2005-07-12
10:06 a.m.
My Theatre Studies Tutors / Minz
Warning: This post is gonna be pretty long cos I'm quoting 3 emails in their entirety.
Got this email from my NUS TS Lecturer / Tutor (he tutored me in my 2nd and 3rd years). Read what he says about my OTHER tutor (those of you who were at Cadet Talentime this year should know who this KK is.. he was a drama judge)
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Hi Doreen:
Good to hear from you. Yes to Tuesday. Lunch or tea is fine. If it's lunch, it needs to be near NUS while tea can be anywhere. I'm staying in Chinatown so one trip to NUS a day is enough. If we do tea, I'll just stay in town as I can easily work from my room. The office is a luxury really. I'll see if KK can join us. I think he's still in Bangkok for a major international queer conference (OK, so it's not quite worded this way in the conference brochure!). I should be there myself I guess, but I just don't publish on GLBT stuff so I'd have felt like an interloper. And they get so cultural studiesy at these conferences with their jargon. I makes my head hurt. Best to hunker down here and get sometime done. Of course Chinatown has many distractions, but I'm really digging being off the NUS campus in the evenings.
Hope you've recovered from what must have been a challenging time in Sumatra. I was saddened to read of the attack on one of the Red Cross workers there and was thinking of you.
Best,
Billl
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Queer Conference? I know these 2 lecturers of mine are ermmm.. not straight, but gosh! I never knew they had such conferences! =p
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MINZ's EMAILS
Email 1:
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Dear all, e-mail from Austria once again!
The weather here has not been great and it's been raining everyday (still 14 degrees i think) but the mood is camp is still amazing. Most people are friendly and sociable so it's easy to mix around and make new friends.
Yesterday, we had an activity called "Do you see what I see?" where we go around and write what we think/know about the different countries. There are 21 countries/national societies (Austria, Armenia, Croatia, France, Poland, Finland, Syria, Czech Republic, Japan, Spain, Italy, St Lucia etc etc...) and there were the 'usual' stereotypes that people expressed e.g. French ppl are arrogant (Ermm... but the French admitted it's true). Today, each country gets to tell the rest which comments are true and which ones are false. For Singapore, we're going to agree that it is 'clean and tidy' (although there are already people shocked to realise that gum is prohibited in Singapore. Someone made a joke that Singapore mafia sells gum instead of guns) and we are going to correct the wrong idea that Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Singapore.
Apart from that, this morning was the official opening and really! Michelle and I felt like celebrities! They were very impressed and really liked our uniform. People kept coming up to us to take photographs (We can only imagine how it was for Ley Wee as she was the only one from Singapore the year she came). Mohan and Yuling were dressed formerly as well and we managed to have pictures taken with the Lord Mayor of the town of Langenlois as well as the Secretary General of Austrian Youth Red Cross.
Delegation wise, we're mostly fine and well. All of us are having a good time. Michelle will be leaving camp this afternoon to go back to the airport to file a report with Emirates because her luggage lock was damaged and broken during the flight and now she can't lock her luggage. She will definitely need a new luggage bag to return to Singapore if she wants to travel peacefully without having to worry if her luggage has been tampered with.
While I've recovered from my slight flu-feverish symptoms shortly after my arrival, Michelle is now feeling slightly flu-ey. Probably because we walked in the rain this morning to get to the official opening and there was cold wind while we were dressed in our full uniform (skirt = cold legs). She felt worse after we had a glass of wine at the opening ceremony (everybody drinks all the time here. We get wine at ��0.50 per glass and beer at ��1.00 per bottle every night during pub hours). I think she's not used to drinking. I have to remember to keep the stuff away from her now. Right now, she's resting in her room after I made her a herbal tea (thanks mum!) to help with her stuffed nose.
Although I felt like a cadet in a training camp on the first day, it is not the case now. Things are going at a leisurely pace. We have activity for 1+ hour then we have a break for 1+ hour. But yes, punctuality is important in this camp (although we were told that in the capital, Vienna, people have 2 hours grace. So if we were supposed to meet at 4 for coffee and you appeared at 5:30, you would be ON TIME!). We've been good so far, always enthusiastic, always punctual. =)
And now, time for some (pls don't be offended if you are not in the list below) PERSONAL notes:
Charme/Wendy: Glad to hear that you guys have arrived in Melbourne. I think you'll like it there and with a 'supplier' of kaya and pau-s bringing you around, hopefully it will alleviate your homesickness.
Ley Wee: I've passed your present to Claire and she's very happy to get a present from you. I think quite a few teamers remember you (Claire, Gregor, Jean). Some of the other teamers are Annette, Erik, Marcello, Paul, Christina, Chadi, Tatti.....
Dor/Dorl/Huda: Heya!! I'm missing all of you! Having fun at NDP without me? I doubt... haha...
Mum/Dad/Bros: Missing you all too!!! Will sms more if I'm free. Please remember to water my aloe vera and feed my dog. Thanx.
Alex: My dearie cousin... why are you not maintaining my e-mail account for me???!!!?!?
Ok, bye! It's not easy to type on this keyboard coz it's a 'GERMAN' keyboard. The 'y' is where the 'z' is supposed to be and vice versa and the punctuation marks are all over the place. Arrghh....
Mae
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Email 2:
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Hello all, quick update today coz it's a packed day today. We've been on the road the entire day and we're all quite tired. Supposed to go to the vineyard tonight but weather's really bad so we came back after we visited the concentration camp. That's all. I'll remind the rest to email as well. I think they've been busy socialising.. Haha...
Regards,
Mae
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