Tuesday, May 20, 2014

140520 end of ACM

oh let's see, it's been such a hectic start of the year that i had no time to update whatsoever.
now that everything's over, i can start to do slow updates... had a short rest, it wasn't enough but here i am letting it all out first.

so acm is finally over. there were lots of ups and downs in the process - we get into quarrels and disagreements, and we get over it. some of the plus and minus of the whole process:

the plus
- meeting everyone from all over the world. we have really crazy strong contestants who brought tons of luggage over (see philippines!). we all gel together so well, it's amazing. when you call for a selfie, everyone just jumps over! it was really fun.
- buffet dinner on sat was good, but we only had less than an hour to gobble down everything and couldn't enjoy ourselves properly. the dinner on sunday was not so bad, but it started off badly, so the mood was all messed up after that.

the minus
- the stage was horrible, comparable to the one at star vista. the one at cosfest was so much better. it was kind of disappointing to perform on such a lousy stage.
- the award is miserable. the first year was 10k, then it became 3k and now it is 2k. it is supposed to be sponsored by a bank, but the amount given is just a joke. to top it off, there's only 1 prize. i wouldn't actually have thought much about it, but when we attended the prize giving ceremony and you see the dragon boaters getting over 20k for their first prize (and there was probably like more than 30prizes given), you can't help but wonder if the bank was just being too mean to the cosplayers.
- the whole place was small, tiny and non-airconditioned. even star vista was air-conditioned. the fans given were too few and far and it was really cramp. can you imagine all the big props we have to carry, and the thick costumes some of the contestants have to wear. we were all melting like crazy, but hey, who cares about the cosplayers right?
- the walking distance from the changing place to the stage area. it's not far, but it's not sheltered either. when it started to pour on sunday, it really created a huge mess. imagine you got changed at one building, and you have to brace across to the stage area. i wasn't in armour, so i can't complain much, but they should definitely have built a changing area just next to the stage for us.
- the area where the contestants stayed at was at least 45mins away. don't you think it's like traveling from singapore to malaysia everyday? what's the point of singapore being small, and having a bank as a sponsor, when we can't even place the world's best contestants at an area nearby? the time wasted traveling is really not factored in properly.
- the media interviews. i only like them when we have time to do it, not when we're sweating, in the middle of practice and really rushing for time.
- being pulled to do 'part-time' jobs. cosplayers love taking photos, but we don't like it when we have to ask someone to take a picture with us, and we get rejected. seriously? why do we have to do that? we're not clowns who have to entertain people. we're in costumes, we have a competition, we're tired, and we have to do this? not to mention there wasn't even time given to us to properly eat the things. (i didn't even have a single bite)
- doing this entertainment show and made to look like clowns on the day before the competition. sure, it was funny (so funny to look at us do nonsense things), but it was also draggy and long and repetitive and there weren't even that many people watching. it was kind of like self-entertainment. we didn't even have a proper place to change and have to squeeze into public toilets and do make-up and change in front of the public. some kind of 'guests' are we.
- not handling the situation better. as said, sunday dinner got off to a bad start, because our team 'self-invited' a helper and our helper was told to 'get out' of the private event. given that there are 35 invited cosplayers watching, perhaps it could have been better to just be more flexible and easy going about such things - let it be and give us a warning so we won't do it next time, than cause a ruckus. we're all mature adults, we don't have to listen to raised voices to understand a point. it's already frustrating enough that we're not being listened to or considered from our point of view, and everything was just about you, you and you. we're tired and hungry, it's close to midnight, you're angry and sure, let's just chase the person who came down all the way to help us. no biggie, the one who got shamed was us anyway.

conclusion
considering we almost ran the risk of being disqualified, i have to say that i should have pretty much taken up that path. we struggled against time, against people, against our work. the end results wasn't pretty - i do feel i made a lot of terrible mistakes, and i regretted a lot of things. one thing i'm sure is that i don't regret meeting everyone, and i really hope that was the right choice.

after complaining, i guess i will now take some time to post proper happy moments.

oh yeah. we appeared The New Paper and Lian He Zao Bao. i like that the article put in all the important points we mentioned. but i REALLY HATE THE PICTURE. i mean i look horrible. really. and the way the journalist ended off the article wasn't very encouraging too.



i didn't expect them to use the same GODAWFUL picture. should've complained when it got out on New Paper, since the CN one was only released 2 days later. GOSHHHHHHHHH @&)@&#* jeez.at least i'm not that identifiable. zzz







No comments:

Post a Comment