2 day's worth of updates in 1 entry. Go!

Yesterday's rehearsal saw a bunch of special guests from The Odyssey cast dropping in to see how their juniors were doing in this year's production. Apparently, all came in without anyone making plans with anyone else to coordinate the visit. Nice to see them so supportive and encouraging to our current cast and crew.

Mel and I, with HT (thanks for the Black Forest cake!), 'sif, Sam, and Gid (who joined us later) and Cara gathered after rehearsal at Pastamania, J8, for dinner and a rousing good time. Vince, Amy and JY expanded our company later in the evening, so we had a strange mix of student alumni, staff alumni, 1 current student (Ben), and current staff. Given a little more time, I'm pretty sure we'd have been on first name basis with each other, and why not? Who cares for our formal titles, "Mr...," "Ms...," whatever, anyway?

June joined us after dinner when we staff abandoned our current and former students and, once the parking payment machines were working again, drove out to Tg Pagar where Anthony had got us a table at the Eskibar. He's been talking so much about it the past couple of weeks we had to experience it for ourselves. It's a bar with a gimmick that it's name suggests: air-conditioned to a temperature approximating a mild temperate winter. So cold you can borrow a parka from the bar so you can hear the techno beat instead of your chattering teeth.

Unfortunately for us, we chose to go on a Friday evening of a long weekend. It was so crowded, and the main door kept swinging open to allow a steady procession of patrons in and out, thus dissipating the chill into the muggy atmosphere of the outside world. Cheapskates that we are, June and I slipped outside to a coffee shop a couple of doors down for a can of coke ($1.20) then went back into the Eskibar just to cool off and yak with the guys some more.

Eventually, traffic thinned out enough for us to grab all the available stools at the bar to cluster around our table so that everyone could have a seat. But just when it was starting to get a little chilly, it was late and we decided to head on home and catch some rest before Parents' Day II this morning.

... Woke up early on a Saturday morning for the second Parents' Day of three this year. Yes, there will be another after the mid-year exam. Today, the heat was on the P, and her retinue of HODs as they fielded a Q&A session with concerned parents over the plight of their offspring in our college.

Parents as a whole can never agree whether their kids are too stressed out or not worked hard enough, so there the senior staff are in the spotlight assuring parents that we have programmes in place to cater to academic rigour, personal development, career guidance, confidence building, leadership training, ad infinitum so that boy-boy or ger-ger won't lose out to their peers in the "Top-Five." HODs take a lot of flak from parents, and I'm glad I wasn't up there on stage today giving those answers to those questions.

After all the parents, their kids and the rest of the staff left, I remained behind with a small crew of our backstage hands to meet with Yee and Wan Wen for some training on rigging and focusing of stage lighting and to get the stage ready for our big bump-in on Tuesday.

Right. Long weekend ahead. Brought back a bunch of PW preliminary submissions to peruse and comment on in case I get bored.