Just went for Young Choral Academy’s Buatan Malaysia, which was pretty enjoyable. I admire the effort put in by the choir, especially for the arrangements, which were all done (I think) in-house.

The YCA is just one example of a growing performing arts industry here over the last decade or so. From simple, enjoyable prop-less plays all the way to world-class musicals (very very few) at our theatres, the future seems bright for our local scene.

However, IMHO, one thing that will always hinder Malaysia from being renowned as a cultural-hub in the Asian region has got to be the audience. The audience? Yes! The audience!

I may not be a professional researcher, but I can tell you this. Malaysians have no manners when it comes to watching a play!

I am willing to bet that every single House Rule that day was broken (except for the presence of the paid photographer and videographer of course).

Firstly, the latecomers. Yea, okay, understood that people come late. But the rule is that you wait at the corner until after piece is finished. But no! They walk in during the piece. Alright, so you half 75% commonsense. The least one could do is walk along the side-aisles. No! They walk across the stage, up the centre-aisle. OK. 50% commonsense. 

But wait, there’s more! They walk through the spotlight! 25%. Wait, it gets worse. During one piece, they latecomers caused so much ruckus looking around (one even turned on the phone flashlight!) that the choir actually waited till they were seated. OK, I’m running out of numbers. 10%. Then, the handphone rings, kids start talking and a couple even walk out during a piece.

0% commonsense, people! That’s how we rate in terms of being a decent audience. I am even willing to forego the crowd cheering in the middle of a piece because this one was supposed to be a little more laid-back.

We suck. Big time.

When cleaning your hard drive, you will find the strangest of things, or the coolest of photos that you forgot you took…like this one.

Its light reading, but it makes you think at the same time.

Basically, the book gives you an atheist’s perspective on churches, including some of the most well known ones (Saddleback, Lakewood, etc.).

Casper (the atheist) does shed some light on what some have always considered “normal” practice and questions its validity, which does make for some humorous observations.

Most of the “criticism” goes towards the corporatization and hyping up of services. What lacks is genuine care and repentance. And this guy’s a rocker, mind you. A practice what you preach attitude is what’s truly missing from church communities these days, with sermon after sermon about evangelism and social responsibility but rarely anyone with $500 shoes walking into an orphanage or old-folks home.

All is not lost in 21st century Christianity, but we are far from right. 

Finally made my own business card =)

I got mine at Brilliant Job.

Realised how big Jaime has grown.

Mike scored well in his SPM.

AUDITIONS FOR 2009 MUSICAL
by H.K. Chong

TCS is looking for 4 tenors and 4 baritone/basses to complete the cast for the stage musical TWO FROM GALILEE for which rehearsals will begin in May 2009 and for staging will be in October 2009. This dramatic musical which was conceived in the 1990s and has been staged around the world, eventually making it to the Peter Sharpe Theatre, Symphony Space on Broadway; in November 2006. H.K. Chong and Chin San Sooi serve as Music Director and Artistic Director of this production with a cast/chorus of 35.

Interested singers/performers are invited to apply for an audition. Performers should be competent to sing in their respective voice parts (i.e. SATB) both in standard choral formation as well as in random voice formation. If you do not know what SATB stands for please do not apply. Teamwork and bonding are important even though you may already be considered a soloist. A high rate of attendance, commitment, discipline and hard work is required irrespective of your prior performing experience (e.g. Istana Budaya, KLPAC, Lincoln Centre, Covent Garden, etc). Learning and working together is a lifelong process. A willingness to learn therefore is important. There is a minimum age requirement of 21, unless an exception is made. If the foregoing scares you then, you are then not the right material we are looking for.

Before writing in please visit www.thecanticlesingers.com for more information on our background and to complete the online audition application form. Please take note that all our performers are unpaid.

Email for more enquiries.

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A typical Tuesday night for the team…

Note these were taken before the shields went up =)

We’re on a break at the moment. Haha.

Well its pretty hard to give a chapter-by-chapter summary about this book, because there’d be so much to cover from top to finish. In fact, I’ll end up summarizing every point down because I wouldn’t be able to decide which ones to leave out.

Driscoll’s down-to-earth, conversational style of writing (and preaching) makes theological points (read:the hard stuff) understandable. One will face questions like “Why Did Jesus' Mom Need to Be a Virgin?”, “Why Should We Worship Jesus?” and “What Will Jesus Do upon His Return”.

One point I will remember though is the part where he talks about the three roles that Jesus came to fulfil; prophet, king and priest. Driscoll goes on to explain how understating each one of His roles would affect our we perceive things.

Basically, it goes,

• PROPHET + KING - PRIEST = JESUS OF FUNDAMENTALISM
• PROPHET + PRIEST - KING = JESUS OF EVANGELICALISM
• PRIEST + KING - PROPHET = JESUS OF LIBERALISM

The book is a mix of apologetics, theology and those “what’s wrong with today’s world” sorta books. I would recommend it to those who seek to find answers to questions regarding the fine details of Christianity. For this book, it is not a matter of how “new” one is to the faith, but rather what sort of questions one seeks to ask. If it more on the “proof” of things, a better fit would be Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell or C.S. Lewis.

I love our neighbours up north for reasons like this.

Even before I stepped foot into the office, Han How had told me a lot about his few months there. So when the time had come to look for another end-year internship, I quickly applied.

The first day was hilarious though. Terence, my assigned ‘mentor’ Terence had taken leave the day I came in, so with no one knowing what the new intern can or will be doing, I chilled next to a half-done server called Jericho till lunch, surfing websites in between taking walks around the place.

Office culture also includes recycling, with almost everything from toilet roll cores, packet drink boxes, aluminium cans, excess paper and other marginally sizable items rinsed and dried before sorting. Lots of inside jokes with one grows accustom to over time. After a week or so, you can finally identify the office stereotypes (not gonna name any…haha).

Oh, and they looove to eat. During that first week alone, we had so much good food I fearfully asked Han How “is it like this every week?!” Thankfully it wasn’t always like this, although they are pretty adventurous in looking for a good meal. All of this culmiated in the Integricity Chow Tut Session Q1 2009 (photos here).

I could really see that these guys are quite well-knit. The bosses belief in a good  employee satisfaction really makes for a good work environment. Really gives people space to break the stress of doing work the whole day. I have always believed in cultivating a good work atmosphere, and seeing it being implemented here really shows that it does work.

Oh yes, speaking about work. One thing that I really appreciated was the amount of work assigned to me over the four months and the effort they took to get me involved. More often than not, interns usually just get measly jobs, but they even brought me to meet clients and go for a few events. I got to see projects through from bid to finish, so that helped a lot too.

I learned so much during my time over there. Managed to pick up bits and pieces from the programmers, designers and tech departments in addition to everything I learned over at Interactive.

Wanna say thanks to everyone, namely Warren, Jek, Alex, Eugene, Terence, Jesrina, Nick, TJ, Sonia, Adeline, Siew Hwan, Farhan, Hunson, Lisa (Sally), Rabin, Follen, Pek Zhan, Olivia, Ironman, Mike, Sarah, Lianne, Grace, Han How, Eric and Chui. You guys made my time there totally awesome!

You can check out Integricity’s Facebook page or blog for more about them.