Eggs Benedict Day/Astronomy Day/Stress Awareness Day
2005-04-16 @ 11:51 p.m.

I realised that I'd forgotten to tell you what I'd bought yesterday from Kinokuniya and Borders. From Kinokuniya, I got Henry James's The Portrait Of A Lady, partly because Mr Purvis claims that it changed his perception of James, partly because it was a cheap but elegant Barnes & Noble edition. Would have got a selected edition of Edgar Allan Poe's work, also from Barnes & Noble, except that I figured paying thrice the price for his collected works was worth it, strictly in terms of the volume of writing. I got bilingual anthologies of Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine from Borders, having been influenced by the Hampton play I read recently. I would have got Far From The Madding Crowd if I had had enough money and had been certain I didn't already own it. Ditto for Jude The Obscure, plus the fact that Thong saw the last copy first.

RI and RJC performed our SYF pieces today to an audience composed of alumni and friends of our conductor. I think we were too nervous during our performance, but it didn't go too badly. Quite liked the RI pieces, though I thought the notes were a bit muddied in the second piece. Then I had to hurry down to Paragon for my optometrist appointment. My eyesight has improved marginally, and my new pair of glasses is funky. I would have liked to have got the Calvin Klein frame, even though it cost twice as much, but the general opinion was that my new frame will give me a younger look than the CK one. Then again, I'm probably attracted to the CK frame because it's CK. Glasses should be ready by Tuesday, and since I need them urgently, I'll probably give this Tuesday's practice a miss. My apologies in advance to Shaun, who would be shaking his head at me if he read this.

POP! practice today was amazing. The kinks in the PA system have been more or less worked out, and the drizzle was useful because it forced us to consider wet weather plans seriously. Ben Aw had the brilliant idea of rigging up a makeshift canopy with the canvas sheet, so we could still have our much-needed outdoor practice. Still don't like the way I sing the bridge for Love Song, and I know it's wrong, but I'll work it out over the next week. Otherwise, things are sounding good for the band, all things considered. Although it's scary to think that tomorrow's going to be our last practice before the actual day, we have to trust that God will see us through POP! and the Christmas outreach programme too.