Yeah! The ReUnion has finally ended!! Last night marked the end of a long journey for the AJCAA's Cultural Night Performance.

Ermm... ok, not for us. The AJCAA actually started perparations some 8 months ago, while the CLDDS alumni started, well, only 1 month ago.

Tracy and Zuowei actually joined in the initial discussions for The Reuion, but I joined in only a month ago, and that was when it was confirmed that the CLDDS alumni was to put up something on our own, away from the initial understanding that we were supposed to put up a joint skit with the other LDDS groups (including ELDDS and TLDDS; the English and Tamil LDDS groups, in case the initials are puzzling). So for the CLDDS' part, preparations began only a little over a month before, from scripting to practices and the actual performance.

There were 2 shows, and looking at just the CLDDS' portions, we seemed to be quite unprepared for the 1st show. Lots of things didn't go as planned, and there were many hiccups along the way. But I must say I was quite impressed with what we did at 2nd and final show in the evening. We seemed to have gotten into the mood, my co-actors started improvising that received positive responses from the audience, and we really got quite immersed with our parts.

Frankly, with only a month plus to prepare, the results were, well, not too bad after all!

Having been away from acting for a number of years, I suddenly had this thought at the end of it all - maybe age does make a difference in the way I handled myself in front of an audience. I mean, frankly I am still unsure as to how the audience viewed and rated my acting (acting in front of a mirror is quite different from acting on stage, and considering I didn't have much chance to be directed by our director for various reasons), but personally I felt rather confident. The part of waiting to go out onto stage was still rather jittery, but I still found energy to chat a little with the stage managers and my co-actors. But when I'm out there and acting, the jittery feeling fades away.

This is similar to my past experience of acting on stage, but the difference now is that I am actually quite able to look into the audience and act, as opposed to last time where I had mentally blocked out the fact that there were people watching and scrutinizing me.

It's age, I tell ya. It's a sign that I am getting older.

Anyway, glad that this is over. A free person at last!! The process wasn't as pleasant for this one, I have to admit. But I'll push those memories aside and keep the ones that mattered.