Rent. (11/26) I went with Deenie to see this musical performed at Kallang Theater on Saturday night (coincidentally on the week that the movie version opened in the US). They had Karen Mok as Mimi to give the production a bit more local appeal I guess; her singing was actually very good, and her English has gotten a lot better since her early movies. Anyways, there were a LOT of really catchy tunes throughout and the show really WAS good, but I guess it had just been hyped up in my mind from years of anticipation that it couldn't possibly live up to my expectations. And I guess I couldn't really follow what was going on the whole time (they don't distribute those playbill/program things at any of the shows in Singapore). I really liked the carpe diem message of the story, even though I have so much trouble living by it. =/ "I should tell you, I should tell you..."

"There's only us
There's only this
Forget regret
Or life is yours to miss
No other road
No other way
No day but today"
~Rent - Another Day

A Twist of Fate. (12/1) I decided on a whim to see this show (on my last night in Singapore, while I should have been packing and tying up other loose ends) mainly cuz I hadn't seen the inside of any concert/theater halls in the Esplanade, and I was curious. The show turned out to be surprisingly entertaining. It's a musical comedy murder mystery set in Singapore. They toss in some clever jabs at the local and/or Peranakan (Chinese-Malay crossbreed) culture. I laughed out loud several times. However, I did nearly have a cathartic bursting-into-tears moment from sadness at the thought of finally leaving the country also- that wasn't really the show's fault though. The show was Singaporean through and through, and I suppose it was a pretty good way to wrap up a half-year stay in the country.

"Love would be an easy game if there were no rules"
~A Twist of Fate - One Step at a Time

*Went to Malacca, Malaysia with the Singapore Chin Woo Association the weekend of 11/13. It's like a sleepy state that's got historical significance, but not a whole lot to do. We visited several historic sites, performed at the Malacca Chin Woo center, and got taken to a bunch of tour-related shopping places that kinda sucked. The trip was pretty uneventful overall, but it definitely made me feel more like a part of Chin Woo.

**Had Thanksgiving dinner with Tore, Lennart, Calvin, and Kyungee in my cluster kitchen. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing- I just woke up that Thursday morning and decided that I'd like to actually celebrate. Went over to the Cold Storage (supermarket), bought a bunch of canned foods and a smoked turkey. The "cooking" of the meal actually consisted mainly of heating canned food, heh. The only thing made from scratch was mashed potatoes. All-in-all, the dinner went very smoothly (much better than the bbq I threw in the middle of the semester). Oh yea, and turns out people from other countries don't really drink milk with desserts; coffee apparently is definitely the norm.