It's the morning before I can officially declare my schooling life at the University of Chicago over. So yesterday, I had double torment, with a final for Reproductive Biology/Cancer in the morning, followed by another final for my Viruses of Eukaryote class. Initially I was thinking 2 biology finals on the same day was a recipe for disaster, since not only was there much to be read up on, but there was also a possibility of confusing material from the 2 classes, winding up with shit on my face! But now that that's taken care of, I am delighted that the final for Reproductive Biology/Cancer hadn't been pushed back to Thursday (simply because some smart ass in class told the prof he had already made plans for Thursday, and thus was not available on Thursday). How liberal can it be? I might as well say I need to sleep on Thursday, and so can only take finals on Tuesday! But aniways, I am only left with an Anthropology presentation later in the afternoon. When that's done, I shall finally do something which I've delayed for a long time --- booking my air tix back to Singapore.
So yesterday, feeling jubilant as if a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders, I went downtown to meet Esther and Cheryl to hopefully catch the hit musical 'Wicked'. The only way we could get tickets was through this lucky draw system, where each person was allowed to submit a slip. Some old woman would then be on hand to draw out 10 lucky winners, each of whom would be allowered to purchase tickets for a discounted price of $25. Those unlucky losers would then be automatically entered into a 2nd draw, where 10 winners can each buy limited view tickets for $25. Better than nothing rite?
So 3 of us submitted our slips ... contemplating what would happen if only 1 of us had our slips drawn out? Since each slip was only entitled to a pair of tickets, this scenario would only allow for 2 of us to watch the musical. Compounded with the fact that Shengrong would be joining us later, we needed 2 of us to win. So IDs in hand, we waited eagerly for the old slip-drawing woman to pull out slips, look agonizingly at the names, and then in her best impersonation of Chinese High boys speaking English, pronounce our Chinese names. But alas, this draw turned into an unlucky draw for us. Neither of us managed to be among the 1st 10 winners. So we thought, limited viewing ain't that bad afterall. But no, we didn't win that too. Taking away those 20 winners, and the people (the other one entitled to the 2nd of the pair of tickets each) who were there watching with them, I dare say, the room would have been left with 3 of us. Kanasai! Or potential problem of only 1 person winning had been taken care of.
So deciding to make the most of the situation, and not really wanting to watch X-Men, we decided to go watch the musical Spamalot instead. This musical was spoofed loosely on the hit stupid show Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I think this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. More to follow once I get past dinner.
Now, I think 1 of the easiest places to bring guests would be Pizzeria Uno, where they claim to serve the authentic deep-dish pizza in Chicago. Although I hate pizzas, leading to my conclusion that such deep-dish pizzas are grossly over-hyped, I still took them there. Our pizzas usually take 45 minutes to prepare, but considering we arrived at the restaurant at 615pm, and our musical started at 730pm, and took 15 minutes to walk from the theatre to the restaurant (2 'and's exagerrate the overall effect), this would have necessitated us to finish our pizza in 1 big mouthful, which is physically impossible. So having explained our precarious situation to our server, she promised us our pizza would be ready in 7 minutes. Now, it turned out that our pizza arrived together with our appetizers. How cool was that?
So on to the musical itself. Knowing that I absolutely love shows with no plots, and lots of shit humor, Spamalot was right up my alley. Spoofs of cheerleader songs, gays, French mocking of English people, and pure stupidity contributed to this being one of the most enjoyable musicals I have ever watched. For those who want a proper plot, this is not the musical for you. But this musical got Esther, Shengrong and me rocking with laughter throughout (now, Shengrong laughs at anything, so mebbe that's not a good comparison, but aniways ...) although Cheryl had occasional moments of dreamland patronization.
After the musical, we went to Signature Lounge on the 96th floor of John Hancock Tower for some chill-out drinks. Yay! We managed to get the window seats. The drinks were overloaded with alcohol, but the view was simply breathtaking.
Back in Regents, I went down to Xuda's place to prepare my anthropology presentation, since Esther and Cheryl were not intending to sleep, and I needed people to keep me awake. Now, Shengrong -- the Mr Nice-to-Girls (or anyone wearing a skirt in general) that he is -- he offered to call up NWA to push back the girls' flights to Saturday. Cheryl spent 3 full hours deliberating before she came to the decision to fly back today as planned. So the girls are on their way back to Singapore now, and I shall soon be on my way back too, once I book my tickets .... today.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home