long post ahead, beware
After years and years of reading about prom in American chick flick books and watching my favourite High School Musical cast go for their "prom", I never thought that my night would come. On 13 November, I attended Farewell Alma Mater (FAM) - RG's way of calling our prom night - at Marriott Hotel. Even though in Singapore our proms are nothing like those featured in Western culture with drama and getting dates (I mean come on, we don't even have boys here), it was truly a night to remember.
On the day itself, many of the Boings decided to do their hair and makeup professionally, leaving Sarah and myself to make ourselves up! The both of us checked into Marina Bay Sands Hotel first (yes - we were staying there for the night after FAM; how very exciting) and it was my first time there so it was a rather lovely experience. However, the two of us weren't in the best of moods; not against each other but something else that made us increasingly frustrated and angry. All was good at the end though because we made ourselves happy (-:
The room!
Sarah and I both put really minimal makeup because we didn't want to risk looking too crazy and out of place (in case everyone had really light makeup) plus we weren't confident of our own makeup skills at all so it's best not to go overboard. I basically concealed all my terrible imperfections on my face (i.e. pimples and other crap) :-( because trust me - I have so many.
Shameless mirror shot
Oh and we did the old school way of curling our hair by tying braids (quite cute right heh heh) and heating it with a hair straightener though it didn't really work out and our waves disappeared in no time. It did give my hair a bit of extra volume though, which is always good.
It was great that there were mirrors all around our hotel room (-:
It was a little infuriating because I had to head to Marriott Hotel earlier for a sound check (Channel 5 was performing) and Sarah was coming along as well but none of the other Boings were in sight and many of them said they would be late, which left us with the key dilemma because none of them would be able to enter the room without the key. Fortunately, Priya came early.
Sarah and I headed down to get a cab that would bring us to Marriott!
My outfit of the night (-: Surprised myself by getting a pink dress (hot pink in fact, which is even more strange) and honestly, I'm not even used to myself without spectacles and contacts are such a hassle as well - I don't think it's for me!! It was fun dressing up and acting like a lady for a night though.
Met Channel 5 on the third floor of Marriott and we did a lot of last minute preparation. We came up with this entire performance the day before FAM in a few hours in the music studio of our school but we are all no stranger to last minute work and one thing we pride ourselves is delivering speed and ahem - "quality". Then again, playing music and singing was never our forte - in fact, we have never done it before so it was rather nerve wrecking.
Minglu (may I draw your attention to what's she's wearing - a DRESS!!!) and Van!
Huiying and Sarah (haha thanks for coming so early to accompany me) hehe they have matching hairstyles because Sarah helped Yingz do it (-:
After a terrible sound check (we played horribly and I think the organizers and everyone were a little worried but we didn't have time to do another one), we headed outside to join the rest of 13atch before they officially opened the doors for us to enter the ballroom.
Our table!
Actually kind of liked it that I didn't look like I put makeup at all - people asked me "going for the natural look?" and I guess looking youthful and natural is great heh heh.
One of the few photos of the food - we all paid so much to attend FAM but we barely touched the food at all which is truly ridiculous because all of us ended up going around taking photos. I didn't really like it being this way, I would have liked a proper sit-down meal thing but I succumbed to peer pressure and I didn't want to be the only one without photos of myself at FAM. With that, I bring you a fraction of the photos I took with people that night! The rest are up on Facebook.
Riddhi! Who won best-dressed - YOU GO GORGEOUS GURL :')
With Mel Tan! (': We didn't take an MPP photo (Christina wasn't there anyway sigh) but I think this photo must be coupled with the next one that Ragini took!
Ragini the creeeeeeeeeep. But I like this photo so you're forgiven (-: Her overexposed photos are actually wonderful hehe thank you!
With Mr Faizal! The first thing he said to me was "Why you wearing pink? Not yellow?" which is quite funny because I'm always asking him to wear yellow (he's from Waddle) on House Days and I guess he associates me with that colour, just like everyone else does as well.
Of course, I have to be "classic liyin" :-)
With ragini! :') She looks like a goddess.
With pretty leirong :') Pity we didn't get to take a full Dwen An photo as planned though. I didn't even get a photo with Yijing I am very sad.
This is a ridiculous photo I think I was trying to make my eyes look big or something and the overexposure just makes the two of us look like ghosts. It's probably before our performance where we were both really excited (heh heh heh)
Channel 5 was the last performance of the night and it was really nice how the emcees introduced us by saying "saving the best for last" - no pressure indeed. Huiying and myself were regretting our decision to agree to perform in every single bone we had before we went on stage. Strange expression, but yes. Basically we wrote a parody of "Under the Sea" and changed the lyrics to make it really applicable and funny to RGS girls, using a lot of #gradconfessions tweets that were trending on Twitter the day we graduated from our school as inspiration. No we didn't sing to any old instrumental but one we played live on the spot - Huiying and myself were playing the keyboard and percussion instruments - yes one hand on keyboard and the other on either a castanet (myself) and shaker (yingz), Minglu on the ukulele, Van on the guitar and Mel of course, being the vocals!
Grade 8 failures seriously - even though we both were supposedly skilled in piano, we had no musical sense at all it was quite hilarious.
Mel being all confident while Yingz and myself are dying at the back.
Wow look at that chemistry. Okay I guess we looked quite cool and legit like a real band. Surprisingly, our song was rather well-received by our batch, thank you so much guys! :') We thought we would be slammed for being wannabes - I'm glad we chose to go the funny route by changing the lyrics instead of trying to be cool. Some even starting shouting for an "Encore" which was cute because Huiying and myself were just saying that we should sing Wrecking Ball if that that happens.
And of course "no school event will ever be complete without - school cheers!" Fidu all being so man in our ladylike dresses :')
My favourite deskies - Fathin & Phion!
Jing En :') Hurhur I guess both of us conquered our fear of contact lenses!
QT3.14 Bea! :-) (who also won the top prize in the lucky draw hehe)
My favourite Channel 5 - all relieved that our performance was over. Wow that was officially our last appearance in front of people as House Captains 2013. Thank you so much for the amazing journey. You guys already know how much I love you!
With SIMU head Angie! :')
And my SIMU buddy - Cheryl! :') Thank you to Angie and Cheryl for such a lovely year entrusted with the task of teaching the Year Ones the school cheers and passing down this flame. You guys have been lovely to work with and I'm so fortunate to have been given this opportunity to be part of SIMU.
Afterwards, we left Marriott Hotel for Marina Bay Sands Hotel where we were going to stay over for the night! 'We' being Phion, Wang, Sarah, Ragini, Swan and myself! Unfortunately, Shermaine and Priya weren't able to stay with us but it was such a lovely night. Also, if anyone's wondering, we got our room at a really discounted price all thanks to Sarah and her mum!
Before I headed to the bathroom heh
I was the first to bathe because I truly couldn't stand being all caked up in makeup (even though it wasn't even that much) and wearing contact lenses and feeling all restrained. Once I was done washing up, I felt so so so much better and more comfortable. I honestly don't understand how many women can actually stand putting makeup all day and dressing up glamorously. I guess I'm not meant for the glam tai tai life.
I wanted to go for a midnight walk afterwards (actually it wasn't even midnight, it was already 1/2am) because how often do you find yourself in the middle of MBS and having the freedom to walk around an atas environment in comfy clothes? Not often heh. Only Sarah came along and the rest of them didn't go; I guess they preferred to stay in the comfort of the room.
It felt incredibly refreshing though, free from all the problems of the world and being able to put aside everything for a night. I was just going quite crazy around the hotel because there was barely anyone who would stop me and it was a beautiful night. We tried to find food shops as all of us were really really hungry (I don't think I've felt this hungry ever which is stupid because we were supposed to have had a good dinner) but there was none :-(
Christmas came early!
We headed back up to make some late night tea!
Earl Grey - one of my favourites. Love how Singapore hotels like to provide TWG teabags because it's really good.
I think this is English breakfast and some strange Jasmine tea (not quite sure, it was Sarah and Phionna's). Ragini got coffee which made her really high the entire night because apparently there was half a cup of sugar in it.
Family potrait heh heh :')
We partied through the entire night, dancing and playing 'Truth or Dare' which failed when it got to me because they didn't know much of my private life (or at least the life I had concerning boys and love, which is basically non-existent so there really is nothing to know anyway) but hunger pangs got the better of us. So we succumbed to the pain and growls of our stomach to order food from the room service! We got one of the cheapest things on the menu - fries which cost $10 which is by no means, cheap!
We all agreed that this plate of fries was the BEST WE EVER TASTED. And that's saying something coming from me because I don't even like potato. It was just so good because it satisfied our hunger, was ordered from room service at MBS (yes we are shallow kids), and was eaten in the middle of the night. I mean, how often does one eat fries at 3AM? Not often, so it was a plate of fries we'd remember for a long time. It even came with cute tiny bottles of ketchup and mayo and cups of iced water. Oh, and forks too but we were all hungry beasts and devoured everything with our bare hands. When the room service people came, three of us went into hiding because the room wasn't supposed to have so many people (four was the max) and I realized the reflection of me crouching down could actually be seen from the window.
It seemed like it would never happen but we all went to sleep eventually and the next day at around 6.45am, some of us woke up to try to catch the sunrise. Some meaning Ragini, Sarah and myself. The other three were sleepyheads and kept sleeping.
Good morning! We had less than 3 hours of sleep - was a miracle we actually could wake up.
We headed up to the skypark in hope to catch a breathtaking view. Unfortunately, it was raining and there was no sunrise to speak of :-( We decided to be nice and order McDonald's breakfast even for the people who were still sleeping (so they could wake up to something lovely)
Yay we were happy kids. And those three deep sleepers weren't even awaken by the smell (like what?)
Big breakfast - my favourite since young heh heh!
Jam and butter on an English muffin is incredibly sinful but oh so so so good. Like just squeeze the entire packet of grape jam and half a circle of butter and you'll be transported to heaven figuratively.
I can be the ambassador for grape jam-and-butter English Muffins!
After Ragini, Sarah and myself have finished our food, Wang, Phion and Swan started waking up one by one. Swan was the deepest sleeper and it was hilarious because we finally got to witness how Swan appears and acts in the morning and why she is late quite often for things :') Sarah wanted to collect the bill for her mum so we went down but instead of heading back to the room immediately, I wanted to go to the skypark again as it stopped raining by then and I'm so glad we made that extra trip up there because it was beautiful.
No wonder celebrities from all over the world enjoy coming here to film music videos. The infinity pool looks incredible and I wished we had more time to actually swim here.
We managed to get a lovely seat near the pool though - close enough :')
Sarah! :-)
People who know me probably know that I don't have bones (at all!) Like if you squeeze my hand, you'll find that it feels like a raw chicken wing because it's so soft and since young, I've been able to do quite crazy gymnast looking acts without feeling pain at all. Maybe I would have been a talented gymnast/ dancer if I were to undergo training when I was smaller (fat hope).
But seriously. It didn't take any effort at all to do this and it's not even me showing off HAHA it's really quite freaky and weird. "Hey foot why are you here? Please go back where you belong ya?"
Oh, and there was this lifeguard there whom we thought was really cute because he had nice hair and wore sunglasses and then it started getting a bit weird and strange because we realized he kept looking in our direction as well. Then he left for a long while and we decided to go to take photos at the glass panel (which you'll see in the photo below) and while waiting for our turn to tread on the water, he appeared out of nowhere behind us and we were actually just talking about him at that point of time so it got really awkward and we left the Skypark not long after :')
It was nice that they built this glass panel thing for people who didn't intend to swim to still be able to go into the water and take photos with the breathtaking view of Singapore. Our country is actually really quite pretty if you ask me and I love it very much!
Another (kinder) lifeguard volunteered to take a photo for the two of us and it was weird because the other lifeguard was there too and just looking. It was nice though :-)
When we got back, Wang had already left and the other three (Ragini, Phion and Swan) were back in bed sleeping. Swan is curled up on the floor if you can tell. It was quite a cute sight.
We packed up and checked out not long after. It was such a lovely two days and definitely an experience I will never forget for a long time to come. And thank you for surviving this post till this last sentence.
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