Casa De Shao

Category: University

  • Toilet-Urgent Fever Dream

    Toilet-Urgent Fever Dream

    Landing in Texas

    Or: Shao on his inspiration behind the hilarious play Caller Unknown in the 2019 Internal Productions

    First Published on NUSSync, NUS Stage

    Reproduced here without permission because I’m the author

    I remember this idea’s conception very clearly.

    I was sitting in the middle middle-aisle seat, sleep-deprived, needing to pee but unwilling to disturb the gruff-looking Korean man to my left or the eager young man to my right for the third time that flight. He was halfway through one of the Bourne movies, one of those that was constantly on loop on AXN.

    Through this strange meeting of archetypes, my inability to leave my seat and a Bourne movie which I was very familiar with, I then explored the idea of metaphorical social immovability in order to distract myself from the bottom rung of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

    How would one imagine to get rich quick?
    What kind of illegitimate means could we explore to get rich quick?
    What if the scammer was Singaporean?
    Why aren’t Singaporean kidnapping scam artists a thing? and
    Is he at the last scene of the Bourne Ultimatum?

    In every piece of writing you engage in, there’s an element of yourself in every character, like it or not; you can say there’s always a bit of a monologue inside every play, a monologue from the playwright themselves. When writing the characters, I didn’t realise how much Ma in my play was like my own mother until I reread it again a few months back; she was a little guilt-trippish but ultimately caring. The stern Korean man became Mr Chan, while the eager young man became Jason. And everyone in the story got a piece of me.

    Jason, the indignant son of Ma, is spineless, easily persuaded and points out how everything is insane.
    Anthony became my outlet for pop culture quips and my frustration with too much Bourne.
    Nathaniel, who directed the play, made me play the paper-thin antagonist, Mr. Chan.

    In the heart of it all, playwriting is a mechanism for me to explore a shower-thought in a more excessive extent than through conversations in real life. It is a way to acknowledge my ability to tell a story in a format which others can enjoy. I plan to write a lot more, of course; Caller Unknown was written in a way more suited for TV and was quite hand-wavey in terms of logic, but I’m still immensely glad that it was directed and acted by Stage members who had so much fun bringing my red-eye-flight, toilet-urgent fever dream to life.

  • Wheel of Fortune

    Wheel of Fortune

    The Wheel of Fortune to me
    Was a game show,
    Big numbers,
    Noise and jingles

    Now it is a tarot card
    Telling me that
    Not everything
    Is beer and skittles

    The first car I ever wanted
    Was an SUV
    To drive my friends
    A duty I learnt
    From father dearest

    I’d now much rather
    Take the bus alone
    Earphones plugged
    Nothing playing

    I buy drinks in bottles
    And tell myself
    I love the environment
    By recycling plastic

    I’m on OKcupid, Tinder
    And Coffee meets Bagel
    And have only met one
    To date
    (To date)

    It’s time to choose a gown
    And practice my curtain calls
    But the reception after
    Is an empty spread

    I’m a perfectionist,
    I see the ideals
    And scorn those who aren’t them
    But myself the most

    I now deduce
    Sitting in the shower,
    Clothes drenched
    Sweat and mildew,

    That I’m a perfectionist
    That gave up on perfection

    Not able to feel himself exist

    Past the age of 27

  • Twenty-four Proof

    Twenty-four Proof

    UCC Theatre, Backstage

    For my birthday, I was up on the UCC Theatre at last, speaking as Prof Bernard Tan (The Golden Record 2). I say speaking because I didn’t act per se, I had nothing to base it off and I was spending so much effort up there presenting my monologues that I couldn’t be any character without stumbling over my lines. So there. I had 3 monologues and they were 5 minutes-ish.

    I had quite a few happy birthdays and the love I got was material and verbal and huggish and roll about the floor-able.

    Mel and Ariane got me a bottle of wine, which was nice because Mel doesn’t reply very often, which makes me think she hates me, which is a stupid teen girl line to draw, but that’s what brain chemicals do to you. And Ariane’s quiet. And they’re busy people who went out of the way to get this blip on a radar something.

    Xue Min got me a tiny notebook with a cat doing yoga on the cover.

    An got me Tiramisu, my brother came which was an incredible gift on its own.

    Wendi wrote me a card with a painted flower on it, where she mentioned that I always gave flowers and this was her version of it, which happened to be exactly what Sophie did for my show as well a while back.

    (Sophie and I are writing each other on snail mail! I remember when I saw her the first time last Halloween and asking her to join us for a party because she was so cute. And now we’re writing and I’m a card on her wall in Seattle.)

    The Comminions got 6 fans with my face on each of them, and assorted snacks, and of course their beaming smiles.

    The assorted RV people got me a card, cauliflower and headphones, which was warm because I knew that both these groups of people who only knew each other via Sankar probably created a WhatsApp group for this purpose.

    People have too many WhatsApp groups, and yet there’s at least 2 dedicated to me.

    Probably with a weird pun involving my name too.

    That’s nice, isn’t it? Somehow, it feels nicer than a tangible gift. A WhatsApp group without you in it, just for you. You’re a topic, chief.

    –ASIDE–
    The idea of Living in the Present is an dead horse I’ve flogged continuously, skin sloughing off its decomposing muscles and dripping liquified fat. And like that shitty metaphor, I don’t really practice either of those.

    I woke up thrice today (ed: this part was written last week) checking my phone, checking for a reply to an earnest, honest, drunken rambling. I caught myself at my screen over and over the course of the day and getting mad at whatsapp messages that weren’t what I wanted. Sounds so very, very present.

    I’m listening to The Man by The Killers right now, and boy, it actually feels like I’m wrapping duct tape over a skinned heart.

    I don’t know what I wanted, like maybe the desired end goal was that they’d punctuate all their sentences with Thank Yous and I Love Yous and You Are The Best You Do Know Rights. That’s not gonna happen. When it does, it’s not sustainable.

    Maybe I thought that I would be the Robin Williams to the Matt Damon (good will hunting reference!) and help this person realise their potential and be able to rub one proud chub out so massive that I might end up loving myself at last and believing myself to be lovable as I am (as I type this it’s hitting me that that is exactly what I am doing and that’s what graduates it from a hypothesis to a theory)

    Push the lever, get affirmation, sometimes.

    I recall five years ago, sobbing before my numb-lipped friends after two Long Islands, knowing that there was something wrong with me at that moment and that I should be doing something about it. I’m more honest about my condition now. 7 years is a long time. I’m getting others to speak up about their own mental health too. That’s worth something.

    A week ago, I came to an explicit realisation that I didn’t ever need to explain my actions if they were meant to be kind. Which is kind of a huge weight off my shoulders, because I get to ignore that kindness always comes with a motive, and the clouds can part a little more if I didn’t think that I was being selfish, right?

    So say it.

    Are you okay? How are you now? Go you! I’m glad to hear. I want you to know that no matter what, we still love you.

    Stuff like that.

    Don’t be sad if they don’t reply. They probably don’t hate you. Be there for them like how you needed it all those nights. All these nights.

    Don’t think about it. Okay, back to about being 24.

    Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to be approached by brands after being dubbed an “influencer”. To know that you’re deemed influential enough that when I finally get decapitated by a side-mirror on a very fast moving bus, you’d be remembered for being more than “that scorch-mark on the toilet”.

    Maybe a few tributes. “He loved the drums!” “He would want us to play his ‘The Definitive’ playlist for his funeral” “He wrote really well” “He was going to be my best man”, etc. Okay, enough jerking myself off.

    Fame or being remembered is not a particularly big festering thought on my mind, but hitting 24 is like carving another stroke on a prison wall.

    No, even before wondering “will I be remembered”, I should be asking “what do I want?”. I mean, I already do all the time.

    [probably something to revisit in the future]

    I think my writing isn’t as good as I think it is.
    God, I can’t act either, and my drawing is shit.

    But I’m trying the drums out and loving it. I’m writing? I’m doing exercising every day (2 days in a row)?? I’m trying to be better? I’m taking my fluxotine? I’m taking the Chinese medicine that makes me shit and accepting that it might help? And I still sketch Instastories don’t I?
    People get medals for participation.

    When do people write blog entries anyway? Do they write them at their laptop on a plastic-lined glass dining table, sitting on a mismatched wooden chair, with a “huff! okay it’s writing time” mindset?

    I write my blog entries over several nights, lying in bed, before sleeping, ever aware that tomorrow-me will lament about never getting enough sleep and tonight will be different.

    Okay, I’m tired. I’ll write at a table next time. This is ruining my back.

    They say your brain peaks at 24 and God, that is disappointing.

  • Grief (is the Thing with) Feathers

    Grief (is the Thing with) Feathers

    Yale-NUS Auditorium, Backstage Dressing Room

    I miss being Dad.
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
    Dad was a character that loved and lost and has to learn that love comes with loss.
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
    Dad does not look at Crow or Crow. Crow knows how Dad should be for maximum audience impact, but he apologises for directing Dad’s actions too much. Crow also apologises for being a lousy director. Dad, the Boys and Crow tell her she is wrong and that she’s been excellent. Crow and Crow help Dad with his words.
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
    On the day itself, the family, just done with crying, is at the funeral in their house and the children are asleep.
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
    Everybody in the audience listened to Dad as he told his story.
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
    I recognise an unhealthy catharsis when I feel it, but I relish it anyway.
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
    Dad hugs his Boys (actually two girls) who have been in the auditorium-lounge-practice room-hall journey with him. Dad says in front of the small audience, he could learn a lot from Crow, and acknowledges that it is both Dad and Shao who are learning, a lot from Crow.
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
    Dad yells into the audience, ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
    I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
    and the children (and Crow and Crow) were a tide wall of laughter, laughing and (cut) tumbling and dancing and spinning and screaming
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
    I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
    And someone in the audience sniffles, probably sinus problems, but we imagined their watery eyes anyway. It is over.
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
    The older Boy amusedly points out in the dressing room, “You’re really huggy today, Dad.” Dad laughs heartily. The younger Boy joins Dad for an extravagant buffet and they take selfies because younger Boy just got into the habit of it, and Dad doesn’t hate how he looks in those.
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
    I miss having Dad as a reason to sit with my head in my hands. Or having a proper reason to want to sit in a chair in the corner of the stage. Or having a proper reason to feel sad, instead of “I did not talk to anyone all day and I didn’t want to but it’s made me depressed”.
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
    I wonder if I’ll find Dad somewhere else, through my own Dad or through a book or through another character or simply through the acceptance that it is okay to not be well.

  • Yardstick

    Yardstick

    A compilation of photos from Sep 2017

    Sept 2017 Disposable Roll

    I’ve been thinking of how to write this. It’s going to be a post about how I constantly measure myself against others and how it’s horrid to do so. The whole thing about the only person you should compare yourself to being your past self. But! I’ve been doing better! I think!

    If by doing better, I meant not as concerned about how I supposedly suck and should hate myself with reckless abandon. I skip all my lunches (way easier than “counting calories”) but I snack sometimes, self-assuredly, and I don’t gym like I used to. Like. I feel like I should be gymming. But I don’t. Now I have no reason to complain about it, right? I still go running time to time.

    And then again I’ve been sporadically popping Tinder and Coffee Meets Bagel open and swiping with the mild fear of being found out that my profile pictures are not exactly accurate to present-me.

    Is being comfortable with yourself enough of an excuse to just live day-to-day?

    In the same track, I often handle potentially scary situations by sticking my head as far into the mud as I can, willing the Big Bad Upset to go away and sometimes it works, but sometimes it bites me in the ass real bad. I’m terrified of what’s coming up, finals, the future and talking to people I fancy and the mud I’m slapping my head in manifests as napping all day, not planning my days ahead and ignoring online conversations.

    Finals are up in 9 days and I haven’t started. I’ll start tomorrow, should be more than enough time oh God please let there be enough. And I hope that I haven’t actually messed up on my planning of modules through Year 4.

    I’m really keen on escaping to a foreign place with nothing but a couple of dollars and a rucksack to live a bare life. I’d be stuck with no possessions, but perhaps that’s something I should learn to live with. I don’t know if I’ll take an LOA or just escape to London during the holidays.

    Just anything! Anything to feel like there’s progress somewhere!

  • 23, pt. 2

    23, pt. 2

    Photos by Annie and Tom

    “So where should we go without getting caught?”

    I replied, “I’ve heard people go to the roof of that building. Sometimes they go to the carpark. There’s fairy lights at the roof-” “Wow!” “-and there’s a dump at the carpark.”

    (more…)

  • 23, pt. 1

    23, pt. 1

    “Piece of shit. Stupid piece of shit. You’re a real stupid piece of shit.”

    (more…)

  • “Goodness”

    “Goodness”

    Photo unrelated.

    Isn’t the world such a terrible place, I typed. Where everyone has an ulterior motive and the act of being good is just a masturbatory pat on your own shoulder? —

    I remembered the stinging comment from Frankfurt, when I felt so alone and the both of my travel partners made me feel like hell. “I don’t believe in good intentions. Everyone has a motive.” He spat. “You people shun me and come to me once you argue.” I took a walk that night and twiddled a pack of cigarettes on an icy bench. 

    —

    Ping’s words smiled kindly at me. As long as whatever motives they harbour aren’t conscious thoughts, it’s relatively harmless. 

    I froze for a minute at the simplicity of the truth and chirped in response: well thats good enough for me! 

    —

    Last night, Sue and I sat at the park’s BBQ pit, drinking rose-scented beer while croaking along to the backlog of songs that we had in common from months of sharing on Spotify. 

    Again, I felt the familiarity of Salt as the moon hung in the murky sky. 

  • Like-buttoned Ilk

    Like-buttoned Ilk

    CS2010 is a test of patience, what with nodular rotations being neigh impossible to debug and chunks of data going missing for no reason. (Maria, 20),please come back to the list of baby names. 

    —

    I often browse Instagram, Facebook and all their like-buttoned ilk at periods of lull; before sleep, during coding sessions,  after runs, between words and when my idea faucet runs dry, and it’s these periods when you feel like your current hand’s a smattering of bad cards whilst everyone else is happy with their heads on their bae’s shoulders and their Boracay expeditions and High-Definition photos all about. 

    I know, it’s a carefully crafted story where everyone posts their selfie of the month. Which says something seeing how my personal walls are just witticisms and a shit load of memes, but well.

    Once, J told me, “Can you stop trying to be witty?” Blood rushed from my face; I had no reply to that and kept silent. Later that day, I took a long walk, and tried to find what made me whole again. 

    I still hate her for that, and I dare not crack jokes during computing any more. 

  • SchedulingDeliveries.java

    SchedulingDeliveries.java

    I can’t believe how I spent the previous 12 hours cranking out a program that performs functions on a namelist of pregnant women.

    The Prof promised that CS2010 would be difficult or tedious, but the hours I spent tap-tapping away on my keyboard seemed to wear my motivation down to a dull edge.
    The world seems like it’s flitting by while I’m stranded on this motley island by myself; spotted the Comminions at Pasir Ris Park for their JSS camp when I was there for a run, a junior has just completed his ME course and countless other friends are overseas taking ootds and sunsets and the like.

    I know, it’s a story they craft to keep their facade up…  it’s a good story nonetheless.

    I really should be sleeping, but the should’ves, the whatifs and the cider are all keeping my mind abuzz.