Night 41 - Yesterday

My illness and pace from yesterday was noticed in a feedback form. How sad. But we did fresh songs: "All I Have To Do Is Dream", "Yesterday" and Ben E. King's "Stand By Me".

The songs worked out beautifully although I had never sung them before, even on my own. I guess being careful in new territory helps. :-)

I don't have time to blog after this. I am sooo tired, drained and stretched out. Will try... but no promises. Thanks for reading!

Night 40 - I Wish You Love

I was sick when I arrived. Part of that was due to a lunch I had with a friend. Because of me, we performed the songs too slow for the first set.

But after a lot of throwing up and a bit of dinner, I felt better. Then sweetly, I was ambushed by a visit from my brothers. I managed to get them the happy hour deal. Besides them, some close friends joined in too.

My brothers gave me their honest opinions that I rattled on a bit too much for their liking. And that my Mandarin and Japanese needed much more work as they heard "Sukiyaki" (you know what it really means...) and Teresa Teng's "Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin". We shared fun moments in "Condo Condo Condo" and "Fallen". Before the night ended with "I Wish You Love", a song that Siok loved a lot of at one point. :-)

After that, we all had supper. How fun!

Night 39 - Time After Time

Tonight was strange.

I somehow had a smooth, confident, controlled voice. As if it had a life of its own. I guess I should be grateful, and confident! We did a fresh song: "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper.

Amongst our guests tonight was the most adorable little 2 year old boy who was dancing to the music. I spoke to his parents and learnt that they were from Singapore. If I had known I would have done some local parody songs. Haha... He shook my hand a few times, clasped his little hands into a fist and wished me gong xi gong xi. Then as I left, he waved goodbye and blew me a kiss. :-)

Awww how sweet and adorab... Hey, why is he staying out longer than I? Wow maybe I am due for another party. Anyway, I shall leave you patient readers who don't mind my WOT with a new original song of mine (I mentioned it once but here is a video with lyrics, like a cheap karaoke, hehe) about learning to see the truth from the wishfulness. Accepting, growing up and moving on. This song will be part of my production in May 2010 "Stand Up And Sing!". More on that later.

Special thanks to Kevin Foo and Nigel Tan of Loft Studios. To EZ for helping me print the lyrics! :-)

Thanks also to the ones who have broken my heart for this song now has a voice.



Also available on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zXo67aEMe4

This song will debut on 9.38 Live FM, Singapore on March 12th 2010, Friday, after Bharati's short radio interview with Gillian Tan under "Passion People". That should be around 2:10pm.

website: http://jilly.co.nr
© Gillian Tan, 2009

Night 38 - Out On The Weekend

What a wonderful night after a a long break for Chinese New Year!

For me. I was "Out On The Weekend", but unlike the Neil Young song, I was not a lonely boy. I was busy with the family, as the season should be. I even found time to go out to a club!

I had Adi's wife and my friend sing in place of me on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday nights over CNY. Happy Chinese New Year everyone! Tonight, Adi and I opened our first set with "The Nearness Of You". Then we performed "Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin" (moon represents my heart) which I think improves each time I do it. Everyone seemed to enjoy "Fly Me To The Moon" as well.

My voice seemed more confident and brighter. Perhaps it was the rest I so badly needed. Tonight our regulars were there and one of them gave me a hongbao, or a red packet with money inside, mostly for good luck and prosperity. How sweet!

I had nice hair and makeup on since I came from a long day of filming as Helen. Not the longest I have experienced though. Today was to begin at 9:30am but the office was only opened at 10am. I claimed I didn't receive the script in my email so learnt my dialogue all on the spot (I later found out the script was indeed sent to me, a little after 2am that very day). I was to end about 4pm but due to so many prop (un) preparations, my last scene wrapped at 6pm. That left me just enough time to get to HIA.So many outfit changes for all the scenes from episode 2 and 3. Ok, one outfit here is from ep 1, can you guess which? Click on the picture above to enlarge it. :-)

Night 37 - Rose Rose I Love You

Sooooooo excited! My last day of work!

And then I return to work on Wednesday. The Chinese Lunar New Year is upon us, with its first day being February 14th 2010. That happens to also be Valentine's Day. So I sang the Chinese version of "Rose Rose I Love You" which is "Mei Gui Mei Gui Wo Ai Ni". I put it in a blender with my pitifully pronounced Mandarin. But you gotta laugh when there was enthusiastic applause from obviously non-Mandarin speaking guests.

In addition to that, Adi and I did more Chinese songs for Chinese new year such as Teresa Teng's 1977 trademark song "Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin" (which means the moon represents my heart) and the lovely "Ye Lai Xiang" (which means... uh...) and they worked out a bit better than "Mei Gui".

For fun, we did "Sway" which in Chinese meant bad luck. But hey, I told everyone how we were not superstitious so we wanted everyone to have a good time and enjoy this inviting dance tune. Yes I am so not talking about techno here.

A couple of friends popped by with some relatives and I told a few jokes and did my "Condo Condo Condo" song. To celebrate the season and my last day of work before my long weekend, I wore a cheongsam inspired dress in black with a cute hairband my cousin got for me as a Christmas gift. I got this dress years ago for $8 and never wore it till now. How lovely.

Yay, now that I'm home, I can relax until Wednesday! Not updating until then. Enjoy your holiday everyone! How bizarre... that now I, the perpetual freelancer, should finally know the feeling of a long weekend. Not bothering with full sentences. Much needed REST coming up. Happy. Bubbling with excitement. Sleepy. Done. Ok. Out.

Night 36 - Route 66

Thursdays for me usually mean 3 hours of teaching in two schools spread out from 8:30am till 2pm.

Today I had a shoot as Helen right after teaching ended for the day. My calltime was 3:30pm at the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) building. So I arrived on time as the producer had requested, but a previous scene required more time than they had catered for, so I entertained myself by chatting with fish and strolling about. I also sent some random text messages to friends after browsing through the books in their tourism library. Here is what I found out about Holiday Inn.

In 1994, Holiday Inn had the highest number of rooms in the world with over 390,000 rooms across the globe. At that time, it was the 5th largest hotel chain with 171 hotels. Yet it failed to make the top 20 list in terms of room sales that year. I guess it makes sense. If I had a hotel with just one room, It would probably be sold out everyday (perhaps to myself, haha).

We finally began on my tiny scene at 6pm in the driveway where there's a happy little Merlion (so don't forget to include this one when you count them), and I left at 6:20pm for the train. Yes I had just enough time to walk to the train, hop on, grab a seat on the bus, and make it in time.

I arrived quite relaxed and it didn't feel like a high pressure journey. More like a swinging "Route 66". Nothing much to report at HIA tonight. But I still don't recognise myself in the mirror right away. But I do after 1 or 2 seconds. Haha. It's not a big deal. Just a new hairstyle.

Night 35 - I'm Gonna Wash That Girl Right Outta My Hair

Goodbye to hair from four inches below my shoulder!

Yes I had my first day of shoot as Helen, a series regular and supporting character, in the Suria drama "First Impressions". And before the cameras rolled for my scene, the makeup artist and hair stylist, a girl who loves her job, ran back and forth between me and the other actors on set for two hours... Till my hair was cut the way they all wanted it. Well, kinda. She felt she was rushed and would've done a better job if she had more time.

Now it turned out to be very much shorter than what they had promised me (bra line). Since hair grows back and I rarely bother with the mirror, I don't really care. Or else I'd have thrown a hissy fit and sued them. At the time, my soul pal seemed more concerned about it than I. While filming, the fringe got trimmed a little more. As you can see in this before, after, and after picture. Hehehe...

I drove and arrived at their office at 2:30pm after teaching. My hair was ready by 4:30 and after makeup and wardrobe, the cameras rolled for two scenes with my character from 5 and I left at 6:30pm. Cutting it soooo close though I had told them I had to leave by 6 in order to keep the car at home, and still get to HIA to start my first set at 7:45pm. Everything worked out just in time. Phew!

Now this new hair surprised a few people at HIA. Some liked it, saying I look better with it. I suppose it does sport a more youthful bounce now.

Now for the title of this post... I didn't sing "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair" but I was thinking of a past relationship since people say it is common for people to cut their hair when a relationship has recently ended. It is funny too since this person just got a haircut, and had also always wanted me to cut my hair a certain dictated way, but never the way I wanted it myself. At that time, I said that if I were to get a hair cut, my new hair would end just below my shoulders and I would have a fringe. Which didn't sit well with my fussy ex. But I've washed you right outta my life, and hair... And what a surprise... This is it!