should squeeze into the 3-week break -we don't want to have a rushed trip, (3) As a consequence, we still can't decide which Eurail Pass to get.

Eeeks. Why would the host university release our timetable only next month?! How to plan, man. This whole trip is starting to frustrate me :( Anyway, tentatively, this is how our itinerary roughly looks like:

Feb 4 - Feb 11: Italy

Feb 14 - Feb 25: The Netherlands, and maybe Greece and Luxembourg

Mar 31 - Apr 22: Slovakia, UK, Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium

May/June: Denmark (Ayu temenin jalan2 ya hehe), Norway, Sweden

July 1-6: Czech Republic, Germany

Will squeeze Switzerland and exploring Austria into the weekends during the semester. Hope there's enough time!

Anyways. Was at DXO @Esplanade on Thursday for Overdrive. Ayank and I didn't stay long enough to find out who emerged as the winner, but I thought the Dubious Brothers (who won JamX earlier this year) are really something, man. Totally rocked the house with their rock 'n roll style, this band. 

Stentorian was one of the guest bands, which is clearly the better one, hurhur.

Watch their really catchy original here, Contemplations. The video is a tad dark, but you'll love the song. It's my second favourite after Fancy Girl. 

And oh, if you happen to be a regular at the event, is it just me or is the Overdrive crowd getting smaller and smaller every year? Heh.

On a holiday note, got to leave the office after lunch yesterday. Although work has been rare these days, I think it's really kind of the firm to give us a half-day before Christmas *grins* Enjoy the long weekend, peeps!

C'est notre deuxième anniversaire, aujourd'hui. Jusqu'à la fin de ma vie, toujours =)

1/12/06 - Post-exams Settlers home session with the boys chez Adit

After a feast of Thai-Chinese cuisine, we played Saboteur and Munchkin, but I was seriously worn out after the series of interviews.

5/12/06 - Flow @Ministry of Sound

 Credit: this

Lots of great local bands! Spotted Paul Twohill from Singapore Idol 2 too -who was hosting the event, signature hair and all- but couldn't be bothered to ask for pics. Guess I'm past that groupie age eh.

 Stentorian @Pure Room

My baby played right after work, which explains the shirt, if you notice.

MOS has quite a few rooms with different themes, apart from the main dance floor-stage-bar. Which is a really appealing idea, if only those ciggie burns on the otherwise classy furniture were gotten rid of.

8/12/06 - GI outing @Settlers Cafe Clarke Quay 

Chern is back from the land of Oz! Oh and I love Chin Ling's new hairstyle! She's gonna be interning at Deloitte next week but I don't understand why she's so nonchalant about it -I'd be outrageously excited if I were her, hee.   

Everyone looks good, although Huai Fong claimed she didn't lose a gram, hurhur. Rayner sports a pretty damn good amount of muscle I had to ask him whether he's been going to the gym. We left the place a relatively satisfied bunch of customers although the boys wished the food servings had been larger.

Wow it suddenly occurs to me that in a couple of years from now we'll have a doctor, an architect, a mechanical engineer, a banker or two, a tax consultant, an economist and (possibly) an auditor among us! 

It's been nearly 5 years and gosh I still love these people so much.

P.S. Photo albums are updated!