after a week of sitting on it, i've decided i'm going to do Queen Ping. i've already emailed the caketheatre person and i hope they'll still take me on. the substation is shaping up to be quite disorganized and probably way too much admin work - at least with caketheatre i'll be sure of what i'm doing. REHEARSALS, rather than office-based work, which is really the point of my joining in and killing myself with 7pm-11pm rehearsals and probably day shifts at cedele.

i watched 'a language of their own' and it was brilliant. really the most moving play i've seen, like, ever (from what i remember. i mean, i have been impressed by certain productions like 'educating rita' and 'betrayal' but NOT ACTUALLY MOVED). i was afraid of falling asleep after my long and tiring workshift but it really didn't disappoint. the stage direction was interesting - i can't help but wonder what it would have been like if not done in such a minimalistic fashion. but i suppose in a sense, all is really stripped bare, and at the end of the day - it is you and the person you love that counts ... when it comes to love, that's all you really feel exists, you and me and no one else in the room matters. so i really did feel that coming from the play - that daniel, ming, robert and oscar were all worlds to the ones they loved and vice versa. everything else is immaterial but for the one you love, indeed.

and it makes me so proud that this was a local production. anyone who has ever had their hearts broken or has loved and lost, or simply just loved should watch this because it really just ... comes through. i loved it. also made me ponder a lot more on the HIV/AIDS situation, a cause i've never thought much about before.

anyway, my shift today was a pretty good one, i'd say. except for the rj girl that came in and was so damn condescending - just because i'm a waitress and i'm serving you doesn't mean i'm stupid. i know there's a difference between 'cherry pistachio' and 'chocolate pistachio', and clearly, i can speak proper english, with an accent even, if you like (since that's the benchmark of refinement and intelligence to you kids). all these customers don't realize they probably wouldn't last a day being in this business. anyway, about waitressing being unfulfilling - it is rather, as compared to zhaowei and drama stuff. at the end of all that DAMN hard work of being on shoot or on stage set you DO feel this like damn good feeling - like 'SHIOK' man, to put it very simply. waitressing never gives me that 'shiok' feeling - the only fulfilment i get is knowing i survived lunch hour, which really isn't much of a consolation. but i'm glad i'm doing it and i'm proving to myself and to people that i'm not just some shallow pampered brat - i can clear tables and i can serve people their food and i really don't feel as if i'm above this job. and i can be on my feet for hours on end and starve for the longest time and deal with the scary kitchen staff and stomach blastings from the manager - i am toughening up, i'm getting more used to life's hard knocks and i won't fall apart so easily. i'd much rather waitress than slice cakes anyway - i'd rather be stressed than bored.

and i have learnt so many important lessons from the various things i've joined this year - zhaowei, maldives, cedele. i just feel like i'm seeing so many new things (heck, i've been to part of a protected zone in the world) and meeting so many people who are so different from the crowd i've been used to in njc and scgs. met more poly grads and normal acad/tech students than ever, this year. i've learnt that a university/jc education is really not everything and there are really so many alternatives in this life. i'm really expanding my mindset continuously, everyday. i don't mind smokers as much anymore. some people act so awfully sensitive to it and go 'eww' and things like that, but the fact is that there are people who smoke and it's their choice so we've got to accept it. i've gotten used to second-hand smoke, i don't think any less of a person who smokes ... we all choose our own vices. and homosexuality, i've stopped assuming from the moment i meet someone that they're 'straight'. i don't make such assumptions anymore and i'm more than comfortable with not putting people in boxes ('gay', 'straight', 'bi') and i think a few people have been shocked by such a mindset. i'm just growing out of my sheltered life and it is GOOD because the last thing i want to be is apathetic and narrow-minded. i'm getting tougher and i'm learning to be a hell lot more resilient.

so i'm really fortunate, as much as i complain about being tired. because while i AM completely utterly totally exhausted and grumpy sometimes, i know God is showing me new things everyday and preparing me well for the tougher life in Chicago.

thank God there's no work tomorrow, i can't believe i'm working on a saturdayyyy. but it ought to be interesting, probably a completely different crowd of people. i want to experience the night shifts too.

+ posted by M @ 12:55 AM