Wherein I celebrate another New Year

The banana offered me a job at a countdown managed by her company over at Jurong Sports Complex. The event was organized by Yuhua, some offshoot of some community that was ostensibly trying to fulfill sponsorship agreements using the event. I wasn't expecting it to be very happening, being a Heartlands Countdown, and Zero In 2006 didn't disappoint.

The morning started off with a simple games and a mass swim at the pool. They also devoted the entire Multi-Purpose Hall to board games - chess and carem. Understandably, the crowd was less than awesome, to say the least. We managed to get participants for the telematches mostly from wandering masses who were desperate for some kind of activity to justify the three dollars they'd paid for their entrance ticket and who didn't want to swim or play chess, but that crowd dried up once the sun started to beat down more brightly. No prizes for guessing how the mass swim went - 8.30am - 12pm on a Saturday is a bad time to organize a sporting event that.

But nothing could beat the sheer unhappeningness of the Multi-Purpose Hall, a gigantic cavern of quiet inactivity where boredom went to die. I was told the chess-playing was part of a sponsorship deal, though I am unsure which sponsor would give a grassroots organization money to promote chess. No music was played, to allow the full concentration of the chess players (of whom there were four at any given time, at most) and the only sounds in the hall were the occasional clicks from the carem boards.

Even the guy they brought in to teach kids how to play chess seemed to be bored. I was coerced into playing a game with him so that they could make up the numbers on the registration forms, though my chess skills are at the level of "know how to move some of the pieces". Luckily, instead of being a lousy sport (though I was arguably the lousy one) and trashing me before showing me the door, he showed me some how some basic chess games went, and told me it was being debated whether chess was already a closed game (ie. no new moves left to discover).

It got to the point where I told the banana I wanted to quit - it was so boring. She told me to stick it out till the evening and then I'd be busier.

She wasn't altogether wrong - after a small downpour (which saw the happeningness level go down even more, if that was possible) I was tasked to perform my most important task that day - purchasing two hairdryers and a towel so that the stage's sound equipment could be dried. Infuriatingly, the area was filled with hair salons that had the items I wanted but no electrocal goods stores. Took me an hour to return with said products, by which time they were still trying unsuccessfully to dry the amplifiers with newspapers.

Yeah - without my warm blowing and soft absorbent touch the show wouldn't have been possible.

Setting up the concert also proved to be most tiring, involving moving heavy barriers and running about with tape and equipment. I teamed up with one of the company's designers, a small, thin and pale fellow who was most unfortunately dressed in a tasteful ensemble incorporating a white Addidas jacket and accesories that was good fashion sense for anything else but bad for moving dirty heavy things and who looked like he could do with some testosterone shots but who still had much more facial hair than me (I couldn't stop looking at them when we conversed). He complained about having to do such menial labour as a designer, at which I smiled at him and reminded myself not to apply with them. We ran behind another of the company's rare men (female-dominated industry), whom I am most impressed with, having seen him take up roles as host, layout designer, media relations officer and labourer within that single event.

The banana describes such variety in work experiences as da3 zha2.

The show turned out to be quite a big draw with many Malay fans turning up for the Anugerah boys. The acts were a series of hits and misses, such as a strange one involving scantily clad girls prancing around to generic dance music a la Crazy Horse, only no one in their right minds would regard it as tasteful or artistic despite the girls having their important parts concealed. The Anugerah boys saw such a craze of screaming and shouting I was in fear of getting pushed into the small pool I was standing beside. Even the auntie who was assigned to help me prevent members of the public from entering production area lost all sense of professional propriety and shrieked like a little fangirl(especially when one of the boys ripped off his shirt... to reveal a tee underneath).

I did runner for the coordinator, which was pretty superfluous given that the comms sets removed much of a need for runners. I ended up buying sweets and getting her spare batteries for the walkie-talkie most of the time.

It was actually rather fun to be walking around with a handset and earplug in ear, looking all stern and professional whilst surrounded by shrieking fans. Perhaps the severe boredom of the afternoon had left me desperate for entertainment, as I discovered a disproportionate amount of fun in telling members of the public that the production area was out of bounds and watching their faces turn in agony and apology. Ma face may have been stern the entire day, but inside I was rocking with insane laughter at the power!!! The power of denial of passage!!!

The final seconds saw a sudden frenzy of excitement as we realized no one had a properly calibrated watch. I quickly stripped off mine and set it according to the time by SingTel. Of course, being a physics major as I passed it backstage I gave them an error range of "plus-minue two seconds", which unfortunately they heard as just "minus two seconds". So if you were counting down at Zero In 2006, I regret to inform you that you were possibly late a couple of seconds.

And that's right! MY watch was used in the countdown for hundreds of people! And Randall Wong held it! (and the entire crew when they were passing it around, wondering whose it was) Look down upon your puny timekeepers and ask yourself if you can say the same about yours!

(cue insane laughter within)

The one redeeming feature of a Heartlands Countdown is that you get to be really close to the fireworks (if there are any). Although it wasn't a particularly spectacular display, I have to say the difference in having a prime seat just under the showering sparks looks a lot better than having to squint from a kilometre away. The banana told me she had been offered a place right behind the platform from the launch of the ammo, but had refused it for safety reasons. Huh.

The place pretty much cleared up after midnight, no doubt in a rush for the last vestiges of public transport. We cleaned up till around two, trying to squeeze air out of the inflatable beach balls (a damning thing to have to do at one in the morning) and consolidating the goodie bag items we'd failed to give out. The banana left with the perm staff for the office, whilst I set off for home.

Sadly, it turned out not to be the last I saw of the banana that night, as we both signed into MSN after gettign home. We talked about the night, and she asked me to sign up for her job (she's quitting) after informing me of all the crap she'd gone through - not the best way to sell a career. I declined, and then for some reason we started discussing life ideals and epistemology. She took the stand of radical relativism whilst I tried to shoot it down, but realized you can't argue with someone who sees logic as only "strong faith". Exasperation and weariness battled for supermacy and in the end I think I conceded just to get it to end. My pride now feels crushed (I have yet to beat the banana at anything - she even runs faster than me).

And... that was my New Year celebration!.

Happy New Year, all!