You’re So Square, Yo Momma Was A Box!

2010 MacRob Chorals was amazing.

Because of a collapsed school hall, they’d hired the Town Hall on Collins St. Because of this, the Madrigals sounded freaking BEAUTIFUL! Dryads (the green house) won the Madrigals with a student-arranged version of Big Yellow Taxi. Props to Oreads (red) coming in 2nd, and to Ange’s pro conducting.

The performances were really amazing as well; touching stories about shadows, bravery, treasuring the one you love and the true badness of fairytale villains. The Oreads did an amazing rendition of Thriller by Michael Jackson, and had some of the best quotes of the night (see title). The Nereids (white) had a wonderful concept of “shadows”, having another actress literally shadow every move the main actress makes. The Naiads (blue) had amazing choreography (oh but for one tiny slightly hilarious mishap) but it was the Dryads who took out 1st place, having attempted to and succeeded in hitting an emotional note that would no have been easy, with an amazing duet rendition of You’ve Got The Love, original by Florence + The Machine. AMAZING singing.

We also got treated to a preview of the Musical this year – Little Shop of Horrors – which got everyone wanting to go.

This was also why I was 1 day behind on my Project 365, but I’ve made up for it!

Congratulations to everyone who participated in the Chorals this year; it was really really was special treat!

Alex.

OOOH OOOH OOOH cont’d

Ah, so where did I leave off?

Right, Eunice and I had just watched Nereids’ rehearsal.

So, we went to Maccas and came back to school to eat with NicJing, Kris-, Bald Bec (I’m not being mean; she’d shaved her head for charity) and some other people. We made jokes about Kris-‘s industrial sized tub of food. Well, it was a really large tub, the kind that would feed a family of 8 for a day, and she was eating it for dinner. It was amazing that she’d downed 3/4 of the thing already.

Finally, went up to the House Room (ie a heavily crepe-paper-and-ballooned-science-room) and sort of walked around a bit in there, watching the cast members put makeup on each other. I commented that you could tell the front half of the room was artsy cast people, as they were all off their heads shouting and makeup and hairspray etc etc, and the back half of the room were the orchestra people, dressed conservatively in black, quietly cradling a ‘cello or sucking on a Chupa Chup.

Then, Chorus was called for a last minute rehearsal. Chorus, for those who are not familiar with Greek plays, are a large bunch of people who stand off to the side of the main stage, and they sort of act/interact with the play. So, if something shocking happens, the Chorus would gasp. If there is a song, the Chorus might sing along.

Avs and Millie took the Chorus, a crowd of maybe 30-odd girls, out behind the gym. By this time, dusk had well settled in. Well, dusk was about to get a very loud show.

Suse had gone with me out of curiosity to see how Chorus would rehearse. Avs and Millie told the entire Chorus to back, back, back into the oval. They themselves took 15 paces back, until they were roughly 100 meters apart, across the grass from each other (my perception of distance is somewhat shite. Maybe it was 50 meters). Then, Avs said, “IF YOU DON’T SHOUT, I WON’T BE ABLE TO HEAR YOU! SO BE LOUD!” (as Chorus don’t have microphones, to be heard in the hall they’d have to be loud).

Then, they proceeded to rehearse and show me the funniest part of the night.

One of their lines were cued by Enrique’s “I CAN BE YOUR HERO BABY!” to which they all chorus “OOOH OOOH OOOH” as backups. So, Avs and Millie at one end of the oval, screamed their cue, and like 30-odd angels of hell, the Chorus hooted “OOOH OOOH OOOH!” into the appalled dusk (and much to my continued amusement). After the 1st time, where I fell down onto the ground in laughter, they did it again. A cyclist going home passed just as the 2nd round of hearty yet haunting “OOOH OOOH OOOH” pierced into the terrified atmosphere, and he – the cyclist – turned his head around in a sort of “WHAT IN THE NAME OF FUCK WAS THAT?!”

I watched them go through Bohemian Rhapsody, which the Chorus did well in, but of course Avs and Millie had to give them their cues. They didn’t know the lyrics, so they sort of did a combination of drums/electric guitar/dananana in a hectic harmony. I suppose words aren’t good enough to describe how insanely funny that was to witness.

Suse and I went back to the House Room, and then Nat provided me with the 2nd funniest moment of the night.

For some odd reason, Nat stood next to me and pointed off into the distance. She’d done that thing where you look off into the distance and get someone else to look at what you’re looking at (that is, nothing). So, Nat and I decided to prank a few more people, and flagged down whomever we recognised as they passed us. We pointed out the window, “SEE? Oh my god see that? It’s so awesome! Look! Can’t you see it?” Most of our victims tweaked after a while and walked away shaking their heads, but Fatty Tran (merely a nickname to censor her name; she is by no means fat) was so excited to see this “AWESOME THING! JUST PAST THAT FORK IN THE TREE!” that she even put on her glasses and consented to making binoculars out of her hands and turning her head to the side, which is the “best way you can see it!”

Right before our performance, we all went back behind the gym (furthest from the hall, so if we made noise it’s okay) and did a warm up. We, as a house, stood in a misshaped circle and shouted the “Hokey Pokey”, shaking all our limbs as well as our bodies, and generally making a very weird cult-like presence. All warmed up, we realized we were a bit late to go onstage, and hurried into the hall.

So, showtime. Got the laughs we wanted, and Fel did fantastically conducting us, especially in Bohemian Rhapsody (the time change just before “he’s just a poor boy”).

Afterwards, we said bye to Eunice and Fel, Bee and I went home, driven by Fel’s dad. Slept at 11 and could barely force my eyelids open this morning. I went to Dani’s place in the morning and while she was getting ready Andrew and I watched Dracula. It. Was. Cool. I want to see it all now.

And that, was most of yesterday and this morning.

Now, I will go watch Ghost Whisperer. Will Jim/Sam remember Melinda? Haha.

Alex.

I can be your hero, baby… OOOH OOOH OOOH

I’ve left myself a very small amount of time to write about a huge day/night. I’m really sorry!

So, last night was Chorals. Chorals is a sort of house-competition musical thing that MacRob does annually. It’s a big deal, house-wise.

This was the first, and last, Chorals I have been/will be in. It was hectic, especially in the last few days. People yelled at people, and it was all okay because it was all for Chorals.

On Tuesday, I spent Period 4, lunch and the start of Period 5 in the hall rehearsing with the orchestra. I’ve never been in an orchestra before, so this is massively awesome being in a huge musical performing group (I was doing guitar for Hero, by Enrique. I think I’ve mentioned this).

Alright, so Wednesday morning was all good and all for the ones not that in charge of anything. But then 1:30 came and there was a massive problem with who gets the hall when. We hung around wringing our hands for about an hour before it was decided that 3:45 was our hall time, 3:00 was our prior-to-hall-rehearsal. Jen and I went on a Maccas run (unfortunately, that won’t be my last. I had a whole day of Maccas on Wednesday. Say it with me: FAT). She told me a rather amusing story on the way which I won’t repeat for her sake. On the way home we ran across SonJ and Diep, and soon realized we’d gotten on the No 1 Tram to Sth Melbourne, which turned off St Kilda Rd. SonJ was freaking out until I told her that I knew the way to school on the No 1 tram.

Got to rehearsal, had a quick run through in a music room, and then we went into the hall for our final dress rehearsal. Gen’d forgotten to plug in the electric guitar which I would also be using so I was freaking out because my classic does not have a pick-up and is NOT loud enough. Gen came running in 2 minutes befores I needed to be playing, and again, s’all good. Turned out she was late because someone had sat on a piece of costume and broke it, she was remaking one.

Rehearsal ended, and Eunice and I stayed behind to watch Nereids’ dress rehearsal. It. Was. Fucking. AWESOME! Eunice and I were sitting near the front, and were the only 2 active audience members in the hall watching their performance. We laughed loudly at all the jokes, woo’d and woah’d when Pras- took her coat off to reveal a femme-fatale dress underneath, and we swayed with the cast at the end.

Sorry, dinner is happening right now and I have to be there. There are more fun stuff to read about soon. I will try to blog the rest of this tonight or, failing that, tomorrow during my frees.

Alex.

SEE MY PANTS!

It’s the 2nd day of Term 2, and it’s alright. We’ve been told that this term will be a wakeup call, which is daunting since the previous Term was pretty enthusiastic an alarm already.

So, the title of my post.

A while back April was trying to describe to me this style of pants she wanted. She went as far as physically trying to show me, before I tweaked and said that Carmaine has a pair sort of like what she’s describing. Today, she wore those pants so I told her to go show April.

Something else that would’ve been funny for Carmaine to actually say out loud (the first being “SEE MY PANTS!”) happened yesterday. We were taking the train home with Sonali, and we got onto the topic of Carmaine’s blood. She said that she has an iron deficiency, to which Sonali said that there are supplements you can take for that. She added, “Apparently they turn your shit black.”

Carmaine said, “Oh, I’ll let you know.”

I said, “How are you gonna let her know? ‘Hey Sonali, guess what? My shit turned black!'”

Today, I stayed back afterschool to rehearse for my English oral tomorrow. Tiff had been running around to pick up printoffs, and when she got back into the room it was her turn to practise her speech. So she sat down and started reciting her speech, and she was puffing and speaking very fast. Ly said, “Okay slow down. You’re talking really quickly because your heart is beating 24/7.”

I said, “THANK GOD! Because that would mean she’s still ALIVE!”

Chorals is tomorrow. I am involved this year, playing Hero’s introduction for Oreads orchestra. So it’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.

Not a long update. Dom’s finally got ready access to internet so he’s emailing more often. Maybe he blogged. Hmm, I shall see later. You should go see it too, why not. Free advertisement.

Alex.