Wednesday, June 28, 2006

So much for the 'Engrish' Speaking Competition. I was the emcee for the primary school preliminary rounds. The kids' English standards were high! Their names are truly unique. Parents must have spent lotsa time coming up with names like those. But good thing was, the name list for me was much more easier. My colleague in charge of emcee for sec school had a great deal of trying to figure out how to pronounce.

It's only names! Yeah Right. Very easy.

Let me ask you, how do you pronounce "Kkh"?

Yes, IT'S A NAME, a 1st name. When you start to "Ke" out, you musn't forget there's a "H" at the back. Well, it ended sounding like a cough instead.

See what i mean?

For the events, here's what happened.

Day 1 (Monday)
Went to Woodlands Library early in the morning. Reached there around 8.30am, helped set up the necessary. Kids came around 9am +. Many accompanied by their teachers, quite a number of kids brought along their props. One dressed as a indian king, one dressed like robin hood. So cute, and so daring.. We do have a time range for their speech, of which, below or exceed the time given will be disqualified. For Day1 around 5 out of 15 were disqualified. It may due to their fear of speaking out (maybe for 1st time) that fasten their pace of speaking bah.. Overall, i enjoyed helping out..

Day 2 (Tues)
Held in the company. Easier, can run around more freely. But was still doing the morning primary school preliminary round. This was the day something happened.

One of the students' titled her story, "The Enormous Crocodile". What's wrong with it?!

Well 1st of all, in what circumstances will we use the word, "Enormous"? I haven't use it for nong nong nong nong nong nong... time le. I dun go around saying, "wah, what enormous eyes you have!" We will only use "big or bulging", but Enormous? Sounds a bit "huh" to me.

So, without re-read the whole title of hers, i went up confidently and said,"The next contestant, xxx from xx primary school, her topic today is The 'E-Nor-Ne-Mous' Crocodile". As if ppl might not hear my error, i repeated myself again, "The 'E-Nor-Ne-Mous' Crocodile, pls welcome xxx"

When i went back to my seat, i heard the other primary school contestants whispering away. "It's Enormous"..."E-Nor-Mous"... "Mous".. "Enormous..."

Okok, i've became a laughing cookie to the primary school kids. The xxx student also emphasized on the word Enormous during her speech.

Candice, what a disgrace!

Day 3 (Wed)- Today
Held at Tampines Library. Me and my colleague went at 8.30am, saw that the library opens to public only at 10am. The 'supposed-to-be-automatic' door not automatic. We were a bit suprised that they weren't excepting our arrival. Great thing that the lights inside the library were on (the registration for competition start at 9am and we were still outside) We were like gangsters trying to break down the glass, knocking and hitting on the glass door seemed useless. Some passer-by thought we 2 young ladies were lunatic, from the look he gave, he must had somewhat similiar thoughts. Great that finally someone inside couldn't tolerate the noise created (or maybe they suddenly remember we were using the venue) opened the door for us. Their theatrette was on level 3. No lifts. What spolit Singaporeans were we. Ended up taking the stairs, panting as if I had climbed 8 storeys.

I pretty much learnt my lesson yesterday, thou shall not repeat the same goon-y mistake of mispronunication again. Today, it went smooth. The library's level 3 was such a great place to explore around. They had the traditional ladders up the higher shelves, teak or maple-strip flooring that makes walking on it louder. Oh, i should have took some photos of it, but my 2-cents worth HP will have the loud "PIAK" when photo was taken...

In the afternoon when i wasn't involved, i gotta attend briefing at Bukit Merah. Tampines to Bukit Merah, East to West, one hour MRT journey. Zzzzz all the way. Almost lost my way,reached 5mins late, the briefing started. Wah, in Singapore, most of the events wun start on time, like concerts, movies (there's trailers), presentations, blah blah blah. The only thing that starts on time is SCHOOL. Yup, so the briefing started and many were still strolling in. When i was about to get myself understood of what the guy was saying, the briefing ended. In 20mins (in my case, i was late, so 15mins). What the?! I took so long MRt ride cum bus journey and i realised i was about to be late i wanted to take cab but lucky i didn't and i crossed the overhead bridge twice cos i went to the wong bus stop and all in all the briefing took 15mins?!!!!!!! Waste my time of travelling. It's only a couple of ppt slides, may as well email me can le. But good thing, my boss say i can end off work after my briefing there. So today i ended off early, thanks to the briefing?

So now, from Bukit Merah, "grong grong grong" (sound created by bus) to Hougang loh... day trip around Singapore... Reached home in 1 hours time. Sheesh, i still can't accept that i took total of 2 hours of travelling and attended a 15mins briefing.

OOHHH, i forgot the name. BRIEFING. Brief. Short.

Kaoz kaoz.. Came home still managed to catch a little of Holland V on Mediacorp 8. So early reached home...

Think shall have an early night today, should be able to sleep well, since boss say tml i no need be emcee.. yes, i can go back to my own work. Had neglected it for this week, many things waiting for me to solve. For the past few days, kudos to my colleagues who covered my work on my absence..

Think tml things shall be smooth for me.

I hope.

But it's not that terrible lah, so much that i enjoyed helping out at the competition, my other work responsibilities had been neglected. Bad reflection of me lah..


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