first and third times

whoever said that first times are the sweetest...

LIED.

my first relationship sucked.
my first time blogging crashed and burned.
my first trip to zouk was not great either.

so, it's confirmed. now that pink is the new black, i declare that third times are the new first times.

last night, we zouk-ed out.

jobi, pauline, cindy and i. we met mardiah, jojo and linda there. at first sight, it wasn't what i had expected. in all honesty, it didn't quite measure up to the image that had been built up in my head over the past 17 years of being illegal. using the online printout of the invites, we got in.

i'm glad i decided to wait, without the childish use of fake IDs or borrowing friends' ICs. for the first time ever, i felt extremely calm. not agitated or fidgety, because i was finally legally allowed entry. stupid yes, without a doubt. as if a few days or months would make a difference to my level of maturity, but heyy.. whatever.

you know how i'm eternally complaining about the lack of cute guys in singapore? well.. turns out i was half wrong.

pro: there ARE cute guys in singapore. con: they all look the same.

it's as if they were all created from the same template: chinese. clean cut. armani-flip. white shirt/striped shirt--which under the zouk lighting, GLOWS. average of 1.75-1.8m. their features were all similar, none were particularly striking or vaguely memorable.

if a cute guy spoke to me under those hazy conditions and i turned around for a millisecond, the second i turned back, i wouldn't remember his name or face.

i was right, NS contributes to the lack of guys on the streets.

pro: the NS men were out in full strength last night. con: they stared at us girls like they were hungry and we were food.

pro: guys are improving their dress sense. con: their sense of rhythm is getting worse.

oh. my. god. this guy directly behind me was dancing in a way that i can only call... enthusiastic. he was swaying.. no, he was ROCKING from side to side in such a fashion that i was often swaying along with him as his actions were causing a somewhat echo-effect on me. yes, that's how vigorous his movements were. his shirt was made from an extremely coarse fabric and we were back-to-back. now, imagine how that affected me and WHY i would choose to remember that seemingly insignificant fact. WELL, because that guy's shirt+rocking movements were rubbing PAINFULLY against my bare-ish back. argh. it was torture just dancing NEAR him. with every move he made, i was losing inches of skin. he was like sandpaper and i was like, human. i look back now and wince at the painfully hilarious memory. every few minutes i would stop dancing, turn around and laugh at him. after the 3rd or 4th time, his friend decided to inform him of my precarious situation. there is a god.

oh yeah. and he couldn't dance for nuts. he reminded me of a monkey on ecstasy.

pro: free flow of heineken. con: i don't like beer.

pro: electrico rocked. con: pug jelly sucked.

pro: thai band armchair's lead singer was a mix of jonathan chan+adrian huang. con: he looked gay.

pro: PT was there. con: his girlfriend was too.

anyway, there was this segment where these random partygoers had to do the twister on stage. one girl was dressed in next to nothing. i give her credit for a good body. the other girl was ACBC, what with all the hair flicking and obviously fake beams at the predominantly testosterone-driven crowd. i give her credit for her non-existent tummy. credit taken away for her practically being naked on stage+her act cute antics.

she went up on stage again in another desperate bid at more stage time+attention. linda went head on with her and loads of other girls who shook their booties to get an all expenses paid trip to MTV Asia Awards 2005, Thailand. we cheered crazily for linda, but denise keller picked ACBCgirl and a way-gay guy. boo you.

dharni performed. he won the crowd over with his beatboxing; they've obviously never been to TP design. hah. but still, he did great. better than that DJKoFlow.

after the voting party was over, i had decided on 2 things. #1: zouk was overhyped, overrated and overpublicised. #2: i didn't hate denise keller. she was best consumed naturally. ok wait, 3 things. #3: male models melt my heart. hah. they are so adorable. definitely not boyfriend material, but they'll do as eyecandy, anytime anyplace.

no doubt they were natural attention seekers, but at least they looked good doing it *grin* they participated in the games and some even went off with goody bags; these yellow ah-bengly high-on-the-back bagpacks. on any other person, i would've laughed my brains out at their bad fashion sense and lack of common sense. BUT on these not-so-gorgeous but oh-so-game male models, they were practically setting trends. 2 of them went on stage in an attempt to ambush denise keller and threesome their way into MTV heaven, but ended up winning the hearts of all the females on the ground+charming their way not into denise's pants but into her sense of humour+being chased offstage by too uptight bouncers and hearing the "awww.." vibrating throughout zouk [at least from the female section]. like i said before, they were not conventionally good-looking; their features were not perfectly symmetrical or anything like that. their physique was probably their ticket into the modelling world in the first place.

i spotted one guy. he looked like a model, but there was just something about him. he was different from the rest. he wasn't seeking any attention. in fact, he seemed to shun it. he stood on the ground, shyly smiling at the antics of his fellow compatriots. he reminded me of that hk actor, justin something.. boyishly cute.

moving on... we went to get a bite and got caught in the rain. to help cindy escape and make our way back, we managed to charm the drink stall uncle into lending us umbrellas. i was so soaked, not much of anything on me was dry. my skirt was drenched, clinging to my legs and had changed colour. when we reached dry land, i was desperately dabbing my skirt using paper towels in the loo- to no avail. oh, i nearly forgot this little detail. while heading out of the ladies, with head bent drying my skirt, i blindly walked into the mensroom. (you know how it is with the tricky placement of the toilets at zouk. i thought the mens was the exit of the ladies! hard to get until you see for yourself.) just a teeny step; before being pulled out by pauline and pushed out by some guy leaving. he tried to impress with his so-called wit," do you want to come in? be careful with that skirt." i was wearing my fav skirt. i sewed it myself. the only catch was that it was a revolving skirt- it was a hipster, thus SO loose that i could lift it up, down and around whenever i liked. i did so in this case, only to dry the back of the skirt. look, i had my reasons for wearing a skirt anyway. ie: the allergic reaction on my thigh.

i ignored him. surprise surprise.

freezingly, we made our way into phuture. aha. it was packed like sardines. we held hands and boogied our way into the already oversaturated crowd of wriggling bodies. it was really hard to dance properly without more than the occasional elbow/arm/leg/hip/monkey on ecstasy getting in your way. at many points, i was so squashed that i just stood there and laughed at the funniness of the situation. the music was so-so. i was expecting something more commercial. nonetheless, it was danceable to. while moving through the crowd, some stupid bitch poured beer into my shoes. either she was drunk, high, bitchy or just plain stupid. i'm gonna go with stupidly bitchy. count yourself lucky i was too surprised to pull your artificially dyed+rebonded hair and drag you onto the floor.

jobi&gang went to the bar to get a drink, and i went to the loo. yup, again. i've learnt my lesson, ALWAYS carry some form of communication around with you. it's almost as if i anticipated the scenario. i came out of the ladies, only to find myself unable to locate them. as aged drunk men leered at me while waving their heinekens dangerously, i focused every single degree of my contact lenses on finding a familiar face in the crowd that seemed to consist mostly of men whose shirts glowed eerily blue-ish in the dark. i had left my phone in my bag. skirt, not jeans=NO POCKET.

with each time i went round in circles from bar to toilet area and back, i noticed an increasing number of supporters in the "smirk at her anxiety attack" campaign. they were like rabid wolves, sensing my fear and obvious lack of sense of direction in an unknown place. worse of all, they seemed to take pleasure watching me wander around like a lost sheep. finally, i found them. we returned to the big P.

pauline had to leave slightly after midnight. i was reluctant to go so soon, but i knew there would be other times. we ATTEMPTED to make our way out and ended up being impossibly glued in a body jam. there were bodies pressed against me from all directions and i had to constantly elbow straying hands away from my body. this jerk from behind was continually charging me like he was a bull and i was in red. ( HE was the one wearing red.) asshole. we were ALL trying to make our way out, but seriously.. ever heard of patience? he was hurting me with all his pushing and shoving, and i was just helplessly stuck in the unmoving crowd. he pushed so hard that i actually fell INTO a circle of dancing people; in which one of the guys helpfully tipped me back upright. later on, jobi and i got separated. i lost her hand in the suffocating mass of sweaty bodies. when i grabbed hold of it again, i realised too late that it wasn't HERS. the hand belonged to a girl trying to wrap herself around her guy. OOPS.

after what seemed like an eternity, i decided to take things in my own hands. i put my hands in front of me and took a separate route; right into all the males. mumbling a billion apologies, i went headlong into them and within seconds i got out :) it was like moses parting the red sea. i guess there is an advantage to being female after all. i was SO lost in the crowd; i couldn't tell black from white, male from female in those settings. i thought i was of average height, but in P i was comparable to a smurf. haha.. tiny and vulnerable. anyway, the ass took advantage of my femaleness and tailed me, the way people drive behind ambulances. he had the audacity to THANK ME after giving me so much grief. i would've punched him if i wasn't gasping for air.

the group white rhythm was wow.. they danced amazingly well! never thought i'd say that about a local group, but.. it looks like i just did. hah. the focal point was the lead dancer aka yutaki from lightyears. i thought he was so rubbish in the show with his fake accent, but he.. wow *laughs* - i can't even form proper sentences thinking about their performance- freakin. blew. me. away. i kowtow to your dancing ability. hee.

i left zouk with only one person in mind: the bouncer/CB#2. *grin*

i can't wait for my third time :)