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 EnginRAG ERAG ERAG 2.0
Finally after more than 5 months of not writing on my blog I'm finally going to complete this Summer series.
"I'm never going to join RAG again!!" That was me after RAG in Summer 2016. But oh and behold, I'm back in RAG again. Since I'm writing this after sooooooooo long, my memory is pretty fuzzy. So much was going on during that period, all the drama and work to be done. All I can say is that stress really brings out the best and worst in people. (Though I remember pretty clearly who I was pissed off with, but this is not the post for me to rant about people, so let's move on in life and just forget everything bad that has happened during RAG. Shall attempt to make this post less wordy, but I doubt that is possible considering that RAG is a 3 month affair for freshies and freaking more than 6 months affairs for seniors. From the planning stage, designing the costumes and finally putting up the entire performance on stage, it was just really really hectic but it was truly an eye opening experience. Given a choice, would I do it again? Definitely yes! So here's an attempted summary of ERAG 2017!
Dec'16 - Planning phase
For the costumes team, we didn't really do much during this period. Apart from the attempts at designing some prototypes and trying to learn how to use the sewing machine (keyword: try), we didn't really do much physically, most of the work is done in our heads thinking about the concept and working on the story line for the performance. Oh and not forgetting the need to conceptualise all the clothing and thinking of where to get materials. So that's about all we did during the Winter holidays.
Road leading up to Summer
Before Summer started, there were plenty of meetings to come up with the story line and deciding the colour scheme for each genre. Started sourcing for cloth and sponsors too. But still nothing much needed to be done physically.
RAG Begins
Once Summer started, we started work too. From recruiting freshies to join the team to actually starting to sew out prototypes. To be really honest, being part of RAG as a freshie and as a senior is reallllllly very different. As a freshie, you only see the glitz and glam of RAG especially if you are not part of float or costumes. You don't get to the see the amount of effort and sleepless nights the seniors have to go through just to prepare all the things ready for incoming freshies. As the performance day drew near, sleepless nights increased. Then there was Hell Week.
Hell week feels so different when you're a senior. Responsibilities. Making people go to bed. And finally understanding the pains of our seniors who continued to prepare our costumes while we slept. And of course, with Hell Week, there's also all the angst and anger and stress and people screaming at each other for no good reason. Oh wells, I realised that if I were really to exclude all the angst I had during that period of time, I really don't have much to write about RAG.
RAG Day 2017
Finally it was performance day!! From the headaches of having no where to practice since pavilion got torn down, to watching our master piece and costume change appear on stage, wow the feeling man. Spamming people with glitter and saying "GOLD GOLD". The most amazing moment was watching how we managed pull off such an awesome costume change almost same standard as medicine I would say haha. Remember how shag I was staying awake through the night just to get the details done for the lead costumes. (The little happiness when somehow my odd design was accepted and used for the finale skirt detailing and somehow we ended up using the templates and combining them to make the lead details.)
Almost forgot about the fact that we almost couldn't perform on the outdoor stage. It was pretty sunny in the morning and we were all rushing to UTown but slowly we saw the sky turn grey and then the worst thing happened, it started to rain. Like it was seriously pouring and they had to set up a stage in our area which was like whuttttttt. But what hit the worst is the fact that they actually wanted us to perform in the sports hall and all our big floats cannot be brought in like WTF all the effort that we put in. But in the end the rain stopped and yay we managed perform on the outdoor stage in the end. Still remember how happy we all were when they told us that we could perform on the stage with all our big floats and everything could go as planned. Remember screaming like mad when the dancers were perform (and staring awkwardly at the St Jazz girls' armpits and hoping that the velcro would stay on so that the costumes change would work) Gonna fast forward to the result announcement and surprisingly, we got GOLD!!!!!!!!!!! After so many years, we finally brought the gold back to Engin! With all the hard work, sweat and tears, we finally succeeded!! Still remember the moment when they announced that we got gold (actually it was more like when they didn't say that Engin got silver), screaming, crying, it was just a mess of emotions. At the end of this really tiring journey, all I can say is that it was all worth it, not really all for the gold but for the friendships forged (from all the late nights working together and ranting) and also the memories in our very own sweat shop and H&M. Will I miss those days? Definitely. Will I join RAG again? Maybe? Well, all the best to the next RAG team, the pressure is there but I still believe that it's not about getting the gold, but creating the golden experience for not only the freshies, but also the seniors. What we see is the glitz and glamour of the dancers, but let's not forget the efforts of the float and costumes team. Jiayou Raggers! Now for the photo spam!!
Well, I guess it's true what they say, once you go RAG you can never go back!
Till next time, which is in a few hours... Labels: 2017, ERAG, noRAGrets, Orientation, SamFreedomAdventures |
