Colors Extravaganza

I love simple themes like this. So easy to follow, so great to dress up the ballroom. And it always looks impressive and fun when lots of colours swarm the evening. This was my first staff annual dinner event, and the first event I was going to do on my own without a partner!!

Yes, the nerves bundled up inside me, but I had my mind set on having a great evening with my 'work' family and it turned out to be exactly that. A great dance performance by senior management got everyone into the groove. Leadership by example said our HR Head, who recruited me to do the staff annual dinners after previous emcees had difficulty with staff and department names. I jumped at the opportunity, cos the stage just brings out the life in me, and with a fantastic debut theme like Colors Extravaganza, how could I possibly say no...?

Star Wars on home ground

This was the year that the first of the Star Wars prequels hit the big screen, and was at the tip of everyone's tongue. The promise of elaborate costumes transformed the ballroom into a galaxy far, far away. Too bad for my partner though, an appropriate Star Wars character was not available to suit his role at the event and match his Queen Amidala, so he was out-fitted in something I can only figure from an Ultraman movie. Poor him! Headgear is really a headache for emcees either too fitting it's so tight, or too loose it keeps slipping off. Either way the aftermath is usually a stiff neck. Hmmm, now why didn't I request a massage session in my remunerations?

The awardees were simply enthralled that evening, as the effects of the costumes and set mesmerised them till the evening closed with a bang befitting of a Star Wars victory.

Dawn of a new dynasty

I'm not sure if there was a popular Chinese serial or movie at this time, but certainly since the majority awardees were Chinese, we felt this theme would be appropriate. Actually, as I remember, it was an overnight change from some "superstar" theme that fell through just a month before the awards ceremony. Fortunately the event company hired had full access to resources for a some Chinese serial drama local production.

Needless to say the costumes were absolutely regal, so well made and presented. But HEAD DRESS!!!! That's always a killer with the fit. But never mind, I've always felt that royalty pays the price of leadership with uncomfortable outfits is days gone by and for some, to current day too.

Since there were 2 period costumes for royalty, my partner and I made like a wedding and changed at half-time.

My first "trip" to Egypt

My second year into this role, took me on a trip to Egypt. I found a really great fiction novel based on fact by Wilbur Smith "River God" a couple of months before the event and it gave me really useful insight to how ancient Egypt lived. Very fascinating to learn how civilisations were so dependent on climate and their environment to make their lives successful. Pretty much the same as today, but the here and now is that much of nature is being destroyed rather than rebuilt and preserved to ensure continued success. Well, life's a cycle and out of devastation will spring new life.

Enough philosophy already!!! Egypt was meant to inspire the awardees to hit the target of the year by aiming for Egypt. I heard the tour there was like no other had before. Of course ~ it's Egypt the seat of where documented civilisation began.


Anyway I think the event company did a good job of turning me into Nefertiti...

My debut into the world of emcee-ing

Several kilos lighter seems like light years away but that was when my boss presented me the opportunity to emcee our annual agency awards presentation. Such an honour, sky high thrill and I didn't even think of shrinking back and saying no. I had been away from the stage for more than 15 years and was dying for an opportunity to get back on. I don't think I could do acting as a regular vocation, but certainly emcee-ing was much more along my expectation to satiate my stage needs.

A simple corporate theme was chosen for the year, and thanks to my experienced partner to whom I am grateful for showing me the ropes and nuances of emceeing, we got through that maiden night without a glitch.

Standard 6

Ah finally, the last year of primary school. More and more girls were coming of age, in the classroom whispering, sharing experiences and old wives tales of how to cope with the onset of puberty.

Mind you back then tampons were considered alien and self-adhesives were just coming on the scene. Forget about panty liners for any day of the cycle, those choices just had not arrived on Malaysian shores yet. It was one size fits all, any day of the year. Simple is best. I can't imagine how girls and mothers decide these days with racks full of sanitary comforts.

Now some girls were growing like bean-poles, while others were protruding more. Talk of bras, breast and other unmentionables floated through the gossip stream of the class. This was especially pronounced during the weekly sewing and art lesson. The atmosphere was much more relaxed and chatting was tolerated. A funny experience that will surely ring true with many readers in the same situation, was that at the start of the year, the sewing project in my case was a checkered skirt.

After completion of the skirt, we had to embroider it with patterns we had learnt throughout our primary schooling. Now imagine beginning work on the skirt in February and completing it in September all the while growth hormones are working through us like Jack's beanstalk. Yup, you guessed it. By the time the project was completed, there was no way most of us could fit into the skirt.

Hmmm, I wonder what happened to my skirt? And all the other primary school masterpieces I worked so hard at and even shed tears for, I wonder whatever happened to them? Why shed tears you ask? It's a favourite story of my mother's which I recollect so clearly.

In Std 1, when the first sewing class day came round, I was crying as I dressed for school. When my father asked why, I told him it was sewing class day, and I was afraid teacher would scold me because I didn't know how to sew. Needless to say, that quip gave my folks a good laugh. Oh the untold horrors that hide in a child's mind.

But I'm no good at keeping posterity stuff. I have clutter, but things that reminisce me back to a delightful time or age in my life are few. My sister on the other hand, is a storehouse of growing-up memorabilia. She has amazed me a few times with her treasures.

I digress too much because Std 6 was a everything the final year in primary school should be. Firstly on Sports Day, only the Standard 6 pupils got to dance the Sports Day dance. Although I can't recall what dance it was, I remember it was then I learnt my first "doe-see-doe" and I was thrilled to bits to be in the mega-scale performance.

The teachers we had that year were phenomenal. I don't think there was any other year in school that we had such a great combination of teachers. They were caring and entertaining and really knew the true spirit of teaching. I can still remember some English lessons, my growing love for geography, the wonder of science and just the great feeling that year left me. Another small snippet I'm sure would turn up the noses of kids these days - Pick Up Papers time!

Pick-up Papers was the civic duty of every class on a particular day of the week after recess when our teacher would walk us round the school premises to pick up rubbish discarded by the Irresponsibles. Now that's a lesson that brings one down to earth from whatever high perch your parents had you on.

However, the apex year of primary schooling came to a close without my participation in the year end concert. Another unaccountable peculiarity.

Standard 5

Standard 5.... The most striking memory of this year was that my class teacher rode on the same school bus as me. The school bus that plied my home district, then went through town and she lived in a quaint townhouse. Very prettily done up on the outside, I wished I could see inside. I only glimpse I could get beyond her front door was a lamp I could see through the living room window.

She was elderly then, so I am sure she is long gone now, and sadly so is her quaint town house which has slipped into delapidation the last time I went by. So sad because my home town has such a wealth of beautiful old buildings and more and more are lost to modernisation each day. The great social issue currently plaguing many old towns in Malaysia the removal of honours paid to rspected statesman who brought education, modernisation and stable government to the state by renaming roads to characters unknown of in local history. There's new developments coming up all the time and as to why a new development cannot be named after the later historical figures, is beyond me.

Anyway, the single and elegant Ms W wore a Cheongsam everyday to school and she always sat on the front seat in the bus. If I were her age and dressed in a Cheongsam, I would definitely choose to sit in the front of the bus, not at the back with wild hooting children. She was a great English teacher I remember and I always did her proud by scoring well in the language.

That year, yet another classmate got creative and re-invented a story she heard into a comedy sketch. I remember the story being about students in a class-room with a teacher hard of hearing. Or was it hard of understanding? I was once again at stage front (where I always like to be).

Hey, I haven't mentioned that at every school production I was at, my dear parents were always in the audience. They never missed any production I was in as I recall...