showtime prep shoot

just returned from the shooting of the channel 8 showtime portion where they filmed our props making process and interviewed our team. been having a headache since afternoon and now my temp has risen to 37.1 degrees...think im gonna get a fever soon due to exhaustion...

today, i got back my physics common test. i got 44.5 marks- not bad la... considering i never did tutorials, never studied during the june holidays and only studied 7hours the night before, starting from 7pm to 2am. our class also did rather badly for physics- so badly dat i think that we are the last in the level. we have 1 person getting D, 2 people getting E and 20 people with S and F. haiz... too bad i screwed up on that day. my mind went blank probably coz of information overload (studied physics 7hours, den maths 7hours- never slept dat night) and i forgot how to do the 8marks kinematics question which was about the parabolic movement of a soccer ball. i was the most confident for the topic on kinematics but yet i wasted that question... but i can say im rather proud of my section c- got 13/20= 65%. but den, coz i was sick on the actual day of the test and i took the makeup test 2days later, the marks from dis physics test will not be counted towards the final grade in my promo exams. this may be a good thing coz i failed this time round but it also means i really have to buck up and do exceptionally well for my physics promos...

den i also did my gp makeup test for comprehension today. i'd say it was easy compared to the excercises we normally do during lessons and im confident of getting around 20-30/40 for this paper. i was so happy... but after i finished the paper and went for lunch, jason told me dat our gp teacher miss wan said dat the marks from the gp makeup tests i take wont be counted zzz... so wasted lor... if i get good marks for my gp this time round and its not counted, den i think i'll feel like banging the wall -_-

after sch we had to start doing the props, think of a group name and group cheer for the showitme filming session in the evening at 7:30pm. we went to get cardboard and materials and by the time we returned to the ine hub, it was around 5:30pm. den we tried to think of a group name. yi chiew mentioned the word "zhi1" and all of a sudden i thought of the word "zhi1 ma2", which meant sesame. den i remember sesame street and felt that the word was rather interesting. den our group decided to use "zhi1 ma2" but i felt that it was a bit weird to only have "zhi1 ma2" so i asked everyone to try to think of wad we can add to the back of "zhi1 ma2". after 5mins, debra thought of adding a "hu2" and jokingly said "zhi1 ma2 hu2". at that time i felt it was very good and everyone agreed- hence our grp name was "zhi1 ma2 hu2".

after thinking of the grp name, it was around 6pm. now we had the problem of thinking up a cheer. i thought of this rather lousy cheer: "zhi1 ma2 hei1, zhi1 ma2 bai2, zhi1 ma2 kai1 men2 ke4 ren2 lai2". we tried thinking of a better one for 15mins and melissa suddenly remembered her secondary sch class cheer. she modified for our "zhi1 ma2 hei1, zhi1 ma2 bai2" thingy and thought of "zhi1 ma2 hei1... hey hey heyhey!" next i thought of the 2nd verse: "zhi1 ma2 bai2... bai bai baibai". den melissa thought of the 3rd verse: "zhi1 ma2 hei1bai2... hui hui huihui" and it had a hidden meaning- our uniform was grey lol. finally i thought of the final verse: wo3 men2 shi4... zhi1 ma2 hu2!"

we felt the cheer was not bad, so i called up jia hui from mediacorp channel 8 at around 6:30pm and told her about our new development. she told us that our team name and cheer needed to have a meaning behind each of them, eg themes with teamwork, winning spirit, creativity, etc. but our problem was we just randomly thought of a word that was quite catchy and a cheer for the sake of having a cheer... at dat time we faced a big problem. den suddenly i tot of some cock and just cocked. i said we decided on "zhi1 ma2 hu2" coz zhi1 ma2 are usually scattered but zhi1 ma2 hu2 is a paste where the sesame seeds stuck together... so it symbolises our team spirit of togetherness lol. it worked but i couldnt come up with more cock reasons for our cheer and told her dat we would call back later if we thought of a reason but we just couldnt find a reason zzz.

we continued with our props until the filming crew arrived. before they started filming, the producers wanted us to sign a contract which stated dat we couldnt back out once they start filming and we must be permanent members and participate in showtime no matter wad. crap lol... i originally wanted to quit coz i felt i was gonna flunk my common test (on last friday after i took them) coz i had troubles doing most of the maths and physics questions. but i decided to stay on and continue participating in showtime coz i felt it was my responsibility to at least finish wad i started out to do and i thought i only needed to work hard for showtime only for 2 more weeks till 21jul becoz mdm woon told me dat i could quit after the first round since we would be able to have time to find replacements for me... but now, i think there goes my promo exams... i was planning to study everyday after sch but now it seems rather impossible coz i'll be very busy with showtime all the way from now till october.
halfway through the filming, ah ben asked dawn about the previous team name dat we thought of (but was rejected by the producers). so dawn told it to him...and guess wad... it was "ni3 ma1 de peng2 you3". den he asked how did we come up with dat name and dawn cocked and said it was coz my mother's friend came to my house when we were trying to think of a group name. den ah ben asked me to go over he asked some stuff and asked me to say wad it would be like if the "ni3" was changed to "ta1". at first i didnt dare say it coz dis was gonna be on national tv and we were in our national jc uniform. but he was persistent and prompted me and so i said "ta1 ma1 de peng2 you3". he joked around with us and den he asked each one of us who was gonna be the ghost. everybody said that they werent acting as the ghost and den he walked towards me and ian. he asked us to "ban4 gui3 nian3" which was to make funny faces. den he said i looked like the ghost so i must be the one acting as the ghost lol.

after the interview from ah ben ended, it was time for us to do the group cheer thingy. we presented our cheer to the producers but they said it had no meaning and didnt accept it. den suddenly an idea struck me. i was thinking of something to do with the creativity theme they wanted and i thought dat maybe we could change the 3rd verse into "hei1 bai2 hei1 bai2 bian4 cheng2 hui1", linked it to changing colours and linked that to creativity (in changing colours). so i replaced the 4th verse with "bian4 hua4 duo1 duan1 wo3 zhui4 xing2". at this time the producers still wanted us to have an ending which emphasized our desire to win. so i thought of "sheng4 li4 shu3 yu2 zhi1 ma2 hu2" and added it as the 5th and last verse. at this time, the producers felt that the last verse was a bit lo suo and yun shuen (or was it yi chiew? i forgot) suggested dat we change the last verse into "zhi1 ma2 hu2...... sheng4 li4!!!". so we finally came up with the final cheer...yippee lol. we had to practice the cheer a bit and during the practice, we came up with some actions. meanwhile ah ben tried to use the ine comp to go on the internet but i think the operation manager switched off the wireless connection... so ah ben couldnt connect to the internet.

next up was the filming of our cheer. it was around 9:50pm. the producer asked us to sit around a bench (with table) with me sitting on the table. we had a few ngs for the 1st 2 verses and the sch was gonna close (sch usually closes at 10pm). so the producer said dat they shld shoot us saying one verse, cut and shoot us saying the next verse and so on.

when it was finally over it was past 10pm... around 10:10pm and we finally got to go home. man the entire process was rather tiring lol... i really admire the artises who have to act, have ngs and many retakes.

den i ate my box dinner at the bus stop. after waiting till around 10:40pm, a 961 bus finally came. i immediately flagged at the bus and den started to close the styrofoam box (with my dinner in it). den the bus just went past... and i was rather pissed. had to wait around another 30mins or so for the next 961 to arrive zzz.

now we have 2 days to finish making our props, 3 days to rehearse before the preshow practice performance, and 2 weeks to rehearse before the actual show... man... things are really gonna be hectic from now on...gg